s0wingseas0n #fundie

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This whole Lila Perry shit is ridiculous. Why should a male be allowed in female spaces? Why are the 150 girls who felt uncomfortable with a male in their restroom/locker room being told they are wrong? Lila Perry should use a neutral restroom or the men’s and that’s that. This is proof that we can’t have female safe spaces because men will always try and find a way inside of them.

64 comments

old comment by Colonel Number One

I'm very against stupid school heads not allowing people who are transgender in the bathrooms of the gender they are.
This is a rather odd story, and it's also rather strange too, as I am quite confused about life and how to live it.

I go to PE in high school and there is a very enforced rule about not allowing boys in the girl's changing rooms.
You see, one time I got confused, because the changing rooms don't have signs. So I walked into the girl's changing room, and thank my lucky stars, there was no girls inside to scream and throw me out.

The place smelt nice, and I could change in peace, and I had no idea it was the girls room at all, so at the end of gym, I walked into it and changed, and no-one was there.
I told the story to the gym teacher, and I was allowed to go in when there is no girls in.

I wonder why, because when I looked that up, the only cases was transgender stuff, and what not.
Did the gym teacher think I was transgender, or what? I'm not, it's just that I would like to be a girl. Or at least look like one. That does not make me transgender.

Speaking about Perry, I am very supportive for her being allowed in the girl's locker rooms, for I was allowed in, but only when no-one was inside, changing.
I'm not transgender myself, but even I can spot rambling nonsense, and the poor girl should be allowed to use the changing room, anyway.

Speaking about myself, plenty of people have dreams, when they are young, that involves being a girl.
Who wouldn't want to be a girl? I'm a boy, myself, but I would love to be a girl, or at least for that stupid jawline to be fixed.

I personally love reading transgender transformation, or forced fem fiction, but that's only because I like the ending of the stories, where the person is happy in the end for being turned into a girl.
At least the treatment I got was better than Perry's treatment at the hands of stupid school officials.

old comment by Colonel Number One

Could someone please comment on my first post? I'm quickly growing bored with waiting for someone to comment on my first post.

I think that Sowingseason is crazier than a box of half marbled frogs, merged with squid. How will men even get in the ladies toilets, anyway? Do they just magically teleport inside or something?

Will the lunatics say that if you daydream about going in the ladies toilets it happens? This is stupid. These guys are rather dumb.

Speaking about changing rooms, I somehow managed to be allowed to go in by my gym teacher, in the girl's one, despite being a boy, but only when the girls are all done changing can I go in.

Does she think I'm transgender or something? I'm not, I would just like to be a girl, or look like one.

old comment by Concerned female

Today things continue to change and the lines of someone's gender is in flux. I understand the conflicting pressures that Transgender people are going through but lets just stop here and pause a moment.
I enter the gym changing room with 7 or 8 'other girls' and Lila Perry walks in behind us also to get changed after gym class, we remove our T-shirt, shorts, gym shoes, bras and briefs to have a shower.

I am sorry but I would feel very uncomfortable with a guy in the shower/changing room or using female bathrooms after all Lila Perry has not had any surgeries yet.

Until he has undergone SRS for example a penectomy and castration and hormone treatment, I think he should continue using unisex facilities as previously.

old comment by OHP

@Concerned female:
Having a dick isn't the deciding factor in matters of gender. If it was, there'd be no such thing as the transgendered. Her brain is saying "woman" regardless of what sex chromosomes she has, and it is the brain -- not the body --that has final say in matters of identity as identity is an exclusive property of consciousness. If she must have her testicles removed and hormones suppressed to be acknowledged as a woman then what does that make women who have their ovaries removed? Are they no longer women? What about women who've gone through menopause? Hell, what about a man who loses his penis or testicles to cancer or in some horrible accident? Are they blank slates? Or do we acknowledge that being a woman or a man isn't a simple matter of genitalia?

