Can a woman have a penis?

"There are things happening which are far more damaging for women"

Yes, I think so, and I would like to see this concern stand alongside the concerns that take so much space on Gransnet. But, I don't see it.

I see thread after thread spent on this issue, often from people I agree with on just about anything else, on the minority of men who call themselves trans women but are not, who take advantage of a situation and issue threats or violence, behaviour which I deplore in any group of people in society. And I'm so fed up of this i've broken my silence on this thread because I'm frightened of being sat on. I've just come out of an abusive relationship with a man, but it has not changed my feelings about the trans women I know, whom I am happy to call sisters, and live lives the are needful for them, but threatened by transphobia.

MayBee70

I’m totally confused by it. I do realise that I didn’t understand how many people do suffer from body dysmorphia. I knew that hospitals have to decide on a babies sex when it’s born and sometimes they get it wrong.And I do want to try to understand what it’s like for people that feel they’re in the wrong body. Having said that I can’t pretend that, if I was in a public toilet on my own and someone came in who looked very much like a man, I wouldn’t be frightened.

Maybee, there are not many people with gender dysmorphia.

According to CPD Online there are something like 1 in 14,400 males and 1 in 37,000 females with it in the UK. This works out at 1 in 25800 people averaged across the sexes.

According to the government the average primary school has 282 children, so only one child in 92 schools is likely to suffer from it. One in every ninety two primary schools. How likely is it that the average teacher comes across even one case? The odds will be higher in secondary schools, which have an average of 986 pupils, meaning that there will be an average of one gender dysmorphic child in every 26 secondary schools. Again, in a career of 26 years, a teacher might come across one such child, and then only if he or she is in that teacher's class.

Reading some posts on here it might seem as though every fourth child suffers from gender dysmorphia, but look at the stats.

Wyllow, no need to worry about being sat on. You have voiced your views before, and are perfectly entitled to do so. You don't belittle those who disagree, accuse them of bullying or twist their words.

I agree that transpeople who just want a quiet life deserve respect and protection, but it is not those ones to which people on here object. It is the ones who use the fashion for changing so-called 'gender' to infiltrate women's spaces and (as Dickens points out) to redefine what it is to be a woman who people like me object to. The 'genuine' transpeople caught up in all of this have my absolute sympathy. Their cause has been massively harmed by the trans lobby, as has the LGB cause, which has been hijacked by the same people who say that not only is what it is to be a woman needs to be redefined, but so does what it means to be gay.

VS who has 'stripped transpeople of any dignity or respect', please? I know it's late, but I've read every post and haven't seen anything of the kind going on.

I'm a Quaker, as some are know, and the LGB women I know very well are very pro trans tho not of course any violence. They dont feel hijacked but sympathy for the human rights of trans women.

I've had specific discussions on this with them, as hey are happy to speak up and out, but I'm not going to ask our trans woman sister in her later life if she has a penis. Its intrusive and not relevant.

Personally I think the continual throwing that specific question at the left is a way of attacking or undermining the many many issues we have in front of us. For women, the appalling proportion of women still facing domestic and at-work abuse from not only straight men but men in positions of authority like the police, politicians, in the CBI etc.

Anything to disturb the growing support away from the conservatives and current government.

It's not that the O/P is a "non issue", but is part of an extremely complex set of issues around gender, identity, and rights, around adequate resourcing and support and so on.

To reduce it to that single question just brings out the worst in polarising opinion instead of engaging with people.

Glorianny

Dickens

Smileless2012

And it's been a case for a long time of oh trans people exist? Cool... cool... What's for dinner? until TRA's started bullying and intimidating women.

Until men wanted to be incarcerated in women's prisons despite being imprisoned for crimes against them. Until men wanted to compete against women in sport etc etc etc., and women who quite rightly object to the aforementioned, being accused of being transphobic and not 'real' feminists.

