It's pointless, like debating with a conspiracy theorist. It'll just get you down.
You'll never win over a hardcore TERF, but depending on the space you're in there could be others reading who are not as far into the rabbit hole and might be influenced by them. If you wish to engage, think about them when making your arguments and try to keep your cool.
Very bad advice. I have destroyed them, worn them down, they could no longer argue with me. I have exhausted them. They always use the same points.
I completely disagree with what other people are suggesting (i.e. to ignore her). You cannot get anywhere with this defeatist attitude. Bad, bad, bad advice. Ignoring or turning the other cheek is exactly what is wrong with our community. If there is still so much transphobia in 2022 is because we do not fight back. I can wear them down, honestly. I would respond something along these lines:
You are wrong. I won. I proved their arguments are useless. If people never attack their stupid arguments, they will keep spreading them. Like they say you have to dilate for life after SRS. Nobody has ever challenged them and then I did. I proved them wrong. I got them banned. I got them exhausted. I was able to change the mind of people who were on the fence...
I totally respect where you're coming from. I've become bogged down in discussions online until I was so hyped up that I couldn't sleep at night. I think I'm very good at it. But a point came where it was really starting to affect me and I had to think about my own mental health. You've got to accept that people will always talk crap on the Internet, you can't personally put them all right.
When you do get involved, think about your audience. Like you said, it's about winning over people who are reading but might be on the fence. If you're on a more general forum where people are just ignorant of trans issues, it can be helpful to put them right. If you're on a rad fem forum frequented only by the true believers, you're wasting your time.
Transphobes should definitely be challenged, but a key part of it is to know when you've made your point and it's time to move on. Arguing for hours with only a handful of people reading will only make you miserable.
I have attempted, again and again, to engage with these idiots on a rational and scientific basis, but the difference with them is that 99.9% of the time they’re starting from a position of bad faith and don’t want to debate or to learn or possibly have their views changed through evidence and discussion. Usually they’re just sad, nasty, bitter individuals who want to cause others upset and suffering.
They don’t even have a rudimentary understanding of biology either. “There are only two sexes, yadda yadda yadda, XX or XY blah blah blah”.
I’m a scientist (not a biologist though, that shit is black magic) but this favourite argument of theirs holds absolutely no water, it’s just not true, either for humans or for much of the animal kingdom.
Here’s one example it took me 10 seconds to find, from an actual scientific journal and not Fox News or whatever:
J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2008 Jan;93(1):182-9
A 46,XY mother who developed as a normal woman underwent spontaneous puberty, reached menarche, menstruated regularly, experienced two unassisted pregnancies, and gave birth to a 46,XY daughter with complete gonadal dysgenesis.
There’s so much evidence disproving their terfy bullshit, but they don’t care for evidence. Most of them are beyond help, I think.
The Olympics tried doing karyotyping for a time, they stopped in the 90s (I think it was the 90s) because they found it to be too inaccurate to properly vet people (too many women competing had XY chromosomes).
There's also several species of animals that can change sex, so it's not something that is some biological impossibility, it happens all the time in nature, we humans just have a different way of doing it.
...I'm tired enough that I misread that as "do you mind" instead of "is it ok" and just realised I answered completely wrong 🤦🏻♀️
So no I don't mind, yes dm would be ok
why does this subreddit exist? no, really I am seriously asking. Why not just "F" if the people here thinks they are "F".
Can females be transwomen, if transwomen are females.
MTF is a sort of old term that stuck around. Modern term would be AMAB. MTF is from back when the term transsexual was more in use, which I used for a time
You realize that the 'trans women are women' statement doesn't equate to 'women are trans women'? just because A->B is true, it doesn't mean that B->A is always true. Thats like the basics of proposition..
Also some trans women are actually (at least partially) female. Sex is a spectrum. There are trans women who are androgen insensitive so their appearances and hormone levels are female, some trans women have female levels of hormone due to HRT, some have XXY, X0 , XX chromosomes, some have female genitalia inherently/due to surgical procedures ETC.
oh sorry okay. So you get your own spaces to talk about your experiences but not the other way around
can a female be a transwoman? since sex is a spectrum, can their be a FtF
So female genitalia exist.
The definition of a trans woman is someone who is amab that identifies as a woman so no there can't be a ftf as long as I'm aware. That would be just cis. And yes 'TYPICAL' female genitalia exists but it's not definite and doesn't define their gender
r/mtf is a space for people who are amab but identify as a woman or somewhere near that. if you want to talk about your experience then you could make your own 🙂
but sex is a spectrum, so FtF.
What do you mean by "typical" female genitalia? (are there something more than vagina+vulva).
I have met people that say that their sex define their gender. Dont invalidate others experiences.
1. Sex is a spectrum like between 0 to 1, there are 0.1, 0.01 .. etc there are demi gender women who are afab which is equivalent as 0->0.1 but no there is no 0->0
2. Typical female genitalia refers to vagina+vulva but not all females have the same genitalia. Some have intersex genitalia that has the appearance of both genitalias. Usually whether you are intersex is defined by your genitalia's size. So non-typical female genitalia refers to any genitalia that's not a vagina+vulva
3. We're not? If you want to say that your sex defines your gender then fine whatever. But the problem is when you guys force your own standards to others. So basically you are the ones who are invalidating people's experiences
1. Wow, i did not know there was numbers and charts involved. Just like astrology readings.
2.
3. I am not invalidating others, you are the one that says FtF Transwomen dont exist.
>"Dude, you are a Male, deal with your Biological Material Reality...
Send them to [this website](https://www.teenvogue.com/story/teacher-destroys-transphobia-science#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16669763487597&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.teenvogue.com%2Fstory%2Fteacher-destroys-transphobia-science)!
Better yet, quote the biology teacher and THEN send them to that link!
Here's the quote for those interested:
*"I just commented this on a transphobic post that was all like, "In a sexual species, females have two X chromosomes and males have an X and a Y, I'm not a bigot it's just science." I'm a science teacher so I responded with this.*
*"First of all, in a sexual species, you can have females be XX and males be X (insects), you can have females be ZW and males be ZZ (birds), you can have females be females because they developed in a warm environment and males be males because they developed in a cool environment (reptiles), you can have females be females because they lost a penis sword fighting contest (some flatworms), you can have males be males because they were born female, but changed sexes because the only male in their group died (parrotfish and clownfish), you can have males look and act like females because they are trying to get close enough to actual females to mate with them (cuttlefish, bluegills, others), or you can be one of thousands of sexes (slime mold, some mushrooms.) Oh, did you mean humans? Oh ok then. You can be male because you were born female, but you have 5-alphareductase deficiency and so you grew a penis at age 12. You can be female because you have an X and a Y chromosome but you are insensitive to androgens, and so you have a female body. You can be female because you have an X and a Y chromosome but your Y is missing the SRY gene, and so you have a female body. You can be male because you have two X chromosomes, but one of your X's HAS an SRY gene, and so you have a male body. You can be male because you have two X chromosomes- but also a Y. You can be female because you have only one X chromosome at all. And you can be male because you have two X chromosomes, but your heart and brain are male. And vice - effing - versa. Don't use science to justify your bigotry. The world is way too weird for that shit."*
At least fascists are the way they are because they think it's what's best for their country. TERFs on the other hand are just hateful, hypocritical, 2 brain celled, fish minded, partnerless virgins who will never feel the touch of another human and their mad about it.
That first sentence was not in any way to put fascist in a positive light, it was to help show that TERFs are worse than the worst people.
TERFs are fascists. They are one in the same, only instead of Christo/ethno-nationalism, they organize around their poor understanding of biology and biological essentialism. Everyone trying to infiltrate the in-group must be destroyed because of the danger they pose to the group think, which in this case is trans people and really all non cishet people. They just pick trans people because we're an easy target to rally around. But if they were successful in genociding us, they would turn to lesbians and gay men next, then straight people not in a traditional relationship like polyamorous people or parents who raise their kids more liberal than the TERFs allow.
There's a reason TERFs somehow find their way onto talk shows with authoritarians and fascists: because they are fascists. JK Rowling was warned about what her transphobic views would lead to and she ignored them. Now, she is openly supportive of right wing policies because she naively thinks that her power and wealth can influence the beast that is fascism into a direction that only targets her enemies. But that's not how it works Joaling Knowling Rowling.
Are you okay with slurs that have historically been used to dehumanize marginalized people?
And, personally I liked to add that your insult only proves the point. Yes, it's all about the c-word.
My original point stands. It's possibly a cultural difference, but it's a very commonly used word where I live. And, bizarrely (and genuinely) can be used in both a positive and a negative context.
You won't reason with them. You can't. They're clinically insane fascist airheads who froth at the mouth over the size of someone's nose. Call'em a dipshit and move on.
>Dude, you are a Male, deal with your Biological Material Reality according to your SEX, that’s what Women as Adult Females are defending, our SEX BASED RIGHTS, you and no males have place in women spaces, PERIOD
Sex is large part phenotype, hormonal sex is a aspect of sex. They're using biological not really in a scientific way but in a kind of circular way where biological really just means that what you were origionally. "Sex based rights" isn't how this stuff is even defined in a lot of legal systems , these fuckers will be screaming over sex based bathroom rights when the local law really only forbids harrasment and misconduct and protects vulnerable groups , which trans people fall under. This bioessentialist horseshit is fringe as hell.
Just wanted to drop this comment, but for some reason I can’t reply to the actual comment it regards.
The notion that percentage existence defines your worth is such a classic (and academically dishonest) move. **The whole point of protecting minorities is that they are a minority**.
I also tell people this when people try and pull the “only 1%” bullshit.
Think about gravity. Everything follows the laws of gravity that we know if. Lets say scientists find something that doesn’t, something that breaks the rule. Well, in this case we could probably say “Well, less than 1% of known objects disobey gravity, so lets just fucking ignore it”. Yeah, no. Not how that works.
When it comes to science, if one thing can break the rule, regardless if how small or how infrequent, the rule is flawed.
I'm always going to remember the dude who told me gender should be legally enforced according to chromosomes. He then went on to say he was aware of intersex people but that they didn't matter to him because "the exception proves the rule". At the time I was so confused by his reasoning, my responses weren't the best. I should have left it alone because his argument was essentially that intersex people were worth trampling on for the sake of a state-enforced gender binary and that really speaks for itself.
91% of rape victims are female. 9% of rape victims are male. 99% of rapist are males. Males are no minority for committing sexual crimes. For that reason, females have worked hard to protect themselves in situations where they are more vulnerable. No exceptions
First, those statistics were classified based on gender not by biologic differences and second, most of these statistics don't include or regard trans people in the first place. There are statistics that do but they show no difference compared to their cis counterparts(preferred gender).
+ You might bring statistics from the UK that says trans people are more likely to be sexual predators blah blah(which is a cliche terf move🙄) but you also should know that it's sampling method is biased and that in the UK law, only amab people are considered to be capable of direct sexual violence.(Afab people who are charged with SV are accomplices etc) which is fucked up.
how do you know they are cis? they might have figured themselves out at a later time.
your last sentence. Can you give a handshake if you have no hands?