Frankly I was uncomfortable getting changed in front of others at all in gym. Sometimes you just have to learn to deal with not being 100% comfortable with your surroundings because sometimes your personal hang-ups are just that -- your personal hang-ups. If they don't understand the difference between sex and gender then the solution is to educate them. Not to shield them from the knowledge. That just leads to them passing their ignorance on to the next generation when they become the adults.

old comment by Kanna

I'm all in favor of dressing with at least a little bit of modesty in PUBLIC places, but in a locker room, who cares? Change, shower, and leave, but don't stare around. Maybe getting undressed in public is a stage in maturation that some HS kids haven't reached yet, but they will, and I suspect they will accept that even more readily than a generation or two ago. I'm old, and never had a terrific bod even before things all started to droop, but if that embarrasses someone, that's their problem, not mine. I suspect that there is more embarrassment on the part of a transgender person than there would be for the "regulars". But embarrassment is, on the scale of human troubles, pretty darn low on the ladder.

old comment by Concerned female

@OHP
Thank you for your comments regarding gender and sex. Apart from a penis the other defining objects when a boy is born is his testicles (I know I am stating the obvious) For a girl apart from her vagina her ovaries are unseen.
It would appear that this young man is Transgender and I wish him well in his transformation but at the moment he is still MALE, he still has his penis and testicles.
When I am getting changed in a gym I know that I won't want any naked men around! The only man I will allow to see me in the buff is my husband.
My shower scene is a perfect illustration, Lila Perry admits to just wearing a wig, so he would have to remove it from his head, just like removing the rest of his clothes and what do we have a naked man, no thank you!
It might come as a surprise to you but even some women are not always happy at showing each other our bodies, we are very conscious of them.

After all why the change in heart from him he was previously happy using the unisex changing room and bathroom.
I think most women myself included would say yes to him joining us after his surgery or at least having breast implements

old comment by OHP

@Concerned female:
Having her genitalia altered won't change anything about her beyond her genitalia. She already is who and what she is. Her appearance is not a valid factor for barring her entry. I'm assuming that you wouldn't expect women with flat chests or bulging muscles to be barred entry for looking insufficiently feminine or demand that they alter their bodies to match an arbitrary idea of what a woman should be.

Regarding the sexing of infants, it's just that: sexing. I notice that you continue to insist that she's a man. I know it runs counter to traditional word association but "male" and "man" do not describe the same thing. The former describes biological sex while the latter describes gender. It's understandable that one would assume them to be one and the same as they quite frequently come as a pair but that is not a hard rule.

As for her change of heart, you might ask the same of any spouse who leaves an abusive partner after years of quietly putting up with it. Maybe they were afraid of reprisal before. Maybe they were pushed too far this time. Maybe out of the blue they just said "I'm not putting up with this anymore". The reason matters little. "But you put up with it before" is no defense for mistreatment or marginalization and certainly no excuse for persisting in the practice.

old comment by Concerned female

@OHP
I am sorry but when a child is born you are either male or female, boy or girl in very rare occasions a child is hermaphrodite (but this is not the case with Lila Perry)
While I agree he/she (definite articles are always difficult) is Transgender, he/she still has the visible organs of the male species. As an adult his position is that of a man, if he wants to become an adult female then apart from what he has to loose between his legs he also needs to aquire boobs or what ever size from an A to F+ cup size.

As far as flat chested women they are still female, any woman who has a mastectomy is still female after all when we were born we didn't have boobs.
I understand there are no easy solutions to this problem and the rights of each person is important BUT so are the rights of every other female who objects.

