A couple of weeks ago, after years of being fairly terfy on Facebook, I posted Janice Turner’s article: What went wrong at the Tavistock clinic for trans teenagers? And I wrote for the first time publicly under my own name why I had become interested in this issue—and why my concerns led me to leave my job:
[Edited: Was trying to respond to this comment of Francie's: "but Martha Nussbaum is not anti-trans at all... her takedown wasn’t taking down transgender theory, it was taking down Judith butler’s particular approach to it" - which she may have deleted. I could open a reply via email but couldn't find when searching the thread itself...]
What's 'anti-trans'? Is it 'anti-trans' if you think people who identify as trans should be safe from violence and harassment and protected against discrimination on basis of gender-nonconformity in employment and housing (but still categorized by their natal sex, where sex matters) but you *don't* think that women and males-who-identify-as-women are sharing an experience of being women and you think that pretending otherwise is not a social good (nor an interpersonal kindness, in the long run)? That must be what you mean by 'anti-trans,' otherwise it wouldn't apply. But it's strange to be labeled that way by a tiny subset of people who adopted a set of fantastical beliefs about sex and gender.
If a person's self-esteem depends on pretending to be something they are not, that person has a problem. This entire issue seems orchestrated. If everyone agrees that we should share a lie with trans people in order to make them feel better, then our society is slipping off its foundations. Trump taught us that science must be respected; it now makes no sense that liberals should be telling us that it shouldn't be respected. I don't know about you, but I feel very proud and even self-righteous to be an anti-trans activist (i.e., anti-transgender ideology, not anti-trans people).
I'm anti trans in the sense that I just don't think such a state exists and the misery being caused in the pursuit of this fantasy is out of all proportion to any positives anybody has claimed will eventuate should we all acquiesce to the demands of trans rights lobbyists.
What's in it for anybody other than the very few the self obsessed men who get a sexual thrill from dressing as women and invading our reality?
'Trans' is being used a a vehicle for harm in society by sexual deviants, and it's so obvious.
Janet, I have to see things a little differently. I am gay, and I wouldn't like it if someone came along and said, "I just don't believe that such a state exists as people who are attracted to their own sex." I do believe that their feelings are genuine (at least, the ones who truly have gender dysphoria).
I believe in reincarnation, and I believe that we choose our gender before we are born. Some souls have a fear of being female (because the life of a woman is harder than the life of a man, generally speaking). There are also souls which are afraid to be born as men. But my religion says that we must experience both before we stop incarnating. Now, reincarnation may sound kooky to you, but keep in mind that it is a very old concept shared by many religions.
So, let's say that a soul has been a male for four lives and decides to be born as a male one more time, even though the soul needs to experience being a female. Such a person might end up having gender dysphoria. He doesn't know what it feels like to be a woman, but he knows with certainty that he SHOULD be a woman, and so the determination to become one is intense. But of course, becoming a fake woman won't fulfill the spiritual need to experience real womanhood.
It's not a legitimate state of being, just a legitimate FEELING. That's all. We don't need to tell them they don't feel the way they feel. But it's fine to tell them that their feelings don't change what they ARE. Now, if trans people would stop trying to apply their ideas to everyone in the world, we wouldn't have any problems. Men walking around who think they should be women don't harm society, but they do when they start pushing their bad ideas on everyone, especially on children.
I don't know how they feel, but I know they don't feel like a woman.
Where is the compassion for women when these men are told that what they're feeling is legitimate and that on that basis they get to refer to themselves as women, with or without the qualifier 'trans'.
They are men.
That's it.
There is no way to opt out of the state of being a man.
Excellent. And the Ryan Grim piece linked was fascinating. If and when the tide turns, I wonder what all of the silently complicit will have to say. I suppose they’ll just move along, relieved that it didn’t cost them anything but their integrity.
Eliza, I'm less forgiving than you are of people's motives for supporting bad ideas. Like that doctor who was famous for giving lobotomies in the middle of the last century, all of the supporters of trans B.S. have a personal, emotional or financial investment in the bad trans ideas we are grappling with. EVERYONE should understand that children should be given an opportunity to outgrow their trans feelings. The alternative is obvious: a lifetime of being a medical patient who is neither fully male nor fully female -- that is not a prescription for a happy life. Furthermore, the fact that the child doesn't have the right to make the decision for the adult yet to come should be clear to everyone. But trans activists have done a very good job of convincing everyone that trans kids suffer more than trans adults. To the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence of that.
I am a gay man, and my "trans" period lasted only about ten minutes. I wasn't fully grown, and I was about the size of my mother. She was out of the house. I went into her bedroom and tried on one of her dresses and looked at myself in the mirror. I felt a momentary thrill to have transformed myself into a woman so easily, but then I ripped the dress off and never did it again. That was it. I never felt the impulse again. Thank God.
I left Facebook cos what nauseated me most was the way my feminist friends would go ape-shit in the comments to abandon our sex whenever the issue would come up.
It was the self-declared feminists who fought me when I posted pix of Dyke March baseball bats...they would not admit any male pattern violence could exist in a self-identified transwoman. Forget about defending female sports... there was no one worse than "defenders of JK Rowling" oh, and... "Have you read Judith Butler? She's great." 😆
These were friends who were big-time, vocal feminists. .. and they used men's rights talking points when convenient...including saying lesbians are just as violent as men.
Sorry to ramble...I appreciate your writing and am glad the tide may be turning, thanks to your efforts and the efforts of others who are speaking out with such clarity.
Ugh, I'm with you on the disgust for so-called feminists throwing women under the bus -- it's been massively disappointing. The internalized misogyny knows no bounds!
Completely agree. I get so little reaction to my posts now. Clearly even unfollowed by my lefty friends so have respected my opinion before ...until this.
Every person I know or know of who is in their 20s or 30s (or even older) who has chosen integrity over career in this fight has had to leave their job, sometimes their beloved chosen career. Academics, journalists, non-profit movers and shakers, the list goes on. The costs are very, very high. We only have one life, and if people even get as far as weighing the risks of moving beyond the Danger Zone, they must balance integrity and speaking the truth with other survival needs, such as feeding their families. This is why so many people must be anonymous, because the dangers are very real. For me, this does not excuse the cowardice and irresponsibility of those who will not even examine the issue and experience the resulting cognitive dissonance--it is shameful, given that it is CHILDREN our society has decided to subject to this ideology and experimentation. But it does explain what is happening. These people are not bad. I know them well. They are just ordinary humans, trying to live their lives the best they can. The thing is, more people need to be extraordinary, as Eliza is. More people need to talk to more people, and more people need to put their voices out there. You will make Eliza safer if you do this, even if you cannot do it publicly. More importantly, you will be another ripple in the tide changing towards ending this madness. My millennial-aged friends cannot risk their jobs in education, science, or healthcare, but they can have one-to-one conversations with friends. Do what you can! Take SOME risk! In my case, the lost friends have hurt, but my true friends are sticking with me. Maybe they'll eventually move towards educating themselves and taking actions. For those near or past retirement, face the lesser costs than younger people and take a public stand. Every. Single. Voice. Counts.
Well, I'm a senior writing about this every day. Here is an article on my blog. To be honest, this is the most bizarre idea that I have ever seen sweep over society in my lifetime, with perhaps the exception of Trumpism (although the corruption of the Republican party started half-a-century before Trump). I was born in 1950, and I remember the prevailing ideas that existed in the U.S. when I was a young person, and I never thought those ideas would ever be questioned. The U.S. is barely recognizable from the time that I was a young adult.
I am strongly moved by the following: "Who wants to find themselves on the outside of a narrative that's captured the public imagination? Who wants to be tarred as hateful for their questions and doubts that come from no such place?"
I'm currently feeling pushed out of my town because of my GC views. And truly, I thought my positions weren't extreme. What I find extreme is the fact that I'm sent a barrage of hateful messages and images for speaking truth that was accepted as such up until a few years ago. It's a lonely position to be in, and I completely understand why it's easier for people to drop their critical thinking skills at the door of this topic rather than engage.
Working at a non-profit in the last ten years has been a day in day out re-enactment of that Andrea Dworkin quote about how many women resist feminism because it is an agony to be fully conscious of misogyny. Now that includes being conscious of the concept of misogyny!
