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[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (13 children)

Obligatory not QT, but trans. I don’t believe TWAW, but I do feel there can be a social definition. Like, if someone is perceived to be a woman, that matters a lot, even if we aren’t actually.

[–]HouseplantWomen who disagree with QT are a different sex[S] 10 insightful - 2 fun10 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

I have mixed feelings about the idea of a ‘social woman’. I can see how practically it has merits but I hate the idea of woman being a perceived role or appearance.

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

I feel like we’d be in a much better world for everyone if ‘social woman’ was a meaningless concept. Like, I feel like I wouldn’t be able to explain a lot of things that happened in my life without being able to provide information about how I am, but it shouldn’t be the definition.

[–]HouseplantWomen who disagree with QT are a different sex[S] 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I’m with you there, and can see how the term would be useful in describing your own experiences. It’s certainly not offensive or anything, just the concept is..complex I guess.

[–]adungitit 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It sounds like "passing" already describes what you're trying to say.

[–]MarkTwainiac 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I do feel there can be a social definition. Like, if someone is perceived to be a woman, that matters a lot, even if we aren’t actually.

But perceived by whom? This puts deciding what sex someone is entirely in the eyes of the beholder, and any random beholder. And in your scenario, the sense that would play an outsize role would be sight - and to a lesser extent, hearing, smell, touch and taste.

I can't see how it would be possible to base whether or not one is a woman on other people's perceptions and judgments without reliance on sexist stereotypes.

I also can't see how this would be of benefit to women. At all. On the contrary, I think this would be used against us in myriad ways. Already, I've been told - mostly by young males, but by some young females too - that people like Blaire White and Munroe Bergdorf constitute what "real women" are, whereas female people like me do not. According to this thinking, Blaire and Munroe are real women coz they've had factory-made silicone orbs implanted in their chests and look like porn stars (in other words, fuckable), whereas people like me don't count as women anymore coz we are over the hill and have standard-issue natural breasts that not only aren't perky and perfectly circular, they're saggy and floppy from decades of gravity, 40 years of monthly hormonal changes, and plenty of breastfeeding.

Making a new category for "social woman" would end up with just another caste system. One in which youthful males and females who use surgeries, excessive body modifications, tons of makeup and other artificial means to change their appearance so they resemble what (some) young women (mostly from the world of porn, Instagram & the Kardashians) look like will end up reigning supreme. Girls and women with standard female bodies that aren't breathtakingly beautiful or all sexed-up in a plastic Barbie doll way will be way down the totem pole. And down at the very bottom will be women who bear the unmistakable signs of having gone through such female biological processes as menstruation, pregnancies, childbirth, miscarriage, breastfeeding, menopause, gynecological disease/conditions and so on over the course of long lives. If males get to be "social women," what on earth will they call us?

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I did want to say that I'm not advocating to change the definition to a social one, just that it shapes how someone experiences life.

But perceived by whom?

I guess like the world, strangers, acquaintances, friends, coworkers, etc.

I also can't see how this would be of benefit to women. At all. On the contrary, I think this would be used against us in myriad ways. Already, I've been told - mostly by young males, but by some young females too - that people like Blaire White and Munroe Bergdorf constitute what "real women" are, whereas female people like me do not. According to this thinking, Blaire and Munroe are real women coz they've had factory-made silicone orbs implanted in their chests and look like porn stars (in other words, fuckable), whereas people like me don't count as women anymore coz we are over the hill and have standard-issue natural breasts that not only aren't perky and perfectly circular, they're saggy and floppy from decades of gravity, 40 years of monthly hormonal changes, and plenty of breastfeeding.

I don't really know to respond to all that. Of course, I wouldn't say those things. Munroe and Blaire wouldn't even be 'social women' in my definition. They'd be super special males who get treated how super special males do, because I feel like that's the reality. I'm not thinking of flashy social media personalities with huge amounts of plastic surgery. I generally feel like they aren't good for women or trans people.

If males get to be "social women," what on earth will they call us?

For me, 'social woman' would only mean someone perceived to be a female. So a male person, who people know is a male person, isn't a 'social woman'. It only makes any sense as a concept if woman still means adult human female.

[–]loveSloaneDebate King 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Why wouldn’t a male who is perceived to be a woman just be a transwoman (who passes)?

I feel like transwoman equals “social woman”.

I guess I just don’t get why we need an extra term when we already have both the term “transwoman” and the concept of a passing TW

Also- what happens if a “social woman” gets found out?

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Why wouldn’t a male who is perceived to be a woman just be a transwoman (who passes)?

They would sort of. I feel like it’s not just passing though. Like, someone could pass, but people know they are trans, they be treated differently that someone who people assume is female. I’m not really trying to start a new term, just thinking about how to make it make sense.

Also- what happens if a “social woman” gets found out?

I feel like usually people treat trans people differently then someone actually female or male (pro-trans people do it too, maybe even more so). So if someone outs themselves or is outed as trans, their experience socially will be different because of that. Sometimes there might be enough of an established idea about someone where the way people view them doesn’t change much because their perception of them is already sort of fixed, but usually, someone wouldn’t be a ‘social woman’ if people know they are male.

