Talk:Womyn-born womyn

Outright Bias

I know it's the first sentence on the page, but can something be done about the phrase "Womyn-born womyn (an alternative spelling of women-born women) is a term that describes women, as opposed to transgendered freaks."?

Yes that indeed is quite laughable. Us women should not need extra labels! Those who imitate us, whether freaks or not, are the only labelling required. Biologically, scientifically speaking, a woman is someone who has female phenotype and female genotype. There is no scientific evidence of the existence of a soul or an mind "ID". So, given lack of evidence, it becomes matter of opinions/ideologies, not facts. Anyone requiring patriarchal institutions to realise their desires, are in fact contributing to the patriarchal domination of the world.--Tallard (talk) 09:13, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I sincerely doubt that displays an NPOV perspective. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.124.128.33 (talk) 23:57, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

The word you are looking for is 'karyotype.' The only gene associated strictly with sex is SRY, which can malfunction or be transposed onto an X chromosome and produce a healthy, male child (this has happened in the medical literature). If "female phenotype and female karyotype" is required, that would require the exclusion of women who were born and raised female but had an XY karyotype due to androgen insensitivity syndrome. XO females (Swyer's syndrome) would also be necessarily excluded, since "female karyotype" undoubtedly by your definition is "XX only." Further, there may be no scientific evidence of soul/mind. There IS scientific evidence of a BST(c) region of the brain that varies in neuron number and size by sex. There IS scientific evidence for variation in white:grey matter ratio by sex. There IS scientific evidence for variation in size/shape of androgen receptors by sex. There IS evidence that living in a non-identified-sex role consistently for a long period of time has negative psychological effects (since you clearly disbelieve every transsexual, of both sexes, ever, see also Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent). And there IS evidence that the most grossly trans-misogynistic "feminists," such as yourself, may be self-suppressing transsexual men (just as the most grossly homophobic politicians and ministers are often themselves closeted gays). The weight of opinion is wholly on your side - the weight of facts are on mine; and in a fair debate, facts should outweigh opinions. La Maupin (talk) 11:20, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Another example - "some of them may feel that their comfort is more important than the safety of trans women". How difficult can it be to phrase something in a non-partisan, non-loaded way? 89.240.173.140 (talk) 15:11, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

This whole article has a huge problem with POV and original research. A lot of it reads as feminist-vilifying and trans-bashing. The article isn't necessarily POV, but many heavily biased users such as [[User:Tallard|Tallard]* are what often flock to these types of articles. "Those who imitate us, whether freaks or not, are the only labelling required." is a giant red-flag of transphobia. I'm not even touching the rest of her paragraph, and I'm not about to turn this into a debate club. I just want to point out that this article either needs to be heavily monitored and maintained or some kind of action should be done ASAP. -Miranda (talk) 18:33, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Help

I have tried to present the pro arguments for WBW spaces as I have heard them argued by proWBW individuals. However, I would greatly appreciate someone who is actually in favor of this policy to review them, change as necessary, or add to them arguments I have not developed.

I know the best rhetorical technique is to argue one's opponents view as strongly as possible, but I'm not fool enough to believe that I've adequately presented it as well as my own. So I would appreciate feedback on the pro-side.NickGorton 20:45, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

This article really needs someone to judge it for NPOV. Some of the adjectives/phrasing, etc. are a tiny bit loaded.24.10.102.46 20:11, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

There are some things here about WBW spaces that include post-operative transwomen. I know there are spaces which exclude pre-operative individuals, but allow post op--ie define gender by genitals. I know of trans-exclusive (ie, wbw) spaces in which transwomen enter in secret such as the hundreds of transwomen at MWMF, but they are doing so against the policy. But I've never heard of any self defined WBW space that includes post-operative people by policy. Can someone think of any? (kathygnome)

NPOV

I added the NPOV tag because I felt that the anon edits to the "History" and "Scope" sections, while adding another viewpoint that could be valuable, were phrased in ways that are somewhat POV. Examples:

• "the exclusionary and oppressive repercussions of misogyny" -- very strong wording, clearly from a feminist viewpoint
• "Some have argued that the term was created solely in response to the increasing visibility of transgender women" -- I've heard, and I am willing to believe, that what "some have argued" is the major impetus behind the development of this term. However, I do not know enough to actually judge.
• "a unforgettable means of unlearning internalized misogyny completely unrelated to and independent of transculture and politics" -- I think that this one is pretty obvious. ;)

I don't have a good enough knowledge of this to edit down the POV in a way other than reverting the anon additions. Someone else want to take a crack at it?

Hbackman 22:51, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with expressing a feminist POV if the subject is a feminist subject. What I see in this article is a lot of back and forth -- "this is what it is" in one sentence followed by "other people think this is what it is". I think some of the NPOV / POV issues might be cleared up by allowing a POV to be presented throughout an entire paragraph (or more), and then presenting the other POVes. -- Tall Girl 20:44, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

• I read the article today and think the past POV issues may well have been resolved now. There was no obvious POV as far as I could tell. MrsPlum 10:13, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Draft Edit, Please Check

Hiya. I've attempted what I hope is a reasonable edit of this section. I've endeavoured to tweak the sections most directly either saying that Feminism is explicitly correct or that Womyn-born-Womyn is correct. Im a total amateur, however, so please double check me!

