It's language isn't it

[CaptainWarbeck]

After listening to the Witch Trials podcast, I've been trying to get my head in the space of trans activists. I am trying to see their point of view and find any common ground, in the spirit of checking your own beliefs.

So essentially what I can see is that it boils down to the use of language first and foremost.

If you say 'woman' and by that you mean 'feeling feminine, feeling that many female stereotypes are more your thing, rejecting masculine things', then feminists saying 'you're not a woman' WOULD be hurtful and also 'denying that you exist' right?

Because you are saying you're all of those things, and someone is telling you that you are not. And they're personal things that no one else can really see - so I understand how it would feel rude and invalidating for a feminist to tell you you're not experiencing them.

And if by identifying as a 'woman' (also read nonbinary, asexual etc) in this sense means that you feel you fit into the world better and feel more accepted generally because people make less stereotypical assumptions about you, then that would be helpful, right?

And if feminists say 'no you can't do that - because of biology you are not a woman' - that would feel reductive, and like you were being put back into the box you're trying to escape from I imagine.

The issue is that when each side uses 'woman' we mean entirely different things. Defining the language we're using in order to have a conversation is essential. We're talking at cross purposes.

And the other thing which is impossible to fix but which would help enormously is waving a magic wand and eradicating gender stereotypes. There's no need for 'gender' if you can present/dress/behave however you want regardless of sex.

That's my best understanding right now. I think feminist rhetoric does hurt trans feelings. The issue is that following trans ideology saves hurt feelings, but has far worse consequences for biological women. No one really wins here. That is unless society (patriarchy) miraculously becomes more accepting of gay, lesbian and gender nonconforming people.

That’s why for a language to work and for people to have conversations, it needs a logical structure and semantic definitions.

Without decent type definition, you cannot predict what a computer program is going to do. Same with real life.

Men could identify as feminine without having to identify as a woman. A woman is someone with XX chromosomes, with a few rare exceptions with intersex disorders.

Agree. That's why the adult human female definition is important to describe what we mean by woman.

But there's no trans equivalent. Feels feminine? Feels womanly? They don't work. And society despite all the work of feminists does have fairly rigid gender stereotypes and expectations. So how to describe someone who is gender non-conforming?

I really don’t care about people having hurt feelings when their sexism is confronted. They need to learn at some point.

They could always just call themselves transwomen?

Ugh yes I suppose that would work. I'm trying to understand the trans side but I am GC. So why is 'transwoman' such an issue then?

Is it because they think they have the same feminine feels as women so that means they literally are women right? That you can't differentiate between biological male feminine feels and female feminine feels?

Essentially it's a belief in a gendered essence and I don't understand how the world suddenly signed up to that.

In many contexts (at least in the West), it was more accepted for L G or B (or straight people) to be gender non-confirming in the past. Very butch Ls were still women, very feminine Gs were still men. ‘Gender-bending’ and ‘androgynous’ styles (as called then) were rife in the 80s and 90s. Drag was risqué performance for adult audiences. Woolf’s Orlando was fiction, and an extended in-joke and love letter between two women, not a textbook. None of this was controversial. No one thought a man in eyeliner and lippy was literally a woman. Straight men claiming they were lesbians trapped in men’s bodies were seen as making a bad joke. Most old school Ts just wanted to get on with their lives, accepted biological reality, didn’t behave in angry, violent, fascist ways, and certainly didn’t want to coerce lesbians into having sex with them.

Right, I remember these times.

So when did it become less socially acceptable to gender bend? Why aren't people happy to accept their sex as before but play with gender roles and presentation?

so how to describe someone who is gender non-conforming?

As a person.

Men and women should be able to present themselves and be interested in things in whatever way they like, within their sex class. Men who like wearing lipstick and ‘feminine’ clothes are still men, and other men should be able to accept that, so that they don’t need to pretend to be women instead. I grew up in the 80s, when men wearing makeup and ‘feminine’ clothes was standard for many. We all fancied pop stars dressed in big blouses and with more and better makeup than any of us girls could achieve. None of them needed to say they were women to be accepted. They didn’t need to believe they ‘felt like women’ in order to justify their choices. Those transsexual individuals whose body image was irreconcilable with their feelings went through the whole process of transition, including surgery, and went quietly about their new lives. How is it that we have become so much less tolerant and accepting of difference now, 40 years later?

Women who wear brogues and no makeup, or who mend motorbikes and have buzz cuts are still women, and it’s so interesting that other women are wholly accepting of that, in a way that men find hard to replicate when confronted with men who demonstrate what they perceive as ‘feminine attributes’. I wonder why this is?

