From my Facebook.

I heard something very telling on the TV last night; 'A transgender woman is not a man', this might seem such an obvious statement, but within the context of the discussion it highlighted a sad sociological point. The statement was made to counter argument from a feminist. I find it sad that the feminist perspective rejects trans women and does not recognise are status based on what, to us, is a birth defect.  The similarities in struggle for identity and equality are no less and if anything greater than that of nature born women and surly cannot be separated because of born sex type. I feel that it is a sad state when the feminist movement is becoming the greater of prejudicial perspectives that the transgender community faces. Surely this is hypocrisy?

I have to question what constitutes a woman in feminist ideology?  Will it be based on a capacity to give birth? If so, where does that leave those women born infertile or rendered infertile by means beyond their control or those in the lesbian community that choose not to conceive by virtue of sexual preferences?  Where will the transgenderd woman sit within the feminist perspective when womb transplant becomes more common place and transwomen exercise the right to this procedure and become birth mothers?

The proposition that men subjugate women, the majority of violent crime against women and the 'glass ceiling' are all the result of men doesn't float when applied to a transgender. We are subject to exactly the same issues. Statistically transgenders are subject to more violent assault per capita than born women, the average income is significantly less than born women and career escalation is significantly less likely.  The professionals that control are development,  classification and medical progression are, like in women, rarely fellow transgenders.  As a community we have less control of are medicalisation than any woman. We are in less control of factors in are lives than women were pre Emily Pankhurst.