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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

TRA understanding of 'what is a woman'?

196 replies

Jamdown123 · 04/11/2021 12:41

Hi all,

I'm really trying to understand this. Can anyone point me to a resource that explains what the TRA definition of what a woman is?

I've tried so hard to find one, and I can't.

OP posts:
Cattenberg · 05/11/2021 10:41

@IrisAtwood, Finnish doesn’t have gendered pronouns either. Everyone is hän. Apparently, Altaic, Sini-Tibetan and Bantu languages also lack gendered pronouns.

Cattenberg · 05/11/2021 10:42

*Sino-Tibetan

drivesacarnow · 05/11/2021 11:17

We all know they have no definition.

Hard core activists are quite happy to say ' whoever says they are a woman'
Politicians realise that sounds wanky and don't believe it anyway, so they flounder and bluster when asked.
Nice lefties who have never thought about this who issue beyond nodding along to a Guardian article, but think being an nice lefty means they have to be nice without boundaries, laugh nervously and go ' errrrr' when asked this question.

Staryflight445 · 05/11/2021 13:18

Apparently being trans is exactly the same as dying your hair a different colour.

And apparently because we don’t have to disclose our natural hair colour to people we have sex with, trans people shouldn’t have to disclose that either.

But yes, I still can’t get to the bottom of what a women actually is either.

TheWeeDonkey · 05/11/2021 19:37

It all makes me think of when I was around 10 at primary school. There was this great song out by a brand new pop star who was quite normal looking but exotic at the same time, we were all entranced and completely obsessed, but not of us knew how to feel "Like a Virgin" because none of us knew what a virgin was! So the school yard game was to ask each other "Are you a virgin?" and of course it was a game because none of us knew how to answer, we just thought it was something to do with rolling around on a gondola wearing a really cool outfit! Grin

Of course those were more innocent days, but it begs the question. How can you identify as something when you don't know what it is? 🤔

Cattenberg · 05/11/2021 23:52

@TheWeeDonkey, a trans woman recently tweeted something to the effect of, “my inability to explain my womanhood doesn’t make me less of a woman any more than my inability to explain gravity makes you able to float in mid-air”.

JennyForeigner · 06/11/2021 01:01

Interestingly, you can self-identify as lots of things including a nurse: however, there is a big professional campaign led from within the NHS and aiming to protect 'nurse' by attaching to professional status.

IrisAtwood · 06/11/2021 07:57

[quote Cattenberg]@TheWeeDonkey, a trans woman recently tweeted something to the effect of, “my inability to explain my womanhood doesn’t make me less of a woman any more than my inability to explain gravity makes you able to float in mid-air”.[/quote]
But not being able to define gravity does not give you access to protected safe spaces and trample on others’ rights to feel safe.

PermanentTemporary · 06/11/2021 07:59

Thing is though, i can explain my female body. And a male one, if necessary. And anyone who goes on about my 'womanhood' will get short fucking shrift.

Vanishun · 06/11/2021 08:34

"Well I can't explain gravity either" is possibly one of the best ones yet.

Women. As complicated as quantum physics.

Jamdown123 · 06/11/2021 08:42

[quote Cattenberg]@TheWeeDonkey, a trans woman recently tweeted something to the effect of, “my inability to explain my womanhood doesn’t make me less of a woman any more than my inability to explain gravity makes you able to float in mid-air”.[/quote]
KILL ME NOW!

OP posts:
Jamdown123 · 06/11/2021 08:47

[quote Cattenberg]@TheWeeDonkey, a trans woman recently tweeted something to the effect of, “my inability to explain my womanhood doesn’t make me less of a woman any more than my inability to explain gravity makes you able to float in mid-air”.[/quote]
If we take this forward then.

If someone can't explain gravity, but they then insist that means they are floating in mid-air, do I have to agree with them and also tell others they are floating in mid-air? When I can full well explain what gravity is (it's the force by which planets pull masses or objects together, towards its core). Must I ignore that knowledge and go along with their 'float in air' theory?

Or can I just, you know, move on (with or without shaking my head?!)

Because I know full well what a woman is!

OP posts:
NecessaryScene · 06/11/2021 08:52

Finnish doesn’t have gendered pronouns either. Everyone is hän.

Doesn't stop the genderologists.

twitter.com/Linda_W96/status/1450762094782165000

TRA understanding of 'what is a woman'?
TRA understanding of 'what is a woman'?
EdgeOfACoin · 06/11/2021 08:57

[quote NecessaryScene]Finnish doesn’t have gendered pronouns either. Everyone is hän.

Doesn't stop the genderologists.

twitter.com/Linda_W96/status/1450762094782165000[/quote]
This movement is so Anglo-centric it's untrue.

Vanishun · 06/11/2021 10:12

It's actually closer to saying "gravity is when the colour blue looks green because I say so", and then sulking when scientists think you're quite mad.

youkiddingme · 07/11/2021 02:03

“my inability to explain my womanhood doesn’t make me less of a woman any more than my inability to explain gravity makes you able to float in mid-air”.
If the Earth identifies as massless then do I get to float? Might as well chuck all the sciences out of the window while we're at it.

NiceGerbil · 07/11/2021 02:10

All my life I've wanted to be seen as a person first. That's why I've been a feminist since before I knew the word. Since 5 or 6..I noticed and hated not being seen as a person first.