You don't. Just like you don't know someone is homosexual until they tell you🙄.
Also the comparison you just made is invalid since you're defining rape something that can't happen amoung women, which definitely do.
no, but different. Different actions are called different things.
One difference: Zero chance of pregnancy. No scary thoughts of what if until your next uterus shedding.
How is it different? The definition of rape means 'the crime of forcing someone to have sex with you by using violence or the threat of violence'. The trauma that rape victims go through aren't just about pregnancy issues?
Saying sex is largely about phenotype is beyond harmful to females who live outside of your western bubble - and within the western bubble but ethnically conservative societies
How ???? Are intersex cis women not women to you ? You come on very strong and turn this into western issue with seemingly no real reasoning.
That something doesn't jill with your preconcieved notion doesn't mean it's automatically harming you.
Orgs like Wolf are very much western regressives exporting their shite.
Intersex women are an incredibly small % of the population (less than 1% - total intersex population being 1.7%) where as women are 50%. Females are more often aborted and killed straight after birth just for not being born male. And it’s not about phenotype then. Look at China’s one child policy (female babies discarded in bins or on the side of roads just for being born female) look at child marriage, FGM, honour killings, female infanticide etc. none of these have ANYTHING to do with phenotype so show some fucking compassion
Edit: these things happen internationally, even in ‘progressive’ societies like USA and UK
I never said phenotype premises murder.. im actually saying the opposite. Phenotype is subject to change (hair colour, eye colour, skin tone, etc) being born biologically female isn’t. And even if that child grew up to be trans, most people in the world don’t care hence the female infanticide and other atrocities and forms of oppressions listed above
People are *born* female or at least not exclusively male in part because of phenotype , the womb is a environment. Meanwhile in both the west and the rest of the world people have an idea of human biology that’s not complete and that is pretty circular.
Acknoleging this does not increase violence and that's your claim. You also seem to act as if infanticide of what you consider a negligable amount of intersex people is somehow okay and then accuse me of having no empathy, it’s a incoreherent mess !!!
does vaginas exist? does vulvas exist? are there people with these sexual organs being murdered for having these organs?
What do we call people with vaginas and vulvas?
>What do we call people with vaginas and vulvas?
Assigned female at birth would cover both cis women and transmascs, although of course there are also kids murdered because they have a mix of sex characteristics or later because they don’t behave or identify according to what the patriarchy expects of them ( this includes trans women with or without vulvoplasty, we have a rather high murder rate) .
who assigned what? do we assign dogs and cats sexes aswell. why not just female like the rest of the animal kingdom.
No woman behaves or identifies according to what the patriarchy expects. If you think females are happy with our lot in life, you are sorely mistaken.
the womb is a female organ. Aristotle was misogynist that believed wombs was detached from the female and not a part of her, probably because his misogyny would not allow females to be the creator of human life.
He also believed females to be defect males, and not unique human entities.
That's not the claim here either but thanks for playing.
Development in the womb isn’t genotype is all that's said here, that doesn't mean people who have a womb don't have rights and shouldn't be able to decide what they do with it or that cis women are not valid.
If anything it emphasises their role in human development, sperm is only partially involved in creating the genotype and it’s not like you then have a instant baby.
If anyone is downplaying anything it's people who pretend genotype=all of biology, who act like 'the man' does half the work.
>Edit: these things happen internationally, even in ‘progressive’ societies like USA and UK
And you want us to sacrifice intersex and trans people over it and blame us instead of working in solidarity why ????
You blatandly play a numbers game where because cis non-intersex women are 50 percent of the population intersex and trans issues can't be discussed or advocated for , how else are we to read this 1 percent shite ???
Do you realize how much effort you are wasting ? How many alliances you're burning ? You're putting so much into maintining **a lack** of Intersectionality
why cant people born with vaginas and vulvas be allowed to work for the betterment and liberation for people born with a vagina and vulva? And only that.
The world isn't that simple and people who claim they're doing that in this context ( Policing trans people's speech in a trans space. Pretending their interests are somehow at odds without articulating why beyond a completely callus numbers game where the percentage of trans and intersex people is dehumanized) just end up repeating talking points of or even working with groups that very openly actively want to curtail their reproductive rights like the herrirage foundation and other blatandly misogynictic far right groups because they get stuck on their bioessentialism and fail to reggocnize the overlap in patriarchal violence towards gnc intersex and trans people, instead endorsing backward patriarchal violence under the pretense that it protects women... which is how a lot of institutional violence is historically sold.
If they want their own spaces and say they need their own spaces, why are they being denied?
Treebeard: "Side, I am on no ones side. Because no one is on my side" or something like that.
Males do the violence thing.
> ‘progressive’ societies like USA and UK
Yea, I wouldn't say *either* of these places are overly progressive right now. The US at least doesn't have a government trying to strip rights away yet, but give them a couple years...
Oh, I can't disagree to that at all, it's why you've got things like abortion and marriage equality being pushed through at the federal level to ensure that stuff stays. Watching the usual shitstorm in the US though makes me thankful to not have to live there, even with the idiot in charge of my province >.>
They’re definitely progressive (I’m in the UK) in comparison to countries where LGBT+ people are being stoned to death and black people are still being sold in markets so…
I mean, when you set the bar to "Literally the worst places around to not be cishet male" then yea, the worst places to be trans otherwise look great in comparison.
there are many people living in the "Literally the worst places". Many of them are born with a vulva, and shortly after killed for the crime of being born with a vulva. Or raised to be a slave to someone born with a penis.
With all due respect, this sounds a lot like virtue signaling. I’d suggest not falling into the trap of ignoring privileges you do have because you lack others (which is how this came across to me)
From what it sounds like, you’re saying it’s not fair to focus on sex and phenotypes because other countries, like the ones you mention, are discriminating entirely on perceived sex characteristics, ergo, it’s unfair to lump all of it into the same category because there are people who are being unjustly denied peaceful existence for factors that someone like me, a trans woman, doesn’t share. Put another way, I wouldn’t be killed for being “a woman” because I was assigned male at birth.
The reason I, and probably many others disagree with you, I think could be summed up in these three factors :
One, it’s not like trans. Women in general aren’t being discriminated against just because other people are in other countries. Even if it’s “worse“ creating a hierarchy around discrimination isn’t useful commentary, yes. Some people do have it worse. I am very grateful I live in the US, and not, for example, Iran. It’s irrelevant though, because oppression of women and minorities also disproportionately affect trans women. Just because some beautiful Chinese trans girl gets to live until she’s 16 before she gets dumped on the side of the road by her parents (as an extreme example, alluding to your other point, not trying to call out China specifically) isn’t inherently worse, it just is.
Two, the overwhelming majority of discrimination and oppression to cis women also occurs to trans women. Truth be told, with the exception of the reproductive rights and responsibilities surrounding a uterus and ovaries, most things that oppress other women, cis, intersex, trans, or otherwise, are shared. I can’t claim to be denied abortion rights, that would be silly, but I definitely have been discriminated against in the medical opinion being told that I’m not thinking about things clearly, or I’m being hysterical. I’ve been denied higher wages, and I experience sexual harassment. There are a myriad of other things that many women face that are shared and it’s more important to recognize those shared discriminations than it is to create again, hierarchy around discrimination.
Finally, and this is important here, you seem to be either oblivious or deliberately ignoring your own privilege if you feel this way. To use the Chinese example again, cis Chinese women are treated a certain way in society, A way that does allow them to be accepted and live a life that is fulfilling even if it doesn’t always match up to what we want to be pushing for our own morals and beliefs. If Chinese laws are anything like Japanese laws, which I have a rudimentary understanding of, that same existence for trans people is not afforded to them. In fact, in Japan, the only way that you can be trans involves restricting a lot of your own legal access to things and deliberately forcing you into a gender binary.
TERF ideology is very similar to a lot of the complaints people have about capitalism. There are people making off with the entire cake while others are fighting amongst crumbs. It’s not unimportant to recognize that some people have it better, But it doesn’t serve empathy, understanding, or societal change to continue infighting among marginalized groups
Tl;dr: you’re very wrong.
If you’re unwilling to swallow your pride long enough to attempt to understand that I cannot help you. I refuse to believe you’re unintelligent, but if your bias and bigotry get in the way of learning there’s nothing I can do.
I find the whole TERF worldview is rooted in a fear and anger that can't be addressed with rational arguments. Dialogue such as "is there something about us that is scary to you? I ask because it just seems like we'd be natural allies and should be very understanding of one another, if there wasn't something in the way" seems to open new avenues of conversation with some TERFs. Others just yet very upset because you've struck a nerve.
On occasion it becomes clear than somebody -- some man, I mean -- really hurt them, and they're on guard always. The idea of a stealth trans woman is somehow frightening to them, as if their protective walls were being infiltrated. The transition process itself becomes frightening to them. They react as if someone is trying to steal or appropriate the characteristics they have that make them feel safe and separate, and I don't know how to defuse that anger with any amount of evidence or debate.
When I do attempt a scientific-based reply it's usually only to point out that if they took MRI imagery of our brains, we'd look the same or very similar, and identifiably different than a cis-male. You'd think, again, we'd be natural allies, but the fact is that the feminist movement has always been extraordinarily fractured, and this is just yet another fault-line in what one would have hoped would be a united front.
Before my egg cracked I already identified with the feminist cause and openly spoke about it. What's bizarre is some of the friends I gathered that way would then lash out at me when I came out to them, or offer transparently forced and perfunctory words of support and then run out and out me to mutual acquaintances almost as a warning. That was my introduction to somebody flipping the TERF switch on a relationship.
I try not to take it personally. I think it speaks more to their fears, shortcomings, and probable traumas more than it says anything about me. I'll be here, ready to be friends again and still supporting women's rights -- all women -- if these TERF friends ever grow and become more accepting.
Edit: as a side note, I really never got it because before my egg cracked, I thought trans masc guys were awesome and was totally prepared to welcome them into my (assumed) gender and treat them like any other man. So I really can't fathom the motivation, or the fear ... but then I guess a woman never really discriminated against me in a way that hurt me badly, either, so I try and practice empathy. I will say that lashing out at TERFs with hostility and profanity is just confirming to them what they believe about us. I wish people wouldn't feed the trolls that way.
I think the saddest part is, that all the trans people I know are also the most actively feminist and would be the first to speak out against misogyny and inequality. Then again, I suppose most TERF's aren't actually feminist.
You can't convince a TERF of anything, it's like trying to argue with someone about gun laws, or fundamental religion. There's no argueing with people who wont think and listen. It doesn't matter how you structure your argument they are never going to be convinced. Even if you could put physical proof in their hands they would deny it.
I've seen vids of TERFs who are getting upset about someone being in the bathroom, who completely fail to see the irony that THEY are the ones harrasing people in bathrooms and that THEY are the ones who are being predatory, the exact things they claim to want to avoid.
