a man’s internal feeling that he is a woman has no basis in material reality?

Far North I did read that book some years back and I had forgotten. until you mention it. it didn't really convince me because I could not understand how someone with a penis feels like a real woman....I am not meaning offense just do not get it.
I can't remember if this means that Rhiannon doesn't have a vagina but how can a person feels like a woman with a penis and not a vagina....and then I think at the same time i don't really care.
If that person is peacefully living their life without harm to anyone then it is their business. I would not raise any objections or judgments.

I do think people can have the op and call themselves a transwoman but should not have access to women only spaces unless they have had the op.
It seems crazy to give a self identifying woman access to the women only pool at Hampstead when they could have just used the mixed pool.
The women only pool was a lovely special place for me and my friends when I was younger. It felt so safe. I wouldn't use it now.

Rhiannon doesn't have a vagina, just normal male genitals.
There is a description in the book of the care needed by a fake vagina. It needs much more attention than a real one, so Rhiannon is saved a lot of bother by not having one.
It isn't practical to say that those without a penis can be accepted as women, as no-one is going to be checking on that in everyday life. Even as an official requirement, it amounts to insisting on sterilisation.

Rhiannon was (maybe still is) a drag artist and seemed to equate 'woman' with more imaginative clothing than 'man'.
At one point, to visit family who didn't know about the transition, Rhiannon wore a grey sweatshirt and trousers.
Rhiannon felt terrible in that clothing, as would I!

I don't know why Rhiannon felt that 'man' had to equal dull clothing, especially after coming out to the family as a gay man.

FarNorth but logic says that if we are influenced by the pronouns we use then those people speaking another language which gives inanimate objects a gender must feel differently about those objects. So a table in French is "Elle" or "she" but a coffee is masculine "Il" so in French pronouns are used as "it". Should the French feel differently about these things or is it in fact just a construct of language and an unsupportable argument.

Go on child protection servives advice about abuse prevention.

The main thing they advise is to teach children to be able to accurately describe themselves and their own bodies for 2 reasons:

1. It is offputting for abusers if children know how to describe what happens to them

2. If abuse does happen, children who can accurately describe themselves seek and get help faster

If women cannot accurately describe themselves it eliminates their tools to fight sex descrimination

trisher I don't know how French people feel about their gendered pronouns for inanimate objects.
Why not ask someone French?

Here's a post from Mumsnet, making the case for being clear in what we are talking about :

I know that Mumsnet moderators are hot on keeping respectful debate and for that reason does not allow misgendering, certain terms, and the like. It's their site and they make the rules and I respect that. This topic isn't about Mumsnet, it's about the growing confidence of feminists to refuse to use the terms and language of gender.

Karen Ingala Smith, speaking to the Womens Select Committee, showed how it could be done. As a result of the clarity of her language, she was able to cut through the nonsense and make her points forcefully. In contrast, Janet from Womens Aid, with her convoluted language about gender, sounded confused and muddle-headed.

When we are forced to use words like 'transwoman' and 'she' - for fear of prosecution, civil actions, job losses, imprisonment for contempt of court, exclusion, abuse and physical assaults - we have helped to normalise transgenderism. In effect, we are saying that a man can be a woman.

I believe that we can no longer support Trans Rights by default, by caving in and going with the flow. At some stage we have to assert the right to use our own terms - because we can't wait for legal precedents and government reviews. The more refusniks and recusants there are, the more confidence will grow.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3595379-Can-we-stop-being-obedient-soon-or-will-this-coercion-continue-for-evermore

Actually listened to these interviews and the best person speaking was the volunteer from Cornwall refuge, who said they had never used the Equalities act. They have a men's refuge and a women's refuge but all the people who enter are risk assessed and if they are perceived as a threat are refused. She said that they have admitted trans women and transmen.
And actually Janet from Women's Aid spoke very coherently about how they are getting younger people who identify gender more loosely but still require help, including non-binary and transitioning people.

People can identify gender as loosely as they like.
It doesn't alter their sex.

Do you have a link for those interviews, trisher?

think this is it parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/0d07ff13-636e-4b51-a946-2877e583dc4c

Thank you.

Far North . thank you for your reply. Perhaps it would be possible for a certificate to be provided for a person to enter a woman only space. I am being careful with language.

