Woman

Doodledog some transwomen will have surgery, some won't for numerous reasons. Judging them by such a standard and insisting in order to live the life they choose they must have surgery is judgemental and shows such a failure to appreciate their circumstances as I can imagine. I can't see it as anything but a lack of belief in them. I really cannot imagine any other circumstance where someone would be expected to have surgery, which even if it isn't being forcibly carried out is done under compulsion and not as a choice. Even if you don't believe they are women, even if you don't agree with them accessing women's spaces I really don't know how anyone could insist on such treatment, it must always be a choice.

What else would you call making different provision for transwomen on the basis of. surgical intervention but discrimination?

grannygranby you may call yourself anything you like, you may ask others to use the terms you prefer, you cannot insist that others use those words about themselves if they find them unacceptable.

Thank you vivaldi. It is disconcerting to be portrayed as a transphobe (however it is expressed) on here, when I know I am not, and in 'real life' I am known as someone who speaks out for minorities. I appreciate your saying that it is clear that I am not someone who would discriminate.

Gossamerbeynon1945, that is an interesting question. Perhaps trisher would like to respond (after she has answered my question, please?).

Can I just agree with Doodle , MOnica & granny granbe because I think this is so important, and you are so obviously people who would never discriminate against individuals. But the pendulum has swung too far here and who's to say potential trans teenagers won't be the worst affected by this in the long run. Plus the utter disrespect for women terms like "menstruator" illustrate.

I once asked a trans person "what is a woman". Tumbleweed.

Trisher, what is it about my post that you don't understand?

Please don't answer with analogies or lectures, but just tell me which bits don't make sense to you?

I like others agree with doodlebugs post but you trisher do not respond to that. As the latest from Suzanne Moore says ‘
Trans rights are the first civil rights movement that ask others to give something up – in this case women and often gay people. This is why groups like the LGB Alliance have formed.

WHAT DO WOMEN HAVE TO GIVE UP?

Our right to name out own experience and even use the word women. We are reduced to cervix havers and menstruators. The right to single sex spaces. The right to organise politically. Men are not asked to change a thing. Funny that!

The Labour party has joined in this madness by calling Woman’s Place a hate group. This is desperate bandwagon jumping as nearly all the women who are unhappy with Self-ID are left, often lesbian and trade unionists.
. It is noticeable when high-profile women like Rosie Duffield or JK Rowling speak about their experience of domestic abuse, for instance, they are dismissed. Women’s experience of male violence is of no import to trans activists.

Women who do speak up are subject to horrendous threats yet surely our common enemy is violent men?

The only true fact you have posted, Trisher, is that you don’t (and won’t) understand that concerns so accurately expressed by Doodle, M0nica and Molly, which means that there is little point in continuing this discussion.

*Trisher8 we are equally bemused by you, unable to see the difference between biology and the lifestyle people choose.

I sometimes think I really don't understand any of you. If this is believing in transwomen With men and women who are moving from one gender to another, and having surgery and taking hormones the situation is more complex. If they have had the full surgery and men no longer have a penis and testicles and women have also been provided with that apparatus, then they should be able to use the facilities associated with the sex they identify with.

The problem is those in transition, and here a separate category may need to be recognised, but again it should be governed by whether the person concerned still has the external appendages of the sex they were born into.

Then I'm Mary Poppins
Some transpeople will have surgery some won't, the reasons why are complex and difficult. But insisting someone has surgery in order to live as they wish really isn't "believing" in those people. I cannot think of any other situation or any regime which would insist on surgery for anyone. It's inhumane, it's dictatorial and it's unworkable.

Doodledog absolutely!

*Doodledog. You speak for many of us.

I don't believe that transwomen are men, although I do believe that they will always be male when it comes to biology, health and statistics. I think there should be changes to vocabulary so that we can discuss transwomen in a way that is sensitive to their wish to be seen as women whilst also, without value judgement, recognising that biologically they are male. I do not think that we should do this by eradicating vocabulary that recognises women as a separate sex, however.