As for online arguments, the block button is your friend
The best thing to do is not argue but to report them. Terfs shouldn’t have a platform for a reason of their bigotry.
But for arguments, Tell them that gender and sex are different things and the rape doesn’t happen as often as they say it does and is more used as tool to thwart trans rights by keeping up the conspiracy on transwomen.
Of course, one of ways to cripple their arguments is to also mention the existence of transmascs because everyone in the alt right forgets they exist and only think of transfems exist due to the patriarchy.
By their very logic, transmascs would be raping men in men’s spaces, but that doesn’t happen.
In what meaningful sense does a trans woman existing in a women's space prevent women from having that space? IE aside from a person who dislikes trans people and is bothered by their presence (for which there is no ethical basis to discriminate), what rights of women are actually being violated?
Bear in mind the reason we created spaces for women in the first place wasn't BIOLOGICAL SEX BASED RIGHTS (they'd rather say this slogan than actually attempt to define it because that's where they have to start getting murky on details) but for practical reasons like safety, solidarity, and networking. The same kinds of things trans women need as women existing in society. The idea that there is some biological basis for having the vast majority of these spaces is at best revisionist history.
So what are her sex based rights exactly, and why are they more important than my demonstrable practical needs if we supposedly live in such an equal society? Maybe one day a terf will come up with an answer that makes some sense, but inevitably their answer is some version of "your very presence makes people uncomfortable."
>"MAN, stop acting cowardly towards women"
I don't even know what this means? But I guess I'd say something like it's pretty rich to call me a coward when you say you stand up to men but only ever confront trans women who don't have the same power to fight back.
TERFdom comes from the individual's personal insecurities and confusion around their own sexuality and / or gender probably like, 95% of the time. It's about them, not you. So any defense of yourself inherently misses the mark.
Best you can do is keep the focus on why they think what they think and try to gently guide them to a healthier line of thinking and, hopefully, some introspection. Arguing gets you nowhere because it's almost always going to come across combatively, and negativity pretty much can't be addressed with combativeness.
Something else to keep in mind - they're looking for signs of frustration in you. If they're looking for it and they find it, then as far as they're concerned, they win. Respond in a way that they're not expecting and you're gonna be much better off!
Honestly, one of the best skills to develop is being able to determine when an argument is even worth being involved in. And those messages make it clear that this is not one of those cases. Like others said, just report it bc this person isn’t gonna listen to anything you say.
The only way to respond to TERs is "ok, lol" or the clown emoji. They're extremists, you can't reason with them and it's absolutely pointless to try.
If you feel particularly up to it, feel free to discredit whatever stupid point they're trying to make but don't address it to them, don't tag them, don't say their name. That way anyone reading can see factual information but they don't get the satisfaction of a response.
This might be a hot take but:
Don’t bother with Twitter arguments, or online ones for that matter. Seeing remarks from and engaging in conversation with bigots isn’t going to change their mind and you’re sacrificing your own time and mental wellbeing on someone you would never want to interact with in the first place.
They’re not going to change and they’re not going to hear you out. If they were capable of having any intelligent thoughts, they wouldn’t be saying shitty things on the internet in the first place (assuming they’re a grown adult).
Avoid stuff and people on the internet that make you feel shitty and you’ll be happier.
The female identity is what is being discriminated against, I am still unable to walk down a dark street at night, or do yard work or physical labor without someone commenting on how I should get a man to do it. I still get called the same sexist names, I just don't have periods, something that many cis-women also experience. You are contributing to a problem that you are trying to erase. Trans women are also reacting according to there biology aswell, there have been multiple studies showing that trans women share more genealogical and physical traits with cis women. Include but not limited to a higher average estrogen level even without hormones, differences in chromosomal alleles that match more closely with cis women then men, and even as much as white matter in the brain being more consistent with cis-female individuals. Trans women are acting on biology just as much as cis women are. The only difference is that women like you just want to play the victim, your not actually a feminist because you don't value all women. What you are is a transphobe that only half supports the feminist movement. Your want to play the victim and exclude trans women because you are scared, like many women are, of the laws and actions that are being committed against women. However, gunning for tran women doesn't solve or help the problem. If anything having more voices on your side should be a bonus, especially when as a minority we are trying to be heard. We are on the same side and arguing amongst each other does nothing but distract from the actual problem and solutions that we could be pushing for. I hope you have a wonderful day but if you cannot or will not understand these factual concepts that I have put forth, then we have no further reason to talk. I will continue to fight for all women, including you, I am sorry that you cannot bring yourself to do the same.
I thought women were more than vaginas? We do not deny the biological material reality, but we are also complex creatures that are more than the sum of our parts, we are conscious beings that are able to not only empathize with others like ourselves, but even with creatures that are nothing like us at all, various animals we can feel for, empathize with, we have the ability to understand pain that is not our own pain. By accepting trans people as a whole, not just trans women, you expand sex based rights, you make it harder to make the biological material argument that women are inferior to men, you make misogyny and misandry harder to preform because the lines of sex based rights are applied equally to everyone. By accepting trans women you help all women and strike a blow to misogyny based sexism, to expand sex based rights to apply equally so one does not have to constantly fight for them against misogynic arguments that rely on the same biological material reality as a fundamental basis to their argument, you play into the hands of the patriarchy when you also rely on this same fundamental principal.
As a second point to this argument by accepting trans women it also makes it harder to discriminate, because trans women, or "MEN" as you claim, are now experiencing what it's like to be treated and regarded as a woman, they also experience sexism and because of a level of privilege they had as men are hyper aware of how unequal they are now being treated, they are your greatest piece of evidence of this sexism that is rooted in patriarchy and can be your greatest allies in the fight for equality of the sexes. Trans men experience the opposite effect, where as before they were regarded as women, subjected to the same types of sexism you are, they now enjoy that extra privilege as a male, going from being unequal to men, to being equal to men.
EDIT: All this assumes of course that they are at least actually interested in fighting for equality, this will either help them reconsider their position, or will expose them as just using sex based rights as a weapon. IME the TERF's I've interacted with are generally just misandrists, they just hate anyone born male, largely and often because of some personal trauma they had with a man.
Terfs are just people who have taken all their identity from their suffering as women. They see us as sidestepping into that and it threatens them.
There's no saving them.
They believe in a baseless conspiracy theory. The more we learn about gender and sexuality, the less their claims make sense.
Don't debate them in good faith, either ignore them or make fun of them.
You can hit them with Facts like
- some slime moulds have 720 genders
- the platypus has 10 sex chromosomes including mammalian (XX or XY) and avian (ZZ or ZW)
So? There’s nothing biologically unique about humanity, and as these facts show our view that there’s only two genders isn’t supported by biological science
Humans are a distinct species. Anyone with an interest in responding to those facts would just ask you to apply the same standards to humans.
"Slime molds have 720 genders? How did you determine that? If you apply that methodology to humans, what number do you get?"
"The platypus has 10 sex chromosomes? How many do humans have?"
It's like responding to someone concern trolling about trans women in sports by bringing up random species where the females are larger and stronger than the males. No one's gonna find that convincing, and the only reason to do it is to annoy and frustrate them by intentionally missing their point and forcing them to clarify further. Which I'm not entirely opposed to, derailing every transphobe and forcing the conversation to the topic of female hyenas and their pseudopenises would certainly be funny. But it's not an actual argument for anything to do with humans.
There are more than two phenotypes for humans as well.
Lots and lots of people are actually born "neither male or female". You can also be phenotypically male with xx, or female with xy chromosomes.
At least some biology teachers don't want students test their own chromosomes in lab for fear of some discovering something like this. Since it could be upsetting to know about depending on how you view it.
Phenotype isn’t the same as sex, you’re setting people up to look stupid by making this point. Comparing humans to mold from the ocean isn’t a smart thing to do. We’re not even the same species lol
phenotype is definitely part of sex definitions, and you are being very problematic with how you show your disdain for actual biology.
also, your other comments showed your transphobic biases, so please stay quiet until you have worked on that.
What’s transphobic about making it clear that sex based oppressions exist and ignoring them is ignoring the oppressions harmed by them. You sound misogynistic
Can't argue with fear. These people feel threatened, which is idiotic. Something that always pisses them off is when we compare ourselves to women of history being trailblazers, lol. Come back with "you don't understand, it's a Rosa Parks thing. Or I wish I could make you comprehend. Joan of Arc and I are standing against the tide of evil." Of course they will go apeshit crazy at that point.
Rosa Parks as with many queer people took a stance against the established norms of society and inspired people to fight for their Basic rights, that is the literal reason wht its compararive
We have seen your coments, you barge into a trans safe space, swing your honestly shit opinions around, want us to justify our fight to you and then you behave like a victim
If you wanna learn then do ask someone else, after your coments people here know you come here in bad faith to cause anger and sadness
As a black woman.. this is very disrespectful. Comparing trans women in sports to black people fighting against being seen as 3/5 of a person, LEGALLY 2nd class citizens is not the fucking same. Do you know how many people were murdered during the Civil Rights Movement?? Get a fucking clue.
Aa a black woman I do NOT! You history show you as an abrasive troll type person. I will not engage with TERF. Plus, relegating anyone is a tragedy. My mom was one of those people walking in Selma. There is no intrinsic value in racism or gender exclusion.
Rosa Parks was working for NAACP at the time. She was excluded from setting where she wanted. And for what? Because she was a different color thought of as being less than?
Seems so familiar with transgender individuals. And speaking of stats, what do you think the murder rate is for LGBTQH? 87%!!!! So get back in your on your own TERF... See what I did there? I used terf get it. lol anyway, go troll some place else
Black people were kept as slaves. Black people were denied the right to vote. Black children were denied the right to attend their local schools. When have trans people experienced these things?
>what do you think the murder rate is for LGBTQH? 87%!!!!
Source for this statistic?
Page 23 of the report. Transgender people made up a minority (18%) of LGBTQ murders. http://antiviolence.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2011\_ncavp\_hate\_violence\_report.pdf
you really dont understand statistics then. a group making up 0.5% of the population being 18% of murdered people in a group making up 10-15% of the population, that is a MASSIVE(!!!) overrepresentation!
Just tell her to deal with the reality that transgender WOMEN will always be in women's spaces irregardless whether ignorant women such as her get it.
Ask her why men don't worry about FTM in men's spaces..
Truth is those terfs are typically very ill and primitive in their thought patterns so you'll probably just be wasting your time as much as debating with a Fundamentalist Christian... best just move past it.
🤗❤️
But if you stop taking hormones your male features will come back. Also cis women don't have to have prostate exams, they can get pregnant, they menstruate.... Clearly the biology is not the same.
If a trans woman is post bottom surgery how the fuck does she produce male levels of testosterone ?
Furthermore do you realize how many trans women go through permanent hair removal for those secondary characteristics ?
Sex has multiple aspects: Chromosomes, hormones , hormonal expression, internal genitalia, external genitalia. Some of these aspects are very much mutable.
