Feminist tells India Willoughby she's not a woman, and says she's attacking womanhood
 

:skull:

Completely siding with India here.

Spotted the terf

Scum (the terf not India)

Correction: not a feminist

This is what I was thinking... tired of people calling themselves feminists... who've lost the plot and are giving feminism a bad name

She's a transwoman, but she'll never be biologically female, but what's to be gained by saying that to her face? India's hardly gonna say "YOU'RE RIGHT" and regrow her cock and start living as a man again...

Feminism has become too big a word or umbrella to now try to control how people self-identify with it... if we're pro-self-identification here... I think of myself as an individualist feminist, but I don't agree with all the new new waviness coming out.

I don't think because a woman is a feminist in past time and the movement has changed significantly and that individual chooses not to adopt those new(er) views, doesn't mean they are not a feminist...

Just the same, we shouldn't kick lesbians out of the LGBT because they don't agree with newer views on Transgenderism... it completely contradicts the purpose of those movements being about acceptance... there shouldn't be an ultimatum.

Anyway, I'm not arsed whether myself is accepted me as a feminist or not because I could care less... but I just think it's uncomfortable for me as a woman to see other people go through, that we've now determined all women must all agree or check certain boxes before they can be accepted into the feminist movement...

It really makes me think of Christianity, where there was one this unifying church... and now there's all these different movements/denominations and obviously agendas within it because that's how separatist the movement has become...

Feminism in its modern form is a bit cracked. Some people seem to think it's "intersectional" by default; while she's in no way a consensus, Riley Dennis (I linked one of her videos in the JK Rowling racism thread) categories any of her videos relating to race, poverty, or trans stuff as feminism.

Yeah... I relate that part again to religion. XD Back in the 90's, early 00's, I had that problem with Christianity. Particularly where they would take their core ideology and apply it to every political/economic issue possible to force their constituency to vote a certain way. I don't think beliefs/feelings can be argued in any reasonable manner. Who can rebut a feeling or a personal belief system? It's near impossible as the basis of it is how much that person truly believes the thing they believe... like those people who can cite evidence showing Jesus existed, may be reason enough for them (emotionally), but not for others who are looking at the issue more intellectually...

I don't identify with those portions of Feminism that leave the female domain for me (particularly biology) because I think in doing so, the movement has become dictatorial. Obviously some of that is the political portion of things waving off-screen in the distance. That can't be helped. However, I think leaving behind core principles of individualism and moving more towards group orientation, we lost some of the credit we had gained there by working alongside men to gain equal footing. The political side is particularly exclusive in this manner, so in having checkboxes what that has done has stifled individual female representation... which for me nullifies the whole point of it...

I've been telling all y'all for years that the term "feminism" is broken and toxic, and needs to be replaced. It's being clung to now out of nothing more than principle / stubbornness, which is partially understandable - people don't WANT the term to have been usurped - but it has been, and refusing to go in another direction is doing nothing to further the purported goals of (apparent) "true feminists" at all.

Bin it.

Start equality movements afresh.

Tbh, I kind of understood her in some places.

When she questioned Ruth's statements that for many years prior to India's physical transition she had "been living as a woman" and when she actually asks both Ruth and India to answer the question of what that means, neither of them could. India constantly says "I lived as a woman for x number of years prior to surgery" but doesn't even know what she means by it when she says it.

The woman has valid points about people being able to so easily "identify" as something else. I think she's going about it the wrong way, and obviously in the case of someone like India who has completely physically transitioned it's not strictly the same thing. And also "You can't change the DNA code in every cell of your body", well, she's not wrong.

Valid points on both sides here.

She aint a feminist then basically, if she thinks a vagina is the sole/most important factor to determine a woman.

The irony in what she says & claims to support, boi the terf jumped out

She's pointing out it goes beyond superficial things like wearing a dress or long hair. India showed herself up in that regard with the comment "Do you want me to shave my hair?" as though the length of her hair had any bearing on her sex or gender.

It means presenting as a woman full time, leaving your past identity behind, and it's not as simple as putting on a dress and changing your name, there is dozens of tiny little things you have to change about yourself before you even start on hormones. Presenting as female in some degree is expected before you can start on the hormones, it's not as easy as people like to make out, its long, difficult and lonely road.

It sort of is though.

There’s an element of truth in what she said.

It’s a complex debate but I don’t think mrs penises can’t be female has much to bring to it

But that's what I meant. Before any of that, how do you live as a woman.

