Thread by @MoFloMoJo

@scarycath @UpIander @SovereignAnnie @iainmacwhirter "trans women are women" is used as though it means
trans women = women
rather than
trans women ⊂ women

"adoptive parents are parents" clearly means
adoptive parents ⊂ parents
just as
biological parents ⊂ parents

The ⊂ applied to one doesn't exclude the other

@scarycath @UpIander @SovereignAnnie @iainmacwhirter But if you think in terms of = rather than ⊂, in order to include trans women in the category "women" you end up excluding women, who must now be called "cis women".

I cannot think of a more blatant example of colonisation. Women are consigned to the reservation.

@scarycath @UpIander @SovereignAnnie @iainmacwhirter It turns out anyone can be a woman ... apart from a woman!

She has to become a cis woman to vacate that territory for the colonist.

@scarycath @UpIander @SovereignAnnie @iainmacwhirter This reaches its most absurd conclusion when you end up with lesbians being accused of transphobia for having a "genital preference". This is a consequence of applying = instead of ⊂, leaving no room for anything other than what the left hand side of the equation demands

@scarycath @UpIander @SovereignAnnie @iainmacwhirter Another comparison which lets us consider historic discrimination against women, is to imagine a white person settling in an African country where people are predominantly black and which was previously a colony of the European country the white person is from

@scarycath @UpIander @SovereignAnnie @iainmacwhirter Now it would be true to say "white citizens of country X are citizens of country X". Again ⊂ rather than = is understood. Because to intend = as the meaning would be to appropriate the very identity of those one previously oppressed. It would literally be saying black is white