"natty nettie" - I find I rather like that term !

My comment here is based on my experiences and observations, not to be confused as speaking for all women. Nor do I consider myself an expert or even that I am correct in my opinion. I also use the general we as some of the following did not specifically happen to me but rather to people I knew

In childhood we were conditioned to appeal to males with the ultimate goal of snagging the best we could get for ourselves. We were discouraged from being smart and instead were encouraged by our parents to be pretty if we had looks and to be amenable if we weren't pretty. Most admonishments contained the threat of not being able to get married someday or not being able to make our husband happy.

A prettier girl was our enemy. We were taught to deal with her by bullying, ostracizing or undermining her self confidence to minimize her competing. If we didnt learn it at home, we learned it quickly enough in school. Despite the appearance of being a group of friends, those girls were just as likely to turn on each other as they were an outsider if the "best" guy paid attention to one of us.

I had brothers and grew up around more males than female and their competitions- in childhood had nothing to do with impressing girls or finding a future wife which is why in my opinion they can be both friends and competitors whereas women generally could not.

I also think it is generational in that I came of age when women were beginning to fight those restrictions and subsequently raising the next generation to be different. I may have heard that shit at home and school but I liked to read and spent a lot of time at the library. Perhaps my unusual childhood prevented full indoctrination as it did with religion but I have joined a hiking group and most of the women my age have few female friends and their stated reasons for it are very similar to mine in that we don't want to sit around gossiping about other people.

To speak to the OP, I posit that even though they were treated as one gender in childhood, they still saw the conditioning and absorbed the message

It has been my observation that women in general are far more backbiting and competitive with each other than most men. My personal experience is pretty much limited to cis women but somehow I doubt it has much to do with that.

Notice what I'm not saying: I'm not suggesting that men don't undermine each other sometimes in their own ways; I just have noted that the women in my life get a lot of betrayal and rudeness from other women that I just never experience with other men. And I'm not some alpha male; as a kid I was more the 98-pound weakling who got the wedgies, but that seemed to stop at the exit door from adolescence for me, while it continued for basically every woman I've ever known.

My wife, who turns 60 tomorrow (Mordant pauses, and checks to make sure he didn't misplace that birthday card, ah, there it is) has gotten some kind of weird competitive or manipulative or head game shit from every woman she's tried to connect with as a friend since we moved here over 6 years ago, and I've just gotten accepted by every man I've connected with.

yah okay, i have no doubt that trans women can be supportive of one another. that's a good thing. i don't understand why there has to be a dig against cis women, who, in MY experience, also support one another (and support trans women while we're at it). you indicate that you don't like how competitive ci women can be, and at the same time create a false competition between trans and cis in who's more supportive.

g

I almost did not get what natty netties was but then I read #backbiting, etc.

I know cis women trash their sisters on a regular basis. In high school it was back biting bull shit over a guy. In work place it can be a real nightmare.

I have no reference as to transgender women so I am wondering if you have and insights as to why they would be this way among themselves. Is it like the mean girls on steroids?

What's a natty nettie? Enquiring minds want to know....