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This one is probably going to catch me a lot of heat from both the extremes, as it touches on that most sensitive and landmine-laden of topics: gender identity and the expressions thereof.

First, the parts which are going to piss the TERFs off: I am a proudly cisgender, XX-chromosome-having ("womyn-born-womyn" as they'd say) lesbian, with a strict policy of dating only other lesbians (after some bad experiences with bisexual women)...and I am also trans-inclusive. This is going to draw the usual predictable howls of outrage, and might even get me called "traitor to the lesbian race."

*Again.*

Because yes, that is a thing that happened once. Satire sometimes writes itself.

Incidentally, if someone knows where the lesbian race lives, please by all means send me a couple of plane tickets; I'm getting married soon and would love to have the reception there. Hopefully it's somewhere with nice beaches!

And now the parts which are going to annoy non-TERFs: some of the TERF arguments hold more water than their detractors give them credit for. In particular:

1) There are biological differences between the sexes. Note that this does *not* mean I believe transwomen and transmen are deluded or faking their lived experiences; it means that gender is not purely a "social construct," that one's brain structure and hormones play heavily into it. Incidentally, this is *not* an anti-trans argument. If anything, this is the reason I support trans* people in their transitions. Nature screwed up somewhere and put the wrong sort of mind/brain in the wrong sort of body. I can't imagine what that's like, but I can take their word for it, and having seen the real, positive changes in trans* friends of mine once they started hormones only cements this support.

Again: not being a gender essentialist here, and certainly not committing that stupid "physical sex and/or chromosome cohort *is* gender" fallacy. I'm on your side, I'm just not going to fall for the stupid, mush-headed "thinking" that attempts to reduce something as complex as gender to "just a social construct." Real data has borne out that this is not the case.

2) Trans* people do not have the lived experiences of cisgender people of the sex they are attempting to pass as. Transwomen: you do not bleed, you did not go through female puberty as a child/young teenager, you will never be pregnant, and you were not seen by society at large--this is different from "not seen by molesters and paedophiles!"--as potentially and primarily objects of convenience, sexual and otherwise, for men.

3) Expanding on 2 above, I support cisgender-women-only spaces. This does not mean I don't view you, transwomen, as "real women." Your experiences are your own, and if you feel so badly mismatched to your body that you want to change it, to me, that is enough to qualify you as "real women." Just...not cisgender women. Again, different life experiences.

So please, if some of us want *some* space that's not dealing with trans* issues, please, please, give us that. You can be in the inclusive spaces, and even start transwomen-only spaces; I will not intrude on those, because I do not have your lived experiences, and can't imagine what you've been through. I only ask that you extend us the same courtesy.

4) Having a genital preference does not make you anti-trans* or transmisogynist. I am a lesbian. I like ladybits. This means I'm not going to date a pre-operative MtF, no matter how well she passes otherwise. We can be friends, but we're never going to have sex. Of course, this one is a moot point *anyway* since I'm already taken, but even hypothetically, it's not going to happen. It's not personal, but it's also not negotiable.

5) Surgery does not change your chromosomes or your lived experiences. This is actually not anywhere near as important as TERFs make it out to be, since at least to my mind, most of gender and gender identity is performative anyway. I'm also not saying to feel invalid or less of a human because of who and what you are. But at the same time, understand that history is history, and it can't be retroactively changed.

Just understand that the social transition is going to be bigger than the physical one for you. We can spot otherwise well-passing early-stage transitioning MtFs very well based not on any physical cues, but based on behavior. It takes time to lose that male privilege, and understandably, some of you are going to be reluctant to let it go. It sucks on this side of the gender divide sometimes.

6) Please understand that much of the backlash from the TERF camp is because women have always, always, always been marginalized and shoved aside for mens' interests, and some of us feel that men are intruding *even as they become women.* There's hardly any discussion of FtM people compared to MtF, and I don't hear hardly anything about FtMs having trouble integrating into groups composed of cisgender men the way MtFs tend to kind of stomp all over womens' spaces sometimes (in my observation, mostly early in transition).

The reasons for this are probably complicated. They likely have something to do with male being the "default," so FtMs are basically going from other and different to default, if not "normal." And the MtF friends i have, both of them, both told me there was a tremendous backlash against them for abandoning being male, mostly backed up by "WHY would you want to be a chick?!" with the unspoken corollary being "womens' lives suck."

I am, again, not a TERF, and I will defend you against them in all arenas. In return, please keep the above in mind.

This all sounds reasonable enough, right? In the end, doesn't it just boil down to the golden rule, treating others as they want to be treated, taking their basic humanity (a level well below gender expression, mind you!) into account? But I'm sure this is going to catch me more flames than a California wildfire. So be it; I'm wearing my asbestos nightie. Have at it.