Review "Six Conversations we're Scared to have"

[Igneococcus]

I hope this sharetoken works, my laptop has died a lonely death while I was away and I'm doing this from the phone.
Sarah Ditum review if Guilty Feminist book:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/325fffb2-2c93-4dc8-908f-8b9bf22f331a?shareToken

I think for the people like DFW who are in the public eye, whose livelihood depends on having an audience and who’ve already alienated all of their past GC followers by taking such an emphatic TWAW position, they’re probably terrified for their careers, especially following the SC ruling now that supporters are falling away as they realise the emperor is butt-naked.

The desperation is palpable, and for people who’ve built their whole business around vocal adherence to a controversial ideology, I sometimes wonder whether they have ever quietly agreed with a sensible argument for the existence of biological sex, experienced some practical sex-based issue or even listened to enough transwomen’s origin stories to notice they tend to be rooted in sex stereotypes, misogyny and/or internalised homophobia, and whether at some point they’ve wondered whether completely ignoring biological sex for every purpose makes sense as a blanket policy.

A huge number of women, myself included, once fervently believed that TWAW and campaigned for trans rights alongside gay rights. And most of us here peaked at some point.

There must be some public figures out there who have privately peaked but whose entire brand depends on maintaining that TWAW forevermore. This is, of course, a problem entirely of their own making, but it must still be very stressful. I can’t imagine how torturous it is to be a gender critical person trapped in the career of a gender woo person…

Je vous presente; Carla Denyer asked what it means to 'live as a woman'.

https://youtube.com/shorts/ChPAf8GoPgA?si=nR6n1A_mDYOBYa6V

She fuckin knows.

And yet they don’t seem to just say “being a woman just means feeling that you are one and saying so, that’s all it is”. And yet that is the definition trans ideology requires and that has actually, in RL, been put into practice in all kinds of spaces and situations. If you support that, just say so - it doesn’t require any justification according to gender ideology. Yet they flounder around trying to appeal to reason.

One of the You Tube comments is very pithy.

‘This is the intellectual equivalent of a Rachel Raygun breakdance routine’

Forget clowns on buses. She is also literally a comedian and sometimes makes her points judiciously.

Her primary analogy is about how society is already comfortable overlooking biology in certain contexts — we just choose when to apply that comfort.

She points out that when a woman adopts a child, society has no issue calling her the child’s mother, even though she didn’t give birth to the child.

People don’t say, “Well, biologically, you’re not the mother,” or challenge her identity as a parent. Her role as “mother” is accepted without debate, because it’s understood that motherhood is more than just biology — it’s about love, care, and identity.

DFW uses this to highlight a double standard: If we can accept a social rather than biological definition of “mother”, why do some resist doing the same when it comes to gender identity? She suggests that people are already capable of prioritising identity over biology — when it suits them — and argues for that same empathy and flexibility when it comes to trans people.

KK is a sexist right-winger who says charming things on Twitter like this:

“… liberal feminism taught women to see how far they can grow their armpit hair out while shouting "where have all the good men gone?" “

KK is also a Trump supporter.

Motherhood is nothing to do with identity.

Men can't be women. They haven't the first clue what it is like to be a woman, it's impossible.

Reality isn't flexible, and empathy is entirely irrelevant.

It's always the emotive pleading when there are no actual arguments.

'Do what I say or I'll be sad' isn't an argument.

You seem to have missed the point about adoptive motherhood as absolutely about identity?

It's not about identity. It's a legal status. People don't just waft in off the street and identify as an adoptive mother. There is an extensive and rigorous process of training, testing, meeting criteria, upholding certain rules etc. And if that is all met, one becomes an adoptive mother.

This doesn't mean one becomes a biological mother, and it certainly doesn't by any leap of logic mean a man can become a woman, no matter what certification he buys.

The two things are not the same. Comparing two processes doesn't make them the same.

Oh goody. Can I identify as an adoptive mother without actually adopting a child?

Or, is being an adpotive mother rooted in the reality of actually being a woman who goes through the process of adopting a child and then caring for them?

Also, if adoptive mothers claimed to be biological mothers and demanded things that are meant for them (like say maternity care), or refused to accept they were adoptive and that that is different from biological, people probably would object, or think they were deluded. They don’t. They are two different kinds of mother. No one is claiming that one magically is the other just by saying so.

you’re getting confused because there’s a biological/non-biological comparison, but it’s actually not the same because no one is trying to claim to be something they cannot be or appropriate anyone else’s identity.

