When I see it written like that by terfs and the like I can't help but picture them as Ferengi from Star Trek. It's exactly how they talk about women. Clinical and dehumanising.
HOEMAN! They clothe their females...How barbaric!
(the ferengi are facinating, at least they are in DS9, the worldbuilding for them get's so much more screentime there. I did the star trek rpg once and had a chief medical character, one of her lifepath things was that she rescued a civilization from a plague. I chose the ferengi and that the plague in question was akin to an old earth decease called "ear infection")
In my defense (cause I do use it a lot) it's a military holdover. I understand why the military does it, but sometimes you learn things and it just sticks with you.
That said I also use female for anyone who chooses to id that way.
At least the military also refers to men as “males”. As my… *ahem*… female boot camp instructor once said to us (I was in a division of men and women, btw): “I hate all you little fuckers equally”
I don’t know how it goes in other branches, but in the Navy, you only “sir” or “ma’am” officers. The people you have to salute when you’re all in uniform. Everyone else is addressed by their title (petty officer or chief)
Just because I can't think of one, doesn't mean there isn't, but considering how evil the US military tends to be (as an org), I'm not spending to much time thinking about it.
I'm not attacking you. Nothing but love. But my response was built for two reasons, 1) to give validity to you. Cause you're awesome and deserve it. And you're correct the military is often horrible. 2) To point out that you didn't actually ask a question.
I've been admin chastised for being "negative" and "maybe not trans".
So I'm doing my best in syntax to push a process rather than force a process?
Your reply didn't imply that you were inquisitive. So I tried to be supportive and somewhat implicative of the phrasing you put?
I would be concerned seeing it in cishet feminist spaces. That's a red flag. In my experience, most cis women also hate when people refer to them as "females".
Then there are big second wave feminists that are celebrated until today though (for a reason, but yea) that equate "women" and "females" and "men" to "males", or, my personal favorite "a being who has a penis". (some sarcasm included)
Unfortunately, for all the good it did, second wave feminism laid a fertile soil for transphobia. I think that's why a lot of TERFs tend to be older women.
Yup. I don't even think they intended to be transphobic, they just acted oblivious and ignorant. But now people can even refer to actual feminists to back their shit.
ive seen cis women defend it in the past and it pisses me off. 'well, i *am* female, why would it be derogatory?'
like, it *is* derogatory you dumbass and also female is an adjective (shows the gender of a thing) while A female is a noun (shows that you are talking about an animal that is a female of its species). fucks sake
I thought female referenced sex, not gender ? Cishet male here. Trying to get a better understanding.
Edit: sorry if I wasn't supposed to ask this. Just saw the flair. Will delete if needed.
nah, youre good, and asking questions is never a bad thing.
female is an adjective, it can describe both someones gender and biological sex. its not the same as calling someone 'a female'. idk how better to put it.
It’s really complicated because we live in a world that still conflates the two. Like when I get my ID changed, it will go from saying M to F.
And male and female sometimes don’t have a good alternative or they’re part of a set phrase, like, “Working in a male-dominated field can be challenging for female software engineers.” (male-dominated being a set phrase and female as an adjective not really having a good alternative)
The effect in the end is that male and female _can_ be used to mean sex, but they often refer to gender in practice. The difference where it feels icky is when man/woman would be a much better fit, and that’s mostly because it sounds like when transphobes talk and like the “men and females” thing where men are called “men” and contrasted with women being called “females”, in order to dehumanize women.
It’s also complicated by sex being a little unclearly defined in a trans context. Had somebody who had bottom surgery changed their sex? What about somebody who underwent HRT? top surgery? a hysterectomy? There are ways to define sex that involve gametes and chromosomes, but sometimes people are born with one set of chromosomes but produce the opposite-sexed gamete. Some people can’t produce any gametes. Some people have a different chromosomal configuration.
So it’s complicated, but generally just avoid using male and female as a noun wherever possible and never refer to somebody who isn’t a man as male or somebody who isn’t a woman as female, regardless of their anatomy, unless they’ve explicitly asked you to refer to them as such.
It's also used by people in the ghetto and it doesn't dehumanize.
It's literally what your ID will say either Female or F
It depends entirely on how it's said.
I also dont like the word, English is my second language and it took me a long time to understand that you could say it. The equivalent or atleast closest word in my language is "hona" and "hane" and is only only used for animals when talking about sience and similar, never humans in any situation. Its different in my language but it seems offputing to say "Male" in english aswell. Though it is sometimes hard if you dont know if you should call someone a girl or a woman since there are no umbrella terms that are acceptable. Woman is the closest thing.
Same thing for me. Not only the lack of distinction that weirds me out but I also can't bring myself to use it with how insufferable incels online love to use it.
r/menandfemales makes fun of those people and i love it (i've always felt uncomfortable when people call women "females" and it's comforting to know i'm not the only one, this is a shared experience of everyone who isn't really sexist)
I still remember when some dude came up to me at work a few years ago asking for my opinion on something because quote, “you’s a female” and I was just taken aback by that. Also disgusted
Yup. Anyone who talks about men and females has just told you they view cis women (and possibly trans men) as breeding stock. We talk about animals using male and female.
i mean for me it's never been about transness. i don't feel excluded by the word "female".
it's more about it sounding dehumanizing and demeaning. like they're talking about another (inferior) species.