Examples of catastrophising would be good, or is this just another example of accusations that cannot be substantiated?

Otherwise known as twisting Galaxy.

When men held positions of power in all aspects of 'life' in society, as they did until the suffragettes started their movement to demand a seat in those positions which governed their lives; when women began to agitate via 'women's lib' for equality at work, under the Law - to insist that in all aspects of our constitutional and cultural life, their voice was heard, and respected, there were men who were entirely opposed to the idea. They had defined womanhood to suit their own needs and to maintain their upper hand, their power. We know that some felt threatened by intelligent women - the 'blue stocking' women who challenged them. There is that drive in men to dominate - they gave us examples of it by referring us to the animal kingdom, told us it was 'natural' for men to lead; to flit from female to female to inseminate as many as possible - it was a natural 'instinct' and we were behaving unnaturally attempting to alter 'nature'. They told us we were the nurturers and our 'place' was in the home as their subordinate partners, and that we shouldn't be clamouring to compete with them because we weren't physically or mentally 'built' for it. Some were (and still are) so fiercely opposed to feminism because not so deep-down, they didn't really like women... they 'fancied' them and wanted to have sex with them, but they didn't actually like them because they saw them as a threat to their dominance. Some were so insecure and weak mentally and emotionally - so inadequate, that they blamed women for their own failures... in short, they hated them - they hated us because we highlighted their insufficiency. The more we were successful in 'feminising' society, the more they hated us. They were (and are) the misogynists who sometimes raped and murdered women because it was the only way they could assert their diminishing power. We, feminists, struck at the very heart of their 'being', their worth, and the only way they could deal with it was through violence.
We - women - are a dichotomy - not only can we nurture, rear and nourish babies, take care of the family - we can, at the same time, hold positions of power and we can do things that men believed only they could do. We can even join them in battle and fight in wars, we can run and rule countries, make 'boardroom' decisions, drive airplanes, trucks. And still go home and cook meals for the children, load-up the washing machine and keep the family ticking over doing all the mundane necessities that keep the families functioning.

So what's a poor man to do when faced with such overwhelming evidence that women are pretty marvellous creatures who can not only fulfil their own 'natural' roles - but can in fact also lead the herd!

I believe that some trans women, those that insist on retaining their male genitalia, their beards - their 'maleness'... the 'loud mouths' who shout and threaten violence against 'TERFS' - the activists, are nothing more than misogynists who have infiltrated the feminist movement in order to re-define womanhood and lessen its power by doing so. I don't believe for one minute that they identify as women, or with them. They are, in fact, exhibiting the very violence that is often associated with men who hate women.

They are not the men who suffer body dysmorphia, who genuinely identify with and as women - those we don't hear from who just go about their daily lives trying to be their real selves.

It won't go down well, but no-one will convince me that the afore-mentioned men who are determined to dominate the gender identity debate and force their own brand on it are anything other than misogynists who, basically, hate women. They are trying to beat us at our own game by re-conceptualising women and womanhood.

I've made some assumptions here - but I believe them to be true. And now I'm going to run for cover.

Well you could start by recognising that there were women who thought we shouldn't have the vote. That there are still women who think we should stay home and mind the kids. That right wing christianity is on the rise and they will seriously damage women's freedoms.
I'm far more worried about the anti-abortionists, the traditional values right wing evangelists on the rise in the US than I am about transwomen.
The potential Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has said
Biden has allowed woke ideology to drive his agenda. We will never surrender to the woke mob and we will leave woke ideology in the dustbin of history
Alongside opposing abortion after 6weeks under any circumstance..
There's the real threat to women's liberties.

I'm far more worried about the anti-abortionists, the traditional values right wing evangelists on the rise in the US than I am about transwomen.

I'm also worried about them - and it's spreading over here, too.

I'm also aware that there have always been women who are quite willing to subjugate themselves to men, for various reasons, and collude with their own servitude and enslavement.

