If I assumed such malice I would be ducking and covering rather than engaging 😊 I appreciate the open mind!

I will tell you a neat tidbit. There’s parts of the more common trans experience of gender not widely experienced by cis people. One of these is a deeper sense of connection and kinship with cis people of our gender. We look at them as “our people” in a way cis people generally don’t think of other cis people. It’s part of why peer rejection hurts so much… But it’s also something beautiful once it’s understood and if I believed in there being a design to life and all this then the function of the occasional gender optimist programmed to see the best in men while implicitly understanding the plight of women thrown in sounds like it would serve a decent purpose. It’s my hope to spread optimism and help others to find new avenues of compassion. I really do hope the best for you my friend.

Your questions are all to the same end “under what circumstances can we unilaterally exclude” not “How do we create compassionate, dynamic rules and boundaries that service more people”?

All of it assumes risk to cis women. In the shelter situation did or would anyone ask if those women would react to trans women in the same way they would a cis man? Do you think a trans woman would not be compassionate and understanding in those circumstances? Trans people are four times more likely to be the victims of intimate violence ALSO predominantly enacted by cis men. Is it really so hard to assume in circumstances of shared space they would not have compassion for a scared cis woman or be want to be placed in that situation where she’ll be reacted to in a way that triggers the trans woman’s gender dysphoria? Why in this circumstances would services NOT be talking to everyone involved and reaching a reasonable concensus? Why are the assumptions of the situation posed from the outset hinging entirely on “biology” alone?

In some circumstances in the past I have been approached by women and children in trouble because I am visibly queer.

These don’t need be “interrogations” they can be questions, asked compassionately with a mind to peace that takes into consideration the needs of everyone involved. But that’s not what is happening here.

Whether trans is an insult depends on how you use it. The way you are using trans changes the implied meaning of trans to something trans people are keyed to implicitly notice - whether it’s being used as a null category.

A lot can be derived from language from relationships. If you have man and trans man you create a non-category. A “not man” a “fake man” if you have cis man and trans man it is an acknowledgement that these are different states of being a man that acknowledges the difference of experience but places the emphasis on manhood and similarity to other men rather than the differences. “Biological man” and “trans man” becomes again man and “disqualified by biology man”. If I am not a “biological man” will you also try and imply I as a trans man am a “biological woman”? Even if I haven’t transitioned at all that’s taking everything I hate about my day to day existence and shoving my face in it.

Also

I wouldn’t worry about men slipping the noose by pretending to be trans women. If you look at penal systems they basically all conform to a similar model at present. Like the US loves to incarcerate people and last I checked, pre Trump, of the places that actually tracked the number of trans women the count of how many trans women were in women’s prisons was 17 compared to the over 500 in mens prisons. These women may be post op meaning they have neither testes or penetrative organs and they may have been on horomones so long that their bone density, nerve structure and muscle to fat ratio is more in common with a cis woman but there’s no actual guideline for trans people about when they are deserving of the same protections as cis women when in prison. Ending up in a mens prison as a trans woman means rape and assault is basically part of the deal. Furthermore when gender affirming medicine is deemed a luxury in such situations and removed these women don’t have any naturally created Horomones anymore so they effectively go through menopause and osteoporosis at a young age because “it’s outrageous that we should pay for gender affirming care!”. You might have committed the same crime as the people around you but if you’re trans you are doing harder time…because people assume you’re a man or at least not woman enough. Hardly seems like justice where I am standing.

Sports have a similar issue. What is sport for exactly? It can’t all be reaching some kind of physical pinnacle based off arbitrary distinctions of body ratios and hormone levels after all -the Paralympic games exist where different but at least kind of similar disabilities are matched together.

There are way more options in sport as a person with a disability than as a trans person these days. If you are looking at sport from the perspective of a social activity with community attached working towards mutual excellence or as access to pastimes that encourage healthy levels of activity then there’s a massive impediment to access because even things where sexual phenotype doesn’t matter , like sport fishing for instance only, allows trans people to compete in their birth sex category if at all. This segregation forces athletes into single sex spaces that are proven to be psychologically damaging to them defeating any benefits from the activity. There isn’t really a society wide call to make categories that are inclusive co-ed spaces… they are only saying “we don’t want you anywhere”. It’s simply not looked at as a civil rights access to the variety of life issue but a matter of who wins. If a trans woman places 5th in a women’s sport category the question isn’t, how well she was integrated in that community and whether her win/loss ratio was within comparable margins of the cis athletes in her cohort - its that trans people don’t belong there ever.

