If transwomen are women, and women are cis women, are transwomen cis women?

[Superlambaanana]

Obviously not. They're men. But how can transwomen insist on being women and then recategorise women as cis women without it exposing their whole position as fundamentally flawed?

I have no intention of putting anyone in their place.

A man and a transwomen are both biological men. A transwoman has a female gender identity.

They're opposite sex impersonators and they're not very good at it.

In the contrary, I think every GC woman would love to be proved wrong.

That would mean:

Childrem and young adults are not being needlessly damaged because the medical interventions being done are genuinely justified by a measurable and permanent improvement in mental health and quality of life

Women's sports are not being destroyed because male bodies do not have an unfair advantage in women's sport

Women are not losing single sex protections because at the population level trans women as a population have the same risk profile to female people as other female people

Women are not losing the women only opportunies that are supposed to mitigate structural sexism because at the population level trans women as a population suffer the same prejudices and same domestic and motherhood drags as female people

Trans men/boys are not at risk from men in male spaces because they gain full male privilege and social power as soon as they transition

We can whole heartedly rejoin the social and professional circles that currently ostracise us because we can't understand the logic by which the known and provable common history, challenges and the resulting social and physical needs of female people are suddenly said to be common to certain male people as well

As feminists we would not have to divert our time and resources to crowdfunding and supporting the women cancelled and attacked for being GC

Damn right I want to believe! It would make life so much easier.

I just can't, because regardless of what I may want the truth is what it is, and the deeper you look the clearer it is this whole TRA-style version of gender identity and trans rights is built on nothing more than stereotypes, solipsism, censorship and entitlement.

So it is down to the clothes and hair?

So fashion?

What about a 'trans woman' who wears jeans?

Does it have to be jeans bought from the ladies section rather than the gents that makes them 'trans'?

Of course not - what do you think gender identity is?

A made up concept that nobody can define?

I can't speak for Alice, but I understand gender identity to be whether you believe yourself to be like others of your sex, like members of the opposite sex, or like some unsexed, blended or inbetween state. And unspoken beneath that is your beliefs, probably not even conscious beliefs, about what are the significant differences between the members of each sex that define them as that sex.

What I don't understand is why this personal belief, based not on empirical knowledge of the other sex's internal experience but simply on one's own beliefs projected onto the other sex, should be considered interchangeable in society and law with actually being the opposite sex.

No hun, they aren't.

Define "act or live like a woman" without using any gender stereotypes.

I'll wait.

😁@valensiwalensi see above not any echo chamber

It is all too easy to declare a publicly open board to be an 'echo chamber' when the posters are effectively reflecting the general population's opinions. No... it is not an echo chamber when the general public also tends to agree with the majority of the board. But acknowledging that the general public holds opinions that some posters disagree with is inconvenient. They then come out with 'it is an echo chamber', which is supposedly meant to shame posters into silence.

Let us assume for a moment that women have innermost gender identities or essences. We'll call those female gender essences. As a corollory, we'll assume that men have innermost male gender essences.

Why is it being assumed that men who say they wish they were women have the same gender essences as women? Why is it assumed they automatically have female gender essences. Surely it would make more sense that they would have male essences, but with some sort of variation?

What IS a female gender identity?

I don’t understand what that means.
Do you feel your ovaries tickle despite not having any, then?
Do you feel an urge to wear pink stilettos?
Do you NEED to find it ridiculously awkward to pee in the woods?

Or is it just a strong wish to be something or someone you are not?
I sympathise with the latter. It is bloody hard being oneself rather a lot of the time.

And that AstonUniversityPotholeDepartment is exactly the issue.

Those male people declaring they 'feel like a woman', are speaking bollocks. They may have some feelings that they allocate to what 'female people' must feel like, because in their opinion, that is what female people feel. However, it is only ever what a male person says that a female person must feel like. Only ever a male who is experiencing life while presenting as a female person, never a true experience of a female person. Their entire interpretation of that experience is as a male person.

I cannot wait for this 'I am what I say I am' PoMo idiocy has been relegated to history as the pseudoscience theory it really is.

@MistyGreenAndBlue yes I saw that. But I got it. On a serious note, I don't think trans identifying males (think we've established this is ok language on MN now) actually even want cervixes. As they serve no sexual purpose. But i think some want to have smear tests. I saw someone on twitter insist that TIMs are at risk of cervical cancer.

I'm just waiting for it all to go away eventually.

Thanks. I therefore retract my previous statement suggesting that language and acronym was ok on MN. I wonder however if Cass and the sweeping changes in the public narrative about this issue will lead to a revisiting of the MN policy.

@Superlambaanana i think they have loosened up some what.

@FlirtsWithRhinos

"I understand gender identity to be whether you believe yourself to be like others of your sex, like members of the opposite sex, or like some unsexed, blended or inbetween state. And unspoken beneath that is your beliefs, probably not even conscious beliefs, about what are the significant differences between the members of each sex that define them as that sex.

What I don't understand is why this personal belief, based not on empirical knowledge of the other sex's internal experience but simply on one's own beliefs projected onto the other sex, should be considered interchangeable in society and law with actually being the opposite sex."

Excellent post. Bravo 👏

@Helleofabore

"it is only ever what a male person says that a female person must feel like. Only ever a male who is experiencing life while presenting as a female person, never a true experience of a female person. Their entire interpretation of that experience is as a male person. "

Quite. What might be worth studying from a scientific pov is what men believe women feel like and why they believe what they do.

I suspect there are trends there, given how transwomen present- believing we all like pink and frills, to eat less, to obsess over men and how they relate to us. And on the 'why', i suspect it's because it's more comfortable for men to see women as subservient.

If transwomen really were women, they would be campaigning for female only spaces and sports for the very reasons we are!

How does this logic apply to Transmen?

@valensiwalensi hi your back then. It does not apply to trans men (women) it is a whole different issue.

Could you elaborate?

@valensiwalensi it might also be interesting to understand any similarities in what women perceive it is to be a man. And why.

I for one perceive men as selfish, self absorbed, shortsighted, immature and so on. And yes I am anti men and these are stereotypes I think men generally adhere to. So if I was asked to act as convincingly as possible as a man, I would adopt these traits.

The female only spaces and sports doesn't translate as that's an issue about safety and biological differences in male and female bodies.

@valensiwalensi yes sure.

Mostly this is anecdotal as there is limited research on this issue.

Let’s start with Rapid onset gender dysphoria. A new phenomena. That has been largely attributed to a social contingent . ( see Cass)

Mostly occurring in pre pubescent females.

The tendency in this cohort is that once puberty is allowed to proceed they desist from gender questioning.

Of those who pursue this into adulthood they are mostly lesbians in relationships with other women. Suspected inner homophobia.

This female cohort are more likely to detransition.

Significantly, they as a group do not enter male spaces, do not participate in sport as a male, and do not fetishise male bodies. Quite the contrary, they are sexually attracted to women.

That is biological women with a cervix and a vagina.

Sorry have no data or references for you but you are at liberty to look it all up.