However, this thread is about trans gender matters, specifically relating to trans women - hence my observations.

Very true, Dickens, absolutely fair enough, but it still bewilders me how much space we spend on it versus other issues mentioned above.

Someone above gave some very useful stats on actually how small the number of trans people there actually are, and it's only a small percentage of those creating the hostility and violence.

Compare that with general stats on violence or other offences against women - and some by some very powerful men - it is any wonder that I ask how obsessed we seem to get by this topic time and time again.

I wouldn't say that I am 'obsessed' by the topic. I respond to threads about it, but rarely start ones of my own, and I post on lots of other topics as well as this one.

I am very concerned about it though. Yes, there are other things to worry about too; but is the suggestion that we shouldn't worry about one thing until there are no others to distract us? Where would we start, if so?

The reason that I am concerned (and I appreciate that I have said all this before, but it's always in response to the same old, same old from the trans lobby on here), is that the trans lobby is changing what it means to be human, which has meant being male or female since time began. The result of this is that the people who come off worse every time are women and girls. We are the ones being asked to stand aside and let men into the spaces we fought hard to gain. We are the ones being told we are 'birth givers', 'vagina havers' and so on. We (and our daughters and granddaughters) are the ones being forced to accept that if a man wants to see us naked he can do so, even if our religion absolutely forbids it. We are no longer able to compete in sport with a chance of winning, as men are physically stronger than women. Female shortlists are pointless if men can join them. Research into things that might benefit women (eg on pensions, finance, housing, employment, education) are meaningless if we can't measure the position of women against that of men. It goes on and on.

None of that is coming from the sort of transpeople who just want to live a quiet life. It is coming from a misogynistic ideology that wants to marginalise women.

Someone above gave some very useful stats on actually how small the number of trans people there actually are, and it's only a small percentage of those creating the hostility and violence.
If that refers to my post above, the stats were about people with gender dysphoria, not the number of trans people which is much larger. Trans ideology has created a situation where it is not just those who have gender dysphoria who 'identify' as the opposite sex. Far more people do, and AFAIK there is no accepted reason for why that should be, when it was all but unheard of in the past. The majority of 'transpeople' are not transitioned at all - they just say they are 'trans'. It's not about feeling they are in the wrong body - it's based on a 'feeling'.

I apologise in advance if you are talking about a different set of stats, but I'm off to bed now, and am too tired to read back again before I go.

I am afraid the I have a friend thing doesnt really help, all the lesbian women I know are concerned about the loss of female spaces and of the damage that appears to be done to gender non conforming girls in particular. Many of the people at the forefront of the debate are lesbians. That's because lesbians have a range of viewpoints like anyone else. Women have over the past years talked about womens spaces, the issues relating to children, the endless stereotypes etc. Long informed discussions from very knowledgeable women, I am afraid they dont need to be told how to have this conversation. If you have politicians refusing to identify Male rapists as Male then dont be surprised if people challenge it. In the same way if people were going around saying the earth is flat people would challenge it. If you want to talk about complex issues being reduced to soundbites you may want to consider the following Transwomen are women, trans rights are human rights, no debate, puberty blockers are harmless.

The question was:

Can women have a penis?

And most people answered no, which is the answer that was wanted

But those answers are shallow because trans women exist.

Yet many on this thread who answered "no" are happy to use the words "trans women" and are forthright in saying that, they accept trans women are valid.

The problem is that those people are happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with those who say "TIM" or use more disrespectful and uncouth phrases towards trans people without ever calling it out or looking for answers and solutions. They are happy to allow any one who openly accepts trans women as trans women to be called TRA or have personal attacks used against them.

Yet.. feminists exist who agree with the issues some women have and among those feminists are trans women themselves, agreeing with you. Trans women who love women and never want any woman to be made to feel like they lose anything to them, who are horrified at the thought of making any woman afraid and live their lives in gentle unassuming ways.

