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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Transwomen can't be a subset of women

90 replies

literalviolence · 20/04/2023 21:24

..unless women and transwomen have something in common.

Subset are a part of a larger group of related things.

Thing is, I have nothing in common with trans women. No woman who does not have a gender identity does. There are lots of us who don't have a gender identity.

Thoughts?

OP posts:
Nellodee · 20/12/2023 23:12

DC188, unless you can define man and woman in a non circular fashion (spoiler: you can’t) stop trying to dictate the meaning of those words to people with perfectly functional definitions that have served for millennia.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 20/12/2023 23:18

If you are referring to transwomen as hetero men, that implies they are men in dresses who fancy women. First, they are not men, and second they are predominantly attracted to the same birth sex (men).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8118227/

This small study was only carried out on a convenience sample of males with a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Do you believe they are the only people entitled to call themselves "trans women"?

If not, this figure is nonsense.

MargotBamborough · 21/12/2023 04:18

DC1888 · 20/12/2023 20:38

What?

Who's "mostly hetero men"?

If you are referring to transwomen as hetero men, that implies they are men in dresses who fancy women. First, they are not men, and second they are predominantly attracted to the same birth sex (men).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8118227/

"95.2% of trans women were sexually attracted to members of the same birth sex"

A sample size of 260 people with a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria is not exactly representative, is it?

As for "firstly, they are not men", really? Are they not?

What do you think a man is and why are they not men?

Man and woman are two of the oldest words in the English language and until about five minutes ago the fact that man means male person (i.e. the kind born with a penis) and woman means female person (i.e. a member of the childbearing sex) was completely uncontroversial.

The arrogance of a small group who want to redefine basic words to mean what they want them to mean and leave everyone else without the vocabulary to describe their lived experience is genuinely astounding.

Helleofabore · 21/12/2023 08:54

Note for readers:

Male people who transition to any gender identity are male people still after transition. They may wish or even demand that people use other words to describe them. However, if that male person has reached maturity they are still a man.

There is no scientific evidence at all available that proves that the person who transitioned has become less of a ‘man’.

People who believe that people are who they say they are, rather than observing the material reality state of that individual, have a belief system that guides that. Nothing more, nothing less. No one has to comply to that belief system’s requirements if they don’t believe.

This constant assertion that male people become not male or a man, sometimes will be premised on people being born in the wrong body. This is harmful misinformation. They may feel they should have been born differently, however this is not possible at all either.

If any male or female person chooses to modify their body to begin to resemble the opposite or neither sex, that person is still the sex they always were. They become a person of one sex who has simply chosen to modify their body in some way. Just because they have modified their hormones to replicate a female body’s hormones, simply makes that person a male with modified hormone levels.

Therefore it is important to remember that people who chose to follow their belief and make statements that do not reflect the provable and observable material reality are following their ideological belief. They may seek to change meaning of the shared language, however leveraging in a meaning of a word where that meaning represents the opposite of the intended meaning renders that word meaningless. Therefore it is perfectly fine for society to reject attempts to render communication meaningless. Despite the ardent wishes of those believers.

Slothtoes · 21/12/2023 09:13

It works perfectly if you’re very sexist and think that cultural gender stereotypes are as true a marker and representation of womanhood than biological sex is. Or that these stereotypes are actually so important they are actually more important than biological sex. You would say a person who shows gender non conformity means that they must be the opposite sex then. ‘Born in the wrong body’ beliefs.

it works if you believe woman = long hair, wearing feminine shoes or clothes or liking the colour pink or whatever. Sexists are quite happy to. believe that women and transwomen (men) have in common their femininity. The femininity makes them all be women. Sex isn’t the measure here.

And this belief is how they can also see transmen (women) or women who don’t perform femininity and will believe that they belong in the Men category instead.

Brainworm · 21/12/2023 09:54

KM's tweet was clear in that she was suggesting that misunderstanding or not having knowledge of a mathematical rule/ concept provides evidence of stupidity. She was suggesting that because some GC people have used the term 'subset' in a manner that doesn't hold true in mathematics, GC people as a class are 'stupid'.

Definitions of what constitutes 'stupid' vary, but not having specific knowledge of a concept doesn't fit mine. Critical reasoning and applying logic in a balanced way tends to result in being classified as smart or 'not stupid', except by gender ideologues. This tends to be classified as transphobic or bigoted.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 21/12/2023 10:03

NecessaryScene · 21/04/2023 07:38

The "subset" thing works as long as the definition of woman is "people who say they're women".

Transwomen are a subset of people who say they're women.

