Trans women sadness

[Bronte]

Maybe real women feel threatened buy trans-women...could it be jealousy or invasion of their territory. I know some trans-women can look very attractive and make more effort with their appearance whilst many real women just let themselves go.

Transwomen are real women. Except for the fictional transwomen. Perhaps the word you're looking for is 'cisgender'?

Trans- women are exactly that, trans. I was talking real women meaning genetic women, ya know the one's with ovaries.

[Kappamaki]

Maybe real women feel threatened buy trans-women...could it be jealousy or invasion of their territory. I know some trans-women can look very attractive and make more effort with their appearance whilst many real women just let themselves go.

Transwomen are real women. Except for the fictional transwomen. Perhaps the word you're looking for is 'cisgender'?

Trans- women are exactly that, trans. I was talking real women meaning genetic women, ya know the one's with ovaries.

I'm trying to tell you that, by saying "real women" to mean "women who aren't trans," you're effectively saying transgender women aren't real women. That's why we have words like "cisgender," so you can avoid transphobic language.

[dash]

Maybe real women feel threatened buy trans-women...could it be jealousy or invasion of their territory. I know some trans-women can look very attractive and make more effort with their appearance whilst many real women just let themselves go.

Trans women are real women.

[Tarfeather]

I think this comes down to the intersection of misogyny and cisnormativity. The male is privileged over the female, so when women behave in a manly fashion, that's more acceptable than when men behave in a feminine fashion. In the eyes of the cisnormative public, a DMAB trans-person is rejecting privilege in a way that DFAB trans-people don't, so it's a greater challenge to the norm. This is why we have positive/neutral words like "butch" and "tomboy" for masculine women and only insulting terms like "sissy" for feminine men. This is why DMAB trans people face a disproportionate level of violence even among the trans set. This is also why transwomen are represented in the media more than transmen - it's more sensational.

Funny, in the screwed up version of genderthink that seems to be present in my mind, it actually works the opposite way. According to that mindset, a man is only "privileged" if he's strong and successful. Meanwhile, a woman always has a "worth" - as an object/prize. A transgender man is still a woman, so still a prize/object, its value is just a bit "lessened" by that. A transgender woman is still a man, a competitor, who is unrightfully trying to become "valuable" by pretending they're an object.. err, woman.

... What.

Jesus christ, compared to my rational state of being, my emotional perception of gender is a mess.

[dash]

Maybe real women feel threatened buy trans-women...could it be jealousy or invasion of their territory. I know some trans-women can look very attractive and make more effort with their appearance whilst many real women just let themselves go.

Transwomen are real women. Except for the fictional transwomen. Perhaps the word you're looking for is 'cisgender'?

Trans- women are exactly that, trans. I was talking real women meaning genetic women, ya know the one's with ovaries.

http://www.glaad.org/reference/transgender

I suggest you read through the whole thing, but especially the "problematic terms" section as it explains why "genetic women" (or defining real women as being women with ovaries) is problematic.

Caveat: "It" really is the preferred pronoun for some people, so if they tell you this, then that section doesn't apply.

[Bronte]

I'm entitled to my opinions, if you chose to skew my words and interpret them as transphobic or whatever, then that's up to you, but don't tell me what I can and cannot say, or have opinions on.

[butterflydreams]

Maybe real women feel threatened buy trans-women...could it be jealousy or invasion of their territory. I know some trans-women can look very attractive and make more effort with their appearance whilst many real women just let themselves go.

Trans women are real women.

And you'd better believe that I'd think exactly that about every single trans woman I ever meet (and obviously trans men being men as well)...but I don't think I'd ever be able to think of myself that way. Even when I see "her" in the mirror. Even when I'm wearing "her" clothes and just feeling so deliciously present. Even when I'm carrying my purse/bag around town and feeling great. Even when I have dreams about seeing myself with hair that's the right length and feeling so happy. It never feels like it'll be enough. I'll always know. Won't I?

I'm entitled to my opinions, if you chose to skew my words and interpret them as transphobic or whatever, then that's up to you, but don't tell me what I can and cannot say, or have opinions on.

I knew what you meant, and I didn't interpret it as transphobic. Kappamaki is right that 'cisgender' is probably the term you're looking for. I certainly know of some trans women who wouldn't be bothered by saying that they were trans women. I think as long as it's understood that that's a subset of the set "women", then you're good. Others won't find that ok because to them being understood and seen as a woman is crucial. After all, they're nothing but. I personally don't know what that feels like, but if it's anything like how I feel when someone refers to me as a man...I'd really encourage people not to do it because it really does hurt.

