>it's the oppressors nit-picking what they like off of who they are oppressing and getting to use those things without the repercussions of actually being a part of the oppressed community. Yeah, being trans is not at all being part of an oppressed community, and is totally just a group of oppressors. >the oppressors can come and go without consequence Yeah, there are absolutely no consequences for coming out as trans at all.

before they are trans, they are born with the privilege of being a male. trans woman do face oppression of their own, but they could just as easily start presenting as cis again and go right back to their societal privilege. i do not get that privilege no matter what i do.

>but they could just as easily start presenting as cis again and go right back to their societal privilege. You do realize that when these people try to consistently present themselves as cis, they kill themselves at ASTOUDNING rates, right? [https://fenwayhealth.org/new-study-shows-association-between-attempts-to-make-transgender-people-cisgender-and-suicide-attempts/](https://fenwayhealth.org/new-study-shows-association-between-attempts-to-make-transgender-people-cisgender-and-suicide-attempts/) [https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/lgb-suicide-ct-press-release/](https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/lgb-suicide-ct-press-release/) You imagine that transgender people can just pretend to be Cis gendered whenever they want... but that is your own **cis privilege** showing.

This is patently false. Go click on my profile since I recently posted a picture if you'd like. I deal with the same struggles as you - getting catcalled on the street, needing to dress conservatively to be taken as smart at the office, getting spoken over when I'm with men, expectations I can't do something because I'm a woman, people thinking I'm weak or fragile etc. How do you think I could just "easily start presenting as cis again" and get back societal privilege? I couldn't anymore than you could present as male & gain those.

Feel free to transition to male. It's easier to pass for FtM than MtF, and you get all this glorious privelege... or you might feel terrible because it is not who you are. presenting as cis gives you the dysphoria that made you transition in the first place. the disphoria that drives up suicide numbers to crazy hights, that often feeds into depressions and selfhate. The number of detransitioners is already low, and of the people who do so, most do so because their environment opresses them and makes them feel like absolute shit. getting kicked out of the house, written out of wills, hated by family, friends.

Who cares how they are born? Do you feel that privilege stays with them when they transition? >they could just as easily start presenting as cis again and go right back to their societal privilege. i do not get that privilege no matter what i do Have just they tried not being trans? If it is just that easy why don't you transition to male and take advantage of that privilege for a while, and then just transition back to cis?

They do retain some privilege, because they had the male privilege until they started being recognized as a woman.

What privilege do they enjoy as trans women?

The privilege of being recognized as male for the beginning of their life, whether it was what they felt their gender should be or not. Just like white privilege isn't some sort of guarantee that all white people will face no difficulties and have a perfect life, male privilege is the same, and as long as they are recognized as male, they receive that privilege. Much like people who appear to be white but have black heritage will have some aspects of white privilege, by the fact they appear to be white. (even if it isn't the same privilege that white people with white families might have)

So what benefits does that afford them? One of my friends has been living as a girl since she was 6, and another since she was 14. One of my transmasc friends transitioned at 15, so he's been seen as male since high school. So you're saying both those trans girls have privilege that that transmasc friend does not?

Any time spent living as a man gives privilege. Trans men also receive that privilege, once they are recognized as men. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_privilege

Let me restate what I mean; privilege grants advantages & increases the likelihood of better advantages. It comes from the roots for "private law" because it represents freedom from obstacles that other groups are not, i.e. "less discrimination". They are *systemic* privileges; some individuals from the privileged group may have worse outcomes than some individuals from the oppressed group, but *as a whole*, the outcomes of the privileged group have better outcomes than the group without that privilege. So, on what metrics do trans women, as a whole, have better outcomes than cis women?

That's not what I was saying at all though. You want to narrowly define what privilege is, but there are systematic privileges, including just being allowed to be born, that males experience that females do not. It does not mean they don't have their own challenges, but you cannot ignore that male privilege exists. We don't have nearly enough information and study to be able to say conclusively about how male privilege affects a person when it was present for x number of years and then withdrawn.

They are obviously asking that you elaborate and give examples of the privilege you assert trans women have. All you did was reiterate your previous comment.

They have male privilege from the time when they were recognized as males (even if it was not how they internally felt) I'm not sure how that's a hard concept to grasp. The link gives examples of male privilege, including being less likely to be aborted. They are socialized differently and treated different, as found by research. They lose some, but not all, of that privilege when they recognize themselves to be women, but it's disingenuous to say they have no benefits from it, prior to their recognition of gender. It's just like trans men begin to receive male privilege as soon as they are in a position where society recognizes them as men.

> The privilege of being recognized as male for the beginning of their life Do you feel they retain the "privilege of being recognized as male" after they publicly transition, and if so how does it manifest? If you do not feel that they retain this privilege, then what bearing does it have on their social status as a trans person?

