Still Genuinely Willing To Discuss In Good Faith

[Catiette]

I've taken the plunge and started a new thread. In the interests of good manners, an addendum that I may be disappearing to work for a while myself, as this has all been far too interesting to allow me to achieve any of my urgent weekend work to-dos today - I hope that, in the light of that, creating this follow-up thread isn't bad form. I just thought other people may want to continue discussing these issues (mainly, now, the redefinition of woman, and statistical trends re. women globally), and I'd definitely dip back in when the urge to procrastinate overcomes me next. No worries, of course, if people think we did it all to death on the old thread - we were fairly thorough, methinks(!), so can also just let Good Faith Discussion #2 rapidly fade into Mumsnet obscurity. 😀

Oops, think I’m supposed to link to the old one?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4794270-genuinely-willing-to-discuss-in-good-faith

Fed up of this shit.

You don't need to discuss the nuances of womanhood to decide whether or nor someone is a woman

There's a much easier way, look between your legs.

Following on from other thread - @SpookyFBI i found this bit of your post really interesting:

”…. but the difference as I see it is - do you see a trans woman as a man who happens to identify differently to other men, or a woman who happens to have a different body to other women? I see a trans woman as a woman who happens to have been born in a different body”

i think this probably the crux of the argument. And would expect that nearly all of us are in the former.

im sure others can add to why that is but in my view it’s because there is not equality of the sexes. Women are smaller, weaker etc than men. They are also more negatively impacted in say their careers due to their biology eg pregnancy. And your perspective doesn’t acknowledge that. Eg men in womens prisons isn’t solely about threat of sexual violence but about putting the more “dominant” sex in with the “weaker” sex. And not everything can be done on an individual basis.

TW are male.

TM are female.

Wear what you want, call yourself whatever the heck you want, hunan beings are wonderfully diverse and interesting but nobody on this fucking planet has ever changed sex.

Hope this helps.

I'm just place marking to catch up later (if the debate continues). I know I watch thread but I've name changed so I want to remember to comment here with the same name as before.

However did the human race survive for all these millennia when it's apparently oh so difficult to determine what a woman is? Oh wait. It's not difficult at all hence why we're still here because our ancestors knew exactly what was required to procreate i.e a woman and a man.

Thanks for the new thread. I am not finished discussing this!

It's good to get input from people who don't agree, so thanks to those offering good faith attempts at hashing out the points of dissent.

I don't think TWAW but I don't align with GC feminists. There were some threads on here r.e. 'Why can a man be a woman but I can't be black' etc etc or 'Does anyone feel no choice but to vote for the tories' and so forth. When you lift the lid on this stuff you have to ask yourself whether women who so ardently think like this really have the wellbeing of all women in mind.

This, from Spooky, I thought was interesting:

do you see a trans woman as a man who happens to identify differently to other men, or a woman who happens to have a different body to other women? I see a trans woman as a woman who happens to have been born in a different body,

Yes, I think this is the crux of the matter.

In the former example, the biological sex is the reality of the matter, the body that exists, with an understanding that the person has feelings and thoughts that they think seem to be similar to the feelings and thoughts that those of the opposite sex would have. Yes?

In the latter example, the suggestion is that the person's soul/feelings/thoughts are those of a particular sex, but the body is ... well, deformed(?) not matching. My attempt at describing that position.

What is the soul/idea/feeling that equates to 'woman', in the latter example? Can you define or describe it?

What are you taking 'align' to mean, here?

When all else fails the ususal retort from the 'genuine dialogue seekers' is that wanting to protect women's dignity and integrity is based on nothing more than prejudice whipped up by a right wing government in a time of hardship.

The fact, though, is that manyt people who post here, and many who don't, have been engaged with this issue for years; long bfeore it was even taken up as an issue for discussion at all. In fact if it were not for this organisation and total commitmentthen it would still not be reported on in any of the mainstream media, and the government would not now be talking about taking action to protect the category of sex.

This has been grassroots, bottom up movement. It has been quite thrilling to be part of a resurgent women's movement. That the U.K seems, in many respects, to be leading this conversation is very interesting, and worthy of discussion in and of itself.

I also am happy to end the discussion if it is no longer desired by anyone but I do what to convey my sincere apology for using the term ‘gender criticals’, I was under the impression that it was the preferred term but I did see a post in the other thread which said it was offensive.

😅Yup, I think from some of the above that some people may be ready to move on now! In the interests of clarity, and before I steel myself to disappear once and for all til much later, I’m on your page, Bluebells and Baldie! 📖 Someone else started the last thread with rather less evidence of good faith than initially professed, but it evolved into some interesting discussion.

I hope you stick around to discuss!

I see a trans woman as a woman who happens to have been born in a different body

How does that definition not also apply to a man? "If my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle".

Or, Blackadder:

We don't all identify with the term 'Feminsit' either....in fact I actually think it is quite zeitgeisty to be once again focused on women's rights and issues, without having to sign up for a whole dogmatic agenda that tends to be predicated on 'patriarchy'. Women's issues concern all women - no matter their race, colour, creed, ethnicity, culture or political persuasion.

@SpookyFBI
Could you rethink your use of 'cis' too please?

@Catiette You say you're seeking a good faith conversation, would that include someone who used to be part of the "queer" community?

