What Does It Mean to Be a Woman?

 

This tweet came across my timeline this week, which at first made me laugh, and then gave me pause:

The idea that womanhood can be reduced to wearing dresses and nailpolish, and now, being moody once a month, has been one of the most troubling side-effects of the transgender movement. We are letting men with a mental illness (gender dysphoria) determine what it means to be a modern woman. Is it enough to feel  like a woman? And does feeling like a woman just mean we’re cranky around our periods?

I’ve always been a tomboy; it didn’t occur to me to try my wedding dress on until a week before my wedding; too late to make any alterations to what amounted to a potato sack. I wore red sneakers and forgot to get a manicure beforehand. Does that make Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner or Angela Ponce more womanly than me, because they like to wear pretty dresses and high heels? Dressing like a woman doesn’t make them more of a woman than me, someone actually born with female parts.

Transgender activists understand the shaky ground they’re on; it’s why they’ve begun inventing new ways in which they are women. It’s not enough for them to feel like a woman emotionally, now they feel like us physically. The Twitter thread below  by Ultrans Instinct Bria was instructive about how little even those who pretend to be women actually understand the biology behind reproduction. Like most men, they believe that PMS is just about being moody; that being a woman is exemplified by being cranky women once a month.

 

Without a uterus, what muscle exactly is doing the cramping?

The “around the 10th of every month” line made me laugh. This is a common misconception from men about our cycles; they are called monthly, but they vary dramatically; very few women have a predictable period around the same date every month. Months have different lengths (February has 28; July 31); and our cycles don’t align with the calendar. The timing never falls neatly on one date every month.

In the process of emasculating themselves, transgender individuals with the biological parts of men who nevertheless identify as women, are through their activism stripping women of what it means to be female. There is no female version of “emasculation,” but that’s exactly what is happening here.

By accepting the transgender narrative, we are letting men define what it means to be a woman. We are letting them take our female athlete of the year awards, win our beauty contests, and best us at our sports matches. One would think feminists would be standing up for the definition of womanhood, but they’re too busy playing along with this delusion.

 

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  1. Could Be Anyone Inactive
    Could Be Anyone
    @CouldBeAnyone

    Bethany Mandel: By accepting the transgender narrative, we are letting men define what it means to be a woman. We are letting them take our female athlete of the year awards, win our beauty contests, and best us at our sports matches. One would think feminists would be standing up for the definition of womanhood, but they’re too busy playing along with this delusion.

    It would seem that men truly are better at being women than women are…

    • #1
  2. Podkayne of Israel Inactive
    Podkayne of Israel
    @PodkayneofIsrael

    Really cheeses me off too, and not just once a month. I was also a tomboy as a child, and really did not think that being a girl was a good deal. Initial puberty was pretty traumatic for me, and it wasn’t until considerably later on that I became comfortable thinking of myself as female. Realizing that I was sexually attracted to males was the first thing that really confirmed things for me; I’ve never been a “girly-girl” in any sense of the term. 

    Today, I am a mother and a grandmother, and have been happily married to a great guy who thinks I’m still pretty hot, and pretty unambiguously female. I shudder to think what would have become of me had I grown up in today’s climate. 

    As a nurse, I can’t imagine it’s healthy for anyone to undergo years of hormone treatment or medically unnecessary urogenital surgery.

    • #2
  3. DrewInWisconsin Member
    DrewInWisconsin
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Bethany Mandel: Without a uterus, what muscle exactly is doing the cramping?

    That was the first thing I was thinking.

    . . .

    It’s going to take some kind of leadership to speak into this delusion and expose it for the fraud it is. Who is brave enough to take the slings and arrows of outrage?

    • #3
  4. AltarGirl Inactive
    AltarGirl
    @CM

    Bethany Mandel: One would think feminists would be standing up for the definition of womanhood, but they’re too busy playing along with this delusion.

    There are a group of feminists who absolutely are pushing back on this, many of the Lesbians (likely because they are actively involved in the culture activism that is pushing ever more radical trans-acceprance).

    I am in agreement with you. The concept of what it is to be a woman is probably as simple as our biology with the incredible amount of variations biological women express themselves. Yet we still have certain things in common that bind us.

    This person’s posts are insulting to me.

    • #4
  5. Basil Fawlty Member
    Basil Fawlty
    @BasilFawlty

    I know I’m hopelessly behind the times, but I encountered the expression “gender confirmation surgery” for the first time the other day. Wow!

    • #5
  6. Bishop Wash Member
    Bishop Wash
    @BishopWash

    Could Be Anyone (View Comment):

    Bethany Mandel: By accepting the transgender narrative, we are letting men define what it means to be a woman. We are letting them take our female athlete of the year awards, win our beauty contests, and best us at our sports matches. One would think feminists would be standing up for the definition of womanhood, but they’re too busy playing along with this delusion.

    It would seem that men truly are better at being women than women are…

    Well ESPN awarded Woman of the Year to a man a while back so you seem to be right. 

    • #6
  7. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    Tell me again how they are the Party of Science….

