Continuation of Polypostwonder thread

[Imdunfer]

Follow on from this thread

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5532352-the-liminality-of-sex-perception-sex-based-spaces-and-bodily-autonomy?page=39

For argument sake, I understand Blaire White to be a woman. This is independent of the knowledge she chose to only undergo cosmetic facial surgeries and breast augmentation, while retaining everything else.
I think I remember reading that she politically aligns 'right' and is politically vocal about being a male, living as a trans woman. I'm not 100% sure, though. It's not a way that I could understand living, but it is financially lucrative in her case.

There is a person who declares themselves to be male.

That person chooses to live presenting as a female.

In spite of their self declaration as a male, complete with male genitals, you understand that they are a woman.

And you ascribe their understanding of themselves being male, at least partly, to financial motives.

This is either monumentally arrogant or monumentally stupid thinking, or possibly both. Or perhaps you just like playing with a largely female forum and seeing how many feathers you can ruffle.

One thing is for sure, and that is that I don't think anything you write on this subject from now on is going to be of any value to read.

To be clear, I have no idea what actual pubertal tanner stage I was in when I started HRT. I was extremely underweight and undersized. I was making a guess based on the lack of stage 3 developments and maybe had some fine public hair and hadn't had any voice cracking, or a growth spurt.

Anyway, nothing I add to this will make any difference to your beliefs.

Huh. Really not getting very far in my catching up. 😅

I don't think you realise how much support you would have. All the GC voices that currently speak against you would stand with you for a start, because having gender entirely outside sex is where we also want to be.

So instead of trans people having to fight on two fronts, the traditionalists who believe gender has to be tied to sex and the GC feminists who don't want have gender linked to sex at all, you'd have just one front and more allies at your side.

I wish you would understand - we don't want you not to have the space to be you, we just want you to stop creating that space by squashing us.

I just had to stop and re-post the above this. It's perfect, Rhino. It's this - exactly this.

Would you like to address Catiette's post? Or can't you?

I'll look for it after I finish the facetime call with my husband.

Thanks, I'm interested in your response.

“Your definition of "woman" liberatesyou to say, as you do here, that "I very much have personal experience with 'woman' as it applies to more than half of the population."

But you saying that renders the same phrase meaningless for nigh on all of the 4 billion women globally.”

Cannot be said often enough.

So… you really only have YOUR estimation that you had no testosterone exposure before you started estrogen.

And based on what we have gained from sports studies, we know that it doesn’t take much to develop male physical advantages.

I am glad that you have acknowledged that you have no idea but you are making claims that don’t even fit logically.

Pepper-Jackson has had testosterone advantages as I have detailed over the past pages. From birth.

His not holding a record is absolutely meaningless to the advantages he has had by being male. Even a mediocre male athlete has male testosterone advantage and likely, as per that study other advantages such as muscle memory.

So, yes. I consider that Pepper Jackson has advantage over some female people. Just like you, personally, will have physical advantages over some female people despite you denying it.

No male adult or adolescent should have their risk of harm to female people dismissed, in my opinion. It is a huge mistake to do so. And it would be a safeguarding failure.

So you say, among other things, that you didn't go through male puberty. You later admit that you were "mid-puberty" when you started puberty blockers.

You say that you were tanner stage 3, then later admit that you actually don't know. It was just a guess.

I mean, why exactly do you expect anyone to believe anything you say when you refuse to tell the truth without an uphill slog to get there?

And quite frankly that's not even considering how are we to know if anything you "admit" is the actual truth, or just the latest version of "your truth".

Isn't truth a nebulous dog whistle these days?

I will not be coming around to the gender critical definition.

Counter to the gender critical belief, I've also heard trans-supportive women state there is no single biologically-based characteristic or experience shared by all women, and as a social class, women share far more experiences within culture. My beliefs are similar to this. The perception of my biology is not in my control.

Society hasn't needed to know whether everyone it groups together culturally as women has identical functional biological capabilities, because factually they don't. The likely capacity of pregnancy was assumed of me and the roles of SAHM and eventually working mother were assigned to me.

