Man/Woman, male/female, male bodied/female bodied

[TheWitchesAreBackInTown]

When I speak to people about sex and gender, I tend to use man and woman because I refuse to give ground on those words. But it can get a little confusing when talking to someone who doesn't know a lot about the topic.

My partner says that using males and females is straight to the point eg don't say trans identifying men, or trans women, or men, just say male (males in female toilets). Everyone knows what it means. There's no ambiguity, no confusion. It shocks and informs. When I talk about sports or prisons I do automatically say male and female.

But it's beginning to get blurred because TRAs are pushing the boundaries again and appropriating female and male.

Now, I never say male/female bodied people because, well, I just don't like the term. Probably because it feels too far away from the words man and woman.

What words do you use to describe men and women, especially if they identify as trans? A month or so ago there was a thread by a poster about what she thinks we should call TW and TM (used for convenience) but I can't find it and I can't remember if there was a consensus reached.

I also try never to use the word "trans" because it means either
1, a process of transitioning (to or from what? - problematic) rather than a state of being
OR
2, is an abbreviation of "transgender" which has no stable meaning and is just a way of forced-teaming groups who have little in common.

Indeed. When ‘trans’ is used within this ideological framework, it basically means “not a” or “not”.

So a “trans woman” is a “not a woman” and “trans women” are “not women”.

Its a pointless thing to do, to describe a person or a thing by what they are not, since it gives no meaningful information about them or it.

The previous usage, of ‘transvestite’ or transsexual’ did sort of describe something- a person doing a thing. You used to be able to say “that man is a transvestite” or partway down the rabbit hole “that man is a transsexual”, but by the current ideology tv/ts is now deemed offensive apparently.

And as you say - “transgender” has no stable meaning whatsoever.

Showing my age a bit here, I suspect.

Back in the TV/TS days the trans in-group slang for women was Argie (Real Girl) or GiGi (Genetic Girl).

Both are pretty revolting but I much prefer them to ‘cis’, because while the ‘girl’ bit is silly and infantilising when applied to adults, at least ‘real’ and ‘genetic’ were being used factually, rather than being up guff, like ‘cis’.

And no one was trying to force team women into one collapsed category that included men who said they were women.

I’ve heard of “Gennies” - genetic women. It also means a female donkey.

Always depends on the context, but terms like male and female include all age groups, whereas woman is Adult Human Female.

So when talking about trans issues in schools man and woman may not be appropriate when you are talking about boys and girls. Man would accurately describe an adult male and could make situations like understanding that a male teacher (who says he is trans) is going into the female changing rooms, "man in girl's changing rooms" really brings the message home.

(not all, of course)
Men who identify as their fantasy of what a woman is.
Men who fantasise about themselves dressed up as a woman.
Men completely absorbed in their fantasy of living out their misogynistic and fetishized stereotyped vision of what it is to be a woman

Male & female include members of those sex classes across all species as well as ages.

My cat is female but not a woman.

My granddaughters are female. One is a woman, one is a child.