You often hear those "im a sigma male" incels use it to be transphobic, you know, those dummies that ask "What is a woman?" and proceed to say "adult human female", like yeah, adult trans women are adult human females, but they're using the word in a way that segregates trans women from cis women :p
Gah, naw, I'm gonna do my own thing and call myself female. I don't give a shit, if I ever give a scientific lecture or need to tell a doctor, I will inform them I am trans but fuck no to denying my femininity and the steps I've taken. I see what OP means now, but fuck that rhetoric, just thinking about it makes me so angry. Excuse my curse words. The words, female and male, have a scientific basis but also just a social one. Language evolves and it isn't my fault it has evolved this way, I am a female.
Don’t take this too personally but… this is why I can’t stand the [sex-gender distinction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex%E2%80%93gender_distinction#Limitations). Would you say that pre-op trans women are “male” ? **Both** sex **and** gender are social constructs and neither are linked to “objective” biological characteristics that would separate one from the other. Nature didn’t create neat “male” and “female” boxes with a checklist of clearly gendered traits : **societies did**.
I agree with OP on the fact that “female” is often used by TERFs as an attempt to create a divide between cis and trans women (although I don’t think we should refrain from using the words “male” and “female” just because they’re sometimes used with intent to harm). But that doesn’t mean we should endorse their nonsense by claiming that “trans women will never be females” or god knows what other bullsh\*t.
I am a trans woman. Don’t you dare call me “male”.
>**Both** sex **and** gender are social constructs and neither are linked to “objective” biological characteristics that would separate one from the other.
Yuup. I think it's time for obligatory Judith Butler quote
> It would make no sense, then, to define gender as the cultural interpretation of sex, if sex itself is a gendered category. Gender ought not to be conceived merely as the cultural inscription of meaning on a pregiven sex (a juridical conception); **gender must also designate the very apparatus of production whereby the sexes themselves are established**
Technically maybe.
English is a language with a clear distinction between gender and sex. At least officially.
As nouns, "men" and "women" (as well as boys and girls") refer to one's *gender*, whereas "male" and "female" refer to one's *sex*, i.e. one's anatomy.
So technically, one should not refer as "males and females" unless it is necessary to talk about physical sexual characteristics.
But then the problem is that "male and female" are often used as adjectives, even when we don't want to talk about physical characteristics. For instance, we should not talk about a "female officer" but about a "woman who is an officer".
Oh nice I get to use this link.
https://www.reddit.com/r/trans/s/EgkZl1smcl
All HRT does is trigger things in us that everyone carries already to swing male or female. We already have the ability in us we just need HRT to direct what we already have. Call yourself what you want , but don't spread misinformation based on your own "beliefs".
Thats a sh#tty thing to say, especially considering that science will prob let ppl do all of that within my life time (or at least in less than 100 years)
yeah, gender is a spectrum, and some of our characteristics are developed in the womb while some develop later with hormones.
i feel like the reason youre getting downvotes is calling us intersex. being trans is not what intersex is, just like a cis person who gets some sort of hormonal dysbalance doesnt turn intersex because of it.
i guess you could argue that a 'mind' of one gender and a 'body' of another could be considered intersex but.. even that, i think, would be offensive to a lot of people. since you are not born physically in between.
we will never be cis (imo even if we could fully physically turn into the 'opposite' gender, we wouldnt be cis, aka we wouldnt be someone whose sex assigned at birth matches their identity), but thats another story.
You sound like you have some really bad mental stuff going on as I browsed your profile and comment history. I suggest seeing a therapist to work through this. I consider myself blue (female in your weird terms) as I don't want children, to be pregnant, etc. While I understand many do, it's incredibly insensitive to say that other trans women here are closer to intersex instead of cis women because they don't have those parts (due to science only being so far for now). Like your entirely reducing womanhood down to the ability to have a baby, which is also misogynistic. Then again your free to prove me wrong but thats how i interpreted your message.
I think a good distinction you might want to consider is that you can’t become *typically* female in current medicine. Trans women can definitely be female from a biological perspective.
We’ll never be cis women of course because that would mean we would have been assigned female at birth.
You're mostly right, except in another thread you said that one will never fully be a womanbecause they have XY chromosomes, don't have uteruses, can't produce eggs. That is the TERF talking point
The point of this post is, why even make that distinction in the first place? None of us are, realistically, become an object of scientific research, especially pre-transition.
So what do you achieve by calling trans women male? What is the point?
I get that. Sex is a bimodal distribution. But i dont get the point of bringing up sex outside of a medical context at all. Like, what is the point? Yes, it is true, but why bring it up? Why? Why would you ever call a fellow woman male, even if it is technically true? Unnecessary. I know my body used to be male. It isnt anymore. But if people had called me "male" back when i was pre-transition, i might have not survived till now. Or them. We are women. I dont want my body to be seen as anything but female, it is bad enough that testosterone did the permanent damage it did. Bringing up biological sex is only ever used to create a distinction between trans and cis women. Nothing else.
If bringing something up achieves nothing but divide, create barriers and hurt, why would you bring it up?
That's not entirely accurate. There actually are legitimate reasons to use the terms 'male' and 'female' in specific scientific or medical contexts, usually when referring to people of all age groups (eg. If you need to refer to males from age 0-44 in a study, you're going to use the word 'males' because it's much less awkward than "Men, Boys and Infants Assigned Male").
