Does anyone else resent the gender/ TERF wars?

[TERFCat]

I met up with an old friend last night. The first two hours were magical! Everything was going great until the "what is a woman?" question popped up... Then, it all turned sour, and I don't think she and I will be catching up again for a long time.

Basically, whilst I think women's rights are paramount and should be defended whenever necessary, I'm really starting to resent the impact this had on my real life.

I have lost friends over this, and I've likely been stopped from making more too!

Does anyone else feel this way?

The idea that someone in the 21st century imagines a penis is a magic wand that can convey or remove maleness is most odd. I'd say prehistoric, but suspect that even in darkest prehistory there'd have been some scepticism.

Considering that Eunuch is now a category of paraphilia, removal of male genitalia can be considered a sex act, declaring that surgical removal of male genitalia somehow makes someone non-male shows another reason that argument is flawed.

I wonder what is going to be the element that makes these male people with transgender identities ‘non-men’ or in between sex categories when we unpick it all? Or is it just another turtles all the way down scenario?

One half-sentence that reminds of how much I despise the works and pomps of John Money. First deciding that a castrated (by accident) little boy should be treated as female (and so dehumanised as to be forced into incestuous sex acts) and second pressing for the use of the term 'paraphilia' instead of perversion.

If a male person taking estrogen stops taking estrogen, do they revert immediately back into being categorised as male?

If a male person’s penis is still attached to their body, just now inverted to produce a cavity in the body, is that considered to no longer be a penis? By that definition, are people with undescended testes or malformed testes no longer male people?

If a male person developed breasts that put him in the non-male category, and then had that breast tissue removed (including due to cancer treatment), do they again become male?

I am keen for anyone to answer these category definition issues. I would love to see how this all would work.

I agree with you DeanE.

We can't tell. I also don't care, any more than I do about any other fancy dress presentation. It just makes me think that this person must be excessively self-absorbed and superficial.

But also, why?

Being a woman is a biological state entirely in its own right. It's not a catch all for 'defective' men or men who can't deal with their own biology. It's not a reward to be doled out for 'effort'. It's not simply a 'de-penised' state.

I am shocked at how many people seem to regard being a woman as nothing more than being a 'lesser' man'

“And the alterations will have made him slightly less dangerous (if we ignore what they tell us about his attitude to women, and possible paraphilias).”

Indeed. It is a fallacy that a male is less dangerous without a penis and testicles. Not only does it ignore some hard truths about male sexuality but it ignores the now well publicised science that male people with lowered testosterone still retain significant physical advantage. Particularly in power and grip. Meaning that these male people still are much more dangerous than female people when it comes to physical attack.

Another thought on this direction. If a male with breasts and particular surgeries is no longer male, and are between sexes, are they they same category as female people without breasts and with particular surgeries. Or do those female people fit into another between sex category?

How many sex categories are there?

First of all, thank you for replying directly to my question. I like keeping things simple - none of the 'tying yourself up in knots' you mentioned earlier.

Because this is basically a very simple issue: science says that there are only two sexes, and you can't change sex. If I've got it right, science also says that all the trillions of cells in our bodies have the chromosomes which decide our sex, so it's not like being male or being female is located on any one part of our bodies or our brains.

Keeping things simple again, this is why men presenting as women is so problematic: it is based on the false belief that being a man or a woman depends on outward appearance. That's just not true. Plus or minus bodyparts, your friends are still as male as the day they were born.

As I've said before, I think it would be so much better if gender-questioning young people were told these facts directly and honestly : there's nothing you can do to change sex, so don't cut parts of your perfectly healthy body off, don't have non-functioning extra parts added to your perfectly healthy body, don't submit your perfectly healthy body to a fuck tonne of estrogen or testosterone, and don't condemn your adult self to living in some kind of in-between zone;. now what can we do to help you accept yourself as you actually are and live your best life without fighting against your perfectly healthy body.

If anything should change it's not young bodies, it's the strict stereotypes of what 'a man' or 'a woman' is or looks like which seem to make some people like your friends think there's something wrong about their bodies, and subject their poor bodies to dangerous surgery and a lifetime of medication that will never achieve what they they've been told they can achieve: changing sex.

Note I'm not even going near the social and ethical issues of men claiming to be women - as someone who had a very very difficult time as a gender-non-conforming child, I'm just sticking to the basics, and hoping children like me, and your trans friends, can be helped to love themselves as they are, and are not sold dangerous and false claims that they can transition into something they are not.

Again, thank you for engaging with my question. We both care about our friends and want what's best for them, but where we differ is that I wouldn't want any of my friends to damage their bodies with surgery and pharmaceuticals to try to achieve the unachievable.

So abuse is on a sliding scale is it? Anything less than this is permissable and fine? As long as there are people who are doing worse than you you can continue to do whatever you like? And why the fuck does other people abusive mean that it's fine to be abusive to me?

Where do you draw the line? Or is it only abuse if it's coming from someone who's views you don't agree with?

