I am referring to people who were born male and, as far as I'm concerned, still are male. I am very much of the persuasion that it is not actually possible to "become a woman" or for a woman to "become a man".

Yes, I know there are surgeries that are often referred to as "sex change operations", but that popular term is factually incorrect. All those operations actually do is mutilate one's body in such a way as to artificially imitate the outward appearance of the other sex. They do not change one's internal DNA structure. Anyone who is born male will always DNA test as male, will never be able to reproduce, etc. Enjoyed or not, one's sex is a caste. It cannot be changed.

I feel that the steadily increasing social pressure on gender-nonconforming people to identify as trans is basically intended to wipe out public perceptions that men can be something other than masculine (which is really just our culture's sexist way of saying controlling, authoratative) and that women can be something other than feminine (which is our culture's sexist way of saying submissive, servile). There's a conservative premise there, I would observe, and it parallels increasing belief among younger Americans that traditional social roles -- male breadwinners and female homemakers, that sort of thing -- are superior and more natural; perhaps the product of three decades now of non-traditionally extreme gendering of the child-rearing process (example of what I mean by that) in reaction to the feminist wave of the 1970s.

The overlap between increasing belief in gender roles among younger people and their increasing reliance on gender-based identification is not a coincidence in my opinion. The latter thing is, at least in part, an outgrowth and expression of the former.

If girls cannot play with toy trucks without "becoming boys" in the process in our collective mindset, then is our collective imagination actually expanding...or contracting?

So, you're a TERF? I admit I was hoping for that not to be the case. While yes, societal expectations do make people feel uncomfortable with their preferences, I do believe that gender dysphoria is a thing. Eliminating transsexual women from feminism is ignoring some of the most vulnerable women, how are they going to feel accepted if even those that promote equality of women don't want them?

(For those who aren't familiar with the hate term just articulated, "TERF" is online shorthand for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist; a label embraced by exactly zero radical feminists.)

Radical feminism is not exclusionary of "trans-women", it is exclusionary of men. The fact that we don't embrace a revisionist definition of womanhood that proclaims men the most oppressed women, gives them the right to define and run our movement for us, access our private spaces, and guilt-trip us for having female bodies does not make us hateful or more exclusionary than a women's movement should be, it makes us cognizant of our interests as a class and of the need to develop our class consciousness on our own terms.

The oppression of women began as a quest by men to control our reproductive functions. It has always been about controlling our bodies first and foremost. That's why the discrimination against women has alternatively been referred to as sexism: because it is based on hatred of our sex (perhaps for its exclusive reproductive capacity)! When we reach the point that the female body, in spite of its historical exploitation, objectification, and abuse by men, becomes seen as a form of privilege that we have to apologize for possessing, is that really even feminism anymore?

Let me give you a concrete example of what this looks like in action. At the 2017 Women's March, which was essentially a protest of the inauguration of a self-confessed rapist as president, the pussy hat, as it became known, became an iconic symbol of the event. It was an allusion to Trump's "grab 'em by the pussy" remark from the Access Hollywood video that we've all seen by now. At this year's Women's March, however, pussy hats were banned. (Some women wore them anyway, but the ban is the point here.) Why? Because identifying womanhood with the female body was deemed "transphobic". To put that another, perhaps clearer way, we were banned from protesting sexual violence against women by the President of the United States at a women's march because men were offended by the idea. I mean you never know: maybe when Trump said "grab 'em by the pussy" he was referring to "women" with penises. What's more, organizers were obliged to give men platforms at this year's Women's March if they claimed to be women. And how did they use their platforms, you ask? They used them to call for such things as the legalization of pimping and the de-funding and blacklisting of rape crisis centers; proposals that, shockingly, were met with boos from the roughly 85% female audience.

Anyway, let me ask you this: What of the women you are denying the womanhood of by implication here? The biological females who have redefined themselves as men, perhaps in order to be socially permitted to retain romantic/sexual interest in other women? Does that make you exclusionary?

Of course dysphoria is a real condition. It is, however, a conditioned one, in my observation; one that should be addressed, not just conceded to as a biological inevitability.

Of course the term itself is not embraced by radical feminists: instead of saying that trans women are not include (i.e., excluded), they are just not considered women in the first place. And I didn't claim that men are the most oppressed women, I'm saying that women who aren't even accepted as women by others are some of the most oppressed women: for one, many women won't accept them and don't consider them women, and also many of their own family cast them off and shame them for it. It's not just some way for a guy to be able to somehow live an easier life by claiming oppression, there are very real consequences of coming out, and that is why the suicide rate for trans people is so high.

