The media circus is full of high-profile men claiming to be women. Most of them didn’t ‘transition’ until mid-adulthood and there’s a very good reason for this. Parents twenty years ago realised that childhood, the teenage years – and even the early twenties – are times of tumultuous change for growing humans.
Puberty was unpleasant for most of us; hellish for some of us, but often these men have an idealised fantasy version of the elusive girlhood they feel they were denied: a ‘Victorious‘ style time of pillow fights, bubblegum and girlish confidences.
‘The Gender Speaker’ a late-transitioning man who works in Transgender Awareness Training, has this to say:
“I had missed out on the teenage years, getting all dressed up for a night out, wearing strappy tops and mini skirts.”
He seems to imagine that being a teenage girl is just one long femininity-performing trip to the disco. The reality? A friend of middle-child told me three days ago that she’d started wearing a big fluffy fleece jacket belonging to her father because, “I’m sick of men staring at my tits”. She is twelve years old.
In addition to convincing themselves that all the problems they’ve faced in life could have been avoided if only they had been born female, these men like to consider themselves experts on both ‘sides of the fence’, hence Arundel’s blogpost ‘How Women can be More Successful in a Male World’; Munroe Bergdorf’s: “Women are getting feminism wrong” and Juno Dawson’s tagline for his 2017 book ‘The Gender Games’ – The problem with men and women… from someone who has been both.”
Think about it carefully for a moment. Is it really likely that there is no history of child transition- back in the ancient literary archives of the last century and way beyond- because young people ‘didn’t have the words’?
Were men all inarticulate idiots back in the days of Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare, Dickens, Whitman and Tolkein? Were Sappho, Benn, Shelley, Brontë, Dickinson and Woolf unable to ‘find the words’ they needed to articulate their experiences?
There is a rich and profound history of writing by same-sex attracted people throughout history, but the culture of transgenderism is new and is perpetuated almost entirely by men.
Despite decades of male privilege these men suddenly demand to be addressed as and viewed as women, while in the next breath claiming, ‘I’m still the same person inside,’ or ‘I was always a woman”. However they protest to the contrary, it seems that their view of womanhood is a vague, elusive feeling that manifests itself through red lipstick, gently waved hair and tits. This is such bullshit that it is hardly a surprise that many women are offended by the claim. Woman is not a costume, it is a biological fact and to say so is not ‘defining women by their vaginas’. Woman is not something you can ‘identify’ in and out of, it is a physical state of being.
When did it become an act of hatred to state the obvious?
Let’s be really clear here, I don’t care what these men choose to wear, how they style their hair and who they do or don’t fuck. They should be safe in public spaces; they should have the same rights to housing, jobs and earned respect as anyone else. They should feel safe. Nobody deserves to be threatened, hit, or assaulted for the clothing they wear or their sexual preferences. I’m all for diversity and breaking the bonds of social convention. Men can wear make up, of course they can! Bloody good for them! It just doesn’t make them women. This current trend isn’t about ‘gender bending’, and it certainly isn’t about challenging the boundaries of gender or breaking down stereotypes.
I’ll say it again and again and again; for no matter how often I say it I’m accused of speaking with hatred – I do not hate men for thinking they can become women. I am angered by their audacity and yes, part of me pities their confusion but this is not about hating men, it is about hating a harmful ideology.
I hate the idea that women are expected to accept that ‘woman’ is some sort of inner girly feeling that can be appropriated by a man who believes that growing his hair, wearing a blouse, taking hormones and- sometimes- undergoing surgery, means that he somehow understands a collective experience of womanhood and has the right to speak on behalf of women. It does not. No man has that right and no man who cares about women would try to claim that right.
It’s intensely conservative and individualistic. Woman as a concept rather than the messy reality of life. Self transformation rather than tackling narrow confines of sexist stereotyping of both sexes’.
Dr Mary Chadwick
So now we’re going to look at a few high-profile men who claim to be women. I’m not going to say anything ‘hateful’ about them, because- let me say it one more time- I don’t actually hate them or wish them harm. I’m just going to state a few facts. I’m taking a deep breath here and reminding you that the Junos and Indias and Shons of this world are not women. They are men. They were raised as men and they grew up as men. All three of them worked in media before transition and are no strangers to male privilege.
DAWSON
In 2013 James Dawson published ‘Being a Boy‘. The Amazon blurb claims: ‘former PSHCE teacher James Dawson expertly guides boys through puberty’. In 2013, Dawson was a bit of a gay role model. Of his novel ‘Cruel Summer’ he said “Why wouldn’t straight people want to read about a devious, sexy young chap?”
In 2014 he published ‘This Book is Gay‘ and became a School Role Model for the charity Stonewall. In 2015 he announced he was going to transition, telling the Independent ‘I just want to be one of the girls’. By 2017 he had reinvented himself as Juno and was claiming”A lot of gay men are gay men as a consolation prize, because they couldn’t be women.’