This framework of relegating a group to the trash bucket based on non categories doesn’t look at trans people as individuals with different physicalities and personalities and inclinations. It doesn’t weigh trans people on a case by case basis - it flattens them into these cut outs where they are always outsiders and never deserving of empathy or consideration because they automatically represent the worst potential aspect of their birth sex. Getting smacked with misandry and misogyny in turns depending on whatever seems the most situationally appropriate to exclude them.

It also doesn’t help that transness is still sort of a cultural failure state and is often internalized by ourselves that way. Oftentimes by the time a trans woman comes out for the first time she’s already in a pit. She already bet the farm on trying to be the best man she could be to fix what ails and it did nothing but drain her of her will to live and she has to accept that being a woman is the only conditions under which she can live because she can already seen the finish line where continuing as is will kill her from where she’s standing. She’s often put off the transition as long as she can and is treading water and minutes from giving up and drowning . So yes. She’s a woman from the moment she says in part because that could be the moment of greatest crisis.

Here’s what defending terms like"biological woman" sound like to trans people.

"Oh I wish to be VERY clear. When I say trans -I mean fake. You may call yourself whatever you want but in the end it is presumptuous because at the end of the day you aren’t real. You are your biology , inescapably, until the day you die to me regardless of how society treats you now. No matter what forces of misogyny are enacted upon you daily it is presumptuous to lump yourself in with a group unless you have the innate physical experience fate cheated you of and you mourn the lack of every day. No someone might hunt you down and hurt you for not being man enough. They might rape or traffic you like a woman. You might lose your upper body strength and become vulnerable in the same ways women are and be subject to the institutional inequities they face… But You will always be a man because birth is everything. You can’t have babies after all. You might want them desperately just like any other woman who fate cheated fertility from but in your case it’s different isn’t it?

And don’t be presumptuous to think you understand their experiences!

I am real and I am just fine in my gender. I am implying subtly that you should be too. Being a man is fine I have never had a problem with it and I think you do probably as some kind of weird sexual kink and we do not change our opinions for weird sexual kinks.

No I won’t use your terms but I will do the bare minimum play pretend for you to your face, poor darling, in a way that makes ME comfortable. But the reality is you don’t belong in the same spaces as women. No you are woMAN and I am going to use terms that remind you of that, that signal that I support you being treated as a fake woman. Oh, you want me to adopt a term that acknowledges both you and women as being more similar than different? Well I didn’t chose it or vote for it at council! Never mind nobody asked you if “trans” was the brush you wanted to be tarred with no I am a man and trans men are fake men thats what trans means after all. Why should I allow myself to be called anything? It’s my birthright to be treated as the default! God or chance put you in the position both of us are in and there really isn’t anything anyone can do about takingthe bite out of that is there? Sorry friend Deus vult!"

The only real difference is tone.

Periods, period products, period pains, impacts on histamine sensitivies, getting pregnant, ecotopic prenancies, miscarriages, endometriosis, an “incompetant” cervix, still birth, premature birth, full term birth, breast feeding… The list goes on. For sure, these things don’t wholly define what it is to be a woman, but it sure as hell helps shape the bodies and minds of the only group of people who make all of us. To forget or ignore that is disrespectful to women, in my opinion.

What you are describing here is actually the holy grail of attainment for trans women. They don’t want to just be culturally a woman- The lack of these physical experience, even the bad stuff, hurts them. They want for it so badly. Phrasing it this way is a bit like flaunting riches before the poor. The number of trans women I know who would sell their soul for periods and just the potential opportunity for childbirth…

The future is a indertminate place but full functional fertility is the ultimate goal of trans healthcare and the odds are if science keeps on keeping on someone will eventually crack the code in the future.

You are of course entitled to your opinion or to care about as much or as little as you like.Your framework, as is, would be barely acceptable for a being a casual acquaintance of a trans person. For myself if I heard you air these thoughts aloud in a place of work I as a trans man would still try and avoid being around you whenever possible for my health. It would be a hurtful were I a trans person with any kind of close personal relationship to you, but I am not. I would just find you vaguely unpleasant as is my prerogative and avoid you the same way I would someone who spouts more widely culturally understood negativity in my direction.

This is, unfortunately, a very unkind way to interface with the mental situation of transness.

You are looking at this from the perspective that wants to categorize based on your distinct values. You want to determine effectively whether a trans person is effectively really “entitled” to being called what they want to be called. The tagline “a trans woman is a woman” is unfortunate because it is a slogan that doesn’t give the full account of why it is important and the whole situation is muddied by the fact that the wider concept of gender performativty actually has almost nothing to do with what trans people are actually experiencing.

Logical fallacy wise stating that something was determined by historical precedent is also a fallacy. It’s called an “appeal to tradition”.