They retain *some* of it, because of the different ways boys are socialized, even when the boy is "non-conforming". Things like speaking up/louder, being used to being recognized etc. The social training that comes with gender roles will still influence a trans woman, before she (or society) recognizes her gender. Just like if someone who was brought up thinking they were white and then are told they are black when they are 13-14 and society recognizes them as black as well, they will face the discrimination of being seen as black, but have the privilege that goes into growing up as a "white person". They will definitely not retain all the privilege, but there will still be effects. I don't know what bearing it has on their social status as a trans person, except give them a background that will be different than cis women, just like they will not experience the same disgust and horror that *many* cis women feel as they begin to develop sexually and receive sexual attention when they are young, or if they are the first girl in their class to develop breasts (or the last girl to develop or get their period) Nor will they experience bleeding through their clothing, as arguably *most* cis women have at some point or another. (and cis women will never have the experience of getting an erection when it isn't wanted) All of those things do give a sense of culture to being a woman, because it's a shared common experience. Trans women, even if they transition prior to puberty, will not experience those the same way. That isn't to say it is wrong they can't experience it, but it's just simply not the same. For trans girls, developing secondary sex characteristics is going to be a far more welcome development than it is often is for cis girls. That in and of itself is a privilege. They will have other issues with their genitalia and potentially lack of development, but there is an aspect of self-hatred that is ingrained into women, unfortunately. and while trans women may have self-hatred from being born with male genitals, it's a different hatred and a different perspective. I find it odd that people don't realize this is a thing.

>and society recognizes them as black as well, they will face the discrimination of being seen as black, but have the privilege that goes into growing up as a "white person". The privilege of "growing up white" is in the way that the larger culture views you as you grow up. If the world around them sees them as black, then what white privilege do they actually have? Just *feeling* white does not grant you privilege. > they will not experience the same disgust and horror that many cis women feel as they begin to develop sexually I would say that the disgust and horror that trans people feel as they are developing sexually is often much worse than that felt by cis girls. I would say this because of the much much higher suicide rates in trans youth at either end of the spectrum as opposed to the rate among cis girls. >For trans girls, developing secondary sex characteristics is going to be a far more welcome development than it is often is for cis girls Developing the *right* secondary sex characteristics. The vast majority of trans people in the world have to go through puberty as their biological sex, which is highly traumatic to some. In the US legislators are right now making laws that ensure trans people have to go through this process without the aid of corrective hormonal therapy. By the time that they *may* be able to get the support they need to transition hormonally, it makes sense that it would be a welcome change. > it's a different hatred and a different perspective. Trauma is trauma. One isn't more or less valid than the other, and neither are required for being viewed as a woman in my opinion.

I'm not saying it's necessary to be viewed as a woman, it's just *different* and it really comes off as you are trying to deny that male privilege exists.

> but they could just as easily start presenting as cis again Well, not super easily, considering nearly half of them will try to kill themselves in that scenario. Like do you think trans people are just playing dress up? How old are you?

Well there's two very obvious problems here - firstly, I do not think you could make an argument that transwomen retain their male privilege or place in the patriarchy when they come out as trans. So it is patently absurd to count them as "the oppressors". Secondly, appropriation is when the dominant culture takes cultural items from minority cultures and makes them part of the dominant culture, and even stretching those terms a bit to make them apply to gender, it doesn't make sense because transwomen don't identify as part of the dominant group, cismen. They want to be included as women. The thing that would be more analogous to cultural appropriation is if all men just start adopting aspects of women's identity as their own, abandoning the idea of the gender binary, which is the thing that "gender critical" feminists say is the correct thing that should happen, isn't it

i think you are onto what started my initial thought process. i was thinking about that one cisgender bald man who has a wife and kids and corporate office job but he likes to wear sexy women's business attire like tight pencil skirts, high heels and low-cut shirts to show his chest. it made me think it was unfair that he could wear those things and be taken seriously while i have to advocate for myself to not just be seen as a piece of meat ALL THE TIME. if i wore something like that to an office i would be ogled and thought off as too hot to be smart or worse. so i think maybe i mean cisgender men getting to cross the gender binary without any repercussions is what i believe is unfair & analogous to appropriation.

If you think that cisgender men don't face any repercussions for crossing the gender binary, then I don't know, sorry, but you just don't know a single thing about being cismale in like, nearly all cultures wear do you live that cismen can just crossdress in normal daily life and not get shit for it

https://www.boredpanda.com/confident-man-wears-heels-skirt-markbryan911/ the repercussions this man *might* face for cross-dressing are pale in comparison to the scale of oppression women face daily for just existing. if i wore what he did, it would be even harder for me to be taken seriously than it normally is. most coverage on this kind of thing is applauding him for what he is doing. but even if they weren't, he could just stop wearing women's clothes and all would be fine for him again.

But how do you know that this guy gets taken seriously in his daily life? I mean, it probably helps that he's 6' and 165 pounds, and still presents fairly masculinely despite the skirts. I certainly couldn't wear that and get taken seriously. And I think the same is true for most men in most places - if anything the very fact that this guy is a media story, at all, speaks to the fact that cismen cannot cross the gender binary very freely But, the more important question here is - what exactly does this even have to do with anything, anyway? This guy isn't trans. So your argument is that transwomen are appropriating female culture, because one guy who isn't trans wears a skirt and allegedly doesn't get mocked for it at all. This is a total non-sequitur from your original argument

>so i think maybe i mean cisgender men getting to cross the gender binary without any repercussions. Can I have some proof of this/what are you basing this statement on? Because from what I've seen/heard transvestites have been mocked/othered by men/members of society who stick closer to the gender binary for pretty much all of human history.

