It's not safe to say in liberal workplaces anymore, but this dynamic of transwomen activists forcing their way into women's spaces is creating exactly the same dynamic as men dominating women in other areas of life. As a woman, I'm tired of it. The latest example from my life: At my company all the women's groups are being rebranded to "gender minorities" groups to accommodate the wishes of a few activists deploying the usual bully tactics. If you disagree at all, you are labeled a TERF and they try to get you fired. So who, exactly, is creating the hostile workplace?
Gender dysphoria is oftentimes treated via transitioning in some fashion. Having groupthink on online spaces doesn't alleviate symptoms.
I've never heard anyone except trans activists talking about the specifics of someone's trans-ness in an open setting. Certainly not something someone who's just trying to go about their day would even care about, let alone making a point that "hey by the way you're not biologically a woman, peace".
It's such a weird argument to me. Then again, I'm a dirty "transmedicalist" as labelled by the twitter trans community, so what do I know.
This is really not a good analogy. An identity-linked issue like this would be closer to someone not being included into a certain in-group.
For example an African-American who grows up in a predominantly caucasian could be called "not black" or "not black enough" by someone trying to hurt them based on the way they speak or act differently.
You can imagine that this would be alleviated by people not putting up arbitrary rules on who "can be called black".
So no, I disagree that it has any semblance to the "not black enough" argument.
Is it far-fetched to say that the severity of negative emotional and mental effects on a person depends on how accepting the culture is of those who do not fit into the majority?
Having gender dysphoria isn't a thing to be ashamed of, just any other mental health condition is not something to be ashamed of. Saying "you're a biological woman sis" is like saying "we're just going to act like you don't have it because it's shameful".
It doesn't make any sense from me, nor does it make sense to most of the trans individuals I follow. It seems, yet again, to be the allies that cause the most misinformation (just like we faced with the gay marriage debates).
This then reduces womanhood to a state of mind, rather than any physical and/or chemical criteria, which I think is wrong. Why should natural born women have their identity diluted?
It also seemingly reinforces the 'two genders' claim by categorising trans people as one or the other.
Like I said at the top, I am a bit confused by it all.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%...
> you spend every day of your life fighting the nagging feeling that you don't actually identify with gender you're "supposed to" identify with
I have no problem with believing that some people aren't the gender they physically represent. But, in my mind, arriving to the conclusion that 'I don't identify as a male, therefore I must be female' isn't right.
> And why am I a woman? Because I'm a woman
Again, they don't actually know that they're a woman. They know they're not male, for sure, and I'm fully on board with that. But insisting that they're female... I'm not sure. Is 'trans woman' not sufficient?
Benjamin Boyce has a YT channel that deals with some of this stuff that I watch occasionally to try help understand.
I think for trans women, it isn't so much a conclusion following from not identifying as male as it is simply 'I identify as female', but this runs into the same issue that you brought up in your first comment of not actually knowing what being female is. But then again, doesn't knowing they're not male imply they know what being male is despite not being male? I think it's just too philosophical of a point for most trans people to concern themselves with when they're dealing with who knows how many other issues.
I recommend either reading or watching more stories about trans people's personal experiences if you want to get a better sense as to why people feel that way, as different people probably have different reasons. I don't personally have any recommendations (the quote I mentioned earlier was a small comment from a video on a completely unrelated topic), but thanks for the recommendation for Benjamin, I'll check him out!
Do you support applying that same logic to transracialism? E.g. white woman identifying as a black woman?
If it's purely a racial/ethnic kind of thing that's about your genetic heritage, I agree it doesn't make sense to apply the same concept. It's like the distinction between sex and gender I mentioned above, trans people identify as a specific gender regardless of their sex, and I think people can identify with a specific culture regardless of their race/ethnicity. To better complete the analogy, I could definitely imagine a white person growing up in Japan their whole life and feeling a general unease about the mismatch between their cultural identity (Japanese) and their race/ethnicity (white), and in cases where that unease is severe enough, potentially being willing to go through surgery to better reflect their identity. Dysphoria over racial/cultural mismatch (if it even exists, idk) seems much less common than gender dysphoria, but I don't see why you wouldn't apply the same logic to both.