A third of Britons don’t know that transgender women were born male

[RoyalCorgi]

Really interesting piece of research from Murray Blackburn Mackenzie (MBM), asking people if they knew what a "transgender woman" was. They found that 35 per cent wrongly believed that a transgender woman was someone born female, or they were unsure. Apparently, they're even more confused about the term “trans woman”, with 40 per cent either being unsure or believing it meant someone who was registered female at birth.

In other words, when pollsters ask questions like "Do you think trans women should be allowed to use women's toilets/take part in women's sport/be housed in women's prisons?" a huge chunk of the answers are from people who think that trans women are biologically females.

[[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/06/third-of-britons-dont-know-trans-women-born-male/

Most polls should be accompanied by checks on factual understanding - if opinions are counted when a respondent doesn't fully understand the question, the poll is meaningless.

Gender ideology activity demonises explanatory phrases like "biological male" or "person with a penis" to facilitate false positives and silence discussion. That's why bodies like the BBC regularly used TW and TM "without further explanation".

I always find it helpful always to state clearly that Transwomen are male and transmen are female. You have to be male to be a transwoman - by definition, and vice versa.

This does rile TRAs, though, which is why I suspect we have recently started seeing claims that TW are female.

It's not even just a matter of TW having been "born male"; they still are male.

In fact, you see this at some of the trans rallies. Chants of trans rights are human rights, and then when challenged by anyone on what they actually mean, they don't have a clue. Just silence. Every time.

I can't really judge because when I went on a March once as a student I only went because The Levellers were playing at the end. I got carried away along with everyone else with the chants but didn't even know what we were marching for. That's standard student stuff I think.

NGL, I went on one of those marches too when I was a student. We got a bus to London for a fiver return, spent the day making a racket, got the bus home.

I suspect that it is also not just confusion about the birth sex of people who are trans with a ‘woman’ identity. It is often the misconception that a transwoman has had their penis and testicles removed.

We have seen this in action with that YouGov survey about males in female toilets. As soon as the respondents knew the male had a penis, the answers swung to negative whereas it was more positive with the ambiguous response.

If I was Stonewall on seeing that, I would be definitely continuing the closing down of any discussion around penises and transwomen. Because once the public know, they are not as supportive. And it also reduces the trust people have in support groups, and ultimately trans people themselves.

There's lots of things I'm not that interested in, the trans issue is one of them. People don't have to be interested in something. Over and out.

So two thirds do. They win.

I don't normally post on threads about things I'm not interested in.

It would work better as Transwo Man as it’s clearer that it is a type of man, but obviously the smudge of clarity and want to be considered a type of woman, is intrinsic to the term. The underlying difficulty is a “shame” in being a transwoman. Until people can accept they are who they are any term that reveals the truth is going to be rejected.

Is à transgender woman the same as a trans woman? Because to me it sounds like a woman who is transgender. (IE a female, a trans man)

Yes. I did try to talk to protestors earlier this year. While they were screaming at me standing in a line of women, I asked them to clarify something and they just repeated misinformation back. I pointed out where it was incorrect and they just yelled over the top of each other with the same misinformation. They simply couldn’t listen. Several other women tried to do this on other misinformation underlying their mantras and it was the same everytime.

It was surreal. They were protesting about things that most of us on this board don’t believe or support. But this was what they believe they are fighting.

Thanks for stopping by. It is always great to have contributions from everyone.

I think I'll go onto a few boards and tell the posters I'm not interested in their subject and I don't have to be just because they are.

This makes perfect sense, great to have the research to back it up. I've noticed in conversation that loads of people get confused over whether a transwoman is a natal woman who has transitioned to socially living as a man, or a natal man who has transitioned to socially living as a woman. Of course this difference would hugely impact survey answers.

Not ‘we’re born’, but ARE male and always will be.

The obfuscation of language is deliberate and as the results of this survey demonstrate, it’s been a big success for the TW movement.

The majority of people just want to be kind and inclusive but equally for a very large number of people they still don’t understand that treating biological men who identify as women as actual women ends with men in women prisons, men in women’s rape crisis centres and the complete destruction of women’s sport. People like Kirstie Allsop who want to try and find some magical middle ground will eventually twig that it doesn’t exist.

Not surprised, Dh told me I believed any old shite on the Internet when I told him that transvestites are considered transgender women, he believed the term meant someone who had gone through full surgery and not just someone wearing a badly fitted skirt and blouse.

I know what the words mean, but I always have to consciously think about it because to me the terms are the wrong way round.
To me a woman is an adult born-female, therefore, logically, a trans woman is a woman who presents as a man, and vice versa for man/trans-man. So I'm not at all surprised that it's a common understanding of the terms.

Fantastic. On a thread which is about the very fact that a lot of people don't understand that the term transgender woman means a man, a post using a term which makes it clear is deleted for breaking guidelines. It's not rude or offensive - it's three words which TRAs use happily.

We can't really have a discussion if we're gagged. I can't be bothered.

Good to see this issue being raised.
Orwell pointed out that "political language .. is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable..." Mangling truth and language is a feature of this ideology, not a bug.

Maybe that’s the solution when anyone pops up to say there should be a space in the word transwoman.

I once had a conversation with a VERY GC woman who, even with her interest and engagement in the topic, could not comprehend the idea that feminism could encompass transmen. To her it meant males, until it was explained. It doesn't help that terminology isn't used consistently, especially by TRAs. The obfuscation is a fundamental part of the tactics for gaining compliance.

It's a bit like the way the words 'right wing' gets tossed around (usually as a term of abuse and to mean 'someone I disagree with'). Extreme right wing, ultra right wing, conservative right wing, hard right wing, always without the terms being defined. If you can't define your terns then how do we know what the terms of reference of the debate are?