Can a woman have a penis?

Iam64 - I lost a good friend because she wanted only to associate with women in every sense, but in my local group which was mixed gay/straight women we got along pretty well and it was one of the best experiences of my life and remains so. I learnt how very precious women's friendships could be and left behind (as did many) ideas that looking for a man was The Central Part of my life. I learnt how to enjoy sex - yes we discussed more or less everything.

Looking back those detailed arguments that were had were all part of a fledgling movement that was bound to draw out passionate disagreements on long held and unchallenged views.

I feel the same on trans issues - we are painfully working our way through complex issues. and because the "divide and rule" principle is so very strong we end up with what to me seem attacking questions like the O/P, which has no subtlety, it makes matters into an "either/or" issue, which helps no one in the end except those who wish to retain division amongst women.

Wyllow, with respect I think that biological realist feministsdo try to be accommodating. You may think 'well, she would say that, wouldn't she?', but how many times have people on here said that they know and accept transpeople, that they are not phobic, that they support transpeople as having the same rights as the rest of us and want them to live their best lives without let or hindrance. We are basically called liars - hedged about with 'some people' passive aggression, but that is the bottom line.

Nobody who believes that sex is biology and gender is a construct is saying that transpeople are 'lesser'. Nobody.

It is the other 'side' (if you see it like that) who persist in equating us to racists, homophobes and 'the wrong sort of feminists', and shouting us down. Who call us bullies and say we ask 'leading' questions when we ask for an understanding of how their magical thinking works.

My compromise consists of absolutely supporting transpeople to live as transpeople and to gain more tolerance from the outside world. It stops when men want to invade women's spaces and tell us that being a woman is a state of mind. I particularly object to being told this by someone who was socialised as male, with all the advantages that that bestows, and who has a male body and heterosexual drives. I also object to the gaslighting that pretends that transpeople are 'the most marginalised group in society'. If anyone can explain the source for this trope, given that there is never a hint of which other groups have been used for comparison, what 'marginalised' actually means in this instance, or how the figures are collected without access to some sort of register of transpeople, I would be happy to reassess my cynicism on that.

You mention your gay friend. Like most people, I also have gay friends, but mine have a different experience. One was very scared when she was told by a man she'd met online (he said he was a woman) that she was a TERF for not wanting sex with him because she doesn't want to have a penis inside her. Others have been intimidated at gatherings for being 'exclusionary' (for the same reasons but more generally). As with all groups in society, lesbian experience varies, but from what I've read, my friends are far from being alone in theirs. Maybe it's more common amongst single women in cities? I don't know, but it happens.

It’s rather tedious for it to be consistently implied that those of us who do not want men in women’s spaces hate or do not understand trans issues.

In fact it’s the opposite, I do not hate anyone or anything.

I just do not want everything that women have worked so hard to have to once again be eroded by men.

Men identifying as women who beat female athletes. These men who were so far down the tables in men’s sport suddenly winning in female sport. Taking scholarship places from girls who have strived for years.

I will sign every petition I can to protect women and girls rights, whether that be sports, education, the workplace or just a changing room of the gym or clothing store.

I know lots of women who spend the majority of their time with other women, I don't understand why that would cost you a friendship (unless she was saying you had to do that too) but am drifting a bit from the point here.

Smileless

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?

,,, my point, exactly.

The 'specific issues' are what concern, I think, most of us who are GC - or who are labelled as such. Personally, I don' want to be labelled as anything other than a woman who wants what, up until quite recently, we've always had - which is single sex, safe places.

I also take issue with the insistence that we aren't coming up with "solutions". We have - they are single-sex-safe-places for vulnerable women and girls in situations where they are vulnerable.

Other than respecting the rights of TW to go about their lives like any other individual - what 'solutions' are needed?

It's a bit like trying to fight your way out of a paper-bag.

You mention your gay friend. Like most people, I also have gay friends, but mine have a different experience. One was very scared when she was told by a man she'd met online (he said he was a woman) that she was a TERF for not wanting sex with him because she doesn't want to have a penis inside her.

Doodledog

I find this absolutely astounding. I don't know how prevalent it is - maybe not so much, but I've heard it before.

What kind of mentality does someone have if they cannot grasp that there are lesbians who do-not-want-to-have-sex-with-someone-who-has-a-penis?