Yes, some trans people say awful things. That doesn't mean that all of them do, or the ones that don't deserve abuse because someone else from @the same demographic as them did something bad, or that women here can saw awful things to other people and it's totally fine just because some completely unrelated people said awful things on a completely different site. I didn't bother replying the first time because this is obvious. No one would ever say it's fine for me to beat you up because someone else murdered someone would they. You're being ridiculous.

My friends are completely normal, harmless people. They do not deserve abuse for simply existing because some people from the same demographic behave appallingly online. I also don't deserve abuse online for being friends with people, who have done nothing wrong but are in the same demographic as some other completely unrelated people that behave appalling online. If you really can't understand that and think this is any kind of point worth making, I think some self reflection is order.

Womanface is a slur and I object to that.

But hey ho, objection doesn't mean anything does it, FWR women love to bang on about not being kind and not caring who they offend. So object away, you don't speak for all women.

You are completely projecting

I'm wondering why you are so keen to admonish women when men are calling for their decaptiaton if they stand up for what is rightfully theirs. Do these men not deserve your ire more.

And are your friends really that 'harmless' if they are using female spaces. Remember you've never even thought to ask them.

@Glitterknickerbockers

My post got deleted for some reason, but I was trying to address this point of yours:

They are not biological women, but their bodies are also very different to that of a biological man due to surgery and hormone treatment.

The problem is that no-one knows what surgery and hormone treatment they have had just by looking at them. So it's of no relevance when they enter a women-only space: the women will still be frightened and annoyed.

Much more practical to segregate according to sex, rather than start playing guessing games about people's medical history.

Womanface is what they are wearing/doing. Straightforward description. If an accurate description of something seems like a slur maybe that's because there's something deeply wrong with the thing.

Well no, because your response to me calling out abusive behaviour was to link to trans women being abusive online and say well they're doing it and worse so what do you think of that!? As if that makes it ok because it's not as bad as what you have seen elsewhere.

It is clearly an attempt at justification. And no, it doesn't justify it.

I wasn't trying to justify anything.

What 'abusive' behaviour are you talking about from the GC side?

Is 'blackface' a slur? Or is it a descriptor of very problematic behaviour?

“And are your friends really that 'harmless' if they are using female spaces.”

No male person is harmless is they choose to enter a female single sex space without announcing a male is about to enter for an acceptable reason. A male person using the provisions because of their philosophical belief is not an acceptable reason.

I guess that some people may choose to not know what decisions their friends make and ignore the potential that their friends may be distressing women with their actions. It may make a friendship uncomfortable to know this.

I don't have to speak for all women, I speak for me. I find womanface offensive - just as I find black face (but not the Morris) offensive. Women find men in frocks offensive. But that is beside the point, men, whether in frocks or not, wearing womenface or not, are to stay out of women's spaces, places, prizes, prisons, refuges, lavatories, changing rooms and wherever else women do not want men. That is the bottom line and I am not moving on it. Nor are many, many women like me.

The focus on language used by women to demonise the women making legitimate objections is not new at all. After all, if you can present those women as being at fault because of the language they use, and the emotions they express, it makes it easier to discredit their arguments. And to categorise them as being the unreasonable people.

How many times have women heard ‘it is not that I disagree with what you are campaigning for, but the words you use and your tone’ ? How many times have we been told ‘if you just used moderate language people will listen’? When the reality is the ‘moderate language’ being expected by some posters was inaccurate and misleading language.

For instance, how many discussions have we seen about pronoun usage? And yet, after the latest sessions of the NHS Fife tribunal and now the repercussions of using correct sex language to introduce member of Congress McBride, more and more people are understanding why using preferred pronouns is certainly not harmless to female people collectively. And in a growing number of cases, not harmless individually.

How many sessions of congressional meetings get adjourned for lack of respect in an introduction? Particularly because the very same argument can be used to say that any person trying to coerce another to use the claimed pronouns that fit someone else’s philosophical belief is lacking respect in return. The coercer is lacking the respect that the coercee should be able to use the pronouns that fit the established language conventions for that culture not that fit an individual’s philosophical belief.

And yet, important discussions and testimonies that could play a part in shaping peace throughout the world are disrupted and potentially overshadowed because of a male person’s feelings were not centred.

Censuring women about their tone and their language is certainly not new. Particularly when it is being done to support male people.

Taking oestrogen doesn't make you female - though it might make you ill. A male taking female hormone is still male. If it has a penis, produces small gametes and has XY chromosomes (or DSD associated with being male) it's male. No policing necessary.

Amputating body parts doesn't change a person's sex. The presence or absence of a penis on a person with a Y chromosome doesn't change his sex. And there is nothing wrong or faulty about being male.

Or about being female.

The abusive behaviour from a certain poster I have been calling out throughout this thread which has seen several of her posts deleted due to personal insults, slurs and just general hostility including shouting how fucking dare you at me repeatedly and calling me a liar for being a victim of SA. The abusive behaviour that you literally said 'well that's nothing compared to this' about as if the fact there is worse out there makes it fine.