What is happening culturally with trans people is an attempt based off the findings of years of intensive psychological research to create sociological tools to ease the burdens of a minority population. It might be effective to conceptualize this as language being a technology and that technology effectively being applied as medicine. The people who value the comfort, and quite frankly an expanded lifespan, of trans people adopt this framework but, because to be successful it requires participation. Ideally they teach other people the reasons why it’s important to the point they will happily adopt it but that isn’t wholly nessisary. As long as someone is treating say, a trans man by using his name and pronouns and not assuming his behaviour to conform to feminine restrictions then effectively the “medicine” works. Hence “trans men are men” ie treat a trans man - as you would a man. An expectation squished into a narrow confine with all nuance removed.

The reason “biological woman” expressly doesn’t work is what trans people are responding to is almost completely their own biology. The cultural stuff about gender is kind of just layered on top. What they are responding to when someone uses pronouns is their own physical state. Say you kept calling a trans woman “he/him” what that is doing isn’t impacting some attempt at manifesting some spiritual form of womanhood - you are demonstrating you are veiwing her body, seeing phenotypic masculine characteristics and reporting them back to her. Her brain is wired to pair that with a stress reaction. To her those parts of her body are things she desperately wishes doesn’t exist because veiwing them, interfacing them sometimes touching them - is abhorrent. What you are doing when you use people’s pronouns is effectivly creating a mirror of words. The only question is whether that mirror of words is kind to the viewer. Does it reflect the things that soothe or does it reflect the things that cause strain? That’s something the speaker of those words controls because the trans person is powerless in this regard which mirror the speaker will offer them.

Saying “biological woman” aloud in front of a trans woman is effectively indistinguishable from the mental reaction you would create by calling her a man. You are reminding her that both to you and probably to herself that her body is a compromise she has to live with. She’s effectively doing everything she can but it will never be enough not just for you… But for her.

When the compromise of living in an imperfect situation becomes too burdensome not living becomes a more viable solution. It won’t kill every trans person on it’s own but paired with other factors it tips the scale an outsized amount. The reason the historical definition of man and woman is the way it is is because as a population trans people were veiwed as deviant, weird, lead by devils into perversion and a public nuisance and them being miserable was culturally a perfectly fine outcome. Them being miserable in private until they were overwhelmed and killed themselves or being treated as circus freaks- not really a problem.

In modern day we generally hope for better.

Lot you are covering here but quick fire.

1. No it is not correct. Sex is a multifaceted thing split between chromosomal, phenotypic and hormonal aspects. Horomonal transition changes phenotypic (physical structural aspects of sex) structures and changes the way the body chemically responds to fit a physical presentation more in line with the group the person is transitioning to more than the group they transition from. If you wanted to be very pedantic about it in a way that is somewhat unkind post medical transition trans people are functionally intersex but for medical purposes like determining dosages of medications and how they respond to medical procedures they are consistent with membership of their post transition group. A trans woman treated as a man by a pharmacologist would be getting the wrong dosage. In this case they need to be medically treated as a woman to receive adequate care.

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2. The assumption that there is inherent biological factors that do not change create logistical problems and errors in medical care. There is a widespread lack in the medical system of doctors who understand these principles which mean trans people can receive varying quality of care from people like EMTs or Emergency services based on the political whims of the place they are in. It also throws gasoline on bigoted rhetoric that trans people aren’t “real” but are frauds “just pretending” as though their needs to be treated as their sex are just skin deep and not a complex mix of complex and fundamental biologic changes and a series of mental and social challenges of interfacing with a society that is unprepared to do the work to understand these differences.

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3. Calling a trans woman “biologically male” is just calling her a man under a different format. That’s really all it is. It affects a trans person mentally the same because it causes them to have their physical characteristics reported back to them the exact same way. It tells them “we don’t care about your psychological needs” The term “biological” being used isn’t scientifically consistent with what is actually going on. The terms are “trans” and “cis” women/men because that registers the difference of experience in a way that doesn’t take one’s greatest challenges of existing and shove their nose in it. It acknowledges that they have crossed a boundary and are what they say they are. “Biological male” is bigotry disguised behind a pseudo scientific veneer.

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4. It contradicts. “Biologically male” places the EMPHASIS on MALE. When looking at any gender inclusive or gendered language the noun is key, the adjective is supplement. A femBOY is a man who is comfortable in his manhood with the gender expression that is feminine. A tomGIRL is the opposite. A trans WOMAN and a cis WOMAN are both in language affirmed as culturally feminine. A “Biological MALE” is medicalizing that persons experience and placing the emphasis not on their cultural experience or on their psychological needs, it’s fronting the speakers desire to comment on that person’s body and categorize the subject as a man with a masculine experience.