I ask because there's a glaring difference in the experience of transmasc and transfemmme people that no one seems to want to talk about.

I haven't finished reading the last thread so I'm a bit behind.

However this align thing struck me.

What does align mean here in this instance?
Because I've thought about this a bit and I dont exactly align with everyone here. We have crossover points of course, but exact alignment, no.

Comparing the UK to Iceland is not a like for like comparison. Scale for starters but that was ignored in the last thread so I will try again with some diversity measures.

Ethnicity for another example. There's 19 ethnic groups.

In 2021, 81.7% (48.7 million) of usual residents in England and Wales identified their ethnic group within the high-level "White" category, a decrease from 86.0% (48.2 million) in the 2011 Census.

Do you think it's possible that there's a correlation between ethnic diversity and lower scores for women's equality? That's certainly the message we are given. Does Iceland have a similar profile?

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/ethnicity/bulletins/ethnicgroupenglandandwales/census2021#:~:text=The%2019%20ethnic%20groups%20in%20England%20and%20Wales&text=There%20was%20a%20decrease%20in,507%2C000%20(0.9%25)%20in%202021.

Nationality?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/759859/non-british-population-in-united-kingdom-by-nationality/

There are at least 10 nationalities in the UK in bigger numbers than the entire population of Iceland. Any chance this has an impact on equality for women?

Again, any other focus actually on women instead of men and the answer would be undoubtedly yes.

Let's see this explained away.

@spooky
If you say a man claiming to be a woman is a woman who just happens to have the wrong body, you are treating "woman" as a gender identity and saying that the TW has a male sexed body which he does not feel comfortable in. But a person's sex is a system, not a random accumulation of sex characteristics, and is determined at conception. Fertilisation introduces the SRY gene which determines sex, so even at zygote stage, the potential human being is sexed. Hormones and enzymes switch on or suppress the development of male or female sexual organs and characteristics depending on whether the embryo is male or female, NOT randomly. I expect you know this but I am emphasising it to show that no-one can be born in the wrong sex body. The only body you were ever going to have is the one you do have. It is literally and logically impossible to be in the wrong sex body. There is no stage of anyone's existence at which their sex was fluid or undetermined. And it's not true that we all start out female and some of us become male - it's male or female from the start. Your brain is part of your body so you can't have a wrong sex brain, either.

Calling a TW a trans-identifying male references his actual body AND his discomfort with it. So it is a clearer and more accurate description, whether or not you believe in gender identity because transgender identity is predicated on the existence of sexed bodies. The resistance to "trans-identifying male" as a term comes (IMO) from a desire to colonise womanhood - hence the insistence from some that males do have periods etc and also the insistence that the penis is a female sexual organ. Depending on their reason for claiming to be a woman.

On the subject of gay marriage, yes you are quite right that some opposed it on the basis that it was changing the meaning of marriage. But since marriage is a social construct, we can change its meaning. It exists because we created it. Within certain parameters, it can be whatever we want it to be. But sex existed for hundreds of millions of years before people did. Our existence as a species and as individuals is because of sexual reproduction. Sex exists independently of us. We can't change what sex is. That's the difference.

How can you even entertain the idea of locking women in cells with males? All rape and sexual assault is bad, we both agree on that, but why is it so important to affirm the inner sense of self of a male person (I am charitably assuming gender dysphoria here) that you feel it is justifiable to massively increase the risk of rape and sexual assault and coercive control to women prisoners - who bear no responsibility whatsoever for the rape stats in men's prisons? Are you aware that in some states in the US and in Canada, more and more rapists and paedophiles are routinely housed in women's prisons - often in mother and baby units - if they self ID as women or even children? Deal with the safety of males in men's prisons. Don't endanger women and children to protect men.

Im not to sure what you mean? Ardently think like what exactly?

I have completely missed the whole of the last thread as I've been ill but I'd like to ask if I may about this 'born in the wrong body' theory.

If a man lives his whole life as a man and then one day, decides he was born in this wrong body, at what point do people who believe him, decide to accept this?

So you will have some men to whom this applies and always applied and who kept it under wraps
Some men who decided this after watching extreme porn
And some men who lie.

What are you doing in your heads to unravel which is which in order to accept that this premise is true? And when does it become true for you?

I think the table/data suggestion posted might have been interesting and worth looking at, if I could have found any further info on what the ranking was based on. I think Helleofabore had found some instances, such as 'having a female head of state', but really, I think such a huge and wide ranging question as posed by that table/ranking requires lots of indepth information on what metrics were used and how they were arrived at, links to sources, etc.

Otherwise I just found it utterly vague. Anyone could decide to rank countries on any criteria they feel like - by counting female dentists, or infant mortality, or by the availability of running shoes in half sizes. Who knows?

And further suggesting that self ID was the be all and end all is also questionable. Different countries have very different laws, cultures and social pressures - self ID varies from country to country, it's not that easy to compare, say, self ID in Iran with self ID in Ireland.

All of the Nordic countries have fairly recently stopped puberty blockers for children. Many people argued that this was harmful to the care of 'trans children'.

So, the issues are far more nuanced and complex than 'good' for women or 'good for trans'. It seems ridiculously simplistic to try and compare these almost cartoonishly unqualified positions, let alone correlate them.

I agree….I’m lurking but there have been some excellent and interesting posts from varied posters