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

@DalarnaHorses I completely agree about the skin deep acceptance in the 80s. Daley Thompson who is now a hero on this board wearing an intensely homophobic t-shirt in 84? Just fine, people laughed back then. I read a history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the UK and MY GOD I had forgotten what it was like. Things have changed, but homophobia still exists and hate crimes exist. Transphobia definitely exists.

For me there's a confusion because some men wearing intensely feminine clothing are doing it for sexual thrills in a sexist humiliation fetishism way, some as a kind of performance art (Grayson Perry probably spans both), some to feel closer to women (fascinating interview with the singer of the Manic Street Preachers about this), some because they have an unstable sexual identity which can be actively dangerous, some to make a political point and some because that's what is right for them and they really are trans. A man wearing explicitly feminine clothing doesn't often seem to be doing it simply because they genuinely like the shapes of the clothes, purely for aesthetics or even convenience. I haven't untangled my own thoughts about this and I'm aware of that.

I'm not interested in seeing a man in womanface thank you very much.

Ah. I see womanface as taking the piss, mainly drag queens, but not men just wearing dresses and a bit of eyeliner. I wear mens clothes sometimes, there's no identity crisis behind it, it's totally shallow - I just like a smart shirt, waistcoat and cufflinks.

That's interesting, so do some people not accept men wearing any traditional female clothing? Isn't that reinforcing stereotypes? My thought is people should just wear what they want, no need to mess about with gender IDs.

But the reasons the dominant class want to wear the clothing of the subject class vary and may be less benign than vice versa.

@PermanentTemporary

It's is difficult to untangle. I've actually met Grayson Perry, very upfront and honest, very interesting to listen to. But if I'm being honest I am repelled by the fact that he admits to be aroused by his clothing and the girl child outfits are just abhorent. He didn't help me untangle things any!

Yes. GP dressed as Claire doesn't look like someone just getting on with their day.

I can remember an article being posted here about a guy that goes about his daily life wearing a skirt and heels. The comments from MN weren't kind.

Was it this man?

www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/crossdressing-tesco-employee-astounded-support-23606239

The problem is that he's not just a man in a skirt, he's a man with a fetish which he has been allowed to take to work.

the man in question, if you applied a modicum of critical thought to the article, was very plainly autogynephilic and had been given a license to exercise his fetish at work. Aside from wearing a skirt, if you actually looked at the images of him, he was wearing women’s shoes, stockings/tights, and a padded bra. Further, he described a typical pattern of escalating boundary-breaching behavior – and that he had high heels, makeup, and wigs at home. Also, he described, in his own words, ‘borrowing’ clothes from girlfriends. He was duping everybody around him about his motivation.

www.womenarehuman.com/these-chains-that-have-no-name-interview-with-trans-widows-voices/

Or was it 'Pips' Bunce, who won an award for women in business because he sometimes cross dresses at work?

There was also a photo of Pips Bunce dressed in women's clothes at a fetish club. Haven't seen that one for a few years.

@OldCrone

It certainly wasn't Pips Bunce! Not Tesco man either. Let me have a hunt...I think it was Bored Panda, I was a bit fascinated at the time, but suspect I might revisit it with new eyes now...

Well that was remarkably easy. Googled Bored Panda man wearing skirt!

www.boredpanda.com/confident-man-wears-heels-skirt-markbryan911/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

I struggle at being an outcast from the people who would normally be my tribe - the activists, the people campaigning for peace, for tolerance, basically left wingers. I can't get my head round being seen as a bigot.

Yes. It's hard. It gets easier.

[quote DalarnaHorses]Well that was remarkably easy. Googled Bored Panda man wearing skirt!

www.boredpanda.com/confident-man-wears-heels-skirt-markbryan911/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic[/quote]
The thing that is telling for me is the heels!
Man in skirt - clothes are just clothes.
Man in heels - no one wears heels for comfort, they are for a 'look'. Heels make it more than just clothes for me, I think, although I was also a bit conflicted reading the article when it came out IIRC as I was trying to balance 'just clothes' with 'is it a fetish / AGP'

I disliked woman face in my 20s and hoped it was a relic of older forms of humour but it seems to have gained more traction. I nearly 50, whether for art, sexual kicks or comedy it should have no place in the modern world.

I agree the word trans should be dropped. Its describing a type of woman who is really a man. Therefore illogical. As there is no such thing.

@Roseglen84

Googlecanthelpme If a transwoman lives their life as a woman in every capacity then I have no issue using transwoman But what does 'live their life as a woman in every capacity' actually mean? Wearing a skirt, some lipstick? Baking a cake? Who gets to decide what living as a woman is? I'm not trying to be goady, just to dig down into living as a woman, which seems to get thrown about a lot.

I don't live as a woman, just like I don't live as a human - I just am a human woman, so whatever way I live (and other women live) is how a human woman lives. Billions of women all over the world live completely different lives, the only thing that really aligns us all is our biology. Menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, menopause. Women will experience some or all of those in their lives, but men never will.

I'm not trying to get at you, but it's frustrating to hear this kind of acquiescence to some sort of 'right way' of imitating a woman, and therefore being more authentic than the rest. The issue should not be whether a man can sufficiently 'pass' in public, this is about biological reality and the effect that it has on our lives and experiences. And the language that describes and shapes that reality.

Men will never understand what living as a woman really is. They can never be us. If they are uncomfortable being male, that's something else, something for them to figure out. Something I have sympathy for. But our space is not theirs, our place on the podium is not theirs, and our language certainly shouldn't be theirs to take at will.