The history of someone’s experience isn’t captured by the term “biological” it is in the terms “trans” and “cis”.

“Biological sex” is broken down into different categories. Chromosomal, Horomonal and Phenotypic. Chromosomes hardly need an introduction, it’s the DNA programming that under most common conditions creates the blueprints for the other two forms. However this isn’t always how it happens.

Phenotypic sex is all the physical structures that conform to different expressions of sex. Genetailia, internal organs, differences in physical structure between male/female.

Hormonal sex characteristics is the group of chemicals the body releases to change the body and support adult maturation of Phenotypic sex characteristics. It also changes the biochemical makeup of the body, including the brain, so the body allocates resources differently and responds to things like stress and medications differently.

When a trans person goes on hormones or receives surgeries their Phenotypic structures change to conform to their new gender which mean in a real rubber to road kind of way they stop having as much medically in common with their birth sex as the sex they transitioned to. If you give a trans woman the “biologically male recommended” medication dosages of something like sleeping pills they are going to be taking way too much because that medication interacts differently with the Phenotypic and hormonal tissues of women which her body now conforms to.

The concept of “biological woman/man” is actually a fairly dangerous concept in the medical world because the assumption created by that framework often create errors of medical care expectations which put trans people in actual danger of poor dosages or completely wrong expectations of navigating their personal biology.

Good time to remember that there’s a lot that can be done that makes life hard for an invading force at multiple layers of passivity. You don’t have to always comply. Put pressure on hotels to refuse business so they don’t have comfortable spaces to sleep, deny service and food to agents at markets and restaurants, create visual systems and codes amongst your immigrant neighbours so that they can be aware when you have recently spotted an agent. Offer places to hide or stay to people who have gained their ire or are likely targets, take courses in first aid or reach out to causes that need volunteers.

If you are more bold target things instead of people. Sugar in gas tanks, nails in tires, detergent thrown on windscreens, block roads they egress through regularly with things that take a long time to move or clean up that block roads or make them hazardous. Buildings have toilets that can be backed up or alarm systems that can disturb rest, phone numbers that can be found and spammed with bot callers or printers or faxes that can be sent endless jobs of black pages. Anything and everything that can be a minor annoyance, a problem that adds up or disables their ability to move, eat, sleep or relax.

Thank you for this I do try my best to be warm!

I have heard some folk fearmonger non-binary inclusion as some sort of theoretical pronoun police with some wild idea of disciplinary power. I know a lot of non-binary folk since we are pretty decent at identifying each other in the wild… and most of us don’t even introduce ourselves with our preferred pronouns if folk don’t make the space at a place we know we’re likely good because it’s still kind of awkward!

We know we’re asking for a mental effort in helping us out so when it happens and people want to give us a boost it’s so magic. The amount of energy we reclaim by not having our bodies reflected back at us through words is noticeable and so appreciated. With any group of folks with needs self advocating all the time really isn’t tenable. We oftentimes just want to pick the path of least resistance even if it means putting up with stuff that’s bad for us.

When people misgender someone by accident or say something in the moment that upon reflection wasn’t great they often are far too hard on themselves. Yeah it doesn’t feel great but you gotta step on some feet before you can dance and we’re just happy you’re dancing!

Hey, trans masc here,

Love the sentiment but don’t feel like an ass. If you want to include us in the sentiment it does some great stuff! It signals to trans and non-binary people who might be in listening range but be closeted or suppressing their needs in the interest of “not making waves” that you are a safe person to be themselves around. A lot of people who “don’t know a non binary person” might not simply because the ones around them are in hiding because onboarding someone to our status is exhausting and sometimes risky so signaling that you’ve already done some the work is AMAZING.

But that being said… Don’t feel guilty. This isn’t a game of right and wrong. “Political Correctness” is a tactic from the 90’s that really didn’t work because it was about policing. It was a cold politeness rather than a meaningful offering of solidarity or a chance to learn and there is a learning curve to allyship and thus a gratitude just for trying or considering a change. That you feel guilty is very sweet but you deserve to be comfortable and happy too. We as a community tend to celebrate people doing us a kindness, not begrudge people. Your friend showed you a spot where you could insert a moment of solidarity in the future if you wanted. That you immediately seem to want to is a rarer gift than you know.

If you have ever attempted to change your name you know it is way more annoying to change your name than accept someone else’s change of name. The amount of admin it takes to make that update in your social circle even before you try and make it legal is a test of social fortitude and willpower.

Remember when someone is changing their name they are very aware of the imposition of the mental load they are placing on you. Grace goes a long way.

