If women cannot be defined biologically what happens to sex based oppression?

[Metabigot]

I mean reproductive issues such as abortion, antenatal care, maternity leave and impact on career etc.

Will we not be able to speak out on these for fear of offending the 'women' (ie trans women ) to whom this does not apply?

If transwomen are women, what are natal women... not representative of 'women' under the trans ideology it seems.

I have nothing against trans women living a life they wish and 'as a woman' if that eases dysphoria etc but my greatest fear is that female biological rights and issues will be suppressed under this ideology.

It feels like the way things are going it will be soon offensive to discuss these issues as it excludes transwomen.

Or am I exaggerating this?

Would transwomen ever support their fellow 'women' in fighting for these rights. Or see it as exclusive?

I'm referring to mainly reproductive issues as this is the one thing above all others transwomen can't do... no transwoman to my knowledge has gestated a child yet.

Actually i want to 'identity as' a person.

A female person.

Wow I think I have a neogender here...

@JorisBohnson2

Actually i want to 'identity as' a person.

A female person.

Wow I think I have a neogender here...

I didn't think women were allowed to make up their own gender labels?

I was told by a trans colleague that the fact that I don't have a gender identity makes me a-gender, which is under the trans umbrella and therefore my complete lack of gender feelz makes me trans.

I have been transed against my will.

What flag do I get?

Well, exactly.
It’s the most pernicious aspect of this wholly pernicious nonsense.

@vivariumvivariumsvivaria

I was told by a trans colleague that the fact that I don't have a gender identity makes me a-gender, which is under the trans umbrella and therefore my complete lack of gender feelz makes me trans.

I have been transed against my will.

What flag do I get?

My answer to that is generally that if the speaker feels entitled to assign me labels I don't agree with or identify with and find offensive, then obviously they've opened the door for me to do the same, basic social contract applies. My personal choice of labels will be sex and reality based.

The "basic, social contract" days were nice, Artichoke.

I miss those.

There is even a gender identity for those not bothered about having a gender identity - cassgender.

How ironic can you get?

I was about to make a new thread related to this topic, but this thread fits well.

Subject: How gender neutral language stops the reader from noticing misogyny

In The Excessive Regulation of Early Abortion Medication in the UK: The Case for Reform, which is an interesting paper proposing that "the abortion pill" could continue to be taken at home (home treatment is currently allowed only temporarily under COVID rules) and be prescribed over the phone, I noticed the following in Section V:

Furthermore, such an objection is an instance of regulation assuming that people with the physiology to become pregnant are irresponsible users of healthcare.

The medical misogyny that authors have noticed that women face is much clearer when I reword that to:

Furthermore, such an objection is an instance of regulation assuming that women are irresponsible users of healthcare.

Female erasure is the flipside of the "pronouns are rohypnol" problem. Just as using female pronouns for someone male can conceal male pattern violence (for example, when discussing a certain person who once hit someone with a golf club, or certain prisoners with convictions for violent or sexual crimes), removing words like "women" and "female" can conceal sex-based oppression. Concealing sex-based oppression and male pattern violence stops women from recognising those phenomena, and hence stops us from organising to combat them.

So in answer to your thread title "if women cannot be defined biologically what happens to sex based oppression?", it carries on happening but we are denied the language to identify it, discuss it, and fight it. This is a feature, not a bug, of gender identity politics.

I was looking at the post about the women's officer at Cambridge University. Who is a transman and seems concerned only with trans rights.

To be fair, their campaign doesn't centre trans rights. They are campaigning to end period poverty and for the uni to supply free san pro. Also campaigns for better support for student carers and their residency issues (which is an issue at Cambridge as they are expected to live on campus), plus other issues.
I do have less problem with a transman or NB being a woman's officer as they are biologically female, and no matter how they identify, generally they will be affected by the same issues as women. You can't identify out of oppression.

So in answer to your thread title "if women cannot be defined biologically what happens to sex based oppression?", it carries on happening but we are denied the language to identify it, discuss it, and fight it. This is a feature, not a bug, of gender identity politics

This however is truly terrifying.

It's entirely deliberate. The war on women is real.

