Can a woman have a penis?

We must keep bothering or all of our hard won rights will be swept away.

No one should be discriminated against but if our trans sisters genitalia are the same as mine they have been surgically modified. I have seen people surgically modified to give the appearance of a feline it does not make them a cat.

I'm of the era that men were male and women were glad of it. So I must now be consigned to history, where I understood the world in which I lived, so much better. Women were special. My grankids are growing up in a strange new world of modern facts.

It used to be so simple, didn't it? The midwife looked at the newborn child and announced, "It's a boy." if she saw a penis and two testicles, or "It's a girl" if she saw labia and vulva.

She then checked for hair-lip, cleft palate, and ensured that the anus was present and correct and that the bairn didn't have webbed feet, extra fingers and toes, or less than the normal five on each hand and foot.

Then she handed the baby to mother for inspection and got on with the rest of her routine.

Few midwives ever saw a true hermaphrodite, thankfully.

Children grew up with a name and pronoun deemed suitable to the sex their genital organs proclaimed they belonged to.

Believe it or not, most of us were perfectly content with the label we had been given, although perhaps not so comfortable with the list of things little boys or little girls didn't do.

Relatively few adults acknowedged sexual interest in a person of their own sex, openly at least or in individuals of either sex, and even fewer wanted to change sex, cross-dress etc.

Now we have men and women with the primary and secondary reproductive organs traditionally seen as indications of their sex, identifying with the opposite sex and claiming not only the right to dress and behave as women, although biologically speaking they are males, or as men, although biologically speaking they are females, but demanding the right to serve prison sentences in prisons for the sex they emotionally, but not physically, identify with, take part in sporting events for the sex they have assumed etc. etc.

Some but not all of these trans-gender persons, if I have understood them correctly, are not waiting for a sex change operation, nor are they content only to cross dress.

This leads to the situation where a human being who looks like a man insists on using female changing rooms and lavatories ,or one who looks like a woman using male facilities, and apparently we who are happy in our bodies have lost the right to complain about a "woman" complete with penis and testicles, beard and moustache sharing the swimming-bath's changing room with us.

Formerly this was, in Europe, the sole prerogative of males under the age of seven as far as women's changing rooms went, and did not exist at all in my childhood for little girls, as accompanying Daddy to the toilet or shower was unthinkable. So much so, that a female shop assistant was pressed into service if a small daughter shopping with her Daddy needed to visit the "Ladies' room".

Could we not just go back to referring to anyone with the physical attributes of the female sex as she, her and a woman, or girl, and those with the physical attributes of the male sex as he, him, and a man, or a boy?

And then accept the right of an individual to call himself she and dress as a woman, or of an individual to call herself he and dress as a male?

But let us be clear, those who assume an identity, but do not have a surgical change of sex are no more a man, than the soprano singing Cherubino is. Nor is the male cross-dresser any more a female than Cinderella's sisters are in the pantomime.

We have fortunately accepted that people can fall in love with a person of their own sex, so the fact that some feel like a woman but are biologically a man, or the other way about, should not be so hard to swallow.

But is it so unreasonable for a majority to demand that the minority also shows the rest of society some consideration?

No.

Is woman a sex classification or not? I say yes, a woman is an adult human female. A surgically constructed piece of flesh taken from an arm or leg and sewn into position is not a penis. A woman who had such a construction would not be sporting a penis, but an artificial representation.
Similarly a man, an adult human male, who has his penis inverted to construct a tunnel leading to nowhere, does not have a vagina. He has a wound that has to be dilated artificially to stop it closing up, the body's natural healing process.
I think we all know Ed Davey is referring to a real penis attached to a male person, which is the reality of most transwomen (trans identified males).

Most definitely no.

AmberSpyglass

Yes. 100%, unqualified, wholehearted yes. I love and respect my trans sisters, and their genitalia is as female as mine is.

Did you do O Level Biology?

aquagran

Not again!

I know, I apologise
I know what I think and I have a good idea what many of our regular posters think, but after watching Ed Davey last night tell me that some women can have a penis, I just couldn’t resist

maddyone

AmberSpyglass

Yes. 100%, unqualified, wholehearted yes. I love and respect my trans sisters, and their genitalia is as female as mine is.

