Not sure about this

[FrankReynolds]

I've always been very pro-trans and pro-equality and considered myself an ally to people of all flavours. I thought that being a feminist and being pro-trans didn't have to be mutually exclusive and I was uncomfortable with any views that are considered "TERF"

But

I've just seen this post on Insta and it's making me question a lot of what I believe in that area. As a queer person (married to a bloke but not straight), it's something I've been wrestling with. Can anyone shed some light on the issue? And why this particular post has made me so uncomfortable and conflicted?

Datun that is an EPIC post.
Double thumbs up from me.

And by 'queer', do you mean bisexual, like me and quite a few other vipers in this board, married with kids sometimes, just like you. Is that what you mean, genuinely asking?

You’re struggling because that’s meaningless word salad pretending to be profound

My sexuality is something I've also struggled to define. I suppose I would consider myself pansexual because I'm not bothered if my partner is male or female, rather than I'm attracted to both sexes. It's not what bits they have, it's who they are as a person ITMS. I had considered myself a cisgender queer female but I'm wondering where "cis" came from. And I'm wondering why wanting to keep womanhood makes a lot of people say that's homophobic, transphobic and bigoted.

I think everyone should live their truth and fair enough if they're not comfortable in their own skin, no-one should have to feel that way but why does the definition of "womanhood" have to change? I would happily accept e.g. a trans man who is genuinely looking for their true self

I'm very confused about my views here and it's hard to see the wood for the trees.

Is that post I screenshotted not trying to occlude centuries of the struggle women have faced?

Do you really think bisexual means anything else but 'It's not what bits they have, it's who they are as a person'. I mean I don't just go around shagging randoms either, it just means I'm attracted to both men and women (although only very few of either sex tbh)

It's not weird or wrong or bigoted or hateful to feel discomfort with the idea of every aspect of womanhood being colonised. Why do you assume you're the one in the wrong here?

And yes, the idea that changing the language will remove the oppression is bollox. They'll just call us 'cis', or 'womb-carriers', or 'birthing bodies', but will magically still know who to prevent from abortions, in the States, or to sack due to the pregnancy.

I will bet my house no man has ever been mistaken for a woman and sacked for having a bear gut and moobs.

The more I read that the more it pisses me off.

It implies that until the TRA's (mostly men) came along with their campaigns for 'more inclusive language' poor little women didn't realise they could opt out of having children. But now that the clever men have come along and corrected the language the silly little women know that they don't have to have babies.

Its taking credit for the work feminists have done. Look at that men taking credit for women's work and ideas. Like that's not a standard part of women's lives regardless of how 'feminine' they are.

They'll just call us 'cis', or 'womb-carriers', or 'birthing bodies', but will magically still know who to prevent from abortions, in the States, or to sack due to the pregnancy.

Exactly. It isn't trans ideology which got women the vote, equal pay, access to legal abortion, the pill, etc. These were fought for decades ago, by the very feminists who weren't all stereotypically 'feminine' by any means, but my goodness were they female. The same ones, and their daughters and granddaughters, that the trans lobby are now very afraid of. Because they do not take any nonsense, and are never emulated by the stiletto wearing, heavily made up, transactivist brigade, who think being feminine is wearing a skirt and being submissive. Unless you're actually make, in which case you may display your entrenched male entitlement and misogyny along with your glitter blue eyeshadow.

Male, not make, obvs.

The usual gobbledegook- it is meaningless trip.

Could you explain in words of one syllable, why you think that?

It is typical word salad that people think makes them sound clever but actually makes it obvious that the ideology is built on nothing but shifting sands.

How on earth could it be "more accurate" to decouple pregnany from being a woman? Men cannot get pregnant. Only women can get pregnant. That is objective, provable fact.

Ask yourself why its always women who are disadvantaged by gender ideology. Why has the NHS removed the word women from its female cancer/menopause pages but not removed the word men from male cancer pages? It is women being pushed out of sports. It's women being put at risk in prisons, rape centres, women's refuges, hospital wards etc. TRAs are trying to obficate this with all the upside down language and word salad to try to convince people who don't use their brains that they're not misogynistic.

War is peace.
Slavery is freedom.
Erasing women is feminist.