[–]loveSloaneDebate King 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think the issue I have with the concept is that it sounds as if womanhood csn be earned or removed

[–]loveSloaneDebate King 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I just randomly had a question about this: wouldn’t “social woman” just translate to transwoman automatically in people’s minds? Like we’d have women, social women, and I guess those who are out or don’t pass would be transwomen, but since there’d be a difference between women and social women, wouldn’t everyone just know right away that “social woman” is code for transwoman? Wouldn’t the very concept of “social woman” out anyone who applied it to themselves?

[–]adungitit 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I don't think most people would deny that men who believe themselves to be women are different from men who don't, and that masculine men who put "she/her" in their twitter bios are different from crossdressing fetishists who are different from GNC men who are different from transsexuals etc. But you can say that for anything, really. Being different results in a different treatment. But whether society mistakes a man for a woman shouldn't suddenly make said man comparable to a woman. It would only make some of his experiences comparable to a woman. The fact that these people are still physically male and have years of male upbringing doesn't change. Now, can a man experience being treated as a woman by society in a limited capacity because he consistently makes them think he's female? Yes. That doesn't make him some kind of a woman, though, or his experiences comparable to actual women, and the staggering amount of misogynistic male trans people shows how little "living as a woman" affects male misogynistic views, biases and upbringing. Men speaking in the name of women is damaging to women, regardless of how these men identify or how much they claim they understand women. Think of all the men who wish they could be women so they could get easy sex. They cannot comprehend how this plays into the objectification that women are saddled with their entire lives, nor have they ever experienced the sexual difficulties that women have with their anatomy and patriarchal male-centric sex (which men ofc insist is all for the women's sake because ofc men know best what women want and need, despite straight men having the worst track record of satisfying their partners out of anyone 🤔). Even if said man turned into a woman, how would you explain to him that his interpretation is wrong and rooted in his male biases that make him glorify male systems that favour his sexuality and his supremacy? He would insist until he was blue in the face how good women have it sexually, despite evidence to the contrary being everywhere around him, even if he ignores everything women say (as men do).

The life of a man who wants to be a woman is entirely different from a woman. The experiences of the man are always going to be coloured by him being male and revolve around convincing himself that he is female as strongly as he possibly can for the sake of his well-being. This is something women, due to being women, do not experience. Like it isn't even on their radar, much like how it's not on one's radar to convince themselves they're a vertebrate or a human. Now, the patriarchy does make women feel distress and sells them the notion that, due to being female, they need to affirm themselves through damaging gender roles, but this is extremely harmful to women and results in a host of mental issues, anxieties and insecurities (which is by design - these are the traits that the patriarchy wants women to have so they have to be dependent on men for affirmation). What male trans people want is to be treated as women, but what women need is to be treated as human. These two motivations coupled with one's upbringing make for a very different and not particularly comparable life and mentality. By virtue of being male, male trans people are always going to approach life as a man who wants to be a woman, and their mental well-being is going to depend on how successfully they convince themselves of this. Meanwhile, the "cis" gender role that is so often thrown at women as a sign of their privilege is a form of oppression, chains that women need to break, not embrace. So even if they're both outwardly treated the same, the biases and life experiences they bring are going to colour their experiences.

My point is, the reason why we're against labelling men as women just because they "live as women" is that merely experiencing a part of your life being treated as a woman isn't the same as literally being female forever, from the moment you left the womb and couldn't even form a thought to even after you end up a skeleton, with no regards to your thoughts or feelings, be they of affirmation or hatred. And I just don't see any benefit to automatically labelling men who pass as having experiences comparable to women when so many male trans people are both misogynistic and very much male. Hell, the trans people who pass best tend to be especially misogynistic, because they tend to abuse all the patriarchal social cues that people almost instinctively associate with women, and frequently feed on their misogynistic male confidence and assumptions about women. I simply haven't seen any evidence that just "passing" makes a man less problematic than your usual man and as such I don't approve of labelling these men women in any capacity.

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I agree with most of what you said. I did want to make sure it was clear that I’m not at all saying the definition should change. Social experiences don’t make someone a woman and I don’t believe TWAW. Being female is very different than being a male trans person, even if we share some experiences.

[–]adungitit 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Honestly I wish it was possible to have more of these conversations within GC, since that's the only place that puts a firm "no" to defining women according to misogyny, no ifs or buts. Sadly GC has decided it would rather be in bed with conservatives than to actually criticise gender.

I used to think that male trans people were trans because they rejected all socialisation associated with men. ofc just because you reject your socialisation after the fact doesn't make you experience the other side of the coin, but still it's better than the alternative. I never believed a certain mentality or who you relate to could change a person's sex (people relate to pop stars, and yet that doesn't make them pop stars...hmm, there's a good way to point out the typical relationship between trans people and their coveted gender), but I figured, the more men who reject their patriarchal brainwashing, the better. Surely those men would, to me, feel as "safe" and reasonable as other women, right? Surely they can see the world from the female perspective, and understand the biases, dehumanisation and harassment that's normal for women, surely they understand how unfair it is, surely if they got to the point of rejecting all that is associated with masculinity like what I did with femininity they realise what rubbish the gender hierarchy is, right?

The truth turned out to be not even close to this. Passing doesn't make men not be misogynists, and they tend to perceive womanhood, which they covet and obsess with, very differently compared to women who have to live with it as background noise all their lives. The few men in my entire life who did finally give me those "understands being female" vibes weren't trans at all. So really, defining that in terms of whether a person passes or not wouldn't be of any use, and defining in terms of "any man who claims he's not problematic" ends up with predictable results.