That denotes wearing "female clothes" or growing your hair out or wearing makeup, which is not the definition of "woman". This was precisely that woman's point I feel.

But, the point I was making was India couldn't answer. You might have just answered what you feel it means to you, but India couldn't give that answer in this debate and therefore most likely attaches "living as a woman" to "wearing dresses full time".

And that's the problem a lot of trans people face, you're expected to live as a woman to some degree before you can have anything at all medically done. The wait from getting a referral to a GIC to actually seeing a GIC is two years. People who put on womens clothes before having anything done arent actually doing it for fun (unless they're a cross dresser which is something completely different), they're doing it because it is required.

It's among the things that determine biological females, tis true.

Though I don't think it should affect how we see transwomen, because a)having the op doesn't make them not biologically male, if you're gonna call them she, their op status shouldn't have any baring on this and b)it's not even a vagina, it's a surgically constructed wound.

Ignorance.

The scientific consensus is that while biological sex is determined by genes, hormones, and genitals, one's psychological gender is entirely on the basis of how that individual self-identifies.

But go off, i guess :shrug:

Well the discussion is about womanhood, not strictly femininity so...

It’s not ignorance though is it.

I said there’s an element of truth in what she said. I wasn’t siding with her 100% and I said so.

How someone identifies can be brought under scientific concensus? That right?

wtf... TS went Texan all the sudden. :laugh:

One would think it would be the other way around? Otherwise, our cognitive state could be predictably influenced/changed by how we self-perceive... which would be really great actually. :laugh:

Gender dysphoria isn't something individuals willingly deal with, in my view. It's not a cake-walk, as suggested by the statistics... and for me, personally, the idea that people can treat their "gender" as easy as a drop down in a Facebook profile is actually very patronizing for those who are actually having to face their dysphoria...

It is also equally prejudicial to make womanhood more about the types of clothes she wears and apparent feminine "features", rather than to notice and focus on her individuality... and that's where a lot of these movements lose me ... like who cares what umbrella we fall under, as it is who we are as individuals that counts... I understand certain groups have varying pressures and having associations within that group (fellow advocates) is very helpful to enabling us to get up back up on our feet. I was lumped in with the hysterical crowd when I came down with an infection and it took me 8 years to get a proper diagnosis... but I would think no matter what label I fell under, to not be seen as an individual would feel the most dehumanizing... that was actually my worst fear after being diagnosed.

An aside, we don't really ever hear about transmen at all in pop culture... it's always about transwomen... why is that? I can think of a couple of cases, but they involved pregnancies...

...’you can be anything you want India’...except be who you are and have who you are recognised in law...:laugh:..that’s really going a step too far...


...I don’t know who the ‘femisist’ is...but she’s a little bit silly...for most people life isn’t so cruel as to have them in the wrong body...surely the point is that India has always been living as a woman in that she’s always been a woman who was born in the body of a man...’trans’ is surely more a ‘coming out’ of someone who takes steps to have their body more aligned with the person they are and have always been from birth...?....and that would be equality for trans as well, which often gets thrown to the side and discarded, sadly....

...I mean what does she feel ‘living like a woman’ means..?...she mentioned someone who she didn’t see as a woman who only ‘wore a dress one day a week’...I don’t know who she was referring to...i don’t wear dresses that often...probably less than one day a week...so would that make me not a woman then, would that make me more of a man then because of my clothing choices..?...well no because I’m a woman...I’m fortunate enough to be a woman who was born into a woman’s body...so whatever I wear, there’s no doubt of the person I am...what people wear doesn’t define who they are, so it seems odd to even mention that in whatever she was trying to say...I was born a daughter, I grew in my family as a young female child...at school I became part of the girls on roll in my classes at my school..etc, etc ....India didn’t have any of that...she was never given that priveledge of being regarded as who she was and be allowed to grow as who she was...but as an adult she was able to trans into who she is...and that silly lady comes along and talks about her not having lived as a woman...well no...because nature put her into a male body for a large part of her life, which meant society judged her a male...

..I guess it’s an easy and manipulative question do ask...’what does living as a woman mean...?...it means, knowing you’re a woman and being able to live your life as a woman without question or judgement because of your gender, no matter what your personal life choices etc...that’s something which has been denied to India because of the body she was born into...and because of that body, there are some things...some ‘woman things’ that will always be denied to her...like childbirth for instance...but at least transitioning will give her so much fulfilment and so much completeness, she was previously denied...and only for her to be told by a silly woman ‘you’ll never completely be one of us, baby ...and that should be reflected in law and society acknowledgement’....well that silly woman might have been born in the correct body and be able to fully experience womanhood as she sees it...but what if I don’t want her as one of us though...she’s not the greatest of representatives so maybe she could be replaced by India as a better representative....hmmmmm....