It seems to me that the big change that’s needed here is for all men to be educated in the fact that men who don’t share their particular views on clothes or interests are no threat to them. In the same way women do with ‘non-conforming’ women, they need to just let other men get on with living their lives however they like, while still being men. It takes nothing away from them. I believe there’s a big dollop of homophobia in all this, so we also need to go back and begin that education all over again.

It’s also continental philosophy taken literally.

Descartes said ‘I think therefore I am’ and a whole load of whacky nonsense followed until you have some people believe that what you ‘think’ is more ‘real’ than what is objectively true.

It’s a non-reconcilable problem.

It's a good idea, trying to understand where another side is coming from - I wonder how many transactivists are thinking about how women feel?!

The problem for me is that this has moved very far away from a transwoman being a man who attempts to adopt female stereotypes. It used to be quite taboo for a man to wear 'women's clothes', now no one cares, so they've changed the definition to anyone who says they're a woman.

I think there are so many different reasons for people to be trans that there isn't one single perspective to understand.

Men who transition because of homophobia or some other mental health issues, I think, are often deeply traumatised and are looking for acceptance. I think their reaction to women saying you're not a woman and you can't come in our spaces comes from deep hurt and rejection and bitterness. And of course it's easier to then turn that pain onto women who are not as threatening than to stand up to those who bullied them in the first place.

I think men who transition because of AGP (can I say that?) are doing it for the thrill of breaking a taboo and enjoy the opportunity to shock and intimidate women. They enjoy the manipulation of those around them and the sympathy they elicit of those who turn on us boring women who won't play along with them.

The TRAs who are not necessarily trans themselves, or who are basically men who pop on a bit of eyeliner but keep their beard (and everything else) are fixated on a moral crusade to destroy the patriarchy and see any opposition as fascists, attempting to hold on to the past as they crusade for a brave new world of rainbows and sparkles where anything goes and it's all free love and happiness and safeguarding is a dirty word.

The last two are not hurt or saddened by being told they cannot be women, they are gleefully stealing the word from us and laughing in our faces when they make us use female pronouns or 'cis'. They ARE the patriarchy, using their power to do what they want.

Part of the problem is that all these are deeply narcissistic and focused only on their own perspective. Women's downfall has been that we are constantly trying to balance our own rights and feelings with the feelings of others. But when the other side shows absolutely NO regard for us and NO willingness to compromise, our feelings are simply getting steam rolled out of the way.

It's so insidious. I was somewhere with my teenager yesterday and there were all these stupid fucking stripey flags - the crowd were waving flags at each other " in solidarity". Teen said one was a "lesbian pride " flag. It wasn't the double headed axe flag it was the striped one which is apparently for "all lesbians". I assume "all lesbians" means men who want to sleep with lesbians.
And a "non-binary" pride flag. Which is more narcissistic bollocks (if you pardon the expression).
By creating these "communities" under the "queer umbrella" you get to pretend that "only wanting sex with someone when you have romantic feelings " (aka a personality type) is some kind of marginalised group of people - aromantics. And that such people with their flag should support other "marginalised" groups like fucking furries and AGPs with their flags because only as the "queer community", will they get validation.

Unless you are actually same sex attracted or attracted to both sexes, anything to the right of LGB is straight people larping as marginalised.

Great post @MoongazyHare

*Is it because they think they have the same feminine feels as women so that means they literally are women right?"

No one can know what it's like to "feel like a woman", we only know what it means to feel like ourselves. An interest in the stereotypes which have typically been associated with women does not change a persons sex.

I don't think we should indulge hurt feelings which fly in the face of reality.

Exactly this.

There is only one definition of "woman", and "man".

I was in the "treat transwomen as women for social purposes" camp for a long time. It was the insistence that TW literally are women, coupled with the refusal to say what you mean by "woman" in that claim or any other usage, that has been the basis of my gender criticism.

If people in general had never started conflating "female" and "feminine" (and male/masculine) we could all be clearer when we use language.

I dont think it's all language, I think a lot is the ubiquity, availability, normalisation and explicit nature of porn.

When I was a kid porn was 'top-shelf', something to be hidden. Possibly privately enjoyed, on your own or with a partner. But not, never, mainstream.

For anything 'hard' - ie, with penises showing, you had to make a special effort. Naked female bodies were available, but not actual sexual acts.

Now you have to make an effort to seek out porn that doesn't involve penises.

That co-incides with the portrayal of female partners as submissive and biddable. Their enjoyment is utterly irrelevant, in most cases.

