Trans women were born a woman. I’m not trans so I don’t get to decide what is or isn’t transphobia just like I don’t get to decide what’s racist towards black people because I’m not black. I don’t get a vote because it doesn’t affect me.
I don’t think that’s how it works. Biological sexuality is with oneself from the birth, sexual identity happens later in life. And it depends a lot on the individual when that occurs.
edit I’m absolutely amazed to find that there are people who don’t agree with my previous statement, which seems to me completely uncontroversial. Can somebody explain what’s going on? Or am I being downmodded not because people disagree, but because I’m not singing quite in tune with the choir?
Prove they’re genetically not a female. You can’t without genomic testing. And forcibly testing for so many people (literally everyone who claims to be a woman) is both unethical no matter the reasoning and logistically impossible.
Yes it does. Your position requires you be able to prove definitively they are “not biologically women”
If you cannot your entire argument falls apart. That’s unknowable. You cannot know they are biologically women so using that term is just a smokescreen for bigotry… and shows you lack an understanding of human sexing (which is objectively not a binary)
Imotali got it right, that is exactly how it works :) most people who are transgender know that they are transgender before they know the meaning of the word “transgender”. It also looks like you’re confusing two terms that sound a lot alike but mean two different things.
What you’re calling “biological sexuality” is really just called “sex” or “sexual identity”. It’s concerned primarily with categorizing a person’s physiology into one of two groups based on the average of several traits, with lots of variance possible between individual members of those groups. This is what TERFs incorrectly call being a “biological man or woman”. Note that it has nothing to do with presentation, performance, speech, and other non-physiological traits–those all relate to gender, not sex.
“Sexual identity” refers to the intersection of sex, gender identity, gender roles, and sexual orientation.
Well, I’m glad you made this comment, poorly phrased as it is. I went back and double-checked the scientific definitions of the words I used, and I included a word as a synonym where it actually is not a synonym. I’ve gone back and fixed my comment to avoid spreading misinformation.
Now to answer your accusation and your question, in that order:
First, the accusation that this is “my position” and a “claim”-- that is not the case. This is the established consensus of the scientific and medical communities, and I am just repeating what they said. If you have a problem with that, go to your local hospital and argue with a doctor or something.
Now, for your question-- I didn’t say anything resembling that at all. I corrected their terminology from “biological sexuality” to just “sex” because that’s literally what biologists call it–sex. Then I made the points that sex is based on lots of traits, not just the one, and that there is a lot of variance in what we call “male” and “female”. That doesn’t deny the existence of sex, all it does is say that biology mostly operates in spectrums, not binary systems.
most people who are transgender know that they are transgender before they know the meaning of the word “transgender”
Sorry, but I do take issue with that assessment. Societal pressure is one hell of a drug at creating denial and it can take a very long time before you are able to admit to yourself what you are (There is a reason why the term “egg” is thrown around so much these days). As a trans-woman who has only recently had a partial outing (though now with the goal to go through with it all the way) and still struggles with how much my gender-dysphoria fluctuates between unbearable and non-existent you are essentially telling me, that I’m an imposter because it took me 10+ years since I met the first trans-women to finally come to terms with myself.
Also, when I’m already at it, not to you but as a big fuck-you to any transphobes who may read this: I guess I owe you pieces of human garbage some thanks, because all your hate-speech gave rise to so much awareness and support from people who I considered respectable in the first place that I felt a lot more comfortable to come out as who I am, for most people around me had made pro-trans comments at one point or another.
That’s why I used the word “most” :) I don’t want to invalidate anyone’s personal lived experience.
And I’m not saying that people have the full picture the second they’re born, just that once someone has that egg-cracking moment and looks back at the rest of their life suddenly, in hindsight, lots of mannerisms and desires and personality quirks make a lot more sense. That’s how I felt when I realized I was nonbinary-- I always felt the way I always felt, but I only recently decided to attribute the label of “nonbinary” to those feelings
If we can tell the differences between woman, why do different rules apply depending if youre born woman or not?
Besides having an opinion about something that doesnt affect you, seems quite reasonable is it not?