Dawson’s ability for doublethink is apparent in that he can see no irony in saying of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “I can’t imagine that she’s dying to hear my views on growing up as a black person because it’s something I have no experience of.”
WILLOUGHBY
Jonathan Willoughby was in his mid-40s- divorced and the father of a teenage boy- when he disappeared from the world of broadcasting to return a few years later as India.
Infamously, he tried to force a kiss on singer/songwriter Ginuwine in a 2018 episode of Celebrity Big Brother and accused Ginuwine of transphobia when he wouldn’t kiss him back. When women in the ‘Big Brother’ house angered him, he declared loudly- in an unfortunate choice of words- “I am a woman! Let that penetrate!” His goalpost for womanhood seems to be undergoing surgery, telling Pink News in 2017, “Unless you are transitioning, stay out of the ladies. Pulling on a frock as and when the mood takes doesn’t cut it. You don’t have a God-given right to go into female-only spaces.” The irony of this seems to be lost on Willoughby, who appears to make the rules up as he goes along, while being photographed in the Ladies’ toilets.
FAYE
In 2014, aged 26, Sean Faye was writing articles for the Guardian about being a man who wore make up. (Note: the Guardian has recently removed the photograph of pre-transition Shon from the article I link to.)
In 2015 he claimed, ‘I’m not a man, I never was’.
A year later he wrote an article for the BBC on International Women’s Day in which he saw no irony in speaking of a world in where ‘femininity is still in flight from male definition, ridicule and violence’.
“Trans women live under the same system of patriarchy as other women,” writes Shon in the Guardian: in an article where he demands access to women’s refuges and domestic violence centres ‘because I now exist as a woman’. Faye seems to genuinely believe that the essence of womanhood can be encapsulated in a costume. He once told a woman on Twitter, ‘I’m a woman because I say I am, you’ve lost… enjoy your erasure”.
You may have conveniently forgotten about your 27 years of male privilege, but Shon baby, it still shows.
How this article appeared on my blog after it was edited by wordpress.
EDIT: June 2019: Several months after this article was published on my wordpress site (closed without warning by wordpress earlier this year) I noticed that the picture (above) of Faye had been removed and replaced with a little red robot. I also noticed that in the above sentence, his birth name had been removed and replaced with the word ‘redacted’.
I was given no warning about this action, or notification of it having happened.
Around the same time I was told by Twitter to remove a tweet in which I had tagged Amnesty International and Faye: “Amnesty have made a terrible mistake – don’t they realise Shon is a man?”
.
These men are not alone. The list goes on and on. And on, and on. Don’t get me started on Riley J ‘I could start a fire with all that straw,‘ Dennis or Lily ‘TERF TERF TERF‘ Madigan. The fact that some of these men are too young and disturbed for me to feel comfortable writing about them in depth doesn’t lessen the harm they are doing to women with their entitled appropriation.
The last decade has seen an explosion in men who claim to be women. The internet is bursting with men who believe that it is quite reasonable to demand that they are referred to as women and that women who disagree with them should STFU. This is not progressive; it is nothing new. This is what men have always done to women. Shut up, TERF.
So, if I might disagree with Bergadof for a moment when he claims,“what makes a woman ‘a woman’ has no definitive answer, nor does it need one”, I think we really do need to stop and ask a few questions.
So what IS a woman? How do we define ‘woman’?
Is it that she grows young inside her (but some women never have kids!) and feeds them with her breasts (but some women can’t lactate!)?
Is it her womb (but some women have had a hysterectomy!) or her breasts (but some women have lost breasts to cancer!) or her chromosomes (but some women are intersex!) or her menses (but some women never menstruate!)?
Is it her penis? No. Stop right there. Let’s get this perfectly clear. Women do not have penises. None of them. Ever. We have a word for people who were born with penises. That word is men.
” But these days it’s really complicated to define ‘woman’.“
But wait, no it isn’t actually. It isn’t at all. We all know what a woman is. A woman is an adult human female. We all came out of one. And no, that’s not to say that women who are sterile, or have had a mastectomy, or a hysterectomy are not women: of course it isn’t.
NOBODY HAS EVER SAID THAT.
Magdalen Berns introduced me to this wonderful, spectacularly succinct phrase. The fact that this phrase is fast becoming controversial sums up the absurdity of the current state of gender politics.
There is no such thing as a woman with a penis, whether she is a lesbian or not, (I discuss intersex in my article ‘What makes somebody ‘real’ trans part 2′, so I won’t digress here) but this argument is especially trying for lesbians because obviously, quote Jessie: “Euw… penises.”
So, why should we say men are women when they tell us they are? Well, basically it seems to come down to being ‘nice’. It’s kinder not to remind them that they aren’t really women. We know they’re confused, bless them, so most of us go along with it – because it’s ‘mean’ not to and we have been trained to put the needs of men and boys before our own since we were little girls.