I also believe that there are men who will pass themselves off as transwomen if there are not clear rules to ensure that they do not. I am more concerned about men doing this in order to gain access to vulnerable women than I am about men getting onto boards (they dominate those anyway), but I am also very worried about the way in which health and legal statistics are being altered in ways that hide so-called 'natal' women, and I resent having to use terms like 'so-called 'natal' women' to talk about women.

I don't know how many more times I can say those things. I have said them in as many different ways as I can for what must be years now on these threads.

The problem with your assumption that transwomen will in some way diminish the rights of women because you believe they are men just doesn't make sense to me. They believe they are women and therefore they will work to acheive the aims of women and create a more feminised society. They are few in number so statistically will make little difference. Might one or two get onto boards or executive bodies of some kind, well they might but once there they will be working for women. Why wouldn't they.? They may be present in some female institutions but I really don't think most of them regard that as any sort of incentive to transition and once again numbers will be small. I've posted before how many womenthere are and how many trans people, to think that those figures will make any major difference to statistics just doean't seem plausible.

I knew there was something that put me off hen parties. It is the heels I don't even need a drink to fall off them

Doodledog A society regulated by hen parties might be interesting. Free Prosecco, mandatory skimpy clothing, and maybe all men in uniform would need to be kept in secure places.

? The trouble would be that by 6.00pm the 'authorities' would all be falling off their heels and walking three abreast to keep one another upright, if city centres I have known are anything to go by.

Regarding the rest of your post, how can we convince you that nobody wants to 'take us back' and prevent transpeople from living their lives as they wish? What we want to do is to ensure that the hard-won rights of women are not put at risk, and that we can continue to live our lives as we wish, which for many women means the wish to continue having privacy and dignity when we undress, and to be safe in situations where we feel vulnerable.

You can use any term you wish for yourself, you just can't demand that the same term be used by anyone who rejects it.
Well yes! I don't think that anyone is saying that transmen who are giving birth shouldn't be able to call themselves parents, or whatever they like. What people object to is when the words that for so long have described women are marginalised, and, for example, 'mother' or 'breastfeeding' stop being used in maternity wards.

It is important to remember that 'the patriarchy' is not a sinister cabal of misogynist blokes plotting the downfall of women, any more than 'feminism' is a similarly personalised collective of women. The term 'patriarchal society' simply describes a societal arrangement in which males are privileged by the structures and norms that underpin it. Nobody is 'saying' that minorities don't matter, and nobody is somehow working behind the scenes to disadvantage transpeople.

It is not just 'the patriarchy' that sets groups apart. That strategy is used by governments, employers and in all manner of other situations where 'divide and conquer' is the aim. As I have said before, I don't see a patriarchal system as benefiting from the eradication of transpeople anyway. It is in the interests of a patriarchal system to have men included in female institutions and statistics, as it renders women less visible, which links to Molly's point above. You have never given your views on this, and I would be interested to hear them.

And the introduction of transwomen taking potential natal women’s places would help that?

And since when have women been a minority? Women constitute 51% of the population
So they do Rosie51 you might then expect them to at least be 50% of the Hof C. But men in parliament outnumber women 2 to 1. Which is why this was set up 5050parliament.co.uk
And why we remain a minority. Along with lots of other things like the judiciary, corporate directorships, etc.

GagaJo I haven’t read any posts which say anyone who gives birth can’t be called a pregnant person if they so desire, only that they don’t have to use that nomenclature if they prefer mother, or that a transman can’t call herself mother. It’s a biological fact that a man can’t give birth. But why would a woman, presenting as a man wish to be called ‘mother’? To draw attention to their natal sex.
As for standing in solidarity with others?
I’m a woman. When I was pregnant I was a pregnant woman. When I gave birth I became a mother. I don’t feel the need to stand in solidarity. I just am a woman.

Why I should insist a transman giving birth has to be called 'mother' I don't know.

I don't think anyone is insisting, if a transman wishes to be referred to as a person or anything else that's fine. However the vast, vast majority of women prefer to be called mother, but now officially they are "people" to appease a minority. Where I do agree with the compulsion for the use of mother is on the child's birth certificate. That document belongs to the child, it is not a vanity confirmation paper for the female sex person who gave birth.