Good for you posting under your real name! That takes guts! 💪
I am SO TIRED of being told I'm the one making things harder for myself because I'm THINKING or FEELING. Isn't that exactly what so many are complaining about when we have another shooting or women lose their right to choose? "What were they THINKING?" "Have they no FEELING for their fellow human beings?" "Be kind!" "Educate yourself!"
You know what is really being said when someone tells you you're making things hard on yourself because you're thinking? "I DON'T WANT TO THINK ABOUT THIS." or "I DON'T WANT TO FEEL ANYTHING ABOUT THIS."
And sometimes it's because people are comfortable and don't want things to change because change is hard. It's also extremely difficult at times to live in integrity with one's values because it means going against societal values which can make one unpopular -- social ostracization is a very human fear.
I never picked up on the "Karen" meme. I understood right from the beginning that it was a kind of misogyny. There are just as many male "Karens" as there are female "Karens".
Thank you! I've been so uncomfortable with the whole Karen thing. It just seemed like another way of scaring women into shutting up. No one wants to be accused of being a Karen. Best to be quiet and not make any effort to stand up for yourself.
Just curious: Isn't the nonprofit sector dominated by women to a certain extent? So at least some of that sexism is coming from women, isn't it?
Transgenderism is catnip for liberals. Children are naturally seen as vulnerable, and for a child to be "trapped in the wrong body" seems like a special horror. But this is mostly propaganda from trans activists. Children also have a greater ability to adjust to changing circumstances than adults have. If you tell a child, "Changing genders isn't really possible. Also, that is an adult decision. If you still feel that you were born the wrong gender when you are 18, you will have all your life to change yourself. Most children your age end up deciding that they are happy the way you are." A little speech like that will discourage most kids. If it doesn't discourage your kid, maybe your kid really does have gender dysphoria. The crucial thing is to save kids from transitioning who don't actually have gender dysphoria.
Yikes- I followed you because your bio said you were a grad student studying feminism and gender, like me. Didn’t realize what I had stumbled upon. Have you read Whipping Girl?
Im a cis woman, and have always been a passionate feminist. I used to not fully understand a lot of the transgender discourse- until my ex partner came out as a trans woman. I researched what I could, which was illuminating, but mostly I listened to her. The pain she felt. Her stories about growing up and knowing deep down she was different. How she isolated herself and let her body rot for 20 years because she was so ashamed of her male body, so disgusted by it - it felt so wrong to her. When she came out, it was astonishing how much lighter she was, brighter. She wanted to live again. My best friend in the world, the partner who I had spent so much time trying to help to no avail, wanted to live again. Because she felt, finally, like she could be who she really was. the way she describes it, when she first let herself wear a dress and look in the mirror and see herself as the woman she wanted to be, the fog that had settled in during puberty suddenly lifted for the first time, after 20 years. Through our relationship, I let myself and my notions of feminism, which were strongly held. be challenged and deepened with her. I recommend if you have the chance to even talk to a trans woman, you listen. You don’t have to understand everything. But please jsut try to empathize - trans bodies are so horrifically abused and marginalized in so many ways and they deserve at least an attempt at empathy. Trans women and cis women are NOT the same, their experiences are different, but they are both women. They are both targeted by the patriarchy for their “inferior” femininity. Transmisogyny is simply misogyny and the scapegoating of femininity and womanhood- you are, like it or not, upholding the patriarchy with your TERFy language. Unsubscribed for my own mental health because reading such things breaks my heart - but I do hope you read Whipping Girl. It changed everything I thought I knew. Take care.
lol, ok, bye. See you in a few years when you get tired of walking on eggshells.
Yes, I've read Serano. He talks about womanhood but he's having an exclusively male experience. And that's fine. But he doesn't get to speak for or over women and doesn't get to pressure lesbians into seeing him as a sex partner. Female embodiment matters. Women who refuse to be redefined from a sex class based on reality to a mixed-sex class based on male feelings aren't hateful, just fed up.
Also, to be clear, I (and the trans ppl in my life) acknowledge the validity of genital preference in lesbian relationships. From my sexual experience, a trans woman's penis is an INCREDIBLY different experience in sexual scenarios than a cis man's and much closer to what it's like being with a cis woman (trust me, i know that sounds crazy as someone who as a lot of sexual trauma around penises – it's so hard to explain but it blew my mind the first time I experienced sex with a trans woman how distinctly feminine everything felt!), but a penis is a penis, that's for sure – and its TOTALLY valid if a lesbian only wants to be with a cis woman, in my opinion.
Please, please don't be condescending to me like you were in that first sentence. Please understand this is emotional for me, I am as passionate as you are about this topic and I am only trying to defend my loved ones from ideologies that I myself dappled in many years ago, ideologies that have caused a lot of suffering and suicidal ideation in the person closest to me. I am listening to what you're saying and trying to be respectful so please do the same for me.
Your first sentence: "Yikes," followed by a lot of I-assume-you-must-not-have-read-contrasting-perspectives-because-you-don't-agree-with-me.
Being a lesbian is already setting a sexual boundary against all males, regardless of how those males identify. Shifting to 'genital preferences for lesbians is OK' is already trampling a boundary that all males should respect.
I sincerely apologize for assuming you hadn't read Whipping Girl– that was condescending of me. I was emotional and defensive. I'm glad you have read the book. Would you mind clarifying what you mean in the second paragraph? I guess I feel like trans women (or "males" as you said) ARE respecting sexual boundaries by saying that lesbians can have genital preferences! Because they are saying that they don't have to be attracted to them just because they identify as women. But maybe I am confused about what you are saying exactly?
Males who identify as women are taking clear language women need and appropriating it. They're not women. They can only 'be' women if we radically redefine women. But we still need a word for female people and to be able to organize as female people without being asked to include or center males who identify as being the same as us. They're having their own male experience. They're not lesbians. If we redefine lesbians to accommodate males, we've robbed same-sex attracted females of a term that once clearly described them and let them find each other and set boundaries against males. Young lesbians are being pressured to accept males as sexual partners and gaslit about same-sex sexual orientation (that they're not 'valid' lesbians if they aren't attracted to males who identify as lesbians) -- something I wrote about with receipts here.
This is very much a scenario where healthy boundaries would remove much of the conflict. Males claiming to be women and competing in women's sports and lodging in women's domestic-violence shelters (where women often need spaces away from males) and taking women's representation and misdirecting women's organizations at a time when we just lost Roe v. Wade is not respecting boundaries. Males claiming to be lesbians and then haranguing lesbians for rejecting them is not respecting boundaries. An obvious solution here is that males stop saying they're women, acknowledge they're having their own experience, and advocate for their own representation, organizations, etc. I think it would be great to fund separate/additional resources for trans-identifying people, like domestic-violence shelters that can help trans people who need out of dangerous relationships. I think it's wrong to force women's shelters -- for women who've experienced male violence -- to include males (who only have to say they identify as women to be let in), under threat of losing their funding or having rats nailed to their doors by trans activists, like happened in Vancouver.
hey, so yeah we agree on that! Young cis lesbians shouldn't feel pressured to have sex with trans women if they don't feel attracted to penises. I think a lot of young people and activists online in their late teens, from their lack of experience and research, have trouble with the nuanced language surrounding these terms, which is unfortunate.
Also I think you smartly touched on what we disagree on fundamentally and probably won't be able to get past, but is interesting to think about - whether we need to radically re-define "Woman" or not. I personally think radically embracing intersectionality of womanhood helps the feminist cause rather than hurts it, and importantly helps protect trans people from violence and hate. A lot of trans-supporting feminists like me just want trans people to know that we support them and will fight for them within our activism; because to me, our causes feel more similar against patriarchy than they are different. All that being said, I am relieved to hear you say that you support resources for trans-identifying people and acknowledge the violence against them and need for their safety! I will say I wish/request that TERFS advocate for this more explicitly, because sometimes the TERF language feels very threatening and violent to trans people, even if its not intended to be! which is not productive to helpful discourse of course
Of course female embodiment matters! Cis women and trans women are different in that way. But while your language advocates for a binary equality with men, intersectional feminism acknowledges the plurality of womanhood - it seeks to abolish the patriarchy that upholds the power of cis straight men who are violent against groups of people who deviate from the hegemonic standard and casts them as Other (women, queer ppl, trans women, poc, etc). The gender binary is a myth that exists to uphold this singular power of (Herero) Men with its inherent Subject-Object power relationship. Abolishing that binary is the first step to robbing violent men of their power against these marginalized identities.
