Gender swap situation

@Tandora Well, I’m back from my meeting now, but honestly, talking to students who think they have more expertise than they do is also my job, and it’s the end of the year so I’m honestly too exhausted to continue much longer with all this.

If you don’t think scholars with decades of experience can read papers extremely quickly and extract the conclusions, how do you think most science/social science/history gets done?

Anyway. FWIW knowing the research methodology from up close, I have a pretty low opinion of Baron-Cohen’s work on “gender” to start with. His “male brain” theory of autism managed to hold the entire field back for decades from realising that autistic girls present differently; and thankfully, now the field has moved on, autistic girls are finally getting the research and help they need. In any case, his gendered autism schtick is now so out of fashion that it looks like he’s trying to work his stereotyped gender ideas back in via a different route. (How did his group measure your “gender identity”, may you well ask? By asking you to recall whether you think you played with “boys’ toys” as a child, twenty years or more later. I used to love swords, Lego, books and sewing as a child, so sometimes I went in a study as having a male “gender identity” and sometimes as a female one! Hahaha. Don’t you just love science?)

Anyway, regardless of that, that particular study certainly doesn’t show deep innate roots for transgenderism. It simply shows that there are connections between them, which we already know; but it doesn’t show that trans is innate, as opposed to cultural: how could it? What’s it using to measure “trans”? Subjective self-identification. (There isn’t as yet any solid agreement on biological and genetic markers for autism after decades of research; so how do you think there are for “trans”?)

The connections between autism and identifying as “trans” are well known, and they’re also perfectly well explained by social construction: people with autism are more likely to find metaphysical or pseudo-scientific explanations for their feelings of sex role incongruence personally plausible.

I keep a close eye on this kind of output because one of my research areas is on the social and historical construction of forms of psychogenic illness and the historical formations of disease pathologies. “Trans” is just one in a long line of similar conceptual formations, which we’ve seen many times before. You’ll never go bust banking on the fact that lots of things which people think are innate givens in life, turn out a bit later to have been social constructions of the time.

If you do want a piece of advice which is genuinely meant to help your research, here: start with a good read of some Thomas Kuhn, and some well-worn but important works in SSK, before you begin thinking about how far the social and medical sciences are presenting you with any kind of “durable and heritable polygenic underpinnings”. Your research will be all the better for it.

"So you said It very likely has a durable and heritable polygenic underpinning.

but then you said:

This doesn't mean they will settle on being trans,
So is it inherent with a fixed diagnostic criteria used by doctors or not??"

Being trans likely has a durable and heritable polygenic underpinning, yes.

The "they" in my statement "this doesn't mean they will settle on being trans", refers to young people who may be experimenting with identity, as young people often do! E.g. clothes, names, even sometimes pronouns. E.g. the old trope of about sexual experimenting in uni etc - doesn't mean people are actually gay.

(Btw it's also likely that being gay has a durable biological underpinning)

Yet the TRAs spend a lot of time complaining that ‘transphobia’ is rampant.

Yes with the increased visibility of trans identity, and advocacy for improved recognition and rights, there's been a huge transphobic backlash.

And why do none of us know any kids who must have been committing suicide at epic rates because they weren’t able to transition (and obviously the TRA claim us that if kids are not affirmed and allowed to ‘transition’ they will commit suicide)

Yes there's a lot of evidence on transness, closeting and suicidality.

And why is it that now the young ‘trans identifying’ cohort is mostly young girls but in this ‘trans’ supportive new world there isn’t the equivalent proportion of older women ‘coming out’ and it’s mainly just old men?

There could be lots of reasons for this - but most likely it's because the teenage years is an exceptionally punishing/ dangerous time for trans girls to 'come out'. There's a huge amount more flexibility and less judgement/ bullying of birth-assigned females dressing like boys - acquiring masculine attributes and identities etc. - the other way around invites much more fear/ anger/ hatred/ derision, etc. It's more common for trans girls/ women to come out either very early in life (pre-pubescent) or much later in life when they feel much safer.

What is the friend “going through”. It feels like the prevailing view of the #bekind brigade is that trans people are to be pitied?

What other things should OPs daughter go along with in the name of respect?

