Consquences of self-identification

[MrsKCastle]

Sorry if this has already been done. I've been doing a lot of thinking about current trans thinking in the media.

As far as I understand it, this is the predominant view:
Anyone can be man or woman, male, female or neither. It doesn't depend on your genes, appearance or potential ability to hear young. What's important is how you identify. We should always treat people as they identify, with regard to how we speak about and treat them, and what spaces/roles we allow them to access.

What I'm interested in, is how this self-identification will or could change society. I'd love to hear your thoughts as I think it will help me to get things straight in my head.

So far I'm thinking:
No more single-sex schools
No more single-sex hospital wards
No more single-sex clubs, whether that's Brownies or exclusive golf clubs
Anyone can apply for any scholarship or award, regardless of sex

What else?

[Blistory]

I'm looking forward to having my prostate checked.

I also look forward to telling my doctor about my smoking habits, my drinking habits but telling them to fuck off because they have triggered me by asking what is in my underwear. Why the fuck is it of any relevance or any of their business ?

[user1472515172]

No more sex-segregated sporting events: anyone can participate in any event.
No more opportunity to specify the sex of the person who administers medical care to you in situations in which you feel vulnerable.
No more ability to identify sex-based patterns in criminal (or other) behaviours: if someone murders their father and tells the police that they feel like a woman, the crime is recorded as having been committed by a woman.

[MrsKCastle]

No meaningful data about the pay gap.

[VestalVirgin]

No meaningful data about any sex inequality.

Which I suspect is the end goal of all of this. (Can something be this insidious without being planned? Perhaps I should wear a tinfoil hat.)

[222CherryCoke]

No more meaningful medical data for conditions related to sex, either.

It will be heralded as great news about the drops in rates of cervical, breast, and ovarian cancer in a few years. Except an unknown percentage of the "women" who didn't get cervical cancer, will actually be men.

And when the rates of disease drop, so will the research funding. Yay.

[NNChangeAgain]

What I'm interested in, is how this self-identification will or could change society.

Within a few generations, the term man and woman will no longer exist. Everyone will self-identify as people.

Soon after that, people born with XX chromosomes will be disadvantaged and discriminated against within society.

[222CherryCoke]

"Gender balance" on boards of directors, management teams, admissions boards, interview panels, media panels, political representation... and anywhere else, can now be filled by ensuring that you have both men, and men-who-want-to-be-considered-women.

[VestalVirgin]

"Gender balance" on boards of directors, management teams, admissions boards, interview panels, media panels, political representation... and anywhere else, can now be filled by ensuring that you have both men, and men-who-want-to-be-considered-women.

I saw a cartoon some time ago where the boss said to a male member of his management team: "Okay, we have decided that we need more women. Mr. Miller, you will henceforth be called Mrs. Miller and wear a dress", or something like that.
Perhaps the cartoonist thought it was funny and would never really happen.

[FirstShinyRobe]

All of the above

And then science eliminates the need for women at all www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/09/13/motherless-babies-possible-as-scientists-create-live-offspring-w/

[FirstShinyRobe]

As an optimist, maybe then women will be free. With a pessimistic head on, that link is terrifying in a patriarchy.

[VestalVirgin]

They'd still use women as incubators, I think.

[FirstShinyRobe]

Atwood must be shitting herself at her witchy prediction skillz.

[ErrolTheDragon]

Xx people still wouldn't be able to 'identify' as men and join various exclusive mens clubs which wield power because they're things like the Masons ( goodness knows how you join but I don't think anyone can just insist on joining) and religious clergy ( they have exemptions from various equality legislation)

[WankingMonkey]

We will be put back hundreds of years. Everything feminists have fought for erased as men are suddenly the most oppressed of the oppressed.

Hopefully it means I can get a payrise by telling my boss my name is now Victor though. I doubt it will work like that somehow...

[CharlieSierra]

That link is chilling.

