Help me argue that What it Feels Like For a Girl doesn't prove terfs are wrong

[Pluvia]

I'm in a women's discussion group with a woman who is an expert in her field of medicine. She's worked for some years with the WHO and other major agencies and has only recently returned to the UK after about a decade working in Geneva, with stints in Ethiopia and elsewhere in the developing world. Her specialist field is a particular area of women's health. She knows what a woman is.

Sex realism/ the GC pov seems to have completely passed her by. She has no idea of the complexity or reality of the situation and thinks trans people are vulnerable souls who probably have some genetic or neurological predisposition that leaves them feeling that they are in the wrong bodies. She thinks Cass is unduly harsh. Although her life appears to be focussed around women's health, she seems blind to the feminist or women's rights issues inherent in GI.

She has no idea about sexual fetishes, AGP, attacks on women, the misogyny and homophobia that lies behind so much GI. She can't understand how someone like me, who appears to be so reasonable on so many other topics, can be so cruel when it comes to transpeople. I asked her to read Helen Joyce's Trans and she said she tried but couldn't bear the hatred that she experienced in the first few chapters. She has now sent me a link to What It Feels Like For a Girl. which, she says, will show me what I've misunderstood and why my attitude is so harsh.

I'm not going to watch WIFLFAG and give a misogynistic, homophobic gay man any oxygen. Any thoughts on what I can say that might get through to her? At what point with people like her does one just give up?

The fact is, humans cannot change sex and no one argues that they can. That is something that everyone agrees on.

So no matter how much you want to be 'a girl' or how you think it feels, a male cannot be a girl.

Women throughout the world are all different. We don't all feel the same, think the same or want the same things. Not all women are 'girlie' and not it's not 'every little girl's dream' to do xyz.

There is nothing that women have in common except their sex. That's it. It's the one thing that all women, across the globe, in all cultures and throughout all time have that makes them a member of the female sex.

Men cannot have that, have never had that and will never have it. It's that simple.

Yes. Although I think it’s a lot for OP to expect the woman to read a whole book and similar for the woman to suggest a whole TV series. It’s a lot of time to spend unless someone’s really committed. Probably best if they stick to shorter case studies or sound bites.

Yes I think as the friend read a few chapters of the book then OP could watch a couple of episodes and show willing

@AidaP
Which question? You asked 2 and I answered both of them. You’ve been asked multiple and dodged them all.

What do YOU got that proves her wrong?

You didn't see a transgender barrister being followed and harassed at parliament bathroom by 2 transphobic activists two week ago?

Could you please offer up some more compelling examples of the torture etc you mentioned up thread? The one example of the barrister in the HOP doesn’t help your case.

I don’t think you can reasonably argue that What It Feels Like For A Girl proves or disproves anything unless you’ve seen it.

The same way you can’t argue an article you’ve never read says anything. Not justifiably anyway.

You’d have to just tell her you’re not watching it because based on what you know of it and your existing starting point, you know you can’t be convinced, and hope that holds enough water.

It probably won’t, but you can’t really comment on something you’ve not seen.

Someone up thread mentioned an otherwise intelligent person, being in thrall to BeKind.

I give no quarter at all, any more. I just say “I disagree with your analysis there.” or “I don’t think that’s brave, it sounds like your neighbour has a cross dressing fetish which he wishes to have out in the open.” or “You’re not really their friend though, are you? You’re just using their distress to polish your own halo, by cheerleading them to cut off their genitals. No one needs that sort of friend.” or “Actually, I have stopped using preferred pronouns for people not here . I know it’s jarring, it feels very subversive to hear someone refuse to recite the catechism, doesn’t it?”

Someone mentioned criminality up the thread. Even if what you were saying was true, there is still the difficulty with the actual disparity in violent and sexual offences of trans identify male prisoners with compared to the rest of the male population.And that’s not based on a self selected sample. That’s based on all the relevant individuals.

Males are not a minority and women are allowed to say no to men.

"singular incidents can happen" - we could say the same about transwomen using the bathrooms of their own sex - sure "singular incidents may happen". Why is it OK for women to be the victims of "singular incidents" - like Katie Dolatowski for example, but transwomen can't possibly face the singular incidents in the men's toilets?

Reports of the incident and its aftermath are rather different from your version of events. (And note there are gender neutral toilets available.) This is from The Times:
^^
In an email sent to Harris and Binning on Thursday afternoon, a senior staff member in the House of Commons wrote: “You noted that an individual, understood to be biologically male, had seemingly been directed to the female facilities … At this point you made it clear that you were uncomfortable, left the facilities, and reported the matter to members of my team.
^^
We acknowledge that it is likely the individual you complained about should have not been directed to the female facilities and we apologise for that.”

Who's MET?