Also- can I ask, what’s your point with all of this? Trans women deal with so much hate, and die from brutal hateful violence at alarming rates. Even if you don’t agree with all the semantics of transgender theory, why pick on those ppl who suffer under patriarchy too? Not in the same way as you, but suffering nonetheless. It just feels so unnecessary. No trans woman is saying they understand exactly what it feels like to be a cis woman. No one is questioning your experience of that.
Sex is being written out of the law and replaced with gender identity. That matters because sex matters. Let's talk about 'transwomen are women.' Treating some males as though they were female in settings where sex matters undermines women's rights to single-sex spaces, fair and safe athletic competition, having political representation of their own distinct interests and experiences. If we're talking about treating 'transwomen' as women in settings where sex DOESN'T matter, I've gotta wonder why we're treating males and females differently to begin with.
Teaching kids to believe that if they don't identify with sex-role stereotypes (for whatever reason) or if they feel uncomfortable with their bodies (girls hitting puberty, say) or feel out of place (kids with autism, for example) that they may be 'trans' and should transition is causing massive harm. In a few years, we'll look back on this as the huge medical scandal it is. We're confusing kids with a radical new set of beliefs about gender and then medicalizing their distress (whether that distress has other roots or whether that distress is a direct product of the confusion adults are creating). We're stunting kids' brain development with puberty blockers, with unknown consequences. We're sterilizing kids who would in many cases have just grown up to be gay if left alone.
What's my point with all this? It matters. You may think you're being kind by playing along with people's beliefs about themselves and I'm being mean by resisting the imposition of such fictions, but check back with all the recipients of your moral largesse in five years and see how they're doing.
You're quite free to keep responding but frankly everything you've said so far I've heard before, in uncannily similar language, so unless you say something surprising, I'm unlikely to find it a good use of my time to keep responding.
okay! i'd genuinely appreciate your thoughts on what I just wrote about hormone transition therapy medications in a post below, since I've seen all your responses before too but have yet to see a TERF comment on what I wrote in particular! but of course do what you wish with your time. I wish you growing and healing.
I guess I just don't see how anything of what I'm saying is suggesting to you that I think sex doesn't matter. IMO, trans women should acknowledge that cis women face issues, as anatomical females, that they will NEVER have to face, that they have a privilege to not have to face (especially before transitioning). Women with vaginas deal with so much shit that is unique. I just think that in return, cis women can and should acknowledge that in a similar fashion, we don't experience the unique violence and erasure that trans women do. that's all. I dont think that sex is being written out of the law - unless you are attributing the fall of Roe V Wade to trans ppl? I'd argue that was the fault of rapist, misogynistic men masquerading as politicians, haha. or could you give me some other examples?
From what I've read and heard, gender dysphoria is a very very different feeling from feeling uncomfortable or out of place with your body in the scenarios you described. I mean, god, puberty SUCKED as a girl, I feel you! such a uniquely humiliating experience sometimes. I felt so fucking uncomfortable and wrong in so many ways. but – not once did I think I should be in a man's body. Because with all its hellish qualities, my discomfort wasn't gender dysphoria. It wasn't less valid or less rough than gender dysphoria, but it wasn't gender dysphoria.
What unique characteristics and experiences do 'transwomen' and women share that neither share with men or transmen? What do you, as a 'cis' woman, share with transwomen?
Check out https://sex-matters.org/ but also what Biden administration is doing to Title IX. Redefining sex to include gender identity means there's no longer a way to recognize whether someone is male or female under the law, so we can't track sex discrimination, for example, or keep sports for females-only, which means the end of fair and safe competition for girls and women.
Gender dysphoria is a catch-all: it's an interpretation of a bunch of forms of distress, including, yes, what you and I experienced as teen girls. How do you explain the stratospheric spike in teen girls identifying as trans? Where was this cohort in the past? Why do so many of them later detransition?
Well, I think Whipping Girl's philosophy of "scapegoating of femininity" answers your first question for me! We both experience patriarchy's brutal hatred of femininity. Deep-seeded, violent, systemically enforced hatred of any deviance from hegemonic masculinity, of either feminine anatomy or feminine qualities (this includes gay men too of course, and explains cis men's fragility and fear of appearing effeminate/being "feminized") Interestingly, we both are confined to our bodies in a way - trans men are seen as too much of a woman due to their vaginas to be "real men", and trans women are seen as too manly because of their penises to be "real women". I just think most of both of our issues are because of toxic masculinity. As for more teen girls identifying as trans, I think that teens have more language now and that's why there is a spike. but regarding detransitioning - also something I learned recently is that transitioning and detransitioning isn't always, isn't usually even, a drastic process and no one is advocating for trans children to go through radical surgery. it was so funny, i realized that the androgen blocker I was taking for my hormonal acne was the same one my partner was using for her transition!!! just a simple, safe, pill that I take for the zits on my face, that has nothing to do with my gender identity and yet is also helpful to my partner for relieving her dysphoria. Insane how we talk about these drastic surgeries in transitioning, but a lot of it is really so benign and not permanent in the slightest (if I stopped taking my pills those zits would come right back lol, just like her breasts would shrink back). And my partner could stop her hormones at any time too. Oh, and the estrogen she takes for her dysphoria? My mom takes the same pill for menopause symptoms! crazy that no one talks about how already tested and safe so much of this stuff is. obviously there is a point of no return at some point, but a lot of transitioning is quite reservable, which was news to me! What I'm saying is I've realized recently that it's way safer to experiment with gender identity, even as a teen, than it might seem on the surface. of course there are rare exceptions where something goes horribly wrong with a surgery done by an incompetent, irresponsible doctor, but that isn't the norm at all.
The last thing I'm going to say about this for now because I need to do some other writing is...
You think sex matters. Does sex matter enough to have clear language for sex, rather than a revolving door of euphemisms like uterus-haver, menstruator? Does sex matter enough to have organizations that focus only and unapologetically on female issues? Does sex matter enough that the law should recognize it and government organizations should track sex-based disparities in medicine, employment, poverty, etc.?
Do you see how we've lost language and lost organizations and lost focus and lost legal protections and lost sex-based data due to the push to equate gender identity and sex?
Maybe the way to make it clear is to unload the language. Let's talk about cats and dogs.
Cats and dogs are different in ways that matter (this is not a negative judgment on either cats or dogs). In animal shelters, cats are often very stressed to be around dogs for good reasons: dogs chase cats. So animal shelters separate cats and dogs. If we then redefined 'cat' to include felines and canines and reorganized animal shelters on that basis, how would the feline-cats feel about the canine-'cats'? Would feline-cats have lost protections that they needed by making the definition of 'cat' inclusive of canines?
Francie, no one is saying that there aren't genuine trans people in the world who experience gender dysphoria. The fight is against the broader philosophy, which is damaging humanity in a myriad of ways. Here is a list of the things that make transgender ideology so toxic to society as a whole:
* The idea that what determines a person's gender is his or her gender identity. What makes a woman a woman is her body, and what makes a man a man is his body. Your partner may FEEL like a woman, but that is only a feeling. It doesn't change what he is.
* Children who are not actually transgender (i.e., who do not have gender dysphoria) are being encouraged by well-meaning adults to transition. The trans life is, generally speaking, not a happy life, so if a child is having trans feels, an attempt should be made to figure out what is really bothering the child. That's not what's happening right now. Children who express doubts about their gender are often put on a fast track to transitioning, and that is not right for probably a majority of them. The number of detransitioners now numbers in the tens of thousands in the U.S.A. and Britain.
* Trans women are actually men, and for that reason they do not belong in women's spaces, especially in women's sports. They have many unfair advantages when competing against women in sports. As for women's single-sex spaces, women need those to feel safe. Remember, tens of thousands of women are murdered by men every year. The male hormone (testosterone) makes men the aggressive sex.
* Trans people are demanding that other people speak about them using a special language. What other minority demands that they be spoken about with special words? This may be the only minority in the world that demands special treatment.
* The shaming that is being done by trans people, and their friends, of people who don't share their philosophy is stifling an honest discussion about this issue. Shaming -- i.e., cancel culture -- is never a good thing.
