I am a woman because I say so

Students!!!

Right, thats not women is it

There may be women in there but students Are generally very open to being "sensitive"

This is the man who also told me that women prefer designer stubble,

Some women!!!! Some women!!!!

And actually i think thats bullshit as well

I am going to take the paper away from him

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3567616/Students-call-sanitary-bins-placed-male-toilets-transgender-men-periods.html

I know it's the Daily Mail but other papers have reported it too.

My dad came round to day

He had read in the paper that "women want sanitery bins in mens toilets as men menstruate too"

ffs

Some trans acrivists want that...some fuckwit women want that....and some fuckwit men want that

Not women as a class

FTM seem to get very little support and very little voice from what i can tell.

Did i see a post upthread where Grazia have admitted that subscriptions have been cancelled due to the gender issue? I guess it may have felt to some readers that their space was being encroached upon. Grazia is meant to be a womens magazine aimed at women in their 20s/30s .

I cant imagine Esquire or GQ giving space to FTM

I should imagine Grazia has lost readers who used to buy it off the shelf as well as subscribers.

I think the dreadful focus on pornography being so easily accessible on the Internet has something to do with it as well. Many girls - my DD as well - are rejecting what they perceive to be the female norm, whether it is or not; they don't want to shave every bit going, they don't want to dress in a certain way and if male attraction means what they perceive it to mean, they don't want that either. And who can blame them? There are all sorts of anti-porn posts elsewhere so I won't bring that up again. It's just too horrific for words, really.

As a rejection of all that is 'feminine' (teenage perception here), they decide on something that is more male. They reject traditional female dress, haircuts and the like because this will minimise the attention they get from males. It's a sort of protection. Sexuality may or may not come into it. Once these young women were recognisable as butch women in every lesbian space, but now one can't be butch anymore- one has to be trans.
That's my observation of my teenage DD and her mates - the rejection of what being young and feminine has become - which is precisely what the trans women are trying to emulate. What a mixed-up society!

It seems to me that the great rise in trans people in the UK is among teenage girls. I would suggest that is because of very many teenage girls have mental health problems (some due to it is hard being a teen and some due to societal issues) and that there is chronic underfunding of mental health services. It is incredibly difficult to get any kind of mental health support either at school or through the NHS unless you have very serious issues.

The trans thing gets you attention and help. It often gets you at least counselling. I know trans teens complain they have to go on long waiting lists or don't get specialist counselling, but very many teens with mental health issues don't even get on any kind of waiting list for counselling.

The health care professionals are saying many of the young trans people they see have no dysphoria (about their sexed body presumably). So why are they there? If they have no dysphoria - the only element that makes this a 'medical condition' and everyone says that being trans is not a mental health issue, why are they seeing a counsellor at all, when so many other teens can't get access to counselling?

So I'd say that was a major part of it - access to finite services. As a parent of teenagers I would say that being trans in teen circles is just another identity. It is not difficult to declare if you have alternative friends, and is very easy to learn a lot about on social media. It's certainly a lot easier to come out as trans than as a lesbian if you are still at school.

I also think that when people get into counselling, counsellors often want to focus on whatever the fashionable counselling topics of the moment are. At the moment gender identity is the fashionable topic. I agree with what Bertrand said recently on one of these threads, there is always some fashionable explanation as to why people feel uncomfortable in their own skin.

I do wonder whether we are now seeing, with the huge rise in trans people (mainly MTT), is because of two main reasons.

Firstly when I grew-up in the 60s & 70s, there was much, what I would define as 'structural' sexism around gender roles. Girls did cookery & needlework rather than woodwork & metalwork at school, girls career opportunities centred around nursing, teaching ot the civil service. Women were not expected to have a career after marriage and so forth.

However children were far less forced into gender specific play, a lot of our time was spent away from adults, play dates with children of the same gender were not yet the thing, we just played with other kids (M&F) in our neighbourhood; climbing trees, making dens, playing tennis, skipping, football irrespective of our biological sex. Pink, glittery and blue clothes, toys were just not that prevalent.

For the past 30 years, the reverse has become true. Male & Female 'structural' sexism has (in the main) been abolished. Girls and boys have equal choices in subject and career options. However play and clothing has radically changed. Children are a huge commercial market for both clothing and toys, and designers have responded to this by creating a gender stereotyped market. Adults control and manage play like never before and observe and comment on children's non-gender-conforming play choices. Thus if you are interested in something not of your normalised gender you feel that you are 'different' or thinking like a girl.

