"Trans women ARE biological women"

[TangenitalContrivance]

I see this argument and comment more and more the last few weeks and hugely over the last 3 days.

For example:

https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1k1tliv/trans_women_are_biological_women/

This statement, and the comments underneath it absolutely baffle me.

The approach, one that I am sure will only work with a minority of the people who said TWAW, is to undermine the definition of words, yet again, and deliberately cloud the water when it comes to speaking clearly and using terms that everyone agrees with

I have seen it said in more places than Reddit however, and by respected people

Seconded

As I said, I don't think numbers is human, so trying human reasoning is not going to do anything except switch it to another (equally familiar) line of argument with suitable buzz words.

I do tend to read it as being a tiny bit of 'woke' signalling. 'Look at me with my enlightened athiest views'. I am certain that it is not meant like that by everyone who uses it and I worship the ground Kathleen Stock walks on, but I am just being honest about the reaction it provokes in me.
Discussion for another thread on another day perhaps

Not prejudice. Rationality. And by the way, I would say the same of all religions and quasi-religious belief systems.

And what makes you think I'm English?

Okay, Anglophone anticatholicism if you prefer. If you, or Kathleen Stock, had said 'religion', that would have been a different matter. It is the tedious insistence on mocking one specifically Roman Catholic doctrine that I find unacceptable, and not worthy of her.

Come along now, Dean.

If transubstantiation were just a metaphor or symbolism, OK.

But it's not, it's a belief that one substance can literally, actually, change into another, when that is impossible.

Then it's perfectly fair to use it as a comparison with another belief about an impossible change.

Except that it isn't. It is a belief in the Real Presence. It isn't about alchemy, though the late medieval protestants who sneered at it were influenced by their exposure to alchemy. As I said elsewhere the other day, think Quantum physics.
try this: https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=science_religion_2013

Real and Present and Substance are concepts theologians have argued over for more than a millennium and a half. They weren't all idiots. We are all made of stardust.

Big difference: Catholics believe in transubstantiation but accept that most? all?other? people don't.
And far from insisting that other people join in affirming their belief with flags and pronouns and that kind of thing, the Catholic church requires people who don't believe in transubstantiation to desist from taking Communion.

Truce?

DeanElderberry · Today 16:19
Okay, Anglophone anticatholicism if you prefer. If you, or Kathleen Stock, had said 'religion', that would have been a different matter. It is the tedious insistence on mocking one specifically Roman Catholic doctrine that I find unacceptable, and not worthy of her.

I think you're wildly overthinking this. Before you said what you did, I had no idea transubstantiation was a specifically Catholic doctrine because I'm as uninterested in it as I am in all denominations of Christianity and all other religions and unevidenced belief systems. I know it's a word used to explain the magical transformation of one substance into another and that's it — and is all I needed to know to understand KS's quip. You've made two assumptions, first that I'm prejudiced against Catholics (which I am only insofar as I'm prejudiced against anyone who believes in any faith-based belief system) and secondly about my nationality which comes with its own racist overtones.

I also had to go away and check Operation Barbarossa. I thought I knew what it was but wasn't certain. I'm now ready to deal with any offended Germans and Russians who didn't think that KS's comparison was funny, either.

The only thing that is stopping trans women from being biologically women is the XX chromosome in their cells. That is something no amount of scientific advancements or debate will change. They will always be biologically male, but that is not a reason to disrespect or discourage the practice of being transgender. Each to their own.

It is not a word for a 'magical transformation'. You are thinking of 'hey presto'. Unless you are using it an anti-Catholic slur.

The only thing that is stopping trans women from being biologically women is the XX chromosome in their cells.

You mean, the only thing stopping them from being biologically women is the fact that they're biologically men? I mean, that's true, but you present it as if it's some minor trifling thing rather than the entire essence of it. The only thing stopping a cat from being a dog is the fact that it's a cat.

Trans people can wear what they want, call themselves what they want and form whatever friendships and relationships that they want. They just can't enter spaces designated for the sex they aren't. Those are the same rules that everyone else has to follow. The same rights.

The problem is that unless you are a Catholic then that is what it roughly means to everyone else.

Transgenderism has too much in common with religion. You either believe, or you don't.

With all respect — and I really mean it — you're starting to sound like the posters who have told us that sex doesn't exist because what we everyday ordinary people call sex, based on current understanding of chromosomes, is just scratching the surface of the science and XX and XY is much, much more complicated than we can understand.

In everyday reasonable use the word transubstantiation does mean a transmutation or change, derived from the Catholic belief. I just looked it up in Collins, which is the dictionary I use for work. Most of us aren't Catholics so we use the world in a general, secular sense.

As there is nothing, apparently, I can say that you won't interpret as an anti-Catholic slur I'll leave it there.

I think this refers to me! I am definitely human - I could post some social media links but that would be very outing.

Age 38, gender - female - married with a baby :) Live in the North.

Oh, suddenly female has a meaning?

Yes again gender. We’ve been through this argument though. I have to make my Easter tea 🐥

Enjoying a hot cross bun. Not a robot.

Ah, OK. So on The Right Side of History, female gender (not woman gender) is a concrete and definable thing which can be clearly related to an individual. But female sex does not exist and all biological traits are a complex ineffable constellation that no mortal mind can comprehend.

Gotcha.

Well no not really - I don’t personally believe in binary genders but accept that culturally it is the norm.

And I am by everyone elses definition on this thread (though not mine) biologically female. It was very amusing that everyone assumed I must be a ‘man’ to have these views. I have a womb and a baby 😳

Sorry to spoil your amusement, but I assumed nothing of the sort. So not 'everyone' at all.

It’s funny how hilariously and over-confidently wrong some people are. I envy them their lack of self awareness, often.

Such a great article!

So you agree that someone who has a womb isn't a man then?