Are We Really 'Women' On The Inside?

[HazelLemur]

Dear friends,

As anyone paying attention to current trans affairs knows, the anti-trans brigade like to throw around what they think is the “killer question”.

"What is a woman, then?"

These people will often engage in triumphal sneering as they further insist "Your chromosomes are what you are; XX are women and XY are men. It's science, innit?"

And as a confident trans-woman I say to these people "Absolutely! What is a woman? Great question! Let's examine that".

To begin, let's consult three definitive sources:

First, the Cambridge Dictionary of the English Language.
Then, modern genetics and neurophysiology.
And finally, up to date research on brain structure in cisgender and transgender women.

First, the dictionary.
For this, let's go with the Cambridge Dictionary of the English Language:

Woman (noun)

1. an adult female human being
2. an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth

As we can see from #2, despite the recent social backlash and disproportionately loud screeching from certain murky corners of the internet, Western culture as a whole is moving toward accepting the validity of trans peoples' inner gender identity. No person with a working moral compass would consider this a bad thing.

Next, let’s summarize genetics and neurophysiology.

Modern society routinely treats all the following “XY” humans as WOMEN, however...
-You can be a woman because you have X & Y chromosomes but your body is insensitive to androgens and you have female anatomy & gender identity.
Ah, so much for the childishly simplistic “But women = XX and men = XY".
-You can be a woman with X & Y chromosomes but your Y is missing the SRY gene, so you have a female body and gender identity (yes, this is a real thing despite your denials).

People who have X & Y chromosomes, but their Y is missing the SRY gene, develop a female body.
Should we treat such people as men, in society, when they have the body of a woman, simply because simpletons insist that XY = Male?
Only an inveterate bigot with some weird religious and/or psychosexual axe to grind would say yes.

You can be a woman with XXY or XXXY chromosomes, giving you a male body but female brain/body map and gender identity.
-You can be a woman with XY chromosomes but a mutation called CBX2 that blocks the influence of the SRY gene.
-You can be a woman because you have 46,XY in some cells but 46,XX in other cells, or 47, XXY.

These are all valid, scientifically obervable genetic variations that highlight the "But XX = women and XY = men" mantra for the simplistic, unscientific nonsense that it is.

And lastly, there are studies of brain structure.
These show that in the section of the brain that determines one’s sense of gender identity.

The brains of transgender women are almost identical to those of cisgender women.
The brains of trans men also align more with cisgender men than they do with women.

And so, to summarize

Modern science, which is how rational people resolve differences of opinion.
It is not about referring to holy books, written in pre-scientific ages past.
It is not about regurgitating simplistic, binary statements that you learnt in the 4th grade.

This shows us that, genetically and biologically speaking, there are many types of women; including transgender women like me.

P.S. In this essay we have a summary of the cutting edge science which validates transgender womens' biologically determined, inner sense of gender identity.

As I’ve said, a rational society follows rational explanations, and doesn’t define its people via outdated religious or cultural ideas.
But beyond that, there is simply human courtesy and kindness.

It’s cruel, hateful and rude for the transphobic bigots to demand that people be forced to conform to their anti-scientific notions.

No one's life is affected negatively by honoring a transwoman as a woman, as the historical record of many trans accepting societies have shown.

Good people will see the very challenging dilemma that transwomen are in, and their natural empathy, coupled with scientific insight, will make them want to support their fellow human beings in being who they know they are.

And so, I ask all of you:

Should we as a society treat trans-women as the women their brain and neurobiology tells us they are? And, if not, why on earth wouldn’t we?

P.P.S. The image in this post is of women who have XY chromosomes, but an androgen insensitivity syndrome which causes their bodies to develop as female.
Would anyone in their right mind insist we treat them as males, simply because of their chromosomal makeup?
The bigots might, but you know you're better than that, right?

So you think men who identify as women should be allowed in women's toilets, because these men are at risk from other men in the men's, and this risk is greater, with the potential to impact more people, than allowing men into the women's toilets?

I don't agree with you on the risk and numbers, but leaving that aside, why are you singling out TW as the one group of men women's spaces should be protecting?
Male on male violence is the most prevalent type. So for the greater good, it would surely follow you would see women's spaces as a sanctuary available to all men who considered themselves vulnerable? Because otherwise where is the equality and fairness?

Facts aren't an ideology. That's like saying I'm in a cult because I believe, like most sane and rational people, that the Earth is round because, you know, science. Men can't be women. That's just a fact. Agreeing with other people about that does not make me a cult member.

Show me the posts where people have been attacked, being challenged, and disagreed with, does not equal an attack.

Oh, and can we have the evidence for lady brains while you're at it, please?

