Woman

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

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.

*Doodledog. You speak for many of us.

Doodledog absolutely!

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.

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

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.

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?

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

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.

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?).

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.

I think you are responding to M0nica's post and not mine, trisher.

Trisher great words.
Allowing women to be put at risk of attack or into a state of fear in what are supposed to be safe spaces for them, by those transwomen who ID or selfID with the intention of harming others is inhumane. Men and (women) having the right to say natal women have no right to object because it’s transphobic, is dictatorial.

Finding a way round the problem, whilst that attitude exists and is supported by some men some women and some trans, is unworkable.
So I agree with your vocabulary even if not with your usage. Since I haven’t ever said I thought transwomen should have surgery there’s another area of agreement.
Wow!

As to whether or not you are Mary Poppins, well she’s a fantasy figure who could make things happen by clicking her fingers, so I’m not quite sure how you see yourself.

Germanshepherdsmum

Quite simply, whether logical or not, seeing an obviously intact man dressed/made up as a woman, or a person very obviously male dressed/made up as a woman in an all female space would frighten me.

If this statement were changed to ethnicity:

Quite simply, whether logical or not, seeing an obviously black person dressed/made up as a white person, in an all white space would frighten me.

Can you SEE how horrifically offensive that is? I'm sure there are many white people that are afraid of black people. It doesn't make it right.

I apologise to others for using this analogy, but really. This arguing is becoming SO offensive that if the topic weren't gender, it would have LONG since been deleted by GNHQ.

GagaJo if I self identify as a black person despite my obvious more stereotypically "white" complexion ( I actually do have black ancestry but it doesn't "show" and it's irrelevant to this issue) would you really think me the best advocate for black people's issues? Do you think that despite growing up "white" I'd be accepted as the authority as to what it's like to be a black person? Would you agree with me taking an obviously black person's place on a committee, focus group etc or would you be saying the black person should be taking the position? Now apply that logic to sex issues. We can all do the substitution equation.

I am speaking for GSM here, so I apologise if I am out of line, GSM, but her comment isn’t about race, so your analogy doesn’t hold water.

You have brought race into it, nobody else. You just just as easily have said ‘seeing a cat dressed as a dog’ or ‘a young person dressed as an old one’ if you wanted to pretend that GSM’s comment could be extrapolated to anything else (which you can’t reasonably do, as it is her phobia, not yours), but instead you chose as contentious a comparison as you could, to try to make GSM look bad.

If you can’t add anything useful of your own to the discussion, at least try not to score points by using fallacious argument.

Cross posted, Rosie51.

Thanks Doodledog and Rosie51.
GJ that was unbelievable!

trisher said "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" - yet you seem happy that the terms "pregnant women" or "breastfeeding woman" should not be used.

As I have said previously, when in a communal dressing room most women are discreet and stand with their back to the room if a transwoman openly displays their male genitals in that situation one has to wonder why they choose to do that. Once again I ask you - do you not consider women and children should be protected from that?

Thank you Doodledog. I follow this thread with increasing disbelief that certain posters claim to be feminists. Does a true feminist dredge up a statement of a genuine fear made by a woman to other women some days ago, when the argument has long since moved on, in order to twist that statement into a ridiculous analogy and attack me for what I confided to other women? I think not. This is goading, pure and simple.

Gsm it isn't "goading" it's simply explaining something I have already used as an example of why you shouldn't use such terms. I'm sorry if you are upset by transwomen, but it really isn't their fault and pointing out how bias and discrimination are expressed is actually trying to help you.

Oldwoman70 Those terms can be used if the person involved wishes. If the breastfeeder is a transman they should be allowed to use the terms they wish, so staff in any organisation should understand that.

Doodledog M0nica posted and you agreed with her. I actually found it the most shocking thing I have seen posted. Compulsory surgery? Really?
It's incomprehensible and doesn't fit with any sort of democratic beliefs I know and it certainly isn't feminist.

Transmen can call themselves what they like - breast feeder etc.
Mothers who want to be called mothers should be allowed to be called that “so staff in any organisation should understand that”
What women are objecting to is the fact that they are being discriminated against and their preference is being ruled out by the desires of those who want all women to be called breastfeeders.