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. 😀

Absolutely right. I would love to hear more from and about women who claim to be men. I'd say though that they get more consideration on these boards than elsewhere.

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.

Agree and I would also like to record my amusement at how competitive left wing socialists are over who is winning in the league tables.

I thought all that winning and being on top competitive stuff was vile right wing behaviour we must not align with.

Analogies by definition don't compare two things that are exactly the same. Why do transracial analogies trouble you?

This is the perfect thread for you. We do need to discuss these things with as many different people, with many different experiences.

Re: prisons Spooky, all the stuff PP said above but also could you look at your comments about prisons and see how the women in prison feel is completely brushed over? Do you not think that’s odd? What purpose does it serve and to who? It’s like a sales pitch that ignores the bad stuff

Interesting post on the asktransgender subreddit today.

Patriarchy, or as I like to call it, The Patricia-arcy, is still alive and well in US state politics, only now it’s hidden from the statistics on sex balance in elected bodies.

Spooky, do you understand the difference in posting ‘the transes’ and ‘trans people’. And ‘gender criticals’ and ‘gender critical people’ ?

It is the same dehumanising factor of using ‘menstuators’ or ‘cervix havers’.

But yes spooky please do keep posting.

I cannot see TW as women, or TM as men, even though, worried that I was being unkind, I tried inwardly whispering the mantra to myself. There was no getting away from it. My rational brain just said no way. TW are males who want to be women, and TM are females who want to be men.

If a woman cannot be defined as an adult human female, then women do not exist. So why would a TW identify as something that does not exist? It’s so confusing to me.

I cannot accept that TW are really a subset of women and not a subset of men. I don’t believe anyone is born in the wrong body. We get what we’re given and we make the best of it. Gender dysphoria is real, and I understand that for some people, using opposite sex pronouns, clothing, hormones and surgery may go some way to help ease their distress.

You can modify how you present yourself to the world. But you can’t change what is ingrained in every fibre of your being: your biological sex.

mumsnet is absolutely the best place to talk about this stuff. No-nonsense, empathetic, and above all, willing to listen. You don't get that anywhere else.

@ArabeIIaScott

I was going to post the following on the previous thread:

@suggestionsplease1 Why did you choose the WEF's GGGI rather than the GII used by the UNDP? Apart from the GII not supporting your hypothesis that is.

Is it not a fact that the GGGI, the GII and their predecessors are all about as much use as a cheese teapot at measuring the actual gender gap due to arbitrary assumptions, a narrow set of criteria and eccentric weighing between criteria?

Arabella on the importance of defining terms I wonder who has been classed as the UK head of state? We have had a female head of state for 70 years as the queen was head of state but I suspect they will have used the PM.

Thank you for the new thread Catiette, I will be following with interest.

I'm glad Spooky is sticking around and welcome the thoughtful and articulate exchange of views that is happening here.

Another vote for the please do stick around and talk to us Redbird87. I think one the the things that gets my back up are the many many instances of what I'd call 'false symmetry'

I personally find the wording transfemme and transmasc people to be a big improvement.

@SpookyFBI ”…. 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 really do think this is a great summary of the fundamental difference in perception. If I may explain my feelings and perception of the issue. In the past 8 years I've been told I'm not a woman in literally more ways than I can recount. I personally find it really really really f*king annoying (NOT annoyed at you!) to see the word woman changed into a set of ill defined and mysterious standards which any reasonable person could only conclude I don't meet. I spent most of my life feeling like I was doing it wrong and somehow wasn't quite getting it. I'm not a man, I'm autistic. As an autistic women, categorisation, fairness matter to me, I do spend time obsessively trying to figure out rules and thinking that fair and reasonable rules apply the same tests to everyone.

The thing I have in common with other women is my biology, and the way other people treat me differently based on THEIR feelings and assumptions about the sex of the body I have.

That a transwoman has the right to try to describe and explain how they feel is something I accept. That transwomen have the right to tell me how I feel (or should feel) and define how 'women' feel in general is something that I find offensive.

A transwoman might indeed be offended that I would consider them a type of man, I am at least equally offended that they consider me a type of man. I am offended when I see people use a medical condition I have to claim not only I'm not a woman because my ovaries don't always work right but my existence proves that there is no such thing as women. Even the meanest of the childhood bullies never went so far.

I've never seen anything (other than it's a fundamentally misogynistic movement) which remotely explains why their discomfort and taking offense at acknowledging the biological realities of our bodies is more important and should take priority over my discomfort and offense at the denial and refusal to acknowledge the biological realities of our bodies.

What/who gave you the impression that the term 'gender criticals' was the preferred term @SpookyFBI ?

Would you refer to any other group like that? Would you say 'transes' for example and if not, why not?

It seems to be a feature of people who hold the same views as you to use dehumanising language, why is that?

Spooky

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

So if I've understood you correctly Spooky, you envision an 'essence' of woman hood (I'm struggling to think of a better word) that exists or evolves as a distinct entity that is separate from biological sex - have I got that right?

The logical extension of this would be that it's mere chance whether there is a correlation between the two, I presume: some of the time there's a match, but not always. And that the 'essence' is the more powerful indicator of who or what a person truly is than their sexed body.

My difficulty with this is that I don't believe in that kind of dualism. I believe we ARE our bodies - with our own unique personalities and preferences, yes, but inextricably united with our physical selves.

I recognise that some people feel genuine dysmorphia, and it must be deeply distressing. But for years (before the number of people wishing to transition exploded) that was a tiny group of people, and they were by and large helped by talking therapies.

