AIBU to suggest it is time to stop the pretence that people can transition?

Every trans person could be the loveliest most wonderful person in the world but it doesn’t mean you can sell women’s rights down the Swanee river. Don’t you get it? The ‘vitriol’ isn’t towards trans people. It’s female anger at being gaslighted and told our safety and dignity doesn’t matter. And you’re part of the problem. Your dumb ‘be kind’ mantra only prioritises men. What about our daughters, sisters and mothers? What is actually ‘sickening’ is the amount of willing handmaids that would betray their sisters on this issue.

You’ve twisted my meaning.
I didn’t mean less female, I mean that it’s ok to like engineering and football and be a really feminine woman or equally be a less feminine woman. It doesn’t matter, you’re still a female. That’s the point I’m trying to make. Regardless of whether you love dresses and make-up and girlie things, or you slob about in your jeans and wouldn’t dream of wearing a dress, you are still a female if that’s what you were born as.

Yes there has been some major brainwashing going on in schools out of my DD's friendship group of about 10 or 11 all are gay or bisexual and all are pro trans. My DD said she and another girl are the only straight girls and she thinks it's all completely nuts!

Biological sex is complicated. Before you discriminate against someone on the basis of “biological sex” & identity, ask yourself: have you seen YOUR chromosomes? Do you know the genes of the people you love? The hormones of the people you work with? The state of their cells?

Given that very many of these DSD's will have an observable physical impact - whether that's a visible bodily difference, a fertility issue, puberty not progressing as expected or another health condition - I'll wager that a good many adults have a bloody good idea of their chromosomes & hormones as they won't have experienced these issues. And many of the people who have experienced them will have undergone medical investigations - now they really will know their chromosomes. So no, I call bullshit that most us us have no idea. I went through a classic female puberty, conceived my children naturally, delivered them vaginally, breast fed them and am finally post menopause. Are you really saying I can't be sure what sex I am?

I listened to an interview with a detranstioner once who went along with everything because he was terrified he’d lose access to his psychiatrist. He was just a gay kid from an extremely homophobic background who needed someone to talk to. Broke my heart. He should never have been out in that position, it should have been “well it’s fine if you don’t want to transition, lets figure out your other problems instead”.

And yet we don’t treat other mental health conditions with chopping off body parts or adding new ones or try to make the world believe they really are (insert choice)

We treat them as mental health conditions and as if they are sick.

Lol...yes, the definitions of male and female do relate to your reproductive role. It's the same in humans as it is in all other animals. It doesn't matter whether you actually reproduce or not.

A newborn baby is not fertile (and may be one of the minority who never becomes fertile or never discovers whether they are fertile or not) but we can still identify them as male or female based on their external genitalia and we can already tell whether they have the potential to become a mother or a father one day.

There isn't a non sexual reproduction related definition of the words "male" and "female".

i don’t feel my rights are under any threat at all.I understand some may have different views. I stand by all to be accepted as they are. As a woman I just don’t feel the threat of trans people to my womanhood or safety. I do have 5 people I know in my workplace, in my gym and just socially who are trans. In my youth I went to many many bars, parties, clubs etc that were for all - very gay friendly and trans friendly / led. I sometimes feel the language and tone (not saying here in mumsnet but in media) has been a bit reminscent of the way people who presented as queer/ gay/ bi 20+ years ago we’re spoken of as “other” to be feared, people who then were treated as a threat to children and to society in general. (Clause 28 anyone). Essentially they were told their rights were not equal to heteros. I seriously hope we aren’t following down a similar path.

Women who like football and engineering are NOT less female than women who like shoes and knitting ffs!

For those that want us to call them by different pronouns - I mean is it such a huge deal to say this?

The huge deal was when a great many women were literally forced, at a great many workplaces, to use pronouns for other people which they knew quite well were wrong, and to append pronouns to their own names which they absolutely did not want to possess, or share with others.

Seriously, the cognitive dissonance of calling oneself "progressive" whilst declaring that a man wearing a dress is no longer a man but a woman. It's like something from the 19th century.

But at least they didn't then encourage people to mutilate their bodies because they wanted to wear non-stereotypical clothes.

Telling a woman who wears clothes that are considered masculine in British culture that she must actually be a man is equally offensive and regressive. Do the people coming out with this nonsense not realise that used to be the argument for stopping women wearing trousers or having careers?

Some of us just want to be who we are without sexist stereotypes being forced on us. Telling us we are no longer women because of how we dress or our hobbies is sexist and oppressive.

Nobody should need to mutilate their body just to dress how they like and pursue the interests they enjoy. I think wanting people to be free to live as they wish without harming others is much kinder than encouraging them to permanently mutilate themselves to imitate the sex whose social stereotypes they match most.

Just support people to make peace with who they are.

Nobody is born with functional male and female genitalia. This doesn’t happen. Of course women who don’t have children are still women.

OK, genuine question.

How would you make a toilet policy which would permit or deny someone access to opposite sex toilets based on whether they had had genital surgery or not?

Like, how would that work in practice?

