Can someone please explain... (trans)

[WednesdayAllTheWay]

So I've been trying to follow this trans situation for a while but now having skin in the game in the form of a child (and also noting through work how more and more people are identifying as the opposite gender) I need to understand it better.
Feel slightly embarrassed asking but:

1. How exactly do the words sex and gender differ in this area?
2. What reasons do trans people give for wanting to change their physical bodies? As in what do people believe they will get from this that they couldn't get in the body they were born with?
3. What are children being taught at school about this?

Thanks!

[NancyDrawed]

WHO Definitions:

Sex

The different biological and physiological characteristics of males and females, such as reproductive organs, chromosomes, hormones, etc.


Gender

Refers to the socially constructed characteristics of women and men – such as norms, roles and relationships of and between groups of women and men. It varies from society to society and can be changed. The concept of gender includes five important elements: relational, hierarchical, historical, contextual and institutional. While most people are born either male or female, they are taught appropriate norms and behaviours – including how they should interact with others of the same or opposite sex within households, communities and work places. When individuals or groups do not “fit” established gender norms they often face stigma, discriminatory practices or social exclusion – all of which adversely affect health.

[HollowTalk]

Though according to my daughter, who is as woke as fuck, there's no such thing as biological sex... Our conversation ended at that point as she no-platformed me

[GCFeministNC]

@HollowTalk

Though according to my daughter, who is as woke as fuck, there's no such thing as biological sex... Our conversation ended at that point as she no-platformed me

:-(

How old is she?

[titchy]

2. What reasons do trans people give for wanting to change their physical bodies?

Just to correct you, the majority of trans adults do NOT want to change their physical bodies.

[HollowTalk]

She's well over her teenage years, put it that way. Certainly old enough and bright enough to know better.

[Doyoumind]

I would also add that being trans doesn't necessarily involve changing anything about your body. Many do northing. Some go on hormones. Precious few go for full surgical transition. Those that do I imagine suffer from genuine GD. The others, who knows?

[NottinghamFlorest]

So after reading the Sex v gender explanations, should the expression be sex-non-conforming rather than gender non-conforming?

[nauticant]

1. How exactly do the words sex and gender differ in this area?

In addition to comments above, what's happened is that trans activists have relegated "sex" into the background and brought "gender" into the foreground so that "gender" replaces "sex" in many circumstances*. What this means in effect is that the only characteristic relevant to accessing single sex spaces is the "gender" someone declares as having. Their "gender" can be completely fluid and can change from minute to minute. Therefore all women's single sex spaces have to be completely open and accessible to anyone, and any male, claiming to have a "feminine gender" or any other gender label that they say enables such access. For a male to have declared a "feminine gender" does not require them to have made any change to themself, whether that's appearance, clothers, or medical intervention.

• one exception tends to be the division of domestic labour between the sexes

[nauticant]

One thing you do need to understand OP is that "trans" isn't one thing. There are a number of different groups under the "trans umbrella" which I would characterise as:

• people with gender dysphoria*
  
• people with confused identities, which can be caused by many reasons, who are often young
  
• older people, who are all or nearly all male, who have adopted the "trans" label for a wide variety of reasons, for example as being relevant to their desire to cross-dress.
  

* it is now strongly held in trans activist circles that gender dysphoria does not need to be present in someone who declares that they are trans

[notyourhandmaid]

"What reasons do trans people give for wanting to change their physical bodies? As in what do people believe they will get from this that they couldn't get in the body they were born with?"

Feeling 'affirmed' or 'validated' - feeling accurately 'seen' by others as their preferred gender. Feeling that their inner and outer selves match up.

(This all sounds lovely and kind until you consider how much of this involves teenage girls struggling through puberty, as opposed to adults. Or how much it risks their health. Or simply how huge the increase has been in recent years.)

An awful lot of the emphasis is put on how others see them rather than how they see themselves. This is one of the reasons why people are concerned - in most other situations, 'being your true self' does not depend on the validation of an audience.

[KiposWonderbeasts]

@NottinghamFlorest

So after reading the Sex v gender explanations, should the expression be sex-non-conforming rather than gender non-conforming?

Not at all. They ARE their sex, there’s no conforming to be done. It’s material reality.

They can be gender nonconforming (most of us are to some extent) by rejecting the gender roles and expectations society puts upon them.

[MichelleofzeResistance]

Not sure how you could explain not conforming to your sexed body without bringing in stereotypes of what you perceive as 'restricted' to a particular sex. Your body is what it is. A woman is nothing more than an adult female human, there's nothing more to it than that. That's the one fixed point that never changes regardless of what that human likes, chooses, dresses as, names themselves as, or how often and how extremely they change any of that.

Anybody of any sex is free to dress, present, name themselves, make choices and have tastes unrestricted by other people's rigid ideas of what goes with what sex. If women are defined by long hair and liking pink, then that's probably more than half the females in existence just classed as not being women any more. And these rigid ideas that some people have that make them want to police what people of either sex may do before they can't cope and want to shift that person into another more comfortable category in their minds is largely to do with policing toxic masculinity.

[midgebabe]

I think you can feel disgust and hatred of your sexed body without referring to stereotypes.

I would think many teenage girls go through that

[Pandabuzz]

I was taught “sex is between your legs and gender is between your ears”.