Now this row over womanhood? What defines it? You want to keep it for yourself?

I'm a woman because I'm female and an adult. No more.

The redefinition of woman means that I'm not one. I was never one. I wasn't a girl.

So all the talk about issues and what can be done as for women and girls around the world. All that time I wasn't one. And neither realistically were loads of them.

It's just. Really?

ALittleBitofVitriol · 07/11/2021 03:53

"Woman is a socially constructed gender category"

that's still not a definition. what are the characteristics of this category? what are the other gender categories and how do you distinguish between them? Upon what basis are they constructed?

I agree with the previous posters, it's this disingenuous, smirking, mansplainy word vomit that really gets my goat...

Jamdown123 · 07/11/2021 08:25

That is a big part if it - so now I'VE got to rewrite my history and all that I've known about my experiences and my life because you want to shift the boundaries of what is and what isn't a woman to fit someone who was a man into it?

And at the same time that shifts me out of the category because if I don't actively identify as a woman, I'm not one?

OP posts:
Jamdown123 · 07/11/2021 08:42

I'm thinking about my childhood now. I went to a school in a very Indian area. I always remember this around now, Diwali time, because my inner Hindu comes out! I feel the need to put on a sari (always did in primary school), get out my Indian dancing 'sticks' - I don't do these things, but I feel a definite itch! I DO go to the shops and buy Diwali sweets, sit and tell my children about Rama and Sita, and Ganesh, the works. I LOVE Diwali, it was the event of the year at my school where around 80% children were South Asian.

I wanted to be Indian. No doubt about it. I demanded my parents call me an Indian name, cook North Indian food. I was a nightmare, I'm sure.

If my parents had gone along with that, I think somewhere along the lines social services would have been involved. I'm sure you could call it an emotional abuse, to not correct my thinking about my ethnicity, I'm sure they would not be considered good enough parents if they didn't correct that, me walking around saying I'm Nisha and using a few Gujarati words here and there. I am very very clearly not Indian by heritage.

If I had identified as disabled. As having a long term condition, as being younger than I was and acting like a toddler at age 9 etc. all of these, my parents would have some questions to answer. Children are good at pointing out where the world makes no sense, and then conjuring up a world for themselves that feels better. You know, the point before you give that up and either accept this shitty prejudiced world or fight it?

Why is it that sex is different? Why do we need to affirm our children's ideas about being male or female, whichever they are not? And now I can't even tell my female children what a woman is beyond 'someone who feels like a woman?' My girls would call me out on that shit immediately with 'Mum! that is NOT an answer!'

And they are 7 and 5.

OP posts:
Whatiswrongwithmyknee · 07/11/2021 12:13

A lot of this ideology is, I believe, based on the people pushing it being confused and misinformed and, due to their strong need for some sort of self or societal appreciation being unable or unwilling to discuss or consider their position.

Yes woman is socially constructed but really every concept is so that is really no reason to throw away all attempts to have a useful and largely shared definition. A concept without a definition is not a concept or a construct and in the case of 'woman' it is a very clear construct as it links 99.9% with one's chromosomes which are expressed through highly visible secondary sexual characteristics. Feminine is much more of a social construct with much less clear definition. It is therefore a much more contested idea and if transwomen, for example, were to say they identify as more feminine that their own personal internalised idea of masculine, I think they would find a great deal more support.

The social constructs we make have real-world effects. Women have been subjugated for generations based on our construction of woman. To deny the correlation with chromosomes does not stop the subjugation. It merely pushes it underground. Race is a much less clear construct as there is obviously no real clarity re: when someone is white or black (for example). E.g. Megan Markle considers herself black (understandably with a black mother). Her son might also do so. If he has a child with a white woman maybe his children will also. If those children have children with white women, would they also be black? How about if this continued for another 10 generations? Despite the inevitable wooliness around the edges, people do not want to do away with any shared definition of black because to do so would remove societies ability to recognise its prejudice and try and do something about that. As an example, the news is full of reports of how much more often black people are stopped and searched. If we do not have some shared definition of black (even if this can never e 100% clear) then we do not have any way of knowing this fact. And we should know this fact as without that knowledge we cannot own our societies institutionalised racism.

Saying something is a social construct is not a get out of jail free card to not attempt any meaning definition. Nor is it an excuse to hide societal prejudice.

It is shameful of any man - who, by definition. has grown up as the most valued sex and had experiences in line with that which shape them - to identify as a woman. If they want to identify as a transwoman, then fine by me and most of the rest of us. But identifying as a woman is a clear statement of lack of interest in women's oppression.

When we talk about other oppressed groups, we understand the need for the oppressed group to speak for themselves. This should also be the case for women. A transwoman's or a man's thoughts about how woman should be defined and how women's spaces should be protected is no more valid than my (as a white person) thoughts about what might be the best way to address institutional racism. I speak from a position of power and so my voice is rightly invalid. I'm not saying that all women do not believe that TWAW but I believe the vast majority do. If female TRA believe that they are actually in the majority, then given that they are trying to redefine the definition of woman (lets not pretend otherwise, that's clearly very silly) then it is
up to them to robustly prove that the majority of women support this change. Bullying, insulting and harassing women should not be their methodology of choice.

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