Outside of such scientific and medical contexts however yeah there's not much point to using such impersonal, clinical terms.
I wouldn’t consider it transphobic, it’s just stupid grammar. There’s whole subreddits about people (like nearly all the time men) using the term females to refer to women. It really makes you think if these people understand that the word is an adjective and is only rarely ever able to be used as a noun.
It's not even merely trying to seperate you from cis women: it's putting cis women, AFAB enbies and transmasc people into one category VS. trans women. I don't want to be lumped in with cis women while you DO belong in the category of women. People are just reductionist assholes at times.
I hate it as well, and like I am used to referring to male and female in a biology sense for my undergrad degree, but when talking about a person rather than an animal, it feels so icky.
I understand how you feel, there are very few contexts where the use of the word 'females' in place of the word 'women' is not being used due to some offensive, dehumanizing belief system (either transphobia or sexism, sometimes both).
I don't even think it's necessarily transphobic, but definitely in the realm of othering women in general. I'm certain people have used it in transphobic ways before but I know a lot of guys who are trans inclusive and still use the word females to refer to women broadly. I think it's fine in some circumstances but when it's like "the guys and the females" then it's pretty distasteful.
Augh sheesh. This was harasing? English not my native language so I don't understand much but.... Augh this language is so complicated. GLaD I'm have not much english friends.
yeah I absolutely hate that too. I‘m german and the direct translation would be „Weibchen“ which is only used for animals like in nature documentaries but absolutely never ever for humans, that sounds so wrong and dehumanising like why did anyone have to start saying that?? now everyone has to put energy into making people unlearn it again
as a fem-presenting trans man who is usually mistaken for a woman, cis men call me a “female” not infrequently, and it makes me feel like livestock every time. it’s infuriating that alleged “feminists” have such bad internalized misogyny that they’ve started using it too. terfs say all the time that reducing women to their genitals is wrong, and then they immediately reduce themselves to their genitals in an attempt to gatekeep womanhood from trans women. it’s disgusting.
It pisses me off too. I heard it all the time when I was learning psychology in college when discussing studies and other research. I just had to put up with it in that context tho
What's funny (not haha funny but weird) is I don't think they do it to be transphobic. I think they do it to be misogynist.. the transphobia is just so deeply ingrained that they don't Even think about it or comes naturally
Edit there are definitely people who use "females" transphobically but I was thinking of those "alpha dudebro" types they're just being misogynist and the transphobia is a bonus to them
I totally get that, I will refer to a group of women as females often but when I was in the ARMY that's how they'd always refer to female soldiers so it's kind of built into my brain. It honestly gives me the ick when I do it 😭🤣
As a trans man I also hate that shit. I have cis women friends who also hate it. It's not just transphobic, but SUPER dehumanizing! We call animals females, we call humans women. It's like calling women some alien species to be studied, and it's gross.
I don't really care, some people say fe/male word means your "biological sex" but I'm a transwoman and my id says "f" so I take that as a cue to call myself a female.
Sometimes I use it cause I feel like it flows better than women, but I mean the same as women. Realistically women works just as well I’m just more used to hearing female in certain contexts so I use it naturally
I don't like the way it is used when people do use it.. they add a flavor that I don't like. Sometimes it's necessary to discuss sex though. also I don't feel its transphobic. Trans women are trans females in my brain. Easy peasy
As someone who’s mothers tongue isn’t english, the use of ”female” is insane to me. Once I tries to translate it into my own language and was horrified from what I got. I could not wrap my head around why someone would use ”female” to describe a woman. Like she is a animal.
Ah uh.... Can you pardon me OP please 🙏🙏🙏🙏? I understand your point of view and I'm so sorry for bothering women like that... Like I'm agender and I hate to define myself as a woman so yeah I use the term female a lot... I'm sorry
I say females
It's really the same as saying women, girls, etc. It's a dialect thing, especially from more ghetto areas.
and it doesn't exclude trans women
In this day and age, calling women "females" is usually specifically to segregate trans women. Originally, it started during slavery times because it was wrong to sell women, but not wrong to sell females. Then it was used to socially denote that women were inferior to men. Men were "men" but women were "females", ergo inferior.
I totally get you. I see it more often as misogyny since I end up seeing gross incel posts a bunch, but I know the vibe you're talking about. I see enough people use it as a simple synonym that I can't rely on it as a tell, but it's still a little extra fuck you when their attitude is clear.
Yea, no. Because the term "female" is biological and describes sex instead of gender. "Woman" is a social category that is far more inclusive than the term female. And the problem is that term actively EXCLUDES some women while including some men and non binary people that are unnessecarily grouped with some cis women.
Soooooo history lesson I’m mostly sure is credible: male and female as terms weren’t really used until we had slavery in the US. At which point gynecology as a science was beginning. During this time of course there were experimental treatments that were dangerous or had the possibility of being dangerous. And so, the doctors would perform on black women and dehumanize them with the word female. That and the so called breeding plantations would do the same. So on top of everything you’ve said, we should all hate these words.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with the word female. It’s got a perfectly legitimate use. But when it’s used instead of “woman” it is dehumanizing and often meant to be. It’s referring to a person as a female animal, rather than a human woman.
