 PSA for my cis followers: "Transwoman" and "Biological woman" are transphobe dog whistles. They're meant to try to indicate that trans women are not women. Just remember: you don't say someone is a tallwoman or a blondewoman, she's a tall woman or a blonde woman. And unless you're talking about a fembot, all women are biological women. EDIT: The correct terms are trans woman or cis woman. And if someone is offended by being called a cis woman, you can call her an asshole. 56 comments
@JessTheUnstill The bulk of people--allies for the most part--will say that society is evolving. The Trans state is as natural as all life on Earth, the "evolving" of humans to accept this is an excuse for deniers. Intersex persons have always been. We all start out in the womb female, some transform into males. This is evolution, not us catching up to facts. How can people not acknowledge that our very complex brains might understand a fundamental flaw in the end result of development? @JessTheUnstill So as not to offend them, what term should be used when referring to the people in question? @JessTheUnstill I'll write it that way then, for sure. Problem I guess is that you can't necessarily tell which version is being spoken... @apgarcia @JessTheUnstill trans women. You just don't combine them into one word like transwomen
@JessTheUnstill I think also some older trans folks still use old cis terminology like that. Doesn't change that it's a dog whistle, but some folks use the terms for other reasons. Grain of salt, etc, for the old queers among us 😅 Shit, hard to imagine that I'm well past the 50th percentile for age in the queer community, unfortunately mostly because of the HIV genocide @saraislet @JessTheUnstill @saraislet Yeaaaa.... let me also say that, among a certain cohort of trans women, which may share other generational characteristics, there's a LOT of problematic shit to unpack. @EvieAlways @JessTheUnstill @EvieAlways Some of those folks don't mean to, and some have done some of the work to unpack that. It's hard to generalize, so I try to start from listening, but...it's hard, given the frequency that it turns out to be a LOT to unpack and I'm only offering a tiny portion of help unpacking some LITTLE boxes  @saraislet @JessTheUnstill I see posts such as OP as more of a "here's some education on what terms are better to use than others" than a "everyone who uses this term is a piece of shit." Some people use it for different reasons, and usually the reason is either that they're a transphobe *or* that they need education such as this post  @JessTheUnstill thanks, TIL, I may have used one or both of those incorrectly in the past. and since I always feel like I need to lighten the mood somehow, if we meet a silicon based life form would they still be 'biological' by definition or just chemistry and physics @JessTheUnstill i am not a native speaker and in my native language it is written in one word, and sometimes my brain wants the connectwords not the spaces. I don't know how to solve this, I have tried to learn english spelling for so many years and I still struggle with "with" and "wave" for example and I don't want to be labelled a trans phobe because of my semi shitty language skills. So I guess I will keep trying but I also wish native speakers could be a little gentle on English learners @JessTheUnstill ok thanks for clarifying. I have gotten a lot of hate and ridicule for not being correct in a foreign language, and your post read as feeding into that. Thanks again for being clear. @Anya_Adora @JessTheUnstill It’s not the terms trans woman or trans man that are the problem — it’s when they’re purposely joined together as one word (ie “transwoman” or “transman”) that is the issue. Those compound words were designed to other us as something other than “real” men or women, and were primarily used by TERFs until they just kinda leaked into common usage (much to the dismay of a hell of a lot of us who have been trying to point this out for years.) @Anya_Adora @JessTheUnstill Nobody should be using “transwoman” or “transman” on purpose — those combination words come from TERFs as a way to other us. The correct way to write them would be “trans woman” or “trans man” (ie as two separate words.) @turboquokka @JessTheUnstill OP says 'allies and even trans people may use both trans woman and transwoman' So apparently you are wrong according to this logic. @turboquokka @JessTheUnstill Tbh this all makes me think this entire discussion just makes us look bad. We want and need allies and acceptance and all of this just works against that. I'm not down with whatever this is. Feel free to carry on and confuse cis and other trans folks who are allies or may become one. Feel free to push them away with this lack of logic and calling them out as wrong while admitting they aren't wrong. I'm not having this fight with you anymore. You are free to do and say whatever you like. Have a good evening. @Anya_Adora saying something happens is not the same as endorsing it. Allies and even trans people sometimes say transphobic things on accident. So it's good to educate on why it's transphobic. @Anya_Adora are you saying that wanting to be known as trans disqualifies someone from being a woman? Here, let me break it down for you: @Anya_Adora if by "women 11 months out of the year until pride month comes along" you mean "don't tell people they're trans except for pride month but tell people they're women," those women are still women during pride month... if you mean people who detransition for pride month or AFAB trans people who detransition for the rest of the year, idk how they're relevant to this conversation @briellebouquet @raphaelmorgan Some trans fems use the word 'Tranny' to describe themselves, even here, openly, in jest. If you want to continue this then tell me how that's ok and not having a space between two words is somehow the end of the world for us. Because apparently some folks think i'm a bigot for not caring about the space which was made clear in this thread. Let's move on to a real slur. @briellebouquet @raphaelmorgan Also, let me make this very clear. None of you or any trans person anywhere gets to decide my 'credentials' as a trans person. Ever. @Anya_Adora @briellebouquet she was literally saying that we weren't trying to do that... are you just the type of person who scans posts for a few words that you can take out of context so that you can attack other trans people? Please untag me from future conversation because I am *done* with that sort of behavior along with the bootlicking @Anya_Adora @raphaelmorgan more importantly, accepting compromise on our right to label ourselves because we dont want to push cis people away feels cowardly and adjacent to cis gays who join the LGB alliance bc they think trans people make gay rights harder to sell to cishets. we are who we are. im not trying to buy acceptance from the cishets by compromising who i am or how im seen for public relations. i want respect and i want my womanhood recognized, now. @briellebouquet @raphaelmorgan That's fine, feel however you wish. I just wish you could understand that your womanhood isn't defined by them. You are obviously their slave because a space between two words or not matters so much it can destroy your dignity. To me that's problematic and i refuse to let others decide who i am or what i am. But you all do you and fight the world over a space between words to maintain your dignity. @JessTheUnstill people offended by "cis" were using "trans" (or the worse one that is also "transmission") as a slur in the first place. @JessTheUnstill whats the difference between "transwoman" and "trans woman"? and abt biological woman/man - remember that not every lang have two words for that (gender/sex), in polish its for example only 1 word. @JessTheUnstill I'd need a whole lot of extra nuance in order to agree with that, but I realise that getting a point across concisely is hazardous. @JessTheUnstill just trying to understand . There is a difference between writing transwoman as opposed to trans woman? In conversation that would not be possible to differentiate.  I typically use the full word, "transgender" (so, "transgender person", or "transgender woman" etc. if needed). Is that bad now? |
Gregory's Server
@JessTheUnstill it's me i'm fembot