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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Genuinely willing to discuss in good faith

1000 replies

beachcitygirl · 27/04/2023 17:40

Hello.

This is a thread for those who are uncomfortable with black and white and less than civil discourse around self id.

I welcome those with different views but I don't on this thread welcome those who only want to state their firm settled opinion without nuance or discussion that self id is absolutely wrong.

It's my view that there is no point in discussion if mind firmly made up.
I'll respect your legal right to that view but there's not much point chatting about it and pissing each other off.

There are plenty threads of gc women hoping to create more gc women and that's fine.

I'd like this to be a different space. A place for anyone with genuine questions, discussion points and where we all try to be civil and attempt to answer each other in good faith. Anyone who is unsure, let's talk:

My views are that trans women should be treated in every aspect as women and they are our natural allies against misogyny and the patriarchy and that women are more than their biology.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
34
Datun · 28/04/2023 11:07

SelfPortraitWithHagstone · 28/04/2023 10:52

Also it occurred to me that while I think @lechiffre55 's idea is a really good one - does it strike anyone else as rather telling that even in a discussion about gender roles we wait and wait, patiently trying to cajole someone into doing something that they maintain they want to do but can't, because we're being SO MEAN, and then finally shrug and roll our eyes and decide to do it ourselves? 😆

Haha! And it'll get done quicker

Ramblingnamechanger · 28/04/2023 11:08

In Spain ,which has indeed introduced self id recently, there has also been a reduction in sentences for certain sexual abuse crimes, which in effect tells women that crimes against us are less serious. Among older women there is a fear also of returning to the Franco era when talking about women only spaces…while at the same time seeing the bullying men in the pool, for example. So it certainly is not all great news, and there is also anti abortion campaigning in some areas.

SelfPortraitWithHagstone · 28/04/2023 11:10

Seeing as it's Friday could you not offer a wee bit of fluffy reassuring fantasy to counter it?

How about some smug self-congratulation that at least we have reached the sunlit uplands of feminist enlightenment? 😉

And cake, of course. I've got some I've dropped on the carpet if you'd particularly like fluff...?

NotTerfNorCis · 28/04/2023 11:11

Interesting that the fundamental question, 'what actually is a woman', is being dismissed as a dog whistle. I've seen TRAs do the same before. They try to make difficult questions unaskable.

tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz · 28/04/2023 11:25

beachcitygirl · 27/04/2023 22:32

@WeeBisom

I absolutely will answer but in short (very short) & then I'm off for the evening

Womanhood is a social construct. So anyone in society that feels that constraint or feels that they don't fit in the box that society has placed upon them by calling them boys or girls or men or women is welcome to the word. That's what a woman is.
Anyone who says they are a woman is.
And yes I would like to remove any distinction between the sexes. It's never done females any good.

Gender is man made for sure. So is a table, I still ate my dinner off mine an hour ago. It's still real and definable and impossible to deny imho.

Biological sex is real but all the stuff that's piled on re restrictions, femininity, masculinity, and so on is a mistaken and restrictive way to build society. Places people with rules and restrictions and there are punishments for stepping outside the rules.

Making a society on a part of a body is nonsense.

We could just as easily be making our society about another bodily part. Height for example. It's just as random (and wrong)

There are of course mountains to climb to move away from hegemonic masculinity but recognising that some
Already have is a good start.

I also believe we should not belittle minorities in word or deed.

OP if womanhood and our spaces are a free for all do you think sex segregated spaces should be removed all together so biological men who identify as such can come and get changed for swimming, try their clothes on in John Lewis, possibly across the room from our unaccompanied young teen daughters?

ArabeIIaScott · 28/04/2023 11:25

Fluffy cake? FFS. Okay. Just pick the worst bits out.

ArabeIIaScott · 28/04/2023 11:26

NotTerfNorCis · 28/04/2023 11:11

Interesting that the fundamental question, 'what actually is a woman', is being dismissed as a dog whistle. I've seen TRAs do the same before. They try to make difficult questions unaskable.

Yes, absolutely. It's purely 'no debate' from a slightly different angle.

'Ask me anything. No, not that'.

HootyMcBooby76 · 28/04/2023 11:26

Again OP, you have stated this thread is full of transphobia.