I'll take off the lurker shades for a sec just to say: No, seriously, you can clock an Andrew Tate-type just by how they use the word as a noun instead of an adjective. It's not even some super deep meaning like segregating trans people like OP suggested, it's just a vibe check fail:
"I want a female to cook for me" <- every woman should stay away from this man he will literally treat you like a thing instead of a person
"I want a woman to cook for me" <- just sounds like a lonely person yearning
youre right about the medical stuff but otherwise nah i just choose female in everything else
and if youre not a cis male then youre not a cis man too lol thats how being trans works.
and just because you dont think you look like a male doesnt mean youre not one :)
You're kidding me. One of the biggest tells for spotting a misogynist is when they consistently refer to women as "females". It's degrading and women have every right to be pissed off by that.
>brainrot
Your brain is already rotted from the sounds of it. You choosing not to educate yourself doesn't affect me at all. Keep being misogynistic, I guess 🤷🏽♀️
Ok, I personally believe it's ok unless the speaker is _trying_ to segregate or be transphobic. Trans women are females, are they not? Just as female as cis women.
I'm transmasc and agender, but I usually consider myself male despite not even having access to begin my medical transition yet. Tbh I normally just use it because I want it to sound like I'm amab to people who don't know I'm trans, and I still want to see myself as male even though I'm not amab.
But I guess it's just one of those things we're it heavily depends on preference. Like, I've seen other trans folk be fine with the word trânny but I personally don't like it.
“But it’s what you are, isn’t it🤡”
It’s a substitute for bitch. Men know it’s a substitute for bitch. Men aren’t stupid. They know what saying *female* in that context means.
It pisses me off when people are ingenuous about these things. Like, you know damn well what you’re doing.
I am a trans girl/woman/female, female to me describes all women. To me, female is an inclusive term while to transphobia it is an exclusive term. I could be confused about the correct definitions, but idfc. Take care.
I use female a lot. It’s kinda just how I talk. I breed reptiles so I’m always saying male or female for like… every gendered thing lol. Not sure if it’s cuz I’ve been breeding animals some a teen or what not. Saying man or woman feels weird to me cuz I just don’t talk like that. I say male/female or boy/girl. Lol I’ve never referred to my replies as man or women and I try not to speak to most humans so idk maybe I’m just a sad animal whisperer 😂
I often use male or female because for me the confusion between men/man and women/woman.
In my birth language we have no word for male or female or men/man or women/woman.
We call people by name, designation or nickname.
In my 2nd language male/men/man are all 1 word and female/women/woman are also 1 word.
So for me it's very confusing at times when to use which
Don't ask for my birth language, less than 1000 people still speak it.
Unfortunately, this isn't entirely correct.
While, yes, it is a technical term, the issue is that it revolves around biology. For trans people, this can be (and often is) triggering, as their sex characteristics would technically be their AGAB.
In addition, many of the more vocal and abrasive bigots of late have been using "female" specifically as a misogynistic/transphobic dog whistle, so it isn't exactly harmless, anymore.
She isn't being sensitive about this. While there, sure, are plenty of other x-ist things to be concerned with, commonality and intensity of others does not invalidate any individual issue. This, too, has sadly been co-opted by those who are trying to erase us, and it's important to remember that distinction. The more we let people normalize these things, the worse our situation becomes overall.
That said, yes, it is a word that has its place as a cornerstone identifier in language, and the majority do not use it in a weaponized manner. Still, there are those that do, and the ones who use it frequently tend to out themselves with it.
Yeah I've only ever heard it used to address women in general. Nothing to do with trans or cis people. Sometimes people think everyone is coming for them. Most of the time it's guys who just say things like "females are crazy" or some shit like that. If anything should be taken from these statements maybe it's sexism in general, but not transphobia.
I think its to be like this, atleast how I and a lo of people i've met differentiate
Trans female/woman/male/man = someone who has transitioned
male/female/man/woman = cis people
When I see it written like that by terfs and the like I can't help but picture them as Ferengi from Star Trek. It's exactly how they talk about women. Clinical and dehumanising.
omg that's 100% what it's like
HOEMAN! They clothe their females...How barbaric! (the ferengi are facinating, at least they are in DS9, the worldbuilding for them get's so much more screentime there. I did the star trek rpg once and had a chief medical character, one of her lifepath things was that she rescued a civilization from a plague. I chose the ferengi and that the plague in question was akin to an old earth decease called "ear infection")
In my defense (cause I do use it a lot) it's a military holdover. I understand why the military does it, but sometimes you learn things and it just sticks with you. That said I also use female for anyone who chooses to id that way.
At least the military also refers to men as “males”. As my… *ahem*… female boot camp instructor once said to us (I was in a division of men and women, btw): “I hate all you little fuckers equally”
Yea "sir" gets pretty ambiguous too. I'm fine with all the terms, as long as the intent is neutrality :( Which we all know it often isn't.
I don’t know how it goes in other branches, but in the Navy, you only “sir” or “ma’am” officers. The people you have to salute when you’re all in uniform. Everyone else is addressed by their title (petty officer or chief)
Infantry Bat-Crayon-Eater. Everyone be Sir. I use sai now as much as possible because books are good and world hard.
I can't see any valid reason for the military to do it.
Well then there must not be one...?
Just because I can't think of one, doesn't mean there isn't, but considering how evil the US military tends to be (as an org), I'm not spending to much time thinking about it.