Trans women were born a woman. I’m not trans so I don’t get to decide what is or isn’t transphobia just like I don’t get to decide what’s racist towards black people because I’m not black. I don’t get a vote because it doesn’t affect me.
I don’t think that’s how it works. Biological sexuality is with oneself from the birth, sexual identity happens later in life. And it depends a lot on the individual when that occurs.
edit I’m absolutely amazed to find that there are people who don’t agree with my previous statement, which seems to me completely uncontroversial. Can somebody explain what’s going on? Or am I being downmodded not because people disagree, but because I’m not singing quite in tune with the choir?
Prove they’re genetically not a female. You can’t without genomic testing. And forcibly testing for so many people (literally everyone who claims to be a woman) is both unethical no matter the reasoning and logistically impossible.
Therefore you can’t prove they aren’t a woman.
This seems like an appeal to ignorance. So while I cannot prove that, not being able to prove it doesn’t affect my position.
Yes it does. Your position requires you be able to prove definitively they are “not biologically women”
If you cannot your entire argument falls apart. That’s unknowable. You cannot know they are biologically women so using that term is just a smokescreen for bigotry… and shows you lack an understanding of human sexing (which is objectively not a binary)
Imotali got it right, that is exactly how it works :) most people who are transgender know that they are transgender before they know the meaning of the word “transgender”. It also looks like you’re confusing two terms that sound a lot alike but mean two different things.
What you’re calling “biological sexuality” is really just called “sex”
or “sexual identity”. It’s concerned primarily with categorizing a person’s physiology into one of two groups based on the average of several traits, with lots of variance possible between individual members of those groups. This is what TERFs incorrectly call being a “biological man or woman”. Note that it has nothing to do with presentation, performance, speech, and other non-physiological traits–those all relate to gender, not sex.“Sexual identity” refers to the intersection of sex, gender identity, gender roles, and sexual orientation.
I’ll just clarify to make sure I got your position right: you are claiming that biological sexuality does not in effect exist?
Well, I’m glad you made this comment, poorly phrased as it is. I went back and double-checked the scientific definitions of the words I used, and I included a word as a synonym where it actually is not a synonym. I’ve gone back and fixed my comment to avoid spreading misinformation.
Now to answer your accusation and your question, in that order:
First, the accusation that this is “my position” and a “claim”-- that is not the case. This is the established consensus of the scientific and medical communities, and I am just repeating what they said. If you have a problem with that, go to your local hospital and argue with a doctor or something.
Now, for your question-- I didn’t say anything resembling that at all. I corrected their terminology from “biological sexuality” to just “sex” because that’s literally what biologists call it–sex. Then I made the points that sex is based on lots of traits, not just the one, and that there is a lot of variance in what we call “male” and “female”. That doesn’t deny the existence of sex, all it does is say that biology mostly operates in spectrums, not binary systems.
Sorry, but I do take issue with that assessment. Societal pressure is one hell of a drug at creating denial and it can take a very long time before you are able to admit to yourself what you are (There is a reason why the term “egg” is thrown around so much these days). As a trans-woman who has only recently had a partial outing (though now with the goal to go through with it all the way) and still struggles with how much my gender-dysphoria fluctuates between unbearable and non-existent you are essentially telling me, that I’m an imposter because it took me 10+ years since I met the first trans-women to finally come to terms with myself.
Also, when I’m already at it, not to you but as a big fuck-you to any transphobes who may read this: I guess I owe you pieces of human garbage some thanks, because all your hate-speech gave rise to so much awareness and support from people who I considered respectable in the first place that I felt a lot more comfortable to come out as who I am, for most people around me had made pro-trans comments at one point or another.
That’s why I used the word “most” :) I don’t want to invalidate anyone’s personal lived experience.
And I’m not saying that people have the full picture the second they’re born, just that once someone has that egg-cracking moment and looks back at the rest of their life suddenly, in hindsight, lots of mannerisms and desires and personality quirks make a lot more sense. That’s how I felt when I realized I was nonbinary-- I always felt the way I always felt, but I only recently decided to attribute the label of “nonbinary” to those feelings
You aren’t the judge of when someone is or isn’t a woman, though. The only person whose opinion matters in that case is the woman herself.