'Biological essentialism'?

[BenjiCat]

I'll start with thanking wise Mumsnet contributors. I've learnt so much about women's rights, single sex spaces and transgenderism by lurking in the background of these boards.

I've (unwittingly) gotten into the 'debate' with a friend and looking for your support. He shared a news article about single sex spaces and this being an 'attack on trans' and the argument that 'men already exist in women's spaces' and it's not a problem.

I felt I couldn't hold my tongue and challenged this. I said single sex spaces (e.g. rape crisis, healthcare, intimate care, prisons) are incredibly important for women due to trauma, safeguarding etc. and that 98% of sexual crimes are committed by men. I also pointed to recent issues. For example, the communal mixed sex toilets in schools and reports of sexual assaults on girls. Also the 26 nurses taking the NHS to court for being forced to share changing rooms.

He didn't address my specific points above other than to say 'of course there should be women's spaces, but transwoman need healthcare and support too'. I also felt like he was simply trying to 'gotcha' me by saying 'you think transwoman are pretending to be woman'. It basically resulted in me being labelled a 'biological essentialist' 😔

I don't have enough knowledge of feminism history to challenge this point about 'biological essentialism' - but it doesn't sit right with me being labelled as this. I'm not saying people are destined to certain characteristics and traits, but being female is innate and our needs should be considered.

I'm seeing him soon and I know it will come back up in conversation. Wise Mumsnetters help me challenge this!

Honestly I'd just try and point out that he's neither a trans woman, nor a woman, and doesn't he perhaps think that those two individual experiences will be entirely different and need entirely different care, support and spaces?

A trans woman will never experience a period, a pregnancy, a miscarriage.
A trans woman, no matter how many hormones they take or surgeries they have will never have been "raised" as a girl or woman - No matter how young their "transition" starts.
Mammals have evolved to "see" sex. The experience is not the same.
If one can't speak on or understand a PoC's issues because they don't understand the lived experience, the same applies to men, and men trying to be women with women's issues and lived experiences...

I'm so glad more people seem to feel emboldened to speak out when their male friends are being absolutely dense - Good on you OP!

Just ask him what is it that transwomen don't have in common with males but do have in common with females that makes them women?

What, exactly is it?
He needs to answer this question.

It's not periods.
It's not pregnancy or childbirth.
It's not menopause.

What is it?

Gosh you've all articulated this so much clearer than I ever could. I should write some notes for myself to remember! I often find I mull over conversations like these afterwards and wish I'd challenged certain points but overlooked them at the time.

Also really interesting to delve deeper into the argument. Especially the point @XChrome makes about material oppression and cultural influences completely undermining the whole argument of trans 🤣

Although the power of satire is a wonderful thing (my previous post with the Monty Python sketch), I thought I'd better add something that may be of more use, OP.

I've found it very helpful to talk about gender identity as a belief that I don't hold i.e. I'm aware that some people believe that we all have a gender identity but I don't hold that belief myself. I'm also aware that some people with this belief feel that they are in the wrong body and this causes them distress (obviously some people - some "MtF"s - also feign this distress as a front for their paraphilia). But calling someone a "bioesssentialist" just because they don't believe in this is unfair. It's a sleight of hand to mix sex (biological fact) and cultural sex-based stereotypes, even if it's done unintentionally out of a misplaced sense of being kind and open-minded.

Personally, I'd be saying to your friend that you respect his right to believe that everyone has a gender identity but in return, you ask him to respect your lack of belief and ask that he doesn't reframe your lack of belief as "bioesssentialism".

If someone genuinely believes that everyone has a gender identity, no logical argument is likely to change this. IME it's more effective to explain your own lack of belief and leave it there because for me, the more important discussion is the impact of the enforced belief e.g. the impact on women when men who identify as women demand access to women's sports and spaces.

of course there should be women's spaces, but transwoman need healthcare and support too'.