I am a feminist we believe in equal rights for both men and women but this sounds very much like men telling us what we have to think, even the language above of 150 girls is sexist, placing these women in the realms of little girls! They have objected to this man sharing their facilities then the democratic ideal is preserved, if more women agree to his inclusion then he should be admitted, but if I was one of that group of 150 I would ask for other facilities until his SRS operation.

old comment by smartz118

@Concerned Female

I understand your apprehension to let trans-gendered women to share the same locker room with you because they still have a penis, but my question is why are you looking? Do you check every girl in the locker room to see she has a vagina? Or are you afraid that since she is physically male that she still has the desires of one and wants to fondle your tits and ogle you while you change in and out of your gym clothes? Do you honestly think that she will do that, because she has a penis? That she may get aroused at your naked bodies? When I changed clothes for gym, I kept to myself, I don't look at other guys because I don't want to see them, nor do I care to make conversation with people who are busy changing their clothes. Is it that hard to do the same? Just look the other way and just treat her like the woman she believe she is rather than the male she wishes she wasn't?

old comment by Concerned female

@smartz118
In a home you want privacy and so there is a door on the bathroom when you go to the toilet or take a bath/shower people close the door even if you live alone! its about being comfortable in your mind, whether people will see you.
Getting changed in a communal changing room changes the dynamics, women are always talking to each other complementing each other on clothes, shoes, hair etc evrn in changing rooms.
No, we don't check out other women's 'bits' changing rooms are male or female, this person don't forget previously has been happy to change in a separate room, so why the change? No, lets wait until his surgery or at the very least has started on a hormones.

old comment by DJ

@ Concerned female

There are many reasons why a transgirl or transwoman may not have had sex reassignment surgery. They may not have the money to pay for it. They may have medical contraindications that preclude having it done. Most relevant to this case, they may be underage (which usually prevents them from having it done, at least in the U.S.)

Lila is a 17 year old girl and to see a (presumably) adult woman be willing to discriminate against her just because she doesn't pass your personal check list of "body parts a female must possess to be acceptable to me" is grotesque. From what you've commented on here, you sound like you have a lot of personal hang ups and body issues. Maybe you should focus towards working on those instead of trying to police the bodies of other girls and women.

old comment by Concerned female

@DJ
So the rights of the 150 to 200 other women don't count, it sounds as if you want a 'Police State' telling other people just what they have to do! Okay allow this person to use the female changing rooms, this may seem ridiculous but what happens to the other 200 females who then say, "we want our own changing room facilities?"
The bathroom of course can be treated differently as in a female toilet we have separate stalls with a door!

I appreciate your concern for this 17 year old person who has made a very difficult choice and I support her but I think you miss the point what about the other 200 or so other 'Concerned Females' not to mention their parents!

old comment by Concerned female

@DJ
Lila Perry has taken a very brave step, I wish her all the best. But your premise is flawed 'fat girls' (not very helpful we women are always concern with our weight, and how we see ourselves especially young women) the other being 'black girls' remove our clothes and we all look the same!

Lila when she takes her clothes off including her wig (which can seen as an item of clothing) at this moment in time is a MAN/MALE/BOY its a simple as that.

If you are sticking up for the rights of one person and ignoring the rights of others your thinking is flawed. This is what feminism and being a feminist is all about equality, these 200 or so ladies have the right to protest and say no! Your argument states that nobody can say no! What happens when in a relationship two people get together and I don't care if they are heterosexual, homosexual or lesbian when just one person says no, it means No!
These ladies are 17 or 18 years old, they are not girls, how would you feel to be call 'boy', when the usual nouns would be fella, guy or chaps!

old comment by DJ

@ Concerned female

Your premise is flawed in several ways- 1) no, women and girls do not all look the same once we take our clothes off*, 2) the rights of the other 150 girls** are not being violated because being able to kick out girls whose bodies you don't like isn't a right whereas access to the locker room that matches your gender *is* a right, and 3) those 150 girls do have the right to say "no"... to using the locker room themselves, just as someone in a relationship (which, as an aside, is just about the stupidest analogy I've ever heard) has the right to say "no" to having sex themselves but cannot ban another person from having sex (either with some other consenting person or via masturbation)

P.S. If I were called boy, I'd tell the person to get their eyes checked because I'm a woman.