I feel sympathy for your partner. If your partner were to ask me to refer to her as "she", I would do so out of politeness. But she is not, and never can be, a real woman. Real woman have women's bodies (not male bodies that have been operated on). Women are still an oppressed group in this world, more so in third-world countries than in Western countries; but even in Western countries they do not have full equality. If natural women allow trans women to co-opt the term "women" to describe themselves, then they are diluting what the definition of a woman is, and that makes it harder for natural women to secure their rights.
If it makes your partner happy to pretend that he is a real woman, than let him do so, but that doesn't mean that you must be a pretender too. He is what he is: A man who feels (or thinks he feels) like a woman. But that doesn't make him a real woman.
I agree that trans women experience misogyny from men, but in too may areas trans women have set themselves up as competitors with natural women. If trans women really cared about women as a group, they wouldn't do that.
Hi Caleb! So I think what we're getting caught up in is a difference in how we define woman. Because, I mean, if you're going based off of sexual anatomy a trans woman is very different from a cis woman for sure! I'm definitely not denying that. But, I personally think its more helpful (and definitely much kinder and more empathetic to trans ppl) to the feminist cause to add to the plurality of womanhood, and what it means to be a Woman, rather than limiting it to sexual anatomy. "Woman" isnt just one thing, it never has been. From what I've researched, by limiting Woman to one thing, we're actually giving the patriarchy an easier way of exerting power over us. Trans women and women both suffer under patriarchy, in different but deeply interconnected ways related to their expression of femininity. that's all that intersectional feminism is trying to say! I hope that makes sense logically at least :) definitely willing to talk about this more or give you some of the resources I found helpful while grappling with this myself!
Francie, let me start out by saying that you are a thoughtful and compassionate person, and I appreciate that. I am a gay man, which makes my life experience a very different one from yours and Eliza's. However, it has become apparent to me (over the years) that, one way or the other, women keep ending up at the bottom of the social totem pole. Having a misogynistic father may have helped to clarify things for me. It took me a while to figure this out, but women's lack of equality in society seems to relate directly back to their lesser size and strength. Everyone, it seems, needs to feel superior to someone, and for most men, I think, it is women that they ultimately feel superior to. (Resentment towards women as mothers may also have something to do with it -- it seems that every person in the world hates his/her mother.)
For thousands of years, human beings have determined one's gender by one's sex. A woman was a person with a female body, and a man was a person with a male body. That is a perfect way of classifying gender, and I see no reason to abandon it. I don't think that allowing some men to pretend to be women (real women, no less!) does anything positive for actual women. "Gender identity" just confuses what was once a clearly defined issue.
Trans people have more than one "face" that they present to the public. Back five or ten years, they claimed to be sad people rejected by society and by their respective cultures. They were often victims of murder. It was an image designed to garner as much sympathy as possible. But now, (1) they have set themselves up as experts on gender, (2) they have redefined what the word "gender" means, (3) they are pushing their way into women's sports and single-sex spaces, where women have traditionally sought sanctuary from men, (4) they are trying to tell parents how to raise their children, (5) they are trying to tell people what words to use when speaking about them, and not least, (6) they have this chorus of cancel-culture haters who are trying to censor society's conversation about them, and trying to push people out of their careers and jobs because they have the temerity to think for themselves.
So, which are they? Are trans people victims, or are they victimizers? I am seeing more of the victimizer in them than the victim. I personally have been banned from a half-dozen web sites for saying things like "trans women have multiple physical advantages over women in sports," and then listing those advantages. Or for saying things like, "I don't believe that you can be a woman and also have a male body." Your trans friends, or their supporters, are censoring me.
You said above that trans women are murdered at an alarming rate. Well, as a person who is interested in crime, the truth is that vastly more natural women are murdered by men than trans women. Natural women are the real victims of misogyny. I don't know the statistics, but huge numbers of women (thousands at least) are murdered every year in this country by their male spouses or boyfriends or other men who supposedly desire them. Indeed, there are serial killers who specialize in raping and murdering women. (Some serial killers also murder boys, who are smaller than men just as women are.) If some trans women have stumbled into this horrible situation by mistake, I say that WOMEN are still the main victims here.
I am a person who likes truth. I am a man because I have a male body -- that is the truth. I am NOT a man because I have the gender identity of a man (if indeed I do). My point here is that transgender ideology doesn't pass the sniff test in the most fundamental way. Men are not, and can never be, women. THAT IS SCIENCE -- and in this Trumpian age, we need science. The best that trans women can achieve is the appearance of women. Mixing trans women in with real women to make them feel good about themselves just creates a mess.
One more thing: Your experience with your partner inspired sympathy in you. Not all trans people are so sympathetic, and not all of them are suffering like your partner is. Indeed, there are trans people who agree with me and Eliza on all of these issues. Look up Blaire White on YouTube or go to Debbie Hayton's web site (she is British). Everything they say is similar to the things that Eliza and I are saying (although Eliza's writing is more nuanced than my writing). White and Hayton, both trans women, understand that it is NOT necessary to pretend to be a REAL woman in order to be a happy trans woman.
Among trans people, THE PRETENSES HAVE TO GO -- the pretense that they are experts on gender, the pretense that they know how to diagnose other trans people, the pretense that they know anything at all about children, the pretense that they are REAL men and REAL women because of the way they feel, the pretense that a man can know how a woman feels, or that a woman can know how a man feels, the pretense that their trans condition somehow makes them special, the pretense that they have a right to invade women's spaces, the pretense that their suffering is more intense than the suffering of other people, the pretense that other people have an obligation to talk or act the way they want them to, AND the pretense that they are occupying some kind of moral high ground.
If trans people were just people with gender dysphoria, that would be one thing, but trans people have an entire agenda to change society to suit themselves.
Here they are, the smallest minority in the world, making more demands of society than any other minority has made.
Francie, I didn't really respond to everything you said in your post, so let me add a little.
I think that having a clear definition of women will be more helpful to women than adding to the "plurality" of women with men pretending to be women. Is it still chicken soup if 20% of it is beef?
The point that I've been making in my own writing is that women are more than just their bodies, but all of the "more" arises from a single fact: They have different bodies from men. Biology really is destiny in this situation.
Also, the biggest issue here is that trans people have managed to change the treatment of children who question their gender. Instead of giving them some therapy and then some time to outgrow their feelings, which most of them will, children are often put on the fast track to transitioning, much to their detriment. Trans activists are directly responsible for this situation. They are trying to increase their numbers via the conversion of children. Anita Bryant was right about the threat to children, but the threat is coming from trans people, not gays.
The attitude of trans people regarding children is, "If a child has any trans feelings at all, then the child is trans. No further investigation of the child's feelings is needed." That attitude is HUGELY destructive to children. It also provides you with an example of how many trans people are acting like victimizers more than victims. Here they are, people with a mental illness called "transgender dysphoria", and yet they are telling the world (and health professionals!) how to treat children, most of whom are confused, or have been influenced by peers, or have some other psychological problem that they will eventually resolve. Pushing such children into transitioning is the worst possible thing anyone could do, and that is especially true given the fact that a child should not have the power to make such life choices. Among other things, pushing children into transitioning makes them lifetime medical patients dependent on hormones and other drugs. Such choices should be made only by the adult yet to come.
I hope everyone has seen Bill Maher's segment on this issue. Although a few of his jokes are sexist, he nonetheless understands the issue better than most people, and he makes very good points:
[Edited: Was trying to respond to this comment of Francie's: "but Martha Nussbaum is not anti-trans at all... her takedown wasn’t taking down transgender theory, it was taking down Judith butler’s particular approach to it" - which she may have deleted. I could open a reply via email but couldn't find when searching the thread itself...]
What's 'anti-trans'? Is it 'anti-trans' if you think people who identify as trans should be safe from violence and harassment and protected against discrimination on basis of gender-nonconformity in employment and housing (but still categorized by their natal sex, where sex matters) but you *don't* think that women and males-who-identify-as-women are sharing an experience of being women and you think that pretending otherwise is not a social good (nor an interpersonal kindness, in the long run)? That must be what you mean by 'anti-trans,' otherwise it wouldn't apply. But it's strange to be labeled that way by a tiny subset of people who adopted a set of fantastical beliefs about sex and gender.
If a person's self-esteem depends on pretending to be something they are not, that person has a problem. This entire issue seems orchestrated. If everyone agrees that we should share a lie with trans people in order to make them feel better, then our society is slipping off its foundations. Trump taught us that science must be respected; it now makes no sense that liberals should be telling us that it shouldn't be respected. I don't know about you, but I feel very proud and even self-righteous to be an anti-trans activist (i.e., anti-transgender ideology, not anti-trans people).
