Gender ideology is toxic and creates divisions

Very relevant read here

<a class="break-all" href="https://archive.li/2025.05.27-070632/www.newstatesman.com/politics/health/2025/05/exclusive-why-wes-streeting-changed-his-mind-on-cross-sex-hormones" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://archive.li/2025.05.27-070632/www.newstatesman.com/politics/health/2025/05/exclusive-why-wes-streeting-changed-his-mind-on-cross-sex-hormones

Some key points, but lots in here ...

Cross sex hormone treatment affects each of the cells of the body”, Dahlgren explained. Research showed trans women (“natal males”) have a <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.li/o/dRF4t/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6636681/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">substantially higher risk of ischemic stroke, venous thromboembolism (VTE) – which includes deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism – and heart attacks. After eight years of oestrogen use, trans women had a risk of VTE nearly 17 times higher than other biological males, and 13.7 times than biological women. Studies have also suggested that females who take testosterone, have an increased risk of heart attacks.

Reddit is absolutely terrible on this topic. The sitewide rules prohibit any reasonable discussion because it will usually be interpreted as "hate", and most subreddits are captured by this ideology. Many of them are run by men who call themselves women or their allies and they ban all dissent as you have found out.

One exception to this is the r/BlockedAndReported subreddit, particularly in the weekly discussion threads. For whatever reason, Reddit admins are very hands-off there and there's a lot of gender-critical discussion happens in that sub. Might be a good place if you want to discuss this on that site.

There's lots of little wedges that separate kids from their parents in all this... changing of precious, well-considered, given names. Alienating parents by insistance on language and pronouns. Claiming to not conform to male or female stereotypes (meaning they think you must be conforming!). Declaring older women "dangerous TERFs". Grouping vulnerable teenage girls in the same group as much older men with sexual fetishes.
Be very, very wary. Keep away from Reddit where no balanced discussion or dissent is allowed.

Ah come on, surely the most important thing that tutors on an MA course teach is that at the end of it, uttering the magic words 'I have an MA' precludes all necessity for further debate on any issue....

Thought better of it? Fair enough.

Accepting you're wrong is sometimes really quite difficult. But still, I think you can gain from this exchange. Go, lick your wounds, think about it all.

I'm glad you thought again about doubling down with that "comfortable with my position" shtick. Really, it's important for us all that "... in the bowels of Christ, [we] think it possible [we] may be mistaken". (Look it up if you don't recognise.)

"Refusing to allow a child to have autonomy over their body and their self-identification is in my opinion abuse"

Here's another mantra that has unfortunately been latched onto by cults and abusers and used to enable them to have access to children.

There is a group of middle aged men who claim that preventing toddlers from choosing to have sex with - you guessed it - middle aged men - is abuse and a denial of their autonomy and human rights.

Children don't have autonomy for good reasons and that is one of them. Letting kids make unsupervised decisions they are too young for is the real abuse

"Unfortunately, you don’t own your children because you birth them"

...is an opinion often put forward by a cult who want to separate a child from the parent/s safeguarding them.

If you become a parent you take on a serious responsibility. You are not there primarily to be their best or coolest friend (though nice if you can be), but to ensure they make it to adulthood healthy and with the skills to survive.

Letting them change their name may seem trivial but that can be the cult's way of claiming ownership of the child:

"that's your trans name"
"you're one of us now"
"you don't need to obey parents they don't own you"
"here's a breast binder"
"if they won't let you have puberty blockers we know a guy...."

Here is an incredibly clear and concise primer for anyone who is getting tripped up in the (deliberate) language traps TRA ideology lays out.

https://sexandgenderintro.com/

I particularly like the clarity around regardless of how language is hijacked, regardless of how that language is policed, there will always be a female sex class, men will never be a part of that and that will always be the fundamental difference in our classification of humans.

.

I guess we could apply all this to flat earthers couldn't we? Flat earthers are entitled to their opinions and can state that no one is going to change their minds. Fine. But it doesn't mean their position has any validity.

Refusing to allow a child to have autonomy over their body and their self-identification is in my opinion abuse

but you’ve already asserted that refusing bodily autonomy for children is abuse. I’m asking you how you came to that conclusion.

The examples I gave are not ‘other issues’, they are examples of bodily autonomy that you have claimed must be given to children or be called an abuser.

I suppose I could trump you on your level of education. An MA? Hmm. But that I'm more highly qualified than you doesn't really matter.

Even with just an MA, you really ought to realise not all opinions are equal. Some opinions are wrong. And when you come across someone gainsaying your opinions, it's not enough to say, "Well, that's what I think."

What you ought to do (something the people who taught you on that MA course should have explained to you) is examine the reasons behind those opinions in order to test them. If these reasons don't hold up, you should change your opinion.

I've offered reasons why your opinion about people's self-definition of who and what they are - what their identity amounts to - is mistaken. People are often mistaken about themselves, I have claimed, contrary to your opinion about self-definition being trustworthy. That you offer no reasons in support of your claim (instead retreating to "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion") is evidence you're mistaken in the opinion you hold about this.

I'm fairly sure you understand. Yes, it's hard to admit you're wrong. Sometimes it is really difficult to admit to yourself you made a mistake. In the end, though, it's worth examining what you think (particularly, albeit not uniquely, in the light of criticism from others) in order to find your mistakes and change your opinion.