It is interesting that Rhianonn saw dull clothes as more masculine. I think that might have been one of the details that I found off putting. I began to think that transwomen want to be the stereotype rather than the reality and as a gay man why??

As you say you cannot change the biological sex and I am glad to read that there is a much movement to take back language.
I do object to a man simply deciding he IS a woman but I am sympathetic to anyone who really believes they are in the wrong body as long as it is a deep and long held belief.
Funny thing I experienced strong desire to be a boy when young and then puberty pushed me out of that into feeling female, though never a girly girl. And then my daughter went through a time of not wanting to grow breasts and be a woman but she too grew out of it.
I didn't put any pressure either way on her but I did tell her my own experience.
I wonder what other things might be affecting the way children perceive gender.
I have never fitted a typical woman image it just isn't me.....but I am glad to be a woman even with the pain of periods and childbirth.

Rachel, now 21, believes she latched on to a trans identity as a way of coping with on-off depression and being sexually abused as a child.
www.google.com/amp/s/amp.economist.com/united-states/2018/09/01/why-are-so-many-teenage-girls-appearing-in-gender-clinics

One thing that I think may be contributing to young girls wanting to identify out of 'female' is the ease of access to violent porn and the belief among teenagers that porn sex is the way real sex has to be.

Once again, its apparently transphobic to be a lesbian that doesnt want lady dick:
twitter.com/LesleySemmens/status/1134779247925649409?s=19

Identifying as a females who are solely attracted to females = a hate crime!

So "inclusive" this brave new world..

Just in case anyone can't see Twitter :

Just had the police (including an inspector) in to Cafe Nero in Bradford to ask us if we were a "hate group"!! #BradfordPride #LesbiansOnChairsDrinkingCoffee Someone has reported us already #GetTheLOut

The "Hate Speech" btw were banners saying either "lesbians dont have penises" or "lesbian = female homosexual".

At pride
Lesbians bullied and intimidated by TRAs for existing and daring to define themselves, rather than have men with girl-on-girl fantasies define them.
At pride!!!

If lesbians cant proclaim that they are only attracted to the SAME SEX. At pride. How is this progress?

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/scientists-fail-exam-board-for-confusing-sex-and-gender-drxq3q2x6

This stuff is beyond weird. why isn't it out in the news?

Who are these people that deny women wanting other women? are they transwomen? gay men? which or what?

so are they saying that men can desire other men but women are only allowed to desire
people with a penis??

It is in the news but, as varian commented earlier, most people just pass it by.

Some male-bodied people claim to be trans women who are lesbians. They then claim that female-bodied lesbians should be willing to have sex with them.

Anyone who objects to this idea is called a bigot and is vilified.

I don't know if female-bodied transmen are trying to pressure gay men, in the same way.

Anyone who pressures – or actually forces – another person to have sex with them, regardless of whether they are male, female, trans male, trans female is behaving wrongly and, probably illegally. But I have to say, if I were a lesbian and a trans women forced me to have sex with her/him, I would think very hard before I tried to explain that at the local police station.

Given the difficulty of getting rape taken seriously, at all, I should think most women think very hard before going to the police.

Stonewall supports the idea that a transwoman has no obligation to disclose TO A PERSON THEY ARE ABOUT TO HAVE SEX WITH whether of not they retain their penis prior to penetration.

Consent ? What ? How is that not rape?

How can you consent to a sex act if the person you are about to have sex with wont tell you what that sex act is going to be?

I don't know if female-bodied transmen are trying to pressure gay men, in the same way.

They are not.

Furthermore, men who are sexually oriented to trans identified males with full male biology/bodies are told to identify as straight.

Straight women whose male partners come out as trans are told to identify themselves as lesbians, not as straight women. Oh and btw they were lesbians all along cause the MAN they married was a "real woman" all along....

There already is a word for people who are attracted to transexuals: pansexual. But TRAs want "lesbian" for themselves too..

this issue has too much mind bending in it for me to be comfortable. As a friend of lesbians I know that some lesbians do not want to be anywhere near a penis it doesn't matter what the person calls themselves.
Something very wrong her.
It is rape and also something else that is very twisted.