Why not stand shoulder to shoulder with them? Because 100% intersectional feminists who include trans women in their numbers have your back. Do the GC really? Or are you an army they have created with leading questions, statements and holding up criminal elements who they shout make all trans women look bad.

And let's face it, hatred towards difference came first. Hatred towards LGBTQ came before the protests by trans people that they have a right to exist and live authentically. Trans women and men who marched with their LGB brothers and sisters against those who would harm them.

What side are you really on?

Yes you stupid women who cant think for themselves.
Nothing more divisive than talk of sides.

I am not interested in anyone having my back these are meaningless phrases that achieve nothing.

Women are powerful galaxy, even more when they build each other up instead of pulling each other down

You have just written an entire post about how stupid other women are. How they cant think for themselves etc.

VioletSky

Women are powerful galaxy, even more when they build each other up instead of pulling each other down

Well who knew this eh?

Some of spent our working and personal lives supporting women and we are still doing that.

Wyllow3

Very true, Dickens, absolutely fair enough, but it still bewilders me how much space we spend on it versus other issues mentioned above.

Someone above gave some very useful stats on actually how small the number of trans people there actually are, and it's only a small percentage of those creating the hostility and violence.

Compare that with general stats on violence or other offences against women - and some by some very powerful men - it is any wonder that I ask how obsessed we seem to get by this topic time and time again.

Very true, Dickens, absolutely fair enough, but it still bewilders me how much space we spend on it versus other issues mentioned above.

I take your point - however, we DO spend time on other issues... especially those relating to Harry & Meghan .

I, and others I assume, are simply responding to THIS particular issue. We all like to voice an opinion and the debate is something of a hot-potato. But that doesn't mean that I - or we - see TW as the biggest threat to society, nor that we are blind to other 'issues' that are overwhelming us at the moment.

When the language that has been used to describe women for centuries is challenged - to the point where in some instances the word 'woman' is being eradicated in favour of a more inclusive terminology, I can understand why it might raise a few hackles - or eyebrows. It's a comparatively 'new' thing so inevitably will be under the spotlight.

I know that there are bigger things to worry about, and more immediate threats to all of us. But to keep pointing them out on a thread devoted to this particular one is just basically 'whataboutery' and stifles the debate.

Everyone likes to have 'their say' - and does just that. And then insists that we're wasting too much time on debating it which gives the impression that all those commenting are obsessed with the matter. I spend far more time 'obsessing' about the cost-of-living crisis and the direction this country appears to be heading towards under the current government than I do about trans gender matters.

Galaxy

You have just written an entire post about how stupid other women are. How they cant think for themselves etc.

No I have not

That's your perception which you are entitled to buy it's still not true

Would you please give some sort of evidence for the claims made in your post of 7.45, VS?

What uncouth and disrespectful phrases have any of us here ‘stood by’ and listened to (and how do you know)?

What personal insults are we ‘happy’ for transpeople or their supporters to have thrown at them?

Can you give an example (or anything even remotely concrete) to back up the flimflam about Intersectional Feminists’ having our back? Or anything at all (really, anything will do) to justify the utter nonsense about armies?

What do you mean by a ‘leading question’? Does ‘What is a woman?’ count? Or ‘ Which rights are you demanding for transpeople that they don’t already have?’ Or any of the usual basic questions that would get us to the heart of the belief that TWAW?

Without those answers it is obvious why the No Debate strategy was implemented- there can be no debate because real debate involves both parties answering questions posed by the other.

That post was entirely unsubstantiated and partially meaningless, I’m afraid (and that comment is not personal - it is based entirely on the words on the page).

'Can a woman have a penis?'

NO!

lemsip

'Can a woman have a penis?'

NO!

