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. 😀

Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. I definitely don’t believe that we are our bodes, I believe that there is something more. I’m not religious and I don’t believe in the religious concept of the soul, but I do believe that there is something immeasurable that is who we are, and that something interacts with our bodies and interprets the sensations from our bodies, but is still separate to our bodies. And this thing - essence, mind, identity - can have a gender and that gender can be different to the sex of the body. I can certainly understand that if you believe we are our bodies, then the entire concept of trans people would make no sense at all.

as to your last paragraph, 1: not all forms of transition affect fertility (there have been trans men who have been pregnant and trans women who have gotten someone pregnant) 2: not everyone wants to have children and 3: counselling and therapy does not always (and I would argue often doesn’t) have the goal of helping someone to better conform to other people’s expectations. Usually the goal is to help the patient reach their own goals to live their best life as they see it, and sometimes that goal may be ‘I want to change my body’ and that’s okay.

No @SpookyFBI that analogy makes no sense whatsoever to how a man can be a woman.

Also, in case you hadn't noticed only people of the female sex can be mothers and this was clarified by the High Court in London recently, so yes it does have a perfectly strict legal definition.

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.

Yes I do think you are bonkers, or certainly talking bonkers. Your argument falls down on the fact that the adoption of sexist bullshit stereotypes is what men who claim to be women adopt and describe it themselves as a 'feeling in their heads'. How can you make laws when you allow people to define themselves in whatever way works best for them? How about paedophiles defining themselves as non paedophiles? I meant that would work out best for them wouldn't it? What about the people on the receiving end of someone whose definition works best for them? Really, this is risible nonsense.

I’m very sorry that you’ve been told you’re not a woman. No one should have done that to you.

For some people maybe. There does need to be clarification if it is the feminists that were originally using the term as ‘gender critical feminists’ as a term to reject the ‘gender stereotypes’ that are being used to leverage male people into the terms for women and girls. Or. For the now expanded term, expanded by extreme gender identity activists, seems to include ‘everyone who disagrees with gender identity as an ideological structure being forcefully imposed on society’.

Talk about imprecision. As a term that one, expanded by extreme trans activists to force alignment between feminists and ‘far right groups’ conveniently forget the background of the term and that those ‘far right groups’ love gender stereotypes and pushing women and girls to follow those stereotypes!

Once you start pulling on threads to unravel the queering of language to suit one particular group you begin to see the pattern. Well, I did. Maybe you won’t see them.

To be clear, the term now has been used to force feminists to seem to be aligned with the far right on what is actually a universally believed, and proven, fact: not one human on this earth can change sex and sometimes that matters a great deal to acknowledge.

That forced alignment linguistically, then is used to silence and shame feminists. How often have you heard accusations of women’s rights activists being nazis, or aligned with far right and wanting genocide and eradication. There is a reason extreme activists use this extreme hyperbole, because people listen and believe because surely people wouldn’t lie about these things!!! And hey, the media repeats such lies and hyperbole! It must be true according to many people who can’t think critically about this issue.

So, spooky it is up to you whether to use it or not. I reject the term. I know others on this board do too. I fight for the prioritisation of the sex based rights of all females where it is needed. I have a definition of female on the other thread at the end. I am a women’s rights campaigners, I guess, if I had to choose.

@SpookyFBI
but I do believe that there is something immeasurable that is who we are, and that something interacts with our bodies and interprets the sensations from our bodies, but is still separate to our bodies. And this thing - essence, mind, identity - can have a gender and that gender can be different to the sex of the body.

Does this "essense, mind, identity" also have a race and age?

as to your last paragraph, 1: not all forms of transition affect fertility (there have been trans men who have been pregnant and trans women who have gotten someone pregnant) 2: not everyone wants to have children and 3: counselling and therapy does not always (and I would argue often doesn’t) have the goal of helping someone to better conform to other people’s expectations. Usually the goal is to help the patient reach their own goals to live their best life as they see it, and sometimes that goal may be ‘I want to change my body’ and that’s okay.

Transmen stop taking testosterone in order to become pregnant but that alone would not work if they have had their reproductive system removed. Yes, remarkably many transwomen keep their fully functioning male reproductive organs and yet you believe this is just a woman in a different body? Many of these women in a different body waited until they had fathered children before realising they were these fabled women in a different body and decided to transition but remarkably keep that prized body part.

So Spooky, can I call myself a mother just because I post on Mumsnet, even though I have never given birth or adopted or fostered a child?

It seems that if I feel like a mother I am one, whether or not I have even spent a day looking after a baby?

