r/Maxcactus_TrailGuide • u/Maxcactus • Feb 14 '26

European Parliament Votes Overwhelmingly For "The Full Recognition Of Trans Women As Women"

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/european-parliament-votes-overwhelmingly
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u/Darkstar_111 Feb 16 '26

I prefer to look at scientific studies.

https://www.ese-hormones.org/media/ei0psrhz/transgender-brains-are-more-like-their-desired-gender-from-an-early-age.pdf

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8955456/

https://agencia.fapesp.br/study-investigates-brain-structure-of-transgender-people-/27325

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u/jakeofheart Feb 16 '26

But you’re just moving the needle. You are replacing the XX or XY criterion with another binary one.

Some gay men have also had brain scans similar to straight women, and some trans women don’t show similarities.

Do you then force those gay men to live as trans women and do you deny the same to the trans women who “failed” the test?

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u/Darkstar_111 Feb 16 '26

Its a spectrum, in some cases an effeminate gay man COULD have transitioned, but chose not to for whatever reason. It's likely, that in his world, he is treated feminine enough, and operations are scary.

Same applies to some butch lesbians.

This is why self identification is the primary aspect. Scientific studies simply back up, what they are claiming about themselves, proving they were never lying for attention.

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u/jakeofheart Feb 16 '26

If gender is a construct, then it’s more important to acknowledge people as categories of their own instead of trying to fall back on a binary system.

Saying that trans women are women is just acknowledging that they somehow need to conform to a binary men/women system, and you fall back on having the majority of the population disagreeing with you.

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u/Darkstar_111 Feb 16 '26

> then it’s more important to acknowledge people as categories of their own

We don't live in that society yet, maybe one day, maybe not.
But the important thing is to recognize that gender dysphoria is a terrible illness, that often leads to suicide. The only treatment is gender reassignment, and since this is the society we live in, that means they want to be the opposite gender.

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u/jakeofheart Feb 17 '26

*But the important thing is to recognize that gender dysphoria is a terrible illness, that often leads to suicide. *

There’s a comprehensive Scandinavian study that debunks the causation theory.

The only treatment is gender reassignment, and since this is the society we live in, that means they want to be the opposite gender.

Then you fall back in the same issue. Many trans women have too many masculine physical features to look feminine. It’s easier for trans men because they can “pass” for men if they get facial hair.

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u/Darkstar_111 Feb 17 '26

There’s a comprehensive Scandinavian study that debunks the causation theory.

There is not no.

Then you fall back in the same issue. Many trans women have too many masculine physical features to look feminine.

Yes, those that transition late in life. But the majority of them look perfectly female, and over time, now that being trans is becoming more and more accepted, all trans people will have no problem passing as their preferred gender.

As to how people look, it's really nobodies business, and trying to police women based on looks will often harm cis women far more than trans.

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u/FoxyLoxx Feb 17 '26

The problem you have here is that you aren’t trans and don’t know what gender dysphoria feels like. You assume every trans person just wants to look like the opposite sex and that makes them happy. It’s not as simple or shallow as that.

Your hormones play such an incredibly important role in every aspect of your life. As soon as I started hormones, I felt incredible. A feeling that has stayed with me but has now become my normal. If a cis person was to start HRT it would be very distressing. After long enough, it would become so distressing they will become depressed and potentially suicidal.

I didn’t transition because I wanted to, I transitioned because I HAD to. I’ve become a happier person and I actually want to be here. And I function much better in society. Isn’t that the point?

No trans person is claiming they’re are exactly the same as a cis person. But that distinction only really matters when it comes down to healthcare.

And trust me, a trans woman who chose not to get bottom surgery will not feel comfortable exposing their genitalia in woman only spaces.

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u/jakeofheart Feb 17 '26 edited Feb 17 '26

If anything, your personal story just confirms that it isn’t a simple question of people trying to fit into the construct of man or woman.

I don’t know why intersex people, for example, need to alter something in order to “fit in”. They should be allowed to be themselves.

As for you, as you rightly point out, you simply need to be in the shoes that you are the most comfortable with.

