what does it mean "live as a woman"?

[vivariumvivariumsvivaria]

I gather that in order for a male person who believes themselves to be feminine they have to "live as their acquired gender" for 2 years in order to get a GRC.

Is there a definition of how women live? Because I don't think I qualify.

I was about to type something very similar FlyingOink.

Butterfly, why are you searching for the loophole, the single access point of the previously spectacularly stable definition of woman being the noun for human female. Or more accurately because many others in the world think they have successfully defined themselves Into too the word ‘woman’ already - female.

If your inflection point is someone’s verifiable DSD, you really are politicising their medical condition for your own purpose.

And I disagree that socialisation should be included in the definition of female. And even Helen pointed out she finds little connection with the events and effects many others speak about. The only commonality is our bodies are formed around the sex class with a particular reproductive system. Even if that reproductive system has a medical condition that means most of it is missing. While I am sure that it is very painful for a person who believed they were female to understand they are actually male, it doesn’t change reality.

If they are accepted into female single sex spaces, it doesn’t mean it is ever ok for others to expand that coverage to themselves. Which is what it feels like you are doing searching for a loophole, searching for the section of the boundary to breach to seek inclusion into the definition so that can be considered ‘right’ to include males into female single sex spaces.

And you mentioned in utero hormone washes as well. Really? And that means that there has been an increase in the past two decades of hormone wash events during pregnancy to account for the rapid increase in young females or is it just for the males.

And this phenomenon has occurred in every western country at the same time. Maybe it is a ‘wash’ generated by mobile phone signals…. Or maybe it is just hogwash. Let’s see.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes thank you, that article is just brilliant.

I think the focus on XY people who were brought up as female as a gotcha by TRAs is awful, cruel and unnecessary. They are not the same as a typical XY male with gender identity issues. It just reinforces how selfish and amoral many of these people are.

f your inflection point is someone’s verifiable DSD, you really are politicising their medical condition for your own purpose.

This.

I'm trying to find a workable definition we can use in discussion.
You are trying to find a loophole that admits you to womanhood, the problem is any loophole that admits you also admits Dave the 6'6" bearded, shovel handed trucker with a string of DV convictions. If you actually think and feel "like a woman" you know instantly why this is totally unacceptable. That fact that you don't seem to be able to make that leap tells me that however extensive the "treatment" you have had, however well you think you pass, however female you feel you are not a woman.

Women. Men. Transwomen. Transmen?

All categories equal and easily understood.

I will try and come back to answer some of the questions directed at me later, but in the meantime, I wanted to share this article (the author of which is strongly GC, you may have come across her on Twitter), which I think offers a very intelligent and nuanced take on issues of identity and labels.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/09/what-s-matter-talking-about-pregnant-people

@WomaninBoots

If we all shaved our heads and wore jumpsuits and did whatever we wanted with no gendered socialisation... we would still know what a woman was and that group would not include any males. It really is very simple. The genotype/female sex at birth based definition is perfectly adequate. There is no stable, non-circular definition that encompasses all women and some men. If there was this conversation would be shorter.

And we could accept reality and discuss poetry instead.

Ta for the link, Helen.

'Sex might be a construct – I sincerely doubt that anyone thinks people with wombs have the word “FEMALE” imprinted in their bones, like in a stick of rock' - how odd. Because of course bones can be sexed, by looking at the DNA. So they sort of do have 'female' imprinted in them.

[quote Helen8220]I will try and come back to answer some of the questions directed at me later, but in the meantime, I wanted to share this article (the author of which is strongly GC, you may have come across her on Twitter), which I think offers a very intelligent and nuanced take on issues of identity and labels.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/09/what-s-matter-talking-about-pregnant-people[/quote]
Yes? 6 YEARS AGO Gloswitch was writing about the harm done by mangling the language in mainstream media.

Much of what you have been reading here starts from that point- is less politely put, but hey! Times move on.

If you wanted us to say what we mean in a more nuanced manner (aka more politly) you only had to ask. We would have told you that the time for being nuanced/polite is long, long gone! It got us nowhere... which is why you are showing us an article from yesteryear that still applies perfectly today!

You are trying to find a loophole that admits you to womanhood, the problem is any loophole that admits you also admits Dave the 6'6" bearded, shovel handed trucker with a string of DV convictions.

Ignoring the DV convictions for the moment...

I think refusing Dave the 6'6" bearded, shovel-handed trucker would be offensive and exclusionary. It's suggesting - without any evidence - that Dave is more of a threat than Butterfly.

Why shouldn't he have the same right of entry as you? He would feel more comfortable and safer in a space with more women too.

Now, you could argue that in this case there IS specific evidence - the DV convictions. But it's not practical to check for that in many circumstances. We need a workable rule.

We would have told you that the time for being nuanced/polite is long, long gone! It got us nowhere... which is why you are showing us an article from yesteryear that still applies perfectly today!

Indeed.

You should read some of Glosswitch's later writing, Helen, as like us, she isn't inclined to be so polite after years of this misogynistic nonsense, and I think she has a few choice words you might find uncomfortable:

https://tinyletter.com/Glosswitch/letters/the-ok-karen-36-maybe-they-just-hate-women

But this is the thing that gets to me. I have this theory about what drives the misogyny of incels and the Taliban and a million other movements that seek to destroy (but never fully kill off) half the human race. They’re all, like, connected. Here is my big idea: they just hate women. That’s it.

I know. It sounds tautologous. There ought to be something else underpinning the misogyny bit of their thinking, right? Well, no. I don’t think there is and to be honest, I’m sick of women not being considered important enough for hatred of us to centre us. It’s as though we’re too lowly even to be the subjects of our own oppression. Misogyny is constantly positioned as though it’s an expression of something else, a mere shadow projection of some deeper, more significant hatred that targets the real people, the men.