The point of Deborah Frances-White’s analogy isn’t to claim that adoptive mothers are biological mothers — it’s that society already accepts non-biological identities as valid in many contexts. No one insists an adoptive mother is biologically the parent, but we still fully affirm her identity as a mother. We don’t say “but you’re not a real / biological mother,” or to deny her parental rights.

The comparison to trans identity works the same way: a trans woman isn’t denying biology.
Trans people know they are trans! “Trans women are women” does not mean trans women are identical to biological/cis women. It just means they want to be included in society’s categorisation of women.

So yes, the analogy holds: it shows we’re already capable of separating biology from identity without confusion or conflict — when we want to.

@Onetimeonlyftw

How do you define "women"?

Generally speaking, a woman is an adult human female, but the term can also encompass social categories — including trans women, who identify and live as women.

and…

Generally speaking, a mother is a woman who has given birth to a child, but the term can also encompass social categories — including adoptive and foster mothers who take on the role of nurturing and raising a child.

a trans woman isn’t denying biology.

You haven't met many of them, have you?

Yes, I know multiple trans women and men in real life.

But none so lovely as the fragrant Dr Upton.

If trans women weren’t denying biology, they would understand they are not female and don’t belong in female spaces and categories - because they are for females. A few trans women do respect this but not many. And if transwomen kept out of women’s spaces and services and respected they are not for them, most women would not have a problem with it.

there is a parallel but only in terms of there being biological and non-biological categories in your mind. The massive difference is adoptive mothers don’t impinge on biological mothers and claim their rights or services - and of course there’s very little separate provision anyway as mothers are female and are not a risk to each other in the same way that males are.

and of course you can literally be both a biological and an adoptive mother.

just because you can find a point of comparison, does not mean the one situation justifies the other.

there is biological vanilla essence and synthetic vanilla essence. They both do approximately the same thing. This does not mean that a cuddly toy dog is approximately the same as a living dog. And so on.

The parallel doesn't work, though.

Biological mothers and adoptive mothers both participate in the act of mothering. They spend significant time and effort raising a child. That's why they are both considered mothers.

Trans women, on the other hand, cannot by definition participate in the act of "being an adult female". There's no such thing as an act of "womanning" which men could do and that would qualify them to be called women.

Or if you prefer another approach:

Being a biological mother and being an adoptive mother have one thing in common: the fact of taking care of a child. So they can under certain circumstances be considered similar.

Being an adult female and being a trans woman have nothing in common, so they can never be considered similar.

Your vanilla essence and cuddly toy analogues are coming pretty close to dehumanising trans people….

Trans women are not “fake” women. They are people asking to be considered as women under an entirely social category of women.

And the Supreme Court confirmed that there’s no such thing as “social category of woman”, women is categorised by biological sex. HTH.

They are people asking to be considered as women under an entirely social category of women.

They are asking for the entirely social category of women to be created, and the existing biological category of women to be dismantled, and mention of it to criminalised.…. And they aren’t asking, they are demanding.

It just means they want to be included in society’s categorisation of women.

The 'social' category of women? How is that defined? What does it actually mean? How is it defined? It's meaningless.

This is sophistry to try to.include males in the group of 'female'. It's incoherent.

The comparison with adoptive mothers is spurious, because of the comparator.

An adoptive mother is a woman who acts as a mother - a woman can become a mother. No male can become a woman.

The analogy would be more accurate were we to ask if a man can become an adoptive mother.

The adoptive mother analogy is good, but not in the way intended.
As a PP explained, adoptive mothers don’t force a demand to, say, join antenatal classes or expect to go to a labour ward to be delivered their adopted baby. They don’t demand that other women shut up about postpartum bodies or decompress by telling birthing stories at baby groups.

no, they are random examples of biological categories with non-biological counterparts to illustrate that these pairings are not all the same and do not all share the same qualities. In this analogy, if “trans people” are soft toys then women are actual dogs so that would be dehumanising both of them unless you think dogs are human.

Analogies do not indicate that you are dehumanising anyone - the analogy of wolves/sheep and foxes/chickens is often used to illustrate how self-ID enables male predators. In these analogies, women are chickens and sheep so could easily claim to be “dehumanised” but I guess they don’t because they understand it’s an analogy.