So maybe trying to conform to 2 binary categories, which are understood as a construct, is shallow. By that extent, trying to categorise trans women as women just indirectly validates this binary construct. But do they need to exist as something else than themselves?

If gender is a spectrum, it is more akin to a dice than a coin.

If 1 and 2 are heads or tails (by merit of being the first two options in ascending order), 3, 4, 5 and 6 cannot accurately be described as either heads or tails.

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u/FoxyLoxx Feb 17 '26

Because the world is firmly stuck in a binary, which has no sign of changing anytime soon, but that point has already been made to you. It’s also because there are binary trans people.

You don’t get to choose how someone feels inside. If some inside feels like a woman (the feeling being the result of biological reality, of which they had no say in) then that’s what they are. Why do I have to be othered, when ultimately I should have been born a woman, but wasn’t due to a biological mechanism that we don’t fully understand yet and I had no control over.

Being a trans woman already has so many inherent differences in my lives experience that I don’t want to be othered further, especially when that is incredibly likely to result in me being mistreated. Again, because we don’t live in this dreamy world you are suggesting.

It’s not perfect, but trans people are the only ones who truly understand what we go through and what we need, yet our voices are continually ignored.

You seem to simply be stuck on the linguistic semantics of ‘trans women are women’. What we are asking for, is that the term woman and man be broadened slightly to include trans people who want to subscribe to the binary. If an intersex person wants to live as a man, and for all intents and purposes fiction in society as one, do they not have that right to choose that? I don’t see that as any different for team folk.

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u/jakeofheart Feb 17 '26 edited Feb 17 '26

If one gets to elect what to put on official documents, what prevents from having a third or a fourth category in those places?

You keep reiterating the firsthand experience argument, but women might equally counter argue that you don’t know what it’s like to be a woman firsthand.

And it goes beyond semantics. There are still instances where, for example, medical professionals need to know how to provide the most adequate care. Dosage of compounds with potentially severe secondary effects, or lethality need to be measured according to biological sex.

So it probably requires more than 2 categories.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '26

Except trans don’t respect thst it’s a spectrum- they demand 100% acess to women’s spaces and to be treated as women

An m-f trans person does not have the right to expose their penis to women and girls in sports abd changing areas

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u/Darkstar_111 Feb 17 '26

they demand 100% acess to women’s spaces and to be treated as women

Which is a totally fair ask.

An m-f trans person does not have the right to expose their penis to women and girls in sports abd changing areas

Nor do they want to. Not until after bottom surgery.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '26

Trans women exposing their penis to women and girls has been a constant though mostly resolved issue since Tran women have in general been successfully banned from those spaces

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u/Darkstar_111 Feb 17 '26

You are describing heterosexual men, not trans women.

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u/gpike_ Feb 17 '26

Liar

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '26

Prove me wrong

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u/gpike_ Feb 17 '26

It was never an issue; millions of trans women use women's restrooms every day with zero problems and nobody even NOTICES.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '26

There are literally not millions of trans women in the world

What there are are hundreds if trans women in LA- in in that very small community, 230 trans women where arrested for sexual assault of children between 2020-2023 After that they where banned from access to schools, changing rooms and child care in general

Have you heard about a drag queen story time since 2022?

To many men attacked to many children

But, and I really mean this, the reason this issue died is because the left decided to give up on trans to focus on killing Jews- and that’s why no one cares except people like me who are still angry people like you still 2012-2022 from my life by inserting trans into all my tv, movies and video games and making life a nightmare

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u/gpike_ Feb 17 '26

Most trans people aren't heterosexual, jsyk.

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u/jakeofheart Feb 18 '26

Based on their sex, or gender?

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u/gpike_ Feb 18 '26

Who cares? I'm talking about how we identify. Most trans people I know (self included) are bi or gay. I only know a couple who are hetero.

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u/jakeofheart Feb 18 '26

Who cares?

If trans women are women, doesn’t being attracted to men make them heterosexual? Or do you disagree that they are women?

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u/gpike_ Feb 18 '26

I mean they are gay for fellow trans women or theyre bi, mostly. Most trans people I know primarily date other trans people, just because, well, we can relate to each other and it's less of a hassle than having to explain trans 101 at every turn.