Okay. Can we take a minute to just acknowledge that this comment has a little neurotypical ableism and regional bias? Some people literally need more context than others do to understand the tone of a text. Just because you do not need that assistance with context clues in play doesn’t mean everyone also doesn’t need that.

Kindness and extending a little help costs us so little.

As part of the trans community in Canada it’s devastating watching our American kinfolk suffer. Because of the Safe Third Country Agreement American citizens cannot claim refugee status here. I have been writing to every politician I can to try and punch out an exception. The minute I can I am opening up my home to as many folk as I can.

I feel validated in an opinion I have had for ages : that in all the talk about 2nd Amendment rights Americans do guns are nothing but a security blanket they clutch to make them feel like Democracy will be saved or be maintained as long as they clutch their emotional support weapon. They will watch rights be stripped from them, their neighbours carted off in wagons and none of them will shoot even if they have the weapon on their person while this is happening. They will protest, they will write and verbalize their dissent and they will appeal to authority and band together democratically but the ownership of the weapons themselves are useless. Realistically if someone from the government comes for them they will likely go quietly because no one is coming to save them. At that point it’s basically over. The system is too big to fight.

The real resistance is in numbers not armaments. It doesn’t matter what you are wielding if you have solidarity and organization and the bravery to misbehave. Resistance can be in attacking the gears that make things run by not doing your job or doing it poorly. Refusing to comply in a multitude of ways like sending things to the wrong place or making ‘mistakes’ that cost time and effort to fix. A government can only force compliance so much and at the end of the day runs on good faith. Guns are a distraction to jingle in your face so you stay isolated. Building walls between you and other humans with dreams you will defend your own little fort against the tides of tyranny.

Sad part is it doesn’t matter if they retract the news statement people are already thinking the guy is some kind of trans avenger or something. The trans people are enemies part gets screamed. The “it was a mormon cis guy who has the parlance of the average 22 year old internet troll” gets whispered real quiet.

Why is the assumption by these people that there is a sexual component required in the explanation? Age appropriate explanations are easy.

“Know how some families have one mommy and one daddy? Some families have two mommies or two daddies instead.”

If the kids ask about the actual mechanics of procreation they are old enough to hear something like:

“Some couples adopt or they find someone to have a baby with who helps them make a family.”

Was there any need to mention surrogacy or donors? No. Kids don’t need to oversexualize queer people. Adults don’t need to over sexualize queer people! When people are sheltered from our existence until they are in their early teens they tend to think of gay couples as explicitly just sexual relationships rather than romantic or family building ones that are as dynamic as straight relationships because they were introduced to them as a sexual mechanics first kind of way. It’s dehumanizing.

“Toxic” has a wide range of uses outside just toxic masculinity or just describing men. One of the side effects of a very therapized society is wider recognizing that some people in your life are dragging you down because their behaviour is unhealthy for all parties. Before the reaction groomed mostly into women but men to a lesser degree was to shut up, take the abuse, take the hit to the psyche, self doctor yourself using coping mechanisms that don’t address the problem directly and endure because the pressure was on being a dutiful, selfless sibling, child, partner, parent, friend etc.

Describing people as “toxic”, while like any tool can be used wrongly or hurtfully gives people a tool to shake themselves out of that cycle. When used properly it empowers people to take their own status and wellbeing seriously when they are being taken for granted, abused or bullied so that they can source the problem and engage with people in a way that wins them their agency back. When we talk about “Toxic men” isn’t effectively any different than talking about “toxic siblings” or “toxic friends” or “toxic parents” or “toxic narcissists” The only ways it differs is in the behaviour dynamics of the group in question. These people are all uniquely “toxic” but in each of those cases you probably gain a different picture of what that toxicity looks like. Those are not individuals, they are groups within our cultures the reclassification of which is systemic. What needs to be emphasized is that in all cases nobody should be forced into a relationship of any kind, friend, family or romantic. There is a society wide push for true emancipation of the individual free to establish and demolish social ties based on the merit of the tie.

In some ways this loneliness epidemic we’re experiencing may in part be due to this renegotiation of relationships in a bid to make things better overall. One could argue the development of an expectation for too perfect boundaries is maybe a contributing factor but overall the attitude across the board is “enough is enough” and that isn’t nessisarily a bad thing. If people are not forced into connections at a systemic level they can apply consent and engineer for everyone the understanding that people either must act at the very least decently if not kindly and with respect if they want deep connection.

So much of the discussion around the subject of toxic masculinity devolves into either the idea the people critiquing the behaviour are being mean towards and victimizing men but all discussions of toxic behaviours are not about victimizing the perpetrators, it’s about advocating for better conditions for the targets.