Would you ever consider a transwoman a woman?

[ZeldaFighter]

If a person had transitioned from male to female early in life and had lived quietly and unobtrusively as a woman for say 20 or 30 years, would you consider offering that person the status of "womanhood"?

Would you go on a girls night in a group with them?

Would you think differently if the person had had gender reassignment surgery?

What if they did actually pass?

What if they had a husband and kids?

This isn't a gotcha and I don't know the answers. I am instinctively annoyed by the taking away of women's things but I am also dismayed by the hurt and harm potentially caused to trans people. I'm trying to decide my own position and wondering if there are compromise positions. Apologies if this has been asked before and thank you for your thoughts.

No

No, time doesn’t change biology.

Why would you be upset about your friend using a male space. A transwoman is a male. You do realise if women allow your friend in “because shes lovely” that means we let all males who claim to be trans in. So Karen white, Katie dolowski, Isla Blair. Are you comfortable with that? Or do you think we should just let the “lovely” ones in our spaces? Either all transwomen are women in every sense or they are not and get treated as the males they are. Which would you prefer?

I'd very very happily socialise with/befriend, hire, attend the wedding of, defend against hate crimes, etc etc etc a TW, in exactly the same way as I would any other man.

Wouldn't ever support their inclusion in female spaces. I suppose that the egregiousness of the offence caused by their inclusion in female spaces would be mitigated slightly by each of the following that apply: their having had full surgery; having been working on their game over a number of years/decades; their being attracted to males; their being physically small and intimidating. e.g. I wouldn't consider a gay, disabled, 90 year old man all that much of an issue in a woman's space, similar considerations apply to TW.

When I initially encountered this question, I said yes as I felt it wasnt my job to gatekeep womanhood. I then avoided the issue even as some women who didnt assent as graciously as I did were being attacked and sidelined. I only peaked when I read about the cotton ceiling - and I am as straight as they come. It seemed such a terrible invasion and insult of a minority female sexuality/space. Once your eyes are open to the consequences of accepting a lie, it is impossible to give even an inch of ground. My answer is No. I cannot consider transmen as men either to be clear.

Surely there is space for trans wonen to be trans women rather than men.

They can be transwomen. Does not mean they should use female spaces. If they are uncomfortable in male spaces that is not women’s problem. They need to work on their fellow males I become more accepting. Not women’s problem.

Surely there is space for trans wonen to be trans women rather than men.

That space is not in the womens. They are biological men.

My views on this were very very different when I didn't realise that the gender identity ideology would be assumed to apply to all people, even to those of us who don't share the belief of an abstract gender identity, and that we would have the female sex slowly erased from language and, ultimately, from everything.

As long as I thought that the basic definition of 'woman' had not changed I was willing to view trans women as women for most social purposes, though not where sex directly counted. But, sadly, this is not acceptable for the trans activists who seem to want to decide on everything and accept no compromises whatsoever. So, sadly, I must refuse that offer.

The transwomen I know and have met do not come across remotely female to me.

And any discussion below the superficial shows that they believe utterly batshit things as well as having a very sexist worldview. So I haven't felt able to stay close.

Yes I would. I would have a lot of sympathy as their life wouldn’t have been easy. And I believe that some people are born in the wrong body. But I would prohibit participation in women’s sports where a male physique gives an advantage. We don’t seem to debate anything with nuance now-just seething anger from both sides of the debate.

@Hongkongsuey how is someone born in the wrong body? To believe that surely you’d have to believe in tendered souls, and that there is a stockpile of bodies somewhere with an overworked employee matching the souls and the bodies. If so beige has body dysphoria surely the best solution is therapy to help them accept their body, not to
Make them lifelong medical patients?

Maybe I’m showing my age but it was a common saying to mean that although born a woman, they felt like a man or vice versa.

I do find this kind of comment lacks imagination and empathy. Can you imagine you are yourself but you look down and see a penis and no breasts? That would be distressing, no? Do you think the people who say they feel born in the wrong body are just lying? It ok to have the opinion that that's tough shit, and those people can never be real women, but to disbelieve their experience to me seems quite callous.

This

No, but I could still like someone very much and appreciate that they may suffer greatly from dysphoria. Objective reality matters, I wouldn’t feel the need to tell them they are not a woman but would I ever see them as an actual woman? No.

I find it very mentally jarring to see trans people, both men and women. It always just looks like a person in fancy dress, and then I have an internal dialogue along the lines of ‘do they really think people believe they are a man/woman?’ Its the same when chosen pronouns are used that don’t match biology.

I would be polite and friendly to a trans person on a night out, but there would always be that dialogue and cognitive dissonance going on in my head.

All the overt, stereotypical ‘feminine’ behaviour that some transwomen indulge in just makes me cringe.

And yet @atthebottomofthehill the vast majority of TW are not repelled by their own penis are they? They retain it.

Superbly put.

Like @Helleofabore , I am pretty tired of the TRA/ gender ideologist fiction that ‘womanhood’ is a club one can earn entry to, or be denied entry too ( by nasty feminists and Equality Acts). It’s not. It’s really not. And trying to make it so means buying into the sexist bollocks. Women need single sex spaces to keep them free from the sexist bollocks of predatory men, from the psychologist harm of a male presence caused by the sexist bollocks of men who have harmed and harassed them in the past.

You can opt into the club of sexist bollocks of how you treat and regard women. But you can’t opt into being a woman. That’s just something that happens to juvenile females as they grow up.

I would accept that gender dysphoria is an illness and while showing empathy, refuse to cross the line over to validating the illness as an identity. What would you do about able bodied people people who believe their bodies are somehow wrong and want to amputate limbs or blind themselves? When children are now being taught that they can be born in the wrong body and have the choice to modify their body to fit their 'innate' self , how does your empathy and imagination help the disabled children sitting there hearing this nonsense? Where is the choice for them?

Such posters havent caught up with the current reality of the gender id movement. They are thinking of the transsexxuals, usually homosexual, of the past who lived in very restrictive and homophobic societies where escaping their sex was the only way their sexuality was socially acceptable.

God. These fishing expedition threads are so bloody tedious. Present some sort of faux naive questions, claim there’s no ‘gotcha’ and/or that they’re ‘GC as they come’, and then toddle off to congratulate themselves on how clever they are in challenging the awful women of MN.

This one doesn’t even seem to understand that a ‘girls’ night’ is not in any way comparable to toilets or changing rooms or whatever. It’s just a night out with friends.

Having a male body also puts them at advantage in being able to harm women in refuges, single sex homeless hostels, changing spaces, prisons, single sex addiction recovery centres. Having a male body means every woman there knows that person has the potential and ability to harm them, and that they, in their smaller, weaker female bodies, are unlikely to be able to fight them off. Having a male body will be alarming and traumatizing to many of the women forced to share that space. Having a male body and being forced to undress in front of that body will be distressing and traumatizing for many women.

Why does that male body advantage not concern you in those situations?

Yes x 1000

this

it's like someone being really fat, it's true, you know its true, they know it's true. Most of the time you don't need to mention it because it doesn't matter much. It is also possible for a person to be a total dick about someone's weight but also there are circumstances where it is relevant and you have to be honest about it and there's nothing remotely wrong with that (e.g. healthcare for correct dosage of medicines, safety limits on donkey rides or roller coasters etc.).

I think all sane people have a good intuitive grasp of telling if someone is saying something to be a dick, but complaining a fat person is heavy whilst they're standing on you is not you being rude but them.