If I'm wrong, I'd like you to explain why - I'd like you to give reasons why I'm wrong, that is. I already know our opinions differ: offering reasons why an interlocutor's opinion is mistaken is precisely the opposite of a "dictatorial and totalitarian" response ... and far from being, as you claim, "not conducive to a debate", is actually exactly and explicitly what a debate consists in.

You're wrong, I say (people, particularly children, generally cannot be trusted regarding how they describe themselves, I claim). Do you have any reasons to advance to show I'm mistaken? (I suspect that not ...)

@BundleBoogie, I'm not responsible for the gay community reclaiming those words. They are widely accepted. Obviously not by your friendship group. Fair enough.

No thanks to the invitation to comment on other issues.

It's not coerced. It's just speech you disagree with. Dyke, queer, homo have been reclaimed in order to defuse the power. That was much more successful than fighting back against the terms.

I never said I was part of that community but I know gay people who are upset and offended by the use of these words so your claim of ‘reclaiming’ them being successful as an example of changing language is false. I note you are very happy to impose offensive words on them.

And just because the activists who work at the Cambridge dictionary have been allowed to bully their bosses into allowing such a nonsensical circular non definition to be published doesn’t mean it’s a thing.

Any further comment of why you think it’s abuse to not allow children to have bodily autonomy re. trans issues - presumably you support children having sex or getting tattoos? Care to explain why?

What I like about the Oxford definition is that it’s clear it doesn’t refer to everyone who isn’t trans, which is how lots of trans activists like to use it.

Just because something is in the dictionary, doesn’t mean people will automatically be ok with being called it

Theres a lot of words in the dictionary I wouldn’t like to be referred to as

Fair enough!

Given that that definition thinks sex is assigned at birth, I think we can safely say it’s not worth the paper it’s written on.

Oxford is better:
cisgender: designating a person whose sense of personal identity and gender correspond to his or her sex at birth.

Nice use of “his or her” there 🤣

@BundleBoogie clearly you're not part of that community or you'd know that terms like Dyke and Queer are mainstream and have been used for a long time.

You can of course disagree with it. But it doesn't alter the fact.

Lesbian organisations:

Dykes on Bikes - motor bike group
Techno Dyke - website
Dykes Delight with Gay Abandon - weekly dance events
Dykes to Watch Out For - comic
Dykes Delight - comic

Everywhere is Queer
Queer Nation
Queer Disco
Queer Art

Etc etc etc

And as for cis, it's in the Cambridge dictionary.

cis adjective (GENDER)

short for cisgender : used to describe a person whose gender matches the body they were born with:
They stress that trans women and cis women are all women.
If you are cis you feel comfortable with your assigned birth sex and do not identify as another gender.

So to be clear, back in the days when those words were still being used or were very recently used as a homophobic slur, some bright spark decided to also use those words but claim that they are not a slur?

But then some lesbian and gay people said

“No I don’t like the use of those words as I find it offensive and/or reminiscent of homophobia I have recently suffered”

and the ‘progressive’ bright sparks said

“Get lost gay people , we’ve decided this is what we are doing, you’ve just got to suck it up”.

Apart from the fact that the LGB community was only railroaded into adding the mysterious ‘TQ+’ onto their letters in 2015, the rest of your claim just doesn’t add up. And why do you think it is ok to listen to one subgroup who makes decisions about ‘reclaiming’ words etc but ignore the wishes of another subgroup who are very much upset by it?

Would you do the same with people trying to reclaim racial slurs? Maybe we could all just not call each other names that people don’t like. Like the made up nonsense that is ‘cis’.

Just a thought.

YANBU OP
I have read all your posts and FWIW, I agree with you. On both the way you’re dealing with your daughter’s current situation and your stance on the toxic ideology.
I don’t think you’ve said how old she is anywhere but I feel like you can’t let adolescents have complete free rein. There has to be a balance of allowing them freedoms to explore who they are whilst still being their anchor to keep them grounded

It isn't though.
It's highly abusive and gaslighting. The husband often says (and this is mainstream trans ideology, so don't try to tell me it doesn't happen) he was ALWAYS a woman. The wife didn't marry a woman, she married a man. He's still a man, but if she disagrees with him being a woman, SHE'S the one who's abusive. Talk about DARVO.
In some cases it involves trying to BE the wife - adopting her style of dress and even her name.
And in many case it isn't the husband exiting, he would MUCH rather stay and still be cooked and cleaned for and have the childcare done.

It's also abusive to the children to tell them he's their other mum now, that they must call him by his new name or call him mum. Just as children who are fostered shouldn't be forced to call someone who isn't their parent, mum or dad, and children who have a step parent shouldn't be forced to call their step parent mum or dad, children should be encouraged (because it's no good telling a 3 year old "you can call me dad but I'd prefer mum") to use the original names.

But unlike a normal marriage breakup due to abusive or coercive behaviour by the husband - trans widows get no sympathy (except from people who actually believe women are a sex class).

Have you ever read any of the trans widow threads and seen the litany of abuse perpetrated on these women but so many people - those around them and wider society, refuse them support and even vilify them for not excitedly embracing their new ‘lesbian’ status. I have seen the fallout on a family like this first hand - way before I knew anything about the GRA and assault on women’s rights. It’s awful.

I can link you to some FWR threads if you are interested in what actually happens?

I agree!

Archive supplied upthread.