What is "trans" and why does it justify undoing sex in law, society, culture and history?

[FlirtsWithRhinos]

In the Trolls thread @Tandora and I discovered that in a recent thread she had thought she was very clear about what "trans" is while I thought she was simply describing symptoms that could have many causes and did not justify why these symptoms should be treated as actual material facts by others.

• Trolls thread with our interaction on this page: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/5420701-a-little-piece-of-insight?page=15&reply=147554941

• my question on the earlier thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5420701-a-little-piece-of-insight?page=15&reply=147554941

Clearly I missed something in that earlier thread but I can't go back because it has reached its post limit, so rather than derail the trolls thread, I am restating my question here.

Looking forward to @Tandora engaging with my questions to help me understand what I missed about her position in the original thread.

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Tandora · 02/10/2025 21:28
Right- this is your question. which is why im trying to explain what being trans is. It's entirely relevant, the reason people can't comprehend the issue is that they simply can't comprehend what it is to be trans.
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FlirtsWithRhinos · 02/10/2025 23:13
But Tandora you haven't explained what being trans is. All you've done is played the old TRA game of "Not that" when anyone else tries suggest an definition, any definition at all, that appears to fit the random claims you are making that feeling very wrong in the sex you actually are is somehow interchangeable with being the sex you are not, or that a characteristic of the mind somehow overrides the reality and consequences of differences of the body for both the trans person and for others.

You have made all sort of hand wringing emotional claims on behalf of trans people, and roundly insulted everyone who doesn't accept your argument of "they just are, alright" as closed minded and uneducated (which frankly would be hilarious to anyone who'd ever met me), and yet never once explained exactly why this thing makes the differences of sex and the social consequences of those differences, facts that are entirely and unproblematically accepted as real in all other circumstances, suddenly inconsequential and irrelevant in the face of a trans person's mental self image.

So I'll ask you again.

What is "being trans" Tandora?
Is it being one sex but with a deep and aching wish you were the other sex, maybe like a blind person has a deep and aching wish to see, or a lonely little girl has a deep and aching wish that she had been born as one of the popular kids instead?

Or is it actually being, in an innate mental way, in ways we don't yet understand, the other sex, implying that sex is not in fact a descriptor of the body but of the mind?

Because take away the emotional manipulation and neither definition actually justifies the demands being made of women in its name.

Neither definition changes the fact that people with female bodies do exist and do face social and physical consequences because of those bodies, and neither a man's deep feeling that he should have had a female body, nor a man's deep feeling that women don't need to have a female body, changes the embodied experiences and needs and self knowledge of the people who actually have a female body one iota.

Because these are things that are entirely to do with the experiences of women, and so no experience or feeling, no matter how genuine, of a man is relevant to them.

And regardless of which definition you go for, in fact regardless of any definition you go for that places more weight on a man's idea of himself as a woman than the embodied fact of female existence, outside his own mind he is simply not relevant to who women in the original female sense are and what women in the original female sense need at all.

No definition of woman that is stretched to include male people is more relevant to the needs and experiences and reality of female people than the simple old fashioned sex based definition and there is sinply no way round that.
face of a trans person's mental self image.

So I'll ask you again.

What is "being trans" Tandora?

Is it being one sex but with a deep and aching wish you were the other sex, maybe like a blind person has a deep and aching wish to see, or a lonely little girl has a deep and aching wish that she had been born as one of the popular kids instead?

Or is it actually being, in an innate mental way, in ways we don't yet understand, the other sex, implying that sex is not in fact a descriptor of the body but of the mind?

Because take away the emotional manipulation and neither definition actually justifies the demands being made of women in its name.

Neither definition changes the fact that people with female bodies do exist and do face social and physical consequences because of those bodies, and neither a man's deep feeling that he should have had a female body, nor a man's deep feeling that women don't need to have a female body, changes the embodied experiences and needs and self knowledge of the people who actually have a female body one iota.

Because these are things that are entirely to do with the experiences of women, and so no experience or feeling, no matter how genuine, of a man is relevant to them.

And regardless of which definition you go for, in fact regardless of any definition you go for that places more weight on a man's idea of himself as a woman than the embodied fact of female existence, outside his own mind he is simply not relevant to who women in the original female sense are and what women in the original female sense need at all.

No definition of woman that is stretched to include male people is more relevant to the needs and experiences and reality of female people than the simple old fashioned sex based definition and there is sinply no way round that.

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@Tandora I don't have much free time this afternoon. Please don't take slow replies as bad faith and be assured I will be coming back to this thread when I have to engage properly as I really appreciate you wanting to explain this to me.

😂I just find it so hard to understand why the whole of society has to be queered on such flimsy evidence and for such poorly thought out reasoning. It's like a new generation discovered sex stereotypes and instead of dismantling them they changed them into a pseudo-scientific religion.

I've never told anyone this.

I was raped thirty years ago by a male patient when we were in a mixed-sex ward.
The police did their best but could not get a charging decision from the CPS as it was my word against his.

In 1990, my ex-husband (who I had divorced because of his violence) got into my house and subjected me to a serious sexual assault.

I do not want to share single sex spaces with men. It's obvious why.

My dignity, safety and comfort should not be sacrificed in order to allow transwomen into SSS. No women should be subjected to this.

It's an abomination.