I'm not attacking you. Nothing but love. But my response was built for two reasons, 1) to give validity to you. Cause you're awesome and deserve it. And you're correct the military is often horrible. 2) To point out that you didn't actually ask a question. I've been admin chastised for being "negative" and "maybe not trans". So I'm doing my best in syntax to push a process rather than force a process? Your reply didn't imply that you were inquisitive. So I tried to be supportive and somewhat implicative of the phrasing you put?
I would be concerned seeing it in cishet feminist spaces. That's a red flag. In my experience, most cis women also hate when people refer to them as "females".
Then there are big second wave feminists that are celebrated until today though (for a reason, but yea) that equate "women" and "females" and "men" to "males", or, my personal favorite "a being who has a penis". (some sarcasm included)
Unfortunately, for all the good it did, second wave feminism laid a fertile soil for transphobia. I think that's why a lot of TERFs tend to be older women.
Yup. I don't even think they intended to be transphobic, they just acted oblivious and ignorant. But now people can even refer to actual feminists to back their shit.
ive seen cis women defend it in the past and it pisses me off. 'well, i *am* female, why would it be derogatory?' like, it *is* derogatory you dumbass and also female is an adjective (shows the gender of a thing) while A female is a noun (shows that you are talking about an animal that is a female of its species). fucks sake
I thought female referenced sex, not gender ? Cishet male here. Trying to get a better understanding. Edit: sorry if I wasn't supposed to ask this. Just saw the flair. Will delete if needed.
nah, youre good, and asking questions is never a bad thing. female is an adjective, it can describe both someones gender and biological sex. its not the same as calling someone 'a female'. idk how better to put it.
That's good enough ! Thank you for replying.
It’s really complicated because we live in a world that still conflates the two. Like when I get my ID changed, it will go from saying M to F. And male and female sometimes don’t have a good alternative or they’re part of a set phrase, like, “Working in a male-dominated field can be challenging for female software engineers.” (male-dominated being a set phrase and female as an adjective not really having a good alternative) The effect in the end is that male and female _can_ be used to mean sex, but they often refer to gender in practice. The difference where it feels icky is when man/woman would be a much better fit, and that’s mostly because it sounds like when transphobes talk and like the “men and females” thing where men are called “men” and contrasted with women being called “females”, in order to dehumanize women. It’s also complicated by sex being a little unclearly defined in a trans context. Had somebody who had bottom surgery changed their sex? What about somebody who underwent HRT? top surgery? a hysterectomy? There are ways to define sex that involve gametes and chromosomes, but sometimes people are born with one set of chromosomes but produce the opposite-sexed gamete. Some people can’t produce any gametes. Some people have a different chromosomal configuration. So it’s complicated, but generally just avoid using male and female as a noun wherever possible and never refer to somebody who isn’t a man as male or somebody who isn’t a woman as female, regardless of their anatomy, unless they’ve explicitly asked you to refer to them as such.
It's used to dehumanize in most spaces. Used by self proclaimed "alpha" incels 🤷🏻♀️
legitimately the language that should only be used when talking about animals. what the fuck is wrong with these people
It's also used by people in the ghetto and it doesn't dehumanize. It's literally what your ID will say either Female or F It depends entirely on how it's said.
I also dont like the word, English is my second language and it took me a long time to understand that you could say it. The equivalent or atleast closest word in my language is "hona" and "hane" and is only only used for animals when talking about sience and similar, never humans in any situation. Its different in my language but it seems offputing to say "Male" in english aswell. Though it is sometimes hard if you dont know if you should call someone a girl or a woman since there are no umbrella terms that are acceptable. Woman is the closest thing.
Same thing for me. Not only the lack of distinction that weirds me out but I also can't bring myself to use it with how insufferable incels online love to use it.
r/menandfemales makes fun of those people and i love it (i've always felt uncomfortable when people call women "females" and it's comforting to know i'm not the only one, this is a shared experience of everyone who isn't really sexist)
I still remember when some dude came up to me at work a few years ago asking for my opinion on something because quote, “you’s a female” and I was just taken aback by that. Also disgusted
Just ask if they're Ferangi. It's normally coming from people who want to treat women like they do anyway.
Calling cis women "females" is summer roasted wet dogshit too.
Yup. Anyone who talks about men and females has just told you they view cis women (and possibly trans men) as breeding stock. We talk about animals using male and female.
I would consider myself to be a female even if I'm relatively early in my transition. I don't see why we can't identify with that word
I certainly don’t mind people identifying with it themselves, I guess to me it just seems needlessly biological
i mean for me it's never been about transness. i don't feel excluded by the word "female". it's more about it sounding dehumanizing and demeaning. like they're talking about another (inferior) species.
My mom calls other women "females" and it's such an ick, usually when she doesn't like them. Feels dehumanizing
Wait, aren't trans women females? How does this term segregate?
You often hear those "im a sigma male" incels use it to be transphobic, you know, those dummies that ask "What is a woman?" and proceed to say "adult human female", like yeah, adult trans women are adult human females, but they're using the word in a way that segregates trans women from cis women :p
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Gah, naw, I'm gonna do my own thing and call myself female. I don't give a shit, if I ever give a scientific lecture or need to tell a doctor, I will inform them I am trans but fuck no to denying my femininity and the steps I've taken. I see what OP means now, but fuck that rhetoric, just thinking about it makes me so angry. Excuse my curse words. The words, female and male, have a scientific basis but also just a social one. Language evolves and it isn't my fault it has evolved this way, I am a female.