Ooohh Aida’s back with their very familiar posting style. Transwomen are still men Aida

anyway OP as many posters have said on this board before me, you can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into in the first place

if they think the solution to the traumatising childhood snd adolescence endured by Lees is a lifetime of medical treatment and painful surgery then theyre not the compassionate person they believe themselves to be. Why would anyone wish that on someone else?

I really wouldn’t bother trying

Agree. It doesn't seem like there'd be much point, OP. If there's no middle ground at all to meet on then I doubt constructive conversations can happen.

My understanding of the situation is that he followed Kate and Heather into the female toilets and they quite rightly asked him to leave.

There was also a unisex toilet the same distance away from the committee room that he could have used if he wasn't so insistent on invading women's spaces.

For me there are two important questions here.

1. What is a woman?
2. What does it feel like to have gender dysphoria?

It is important to understand that these are two entirely separate questions.

So let's be charitable and assume that all trans identifying people really do feel incredibly strongly that they should have been born the opposite sex, and that how they feel inside is how it feels to be the opposite sex. (They cannot, of course, actually know how it feels to be the opposite sex, or indeed how it feels to be any person other than themselves.) Let's assume that being in their sexed body causes them acute emotional distress every day of their existence, and that the only thing that makes them feel even a little bit better is people accepting them as a member of the sex they wish to belong to.

Even if all of that were true, for all trans people, it still wouldn't change what a woman is.

My existence, my reality and my lived experience as a woman is not conditional on how trans people feel. Women would be women, whether or not there were any trans people in the world.

And even if being female and not having gender dysphoria were an identity, which I dispute, it would not be the same identity as being male and having gender dysphoria.

So whilst I understand that not being accepted and included as a member of the opposite sex night make trans people feel very sad, I still believe that female people exist as a distinct class of people, that we need a word for that group, and that that group need some sex based rights. I could talk to a thousand trans people and they could all be lovely, and so, so sad, and it would not change my opinion about that even one iota.

Womanhood isn't a 6 year old's birthday party, where you have to include everyone otherwise the person who gets left out will be really sad. It's an important concept in its own right, grounded in material reality, and our ability to discuss it and organise ourselves on the basis of it should not be curtailed or hampered because another group of people are unhappy about it.

https://www.womensrights.network/post/a-hero-steps-up

I saw this the other day. It’s an example of the consequences of self ID.

You could quote Orwell "There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them."

and then point out that "Women’s rights are hard won rights, based in women’s inescapable bodily reality. ‘Trans rights’ are concepts and ideas which are hard pin down, because they are based in thoughts, perceptions and behaviours only." (not sure who said that one)

Then give up on her because she's clearly not going to budge, I no longer care about the transmaidens, they're a lost cause, if it weren't for the damage they're doing, I'd ignore the lot of them.

Actually, no. The trans barrister followed the two women into the toilets. He was not harassed at all.

The trans barrister, who had previously been a frequent visitor to the HoC, apparently, had to be directed to the nearest loos, which just happened to be female. There was a unisex loo an equal distance away.

RMW is a huge great bloke. No wonder women don’t usually object out loud when RMW goes in their bathrooms. They are probably too scared too. But since he went in a women’s loo when he was at the HOC to talk about the SC judgment, I have no sympathy. He knew damn well he should go to a unisex loo, but he thought his feelings came first.

This!

I think the main argument, which is so often overlooked and ignored, is that telling women we are not allowed to identify as women (which we cannot do according to the trans definition, as we don't possess their elusive inner womanhood feeling) because actually our identity is determined by a secret, inner feeling possessed by some biological males (but by no biological female we've met or heard from) and which we do not possess (or we'd have some idea what on earth it might be) ...is surely doing exactly what we're accused of doing to those biological males?

Eh? Everybody since time immemorial has been born with the body they are born with. There’s no wrong or right.

Sort of what I'm wondering, too. Paris Lees has been around for years. We can all see how troubled he is, how homophobic, and how toxic his solution to his troubles has been. But she doesn't see it.

Utter nonsense 😂😂😂

I haven't read the book or seen the film, so I don't know the details of this particular story. But if Paris Hilton was born physically male, we are up against the same problem as ever :
If it's not about the sex of their body, the "girl" part can only consist of feelings and thoughts and/or possibly some neurological quirk which we can't identify and confirm yet. In other words, something presently invisible to others.
By the same token, unless Paris Hilton is psychic, or privy to some advanced medical technique the rest of science doesn't know, the invisible thoughts, feelings and neurology of others are a closed book to PH, including those of people who are indisputably female.
So why and on what evidence does Paris Hilton identify what is going on inside themself as actually "girl" rather than as "young man who doesn't confirm to male social stereotypes"? Does PH explain this? If not, how does your friend explain this?

The reality of that incident is that the two women were inside the toilets when a male entered. A male who knew full well that he was entering female only toilets and that there were women inside.
Explain to me in words of 1 syllable why it’s now ok for a male to enter single sex female spaces?

If what you allege is correct, why did the women receive a written apology? You’re spouting more lies.