Could we ban "transvestigating" threads on here?

[Christinapple]

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5225715-ilona-maher

This one for example. Transvestigating is an informal term given to when people play detective and try to determine if a given person (usually a woman) is transgender or not from how they look e.g. photos.

I've seen it more than a few times on Twitter anytime a woman who is tall or muscular or "masculine looking" appears. Quite often, women are wrongly mistaken for being trans.

As well as being transphobic, IMO this harms all women and reinforces stereotypes of what men/women should look like. And the idea of obsessing over people's appearances like this just doesn't sit well with me.

Yes gender ideology has a lot to answer for doesn’t it? When a company like John Lewis invests so much in it, including allowing men into women’s changing rooms, and promoting binders for children and BDSM in a newsletter circulated to staff, of course people with start to question their presumably deliberately androgynous adverts.

Given that transmen are supposed to be trying to look like men, it's illogical to showcase mastectomy scars - men don't have them.

Still, lack of logic is a feature of gender ideology.

And showcasing scars made electively, i.e. not a result of accident or medically necessary surgery, looks very like celebrating self-harm.

This is quite an interesting question!

The intent behind showing top surgery scars, and the reason why there are active initiatives to do so, is to create an environment where trans masc people don't feel they have to be ashamed or hide themselves away if they do end up with visible surgery scars. Some men just look like that and that's ok. It doesn't mean they aren't men.

I wholeheartedly support any initiative to widen the range of ways that people are 'allowed' to exist without feeling ashamed about their bodies.

It doesn't mean they aren't men.

The very fact they are removing two of their female secondary sex characteristics means they aren't men.

until recently 2nd Wave Feminism had made massive strides towards getting rid of gender stereotyping. So anyone should be able to wear anything they want, "present" how they want and so on without anyone shrieking "but that's girl's clothing" and so on.

But now we are told that for sure "women" can have beards if they want, and "lady dick" is a real thing, and that dressing totally inappropriately for work in your fetish gear is fine. It is not fine. The clothes absolutely do not define your sex. They just express your (sometimes utterly appalling) taste

The intent behind showing top surgery scars, and the reason why there are active initiatives to do so, is to create an environment where trans masc people don't feel they have to be ashamed or hide themselves away if they do end up with visible surgery scars. Some men just look like that and that's ok. It doesn't mean they aren't men.

The surgery doesn't mean that they aren't men. The fact that they are female means that they aren't men.

Cannot be said enough.

And those female people broaden the 'definition of women'.

I wholeheartedly support any initiative to widen the range of ways that people are 'allowed' to exist without feeling ashamed about their bodies.

well if your lot had paid more attention, as i said 2nd Wave Feminism so nearly got "dress/present/be how you want" over the line. Then the TRAs fucked it all up.

+++Slow handclap+++

I've never claimed that trans people don't have tells or that it's impossible to determine someone's bodily configuration at birth.

I'm relieved that you feel ready to accept the reality that some of us have been living for decades. I hold out hope that this is a sign of the future possibility for more realistic discussions about the everyday practicalities faced by people who are perceived as female by society.

"someone's bodily configuration at birth".

The word the poster is (for some odd reason) struggling to write is sex.

It is intersting that you consider this an "interesting question". because this "interesting question" makes no sense at all in a belief system where trans men are men.

Mastectomy scars literally do mean they aren't men, using the original sex-based meaning of the word.

I understand some people want to use their own personal definitions of men and women (1), but that is a contested position not an accepted fact.

Women who believe some aspect of their personality is not compatible with womanhood and want to somehow transsubstaniate into men are still women.

It is an entirely female question that arises from the experience of being female but not wamting to be, and how that interacts with the social construnctions around the female body and female social presence. It is literally impossible to consider this question in the conext of trans men are men because it's starting in the wrong place and using the experience of the wrong people. And the fact you see the question as interesting shows that you also know this.

It would be much more honest, progressive and productive to find new names to label these new aspects of personality that people want recognised rather than bastardise and invalidate the existing lanaguage of sex by tying it to the age-old prejudices we have been trying to get away from.

But hey ho, trans people are fundamentally selfish in this respect, believing their need to redefine other people is more important that others' right to their own existence, their own rights and their own history as men or women.

(1) which as far as I can tell seem to boil down to "the same old sex-based definitions for everyone else, except I am allowed to be treated like I am that sex too. Don't ask me to explain how that doesn't invalidate the very group I am trying to join and undermine the justiifcation for the existence of the very resources I am trying to appropriate, how dare you question my existence! I have a right to define my own existence, and I have a right to define yours as well. You have no say in this because you do not experience the deep distress I do"

The intent behind it is to desensitise people to the idea that some young women hate their bodies so much that they are having their healthy breasts amputated in pursuit of an impossible goal. We shouldn't be normalising this. It is the mark of a deeply misogynistic ideology in which boundaries that ought to remain intact are crossed and things that ought to be taboo are normalised and the female body is desecrated rather than celebrated. It's completely sinister.