Did you do O Level Biology?

So, Amber is a trans woman too?

I’m going with chromosomes too.
I have every respect for all humans but I stand up for my sisters in chromosomes first and will not be bullied.
I have gay friends transgender relatives and respect for all but please dont tell me what to think and believe.

Sorry but if your are born with a penis and testicles and XY chromosomes you are a male, no if nor buts male

If you are born with a vagina, labia etc and have XX chromosomes you are female

There is far more to both sexes than clothing and swagger, our chromosomes govern our attitudes, strength and abilities to either carry a human child or fertilise a human child.

Dress however you please, call yourself Sid or Sue (apologies to all the Sids and Sues) but do not call yourself a women or a man unless you were born as that sex.

It is scientifically impossible to change one’s biological sex to go along with this falsehood is misogyny at its worst.

If Ed Davey doesn't know the difference between men and women what a happy coincidence he married a female one without a penis so able to bear his children.
Everyone knows what a woman is when it comes to wanting a surrogate to carry a baby for them. Yes looking at you Tom Daley who thinks it's fair for transwomen to compete in the women's class, but didn't consider employing one to bear his baby.

XX chromosomes in women, XY in men

No doubt that there are variations between XX and XY. They need their own definitions. XX is woman, XY is man

Surgery does not change XX nor XY but might be appropriate for the XX-XY variations

No and true hermaphroditism is extremely rare.

Go back, 10, 15 years this would never have come up. Aside from the very real condition pertaining to hermaphrodites that affect an infinitesimal fraction of the population where the sex is indeterminate. Incidentally, the excellent book, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides has that phenomenon absolutely central to the plot in his award winning book and certainly gives the reader an understanding of what it must be like to be born into such a body.

That aside, absolutely not! and I presume people who assert that a woman can have a penis are talking about trans women rather than a hermaphrodite.

I imagine this thread will run and run with arguments and counter arguments. We all know what has happened to women's sports and women only safe spaces. Maybe having being in changing rooms at gyms and pools for the past 30 years has focused my mind of late as to how any woman/girl might feel in a state of undress to possibly be alone in there with a fully intact male person. This is what female athletes are having to put up with nowadays, reading their testaments it does seem that certain trans women have been seen to be in a state of arousal whilst they observe their team mates getting dressed and undressed. Take that out of the context of the changing room and it would be called indecent exposure!

I say NO but I also say that male and female only defines your role in producing a baby. It does not dictate what clothes you wear, how you should act, your role in society, how you are judged or anything else that is currently divided by gender unless there is a very very good reason for it. So running 100 meters yes, acting no.

Why? Do you want one? Go for it

Maybe acting was not a good example I meant best actor/actress.

There are a few situations where your sex really matters, sports, changing rooms, hospital wards, prisons. In other words where women would be in a state of undress or vulnerable. I'd also add in awards and scholarships etc intended for females to try and balance an inequality. When trans identifying men enter these spaces, or take these awards women lose out yet again.

Rosie51

There are a few situations where your sex really matters, sports, changing rooms, hospital wards, prisons. In other words where women would be in a state of undress or vulnerable. I'd also add in awards and scholarships etc intended for females to try and balance an inequality. When trans identifying men enter these spaces, or take these awards women lose out yet again.

YES

NO.

On another site Graham Linehan has posted an awful photo of a tube cut from an arm. Why would anyone destroy their body like this. He suggested the arm would lose some feeling and function and the tube looked ridiculous.

kircubbin and they will never have anything approaching a satisfying love life

Rosie51
"I'd also add in awards and scholarships etc intended for females to try and balance an inequality. "

If the award or scholarship is for something that gender does not give an advantage then yes do it for a short time time to encourage women but quickly change back to gender neutral or the awards and scholarships will be thought of as second rate compared to the men's one.

VioletSky

Why? Do you want one? Go for it

No I don’t want one, but the absolute truth is that even if I did want one, I would not be able to have one. Some sort appendage could be fashioned by a surgeon but it would not be a functioning penis. I think there’s some sort of balloon or similar that can inflate it by pumping but I’m not totally sure. A penis cannot be made by anything other than nature. It develops in the mother’s womb and is present at birth, along with testicles.