You have to wonder at the constant reference and bias of Trans that some people have. Methinks it’s protesting too much.
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What is a woman?
(210 Posts)What is a woman to me?
I feel in modern times women are being reduced to sex categories, ignoring our vast and varied biology. The very biology that for years has allowed women to be stereotyped, seen as weaker and even seen as so great in difference to other women, women were enslaved and sold.
Biology as diverse as a woman's has caused so many non white women pain and fear yet the biology of women is now somehow fixed?
Sojourner Truth "Ain't I a woman?"
Yet we are all women and that must be respected while acknowledging our differences, our separate struggles, our journeys to claiming our womanhood. The discriminations other women have faced that we don't and the discriminations other women have faced that we do because of biological diversity.
Some simply see women as one simple biological fact, men and women. Nothing else.
Some of us see it as a rainbow, A beautiful spectrum of difference and diversity. Men, women, trans, non binary people, all valid.
I wasn't born a woman, I was born a baby, I became a child, on an equal footing with boys, running and jumping and getting dirty in the mud. What was there to tell us apart but the hair and clothes chosen for us by adults?
I wasn't born a woman, society told me I was one when I reached physical maturity. Society told me what to wear, how to act.
Am I a woman? I choose my own hair, my own clothes, my personality and how to express myself in the ways that other women do that I enjoy as an individual.
Can anyone look at me and declare my womanhood undoubtedly? Probably but only because that is what I choose and how I express myself. Is that true of all people? No.
You see everything about who I am as a woman is on the inside. Its in my thoughts, my opinions, my appreciation of beautiful things, the way I would like to look, the clothes I would like to wear, in the things I appreciate about friends and family, the strength I have for my children, the love and the pure determination to be a good mother.
I am a woman on the inside, not the outside. That's how I identify. I can change the outside. I can gain or lose weight, I can wear more or less make up, I can cut my hair or grow it out. I can have my body surgically altered but who I am on the inside remains the same.
I am one woman amongst a world of biologically diverse women, not a single one of us looks exactly the same, we don't all choose to express our gender identity visually at all, yet still identify as women.
It is the same for trans women.
I am a woman and so is she.
Congratulations Rosie51. That’s really exciting news and I’m sure you will love them however they present.
Well the clocks jumped, I can never sleep until they do for some reason.
Good night
Congratulations!
I'm still waiting to be a grandparent, the younger of my AC will make that happen sooner I think. I have 5 children and think I will be overwhelmed one day as even the younger children say they want a big family too.
Because of biological diversity and how that can be expressed race can be tricky. There are as an example, 1 set of non identical twins I know of born to a couple where one is white and one is black and their twin girls have been born showing each parents DNA, one looks white and one looks black, yet both have claim to both sets of heritage. It's who they are on the inside
Yes there are media stories of such twins, how lovely to know such a set personally. That maybe illustrates my point. The twin that externally exhibits black chromosomes may feel closer to the white parent and heritage, while the reverse may be true of the 'white presenting twin' who may feel closer to the black parent. I'm currently awaiting the sex reveal of identical twin grandchildren and wonder whether they will identify/resemble their white parent or their black parent. Whichever, they will be identical and will be identified as such and will have to live with that identification. And I look forward to their birth and will love them the same no matter their external presentation!
Herefornow
Why do you people constantly make this about sex when it's about gender, its exhausting.
Do you consider that this 'prove it with surgery' attitude could lead to more young people having surgery that they later regret?
eh ? I'm sorry I do not follow this at all. Surely biological sex is the only constant, it can't be changed. Everything else is just fluff. Dress how you like, give yourself any name you like, live how you like, but respect single sex spaces and don't lie about your sex.
Why do you people constantly make this about sex when it's about gender, its exhausting.
Do you consider that this 'prove it with surgery' attitude could lead to more young people having surgery that they later regret?