It seems like it's a man who is simply getting angry at a woman who's rejected his advances and bullying her because she's had the temerity to say 'no'. They used to be labelled misogynists...

Good posts Dickens totally agree

Dickens

^You mention your gay friend. Like most people, I also have gay friends, but mine have a different experience. One was very scared when she was told by a man she'd met online (he said he was a woman) that she was a TERF for not wanting sex with him because she doesn't want to have a penis inside her.^

Doodledog

I find this absolutely astounding. I don't know how prevalent it is - maybe not so much, but I've heard it before.

What kind of mentality does someone have if they cannot grasp that there are lesbians who do-not-want-to-have-sex-with-someone-who-has-a-penis?

It seems like it's a man who is simply getting angry at a woman who's rejected his advances and bullying her because she's had the temerity to say 'no'. They used to be labelled misogynists...

They still are labelled misogynists in my world .

The 'logic' is that people are 'same gender attracted' rather than homosexual. Therefore it follows that women (who, funnily enough, are the people straight men are attracted to) should be attracted to them if they 'present as' men, but also lesbians should be attracted to them if they 'present as' women. When they don't, the only possible reason can be that they are transphobes, who should have unprintable things befall them.

Of course it's about anger and power, and misogyny - and all the other reasons men like that want to make women uncomfortable by imposing themselves into our spaces.

I do wish that the GC feminists biological realists or whatever they choose to call themselves on here would at least admit the harm they could possibly cause and the insults they have handed out to those who disagree with them.

The first- if you insist that there are ways of telling transwomen from other women you necessarily impose on all women a standard of femininity that some women do not conform to. You can say you do not intend that but it happens.
You also, even if you do not wish to, feed into more division and discrimination which necessarily supports and encourages those with more extremist and restrictive views.

The second.
Intersectional feminism has been criticised and wrongly represented.
Those of us questioning the discrimination have been told we are not feminists.
I personally have been told I always put men first and I am misogynistic

So please could you stop pretending you speak or support all women. Because it seems to me that the only women you really support are ones who immediately agree with you. The rest of us are fair game and can be insulted and denigrated at will.

Doodledog
Of course it's about anger and power, and misogyny - and all the other reasons men like that want to make women uncomfortable by imposing themselves into our spaces.
They don’t get it though.

Like the man recently, who when reported to the police for flashing by a primary school, went off on a rant because he ”wasn't harming anyone and they didn’t have to look did they!”
Sorry for the deviation.

Glorianny

I do wish that the GC feminists biological realists or whatever they choose to call themselves on here would at least admit the harm they could possibly cause and the insults they have handed out to those who disagree with them.

The first- if you insist that there are ways of telling transwomen from other women you necessarily impose on all women a standard of femininity that some women do not conform to. You can say you do not intend that but it happens.
You also, even if you do not wish to, feed into more division and discrimination which necessarily supports and encourages those with more extremist and restrictive views.

The second.
Intersectional feminism has been criticised and wrongly represented.
Those of us questioning the discrimination have been told we are not feminists.
I personally have been told I always put men first and I am misogynistic

So please could you stop pretending you speak or support all women. Because it seems to me that the only women you really support are ones who immediately agree with you. The rest of us are fair game and can be insulted and denigrated at will.

Too many assumptions made there Glorianny

I support all women and girls I support their hard earned rights.

I also support men and boys and their rights.

What I do not support is when men and boys decide they want to enter womens spaces, sports etc because in the words of Shania Twain I feel like a woman

I have no hatred for these males but I wish they could understand how natal (I really do not like having to use that word, but it is appropriate in this context) women feel by having their sex/gender reduced to putting on a dress and heels and feeling like a women, because there is a hell of a lot more to being a women than a feeling

Mollygo

Doodledog
Of course it's about anger and power, and misogyny - and all the other reasons men like that want to make women uncomfortable by imposing themselves into our spaces.
They don’t get it though.

Like the man recently, who when reported to the police for flashing by a primary school, went off on a rant because he ”wasn't harming anyone and they didn’t have to look did they!”
Sorry for the deviation.

Bringing in paedophiles on a thread which has become about transpeople reveals the underlying prejudice.

