Asked my Lib Dem candidate what a woman is

[Botheredbabybrain]

Not sure who to vote for. Lib Dem man posted some sensible stuff about an issue on the local fb group then tried to request me as a friend, I thought I’d gauge his response on this issue. Would be funny if it weren’t so fucking tragic.

Of course you can,we're all here to affirm your new identity.

What does it mean to love one’s life as a woman? Do I qualify?

My husband and I both work, sometimes from the office, sometimes from home. We both drive, we both sometimes use public transport, we both ride a bike, we both go out when we get the opportunity, we both read books, we both exercise, we both travel, we both have sex (with each other), we both eat, we both use the toilet, we both shower, we both sleep, we both change nappies, we both take our children to and from nursery, we both food shop, we both cook, we both clean.

The only thing he does which I don't do is leave the toilet seat up occasionally.

The only things I do which he doesn't are breastfeed, menstruate, and occasionally wear a dress.

I think "live as a woman" just means "live in female presentation", but that doesn't sound so affirming.

I can see a certain logic in "proving" you're serious about say a legal gender change, by making cosmetic changes to try and imitate the "I woke up one morning in a woman's body" fantasy.

But you could still pick so many holes in that - - a woman doesn't have to put in effort to look like a woman, and society is very likely to perceive and treat you as a male person dressed in feminine clothing. Female presentation is only slightly less subjective than "living as female".

I've seen some dismissive remarks about the 'What is a woman?' question - 'it's not the gotcha question stupid TERFs think it is'.

Although we know that actually, it is the gotcha question, I agree with using unsettling approaches like cheeriness, broken record, escalating 'so does that mean that you ....', or my fave which is a chummy 'Ah come on now, you don't really believe people can change sex, do you?'

I would ask, "can you tell me how I can live as a man please as I would like the higher salary, not to be sexually harassed, and for people not to assume that I'm going to make the tea in meetings at work, thank you".

My Lib Dem MP started banging on about race when I raised concerns about women's rights in relation to the trans issue. All very odd! Needless to say, I won't be voting for the absolute loon! I'm tempted to write her the same email now in light of the Cass review.

Comments on here are amazing. It’s so lovely to come to a place where everyone is saying normal things that aren’t normal
anymore like “women are people who are born with a vagina”. it’s soothing. This thread has been like a nice Neom candle or something.

Lib Dem man has read my message and, unsurprisingly, not replied.

excellent

So what if he's right? What difference would it make to anything?

Are they going to scan everyone's brains to find out whether they have a pink one or a blue one and then give everyone an appropriate toilet pass?

I believe I should have been born into the body of a billionaire.. how do I get that on the nhs

I would ask him if this is his own view, the party line or reflective of his constituents opinions.

Gawd. That's so much more succinct than mine😂

People are segregated, when necessary, by sex because of their sexed bodies not their brains.

Abso-fucking-lutely.

It depends on the gender you were assigned at birth.

I asked my Labour Party candidate out canvassing for local by-election if he could tell me what % of women have a cervix. He was speechless. I helped him out by asking if he agreed with his beloved leader etc. He hung his head, and said “that’s not the first time I’ve been asked that today”

Thank you, though trying to cram my 5'6" true self into my inconveniently 5'3" false body does mean I have to stoop a bit. On the plus side it is roomy around the middle.

Just jumping in to say a recent study indicates that there are detectable differences between male and female brains.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2310012121

From the abstract "Our results demonstrate that sex differences in functional brain dynamics are not only highly replicable and generalizable but also behaviorally relevant, challenging the notion of a continuum in male-female brain organization."

Neuroplasticity! The brain adapts and changes to what it experiences, so gender stereotyping will result in some differences, but that's socialisation. And girls like me who always played with boys' toys may have some differences - the famous spatial awareness, ability to refold OS maps etc..
Which undermines the male/female brain thing.

Ffs what an illiterate reply!

Can only see abstract.

Doesn't seem to suggest an inherently female brain can develop inside a male body though? Or visa versa.

Our findings underscore the crucial role of sex as a biological determinant in human brain organization

suggests the neuroplasticity element that effects the way the brain develops in the sexed body - rather than that a certain kind of brain determines whether someone is actually male or female - and that sometimes nature gets this wrong and the wrong body develops in relation to the brain?

I’m not sure who it was, but a TRA got incredibly excited on TwiX about some kind of medical test for transness that was almost ready. They thought this was brilliant because it would provide objective proof that people were trans.

The rest of them reacted with utter horror & once the original TRA understood why, they shut up.

‘A woman is someone who defines themselves as a women…’

But the material reality is that women are disadvantaged largely because of reasons to do with their biology. And patriarchal ideas that still exist in society and its institutions.

You can’t ‘define yourself’ as something you’re not. I can’t define myself as a dining table and chairs for example, or a non-shoplifter if I was caught for shoplifting. Just ‘defining yourself’ is not a robust test of anything, especially something that gives you access to vulnerable and non consenting females.

Sometimes I'm absolutely flummoxed by the 'direction of travel' in gender politics and wonder if I've missed something. There's a corruption of definitions and bending of the truth, delusion and warped thinking plus the likes of politicians/activists etc dancing on the head of a pin. Those saying TWAW are simplistic at best. How's it come to this??!

Our brains are different. A male brain isn't going to regulate pregnancy hormones now is it

No, a ‘male brain’ would not - not even if its owner believed its ‘male brain’ was in fact a female brain ‘in the wrong body’.

(Is it the brain itself that regulates hormones, by the way, anybody?)