Following on from the TERF thread...

kim147 wrote - "What do people think transsexuality actually is?"

I think transsexuality is the beliefs and actions of a person who feels that the only way that they can find contentment is by altering their body by surgery and medication to give an external appearance as close as possible to that of the opposite biological sex, combined with full-time adoption of the gender role behaviours defined by patriarchy as appropriate for members of the opposite biological sex.

I think that transsexuality has been hijacked by post-modernist transgenderism ideology. I think transsexuality is now a shrinking part of a growing transgender spectrum.

kim147 wrote - Why has there been a massive increase in referrals?

I think an increase in referrals for transsexuality is dwarfed by a massive increase in referrals for transgenderism

The woman who was lead on the paper I linked to has also done a TED talk on there being no such a thing as a male or female brain. She is still researching people's perceptions of their own gender identity, and if anyone feels like doing it, the questionnaire is here:

eu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_0BWfDkB9kX2tpxW

At the end of the questionnaire it asks if you hold feminist views and queer views, which I think will allow her to produce results which I have wondered about.

Her TED talk is here- only about 15 mins:

english.tau.ac.il/video_gallery/ted-talks-prof-daphna-joel

almondcakes that's really fascinating, thanks, and I'll read it with a lot of interest. It's a bit like that "we are all non-binary" article that was doing the rounds a few days ago, which I wanted to cheer.

We experience sexism and misogyny because of how the world perceives us, not how we perceive ourselves.

Small Press, you may want to look at this paper. As far as I know, it is the only study of symptoms of gender dysphoria in people who are not trans. 63% of people sometimes wish to be another gender, making it the normal experience of gender, and 40% were sometimes discontent with their sexed body, which by definition is dysphoric. That is from the bottom of page 23, but there are lots of other stats in there. The range of intensity of feelings of non conformity to gender and sexed body were the same in trans and non trans individuals.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/19419899.2013.830640

You can't possibly know what it's like to be trans

Is this really true for all people who don't id as trans? I've had body dysmorphia (connected to pregnancy and disability, not sex or gender). I've also for years wondered if I was trans - because I don't have an internal sense of being a woman, just am treated like a woman by society, have my life choices limited and so on, because of what is between my legs. I've finally come to the conclusion that I'm not trans (because if I surgically transitioned I'd just be looking at the same circs but from the opposite side of the mirror, so no change except a lot of paperwork, and I think the privilege I'm most missing out on is being socialised as a male, which I can't change), but I'm also not not-trans, either. I've seriously considered presenting as a man when I get older - not transitioning, but socially - but I don't think my body type would let me get away with it. As I said upthread, I think there's a lot of people in my general state of mind, once they begin to think about it. It isn't a particularly unusual state of being, but pretty normal, IMO.

So - I suppose that partly answers why more people are transitioning now than before: because they can, and because it is more discussed. I think the other answer is that gender roles are being more and more strictly enforced, and so this "I like dolls so I must be a girl", I like ties and machinery so I must be a boy" is getting more traction, when we should be moving away from all that shit.

And I have seen trans people online talk about their lack of dysphoria, and I've certainly seen plenty of trans women speak about their comfort with having a penis, how it's a "female organ" quite, quite different from a man's penis.

tl;dr: There doesn't seem to seem to be one size fits all with either trans or non-trans experiences, so I am not convinced that none of us who don't id as trans can possibly understand what it's like.

Never mind. If we're going down the male/female brain rabbit hole, I'm done.

I was laughing with my boss about this today. I perform feminity passably and am pretty comfortable in my skin (privilege!). My boss is pretty much masculine norm. We could never live together. However, we are like two peas in a pod in a work context. And I think that is where, for us, socialisation is least at play.

If I were trans, I expect I would prefer to think of the cause as biological rather than social. I don't think we each have any particular insight into our biology, a person with cancer has no insight into the cause of it (environmental or genetic).

Regardless, as we have been over many times. I do not oppose certain accommodations being made for trans people. I do oppose the erasure of the material reality of the female sex and the erosion of women's rights.

I have no idea what I'd do if I were you Kim, because I'm not you. It is why it is such a pointless thought experiment when people are asked what they'd do or how they'd feel if they woke up tomorrow and were the opposite sex.

I can't really have any idea what it would feel like. I think I wouldn't really care, and I think it would be preferable to waking up and finding out I am six months pregnant, but I can't really know. Because my brain doesn't tell me I should or shouldn't be a woman. It just sees my body and tells me I am, but in a radically different way to how it told me I was 15 years ago. So I have no idea what it is like to be you.

If I were you, Kim, I think I'd work out why I didn't want to be a man. You want to be recognised as a woman so that you are not recognised as a man. That's not what a woman is, yet you are one, according to the law. You don't want to be, yet you are, and you wonder why there are multiple threads on trans issues?

I am a woman because I am a woman. Not because I feel like one or don't feel like a man. That my reality has been obliterated legally because society can't deal with non stereotypically masculine men drives me insane. And that men thought that the rational solution is the one we've got makes me despair.

It's a man's world...

And acknowledging those facts doesn't have to mean they can't be socially validated through a passport, or that people don't believe the person's brain is telling them that.

I don't know how it feels to be trans or whether it is social or biological. I know humans are a sexually dimorphic species consisting of female and male (and some with congenital abnormalities resulting in an intersex condition). A woman is an adult human female. A man is an adult human male.

Whatever else a person may feel about themselves or about how society has constructed required behaviour and expectations based on sex does not change those facts. Femininity and masculinity are constructs and cause pain for many many people but biological sex is not a construct. It is a material reality.

Flora isn't arguing social vs. biological. A brain thinking something, whether caused by social or biological reasons does not change the material reality of the whole body.

I could get ergot poisoning tomorrow and believe I was an otter. It would be caused by biology but I'm not an otter.

Kim, I'd never thought about the certificates thing. That must be hard. Surely that at least could be resolved.

Yes Kim, so the documentation for you is a matter of social validation at job interviews etc.

Unlike for my relative who would use that documentation to be able to legally drive a car, which she can't do currently as she can't get it.

Can you see that distinction? Social validation is not the main purpose of owning a passport, insurance documents etc.

Kim, you personally are a woman because that is what you feel yourself to be, and that is a. the law in the UK and b. courtesy.

That is totally different to asking what is a person with a male body who thinks they shouldn't have one. Materially, that person is a male with a brain that thinks they shouldn't be. What they would like to be their social identity to be is a different matter, and will vary from person to person in that situation.

Rejecting and hating it does not make it not so. An anorexic is not fat. An otherkin is not an animal. An amputee suffering phantom limb pain does not have the limb. You are a man who does not want to live with the social constructs placed on men by patriarchal society.

Why do you ask these questions? You always say how much these statements hurt you.

Documentation with a different sex on to that supplied on the original documentation.