FluffyEstroHammer, Did you really ban someone for a this comment on transsexuals? If so, you are pathetic.

Ya know, I think that MtF transsexuals are painfully aware of the fact that they have a penis, that at least a good number of their genetic attributes are and forever will be male, and that this will forever be difficult to explain to future romantic partners (and the public, if they don't "pass"). You don't need to point it out to them, they know.

But they'd like you to use female pronouns. Imagine you met (formerly) black person who bleached their skin. Whether or not you understand why they would do such a thing or whether such a procedure was worth the risk, it would be racist and rude to point out after every sentence. "Oh, btw, I still think you are black". Their skin colour is irrelevant to most discussions, so insisting on pointing it out is discrimination. Similarly, insisting on calling MtF transsexuals men, and using male pronouns is discrimination because their chromosomal makeup is irrelevant.

Edit: Changed contradictory statement

Can't say you didn't ask.

Mhm, and I don't think it's wrong to say that a MtF is not a biological woman. It's not as if me or anyone else are following these people around and bothering them.

Your entire last paragraph doesn't really apply in this situation. Noone are bothering MtFs as far as I know, and if they are deeply offended when someone remarks to noone in particular the truth, then they are being extremely irrational, as far as I am concerned.

It's not "a MTF" it's a trans woman/trans man/trans person depending on who you're speaking of. While I'm aware a few trans people address themselves as such, perhaps if you compared it to saying "a black" or "a gay" you'd see that it feels anachronistic to put it very politely.

Secondly, how exactly is this matter of biological sex a fact in your mind, or an ultimate truth that trumps all else?

What makes sex? Genitalia? Well, many trans people have the ones they feel match their gender identity. Hormones? Many trans people have those too. Uterus? Well, many cis women don't have uteri and they're no less women. Chromosomes? How do you know anyone you speak to is XY or XX? You make an assumption based on a very narrow and lay reading of biology. The reality of karyotypes is far more complex.

You don't judge gender by birth certificate, genitalia or karyotype in 99% of the situations you're in. You judge by a whole range of other social cues. The link between gender and genitalia (because that's what this really reduces itself to) is tenuous at best.

When the actual biology is discussed, you simply move the goalposts. "Well... real women have vaginas!" "Got one." "Umm... and breasts!" "Got those." "...And estrogen!" "Fully loaded." "Ummm... you were born a man! Hah!" "...Said who?"

It never fails to amaze me how many men tacitly say (and argue quite strenuously!) that they are nothing more than penises. Because that is literally what you're saying: the sine qua non of your manhood is entirely bound in that organ and its absence would've rendered you unable to be who you are. You know, your personality, likes, dislikes, passions, quirks, every little subjective texture of your being, your experiences, dreams, hopes, memories...

All of that matters not a whit compared to your penis. Is that what you're saying?

You simply move the goalposts as is convenient for you. But to put one more nail in the natal argument:

• If a blind person gets retinal surgery, does this mean that they "really" "truly" are still blind, because they required 'mutilating surgery' in order to see again?
• If a person suffering from renal failure gets kidney transplants, does the fact that they no longer have the kidneys they were born with mean that they're "really" "truly" still on the brink of death from failing kidneys?
• When I was born I also had an issue where my tongue grew a certain way that would've left me unable to speak without serious stuttering. Does the fact that I got that altered at age two mean that, really, even despite my baroque ability to speechify IRL I'm still on some essential level stuttering?

So, at last, when you pull the goalposts back as far as they go, to the birth canal, even there they cannot stand. "Why privilege sex over kidneys?" "Because I said so!!" You're entitled to your opinion. You're not entitled to call it some concrete truth we all ought to agree upon.

To say a trans woman is, on some essential level, really a man is in fact bigotry. You do not get to decide that because it, apparently, doesn't make sense to you as a cisgendered male. That's the definition of privilege.

But that's not the crux of why it's bigotry.

Giving voice to and attempting to argue that idea props up a social system that has seen transwomen raped, beaten, murdered; often dismembered or even immolated. These hate crimes happen precisely because of heterosexual men having trans panic or some other internalised transphobia/transmisogyny stemming from this irresponsible belief that trans women are really males on some essential level. The hate levelled at trans people does not exist in some netherspace. It's built entirely around the idea that we're freaks. Men in dresses or crazy butch dykes or "deluded psychopaths" as another Redditor put it recently.

Those ideas see us dead. You cannot separate your statements from that social reality it is your privilege to not experience.

Your notion of sex is not the truth, it's ultimately a matter of opinion.

