Tommy's charity - utterly captured

[Callmejudith]

Received an email from Tommy's today promoting their new pregnancy advice for transgender and non binary parents - absolute drivel https://www.tommys.org/pregnancy-information/being-pregnant/pregnancy-trans-and-non-binary-parents?utmcampaign=Pregnancy%20for%20trans%20and%20non-binary%20parents%20-%20Not%20clicked&utmmcontent=transnonnbinarypregginfotexttlink&utmterm=&utmmmedium=email&utmsource=adestra

I suspect they've been captured for a while but I am so upset, I've raised thousands of pounds for them over the years

Not ideal for a dog to do that either (for either animal).

It's pretty simple why many women (in the original sex based meaning) find your perspective on women regressive and anti-feminist.

As a Jewish person you will be aware of things have been held to be "true" about Jewish people which Jewish people rightly reject and which society in general no longer believes.

Now imagine someone has a Jewish mother, genuinely holds all the beliefs of Judaism and observes all the traditions of Judaism, but refuses to be called Jewish because Jewish people are [insert one of those prejudiced and outmoded beliefs].

As a Jewish person, would you not consider that person to be incorrect in their view of what it is to be Jewish? Would you not, in fact, find it pretty offensive that people not only do not challenge this person's claim of being Not Jewish but actually nod along and agree "yes, I see what you mean, thank you for eduating me, I understand the true nature of Jewish people and why you are not such a person better now"?

So it is with women. We understand ourselves to be all sorts of different personalities, linked only by the fact we all have a female body. To us that is all that "woman" means.

So when you claim you, with the same female body, cannot be a "woman" because of some personal association you have with the word that is nothing to do with how we understand ourselves, and in fact seems to us regressive and sexist given that it brings back old ideas that women and men's minds are fundamentally different and suited to different things, those of us who simply understand "woman" to mean "human with a female body", something that you also are, just think "of course you are".

Do you see? Your personal definition of womanhood may be meaningful to you, but it is not meaningful to us. And therefore, to us, you simply are a woman, because the definition of Woman by which we know ourselves, the single definig and only criterion that makes us women is also true of you. And this is true whether you accept that word or not. We are still the same.

(Tl;dr: To say "I'm female bodied but I'm not a woman" is like saying "I live on the thid planet from the sun but I don't live on Earth". You may not like the word, you may have your own personal defintion that makes what you say true in your mind, but the reality is still the same. The thing the word "woman" labels is still you whether you accept the label or not, because it is a fact of the material body not a choice in the mind.)

Many of my colleagues are women and proud feminists.

Many people identify as feminists without giving it much thought. Whether or not they are feminists depends on their actual beliefs, and you haven’t explained what your colleagues believe.

The belief that men and women do not have to fit into gender boxes is a key principle of feminism.

Perhaps you could explain why your belief that you are a man isn’t dependent on defining men and women according to their compliance with societal expectations.

Plus our dog breast fed our kittens so perhaps he's just used to unusual family situations.

This must be a new thing, referring to mother animals feeding their young as “breastfeeding”, though the actual act of nursing an infant of another species isn’t that unusual.

Unless of course you actually mean a male animal when you say “dog” (as opposed to bitch). But I doubt transing the family pet is a feature of your unusual family situation. Or maybe it is. Nothing would surprise me any more.

Well quite. Lets get away from the gender stereotyping please and we might get away from this whole mess altogether.

I also thought 'breast feeding' a weird term to use wrt an animal.

How else are they going to feed young?

Are dog teats known as 'breasts'?

Are dog teats known as 'breasts'?

Never, to my knowledge or in my experience.

Someone on here is a big big fibber.

This thread is starting to remind me of a really weird date I one went on with a guy who turned out to be a compulsive liar.

He learned martial arts with shaolin monks and had been drinking with Metallica (the rest of it is too weird and outing to share)

Each anecdote left me feeling more and more WTAF? Until I was tempted to climb out through the restaurant toilet (i didn't, but i did put him on his bus home and make sure I saw him actually leave before I went).

@AstonScrapingsNameChange 😂

i actually did once climb out of a toilet window in the middle of a first date. His name was Stan. He travelled from a village to meet me in the city I lived.

I bumped in to him at a later date, was very erm awkward.

But the example is flawed because I don't think there is anything wrong with being a woman and i didnt transition because I have a general issue with women.

Indeed many people misappropriate feminism without reflecting what feminism means.

As for fibbing. I can assure you if I was going to lie about my life it would be more exciting than a queer Rabbinical student, dad of one and owner of a bitch who gave milk from her teats to my male kitten to use precise language.

You misunderstand.

Firstly, because "Woman" to most people is just the name for people with the same body sex as you.

That you have a personal alternative definition of "woman" doesn't change the fact that you still are a "woman" by the definition most people use. You aren't different to us, you just have a different understanding of a word.

Secondly, the simple fact of claiming "woman" is a mental difference to men rather than a physical one is insulting.

You may not feel that , just as our theoretical Not Jewish person may not feel their deal breaker Jewish feature is a flaw, simply not something they recognise in themselves, and just as the many men who excluded us from positions of influence and power told us we were worth just much as them but in a different way.

But that isn't the point. It's not about whether you intend to be sexist, but whether you are sexist.

By falsely attributing womanhood (or Jewishness) as resting in a person's mentality or personality rather than a simple fact of body (or culture), you are reducing us, you are insulting us, and you are going back to the regressive idea that only certain personalities are proper for women (or men).

It's not about how you feel, it's about your projection of your own prejudices about what a woman is onto us and expecting us to agree and respect that view of us even though it belittles us.

Your self image is incompatible with Feminism because if you have a truly open and expensive view of womanhood and of women's abilities and potential it is literally impossible that anything in a female person's personality, good or bad, could be incompatible with it.

What do you think Feminism means?

Plus our dog breast fed our kittens so perhaps he's just used to unusual family situations.

A dog that just happened to be lactating at the time you also had a litter of kittens...

I don’t think anybody on this thread thinks you have an ‘issue’ with women.

Perhaos you are confusing misogyny and sexism?

Gender is societal expectations of how a man or a woman should behave, so I think that if you define yourselves in those terms, you are re-enforcing the sexist stereotypes that have prevented women from participating in society on equal terms with men.

You haven’t explained what you think feminism means, so I can’t comment on that.

I haven’t accused you of fibbing.

I do wonder why you describe your parenting in gendered terms though.

Or the dog in human terms

I can believe the dog thing - it does happen. But it is suboptimal for the kitten as it's not milk intended by nature to meet a kitten's needs, but a puppy's needs.