And there’s one more thing we need to get clear. Right now. This is not harmless. This is not just ‘being nice’ to a few confused and vulnerable individuals, it’s far, far bigger than that. This is about your rights. And if you’re a bloke reading this, this is about your mother’s rights, your sisters’, your friends’, your daughters’… this is about Women’s Rights. Yes. THIS IS A WOMEN’S RIGHTS ISSUE! Why? Because this:
We women are trained from a very early age that it isn’t nice to be ‘mean’, but this feels like war. War on our spaces; war on our rights; war on our bodies. And if it’s war, so be it. I come from a long line of women who believe that women’s rights are worth fighting for. Bring it on.
Excellent. Reposted to FB and twitter. Thanks for the spotlight on several who are perpetrating and perpetuating this fraud.
It’s not a “fraud” to manifest as your preferred gender, especially if someone is out there publicly talking about their transition.
This current social struggle is not unlike previous social struggles in which people have sought to engage in self-expression outside of traditional norms – wearing long hair, wearing trousers, getting tattoos, loving people of a different race or the same sex, etc. – and faced all kinds of resistance and backlash from people afraid of change and hostile toward letting people be who they want to be.
‘manifest as your preferred gender’??? Have you been hanging out with the gender fairies again?
…completely different, in fact nothing like the legitimately oppressed seeking to claim their humanity.
gender is masculinity & femininity you dope, not man and woman.
What do masculine and feminine come from? Have you ever thought that they’re both based around maleness and femaleness and not just borne out of thin air?
The problem we have with trans gender ideology it defines woman in purely performative terms and denies biological fact. I’m not a woman because I wear a bra or have a high voice and a gracile face. I’m a woman because every cell in my body has 2 X chromosomes and my gametes were large and non motile,
Trans genderism plays up stereotypes and tries to deny biological reality. Wear a dress, change your name be happy, but don’t expect to become a fully paid up member of the adult human female club. Membership is decided at conception
No lesbian has a penis, and no straight woman has a penis. They push the former to break the “cotton ceiling” and the latter to push the “female penis”, a “man is a woman” meme.
The public needs to learn that most of these men have NO intention of losing their penises, and that TIMs’ level of violence is no different from that of regular men. Women need their safe spaces preserved, and TIMs just need to solve their problem w/o taking from women. They need to fight for their own sports, their own bathrooms, for the category of “men” to be more inclusive. But they won’t, because their identities are so fragile they want “validation” from being in women’s spaces and trying to sleep with lesbians. Plus, I really think they then automatically consider themselves as superior to us because of that male entitlement. They felt they couldn’t compete in some way with men, so they figure they’ll “become” women and be winners by taking our jobs, scholarships, sports records, “woman of the year” honors, and “be on top”. Oh, and get to tell us how to be “better women”. Pffft.
And the autogynephilia. The public really needs to learn about this. NO ONE has the right to take away our long fought for rights to help guys with their sexual fetish.
And the transing of children. Oh, don’t get me started.
Sorry for the rant. I just can’t believe we’re here. I can’t believe we have to prove that 2+2 does not equal 5.
I really think the answer is education. The public doesn’t know. They need to know all this stuff, they need to know that women, lesbians, and childhoods are being erased – all to make a minority of failed men feel good, help them in their delusions and entitlement.
Oh! And once again, you’ve hit it out of the park!!! 🙂
“I can’t believe we have to prove that 2+2 does not equal 5. ”
That’s not an accurate analogy for what you’re trying to do.
A better metaphor is that you’re trying to prevent people from trading in a “2” that doesn’t suit them, for a “3” that does.
You’re essentially saying, “I don’t care what numbers you have now, or whether the numbers you have now equate with what you’ve always felt yourself to be, I saw the ‘2+2’ you once had, and anyway your new ‘3’ isn’t a *real* 3 but still functions like a ‘2’ in some respects, so therefore I say you’re still a ‘4’ and can *never* be a ‘5’!”
Why are you so keen to keep people trapped inside biological boxes that don’t suit them?
People can dress & act how they like and follow whatever hobbies they like. People can’t change sex. Woman is not a stereotype or a costume.
Transwomen ARE NOT men.
If you insist on refusing womanhood to trans individuals, you should likewise refuse them manhood.
Trans people are trans people. They are perfectly aware they cannot go back in time and change their assigned sex at birth. They can, however, change their chemical make-up and therefore their bodies. They have their own unique experiences, just as cis women do.
This boils down to tolerance.
Continue to fight misogyny. Continue to empower women.
But discouraging and nullifying trans experiences is only adding to the division of the human race.
We must all accept that there are more than two genders.
Most people don’t realize there is a distinct difference between sex and gender. Gender is an idea that determines how we should or shouldn’t be. It is a construct designed respectively for males and females. There was never a third option for those who don’t fit that mold. So, trans women identify their gender as female, because they are feminine beings, and for so long that has been the obvious choice for them.