[Kappamaki]

I'm entitled to my opinions, if you chose to skew my words and interpret them as transphobic or whatever, then that's up to you, but don't tell me what I can and cannot say, or have opinions on.

I didn't mean that you're being intentionally transphobic. I just pointed out that your language was problematic and explained why so you could be better about expressing yourself without inadvertently coming off as offensive in the future. My beef was with your words, not your opinions.

[dash]

I'm entitled to my opinions, if you chose to skew my words and interpret them as transphobic or whatever, then that's up to you, but don't tell me what I can and cannot say, or have opinions on.

I didn't mean that you're being intentionally transphobic. I just pointed out that your language was problematic and explained why so you could be better about expressing yourself without inadvertently coming off as offensive in the future. My beef was with your words, not your opinions.

Yeah, exactly. This isn't about your opinions, as far as I can tell. This is about pointing out, "hey, when you refer to cis women as 'real women' to contrast them with trans women, this can be hurtful to trans women, and here's why, and here's some language you can use instead that won't be offensive, and here's a brochure explaining that."

Now if what you mean to say is that your opinion is that trans women aren't real women, then yes, we have a problem.

[Jockey]

Point by point:

1. Transphobia isn't pretty. People feel vulnerable around gender (and sexuality) and lash out; other people see trans people as easy marks for their hatred.

2. Feminist thought has long included a number of (sometimes contradictory) elements that lend themselves towards hostility to trans people, and especially to trans women, including the following:

- A belief that women are inherently superior to men.

- A belief that gender is wholly attributable to socialization and therefor transgender cannot exist.

- A belief that men are threatening, that women need women's spaces, and that encroachment in those spaces is extremely threatening.

- A belief that women can do whatever they want (including acting as feminine or masculine as they want) but that men have responsibilities to women

- Frequently, a valuation of masculine behaviors and rewards so that women are encouraged to do traditionally male things, but nobody is encouraged to do traditionally female things.

3. As a trans man, I can tell you that hostility from men towards trans men exists, but that it tends to come more from conservatives who really want male only spaces, and/or who define their masculinity only via their dicks.

4.While it is my sense that the feminist community is more overtly welcoming of trans men, a lot of time the welcome seems to me to be an insult. For example, a local feminist group announced that it welcomed women and trans people. No... I don't think so. Or I'm assumed to be or to come from the lesbian community.

My aunt once defended my mother's hostility to me by saying that as a feminist, she of course had wanted daughters.

5. Gender segregated spaces help people- especially heterosexual people- to relax more (no impressing the ladies/the men) and to focus better on non-sexual matters. I think they ought to be much more limited, but I'm not in favor of their abolition entirely.

6. I think you might really like reading Whipping Girl by Julia Serano

[dash]

Point by point:

1. Transphobia isn't pretty. People feel vulnerable around gender (and sexuality) and lash out; other people see trans people as easy marks for their hatred.

2. Feminist thought has long included a number of (sometimes contradictory) elements that lend themselves towards hostility to trans people, and especially to trans women, including the following:

- A belief that women are inherently superior to men.

- A belief that gender is wholly attributable to socialization and therefor transgender cannot exist.

- A belief that men are threatening, that women need women's spaces, and that encroachment in those spaces is extremely threatening.

- A belief that women can do whatever they want (including acting as feminine or masculine as they want) but that men have responsibilities to women

- Frequently, a valuation of masculine behaviors and rewards so that women are encouraged to do traditionally male things, but nobody is encouraged to do traditionally female things.

3. As a trans man, I can tell you that hostility from men towards trans men exists, but that it tends to come more from conservatives who really want male only spaces, and/or who define their masculinity only via their dicks.

4.While it is my sense that the feminist community is more overtly welcoming of trans men, a lot of time the welcome seems to me to be an insult. For example, a local feminist group announced that it welcomed women and trans people. No... I don't think so. Or I'm assumed to be or to come from the lesbian community.

My aunt once defended my mother's hostility to me by saying that as a feminist, she of course had wanted daughters.

5. Gender segregated spaces help people- especially heterosexual people- to relax more (no impressing the ladies/the men) and to focus better on non-sexual matters. I think they ought to be much more limited, but I'm not in favor of their abolition entirely.

6. I think you might really like reading Whipping Girl by Julia Serano

I love this post.

[Bronte]

I'm entitled to my opinions, if you chose to skew my words and interpret them as transphobic or whatever, then that's up to you, but don't tell me what I can and cannot say, or have opinions on.