But then you're built on top of a circular definition.

Eventually it reduces to "transwomen are people who say they're 'women'" where the people saying that are each using a different definition.

They're a subset of people using a word, not a subset of a concrete group.

English conversations are a subset of chats. And French cats are also a subset of chats, if you define "chats" as "things using the word chat". But that's not a coherent statement about the world, it's a statement about language.

This is a really good explanation. Even Katie Montgomerie should be able to follow.

Froodwithatowel · 21/12/2023 11:46

nor are they men.

And Odin is real and sits in Vahalla
The earth is definitely flat
The moon landings were faked
And the tooth fairy will leave you money if you leave a tooth under your pillow.

These are opinions, not facts, and your milage may vary. 'Some people believe that'.... is a useful phrase.

In your chosen belief, you believe they are not men.
In my belief, yes, they are men.

PorcelinaV · 21/12/2023 11:52

fedupandstuck · 20/12/2023 16:27

What a silly point that this Montgomerie person is making. It's the mathematical point that a subset can be the whole set and still be considered a subset. So, if "women" is defined as all people who are biologically female, then women are technically a subset of their own sex, in mathematical terms.

This of course completely ignores the fact that people use the term "subset" in general conversation to always mean a "proper subset". ie a subset that is smaller than the containing set. So the phrase "women are not a subset of their own sex" should be read as "women are not a [proper] subset of their own sex". Only someone looking at that sentence in very very bad faith would take any other meaning from it. And certainly no mathematician is using that phrase to do any set theory calculations.

I think the only point that Montgomerie is trying to make is that "GC" people are all much stupider than Montgomerie! And a side order of trying to prove through wordplay that transwomen are correctly defined as female. Which is transparent nonsense.

If that is the point they were making then yes this is the correct response I think.

They are being pedantic and attacking a straw man; as anyone can easily just say, as you point out, "I was obviously talking about a proper subset".

I would see this as they are making a fool of themselves trying to bash on opponents, rather than looking for the truth of the matter.

WickedSerious · 21/12/2023 12:29

Froodwithatowel · 21/12/2023 11:46

nor are they men.

And Odin is real and sits in Vahalla
The earth is definitely flat
The moon landings were faked
And the tooth fairy will leave you money if you leave a tooth under your pillow.

These are opinions, not facts, and your milage may vary. 'Some people believe that'.... is a useful phrase.

In your chosen belief, you believe they are not men.
In my belief, yes, they are men.

Reality strikes again.

TempestTost · 21/12/2023 12:39

TBH, no, I don't think the logic of the OP works.

The problem is the statement isn't an argument, it's a premise. It might be factually wrong, but it's not illogical because you think the premise is untrue.

heathspeedwell · 21/12/2023 12:56

I suspect that around a decade or more ago it may have been the case that most men who identified as transexual were sexually attracted to men, and many of them felt dysphoria around their penis.

But when transsexuals were merged with cross dressers and all labeled as 'transwomen' then there was a massive shift and now the majority of men under the trans umbrella are attracted to women and have no intention of having surgery on their penis.

Sadly these adult males who enjoy the benefit of functioning genitals are exceedingly keen on medicalisation and surgery for young gender questioning people (most of whom would desist given a watchful waiting approach).

DarkDayforMN · 21/12/2023 13:31

The "subset" thing works as long as the definition of woman is "people who say they're women".

But of course that definition would exclude women who have cognitive impairments and can’t talk, women who are in comas, etc. And those are women who are extremely vulnerable to exploitation and oppression on the basis of their sex.

Even dead women are subject to sex-based oppression after death. https://www.distractify.com/p/why-do-morgues-prefer-to-hire-women

If being a woman, and even being female, is a matter of “identity” then how are all those groups to be classified?

I have a horrible feeling that for some of the people behind the identity-over-biology movement, the answer is “fair game.” Redefining a protected class as a matter of “identity” neatly removes protections from the most vulnerable members of the group - maybe that’s a feature, not a bug.

Datun · 21/12/2023 14:46

I thought it was cis women being a subset of women? In order to shoehorn in 'transwomen'.

So wouldn't that mean 'Women who aren't men', aren't a subset of anything called women? You know, because there's no such thing as a woman who is a man.

Froodwithatowel · 21/12/2023 15:18

There never is any logic to it.

I was skimming through the 2021 thread this morning about Hibo Wardere's abuse, where an activist was repeatedly demanding the phrase 'cis women' to be used, in fact to mean 'biologically female'. Which shows really, it only ever means 'the subhuman scum that aren't me and my mates' and that invariably turns out to be men.

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