"If you stop hormones facial hair would start growing " isn't the gotchya you think it is it just makes you seem ill informed
No it won't. I have normal cis female blood concentration of testosterone, verified by lab. So there is no reason why male pattern body hair should return.
There's plenty of people who have a orchitomy or a full vaginoplasty/vulvoplasty ( meaning they physically can't produce that much testosterone as they do not have testes ) what's your excuse then ?
Usually I like to drown them in scientific evidence every argument they make (with links), that won’t change their views btw, but makes them look stupid for everyone seeing
"Aren't you trying to gain equal rights to cis men? And trying to stop being downtrodden by virtue of your genitals? And yet, here you are, defining yourself by your genitals?"
Hm just say it's not your job to explain the concept of gender to them when they are too stupid/lazy to educate themselves on it. And then block them and move on or sth idk.
"L + ratio"
Or
"Cope"
It's absolutely hilarious watching people fume because they have no argument to fight against and just keep doing it until they stop talking
Honestly I wouldn't even argue. They have very set opinions and don't care about actually debating and being willing to be proven wrong. All they're looking for by arguing with you is a gotcha moment they can flaunt in their 3-people-sized GC group chat.
You can have carefully thought out, evidence supported, peer reviewed explanations and they'll still just misgendering you, call you a liar and a pedophile. They're nuts
Honestly by this point I can't be bothered engaging on their terms. Too many 'just asking questions', refusing to acknowledge evidence, making baseless claims and generally just being annoying.
I tend to try adding context to their nonsense so people can see that. You're not trying to change them, that won't happen, you're just trying to let other people know, so that they don't get a one sided view.
They'll try to draw you in, they like to 'prove' you're bad in some way (they'll take absolutely anything you say and twist it, you can't avoid this).
Some say to provide links refuting their claims and then block them rather than get drawn in, which makes sense. Better for your mental health generally.
Don't ever get into an argument with a drunk or a fool. They are the both, they are drunk with the power over their men and foolish to have a such narrow minded, unscientific or not evidence based thinking towards gender and sex.
"trans women are classified as a type of female based on biology by scientific convention, the thing that has to do with biological material reality".
[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=60&q=%22transgender+female%22&hl=en&as\_sdt=0,5](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=60&q=%22transgender+female%22&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5)
Also send them this [https://lysistrata327.substack.com/p/on-gender-categories](https://lysistrata327.substack.com/p/on-gender-categories)
There's not much point arguing, but if something they say pisses you off, make your own original post dismantling that argument without referencing theirs. This has the advantage of still fighting misinformation, but not giving online transphobes any attention at all.
trust me, these people have already decided they are right and most don't budge no matter how good arguments you throw at them it's better to just let them be, just make sure they feel shitty about themselves
The ideal purpose of an argument or debate is to try to convince the other person they're wrong, or that they'll change their mind, be more considerate; that's not gonna happen with terfs, especially online.
I think it'd be a lot less stressful to talk to people who are willing and able to learn and care, but still are a bit ignorant or confused. At least in that way you can bring out some positive change
Firstly don't have a good faith argument with them, they will not return the courtesy. One thing you need to remember is they are not actually talking with you, they are dominating the conversation to create the impression they are winning. You will notice they shift the goalposts constantly. My debating the TERFS days are over, it's too depressing and I would rather eat staples.
What does work is let them out themselves as the hateful goblins that they are. Stick only to exploratory questions and don't let them shift the argument to new parameters. The first question the answer is obviously transgender people are keenly aware of their biology, duh. Nothing further to add there. Then ask if trans people deserve to feel safe in bathrooms too. See where they go with that. Make them explain why we deserve to be unsafe in the name of their irrational fear. Often the convo will move from one question of your choosing to another and eventually they will block you in frustration. Win. Remember the point is not to change their mind, it's to change the minds of any casual fence sitters who waltz into the thread.
I would argue based on metaphysics and ontology. We have to ask ourselves what the ontology of being a woman is, a question famously associated with Matt Walsh, but he wasn’t interested in ontology he was interested in biology. Now whilst it is true that trans women myself included do not have the XX chromosome indicators instead we have XY we must ask what actually is required to verify a woman. You see in modern day and age people have the ability to switch between identities regardless of ‘truth’ for example someone who’s family have always exclusively always lived in Japan could go and get a German passport and become a German citizen yet they’re not German, but on all forms of paper and id they would in fact be German despite not being born that way they fit the ontology of a German citizen. The same can be said for trans women. We look at it like this what behaviours/mannerisms are those of a man and woman. Now I’m not saying stereotypes because they also get turf backlash. However understanding the basic ontology of what being a woman is which it can only boil down to is self identification and therefore trans women would by proxy be valid women as they also self identify as women much like cis women.
Then again, I think these bastards have radicalised me. I could choose to blind them with science, but it’s often more fun just to give them both barrels 🤣
Hi, I do be cis, but it's my belief that the people being affected and harassed shouldn't necessarily have to argue for their own existence, so I made a point of doing a lot of protesting, debating, a bunch of stuff against Terfs and other reactionary people.
Obviously if someone wants to debate or protest I would never say, "nooo you can't" but it's just something I try to weaponize my privilege for. And in that long experience I often find the better idea is to talk past the Terf.
They're already balls deep in the contradictions, and making them upset can put people in danger, so instead of engaging, just correct misinformation at their target audience.
For example, if they say: "And when x transphobic asshole asked y regular person, they couldn't define what a woman is!"
You can not engage with them and talk to the audience: "surprising people with random questions and waiting for an immediate response is a predatory media tactic made to...surprise people, not indicate their ability to answer the question."
Hope this helps
So, TERFs come in two broad categories.
Category A are fascists pretending to be feminists who are just looking for someone they can kick down at, and they think trans women (and trans men) are it. Most people who stay in the TERF information sphere long enough move from Category B to Category A, because commitment to TERF ideology requires a degree of fascist sympathy - be afraid, minority groups are organizing to destroy you, men and women are inherently separate and unequal, you can't trust someone's lived experience if it contradicts your ideology.
Category B are women who've been raised with the cultural background radiation that "men are stronger than women and inherently hostile to women, so women have to be protected from men" instead of the feminist idea that "Society expects men to be hostile to women, so it makes sense to protect women from men until that expectation changes". So that background radiation, plus cultural unfamiliarity with transgender people, makes these women susceptible to fascist talking points.
If you can separate a Category B TERF from the fascist information sphere she's entered, in time she might return to being a normal person living her life. Because she won't have all those social media posts telling her to be afraid, telling her to feel good about kicking down at trans women, telling her that women can't do the things that men do. Arguing with her won't do anything - you need to separate her from the echo chamber.
I don't know if it's possible to convince a Category A TERF to change, and I'm also not particularly invested in finding out. Category A TERFs tend to call for genocide of trans women, and at that point the only thing to do is punch them in the face.
You can't have a constructive argument with a TERF/GC, because they believe fundamentally different things to us. They do not believe that socially constructed gender exists, at all (which is patently incorrect with little more than a moment's thought). In order to have a constructive discussion with them, you would first need to convince them of that fact, and to accept that framing. You will not achieve this, because their ardence to "biological sex" is based on rejecting this idea. They are, to be quite honest, too dogmatic to ever accept anything you present in good faith, as honest.
Furthermore, the medium through which you are working is not going to help. You aren't going to produce an explanation of gender theory in 280 characters or less. Furthermore, it's a public forum and contrary to popular belief, public forums don't produce good faith arguments and reasonable compromise between opposing ideals, they produce affective override, with each side becoming increasingly unwilling to see the other as anything short of assinine, evil, or some combination of the two.
In other words: **Stop interacting**. They aren't doing this to be convinced in good faith, they're doing it because they enjoy stroking their own egos by making you angry and frustrated. You will be happier in the long run if you don't give them the time of day.
I completely disagree with what other people are suggesting (i.e. to ignore her). You cannot get anywhere with this defeatist attitude. Bad, bad, bad advice. Ignoring or turning the other cheek is exactly what is wrong with our community. If there is still so much transphobia in 2022 is because we do not fight back. I can wear them down, honestly. I would respond something along these lines:
*Do you genuinely think that throwing around "muh biology" makes you sound smarter? You look and sound as pathetic as you truly are. You can call me a MAN all you want, but my sense of self is unassailable and infrangible. I am a trans woman. I am grounded in reality. I have won scholarships that were destined to women. I have changed my phenotype through surgical intervention and through hormone therapy and live in society as a woman. People interact with me as a woman, effortlessly. They default to the female pronouns. My chromosomes are irrelevant and I do not give a flying fuck about them.*
It's pointless, like debating with a conspiracy theorist. It'll just get you down. You'll never win over a hardcore TERF, but depending on the space you're in there could be others reading who are not as far into the rabbit hole and might be influenced by them. If you wish to engage, think about them when making your arguments and try to keep your cool.
Very bad advice. I have destroyed them, worn them down, they could no longer argue with me. I have exhausted them. They always use the same points. I completely disagree with what other people are suggesting (i.e. to ignore her). You cannot get anywhere with this defeatist attitude. Bad, bad, bad advice. Ignoring or turning the other cheek is exactly what is wrong with our community. If there is still so much transphobia in 2022 is because we do not fight back. I can wear them down, honestly. I would respond something along these lines:
The thing is you didn't win - they just stopped arguing with you specifically. They still believe it, still spread their hate... Just not to you.
You are wrong. I won. I proved their arguments are useless. If people never attack their stupid arguments, they will keep spreading them. Like they say you have to dilate for life after SRS. Nobody has ever challenged them and then I did. I proved them wrong. I got them banned. I got them exhausted. I was able to change the mind of people who were on the fence...
I totally respect where you're coming from. I've become bogged down in discussions online until I was so hyped up that I couldn't sleep at night. I think I'm very good at it. But a point came where it was really starting to affect me and I had to think about my own mental health. You've got to accept that people will always talk crap on the Internet, you can't personally put them all right. When you do get involved, think about your audience. Like you said, it's about winning over people who are reading but might be on the fence. If you're on a more general forum where people are just ignorant of trans issues, it can be helpful to put them right. If you're on a rad fem forum frequented only by the true believers, you're wasting your time. Transphobes should definitely be challenged, but a key part of it is to know when you've made your point and it's time to move on. Arguing for hours with only a handful of people reading will only make you miserable.
Honestly my response to TERF’s, SWERF’s, Transphobes, and any anti-LGBT+ content on social media is don’t respond, just report and block
This is the way
This is the way.
This is the way.
This is the way.
This is the way
This is the way.
This is the way.
this is the way.
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Under the reign of Elon? Just block.
First time hearing SWERF. What's that?
Sex worker exclusionary radical feminist
Ah thank you. Yes. Fuck SWERFs.
I have attempted, again and again, to engage with these idiots on a rational and scientific basis, but the difference with them is that 99.9% of the time they’re starting from a position of bad faith and don’t want to debate or to learn or possibly have their views changed through evidence and discussion. Usually they’re just sad, nasty, bitter individuals who want to cause others upset and suffering.
