"Transphobic bullying is rife": 15 y/o trans boy's view of coming out at school

[ButterflyHatched]

A rare and refreshing example of the mainstream media actually publishing a young trans person's own words on the subject of their own existence and how the government's draft guidance is likely to affect the people it directly pertains to.

‘Transphobic bullying is rife’: a 15-year-old trans boy’s view of coming out at school | Transgender | The Guardian

@ButterflyHatched Could you please answer my question about what word I can now use to describe myself by reference to my sex, now that the meaning of the word "women" includes members of the opposite sex?

I dunno, I see a lot of badgering on this thread

So much of it comes over as a repressed fury at women voicing opinions without male permission?

Exactly. Although I don't think it's very repressed!

As others have said ‘all women’ doesn’t include men

All women does not include tw. That makes no sense.

I’m perfectly happy for my category, men, to include all transwomen - because that’s reality, and because I have no problem with men who are more feminine than most in their presentation. The only problems for me come when some men pretend that they have changed sex, and when some men behave in sexualised or aggressive ways. It sometimes happens that a man does all that at once, giving transwomen a particularly bad name. It’s still bad male behaviour, and not really distinguishable from any other lying, sexual or aggressive bad behaviour by men.

Feminism is for all women, including the ones that don't think they are. It's not for men, especially the ones that want to be called women.

Butterfly, I think you are coming from a good place but it's hard for you to reflect on your situation. You are blaming women because it's easier than looking closely at the people claiming to be on the same side as you. You are allowed to have boundaries, as are women.

You have a DSD, probably look more like a woman than 99% of trans woman, wouldn't intimidate and scare women in a toilet. However, you are holding the door open for the people we don't want to share with. That's the problem and you should think about why you're doing it.

You stated upthread that you felt uncomfortable that the fact you pass/have a medical condition allows you special treatment over the v obvious men barging into women's spaces. The fact that men with no medical conditions have tricked you into thinking you're the lucky one is quite sad. You're even taking the criticism personally that is aimed at them.

I think they are appropriating you, using people with DSDs as a Trojan horse so people genotypically and phenotypically male can garner sympathy that is rightly yours. This is not a nice thing to do to you, stop fighting their battles for them.

Think who drew these battle lines with you allied with fetishy men and distressed teenage girls rather than women? It wasn't women.

This.

Women NEED the term women. Without ANY males or men or XYs.

Why?

Because women's health is a cinderella thing as it is. Medicial research defaults to male bodies.

But women's bodies, right down to celluar level behave differently. We present differently for all manner of conditions and our treatment needs to be different to be most effective.

If there is just ONE male in a research sample it fucks up the data.

Well, there is a Latin term that was initially used in 1914 in a German sexology book, first used in English in the context of sex/gender in 1994, has been featured in published works since 2006 and has been featured in dictionaries since 2015 which uses the commonly-accepted antonym for 'trans' ('across from') to mean 'on this side of' and is already used variously across the sciences to describe certain paired genetic mutations, chemical bond types, locations within cells and classifications of celestial bodies and the areas bounded by their orbits. Perhaps we could use that?

But that word is not inclusive of all biological women, so it wouldn't be very handy when describing biological processes or illnesses that affect exclusively biological women.

It is not only "cis" women that can get cervical cancer, for example.

What word can we use that includes all biological women and excludes all biological men?

And what single sex spaces and services can we use that include all biological women, as per the requirements of many vulnerable and marginalised groups, and exclude all biological men?

That's no good @ButterflyHatched. For one thing, "ciswomen" excludes transmen and female non-binary people, as well as people who don't subscribe to the gender identity model. Useful data on women's health needs to be inclusive of all those to whom it's relevant, not exclude those with this or that gender identity. Trans people need and deserve to be included in relevant health research.

ButterflyHatched · Today 02:26

Perhaps we could use that?

"Women" isn't Latin and has been in use since long before 1914.

Women and men who think they’re women don’t share any characteristics other than being human.

It’s amazing that @ButterflyHatched can use the term “magical sex essence” to describe sexual dimorphism but can’t come up with a description of the characteristics shared by women and men who think they’re women, even one as bonkers as that. I mean even “shared magical gender essence” would be consistent, but we don’t even get that.