Sorry Pal, I am a bloke and you don't persuade me to join your weird ideas.
Being Trans is a matter of choice it is not inherent like being gay.
You chose to live a life of causing trouble, how old were you when you became a revolutionary? Did you think it was a way to further your Left wing ambitions. Firstly you decided that to disrupt and cause trouble would help the cause. So you looked for the means to disrupt and alighted on the trans stuff.
My parents and their mates had similar ideas of wearing down the government. They went on Aldermaston Marches against nuclear weapons. They heard rousing speeches from barm-pots like Pat Arrowsmith. Look around they achieved as much as did Arthur Scargill. It was as enduring as their Loon Pants and straggly beards.
In 20 or 40 years time you will be another set of embarrassing photographs that your family won't show to anyone.

Case in point 🙄

Conforming to what ideology? Even the person who claims to believe transwomen are women, doesn't really believe it. That must sting. No wonder you're so grumpy.

It doesn't really explain your inability to be able to expand on any of your assertions though. Would you like time to consult with 'the community' so you can provide group approved answers? Would that help, dear?

You are very welcome to redistribute your own wealth. You have no right to mine, or anyone else’s.

That is the basic moral flaw in socialism. It begins with compassion and ends with coercion: the state deciding who has “too much”, taking it, wasting much of it, and calling that justice.

Rich countries are not rich because socialists discovered a magic money tree. They are rich because people create, build, invest, risk, employ, innovate and trade. You can tax wealth creation, but if you punish it too hard, you get less of it.

And yes, the historical evidence is easy to find. Nobody is climbing fences to get into North Korea. Nobody is risking their life on a raft to reach Cuba. Nobody is fleeing into Venezuela. People flee from socialist disasters into capitalist countries because capitalism, for all its faults, creates prosperity. Socialism destroys it.

Mao’s China, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, the USSR, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea: different versions, same pattern. Centralised power, economic decline, coercion, censorship, and ordinary people made poorer while the ruling class explains it would have worked if only the right people had been in charge.

The same authoritarian instinct sits behind gender ideology too: tell people what words they must use, what reality they must deny, what women are allowed to say, and which boundaries women may keep.

That is why the Greens are not some brave new future. They are authoritarian left politics in a recycled tote bag: tax more, control more, deny sex, sneer at women, and call it kindness.

As for Polanski winning a general election, no. A poll bump and a few protest votes do not equal power. First-past-the-post is brutal to parties with thin, scattered support. The Greens may win pockets. They are not forming a government.

And if their offer is wealth taxes, nationalisation, gender self-ID, weak safeguarding and endless moral vanity, they do not deserve to.

So you stole it then.

I have no intention of trying to redistribute your wealth.

I'm going to vote Green, and they can do it when they win the election.

That is wonderfully revealing.

You are arguing for “democracy” while saying the country is broken because the wrong people are allowed to vote. Very grown-up. Very compassionate.

And this is exactly the problem with the authoritarian left. It always starts with “kindness” and ends with “shut up, obey, pay up, and repeat the slogans”.

Your politics appears to be:

Take other people’s money.
Call it justice.
Tell women that men can be women.
Call it compassion.
Sneer at working-class voters.
Call it intelligence.

You do not sound like someone defending democracy. You sound like someone furious that ordinary people are still allowed to disagree with you.

And no, people objecting to socialism are not “cravenly bowing” to anyone. They may simply understand that wealth has to be created before it can be taxed, that the state is not automatically virtuous, and that stealing more from productive people does not become moral because you use nicer language.

The same authoritarian instinct runs through the gender argument: deny reality, punish dissent, insult women, then demand applause.

A politics that says women can have penises and voters are the problem is not the future.

It is a tantrum with a manifesto.

I think they 'identify as' the original writer.

👏 👏

That is not a moral answer. It is outsourcing the theft.

“I won’t take your money personally, I’ll vote for the state to do it” is not the principled distinction you seem to think it is.

And again, you avoid every serious point put to you.

You have not explained why you have a right to other people’s wealth.

You have not explained how punishing wealth creation makes the country richer.

You have not explained why socialist experiments so reliably end in stagnation, coercion and flight.

You have not explained why people escape from socialist states into capitalist ones, not the other way round.

You just say “vote Green” and imagine that makes the economics work.

That is the problem with populist socialism. It is all grievance and no mechanism. All moral vanity and no consequences. All “someone else should pay” and no understanding of what happens when the people who build, risk, employ and invest decide they have had enough.

You have no answers. Just slogans, envy, and a polling fantasy.

Oh yes, I'm 100% with you on principles and values! If you've read any of my other posts, I often say 'as a matter of principle...'