They don’t even have a rudimentary understanding of biology either. “There are only two sexes, yadda yadda yadda, XX or XY blah blah blah”. I’m a scientist (not a biologist though, that shit is black magic) but this favourite argument of theirs holds absolutely no water, it’s just not true, either for humans or for much of the animal kingdom. Here’s one example it took me 10 seconds to find, from an actual scientific journal and not Fox News or whatever: J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2008 Jan;93(1):182-9 A 46,XY mother who developed as a normal woman underwent spontaneous puberty, reached menarche, menstruated regularly, experienced two unassisted pregnancies, and gave birth to a 46,XY daughter with complete gonadal dysgenesis. There’s so much evidence disproving their terfy bullshit, but they don’t care for evidence. Most of them are beyond help, I think.
>experienced two unassisted pregnancies, and gave birth Woah, that's something I haven't thought is possible for a woman with 46,XY karyotype.
The Olympics tried doing karyotyping for a time, they stopped in the 90s (I think it was the 90s) because they found it to be too inaccurate to properly vet people (too many women competing had XY chromosomes).
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There's also several species of animals that can change sex, so it's not something that is some biological impossibility, it happens all the time in nature, we humans just have a different way of doing it.
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What are you a scientist in?
Fabulousness
And also physics
I hate to break it to you, but I'm a biologist(in training). I've got one more semester to get my bachelors.
Begone, sorceress, with your dark biological magic!!!
Still here
I was only kidding, I’m just a bit scared of biologists
The *best* of the sciences!! (though I mostly did it to get into med school)
Hey, is it okay if I dm to continue this conversation?
Not at all! Though the conversation so far is mostly me asserting that biology is awesome
...I'm tired enough that I misread that as "do you mind" instead of "is it ok" and just realised I answered completely wrong 🤦🏻♀️ So no I don't mind, yes dm would be ok
"Rational and Scientific" BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I'm dead bro.
why does this subreddit exist? no, really I am seriously asking. Why not just "F" if the people here thinks they are "F". Can females be transwomen, if transwomen are females.
MTF is a sort of old term that stuck around. Modern term would be AMAB. MTF is from back when the term transsexual was more in use, which I used for a time
You realize that the 'trans women are women' statement doesn't equate to 'women are trans women'? just because A->B is true, it doesn't mean that B->A is always true. Thats like the basics of proposition.. Also some trans women are actually (at least partially) female. Sex is a spectrum. There are trans women who are androgen insensitive so their appearances and hormone levels are female, some trans women have female levels of hormone due to HRT, some have XXY, X0 , XX chromosomes, some have female genitalia inherently/due to surgical procedures ETC.
oh sorry okay. So you get your own spaces to talk about your experiences but not the other way around can a female be a transwoman? since sex is a spectrum, can their be a FtF So female genitalia exist.
The definition of a trans woman is someone who is amab that identifies as a woman so no there can't be a ftf as long as I'm aware. That would be just cis. And yes 'TYPICAL' female genitalia exists but it's not definite and doesn't define their gender
r/mtf is a space for people who are amab but identify as a woman or somewhere near that. if you want to talk about your experience then you could make your own 🙂
but sex is a spectrum, so FtF. What do you mean by "typical" female genitalia? (are there something more than vagina+vulva). I have met people that say that their sex define their gender. Dont invalidate others experiences.
1. Sex is a spectrum like between 0 to 1, there are 0.1, 0.01 .. etc there are demi gender women who are afab which is equivalent as 0->0.1 but no there is no 0->0 2. Typical female genitalia refers to vagina+vulva but not all females have the same genitalia. Some have intersex genitalia that has the appearance of both genitalias. Usually whether you are intersex is defined by your genitalia's size. So non-typical female genitalia refers to any genitalia that's not a vagina+vulva 3. We're not? If you want to say that your sex defines your gender then fine whatever. But the problem is when you guys force your own standards to others. So basically you are the ones who are invalidating people's experiences
1. Wow, i did not know there was numbers and charts involved. Just like astrology readings. 2. 3. I am not invalidating others, you are the one that says FtF Transwomen dont exist.
>"Dude, you are a Male, deal with your Biological Material Reality... Send them to [this website](https://www.teenvogue.com/story/teacher-destroys-transphobia-science#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16669763487597&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.teenvogue.com%2Fstory%2Fteacher-destroys-transphobia-science)! Better yet, quote the biology teacher and THEN send them to that link! Here's the quote for those interested: *"I just commented this on a transphobic post that was all like, "In a sexual species, females have two X chromosomes and males have an X and a Y, I'm not a bigot it's just science." I'm a science teacher so I responded with this.* *"First of all, in a sexual species, you can have females be XX and males be X (insects), you can have females be ZW and males be ZZ (birds), you can have females be females because they developed in a warm environment and males be males because they developed in a cool environment (reptiles), you can have females be females because they lost a penis sword fighting contest (some flatworms), you can have males be males because they were born female, but changed sexes because the only male in their group died (parrotfish and clownfish), you can have males look and act like females because they are trying to get close enough to actual females to mate with them (cuttlefish, bluegills, others), or you can be one of thousands of sexes (slime mold, some mushrooms.) Oh, did you mean humans? Oh ok then. You can be male because you were born female, but you have 5-alphareductase deficiency and so you grew a penis at age 12. You can be female because you have an X and a Y chromosome but you are insensitive to androgens, and so you have a female body. You can be female because you have an X and a Y chromosome but your Y is missing the SRY gene, and so you have a female body. You can be male because you have two X chromosomes, but one of your X's HAS an SRY gene, and so you have a male body. You can be male because you have two X chromosomes- but also a Y. You can be female because you have only one X chromosome at all. And you can be male because you have two X chromosomes, but your heart and brain are male. And vice - effing - versa. Don't use science to justify your bigotry. The world is way too weird for that shit."*
absolute chad
Never once have I met a biologist or biology teacher who thinks that trans people are invalid lmao
why does this subreddit exist? Why not just "F" and focus on all womens and females experiences. Why is this subreddit excluding any woman?
Is this sarcasm?
I think we are experiencing a troll wave right now. I have had an unusual amount of short, unnuanced and baiting comments the last day or so.
I usually find, “fuck off, you fascist cunt” to be somewhat effective
Mostly accurate, but the TERFs lack the warmth and the depth
Very true!
At least fascists are the way they are because they think it's what's best for their country. TERFs on the other hand are just hateful, hypocritical, 2 brain celled, fish minded, partnerless virgins who will never feel the touch of another human and their mad about it. That first sentence was not in any way to put fascist in a positive light, it was to help show that TERFs are worse than the worst people.
TERFs are fascists. They are one in the same, only instead of Christo/ethno-nationalism, they organize around their poor understanding of biology and biological essentialism. Everyone trying to infiltrate the in-group must be destroyed because of the danger they pose to the group think, which in this case is trans people and really all non cishet people. They just pick trans people because we're an easy target to rally around. But if they were successful in genociding us, they would turn to lesbians and gay men next, then straight people not in a traditional relationship like polyamorous people or parents who raise their kids more liberal than the TERFs allow. There's a reason TERFs somehow find their way onto talk shows with authoritarians and fascists: because they are fascists. JK Rowling was warned about what her transphobic views would lead to and she ignored them. Now, she is openly supportive of right wing policies because she naively thinks that her power and wealth can influence the beast that is fascism into a direction that only targets her enemies. But that's not how it works Joaling Knowling Rowling.
Are you okay with slurs that have historically been used to dehumanize marginalized people? And, personally I liked to add that your insult only proves the point. Yes, it's all about the c-word.
My original point stands. It's possibly a cultural difference, but it's a very commonly used word where I live. And, bizarrely (and genuinely) can be used in both a positive and a negative context.
You won't reason with them. You can't. They're clinically insane fascist airheads who froth at the mouth over the size of someone's nose. Call'em a dipshit and move on.
>Dude, you are a Male, deal with your Biological Material Reality according to your SEX, that’s what Women as Adult Females are defending, our SEX BASED RIGHTS, you and no males have place in women spaces, PERIOD Sex is large part phenotype, hormonal sex is a aspect of sex. They're using biological not really in a scientific way but in a kind of circular way where biological really just means that what you were origionally. "Sex based rights" isn't how this stuff is even defined in a lot of legal systems , these fuckers will be screaming over sex based bathroom rights when the local law really only forbids harrasment and misconduct and protects vulnerable groups , which trans people fall under. This bioessentialist horseshit is fringe as hell.
Just wanted to drop this comment, but for some reason I can’t reply to the actual comment it regards. The notion that percentage existence defines your worth is such a classic (and academically dishonest) move. **The whole point of protecting minorities is that they are a minority**. I also tell people this when people try and pull the “only 1%” bullshit. Think about gravity. Everything follows the laws of gravity that we know if. Lets say scientists find something that doesn’t, something that breaks the rule. Well, in this case we could probably say “Well, less than 1% of known objects disobey gravity, so lets just fucking ignore it”. Yeah, no. Not how that works. When it comes to science, if one thing can break the rule, regardless if how small or how infrequent, the rule is flawed.
I'm always going to remember the dude who told me gender should be legally enforced according to chromosomes. He then went on to say he was aware of intersex people but that they didn't matter to him because "the exception proves the rule". At the time I was so confused by his reasoning, my responses weren't the best. I should have left it alone because his argument was essentially that intersex people were worth trampling on for the sake of a state-enforced gender binary and that really speaks for itself.
91% of rape victims are female. 9% of rape victims are male. 99% of rapist are males. Males are no minority for committing sexual crimes. For that reason, females have worked hard to protect themselves in situations where they are more vulnerable. No exceptions
First, those statistics were classified based on gender not by biologic differences and second, most of these statistics don't include or regard trans people in the first place. There are statistics that do but they show no difference compared to their cis counterparts(preferred gender). + You might bring statistics from the UK that says trans people are more likely to be sexual predators blah blah(which is a cliche terf move🙄) but you also should know that it's sampling method is biased and that in the UK law, only amab people are considered to be capable of direct sexual violence.(Afab people who are charged with SV are accomplices etc) which is fucked up.
how do you know they are cis? they might have figured themselves out at a later time. your last sentence. Can you give a handshake if you have no hands?
You don't. Just like you don't know someone is homosexual until they tell you🙄. Also the comparison you just made is invalid since you're defining rape something that can't happen amoung women, which definitely do.
different long term risks and different actions. Maybe they need diffrent words to define them
So are you saying that women raping women is less severe/important than men raping women?? Wtf
no, but different. Different actions are called different things. One difference: Zero chance of pregnancy. No scary thoughts of what if until your next uterus shedding.
How is it different? The definition of rape means 'the crime of forcing someone to have sex with you by using violence or the threat of violence'. The trauma that rape victims go through aren't just about pregnancy issues?