I believe that sex no longer exists for trans individuals. All they have is gender, because their anatomy no longer reflects their assigned sex. To attack and deny them the right to identify is cruel and is not conducive to a better world. Because gender is so important to the trans community, it only makes sense that they would try to fight gender norms and stereotypes.
I ask that you rethink your wordage. Redirect your remarks toward misogyny itself, not the individuals who may or may not possess it. Fight the lack of equality. Do not fight each other. Teach love and acceptance. I fear you are falling prey to injustice.
We all have a sex. Gender is based on social stereotypes. Most of us hate them. As you say ‘Gender is an idea that determines how we should or shouldn’t be’. Gender is harmful. There is pressure on men to be providers who never cry. There is pressure on women to be ornamental and caring. These are stereotypes and should not be encouraged or pushed upon people. Rejection of these stereotypes does not make somebody ‘trans’. Woman is not a costume.
Transwomen are Transwomen, never women. They are male, men in the bio sense. They would like to be seen as “women” in the social sense, but fact is that only happens if they pass and people think they are female. It is an illusion. Even passing they are not women. Not a single one. They should embrace their transness and not take from the sex they don’t belong too. They can stay in their lane. They made these choices and perhaps it helps in them mentally in some way to appear as the opposite sex..but they aren’t and I won’t pretend to “be kind”.
This was an interesting read.
However i would be interested to know if you believe all Transwomen to follow the stereotype you seem to have of Transwomen?
As a Transwomen myself im pretty critical of many of the vocal and more known “Transwomen” i dont even like using the term on them, they havent even put in any effort to be a “Transwomen”
However there are very quiet and not well known Transwomen who do not follow the sterotypes of these frilly men, we dont even want to be “women” to us “Transwomen” is just a term to describe ourselves in todays gender-centric society, we would love if we can just “be” you know? But unfortunately people put labels on us and it sticks, but people like me wouldnt claim to be a woman or to know what its like to be one, or even be a part of “womanhood” to us “Transwomanhood” is enough,
just like how Womanhood is used to describe the experiences of natal woman, its important that a difference be drawn between men and transwoman as we too have differing experience, hence “Transwomanhood”
I Don’t Know, i would just be interested to know if you truely believe all Transwoman are privlidged assholes like Lily Madagard for example
Alina, I can’t speak for the author, but I can tell you that, yes, most radfems know that there are a lot of transwomen who just want to live their lives, and who understand that they are not females. We know that they aren’t the problem. And there are some transwomen, like Miranda Yardley and Jenn Smith, who get a LOT of bs for siding with gender critical feminists.
#notalltrans strikes again.
Rather than expecting Lily, or indeed any woman, to defend their experiences of trans identified males; perhaps you yourselves could start calling these privileged nellies out. It’d be nice to see some accountability for bullshit being demanded by the other sex.
Check m my twitter @Alina_Starkova_
I 100% support womens rights and have been branded a TERF by Lily Madigan. Put on two blocklists etc…. not all of us believe in the tra cult
Lily will speak for herself I expect, but just to let you know that I for one (gender critical adult human female) don’t think all transwomen are like the high profile activists. I completely agree with you being able to be yourself in safety and contentment, and to be respected as all people should be. Doesn’t sound as if you’re trying to take women’s places or spaces which is what is getting us angry and scared.
The critique is against transgenderism and all who promote that misogynist ideology. Not all transwomen do so; in fact, the vast majority of people who subscribe to the ideology aren’t even “trans”. I’m pleased to know that you are not among them.
I don’t believe that all trans-identified men are ‘privileged assholes’, but I also don’t believe that a man can ever ‘become’ a woman & to suggest that is possible is both sexist and regressive. A man can never know how a woman feels because there is no one specific experience of womanhood. What makes a female a female is her biology.
Agreed, us Transwoman need to be content with being Transwomen, im quite proud of my identity, i dont need TRAs declaring me invalid just because im aware im male and not a woman
I don’t think women need to think of themselves in relation to ‘transwomen’ at all, or explain their views on ‘transwomen ‘ It’s perfectly acceptable for us to just say we are women – i.e. Adult Human Females who exist independently of men, who are of equal worth to men. We can campaign for ourselves, organise for ourselves and not care about you at all. After all, men have been doing that for themselves for millennia.
Trans women and trans men who just want to get in living their best life in peace and without harrassment but with opportunity and affirmative care are never a problem, I have never personally a trans person who wants other than that. The problem is the ideologues who insist on calling us “ cis” those who want to invade female spaces without recognition of the impact they might have on women. The most pertinent example I can think to illustrate this is changing rooms in sports centres. Many women have suffered sexual abuse and women from some cultures can’t be present with male bodied people yet there is a perverse demand from some performative trans women to be naked, packing a tumescent penis ( Lia Thomas) in an open changing room, just because they can. There are loads of centres with closed cubicle mixed changing but that isn’t affirming enough.
I wish you happiness
Excellent article. Thank you Lily. Transwomen are men, it’s as simple as that.
