Discussion about potential different meanings
Of “woman” and “female” are a red herring, and it’s simply a nonsense to say that “woman” is an identity word, while “female” is the word for sex: you’re basically just repeating assertions that trans activism made 2-3 years ago before it moved onto “gender identity determines what sex you are”
Your point would mean that “ewe” and “doe” and “peahen” are gender identities in other animals, rather than nouns to describe members of the female sex in other species.
It also misses that a handy byproduct of this idea is that it means that whenever people have, for clarity, used the term “female” on social media, they’re met with that Star Trek meme - as if it’s that person using the cold, clinical term by choice, rather than to make it clear which group is being referred to. Ceding control of the vocabulary in this way means that “anti trans bigots” are using the clinical, sciencey, less human sounding words like “female” and “biological”, while trans activism utilises linguistics to get the warm, nice words like “woman” and “kindness” and “inclusion”
The reason I’m trying to pin down trans activist’s working definition of the word “woman” is not because I’m trying to work out what it is, but to illustrate that trans activism wants to remove meaning from these concepts.
The argument “let’s let trans activism have ‘woman’, we’ll use that to mean “innate sense of self, sort of entangled with the idea of what an adult human female is expected to look like and act like”” misunderstands a crucial thing - it’s not that trans activists want the *word* - it’s that what trans activists want is for male people to be considered, in all practical terms, *female people*, and so if the meaning of the word “woman” *were* to be redefined to clearly mean “adult human females comfortable with the gender identity ‘woman’, and male people who call their identity ‘woman’”, then the term “woman” would no longer be enough for trans activists, as it would still put them in a separate category from female people, which is unacceptable to trans activists.
Don’t believe me? Let’s look at it then. If trans activism really *was* just about freedom to call oneself a woman while respecting sex differences, then trans activism would do these things:
* recognise that in public life, the term “woman” has been widely used to refer to members of the female sex, not a gender identity, and so just because something is labelled “women’s” it can’t be assumed to be for both sexes
* recognise that women’s sport exists not to recognise achievements of a gender identity, but to celebrate female athletes - athletes with female bodies
* recognise that victims of male violence and sexual assault are very likely to require spaces free of male people for treatment and recovery
* recognise the impact that possession of a female body has on female people in workplaces - eg how potential of pregnancy has negatively impacted women’s career opportunities, and recognising by extension that hiring a male person with the identity “woman” doesn’t actually show that employers are treating female people fairly
* be less quick to affirm that people should have hormonal or surgical intervention to help their bodies look and feel more like those of the opposite sex
* recognise that the group of humans with female bodies have political interests that are sometimes in conflict or at odds with the political interests of people with male bodies, and as such have the right to female only spaces
There is, quite simply, no evidence whatsoever that trans activism will back away from demanding access to this, if only women would clarify when the mean “female” and when they mean “woman, but as the innate identity, not as the word for adult human females”
There is, however, lots of evidence that trans activists actually do want to overwrite the importance of sex with the idea that one’s gender identity should be what determines what our sex is: the idea is that if your gender identity is “woman”, then one’s body is a woman’s body, a female body - labelling it “male” is simply a relic of less enlightened times.
Elsewhere here, I decided I’d refer to Laurel Hubbard using male pronouns - I chose to do so not to be insensitive but because I recognised that even when using preferred pronouns, I was accused of “misgendering” when I used language necessary to make my point: “she shouldn’t compete in the Olympics in the female category, as despite her gender identity, biologically she is male” is, according to mainstream trans activism, an act of misgendering, because observing that Hubbard is male is to deny that Hubbard;s gender identity necessarily overwrites sex. Any reasonable person can see that that is nonsensical, and so - while not feeling completely comfortable with it (I don’t enjoy the idea that a term is hurtful) it made sense to re-evaluate and recognise that once you start using the lexicon demanded by trans activism, you rob yourself of the ability to make a point:
“Laurel Hubbard should not compete in the Olympics, because regardless of how he identifies he remains male” is how I can make a point that has a clear meaning. Using trans activism’s style guide, I would have to say this instead:
“Laurel Hubbard should not compete in the Olympics, because regardless of her gender identity, the fact that she was assigned male at birth should rule her out”
The latter *feels* like excluding a female person from her rightful category because of an accident of birth, with the implication that Hubbard is no longer male; the former uses neutral, factual terms to accurately summarise the issue.
(, Mon 16 Aug 2021, 10:53, Reply)
It has become clear over the course of this thread that the person who has been posting about trans issues lately does indeed seem to have the opinion that a male who decides they are a trans woman should be regarded legally and otherwise as female, not just as a woman. And that is certainly not the case.
You posted earlier, "I am not conflating sex and gender" yet now you are saying "it’s simply a nonsense to say that “woman” is an identity word, while “female” is the word for sex", which is pretty much the definition of conflating sex and gender.
I don't agree that the two words mean the same, they have distinct meanings that overlap in most cases but not all cases.
A maths example would be two sets, one which contains all integers over 3, the other contains all even integers. Your argument is that, as all even integers from 4 upwards are in the other set, that we may as well put the number 2 in it as well and that it is nonsense to say that 2 is not in that set.
But it isn't in that set, even though there is a lot of overlap. They have distinct and separate definitions, even though one set mostly is contained within the other.
Mostly, not totally.
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My Name was saying these words inside your head on, Mon 16 Aug 2021, 11:27,
Reply)
It would only be conflation of sex and gender
If I accepted that “woman” *is* referring to gender, while “female” refers to sex.