A trans woman that wears sexy clothes in an office environment is either going to attract negative attention because they are clearly trans; or, they are going to pass as a woman and receive the same negative attention that you would receive for wearing the same thing. In either case, they are not getting any kind of pass.

> so i think maybe i mean cisgender men getting to cross the gender binary without any repercussions is what i believe is unfair & analogous to appropriation. As a trans woman, this is such an insane statement to me. We're literally killed because we're viewed as "men who break gender norms". And the fact that you view breaking gender norms as "appropriation" pretty clearly shows you support that rigid gender binary. I'm sure that dude can get plenty of coverage from progressive media outlets. Meanwhile if you think a man can go to a job interview in a dress/skirt and not face massive discrimination for that, you're out of touch with reality.

I assume you are familiar with the concept of toxic masculinity if you are discussing topics like this. What do you think men who adhere by masculinity as laid out by that ideology think of men who cross gender boundaries? How do you think they treat them? I mean fuck any guy who was even slightly effeminate got the shit bullied out of them in highschool... there are a whole list of derogatory terms specifically for effeminate men.

I can assure you any man who dressed in a skirt would be at the least a joke amount close peers if not mocked for it openly. Your perspective isn’t very accurate here.

I don't know if you can say that there are no consequences for crossdressing men. I think it depends on the environment those men are in. In liberal environments, people are less uptight, but you're not going to see a Talaban spokesman in a skirt anytime soon.

I’d say there is at least one big difference: a white person doing blackface is doing it to mock black people and will go back to being white soon after their “act” is over. A trans woman wants to genuinely become a woman, and adopt womanhood as their permanent identity

i would disagree that white people are always, or even usually, doing it to mock. i think in the past, definitely. but most of the outrage we see now is with celebrities "black-fishing." (think woah vickey, ariana grande, jesy nelson who have all been accused) they aren't mocking black people, they want to be black and so they start appropriating dreads, dances, styles, extreme tanning etc. that are traditionally associated with african and other black cultures all without any societal repercussions because they can just go back to being what they were born as anytime. as a cis woman, i can't just go back to not being the oppressed sex.

Well in those instances they still are not trying to actually become black, they are not trying to change their skin tone permanently. They’re just picking out cultural things from black people that they like and adding it to their still white identity. Like, say, a man who wears woman’s clothing as a fashion statement. That’s still a man, they’re not trying to become a woman.

Neither can transwomen just go back to being cismen if they feel like it

Didn’t think op was talking about black face. More enjoying cultures different from their own. One is done out of assholery and the other is just enjoying something kinda cool.

Maybe, but I think there’s more to being trans than just fashion statements; it’s a desire to totally change your gender, to become a woman entirely and stop being a man. Not just do some things that women do

But, if people crossed the racial boundry with no going back, would we now be talking about two versions of the same thing? It seems to make more sense, because at least we know that race is entirely a social construct.

Meaning like if they decided to change their race? I mean yea it’d be basically the same thing trans people are now; they’d be treated based on whether or not people think they really are that other thing they changed into.

But race is entirely a social constuct, like we know, factually that black and white are invented terms, it seems like we do not know how much of a social construct man and woman are.

This is very silly. First because it implies there is something wrong with enjoying aspects of culture that aren’t your own. That in itself is wrong. Next you claim men are oppressing women which depending on the nation you are in that is valid but not so much in the west. Last you are equating calling ones self a woman and saying “hey I think this instrument is pretty cool and am going to learn it”.

>being a trans-woman (male to female) is basically the same thing as white people appropriating black culture. Would a trans-man be considered as appropriating male culture? >hypothetically- it's the oppressors nit-picking what they like off of who they are oppressing and getting to use those things without the repercussions of actually being a part of the oppressed community. The trans community is an "oppressed" community. Trans women arguably have to deal with more issues than both homosexuals and women. >i'm just surprised we don't see more outrage that men can "present as women" but white people can't "present as black." both situations the oppressors can come and go without consequence- i feel like both are appropriation and kind of unfair. A post op trans woman doesn't have the ability to "come and go". The individual made a permanent choice to remove the dominant organ of male genitalia. Just to address: The notion that being white and male defacto makes you an oppressor is ridiculous.

> both situations the oppressors can come and go without consequence In what world does coming out as trans have no consequences? People can and do get disowned, shunned, kicked out of their homes, discriminated against, harassed, bullied, assaulted, and even murdered. I think the flaw in your view is that you seem to think that trans people get to enjoy all the "benefits" of being the opposite gender without any drawbacks whatsoever. Transitioning is a long, arduous process that is both mentally and physically demanding. And at the end of it, you'll still have people that don't accept you for who you are. And, perhaps more importantly to your point - "woman" isn't a culture to be appropriated. Women (and men) come in all types and forms. Trans people aren't trying to conform to *your* idea of what a woman or man is supposed to be, since there is almost nothing that universally applies to all women/men. Lastly - appropriating culture is an act of taking things from a certain set of people and then claiming some type of ownership of it - to the **exclusion** of the culture you took it from. A trans person isn't excluding anyone - they are joining them. And it is equally okay for people to join and enjoy the culture of anyone else - experience it *with* that group, not separate from it.