“they should have the same rights to housing, jobs and earned respect as anyone else”
Why should I have to hire a delusional femulator, let alone respect him?
Exactly. Why would anyone?
Love this article, you write eloquently and succinctly on a difficult subject. I’m going to save it and share with members of my family.
Excellent summary of the whole issue. Thank you for your work
Great piece thank you
Misogyny.
Yes, transwomen are the biggest proponents of misogyny; they’re merely MRAs in drag.
Men are not women. Women don’t have penises. #Biologicalreality is not misogyny.
Misogyny
It’s absolutely Misogyny
Hi Alina, I’m not Lily but as I agree with her views I’ll try and give you my answer to your question. I used to believe that all transwomen where like the people you describe yourself as – a person who dealt with their gender dysphoria in the best and healthiest way they knew how: by honestly (and usually quietly) living according to their personal vision of (trans)womanhood, whether that included medically transitioning all the way to bottom surgery or not. Being true to what felt right to them.
Where appropriate I consented to share spaces with such persons on the basis of mutual respect and consideration. We acknowledged and accepted that we each also needed our own spaces as our experiences of life differed (including of course also those experiences that differed because of our different biology). I wouldn’t have presumed to tell you about your struggle and you wouldn’t have presumed to tell me about mine because neither could ever live the other’s struggle. But I easily accepted that there were distressing times for you because of your gender dysphoria and that this was a real thing with real consequences in your life, both before and after coming out. And those like you accepted that women as a class – worldwide and here at home – and I as an individual female needed to be able to center our biology in our struggle for equality and rights as our sex is the basis of our oppression.
Then I came across those who appropriate womanhood, riding roughshod over both your experiences as a transsexual and my experiences as a woman. Who seek to redefine me and tell me I embraced my oppression because I am a woman. Who denigrate your struggles and experiences and seem to have little other than contempt for transsexuals.
And what is incredibly hard and getting increasingly harder is to hold onto to the thought, no – the knowledge, that the transwomen I knew still exist and that they are who I have always wanted to protect from discrimination and who I have always supported in their struggles.
Which is why this is a clarion call to you: we need you to come to our aid. Help protect us, support us and please speak up. The backlash if you and me don’t do this will hurt us both – and all those like us, whether they are aware of what’s going on or even want to know about it or not. We will all be affected.
Women and girls will lose some of the rights and protections our grandmothers and greatgrandmothers fought so hard for and you may well be affected badly if the aim of demedicalising succeeds and if this debate further strengthens those on the extreme conservative end of society.
You will still need our support and protection as we now need yours, but will those women give it who have never known transwomen like you if you stay invisible? I doubt it.
If you check my twitter @Alina_Starkova_ you will see not only my anti TRA tweets, but ive retweeted many threads by other anti tra transsexuals, you can have a look to see that we still very much support you, we just get quieted a lot,
I always refer to humans who seriously see themselves as the other sex as transsexuals rather than transgender. They may have surgeries or they may not, but they pass and, for one example, women would never know they are not sharing the toilet facilities with another woman. The first transsexual I ever met was very quiet and retiring, nothing like these loudmouthed creeps who apparently never learned basic hygiene.
I’ll have a look at your Twitter, Alina. Thank you.
Transwomen are men. I say this as a man and I know that women and men differ. And which is which.
And as the son of a mother I know what women are.
And as the partner of a woman I know what women are.
And as a father of a daughter I know what women are.
And as a brother of a sister I know what women are.
And needless to say, as the son-in-law of a mother-in-law I know what women are – so can make ‘mother-in-law jokes’, should I so wish, while no-one, man or woman, ever makes father-in-law jokes. 🙁
Misogyny
Thank you!!
Great article Lily – thank you!!
Sadly it’s always been a problem to speak one’s mind, if you don’t say the right words for the powers that be at the time. For a long time when Men complained about parts of Feminism we were told to shut up and “stay in our lane” but now that some Men are playing at being a woman and taking away resources and female only spaces, suddenly many of these feminists that wanted men to shut up in the past suddenly want us allies. I am of course generalizing unlike Intersectionalists I don’t subscribe to identity politics. Sad to see it going this way but many of us warned you this was going to happen, and now the T’s have totally hi jacked the LGB and Women’s identities.. it’s going to be a hard fight to roll back all the nonsense that is being enshrined in law…
you are not talking about feminists, as real feminists don’t include males in feminism. no matter what they identify as.
Tell Jess that I want to marry her mother, I so love her writing!!! 🙂
While you, Lily Maynard, are entitled to your opinion, as biased, toxic, super-ignorant and STUPID as it is, what I don’t agree with is getting the STUPID TITLE of this ignorant article as a search result, on the top-10 results for a Google search with the word transgender in it.
A PERSON CAN BE BORN WITH A 80%+ FEMALE BRAIN AND 80%+ or even 100% MALE GENITALS, did you IGNORANT EVEN KNOW THAT AT ALL? That is biology, that is SCIENCE.