I agree that reproductive organs play an essential part in sexism, however most transsexuals, I assume, want to undergo sex re-assignment surgery. However, the costs for that are so astronomical that most cannot even afford it, so that is not a luxury that many poor trans people have. I am not denying women of their womanhood, in fact I'm sure that transsexual men would prefer to be called men, so rather than denying them of their womanhood I'm accepting of their manhood. You are denying transsexuals of their womanhood by refusing to let them be associated with that they themselves are more comfortable with.

I believe we've reached an impasse. When it comes to defining feminism, it doesn't get more basic than one's definition of what a woman is. If we cannot agree on that much, we cannot go forward on this particular subject.

The crux of the issue here is that in essence you're defining womanhood culturally while I'm defining it biologically. The problem with embracing a cultural definition is that we live in a male-dominated culture; a culture where men define what it is to be masculine and feminine respectively. You're asking me to accept the validity of the Victorian-era theory of the gendered brain: the theory that men are this way and women are that way, and so if you behave "the wrong way" then on some level or other you have somehow crossed over from being male to being female or vice versa. The biological definition of womanhood, by contrast, offers limitless possibilities for how women (and men for that matter) might think and act. It is hence far more broad-minded, I would argue, to say nothing of more intellectually honest (as it better explains the nature of patriarchy, etc.).

I understand that rates of depression and suicidal inclinations are high among trans-identifying people, but if you break down the survey data not just by self-identification, but also by sex, a clearer picture emerges. The demographic commonality of depressive and suicidal tendencies (thoughts, attempts) breaks down in this order:

1) Biological females who identify as male.
2) Biological females who identify as female.
3) Biological males who identify as female.
4) Biological males who identify as male.

It breaks down principally along biological lines, in other words. Trans-identifying men objectively are NOT more miserable than "cis" women in aggregate. The fact that the ordering is this way also illustrates the importance of recognizing trans-identifying women as women because that group is the most in need of help.

A disproportionate percentage of women who identify as men today previously identified themselves as "butch" lesbians specifically. You can see why there's a disproportionate tendency for "masculine-expressing" lesbians (and for that matter "effeminate" gay men as well) to change to a trans identity. Butch lesbians are demeaningly referred to as "basically men" or "wannabe men" all the time for their whole lives. You don't think that messaging gets internalized at all? Yeah, I understand exactly the psychological place that transgendering comes from. In Iran, the country with the largest number of gender transition surgeries, homosexuality is a criminal offense punishable by torture. That's not a coincidence. Gay people transgender in Iran in order to avoid legal prosecution, and it's made easy by the fact that the state provides the surgery for free.

I believe we've reached an impasse. When it comes to defining feminism, it doesn't get more basic than one's definition of what a woman is. If we cannot agree on that much, we cannot go forward on this particular subject.

The crux of the issue here is that in essence you're defining womanhood culturally while I'm defining it biologically. The problem with embracing a cultural definition is that we live in a male-dominated culture; a culture where men define what it is to be masculine and feminine respectively. You're asking me to accept the validity of the Victorian-era theory of the gendered brain: the theory that men are this way and women are that way, and so if you behave "the wrong way" then on some level or other you have somehow crossed over from being male to being female or vice versa. The biological definition of womanhood, by contrast, offers limitless possibilities for how women (and men for that matter) might think and act. It is hence far more broad-minded, I would argue, to say nothing of more intellectually honest (as it better explains the nature of patriarchy, etc.).

I understand that rates of depression and suicidal inclinations are high among trans-identifying people, but if you break down the survey data not just by self-identification, but also by sex, a clearer picture emerges. The demographic commonality of depressive and suicidal tendencies (thoughts, attempts) breaks down in this order:

1) Biological females who identify as male.
2) Biological females who identify as female.
3) Biological males who identify as female.
4) Biological males who identify as male.

It breaks down principally along biological lines, in other words. Trans-identifying men objectively are NOT more miserable than "cis" women in aggregate. The fact that the ordering is this way also illustrates the importance of recognizing trans-identifying women as women because that group is the most in need of help.

A disproportionate percentage of women who identify as men today previously identified themselves as "butch" lesbians specifically. You can see why there's a disproportionate tendency for "masculine-expressing" lesbians (and for that matter "effeminate" gay men as well) to change to a trans identity. Butch lesbians are demeaningly referred to as "basically men" or "wannabe men" all the time for their whole lives. You don't think that messaging gets internalized at all? Yeah, I understand exactly the psychological place that transgendering comes from. In Iran, the country with the largest number of gender transition surgeries, homosexuality is a criminal offense punishable by torture. That's not a coincidence. Gay people transgender in Iran in order to avoid legal prosecution, and it's made easy by the fact that the state provides the surgery for free. It's mainly a way of quietly disappearing homosexuality from the public consciousness.