Secondly in recent years the media have begun to heavily focus on gender in fashion, beauty and other roles together with the whole trans question. I guess this is sometimes because they are just being tacky and after a good sensationalised story to sell copy. No doubt certain types of readers like to think 'what does he/she think he looks like' and have a good snigger. The media can no longer get away so easily with articles that are fundamentally racist, ageist, sexist, homophobic (yes, I do know this is not always the case) because the majority of their readers are not particularly interested anymore. So they have started to fill their pages with articles about trans individuals. It then becomes topical, fashionable and desirable to some people who are not so comfortable with the restriction of specific gender expression who think to themselves 'maybe I'm trans?' FFS, even I have briefly wondered whether my lack of interest in fashion and make-up together with an aptitude for maths and an interest in technology is because I have a bit more maleness than other women.

I don't want to deny that feeling trans is indeed a very real and sometimes painful issue for many people, but I can't help feeling somewhat skeptical about the scale of the issue.

The first issue that jumps out at me with regards to the study above (other than eensy weensy sample size) is the question they asked in the first place is so loaded they should never have been considered unbiased.

They have basically assumed 'lady brain' is the absence of something the male brain is assumed to have by default.

So, again men are the 'default' gender and women are 'lesser' or 'lacking'.

It's so fucking Freudian!

I have some of the same genetics as a woman

Yeah, that is part of that whole belonging to the same species thing. Fun fact: A chimpanzee also has some of the same genetics as a human female.

I've seen so many accounts on here from women (myself included) who say we went through a tomboy phase as a 7,8,9... year-old, some commenting that they grew up to be gay, but many commenting that they grew up to be heterosexual women, who although still being pissed off at the social restrictions placed on them due to their sex

I was having a discussion with a young man (gay Jewish, which is sort of relevant) a couple of weeks ago, who was trying to persuade me to vote Green on Thursday. I said no way after the non-men debacle. We had an extended debate about privilege & intersectionality - he shared his experiences of homophobia (which were awful, poor lad).

And he argued that transwomen's socialised male privilege would diminish as more TW transitioned earlier. I told him about my sister who wanted to be a boy, dressed like a boy, did boy's activities, and loved it if people mistook her for a boy until she was mid-teens. She's a stunningly beautiful woman (afflicted with the mainly women's disease of breast cancer) who's had 2 children. Not at all trans, but for various complicated familial dynamics to do with our brother being born only 13 months after her (after 4 girls) at a time when having a boy was seen as "success" for women - ergh) various people in our family life (nanny, housekeeper) dropped my sister like a stone to fawn over my (lovely nevertheless) brother. This was the early 60s. My poor sister, really. But today, in danger of being seen, not as a "tomboy" or acting out political tensions within the family, but really "a boy in a girl's body" or some bollocks.

I can't read the Times (paywall). Please tell me that commentators have picked him up on this gross sexism?

We really have regressed to the 1950s, haven't we?

Eddie, why oh why. Face palm.

I'm 57. I wear all sorts of shoes, including heels (a younger person of my acquaintance commented at a party on Friday how much she admires my range of shoes). I choose them a) for a combination of my style & my comfort; b) if they pass the "Can I run for the bus in these shoes?" test; c) Secondary test: Can I walk to work in these shoes; and d) if they flatter my ankles (which are quite nice) calves (long) thighs (er let's not go there, they are muscular & ahem attest to my love of cakes).

My sense of my "sexiness" (er yuk I hate that word) is mine alone, not something I want to broadcast to the world.

I'm not a transvestite. I have some of the same genetics as a woman so I'm transgender. When I see a pair of nice heels, I think: "Yeah, that could work. That could feel kind of fun, kind of sexy

What is this sexist bollocks. How is thinking that heels are fun and sexy = female genes. I'm disappointed Eddie

It took me so long to type that that shiny beat me to it

Another "tomboy" here which makes for a quite understanding 70 year old father who doesnt get the ....what ever the child plays with defines their gender argument

I think a big problem is the mainstream media

We only seem to hear about trans people not allowed in changing rooms or their fashion ideas or little kids (and little kidss are always cute ) breaking gender norms....