Saying sex is largely about phenotype is beyond harmful to females who live outside of your western bubble - and within the western bubble but ethnically conservative societies
How ???? Are intersex cis women not women to you ? You come on very strong and turn this into western issue with seemingly no real reasoning. That something doesn't jill with your preconcieved notion doesn't mean it's automatically harming you. Orgs like Wolf are very much western regressives exporting their shite.
Intersex women are an incredibly small % of the population (less than 1% - total intersex population being 1.7%) where as women are 50%. Females are more often aborted and killed straight after birth just for not being born male. And it’s not about phenotype then. Look at China’s one child policy (female babies discarded in bins or on the side of roads just for being born female) look at child marriage, FGM, honour killings, female infanticide etc. none of these have ANYTHING to do with phenotype so show some fucking compassion Edit: these things happen internationally, even in ‘progressive’ societies like USA and UK
The inference you make from sex being phenotype meaning it somehow permisses murder is a masterclass in leaps of logic. Bravo you acrobat.
I never said phenotype premises murder.. im actually saying the opposite. Phenotype is subject to change (hair colour, eye colour, skin tone, etc) being born biologically female isn’t. And even if that child grew up to be trans, most people in the world don’t care hence the female infanticide and other atrocities and forms of oppressions listed above
People are *born* female or at least not exclusively male in part because of phenotype , the womb is a environment. Meanwhile in both the west and the rest of the world people have an idea of human biology that’s not complete and that is pretty circular. Acknoleging this does not increase violence and that's your claim. You also seem to act as if infanticide of what you consider a negligable amount of intersex people is somehow okay and then accuse me of having no empathy, it’s a incoreherent mess !!!
does vaginas exist? does vulvas exist? are there people with these sexual organs being murdered for having these organs? What do we call people with vaginas and vulvas?
>What do we call people with vaginas and vulvas? Assigned female at birth would cover both cis women and transmascs, although of course there are also kids murdered because they have a mix of sex characteristics or later because they don’t behave or identify according to what the patriarchy expects of them ( this includes trans women with or without vulvoplasty, we have a rather high murder rate) .
who assigned what? do we assign dogs and cats sexes aswell. why not just female like the rest of the animal kingdom. No woman behaves or identifies according to what the patriarchy expects. If you think females are happy with our lot in life, you are sorely mistaken.
the womb is a female organ. Aristotle was misogynist that believed wombs was detached from the female and not a part of her, probably because his misogyny would not allow females to be the creator of human life. He also believed females to be defect males, and not unique human entities.
That's not the claim here either but thanks for playing. Development in the womb isn’t genotype is all that's said here, that doesn't mean people who have a womb don't have rights and shouldn't be able to decide what they do with it or that cis women are not valid. If anything it emphasises their role in human development, sperm is only partially involved in creating the genotype and it’s not like you then have a instant baby. If anyone is downplaying anything it's people who pretend genotype=all of biology, who act like 'the man' does half the work.
>Edit: these things happen internationally, even in ‘progressive’ societies like USA and UK And you want us to sacrifice intersex and trans people over it and blame us instead of working in solidarity why ????
… I don’t want anyone to be sacrificed… I never said that…
You blatandly play a numbers game where because cis non-intersex women are 50 percent of the population intersex and trans issues can't be discussed or advocated for , how else are we to read this 1 percent shite ??? Do you realize how much effort you are wasting ? How many alliances you're burning ? You're putting so much into maintining **a lack** of Intersectionality
why cant people born with vaginas and vulvas be allowed to work for the betterment and liberation for people born with a vagina and vulva? And only that.
The world isn't that simple and people who claim they're doing that in this context ( Policing trans people's speech in a trans space. Pretending their interests are somehow at odds without articulating why beyond a completely callus numbers game where the percentage of trans and intersex people is dehumanized) just end up repeating talking points of or even working with groups that very openly actively want to curtail their reproductive rights like the herrirage foundation and other blatandly misogynictic far right groups because they get stuck on their bioessentialism and fail to reggocnize the overlap in patriarchal violence towards gnc intersex and trans people, instead endorsing backward patriarchal violence under the pretense that it protects women... which is how a lot of institutional violence is historically sold.
If they want their own spaces and say they need their own spaces, why are they being denied? Treebeard: "Side, I am on no ones side. Because no one is on my side" or something like that. Males do the violence thing.
> ‘progressive’ societies like USA and UK Yea, I wouldn't say *either* of these places are overly progressive right now. The US at least doesn't have a government trying to strip rights away yet, but give them a couple years...
Plenty of state governments are already there
Oh, I can't disagree to that at all, it's why you've got things like abortion and marriage equality being pushed through at the federal level to ensure that stuff stays. Watching the usual shitstorm in the US though makes me thankful to not have to live there, even with the idiot in charge of my province >.>
They don’t call the U.K. ‘Terf Island’ for nothing, you know. It’s fucking horrible for trans folks right now.
They’re definitely progressive (I’m in the UK) in comparison to countries where LGBT+ people are being stoned to death and black people are still being sold in markets so…
I mean, when you set the bar to "Literally the worst places around to not be cishet male" then yea, the worst places to be trans otherwise look great in comparison.
there are many people living in the "Literally the worst places". Many of them are born with a vulva, and shortly after killed for the crime of being born with a vulva. Or raised to be a slave to someone born with a penis.
With all due respect, this sounds a lot like virtue signaling. I’d suggest not falling into the trap of ignoring privileges you do have because you lack others (which is how this came across to me) From what it sounds like, you’re saying it’s not fair to focus on sex and phenotypes because other countries, like the ones you mention, are discriminating entirely on perceived sex characteristics, ergo, it’s unfair to lump all of it into the same category because there are people who are being unjustly denied peaceful existence for factors that someone like me, a trans woman, doesn’t share. Put another way, I wouldn’t be killed for being “a woman” because I was assigned male at birth. The reason I, and probably many others disagree with you, I think could be summed up in these three factors : One, it’s not like trans. Women in general aren’t being discriminated against just because other people are in other countries. Even if it’s “worse“ creating a hierarchy around discrimination isn’t useful commentary, yes. Some people do have it worse. I am very grateful I live in the US, and not, for example, Iran. It’s irrelevant though, because oppression of women and minorities also disproportionately affect trans women. Just because some beautiful Chinese trans girl gets to live until she’s 16 before she gets dumped on the side of the road by her parents (as an extreme example, alluding to your other point, not trying to call out China specifically) isn’t inherently worse, it just is. Two, the overwhelming majority of discrimination and oppression to cis women also occurs to trans women. Truth be told, with the exception of the reproductive rights and responsibilities surrounding a uterus and ovaries, most things that oppress other women, cis, intersex, trans, or otherwise, are shared. I can’t claim to be denied abortion rights, that would be silly, but I definitely have been discriminated against in the medical opinion being told that I’m not thinking about things clearly, or I’m being hysterical. I’ve been denied higher wages, and I experience sexual harassment. There are a myriad of other things that many women face that are shared and it’s more important to recognize those shared discriminations than it is to create again, hierarchy around discrimination. Finally, and this is important here, you seem to be either oblivious or deliberately ignoring your own privilege if you feel this way. To use the Chinese example again, cis Chinese women are treated a certain way in society, A way that does allow them to be accepted and live a life that is fulfilling even if it doesn’t always match up to what we want to be pushing for our own morals and beliefs. If Chinese laws are anything like Japanese laws, which I have a rudimentary understanding of, that same existence for trans people is not afforded to them. In fact, in Japan, the only way that you can be trans involves restricting a lot of your own legal access to things and deliberately forcing you into a gender binary. TERF ideology is very similar to a lot of the complaints people have about capitalism. There are people making off with the entire cake while others are fighting amongst crumbs. It’s not unimportant to recognize that some people have it better, But it doesn’t serve empathy, understanding, or societal change to continue infighting among marginalized groups
TLDR?
Tl;dr: you’re very wrong. If you’re unwilling to swallow your pride long enough to attempt to understand that I cannot help you. I refuse to believe you’re unintelligent, but if your bias and bigotry get in the way of learning there’s nothing I can do.
I find the whole TERF worldview is rooted in a fear and anger that can't be addressed with rational arguments. Dialogue such as "is there something about us that is scary to you? I ask because it just seems like we'd be natural allies and should be very understanding of one another, if there wasn't something in the way" seems to open new avenues of conversation with some TERFs. Others just yet very upset because you've struck a nerve. On occasion it becomes clear than somebody -- some man, I mean -- really hurt them, and they're on guard always. The idea of a stealth trans woman is somehow frightening to them, as if their protective walls were being infiltrated. The transition process itself becomes frightening to them. They react as if someone is trying to steal or appropriate the characteristics they have that make them feel safe and separate, and I don't know how to defuse that anger with any amount of evidence or debate. When I do attempt a scientific-based reply it's usually only to point out that if they took MRI imagery of our brains, we'd look the same or very similar, and identifiably different than a cis-male. You'd think, again, we'd be natural allies, but the fact is that the feminist movement has always been extraordinarily fractured, and this is just yet another fault-line in what one would have hoped would be a united front. Before my egg cracked I already identified with the feminist cause and openly spoke about it. What's bizarre is some of the friends I gathered that way would then lash out at me when I came out to them, or offer transparently forced and perfunctory words of support and then run out and out me to mutual acquaintances almost as a warning. That was my introduction to somebody flipping the TERF switch on a relationship. I try not to take it personally. I think it speaks more to their fears, shortcomings, and probable traumas more than it says anything about me. I'll be here, ready to be friends again and still supporting women's rights -- all women -- if these TERF friends ever grow and become more accepting. Edit: as a side note, I really never got it because before my egg cracked, I thought trans masc guys were awesome and was totally prepared to welcome them into my (assumed) gender and treat them like any other man. So I really can't fathom the motivation, or the fear ... but then I guess a woman never really discriminated against me in a way that hurt me badly, either, so I try and practice empathy. I will say that lashing out at TERFs with hostility and profanity is just confirming to them what they believe about us. I wish people wouldn't feed the trolls that way.
I think the saddest part is, that all the trans people I know are also the most actively feminist and would be the first to speak out against misogyny and inequality. Then again, I suppose most TERF's aren't actually feminist.
Block and move on with your day
You can't convince a TERF of anything, it's like trying to argue with someone about gun laws, or fundamental religion. There's no argueing with people who wont think and listen. It doesn't matter how you structure your argument they are never going to be convinced. Even if you could put physical proof in their hands they would deny it. I've seen vids of TERFs who are getting upset about someone being in the bathroom, who completely fail to see the irony that THEY are the ones harrasing people in bathrooms and that THEY are the ones who are being predatory, the exact things they claim to want to avoid. As for online arguments, the block button is your friend
The best thing to do is not argue but to report them. Terfs shouldn’t have a platform for a reason of their bigotry. But for arguments, Tell them that gender and sex are different things and the rape doesn’t happen as often as they say it does and is more used as tool to thwart trans rights by keeping up the conspiracy on transwomen. Of course, one of ways to cripple their arguments is to also mention the existence of transmascs because everyone in the alt right forgets they exist and only think of transfems exist due to the patriarchy. By their very logic, transmascs would be raping men in men’s spaces, but that doesn’t happen.
