Helen Joyce "we should stop saying 'trans'"

[ChopinBoard]

Helen Joyce is on absolutely top form, and seems to have zero shits left to give:

"We should stop saying 'trans', we should start saying 'male'".

I'm inclined to agree: our position is much easier to understand if we stop using language which obfuscates the problem.

Buy her book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, if you haven't already

I agree. I think we should keep the focus on women's rights and stop fighting on the ground they choose.

At the moment they are able to paint us as obsessed with trans people and to constantly divert the discussion by arguing semantics.

That said we will never fully get away from it untill the TWAW argument is defeated.

Helen Joyce's position has firmed up so much even from when she initially published her book.

HJ is now echoing arguments on here from 2018 about this being a case of being pro-women and not anti anybody else.

I'm not sure. I feel its OK to call yourself a transwoman, as long as there is a clear boundary between transwomen and biological women and transwomen accept that.
Actually ditching the word trans is playing into TRAs hands anyway, as they want nothing more for transwomen to be seen as women and called women, with no dividing line.

Language is sight- it’s how we see and relate. Perhaps trans should be used as a descriptor of ones gender but as a prefix to ones sex. Therefore, it would not be ‘trans woman’ but trans man to describe a biological male who has a trans identity.
Or just trans and no need for trans man or trans woman. Stating a trans identity would imply that it doesn’t correlate to your sex. So the category’s would be woman, man, trans. Not woman, trans woman, man and trans man.

Yes, it's the only way to be clear - partly because of the confusion around many terms. Lots of people think 'transwoman' means someone born biologically a woman, and transitioning to live 'as a man'. Then we get terms (which are banned on MN, I think) that I personally find only further confuse things.

I try to stick to male and female as much as possible, otherwise there is a real risk of nobody understanding what exactly we're talking about.

I refuse to use the word transwoman because it's conceding ground that should never have been conceded in the first place. Helen is right.

I wouldn’t mind (genuinely) if it were not for the extreme overreach.

I think we should keep the focus on women's rights and stop fighting on the ground they choose.

Sun Tzu and the staple cliché would agree. This has all been fought according to the Denton Playbook. The Denton playbook is powerful and has been successful beyond the wildest dreams of those who implemented it (see Stephen Whittle's remarks about the surprise at how well the stealthy approach and invisible levers had influenced GRA 2004). It's long past time that woman stopped being pushed onto dangerous territory because of the way that they've created all this. The territory is the manipulation and creation of one side which is a tactic of which Sun Tzu would approve.

www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/dentons-campaigns-kids-switch-gender-without-parental-approval

www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-document-that-reveals-the-remarkable-tactics-of-trans-lobbyists

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/the-dentons-document?s=r

@DalarnaHorses

I'm not sure. I feel its OK to call yourself a transwoman, as long as there is a clear boundary between transwomen and biological women and transwomen accept that. Actually ditching the word trans is playing into TRAs hands anyway, as they want nothing more for transwomen to be seen as women and called women, with no dividing line.

Some do. Some are proud of their 'trans' status. And many are very clear that being a 'transwoman' is very different from being a 'woman'.

'Trans' in that headline doesn't tell you if the goalie is
A) male - not ok
B)female on testosterone- not ok (probably wouldn't be allowed)
C) female socially but not medically 'transitioned' - ok
D) female 'nonbinary' , no medical transition- obviously ok
E) male 'nonbinary' - er, no mate. (Don't think anyone has yet tried that in sport)

'Trans' alone is almost completely devoid of meaning.

She's absolutely right that sportsmen need to speak out more.

We should all encourage the sportsmen to point out that they would welcome transwomen on their teams.

I wouldn’t mind (genuinely) if it were not for the extreme overreach.

Actually that pretty much covers it for me too.

@heathspeedwell

She's absolutely right that sportsmen need to speak out more.

We should all encourage the sportsmen to point out that they would welcome transwomen on their teams.

Unfortunately there is the problem that I fear too many wouldn't. Transphobia does exist, closely allied with homophobia. However, it's up to men to sort that out.

I don’t necessarily agree bc there are actually genuine people who have decided to socially live their lives as the opposite gender (I’m using the word although I don’t like it).

When I see the word “trans woman / man” I see that as someone who socially lives and presents as the opposite gender but are biologically male / female.

Surely using trans as a prefix does help the genuine cause on both sides.

If a transwoman lives their life as a woman in every capacity then I have no issue using transwoman rather than man in every day conversation and pronouns etc but that would be under the acceptance that they were still biologically male.

Trans should mean exactly that - they have transitioned to rather than born as.

