Is it possible to be a feminist and also have some empathy for transgender people today?

[HoundOfTheBasketballs]

I’m not going to pretend I’m an expert here but everything feels incredibly polarised. Like, either you’re with us or you’re against us.
Is there no middle ground in this debate?
I am, and always have been a feminist, but I know and like people who are trans and non-binary. I can’t be the only person feeling confused and conflicted, can I?

Quite. There is no such thing as born in the wrong body. It is yours, the only one you have. You can modify it but it is what it is.

We don't look at people with anorexia and think that's the wrong body for you, or affirm that, we try to treat the underlying mental condition that makes people think that.

I think denying the identity of trans woman is inherently hurtful. If there's really a need to distinguish based on chromosomes surely we can use the terms cis woman/trans woman, rather than calling people 'men' who clearly don't identify as such

OP, I'm answering your first post as I haven't read the thread. But no, you're far from the only one. I am fed up of FB friends who say 'you are with me or against me'. It's not that simple.

My personal feeling is this: no one can change sex. No one can understand what it is like to be the opposite sex, to have period pains every month, to be pregnant, give birth, breast feed, or to be at the mercy of a penis that does its own thing, however excruciating and inappropriate. I think self ID allows revolting perverts and misogynistic opportunists (who imo are not trans at all but abusing trans rights) to gain access to places and spaces allocated to biological women. This is wrong.

But I know several trans people who I like, love or respect and totally support, and don't think it is right or relevant for me to dictate who they are or what their experience is. To me they are transmen and transwomen, distinctly different from men and women. I'm fine with that, so long as they don't demand that I pretend they are men or women, or demand hard won rights and opportunities fought for by bio women, or use biological advantage to oppress women's rights.

I also feel deeply alarmed at the speed and vitriol with which serious discussvwas shut down within the trans community. I can't pretend it doesn't worry me that teenage girls are cutting off their breasts when there is z good chance they may regret this. Or that body dysmorphua and autism are being misdiagnosed as trans.

I gave friends who transitioned late in life, colleagues who transitioned decades before the movement became so widespread, family friends who are trans and overwhelmingly I just see them as people. They are who they are. A little non conformist but so what? I'm very uninterested in their trans identity. I'm interested in their interests, their opinions, their daily lives. I can't tell them my concerns, but I often hold back opinions for the sake of social convention. We all do.

Alongside us when? When we’re naked showering or in a changing room at the gym, in a hospital ward, a prison or a rape crisis centre?
It isn’t being unpleasant to tell a man he can’t have unrestricted access to women 24/7, I don’t believe you are as naive as all that surely?

However, a male without testicles and a penis is still a male person without testicles and a penis. They are not female.

What is the difference between a male person who has had their penis and testicles removed because of injury and disease and one who has had extreme body modification to fit their own personal philosophical belief about themselves?

Cis women is off the table. Women will do.

Transwomen are biologically men.

But it's not possible to live without food, but is possible to live without complying with the traditional gender binary

I rather like that todays ruling means that my right under the Equality Act to single sex spaces where appropriate is not a matter for anyone who 'prefers' to share with men, trans women or any other subset or variety of men.

Some are yes, something I categorically know from personal experience

Sometimes the truth does hurt. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say it.

Lots of women are offended by being called cis but transpeople still say it to them all the time. We cope.

The obfuscation of language has been one of the biggest reasons why this has all gotten out of hand.

But trans people are the ones most adhering to the traditional gender binary. Otherwise how would they be trans?

No it isn't. You can claim to be non-binary all you want, but if you're male you'll still need a prostate exam. If you're female you still might get pregnant. You'll also have everyone around you instinctually reading you as male or female and responding accordingly.

No.

Perhaps it would be helpful to think through what you mean by ‘rights’.

I think that where ‘rights’ is a synonym for ‘live peacefully, free from violence and abuse’ then actually most gender critical feminists - most people! - would agree with you. And that utopia is a long way off - just as it is for myriad other groups. Including women. I mean jesus, do we really think we live in such a utopia for
women, now?

But where ‘rights’ means ‘be treated in all ways, including under law, as if they are LITERALLY the sex that they are not’, then surely you must see that the world runs into problems.

What do you do about sex segregated sports, for example? Single sex prisons? Rape crisis centres? Lesbians who want the right to exclude male people from their dating pool without being called ‘phobic’ (indeed, we used to accept it was homophobic to expect anything else!) What do you do about people who clearly present as male but want to be called ‘she’? Does everyone else really have to play along with their delusion - or indeed their fetish?

The point is, it’s genuinely complicated, and a lot of people have been dragged to the poles of a debate they never wanted to become so extreme - but precisely because a load of people said ‘trans women are women, no debate’. Well, that was bollocks. Literally.

No it isn't. You can claim to be non-binary all you want, but if you're male you'll still need a prostate exam. If you're female you still might get pregnant. You'll also have everyone around you instinctually reading you as male or female and responding accordingly.

Why should we use the term 'cis'? The term 'cis' is meaningless because the term includes any male person who has a DSD yet has a body that is **formed around the production of small gametes that has any degree of sensitivity to any of the testosterone that body produces.

There is no word left for female people.

Because even male people are now saying they are also ‘female’ . When ^^ female means only a person of the sex category where that person's body has been formed around the production of large gametes, regardless of whether the body does, has or ever will produce those large gametes. ie that requires the presence of ovaries or ovarian tissue - never testes.