KenKills 18:36, 24 March 2006 (UK)

Overall, I think this looks pretty good. In the argument section, I've removed the two pro arguments at the end, since the earlier statements already make the claim that a late transitioning transgender woman did not grow up as a woman and that she has had the outward advantages of growing up with a male gender.

Otherwise, I think we're good on the NPOV. With MrsPlum's concurrence, I'm removing the tag. - KellyLogan 16:24, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Attribution needed throughout

I did some revising to reflect that this term affects not only transwomen, but transmen as well. I also started a reference section. The "Arguments" section in particular needs to be sourced to stay within policy of no original research. I believe the article could say the same things in about half the words. This is a bit verbose as it stands. Jokestress 23:28, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Women vs. Womyn

The majority of events with a women born women policy do not use the alternative spelling, MWMF being a notable exception. As such, the article should use the standard spelling primarily. Neitherday 22:08, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

huh?

just from the first sentence, there is no question that this is not neutral POV; is this deliberately uninformative or what? wbw is a pretty basic and understandable concept, any politicized 'spin' in either direction is not really needed right from the first sentence of the article, it's wikipedia. 206.248.168.241 21:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I have nominated it for deletion. I don't think the subject is noteworthy enough to merit its own article and feel that it should be integrated into the "womyn" article. The article also doesn't conform to Neutral POV, and contains words such as "we" to describe subjects of the article. This isn't a soapbox; this is Wikipedia. Graymornings 21:13, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify: This article was POV tagged once before, but the article was improved and the issue was resolved - see above. The current tag dates from March 2007. I must remind the two editors above that we should distinguish between _describing_ existing points of view within a subject and the article _itself_ being POV. This article is an example of the former. Quoting from Wikipedia'sNPOV policy: "Debates within topics are described, represented and characterized, but not engaged in. Background is provided on who believes what and why, and which view is more popular.". This article adheres to this policy. The article describes at least two opposing viewponts on Womyn-born-womyn: one insisting on unambiguous separatism as a prerequisite for women's advancement, and one arguing that this concept is ultimately futile. Both sides are adequately represented. As the article does not violate NPOV policy there is no need for the tag, so I'm removing it. If anyone believes that there are actually POV issues, please specify those problems here. By the way, POV problems is not sufficient reason to delete an article. The article should be improved instead. Alfons Åberg 08:24, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Section to be reconsidered

On August 2nd, 2007, user:24.86.112.71 added the following section. It was the second paragraph of the "Scope" section. It appears to have generated some concerns about POV issues and non-wiki-standard wording etc. I'm moving it from the article to the talk page for discussion. Here we go:

"However, this denies the existence of females socialized as boys either due to the Gender Experimenting Culture of the 1970s, David Raimer, "As Nature Made Him," the most famous but not the only one by any means. Yes, females socialized as male or at least as "boys," during that period exist too. There are also many females socialized male as a deliberate form of Abuse. Both groups of female, many times, grow up to be feminine and yet face many of the same complaints Transwomen face: we are too aggressive, too opinionated, to active, too loud, in other words, regardless of how feminine we look, we think and act too much "like a man," and thus, many times, face exclusion and ostracization from girl groups in childhood and lesbian or womyns communities in adulthood. There has been no study, feminist or otherwise on us, but we exist and we'd have no problem getting into Michigan. There are more of us out there then people thing, born female, born feminine socialized male or masculine in childhood. Thus, until we are studied and acknowledged as existing and until Butch females (females born masculine regardless of orientation and considered "normal," in homosexual society as are feminine born males, ie: "Homonormative Gender") are acknowledged as existing and studied the arguement is based, once again on assumptions of a standard form of socialization for every female that simply doesn't exist. Even girls raised on farms don't receive the socialization that feminists refer to as standard for "girls."" Alfons Åberg 06:11, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

trans and cis???

WTF is the deal with the last section using the word 'ciswomen' to describe genetic women? just cos cis is the oposite of trans doesn't mean it makes sense in this context, the word ciswomen is totally ridiculous, this isn't chemisty youknow. It's totally unused, it's not a real word or even a widly acepted one, and it makes no sense.

Hi, please remember to sign your comments. Thank you. Alfons Åberg 05:24, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

"Ciswomen" is both precedented and sensible (see, for example, the Julia Serano book cited in this article). "Genetic" women is not exactly the same idea, because a small percentage of ciswomen do not actually have exactly two X chromosomes. Seb144 (talk) 09:17, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Lead paragraph and referencing throughout.

I couldn't find a reference calling womyn-born-womyn a "political term", so I removed that claim. The next part is also confusing: ... used by some feminists to establish themselves as feminist, woman-identified women and is an extension of the concept of womyn. I don't think using this term establishes anyone as anything; I think identify is a better word. What is a feminist, woman-identified women? Also our article on womyn doesn't call it a concept, but a word. I'll try to make changes addressing these issues.