I am at a loss to understand how we've arrived at a situation where it is thought preferable to put people on powerful medication that will bugger their chances of having children and interfere with sexual function (not to mention surgical interventions) than pursue counselling and psychotherapy.

From the earlier thread:

"SpookyFBI (or others?), would you like to have a go?

... In the specific context of an assertion 'TWAW', what can we take 'woman' to mean if the assertion is to be possibly true?"

--Any chance of a response, I wonder? Or is the trans ideology emperor to remain argumentatively unclothed?

In any case (albeit perhaps pro tem pending such response?), we are forced willy-nilly to the conclusion (unsurprising to many here) that a trans woman cannot be a man.

In any case (albeit perhaps pro tempending such response?), we are forced willy-nilly to the conclusion (unsurprising to many here) thata trans woman cannot be a man.

It's illogical, ONLY a man can be a transwoman, a woman cannot be a transwoman because a woman lacks the necessary biology to be one. It's so fucking nonsensical especially this : I see a trans woman as a woman who happens to have been born in a different body” never mind offensive.

It's as if there is some factory production line somewhere in the ether putting together bodies and ooops, put the wrong parts in/on that model.

Absolutely. Males and females claim special identities for very different reasons, at different ages, they have different health and acceptance challenges. It's not the same process or outcome. Why are so many more women detransitioning than males? That's an interesting question, too.

I personally find the wording transfemme and transmasc people to be a big improvement.
Me too. Especially because it can be taken to refer to gender expression as well as any inner feelings and does not imply that anyone's sex has changed.

@BellaAmorosa yes I think those are good questions to be asking.

I think anyway forward is going to have to try and find a way in which all due care and consideration to peoples feelings can exist alongside recognition of biological needs and differences. Not to forget respecting and protecting people's sexual orientation also requires us to retain the ability to acknowledge and describe people's sex.

Ok, there are a few people who have asked me to come back and I have been putting a lot of thought into how to explain my perspective of what it means to be a woman in the sense that trans women are women and I think I have an analogy that may help.

so since we’re all here on mumsnet, why don’t I talk about what it means to be a mother. Someone might be inclined to say ‘oh well that’s easy, the mother is the one who gives birth!’ But hold on there. What about an adoptive mother? I’m sure we can all agree that an adoptive mother is no less a mother than a birth mother. Okay, so you may say that mother is the woman who is legally responsible for the child. What about a step mother who has raised her step child from a very young age and who the child considers to be just as much their mother as their birth mother (or possibly even more if the birth mother was absent). What about a foster parent who is legally responsible for the child and the child considers them a very nice lady who is looking after them but their birth mother is still their real mother?

I would very quickly come to the conclusion that the word mother is hard to define and is more of a feeling than a strictly defined category. If you and the child both agree that you are a mother, then you are a mother, that’s all there is to it.

now you may say hold up there, that’s all well and good, but we still need a legal term to denote who is legally responsible for the child. And I’d agree that we sure do, I don’t know how it’s done in other countries but I live in Australia and I’ve filled out plenty of forms on my daughter’s behalf as her guardian. That is the word that’s used on legal documents. Not mother or father, but guardian. (Actually I think on the form for her birth certificate it was ‘birth mother’, but everything else since then has been guardian)

now, when I think of my identity, ‘mother’ has become part of that identity now. Guardian is not really something I would claim as my identity. But I don’t feel like I am being misidentified when I sign my name as my daughter’s guardian. It is an accurate description of what I am in the context of my legal relationship to my daughter. But it is not a part of my identity and I don’t feel like I’m being told to see this as my identity when I fill out these forms. ‘Guardian’ is a legal category I belong to by definition, ‘mother’ is a feeling.

if I was asked ‘so what does it mean to feel like a mother then, can you describe this feeling?’ Well… I’m not sure I can. I could probably sit and think about it and come up with some things it means to me. And I think what it means to me might not be the same as what it means to other mothers. And I think that what it means to me might evolve as my daughter grows and I experience the toddler years and school and adolescence. There are some people for whom giving birth vaginally without medication is an important aspect of their motherhood journey. I think it’s totally valid for them to define their own relationship to motherhood through that, but I can’t relate as I had a caesarean. Some mothers would say that hearing their child say ‘I love you mommy/mummy’ is an intrinsic part of motherhood for them, and again that’s totally valid but again, as my daughter is only 8 months old and has yet to even say ‘mama’, I can’t relate to that either, although unlike vaginal childbirth, hearing my daughter say ‘I love you mummy’ is something I will hopefully get to experience in a few years.

And I think that the fact that motherhood means different things to different people, and can even mean different things to the same person ant different times, and has no strict definition, is a feature rather than a bug. A sign that we live in a world where our differences can be embraced and humanity is complex and defies strict categorisation. We are not robots, we have rich inner lives that are messy and don’t always make sense because we aren’t supposed to.

anyway, maybe you all think I’m bonkers, but this is the best way I can explain my perspective on what I think it means to be a woman. I don’t think we have to adhere to stereotypes to define woman as a ‘feeling’, far from it. In my perspective everyone should feel liberated to define themselves in whatever way works best for them.

Thank you for clarifying. So ‘gender critical people’ is the preferred term?

The mother analogy has been done to death.

Please explain it without an analogy. I'd you can't explain what something is without having to resort to explaining what something else is instead you ought to conclude that you can't find an actual explanation for it?

Can you?

I don’t think we have to adhere to stereotypes to define woman as a ‘feeling’, far from it. In my perspective everyone should feel liberated to define themselves in whatever way works best for them.

So would you extend that to all refuges, prisons, sports teams & hospital wards being fully mixed-sex depending on how people identify?