Part Three. “I am not a Woman” – Transsexuals and Transgender Women Speak Out
Today, the dominant discourse in the transgender rights debate insists that transgender women are ‘women’. It is not uncommon to hear the argument that, because they are women, their biology is female and it is ‘transphobic’ to suggest they are biological males.
The term ‘lady penis’ is often used to describe their genitalia, without a trace of intellectual embarrassment, by trans rights activists and others who style themselves as ‘trans allies’.
Those who reject the cognitive dissonance inherent in insisting a biological male can somehow – through a bizarre manipulation of logic – be biologically female, are routinely subjected to harassment and abuse, and that includes transgender women who dare to stray from the imperatives of the trans rights rule book.
Transgender women who don’t wish to appropriate the title ‘woman’ for themselves, who acknowledge they are biological males living, to varying degrees, as women, and who recognise the inalienable differences between their life experiences and those of natal women, are not spared the venom directed at those with a ‘gender critical’ view.
If they acknowledge that ‘sex’ and ‘gender identity’ are NOT the same thing, they earn themselves a place in the TERFdom, and the unending vitriol that goes with it.
Most of these transgender women – these trans infidels – keep their opinions to themselves. They observe the vilification of those who go public with such ideas, and they keep a low profile, in an effort to maintain their hard won sanity in a world gone mad – see The Trans Women Who Say That Trans Women Aren’t Women –
Some, however, speak out. Perhaps the best known of the trans ‘gender apostates’ is UK writer, Miranda Yardley. Yardley self-describes as a ‘transsexual man’, and writes extensively, and to his detriment (he is permanently banned from Twitter, for example), about the nonsense being perpetrated in the name of trans rights. He says –
‘Sex is a biological reality based on reproductive potential, and gender is a social system that harms women through stereotyping behaviour, by giving women the negative stereotypes and men those that are positive; gender itself is oppression, not a civil liberty. All transwomen by definition are biologically male, socialised as boys then usually ‘transition’ as adults, although in the present climate it appears to be coming acceptable for children to ‘transition’, which should be examined critically rather than accepted unconditionally. That our underlying biological reality remains fundamentally unchanged is not a value judgement, it is a morally neutral statement of fact, neither good nor bad, it just is and being a woman is not a feeling or an opt-in’
And also –
‘This is not about me. This is part of a much larger, broader attack on the rights of women. If women are now no longer able to publicly acknowledge that an adult human male is a man, this takes away from women the ability to describe their own lived lives: they can no longer use meaningful language to describe their interactions with members of the dominant sex class: • Women lose the language and ability to differentiate between themselves and the dominant sex class; • Women lose the language and ability to describe themselves even as women; • Women lose the language, right and ability to describe the perpetrators and acts of sexual violence; • Women lose the right to challenge the sexual enslavement and exploitation of members of their own sex class. We are in a world of proscribed truth and compelled thought. Whatever your political stance, this should strike you cold with terror’ – see
A like-minded group, Transsexual Voices Matter, recently released a statement in response to proposed legislative changes in the UK to allow amendments to birth records on the basis of self-identification.
Among other things, they expressed concern –
‘about the rights of women of all ages and from all walks of life whose safety would be compromised by the uncontrollable self-identification of some men as women, their demands of access to female only spaces, their frequently demonstrated express misogyny, disrespect for the biological needs and specific rights of the young girls, mothers, lesbians and many other, traditionally, female only, social groups. While we greatly value the rights of the transsexuals, we would object to any ’trans rights’ encroaching and gradually erasing women’s rights or creating inaccurate medical, sports, criminal, consumer, political or any other statistics’.
And –
‘We are strongly concerned about the rapidly increasing transphobia some of our members have been experiencing for the first time in many years as a result of the intensive media activity of the ‘transgender activists’…’
Transgender activists, about whom they say –
‘(s)ociety in general should not be allowed to be made a victim of the ‘loudest’ social activists imposing on everyone else their new rules and definitions’.
Transsexual Voices Matter operates a secret Facebook group. Enough said. If they spoke this way publicly, the backlash from trans rights activists would be intolerable.
Nevertheless some, like Miranda Yardley, are weathering that particular storm, and facing down the ensuing tide of personal insults.
Yardley recently engaged in a YouTube discussion with fellow gender critical transgender woman, Rya. Two thoughtful, well read transsexuals who firmly believe a male born transgender person’s experience of ‘womanhood’ can never even come close to emulating that of a natal female. In the current political and social climate, their views are the grossest form of heresy.
Common sense is heresy.
Others brave enough to follow this path are YouTube blogger, Isla Rose – see
and American transgender person, Hope Giselle.
Even high profile Australian transgender ‘woman’ Cate McGregor (previously Malcolm McGregor) acknowledged, following her transition in 2012 that –
‘She isn’t saying that she is a woman….only that she lives as one.
“My experience of what it’s like to be a woman is obviously different to that of a born-woman”, she says – see
‘Obviously different’ should be, well, obvious, but in a very short time the ‘trans women are women’ crusaders have succeeded in erasing much of the language and many of the experiences unique to female born persons, from ‘correct’ everyday discourse.
We are living in an age of enforced adherence to a nonsensical notion of womanhood. After centuries of sex-based oppression, ‘woman’ is no longer a biological reality but a ‘feeling’. Overbearing, entitled male persons who, for whatever reason, have a sense of themselves as women are making sure EVERYONE falls into line with their self-identity. They are cutting a swathe through what little sex-based protections women have – lobbying for laws that validate their feelings and suing the arse off women – or anyone, but mostly women – who dare to ‘misgender’ them.
A male person in women’s clothes can be every bit as hatefully misogynist as the drooling louts in the local pub.
Miranda Yardley, and the transgender persons who share his views, are an island of sanity in the trans rights debate. They recognise the uniqueness of their situation, and how it is inevitably unhelpful for them to claim to be the ‘same’ as natal women.
Their voices are small and often frightened, but their grasp on reality is clear. Until the more vocal trans rights activists take a step down and LISTEN to the truth they speak, women’s rights will continue to take a battering and trans people will not get the practical support they need.
GLOSSARY …
Gender Apostates – many groups in society have their apostates. People who reject the ideas and proscriptions normally associated with their group. For example, a NSW born rugby league follower who supports Queensland in the State of Origin competition.
Gender apostates are transgender persons who reject the trans ideology that says ‘gender identity’ supersedes ‘biological sex’ as a determinant of who is, and is not, a man or a woman.
Gender Critical – gender critical persons are those who reject the trans ideology noted above. They are often radical feminists and apostate transgender people.
Women Speak Tasmania is a network of individuals, led by women and open to women, men, and transgender and intersex people who support our work for women’s rights. We put sex before gender.
