@TerrorizerMir Really? Spare me the “analysis” written in crayon; that supposedly justifies demonizing trans women for being assigned male. — M. A. Melby (@MAMelby) August 16, 2014

I have never ever suggested that transwomen should be ‘demonized’ for being male. Whereas I fully support calling out those who propagate violent and misogynistic abuse directed at women who speak out, for example feminists, in the words of the great Frank Zappa, we ‘are what we is’.

My position on this has been boringly consistent: transwomen are not women, transwomen are biologically male. If you are a transwoman, you are probably thinking 'that’s not right! It’s not fair!’ or even:

@aliimran81077 I am a real woman. — Sarah Brown (@auntysarah) June 30, 2014

That transwomen are biologically male is morally neutral, it’s not a value statement, it’s not saying it’s a good thing or a bad thing: it just is.

I have written before about the state of debate in the trans community which involves no-platforming and censorship of dissenting trans voices, voices that support such ideas that run contrary to wider trans ideas such as:

we are sexually dimorphic animals;

transwomen are biologically male;

sex-based socialisation *is* a thing; and

the lived lives of women and transwomen are different.

The wider cult of trans dismiss these four ideas, and will not even come to the table to debate it. This is a problem outside the trans community, as these matters affect women directly (and they are, after all, oppressed under patriarchy) and also within the trans community: how can someone who, for example, transitions as a middle-aged man after having fathered two children suddenly 'have always been a woman’?

The answer to this, of course, is they haven’t: I know this, you know this, women know this, transactivists know this, everyone knows this. And this is why these ideas are so threatening: trans people know they are true, but the insist everyone else says they believe something different, or else they’ll cry 'transphobia’.

Why set ourselves an unattainable goal that leads to such life-sucking concepts as 'I was born with a birth defect’ or 'my middle finger means I was female in the womb’ or the shockingly anti-feminist 'I was born with a woman’s brain’? (These may appear improbable, but these assertions are worryingly common).

We live in world that is increasingly libertarian, where we are becoming more free to express ourselves all the time. We should seize this and run with it: express ourselves how we want, enjoy ourselves while we do it, and have a good time.

Look at how the black civil rights movement is remembered now: through brave actions sparked by great figures such as Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. What will be remembered from the trans rights movement? 'The penis is a female sex organ’. 'I have always been a woman (in spite of the children I fathered)’ and 'I was born with a lady brain’. Is that really going to be our legacy?

Whatever we do, we have no right to do it at the expense of anyone else: trying to force ideas that are just plain wrong and use them as the bedrock for a rights movement is dangerous and de-legitimises that same movement.

It is good that people in wider society can get behind and support the rights of trans individuals, these allies see men becoming women, who are then oppressed. Ironically they are blind to actual women’s oppression, and the rights of women are balanced away from them and towards those who transition.

This, moving the balance of power further from the oppressed class (women) to the oppressor (men) is reactionary (my new favourite word), makes a mock of intersectionality and is completely unnecessary. Transwomen and women should be on the same side, and the onus is on the former to make it so. It is presently our greatest failure.

Transwomen are profoundly affected by gender, and we are allowed to be gender critical: surely having a solid understanding of what gender does to us and what it means, and an acknowledgement of the real reasons this happens can only be good for us? And after all, isn’t transition supposed to be us coming to terms with who we are?

In the words of the great Morrissey of The Smiths, Accept Yourself.



“Who and what to blame?

anything is hard to find

when you will not open your eyes

when will you accept yourself?”