I’ve never considered myself a tub-thumping feminist, that’s for sure. But when I see men transition to female and then assert (or, more usually, others assert on their behalf) that they are just as much a woman as someone born female I start to feel quite cross about it.
It’s a man’s world. Less so than it once was but it’s still a man’s world. Women (born female) have to endure quite a lot. They have to fight hard to get on in male dominated environments such as the workplace. They have to endure overt and covert sexism a lot. Sleazy men making passes at them or putting them down for whatever reason. Born females undergo puberty and start to menstruate and often they will bear children. That is a unique lived experience for a born female. Women are better care givers and child carers - yes, there are exceptions and of course many men are very good at that stuff too. But women have a biological predisposition towards the care giving roles.
What I’m trying to say is that to be female involves some or all of what I’ve mentioned above. That is the 'lived experience' of a woman and for a man to simply ‘feel’ or ‘believe’ they are female, take hormones, have surgery and wear appropriate clothing and then claim to be just as female as a born woman I find offensive. It undermines what it is to be female and to have lived a female life.
We are now in a unique time in a socio-cultural sense. Liberal thinkers now need to 'pick a side' for the first time. Trans rights or feminism? Support Gay rights or oppose Islamophobia? Just two examples but there are many.