No we already have women. The term you want is offensive.

Why should we use a Latin word so that TRAs can colonise the word woman?

Redefining a category to include you and telling the people who were in that category they need to use a different term of your choosing to define themselves is dreadful behaviour.

“all women (including trans women)”

Gosh! And there is that misogyny that gets denied.

Of course, it has been used here to provoke female people. Which increases that denied misogyny.

Forceably changing the language women and girls use to describe themselves to include the opposite, any male person, is based in a hatred of female people.

Is there any reason you can't speak in plain English?

I want to know the word for "all adult humans of the female biological sex", a group which includes all adult human females regardless of whether they identify as a woman, a trans man, non binary, something else or nothing at all, and does not include any males under any circumstances and regardless of how they identify.

What is the word for that group of people, please?

I need a word for this group of people in my vocabulary.

I don't need a word that means "people of either sex who want to use women's toilets".

Hi ButterflyHatched, the word you are referring to is an adjective, so that won't work. We need one word, not two. Such as man and woman as two distinct groups that have no overlap except they are both groups of humans.

So if women now include some men, what are the singular words that will replace man and woman?

Out there in society, how many people think that there are male women and female women?

If you asked a representative sample of the population, how many would agree that “woman” is a label for a mixed-sex category, with some males and some females?

Should male girls be changing for PE in the same changing room as female girls?

Only if you're concerned about health issues surely? So as not to miss some females in health comms/studies/data?

(Yes, some females will die. But its a price trans activists are willing to pay.)

Indeed arabella. Wasn’t it the ever delightful academic Chappell who pointed out that an increase in harmed female people was very acceptable for those males to be considered women.

I disagree that Butterfly is coming from a good place. Butterfly is coming from a purely selfish place. It's all about what Butterfly wants and no consideration has been given to the female sex whatsoever. And when the issues have been pointed out, Butterfly never reflects on them and continues with the selfish behaviour.

@ButterflyHatched I'd really like to understand whether you actually appreciate what the problem is, from our point of view.

Right now, different people are using the word "women" to mean two different groups of people.

Group 1: All adult humans of the female (i.e. childbearing) biological sex, regardless of whether or not they have any particular gender identity. This group does not include any male people, regardless of whether those male people identify as something other than male or not.

Group 2: Most adult humans of the female (i.e. childbearing) biological sex including all those who believe they have a female gender identity and all those who do not have a gender identity or who have never heard the term "gender identity", but excluding some adult humans of the female biological sex who believe they identify as something other than female, and including some adult humans of the male biological sex who believe they identify as female.

I, and most other people, use the word "women" to describe Group 1.

You, and some other people, use the word "women" to describe Group 2.

This means that when someone uses the word "women", we no longer know whether they are referring to Group 1 or Group 2. This is hugely problematic when it comes to things like single sex spaces or sports.

We need a word to describe Group 1 because there are a lot of situations where biological sex is directly relevant and where we need to be able to identify and discuss people by reference to their biological sex.

I cannot think of a single situation in which I would need a word for Group 2 because as far as I am concerned this is a group of people with nothing in common. They have no common healthcare concerns, they do not need their own spaces which exclude people not in this group, they do not need their own sporting categories.

You might wish to have a word for Group 2, but many of the people in Group 2 do not want to be included within it. As far as I can see, the only purpose of Group 2 is to force team women with people who are not women by claiming the existence of a group they are both in. I do not want to be included in Group 2.

Now I realise that there are some people in Group 1 who do not want to be included in Group 1. But they are in Group 1 whether they want to be or not, because Group 1 objectively exists and the boundaries of it can be defined according to objective criteria, which trans men and female non binary people fulfil and trans women do not.

I do not think it is legitimate for trans people to effectively demand that the rest of us have no word for Group 1 purely because some people who are in it do not wish to be in it and some people who are not in it wish they were.

So what is the word for Group 1, please?

The word for Group 1 was "women" from before the Norman Conquest until very recently, when a small group of people invented Group 2 and decided to call it "women", leaving us without a word for Group 1.

Very much looking forward to the answer to margots fantastic post