In terms of this comment, the spaces which are lacking are the single sex spaces (services), not the spaces (services) for transwomen. Many rape crisis services (particularily across Scotland but Brighton and ERCC as the most obvious examples) provide mixed sex and in the Brighton example, trans/non binary specific services but refuse outright to provide single sex services.

But to be honest, I'd only engage in dialogue with your friend if you can be arsed. I've come to the conclusion that people who still (despite the vast amount of evidence of harms to women and girls by the erosion of single sex services) insist that there's 'no problem, shut up bigot!' are either utterly credulous and/or actively hostile to women. Even with evidence and well argued debate, you're not going to be able to have a rational discussion about all this with him. I'd just say 'we're not going to agree on this matter' and change the subject.

I think I’d ask your friend two questions:

1. do you believe humans can literally, physically change sex?
2. do you believe women sometimes need single sex spaces and should be entitled to have them?

If he says yes to 1, there’s honestly no point continuing to discuss this with him because he’d be denying reality.

I think the vast majority of people would say yes to 2, particularly if they’re trying to play the ‘I’m the reasonable middle ground in this toxic debate’ type role.

So assuming he’s not mad enough to think humans can physically change sex, and that he’s reasonable enough to acknowledge that sometimes women might need single sex spaces, I’d then be asking him how you reconcile those two answers with allowing biological men into women’s spaces.

Or, showing him this excellent analogy from legal feminist might be quicker 😅

Nobody wakes up one morning and decides to believe humans can change sex. He is learning these arguments from somewhere, and he has more respect for that person than he does for you.

You are the one most affected by the policy of making single sex facilities mixed sex, but he has no respect for your lived experience or opinions. Stop letting him control the argument, he's just doing it for fun. It doesn't affect him, it does affect you. Call him out on that.

So perfectly put!

I'm not sure the genderists believe that one changes sex so much as changes - or finally expresses - their true gender. Innate sense of gender trumps biology.

Snap! What a coincidence, I was called exactly that same term. By a trans woman who had taken control of my union's Facebook group.

The group rule was and had always been that it was a female only group. This is within a union that is about 95% male reflecting the industry in which we worked which was 95% male - hence we needed a women's group as we were disparate, scattered all over the country and tiny numbers.

Like you I was stumped. I did not understand what he meant but he seemed to be using it as an accusation or insult.

I googled it to find out what he meant so I could go back and argue and found that he - yes he, yes a man ffs had thrown me out of a female only group for being gender critical!

I googled it to find out what he meant so I could go back and argue and found that he - yes he, yes a man ffs had thrown me out of a female only group for being gender critical!

If this doesn't make starkly clear how fucked things are, I don't know what does.

Biological essentialism is the idea that women are only about reproducing and rearing children. Being Gender Critical isn't like that.

Gender Critical is a rejection of gender stereotypes which originated from biological essentialism. Trans ideology fixes these ideas but then says you can change your sex to fit into the ideal of gender stereotypes and biological essentialism.

Being Gender Critical is a rejection of gender stereotypes and biological essentialism whilst also recognising that biology is real. It's a recognition that society has developed around the idea that default human is male therefore everything is designed for males or by males without much thought as to how females are slightly different.

This is covered well in two books - The Design of Everyday Things and Invisible Women. It's from the design of phones being for an average default human - male. So they fit male hands. But don't always fit female hands for example. It's about how healthcare has developed on testing on males and how male bodies respond. We are becoming increasingly aware that female bodies respond differently - particularly due to hormones.

We can't escape our bodies, but they shouldn't limit us either. Society should be aware of these differences and cater for them rather than reinforcing them with gender stereotypes and trying to deny these differences exist.

Your friend is an idiot who refuses to see the every problems women face.

He doesn't want to see them because if he did, he might have to feel compelled to do something about them. But they aren't his problems so way should he bother. It's easier to tell women what they should be thinking and doing rather than listen to their experiences. He's only listening to males because he only values the experiences of males and doesn't see issues with the way the world is designed.

He has blinkers on.