As it happens I am religious - at least, I am a person of faith - so I absolutely do believe in the 'something more' than our bodies, be it soul, spirit, whatever.

But I believe that part of us is integral to our bodily reality, and to separate the two is to embark on (in my mind) a dangerous duality that can lead to self harm, self neglect, and the rejection of the body that is inherent to conditions like anorexia.

There are things I thoroughly dislike about my body, but fundamentally I believe it is an amazing, extraordinary gift that I should care for and respect. It has let me down badly at times (I have had serious illness and disfiguring surgery) but it's still ME, the means by which I am present in the world.

It troubles me very deeply that gender ideology encourages people to reject their beautiful, healthy, perfectly normal bodies and pump them with chemicals or brutally modify them. And where this is happening to children I see it as a form of child abuse; I fear that the ramifications in years to come will be enormous.

@SpookyFBI Thanks for having a go at explaining your perspective - I certainlt don't think you're bonkers for what it's worth, you sound lovely.

Yes 'gender critical people' / 'gender critical women' / 'people coming from the gender critical perspective' etc are all much better but do bare in mind not everyone who disagrees with some or all of trans ideology is necessarily coming from the same place - some people prefer sex realist and some people don't feel like they can or should be defined by the things they don't believe.

I know exactly what you're getting at with your comparison with the word mother, there are certainly problems using such a loaded word but proceeding with caution I'll try to explain why I don't quite agree.

Almost all words in English have a range of context dependant definitions and can be used in various ways by different people at different times. This is fine, nevertheless, in order to have meaningful laws and meaningful policies on things like safeguarding and meaningful conversations about single sex spaces the necessity of a single sex category in which female people can compete against other female people you need to be able to define your terms and explain what the words you are using mean in the context of the law or policy. Otherwise the law or policy is meaningless and unenforceable / unworkable.

The primary dictionary definition of the word "woman" is adult human female. This is without doubt the meaning (at the time it was completely accepted and uncontroversial) that was intended when the laws and policies were devised and written.

If you change the meaning of a law by redefining words used in writing the law it can have unintended consequences and should never be done with debate and proper democratic scrutiny as to the impact of changing those laws. Up until now people have been acting like not only could they change the word and therefore all the laws or policies which used that word but it was completely unreasonable for women to have an opinion.

In the context of having a baby the contribution of the father and the mother are quite distinct and frankly not equal, men have an orgasm, women grow and house the foetus and give birth - it seems fair to me to say that this is by comparison an enormous physical strain. So to be someone's mother is a significant and meaningful term. Where a child has a more complex history they might use the word mother with qualifiers like: birth mother, adoptive mother, step mother. This is fine because humans are generally quite good at context and nuance. But in general it is fair to say that if you gave birth to a baby you are that baby's mother, that isn't a status someone else can just decide to take on themselves. How they feel about and what they call these different women in their lives is up to them.

we're saying we want to retain the primary meaning of the words women woman and girl because without them it isn't easy or clear to talk about things which women do need to talk about. Language matters.

Middle aged women go on a 'girls night out' - Transwomen can tell their friends that they love this particular dress because it makes them feel girly, the middle aged women may or may not invite the transwoman on the 'girls night out'. Informal use of language see, nevertheless the adult male person shouldn't expect a place on the girls soccer team - because everyone (should imo) understand that in formal usage the word girl refers to female people under the age of (18 I would say in most places?).

I've been lurking on this thread (and its predecessor) whilst writing on another.

Thank you @Catiette for starting it up and @SpookyFBI for your engagement. Obviously other posters too but it's the dynamic between the two of you that I've found particularly helpful.

The other thread that I've been on (the steel-manning one that has been mentioned previously) had a post on it from someone who talked about finding a common "bridge" to talk about if two people come from different viewpoints. I think this is what I saw happening in the dynamic.

And for what it's worth @SpookyFBI I don't think you're bonkers either.

Redbird87 · Today 12:26
@Catiette You say you're seeking a good faith conversation, would that include someone who used to be part of the "queer" community?

It's lovely to see how discussion is continuing. I've just skimmed in another few minutes of guilty procrastination.

@Redbird87, as others have said, absoLUTEly! Discussion between everyone is the best way forward, and just your contributions so far have sent me googling transmasc and transfemme, and wanting to ask about your preference for these over other alternatives.

@SpookyFBI , again, so interesting to read your posts and thought-provoking analogies. I've come across the adoptive/biological mother one before, but not the "guardian" reference.