Rough biologies that we observed and labelled as "male" and "female" exist in nature, yes. I say 'rough' because the notion of two categories was our idea, not nature's. There's enough variation in there that if strict biology were really the criteria for determining sex, we'd have upwards of twenty. Even if one does not have an Intersex condition, how many 'boyish' men have you seen? (Men with feminine features) Or masculine looking women? There's enormous overlap in bodily development, regardless of genitalia or karyotype.

The notion that a trans person is essentially whatever gender or sex you or other delightfully ill informed people decide is absurd.

There is ultimately precious little basis on which to make that argument. A trans woman could be indistinguishable from your idea of an attractive cis woman but the minute she came out to you, suddenly your mind is awhirl with thoughts of her erstwhile phallus and you struggle to categorise her in a way that comports with how you were raised to see binary sex and gender. Nothing more, nothing less. Cheap attempts to use biology to justify this as an absolute truth are offensive to biologists, I assure you.

We split things into male and female because A) it's easy and B) it corresponds roughly to a reproductive process. That's pretty much it. Any essential meaning beyond that is entirely socially constructed and reified by the values and ideas we promote in our culture. "Man" and "woman" being connected to the ideas of "male" and "female" respectively is simply a social construct.

How is this different from if I go to NASA and tell them I want to be an astronaut and they tell me I can't?

If one meets the qualifications and is a strong applicant, then by rights you ought to stand a good chance of becoming an astronaut.

Similarly, when it comes to the laundry list of traits we assign to the sex/gender performances of men and women, trans people tend to tick the vast majority of the boxes for their preferred identity. Ergo, by your own logic (expanded appropriately) trans women are women in every sense.

As a secondary matter, you at least brought up astronauts who have the benefit of being human. But I'm sure you'd like to make some simile you think is devastatingly witty about how one might as well wish to be a dolphin or an alien or a cat person or whatever.

I say two things to this:

• Should such a person exist, I really don't care. My worldview isn't upended by someone calling themselves a cat. Let them. I'll respect them. One has to be a very sad person if they have to bang on for hours trying to prove those types of things about people who they don't know and aren't bothering them.
• Much more importantly, however, "woman" is a clearly defined human category with a vast latticework of social locales in every human society on the planet. It's not exactly as farfetched for one to wish to express one's self along the feminine spectrum and be accepted as a woman as it would be if one claimed to be the living incarnate of the Reddit Alien.

To the matter of political correctness... What you call PC is really better known by the term "respect." It's part of how society stratifies people that when the socially privileged are called on to accord other groups equal respect, it is dismissed and stigmatised as political correctness.

It's not political correctness, it's just correctness. And respect.

As to the matter of the ban, Whitey, contrary to his assertions elsewhere, had been skirting close to the edge for a while. Massive transphobia (which he took to dizzying new heights after his ban along with some delightful misogyny) was just the hay bale that broke the camel's back.

Secondly, this subreddit is a safe space for women of all experiences, including the transgender one. I will not tolerate having quasi-trollish transphobes and cissexists going on about how one might as well wish to be an astronaut or a dolphin or a plant or a cat or whatever... Why? Because we get that crap everywhere. You want your precious freedom of speech to dehumanise your fellow citizens? By all means, take it elsewhere. But in a place that was specifically designed as a haven against such, you ought to be able to understand why we don't brook that sort of nonsense around here.

You say Whitey's statements were delivered with "no hate whatsoever." Calling a trans man a woman or calling a trans woman a man is hate, no matter how nicely it's phrased. It's a wilful denial of another person's identity, as sure as my denying your manhood would be. The difference is, were I to do so, it'd be powerless. But to tar a trans woman with the label 'man' is to mark her for death.

There is no truth in the idea she's essentially a man, except that irrational thought which many men have proven quite willing to kill and maim for.

It's quite simple really. It's denying someone the right to be what they want to be. leedlebug has already explained it well in this thread.

There are two definitions of woman.

One is a biological marker which describes a person's chromosomal makeup, reproductive system, etc.

The other is a social marker which describes a person's role in society and how they are treated.

MtF transsexuals know they have a Y chromosome and a male reproductive system, you don't need to point it out to them, or to anyone else. Refusing to acknowledge trans-women as women means one of two things:

1. You believe that your experience as a (social) woman in society is more valid that a trans-person's and feel the need to elevate yourself over them.

2. You believe that transwomen are dumb and don't realize they have a different chromosomal makeup, and must be reminded of such each time you use a pronoun.

Imagine you had a coworker you didn't like. This coworker happens to be black. It would be discrimination to mention "oh, btw, he's black" after each complaint about him, despite the fact that he is in fact black. It would be discrimination to ask him to preface all his introductions with "Hi, I'm black". These things are discrimination not because it's not true that he is black, but because it's not relevant that he is black. Similarly, it's not that it's not true that transwomen have a Y chromosome, it's that it's not relevant.