All the pregnant trans women surrogates in Ukraine who couldn't get their babies to their new owners? I mean, there must have been at least none of them!

In which case it's helpful to take @BonfireLady's approach.

A trans woman is a male person who believes (a) that they have a gender identity and (b) that their gender identity is female.

I am a female person who believes (a) that I am a woman because of my biological sex and (b) that I don't have a gender identity.

What do we have in common besides being human?

We do not share the same biological sex or the same identity.

What is the logic for us using the same toilets and changing rooms, being accommodated in the same prisons or rape crisis groups, or competing in the same sporting categories?

Is there any reason for this which is not, simply, "because it's what trans women want"?

If the only reason is "because it's what trans women want", why is what trans women want considered important and what women want considered unimportant?

If trans women's needs are considered important and women's needs are considered unimportant, this would suggest that trans women are in fact men, and all of this looks like traditional misogyny with a new name and pronouns, rather than a progressive new equal rights movement.

I have to say I think mens lack of awareness of how the world is designed for default human being male and a blindness to the biological realities of women is a real issue. How many have incorrect ideas about periods or don't understand that women's don't pee out of their vagina for example? The menopause is some alien concept to them.

To many men sex is merely about sexual availablity and attraction. Precisely because they don't give thought to differences in physical size and strength and the mechanics of biology. Because these things don't affect them and their only interest in and understanding of women is about their own sexuality.

See it through this lens and it's starts to make a lot more sense.

Honestly I'd just try and point out that he's neither a trans woman, nor a woman

And should keep his big male mouth shut about issues that don't involve him! Honestly, I'm so sick and tired of men mansplaining womanhood.

If he wouldn’t sleep with a transwoman with a penis (assuming hetro) then he is a biological essentialist too. If he can decide when a transwoman is actually a man why can’t women do the same. It’s the only argument some men seem capable of understanding.

It’s really a basic argument but if he wouldn’t shag one he doesn’t really think they are women either, in which case why on earth should women pretend to think they are women? Ah yes because it doesn’t affect him does it. Costs him fuck all to “be kind”.

Comes back to sexual attraction doesn't it?

Yup depressing isn’t it, I don’t really like the argument but it is literally the only one that gets an “oooooohhhh” moment. They don’t care how many trans people in prisons are sex offenders or all the examples of women being put at risk, having their boundaries violated or being excluded from their own stuff. None of that matters because they don’t see women as people, not people like them.

Precisely! If they want to redefine the word female to include males, then they need to explain what word they would use to describe the type of human that, if their body has developed according to plan, is capable of giving birth to young humans.

I mean, you'd think this would be a "gotcha" argument. But I once had this conversation with a bearded woke bro in a heterosexual relationship with a woman, who said that he would have sex with a trans woman, and when I suggested that would make him bi, he flatly denied it. Even to the point where, when I asked him, "So if you were being anally penetrated by a trans woman with a penis, what kind of sex would that be?" he said, "Heterosexual sex, because trans women are women."

I think in some cases there might be some internalised homophobia at the heart of it all.

That’s a very good analogy! And I think your two questions get to the heart of the matter.

🤦🏽‍♀️ just the level of delusion.

I'd also like them to explain why they think we need a word for "most female people, including all female people who do not have a gender identity and all female people who believe that they have a gender identity which is female, but excluding female people who believe that they have a gender identity which is something other than female, plus male people who believe that they have a gender identity which is female", but that we don't need a word for "female people".

I can think of tons of situations in which we need to collectively refer to the latter group, and literally zero situations in which we need to refer to the former group.

The only possible use I can think of for a word for the former group is to create an artificial category consisting of nearly all women plus this small, self identifying group of men.

Coming back to the "because it's what they want" point again.

The category only exists because they say it does and they want it to.

“We can't escape our bodies, but they shouldn't limit us either. Society should be aware of these differences and cater for them rather than reinforcing them with gender stereotypes and trying to deny these differences exist.“

That’s the nub of it, I think.