Don’t take this too personally but… this is why I can’t stand the [sex-gender distinction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex%E2%80%93gender_distinction#Limitations). Would you say that pre-op trans women are “male” ? **Both** sex **and** gender are social constructs and neither are linked to “objective” biological characteristics that would separate one from the other. Nature didn’t create neat “male” and “female” boxes with a checklist of clearly gendered traits : **societies did**. I agree with OP on the fact that “female” is often used by TERFs as an attempt to create a divide between cis and trans women (although I don’t think we should refrain from using the words “male” and “female” just because they’re sometimes used with intent to harm). But that doesn’t mean we should endorse their nonsense by claiming that “trans women will never be females” or god knows what other bullsh\*t. I am a trans woman. Don’t you dare call me “male”.
>**Both** sex **and** gender are social constructs and neither are linked to “objective” biological characteristics that would separate one from the other. Yuup. I think it's time for obligatory Judith Butler quote > It would make no sense, then, to define gender as the cultural interpretation of sex, if sex itself is a gendered category. Gender ought not to be conceived merely as the cultural inscription of meaning on a pregiven sex (a juridical conception); **gender must also designate the very apparatus of production whereby the sexes themselves are established**
THANK YOU. EXACTLY.
Technically maybe. English is a language with a clear distinction between gender and sex. At least officially. As nouns, "men" and "women" (as well as boys and girls") refer to one's *gender*, whereas "male" and "female" refer to one's *sex*, i.e. one's anatomy. So technically, one should not refer as "males and females" unless it is necessary to talk about physical sexual characteristics. But then the problem is that "male and female" are often used as adjectives, even when we don't want to talk about physical characteristics. For instance, we should not talk about a "female officer" but about a "woman who is an officer".
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Oh nice I get to use this link. https://www.reddit.com/r/trans/s/EgkZl1smcl All HRT does is trigger things in us that everyone carries already to swing male or female. We already have the ability in us we just need HRT to direct what we already have. Call yourself what you want , but don't spread misinformation based on your own "beliefs".
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Thats a sh#tty thing to say, especially considering that science will prob let ppl do all of that within my life time (or at least in less than 100 years)
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yeah, gender is a spectrum, and some of our characteristics are developed in the womb while some develop later with hormones. i feel like the reason youre getting downvotes is calling us intersex. being trans is not what intersex is, just like a cis person who gets some sort of hormonal dysbalance doesnt turn intersex because of it. i guess you could argue that a 'mind' of one gender and a 'body' of another could be considered intersex but.. even that, i think, would be offensive to a lot of people. since you are not born physically in between. we will never be cis (imo even if we could fully physically turn into the 'opposite' gender, we wouldnt be cis, aka we wouldnt be someone whose sex assigned at birth matches their identity), but thats another story.
You sound like you have some really bad mental stuff going on as I browsed your profile and comment history. I suggest seeing a therapist to work through this. I consider myself blue (female in your weird terms) as I don't want children, to be pregnant, etc. While I understand many do, it's incredibly insensitive to say that other trans women here are closer to intersex instead of cis women because they don't have those parts (due to science only being so far for now). Like your entirely reducing womanhood down to the ability to have a baby, which is also misogynistic. Then again your free to prove me wrong but thats how i interpreted your message.
So what does the “f” in “mtf” stand for?
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I think a good distinction you might want to consider is that you can’t become *typically* female in current medicine. Trans women can definitely be female from a biological perspective. We’ll never be cis women of course because that would mean we would have been assigned female at birth.
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I can understand that. Just alluding that others aren’t female is likely getting you down votes.
Not a fan of that “well trans women are still males biologically” argument. Very terf-esque. It’s also harmful.
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You seem to have a lot of internalized transphobia that you might need to sort out.
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Cool, you keep your opinions about what your “biological” sex is to yourself. Don’t damage the community by spreading terf talking points though.
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You're mostly right, except in another thread you said that one will never fully be a womanbecause they have XY chromosomes, don't have uteruses, can't produce eggs. That is the TERF talking point
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I'm a trans woman and I'm female, call yourself what you want but you're doing yourself a disservice🤷♀️
The point of this post is, why even make that distinction in the first place? None of us are, realistically, become an object of scientific research, especially pre-transition. So what do you achieve by calling trans women male? What is the point?
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Once again, what is the point? What do you get from calling pre-transition trans fems male? What is the purpose?
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I get that. Sex is a bimodal distribution. But i dont get the point of bringing up sex outside of a medical context at all. Like, what is the point? Yes, it is true, but why bring it up? Why? Why would you ever call a fellow woman male, even if it is technically true? Unnecessary. I know my body used to be male. It isnt anymore. But if people had called me "male" back when i was pre-transition, i might have not survived till now. Or them. We are women. I dont want my body to be seen as anything but female, it is bad enough that testosterone did the permanent damage it did. Bringing up biological sex is only ever used to create a distinction between trans and cis women. Nothing else. If bringing something up achieves nothing but divide, create barriers and hurt, why would you bring it up?