• why female to male trans aren't insisting violently and vocally on using male spaces

They absolutely do use male spaces- simply no one gives them a hard time about it. Transitioned trans men will use male toilets etc.

• why both mtf and ftm trans categories contain many people who believe that they cannot change sex, but only want to be allowed live in a way they perceive as being the opposite gender.

this is simply about language.

• why it is OK to explore with a mentally ill child why they might want to identify as an apex animal, a lion or a bird of prey, yet exploration of why a girl might want to identify as male in a patriarchal society where men hold most of the power is not allowed.

no idea what you are talking about.

• the role of childhood trauma and influences like parental homophobia or even parental munchausens by proxy.

Theres no good evidence of a pattern of this.

• how autogynophilia appears to be a wholly different subset, and one which is quite threatening to women, especially lesbian women.

This is an entirely separate condition.

• how a 'trans lesbian' who wants penetrative sex with women is not simply a heterosexual male who wishes to present outwardly on the female end of the gender spectrum

Why on earth. Why are you so intent on sexualising trans women? People engage in all kinds of sexual practices. Penetration preferences do not define a persons "gender" (by which I mean their recognition/ awareness of sex).

Transitioned transmen will use male toilets etc.

They use the women's, surely?

What do you mean by "transitioned"?

For Eddie Izzard to be a transwoman he would need to have a pervasive, consistent, persistent, profound, recognition/ awareness/ (cognitive) experience of self as being female.

One of those studies says that little boys who say they feel like little girls play in the same way as little girls.

Other studies say equally clearly that little girls who play like little girls are largely behaving in response to externally generated expectations of parents and society in general as to how little girls will behave. So where does that leave us?

I would want to see parental and societal influences on those children looked at in extreme detail, or brain scans showing clear differences in brain structure or both, before I could conclude that a child can be born trans.
.

How can a male have a recognition/awareness/experience of their self as female?

I don’t want to be in a women’s single sex space with a transgender woman.

The law in the U.K. upholds that right for me under the EA.

If I ask for a female clinician, I don’t expect Dr Upton to appear and tell me that Dr Upton is a biological female. If Dr Upton plays a hand on me in those circumstances that would be assault.

There is nothing whatsoever approaching a reasonable, honest answer anywhere there.

As I may have said to you before, I used to be all "TWAW, #bekind". Then I realized that trans women are men or sexual orientation is bigotry, and I don't believe straight or gay people are bigoted for being straight or gay, therefore TW must be men.

Since then, it is the fact that every single TRA or trans person I have ever listened to or read has NOTHING, not even one hint at a quarter-decent argument, to justify their ideology that makes me utterly convinced that "sex is real and matters, gender ideology is regressive sex-based stereotypes that don't" is the start middle and end of the entire matter.

Of course they don't. They use the men's . By "transitioned" I mean they are "out" and living life as a trans man (not in the closet).

You're on here because you've been chased off reddit for being a massive transphobe aren't you?

@TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne I'm so sorry that happened to you, Broon. I hope that you know that lots of us are fighting hard against this ideology IRL, with protecting women like you especially in mind.
I'm not sure I expressed that well. I hope you understand the sentiment💐

I am so sorry.

• " how autogynophilia appears to be a wholly different subset, and one which is quite threatening to women, especially lesbian women.

This is an entirely separate condition "

No it isn't. Many males who describe themselves as trans females are autogynophiles, it's all mixed up.
.

Fighting for you too, Taz💐

*lays a hand.

was feeding the dog and it’s too late to edit.

@TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne I'm so sorry. How those who pursue trans ideology sleep at night is beyond me. Tandora will no doubt parrot her tired old line about trans women in women's spaces being harmless but we know that's not true. Women who don't want male bodies in their spaces should not have to justify that feeling. No should be enough.

Bumping

Thank you.

I don’t understand why trans people can’t obey the law as expressed in the EA and why I have to be forced out to a “rape victims” space according to Tandora because of something a man did to me.

Why are the feelings of a trans person more important than my trauma which was caused by a male? And that of others like me and @TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne ?

I don't know why you care so much about people on Reddit, but no I've never been accused of being transphobic because I'm not.

They’re not harmless to me.

I had a panic attack and breakdown that led to me on the floor of the bedroom at home curled up and sobbing uncontrollably to the point the Mr was going to phone out of hours because even diazepam wasn’t working to calm me. Nothing was.

And that was because I was in a disabled toilet and a man was outside waiting and I was in there on my own.

Flashback central it was.

But apparently men’s feelings and their inclinations matter more and I’m a logical fallacy.

Well that's not true- I've been called a transphobe by "gender critical feminists " on mumsnet lol. But I've never been called transphobic by a trans person in real life or on Reddit.

It's quite straightforward.

Nobody can change their birth sex.

There is no place in a female only space for anyone with a penis unless invited there unanimously by the women who use it.

There is no place in female sport or on female shortlists for anyone who grew up with male sex hormones.

Anyone can legally dress and present anywhere on the gender spectrum.

Nobody I know has any problem with trans people, what is all the fighting by the radical trans community actually about?

I know, I've had to deal with my mother's flash backs and the resulting UTI because she couldn't use the gender neutral toilet.

But Tandora will continue to dismiss such reactions as moral panic and bigotry.

Dupe somehow, deleted