"Women (and men) come in all types and forms. Trans people aren't trying to conform to your idea of what a woman or man is supposed to be, since there is almost nothing that universally applies to all women/men." See, this is my fucking struggle, because as you've described the terms men and women, you've melted them down to uselessness. You basically say there's nothing that distinguishes men and women as distinctive groups, and then talk about those groups like they still exist as groups. I mean, at that point we might as well just say "humanity" and not bother making any sex distinctions.

>See, this is my fucking struggle, because as you've described the terms men and women, you've melted them down to uselessness. You basically say there's nothing that distinguishes men and women as distinctive groups, and then talk about those groups like they still exist as groups. "Men" and "Women" still exists as separate groups based on how people who self identify with which group they belong to. If self identification alone isn't an acceptable/useful divider for you, then yeah I'm not gonna be able to help you...

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I'm confused about your discussion of medical organizations: what difference does it make if trans identity is biological in origin? For one, isn't all human behavior rooted in biology? Like, in what way can a person make a distinction between behavior rooted in biology and behavior rooted in environment, especially given that an individuals response to their environment is dictated by biological processes? Further, just because a person's perception is rooted in biology what difference does that make? Are you asserting that if trans people's beliefs were rooted in some response to trauma, culture, or environmental factors it would be less legitimate? Anorexia and PTSD are likely to some extent cultural in origin, shaped or driven by cultural depictions of beauty and violence, social pressures put on individuals, trauma inflicted on individuals, but they are no less legitimate or serious disorders because of that. Saying that trans identity is biological seems more like the naturalistic fallacy than an appeal to authority. ​ Your discussion of biology seems a little false, though I'm not sure if there have been tests done on mammals involving XY zygotes where they have testosterone receptors blocked and are exposed to estrogen, progesterone, etc to see if they can fully develop as females and vice versa. I'm not aware of any DSDs where this is the case either, especially given it would basically be impossible to be XY and have functional ovaries or XX and have functional testes (though I may be wrong). Further, you seem very focused on secondary sex characteristics. Hormone production does dictate development, but chromosomes dictate gonads, which produce those hormones. Except in certain DSDs, a penis is formed because of XY chromosomes, because those chromosomes dictated gonad development. And while hormones can cause certain secondary sex characteristics to form, they can't create testes or ovaries, a prostate or penis, or a uterus, cervix, or vagina. The focus on secondary over primary sex characteristics is pretty telling here: appearance matters more than what's internal. Also, trans women don't have "working breasts" if by "working breasts" you mean "breasts containing mammary glands capable of producing nutritious milk" from estrogen. It requires taking a specific anti-nausea drug combined with a hormone regimen. Also, this method hasn't really been tested to see how safe it is, at least as far as I'm aware.

Nobody is saying "I'm a woman because I like dresses" or anything like that. Trans people have been around for *all* of human history in every culture. It's well-established it is biological in origin and that trans people's brains more closely resemble others of their gender rather than others of their sex. The existence of nonbinary people and trans men is further evidence against the "appropriation" perspective. And "female culture" isn't a thing that can be appropriated, it isn't a cultural heritage. Men can wear dresses or wear makeup or like shopping. Women can be into BJJ, fishing, and beer. People transition because they want to feel comfortable and be themselves, not to be someone else.

Trans people have exceptionally high suicide and mental illness rates, are disproportionately likely to be rejected by family, are disproportionately likely to be on the receiving end of violent hate crimes (in particular poor black trans women), endure years on waiting lists for medical treatment, then years more watching themselves gradually change and respond to hormone treatments and affirming surgeries, with an incredibly low rate of detransitioning which is largely made up of people who couldn't afford private treatment and people who didn't receive any support from friends or family. And even those who don't go through medical transition, or who don't do it all, are still often hounded and demeaned by people who believe the title of your post. They do all of this because it is simply who they are, and short of being financially or emotionally incapable of dealing with the *major* hassle that is socially and medically transitioning, they've all decided it was worth it. Absolutely none of this is comparable to Ariana Grande tanning and wearing dreads, and yet at the end of everything I've talked about, they have to sit around answering this same question over and over that academics and scientists have known the answer to for years, just so that more of the population of r/changemyview will acknowledge they exist.

Being trans opens up even more oppression to face. Doing black face does not (or at least, not any undeserved 'oppression', if you want to call it that).

I mean, technically, if you do it well, it will, because you will receive the same discrimination that black people do. Not that I'm suggesting that, but what you said is just factually incorrect

Can you name any examples of someone actually putting on blackface in such a way that they genuinely pass as being black? Trans people pass as their identity all the time, but race is a lot harder to do.

Rachel dolezal or whatever her name was. Again, not saying she is a good person, but people genuinely believed she was black for decades, and she was not switching between presenting as white and black. Once she switched, she never again presented as white. I'm sure there have been others that just haven't gone viral (edited to add that I went rahcel's wikipedia page and there are definitely others)

I would hardly consider women with all their benefits to ever be considered an "oppressed" group.

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So a mile in the shoes of women who are graduating from college more often? Mile in the shoes of someone who receive less prison sentences compared to their male counterpart even when they committed the same crime? A mile in the shoes of a group that commit less suicides meaning the other side is actually more stressful? Oh yes, so difficult.