QUOTE the transphobic posts here for us all.
SHOW us where the actual transphobia is.

You can't.

So much for a reasoned debate. A simple question like "what is a woman" has you running for the hills with the oh-so-predictable responses like "transphobic! dog whistle! echo chamber!".

These are not reasoned responses.

They are the well known and well rehearsed catch phrases of your ideology.

They are the last resort of an ideology which cannot be defended because it is based on lies, threats, intimidation, and untenable nonsense.

GailBlancheViola · 28/04/2023 11:33

They are the last resort of an ideology which cannot be defended because it is based on lies, threats, intimidation, and untenable nonsense.

Amen to that.

Funny how this amazing 'common sense' explanation never appeared and everything that was stated made no sense whatsoever.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 28/04/2023 11:40

I see the flounce has already happened but I was going to ask if it was OK to be uncool about having to share changing rooms with individuals with penises. Predictable I suppose but still a major concern.

lechiffre55 · 28/04/2023 11:53

PurpleBugz · 28/04/2023 10:44

@lechiffre55

When you do that post can you put a statement that is what you are doing please? I'd love to participate and try entering the discussion from the other side, I think if I was born 20 years later I'd be trans and I could add a lot to such a debate I feel. but if you don't explicitly say it I'm likely to miss the point and stick to my current gender critical thinking

Yes willdo.
I'm hoping to get a start on it today after work. Do some research on some of the ideas and hopefully kick it off this weekend maybe. I'd love some people to join me on the "other side" and @PurpleBugz you sound like you have much more to offer than I do, so I hope you do join in. I will bring cake hint hint.
The invasionary posts always seem to start off with really strict rules of what is and isn't allowed. Go and read the one that started this thread, only the last paragraph is discussion, all the preamble is rules that you must obey. That's nuts when you are trying to discuss as adults. "Lets talk, but here's what you can and cant say". So I was thinking of aping that slightly by trying to put some structure into the debate and create two teams. But didn't like red and blue, I was thinking of purple and orange and then saw your post and board name so the "other" side is going to be team purple, team orange will be the GC home team of mumsnet.
You're all adults you don't have to pick a team and stick to it, but I thought it might be fun to try. I'm also going to go through a bunch of threads and distill the main recurring points from both sides e.g. what is a woman? and try to select maybe 6 from each side and number them. I'm hoping posters will use the number of the topic they are arguing about at the start of each post to make sort of sub threads where if you follow all the posts that start with a given number it's a single topic.
I think it will be an interesting experiment, and from my experience of what I've read here I think it could be a really good discussion with the quality of thought on and reasoning here. God knows I've had enough of the bad faith posts, they are just tedious now.
Anyone who wants to suggest main recurring points that keep coming up on both sides that should be the topics of debate please feel free to shout 'em out. Aiming for roughly 6 ish on each side.

DeanVolecapeAKAelderberry · 28/04/2023 12:02

Womanhood is a social construct.

If 'womanhood' is the state of being a woman, that is nonsense. Being a woman is the physical sexed experience of living in an adult body shaped by XX chromosomes. Being a woman is as different from being a man as being a cow is from being a bull.

Being human of course brings us much richer lives than those lived by cattle. Our intellectual capacity is not shaped by or limited by our sex, our ability to overcome the problems posed by sex differences is vast, women and men can do anything they want to do, including ignoring the random stereotypes and fashions suggested by their societies.

But we can't change sex.

JolyGoodBloviator · 28/04/2023 12:02

The whole reason women have ‘Womens Rights’ on top of ‘Universal Human Rights’ is because of the inherent disadvantage that comes with a female body.
It took approx years of universal human rights before it was acknowledged that while life was improving for men, women were not enjoying the same improvements. Thanks to second wave feminism, ‘Women’s Rights’ now exist,

The degree of sex based differences between mammals varies quite a bit based on a number of factors (eg horses, we don’t divide by sex for human equestrian sports because the animal is the physical equaliser - still though, most top horses are male! But in horses the sex differences are less pronounced so the most amazing female horses can keep up with the males. Mammals with fewer sex differences are less labour intensive to rear than humans - baby horses are born and can stand up and take shaky steps immediately but it takes an average human baby about a year to do the same)