* You sure do at lot of insisting that every woman is as unhealthily obsessed and ashamed of their weight as you seem to be. I'm an overweight woman and I'm not self-conscious of my body at all. Back when I could afford a gym membership, I walked around the dressing room completely nude with no shame.

** They're high school students, which makes the vast majority of them minors. A 17 year old is certainly still a girl. Just as it's disrespectful to refer to grown women as "girls", forcing the label of "women" onto underage teens has its own problems.

old comment by

@Concerned female:
Yup, only the thing is they DON`T have the right to not be inconvinienced. Acces to the changing room is in no way comparable to a relationship between two people.

Also without going into detail about your "stuff that makes the man/woman" tyrade know that I personaly was a victim of your type of thinking. Im physicaly, mentaly and geneticaly female, yet because of a case of hermafroditism at birth I was thrown for more than 20 years into the world as a "guy". Got an alcohol addiction, tried to drink myself to death at least twice while barely realising it and because my personality does not comform to the feminine standards society forces on us, it took me so damn long to break through.

ps. Stop with we women bullshit. I`m not usually concerned at all about my weight, fat girls exist as do fat guys and no amount of sugaring it will make the fa(c)t go away. the reality here is that you simply create a "very special things women do" narration that has no bearing on the world outside you whatsoever. Oh and it`s GIRLS till they get their ID, folks in hs age are far, far from being mature in any way or form.

old comment by Concerned female

@DJ
First of all may I apologise, that's one of the problems of using a pseudonym of 'DJ' there was no way I could guess you were male or female.
We have a disagreement, as far as I am aware these 150 or so females are like both you and myself.
Female a noun, a person bearing two X chromosomes in the cell nuclei and normally having a vagina, a uterus and ovaries, and developing at puberty a relatively rounded body and enlarged breasts.
Gender can be either male or female, there I am sure you would agree some beautiful Transgendered women for example Caroline Cossey, who was born Barry Kenneth Cossey ( who appeared as a 'Bond girl' in the film 'For your eyes only') but no matter what surgery these beautiful women and yes I do call them women can never have to true sex of being female on the chromosomal level.
Certainly after Lila's operation to remove his testicles so reducing his testosterone (and yes I know females have small amount of this hormone also) and she starts on oestrogen and thus begins her transition.
My concern, and while she has the right to be asked to be treated as female (of course she can were a skirt, dress, pants, and wear a bra with silicone boobs) we must respect the feelings of the other 150 females involved.

I am unsure of your point about ID, I might carry my driving licence in my purse but it's not obligatory. Sociolinguistics teaches us that language can be used as a weapon in cause of sexism, I would take offence at being called a girl especially from someone I didn't know, in the home that's a different matter...

old comment by Skidie

@Concerned female:
<Forgot to sign my post before, I`m not DJ>
Language might be used as a weapon in the very same sense that a spoon can. Don`t expect the rest of the world to remove their spoons from work and home enviroment and don`t expect to force others to speak as you`d like. I use terms guy/gal boy/girl much more often than man/woman, it`s in no way derogatory and it`ll stay as it is.

My point about ID is simply to show that below certain age we tend to use diffrent descriptive terms. I will not call a highschooler an adult just as I wouldn`t call 20 year old an octogenarian.

Now, you present us with encyclopedic style of descrpition yet fail to see this description carries in itself no weight and is in fact barely a shortcut used in our daily lives, in fact, chromosomal speaking human beings have about 7 or so sexes. Also how can she never be truly female on some level? I for good few years was convinced I was trans myself only to find about a year ago that I never needed the term, now can I achieve this "deepest level" or am I barred from it, huh?

old comment by DJ

@ Concerned female

Are you 18 years old or older? Then by all means, take offense if someone calls you a girl because you are an adult. However, if you're under 18 years old, then you are a minor and "girl" is the appropriate term to use. Applying the trappings of age-inappropriate maturity to underage girls is how we get shit like the rampant sexualize of teenagers by adult men.