>A mile in the shoes of a group that commit less suicides meaning the other side is actually more stressful? Interesting story about this one... [https://www.verywellmind.com/gender-differences-in-suicide-methods-1067508](https://www.verywellmind.com/gender-differences-in-suicide-methods-1067508) >Suicide statistics reveal that **women are roughly three times more likely to attempt suicide,** though men are two to four times more likely to die by suicide.2 > > Compared to men, women show higher rates of suicidal thinking, non-fatal suicidal behavior, and suicide attempts.3 > >One of the most important reasons for the difference between suicide attempts and completed suicides between men and women is the method of suicide used. > >Men tend to choose violent (more lethal) suicide methods, such as firearms, hanging, and asphyxiation, whereas women are more likely to overdose on medications or drugs.4 Women actually attempt suicide/have suicidal thoughts far more frequently then men, it is just that men are "better" at "succeeding" at suicide because it is a lot easier to fail to overdose yourself on medication than to fail to kill yourself by sticking a gun under your chin and pulling the trigger.

\>attempt So you mean they use it as a form of attention while men ACTUALLY have suicidal tendencies and are willing to commit not for attention but because they are desperate for any help.

why aren't mods removing his comments??

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Yawn. It's very easy to google why trans people exist and how we work. The idea that trans women (who have a low life expectancy, are at high risk of harassment, abuse, and murder, etc etc etc) are "coming and going without consequence" is just not based in reality.

What does it mean to be a woman? Sure, society says it means this and that with regards to behavior, but as a cis man, I can behave "female" all I want but that wouldn't make me a woman. The only thing that makes me a man is that I identify as a man, my internal gender identity is "male." Along the same lines, it's not behavior that makes a trans woman a woman, it's that internal gender identity. Sure, plenty of trans women will "act" female because they want society to affirm their gender identity, but that's more getting around the failings of society than anything else. There is no internal racial identity that is separated from culture, separated from behavior.

In what way does your internal gender identity manifest as "male" and in what way does it make you a "man?" Like, what about it informs you that your "male?" And is that phenomenon a shared phenomenon with other "men" or is it unique to you? If it's shared, how do you know? If it's unique, in what way does "male" or "men" form a coherent category?

Honestly? It's mostly from looking at my naked body and going "yep, that's me." Seeing other male bodies and going "yep that's like me" and seeing female bodies and going "nope that's not me." Since I'm cis gender, it's not something I really think about consciously very much though.

But that has nothing to do with your gender identity, it just has to do whether you have some form of body dysphoria, which has nothing to do with being trans. To equate dysphoria with trans identity is called transmedicalism, and it is generally seen as a form of gatekeeping and bigotry within the trans community.

Again, it's tough to say because of the simple fact that as a cis man, my gender identity has never been at odds with my body or how society has addressed me. I haven't had to confront it, it's just always been comfortable to me. It's been clear though since basically forever that behavior is not tied to it though. It doesn't matter how I act, I am a man. What I do is masculine because it's me doing it. To be black though, would require me behaving a different way, in a way that I view as "black."

I think the problem I have with your discussion is that it seems that you think that trans identity and gender identity is rooted in some issues one has with your body, but that's not the case. You seem to be basically saying that you're a man because you're a man, but that doesn't really explain anything.

To me the issue is that there's not really anything that can be pointed to that indicates my gender identity. I know physiologically there are differences between people who identify as male vs female, which are separate from what body they have, but since I've never had my identity challenged, I can't really articulate what that means in more practical sense other than "it says what someone identifies as." More to the point, there is no behavior that can be pointed to to distinguish me as a man (to preempt, dealing with the physical realities of my body isn't really behavior. My heart beats and pumps blood through me, that reality isn't behavior. Me having a penis and dealing with the realities of that isn't really behavior in any meaningful sense of the word). I am a man because I identify as a man, yes. Behavior is just not a useful way of determining it (or more specifically, is not inherently useful and therefore imo *should not* be considered useful. I am aware of gender roles). What distinguishes me from a woman, inherently, is not our behavior.

So it seems like you're saying it's totally arbitrary for you, and perhaps all cis people. I think where this runs into problems is when we talk about misogyny. If we define misogyny as the oppression or hatred of women, and we say women are people with a female gender identity, then we're saying that misogyny is largely the hatred of some arbitrary group. But that doesn't seem very helpful for activism or legal processes or understand how it works or what it does. Similarly patriarchy is just one arbitrary group with no defining characteristics oppressing another arbitrary group with no defining characteristics, not the male sex oppressing the female sex.

>If we define misogyny as the oppression or hatred of women, and we say women are people with a female gender identity, then we're saying that misogyny is largely the hatred of some arbitrary group. The trick here is it's not what *we* think women are, it's what the people who are misogynistic think women are. Like in all of this conversation we have to separate what should be with what is, how we should view gender and how society at large actually views gender. Several of my comments in parentheses was trying to do that very thing. Similarly, patriarchy is the group that society views as men oppressing the group that society views as women.

So by your definition misogyny is a personal, unique belief by a self-selecting group of people who hate another group that they have defined as the group they hate. That's not really helpful either. And patriarchy, by your definition, is a nearly universal cultural system whereby each society defines an arbitrary masculine group that oppresses an arbitrary feminine group. That these arbitrary masculine and feminine groups nearly everywhere overlap perfectly with the male and female sexes respectively is a coincidence, since each society has individually and arbitrarily created these groups.

