A space for respectful dialogue about sex, gender and diversity

[Tandora]

This is a thread for posters who want to talk and share a diverse range of opinions about sex, gender, being gender non-conforming and/or trans, and public policy. It is to learn from each other; to engage in a productive exchange, and to hear different sides of the story.

It is not a space for bullying and insults. Please do not join if your intention is to control the conversation and undermine those who disagree with you.

It involves about 8 different changing rooms/toilets. The NHS is going to have a shit fit.

If you don't think you know how to be respectful to other posters, even if you disagree with them, then this is not the thread for you.

100%

Men are bigger and faster and much better than women at impregnating women.

Women tend to be better at taking caring roles, show greater empathy and are much better at getting pregnant and giving birth. Many men and women - including lots of heterosexual women - would argue that a woman's body is objectively more aesthetically pleasing than the male form.

It would take a special kind of person to attempt to weigh up those different strengths, let alone come to a judgement that one is better. Not least as, we are the two complimentary halves of the same species, and ultimately men without women, or women without men, are nothing.

[I am not saying that certain individuals, male and female, are not much better off staying amongst their own sex, but as wide group, men need women, and vice versa, not least as we'd be extinct in 100 years if we didn't have each other. [Dystopian future involving women and massive historic spermbanks notwithstanding]

If there is not really such a thing as the female body, what reference point is the surgeon using when they construct a "neovagina"...? Apply the same to facial feminization surgery.

Why would a woman who identifies as "non-binary" remove her breasts, since men can have breasts and there's nothing feminine about breasts whatsoever.

I'm sorry but I'm of the view that all this is complete nonsense.

I would still like Tandora to explain what commonality they think I have with transwomen that I don't have with other groups of men. I've asked multiple times now.

If you say

the only criteria for being a transwoman is to be a man

It makes it impossible to describe what a transwoman is. Are all men therefore trans women? What is the difference between a transwoman and a man?

It's an essential essence that makes us both women.

This is literally what they believe

Having ticked off women who describe trans women as male, please then define instead what a trans woman IS (not what they are not). So 'being male' lacks nuance, is black & white thinking, associated with extremism etc.

Pretty strong charge.... In the interest of debate, what IS a trans woman? If it's too nuanced to define, ie something only ever self-declared, and all knowledge is 'dynamic', how are trans women a particular group?

Men who would like other people to say they are women. That's your definition

For many years, women were politely, respectfully asking for debate. They (I came to this late) wanted to discuss the implications of changing law, language and policy in line with the extreme belief that "trans women are women", a belief that had never been publicly debated and which most people thought was barmy. When women tried to have that discussion, and when they raised the conflicts that arise when you replace objective biological sex with self-declared gender identity in language, law and policy they were told there is no debate, that the matter is settled, trans women are women and trans men are men. Activists insisted that anyone wanting to discuss evidence showing that basing women's rights on gender identity not sex is very bad for women was a bigot motivated by ignorance and/or hatred. They tried to shut down discussion by targeting women online and in person, disrupting meetings with threats and smoke bombs and drowning out women's voices.

Women went on and had the debate anyway. Some very brave women kept presenting and discussing the evidence, eventually going through the courts. Those courts have now decided, and the matter is settled: women's rights exist on the basis of sex, not gender identity. There's debate still to be had about the best way to implement the law, but the core principle that trans-identifying men are men, won't be changed by any amount of discussion. It's too late for trans activists to claim they want debate about that principle now that it's been settled.

I have a genuine question (I promise I am not a troll, just someone - biological woman fwiw - who doesn't have a defined opinion on the issue)

Why we don't differentiate the type of transwoman, I think a crossdresser has to be categorised differently from someone who has undergone gender reassignment surgery and has had extensive hormonal treatment?

Mostly because they don’t want that distinguishing
and partly because it’s rather hard to tell sometimes

This is what I don't understand...

Tandora... you have some fancy words and play some fancy word games. Do you think that you are ever going to be able to use them to convince a bunch of ordinary blokes drinking pints after the football that sucking a woman's cock is something that they would likely enjoy as heterosexual men?

It's very easy to describe what a transwoman is. A transwoman is a man who has the delusion that he is female & adopts female stereotypes in an effort to make himself appear female.

Tandora does - s/he does not believe autogynephiles, cross-dressers or tranvestic fetishists are trans (and also has so little idea about the trans community that she doesn't realize that this makes her a disgusting tranphobe according to your typical TRA). In her transphobic world all trans are trutrans

This point really is remarkably simple.

All transwomen are men but obviously not all men are transwomen.

As for the difference between men and transwomen. Men are men who accept that they are men. Transwomen are men who not only refuse to accept that they are men, but also demand that everyone else shares in their delusions.

This is very pedantic, but I want to explicitly clarify this into two steps.

