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.

Honesty, what is the point? If your actions and opinions are so fragile that you can't bear to see that the majority of people disagree with you then isn't that telling you something? I wish TRAs would at least have the courage of their convictions.

JK Rowling pretends to be a man because she has a nom de plume? Wtaf 😂.

You seem to have difficulty distinguishing fiction from reality. Unlike JKR.

Hey, thanks for engaging!

JKR uses a pseudonym for a certain genre of her writing. That's a long used strategy by female (and in fact also male) authors if they believe their real name will affect how people perceive their work, either because they are already well known in a different genre or because their real name carries unhelpful social connotations (usually gendered).

Like almost everything to do with sex and gender, taking a black and white view out of context and saying "if it's not OK for X to do this in [context where X already benefits from structural sexism and acting to benefit from it], it's not OK for Y to do it in [completely different context where Y is disadavanted by structural sexism and acting to counter it]" isn't enough. This stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum, it is happening in the context of pre-existing sex imbalances so it's not logical to ignore those facts.

Would it be better if society didn't make gendered assumptions about authors? Of course. But given that it currently does, is it a valid strategy for female (and indeed male) authors to circumvent that by writing under another name? I would say yes.

But going beyond that, I disagree with your assertion that JKR is pretending to be a man in the first place. JKR is not pretending that she, JKR, is a man , she is pretending that those books were written by someone else who is a man. JKR, the woman, still exists as a woman. She hasn't claimed JKR the woman no longer exists and that her existence is now that of the man Robert Galbraith. That's entirely different to a trans woman's assertion that his/her life is now that of a woman, and their life as a man no longer exists.

My point is that Jk Rowling pretends to be a man whilst simultaneously criticising the reverse. It's illogical

So an author having an opposite sex pen name is illogical but any man who says he's a woman, means that he should be treated as one, is not illogical?

Are some posters self reporting to have their own posts removed? There are some odd deletions on here this morning. Perhaps I'm so accustomed to being insulted for believing in the material reality of biological sex I didn't notice the posts broke talk guidelines.

I wonder if other TRA type astroturfers are reporting things they feel are making the look bad.

LOL 😂

No one here has the slightest problem with people being trans or with people pretending to be the opposite sex. The issue is insisting that a biological male is a female without exception, and removing language, rights, privacy, dignity and equality from females.

It's the behaviour and issues with reciprocation of respect and compassion that are the issue; not the transition.

And using a male name is hardly transitioning is it? Or excluding and depriving others of access to facilities because you want your personally preferred choice of facility from all available to you, and don't care if that leaves others with nothing at all?

My point is that Jk Rowling pretends to be a man whilst simultaneously criticising the reverse. It's illogical

Your point doesn't stand up. You are coming across as illogical tbh.

I agree with @CharlotteSometimes1

You are conflating sex with gender.

They are separate and distinct categories. The connection between 'feminine' and 'female' is usually purely arbitrary.

My womanhood is defined by my chromosomes, in addition to my skeletal frame, reproductive anatomy, muscle density, general strength, and the fact that I produce large gametes. Womanhood isn't a mere subjectivity; it's a material, physical, immutable reality.

Anything beyond that is a social construct. Gender nebulous and elusive, to the extent that not one person I've asked has been able to give a clear, unambiguous interpretation of precisely what it comprises or how it's possible to 'live as' a member of the sex class to which you don't belong. You can change the way you present yourself to the world, either socially or by the extremities of surgery and hormonal change. But 'gender' is like shifting sands - it changes depending where in the world you are, and when in the world you are. No wonder constructing a supposed 'identity' on something so indistinct and ephemeral is turning out to be a discombobulating experience.

Not one recorded human, in the history of the homo sapien species, has ever possessed a body capable of producing both large and small gametes. DSD or no DSD. We are sexually dimorphic. And we can never become otherwise, no matter how many unscientific declarations of 'but .... spectrum' are made.

It's ridiculous, isn't it? No-one (well most people) don't care if a man decides to ask people to call him Barbara instead of Ed. That doesn't make him a woman. Putting 'Robert' as the author on her book does not mean that JK is pretending to be a man. The fact that TRAs try and draw such false equivalences is evidence of the fact that they have nothing substantial with which to try and justify their cause.

BTW, I said 'no' earlier but just want to clarify that I would also never consider a transman to be a man. It's all biological for me.

Agree

Yes JKR is famous for pushing her way into men's bathrooms and campaigning aggressively for men like her to be welcome there. 🙄

Kinell. This is hilarious.

Wonder if next they'll be retrospectively 'transing' Currer, Acton and Ellis Bell, not to mention George Eliot, as blokes ....

If you mean is there any hoop or combination of hoops a man (or amab if you prefer) can jump through in order to pass the test of being a woman, no because it isn't a test. It isn't a test you can pass or fail. You just are, or are not. It isn't a question about which stereotypes you have to fit, or how pretty you have to look.

Men can't pass the am I a woman test for the exact same reason my daughter can't fail it. It isn't a test. It isn't a set of ill defined and shifting standards you have to live upto in order to qualify. It's just a description of the kind of body you have. sex is real, binary and immutable, everybody has one and they don't have to do a goddamn thing to prove it. There is no wrong way to be a boy, no wrong way to be a girl. But boys aren't actually girls and girls, no matter how boyish, aren't actually boys.

a man in a lot of make-up is a man in a lot of make up
a man in a dress is a man in a dress
a gay man in a dress is a gay man in a dress
a heterosexual man in a dress is a heterosexual man in a dress

The only way any of the above seems like insults is sexism and homophobia. If you're actually comfortable with gender non conformity nothing I've said sounds wrong or insulting.

Considering a well known activist has tweeted this morning that Sharron Davis is trans and not a woman because Dylan Mulvaney is prettier than her.....

yes. Substance is lacking.

Yes, the more interesting question for me is whether I would go on a girls night out etc with a transman. It didn't take a moment's reflection... of course, yes ... as per previous poster, it's all biological for me.

They are a trans woman. No trans woman I know does pretend to have the same loved experience as someone born a woman. My close work colleague is trans. We go out to eat together, have stayed in hotels together, gone swimming/to a spa together. She is wonderful, whatever her outer shell.

They already are, I am afraid.

So insulting!

@RedToothBrush

you asked about siblings. My sister is a transwoman - she came out many years ago as a young adult. For context I am also GC so this is all quite complicated and conflicting for me.

As you can see I say sister and use female pronouns - that does come naturally now (it didn't at first!) and I do genuinely think of her as my sister. I have 2 other brothers but no other sisters though, so maybe this would be harder if I already had a sister, I don't know.

If somebody were to ask me whether I had any siblings, if it was a superficial conversation with somebody I didn't know well for example, I would just answer 2 brothers and a sister. In a different situation I may well explain that she is trans - I've had that conversation before.

I definitely don't think of her as a man, although I am of course aware that she is biologically male. Do I honestly however think of her as a woman, in the same way as I am? No. I just think of her as her, as a transwoman I suppose, as a third category.

Where it does get complicated is talking about before she came out. If say my mum and I are talking about our childhood in my sister's absence, we will revert to male pronouns and her original name, because to refer to her as a female child would be ridiculous and not our lived truth. But it does feel clunky to swap to different pronouns and name.

As I say it's hard. We have gone along with it because she was an adult and realistically by the point she came out to us there was little we could do, it was already happening. We are a close family and we love her very much - we colluded with it because the alternative of creating a massive family rift and what that could have done to her mental health was just unthinkable.

No

No, I would not consider them to be a woman.

Absolutely not