This is my response to the lovely email I received which you will find here. I generally do not like ‘point-by-point’ replies so I broke my own rules. Anyway, this is me trying to explain myself to someone who is interested in and supportive of my challenging anti-feminist trans activists.

Oh, and as this and the aforementioned post show, I have lovely friends.

I never knew what a terf was and now I do.



I see that word as a way of dehumanising people,, usually women, so that hate can be thrown at them online and in real life. It gets banded about indiscriminately and has never really had a concrete, consistent meaning. Many of the people I tweet with have been called 'TERF’s.

If you don¹t mind me asking ­ so I know I have a grip of the situation ­ you¹re of the belief that trans gender folk shouldn¹t deny who they were before they transitioned?



I post these things because I value debate. Dogma is anathema to me. You are correct in your belief. Some other views I hold include:



- sex and gender are not equivalent;

- sex is biological and immutable;

- gender is a social construct, it does not exist outside of societal groups;

- transwomen are biologically male. I have no problem openly stating this to you or anyone else;

- there is nothing inherently wrong with the latter statement, it is factual and morally neutral, it is not a value judgement;

- men and women are socialised differently, socialisation is based on sex and begins shortly after birth;

- women are a class who differ from men, who are also a class;

- women, as a class, are oppressed by men, as a class. The framework used for this oppression is known as gender;



By 'class’, I mean a group having defining characteristics that are found within only that class. Physiologically men are different to women.



Also



- transwomen should not refer to themselves as women, the 'trans’ prefix is important;

- transwomen should not refer to themselves as lesbians, this is appropriation;

- it is wrong for transwomen to claim that lesbians who won’t have relationships with transwomen are bigoted;

- transwomen should not call women 'TERF’s or call lesbians and gay men 'cis’;

- transwomen should be allied to women;

- transwomen should not make death and/or rape threats against feminists and lesbians;

- transwomen should be honest about their approach to gender.



I am AMAZED that all these points are to some degree contentious in the 'trans community’.

From what I can understand in my limited twitter stalking and seeing the convos etc, some trans folk deny the sex they were born



This is correct and I am emphatic they are wrong to assert this, it is factually incorrect.

and say it¹s their right as a trans gendered person to do so?



This too is correct, and I believe it is self-deception.

Whereas you embrace the idea of the biology that you were born with



This is correct, it is what it is.

but now consider yourself a transgendered person



I consider myself a transwoman. 'Transgendered’ is a neologism that encompasses all sorts of things and is itself erasing of transwomen. So, I consider myself biologically male but socialise as female.

as a separate entity to the basic idea of man and woman? That is, do you believe there is man, woman and transgender?



No, that’s not quite correct: most people are (biologically) male or female. There are a small number of intersex people. Trans(gender) people are not a separate class in themselves, there is no class of trans (e.g. characteristics of being trans that are only found in people who are trans).

That Sarah Brown woman fried my brain.



Me too. They made an attack on Women’s Aid which I find unacceptable, and anyway the misogynistic hate they spread is unjustifiable. As an aside, my daughter is at Uni in Cambridge and Brown was standing for election in the ward she lives in. My daughter is a complete left-wing 'equality for all’ type and even she wouldn’t vote for Brown.

I find it sad that she isn¹t able to embrace who she is and wants to be categorised as woman.



So do I. Check this out

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/apr/20/greatest-sexual-taboo-polyamorous-transgender

I mean I get transitioning means that you are achieving the female form



It’s not quite like that, it’s about being comfortable with yourself. My form is not particularly female, also I have big feet.

but as a group of people I find myself wondering why you can¹t celebrate the joy of who you are



Me too!!! The biggest struggle faced by every single human being in the world is coming to terms with who, and what they are.

I think people like Sarah Brown could do with reading some of the French Feminist works. When I studied the likes of Lacan, Irigaray, Kristeva, Cixious etc, it blew my mind. The idea of destroying everything and starting from scratch ­ FUCK ­ I felt desperately sad but it soon all sunk in and I got to grips with it.



I must check them out!

Again, I have no real say in this, but being impartial I would honestly love to see a new dawn of thinking ­ for men, women and trans folk.



Well, you do have a say in these things because you are not unaffected: you are a woman. All women are affected and threatened by transgender. For example a real sticking point is used of sex-segregated facilities (the bathroom debate). We have separate facilities to protect women and to allow them to have privacy. Should men who are transgendered (men who dress as women) have access to these spaces? Does a man become a woman just because he says so?