Are you religious at all, Eliza?
I'm anti trans in the sense that I just don't think such a state exists and the misery being caused in the pursuit of this fantasy is out of all proportion to any positives anybody has claimed will eventuate should we all acquiesce to the demands of trans rights lobbyists.
What's in it for anybody other than the very few the self obsessed men who get a sexual thrill from dressing as women and invading our reality?
'Trans' is being used a a vehicle for harm in society by sexual deviants, and it's so obvious.
Janet, I have to see things a little differently. I am gay, and I wouldn't like it if someone came along and said, "I just don't believe that such a state exists as people who are attracted to their own sex." I do believe that their feelings are genuine (at least, the ones who truly have gender dysphoria).
I believe in reincarnation, and I believe that we choose our gender before we are born. Some souls have a fear of being female (because the life of a woman is harder than the life of a man, generally speaking). There are also souls which are afraid to be born as men. But my religion says that we must experience both before we stop incarnating. Now, reincarnation may sound kooky to you, but keep in mind that it is a very old concept shared by many religions.
So, let's say that a soul has been a male for four lives and decides to be born as a male one more time, even though the soul needs to experience being a female. Such a person might end up having gender dysphoria. He doesn't know what it feels like to be a woman, but he knows with certainty that he SHOULD be a woman, and so the determination to become one is intense. But of course, becoming a fake woman won't fulfill the spiritual need to experience real womanhood.
What is trans?
Sex exists.
A man who calls himself 'trans' is a man.
He exists. As a man.
And there is no correlation with sexuality.
Trans rights activists are the ones denying sexuality on the basis of the deceit that trans is a legitimate state of being.
It's not a legitimate state of being, just a legitimate FEELING. That's all. We don't need to tell them they don't feel the way they feel. But it's fine to tell them that their feelings don't change what they ARE. Now, if trans people would stop trying to apply their ideas to everyone in the world, we wouldn't have any problems. Men walking around who think they should be women don't harm society, but they do when they start pushing their bad ideas on everyone, especially on children.
No man can legitimately feel like a woman.
I don't know how they feel, but I know they don't feel like a woman.
Where is the compassion for women when these men are told that what they're feeling is legitimate and that on that basis they get to refer to themselves as women, with or without the qualifier 'trans'.
They are men.
That's it.
There is no way to opt out of the state of being a man.
Excellent. And the Ryan Grim piece linked was fascinating. If and when the tide turns, I wonder what all of the silently complicit will have to say. I suppose they’ll just move along, relieved that it didn’t cost them anything but their integrity.
Ohh I know many of these... it's intensely infuriating. I chalk them down as being the sheep of life. It's depressing.
Eliza, I'm less forgiving than you are of people's motives for supporting bad ideas. Like that doctor who was famous for giving lobotomies in the middle of the last century, all of the supporters of trans B.S. have a personal, emotional or financial investment in the bad trans ideas we are grappling with. EVERYONE should understand that children should be given an opportunity to outgrow their trans feelings. The alternative is obvious: a lifetime of being a medical patient who is neither fully male nor fully female -- that is not a prescription for a happy life. Furthermore, the fact that the child doesn't have the right to make the decision for the adult yet to come should be clear to everyone. But trans activists have done a very good job of convincing everyone that trans kids suffer more than trans adults. To the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence of that.
I am a gay man, and my "trans" period lasted only about ten minutes. I wasn't fully grown, and I was about the size of my mother. She was out of the house. I went into her bedroom and tried on one of her dresses and looked at myself in the mirror. I felt a momentary thrill to have transformed myself into a woman so easily, but then I ripped the dress off and never did it again. That was it. I never felt the impulse again. Thank God.
I think it's absolutely irresponsible but all the incentives line up behind people embracing irresponsibility and ignorance on this issue.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. " - Upton Sinclair, 1934.
(2022 update: Man or woman. Salary or"social" media reputation.)
I love that no one responded.
Changing times.
I left Facebook cos what nauseated me most was the way my feminist friends would go ape-shit in the comments to abandon our sex whenever the issue would come up.
It was the self-declared feminists who fought me when I posted pix of Dyke March baseball bats...they would not admit any male pattern violence could exist in a self-identified transwoman. Forget about defending female sports... there was no one worse than "defenders of JK Rowling" oh, and... "Have you read Judith Butler? She's great." 😆
These were friends who were big-time, vocal feminists. .. and they used men's rights talking points when convenient...including saying lesbians are just as violent as men.
Sorry to ramble...I appreciate your writing and am glad the tide may be turning, thanks to your efforts and the efforts of others who are speaking out with such clarity.
"Have you read Judith Butler?" Pfft! No! She's unreadable! She won an award for bad writing (http://www.denisdutton.com/bad_writing.htm).
Ugh, I'm with you on the disgust for so-called feminists throwing women under the bus -- it's been massively disappointing. The internalized misogyny knows no bounds!
I know! The Butler comment was the icing on the cake.
Like..."performative" much? 😆
Oh god! I didn't realize this was something someone had actually said much less thought. Judith Butler being 'great'? Yikes. lol. Performative indeed.
Martha Nussbaum's famous, devastating takedown of Judith Butler:
The Professor of Parody
The hip defeatism of Judith Butler
Martha C. Nussbaum/February 22, 1999
https://newrepublic.com/article/150687/professor-parody
Completely agree. I get so little reaction to my posts now. Clearly even unfollowed by my lefty friends so have respected my opinion before ...until this.
Every person I know or know of who is in their 20s or 30s (or even older) who has chosen integrity over career in this fight has had to leave their job, sometimes their beloved chosen career. Academics, journalists, non-profit movers and shakers, the list goes on. The costs are very, very high. We only have one life, and if people even get as far as weighing the risks of moving beyond the Danger Zone, they must balance integrity and speaking the truth with other survival needs, such as feeding their families. This is why so many people must be anonymous, because the dangers are very real. For me, this does not excuse the cowardice and irresponsibility of those who will not even examine the issue and experience the resulting cognitive dissonance--it is shameful, given that it is CHILDREN our society has decided to subject to this ideology and experimentation. But it does explain what is happening. These people are not bad. I know them well. They are just ordinary humans, trying to live their lives the best they can. The thing is, more people need to be extraordinary, as Eliza is. More people need to talk to more people, and more people need to put their voices out there. You will make Eliza safer if you do this, even if you cannot do it publicly. More importantly, you will be another ripple in the tide changing towards ending this madness. My millennial-aged friends cannot risk their jobs in education, science, or healthcare, but they can have one-to-one conversations with friends. Do what you can! Take SOME risk! In my case, the lost friends have hurt, but my true friends are sticking with me. Maybe they'll eventually move towards educating themselves and taking actions. For those near or past retirement, face the lesser costs than younger people and take a public stand. Every. Single. Voice. Counts.
Well, I'm a senior writing about this every day. Here is an article on my blog. To be honest, this is the most bizarre idea that I have ever seen sweep over society in my lifetime, with perhaps the exception of Trumpism (although the corruption of the Republican party started half-a-century before Trump). I was born in 1950, and I remember the prevailing ideas that existed in the U.S. when I was a young person, and I never thought those ideas would ever be questioned. The U.S. is barely recognizable from the time that I was a young adult.
http://sethnotes.blogspot.com/2021/07/transgender-people-are-seeking.html
I am strongly moved by the following: "Who wants to find themselves on the outside of a narrative that's captured the public imagination? Who wants to be tarred as hateful for their questions and doubts that come from no such place?"
I'm currently feeling pushed out of my town because of my GC views. And truly, I thought my positions weren't extreme. What I find extreme is the fact that I'm sent a barrage of hateful messages and images for speaking truth that was accepted as such up until a few years ago. It's a lonely position to be in, and I completely understand why it's easier for people to drop their critical thinking skills at the door of this topic rather than engage.
Working at a non-profit in the last ten years has been a day in day out re-enactment of that Andrea Dworkin quote about how many women resist feminism because it is an agony to be fully conscious of misogyny. Now that includes being conscious of the concept of misogyny!
Good for you posting under your real name! That takes guts! 💪
I am SO TIRED of being told I'm the one making things harder for myself because I'm THINKING or FEELING. Isn't that exactly what so many are complaining about when we have another shooting or women lose their right to choose? "What were they THINKING?" "Have they no FEELING for their fellow human beings?" "Be kind!" "Educate yourself!"