Also you MTF HATER, “forgot “that there are TONS OF FTMS in the whole world, do you even know what that is? That’s the opposite side of an MTF: a Female to Male transgender person. A person born with female genitals and 80% or more of a male brain. SCIENTIFIC FACT AS WELL.
So of course if a person is born with a PHYSICAL DEFECT and they HAVE TO PRETEND TO LIVE THE LIFE of a gender they don’t belong to because 1) Family and society forces them to and 2) at puberty they start PHYSICALLY producing the wrong hormones, thus confusing their brains to an insane degree. A woman, a MTF, producing testosterone. A man, an MTF, producing estrogen. Then their lives become a total mess, so much so that they mate hate themselves and never transition, or start really late in life, adter living a miserable life in a wrong role.
You know NOTHING AT ALL about gender dysphoria. You use some stupid high-profile celebrities with a loud mouth –again, “strangely” just MTFs, no FTMs at all you biased psychotic, where the heck is Chaz Bono and the likes of him in your poor full of hate article??? — to “justify” your ridiculous claim.
The irony here is that there are MILLIONS of MTFs, —which you happen to hate so much—, that LOOK PHYSICALLY, AND ARE MENTALLY WAY, WAAAAAY MORE FEMALE AND FEMININE THAN YOU ARE, WAS AND WILL EVER BE, and if you come across them in a women’s bathroom, dressing or locker room, even the public showers, you and your peanut-sized brain will NEVER EVER become aware that you were actually dealing with an MTF and not a cis woman which you think are the only people entitled to “be a woman for real.”. Those women, that are actually MTF transwomen but nobody ever realizes that, are the STEALTH ones, and FYI they are the majority of MTFs and FTMs, who don’t give a crap about activism, in fact they HATE their condition and they only want to be what they are: a woman or a man in their real daily life. One that was born with a physical defect (wrong genitals) and had to, most possibly, go through hell for many many years to change him or herself physically, socially and legally into what they really ARE. And I repeat it, they are STEALTH, thus a simpleton super-ignorant, misinformed, close minded, peanut brain sized full of hate of the unknown person like you would never ever realize that. IGNORANT.
Well. That escalated quickly.
Of course it escalated! You have no idea ehat you are talking about and your “facts” are not facts, at all. Just personal, ignorant and bigoted opinions. See, people like you let ignorance and hate rule over the cold hard facts that science has provided. Something they have studied for an immense amount of time. Sorry, but you should educate yourself on a matter before trying to make yourself heard or sound intelligent. Try reading Harvards study on the matter. They even have diagrams explaining the brain makeup – just in case reading and learning something is just a bit too much for to handle.
TRANS AND PROUD?
Well, I’ve read through the accusations and insults and I think I’ve found the substance of your comment. Could I ask which Harvard study you are recommending I read? Do you mean this one, with it’s wonderful rainbow gender blotches? I have read it already. At the point where she wrote that transgender people were ‘neither exclusively masculine or feminine’, I realised that either we are all transgender or she was talking about personality. http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/gender-lines-science-transgender-identity/
Siona,
Of course I would have the courtesy to refer to you as ‘She’, but that does not mean that I believe that transitioning allowed you to lose the Y chromosome. You still have it and evidently, from her extreme aggression, so does Viviane. You don’t switch to XX chromosomes by ‘performing’ as a woman. The nasty aggression in these debates arise from that male chromosome. There is also an ugly competitiveness with biological women, trans women seem to wish to prove themselves more truly ‘female’ than biological women.
I had to stop reading that rant… it seemed just like being shouted over. How novel. Lol
Anywaaayyyy Facts don’t care about your feelings.:) Die mad about it.
By the way, you sound awfully unladylike. You see what us REAL women have to go through? At least twanz wahmen can de transition.? How convenient.
Dear Viviane, so great that you have to start off your remarks with a personal attack. Always a sure sign of what’s to follow. Quick question, you state: ” A PERSON CAN BE BORN WITH A 80%+ FEMALE BRAIN AND 80%+ or even 100% MALE GENITALS,” Please quote your scientific sources, publications, dates and authors”. As a mtf I am always curious when I read this and have as yet, never gotten the names of any study that confirms this. Please do share. Rene Jax
Exactly. I was going to mention female to male transgender. Mentioning this completely eradicates the so called feminist argument. That argument, as usual, is wrong and completely one sided.
Except FTMs have exactly zero bearing on the argument at hand – of entitled males seeking to claim not just trans, but also redefine woman to include males. FTMs are a subset of adult human females i.e. women. MTFs are a subset of adult human males i.e. men. Everyone is aware of these facts. Not all facts are relevant to every argument. If men want to complain about entitled FTMs in sport, private spaces, prisons, short lists or any other – that’s on them. That’s a “men’s rights” issue…. ah, but now the contradiction in saying that mentioning FTMs “eradicates the so called feminist argument” becomes very clear. Do you see the flaw in your thinking? Feminism is not about men’s rights. Gay men do complain about FTMs invading their dating sites… but other than that – I don’t think men care one whit, but even if they do – it has absolutely nothing to do with any feminist argument.