...India’s journey seems to be progresssing beautifully in that she seems so much more happy within herself than when she was on Big Brother...:lovedup:...

I knew she would bring up Karen White
who went in a female prison and raped
women prisoners.

White had a penis.

I agree 70% with the feminist and 30% with India tbh...

Idg why people are making articles “feminist does something .....” for these women who quite clearly aren’t feminists :conf2:

To be logical though, you can't have your cake and eat it too surely. If it's all about self determination, then if this woman self-identifies as being part of a branch of feminism, then she is a feminist. It's an easy / lazy solution to say "Simples; she is not a real feminist".

It's like... When an act of violence is committed in the name of Islam people are happy to call it "Muslim extremism", but when an act of violence is committed in the name of Christianity people are quick to say "Simples; that person is not a real Christian"...

Surely the crux of trans rights issues is that if someone declares themselves to identify as something, then no one can tell them that they shouldn't or are not that thing.

Why would that suddenly no longer be true of feminism?

Is it simply because it's uncomfortable and ideologically problematic to admit that - whether you personally consider it to be a twisted definition or not - she is indeed some brand of feminist?

...(..sorry I have to rush so this is just an initial thing to what you say, TS..]...

..there are differences in what you’re comparing though...feminism is a choice, we are not born feminists...extremism is a choice, we’re not born to be extremists...a trans person though..?...is born as a woman inside the body of a man, their body doesn’t match what they were born as..(...as with trans who are women born in men’s bodies..)...and they had no choice in any of it, other than whether to complete a trans journey in their bodies, like India has...but yeah, I do agree that definitions of the practising of feminism will vary and fit to an individual in that variation...that’s the same with many things though...

I only used the word feminist because it's the word used in the attached video.

India is a very poor example of womanhood so she has a valid point.

Firstly, terf is a bull**** term I do not recognise.

Secondly, here we are again. A trans woman insisting she's the same as a born woman, and she's not. She grew up as a man, a white man... with all that privilege that follows. Now, when she's chosen to be a transwoman, she still thinks the world should listen, because that's what happened when she was a man. Am I the only one who's noticed that male to female trans people are the ones who crusade, who single themselves out... while female to male trans people just get on with their lives, they seem more able to cope with hostility because when they were women, they were used to it.

I do not recognise India as a woman who is the same as me. She is not. She is a transwoman. Equal to me, worth as much, just as entitled to be happy... but not the same.

Well said. I agree with all of that including her growing up as a white male and the high expectations of doing so. A good case of me, me, me ... in my opinion. She never will be the same as those born and raised as women and their different life experiences, however hard she tries.

Hi Katty, nice to see a new face in Serious Debates. Welcome.

Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull

:laugh2:

The chromosome argument is stupid, people have been born with complete external and internal reproductive systems but with XY Chromosomes, some of these people have even given birth to healthy babies with the help of IVF. Anyone who takes the time to educate themselves will know that chromosomes mean almost nothing anymore when you see all of the variations and cases of people who don't fit with the assumed status quo.

India feels like she's a woman just as much as I do, she shouldn't be invalidated.

The woman genuinely disgusted me. She spoke horrendously to India and about the trans community.

Pretty funny hearing people trying to dismiss the value and validity of chromosomes. We wouldn’t exist without them.

You are fair enough to argue that a transwoman (such as India) grew up as a "white man" (at least, from an outside perspective), and yes the experiences of womanhood are different. Arguing otherwise is just ignoring reality, really.

The difference though, and you're free to disagree, is that someone like India did not grow up in "full" white male privilege. She was forced to conceal her gender identity in an intolerant society, and around 40% of trans women have attempted suicide, with far more experiencing depression and other mental health issues due to gender dysphoria. Therefore, I would argue that trans women have pretty first-hand experience due to their gender expression, and the struggle of women & transpeople is certainly comparable.

Trans women should be seen as a woman for those reasons, alongside their self-identification, and enjoy full rights in society and under the law as women. The reason I find TERFs disgusting is that they seem to disregard transgender people's struggles and oppression, and they ultimately see trans women as just "men in dresses" or some kind of imposter.