So we are teaching a young generation that women are here to serve them, sexually.

When the real world hits and that doesn't happen, men are frustrated; leads to incel culture.

But this whole trans movement is very much tied into that. Remember Jordan Gray's vile Channel 4 performance about how, sexually speaking, he is your ideal woman?

Straight men are now being offered "women" in the guise of trans women. Horny men can justify male-with-male encounters, as being with women. Trans prostitutes abound. Trans porn abounds. "Hey guys, you too can have all the great no-strings sex the gays are having, without being gay!"

When men tried stealing the words I use to describe myself,
When men tried gaining entry into women's toilets
When men tried to chastise me for saying they aren't a woman,
When men took jobs meant for women,
When men started raping women inside women's prisons
When men started assaulting women just wanting to speak
When male politicians starting bullying female politicians in parliament
When men stopped women from having women only single sex groups in rape crisis centres
When men told lesbians they had to accept cock

I stopped trying to understand them or how they feel.

I DON'T CARE.

They can take their point of view and stick it where the sun doesn't shine!

Nobody cares about women's feelings so why do we need to care about theirs?

It's not even remotely reasonable to try and ban people from stating scientific facts using accurate language just because it hurts your feelings.

Grow up.

I'm a woman, I don't feel feminine, female stereotypes are not my thing, and it hurts my feelings if anyone suggest that they should be. Why should I accept people denyine my existence?

Not that I have the remotest notion what 'feeling feminine' would feel like anyway. But they can have all the stereotypes that want.

"when did it become less socially acceptable to gender bend"

I would point to two things: Kardashian culture where women have to conform to porn stereotypes to get anyone to notice them. And stupid cheap kids clothes in supermarkets that are blue with trucks on them saying "lock up your daughters" or pink with unicorns that say "be kind".

Trans ideology is easily seen to rely on gross equivocation; look at this through the lens of ‘gender’ ...

... 'Gender' means one of two things:

(1) 'Gender' is synonymous with a particular sense of 'sex'. In the 20th century, as 'sex' came increasingly to mean 'sexual intercourse', 'gender' began to replace it (in early use euphemistically) as the usual word for the biological grouping of males and females. Thus, in this sense 'My sex is female' means the same as 'My gender is female'. Of course in this sense it cannot be that my gender does not match my sex: my gender is my sex.

(2) 'Gender' refers to the collective attributes or traits associated with a particular sex, or (putatively) determined as a result of one's sex. These attributes are culturally determined, and vary across time and place. In this sense, it makes no sense to say 'My gender is female' ... Gender in this sense is not something I have; not something I can be, as my sex is. 'I am female' can only refer to my sex, once we take 'gender' in this second sense. In this sense there is no such thing as my gender, so a fortiori my gender cannot match (or mismatch) my sex.

Trans ideology mixes these two senses of gender, resulting in incoherence.

Of course a sticking plaster is often offered involving claims of 'gender identity' ... this has difficulties of its own regarding 'identity', but really it cannot get off the ground at all, because in talking of gender identity and its mismatch with sex, its proponents are forced into the same equivocation as above regarding 'gender'.

... If my gender identity (male/female) uses 'gender' in sense (1), it cannot mismatch my sex. And if it uses 'gender' in sense (2), talk of mismatch cannot make any sense.

So, no matter what tergiversations he may offer regarding ‘gender’ and so on, when a man says, "I am a woman,” what he says is either false or meaningless.

Gender ideology needs what it cannot have: a sense of 'gender' not equivalent to 'sex' but nevertheless such that one's gender may (or not) match one's sex.

So, yes, OP, (tldr:) it is language at the root of the error.

When trans rights activists call me

A bigot
A Terf
A transphobe
A homophobe
A child abuser
A fascist
A Nazi

Just for saying that men can't ever actually become a woman

I stop trying to understand them and how they feel.

Why the fuck should I?

Because there's a world of difference between a trans activist who is abusive and violent, and a vulnerable teenager who is trying to identify out of going through female puberty.

Both may be 'trans' but one needs support. Understanding why kids are willingly signing up to the trans movement is the first step to making societal change. I do think there's value in attempting to see the world from their point of view, however much I may disagree with it

Gender ideology needs what it cannot have: a sense of 'gender' not equivalent to 'sex' but nevertheless such that one's gender may (or not) match one's sex.

Well put @liwoxac . It falls apart at the first instance. Would be happy to discuss with TRAs if they could, at the very least, be clear and honest about what they mean. They cannot.