woman loses residency of son she was raising as daughter

Nah. He's widening the bandwidth of what it means to be a transwoman

Sounds tiring

Yes, I think ATM is "pansexual".

Ah right fair enough. I stand corrected in that case

I think ATM is attracted to both sexes, ageingrunner, which is true of roughly a third of transwomen..

I wonder if ATM feels it's ok for them to have preferences about which genitals they prefer? If they are a late transitioner then I'm assuming ATM fancies women only? Sounds a bit of a penis-exclusitionist if that's the case. Bigot!

Hanora do you think everything should be unisex? Toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards, homeless shelters, DV shelters, prisons ...

Ah, so only bigots can't see past your "gender history" ATM/ You've got a novel line in euphemism, that's for sure. On that basis, having and expressing sexual attraction is bigotry.

This is the same argument as produced by the ghastly Sophia Banks, who said homosexuality and heterosexuality were both transphobic.

We enter a brave new world in which lesbians are attracted exclusively to people who identify as women, and gay men gladly enjoy PIV sex with transmen.

Or we say, nah, this is bollocks and carry fancying whoever it is we fancy. And if your dating pool is small, tough luck. Happens to us all in time.

SomeDyke its not just anecdotal, the Tavistick published figures earlier this year.

Me neither RiverTam. At a time when girls report they are increasingly victims of sexual harrassment in every aspect of their lives, when their boyfriends are using hardcore porn to shape their approach to sex, when girls' appearance is fetishised, ridiculed and scrutinised to a degree never before experience by young people going through puberty, I'm not bloody surprised a lot of girls want no part of that.

And Hanora50 - I find that post to ATM pretty offensive given there are a number of parents of children who have experienced or are experiencing gender dysphoria and don't agree with your point of view.

I totally understand now the reason for your animosity against mtf because of course you view all those born with a dick/penis/prick/knob/willy as potential rapists and sexual predictors.

Hanora all the available evidence is that transwomen commit violent crime at the same rate as men, and both men and transwomen commit far, far more violent crime, proportionately, than women do. So, while Not All Men are rapists, etc, some are, and while Not All Transwomen are rapists, some are. And while there are women who commit sexual assault, it is very few in proportion to the number of male-bodied people that do so.

This is why there is sex segregation: because while Not All Male-Bodied People are rapists, voyeurs, sexual predators, etc, some are, and women are entitled to a measure of safety and protection from them.

You see, it's this kind of thing that gets my goat:

We work to raise awareness about gender issues amongst professionals and the general public

As a feminist, I should be right behind that aim. However, I suspect that our idea of awareness raising of gender issues is about as far apart as is possible to be.

That job scope is terrifying. Who the fuck do they think they are?

Sorry for the double post. Tablet said it hadn't worked.

www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/recruitment.html

I seem to remember from stats someone posted previously that whilst there are more FtM teens than MtF, the overall balance is still very heavily skewed towards MtF (something like 80%) due to late transitioners which is much, much more common for MtF. Some experts have suggested that this is due to autogynephilia which doesn't affect women.

In addition to the trend/social contagion angle, it seems to me that it's a bloody miserable time to be a young woman at the moment. The gender binary is so pronounced for children and adolescents. There is so much focus on appearance and femininity as the ideal. The impact of porn and the pressures it puts on young women in relation to sex. That's quite apart from the general difficulties of being an adolescent female and adapting to adult womanhood and all that that entails, which from memory was quite horrible enough! Honestly, who'd want to be a teenage girl?

Brought to my attention today.

www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/recruitment.html

Like the never ending list of reasons why adults transition, I think there are many reasons why children do. Gender dysphoria is probably the least of these. Cos FIVE. Who were all friends until one came out as a lesbian.

This is precisely the issue I have found in my child's situation, and believe she is possibly being influenced opposed to really suffering gender dysmorphia.

My child has been befriended by an online friend, who lives in an area with quite a small population. However, one in three of the girls are identifying themselves as FTM, and doing online blogs, Instagram Q&A and generally getting massive if followers of other teens that are suddenly Havibg gender dysmorphia.

"Back in my days girls who really struggled with puberty turned to eating, or not eating, as a away to control that development, to slow it down, take it away, take control. Nowadays there's a new name for hating your womanly body - gender dysphoria. "

Now that is a really intriguing observation. But means that we need to look at possible social reasons behind self-identification as F2M (which is, of course, not allowed according to the strictest trans catechism, where anyone is tru-trans if they say they are!).

Papers from a few years back give figures for M2T vs F2T of around 3 to 1. Which seems very different to these anecdotal reports from schools, where identifying as F2M seems to have gone way up...........

I saw that thread. It does appear that with some teenagers being trans is simply something cool to be, which is pretty miserable for any number of reasons. Plus social contagion. Bullying of young lesbians seems to be on the rise too. But there has to be something more substantial underpinning all this.

Disclaimer - not that I think you shouldn't be allowed to wear trousers to school, more that it was only that and being called a boy's name which made them trans.

A poster has started another thread, where there were five, that's right FIVE girls in her daughter's peer group who all came out together as trans. They then targeted the girl who had come out as a lesbian, because she said she wouldn't want to sleep with a transwoman, as they had a penis. Cue usual insults of bigot and transphobe and this poor girl is getting horribly bullied online.

Five teenage girls coming out as trans simultaneously and demanding to wear trousers to school, smacks to me of the same fashion which made many of the girls in my year when I was young, come out as bisexual. None of them are now - quelle surprise.

Actually, I think Hanora50 is partly right as the number of girls being referred to clinics like the Tavistock has sky rocketed, though I don't know how that affects the overall number of FTT.

It's worth thinking about why that might be, however, and one very obvious point is that going through puberty for girls is, I believe, now worse than ever before. Girls self esteem peaks at 9 years old. That is an awful state of affairs. Presumably,after this age, girls start to realise that their bodies are no longer their own, they are public property for all and sundry to comment on, gawp at, grope, and be told what your body should and shouldn't be like.

No wonder girls start to hate their developing bodies, no wonder they look for a way out of this hateful state of affairs. Back in my days girls who really struggled with puberty turned to eating, or not eating, as a away to control that development, to slow it down, take it away, take control. Nowadays there's a new name for hating your womanly body - gender dysphoria.

I am not in the least bit surprised that the numbers of girls identifying as anything other than female has gone through the roof. I think everyone's time would be considerably better spent in addressing what lies behind that jump in referrals. That does involve looking at the bigger picture, not focussing on the individual, though, which doesn't seem very popular.

dick/penis/prick/knob/willy
In an attempt to calm down, I wonder why this emphasis on a plethora of jokish names? Penis as a word is fit for purpose, anatomically correct, and won't offend the vicar or her husband.

Whereas ladystick (which was conspicuously absent from the little list), now that I do/would find offensive, as a usage and in the flesh!

Or does the list of jokey names just make it look even more like a totally offensive rape joke by any other name?