Vagina Museum

And I don’t need a lecture about feminism thanks trisher.
I don’t know why you think I needed one.

So does anyone seriously think that transwomen have not been subjected to the same prejudices and restrictions as other women?

This is the woman that I was thinking of who posed as being black.
Jessica Krug, she was a Professor at George Washington University

A really beautiful moment to celebrate how the medical community can create a vagina for someone in the same way they can build or rebuild any other missing or lost appendage.

Oh, don't be so stupid.

So when exactly do biologically female women get anything that's only for them, do you suggest?

It’s not exactly ‘beautiful’ how they create fake penises for troubled girls and young women, is it?

I should have been more clear, I suppose.

It was perfectly clear to me, Fanny. What is also clear is that men will never get 'women's troubles'. They don't menstruate, will never give birth, suffer from prolapse or go through menopause. Because they are not women. And before anyone says that not all women give birth or have a uterus, women have female gametes, which are also not present in men.

To stretch the analogy of identifying out of one's race, are there lines that we can all agree can't be crossed? I'm aware that people identify as 'furries' (google them when you're not at work if you aren't aware. Wikipedia is as good a place as any to start), but surely nobody thinks that you can 'become' a human/cat hybrid, or whatever? Or do they?

If someone identified as a surgeon, and insisted that it was just a mistake that deprived them of the right paperwork, would you want them to operate on you? How much of what is in people's heads do the rest of us have to accept?

And good question, Far North. As soon as women get anything, men pounce on it.

Feminism isn't just about getting the vote it's about making the discussion of things once labelled "women's troubles" acceptable and normal. It's about empowering women to discuss and make sure their needs are met

So why is it that when women on here say their needs are not met by men being included as women, they are told to shut up?

'Women's troubles' don't all apply to all women, but they definitely never apply to men.

FarNorth

^Feminism isn't just about getting the vote it's about making the discussion of things once labelled "women's troubles" acceptable and normal. It's about empowering women to discuss and make sure their needs are met^

So why is it that when women on here say their needs are not met by men being included as women, they are told to shut up?

'Women's troubles' don't all apply to all women, but they definitely never apply to men.

I don't think I have told anyone to "shut up" FarNorth nor indeed have any of the other posters you might identify as trans supportive. I have said repect the intersectional feminist views of those running the Vagina museum and their right to tweet about what they like on IWD. But they are certainly being told that they shouldn't be doing that. So who is doing the silencing around here???
I don't agree with the comments about transwomen. I think transwomen have been subjected to the same and sometimes more discrimination and harassment as natal women, but if you want to believe they haven't the right to join in IWD you are perfectly entitled to think that. Just don't silence other women.

I think the case of Philip Bunce is the most Monty Pythonesque scenario I’ve heard so far.
He is a banker working for Credit Suisse. Some days he chooses to dress as a woman, he doesn’t identify as a woman.
The FT listed him for an award for Business woman of the year ( something like that)

Yes, it’s always all about the clothes isn’t it, being a woman

the Vagina museum and their right to tweet about what they like on IWD.

Of course they have that right, but if they really celebrate vaginas they could have held back for just one day. Just one day for females out of 365 days in the year. Is that really too much to ask, that biological females can be acknowledged for their sex class and achievements for just one day?

Some excellent posts on here; particularly the demolition of drawing parallels between black women and transwomen. It was a particularly silly parallel to make in the first place but Peasblossom has nailed it in her post at 09.26. On Mumsnet the appropriation of womanhood is referred to as WomanFace. Apt I think.

I think it's fair to say that trans women - assigned male at birth - are not biologically women.

But if they identify as women, they are going to face the same discrimination and harassment that biological women suffer. In that respect, we are united.

However, transgenderism has it's own culture and faces different problems to those experienced by biological women.

Both women and trans women are sheltering under the same umbrella, but we are innately two different groups, even though both will sometimes share the same experiences.

I can be standing side by side with a black woman - both of us experiencing discrimination as women. But her experiences will be different from mine. Our unity is in the fact that we both suffer discrimination. And I believe that this is also the case with trans women / biological women. Neither group will have exactly the same experiences as 'women'.

How much we identify with each other is always going to be questionable - and therefore a continuing problem. Some see trans women as male activists dictating terms to women. Maybe some are but equally there must be those who simply want to be identified as women because they identify as women.

It's complex.

Sorry but I really dislike the use of 'assigned', a term used by some TRAs to deny the immutability of sex, and assert that people were simply mis-assigned. Nobody is 'assigned' a sex at birth. Sex is observed at birth, and indeed is often observed in utero. None of the midwives in my family have randomly assigned a sex to any baby they've delivered, they have observed the genitals and gone from there. In the rare case of unclear genital formation genetic testing is carried out to establish which sex the infant is.

That aside do transmen gain all the privileges of men? Is that why they rarely need to be at the forefront shouting for their rights? There must be a reason for their lack of prominence and it surely couldn't be that they're biologically female and therefore still don't count.

Rosie51

^the Vagina museum and their right to tweet about what they like on IWD.^

Of course they have that right, but if they really celebrate vaginas they could have held back for just one day. Just one day for females out of 365 days in the year. Is that really too much to ask, that biological females can be acknowledged for their sex class and achievements for just one day?