Wyllow3

Iam64 - I lost a good friend because she wanted only to associate with women in every sense, but in my local group which was mixed gay/straight women we got along pretty well and it was one of the best experiences of my life and remains so. I learnt how very precious women's friendships could be and left behind (as did many) ideas that looking for a man was The Central Part of my life. I learnt how to enjoy sex - yes we discussed more or less everything.

Looking back those detailed arguments that were had were all part of a fledgling movement that was bound to draw out passionate disagreements on long held and unchallenged views.

I feel the same on trans issues - we are painfully working our way through complex issues. and because the "divide and rule" principle is so very strong we end up with what to me seem attacking questions like the O/P, which has no subtlety, it makes matters into an "either/or" issue, which helps no one in the end except those who wish to retain division amongst women.

I agree Wyllow3. I vehemently disagree with most of the TERF viewpoints/perspectives on here but really don't want to get involved yet again in the same old arguments.

All we can do is wait for time to move on and attitudes to change. Slanging matches achieve nothing.

Exactly, GrannyGravy.

And the idea that 'gender' is about how people 'present' and that if you don't conform to the current cultural notion of what is appropriate for your sex then you must belong to the other is the absolute ultimate in imposing standards of femininity (or masculinity) on others.

Who cares?

Bringing in paedophiles on a thread which has become about transpeople reveals the underlying prejudice.
No, it simply underlines the desire for power by males. After all, much of the trouble for TIM arose from their desire to demonstrate that they still had their male genitalia, whilst claiming to be women.
The underlying prejudice is all misogynistic males and those females who support them.

Mollygo

^Bringing in paedophiles on a thread which has become about transpeople reveals the underlying prejudice.^
No, it simply underlines the desire for power by males. After all, much of the trouble for TIM arose from their desire to demonstrate that they still had their male genitalia, whilst claiming to be women.
The underlying prejudice is all misogynistic males and those females who support them.

Not all males are paedophiles are they?
So how can one paedophile saying a stupid thing possibly be representative of all men.
But it is as I said an example of the underlying prejudice to use the example on a thread about transpeople.

ExDancer

Who cares?

Presumably anyone bothering to post on this thread?

Because it seems to me that the only women you support are the ones who immediately agree with you an example of the pot calling the kettle Glorianny, especially as Gagajo has referred to TERF view points and perspectives on this thread when incidentally, there aren't any.

If IF has been misrepresented here then that's the fault of the IF posting the way they do.

I do support all women and I support all trans women who want to live their lives free of persecution and abuse. I do not support an intact male in women's spaces and I expect, naively it turns out, that an intact male who identifies as a woman would not avail himself of them.

I do not support any trans woman who competes against natal women in sport because of the unfair advantage their biological sex provides.

I disagree that mentioning paedophiles in this discussion reveals underlying prejudice. The recent case of a man
dressed as identifying as a woman and luring a school girl into his car and then sexually assaulting her, is something that everyone should be concerned about.

A man cannot become a woman and for me, a man should not identify as and/or claim to be a woman when he has his male genitalia.

How and where do we provide safe spaces for transwomen who have been abused by men?

Wyllow3

How and where do we provide safe spaces for transwomen who have been abused by men?

That is a problem for TW and their supporters.
I hope their struggle for those safe spaces doesn’t take as long as the struggle fit female safe spaces did, but it should not be at the expense of safe spaces for females.

Where do we provide safe spaces for women who have been abused by men and need a space without men.

Mollygo

Wyllow3

How and where do we provide safe spaces for transwomen who have been abused by men?

That is a problem for TW and their supporters.
I hope their struggle for those safe spaces doesn’t take as long as the struggle fit female safe spaces did, but it should not be at the expense of safe spaces for females.

That's the classic reply of the entitled to any minority group. It's your problem not ours! I thought most women were above that sort of discrimination and realised that campaigning for the recognition, acceptance and support of minorities was part of bringing down the patriarchy.

Galaxy

Where do we provide safe spaces for women who have been abused by men and need a space without men.

They can and are provided under the Equalities act Galaxy. But it is the women using them and those who administer the spaces who should decide who is admitted. That's the whole point of feminism, empowering women, not dictating to them

Those administering prisons pointed out years ago that allowing males into female prisons would be a disaster. It happened anyway. I am sure everyone involved felt completely empowered.