I'm sorry, but it's thoughtless nonsense. The person who wrote this doesn't know what they are talking about. Pregnancy is already 'decoupled' from femininity, in that there is no requirement to be feminine to give birth. 'Femininity' refers to cultural stereotypes like women being Barbies or Disney princesses. There is absolutely no inherent coupling between pregnancy, birth and femininity : plenty of butch, masculine women get pregnant. This person presumably means they want to decouple pregnancy from the concept of 'female', but this is not more accurate or inclusive language because ONLY females give birth.

And as for 'cis' women being 'allowed' to refuse motherhood without refusing womanhood...again, while womanhood and motherhood are closely connected conceptually, it has NEVER been the case that a woman who refuses motherhood is thereby seen to no longer be a woman. Even in the Medieval ages it was legitimate for women to refuse motherhood by becoming nuns, and they were still perceived to be woman. Women are still women, no matter whether they have given birth or not. This isn't some new revelation that we need trans theory to legitimate.

I also appreciate speaking to bisexual women on here, and so sorry if this comes across as grouchy, but I consider myself bisexual because I am attracted to both sexes. The idea that bisexuals are just attracted to 'bits' is a tad insulting. I think everyone of every orientation is attracted to people as people.

As a woman juggling the kids and looking after my own mother, I don’t have time to pontificate about decoupling femininity BS!

I just think, FFS, I’m a woman who has often had to be masculine in order to survive in life and my career, be a leader or whatever but also nurturing etc etc, and sometimes slept with other women but mostly men, and sometimes felt not that sexual and sometimes felt quite sexual and sometimes to men, sometimes to women…

I don’t need to define or wrangle about any of it, it was just me being me.

However me definitely is a woman, biologically and culturally. Whether I was wearing a suit giving a speech in trousers with my hair tied back or breastfeeding my baby. I don’t need to shout it or wear a skirt, that’s just a truth.

Simple really.

I cannot understand that tweet (I get the gist), it's like a novel complicated sailor's knot that only the sailor himself can open, because it is so personal to the plonker who wrote it.

This reminds me of a trans man’s Twitter post saying how there is nothing feminine about having a baby it was the hardest toughest most gruelling thing they had ever done. Implication: it was really super masculine of him to have had a baby becuz women can’t do anything hard. Femininity innit.

The more I read this, the more it amuses me tbh.

I have an EDI training session in work next week. When we get to the questions part, I fear I may have a very profound question to ask, regarding what the company is doing to ensure that in decoupling womanhood from femininity, motherhood is protected, and that we do not occlude the struggles of our female (non-feminine), feminist ancestors to overcome the patriarchal oppression. If I think on it some more, I might be able to throw some critical race theory in there too 🤔

If you are a woman who is married to a man, you really, really need to fuck off with your "I'm a queer person" bullshit.

Yes! Exactly.

As though the oppression that women have fought, the treatment as chattel, the lack of the vote, the need for the equal pay act, the reluctance of companies to hire women in their prime fertility years, etc. was related to our being "feminine" and identifying as women and nothing at all to do with our biology, and our monopoly on pregnancy and the burden of reproductive labour.

So because I'm married that's it? I no longer have a sexuality? My sexuality is "married"? I am not hetero, what's your name for it?

You really, really need to fuck off with your gate keeping bullshit.

at the risk of diverting from the point (welcome to the gang!), what do you mean by queer? What’s queer about being married to a bloke but being bisexual?

OP, what has you being married have to do with your sexuality? You ask 'I am not hetero, what's your name for it?', and the answer is you appear to be bisexual, in old money. That would, I guess, be the term most women here who are attracted to both men and women would choose for themselves.

However, as you're married to a man and quite likely would seem like a hetero couple to most observers. Just like my marriage.

Not sure I really need people to know what I used to get up to before I was married to my chosen life partner, who happened to be a man. As I have no plans to be unfaithful to him with either sex I see no reason for sharing my sexuality with people. I suffer no discrimination though due to my bisexuality, and neither, likely, do you.

Perhaps that's why people are getting riled up, in your identifying into a repressed minority, 'queer', you seem to suggest that there's a degree of minority oppression that's applicable to you. As you're married with a kid, there just isn't