They are intersectional feminists so they recognise transwomen as women. You may not, they do. And therefore for them discriminating against transwomen is just as bad as discriminating against another woman because say she is Muslim, or childless, or working class, or any of the other descriptions the patriarchy has used to divide women. It isn't them who need to hold back. Their right to post as they wish needs to be acknowledged by other women however they feel about transwomen.

www.vaginamuseum.co.uk/exhibitions/currentexhibition
The current exhibition is Periods.
The past one was :
Muff Busters: Vagina Myths and How to Fight Them
(I can't see anything about trans women.)
It all looks interesting. Women's health has been ignored through the ages, and women are still being denied the healthcare they should have had (the recent news about women who were not offered caesareans, when they should have, leading to still born babies). It's all useful information.

trisher

Rosie51

the Vagina museum and their right to tweet about what they like on IWD.

Of course they have that right, but if they really celebrate vaginas they could have held back for just one day. Just one day for females out of 365 days in the year. Is that really too much to ask, that biological females can be acknowledged for their sex class and achievements for just one day?

They are intersectional feminists so they recognise transwomen as women. You may not, they do. And therefore for them discriminating against transwomen is just as bad as discriminating against another woman because say she is Muslim, or childless, or working class, or any of the other descriptions the patriarchy has used to divide women. It isn't them who need to hold back. Their right to post as they wish needs to be acknowledged by other women however they feel about transwomen.

Perhaps we need to rename it International Females Day, then we can celebrate females which will of course include transmen should they wish to be included.

I acknowledged their right to post as they wish. I'll not bother visiting the museum as it's message is obviously not what it appears, a celebration of vaginas and the sex class that has them.

I think you are missing the point trisher. This thread is not about the Vagina museum per se, it's about the museum choosing to celebrate trans women on International Women's day. There are another 364 days in the year so it would have been more appropriate to celebrate trans women on another day.

This is a Forbes article. In reality, biological sex can be very unclear.
www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2020/06/15/the-myth-of-biological-sex/?sh=8962c8376b9b

Male muslims and working class men have been discriminated against for centuries, so I don't think it's a patriarchy v feminists situation at all - it's prejudice/exploitation/religious intolerance, depending on the situation and your point of view.

Your way of applying intersectional feminism is very convenient for the patriarchy, as it's not about women at all, which means that I struggle to see it as feminism. How anyone claiming to be feminist can fail to see the implications of transwomen insisting on being included in something that is (a) about vaginas, which they don't have, and (b) is on IWD, which exists to remember the way in which women have been discriminated against for centuries.

Men, however much they may feel discriminated against now, do not have that history - their place in the world is based on centuries of male domination, primogeniture and legal discrimination. They cannot identify with women who have had none of that. They can sympathise and support us, but pushing in to IWD is exactly the sort of boorish and dismissive behaviour that women like me object to. It is, in fact, one of the reasons why we need female spaces - so that we are not brushed aside to accommodate men's wants.

From the Forbes article:
The biology of sex is real, but it’s extremely complicated, and there is sometimes no easy way to draw a line between the biologically male and female. According to the BBC documentary, Me, My Sex and I, “There are about a dozen different conditions that blur the line between male and female. They’re known as disorders of sexual development or DSDs…. Altogether, DSDs occur as frequently as twins or red hair.”
Most think chromosomes hold the key to biological sex, but that’s not always the case. Typically, those with two X chromosomes are considered biologically female and those with one X and one Y chromosome are considered biologically male. However, a DSD known as Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS) leads some to have an X and Y chromosome, but physically appear to be girls. Without genetic testing, babies with AIS are often assigned female sex at birth and are raised as girls. They may not realize they are not biologically female until they hit puberty and don’t begin to menstruate.'
Disorders of sexual development are as common as twins. I do not want these people leading unhappy lives. Also those here who are sure about how to define sex are probably related to one of them!

That article seeks to blur the reality that there are two biological sexes, there is no intersex, third sex, or sex spectrum. The first person to identify and isolate a third sex will win a Nobel prize for science. No person on this planet past or present has been born without the fusion of a large immotile gamete provided by a female and a small motile gamete provided by a male.

People with dsds have begged not to be used in this way. They find it really offensive. It would be nice if people would stop doing it.

Galaxy

People with dsds have begged not to be used in this way. They find it really offensive. It would be nice if people would stop doing it.

Yes, it's very distressing for people with DSDs to find themselves dragged into debates about trans issues. In any case the condition is far rarer than the number of self-identifying transpeople seems to be, so even if it were the same thing it wouldn't account for more than a fraction of cases.

My goodness. I went straight to sleep last night, no waking to wee, figit, blearilily look at the clock and work out how much sleep I had left and no dreams. Just blinked and it was morning.

Went to work where part of my job is to teach children that they deserve to be loved, accepted and feel safe as their authentic selves and how to create that safe space for others.

Come home, sit down with a coffee and there are 11 comments quoting me, 1 saying I'm not a feminist and 1 calling me stupid.

Most already know I include those transitioning into a woman as women. Already know I am understanding of women's fears. Already know I want to ensure all women are safe and respected and that I believe that is achievable for every woman if we work together instead of against each other.

Just sit down for a moment, take a deep breath and ask yourself how you would feel reading that utter onslaught of anger. I'm not using my fame, money or business to further any kind of trans agenda, I'm just a normal person, not a scapegoat for all the changes you don't like.

Perhaps you might then understand why I end up hiding these threads.