You know what is really being said when someone tells you you're making things hard on yourself because you're thinking? "I DON'T WANT TO THINK ABOUT THIS." or "I DON'T WANT TO FEEL ANYTHING ABOUT THIS."
And sometimes it's because people are comfortable and don't want things to change because change is hard. It's also extremely difficult at times to live in integrity with one's values because it means going against societal values which can make one unpopular -- social ostracization is a very human fear.
'Cis' is the slur they use for women they can't call TERFs.
Women are damned if we go along with it, and damned if we don't.
We are overwhelmingly the carers of children, so we must be disempowered, one way or another.
The enemy.
Or the conquered.
Thanks for this article - yup all we need to do is not think!
PS I'm not thinking about women called Karen either - who are no doubt quite fed up of Karenphobia
I never picked up on the "Karen" meme. I understood right from the beginning that it was a kind of misogyny. There are just as many male "Karens" as there are female "Karens".
Thank you! I've been so uncomfortable with the whole Karen thing. It just seemed like another way of scaring women into shutting up. No one wants to be accused of being a Karen. Best to be quiet and not make any effort to stand up for yourself.
It's just the most sexist bullshit. But pervasive in the nonprofit sector.
Just curious: Isn't the nonprofit sector dominated by women to a certain extent? So at least some of that sexism is coming from women, isn't it?
Transgenderism is catnip for liberals. Children are naturally seen as vulnerable, and for a child to be "trapped in the wrong body" seems like a special horror. But this is mostly propaganda from trans activists. Children also have a greater ability to adjust to changing circumstances than adults have. If you tell a child, "Changing genders isn't really possible. Also, that is an adult decision. If you still feel that you were born the wrong gender when you are 18, you will have all your life to change yourself. Most children your age end up deciding that they are happy the way you are." A little speech like that will discourage most kids. If it doesn't discourage your kid, maybe your kid really does have gender dysphoria. The crucial thing is to save kids from transitioning who don't actually have gender dysphoria.
Sexism is built right into the Karen meme. "Women have no power in society, so they have no right to speak up."
Snappy responses are needed, like, "Just because one woman was wrong, doesn't mean that all women are wrong."
haha yep. The 'ignorati'? ... not saying I cant be one meself ....live n learn [hopefully!]
Yikes- I followed you because your bio said you were a grad student studying feminism and gender, like me. Didn’t realize what I had stumbled upon. Have you read Whipping Girl?
Im a cis woman, and have always been a passionate feminist. I used to not fully understand a lot of the transgender discourse- until my ex partner came out as a trans woman. I researched what I could, which was illuminating, but mostly I listened to her. The pain she felt. Her stories about growing up and knowing deep down she was different. How she isolated herself and let her body rot for 20 years because she was so ashamed of her male body, so disgusted by it - it felt so wrong to her. When she came out, it was astonishing how much lighter she was, brighter. She wanted to live again. My best friend in the world, the partner who I had spent so much time trying to help to no avail, wanted to live again. Because she felt, finally, like she could be who she really was. the way she describes it, when she first let herself wear a dress and look in the mirror and see herself as the woman she wanted to be, the fog that had settled in during puberty suddenly lifted for the first time, after 20 years. Through our relationship, I let myself and my notions of feminism, which were strongly held. be challenged and deepened with her. I recommend if you have the chance to even talk to a trans woman, you listen. You don’t have to understand everything. But please jsut try to empathize - trans bodies are so horrifically abused and marginalized in so many ways and they deserve at least an attempt at empathy. Trans women and cis women are NOT the same, their experiences are different, but they are both women. They are both targeted by the patriarchy for their “inferior” femininity. Transmisogyny is simply misogyny and the scapegoating of femininity and womanhood- you are, like it or not, upholding the patriarchy with your TERFy language. Unsubscribed for my own mental health because reading such things breaks my heart - but I do hope you read Whipping Girl. It changed everything I thought I knew. Take care.
lol, ok, bye. See you in a few years when you get tired of walking on eggshells.
Yes, I've read Serano. He talks about womanhood but he's having an exclusively male experience. And that's fine. But he doesn't get to speak for or over women and doesn't get to pressure lesbians into seeing him as a sex partner. Female embodiment matters. Women who refuse to be redefined from a sex class based on reality to a mixed-sex class based on male feelings aren't hateful, just fed up.
Also, to be clear, I (and the trans ppl in my life) acknowledge the validity of genital preference in lesbian relationships. From my sexual experience, a trans woman's penis is an INCREDIBLY different experience in sexual scenarios than a cis man's and much closer to what it's like being with a cis woman (trust me, i know that sounds crazy as someone who as a lot of sexual trauma around penises – it's so hard to explain but it blew my mind the first time I experienced sex with a trans woman how distinctly feminine everything felt!), but a penis is a penis, that's for sure – and its TOTALLY valid if a lesbian only wants to be with a cis woman, in my opinion.
Please, please don't be condescending to me like you were in that first sentence. Please understand this is emotional for me, I am as passionate as you are about this topic and I am only trying to defend my loved ones from ideologies that I myself dappled in many years ago, ideologies that have caused a lot of suffering and suicidal ideation in the person closest to me. I am listening to what you're saying and trying to be respectful so please do the same for me.
Your first sentence: "Yikes," followed by a lot of I-assume-you-must-not-have-read-contrasting-perspectives-because-you-don't-agree-with-me.
Being a lesbian is already setting a sexual boundary against all males, regardless of how those males identify. Shifting to 'genital preferences for lesbians is OK' is already trampling a boundary that all males should respect.
I sincerely apologize for assuming you hadn't read Whipping Girl– that was condescending of me. I was emotional and defensive. I'm glad you have read the book. Would you mind clarifying what you mean in the second paragraph? I guess I feel like trans women (or "males" as you said) ARE respecting sexual boundaries by saying that lesbians can have genital preferences! Because they are saying that they don't have to be attracted to them just because they identify as women. But maybe I am confused about what you are saying exactly?
Males who identify as women are taking clear language women need and appropriating it. They're not women. They can only 'be' women if we radically redefine women. But we still need a word for female people and to be able to organize as female people without being asked to include or center males who identify as being the same as us. They're having their own male experience. They're not lesbians. If we redefine lesbians to accommodate males, we've robbed same-sex attracted females of a term that once clearly described them and let them find each other and set boundaries against males. Young lesbians are being pressured to accept males as sexual partners and gaslit about same-sex sexual orientation (that they're not 'valid' lesbians if they aren't attracted to males who identify as lesbians) -- something I wrote about with receipts here.
https://unherd.com/2022/06/why-should-lesbians-have-sex-with-men/
This is very much a scenario where healthy boundaries would remove much of the conflict. Males claiming to be women and competing in women's sports and lodging in women's domestic-violence shelters (where women often need spaces away from males) and taking women's representation and misdirecting women's organizations at a time when we just lost Roe v. Wade is not respecting boundaries. Males claiming to be lesbians and then haranguing lesbians for rejecting them is not respecting boundaries. An obvious solution here is that males stop saying they're women, acknowledge they're having their own experience, and advocate for their own representation, organizations, etc. I think it would be great to fund separate/additional resources for trans-identifying people, like domestic-violence shelters that can help trans people who need out of dangerous relationships. I think it's wrong to force women's shelters -- for women who've experienced male violence -- to include males (who only have to say they identify as women to be let in), under threat of losing their funding or having rats nailed to their doors by trans activists, like happened in Vancouver.
hey, so yeah we agree on that! Young cis lesbians shouldn't feel pressured to have sex with trans women if they don't feel attracted to penises. I think a lot of young people and activists online in their late teens, from their lack of experience and research, have trouble with the nuanced language surrounding these terms, which is unfortunate.
Also I think you smartly touched on what we disagree on fundamentally and probably won't be able to get past, but is interesting to think about - whether we need to radically re-define "Woman" or not. I personally think radically embracing intersectionality of womanhood helps the feminist cause rather than hurts it, and importantly helps protect trans people from violence and hate. A lot of trans-supporting feminists like me just want trans people to know that we support them and will fight for them within our activism; because to me, our causes feel more similar against patriarchy than they are different. All that being said, I am relieved to hear you say that you support resources for trans-identifying people and acknowledge the violence against them and need for their safety! I will say I wish/request that TERFS advocate for this more explicitly, because sometimes the TERF language feels very threatening and violent to trans people, even if its not intended to be! which is not productive to helpful discourse of course
Jeez...it's mighty white of them to say that lesbians can have "genital preferences." So kind, much magnanimity.