"these beautiful women and yes I do call them women can never have to true sex of being female on the chromosomal level."

In other words, "After a page's worth of comments misgendering a transgirl, I've decided that I'm willing to ever so graciously call these people 'women' but in the next breath I'm going to deny that they're ever be 'true females' by my pisspoor standards"

Well, guess what? No one gives a fuck about your standards or your incorrect definition of "female". Lila is a girl and she'll continue to be a girl (or woman, once she's an adult) regardless of whether or not she ever gets reassignment surgery.

One last note- everyone here has been respectful of those 150 girls feelings. No one here has suggested forcing them to take a shower with Lila against their will. Respecting their feelings is telling them they're free to not use the locker room if sharing it would make them uncomfortable. It's not kowtowing to the demands of bigots because they decide they don't want to share a locker room with certain girls. And that applies whether it's regarding fat girls or black girls or lesbians or transgirls.

old comment by Concerned Female

@Skidie
I found this information regarding Uterus transplant for Transgender women.

XY-born assigned male at birth generally do not have the anatomy needed for natural embryonic and fetal development. Today, there are no successful cases regarding uterus transplant concerning a trans woman or a male. The theoretical issue of ectopic pregnancy (pregnancy outside the uterine cavity) by implantation in anatomical males has been addressed by experts in the field of fertility medicine, who stress that the concept of ectopic implantation, while theoretically plausible, has never been attempted and would be difficult to justify even for women lacking a uterus owing to the extreme health risks to both the parent and child.[2][3]

Robert Winston, a pioneer of in-vitro fertilization, told London's Sunday Times that "male pregnancy would certainly be possible" by having an embryo implanted in a man's abdomen with the placenta attached to an internal organ such as the bowel and later delivered by Caesarean section.
Ectopic implantation of the embryo along the abdominal wall, and resulting placenta growth would, however, be very dangerous and potentially fatal for the host, and is therefore unlikely to be studied in humans.

It may be possible for trans women to receive uteruses in the future.
They need hormone replacement therapy to induce female puberty and maintain female secondary sex characteristics. They need ovary transplant or an egg donation and IVF. However, there are problems with vaginal birth. For most trans women who began HRT past male puberty, the pelvis has failed to develop femininely and broaden as it would have before or during puberty. However, as proven by Nadya Suleman (octuplets), Lina Medina (youngest mother) and Stacey Herald (smallest mother at 71 cm [8]), a small pelvis is not an obstacle to gestation, even in extreme cases. Delivery would be via C-section.[improper synthesis?]
I Hope this is useful to our discussion

old comment by DJ

@ Concerned female

If you have to fall back on "oh, it's the dictionary definition", your position is pretty precarious. The dictionary is not an end-all-and-be-all gospel of fact. It's a compilation of institutionally agreed-upon definitions that is continually updated, slowly, in the wake of social change.

The Oxford Dictionary only updated their definition of "marriage" to include same sex marriage in 2013, even though the first country to legalize same sex marriage did so in 2001. It took 12 years to update that dictionary definition but that doesn't mean the marriages of those same sex couples weren't actual marriages for 12 years.

Also, no, I will not give you any respect you don't deserve. The bullshit you're spouting is incredibly disrespectful and dehumanizing for both transgirls/transwomen and cisgirls/ciswomen (defining us as the mere sum of our reproductive organs) Your opinion is disgusting and worthy any and all vitriol it receives. The fact you hide such ugliness behind rather benign verbal packaging makes it even more important to call it out as the absolute shit it is.

old comment by Concerned female

@DJ
Dictionaries do update their reference material, but no matter what you say, Chromosomal evidence is not disrespectful but scientific fact, which I note you have conveniently left out from your previous post.

As Doctor Winston stated if in the future trans-women were able to carry a child to term, they would still have a donated ovum from a genetic female. This is not about social engineering but scientific engineering, it seems that your agenda is just from your point of view and everyone else can f*** off!