Women are, on average, shorter, less fast and less strong than men, especially in upper body strength, and most pronounced in grip strength (have you ever heard of a woman choking a man to death with one hand via a bdsm type sex game? I haven’t)

Women shoulder all of the gestational burden and most of the child rearing burden (partly due to things like breastfeeding, partly because we are genuinely better at it (on average!) partly because we are more inclined to give a shit about our offspring (whether that’s biological or socialisation is still up for debate, I’d say it’s 6 of one, half dozen of the other),

Regardless of the nature/nature aspect, women are statistically more likely to need time away from the workplace for childcare purposes and thus women as a class need employment protections so that we are not penalised by this (society as a whole needs a new generation to be born, it’s not purely for the benefit of the child-wanting individual). Even women who deliberately choose never to have children need this protection against discrimination, because 80% of women do have children, and thus most female employees of fertile age are perceived as likely to need that time off at some point.

The reason the 1970s slogan ‘Womens’ Rights are Human Rights’ makes sense is because every single human came out of a woman and most children are raised by a woman. Solving violence against women and lifting women out of poverty benefits both sexes because male and female children benefit from not living in poverty stricken, violent homes.

Transmen will, despite modifying their bodies, still need to access the same rights and protections as other females. Transmen will still be on average, smaller and slower than men (although testosterone can make them stronger if they use it as an aid to muscle building, hence it being a banned substance in sport). Transmen will still have to deal with the unique functions of the female reproductive system, they may need abortions, have babies, require maternity leave and flexible working for childcare reasons. Even if they choose to surgically remove their reproductive function they will still encounter the uniquely female experience of a hysterectomy and the consequences of such, osteoporosis, increased risk of prolapse, of early onset dementia etc.

It makes absolutely no sense to treat male transitioners as women in every legal sense when every legal protection for women is based on having a female body.

It makes no sense to treat female transitioners as men in every legal sense when they still need the extra protections for people living in a female body.

Womens’ Rights are Transmens’ Rights are Human Rights.

It’s not transphobic to want transmen to retain legal protections based on material reality.

MavisMcMinty · 28/04/2023 12:10

You people are amazing, thank you. I’ve learnt so much from you all. Your posts compared with those of the OP are so inspiring and insightful.

Very much looking forward to the fine feminists of MN “steelmanning” the TRA arguments, I truly hope @beachcitygirl lurks (silently) on there, if only to improve their own argument.

CherryYoga · 28/04/2023 12:13

I’m kind of getting second hand embarrassment reading through OP’s posts. Especially when she claims to want a good faith argument but then immediately crumbles at the question “what is a woman?” and then goes on a huge rant and accuses others of trolling.

It’s not a hateful question. It’s hard to have an effective “good faith” argument if you don’t know. For some people a woman is an adult human female. For others it’s a feeling. And knowing what the definition is for that person is important when having a debate.

SmartHome · 28/04/2023 12:21

Womanhood is a social construct. So anyone in society that feels that constraint or feels that they don't fit in the box that society has placed upon them by calling them boys or girls or men or women is welcome to the word. That's what a woman is.
Anyone who says they are a woman is.

I fundamentally disagree with this. I think only adult human females are or ever can be women. Why cant people like the OP juts accept that? That people disagree with them? My friend is a catholic. I am an atheist. I dont tell her her belief in God is wrong or silly. She doesnt tell me I will burn in hell. Why are they always so intent on making everyone submit to their beliefs? It's never going to happen.

NickCaveisonMN · 28/04/2023 12:23

Question: What is a woman

Answer, if you've been paying attention and know humans can't actually change sex: Adult Human Female

Answer, if you have already said TWAW: dog whistle, be kind, be polite, you lot mean something different from your actual words I think you are talking in code to each other about me, why won't you agree with me! How about if i insult you, then will you agree with me? Why won't you play with me! Mummmmmmmy! The other girls called me names!

Did i miss anything?

RealityFan · 28/04/2023 12:24

beachcitygirl · 27/04/2023 17:43

Why do you ask? What does it mean to you?

Your response to that simple Q is already a statement in bad faith.