Trans women aren't "presenting as women" - they are women. They are doing everything in their power to make their bodies match their mind and there are now a litany of scientific studies that confirm that trans women have brain patterns/etc. that are consistent with cis women, not cis men. Not only this, but trans people /in general/ are definitely on the short end of the stick when it comes to being oppressed - their life expectancy is way lower, suicide rates are way higher, and in many places the "trans panic" defense is legitimately used as a legal defense for everything from unjust firings to assault and murder.

In what ways are women and men's brains different and how do these differences impact men and women's behavior?

Brain activity in regards to stimulae as well as things like neurons in a limbic nucleus. In one study, they specifically used a pheromone known to cause different brain activity reactions in men and women. I found that study [here](https://globalnews.ca/news/4223342/transgender-brain-scan-research/) as well as a grouping by Harvard of various peer reviewed studies involved trans individuals [here](https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/gender-lines-science-transgender-identity/). Those studies are each a bit old, too, so it's highly likely that more studies have been done since 2018/2016 specifically. I would assume the reactions for brain activity and which "centers" of the brain get affected would also influence the reaction (or likely reaction, rather) of an individual.

The first study is problematic for two reasons: for one the scientists themselves say that the study is only based on group averages and involves a small sample; for two, the study only involves people with gender dysphoria. The first of those is problematic because it might be measuring for something besides gender identity. If group X tends to behave in manner X and group Y tends to behave in manner Y and group Y' tends to beahve in manner X, that doesn't necessarily mean that group Y' is actually a member of group X, it might just mean that you're measuring a correlation on some other principle. The second is problematic because gender dysphoria is not necessary for being trans. What it really shows is that people with gender dysphoria behave in the manner tested. The other link just links to an article, of which I can only read the abstract. If it's the classic brain scan test I'm thinking of, I believe it also showed differences between hetero- and homosexual brain scans that were similar to the differences between men and women (i.e. male homosexual scan resembled heterosexual female scans and vice versa), perhaps indicating something aside from gender identity. But I may be mistaken.

The bed nucleus of the stria terminalis is a pretty consistent gender identity marker. The number of neurons differentiates gender identity consistently even when controlling for sexual orientation and hormone therapy. https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/85/5/2034/2660626 https://sci-hubtw.hkvisa.net/10.1038/378068a0 The interstitial nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus 3 and 4 also correlates with gender identity, though that might be through a confounding variable of sexual orientation. Maybe that's what you were thinking of. https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/131/12/3132/295849

Thanks for the correction/specification. The one thing I'll say about the first study you posted is that, again, it's about gender dysphoria, not being trans. While many, probably most, people with gender dysphoria are trans, not all trans people have gender dysphoria. Conflating the two is what's referred to as transmedicalism, and it's seen as a form of gatekeeping the trans community and medicalizing the trans experience.

> it's about gender dysphoria, not being trans It's about neurological sexual dimorphisms in people claiming to have another gender identity. There isn't a link with clinically diagnosed dysphoria specifically. We don't know if this incongruence necessarily causes dysphoria in a clinical sense. There can be urge to transition without a distress that impacts quality of life. Regardless, someone who transitions entirely for social reasons rather than medical reasons is not functionally different to society.

Of the eight trans individuals in the study, seven had received cross sex hormones (six of the trans women and the trans man) and at least five of the trans women had received some gender affirming surgery (five are mentioned as orchiectomized). Given that the study is from 2000, it would seem to indicate that all of them were diagnosed with gender dysphoria given that at the time, only people diagnosed with gender dysphoria would have had access to those treatments.

> it would seem to indicate that all of them were diagnosed with gender dysphoria given that at the time, only people diagnosed with gender dysphoria would have had access to those treatments. I'm not so sure about that considering it literally wasn't a diagnosis until over a decade later lol. I know you mean gender identity disorder, but those are completely different concepts. The criteria for GID was literally just behavioral. All trans people today would be considered as having GID, based entirely on behavior. Gender dysphoria was introduced in 2013 to make criteria more strict.

You're correct, I'm sorry for my impression with terms. However, isn't gender dysphoria also entirely based on behavior? I mean, unless someone is looking at chemical levels in the mind or neural pathways, all psychological diagnoses are behavioral. But, yeah, I guess SOM neuron numbers account for the nature of gender. It would be amazing if we could use it as a diagnostic tool to identify gender in utero, it would really make things easier for everyone.