If I wasn't differentiating in protected circumstances or for other reasons I would just say women but there are also areas where it is important to differentiate to ensure everyone receives the support or services they need so I use trans with woman in discussion because I am trying to show respect to everyone and their journeys to womanhood. People show respect in different ways and it's still respect.
With trans friends there is no need to say anything at all. Just their name and pronouns are fine.
Because of biological diversity and how that can be expressed race can be tricky. There are as an example, 1 set of non identical twins I know of born to a couple where one is white and one is black and their twin girls have been born showing each parents DNA, one looks white and one looks black, yet both have claim to both sets of heritage. It's who they are on the inside.
Whether claiming a race you are not is valid I haven't really given it much thought. One of those twins as an example will go though life perhaps not facing any of the discrimination her twin might but that doesn't change her heritage... Wouls she be wrong to try to show it?
So it's difficult, I don't know what I think, it's not something I've really come accross and I'm not sure it's the same thing really. It's would guess it's generally frowned on as disrespectful because it's been deliberately disrespectful in the past. Whether a person doing what you describe is being disrespectful... I just don't know. Whether that is OK, I just don't know.
VioletSky
The gender Recognition act of 2004 does change people's legal sex. So trans women with a GRC are legally recognised as women with a very few circumstantial exceptions.
The Equality Act 2010 forbids discrimination against those who are undergoing or have undergone "a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning a person's sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex".
So trans women are legally women and saying they aren't is technically discriminating in the eyes of the law.
The law also protects some single sex spaces as needed so it should be OK to say trans women are women and women need safe spaces when applicable without anyone minding.
Transwomen with a GRC are legally women (even though it is a legal fiction, they haven't actually changed sex) but any self ID transwomen are not legally women
The law also protects some single sex spaces as needed so it should be OK to say trans women are women and women need safe spaces when applicable without anyone minding. so transwomen are women (not transwomen) and women need safe spaces........so if you do not differentiate between women and transwomen how do you know which women can go in the safe space and which can't? To you they're all 'women' Ah yes it's that 'single sex' again. But haven't you said you can change sex? This is what comes from muddled unscientific thinking.
Dr Debbie Hayton, transwoman, scientist and journalist who often proclaims ( and has the tshirt too!) that transwomen are male, get over it. She is under no illusion that humans can change sex even though she says she's a transexual having had full reassignment surgery. She thinks Lia Thomas being male should not be swimming against women. TRAs say Lia is a woman because Lia says she is. Do you accept that maybe she has a fuller understanding of the situation and conflict of interests? Difficult isn't it? Debbie does as far as I know use women's toilets but being post reassignment surgery I don't think she'd be perceived as a threat to anyone, and presents as very inoffensive.
Fionne Orlander, a transwoman who in most cases would 'pass' uses male toilets because she thinks that's the honest thing to do even though she'd likely never be challenged in a female toilet. There are many transwomen who acknowledge you can't change sex and fully respect biological women and their separate rights.
I do wonder how many people who think you can assume the mantle of woman also agree with assuming the mantle of a different race? If someone truly believes they should have been born a different ethnicity should they be able to identify as that ethnicity?
The title of this thread asked “What is a woman?”
Here’s one definition - “a member of the female sex class, the class who continually have to re-assert their personhood, the class who are not allowed to centre themselves, the class who are constantly expected to put their needs aside for others, and finally, the class who are tired of this BS!”
It’s a definition from an American woman, so the language is slightly different from what many of us on G’net would use. But it sums up exactly how I feel.
Galaxy
We hold a different a belief to you VS. Thats all really.
There is nothing wrong with that. If that is as far as it went I'd be more than happy.
I disagree with lots of people, especially politically.
Like generslly I get on fine with those who are fiscally right wing as an example, I don't agree but no issues
There aren't actually many socially right wing people but I can't seem to get along with those who are
To me it's a fundamental problem when people are not valued or treated equally. That's a case by case basis generally as it is for all of us because we judge the people in front of us. The news holds many people up for that judgement which is frustrating as its not a reflection of every day life in many demographics.