    • #7
  8. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    So I need to start doing Pap smears on my tranny patients?  Does Chaz Bono get prostate exams?

    Just want to be sure I’m practicing with the times….

    • #8
  9. Sash Member
    Sash
    @Sash

    I am hoping this is some kind of adolescent phase the country is going through about sex identity.

    I want everyone treated fairly, but psychology has failed our society.  I dont’ think our accepting every feeling as valid is helping anyone.  We can and should do better.

    I would like to be left alone, until they come to the obvious conclusion of all this.

    It’s like the MeToo movement… who would have thought that pretending women were sex addicts like men in the free love movement would produce many women who felt abused?  Who knew?  Well, me for one.  And millions of other women who understood that this new morality was not in our favor.  We stuck to more or less long time roles for women… and guess what… no MeToo moments.  And a lot more self esteem.

    • #9
  10. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Bethany,

    Gee, I wonder why the trans folk don’t talk about what a woman feels like when she doesn’t have her period and is pregnant? This kind of stupidity results in a comic absurdity which we all would laugh at if we weren’t under constant legal threat. This is the very reason that I feel forced to use the harsh term Sexual Schizophrenia. This mindset is the very definition of madness. To have it thrown in the face of “schoolchildren” is a complete crime.

    Keep calm and fight on.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #10
  11. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Bethany Mandel: The “around the 10th of every month” line made me laugh. This is a common misconception from men about our cycles; they are called monthly, but they vary dramatically; very few women have a predictable period around the same date every month. Months have different lengths (February has 28; July 31); and our cycles don’t align with the calendar. The timing never falls neatly on one date every month.

    Maybe someone should tell him/her that when he gets old enough, periods disappear! No cramps either. Sheesh.

    • #11
  12. Vicryl Contessa Thatcher
    Vicryl Contessa
    @VicrylContessa

    I dated a guy (not trans) that swore up and down that he had a “that time of the month” when he was fatigued and moody. He never claimed to have cramps, but felt like he had PMS. 🙄 He also never claimed to be a woman, though I clearly wore the pants in the relationship. Thank goodness I never married that girly man.

    This idea that men can put on the trappings of womanhood and suddenly be women is ludicrous. If that were the case, I could put on a kimono and call myself a geisha.

    • #12
  13. Danny Alexander Member
    Danny Alexander
    @DannyAlexander

    Sadly obligatory?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgp9MPLEAqA

    Sadder still, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to hear tales of Cleese, Idle, and Palin receiving dire threats from various unhinged activists nowadays because of this immortalized comedic wrongthink.

    (Ditto regarding Seth MacFarlane, as well as Trey Parker and Matt Stone, although I imagine that the South Park creators wouldn’t be cowed by self-styled trans “enforcers” — MacFarlane might be more inclined to succumb to such enforcers’ pressure.)

    • #13
  14. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Danny Alexander (View Comment):

    Sadly obligatory?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgp9MPLEAqA

    Sadder still, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to hear tales of Cleese, Idle, and Palin receiving dire threats from various unhinged activists nowadays because of this immortalized comedic wrongthink.

    This is hysterical–and in these times, pathetic to those it might speak to. Sigh.

    • #14
  15. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Danny Alexander (View Comment):

    Sadly obligatory?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgp9MPLEAqA

    Sadder still, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to hear tales of Cleese, Idle, and Palin receiving dire threats from various unhinged activists nowadays because of this immortalized comedic wrongthink.

    Danny,

    These psychotic scolds are now shaming the most joyous and brilliant comedic talent with their banal ideology. I would like to caste them into the gorge of eternal peril!

    You have to know these things when you are King.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #15
  16. Vance Richards Inactive
    Vance Richards
    @VanceRichards

    The lovely Mrs. Vance gets fired up about this topic every now and then . . .  more so during  a certain time of the month. The following is as close to a direct quote as I can remember:

    ”So if some guy really wants to be a woman, let me hit him in the stomach with a baseball bat so he knows what cramps feel like. Then stab him and keep the wound open so he can keep bleeding for several days straight . . . Repeat that got a week out of every month and then let him tell me if he still wants to be a woman.”

    • #16
  17. JudithannCampbell Member
    JudithannCampbell
    @

    Men who want to be women and women who want to be men are suffering from a very severe mental illness. Unfortunately, the psychological establishment seems to have no interest in learning how to actually treat this mental illness, and would rather just play along with the delusions. Those who suffer from gender dysphoria deserve all of our compassion: playing along with their delusions is not compassionate, it’s cruel. 

    • #17
  18. Fake John/Jane Galt Coolidge
    Fake John/Jane Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    The saddest thing of all is that I am fearful to speak against trans peoples experiences even using a pseudonym on a private paid for blog.  

    • #18
  19. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    Sash (View Comment):
    I am hoping this is some kind of adolescent phase the country is going through about sex identity.

    More a senility phase, I think.

    • #19
  20. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Bethany Mandel:

    Gee, I get moody and crampy and sad once a month too. It’s when the mortgage payment is due . . .