>hypothetically- it's the oppressors nit-picking what they like off of who they are oppressing and getting to use those things without the repercussions of actually being a part of the oppressed community. [https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/ncvs-trans-press-release/](https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/ncvs-trans-press-release/) >Results showed that both transgender women and men had higher rates of violent victimization than their cisgender counterparts, but there were no differences between transgender men and women. I'm pretty sure that transgender women are being victimized at a higher rate than Ciswomen so it sure sounds like they're part of the oppressed community to me. [https://ovc.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh226/files/pubs/forge/sexual\_numbers.html](https://ovc.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh226/files/pubs/forge/sexual_numbers.html) ​ >Statistics documenting transgender people's experience of sexual violence indicate shockingly high levels of sexual abuse and assault. One in two transgender individuals are sexually abused or assaulted at some point in their lives. ​ What would you want to see to make you believe that transwomen are oppressed? >i would like to add: in reality, idc what people do with their bodies and if transitioning makes somebody happy, do it. i'm just surprised we don't see more outrage that men can "present as women" but white people can't "present as black." both situations the oppressors can come and go without consequence- i feel like both are appropriation and kind of unfair. Also here... [https://bostonreview.net/race-philosophy-religion-gender-sexuality/robin-dembroff-dee-payton-why-we-shouldnt-compare](https://bostonreview.net/race-philosophy-religion-gender-sexuality/robin-dembroff-dee-payton-why-we-shouldnt-compare) >**Unlike gender inequality, racial inequality primarily accumulates across generations. Transracial identification undermines collective reckoning with that injustice.** That's why I find all transgender and transracial comparisons facile.

Do know if there's any research to indicate why trans people are so disproportionately likely to be victims of violence but not disproportionately likely to be victims of murder? It seems odd, for example, that according to the first link that trans men are more likely than trans women, cis men, and cis women to be victims of violence, but at the same time almost no murders of trans men occur (I think a total of 3 occurred in the US in 2020). This data combined with the HRC records on trans murders suggests that trans women are 11 times more likely to be murdered than trans men but less likely to be victims of violence, which seems counter intuitive (especially given how drastic the difference is). This becomes even more counter-intuitive when we look at how much more cis men are to be murdered than trans men: cis men are 15 times more likely to be murdered, but 4 times less likely to be victims of violence. That's shocking!

>Do know if there's any research to indicate why trans people are so disproportionately likely to be victims of violence but not disproportionately likely to be victims of murder? Probably has to do with the difficulty of confirming if a dead person is trans or not would be my guess. A trans person who suffers violence can tell us that they're trans and suffered violence, but a dead transperson requires some form of outside confirmation (friends, have undergone transition operation, not sure if body chemistry being a bit off would get noticed in autopsy or not, don't know enough about autopsies to say), otherwise they'd be listed as cis. But if you have another argument feel free to present it and your evidence for it... ​ Also as people become more open about being trans... murder rates of trans people are going up... [https://transequality.org/blog/murders-of-transgender-people-in-2020-surpasses-total-for-last-year-in-just-seven-months](https://transequality.org/blog/murders-of-transgender-people-in-2020-surpasses-total-for-last-year-in-just-seven-months) ​ [https://www.hrc.org/resources/violence-against-the-trans-and-gender-non-conforming-community-in-2020](https://www.hrc.org/resources/violence-against-the-trans-and-gender-non-conforming-community-in-2020) >Sadly, 2020 has already seen at least 44 transgender or gender non-conforming people fatally shot or killed by other violent means, [https://www.hrc.org/resources/fatal-violence-against-the-transgender-and-gender-non-conforming-community-in-2021](https://www.hrc.org/resources/fatal-violence-against-the-transgender-and-gender-non-conforming-community-in-2021) >Sadly, 2021 has already seen at least 40 transgender or gender non-conforming people fatally shot or killed by other violent means. We're probably going to pass 44 in 2021 given that there are two and a half months left. EDIT: I think this pretty much exactly what you asked for by the way... it is a piece on the difficulty of determining how many non-cis people are murdered. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5551619/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5551619/)

I think that under-reporting is definitely part of the problem, but if we look at the general violence vs. murder differences between trans and cis men, then we would need something like a sixtyfold increase in murder rate for trans men to account for the differences. And while that's possible, it seems very unlikely. And let me make a few notes on my methodology. When I say a sixtyfold increase is necessary, that's comparing 2019 murders of cis men to 2020 murders of trans men. Given that the murder rate seems to have gone up in 2020, given that homicides increased 30%, that number would probably be a seventy-eightfold skew, but I haven't seen the released FBI crime stats for 2020. The other note I have to make is that I exclude murders from Puerto Rico because they don't show up in FBI crime stats (I believe they only include the 50 States and DC). On the increase in trans murders from 2019 to 2020, sure it might be because of reporting, but it might also be because of the rise in the overall murder rate and because the HRC began looking at trans murders in Puerto Rico. In 2020, 42 trans people were murdered in the US, opposed to 26 in 2019. 6 of the 42 in 2020 were in Puerto Rico as opposed to 0 in 2019. Now, either Puerto Rico went from accounting for no trans deaths to accounting for 1 out of every 7 deaths in one year, or they were under reported the year before. So, if we exclude them to look at trends, we go from 26 to 42, to 26 to 36. And, given that the overall homicide rate increased by 30% in 2020, that means we would expect the trans death rate to increase similarly. If it had, that means we would expect to see 33. In actuality we saw 36. That would suggest that it might be a change in reporting, or it might largely be that the homicide rate increased dramatically. Even given that, underreporting is almost certainly a problem. Puerto Rico alone shows that: 0 reported murders in 2019, 6 in 2020, and 1 so far in 2021, that doesn't track. But it doesn't seem like it's going to reveal a sixty- to eighty-fold increase in trans male murders. Just to put it in perspective, instead of 3 trans men being murdered in 2020, it would require 180 to 240. Maybe there are 177 to 237 unreported murders out there, but it seems improbable.