Referencing throughout the article is very poor. I'll try to add references for statements where I can, and make requests for them inline where I can't. Sancho 16:46, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

What is this article about?

Is this article about the term "womyn-born womyn" or is it about transgender exlusionism? We need to decide. Sancho 17:42, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe it's possible to seperate the issues - "womyn-born womyn" is basically little more than a justification for running a trans-exclusionist policy Zoe O'Connell ⚢⚧ (talk) 22:37, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

They are not trans-exclusion policies they are male-exclusion policies. Trans are the other sex in name and surgery only.--Tallard (talk) 09:23, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand how your comment is helpful to the article. Yours is one of several points of view, but the article can only use verifiable facts. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 14:20, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

We're not talking article modification here, we're in a discussion of redirecting this page to a POV page, I am against any such move.--Tallard (talk) 03:07, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

You're also against science. Your opinion doesn't mean much. La Maupin (talk) 11:20, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Then the article is about trans gender exclusionism, with the term womyn-born womyn being simply one of the associated terms. What do people think about a page move to rename the article? Sancho 20:23, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

That works for me, although I don't think any other editors are active here so I don't know how much response you'll get...~Zoe O'Connell~ (talk) 01:44, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

lmao

lmao — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.161.170.125 (talk) 15:33, 24 August 2011 (UTC) this is nonsense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.101.172.61 (talk) 00:27, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from , 29 October 2011

Many women's only spaces provide a safe shelter for cisgender women who have been abused or sexually assaulted. Such cisgender women might feel threatened by the presence of transgender women.

Please remove "and some of them may feel that their comfort is more important than the safety of trans women." because it is heavily biased and unsourced, OR change to "sexually assaulted women may feel unsafe in the presence of women who they read as men".

Anonymok (talk) 11:31, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit protected}} template. This is not a minor change, so I'm not comfortable making it without a discussion here first. Steven Zhang ^{The clock is ticking....} 22:13, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I'll see you and raise you: Consider that most pre/non op trans women have at best an uneasy detente relationship with their bodies. Consider that by making that body the focus of rejection from needed sanctuary you are not only physically but psychologically endangering a highly vulnerable woman. The debate IS very much "feelings of comfort vs. actual physical and psychological safety." La Maupin (talk) 15:21, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

First bullet point of the pros and cons contains both pro and con arguments

"Most transgender women do not have the experience of growing up female in a sexist society and as such have no embodied experience of the culturally prescribed position of "girl", unless of course they witnessed the way society around them treated girls."

The end of this sentence should be in the second bullet list.

"Most transgender women do not have the experience of growing up female in a sexist society and as such have no embodied experience of the culturally prescribed position of "girl"." - this is an argument in favour of womyn-born womyn spaces.

"Unless of course they witnessed the way society around them treated girls." - this is an argument against womyn-born-womyn spaces. Also has the feel of original research, but if it can be correctly cited, I'd suggest adding it in as a separate bullet point in the second list. Something like:

"Transgender women may have identified more strongly with the girls around them than the boys, and therefore witnessing the way the society around them treated girls is similar to the embodied experience of the culturally prescribed position of 'girl'."

Erithrocyte (talk) 09:10, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to put this here if I should have put it elsewhere! - I'm not sufficiently credentialled yet to edit this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Erithrocyte (talk • contribs) 09:07, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Sentence needs rewrite

"All oppressed peoples should be allowed to make spaces aligned through a commonality of oppression to heal and recover without explanation and solely through the ease of lived experience." This sentence makes no sense to me. If it is using feminist-specific jargon, the meanings should be linked to. People outside of academic feminism presumably won't get it either. 86.174.188.81 (talk) 20:01, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

More refs needed

There's far too much WP:OR in the "arguments" section. Looking around for good refs that further expand and explain the term I've found a few things like:

• This definition: “Term used to identify women who were born woman as opposed to transgendered persona who may have had, and retain, male privilege. Identifying or declaring oneself women born woman helps keep women only or lesbian separatist space."
• This comment: "Kate Bornstein notes that lesbian separatists excluding transexuals from events should not be taken as “oppression” because “lesbians just don’t have the same economic and social resources with which to oppress the transgendered.”

To me, and various feminists I've known through the years, it's just a way of women saying that they have had certain experiences through their 20 - 30 -40 years of living that most male to female do not automatically have. I'll have to see if I can find the article about a MTF who said it took her 10 or 15 years as living entirely as a woman among people who knew her only as a woman to really understand what it was to be a woman. And there's the issue of women being forced to accept as women individuals who still treat women with the same arrogance, dismissal, and even abusiveness of many males. I don't know how readily I can find WP:RS that mentions these views. Reading the first pay of books google returns on Womyn-born womyn I find most books about transgenders ticked off about the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, which makes me feel that male privilege in getting books published may be shaping the WP:RS available. But I'll keep looking. It's also important to look at existing refs since they may have more relevant material that has not been properly used. My thoughts for now... User:Carolmooredc 02:20, 25 August 2013 (UTC)