Although strong arguments can be made about men of any kind respecting women-only spaces on the basis of safety, I prefer to invoke principles and values: it is a space designated for biological females only, so any male with principles and values, no matter how he identifies, will respect that and stay out.

Weird. My TW friend is always very clear that (s)he isn't a woman and never will be. (S)he is painfully aware that (s)he has male biology.

Your lack of self awareness, any sensible thoughts whatsoever or credibility is hilarious. You're even oblivious to the total trouncing you've received here.

Just a big hypocritical man baby crying victim.

You, and this forced ideology are the reason for devision, not people objecting and saying no to your demands.

You just don't get it like women do. So let's just consider why that might be 🤔

This is DARVO in plain sight.

Deny: you refuse to answer the actual question about female spaces and male access.

Attack: you call women a “cult”, say they are irrational, seething, screeching and incapable of thought.

Reverse victim and offender: after entering a women’s rights thread to tell women they must accept males as women, you present yourself as the one being attacked.

The issue is not a “cult”. The issue is that women are saying no.

No to males in female spaces.
No to compelled belief.
No to female boundaries being rebranded as hate.

You can keep calling that a cult if you like. But what you are really objecting to is women refusing to submit.

You know, if you have to write out that whole fuckin essay just to convince women that they shouldn't be allowed to say no, then maybe you're the problem.

I was a member of the Green Party for over 20 years, finally leaving last year when I gave up on them ever actually giving a shit about the environment again, and it's laughable to think they'll win.

I still go out with my local Green Party group rescuing frogs and picking up litter, and that kind of thing, and even most of the members of that group aren't planning to vote for them come the next general election.

Oh, and most of them despair of how much gender issues have taken over the party, too.

Same with my best friend, who is a (full transitioned it that makes a difference) transwoman. He knows he is still male. He doesn't use female spaces. He's closer to being a terf than a TRA, although there are still a few points of contention between us.

@IggyPopsPlasticTrousers

You also make them unusable for women like me. I have C-PTSD and get horrendous flashbacks if I see a man, including a transwoman, in private female spaces like toilets. There are quite a few of us. There are also women who can't use mixed sex toilets for religious or cultural reasons. What about the harm to us?

• 49 percent of women who've been raped develop PTSD
• Severe beating or physical assault (31.9 percent)
• Other sexual assault (23.7 percent)

https://www.ptsduk.org/ptsd-stats/

It’s estimated that up to 94% of survivors of rape or sexual assault develop symptoms of PTSD in the first two weeks after the event, leading to around 50% of victims suffering long-term symptoms. This is even more pronounced with child victims, who often don’t know how to seek the help needed
www.ptsduk.org/what-is-ptsd/causes-of-ptsd/sexual-violence/

Many more women have some PTSD symptoms. These are the rates of women who experience some PTSD symptoms in the month before the study

Women (27.8%) were more likely than men (21.6%) to report re-experiencing a traumatic event. A similar pattern was observed for arousal, including difficulty falling or staying asleep, irritability or outbursts of anger, difficulty concentrating, hypervigilance and an exaggerated startle response (experienced by 24.5% of women and 20.3% of men). There was no difference by gender in the reporting of avoidance.

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/adult-psychiatric-morbidity-survey/survey-of-mental-health-and-wellbeing-england-2023-24/posttraumatic-stress-disorder

This is just for women with PTSD symptoms. There are other reasons (e.g., religion) that make women's single sex spaces unusable or very difficult for women to use. There is also the discomfort for many women and their increased security and feeling of security/relaxation at being in a women's only space. Many women avoid public toilets entirely, which can cause urinary and other problems as well as constraining our lives via a urinary leash.

How is allowing transwomen to use women's spaces "the least harm to the most amount of people"? How did you weigh the harm to women who either can't use toilets or changing rooms if transwomen use them or will suffer things like reliving extremely traumatic events if they encounter a transwoman there?

But you don’t. You prioritise a tiny number of men over every single female. There’s no evidence that transwomen are unsafe in male facilities yet we have reams of evidence of women and girls being put in danger by transwomen.

And why is it ok for men to feel unsafe in a space with men, but when women feel unsafe in a space with men we're suddenly monsters?

We're being asked to believe that men are more of a risk to other men (the ones who think they are women), than they are to women. Even if that were true, it would very much be a man problem for them to solve within male spaces.

My friend is fully transitioned as well. I only met them post transistion.

If the community speaks as one do you act as one too?

Were all of you expressing the wish to fuck women with splintery rolling pins along with AidaP?

Did all of the community act with Isla Bryson & Alex Stewart?