Mighty white indeed trans women have decreed these "genital preferences" to be allowed to lesbians.
Phew!
Of course female embodiment matters! Cis women and trans women are different in that way. But while your language advocates for a binary equality with men, intersectional feminism acknowledges the plurality of womanhood - it seeks to abolish the patriarchy that upholds the power of cis straight men who are violent against groups of people who deviate from the hegemonic standard and casts them as Other (women, queer ppl, trans women, poc, etc). The gender binary is a myth that exists to uphold this singular power of (Herero) Men with its inherent Subject-Object power relationship. Abolishing that binary is the first step to robbing violent men of their power against these marginalized identities.
Also- can I ask, what’s your point with all of this? Trans women deal with so much hate, and die from brutal hateful violence at alarming rates. Even if you don’t agree with all the semantics of transgender theory, why pick on those ppl who suffer under patriarchy too? Not in the same way as you, but suffering nonetheless. It just feels so unnecessary. No trans woman is saying they understand exactly what it feels like to be a cis woman. No one is questioning your experience of that.
Sex is being written out of the law and replaced with gender identity. That matters because sex matters. Let's talk about 'transwomen are women.' Treating some males as though they were female in settings where sex matters undermines women's rights to single-sex spaces, fair and safe athletic competition, having political representation of their own distinct interests and experiences. If we're talking about treating 'transwomen' as women in settings where sex DOESN'T matter, I've gotta wonder why we're treating males and females differently to begin with.
Teaching kids to believe that if they don't identify with sex-role stereotypes (for whatever reason) or if they feel uncomfortable with their bodies (girls hitting puberty, say) or feel out of place (kids with autism, for example) that they may be 'trans' and should transition is causing massive harm. In a few years, we'll look back on this as the huge medical scandal it is. We're confusing kids with a radical new set of beliefs about gender and then medicalizing their distress (whether that distress has other roots or whether that distress is a direct product of the confusion adults are creating). We're stunting kids' brain development with puberty blockers, with unknown consequences. We're sterilizing kids who would in many cases have just grown up to be gay if left alone.
What's my point with all this? It matters. You may think you're being kind by playing along with people's beliefs about themselves and I'm being mean by resisting the imposition of such fictions, but check back with all the recipients of your moral largesse in five years and see how they're doing.
https://elizamondegreen.substack.com/p/to-an-old-friend
You're quite free to keep responding but frankly everything you've said so far I've heard before, in uncannily similar language, so unless you say something surprising, I'm unlikely to find it a good use of my time to keep responding.
okay! i'd genuinely appreciate your thoughts on what I just wrote about hormone transition therapy medications in a post below, since I've seen all your responses before too but have yet to see a TERF comment on what I wrote in particular! but of course do what you wish with your time. I wish you growing and healing.
I guess I just don't see how anything of what I'm saying is suggesting to you that I think sex doesn't matter. IMO, trans women should acknowledge that cis women face issues, as anatomical females, that they will NEVER have to face, that they have a privilege to not have to face (especially before transitioning). Women with vaginas deal with so much shit that is unique. I just think that in return, cis women can and should acknowledge that in a similar fashion, we don't experience the unique violence and erasure that trans women do. that's all. I dont think that sex is being written out of the law - unless you are attributing the fall of Roe V Wade to trans ppl? I'd argue that was the fault of rapist, misogynistic men masquerading as politicians, haha. or could you give me some other examples?
From what I've read and heard, gender dysphoria is a very very different feeling from feeling uncomfortable or out of place with your body in the scenarios you described. I mean, god, puberty SUCKED as a girl, I feel you! such a uniquely humiliating experience sometimes. I felt so fucking uncomfortable and wrong in so many ways. but – not once did I think I should be in a man's body. Because with all its hellish qualities, my discomfort wasn't gender dysphoria. It wasn't less valid or less rough than gender dysphoria, but it wasn't gender dysphoria.
What unique characteristics and experiences do 'transwomen' and women share that neither share with men or transmen? What do you, as a 'cis' woman, share with transwomen?
Check out https://sex-matters.org/ but also what Biden administration is doing to Title IX. Redefining sex to include gender identity means there's no longer a way to recognize whether someone is male or female under the law, so we can't track sex discrimination, for example, or keep sports for females-only, which means the end of fair and safe competition for girls and women.
Gender dysphoria is a catch-all: it's an interpretation of a bunch of forms of distress, including, yes, what you and I experienced as teen girls. How do you explain the stratospheric spike in teen girls identifying as trans? Where was this cohort in the past? Why do so many of them later detransition?
Well, I think Whipping Girl's philosophy of "scapegoating of femininity" answers your first question for me! We both experience patriarchy's brutal hatred of femininity. Deep-seeded, violent, systemically enforced hatred of any deviance from hegemonic masculinity, of either feminine anatomy or feminine qualities (this includes gay men too of course, and explains cis men's fragility and fear of appearing effeminate/being "feminized") Interestingly, we both are confined to our bodies in a way - trans men are seen as too much of a woman due to their vaginas to be "real men", and trans women are seen as too manly because of their penises to be "real women". I just think most of both of our issues are because of toxic masculinity. As for more teen girls identifying as trans, I think that teens have more language now and that's why there is a spike. but regarding detransitioning - also something I learned recently is that transitioning and detransitioning isn't always, isn't usually even, a drastic process and no one is advocating for trans children to go through radical surgery. it was so funny, i realized that the androgen blocker I was taking for my hormonal acne was the same one my partner was using for her transition!!! just a simple, safe, pill that I take for the zits on my face, that has nothing to do with my gender identity and yet is also helpful to my partner for relieving her dysphoria. Insane how we talk about these drastic surgeries in transitioning, but a lot of it is really so benign and not permanent in the slightest (if I stopped taking my pills those zits would come right back lol, just like her breasts would shrink back). And my partner could stop her hormones at any time too. Oh, and the estrogen she takes for her dysphoria? My mom takes the same pill for menopause symptoms! crazy that no one talks about how already tested and safe so much of this stuff is. obviously there is a point of no return at some point, but a lot of transitioning is quite reservable, which was news to me! What I'm saying is I've realized recently that it's way safer to experiment with gender identity, even as a teen, than it might seem on the surface. of course there are rare exceptions where something goes horribly wrong with a surgery done by an incompetent, irresponsible doctor, but that isn't the norm at all.
The last thing I'm going to say about this for now because I need to do some other writing is...
You think sex matters. Does sex matter enough to have clear language for sex, rather than a revolving door of euphemisms like uterus-haver, menstruator? Does sex matter enough to have organizations that focus only and unapologetically on female issues? Does sex matter enough that the law should recognize it and government organizations should track sex-based disparities in medicine, employment, poverty, etc.?
Do you see how we've lost language and lost organizations and lost focus and lost legal protections and lost sex-based data due to the push to equate gender identity and sex?
Really the last thing.
Maybe the way to make it clear is to unload the language. Let's talk about cats and dogs.
Cats and dogs are different in ways that matter (this is not a negative judgment on either cats or dogs). In animal shelters, cats are often very stressed to be around dogs for good reasons: dogs chase cats. So animal shelters separate cats and dogs. If we then redefined 'cat' to include felines and canines and reorganized animal shelters on that basis, how would the feline-cats feel about the canine-'cats'? Would feline-cats have lost protections that they needed by making the definition of 'cat' inclusive of canines?
Francie, no one is saying that there aren't genuine trans people in the world who experience gender dysphoria. The fight is against the broader philosophy, which is damaging humanity in a myriad of ways. Here is a list of the things that make transgender ideology so toxic to society as a whole:
* The idea that what determines a person's gender is his or her gender identity. What makes a woman a woman is her body, and what makes a man a man is his body. Your partner may FEEL like a woman, but that is only a feeling. It doesn't change what he is.
* Children who are not actually transgender (i.e., who do not have gender dysphoria) are being encouraged by well-meaning adults to transition. The trans life is, generally speaking, not a happy life, so if a child is having trans feels, an attempt should be made to figure out what is really bothering the child. That's not what's happening right now. Children who express doubts about their gender are often put on a fast track to transitioning, and that is not right for probably a majority of them. The number of detransitioners now numbers in the tens of thousands in the U.S.A. and Britain.