So in answer to your thread title "if women cannot be defined biologically what happens to sex based oppression?", it carries on happening but we are denied the language to identify it, discuss it, and fight it. This is a feature, not a bug, of gender identity politics.

This is correct. Its a male domination movement on several fronts.

Sexism and misogyny happens to women. All the individual ways it happens is still because we're women.

We're thought of as 'lesser than' as an entire sex. It manifests itself in individual ways - period poverty, maternity neglect, rape, etc, but these are the means.

Removing the collective term 'woman' disguises the basic reason for sexism and misogyny. Deliberately.

And, of course, another strand is that some men want to stop the word woman from being based on biology so they can claim the term.

You never actually get told the new definition, if not based on biology though. The word 'woman' in TWAW is never defined. Just that it's nothing to do with actual female biology.

If you refuse to see or, in this case even acknowledge the concept of, biological sex, you can never see, or rather never articulate, sexism.

Women being controlled is nothing new. Removing the means for them to fight it, or even describe it, is.

Neat eh?

One of the reasons Posie Parker is so clear is because she starts (and often ends) with this concept.

Transwomen are men. No ifs, not buts, no exceptions. She doesn't waver or deviate from applying that basic fact to all the questions, scenarios, etc.

Depressingly accurate, Datun.

'Women are whatever men say they are'.

@vivariumvivariumsvivaria

I was told by a trans colleague that the fact that I don't have a gender identity makes me a-gender, which is under the trans umbrella and therefore my complete lack of gender feelz makes me trans.

I have been transed against my will.

What flag do I get?

Hm, 'compelledgender' flag. White on a white background, I believe.

@Datun

One of the reasons Posie Parker is so clear is because she starts (and often ends) with this concept.

Transwomen are men. No ifs, not buts, no exceptions. She doesn't waver or deviate from applying that basic fact to all the questions, scenarios, etc.

Yes, it's her absolute fidelity to reality that is so inspiring for many and unnerving for some.

Isn't it wild that a woman asserting that a male is a man is considered beyond the pale?

That's the point, OP. When we can't self define as a sex class we lose our ability to organise in favour of our rights.

Yes, it's her absolute fidelity to reality that is so inspiring for many and unnerving for some.

It is. And her other skill is to focus on the women, not the men. And it would appear, this is entirely instinctive.

So when that twit on the radio was talking about J. K. Rowling being left out of the celebration of her work, Kellie Jay's instinctive response was to focus on the fact that it was her work, and what she'd sacrificed to produce it. She simply didn't get involved in any kind of reasons for ignoring that.

Ths is what is not allowed. To focus on the women, to centre the women, to not really give that much of a fuck about the rest of it. That's totally verboten. Remember women's rights are a dogwhistle, everyone!

@ArabellaScott

Ths is what is not allowed. To focus on the women, to centre the women, to not really give that much of a fuck about the rest of it. That's totally verboten. Remember women's rights are a dogwhistle, everyone!

It really is.

And there's even a certain element of personal discomfort if you do so. We are so used to not actually saying yeah but women are to be centred in this situation, or in that scenario.

Kellie Jay has no such compunction.

I noticed it myself on here when I was first lurking. Women saying er, this is the feminist board, we centre women and we're not interested in being told otherwise. (Fuck off, basically, when we were allowed to say that).

Honestly it’s bullshit isn’t it? We could all be getting on with something productive like fighting the climate crisis and instead we are having to counter this utter nonsense in order to protect womens health.

I work with vulnerable and minority groups and have long been an advocate for trans people but the behavior of many in their movement is so awful and misogynistic, they have lost my support.

That's the sad thing about this. I was once willing to stand besides transsexuals. My only priority now is females, both adult women and girls. The guys of all genders can fix their own mess themselves, my drawbridge is up and I'm prepared to light the figurative arrows to defend my own sex.

Yes I completely agree @HaroldMeeker

Shame isn’t it?

It magically disappears!!!

Yes it does. This is the official position of Amnesty International. They have written to me and told me that oppression faced by women is not related to their biology but to social constructs. They then told me of the great work they do campaigning on women's rights, such as on abortion, contraception and intimate partner violence. None of those things are at all to do with women's sexed bodies according to Amnesty.

And that is why this movement is so pernicious. People have to deny the reality they are actually working with to maintain the fiction.