If someone asked what Brexit was, or how you define your politics, you wouldn't reply "why do you ask? What does it mean to you?"

No, you'd engage in the spirit of the Q.

Not so on trans issues, it seems.

ArabeIIaScott · 28/04/2023 12:27

In defence of the OP and other posters with similar views, it is very hard to state your case in a situation where your view is in the minority.

It's HORRIBLE being the centre of a pile on. And I think because of the way social media works, several people disagreeing with you can feel like a pile on even if that isn't the intent of posters.

If someone knows right from the start that their views are a minority, it does perhaps put them on the defensive.

So it's very easy to start defensive, and respond emotively, and get caught in an attack position. This only tends to inflame other posters, and exacerbate the dynamic. I hope I'm not misrepresenting anyone there, I'm trying to be as even handed as I can be.

I can even see the reasoning behind trying to set some ground rules, although this is tricky to do without it appearing controlling, which again, most people tend not to respond very well to.

CherryYoga · 28/04/2023 12:28

SmartHome · 28/04/2023 12:21

Womanhood is a social construct. So anyone in society that feels that constraint or feels that they don't fit in the box that society has placed upon them by calling them boys or girls or men or women is welcome to the word. That's what a woman is.
Anyone who says they are a woman is.

I fundamentally disagree with this. I think only adult human females are or ever can be women. Why cant people like the OP juts accept that? That people disagree with them? My friend is a catholic. I am an atheist. I dont tell her her belief in God is wrong or silly. She doesnt tell me I will burn in hell. Why are they always so intent on making everyone submit to their beliefs? It's never going to happen.

And the problem with this attitude odd that women get special rights based on female biology. When you claim it is a social construct then you are basically saying that people with this type of biology don’t need or require those rights because they don’t exist and you create an environment where anyone can claim those rights and they slowly become null and void.

Who gets the special rights when you cannot define what a woman is?

This is where I feel like they go full circle and technically become anti feminist on accident here. They claim to be the defenders of women but then slowly erode our rights by making it taboo to legally define us.

How on earth is that helpful to women?

RealityFan · 28/04/2023 12:28

FOJN · 27/04/2023 17:46

It's my view that there is no point in discussion if mind firmly made up.

Also

My views are that trans women should be treated in every aspect as women and they are our natural allies against misogyny and the patriarchy and that women are more than their biology.

Sounds like what you really want is a place for your own views to go unchallenged, that's not what I'd call "good faith".

Always the way. It's as if the No Debate period that is ending thru sheer willpower from GC women is always being attempted to be resurrected.

Now, the No Debate is framed as Why Do You Want To Debate? This OT a perfect example.

I've always said, EVERY previous, genuine, social justice movement, was PROUD to debate, not curtail, inhibit, harass the argument. Not so it seems with trans.

And thus by definition it's a fake social justice movement.

Next.

ArabeIIaScott · 28/04/2023 12:30

And I'm not excusing insults or attacks, btw, just trying to explain some of the reasons these threads so often follow a pattern.

'Good faith' is tricky when posters don't trust each other. I'm not sure how to get around that, tbh.

How to neutralise some of the emotion, and lay ground rules that allow civil discourse but allow for open debate.

ArabeIIaScott · 28/04/2023 12:31

*ensure civil discourse

ArabeIIaScott · 28/04/2023 12:32

I guess its worth looking at the power dynamics and structures we're working within.

Bearing in mind also that FWR has always had an element of cat-herding built into it.

BonfireLady · 28/04/2023 12:33

I declared myself out when the OP seemed to disappear, then had a look back this morning when I had seen them re-engage.

I didn't find any points raised by the OP that helped me to understand any pro-self ID position. However, I found lots of useful posts about it all which helped me have a conversation with my daughter (not my autistic daughter if anyone knows me from other posts) about it all on the way to school. At the start of the journey she was very pro-self ID. By the end, she agreed it made no sense. Both of us still maintained the position that people could hold any gender identity belief they liked and deserved to do so free of intimidation or harm. She also finally understood why I didn't feel I had a gender identity. Initially she thought I was trying to say I wasn't a woman 😬😂 The difference between fact and belief should never be muddled.

I had never had to approach it from this angle before, so thanks OP for raising it 👍

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