Transnegation Roundup/2020/08/03/4

More Gender Essentialism FTW

13:13 @wendycockcroft “That will only ever change the outward appearance. Gestation is out for decades and might never happen. You can put a wig, makeup and dresses on a man, you can chop off his two veg and turn his meat inside out but he will always be a man. A Frankenwomb won't make him a woman.”

So... she refuses to define "woman", but apparently if you're born with a vagina you are one, forever and ever, and nothing can ever change that. Sounds magical or possibly religious – suggesting strongly that Maya Forstater's request for "religious freedom" protection for her beliefs was actually an admission that they really are based on nothing more than religion.

Also, there's a clear phobia of anything artificial: your genitals 100% determine your sex, but only if they're the factory originals; surgical corrections are "frankenstein" modifications, grotesque and perverse. (I wonder how she feels about surgical correction of other forms of birth defect? Or are trans people just special in that only they are fake if corrected?) ...oh, and yes, there are exceptions to this rule, but only if the change takes place naturally (e.g. 5α-Reductase deficiency).

The appeal to nature is an old, old trope which was also used on gay people, interracial marriage, and pretty much anything that made authoritarians feel uncomfortable throughout history. This is not progressive, much less feminist or pro-woman; it is anti-feminism putting on "pro-woman-face". (Yes, this same person has claimed that trans women are "putting on womanface".)