Re: mother/guardian, I'd say the difference is that "mother" typically assumes the associated responsibility of (legal) guardianship and the two can be used synonymously in that sense at least, whereas woman-as-gender versus woman-as-sex are, in a way, mutually exclusive or, at least, divergent (woman-as-gendered-"soul" versus woman-as-body. A mother would, for the most part, one assumes, be keen to embrace the role of guardianship within the wider role of mother. But women have long since been resisting the imposition of "gender"-ed associations as, conversely, inconsistent with who they feel themselves to be. I hope that makes sense and does justice to your post, as I read it fairly quickly (busy evening ahead). If I missed something fundamental, apologies - I plan to return later.

Re: bio/adoptive mother, I think something similar can be said. The essence of what a biological mother is isn't being challenged, subverted or erased by "mother" being used to describe an adoptive parent, too. It still exists in its own right. Like the gay marriage analogy, a biological mother could, I suppose, feel a sense of resentment that the descriptor of which she is so proud is being extended to embrace a wider group... but does that change the fundamental, universal understanding of what she is, herself? No. The word "mother" 1) retains the presumption of a biological relationship to the child and 2) the presumption of maternal love, that also exists in adoptive relationships. In contrast, "woman" is 1) being untethered from biology entirely, and 2) instead, attached to values we don't embrace but, instead, often perceive as actively damaging to us.

And what toaster said! 😊

I suppose one question to ask would be, 'In expanding a definition to include a broader population than was originally the case, is anyone negatively affected, harmed or disadvantaged by said expansion?'

Clearly any expansion of the word 'women' to include men DOES negatively affect women, it's impossible to argue otherwise.

Yes - that puts it more concisely, Bean!

What do you mean by 'a gender'?

Do you mean male or female as disembodied concepts, or what?

If so what would a female concept be like? What would a male concept be like?

Do these disembodied identities evolve or grow or change? If so, what it is that makes them essentially male or female?

Thanks, @BonfireLady , that’s really lovely to hear. Could I ask the name of the steel-manning thread, to check which it is? Keen to read when possible!

I can certainly understand that if you believe we are our bodies, then the entire
concept of trans people would make no sense at all.

Well, this is the situation we are in, I think. We manage, on the whole, for atheists/agnostics and people of many different faiths to live together tolerantly.

So we have to find a way that people who believe in a gendered 'soul' and people who don't believe in a soul can also rub along.

I personally think quite strongly that precisely because there are so many and so varied views of soul/religious ideas/gods/goddesses/atheism/pantheism/agnosticism that state and public life very much needs to be secular.

As I understand it, this is roughly the position that governments tend to take, so that we can all live together without friction.

Currently, it seems to me that people who subscribe to the 'gender soul' idea are trying to force everyone else to accept this idea, and public services to go along with it.

While of course everyone is free to believe in this 'gendered soul', I don't think that the theory/belief can or should be forced onto the whole of society, any more than a belief in God can or should be.

Any one able to answer my two questions at all?

do believe that there is something immeasurable that is who we are, and that something interacts with our bodies and interprets the sensations from our bodies, but is still separate to our bodies. And this thing - essence, mind, identity - can have a gender and that gender can be different to the sex of the body.

I'm just coming back to this - could I ask you to try and define it more clearly?

'essence, mind, identity' - the first suggests some kind of quasi-religious idea, like a soul or 'spirit'. The latter two terms - well, everyone knows we have a mind. And an 'identity' I would imagine is ... 'a feeling about ourselves'? So - also thoughts, emotions, yes?

You think it's possible to either have a 'soul' that is gendered, or to just have thoughts/feelings that are gendered?

Or both?

And could you ask for maternity/adoption leave?

Obviously you can be a mother using this logic. You may want to try being a father first. Then you wouldn't have to do anything.

I'm a female with ovaries and everything so why would I be a father? Can you explain your logic here please as you are on a thread to explain your thinking in good faith.

The mother analogy makes no sense in the context. Mothers are always female. Fathers are always male.

Yes, TM CAN and do have children, which I find truly bizarre, tbh. To carry a child within one's body and give birth is surely the most female experience possible. Simultaneously, these individuals seem to reject their femaleness and claim to be the opposite sex. Indeed, one is rather well known here in the UK for their request to be named the infant's FATHER on the birth certificate, rather than mother.

Adoptive mothers, birth mothers, foster mothers, step mothers.....their common thread is that all are female. All.

What kids call their fathers after transition is between them, but Mum is off the table. It's already been taken. As has woman.

Precisely. Laws are there to apply to us as citizens, and as such we need commonly defined concrete words to that are known by the whole of society as things in their own right.

As long as your baseline is TW are men and TM are women, there's a discussion to be had.
Will happily pay more taxes, higher prices for third spaces.