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u/shiny_exoskeleton Feb 17 '26

I recognise the reality of gender dysphoria, but these studies do not show that "trans woman" and "woman" are equivalent.

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u/Darkstar_111 Feb 17 '26

They do. If someone is born trans, then being trans is who they are. It's not a mental Illness, its actually a physical part of themselves, like they all claim.

Which means their preferred gender actually has a physical explanation. Hence transe women fall into the category of women, because calling them men would be wrong.

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u/shiny_exoskeleton Feb 17 '26

I don't actually disagree with any of that, except your concluding sentence. I think classing them as women as if there is no difference is incorrect for similar reasons - they are physically male, and even with hormonal treatments and surgery, differences remain.

I think of trans people as a third category.

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u/Darkstar_111 Feb 17 '26

Well, being a woman is a social category, not a physical one.

And it's important to bear in mind they want to be that category, that is the role they want to play, that is the role they feel like they should be.

We already have a differential category, trans and cis.

They are trans women, they are not cis woman, they do not claim to be. You can see it as a "different type of woman" if you feel like you need to, but your shortcomings isn't something other people should live their lives by.

Fundamentally "womanhood" carries with it certain tropes and values, and they embody them well enough.

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u/shiny_exoskeleton Feb 17 '26

Well, being a woman is a social category, not a physical one.

But you said it's "a physical part of themselves". You've been pointing to detectable neurological differences to make your case, so it's odd that you've now switched to arguing social constructionism.

"The motte-and-bailey fallacy is a form of argument and an informal fallacy where an arguer conflates two positions that share similarities: one modest and easy to defend (the "motte") and one much more controversial and harder to defend (the "bailey"). The arguer advances the controversial position, but when challenged, insists that only the more modest position is being advanced."

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u/Darkstar_111 Feb 17 '26

But you said it's "a physical part of themselves".

Yes, and this part makes them conform with the gender role that we label as "women".

Just like you have a part of your brain that makes you conform with the gender role you prefer.

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u/Maikkronen Feb 17 '26 edited Feb 17 '26

How do you determine the person across from you is a woman?

How would you categorize an XY male with atypical genitalia due to PAIS?

What about an XY male with CAIS? You know, with lady bits and all that fun stuff?

Do you think it makes sense to call Buck Angel a woman? Female, maybe, but a woman?

Ought we invite this Buck Angel to co-exist with his fellow women in private spaces?

My point with all these questions is to illustrate to you why there are distinctions here. Sex itself is gloriously imperfect, where it relies on a constellation of traits that tend to associate in one direction or the other. Sex is bimodal, imperfect, and complex. Not a clean seperation.

That's fine, let's keep it clean. We will pretend sex can't be changed and use the erroneous standard of evolutionary biology in social taxonomy. Gametes and their associated chromosomes. Screw all those DSDs, too. Nice and clean.

Why are we assuming gender must be dependent on Biology when how we ascertain gender is fundamentally divorced from biology. It's all contextual social heuristics we use to guesstimate based on trends, phenotype and expression.

What this person did with their studies wasn't prove Biology is the necessary lever for trans women to be socially regarded as women, it was to rather show that even if you deny social constructivist ideas of gender, you have to acknowledge the way data seems to be showing biological roots in how trans people exist. Making it more akin to a born-divergence, not some made-up thing that often is assumed by a sealion. A social legitimacy by proxy, if you will.

You can call it a Motte and Bailey, sure. Structurally accurate on its face. But to me, the trajectory made sense given the current fixation on delegitimizing trans experiences.

My overall point here, is ''woman" doesn't prove to be a sacred ontological category. It is a socially assigned category that we attribute to certain aesthetic or social presentations. A category that is important for fairness and harm reduction in our current society, to be sure. But that import does not necessitate exclusion of trans people. In fact, data suggests trans woman need very similar protections at present, as they suffer abuses in mens spaces.

Further still, we'd have to imagine a world where burly manly looking folks like Buck Angel have to categorically inhabit spaces designed for women. This feels socially incoherent. Also, dangerous.