Let cut to the chase as someone as bigoted as yourself only seeing one half of an argument, your offensive and verbose language does you no credit. All things being equal, the ethics of a situation that medical science has given us is almost creating two classes of female those of us born female (XX chromosomes) and those females who have undergone SRS but still have XY chromosomes.
It is not I who is disgusting and disrespectful, why don't you just look at yourself in the mirror!

old comment by DJ

@ Concerned female

Concerned female: "Chromosomal evidence is not disrespectful but scientific fact"

What's scientific fact is that most females do have XX chromosomes, but some people born with female genitalia have XY chromosomes, and some people with XX chromosomes are born with male genitalia, and some people are born with genitalia that cannot be distinguished as belonging to one sex or the other. Given that clusterfuck, it's moronic to try to chromosomally define gender (which FYI, Oxford Dictionary defines as "The state of being male or female, *typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones*")

Also, your chromosomal definition of "female" isn't even in the dictionary:

Oxford Dictionary for "female":

"Of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) which can be fertilized by male gametes"

Merriam-Webster entry for "female":

"of, relating to, or being the sex that bears young or produces eggs"

The dictionary definition of "female" does not follow your chromosome definition, nor is it inclusive to women who were born unable to produce eggs or have lost the ability at some point in their life (in a bit of chuckle-worthiness, it allows us to give male seahorses the label of "female")

The only thing you've been right about this entire time is that yes, I think you can go fuck off.

old comment by Nosgoth

I'd like to know just how much education these girls (they're under 18, they're still in school, they're girls, stfu) have actually been given on transgenderism. I know when I was in high school in the early 2000s all I knew of trans life in general was from films and tv, which often portrayed MTF women as somehow 'tricking' people into believing they're women. I know that a lot of this is still around in the media, and unless someone's actually sat down and explained to these girls what Lila Perry is and what she wants, of course their first reaction is going to be along those lines.

Speaking as someone with severely low self esteem and very uncomfortable with my body, changing rooms were hell for me because of the skinny, pretty girls deciding what women should look like, humiliating girls that were too fat, too hairy etc. a pre-op trans woman would've been the least of my problems.

@concerned female

As a feminist, surely society dictating what a woman/girl can and cannot be is the route of our problems? Just because Lila Perry was born with the wrong parts it doesn't make her a man, pre or post-op she's a woman, just because she can't have children doesn't mean shit. I know women who, due to genetic issues, struggle to carry to term, have more testosterone and grow facial hair, if someone said they can't use female facilities because they're 'not real girls' it'd be bull, and it's bull here.

just FYI I'm English and female so you can't shoot me down with 'Men/yanks just don't understand!11' nonesense.

old comment by Concerned Female

In 1999, in the book 'The whole woman', Germaine Greer published a sequel to The Female Eunuch. One chapter was titled "Pantomime Dames", wherein she states her opposition to accepting trans women who were assigned male at birth as women: "Governments that consist of very few women have hurried to recognise as women men who believe that they are women and have had themselves castrated to prove it, because they see women not as another sex but as a non-sex. No so-called sex-change has ever begged for a uterus-and-ovaries transplant; if uterus-and-ovaries transplants were made mandatory for wannabe women they would disappear overnight. The insistence that man-made women be accepted as women is the institutional expression of the mistaken conviction that women are defective males."

Transgender women such as Sandy Stone challenged the feminist conception of "biological woman". Stone worked as a sound engineer for Olivia Records from about 1974 to 1978, resigning as the controversy over a trans woman working for a lesbian-identified enterprise increased. The debate continued in 1979, Janice Raymond’s book on transsexualism called The Transsexual Empire:, which devoted a chapter to criticism of "the transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist". Groups like Lesbian Organization of Toronto then voted to exclude trans lesbians. L.O.O.T. was for womyn-born womyn only. A formal request to join the organization was made by a trans lesbian in 1978; in response, the organization voted to exclude trans women. During informal discussion, members of L.O.O.T. expressed their outrage that in their view a "sex-change he-creature...dared to identify himself as a woman and a lesbian." In their public response L.O.O.T. wrote;

A woman's voice was almost never heard as a woman's voice it was always filtered through men's voices. So here a guy comes along saying, "I'm going to be a girl now and speak for girls." And we thought, "No you're not." A person cannot just join the oppressed by fiat.

