Punching TERFs

[Nearly Sane]

Apoligies, article is behind paywall but you can get two articles free if you choose to register. The question of gender is not one easily solved as it will no !after what overlap with the issue of sex.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-battle-over-gender-has-turned-bloody-2wpkmnqhh

[Walter]

this subject interests me even less than watching Love Island on the telly

thanks all the same!

[Rhiannon]

Cant' reply saying what I want to, hosting nanny is at it again. 

[wigginhall]

Similar story, I think, not behind a wall.   The arguments over trans and terfs have been pretty fierce, but I didn't know it had become violent. 

It seems difficult to have an actual debate over gender sometimes, which is a pity, but I suppose trans people are pretty fired up over discrimination against them, and some feminists get angry over the issue of 'real women'.   

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2017/09/trans-rights-terfs-and-bruised-60-year-old-what-happened-speakers-corner

[Rhiannon]

For me it isn't about what a 'real' woman is or isn't; it is about people who have lived as males telling me what being a woman is. It is insulting when a trans woman says that she now knows what it feels like to be a woman because she has a wardrobe full of great frocks.

I've never had an issue with who I share a changing room with. It's not about that. This may not sound rational but it feels like there's an appropriation of identity going on.

[Udayana]

What is a TERF?

Anyway, I have never understood how anyone is able to say what it feels like to be man or woman - surely they just feel like themselves, whatever that is. How do I, a man, have any idea what it feels like to be a man or a woman? How do I know I feel like other men and don't feel like a woman?

[Rhiannon]

What is a TERF?

Anyway, I have never understood how anyone is able to say what it feels like to be man or woman - surely they just feel like themselves, whatever that is. How do I, a man, have any idea what it feels like to be a man or a woman? How do I know I feel like other men and don't feel like a woman?

We don't; but what I do know is that the one things I do share with other women is my reproductive system, and how it works, or doesn't. Periods, breasts, endometriosis, trying to get pregnant, infertility, fertility, contraception, heavy bleeding, mood swings or not, absence of periods, ovarian cysts, childbirth or not, perineal tearing, stress incontinence, menopause, hot flushes, hysterectomies, vaginal dryness...these are the things that no woman can escape fully, and I think that managing these things is one of the defining aspects of living as a woman.

[Walter]

We don't; but what I do know is that the one things I do share with other women is my reproductive system, and how it works, or doesn't. Periods, breasts, endometriosis, trying to get pregnant, infertility, fertility, contraception, heavy bleeding, mood swings or not, absence of periods, ovarian cysts, childbirth or not, perineal tearing, stress incontinence, menopause, hot flushes, hysterectomies, vaginal dryness...these are the things that no woman can escape fully, and I think that managing these things is one of the defining aspects of living as a woman.

jeez, who'd want to be a woman? Living with one was bad enough! 

[Nearly Sane]

For me it isn't about what a 'real' woman is or isn't; it is about people who have lived as males telling me what being a woman is. It is insulting when a trans woman says that she now knows what it feels like to be a woman because she has a wardrobe full of great frocks.

I've never had an issue with who I share a changing room with. It's not about that. This may not sound rational but it feels like there's an appropriation of identity going on.

Which is why I think any conversation where gender/sex are talked about as interchangeable is problematic. The very fluidity that we seem to need to talk about gender means that it makes no sense for a trans person to talk about being a female in terms of sex.

[wigginhall]

It's very difficult to understand any of it.  I don't know what feeling like a woman means, or feeling like a man, come to that.  This is partly because identity is so complex and contradictory, and also feeling is a kind of snapshot in time.    Right now, I feel hungry, and I'm wondering what's on TV tonight,   So that's my identity right now. 

So if a trans woman says she feels like a woman, I don't know what she means, but obviously, she has the right to say it.   And if someone says you're not a woman, also OK.   Then what, I don't know.   I think it's an Indian veggy assortment for tonight, (food).

Another point - feeling is different from description.   Hence, I would probably be described as male in the third person, but I might feel differently from that.   A lot of the arguments stem from the switch from first person to third person.