[WednesdayAllTheWay]

Thanks for all your comments. Think I understand it more now.
@titchy yes I realise most trans adults don't want to change their physical body. I'm curious about the ones that do. And I guess, also about children who decide they need to change their physical body, which seems more common (don't know of it really is though).

[nauticant]

One difference between older people and children is that older people (should) have matured enough to understand that they can't change sex, no matter how extensive the medical interventions they undergo. Children don't necessarily understand this and if you watch interviews with children identifying as trans it's not uncommon to see some of them holding beliefs that the treatments offered will actually change them into the opposite sex.

[KiposWonderbeasts]

@Pandabuzz

I was taught “sex is between your legs and gender is between your ears”.

Certainly Mermaids were very big on that notion.

The difficulty is one word with wildly varying meanings.

Gender to many of us the the externally imposed expectations of society. Sex is why we are oppressed in patriarchal societies, gender is how it is done. We reject the confines of our gender, whilst acknowledging our sex. External.

To Gender ideologists, gender is an innate sense, something internal that doesn’t have to correspond to a person’s sex. Internal.

It’s pretty hard to find common ground when the language means such opposing things.

Gender can also be conflated with Sex, which makes matters more confusing.

[OldCrone]

2. What reasons do trans people give for wanting to change their physical bodies? As in what do people believe they will get from this that they couldn't get in the body they were born with?

This is where it gets really strange.

Children with gender dysphoria generally seem to start with identifying with the stereotypes of the opposite sex. Once those children get the idea that the things they like are only for the opposite sex, they start to want to be the opposite sex and at some point they get the idea that that means their bodies would have to change. If they are told that they can change sex by having medical treatment, they start to want that.

Of course, if we left these children alone, they wouldn't need any body modifications at all because they could just be themselves in their own bodies.

Adults who identify as transgender, in particular older males, often don't want any changes to their bodies at all. They want to wear stereotypically female clothing and to force everyone to refer to them as women, and their penis becomes a 'female penis'.

Aside from all this, it appears that there may be a very tiny number of people who have a disorder, which may be neurological rather than psychological in origin, and makes them feel that their bodies are 'wrong', in the same way as a tiny number of people feel that some body part (such as one of their limbs) doesn't belong to them. For these people, treatment is required, and physical transition may be the most appropriate thing for them.

[BlackForestCake]

@HollowTalk

Though according to my daughter, who is as woke as fuck, there's no such thing as biological sex... Our conversation ended at that point as she no-platformed me

Does she know which of her parents gave birth to her?

How?

[MichelleofzeResistance]

Well worth reading some of Miranda Yardley's articles OP. Miranda defines himself (his choice of pronoun) as transsexual, and has had full SRS surgery. I think more recently he has begun to refer to himself as a gay man, following concerns and active work to address the damage happening to women's sex based rights. He's an interesting writer at any time, but he talks in some detail in his articles about the process of realisation he passed through over a number of years that while the changes he has made to his body have helped to reduce his dysphoria to manageable levels, he is and always will be male.

[nauticant]

The very tiny number of people who are believed to have gender dysphoria is estimated at 0.01%. Apparently between 0.3% to 0.5% of people in the UK are trans. At a mid-point of 0.4%, that would mean that 1 in 40 trans people have gender dysphoria. Which leads to the question: what do we know about the 39 out of 40 trans people who don't have gender dysphoria?

One way to answer this question is to redefine gender dysphoria into a very broad condition wide enough to embrace the sense of discomfort children commonly have with their bodies as they go through puberty. Obviously though that turns the term into something meaningless.

[NecessaryScene1]

As nauticant basically just said, but I started writing it, so I'll finish my version....

Actual gender dysphoria - an intense feeling that you were the wrong sex - as was given for the reason to transition a couple of decades ago, is incredibly rare.

The definition has now been stretched so it basically covers "any discomfort with your sexed body". Which, as all bodies are sexed, is not much different from "any discomfort with your body". And that definition could apply to a majority of children going through puberty - especially girls.

Beyond that, the definition of "trans" been stretched even further so "dysphoria" isn't required - it can just a "desire" to be/be seen as/act as the opposite sex. For whatever reason. Having established that people can change their legal sex for "medical" reasons, they're now demanding that they should be able to change their legal sex for any reason. Because that's a "human right" (?)

Anyway, going back to the dysphoria bit, this is a good article from a couple of years ago. Blanchard and Bailey are two of the leading researchers in the area (but now persona non grata among the activists for pointing out truths they don't want to hear/be heard).

Gender dysphoria is not one thing

[nauticant]

To continue the tag team effort, the passing of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 was for the benefit of transsexuals, that is those with proper clinical gender dysphoria that was strong enough to drive many of them down the pathway of gender reassignment surgery. In the debates in the House of Commons between Ministers and MPs that led to the passing of the Act, you can read their discussion* referring to the estimated 5,000 transsexuals in the UK who were to benefit from the passing of the Act.

There are now hundreds of thousands of transgender people in the UK. What's changed?

• api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/2004/feb/23/gender-recognition-bill#column_100

[NewlyGranny]

HollowTalk, why not share with her the discussion you and her father had when you discussed and decided which of you was going to gestate and give birth to her? Perhaps she doesn't know...