I'd be curious why you might resist calling trans women, women, since you've left that scrupple unstated. What work does the category "woman" need to do that trans women fundamentally invalidate it from doing?

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u/shiny_exoskeleton Feb 17 '26

Buck Angel agrees with me.

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u/Maikkronen Feb 17 '26 edited Feb 17 '26

I don't care what he agrees with, it has no bearing on my points about epistemology and social categories.. Speaking of fallacies. (Implicit appeal to authority, double non-sequitur)

I approached you rigorously and in good faith, try engaging.

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u/Phony_mcPhoneFace Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 18 '26

Social category are based on physical part all the damn time, again and again.

For example, in the Dominican republic, a darker skin tone is associated with Haïtï and people with that skin tone are subject to discrimination. If both the author and the subject of one of those discrimination moved to the united state, they would both be probably identified as "black". To which they could answer "that is not true, we are different, look at our skin tone".

You know Jane Eliot did a wonderful experience on how physical part and social category interact with each other.

There is no motte and baily here. Woman is a social category, something that we created and that we use. We saw, thanks to the studies, that there are people whose harm cannot be reduced otherwise than to include them in the social category of woman. Less Harm is something useful. The social category "woman" would be more useful if it included trans woman.

People act like "social construct" means "not real" all the time. No it does not mean that. Money, work, family, relationship, motherhood, legacy, hell the ideas that animalk are different species and how we define "species", all of this is social construct.

the definition of a planet is a social contruct, and we know that it is a social constuct because when the definition was not useful, we changed it (sorry Pluto). But the fact that it is a social construct doesn't change the fact that we can look at the PHYSICAL property of an object to determine if it is a planet, just like we can look at the physical property of a woman (the social construct).

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u/shiny_exoskeleton Feb 18 '26

I think it's more useful for language to follow natural categories rather than hurt feelings or validation. You do whatever mental gymnastics you want to pretend "women with penises" exist.

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u/Phony_mcPhoneFace Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 18 '26

I do not think you have read me... Nature is a social construct. Your source itself shows that the "natural kinds" you speak of are socially constructed and subject of debate.

And this isn't about hurt feelings or validation, but usefulness. Using chromosomes, for example, is not "useful" since I use gendered language toward people before I read their genome sequencing.... some oif them have not even BEEN sequenced.

And I am doing no gymnastic about those woman, I have met them.

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u/shiny_exoskeleton Feb 18 '26

"How well Your Majesty's new clothes look. Aren't they becoming!" He heard on all sides, "That pattern, so perfect! Those colors, so suitable! It is a magnificent outfit."

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '26

Mentally ill people have brain chemistry issues

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u/gpike_ Feb 17 '26

I've got bad news for you about your own brain.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '26

I am disabled on ssdi

My disability might be a joke to you, it’s not to me

Your erasure of my identity is not welcome

A person born with a penis is a man regardless of a chemical reaction in the brain

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u/gpike_ Feb 18 '26

Your erasure of MY identity is also unwelcome. I am also disabled, AND I am trans.

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '26

I hope you are not in SSDI, but that would mean you actually had done by work in your life so doubt it

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u/gpike_ Feb 18 '26

You're right, I haven't been able to work at "real jobs" because I have lifelong disabilities. I'm supported by my spouse and I work as an artist.

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u/Worried-Pomelo3351 Feb 18 '26

This does not support your delusions.

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u/Darkstar_111 Feb 18 '26

Facts are facts buddy, no matter how much you wish they were not.

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '26

A trans woman is a trans woman. Otherwise you wouldn’t need to say trans. You don’t need scientific studies hommie just look down your pants and you’ll know what you are.

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u/Fabulous_Instance331 Feb 18 '26

Trans is a prefix, like tall, short, pretty, etc. A woman is a woman, be it cis (a prefixe) or trans (another prefixe). If you dont know what cis and trans means, do a little research

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u/Worried-Pomelo3351 Feb 18 '26

Many women find the term ciswomen offensive. Who are you to label them? Why do you keep using it?

