Quote Originally Posted by OchPie View Post
I don't have any real idea what it is to be "a man" in its generic sense. I know what it's like to be me. I can maybe see how, in the interactions I've experienced, I'm treated as "a man" by others - though there are lots of other potential drivers of that treatment too. But how on earth can anyone generalise? How do I possibly know what other men think it's "like to be a man"? I don't get the argument at all.

And what does "born a man" even mean? If someone is sure they are born a woman but has the physical appearance of a man, why decide it's that physical appearance that matters? If someone is born XY, are they a man? If they give birth, are they still a man? Did whether they are a man change when they got pregnant?

Ultimately we don't let people switch identities like that (though perhaps we should?) - people who want to change their markers from M to F or the other way round have to go through a specified, and not quick, process in order to do so. But the idea of pointing at a trans woman and just demanding they expect to be called, treated as, and exist as a man doesn't sit at all well with me either. What makes anyone else know better who they are?
Speaking to an endocrinologist friend of mine, it is quite simple. The female body is a finely tuned and utterly complex minefield for hormonal balance, a lot that changes mood and behaviour. He likened it to a woman's system being that of an F1 car, highly tuned but the smallest deviation can cause mayhem. Men on the other hand was described as the Flintstones car, simple, and pretty much runs on testosterone (he was generalising but still). I think Slack's view point is valid, we can make people look aesthetically like a woman, but there is no way we can create or mimic the mayhem and obscene complexity that is the female hormonal balance of a woman and all of the complexities that come with that. It is purely a veneer, and to think anything other than that is doing a disservice to women with what they have to go through hormonally and what that entails. Men often make crude jokes about "that time of the month", that's not even the start of it and I have a deep down appreciation of women and thank God I don't have to deal with it