    • #20
  21. Black Prince Inactive
    Black Prince
    @BlackPrince

    Bethany Mandel:

    What Does It Mean to Be a Woman?

    I have absolutely no idea, but I do know what it means to be a man:

    • #21
  22. Danny Alexander Member
    Danny Alexander
    @DannyAlexander

    Might be good to splice quick-but-irrefutable segments about the anatomy/physiology involved in between some of the scenes of this film short — an effective deployment of humor and ridicule to counter the radical-delusion purveyors:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwLTCayIeSw

     

    • #22
  23. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    This is just starting to hit the sports world.  There has been cheating in women’s sports before – no one has come within 40 feet of the discus records that were set by East German women in the 1980s.

    But this is different than women taking steroids.  We now have men competing in women’s sports.  My daughter plays major D1 basketball.  This is a hot topic of conversation for people in that realm.  

    You can do steroid testing to determine if someone is cheating. That’s easy.

    But we have made this more difficult. Suppose a basketball player checks the box for female at the beginning of the season. And further suppose that you cannot challenge the player on that, without being called bigoted or homophobic or something. How can we stop men from playing women’s basketball?  We can’t.

    And the actual WOMEN in women’s basketball are pissed off.  And they should be.

    • #23
  24. Fake John/Jane Galt Coolidge
    Fake John/Jane Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):
    And the actual WOMEN in women’s basketball are pissed off. And they should be.

    Well they are bigots so who cares?  

    • #24
  25. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    This is just starting to hit the sports world. There has been cheating in women’s sports before – no one has come within 40 feet of the discus records that were set by East German women in the 1980s.

    But this is different than women taking steroids. We now have men competing in women’s sports. My daughter plays major D1 basketball. This is a hot topic of conversation for people in that realm.

    I remember the issue first arose when Renee Richards applied to play professional women’s tennis.  There were cries of “It isn’t fair” because it was thought a male turned female would dominate the biologically born women.  But he didn’t.  However, he didn’t dominate because he was not that great a tennis player to begin with.

    However, we are seeing good, skilled male athletes turning into females, and dominating their sports – track and field, wrestling . . . the worst case was in boxing.  Or was it mixed martial arts?  It could have been both.  Anyway, a former male-turned-female fighter has severely injured several born-female fighters due to the much larger muscle mass acquired when she trained as a male.

    Now, for the politics.  This is a tough call for the left.  They support transsexuals, but when the trannys beat biological women in sports, and the biological women are POed, what do they do?  It will fun to watch how they try to maintain support among both groups.

    The bottom line is Dr. Bastiat is right.  Should his basketball-playing daughter have to compete against a muscular, 6’9″ male who transitioned to female?  A bigger question is – and I believe one the left will have the most difficult time answering – should we abolish sex-based sports altogether and put both sexes (or all, in their case) on a level playing field in each sport?

    • #25
  26. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Stad (View Comment):
    Now, for the politics. This is a tough call for the left. They support transsexuals, but when the trannys beat biological women in sports, and the biological women are POed, what do they do? It will fun to watch how they try to maintain support among both groups.

    I suggest that a league be created so the trans men and women can compete with each other. Wouldn’t that make the most sense?

    • #26
  27. Eugene Kriegsmann Member
    Eugene Kriegsmann
    @EugeneKriegsmann

    I suspect that the entire period we are going through is a case of life imitating art, in this case, the Theater  of the Absurd. I can only shake my head and wonder when the reset will finally occur.

    • #27
  28. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):
    Now, for the politics. This is a tough call for the left. They support transsexuals, but when the trannys beat biological women in sports, and the biological women are POed, what do they do? It will fun to watch how they try to maintain support among both groups.

    I suggest that a league be created so the trans men and women can compete with each other. Wouldn’t that make the most sense?

    I don’t think it would work.  My guess is the born-biological women-to-men will not be able to gain muscle mass (in spite of male hormones) enough to complete against the born-biological men-to-women.  Besides, are there even enough to form a league?  In each sport?

    Another problem is the so-called “equality” between the sexes the left talks about.  If men and women are truly equal before the operation, then it shouldn’t matter after the operation.

    • #28
  29. genferei Member
    genferei
    @genferei

    “We” are not deciding anything. A handful of folks in a handful of cities in the West are deciding these things. And because they pull the levers of the media and the administrative state, and because most people just want a quiet life, they have convinced enough folks to pretend to believe the most ridiculous things out of politeness amd fear.

    (You do realise Twitter is just a bunch of bots, trolls and journos, and only the last take it seriously, right?)

    • #29
  30. Fake John/Jane Galt Coolidge
    Fake John/Jane Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):
    Now, for the politics. This is a tough call for the left. They support transsexuals, but when the trannys beat biological women in sports, and the biological women are POed, what do they do? It will fun to watch how they try to maintain support among both groups.

    I suggest that a league be created so the trans men and women can compete with each other. Wouldn’t that make the most sense?

    Since there are no differences between men or women and they can change back and forth at a whim then why have two leagues at all?  Why not have just one league for all?  

    • #30
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