That isn’t actually the case. The most widely used definition of “woman” is still “adult human female”, and neither trans activism nor anyone on this thread has actually provided a non-circular definition of “woman” that carries meaning about what such an identity actually comprises.
Conflation of sex and gender is in using the idea of a gender identity - let’s say, a male person identifying as a woman, and then using that identity to argue that the identity qualifies such a person to access spaces, services, political movements created based on sex.
As I am being perfectly clear about what I mean when I use each term, I’m not conflating anything.
Again, I’ll ask - what is a male person saying about himself if he says “I am a woman”?
I would argue that such a male person is actually saying “I have a personality that matches what I think is appropriate for the opposite sex” - the *act* of identifying as a woman *is* THE conflation of sex and gender upon which every other conflation builds. A male person isn’t a female person, so what *is* the identity to which he claims, and what are these “women’s spaces” that, as you are arguing, exist with respect to needs that arose based on having the gender identity “woman” and not on being an adult human female person?
(, Mon 16 Aug 2021, 11:44, Reply)
If “woman” is a gender identity, then “man” also is.
I have never experienced having a gender identity. I don’t believe I have one.
Can you outline what it would look like if I did, and can you clarify whether you
* think I am still a man
* think that in the absence of a gender identity I am actually non-binary
* whether I should, in day to day life, consider that anything I read or hear that pertains to “men” is something I should disregard, since I don’t have the gender identity “man”, and wouldn’t know what one was anyway?
(, Mon 16 Aug 2021, 11:56, Reply)
Your logic isn't logic.
What you think follows from your assumptions probably doesn't. This makes it hard to follow your thought patterns and arguments.
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brb Monkhouse Stampede, Mon 16 Aug 2021, 15:49,
Reply)
Indeed
There are very clear definitions for both words, no matter what any of us here think, or are willing to accept.
I've got better things to do than go back and forth with someone who won't even accept the meanings of words and is willing to contradict themselves to avoid any possible deviation from their pre-conceived position.
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My Name was saying these words inside your head on, Mon 16 Aug 2021, 17:38,
Reply)
Eh? I’m perfectly willing to accept definitions of words
What then *is* the definition of “woman” that I’m missing? Nobody has provided one. “It’s a gender” isn’t a definition, it’s an evasion of one.
(, Mon 16 Aug 2021, 19:16, Reply)
So it's not a red herring any more?
Why is “It’s a gender” an evasion of an answer? What do you mean by that?
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brb Monkhouse Stampede, Mon 16 Aug 2021, 19:35,
Reply)
Because as yet
Nobody has been able to say what the “gender” of “woman” comprises, and in which way it is a discrete category; by the logic used, “man” is also a gender, rather than the noun for an adult human male. So what is the difference between the genders of “man” and “woman” - what constitutes a “man” gender, what constitutes a “woman” gender?
Without actually being able to say what differentiates the genders, the concept of “woman as gender identity” males no sense: if woman is a gender identity, what *is* it? Trans activism can’t say - all it actually means is that it’s a word that male people can claim if they want it. In which way do these genders map onto sex in a way that makes a compelling case for a gender identity to overwrite and determine sex categories, as in the case of Hubbard.
Trans activism has no answer to this question, because answering it would mean conceding that it is referring to femininity and masculinity.
What *is* this innate sense of gender identity that is/was shared by Mo Mowlam, Katie Price, Megan Rapinoe, Hedy Lamarr, Caitlyn Jenner, Queen Elizabeth, Margaret Thatcher, Mariah Carey and Tilda Swinton? What do they all have in common? If they *dont* have anything in common, what is the usefulness of this idea that they have a shared gender identity? Are you able to give, say, five examples of things that characterise people with the gender identity “woman” and five things that categorise the gender identity “man”, without using sexist stereotypes? I can guarantee that you can’t, and without it, the idea that “woman” is a gender word but doesn’t have any intrinsic meaning is *literally* male people appropriating a useful term - the word for female humans - and stripping it of meaning for the benefit of male people.
My point is that they don’t have a shared gender identity - most of the people listed above have in common that they are *female*, and so use “woman” in the common understanding as the word to describe adult female humans, while one of them uses the word to describe that they believe they have a woman’s inner sense of self. That person however, has no ay whatsoever of knowing what it is to experience life as a female person, so “gender identity” remains a nebulous belief system.
Feel free to take it out of the realms of the nebulous and into something substantial by explaining what constitutes a “woman” gender identity….
(, Tue 17 Aug 2021, 12:09, Reply)
I see your problem (without reading all that bollocks, seriously tl;dr)
You say "“man” is also a gender, rather than the noun for an adult human male."
But it's both! A lot of words that describe sex also describe gender, and vice versa.
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brb Monkhouse Stampede, Tue 17 Aug 2021, 14:05,
Reply)
Then what is it describing when used to refer to “gender”?
You’re now saying man means “sex” AND “gender”, while saying that I am the one conflating the terms, and yet you can’t actually say what differentiates the gender “man” from the gender “woman”
Yes, my post is long. Because unpacking trans activism’s obfuscation requires patience and scrutiny of implications. So let’s hear it - what does the “gender” of “man” entail? What good reason is there to use a word that is associated with sex to describe one’s experience of self? What purpose is served by using this - apparently differing - concept, as a qualifying status into spaces and services that were clearly designed for members of a sex, rather than an internal sense of self that -apparently - isn’t about sex?
(, Wed 18 Aug 2021, 10:00, Reply)