This is to distinctly go against modern mores but it’s also an important distinction to make. Someone who possess the ovaries, uterus, womb and hormonal systems to carry a pregnancy to term and give birth is not a man. This is what is known as a “woman.” This is nothing at all to do with the patriarchy, capitalism or even my own stickinthemudism. It’s just an observation about the world and the use of language in describing it.
This Guardian headline is therefore wrong:
The story of one man’s pregnancy: ‘It felt joyous, amazing and brilliant’
This opening line isn’t though:
Pregnancy is increasingly common among trans men.
For “trans men” and “men” do not mean the same thing, not at all. The modern style is to insist that they are but then it’s not that unusual for fads and fashions to be incorrect, is it?
As I say there’s an importance here and it’s that language is the way we try to describe that reality out there beyond our own eyeballs. We therefore need to use a certain precision in that description, definitions of words become important. As such words are not being used properly concerning trans-everything.
Consider, say, cancer screening. Cervical cancer is solely a female disease, prostate such solely a male. A female to male trans person (to be neutral in description there) might well, without radical surgery, have a risk for cervical cancer, one that needs to be checked occasionally. Equally, a male to female again without radical surgery might be at risk for prostate cancer. Each therefore requiring smear and PSA tests as appropriate.
This is different from how people wish to present themselves to the world. Lord Knows we’re liberals around here and how you wish to dress, your preferred mode of address, who you sleep with how and all the rest, they’re entirely up to you. We may or may not go along with your pronoun, that depends upon how polite we’re feeling at any one point but your right to do as you wish, absent third party harm, is pretty much the bedrock of the liberal belief.
That still doesn’t mean that a man is going to be pregnant to the point of birth. Because that’s to destroy that information contained within the words “man” or “woman”. Useful information, as with the cancer example, distinctions which it’s important we be able to make.
One useful way through this is to insist that gender and sex are different. Which does accord with modern mores but perhaps we’ve just got to emphasise this more. Gender is that social construct and off we all go and construct it as we wish. Sex is biological reality and that’s not changed in the same manner. Even surgery doesn’t change that in the deep sense. That is, the very idea of a sex change is incorrect even as gender change is quite obviously something done with a certain regularity.
And I’ll keep insisting that someone pregnant to the point of live birth is not a man whatever anyone might claim.
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The Guardian's intentional degrading of the culture marches on.
...and so is Lola.
"For “trans men” and “men” do not mean the same thing, not at all."
Exactly. If they have seized on using chemistry/geography-based terms with "cis" meaning not-trans being "matching with, this side of, not the other side of", then trans means "not matching with, the other side of, different from", so "trans man" means "not a man, ie, now a woman".
You can't both use "cis-man" to mean "not changed from man" and also use "trans-man" to mean changed *to* man, it has to be "cis-man" = identity matches biology and "trans-man" = identity opposite to biology, ie identifying as woman.
So, a biological woman who has had surgery and identifies as a man is a trans-*woman*, not a trans-man. If they want to insist that a biological woman who has had surgery and identifies as a man is a trans-*man*, then they have destroyed their justification to use "cis" to mean not-trans.
Exactly. If they have seized on using chemistry/geography-based terms with “cis” meaning not-trans being “matching with, this side of, not the other side of”, then trans means “not matching with, the other side of, different from”, so “trans man” means “not a man, ie, now a woman
Back again Twatty. And C&P the dictionary now?
Is your fat friend Murphy a transman Twats? Or can't you tell under the blubber?
@jgh
I do not accept the term "cis-man" & do not self identify as as "cis man",. Further, I find the term "cis man" highly offensive & a violation of my safe space when I encounter it.
The is just so much mileage in this...
Trump-Mueller thread not long enough?
It has become a shouting match, which if it propagates to other pages could make this website a chore to read. (Vandals might have generated some of the posts, as setting two users at one another's throat is something that vandals relish.) Publisher's stated love of free discussion has to be balanced with ensuring the appeal of the website.
Spike, my comment was referring to the tendency for "trans" threads at Tim's other site to run into the hundreds. A joke, not very good. I'll get me coat, etc.
My comment (5:43 pm) was about the other thread on this website, and not about your comment at all. Yes, I have expected all day that a certain regular will post another TL;WR.
"A female to male trans person (to be neutral in description there)"
This must be perilously close to hate speech Tim. You're denying the self-identified gender descriptor to the "person" here. However, having said that, I'm not sure if the person you describe is a Trans-Man or a Trans-Woman for the reasons jgh states above.
by the way, anyone calling me cis-male is liable to be handbagged for hate speech to me.
"Exactly. If they have seized on using chemistry/geography-based terms with “cis” meaning not-trans being “matching with, this side of, not the other side of”, then trans means “not matching with, the other side of, different from”, so “trans man” means “not a man, ie, now a woman”."
Cis- and trans- are about whether gender (brain) is the same as or different to birth sex (genitals). And the identification of the person is based on their gender (brain).
Thus "Trans-man" means a man (gender) whose gender is different from their birth sex. "Cis-man" means a man (gender) whose gender is the same as their birth sex. "Man" means a man (gender). Simples.
"Yes, I have expected all day that a certain regular will post another TL;WR."
:-)
That, of course, was the entire point of putting up the post! Controversy generates clicks. Clicks generate revenue.
You didn't want a politically correct echo-chamber, where people who disagree with your own politics are disallowed, did you?
@ NIV "You didn’t want a politically correct echo-chamber, where people who disagree with your own politics are disallowed, did you?" so it's all about politics with you this trans mania rather than facts. Thanks for clarifying that we can ignore your usual long winded posts as it's all politics, not facts with you. Thank god transexuals are a evolutionary dead end who can only survive as a group by converting others to their political point of view.
"so it’s all about politics with you this trans mania rather than facts"
My belief in free speech and freedom generally is about politics.
And it's not me with the trans-mania. I don't bring the subject up until one of you does, (which happens with remarkable regularity!) and then yes, I tell you about the facts, because truth is important too.
The whole concept of gender is nonsense. Claiming that you have reassigned someone's gender means about as much as cleansing their aura.
You don't believe in brains? You don't believe that brains with different anatomies can have different personalities? You don't believe that sex-linked anatomical differences in brains can ever disagree with sex-linked anatomical differences in the external genitals?