What connects slaughtered baby girls in India and mass shootings of Canadian students and some elderly man who smashes a hammer into the skull of his wife of 50 years because she didn’t get the tea ready on time on a Tuesday in Brighton? Let’s pretend it’s a mystery. Probably some complex geo-political socio-economic something-or-other vaguely linked to some website you’ll feel stupid for never having heard of, plus an ongoing, deeply felt Weltschmerz which, no offence, ladies, isn’t really to with you anyhow. Masculinity in crisis? It’s a guy thing. You wouldn’t understand.

I’m sorry. I don’t think it is this at all and I don't think these men deserve the time we put into over-complicating their motives. Pretending it's oh-so-complex feels like gaslighting. I think plenty of men simply hate women because of what we are to them. Because of our presence, not some absence we happen to represent. Because we matter, not because we are collateral damage in some other battle that matters more.

@ArabellaScott

Ta for the link, Helen.

'Sex might be a construct – I sincerely doubt that anyone thinks people with wombs have the word “FEMALE” imprinted in their bones, like in a stick of rock' - how odd. Because of course bones can be sexed, by looking at the DNA. So they sort of do have 'female' imprinted in them.

I thought that was odd as well, but apart from that it's a good article, saying exactly what regular posters on here are saying.

Amazing that Glosswitch wrote that 6 years ago, when all this wasn't on my radar at all. I had no idea what was happening then.

Anyway, I'm pleased that you have finally come to the view that our take on this is 'intelligent and nuanced', Helen.

It's suggesting - without any evidence - that Dave is more of a threat than Butterfly.
Butterfly tells us that no-one they have meet since they were 18 has the slightest idea that they are not female. We can extrapolate from that that a) Butterfly uses female spaces b) no women in those spaces notice that Butterfly is not a natal woman. Great so Butterfly is in. They are accepted into the sisterhood without question and no women have been traumatized in the process (because they have all been totally duped) Butterfly may pose the same the same level of threat as Dave but we are non the wiser. But this isn't enough for Butterfly if we are talking about a tiny handful of people who are so good at performing woman that no-one notices then the point is moot. (It would have become less so if Butterfly had taken up running and smashed women's world records by 8% but they didn't). Butterfly wants us admit some men to womanhood based on their inner feels not on where we can spot them or not (that would be rude). It's not enough for us to be tricked, we have to accept any man who wants to be accepted and that means we will know there are men in our spaces whether they are given away by their size, build, facial hair, trouser bulge, Adams apple, shoe size or voice or not. Dave isn't a greater threat (history of DV aside because it's not something he declares a the door to the ladies) Dave is just a more visible threat that can't sneak under the radar and so will be recognised as a threat by women when Butterfly isn't (we are lead to believe).

But if no-one has the slightest idea Butterfly isn't female, than any sort of blanket male exclusion rule wouldn't affect them.

Which makes me wonder why Butterfly is so keen to admit Dave.

It seems like Butterfly has (had) a good thing going here, and is trying to ruin it.

@NecessaryScene

But if no-one has the slightest idea Butterfly isn't female, than any sort of blanket male exclusion rule wouldn't affect them.

Which makes me wonder why Butterfly is so keen to admit Dave.

It seems like Butterfly has (had) a good thing going here, and is trying to ruin it.

Exactly we are right back to the need for validation it's not enough to sneak in, pull the wool.over our eyes and get away with it.

It seems like Butterfly has (had) a good thing going here, and is trying to ruin it. And that always made me wonder. If you did 'pass' - or were given that grace by women too scared or polite to speak up - why the hell would you rock that boat, open the door to all and sundry?

And that takes us back to the thing that cannot be named for fear of being struck down!

So, using those same biological principles, I'm trying to work out where the essential defining component of femaleness is. It doesn't seem to just be genetic, as people have (rightly) stated that womanhood should not exclude XY karyotype female phenotype people.

From purgatory's link above about how to tell the difference between men and women.

It’s the only type of body that gets you thrown on the funeral pyre when the husband dies. It’s the only type of body that gets your feet bound and your breasts ironed. It’s the only type made pregnant through rape and burned with acid, the only type expected to sit quietly and listen while we redefine it away, the only type men have spent millennia criticizing and critiquing and buying and selling until the moment we decided we couldn’t figure out what the fuck it even means.

You know what a female body is, dude? It’s the only type of body that makes men like you ask such stupid questions. So please, stop. This is an emergency. This is three and a half billion human beings tied to the tracks, and you’re riding on the train. Your insistence on nuance, your fetish for accuracy, your smug deconstruction of common sense — it doesn’t make you thoughtful. It doesn’t make you wise. It doesn’t make you progressive.It makes you an asshole.

@NecessaryScene

But if no-one has the slightest idea Butterfly isn't female, than any sort of blanket male exclusion rule wouldn't affect them.

Which makes me wonder why Butterfly is so keen to admit Dave.

It seems like Butterfly has (had) a good thing going here, and is trying to ruin it.

Well indeed.

It's amazing how many transwomen post on here who claim they all pass, but still need to spend days and days, writing reams and reams trying to convince womankind to accept them on some other basis entirely.

Butterfly, if no one knows, what's the point of trying to convince us?

It's amazing how many transwomen post on here who claim they all pass, but still need to spend days and days, writing reams and reams trying to convince womankind to accept them on some other basis entirely.

Isn't it.

Butterfly, if no one knows, what's the point of trying to convince us?

Because reality. Maybe be finding a way into the definition of female, the dissonance will quieten.

But? If the dissonance quietens then where is the source of validation? What next?

Ah, is it that one needs to try and convince oneself of the thing, as much as other people?

Believe three impossible things before breakfast!