'What is a transwoman'

[ArabellaScott]

It seems huge chunks of the electorate have no idea what the word 'transwoman' or phrase 'transgender woman' actually mean.

https://murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2023/08/07/clarity-matters-how-placating-lobbyists-obscures-public-understanding-of-sex-and-gender/

'The results of our polling show that to avoid confusion and misunderstanding, journalists and others need to spell out clearly what sex of person is being referred to, in any context where sex matters.'

'1 in 5 readers will think "trans women" refers to people who were born female; the same number won't be sure what it means; only 3 in 5 will understand it is a reference to people born male who now wish to treated as women.'

https://twitter.com/LucyHunterB

Interesting!

To me:
For men, the understanding of ‘transgender woman’ was much higher, and they were also much less likely to misunderstand that term, than ‘trans woman’.

I had not really considered that there would even be much difference in interpretation of "trans" vs "transgender". Perhaps "trans" has become so confusing and nebulous people aren't really sure what it covers.

Also

Strikingly, of those aged 25-34, barely half gave the correct response, for both terms. Well over one-quarter (29%) of that group thought a ‘trans woman’ described someone who had been registered female/a girl at birth. As this effect was seen for both terms, separately sampled, it seems likely to be a real population effect. It may reflect more of the 25-34 respondents being uncomfortable with the idea sex is registered rather than ‘assigned’ at birth, or greater resistance to considering a person’s sex at birth entirely separately from their identity: but that would not immediately explain why the youngest age group records substantially better understanding of these terms than those aged 25-34.

I found the breakdown by age absolutely astonishing: "of those aged 25-34, barely half gave the correct response, for both terms". So how many of the young people being kind and shouting TWAW are actually getting the completely wrong end of the stick?

From this study it seems that a lot of people will think that "transphobia" means being mean and discriminatory to women who want to dress as men/partake in traditional "male activities"? If so, you can see their point. What a mess.

43% polled in London thought that a "TW" is or might be someone who was registered as a girl at birth!? That is also quite something. This paper needs to be very widely disseminated...will it be reported in the Grauniad? Well, I won't hold my breath.

It would've been more interesting if they'd surveyed on alternative terminology like "transfemme", "male-to-female transsexual" and "trans-identifed male", see what people guess for those if they don't already know.

I think in the old days when people were called MTF or FTM transexuals there was a significantly greater understanding of what was going on. Why did we change to the entirely confusing "TW" and "TM", do people know?

Also a thought: what are the terms in other languages and how clear are they and how well (or not well) understood? Any speakers of French, Spanish, German, Greek etc here?

I still don’t know what ‘trans identified man/woman’ means. Or even when people say they are just ‘trans’.

My DF (81) is outraged that transmen are being banned from sport. Apparently they are "just blokes who like wearing dresses for a bit of fun". And most women seem to wear trousers these days so does that mean they can't play sport with other women now?

I've not had the heart to explain...

Wow. That's a lot of things to unpick and explain right there. Not surprised you're just leaving it alone

I have no idea what transfemme is within the gender regime.

Is it men who behave feminine (including camp men), or men who think they they are women without any inclination to engage in surgery or dicking around with hormones?

Exactly. This is a huge problem and I think there needs to be a concerted effort to change the terminology. I mentioned this on another thread today and it was discussed of KJK's latest video where a caller described a television interview about hospital wards where two of the journalists thought that a TW is a woman who identifies as a man. No wonder it is hard to have sensible conversations.

The self identified trans feminine male I know wears dresses and jewellery but otherwise is very clearly male and has a name which is a word ( which is not normally a name) which has not have gendered associations. This person does turn up at events centering women’s issues.

I don’t know their pronouns and have never actually heard them refer to their self as a woman. So I don’t know if they conidercthat they are one. They do refer to them self as trans.

@CatMattress TBH I have tried but it just goes round in circles bless him. However I'm not at all surprised by the results of the survey. I'm sure that many people who don't follow politics or the news, or who have English as a second language, think the same. And - confession time - until a couple of years ago, so did I.

Have not RTFT but in German trans woman (bio male) is Transfrau and trans man (bio female) is Transmann.
You have the added problem (not for GC people) that because if the way German works (just mushing nouns together to make one long Franken-noun) there isn't a space between 'trans' and 'Frau' or 'Mann'. Not that I've seen, anyway

I was thinking about this when reading the BBC News article about single-sex hospital wards. To the uninitiated it probably sounds like women are being banned from women's wards!

It would be so much better if news orgs like the BBC used unambiguous and precise language instead of ideologically biased terminology. Like how much clearer is this as to what's really happening:

If you replace 'trans' with 'pretend' it helps clarify a lot of these. It's a controversial approach though.

My DF in his 70s came down pretty strongly in support of the idea that trans women should be able to play in women’s sports and I couldn’t really understand it as he is usually quite logical and considered. But now I am wondering if he actually thinks a trans woman is a female who is trans (and identifies as a man), rather than a male identifying as a woman. Would explain a lot!

The language changes have been very deliberate and are intended to hide the reality of the situation. That includes, for example, the change from two terms (transsexual and transvestite) to one (initially transgender, now more commonly simply trans).

In addition, the language is changed with high frequency, and is then policed with maximum outrage. This is a tactic also designed to cause confusion. An example of this would be the insertion of a space into the word transwoman, which serves the dual purposes of allowing activists to berate all those who get it “wrong”, as well as the added bonus that they can begin to claim that “trans” is an adjective instead of a prefix.

If you notice a language change that has obvious benefits to transactivism, it probably isn’t a random accident.

There’s an interview somewhere, I think with Christine Burns where the change of terminology to “transgender” is discussed. I will try and find it later.

This is not accidental. Obfuscatory language is used by trans activists for this very reason. It gives them all sorts of opportunities to present survey results dishonestly.

Stonewall's definition of "trans" is "An umbrella term to describe people whose gender is not the same as, or does not sit comfortably with, the sex they were assigned at birth."

If you go by that, a "trans woman" could easily be a woman (noun) who is trans:(adjective), i.e. a person registered female at birth with a non-female gender identity such as "man", "non-binary" or any other one from the ever-growing list.

That would be how it normally works in English. Trouble is, English and other languages are being contorted - deliberately so - by academics and activists

I'm not convinced they would want clear language, anyway. I'm sure obfuscation serves them better.

Yeah, I mean that would usually nail it but femme, being feminine, is performance in the first place. Usually it's [pretend] [real thing] but surely transfemme is [pretend][pretend]?

Brilliant, this will clarify the issue for my confused 80+ year old parents

Given how language here is policed, and the propensity of people to mass complain, I’ll need to pick my words carefully, but I’m happy nowadays to refer to Transwomen as being men pretending to be women. Yes, pretending carries a different meaning to “trying to be” or “living as”, but I think it’s generally the more accurate way to state it.

The next leader of the Labour Party.

So transfemme is trying to be pretend? As opposed to a trans woman who is trying to be a woman? In that case, aren't all women who achieve the expected beauty standard transfemme? I am transfemme? Jesus, that escalated quickly