I could probably be easily converted to HJ way of thinking though, my last shreds of compassion are slowing disintegrating

@DalarnaHorses

I'm not sure. I feel its OK to call yourself a transwoman, as long as there is a clear boundary between transwomen and biological women and transwomen accept that. Actually ditching the word trans is playing into TRAs hands anyway, as they want nothing more for transwomen to be seen as women and called women, with no dividing line.

HJ wasn’t suggesting that we “ditch the trans” to call a transwoman a woman, but rather to call a transwoman a man, to focus on the biological reality.

“Transwoman joins women’s team” reads very differently to “man joins women’s team”.

I'm relieved that language isn't people's right to give away on behalf of others.

Language is entirely what got us into this mess. Vaclav Havel's The Power of the Powerless is quoted extensively in the thread below.

Obviously the greengrocer is indifferent to the semantic content of the slogan on exhibit; he does not put the slogan in his window from any personal desire to acquaint the public with the ideal it expresses. This, of course, does not mean that his action has no motive or significance at all, or that the slogan communicates nothing to anyone. The slogan is really a sign, and as such it contains a subliminal but very definite message. Verbally, it might be expressed this way: "I, the greengrocer XY, live here and I know what I must do. I behave in the manner expected of me. I can be depended upon and am beyond reproach. I am obedient and therefore I have the right to be left in peace." This message, of course, has an addressee: it is directed above, to the greengrocer's superior, and at the same time it is a shield that protects the greengrocer from potential informers. The slogan's real meaning, therefore, is rooted firmly in the greengrocer's existence. It reflects his vital interests. But what are those vital interests?

Let us take note: if the greengrocer had been instructed to display the slogan "I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient;' he would not be nearly as indifferent to its semantics, even though the statement would reflect the truth.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4382551-Live-not-by-lies-Solzhenitsyn-no-tambourines-involved?

“Transwoman joins women’s team” reads very differently to “man joins women’s team”

I agree with that. It is more palatable and is unlikely to create so many unwanted questions.

This has been carefully thought out.

I use trans and do not include the man or woman part at all, but I can see the benefit to calling it out and saying it how it is. Encroaching on every area of our lives regardless of the damage it has caused women and girls has convinced me that we can no longer afford to carry on using their language and being silenced continuously for raising concerns about safety which are completely disregarded. Respect and dignity runs both ways.

I agree.

Women have been very polite and respectful and kind in all this - and have just been stamped all over and taken advantage of as a result.

When you continue to be polite and considerate of a party treating you with zero reciprocation and taking full advantage of your enabling them, you are not being the 'bigger person' you are being a fool.

The deliberate blurring is why trans identified male / trans identified female are forbidden terms though, isn't it?

I used to be very much transwomen /she but I am now beyond that and will say 'a man who idenfifies as a woman' in RL conversations and say 'he' when referring to people (naming no names) who are pushing their way into women's spaces and sports, even when using their preferred names. It makes the situation so much clearer if we speak the truth in terms of male/female.

So I agree with Helen Joyce on this - the confusing language is what has got us to this point. And if I object to a male being in a female sports category, that is not transphobic, it is stating the obvious unfairness.

I do find the deliberate language confusion really upsetting. A man who transitions should always have been a trans man, a woman who transitions a trans woman. Whether they transition to nonbinary, opposite gender, gender fluid, that includes all of them without a problem or any need for 'c*s'. It's quite obvious why that route wasn't taken and it is frustrating to be manipulated.

I think it's too late for that one and as things are now, transwoman and transman are at least an acknowledgement that there is a difference, and is still considered reasonable outside Twatter.

I should add I presumed Helen was talking about how we conduct the debate rather than how speak to individuals.

I have no problem referring to an individual as a transwoman but when we are discussing which football team that person should play for it's better to focus on women's right to an all woman team and on the idea that all males should be able to play on the men's team.

But what does living your life as a woman actually mean @Googlecanthelpme? Apart from utilising female only spaces surely there isn’t anything else that truly defines living as a woman? They can’t be having periods or giving birth. And what someone wears is surely not generalised across women? It’s just so hard to fathom what it means.

Yes it is called being a doormat, and many women now pay the price for our acceptance of language imposed on us. Our right to speak up taken away for fear of losing our jobs or being branded hateful names.

The time of being kind and polite is over - it is only given others more power and ammunition to hurt us.

I stopped calling these biologically male people women 5 years ago and feel much better for it. It's good to not be complicit in perpetuating the gaslighting of either yourself or others. I think the language manipulation is the reason women are in this situation, we applied good faith and were taken for mugs, basically.

The time of being kind and polite is over - it is only given others more power and ammunition to hurt us.

This.

It's been tried. It is not a reciprocal social contract. The good will has now been squandered.