Things like death threats and ranting against femanists, women, gender critical trans women or even very well meaning liberal tv producers are not reported

Its all really one sided

(Do love Miranda Yardley)

The comments on the Miranda Yardley are largely encouraging. The trouble is that, no matter how consistently BTL comments demonstrate that the public do not support TA craziness, the media continue to promote the TA line.

I liked this comment on MTT in women's toilets:

They will call someone a man-hater if a female says they don't like the thought of someone with a penis in changing rooms. They say women have a problem being hysterical about the threat of men. However, they then say that THEY don't want to go in guys toilets because of the threat of violence to them from people with a penis? *facepalm

The article by Miranda Yardley was great as always (think I vaguely remember reading it at the time). I am a big fan of hers.

The article by Daniel Harris on the other hand I did not like (I know you said you disagreed with it on a lot of points, Nooka). Now while I agree with part of its thesis, namely, why do TA latch onto the superficial trappings of what celebrity culture defines as femininity, and why is plastic surgery seen as mutilation when in pursuit of a "trout pout", but not when it's GRS, I found the overall tone vilely misogynistic.

It did make me stop and think about one part of the push back against the trans-activist narrative which I'm increasingly coming to think is a misunderstanding, though. "The implications of this covert homophobia are particularly distressing
for children. More and more, parents are encouraging their sons and daughters to transition when they spot even the slightest hint of effeminacy or boyishness on the grounds that such behaviors indicate desires to be the opposite sex when in fact their desire to play with dolls and throw footballs may reflect the desire to be something less exotic, even banal, namely, gay. "

It seems to me that this is swapping one sort of gender essentialism for another - why should wanting to play with dolls or footballs mean anything other than that this particular child wants to play with dolls or footballs? It doesn't tell us about their "gender identity", it doesn't tell us about their future adult sexuality, it just tells us they like dolls and/or footballs.

I've seen so many accounts on here from women (myself included) who say we went through a tomboy phase as a 7,8,9... year-old, some commenting that they grew up to be gay, but many commenting that they grew up to be heterosexual women, who although still being pissed off at the social restrictions placed on them due to their sex, still found some aspects of having a female body - usually the ability to have children - pretty cool, and other aspects - e.g. painful periods, pretty annoying. (I dressed as a boy, passed as a boy, because I wanted to play cricket instead of rounders and do woodwork instead of needlework in primary school - girls not being alllowed to do cricket and woodwork in my primary). Child reasoning goes something like "I want to do X, I'm not allowed to do X because only boys are allowed to do X, therefore I will fix the problem by fooling the grownups into thinking I am a boy..." Child reasoning (certainly, my child reasoning) did not stretch as far as "It's the grownups saying only boys are allowed to do X, and they're wrong about that, therefore I need to change their minds".

It just seems to me that underlying the "and they turned out to be gay as adults" narrative is yet another piece of gender stereotyping - a girl playing football (or cricket, my childhood passion) is an oddity that stands in need of an explanation, and isn't something that "normal, heterosexual women" should be doing. It's yet another example of how deeply entrenched beliefs about what constitutes proper womanly behaviour are.

It is genuinely frightening. The rights for which women fought for 200 years are being erased in the blink of an eye. And who is going to defend them? No liberal or left-wing party is going to be caught appearing transphobic and the Greens have already re-classified us as non-male.

There is a major credibility gap. 99% of the public do not believe that the TAs can possibly be saying what they actually are - that any man can simply identify as a woman - because it is self-evidently absurd. So it is hard to get the public to push back against TAs because they don't perceive the threat.

I'm not in my 50s yet, but when I see heels I tend to mostly think 'that looks painful'. Definitely not sexy (heels = sex is a bit of a porn led view isn't it?).

I saw this article being pilloried as ever so transphobic in an American academic newsletter thing I follow (I work for a Canadian university) and thought it very interesting. Written by a gay man who is clearly finding transactivism difficult. I didn't agree with all of it but some is very much to the point I thought.

This article shines a light on that question:

www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/08/kellie-maloney-newsnight-and-debate-transgender-community-refused-have

TAs don't want debate or discussion and certainly not with women who ask uncomfortable questions and are well read and who have actually taken the time to think about what trans activism means for women - ever wondered why MN is relatively unscathed in all of this?

Because Miranda isn't glamorous enough? Or because she asks some uncomfortable questions that doesn't fit their fluffy narrative? Or a bit of both