To balance the discussion:
In Woman Hating: A Radical Look at Sexuality, published in 1974, radical feminist writer and activist Andrea Dworkin called for the support of transsexuals, whom she viewed as "in a state of primary emergency" due to "the culture of malefemale discreteness". Dworkin asserted that "every transsexual has the right to survival on his/her own terms. That means every transsexual is entitled to a sex-change operation, and it should be provided by the community as one of its functions." She further opined that the phenomenon of transsexuality might disappear in a free society, giving way to entirely new identities.

We are not going to agree on these arguments, this will be my last posting on the subject. I am concerned over this matter, I wish Lila Perry all the best for the future. Unfortunately some people are only too happy and railroad the rights of the other 150 or so other females. As you may note I support Germaine Greer, Janice Raymond and the Lesbian Organization of Toronto Group.

Dworkin, Andrea (1974). Woman Hating. New York City: E. P. Dutton

Greer, Germaine, (1999), The whole woman, Transworld Publishers Ltd.

Raymond, J. (1994). The Transsexual Empire (2nd ed.). Teachers College Press. "The second edition includes a new foreword that describes her anti-trans work after the publication of her thesis project as the first edition in the late 70s."

old comment by brazenTyrant

@Concerned female
I have heard Germaine Greer's argument against transsexuality before, and it. Is. Bullshit. Two words: Trans Men.

Let's say we accept the premise that trans women are an attempt by men to denigrate women. Given that trans men exist, you're effectively claiming that women are trying to denigrate men and reduce them to a non-sex. Where's your condemnation of the plight of the poor, oppressed men having to put up with women invading their spaces?

The truth is that neither men nor women are oppressed by transsexuals. Transsexuality is a recognition of what the women's rights movement (or at least the good parts of it) have been saying all along: biological sex isn't a vast barrier that keeps men and women apart. Reproductive organs don't grant their owners special privileges and entitlements. Those who would claim otherwise are attempting to recreate the same tyrannical gender segregation that we're still escaping from, with the only difference being the people that are given the power. You can't separate two groups of people and keep them equal; we tried that and it was a colossal failure. Trying to create gender segregation is only going to hurt half the population.

Moreover, by claiming that there are impassable differences between men and women, you're opening yourself up to the same sexist rhetoric that feminism has been trying to escape from. If these impassable differences are simply biological, there's no reason why they should influence the structure of society, so any differences that would prevent trans women from being 'real' women must be mental or behavioural, and the supposed existence of mental or behavioural differences between men and women has been one of the most effective weapons in the arsenal of misogyny. In addition, it makes the complaints of people who claim falsely that all feminists are sexist towards men seem more valid.

Now, if somebody could scientifically prove that there were vast differences between male and female psychology, my previous point would be moot. It would be upsetting that men and women couldn't reach equality, but there would be nothing we could do about it. Unfortunately, the research here supports the case for trans people rather than being against it. Scientists have proven that male brains and female brains are structured slightly differently. They've also proven that it is possible for a man to be born with a female brain, and vice versa, or for a person to have some of the brain structures of the opposite sex. Before any sexists start salivating at a new opportunity to insult somebody, there's no evidence that the difference in brain structure makes anybody inherently better. Meanwhile, psychological research has shown that refusing to acknowledge a person's gender identity can have profoundly negative psychological effects, such as causing depression.

In short, there is neither a scientific nor a cultural case for transphobia, and it benefits absolutely no-one.

s0wingseas0n #fundie s0wingseas0n.tumblr.com

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