And since when have women been a minority? Women constitute 51% of the population, although that figure is in danger by selective abortion of female foetuses in some countries and cultures. I wonder how they know which ones to abort given (according to some very vocal groups) sex is "assigned" at birth rather than being decided at conception? Women have been oppressed by men and some other women throughout history, that is correct.

How this is at all feminist I don't know. Why I should insist a transman giving birth has to be called 'mother' I don't know. Why anyone giving birth can't be called a pregnant person if they so wish I don't know.

Exactly. Great post trisher. I don't think feminism gains from acting like patriarchy.

The whole point about minorities is that they are minorities. Patriachy works by saying minorities don't matter and provision does not need to be made for them. That in the past meant black people, women, gay people, people with disabilities and trans people. We are well on the road to granting other groups their rights and in fact trans people are being emancipated. Why anyone would want to take us back into some sort of regulations and restrictions which prevented them acheiving this I don't understand? How this is at all feminist I don't know. Why I should insist a transman giving birth has to be called 'mother' I don't know. Why anyone giving birth can't be called a pregnant person if they so wish I don't know. You can use any term you wish for yourself, you just can't demand that the same term be used by anyone who rejects it. And actually if I was pregnant now I would probably insist on being called a pregnant person to stand in solidarity with others. I realise this isn't a popular option but I was never one to tread the easy path.

Doodledog A society regulated by hen parties might be interesting. Free Prosecco, mandatory skimpy clothing, and maybe all men in uniform would need to be kept in secure places.

I wondered that, then thought it must be a response to the OP without the poster having reading the rest of the thread.

What is woke rubbish again grannyrebel7?

Woke rubbish again!

Agreed, M0nica.

I would also like to add that there should be no need for anyone, male or female to 'act and stand up for themselves' in a civilised society. I am deeply uncomfortable at the idea of being policed by 'hen party' types - it sounds too much like vigilantism for me. The law should mean that people can go about their business without having to take things into their own hands.

That does not make me a victim - I am far from being a shrinking violet, funnily enough - but that should not be a prerequisite to living a peaceful life.

Can I go back to basics? Gender is a social construct. Sex is biology.

We should by now accept that people can wear and do whatever they wish, even though what they choose was previously consider to effectively be exclusive to a different sex. Would Tom Daley, or any other male athlete have brought out their knitting so openly at an Olympic Games 12 years ago?

This means a man can dress as a woman, or anyone else he wishes to be, he can dress in a toga or in fancy dress, he doesn't need a special name or category, but if he is still fully male, he will be expected to use the mens toilets and not the womens, be sent to a male prison if he offends, and expected to use male facilities in situations where biology is pre-eminent.

Similarly, only biological women have babies and menstruate and therefore should be described as women not 'persons'. If they want to dress as men, or anything else, if their body functions as a women, they use facilities labelled for women.

With men and women who are moving from one gender to another, and having surgery and taking hormones the situation is more complex. If they have had the full surgery and men no longer have a penis and testicles and women have also been provided with that apparatus, then they should be able to use the facilities associated with the sex they identify with.

The problem is those in transition, and here a separate category may need to be recognised, but again it should be governed by whether the person concerned still has the external appendages of the sex they were born into.

At the end of the day, there are 65 million people in this country and, perhaps, 1% wish to change their sex and be identified as being of the opposite sex, I mean people choosing surgery, rather than simply wearing clothing associated with the opposite sex. Most of what they want: recognition and acceptance, freedom and a lack of prejudice against them in any sphere, is entirely possible within the current loaws and regulation.

However when that small minority demand special rights, wants to change our language when it is biologically correct at the moment, demand special rights and recognition and expect most of the 65 million to change their lives to meet their demands, then a line must be struck.

None of us is entirely free to do everything we want all the time. We learn how to trim and adapt to fit in with other people. You may love playing the trumpet, you may be a night time person, but you do not start practicing your trumpet at 3.00am, if you live in a block of flats and if you do, you can expect to be told to stop and not repeat the offence. There has to be give and take.