A space that includes women and trans-identifying men is mixed sex not because of the law, but because it physically includes people with two different types of bodies.

This is simple material reality.

There is a second, legal point about whether such a group should be legal, and whether it should be forced to also include non-trans-identifying men.

That is a matter which is up to us as a society to decide on. Different people might have different perspectives. Currently the Equality Act has some words to say on this. Those words could be changed. Material reality of the sexes of the people involved cannot.

I should say I'm not coming at this because I'm a TRA. I explicitly don't want to cede the ground that anything covered in existing legislation is "truth" in the material sense. There is much I disagree with in the current legislation on this topic.

But that's not reality and it's not the law. This entire "discussion" is moot (at least in the UK) The law, as defined by the Supreme Court, is based on reality - on biological sex of which there are two.
In the UK now, according to the law, however you present, whatever you wear or call yourself, even if you have a special certificate, you are either male or female and this is based solely on your biology.

If a space, service or sports team is designated for one sex, then the other sex cannot use it/join it regardless of their expressed "gender"
This is the law and it's, thankfully, based in reality. It's not a "GC position" (although it's that too) it's simply the actual law in this country and no amount of arguing about whether being trans or gnc or whatever it is, meaning you should be allowed to join in with the opposite sex, is going to change that. Even if you could get some women to agree to it.
Why are we still arguing about this? It's done!

@Tandora - I ask this as a neurodivergent woman - are you neurodivergent?

I know that a lot of ND people have bought in to TWAW (I'm not one of them) but I am interested to understand why so many trans people are ND themselves.

Your responses are quite robotic, I'm not sure if you really speak as you do; if you may be a BOT, or if your responses are AI generated?

I sometimes struggle with communication and do use Co-Pilot at times, so no judgment there, just curiosity regarding your responses.

I used to think that. But as a pp said, it's hard to tell. And also, you couldn't possibly base legal rights on that, because it would be effectively pressurising people to have surgery and other medical treatment. If, for instance, you were to say that post-operative "trans women" (e.g. trans-identifying men who've had their genitalia removed, have had facial softening and their Adam's apple shaved, and are taking hormones) to use women's spaces there's a host of problems, including: 1) Where do you draw the 'post-operative' line, and how much surgery/hormone treatment does someone in principle have to have had, 2) people respond differently to treatment, and you may not be able to tell by looking whether a male person has had surgery, 3) if such a principle were to be enforced (bracketing out it's difficult to see how) it would be coercive in that a trans-identifying man would be under pressure to consent to invasive and lifelong medical treatment. So what you'd get, in the absence of such a principle being enforceable, is self-ID in practice. There's no way the insistent cross-dressers who get their thrills by being in women's spaces with non-consenting as well as consenting women, would respectfully stay out. That's why we need to draw a hard line on biological sex.

It's my sex that makes me a woman.

I don't recognise any 'essential essence' outside of that.

So we are back to square one. What is the commonality?

Thanks for responding.

'Are all men therefore transwomen?' Isn't that a logical fallacy - of the nature of "just because all cats are mammals, that doesn't mean all mammals are cats"?

'what is the difference between a transwoman and a man?'. A great and important question that I think a lot of us on this board would like to answer. I answer it is no difference, beyond a 'feeling' that they are woman, which (to me) is as logically impossible as me feeling like I'm a cat. For you, I suspect the answer is they are completely different, because one is male and the other 'has recognisably male features at birth but identifies with a strong, persistent and pervasive conception of themselves as female'. Which I'm not sure gets us any further, underneath it all, than 'feeling like they are a woman'.

It is "physical characteristics" that make a human being male or female. Either their body is organised to produce, if everything works well, female gametes (eggs) and grow babies or it is organised to produce, if everything works well, male gametes (sperm) to fertilise the eggs.

There is no magical, nonsensical "gendered soul".

It seems to me that all transwomen are saying is that they don’t identify with how they think, for whatever reason, people of their sex "should" stereotypically feel.

But I really don’t understand how they can say they "feel like a girl/woman" when they can have no idea how a girl/woman feels. I’m a woman and I just feel like a person. I can’t know how anyone else feels. Can you explain that to me?

If you were comfortable cis gender in one country, say Finland, but you moved to another country, say Brazil, and didn’t fit their gender stereotypes, would you then become transgender? Would your gender status depend on what country you were in? Would it affect what spaces you could use?

The only bullying being carried out is by you. You will only answer questions you say, based on your idea of respectful, when many of your previous interactions on this board indicate that you have absolutely no respect for women whatsoever, it’s just a thinly disguised attempt at controlling women, and you seem to be labouring under a misapprehension that we all need to go along with it. You have no intention of adding to this debate, you’re just here to get your daily dose of affirmation that you can control the narrative. Please feel free to report my ‘bullying’ posts.