Moment of realisation

[Footballmatchdilemma]

I was at an event last night where a trans woman I know vaguely was there. I had no reason to speak to them (the configuration of the room meant I wouldn’t have been able to if id wanted to anyway), but I could see them.

They are about my age, 40s, slim, nice clothes, long hair etc. But what made me, frankly, a bit pissed off, is that I thought, how nice for them to enjoy the long hair and the clothes and blah blah, but at this point in their life, what they won’t have to deal with, which most women will, is the sodding menopause. It hasn’t hit me yet, but I’m worried about how it will make me feel.

This person has no idea about this aspect of being a woman. No the menopause, not periods, not childbirth, none of it. How can they possibly, in any way, believe themselves to be a woman?! These things are the reality, before you even begin to talk about the burden of care that usually falls on women, low salaries etc.

It made me so very grumpy, and there’s no one I can talk to about it because my friends aren’t interested and my sister is all ‘be kind’.

It’s annoying, but they also have to cope with being a transwoman and that, to be honest, doesn’t look much fun.

True, I’ll give them that, but trans women’s problems are NOT problems associated with being a woman, so how can they believe that they are one?

It’s a mystery to me.

That's a choice though. They can opt out at any time. Females cannot opt out of the realities of our biological sex though.

I get where you’re coming from! I also accept that I haven’t a clue what it’s like to be trans, or male. There are basic core experiences of being biologically female, including menopause, also including societal misogyny, of course. Trans folk are deserving of respect and appreciation - as trans women - and should they be bullied or harassed due to their identity, that is very much not OK. BUT, Biological women are different. I do realise this is the new heresy.

I am not convinced that's the best argument in all honesty. Some women, obvs, are hugely impacted by menopause, but others aren't. I got a mirena coil when I was 20 and haven't had periods for years and years and I don't think I'm defined by five years of light monthly bleeding in my teens. Plus I think "not dealing with childbirth" is the case for lots of women too.

I would imagine that taking female hormones with all the effect of those can't be much fun...granted there are no periods but they still get to experience the moods! And if they stop taking hormones they will get the hot flushes etc... and more chin hair growth than I wil ever have to worry about!

I've always liked to see men rocking their looks with long hair, dresses, makeup, whatever, but was very taken aback to find that some of them seriously thought this made them actual women, and was then flummoxed to find we were expected to go along with it.

Males claim they know what it is to be a woman? It's an astonishing presumption, really.

Do they experience moods though? We do
(or potentially can), because we have cycles but I assume the dose of hormones for a trans woman is consistent. Maybe not though.

And yes of course we’re not all defined or constrained by our biology but it surely has affected us all in some way or other. If you’ve never given birth you might have the stress of deliberately avoiding conception or of infertility. And menopause might turn out to be fine, but I have the worries that it might not!

I'm not really sure that trans folk are automatically deserving of my "respect and admiration" as PP claims. Do they all give that to us lowly biological women?

I think for some of them it’s a choice, but for others it must feel more like a compulsion. It can’t be easy. People must stare, and they probably do experience discrimination.

Even more significantly, they've avoided the social impacts of female biology. The self-limiting /policing as a response to fear or rape or other violence, the impossible to quantify impacts of actual rape or other violence, the responsibility for childcare, for all the shitwork, for the emotional labour and the extreme consequent limits on our agency.

@WinterDeWinter yes! All of this.

And to reiterate, I’m sure being a trans women comes with a lot of struggle and difficulty. But they are not women’s struggles. Not anything like them.

No, they are not.

well, maybe, but there are many groups who struggle, who have compulsions that are not widely accepted in society. Discrimination is covered in the EA and nobody should suffer because of it.

Many women don't experience childbirth- this is true.

But most of them have put significant effort throughout their lives into avoiding pregnancy, as contraception is a burden which falls on women. Of the rest, a not insignificant number have not experienced childbirth because they have been dealing with health issues that caused infertility. Neither are experiencing the life of a male, especially a fertile one who has been able to have biological children without undergoing the physical demands of pregnancy.

A happy childfree woman has had to do far more to avoid becoming pregnant than any male, hasn't she?

This person has no idea about ANY aspect of womanhood.

You’ve hit the nail right on the head.

Yes, and all women, whether they have children or not, are at risk of violence because of their perceived capacity to be impregnated and the lack of physical and social power associated with that biological capacity (not ability.)

Before the gender stuff got going, I remember feeling that for women, the freedom to dress/look pretty much how you want to was just about the only compensation for all the society (let alone biology) puts us through. The one advantage we had over men was that their ways of dressing were so limited & rigidly policed compared to ours.

It didn't make up for all the , of course. It was just one small thing we had for ourselves.

And now we don't. Why should males, who have every advantage going, be able to take this one small distinction from us? And why is it the ONLY thing they take?

Spot on.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes 👏🙏

Just read my posted post & it doesnt make sense because I used asterisks to delete expletives. I'll try again:

Before the gender stuff got going, I remember feeling that for women, the freedom to dress/look pretty much how you want to was the only compensation for all the 💩society (let alone biology) puts us through. The one advantage we had over men was that their ways of dressing were so limited & rigidly policed compared to ours.

It didn't make up for all the 💩, of course. It was just one small thing we had for ourselves.

And now we don't. Why should males, who have every advantage going, be able to take this one small distinction from us? And why is it the ONLY thing they take?

A trans woman who managed to get herself accepted on a returning to work programme which was specifically aimed at mothers returning to work after years out as sahm

and she the then completely dominated all the discussions and banged on about the cotton ceiling 🤮🤮

Nobody challenged her domination of the group….. we still had the full mansplaining business nonetheless 🙄