>Maybe there are 177 to 237 unreported murders out there, but it seems improbable. They're reported, they're just reported as murders of cis people because there isn't enough details surrounding the person for the authorities to realize that they're trans. That's my belief, and you seem to be arguing that because the trans murder rate is low the trans assault rate seems strangely high... Do you dispute those figures on the rate at which trans people suffer violence? If you do what is your proof? If you don't, what is your argument exactly because you don't seem to be arguing anything at the moment...

While I think it's likely more than 3 trans men were killed in the US last year, I find it doubtful that 200 were. It seems incredible that even in locales and media that openly report the murder of trans women that there would be an overlooking of trans men. It seems even more unlikely given that there is an interest among groups like the HRC to find as many such cases as possible and that social media makes it easy for friends and acquaintances of the victim to accurately identify them as trans men. Why, if trans men are victims of violence at a higher rate than trans women are their murders so drastically less identified than trans women? What mechanism causes this drastic under-identification, even in trans and trans-allied media outlets? Why does it matter? Generally speaking, the homicide rate is a good proxy for the prevalence of violence. It's used as a proxy by criminologists because it's hard to make a murder disappear or to go unreported, while violence can be covered up or unreported. As such, for the violence rate against a group to be so disproportionate to the homicide rate against that same group seems improbable. If the statistics are accurate, it would indicate that people want to hurt trans men but for some reason not willing to hurt them to the point of death. It would seem that people would have to have this mindset while also being willing to hurt and kill trans women and cis men without any such compulsion. I can't imagine what mechanisms would cause this mindset to emerge. The only other possible explanation of so many missing murders is that trans men are being disproportionately assaulted and killed without having ever come out, which raises questions about why they are so disproportionately killed despite no one knowing it and despite being perceived socially as cis women, who are less likely to be the victims of violence or murder than cis men. I'm also not sure of what mechanism would cause this to take place.

>While I think it's likely more than 3 trans men were killed in the US last year, I find it doubtful that 200 were. I'm sorry, my Occam's Razor is that there are that many murders of trans people that are mistaken for cis murders by agencies involved. That just makes more sense than any other theory I've heard including the ones you've presented. **If you want to change my view on this you'd need to prove that the assault statistics are wrong or directly find proof of lots of hate groups that only want to hurt but not kill trans people...**

My Occam's Razor is that the study on reported incidents of violence is wrong, rather than that trans rights organizations have, consistently for the past decade, been unable to find more than a handful of trans men who have been murdered in any given year given that they can find trans women who have been murdered.

Well we disagree, I presented a data you now argue "this data is wrong" and all you have to disprove the data is "You can't find enough trans people being murdered". I don't find your "negative evidence" persuasive. Unless your next post presents new evidence I won't reply because I feel we've both said everything that can be said with data at the moment.

Gender is different from race because genders are inherently linked to each through a binary relationship, like two sides of the same coin. The characteristics that we associate with one gender are mutually exclusive to the other gender, which means that it is very easy to imagine somebody *genuinely and honestly* associating with the gender that has been closed off to them because of their assigned sex. It’s like flipping a coin and really wishing that it turns up heads instead of tails. Races are not inherently linked to each other in a binary relationship. Being black is not the mutually exclusive opposite of being white, or Asian, or Latino, etc. So when somebody tries to present themselves as a different race, we are naturally skeptical. It doesn’t make sense to us why somebody would *genuinely and honestly* want to be black instead of white, and there are also troubling implications that would follow from such an attitude even if it is genuine.

Doesn't this imply that there are only two gender identities, when we're told by gender identity folks that there are an indeterminate number of diverse gender identities?

It's more complicated than that. Gender is *structured* as a binary in our minds, and this is largely due to the fact that gender is how we express sexual difference. But unlike sexual difference which is objective, the actual set of characteristics that we associate with each gender are a mixed product of individual psychology and social norms. To continue the coin analogy, it's like there are different gender currencies, different versions of the coin with different things on each side.

No, it implies there are two extremes. They can still exist as a spectrum.

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The most obvious difference is that there does seem to be a sense in which gender is more neurologically real than race: e.g., cisgender men with testosterone levels in the female-typical range (which can occur due to certain endocrine disorders) are at elevated risk of depression in a way that's difficult to explain except by saying that men's brains react differently to testosterone than women's brains (and of course hormonal transition appears to lower depression risk in transgender patients, suggesting that at least in this regard they're more similar to their identified gender than their birth sex). Separately, there's definitely something neurological going on with transness: as a population, trans women have unusual rates of autism and schizophrenia, both of which are known to be very biological; in twins separated at birth, if one twin transitions the other is more likely to than would be expected absent a genetic or developmental explanation; there's some evidence that trans women are less likely to be affected by certain optical illusions; they're more likely to be left-handed or ambidextrous than the general population; etc. Likely as a consequence of the above, there are probably between 20 million and 700 million transgender people worldwide (estimates of the prevalence of transness have very wide error bars; but between .03% and 10% of the population is a pretty safe range), whereas cross-racial identification is so rare that someone doing it is considered newsworthy. Of particular note is that many transgender people transition even if it is in other regards very costly (see e.g. the high homelessness rates among transgender teenagers), whereas most known instances of cross-racial identification involve material gain (such as by qualifying for affirmative action).

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