I didn't mean that you're being intentionally transphobic. I just pointed out that your language was problematic and explained why so you could be better about expressing yourself without inadvertently coming off as offensive in the future. My beef was with your words, not your opinions.

Yeah, exactly. This isn't about your opinions, as far as I can tell. This is about pointing out, "hey, when you refer to cis women as 'real women' to contrast them with trans women, this can be hurtful to trans women, and here's why, and here's some language you can use instead that won't be offensive, and here's a brochure explaining that."

Now if what you mean to say is that your opinion is that trans women aren't real women, then yes, we have a problem.

Trans women aren't women with ovaries, take that however you like.

[dash]

I'm entitled to my opinions, if you chose to skew my words and interpret them as transphobic or whatever, then that's up to you, but don't tell me what I can and cannot say, or have opinions on.

I didn't mean that you're being intentionally transphobic. I just pointed out that your language was problematic and explained why so you could be better about expressing yourself without inadvertently coming off as offensive in the future. My beef was with your words, not your opinions.

Yeah, exactly. This isn't about your opinions, as far as I can tell. This is about pointing out, "hey, when you refer to cis women as 'real women' to contrast them with trans women, this can be hurtful to trans women, and here's why, and here's some language you can use instead that won't be offensive, and here's a brochure explaining that."

Now if what you mean to say is that your opinion is that trans women aren't real women, then yes, we have a problem.

Trans women aren't women with ovaries, take that however you like.

Well, sure, but a lot of cis women don't have ovaries, either. (Anyone who's had them surgically removed, say for medical reasons.) I don't see anyone putting those women through the "ovaries test" in order to be talked about as women, or "real women." That's reserved for trans women.

Also, unless you have access to someone's private medical files, or unless they tell you about their surgical history, you have no idea if a cis woman has ovaries. People don't ask. They don't care. Someone's OBYGN would care, but that's different.

[Jockey]

Trans women aren't women with ovaries, take that however you like.

I have ovaries and I'm not a woman. If you think that having ovaries makes me a woman, then I think you are reducing womanhood to female reproductive capacity (which, since my ovaries are not and never have been, functional, I don't actually have anyways) and that reducing womanhood to female reproductive capacity is demeaning to women, and frankly, I don't think that's really what you meant to do.

Trans women are different from cisgendered women (and trans men are different from cisgendered men) in one definite way- in the having or not-having of a gender identity that meets what those who raised them expected from them.

Trans women are different from cisgendered women (and trans men are different from cisgendered men) in a multitude of statistical ways that don't apply to all trans gendered women or cisgendered men. For instance, the average transgender woman is a few inches taller than the average cisgendered woman. However, 6 foot tall women may be cisgender, and 5 feet tall women may be transgender. Cisgendered women typically have ovaries but not nearly always. Transgender women rarely have ovaries, but not never (a person born with ovaries but raised male who then identifies female would be a transgender woman, and yes such people exist).

[Heart]

I've had MtF sentiments this past week (Paradox revealed my dream in another thread). I've had the goal of Gender Nullification surgery for a while now, but recently a full transition seems to be taking the leading thoughts.

After reading this thread, I'm extremely discouraged to go forward. I knew that being almost any gender variant outside the binary is difficult but from what I read here, everyone that is anyone will hate me for whom I feel I want to be. I genuinely feel sick.

*Sigh* Deep breaths.

Steph, for what it's worth, I think you would be a beautiful, drop dead gorgeous female-bodied person. But that's just hypothetical; you are under no obligation to do anything. Transitioning is not easy. You are under no obligation to transition just because society would benefit from more trans narratives and visibility, if that is what you are worried about. Not everyone that wants to transition does, and that's ok. They're just as valuable and their perception of their bodies are just as legitimate.

There are as many reasons to transition as there are transitioned people and people that want to transition. There are as many reasons not to as there are people who have not or do not desire to transition. Ultimately, you get to choose, and don't we live in an amazing world for that to even be an option? We've got a long way to go, but we've also come a long way.

Change can be glacial, but nothing denies progress to a glacier.

[snip]

I think we all have our skepticism about things just because of the way we were raised. When I first entered the community, I thought MtF's were guys and FtM's were girls. Now I know better. But I still haven't gotten past the idea that how one looks doesn't justify one's internal gender. I went on a trip to meet other trans* college students and the fully transitioned transsexuals, they were convincing so I was sure how they wanted to be identified. Those that still looked like their birth sex, it was hard for me to refer to them as what they wanted. I didn't mean to have ill will, but I had thoughts of who was "trans enough" and who wasn't. I didn't mean to hurt anyone but cisheteronormative society taught us that.