Well in that instance, the person tells their family and friends to just use their name and not refer to them as he or she.
But in public, people might refer to them as their biological sex. It doesn’t mean anything, it’s just those people aren’t aware of your preferences.
A bit like you might be Jennifer but go by Jen. People who don’t know you (hospital appointment, for instance) might call you Jennifer. Is it really such a big deal for a one off??
Same with he/she. Is it such a big deal if one random person you’ll never see again calls you he or she?

Nobody's saying men can't have breast implants if they want and are willing to pay for them.

What we're saying is it doesn't make them women. They're men with breasts.

It also assumes that the vast majority of people are “binary” in some sort of way. That we cluster around male and female archetypes of personality. I have no idea what being a woman “feels” like. The most female I’ve ever felt was when I was feeling threatened by a male and when I was pregnant and then giving birth and the immediate time afterwards. It’s when my sex was most salient to me.

The feeling like a woman or a man thing just doesn’t make sense to me, a lot of my feelings about the world are probably informed by my sex more than any notion of gender I may or may not have. I totally understand why someone may have dysphoria about the sex of their body, I imagine it’s a bit like people with body integrity identity disorder. But the notion of “well I don’t feel like a woman or a man” in the gender sense, well yes how many people have a sense of gender identity that isn’t connected to their sex and how they interact with their sexed body in society.

Just words…this is where I think it’s different for some. For those that want us to call them by different pronouns - I mean is it such a huge deal to say this.? I mean, we use all sorts of prefixes all the time in society in addition to he/ she…. sir: miss; lord/ lady; miss/ mrs/ ms; etc. To support those who it does mean a great deal too - just like those who get married don’t want to be called miss anymore they are mrs etc - why can’t we just accept and say it. Again, respect others may have different views.

As a person born as a woman at birth I do not understand why there is a focus on this at the moment

Maybe because your sex-based rights as a woman have literally been under extreme threat from the TRAs recently........

I think it needs further medical gatekeeping with more psychiatrictic work first rather than affirmation straight away, you can't stop the people taking it into their own hands with DIY hormones but you can at least do harm reduction in state/private care. Gender/sex dysphoria is certainly real but not all cases require transition and there's a big difference between someone with actual dysphoria and somebody who doesn't fit into the stereotypical gender roles for their sex.

There also needs to be more honesty about the actual procedures and the life long effects too but that can really depend on whether it's state funded or private doctors.

I think selling the false ideal too that TWAW/TMAM needs to stop politically and within that field and that it makes you a transsexual woman or man and to accept that as it is, but you have not changed sex and you aren't afforded the sex based rights of whichever way you've gone.

Also some people are born with both male and female genitalia

All people are either biological males or biological females, regardless of the existence of DSDs.

And in any case, only 0.018% of babies are born with a DSD. They're really rare.

Not really. You are still a female even if you don’t relate to anything feminine. Non-binary doesn’t exist. The fact people might refer to you as ‘she/her’ is the thing these people need to get their heads around. It literally doesn’t mean anything other than a way to refer to someone without using their name.

You can be at the very ‘male’ end of the female banner, but you are still a female. Non-binary doesn’t need to suddenly come into it.
It’s ok to be a female who doesn’t really feel female! You don’t have to be non-binary. You might not think of yourself as a female, you’ve just got to occasionally accept people might call you she or her. They are just words.

The surgery itself is an awful lie for the minority who do it. A rolled up bit of your leg flesh is not the same as a penis in any way. Someone can’t literally construct a vagina for you, the cells, the function the way it works etc it is impossible. It’s like telling someone who needs a kidney that you can cut a bit of liver up into the shape of a kidney and it’ll be exactly the same. It’s an awful lie and I can’t help but to think that there are going to be an awful lot of people who feel extreme regret once they realise whats been done to them. It’s actually horrific to me.

A lot of this is down to the dishonesty around the whole subject, you can’t change sex, you can’t have organs like they develop on the opposite sex, you will be on hormones for the rest of your life which can irreparably damage your health (and I’ve seen some studies which suggest have an impact on global cognition). I do believe that some people will genuinely be more happy and peace with themselves if they can live as the opposite sex, wear the clothes, change their name etc. But the lie that you can become the opposite sex is horribly damaging, especially to children who are subjected to this fantasy, they are too young to know better. The WPATh files demonstrated how much children did not understand about what they were being ushered into. The weaponisation of children is one of the most revolting things about this movement.

I’ve never been bothered by a murdering Mexican drug cartel - doesn’t mean they don’t slaughter thousands of people every year. It’s not about individual experiences - it’s about the rights of women and girls being eroded to satisfy the demands of deluded men who don’t offer women the same respect they demand.

I’m not really sure why people keep discussing disorders of sexual development to argue for men becoming women, as if a minority of people having rare disorders means sex is now some confusing ambiguous spectrum for all of humankind.

It’s like saying because some humans are born with one eye or no eyes or three eyes, that the number of eyes humans have is on a spectrum and saying humans have two eyes is incorrect.

What makes me laugh is people complain about gender affirming surgery (for trans people) but women and men are out here getting all kinds of work done. Nose jobs, boob jobs, filler, hair transplants, BBLs, tummy tucks which are all gender affirming surgeries in themselves and to make the person feel more confident in their body🤷‍♀️