If someone walks up to me and tells me they are a woman or presents as a women, then they are a woman... I cannot sit in judgement because I don't know, I don't understand, I am not them, I haven't lived their experiences and most of the time I cannot see their undercarriages.
So I just cannot say anything except trans women are women.
It's not an attack on anyone, it's not angry, it's not a reflection of any other aspect of my thoughts or feelings on any topic.... It just is my understanding of what is asked of me by the equality act and who I see when I look at trans women.
Many Women XX.
Live through excruciating period pain.
Give birth which without pain relief is also excruciating painful.
Some sadly have to endure miscarriage(s) this is also excruciating painful mentally and physically
Give birth to a still born baby.
Excruciating painful mentally and physically
Suffer conditions such as endometriosis also excruciating mentally and physically.
Then of course there is the menopause ...
Brain fog. Hot flushes, night sweats, loss of bone density etc etc .
Please don't tell me that a Transwoman can 'feel' understand or relate to any of the above!!!!
VioletSky I’m hopeless at linking to articles, but the HM case was only at the end of last year, there’s lots of information about it online. That’s the best I can offer.
VS do you think GN and MN are breaking the law?
We hold a different a belief to you VS. Thats all really.
grannydarkhair what are those gender critical beliefs exactly that are protected?
Because I think that is also covered in the act in that biological sex can be addressed but that legally a trans women is a women
Women is not the same as female?
In the recent case of Harry Miller, the judgement said that GC beliefs and their expression are protected under both the Equality Act and Articles 9 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and “those beliefs are not inherently bigoted or transphobic”.
Well I just cannot see or understand how it is possible to accept trans women and say a trans woman is a man.
It makes no logical sense to me
Especially when you can agree a trans woman is a woman while still protecting women's safe spaces... Legally
That's the only difference between me and most in discussion, my simple acceptance that a trans women is a woman and I will call her by her chosen pronouns
Realistically there shouldn't be any problems that I hold that belief but I'm still having lots of thoughts and feelings assigned to me simply for saying trans women are women.
That's not logical if you are accepting of trans women so that's where I get stuck on where I stand with others in this discussion
I'm either stupid and boring and gaslighting and passive aggressive and I don't care about women or violence done against women or women's safe spaces
or
actually I do which is what I have said from the very beginning and what I will keep saying..
Which is it exactly?
Are you going to tell me who I am or am I allowed to say so for myself?
In answer to 'what is a woman?' there are many possibilities. There are the 'rainbow' ones, and there are less saccharine realities.
Compared to men, women are more likely to be raped. More likely to be badly paid. Much less likely to get a decent pension. More likely to be discriminated against at work. Women have to pay for tampons. And HRT. And nappies. Women are more likely to have solo childcare to deal with after divorce.
If 'women' becomes a word that includes transwomen (who have to deal with none of the above, whether they 'identify' as women or not), how will there be policies or campaigns or even discussions that can improve things?
Gender critical beliefs are protected by law VS.
I'm only telling you what the law states, it's not reply worth disagreeing with me about it, I didn't write it but if you are legally wrong to call a trans woman a man then that is the case.
I'm not going to report you for it
Transwomen are not biologically women. Most transwomen do not believe that they are women.
Most transwomen are not violent predators.
Most transwomen deplore the actions of those claiming transwomanhood in order to access safe places for women, competing against females etc.
Those TW who do not deplore those actions are those who want to carry them out.
Some females support that.
Trans women are not women; they are not adult females.
Its not technically discrimination to say you cant change sex, that was tested in the forstater case.
The gender Recognition act of 2004 does change people's legal sex. So trans women with a GRC are legally recognised as women with a very few circumstantial exceptions.
The Equality Act 2010 forbids discrimination against those who are undergoing or have undergone "a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning a person's sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex".
So trans women are legally women and saying they aren't is technically discriminating in the eyes of the law.
The law also protects some single sex spaces as needed so it should be OK to say trans women are women and women need safe spaces when applicable without anyone minding.
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