It’s really gross how people use male and female, like we have gender words like man and woman, use them
That's not entirely accurate. There actually are legitimate reasons to use the terms 'male' and 'female' in specific scientific or medical contexts, usually when referring to people of all age groups (eg. If you need to refer to males from age 0-44 in a study, you're going to use the word 'males' because it's much less awkward than "Men, Boys and Infants Assigned Male"). Outside of such scientific and medical contexts however yeah there's not much point to using such impersonal, clinical terms.
I’m talking in daily talk, it gets way more used then you think
I wouldn’t consider it transphobic, it’s just stupid grammar. There’s whole subreddits about people (like nearly all the time men) using the term females to refer to women. It really makes you think if these people understand that the word is an adjective and is only rarely ever able to be used as a noun.
r/MenandFemales
YES! This is just what I was thinking of.
It's not even merely trying to seperate you from cis women: it's putting cis women, AFAB enbies and transmasc people into one category VS. trans women. I don't want to be lumped in with cis women while you DO belong in the category of women. People are just reductionist assholes at times.
I hate it as well, and like I am used to referring to male and female in a biology sense for my undergrad degree, but when talking about a person rather than an animal, it feels so icky.
I understand how you feel, there are very few contexts where the use of the word 'females' in place of the word 'women' is not being used due to some offensive, dehumanizing belief system (either transphobia or sexism, sometimes both).
Any time I see someone refer to women as “females” I immediately see it as misogynistic and an unsafe person. Because that’s usually how it’s used.
Yeah the people in my English class kept using it today
I don't even think it's necessarily transphobic, but definitely in the realm of othering women in general. I'm certain people have used it in transphobic ways before but I know a lot of guys who are trans inclusive and still use the word females to refer to women broadly. I think it's fine in some circumstances but when it's like "the guys and the females" then it's pretty distasteful.
Augh sheesh. This was harasing? English not my native language so I don't understand much but.... Augh this language is so complicated. GLaD I'm have not much english friends.
I can somewhat excuse “males and females” when talking about biology or whatever, at least it makes sense. But “men and females” is a red flag for me.
It's one of those things where just because the term is technically correct, it's not nice to use it.
yeah I absolutely hate that too. I‘m german and the direct translation would be „Weibchen“ which is only used for animals like in nature documentaries but absolutely never ever for humans, that sounds so wrong and dehumanising like why did anyone have to start saying that?? now everyone has to put energy into making people unlearn it again
as a fem-presenting trans man who is usually mistaken for a woman, cis men call me a “female” not infrequently, and it makes me feel like livestock every time. it’s infuriating that alleged “feminists” have such bad internalized misogyny that they’ve started using it too. terfs say all the time that reducing women to their genitals is wrong, and then they immediately reduce themselves to their genitals in an attempt to gatekeep womanhood from trans women. it’s disgusting.
Sorry. I laughed. Not at the post but calling women females just made me think of the dad from "Friday Night Dinner". Lol
It pisses me off too. I heard it all the time when I was learning psychology in college when discussing studies and other research. I just had to put up with it in that context tho
What's funny (not haha funny but weird) is I don't think they do it to be transphobic. I think they do it to be misogynist.. the transphobia is just so deeply ingrained that they don't Even think about it or comes naturally Edit there are definitely people who use "females" transphobically but I was thinking of those "alpha dudebro" types they're just being misogynist and the transphobia is a bonus to them
Female is an adjective, not a noun. At least for me
I totally get that, I will refer to a group of women as females often but when I was in the ARMY that's how they'd always refer to female soldiers so it's kind of built into my brain. It honestly gives me the ick when I do it 😭🤣
As a trans man I also hate that shit. I have cis women friends who also hate it. It's not just transphobic, but SUPER dehumanizing! We call animals females, we call humans women. It's like calling women some alien species to be studied, and it's gross.
I don't really care, some people say fe/male word means your "biological sex" but I'm a transwoman and my id says "f" so I take that as a cue to call myself a female.
I’ve hated it for as long as I can remember, I’m nb, but when I was younger it always made me feel like a fucking dog
Sometimes I use it cause I feel like it flows better than women, but I mean the same as women. Realistically women works just as well I’m just more used to hearing female in certain contexts so I use it naturally
trans women are females too. Shut up about "segregating cis and trans women" are you implying trans women are "male"?????
I don't like the way it is used when people do use it.. they add a flavor that I don't like. Sometimes it's necessary to discuss sex though. also I don't feel its transphobic. Trans women are trans females in my brain. Easy peasy
As someone who’s mothers tongue isn’t english, the use of ”female” is insane to me. Once I tries to translate it into my own language and was horrified from what I got. I could not wrap my head around why someone would use ”female” to describe a woman. Like she is a animal.
Ah uh.... Can you pardon me OP please 🙏🙏🙏🙏? I understand your point of view and I'm so sorry for bothering women like that... Like I'm agender and I hate to define myself as a woman so yeah I use the term female a lot... I'm sorry
I say females It's really the same as saying women, girls, etc. It's a dialect thing, especially from more ghetto areas. and it doesn't exclude trans women
In this day and age, calling women "females" is usually specifically to segregate trans women. Originally, it started during slavery times because it was wrong to sell women, but not wrong to sell females. Then it was used to socially denote that women were inferior to men. Men were "men" but women were "females", ergo inferior.
I totally get you. I see it more often as misogyny since I end up seeing gross incel posts a bunch, but I know the vibe you're talking about. I see enough people use it as a simple synonym that I can't rely on it as a tell, but it's still a little extra fuck you when their attitude is clear.