* Trans women are actually men, and for that reason they do not belong in women's spaces, especially in women's sports. They have many unfair advantages when competing against women in sports. As for women's single-sex spaces, women need those to feel safe. Remember, tens of thousands of women are murdered by men every year. The male hormone (testosterone) makes men the aggressive sex.
* Trans people are demanding that other people speak about them using a special language. What other minority demands that they be spoken about with special words? This may be the only minority in the world that demands special treatment.
* The shaming that is being done by trans people, and their friends, of people who don't share their philosophy is stifling an honest discussion about this issue. Shaming -- i.e., cancel culture -- is never a good thing.
I feel sympathy for your partner. If your partner were to ask me to refer to her as "she", I would do so out of politeness. But she is not, and never can be, a real woman. Real woman have women's bodies (not male bodies that have been operated on). Women are still an oppressed group in this world, more so in third-world countries than in Western countries; but even in Western countries they do not have full equality. If natural women allow trans women to co-opt the term "women" to describe themselves, then they are diluting what the definition of a woman is, and that makes it harder for natural women to secure their rights.
If it makes your partner happy to pretend that he is a real woman, than let him do so, but that doesn't mean that you must be a pretender too. He is what he is: A man who feels (or thinks he feels) like a woman. But that doesn't make him a real woman.
I agree that trans women experience misogyny from men, but in too may areas trans women have set themselves up as competitors with natural women. If trans women really cared about women as a group, they wouldn't do that.
Hi Caleb! So I think what we're getting caught up in is a difference in how we define woman. Because, I mean, if you're going based off of sexual anatomy a trans woman is very different from a cis woman for sure! I'm definitely not denying that. But, I personally think its more helpful (and definitely much kinder and more empathetic to trans ppl) to the feminist cause to add to the plurality of womanhood, and what it means to be a Woman, rather than limiting it to sexual anatomy. "Woman" isnt just one thing, it never has been. From what I've researched, by limiting Woman to one thing, we're actually giving the patriarchy an easier way of exerting power over us. Trans women and women both suffer under patriarchy, in different but deeply interconnected ways related to their expression of femininity. that's all that intersectional feminism is trying to say! I hope that makes sense logically at least :) definitely willing to talk about this more or give you some of the resources I found helpful while grappling with this myself!
Francie, let me start out by saying that you are a thoughtful and compassionate person, and I appreciate that. I am a gay man, which makes my life experience a very different one from yours and Eliza's. However, it has become apparent to me (over the years) that, one way or the other, women keep ending up at the bottom of the social totem pole. Having a misogynistic father may have helped to clarify things for me. It took me a while to figure this out, but women's lack of equality in society seems to relate directly back to their lesser size and strength. Everyone, it seems, needs to feel superior to someone, and for most men, I think, it is women that they ultimately feel superior to. (Resentment towards women as mothers may also have something to do with it -- it seems that every person in the world hates his/her mother.)
For thousands of years, human beings have determined one's gender by one's sex. A woman was a person with a female body, and a man was a person with a male body. That is a perfect way of classifying gender, and I see no reason to abandon it. I don't think that allowing some men to pretend to be women (real women, no less!) does anything positive for actual women. "Gender identity" just confuses what was once a clearly defined issue.
Trans people have more than one "face" that they present to the public. Back five or ten years, they claimed to be sad people rejected by society and by their respective cultures. They were often victims of murder. It was an image designed to garner as much sympathy as possible. But now, (1) they have set themselves up as experts on gender, (2) they have redefined what the word "gender" means, (3) they are pushing their way into women's sports and single-sex spaces, where women have traditionally sought sanctuary from men, (4) they are trying to tell parents how to raise their children, (5) they are trying to tell people what words to use when speaking about them, and not least, (6) they have this chorus of cancel-culture haters who are trying to censor society's conversation about them, and trying to push people out of their careers and jobs because they have the temerity to think for themselves.
So, which are they? Are trans people victims, or are they victimizers? I am seeing more of the victimizer in them than the victim. I personally have been banned from a half-dozen web sites for saying things like "trans women have multiple physical advantages over women in sports," and then listing those advantages. Or for saying things like, "I don't believe that you can be a woman and also have a male body." Your trans friends, or their supporters, are censoring me.
You said above that trans women are murdered at an alarming rate. Well, as a person who is interested in crime, the truth is that vastly more natural women are murdered by men than trans women. Natural women are the real victims of misogyny. I don't know the statistics, but huge numbers of women (thousands at least) are murdered every year in this country by their male spouses or boyfriends or other men who supposedly desire them. Indeed, there are serial killers who specialize in raping and murdering women. (Some serial killers also murder boys, who are smaller than men just as women are.) If some trans women have stumbled into this horrible situation by mistake, I say that WOMEN are still the main victims here.
I am a person who likes truth. I am a man because I have a male body -- that is the truth. I am NOT a man because I have the gender identity of a man (if indeed I do). My point here is that transgender ideology doesn't pass the sniff test in the most fundamental way. Men are not, and can never be, women. THAT IS SCIENCE -- and in this Trumpian age, we need science. The best that trans women can achieve is the appearance of women. Mixing trans women in with real women to make them feel good about themselves just creates a mess.
One more thing: Your experience with your partner inspired sympathy in you. Not all trans people are so sympathetic, and not all of them are suffering like your partner is. Indeed, there are trans people who agree with me and Eliza on all of these issues. Look up Blaire White on YouTube or go to Debbie Hayton's web site (she is British). Everything they say is similar to the things that Eliza and I are saying (although Eliza's writing is more nuanced than my writing). White and Hayton, both trans women, understand that it is NOT necessary to pretend to be a REAL woman in order to be a happy trans woman.
Among trans people, THE PRETENSES HAVE TO GO -- the pretense that they are experts on gender, the pretense that they know how to diagnose other trans people, the pretense that they know anything at all about children, the pretense that they are REAL men and REAL women because of the way they feel, the pretense that a man can know how a woman feels, or that a woman can know how a man feels, the pretense that their trans condition somehow makes them special, the pretense that they have a right to invade women's spaces, the pretense that their suffering is more intense than the suffering of other people, the pretense that other people have an obligation to talk or act the way they want them to, AND the pretense that they are occupying some kind of moral high ground.
If trans people were just people with gender dysphoria, that would be one thing, but trans people have an entire agenda to change society to suit themselves.
Here they are, the smallest minority in the world, making more demands of society than any other minority has made.
Francie, I didn't really respond to everything you said in your post, so let me add a little.
I think that having a clear definition of women will be more helpful to women than adding to the "plurality" of women with men pretending to be women. Is it still chicken soup if 20% of it is beef?
The point that I've been making in my own writing is that women are more than just their bodies, but all of the "more" arises from a single fact: They have different bodies from men. Biology really is destiny in this situation.
Also, the biggest issue here is that trans people have managed to change the treatment of children who question their gender. Instead of giving them some therapy and then some time to outgrow their feelings, which most of them will, children are often put on the fast track to transitioning, much to their detriment. Trans activists are directly responsible for this situation. They are trying to increase their numbers via the conversion of children. Anita Bryant was right about the threat to children, but the threat is coming from trans people, not gays.
The attitude of trans people regarding children is, "If a child has any trans feelings at all, then the child is trans. No further investigation of the child's feelings is needed." That attitude is HUGELY destructive to children. It also provides you with an example of how many trans people are acting like victimizers more than victims. Here they are, people with a mental illness called "transgender dysphoria", and yet they are telling the world (and health professionals!) how to treat children, most of whom are confused, or have been influenced by peers, or have some other psychological problem that they will eventually resolve. Pushing such children into transitioning is the worst possible thing anyone could do, and that is especially true given the fact that a child should not have the power to make such life choices. Among other things, pushing children into transitioning makes them lifetime medical patients dependent on hormones and other drugs. Such choices should be made only by the adult yet to come.
I hope everyone has seen Bill Maher's segment on this issue. Although a few of his jokes are sexist, he nonetheless understands the issue better than most people, and he makes very good points:
https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/05/26/were-literally-experimenting-on-children-bill-maher-challenges-transgender-craze/
(The Daily Signal isn't the only place you can find the video.)