I was always the logical one but the queer community and tolerance seems more like a respect more than logic thing to me. I'm fond of my MtF friend, but sometimes I mess up my pronouns when I'm talking to someone who knows her but not her identity. Despite my friend's transition, there are feminine features she'll never get (or have a long time getting), but I encourage her anyway. My brain is in conflict with my want for everyone to be happy.

I am fond of saying that I am somewhat acephobic myself, when people apologize to me when I point out something they said that alienated me. Just because I'm ace doesn't mean I haven't internalised society's biases just as much as thay have. Maybe even more, because I think about it so much more. I fight it daily, and I think I'm getting better, but that doesn't mean it's gone.

I'm ace. And I'm also acephobic and discriminatory. In many ways, I think everyone is to a certain extent. And this works for gender too, I'm just less "out" about gender (one battle at a time, eh?).

It's hard, and I sympathise. But the simple act of trying, as far as I am concerned, makes you golden. So never give up, because I have a sneaking suspicion that the battle may never end. Just because we can't acheive perfection doesn't mean we can't try for something better :D

[Heart]

Double post: I missed the entire second page for some reason :P

I love the constructive tone taken right now to the issue of use of "real women" to mean women born with ovaries. I want to thank everyone for trying to keep this civil, and I know it's a topic that comes close to many people here's hearts. I see the effort, and I appreciate it. This is a large part of what makes AVEN the community that it is.

Bronte, I hope you don't feel attacked too much. The problem with the term "real women" is that, no matter how you yourself intended to use it, others have used it to be discriminatory and mean towards trans women. As such, it probably initiates a sequence of emotional hurt and defensiveness among a lot of trans women who have come across that usage before. That probably makes it really hard for them to read your posts as they stand. It's just the unfortunate society that we live in.

It's not a problem necessarily with you. It's a problem with the term. If you don't mind simply changing out the word "real" for the word "cis" from now on, then I think a lot more people will be more comfortable when reading your posts :)

[Calligraphette_Coe]

In my life of growing up looking and being different, I came across a lot of Real.

I have a Real badly malformed septum from the Real violence of being beaten up for being too girly looking.

If I ever get outed at my job, I could Really get fired. I had to get a Real job to support myself and put myself through school when my conservative parents didn't think I was on the path to being a Real Man and they kicked me out. I think they always expected that I be a blue collar worker or a farmer like the rest of my extended family, to get married and have a bunch of kids like they did.

When I tried to be a Real cisgendered hetero individual in a sexual relationship, I found out Real quick that it just didn't fit. I Really talked in my sleep sometimes and the relationship got trashed.

I struggled with Real panic attacks. I had a very Real phobia, one that made me faint when I had to confront it, and people would be Real insensitive and say Real hurtful things about someone who didn't have ovaries not being able to control that. Or being unable to choke back Real tears like a Real man would.

I was even told flat out, "You will NEVER be a Real Man."

When I found out many years ago that gender dysphoria was Real and that there were Real treatments for it, I worked Real long days and weekends saving my money so I might be able to go to that promised land.

Then my Real hidden birth defect almost killed me. Real Dead, three Real times. And the endocs said "Really? No hormones for you! They'll make you Real Dead, and maybe not Real Quick, and we Really don't want to be responsible for that."

i had had this hope that maybe I could be like passage about Ruth and Naoimi from the Christian Bible:

Then she said, "Behold, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her gods; return after your sister-in-law." 16But Ruth said, "Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.17"Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the LORD do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me."…

But it was not to be.

So I go forward leading this living death of a life, denied what I Really need.

In stark truth, we are all Really only mostly water and about $3.50 in chemicals.

But there HAS to be something more Real about us than just the sum of our parts, or the divided view of existence we always seem to curse ourselves with, setting artificial obstacles and stumbling stones for each other on our respective and not always chosen paths.

And lastly, from Star Trek: TOS, from the 3rd season episode, "Let That Be Your Last Battleground":

"You're black on one side and white on the other."

"I am black on the right side."
"I fail to see the significant difference."
"Lokai is white on the right side. All of his people are white on the right side."

I may never amount to a Real anything, but I'll always know I never did anyone the harm that was done to me. I know I made the world a better place for some people with the talents I put to work in my career.

And maybe that's Really Enough, and all anyone Really Needs To Know? Because the next time I die and stay that way, I have left instructions to cremate this shell with its lack of the right parts.

Doesn't that sound Real fitting?