“They should be safe in public spaces; they should have the same rights to housing, jobs and earned respect as anyone else. They should feel safe. Nobody deserves to be threatened, hit, or assaulted for the clothing they wear or their sexual preferences. I’m all for diversity and breaking the bonds of social convention. Men can wear make up, of course they can! Bloody good for them!”
Part of you knows that using rhetoric that portrays transwomen as disturbingly delusional, entitled men who are threatening to women and girls, will result in their discrimination, harrassment, disrespect and endangerment.
I mean if we say for argument’s sake that all those things were true about transgender women, then why would any business employ them? Why would a burly man not physically throw them out of the ladies’ toilet? Wouldn’t he be a hero for doing that? It’s like you’re asking people to see them as a bunch of weirdos but also treat them with respect. Why would that ever happen ever?
Trans rights activists immediately become Mens Rights Activists under this paradigm, a synonym for misogynist in feminist activism, and instantly dismissable.
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Why do I need to look ‘feminine’ to be a woman? I was born a woman, so I am a woman. End of.
Yes, “transwomen” are ridiculous. No, real women are not oppressed. White Western women are the most privileged people in the world. Lily doesn’t like transwomen appropriating female privilege. So, she claims their existence somehow undermines her rights as a woman. She doesn’t explain how that’s even possible. Bottom line: some mentally ill men covet female privilege and use hormones to impersonate women. Has bo effect on real women or their privilege.
I explain at length exactly why I believe men appropriating women’s rights is a problem for women, in several of my articles. Others do it better than I. Fair Play for Women is one of the best resources out there. You can check them out here: https://fairplayforwomen.com/
“Transwomen are ridiculous.”
Sorry you think so. I think believing that they are ridiculous, is itself ridiculous. Trans people are bravely taking a huge risk in their lives to be who they feel themselves to most authentically be. It is a shame that some people are still uncomfortable with or feel threatened by people reinventing themselves, or their gender presentation, in this way. People should be encouraged to become who they want to be, not have doors slammed in their faces.
“Lily doesn’t like transwomen appropriating female privilege.”
With this sentence, on the other hand, I think you nailed it. But I suspect it goes even deeper. The ideology to which she appears to subscribe doesn’t even want to acknowledge the *existence* of female privilege, let alone the possibility that we live in a society which, far from being a “patriarchy”, is one in which it is in many respects more advantageous to be a woman (or to present as female) than to be a man (or present as male).
Misogyny
This article is transphobic and hateful. I will not be responding to any comments on this comment so no point in debating me here. I am completely disgusted with this article and all the people’s comments here who agree with it. Educate yourselves, open your minds, and stop promoting fear. Because of articles like this and people like you, our children grow up in a world where people are killed just for identifying with the gender that’s different than what our body parts supposedly determine at birth. Just look into the science on gender and the most updated research and you will find that you are most definitely incorrect in your statement that transgender women are men. I’m sure none of you have killed anyone because of these opinions but honestly, look at the statistics and shut your mouths. You are basically part and parcel to murder if you are condoning this sort of attitude. What if one of your children ended up being trans and was murdered by someone else who felt threatened by them and denied their gender was real? Would you still be saying the things you’re saying? Most of you have never met a trans person. Clearly none of you actually care about them. They are not freaks of nature or predators.
There’s no hate in this article and I’m not scared of trans people. I’ve been educating myself about this for over two years now, reading articles from ‘both sides’ and engaging with people who both agree and disagree with me. I hope for our children to grow up in a world where liking the passtimes and clothes associated with the opposite sex doesn’t lead them to be told they need ‘fixing’ to conform. Now THAT would be progressive. I have looked at the statistics. I will not accept your claim that I’m guilty of murder because I won’t comply with someone else’s delusion. One of my children did identify as trans – that’s what brought me here. I have met many trans-identifed people and most of those who I’ve met were pleasant and articulate. I care about all human beings, and also about protecting the rights of kids to be themselves without medical intervention, and the sex-segregated spaces of women and girls.
If a young person wants to transition, you are not “protecting their rights” by seeking to deny them the opportunity to do so.
Either believe that men impersonating women are actually women, or else people will be murdered! Quite an ethical dillemna, lol!
Terris you are an ignorant, arrogant virtue signaller. Men hate women enough to the point where you’re scared to even admit facts. Trans wAhMen ARE men, that’s why it’s easier for them than legit women to be misogynists. Have you checked the GenderCynical reddit. Trans women can be nice, but they can also be woman hating snakes. Why? because they’re men who know women are generally easier to manipulate than men and will submit to them so long as they can exploit the trans identity for their own personal gain.