The social definition of "woman" isn't "my definition" and it doesn't liberate me. I've never claimed that it does. I have no special ability that enables me to escape how society treats women as a class. Women have been culturally manipulated by society for far longer than I've been alive. My transition and inclusion within women didn't divert or change this in any way.

You and the majority of women experience your female biology as women. I understand that. The first definition of woman references biology for this reason. The word is also used socially, very commonly in other contexts that do not diminish the first definition.

That is your belief.

It does not change the reality that biologically female people are half of humanity, that our biology has physical and social consequences for us, and that we have a moral right to a name that is ours and ours alone.

Only a narcissist would believe his need to define himself as a "woman" is sufficient cause to impose upon half of humanity, four billion people, a definition of womanhood that far too many of us find belittling, insulting and not even especially relevant.

Let's not forget, for all the "social, cultural" gumph...

No transwoman was denied the vote because he was a woman.

No transwoman had to police his chastity, or have it policed for him, because without reliable contraception he had no way to prevent himself falling pregnant.

No transwoman is forced to veil and be silent in Afghanistan.

No transwoman faces the FGM blade.

No transwoman pushes his sanitary projection up his sleeve on the way to the school toilet.

No transwoman was delivered with his dowry to the husband his parents chose for him.

No transwoman was divorced because he failed to conceive, or because he only conceived daughters.

No transwoman was sacked because he got married, or got pregnant.

No transwoman was told his family weren't going to educate him because educating girls is a waste.

There is no definitive scientific proof of this. Sadly, the only effort that has ever been presented to research the topic was killed by Nike, who withdrew funding that it had publicly announced at the urging of the Trump government and gender critical people.

Both male and female puberties provide increased advantage over male 'minipuberty' combined with any additional pre-pubertal development. An adult woman will always outperform a pre-pubertal boy at any sport.

Some girls will have physical advantages over other girls. I don't deny it. What I don't deny is we can't know whether any advantages exist at this time other than to observe performance in trans girls. There is no proof that Becky Pepper Jackson is performing at anything other than the level of a girl at her age. She certainly isn't performing at the level of the boys.

Trans girls are not men. I disagree that there is a safeguarding risk different than within any group of girls, with the addition that bullying and harassment of minorities is a large issue that I assume schools are paying attention to now vs when I was in school.

And I acknowledge all of those experiences impact some women and never men. I was effectively sacked when I took leave after the adoption of our daughter. I've been subjected to the cultural enforcement of gender in religiously conservative muslim countries.

The rest is just mumsnet beliefs.

ETA: I removed the word 'severely'

And, as this is mumsnet, I should have explicitly said I was not comparing the two experiences I shared with any of the provided list. I am not engaging in a misogyny competition.

No, just engaging in the misogynist belief that your need to call yourself "woman" has any meaningful substance outside your own selfish needs.

We could have arrived this place last night.

I've been subjected to the cultural enforcement of gender in religiously conservative muslim countries.

Jesus mate, did you type that with a straight face? I'm talking about the repression and exploitation female people face within their own families, not because of how they "present" because they are known to be female from the moment they are born.

Jesus. It's just not on your radar at all is it?

"I acknowledge all of those experiences impact some women and never men."

I'm sorry for not contextualising why the experiences impacted some women and never men.

We were here last night. I said I'd be happy to support you finding a place in the world under a different name, but not the word "woman" because that's unreasonable and unfair to female people who actually have nothing to do whatever your belief about "woman" is that drives your self image.

That you knowing this nevertheless feel "woman" is the only word that will do for you is misogyny pure and simple.

And this is your belief and i respect it, but disagree with it.

Be sorry for equating your inconvenience as a vistor to conservative muslim countries with the lives of the women who live there.

You forgot to add my privilege as a white person on top of the foreigner designation.

@polypostwonder you poor hard done by lamb!

Everything that's happened in your life has just happened to you! You don't seek these things out! You are assigned them! Like you were assigned the role of SAHM and then working mother, and you just had no choice or say in the matter!

Bless your little socks, and you had such bigly agency as a teenager too, greater than average even!

🙄