In fact, we now have examples of many male people declaring that they are female people. So even the word for female has become meaningless in that sense.

But 'cis' is a* *word that was repurposed from its original usage and is meaningless for the purpose of discussing female people in its current usage. It has been used in academic papers as well in an attempt at using inclusive language which then renders the papers meaningless because the term is not describing a unique grouping of human bodies, even when it claims to be doing just that.

To see how this works, we have been told that 'girl' and 'woman' both now include:

1 Male person who has been incorrectly registered as a female at birth, but has a male body **.
2 Any male person has now claimed a transgender identity using those labels.
3 And any person who has a female body ^^.

Under the label of 'girl' and 'woman', extreme transgender activists have been telling us for years that those labels break down into two types of girls or women:
Cis and Transwomen/transgirls.

These terms mean:
Cis
= (1) Male person who has been incorrectly registered as a female at birth, but has a male body **
and
= (3) Any person who has a female body^^
Trans
= (2) Any male person has now claimed a transgender identity using those labels.

Therefore there is no unique word to mean female people who have a body ^^ formed around the production of large gametes.

Cis is meaningless as a unique description for female people and it always was. It is also misogynistic because it leaves female people with no unique word for their needs.

Because they're made of snips and snails and puppy dog tails.

Christ, do keep up.

I agree with the empathy point but unfortunately there was no other way.

Before everyone rubbed along nicely and it was an unspoken social contract. Passing non creepy TW were allowed in female spaces on a case by case basis. Transwomen who respect women would never want to put them in a state of distress of discomfort. It just seemed to work.

Unfortunately with the rise of those who have no respect for women and ‘gender’, the pressure to accept autogynaphiles; as opposed traditional non-autogypnehile transsexuals - the line has unfortunately had to be drawn which is black and white.

Calling them a chick with a dick is incorrect, they’re men. My biggest objection to this is that women are being asked to deny what they see and know to be true, by men, and often other women, that TW are by some miracle a subset of women, they’re not. Men have, since time began, asked, bullied and forced women to believe things that aren’t true, to women’s detriment, and whilst I would never go out of my way to upset anyone, I will not go along with something that is so blatantly and fundamentally false.

What has a traditional gender binary got to do with anything? Many, most, maybe all women don’t live exclusively in “a traditional gender binary”. What does that look like? Behaving as a stereotypical woman? What even is that? Actual sex binary isn’t at all the same thing as “traditional gender binary”. Gender critical people are precisely the ones saying that there’s no such thing as a traditional gender binary - and that’s why “gender” is a nonsense to use for grouping people. Sex is sensible to use for some situations. Gender is meaningless.

Doesn’t everyone? I wore trousers today, surely that means I’m not complying with the traditional binary? I also got quite aggressive with a coworker in my male dominated industry and I ate steak for dinner. All failures to comply with the traditional gender binary.

Everyone fails to comply with the traditional gender binary, not least because it’s culturally contingent and therefore ever changing (a few decades ago pink was a very masculine colour etc etc).

It is honestly much more freeing to accept that there are two biological sexes, and to celebrate any variation of personality, preference, non harmful behaviour, sexuality etc etc within those sexes, than to box yourself into thinking that to be a woman is to behave like x or to be a man is to behave like y. Come try it!

Exactly. It’s often transpeople who are upholding the gender binary by performing their “new gender” with outdated sexist stereotypes or telling girls who like trucks and short hair they’re actually boys!

I think this seems needed here:

There is no wrong body.

And no male person can ever experience life as a woman. They can only ever experience life as a male person who believes they are a woman.

Even when they 'act' like a woman, they are acting as they believe a 'woman' should act. Which is fucking misogynistic!

Even if they are treated 'as a woman' by some people, they are being treated as a 'male who presents as a woman and believes they are a woman'. Because their every reaction is based on that. Not on them being female in any way.

Even when they have extreme body modifications, it is to be their own concept of what a female looks like to them. It is not what a female is.

How can it be?

The only way a person can experience life as a woman, is to have a female body, formed around the production of large gametes, even if it doesn't produce those and to navigate their life based on the decisions they and society makes that revolve around them having that body.

A male can conceptualise what it might be like to be a female, but that is all it ever is - their concept of being female.

They may do it because they don't feel they fit into how they conceptualise how a male person interacts with the world (ie. their own stereotypes around being male) or they do it because they want to be seen as a female (using their own stereotypes of how a female navigates life). It really doesn't matter though. Their motivation is irrelevant to the outcome. And I consider the outcome can only be described as misogyny.

Which is that they will always be just a male who believes they are something they are objectively not.

How can the material reality be any different? This is why someone's gender is only based on someone's philosophical belief. And philosophical beliefs are fine for people to hold, but not one person in the UK has to comply with another's philosophical belief.

The logic cannot be any different than that I am afraid.

I thought I’d peaked years ago but today the illogicality of the handmaidens has been unleashed in all its incoherent, misogynistic fervour. My favourite comments so far ‘this is a bad day for women’s rights’ , ‘ I’m uncomfortable calling transwomen men’ , Dies this mean that transwomen will be forced to go to men’s prisons?’ and ‘ This decision goes against all I stand for as a proud DEI officer’ All sprinkled with breaking heart and tragic emojis
Truly, I couldn’t make it up
I’ve been busily and quietly gardening gor a while and - finally- the green shoots are up and blooming.