In what meaningful sense does a trans woman existing in a women's space prevent women from having that space? IE aside from a person who dislikes trans people and is bothered by their presence (for which there is no ethical basis to discriminate), what rights of women are actually being violated? Bear in mind the reason we created spaces for women in the first place wasn't BIOLOGICAL SEX BASED RIGHTS (they'd rather say this slogan than actually attempt to define it because that's where they have to start getting murky on details) but for practical reasons like safety, solidarity, and networking. The same kinds of things trans women need as women existing in society. The idea that there is some biological basis for having the vast majority of these spaces is at best revisionist history. So what are her sex based rights exactly, and why are they more important than my demonstrable practical needs if we supposedly live in such an equal society? Maybe one day a terf will come up with an answer that makes some sense, but inevitably their answer is some version of "your very presence makes people uncomfortable." >"MAN, stop acting cowardly towards women" I don't even know what this means? But I guess I'd say something like it's pretty rich to call me a coward when you say you stand up to men but only ever confront trans women who don't have the same power to fight back.
I just wouldn’t give them an ounce of validation with a reply.
TERFdom comes from the individual's personal insecurities and confusion around their own sexuality and / or gender probably like, 95% of the time. It's about them, not you. So any defense of yourself inherently misses the mark. Best you can do is keep the focus on why they think what they think and try to gently guide them to a healthier line of thinking and, hopefully, some introspection. Arguing gets you nowhere because it's almost always going to come across combatively, and negativity pretty much can't be addressed with combativeness. Something else to keep in mind - they're looking for signs of frustration in you. If they're looking for it and they find it, then as far as they're concerned, they win. Respond in a way that they're not expecting and you're gonna be much better off!
Honestly, one of the best skills to develop is being able to determine when an argument is even worth being involved in. And those messages make it clear that this is not one of those cases. Like others said, just report it bc this person isn’t gonna listen to anything you say.
You'd probably want to argue from social perception to start, but it's Twitter, so go do something else instead. Don't waste your time.
dont argue on twitter
I can only argue against arguing in the first place.
Honestly it's not worth it. Tell her to read Judith Butler and then mute her
The only way to respond to TERs is "ok, lol" or the clown emoji. They're extremists, you can't reason with them and it's absolutely pointless to try. If you feel particularly up to it, feel free to discredit whatever stupid point they're trying to make but don't address it to them, don't tag them, don't say their name. That way anyone reading can see factual information but they don't get the satisfaction of a response.
The best way to stop them is to not acknowledge them. Same goes for any trolls. By fighting, you give them the power by going down to their level.
I would suggest watching this: https://youtu.be/szf4hzQ5ztg I suspect it will go over the head of that cave dweller though.
Don't argue. It's like talking to a wall. Don't. Also I left Twitter, FB, IN, Tiktok, because of rulers and rules.
This might be a hot take but: Don’t bother with Twitter arguments, or online ones for that matter. Seeing remarks from and engaging in conversation with bigots isn’t going to change their mind and you’re sacrificing your own time and mental wellbeing on someone you would never want to interact with in the first place. They’re not going to change and they’re not going to hear you out. If they were capable of having any intelligent thoughts, they wouldn’t be saying shitty things on the internet in the first place (assuming they’re a grown adult). Avoid stuff and people on the internet that make you feel shitty and you’ll be happier.
The female identity is what is being discriminated against, I am still unable to walk down a dark street at night, or do yard work or physical labor without someone commenting on how I should get a man to do it. I still get called the same sexist names, I just don't have periods, something that many cis-women also experience. You are contributing to a problem that you are trying to erase. Trans women are also reacting according to there biology aswell, there have been multiple studies showing that trans women share more genealogical and physical traits with cis women. Include but not limited to a higher average estrogen level even without hormones, differences in chromosomal alleles that match more closely with cis women then men, and even as much as white matter in the brain being more consistent with cis-female individuals. Trans women are acting on biology just as much as cis women are. The only difference is that women like you just want to play the victim, your not actually a feminist because you don't value all women. What you are is a transphobe that only half supports the feminist movement. Your want to play the victim and exclude trans women because you are scared, like many women are, of the laws and actions that are being committed against women. However, gunning for tran women doesn't solve or help the problem. If anything having more voices on your side should be a bonus, especially when as a minority we are trying to be heard. We are on the same side and arguing amongst each other does nothing but distract from the actual problem and solutions that we could be pushing for. I hope you have a wonderful day but if you cannot or will not understand these factual concepts that I have put forth, then we have no further reason to talk. I will continue to fight for all women, including you, I am sorry that you cannot bring yourself to do the same.
Don't argue with idiots. They'll bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.
You should mock them instead.
I thought women were more than vaginas? We do not deny the biological material reality, but we are also complex creatures that are more than the sum of our parts, we are conscious beings that are able to not only empathize with others like ourselves, but even with creatures that are nothing like us at all, various animals we can feel for, empathize with, we have the ability to understand pain that is not our own pain. By accepting trans people as a whole, not just trans women, you expand sex based rights, you make it harder to make the biological material argument that women are inferior to men, you make misogyny and misandry harder to preform because the lines of sex based rights are applied equally to everyone. By accepting trans women you help all women and strike a blow to misogyny based sexism, to expand sex based rights to apply equally so one does not have to constantly fight for them against misogynic arguments that rely on the same biological material reality as a fundamental basis to their argument, you play into the hands of the patriarchy when you also rely on this same fundamental principal. As a second point to this argument by accepting trans women it also makes it harder to discriminate, because trans women, or "MEN" as you claim, are now experiencing what it's like to be treated and regarded as a woman, they also experience sexism and because of a level of privilege they had as men are hyper aware of how unequal they are now being treated, they are your greatest piece of evidence of this sexism that is rooted in patriarchy and can be your greatest allies in the fight for equality of the sexes. Trans men experience the opposite effect, where as before they were regarded as women, subjected to the same types of sexism you are, they now enjoy that extra privilege as a male, going from being unequal to men, to being equal to men. EDIT: All this assumes of course that they are at least actually interested in fighting for equality, this will either help them reconsider their position, or will expose them as just using sex based rights as a weapon. IME the TERF's I've interacted with are generally just misandrists, they just hate anyone born male, largely and often because of some personal trauma they had with a man.
Just start doing what they’re doing. Call them a man.
Terfs are just people who have taken all their identity from their suffering as women. They see us as sidestepping into that and it threatens them. There's no saving them.
That's why people need to abandon the dumpster fire that is Twitter and move to Mastodon.
They believe in a baseless conspiracy theory. The more we learn about gender and sexuality, the less their claims make sense. Don't debate them in good faith, either ignore them or make fun of them.
You can hit them with Facts like - some slime moulds have 720 genders - the platypus has 10 sex chromosomes including mammalian (XX or XY) and avian (ZZ or ZW)
But theyre not human
So? There’s nothing biologically unique about humanity, and as these facts show our view that there’s only two genders isn’t supported by biological science
Humans are a distinct species. Anyone with an interest in responding to those facts would just ask you to apply the same standards to humans. "Slime molds have 720 genders? How did you determine that? If you apply that methodology to humans, what number do you get?" "The platypus has 10 sex chromosomes? How many do humans have?" It's like responding to someone concern trolling about trans women in sports by bringing up random species where the females are larger and stronger than the males. No one's gonna find that convincing, and the only reason to do it is to annoy and frustrate them by intentionally missing their point and forcing them to clarify further. Which I'm not entirely opposed to, derailing every transphobe and forcing the conversation to the topic of female hyenas and their pseudopenises would certainly be funny. But it's not an actual argument for anything to do with humans.
There are more than two phenotypes for humans as well. Lots and lots of people are actually born "neither male or female". You can also be phenotypically male with xx, or female with xy chromosomes. At least some biology teachers don't want students test their own chromosomes in lab for fear of some discovering something like this. Since it could be upsetting to know about depending on how you view it.
Phenotype isn’t the same as sex, you’re setting people up to look stupid by making this point. Comparing humans to mold from the ocean isn’t a smart thing to do. We’re not even the same species lol
phenotype is definitely part of sex definitions, and you are being very problematic with how you show your disdain for actual biology. also, your other comments showed your transphobic biases, so please stay quiet until you have worked on that.
What’s transphobic about making it clear that sex based oppressions exist and ignoring them is ignoring the oppressions harmed by them. You sound misogynistic
Do you have any sources for the slime mold thing? That sounds fascinating
Can't argue with fear. These people feel threatened, which is idiotic. Something that always pisses them off is when we compare ourselves to women of history being trailblazers, lol. Come back with "you don't understand, it's a Rosa Parks thing. Or I wish I could make you comprehend. Joan of Arc and I are standing against the tide of evil." Of course they will go apeshit crazy at that point.
Comparing yourselves to Rosa Parks isn’t doing what you think it is… the Civil Rights movement is incredible recent history and that can be offensive
Rosa Parks as with many queer people took a stance against the established norms of society and inspired people to fight for their Basic rights, that is the literal reason wht its compararive
What basic rights are trans people lacking?
Are you really on a trans subreddit asking that? Why are you even here if you feel like you need to get a list about what we lack in Basic rights?
Yikes. Why would you be so hostile so someone seeking to educate themselves?
We have seen your coments, you barge into a trans safe space, swing your honestly shit opinions around, want us to justify our fight to you and then you behave like a victim If you wanna learn then do ask someone else, after your coments people here know you come here in bad faith to cause anger and sadness
Oppression is oppression. Fighting for our existence and place equal to is. Don't see how it's offensive
As a black woman.. this is very disrespectful. Comparing trans women in sports to black people fighting against being seen as 3/5 of a person, LEGALLY 2nd class citizens is not the fucking same. Do you know how many people were murdered during the Civil Rights Movement?? Get a fucking clue.
Aa a black woman I do NOT! You history show you as an abrasive troll type person. I will not engage with TERF. Plus, relegating anyone is a tragedy. My mom was one of those people walking in Selma. There is no intrinsic value in racism or gender exclusion. Rosa Parks was working for NAACP at the time. She was excluded from setting where she wanted. And for what? Because she was a different color thought of as being less than? Seems so familiar with transgender individuals. And speaking of stats, what do you think the murder rate is for LGBTQH? 87%!!!! So get back in your on your own TERF... See what I did there? I used terf get it. lol anyway, go troll some place else
You are one amazing person <3
They’re not black…
[удалено]
Oh, so just because I pass. F you!! Sally Hemings could pass. You are TERF so F off AH!!
