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.

In time we will find a way to find a place for trans woman under the woman-umbrella.

No we won't, because as a group they have zero in common with women. Because they are male, and women are female.

No, I'd consider them a man.

I'm generally GC but I also feel like it'd be horrid to be on a girls night out with a TW and have to say "sorry love, you can't come in here with us. Ladies only." Which I know is hypocritical given my beliefs.

I would absolutely have no issues with the person that you have described but I would be worried by their pet unicorn.

Just occurred to me that this question could also be taken differently by not focusing on our own feelings about someone but by also asking if transwomen should be included in female statistics in general. Not just in crime statistics which we have discussed on MN, but in, for instance, earnings statistics.

Do transwomen earn more than women who have all the same qualifications, are the same age, have the same experience, the same health problems or the same absence of them, and who work in the same jobs?

I've never seen this question answered, because the focus has been on finding out if transwomen's earnings decline when they transition, not on finding out if their lifetime earnings, say, would still remain higher than those of someone otherwise the same except for the "different sex but transitioned" difference.

If we consider transwomen as women for data collection purposes, then many statistics would be affected, though not a lot, given that transwomen are fairly rare (though this would not be the case for all statistics as currently women are rare as perpetrators of sexual violence so adding even a few transwomen to that statistic will change how it looks overall).

Am not really sure that answers my question.

Surely biological plays a huge part of being a woman, and something a man cannot identify with as he has none of the lived experiences that women have of being female.

So, again, how does one identify as a woman?

No.

The only way to be a woman is to be an adult, a human and of the female sex.

Women are born, not made in a doctors surgery.

It's not my role in life to fix things for males who can't cope with being male.

For me, inclusion on a ‘girls’ night out’ would depend on how well the TW fitted into the group. I’ve been on the odd hen do where gay men were included, and they didn’t change the dynamic of the event at all.

I could only see myself becoming friends with a TW if they were a realist. ie, if they did not call themself a woman or claim to be female and did not use women’s single sex facilities.

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

Does she use the men's toilets? Does she take prizes intended to address discrimination against men? Does she take a men's podium place from a man in a cycling race? No, she does not. She uses a pseudonym as a novelist, like many have done since the invention of the printing press. Hope this helps.

Women have been writing under male names for centuries. Doesn’t mean they claim to be male. Does in fact mean they might have a better stab at being published and getting properly paid for their hard work.

What I find really strange is that there is not the same push for ensuring that trans men are treated as men.

Isn't it discrimination that trans men aren't treated as men for inheritance purposes? Surely if this were really about trans people having the rights of their acquired gender TRAs would be up in arms about this?

https://privatewealth.howardkennedy.com/post/102hr8e/primogeniture-and-inheritance-the-transgender-angle

Funny though that they are not.

Guess female born trans are just not as important.

I’ve worked with 3 men who enjoy role playing as women over the years. We’ve generally muddled along OK. I obviously have never considered them to be women, and feel that their views on womanhood are profoundly sexist. But then so are the views of plenty of other men I’ve worked with. Doesn’t mean you can’t work together.

I will say that the fact that I always felt they wanted something from me, for me to validate them by playing along made me very uncomfortable, and for that reason I never sought their company

I assure you I am not fishing or toddling off - I am reading every reply. As I have said, some of these questions were put to me at work and I didn't have answers because my own views are still evolving. I don't want to go back to the discussion as I don't want to push my luck with my colleague and risk my job.

As for girls night, that was the question asked me - would I exclude a transwoman from a girls night out? I didn't know because I hate excluding anyone but I also don't want to implicitly endorse something I don't believe in.

I thought the clever women of MN might be able to help.

If a man is along it’s not a girl’s night out is it? Going out as a mixed sex group is fine

as I said though, I’ve never met a man who enjoys role playing as a woman whose company I have actively enjoyed. I don’t deal well with needy people

It's not just about passing though is it? You could have a born male who passed perfectly on a night out with my group of female friends who would then suddenly have no personal experience to share when the conversation moved to birth, pregnancy, breastfeeding, periods, contraception choices etc.

A 'girly night out' says to me stereotypical feminine activities. I'd have absolutely no issue going to a day spa, manicure, getting make up done before cocktails somewhere with a man who enjoyed those things.

Time out with biological women is important to me though to be able to talk about the shared female experiences above.

I'm with Bernard. The single tw of my experience was just so tediously male. He basically dominated everything the friendship group did. Our role was to be his crew, his support band, the background singers to his diva.

I decided to put ME first.

Absolutely! Is this so hard to understand?

Depressing, but not surprising.

In that scenario, I would accept that person as a woman. I am capable of nuanced thinking, I can see that this scenario is very different from the really contentious issues that are dominating this board lately.

WTAF? JKR has never pretended to be a man. She has used pen names that obscure the fact that she's a woman. I wonder why she felt that was necessary...?

Time out with biological women is important to me though to be able to talk about the shared female experiences above.

This.

No man will ever be able to relate, regardless of how hard he tries to 'pass' as a woman!

This

The thing about facts, is that they are quite hard to argue with.

She literally claims to be a man for some of the books she writes.

Are you really so hard of thinking you don't see the difference between a pen name and being trans?

The extraordinary thing is not understanding why you might write under an alias. It’s just scrabbling around to find anything however flimsily “similar” to try and prove a point.
Who cares if JK Rowling or anyone else namechange or dance around in peacock feathers, it makes no difference to if you think a woman in jeans and a Tshirt is male.

Am I having a sense of humour failure, or are you being serious? (I'm laughing either way.) As PPs have noted, women authors using a male/ambiguous nom de plume to avoid the misogyny of the publishing industry isn't exactly new, and doesn't equate to claiming to be male.