How the hell is a white person who claims he is black because he knows or believes he is black different from a male who knows or believes he is a women.

You think I wasn’t born female? Interesting.

I’ve been wondering how to define “woman” for a while now. I tried to do it once before when another transphobic radfem demanded I define it. I read some books about gender at that time but never came to a satisfactory conclusion. The best I can do right now is to define the terms “man” and “woman” as social categories that contain some truth and some fiction. I say social categories because our culture has a collective idea of what a “woman” is and of what a “man” is and people are constantly trying to fit into these categories, and make sure that other people fit into these categories, often violently. In this way, “woman” is a social category, hence De Beauvoir’s quote that we must become women. There is some truth to our social categories; for instance, that women usually have certain body parts. However, not all women have breasts; some remain flat-chested*, and some have their breasts removed due to cancer, and they are still women. Women usually have a uterus and a vagina, but a woman might have a hysterectomy and therefore no longer have the usual reproductive organs; this wouldn’t mean she can’t call herself a woman. Women usually have XX chromosomes, but not always; for example, women with Turner’s syndrome may have only one, and women with trisomy X have three. Woman actually have different biological traits. All we can say for sure is there is a high correlation between people in the category “woman” and certain biological traits. If the presense of, for example, a uterus, was a deliminating factor marking who is and isn’t a woman, then a woman could have hers removed and no longer be considered a woman. Why do we still consider her one? Because she has a female gender identity, and this doesn’t change based on one’s body parts.

The sex you are assigned at birth is not always accurate. There are reports of doctors assigning the wrong sex to an infant with ambiguous genitals and the person having to later declare themselves as a different sex that the one their parents raised them as.

There’s no such thing as a feminine personality trait or mannerism; these are cultural constructions. Transwomen do have to learn and perform these cultural markers because without them they might not “pass” and would then be subject to violence. We’re all oppressed by culturally constructed gender roles.

*this is not to imply that small breasts cannot produce milk.

The idea that gender identity is real is not harmful or bullshit, it’s a morally neutral part of human beings that is well documented. Maybe you should read something other than transphobic blogs?

That is gender dysphoria and I’ve already written what I think about it. Scroll up and you’ll see my comment about it. In short: I believe it exists, but is mental illness, just like not being able to live with your own healthy limbs; operation should not be the first step of treatment, and maybe shouldn’t even be used at all,

People don’t just wake up one morning, realize they have gender dysphoria, and schedule surgery for that afternoon.

Other than the abovementioned illness, it’s a hilarious bit of bullshit that a man could “feel like woman”. As for this:
“If you listen to transwomen talk, you’ll probably find out what “feeling like a woman” is.
Ah, the menz will put us womenfolk straight. They know what being a woman is. Well, here they are talking about it, and all I can say is… LMFAO!!

I don’t think men feel like women. Men feel like men; women feel like women; humans feel like humans. Similarly, “the menz” cannot know what transwomen feel like.

The blogs gendertrender and twanzphobic demolish this argument more efficiently than I ever could, so I’ll just direct you over there:

I’m not going to read your transphobic blogs. I have glanced in horror at “twanzphobic since forever” and felt compelled to write a blog post just to point out that actually, hating people is wrong, and that hating a group of people is not at all compatible with a movement that is supposed to be anti-oppression.

Also, just reading that thread at the trans forum is hurting me, let alone the harmful effects the entire trans movement is having on society. How anyone can read that crap and then say transgenderism doesn’t harm anyone or anything, is beyond me. Go on, read it, and comment, if you dare.

You’re hurt by a thread on a blog? Really? I did click over there, and someone has compiled a list of quotes and from them generalized that all transwomen are invested in patriarchal thinking about women. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there were transwomen invested in patriarchy, because people in general are invested in patriarchy, so why wouldn’t transwomen be? I could also take some quotes from conservative women and generalize that all women are stupid, but I’m not gonna do that, because I’m not into useless nonsense.

I don’t have to “believe” myself a woman or “wish upon a star” I was a woman, since I have the sexual organs (not just an inverted-penis fuckhole) and a lifetime of living as one (with the pain and hardship that brings in our society) to prove it.

It is obvious from your words that you self-identify as a woman. That is your gender identity. I quote from True Selves by Mildred L. Brown and Chloe Ann Rounsley:

“Our own sense of being male or female is something that most of us take for granted. We don’t wonder about it; we don’t even consider it. If we have a female body, we feel female and think of ourselves as female. But this is not the case for transsexuals. Transsexuals don’t take anything about their minds or bodies for granted. Something that the rest of us pay no attention to at all dominates their lives. They have a mind/body conflict; they self-identify as one sex but have the body of the opposite sex. Because this incongruity causes considerable confusion, frustration and anguish, at some point most transsexuals feel compelled to do something to resolve their conflict so as to be able to live full and satisfying lives.”

You can pretend gender identity doesn’t exist, but you have one, and so does everyone else.

And also because bad things happening to women is sexxay. In fact, it’s not just sexxay, it IS sex.

LOL, oh my…That’s the most scathing put-down I’ve read all week.

I really wish you weren’t the first person I’ve seen point this out explicitly. :(

Awesome post, as is the first one.