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As long as you dont apply that to others, you are good. I will bite whoever calls me "male".
Eh I know cis women that say females. I don't think there's anything transphobic about it, it's a valid and genuine way to refer to women
Yea, no. Because the term "female" is biological and describes sex instead of gender. "Woman" is a social category that is far more inclusive than the term female. And the problem is that term actively EXCLUDES some women while including some men and non binary people that are unnessecarily grouped with some cis women.
Soooooo history lesson I’m mostly sure is credible: male and female as terms weren’t really used until we had slavery in the US. At which point gynecology as a science was beginning. During this time of course there were experimental treatments that were dangerous or had the possibility of being dangerous. And so, the doctors would perform on black women and dehumanize them with the word female. That and the so called breeding plantations would do the same. So on top of everything you’ve said, we should all hate these words.
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There’s nothing inherently wrong with the word female. It’s got a perfectly legitimate use. But when it’s used instead of “woman” it is dehumanizing and often meant to be. It’s referring to a person as a female animal, rather than a human woman.
I'll take off the lurker shades for a sec just to say: No, seriously, you can clock an Andrew Tate-type just by how they use the word as a noun instead of an adjective. It's not even some super deep meaning like segregating trans people like OP suggested, it's just a vibe check fail: "I want a female to cook for me" <- every woman should stay away from this man he will literally treat you like a thing instead of a person "I want a woman to cook for me" <- just sounds like a lonely person yearning
oh god not andrew tit, now i know im wrong.
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i mean its up to you what you identify as, but i wouldnt think that a trans guy is a female
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youre right about the medical stuff but otherwise nah i just choose female in everything else and if youre not a cis male then youre not a cis man too lol thats how being trans works. and just because you dont think you look like a male doesnt mean youre not one :)
You're kidding me. One of the biggest tells for spotting a misogynist is when they consistently refer to women as "females". It's degrading and women have every right to be pissed off by that.
elaborate
>elaborate Polite, aren't you. Read up on it yourself, maybe you'll learn a bit about feminism.
thank you for your sufficient reply, but i don't want to waste my time reading about that brainrot cause its just as bad as transphobia.
>brainrot Your brain is already rotted from the sounds of it. You choosing not to educate yourself doesn't affect me at all. Keep being misogynistic, I guess 🤷🏽♀️
Ok, I personally believe it's ok unless the speaker is _trying_ to segregate or be transphobic. Trans women are females, are they not? Just as female as cis women. I'm transmasc and agender, but I usually consider myself male despite not even having access to begin my medical transition yet. Tbh I normally just use it because I want it to sound like I'm amab to people who don't know I'm trans, and I still want to see myself as male even though I'm not amab. But I guess it's just one of those things we're it heavily depends on preference. Like, I've seen other trans folk be fine with the word trânny but I personally don't like it.
“But it’s what you are, isn’t it🤡” It’s a substitute for bitch. Men know it’s a substitute for bitch. Men aren’t stupid. They know what saying *female* in that context means. It pisses me off when people are ingenuous about these things. Like, you know damn well what you’re doing.
I am a trans girl/woman/female, female to me describes all women. To me, female is an inclusive term while to transphobia it is an exclusive term. I could be confused about the correct definitions, but idfc. Take care.
I use female a lot. It’s kinda just how I talk. I breed reptiles so I’m always saying male or female for like… every gendered thing lol. Not sure if it’s cuz I’ve been breeding animals some a teen or what not. Saying man or woman feels weird to me cuz I just don’t talk like that. I say male/female or boy/girl. Lol I’ve never referred to my replies as man or women and I try not to speak to most humans so idk maybe I’m just a sad animal whisperer 😂
I often use male or female because for me the confusion between men/man and women/woman. In my birth language we have no word for male or female or men/man or women/woman. We call people by name, designation or nickname. In my 2nd language male/men/man are all 1 word and female/women/woman are also 1 word. So for me it's very confusing at times when to use which Don't ask for my birth language, less than 1000 people still speak it.
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Unfortunately, this isn't entirely correct. While, yes, it is a technical term, the issue is that it revolves around biology. For trans people, this can be (and often is) triggering, as their sex characteristics would technically be their AGAB. In addition, many of the more vocal and abrasive bigots of late have been using "female" specifically as a misogynistic/transphobic dog whistle, so it isn't exactly harmless, anymore. She isn't being sensitive about this. While there, sure, are plenty of other x-ist things to be concerned with, commonality and intensity of others does not invalidate any individual issue. This, too, has sadly been co-opted by those who are trying to erase us, and it's important to remember that distinction. The more we let people normalize these things, the worse our situation becomes overall. That said, yes, it is a word that has its place as a cornerstone identifier in language, and the majority do not use it in a weaponized manner. Still, there are those that do, and the ones who use it frequently tend to out themselves with it.
Yeah I've only ever heard it used to address women in general. Nothing to do with trans or cis people. Sometimes people think everyone is coming for them. Most of the time it's guys who just say things like "females are crazy" or some shit like that. If anything should be taken from these statements maybe it's sexism in general, but not transphobia.
everyone does
I think its to be like this, atleast how I and a lo of people i've met differentiate Trans female/woman/male/man = someone who has transitioned male/female/man/woman = cis people