I'm shocked, shocked, that that (the last line) would be your conclusion as a man. Just as I am shocked that the 'non-frigid', 'sexy' types are your favorites because they won't challenge your sexual interests. Who would have thought? But don't you ever think that maybe you might possibly be projecting what are actually your own interests onto women for self-interested reasons?

Aaaanyway, I'm not a big fan of "intersectionality" or its ideological forerunner, identity politics, either, but I believe we see that matter differently. When I pointed out that radical feminists embrace a collectivist outlook and approach, that was to further logically contrast our view and approach from that of liberals and conventional leftists, whose outlook on these things is shaped by individualistic and sectionalistic thinking.

For the liberal feminist, the choices of each individual women are supreme because supposedly they take place in a vacuum, not within the framework of a male-dominated culture, economy, and system of governance. To illustrate the different way that radical feminists think about these things: while a few women can make a lot of money by being prostituted and calculate that to be worth the personal cost to them, the consequences of that choice are detrimental to women overall in a thousand ways. There is more than just the interests of those few women to be considered.

For the Marxist feminist, similarly, it is of first importance to break down the interests of women sectionally (what about black women? What about young women? What about poor women? What about women with disabilities? Etc.) before even considering the shared interests of women as an entire group. The result of this type of thinking having become dominant in the women's movement over the last few decades has been heavy infighting -- women becoming focused on fighting each other rather than mobilizing around shared interests -- and that has turned the younger generation of women off to the movement, I believe, and understandably so! Radical feminists prioritize the general interests of women as a group over those of individuals or sections.

Similarly, today we see that lesbian activism is no longer approached as part of the feminist movement like it largely was during the second wave, but rather now is seen as part of the "queer" movement that is shared with gay and trans-identifying men, much to its detriment. Lesbian culture has all but vanished entirely since that general transition and today half the lesbian population (the "butch" kind) is being taught that the reason they're interested in other women is because they are actually men who need to consider adopting a new identity and injecting themselves with testosterone. Those who refuse to do so, meanwhile, are being taught that, to put it in the words of one, "genital preferences are transphobic", i.e. being an actual lesbian is no longer politically correct.

You can feel it even in the types of arguments we use to defend lesbianism anymore. The "queer" movement depends on arguing that people are "born gay" and can't change, that sexual orientation is outside our control, as a defensive argument in the context of a society that stigmatizes same-sex relationships, especially between women, but lesbian feminists have traditionally regarded sexual orientation as a product of conditioning and that one can re-condition themselves and surveys of women who identify themselves as lesbians continue to bear out that most of us still believe that deep down. The "born gay" argument is a defensive one that psychologically closes off the community and keeps it small. We need to go back to recognizing that lesbianism is an option available to all women!

And it's getting worse. Having embraced gender-based identification already, now we are beginning to see the adoption of "non-binary" gender identities, as apparently there is one corresponding to each possible nuance of human behavior and attitude. The logical conclusion of this type of postmodernist thinking has been well-articulated to me by one purveyor thereof: "Women do not exist." You can quite easily see how that mentality will render it utterly impossible to discern what our shared interests are and to mobilize as an oppressed class for the advancement of those interests! That is the intellectual place where this is all headed! And I think all this illustrates the basic importance or refocusing the women's movement on women, women only, and women collectively. Otherwise it has no future.

The general persuasion of radical feminists is that the women's movement ceased to exist as a women's movement sometime around the mid-1980s. I imagine you're probably tired of digesting information at this point, but in this connection, I would really recommend checking out this podcast interview with Sheila Jeffreys (one of our major thought leaders at present) if you have 30 minutes to spare: https://www.feministcurrent.com/2016/10/18/podcast-sheila-jeffreys-impact-neoliberalism-identity-politics-womens-movement/ ...I recommend it because she delves into what led to this ideological transformation of the women's movement: the popularization of identity politics, "intersectionality", the replacement of Women's Studies with "Gender Studies", the popularization of the term "gender", etc. (The short version, if you don't have the time, is that it can be traced to the popularization of neoliberal ideology around the start of the 1980s and the restructuring of Western universities to function like business corporations. But it's really worth hearing her articulate the details because she does so very well.)

Leave it to VGP to tire a feminist with too much feminism.