I hold out hope that this is a sign of the future possibility for more realistic discussions about the everyday practicalities faced by people who are perceived as female by society.

That's very much wishful thinking right there butterfly.

No one perceives trans women as female.

The intent behind it is to desensitise people to the idea that some young women hate their bodies so much that they are having their healthy breasts amputated in pursuit of an impossible goal. We shouldn't be normalising this. It is the mark of a deeply misogynistic ideology in which boundaries that ought to remain intact are crossed and things that ought to be taboo are normalised and the female body is desecrated rather than celebrated. It's completely sinister.

Fully agree.

Given the current court case in France, please never never never again suggest that just because someone does not know they are being deceived, the deception is in any way acceptable or moral.

Not even if they have been decieved for decades.

Quite the contrary, by showing very female-specific mastectomy scars you are clearly broadcasting that these women are not men. If you thought they were men there would be no need to push images of women with mastectomies, you would simply show topless women with breasts.

And this post is just continuing in the emotionally manipulative frame that you use.

"I've never claimed that trans people don't have tells or that it's impossible to determine someone's bodily configuration at birth."

The bit about 'at birth' is sparple. It has not been contested. Female people have high accuracy in correctly identifying a person's sex from a range of observations.

It is you who have literally crowed that you believe you 'dispelled the myth' when you did no such thing.

"I'm relieved that you feel ready to accept the reality that some of us have been living for decades."

Just more emotional manipulation, hyperbole and catastrophising and this is also just dishonest. I have never denied that you or anyone 'has been living for decades'. I do deny that you have been 'living as a female person' though. I am very happy to explain the basis of how that is materially impossible again. I mean, it is quite clear that no male person who has only ever navigated life dealing with their male body and their own responses to and society's responses to that person having a male body. But, it seems that you need to this to be somehow untrue.

"I hold out hope that this is a sign of the future possibility for more realistic discussions about the everyday practicalities faced by people who are perceived as female by society."

Only some people 'perceive' those who are male people as being 'female'. That is the entire point. So your point is :

"I hold out hope that this is a sign of the future possibility for more realistic discussions about the everyday practicalities faced by [some] people who are [only] perceived as female by [some of] society, but is not female ."

Happy to have that discussion - why don't you go start a thread?

Thanks for saying this.

The whole "transwomen have been passing amongst you all unnoticed for decades" line is a fucking disgusting dominance display when so many women have experienced violence from deceptive men.

It's true that more enlightened attitudes toward transness and a change in social dynamics has made it so that people are both more likely to have learned how to spot, and less likely to comment on, trans people's 'tells'. What is the purpose of doing so, ultimately? It is likely to serve little purpose other than to cause distress in a population who is already dealing with a lot of appearance-related distress to begin with.

This kindness is a bit of a double edged sword, especially when much of society and even unpleasant parts of the trans community itself still views 'passability' as a sort of certificate of validity or moral virtue (yuck).

While I find it a little awkward to see trans people with obvious (to me anyway) tells talking about never being clocked, I don't think the price of correcting them is worth it, any more than telling someone they have large amounts of visible body fat, heavy age lines or flat, thinning hair will materially improve the world for anyone. Just writing those words feels needlessly unkind - we've created a social paradigm where to even comment is to attack other people using the aesthetic standards we impose on them and force them to be judged by.

Narrow interpretations of beauty are sadly still synonymous with moral virtue in the minds of many people and are frequently used as a stick with which to beat all women regardless of the circumstances of their birth.

I don't want to play that game, so I try not to where possible.

I will happily use my own significant privilege when it comes to appearance to highlight and challenge negative attitudes in others, however.

I'm sorry, I don't believe that bodies are spiritually sacred things that are desecrated through modification.

Your body, your choice. If you don't like something you're allowed to change it. Only you get to decide that.

Reset the clock!

Yeah but none of this justifies appropriating the language of sex to label individuals' mental states, and none of it justifies appropriating the supports that exist for women only to mitigate the challenges we have because of our sex to back up the sense of self of people who for some reason believe some aspect of their personality is incompatible with their own body.

I'm at a loss as to why "transwomen have been passing amongst you all unnoticed for decades" is considered such a gotcha by some.

1. Admitting you've been intruding into spaces not meant for you is sinister transgressive behaviour. Why would anyone triumphantly admit to that behaviour in an attempt to gain empathy and understanding? It's far more likely to alienate people.

2. How do you know you were unnoticed?

‘Never being clocked’ = never being challenged

They don't though because female has a specific meaning which males cannot be.

You are kidding yourself, or are using a different meaning of female to the one I use.