You know with all the wrangling and all the arguing about who is and who isn't transgender I feel that if you consider yourself to be female then it doesn't matter whether you have had surgery or not, nor whether you have breasts or not nor whether your voice falls within a certain pitch or not nor whether hair grows upon your face or does not.

I am the gender Alan Watts, Zenda will know what I mean.   lol

You know I feel that (-3) reputation like a scar!   I feel that reputation points are highly divisive they encourage group thinking and they also encourage petty-mindedness.

Brava, excellent post!   There are people who will say 'oh you don't have breast implants?   Well mine cost me $20,000 and they are guaranteed for 10 years.'   And 'oh you still have a penis?  ->-bleeped-<- ALERT!'

We are ALL women regardless of where we are in the spectrum.   Seeking to rank people is playing into the hands of the cisgendered.

Pensees - it's either French for "thoughts" or a misspelling of "penises" .

Ranking - it's a very animal thing to do, so it's a very human thing to do. The way we suss out who we are as individuals, on the whole, is by comparison with others. And then we do the same thing bigger as tribes - you're either a villager or a foreigner.

Top Ranking - gi' me little bass, make me wind at me waist.

Seriously though, I think because people on the whole define themselves in relation to the people around them, they find diversity a bit threatening. If you're not "sure what someone is", then you're less sure what you are. But if you don't buy into that too much in the first place, it can just be much more loose and accepting. I guess the reason why you still get a lot of this kind of thing amongst minority groups (such as trans, queer, etc.) is that people who are feeling threatened already by oppression tend to go rigid if they're not careful. So I think the whole "you're only a proper woman/man if..." thing in this context is just coming out of fear - fear of not being accepted oneself, fear of non-acceptance by association, very schoolyard kind of stuff.

Althea & Donna earworm now and vision of those glasses.

I'm with Princess on the ranking/points issue. We had over on the Imaan UK site and it had to be removed due to abuse. Bit divisive really and already there's a problem there as can be seen daily.

It's with us for the moment. On the whole, people misuse it when they're in a kneejerk snit, and if a smite is unjustified it backfires on them and they end up with it. I don't pay it much attention, myself, except to think of it as one way to say I appreciate someone.

I definitely thought it said "penises" at first.

In your case, it was both pensées and penises, then - it's the thought that counts .