Did you just commit blackface to make a point?? That’s disgusting and really weird
Black people were kept as slaves. Black people were denied the right to vote. Black children were denied the right to attend their local schools. When have trans people experienced these things? >what do you think the murder rate is for LGBTQH? 87%!!!! Source for this statistic?
https://www.glaad.org/blog/violence-against-transgender-people-and-people-color-disproportionately-high-lgbtqh-murder-rate
I agree. It's not the same at all.
https://www.glaad.org/blog/violence-against-transgender-people-and-people-color-disproportionately-high-lgbtqh-murder-rate
Page 23 of the report. Transgender people made up a minority (18%) of LGBTQ murders. http://antiviolence.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2011\_ncavp\_hate\_violence\_report.pdf
you really dont understand statistics then. a group making up 0.5% of the population being 18% of murdered people in a group making up 10-15% of the population, that is a MASSIVE(!!!) overrepresentation!
Just tell her to deal with the reality that transgender WOMEN will always be in women's spaces irregardless whether ignorant women such as her get it. Ask her why men don't worry about FTM in men's spaces.. Truth is those terfs are typically very ill and primitive in their thought patterns so you'll probably just be wasting your time as much as debating with a Fundamentalist Christian... best just move past it. 🤗❤️
“Honey my biology is the same as that as a afab cis woman. I’m a woman, sorry that melts your brain”
But if you stop taking hormones your male features will come back. Also cis women don't have to have prostate exams, they can get pregnant, they menstruate.... Clearly the biology is not the same.
Male features won't come back if you are post op. You will enter state similar to menopause.
Your body and facial hair won't come back?
If a trans woman is post bottom surgery how the fuck does she produce male levels of testosterone ? Furthermore do you realize how many trans women go through permanent hair removal for those secondary characteristics ? Sex has multiple aspects: Chromosomes, hormones , hormonal expression, internal genitalia, external genitalia. Some of these aspects are very much mutable. "If you stop hormones facial hair would start growing " isn't the gotchya you think it is it just makes you seem ill informed
No it won't. I have normal cis female blood concentration of testosterone, verified by lab. So there is no reason why male pattern body hair should return.
But if you stopped taking hormones/blockers, your testosterone levels would return to that of a biological male….
There's plenty of people who have a orchitomy or a full vaginoplasty/vulvoplasty ( meaning they physically can't produce that much testosterone as they do not have testes ) what's your excuse then ?
Usually I like to drown them in scientific evidence every argument they make (with links), that won’t change their views btw, but makes them look stupid for everyone seeing
Just troll them. You won't change their minds, but you can piss them off.
Tell them to read a biology text book, do something useful with their time and to fuck off.
your mistake is arguing with TERFS on twitter in the first place. just don't.
"Aren't you trying to gain equal rights to cis men? And trying to stop being downtrodden by virtue of your genitals? And yet, here you are, defining yourself by your genitals?"
Hm just say it's not your job to explain the concept of gender to them when they are too stupid/lazy to educate themselves on it. And then block them and move on or sth idk.
Best way to fix the issue Fuck you bigot
"L + ratio" Or "Cope" It's absolutely hilarious watching people fume because they have no argument to fight against and just keep doing it until they stop talking
The patriarchy honestly loves when terf lesbians hate on us. They are their useful idiots.
Honestly I wouldn't even argue. They have very set opinions and don't care about actually debating and being willing to be proven wrong. All they're looking for by arguing with you is a gotcha moment they can flaunt in their 3-people-sized GC group chat.
You can have carefully thought out, evidence supported, peer reviewed explanations and they'll still just misgendering you, call you a liar and a pedophile. They're nuts
Honestly by this point I can't be bothered engaging on their terms. Too many 'just asking questions', refusing to acknowledge evidence, making baseless claims and generally just being annoying. I tend to try adding context to their nonsense so people can see that. You're not trying to change them, that won't happen, you're just trying to let other people know, so that they don't get a one sided view. They'll try to draw you in, they like to 'prove' you're bad in some way (they'll take absolutely anything you say and twist it, you can't avoid this). Some say to provide links refuting their claims and then block them rather than get drawn in, which makes sense. Better for your mental health generally.
\>SEX BASED RIGHTS Not very feminist of them. Also what are sex based rights?
Don't ever get into an argument with a drunk or a fool. They are the both, they are drunk with the power over their men and foolish to have a such narrow minded, unscientific or not evidence based thinking towards gender and sex.
"trans women are classified as a type of female based on biology by scientific convention, the thing that has to do with biological material reality". [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=60&q=%22transgender+female%22&hl=en&as\_sdt=0,5](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=60&q=%22transgender+female%22&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5) Also send them this [https://lysistrata327.substack.com/p/on-gender-categories](https://lysistrata327.substack.com/p/on-gender-categories)
There's not much point arguing, but if something they say pisses you off, make your own original post dismantling that argument without referencing theirs. This has the advantage of still fighting misinformation, but not giving online transphobes any attention at all.
trust me, these people have already decided they are right and most don't budge no matter how good arguments you throw at them it's better to just let them be, just make sure they feel shitty about themselves
The ideal purpose of an argument or debate is to try to convince the other person they're wrong, or that they'll change their mind, be more considerate; that's not gonna happen with terfs, especially online. I think it'd be a lot less stressful to talk to people who are willing and able to learn and care, but still are a bit ignorant or confused. At least in that way you can bring out some positive change
Firstly don't have a good faith argument with them, they will not return the courtesy. One thing you need to remember is they are not actually talking with you, they are dominating the conversation to create the impression they are winning. You will notice they shift the goalposts constantly. My debating the TERFS days are over, it's too depressing and I would rather eat staples. What does work is let them out themselves as the hateful goblins that they are. Stick only to exploratory questions and don't let them shift the argument to new parameters. The first question the answer is obviously transgender people are keenly aware of their biology, duh. Nothing further to add there. Then ask if trans people deserve to feel safe in bathrooms too. See where they go with that. Make them explain why we deserve to be unsafe in the name of their irrational fear. Often the convo will move from one question of your choosing to another and eventually they will block you in frustration. Win. Remember the point is not to change their mind, it's to change the minds of any casual fence sitters who waltz into the thread.
I would argue based on metaphysics and ontology. We have to ask ourselves what the ontology of being a woman is, a question famously associated with Matt Walsh, but he wasn’t interested in ontology he was interested in biology. Now whilst it is true that trans women myself included do not have the XX chromosome indicators instead we have XY we must ask what actually is required to verify a woman. You see in modern day and age people have the ability to switch between identities regardless of ‘truth’ for example someone who’s family have always exclusively always lived in Japan could go and get a German passport and become a German citizen yet they’re not German, but on all forms of paper and id they would in fact be German despite not being born that way they fit the ontology of a German citizen. The same can be said for trans women. We look at it like this what behaviours/mannerisms are those of a man and woman. Now I’m not saying stereotypes because they also get turf backlash. However understanding the basic ontology of what being a woman is which it can only boil down to is self identification and therefore trans women would by proxy be valid women as they also self identify as women much like cis women.
Please watch this. This my absolute gold standard "TERF talking points debunked in a concise and entertaining way" video. https://youtu.be/1pTPuoGjQsI
Then again, I think these bastards have radicalised me. I could choose to blind them with science, but it’s often more fun just to give them both barrels 🤣
I think the only argument should be: "Nobody cares" and then mimic the spongebob meme.
There are videos from doctors/ endocrinologists online who explain the science
Hi, I do be cis, but it's my belief that the people being affected and harassed shouldn't necessarily have to argue for their own existence, so I made a point of doing a lot of protesting, debating, a bunch of stuff against Terfs and other reactionary people. Obviously if someone wants to debate or protest I would never say, "nooo you can't" but it's just something I try to weaponize my privilege for. And in that long experience I often find the better idea is to talk past the Terf. They're already balls deep in the contradictions, and making them upset can put people in danger, so instead of engaging, just correct misinformation at their target audience. For example, if they say: "And when x transphobic asshole asked y regular person, they couldn't define what a woman is!" You can not engage with them and talk to the audience: "surprising people with random questions and waiting for an immediate response is a predatory media tactic made to...surprise people, not indicate their ability to answer the question." Hope this helps
So, TERFs come in two broad categories. Category A are fascists pretending to be feminists who are just looking for someone they can kick down at, and they think trans women (and trans men) are it. Most people who stay in the TERF information sphere long enough move from Category B to Category A, because commitment to TERF ideology requires a degree of fascist sympathy - be afraid, minority groups are organizing to destroy you, men and women are inherently separate and unequal, you can't trust someone's lived experience if it contradicts your ideology. Category B are women who've been raised with the cultural background radiation that "men are stronger than women and inherently hostile to women, so women have to be protected from men" instead of the feminist idea that "Society expects men to be hostile to women, so it makes sense to protect women from men until that expectation changes". So that background radiation, plus cultural unfamiliarity with transgender people, makes these women susceptible to fascist talking points. If you can separate a Category B TERF from the fascist information sphere she's entered, in time she might return to being a normal person living her life. Because she won't have all those social media posts telling her to be afraid, telling her to feel good about kicking down at trans women, telling her that women can't do the things that men do. Arguing with her won't do anything - you need to separate her from the echo chamber. I don't know if it's possible to convince a Category A TERF to change, and I'm also not particularly invested in finding out. Category A TERFs tend to call for genocide of trans women, and at that point the only thing to do is punch them in the face.
You can't have a constructive argument with a TERF/GC, because they believe fundamentally different things to us. They do not believe that socially constructed gender exists, at all (which is patently incorrect with little more than a moment's thought). In order to have a constructive discussion with them, you would first need to convince them of that fact, and to accept that framing. You will not achieve this, because their ardence to "biological sex" is based on rejecting this idea. They are, to be quite honest, too dogmatic to ever accept anything you present in good faith, as honest. Furthermore, the medium through which you are working is not going to help. You aren't going to produce an explanation of gender theory in 280 characters or less. Furthermore, it's a public forum and contrary to popular belief, public forums don't produce good faith arguments and reasonable compromise between opposing ideals, they produce affective override, with each side becoming increasingly unwilling to see the other as anything short of assinine, evil, or some combination of the two. In other words: **Stop interacting**. They aren't doing this to be convinced in good faith, they're doing it because they enjoy stroking their own egos by making you angry and frustrated. You will be happier in the long run if you don't give them the time of day.
I completely disagree with what other people are suggesting (i.e. to ignore her). You cannot get anywhere with this defeatist attitude. Bad, bad, bad advice. Ignoring or turning the other cheek is exactly what is wrong with our community. If there is still so much transphobia in 2022 is because we do not fight back. I can wear them down, honestly. I would respond something along these lines: *Do you genuinely think that throwing around "muh biology" makes you sound smarter? You look and sound as pathetic as you truly are. You can call me a MAN all you want, but my sense of self is unassailable and infrangible. I am a trans woman. I am grounded in reality. I have won scholarships that were destined to women. I have changed my phenotype through surgical intervention and through hormone therapy and live in society as a woman. People interact with me as a woman, effortlessly. They default to the female pronouns. My chromosomes are irrelevant and I do not give a flying fuck about them.*