OP has every right to view this situation from the impact it is having in her daughter. Encouraging her daughter to act against her own instincts is not being kind.

I think you don’t get out much and have been avoiding all news and social media for several years.

Ever heard of Isla Bryson? What are your thoughts on the policies and people who forced teenage a female beauty therapy student to strip for tanning practice in front of a man who was facing charges of double rape at the time and was subsequently convicted?

How many examples of harm to women any girls will be enough for you?

So you said It very likely has a durable and heritable polygenic underpinning.

but then you said:

This doesn't mean they will settle on being trans,

So is it inherent with a fixed diagnostic criteria used by doctors or not??

and then this old chestnut:

It's not that the number of trans people has increased dramatically in the UK, it's that with growing awareness and recognition/ visibility, more people have felt able to "come out".

Yet the TRAs spend a lot of time complaining that ‘transphobia’ is rampant. And why do none of us know any kids who must have been committing suicide at epic rates because they weren’t able to transition (and obviously the TRA claim us that if kids are not affirmed and allowed to ‘transition’ they will commit suicide)

And why is it that now the young ‘trans identifying’ cohort is mostly young girls but in this ‘trans’ supportive new world there isn’t the equivalent proportion of older women ‘coming out’ and it’s mainly just old men?

So many questions…

DSM-5 Criteria for Gender Dysphoria (20)

A marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and natal gender of at least 6 months in duration, as manifested by at least two of the following:

A.
A marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and primary and/or secondary sex characteristics (or in young adolescents, the anticipated secondary sex characteristics)

B.
A strong desire to be rid of one’s primary and/or secondary sex characteristics because of a marked incongruence with one’s experienced/expressed gender (or in young adolescents, a desire to prevent the development of the anticipated secondary sex characteristics)

C.
A strong desire for the primary and/or secondary sex characteristics of the other gender

D.
A strong desire to be of the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s designated gender)

E.
A strong desire to be treated as the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s designated gender)

F.
A strong conviction that one has the typical feelings and reactions of the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s designated gender)

The condition is associated with clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. Specify if:

A.
The condition exists with a disorder of sex development.

B.
The condition is post-transitional, in that the individual has transitioned to full-time living in the desired gender (with or without legalization of gender change) and has undergone (or is preparing to have) at least one sex-related medical procedure or treatment regimen—namely, regular sex hormone treatment or gender reassignment surgery confirming the desired gender (e.g., penectomy, vaginoplasty in natal males; mastectomy or phalloplasty in natal females).

I never claimed to be personally trans, in fact I've explicitly stated repeatedly that I'm not. However, I can speak with authority on the subject, as its a subject I know a huge amount about, and am qualified to speak on.

My concerns are the huge numbers of people who have developed very strong opinions about trans issues, when they clearly have zero understanding of/ insight into what being trans is/ trans experience. (Hence ideas commonly expressed on mumsnet, that being trans is a type of religious or philosophical belief/ reducible to 'wearing a dress'/ some type of sexual perversion/ a variety of really disturbing mental illness/ a group of predators who want to 'get access' to women and children/ a bunch of entitled males trying to steal women's rights, etc. etc. etc.)

I've suggested that people might want to spend time really listening talking to trans people in the real world about their experiences as the quickest and most effective means of acquiring more empathy/ understanding. And that they really should spend time doing this, before forming such strong opinions and spouting them all over the internet.

Can you list those diagnostic criteria because last time I looked it was a collection of entirely normal teen behaviours based on stereotypes and things like ‘or having many friends’ or ‘not liking their changing body’ or ‘grief’ or ‘not being happy in school’ or ‘wanting toys/hair/clothes associated with the opposite sex’ or ‘having more friends of the opposite sex’.

Do you have a new list?

I'm not telling you off at all. I'm merely expressing surprise as you post as though you're an authority, and have taken issue with people who aren't trans expressing views and showing an interest in the subject.

Lol you are telling me off for talking about / having ideas about transness when I am not personally trans?

I'm not convinced this is a genuine scenario, but I'm happy to contribute to the thread as I imagine this is happening up and down the country.

'Ron' is unhappy about something, and using this ridiculous Transgender /non binary trend to gain some power to make people feel uncomfortable.