Womanhood is not a club you can gain entry to by deception or lies.

I was about to say the same thing, Roseglen.

A transman once opened a Mumsnet 'ask me anything' thread, and I asked what living as the other sex actually meant, other than changing your name and wearing other-sex clothes.

The transman said that was pretty much it.

So if you happen to be a woman with a non-sex-specific name, who lives in trousers and comfy shoes, what stops you being a transman? All the rest is just in your head.

Obviously transmen aren't the problem, though.

@DrTastic

As a woman working in a male dominated industry, I'm horrified at the idea anyone needs to or can 'identify' as the opposite sex. Thirty years ago, would this have meant I had a short hair cut, wore trousers all the time in order to do my job? I wanted to work in engineering, not be a man. The barriers were being torn down so we, male and female, could weld like the woman on flash dance, wear a dress like Bowie. I see the trans desire for 'identity' as identifying with a stereotype worldview we were moving away from. It's very limiting and dangerous to start to place restrictions on gender identity. Eg. Eyeliner is a girl thing. Welding is a boy thing. After all, not all males want to weld. The whole thing is a mess and makes me sad to see the next gen thinking in more narrow stereotypes.

Yes it doesn't stand any scrutiny. In the old days it was 'You can't drive a tractor, you're a woman'. We finally got to 'You can driver a tractor if you're a woman'. Now it's 'You're driving a tractor, you MUST be a man'. How is that progress?

Yes it doesn't stand any scrutiny.
In the old days it was 'You can't drive a tractor, you're a woman'. We finally got to 'You can driver a tractor if you're a woman'. Now it's 'You're driving a tractor, you MUST be a man'.
How is that progress?

Yep, its not of course. You're driving a tractor, you must be a man is just a different way of saying women can't drive tractors

Yes, I agree with Helen Joyce. TW are men. We all know that.

Other than on Mumsnet, I no longer use the word 'transwoman' anywhere. I never thought they were women, but I thought there weren't many of them and I didn't think they were doing much harm.

But the assault on Maria Maclachlan in 2017 woke me up, and events since then have appalled and frightened me. It's a male supremacist movement, more dangerous than any other movement I've seen or heard of in Europe. (I know male supremacism rules some other parts of the world.)

It does feel like that thinking. That we are being attacked by male supremacists that are pretending to be women and silencing us. Under the cover of the untouchable pronouns in order to dehumanise others.

If you were really feeling you were a woman in a man's body would your first instinct be to hurt women and deprive them of safety and dignity? As a transwoman would you not have some experience of what some aspects are actually like, many have described their shock at the sexism they have experienced, if you wanted to join the club that is the woman population would you want to banish all the other members just leaving you and people like you there instead?

I don't think the vocal minority of stonewall speak for everyone in the community, and the time is now overdue that those that disagree with the way women are being stripped of basic human rights spoke up. Stood up to this bullying male supremacism and said you don't speak for me, and start getting behind some of the compromises on offer.

We can not afford to lose this battle, it is not ever going to happen and we will continue to fight on and will always do so. We have lost decades of hard won rights in the last few years.

Boris Johnson just said on sky that he does NOT agree with males competing in womens sports or using women's spaces!!!!!**

@DalarnaHorses

I'm not interested in seeing a man in womanface thank you very much.

Ah. I see womanface as taking the piss, mainly drag queens, but not men just wearing dresses and a bit of eyeliner. I wear mens clothes sometimes, there's no identity crisis behind it, it's totally shallow - I just like a smart shirt, waistcoat and cufflinks.

That's interesting, so do some people not accept men wearing any traditional female clothing? Isn't that reinforcing stereotypes? My thought is people should just wear what they want, no need to mess about with gender IDs.

About 95% of the men wearing women’s clothing have AGP. You are welcome to support their paraphilia if you so wish, but I don’t think it is very kind of you to expect others to do so. You can google Grayson Perry Autogynephilia, he is very open about it.

About 95% of the men wearing women’s clothing have AGP. You are welcome to support their paraphilia if you so wish, but I don’t think it is very kind of you to expect others to do so. You can google Grayson Perry Autogynephilia, he is very open about it.

I'm well aware of Grayson Perry, actually have mentioned him further upthread, so no Googling necessary. I'm not interested in supporting anybody's paraphilia, thank you.

95% AGP? Is that the accepted figure? That shocks me a bit, family members and all that.

@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.

We need to ditch that terminology entirely, because the trans ideology maintains that the prefix 'trans' is equivalent to the prefix 'black', or any other prefix describing women. Implying that a transwoman is a woman in the same way as a blank woman is a woman.

That is a lie. A gaslighting lie.

We need instead to be using a word that MN bans, when we talk about the males who colonise womanhood. It is accurate, it is honest and it reflects their sense of self - but without diluting our words that we have for describing ourselves.

If you were really feeling you were a woman in a man's body would your first instinct be to hurt women and deprive them of safety and dignity

This is something that really stands out, if you thought you were a woman, you'd understand why women feel the way they do, you'd feel solidarity with them, you wouldn't compromise their safety and feelings. And likewise any decent man would also not want to do anything that would hurt a woman.

We need instead to be using a word that MN bans, when we talk about the males who colonise womanhood. It is accurate, it is honest and it reflects their sense of self - but without diluting our words that we have for describing ourselves

Not sure what the word is (and wondering if I've already used it on this thread). But I've corrected someone in real life who thought a transwoman is a woman who identifies as a man, I doubt they are the only ones to think that. I take your point about the prefix too.