[222CherryCoke]

It is chilling, and it's horrible how they refer throughout to "motherless babies", the "motherless process," centre it around how a gay male couple or even a single man could produce all the required genetic matierial "though a woman would still need to act as a surrogate to carry the baby." (would she? would she "need to"? or would the prospective fathers "need" her to?).

And then nearly as an afterthought, "More realistically, the technique could allow women whose fertility has been wiped out by cancer drugs or radiotherapy to have their own children." Right, so not so much of the motherless then.

But the overwhelming suggestion of this article is that an eggless process = motherless, and mainly for the benefit of men. Except that a woman will still "need" to assume all of the risks and strains of nine months of pregnancy and childbirth so that men can reproduce and call it "motherless". What advancement!!

[Felascloak]

There was a thread a while back where primogeniture laws were discussed. It is specifically written in there that people retain the position of their birth sex if they transition I. E. Property/wealth/title goes to eldest male first. So if the eldest child is FTM they cant inherit before a younger brother. An eldest child who is MTF still receives the position they would had they not transitioned.
Apparently this was insisted on by the house of Lords. Fascinating insight into what our law makers really think about transgender issues.
www.tatler.com/news/articles/august-2016/trans-toffs

[MatildaOfTuscany]

Gobsmacked doesn't even begin to cover it.

Funnily enough I'd been roughing out in my mind a kind of dystopian sci fi novel, where trans meets class meets sex-based oppression - men would be in charge. Rich white men would identify as het when young, but marry socially disadvantaged transwomen because they were more womanly than XX women, while keeping XX concubines to produce their offspring. Then when they became older, they would embrace autogynophilia, transition, and form relationships with very much younger women. XX women would similarly pass through life stages - the "cisbian" phase, as partners to autogynophiles, the "vessel" stage as concubine to carry children, then the "invisible crone" stage post menopause as domestic labour. But reading that article, it seems my dystopian novel was not dystopian enough.

(Important disclaimer - I have no intention of writing this - but I'd love to see a really good sci fi author tackle something like it).

[MrsKCastle]

That's a very bleak future that everyone has painted, I can only hope that the reality doesn't come close.

I was thinking that specific examples of what self-identification means would enable us to fight against it, to convince others that there are problems. But the more I think about it, the more I see that it won't work, because there's always an answer.

No single-sex schools? Never mind, single-gender schools will be even better, your child can learn with people who feel the same inside. So empowering!
No reliable data? Of course it will still be reliable, people are discriminated against and behave according to their gender. Transwomen must be included in the female statistics.

It seems that if society buys the line 'gender feelings are more real, valid and important than biological sex' then everything else follows and there's just no way of fighting. I just can't get over the fact that society is buying that line.

[TheGoldenApplesOfTheSun]

Wow, what a bottomless well of hatred.

You know what I'm looking forward to? Smaller queues at toilets. One of the tiny neat little touches in one of my favourite shows, Battlestar Galactica, that really shows it's in the future, is that bathrooms aren't gendered. It's just somewhere for you to go and urinate.

Compare to today, where I stand in line for hours waiting for the ladies, wishing I could just use the toilets that are right next door and free. And where my trans friend gets UTI after UTI from holding it in, far longer than is good for you, in public for fear of being harassed by assholes like you by using the"wrong" toilets.

[WinchesterWoman]

Goldenapples: why don't you go into the men's already? Men go into the womens.

[WinchesterWoman]

In fact why doesn't your trans friend go into the men's? Then he won't get harassed by 'asshole' feminists. Why don't you go in together? it's only somewhere you go in to urinate after all.

[WinchesterWoman]

He/she - you didn't say what your trans friend was.

[MrsKCastle]

And where my trans friend gets UTI after UTI from holding it in, far longer than is good for you, in public for fear of being harassed by assholes like you by using the"wrong" toilets.

And yet you're the one throwing around personal insults.

Would you care to comment on the OP? Are you happy to see an end to any sex-segregation or collection of sex-specific data? If you think it would make for a better future, please do explain how and why. I am open to listening to your thoughts. If you can refrain from insulting me, that is.