You can guarantee it's a phase, something to help them find a tribe, to stick two fingers up at the system.

Isn't it strange who it's never the cool kids that want to go non binary or change gender? It's never the captain of the boys football team, or the chief popular girl with her entourage, is it?

Always seems to be the ones that lack popularity & attention that suddenly realise they are the wrong gender.

If you're not trans, why are you always on here telling other people what it feels like to be trans, and telling people who aren't trans to stop talking about being trans because they don't know what they're talking about? I thought you at least had lived experience.

Yes I was referring to that one. I'm very well able to believe you're familiar with that paper, since it's a very well known paper, as are the team (who I also know fyi).
However I responding to your statement made just now

"Yes, I just read it."

I took that to mean you were claiming to have "just read it".

Silly me. :p

The only claim I made about that paper is that it provides powerful evidence of the empirical overlap between gender variance and other forms of neurodevelopmental diversity, specifically autism. Which is exactly what it does.
(I think this is an important part of the puzzle in understanding and explaining transness, hence my inclusion of it, although it doesn't quite fit into the four broader 'groupings' I outlined above).

As for your claims that you are already familiar with most of the other papers, and that you have acquired read, and absorbed the detailed and complex information (across multiple disciplines/ fields of expertise) from all the rest, in all of a few minutes. I do not find these claims serious or credible.

Are you talking here about the Warrier/Baron-Cohen paper? I already know this one well, since I know that research group (and have acted as a non-autistic control in some of his group’s experiments in the past!)

It says nothing like the claims you’ve made. Not even remotely.

Ahh mumsnet...

uh huh.

https://tenor.com/EAlg.gif

Same, of course!

Don’t be silly. I work in this field: I know what’s out there, have read most of these before, and a few minutes certainly suffices to look at the others. As an academic, I am actually able to read and synthesise the rest extremely quickly! In ten minutes, yes? That’s my job! I do it every day!

No idea what you are talking about and I refuse to accept that you read it properly in 2 minutes. The arrogance is quite astonishing.

It is a paper which contributes powerful evidence, on the well known overlap between gender variance and other forms of neurodevelopmental diversity (specifically, in this paper, autism).

I completely disagree with your interpretations, as do the authors of the vast literatures on this subject.

Yes, I just read it. It doesn’t say anything like you claim it does.

No. It’s noting that the idea that adult men should be able to change clothes with children or teenage girls, just because they say they are women, is getting perilously “child abuse adjacent”, as the young people might term it.

Oh and I also included a paper on the intersection of gender variance and other forms of neurodevelopmental diversity.

To go into more depth on some of the social history books in your list, most of them just perform the manoeuvre of finding some people who self-identified as gay or lesbian, for example the “female husbands” of the Skidmore book, and simply call them “trans”, when they already had a well-understood set of social meanings at the time which allowed same-sex attracted people a degree of slight social and normative acceptance if they claimed they “spiritually” were the opposite sex. In reality, they were lesbian couples of the time, living their lives according to the prevalent idea that the emergent notion of same-sex or lesbian desire was permitted if it seemed like it fitted into an understanding of sex “inversion”.

These were the very cases that led doctors and “sexologists” to come up with the notion of “sexual inverts” in the first place, and allowed the idea of homosexuality as a differential psychological identity to take shape in the first place. Going back and re-terming these people “trans” is not only completely anachronistic, but it reinterprets their lives in completely different terms to the ones they articulated them within. It’s a form of circular reasoning. The fact that it’s fashionable amongst some publishers does not actually make it true or convincing. Still less is projecting contemporary Western ideas of “gender identity” on other cultures which have an entirely different construction of subjecthood.

More useful are studies in the twentieth century which show the idea of “gender identity” emerging out of a network of understanding about sexuality and new psychologies of “identity”. But there’s often a lot of over-enthusiastically anachronistic misidentification and projection going on. Just because something looks like it “ought” to be like “transness” doesn’t actually make it so, and a lot of current students in the field really could do with some long reading in a near-century’s work of social and intellectual history before they conflate past and contemporary concepts.

Oh I see! Well I also get called 'male', 'a man' and 'trans' on mumsnet all the time 😂(I'm none of these things of course).