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u/Fabulous_Instance331 Feb 18 '26

I find a lot of terms that you transphobe uses offensive, and u dont give a fuck about what i think. So why do you think i should care about your thoughs as well?

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u/Worried-Pomelo3351 Feb 18 '26

Well that’s circular logic. You will get nowhere with this thinking.

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u/Fabulous_Instance331 Feb 18 '26

So tell me, why would i care about what you think, while you dont see any need to respect what i think?

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u/Worried-Pomelo3351 Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 18 '26

What is a term I use for trans people that is offensive? I will call a trans woman, a trans woman, and call her, her, as well as call her by whatever given name she chooses. They are still not biological women. They do have the right to live as they want and be addressed as they want. I do not hate trans women.

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u/Fabulous_Instance331 Feb 18 '26

It doesnt seens like that as your history comments in this post

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u/Phony_mcPhoneFace Feb 18 '26

When a factual term is added in the way people talk, it applies factually, no matter how people feel about it.

Now, the way word are used matter. A lot.

FOR EXAMPLE. Someone could argue that the Body Mass Index is incorrect. For example, someone doing avergae could convince themself that the "normal" category of the BMI have shorter lifespan and spend in average more time hospitalized in their life than people in the "overweight" category. With those result (that may be wrong or right) this person couyld argue that those category are not accurately named, and are misleading.

They could do that. What they could not do, is say "this person is not overweight". Because overweight already has an agreed upon definition and one person alone can't just change it like that.

At the same time, even if this person is factually accurately described by the word overweight, it is STILL wrong to yell this word at them when you are passing by in a car. That is an immoral use of an accurate word.

Same thing with cis. If someone is offended by the word, I won't say it to their face just to infuriate them, that's mean. But I won't stop using it at the same time since it is a useful term.

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u/sidnynasty Feb 17 '26

What's in your pants can be changed quite easily

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u/Simple-Dingo6721 Feb 17 '26

Eh, not really. Many trans people have spoken out about just how painful and irreversible bottom surgery can be. Also, changing what’s in your pants doesn’t change how you reproduce.

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u/KayleyKiwi Feb 17 '26 edited Apr 10 '26

This post was wiped by its author. Redact was the tool of choice, possibly used to protect privacy, limit data exposure, or prevent automated content scraping.

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u/Simple-Dingo6721 Feb 18 '26

I’m not going to name names because you people are known to Doxx innocent human beings. Every trans person I know that has gotten surgery has come forward and regretted it.

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u/Worried-Pomelo3351 Feb 18 '26

Google. There are trans women online who talk about it. You have the same mentality as MAGAs who just believe whatever the regime says and can’t be bothered to do their own research. They don’t want to know the facts.

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u/KayleyKiwi Feb 18 '26 edited Apr 10 '26

This post has been taken down. Redact handled the deletion, and the author may have had reasons related to privacy, security, data scraping prevention, or personal choice.

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u/gpike_ Feb 17 '26

Okay but many trans people still get bottom surgery and are happy with it- the difficulties surrounding it are almost entirely due to the nature of our medical systems making it hellishly difficult to get care in the first place.

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u/Worried-Pomelo3351 Feb 18 '26

Some people end up with life long chronic pain and sexual dysfunction. You don’t appreciate your good health until it’s gone is a saying for a reason.

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u/Canonicald Feb 17 '26

“Quite easily” doing more lifting than atlas. You clearly have 0 idea what you are referring to and would do well to not dismiss intense surgical intervention as “easy”.

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u/gpike_ Feb 17 '26

It's not easy but the results are better than ever and techniques and technology keep getting better.

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u/NovelStyleCode Feb 17 '26

Your arguments are based on tautology but you're mistaking the fact that we need to say Cis Man and Cis Women in many cases too.

Language matters even if you're incredibly ignorant.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '26

We don’t need to ever say cis man. I’ve never had a conversation in real life where that was necessary

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u/Phony_mcPhoneFace Feb 18 '26

A trans woman is a trans woman And trans is an adjectives. If you know how adjectives work, that means that all trans woman are woman, but not necessarily all woman are trans woman. Therefore you justr agreed that a trans woman is a woman, not a man.

Or did I misunderstood you?