That sums it up perfectly 😂

Unfortunately there have always been divisions or "sides" which tend to get forgotten in retrospect. I

I was very involved in the 1976 Womens Liberation national Conference. I quote one (internal) report of the time "

“There are very real splits in the Women’s Movement; between gay and straight women, working class and middle class women, intellectual and non-intellectual women, socialists and non-socialists, radical feminists and others, monogamous and non-monogamous etc.” (Bradford Women’s Group 1976: 15).

All debated in the usual variety of ways: some listening, some aggressive.

I was a co-chair in the meeting where Radical (Gay)Feminists proposed that the only true feminism was to go live entirely separately from men and that those feminists who lived with and consorted with men were oppressing them. It was discussed but not voted on. it was just one session amongst very many.

But guess what was reported on by sections of the media for the whole conference? Which part was used against us? "Man-haters" the lot of us.

Current divisions upset me now as much as they did then, for the task ahead was very weighty indeed back in 1976: many of those divisions were resolved in time, and I believe there can be resolutions over trans issues, if we look for what is in common not what divides us.

For division leads not only to "Divide and Rule", and a chance to find yet another issue to prop up the right, but also distracts from the huge problem that violence against women is still massively perpetrated by straight males many in positions of authority.

VioletSky

Women are powerful galaxy, even more when they build each other up instead of pulling each other down

So why do IFs persist in doing that?

Why do they persist in claiming they support everybody, even when that means they don’t support females if it’s counter to the interest of males to do so?

Do the IFs on GN speak for all IFs?

We’re told that there are many of them, so do they all go out of their way to run down feminists who support females against misogynistic males, and sadly it appears, against some equally misogynistic females, or is it just on GN that we see that phenomenon?
VS no RSVP needed.

VioletSky

The problem is that those people are happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with those who say "TIM" or use more disrespectful and uncouth phrases towards trans people without ever calling it out or looking for answers and solutions. They are happy to allow any one who openly accepts trans women as trans women to be called TRA or have personal attacks used against them.

I haven't read every single comment on this thread - but generally speaking there appears to be a blanket acceptance - or recognition perhaps - that trans women have the right to live their lives in whatever way makes them happy and that they are deserving of the same respect and consideration that should be afforded to anyone else. And this includes TWs with male genitalia, beards or whatever. Personally, I'm not fazed by the prospect of a TW with a beard sporting a sarong / dress / pink leggings, indulging in whatever activities fires the imagination - any more than they are fazed by seeing me in a pair of jeans with a zip-fly which accommodates my non-existent penis. I'm hopeful that eventually the same lack of interest will be shown to a 'man in a dress' as is now bestowed on women in trousers.

But the line is drawn when the TW with male genitalia wants to share an intimate space with me because - and someone else pointed this out on here - I choose those intimate moments, and the people who I share them with. But a minority of TW activists would have it otherwise. By insisting that they are women, too.

It's really not much more than that, is it? So the "solutions" that you talk about are fairly obvious. I might wear jeans with a zip fly - but wouldn't dream of wandering into a men's toilet where they would be publicly urinating.

The matter of men self-identifying as women after a violent sexual attack on one of them and possibly / probably hoping to be incarcerated with them, has a very obvious 'solution'.

Wyllow3 - I left our local women’s group for a number of reasons. One was being attacked because ‘you were seen with a man’. Another was the debate about at what age boy children should be excluded from events, 6 or 8. A couple of women were dressing their boy children in girl’s clothes - I never fully understood why.
I found another group where we explored our work from a feminist perspective.

It's not trans women who live their lives in gentle unassuming ways that are the issue VS. How many times does this have to be said? Why do you insist on continually taking what is posted on these threads about specific issues and concerns and twist it so it becomes an attack on and being unsupportive of all trans?

You might like to consider your post about women being more powerful when they build each other up, rather than pulling one another down when you're pitting IF and GC against one another.

As Wyllow has posted Divide and Rule.

We dont segregate single sex spaces and activities such as sport by niceness we segregate them by sex.
If we segregated by 'being kind' I have no idea where I would go