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I don’t think the general public realizes how much the exploitation of the trans identity has ruined the LGBT community all around. They’re not trans, just trenders. Allowing males into female-only spaces immediately spells bad news. Women are more likely to be violently assaulted around males. And it’s less likely to be reported if the male iDeNtiFiEZ as female. You have to dig for “trans” on female attack stories bc mainstream media won’t cover them. Legit trans people are being exploited by trans trenders and it’s dangerous to women.
Great article, good writing, thank you.
Is the [Redacted] from you, or did WordPress.com sneak in and edit your post? I’m not sure why they would bother, given that you still have the links.
Woprdpress did it.
I find it quite sad that anyone would feel the need to publish this article. Why do we have to put anyone into a ‘box’. People are people, we all have different experiences whether male or female. I feel myself and make my own decisions. This article only serves to highlight gender differences. Whilst I am not saying gender differences don,t exist, we should be fighting for each others cause not trying to place everyone into boxe’s. I do know, that any type of discrimination is abhorrent as history as proved several times. A large woman has a different experience in life to a thin woman, etc etc, how far do we take things. Which one is is a normal woman? Normality does not really exist, it is created, we feel how we feel. This article diminishes a trans woman’s experiences to nothing. Yes, they have had different experiences, but just as difficult as any other womans in different ways.
Totally agree with the ‘no need for boxes’ aspect of what you’re saying. Men are actually celebrating the idea of boxes when they call themselves women: trying to jump into a different ‘box’ because they feel the ‘man’ box doesn’t suit them. Why have boxes at all? Male and female describe our bodies, the rest is cultural stereotypes which harm everyone, but mostly women. At no point have I ever suggested anybody should be or act ‘normal’ which does make me wonder if you actually read my piece. Do you think black people should celebrate white people pretending they’re black if they ‘feel that way’? I doubt it somehow. That would be racist, wouldn’t it, it would be cultural appropriation? Finally, I don’t diminish a transwoman’s experience by writing this piece any more than you diminish mine by criticising it. Human beings do not exist to validate each other’s view of themselves.
We need this article because transwomen are men.
Transmen are women.
It is not hate speech to cite biological reality. Women do not suffer prostate cancer. Men do.
Why seek to impose these limits on the human experience, rather than embrace the possibilities of reshaping yourself and reinventing yourself that scientific and cultural progress have made possible?
Even if you don’t accept the idea of gender dysphoria – strongly documented though it is – and don’t believe anyone is born with gender characteristics that don’t conform to their sense of who they really are, what is so objectionable about someone wanting to change their sex/gender and call themselves a woman or a man when they were not previously seen that way? Why is that so threatening to you?
You talk as if biology determines everything, but fortunately that is no longer the case, if it ever was. We should celebrate the fact that medical advances now allow us to change biologically inherited characteristics in ourselves with which we are not happy, not try to keep people trapped in those boxes for life!
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Anyone born with a penis is male. Anyone born with a vagina is female.
excessive makeup, crossdressing, hormone pills wigs and weaves ex large breast implants does not make a woman.
crop haircuts steroids hormone pills pumping irons growing a beard and cross dressing does not make you a man.
thankyou LILY for having the guts to say and write this article. I am not a hater just a woman tired of men stating they are more woman than me by overacting and drama queens. Go back to being what you were born as if you are afraid of being killed. as a woman I fear violence too. FROM MEN. If I associate with another race and culture I am still NOT OF THAT RACE OR CULTURE no matter what I do to myself .
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It’s weird to see so much conversation around transitioned males, when in my country most transitioners and especially wannabes are women wanting to become men or getting hormones for being more “non binary”.
And yet, I understand the problem with men trying into women’s places and using male entitlement and privilege.
There isn’t such a problem. You have made it up
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What about hermaphrodites (an intersex condition in which an individual is born with ovarian and testicular tissue) – Are they males, females or neither?
I’ve been on the internet for 25 years, and rarely have I read a piece as important, articulate, passionate, and as compelling as this.
Bravo, Lily Maynard – you are a true thinker.
Live long and strong, lady.
Well. Thank you very much!
You might enjoy this one: from article on Why Het Men Take on TW Escorts
https://rollingout.com/2017/08/02/3-reasons-men-choosing-transgender-side-chick/
‘1. *Looks* According to porn star TS Madison during an interview with rolling out;
“A transgender personifies a genetic woman, some say we over-exaggerate a woman because we go to the extreme of larger breasts, hips, and buttocks but at the end of the day we still look like women.
*We are the ones who put in the time to look like a woman*.”‘
AKA women don’t look like women, unless we take time to MAKE ourselves look like women.
NewsFlash:
…. ALL WOMEN LOOK LIKE WOMEN…. BECAUSE WE ARE WHAT WOMEN LOOK LIKE… BECAUSE WE ARE WOMEN!
Though I kind of appreciate Ms. Madison’s honesty in recognizing and acknowledging the costumery of ‘femininity’. A budding GC person perhaps?