My ex is trans

The fetishists who make up most of the huge rise in transwomen wouldn't want to be exposed, as it would delegitimize their claim.

Exactly. Next time I engage I might mention that scientists are on the brink of a test.

It's your last paragraph that poses the challenge for the transactivists, Datun. Because if a foolproof diagnostic test was developed for a "pink brain" or genuine dysphoria, how many would be willing to take part? I'd guess only the truscum would expect a test to endorse their dysphoria. The fetishists who make up most of the huge rise in transwomen wouldn't want to be exposed, as it would delegitimize their claim.

In what sense are we 'both women'?

I have never yet seen an answer to that question that doesn't either resort to sexual stereotypes of clothing, hair, etc, or an internal 'essence'.

I'm perfectly willing to believe that the brain structure of someone with gender dysphoria is different to those without.

I read an article a few weeks ago that stimulating part of the brain can help people with anorexia. So it makes sense.

Maybe the hormone mix is different. Who knows?

But I have yet to see any evidence whatsoever that male and female brains are so different that you can ascribe behaviour and characteristics on that basis and that some awful biological catastrophe could make a human be born with male DNA and genitals but a female brain.

And even if you could, that would still be beneficial. Get everyone tested and diagnosed and throw out all the weirdos.

chamomile I have a question for your friend. Please tell her that I'm the mother of three children. I've given birth three times. I started menstruating at 11 & lost my virginity at 16, in the usual PIV manner. I was sexually assaulted at 17, and again repeatedly in my twenties. Despite all these things involving either my female sexual organs or secondary sexual characteristics, I am not 'feminine'. I've never related to that word at all. I do not 'feel like a woman'. However, I know that none of the above could have happened to me as they did if I hadn't been biologically female. Therefore I know I am female. (I'm getting to the question). So what exactly does your friend feel we have in common, beyond our shared humanity and right to dignity? In what sense are we 'both women'?

ChamomileTea, you ask why anyone would knowingly put themselves through horrible surgery, and the answer for many transwomen appears to be sex, sex, sex.

It's a cliché. The man who dumps his wife and kids for a girl the age of his daughter and a sports car. The highly respected politician caught downloading child sex abuse images. The evangelical minister and the rent boy.

Middle aged men are prone to wrecking their lives over a sexual compulsion. When gender dysphoria is not the motive for transition, plain old sexual obsession is.

Any man who says he is a woman or vice versa, obviously holds sexist views about what women or men are. I have sympathy for individuals who genuinely dislike their body to such a large degree that they feel the need to drastically change it, to 'present' as the opposite sex, it's the claim that they actually are the opposite sex that I cannot agree to.

Those who do really suffer clearly need help, but I don't think surgery and hormones are the right solution. The current message that we should change our bodies rather than working to change society is toxic IMO.

Same here, Datun. When I first encountered a transwoman I felt nothing but sympathy. It was only when aggressive transactivists started doing things and making claims that harm women and children that I started to rethink. I explored a bit and came across the cotton ceiling. That was what made me hit peak trans - that moment when you can't go along with the agenda one step more.

Since then, the more I've discovered the more toxic the transactivists appear.

I suspect - hope - that It's the scandal of child transition that will first start a rethink. However, judging by another thread about transwomen competing against women in sports, there's already a pushback from coaches, athletes and fans. Everyone can see that men competing against women - and, inevitably, beating them - is unfair. Girls in countries which have scholarships linked to sporting excellence are being cheated out what may be their only chance at university. International women's events are being won by transwomen and people aren't just lying down. They're angry.

So there are various fronts on which people are starting to push back. The trouble is that, once the facts get out sport, about child transition, it's likely to erode the sympathy most well meaning people currently feel towards trans people, and people like OP's ex will suffer.

And once they're exposed to what the trans agenda really is, people aren't happy. We see it on MN often. Posters who have gone along with the idea that trans people are a sort of super gay hear some arguments, read some links, and suddenly understand why we're worried.

Our allies are facts, logic and the words and acts of transactivists.

WobblyLegs5

All great points.

Apart from the transing of children, I would have no interest in, and zero problem with, the trans-ideology if it didn't affect women as a class.

I don't go on pro ana sites or trans-able sites and attempt to deconstruct their arguments in order to point out the irrationality of their premise.

I wouldn't even bother even addressing the misleading and illogical aspects of the trans-ideology, if it wasn't loaded with misogyny. Even then (I don't go onto MRA sites) I wouldn't bother.

It's ^only% because it is a direct threat to women and their rights.

I do get fed up with people asking why do you care?

If they left woman and children alone, I wouldn't give a toss.

BTW op I don't think spending your girlfriend's inheritance on 'gender reassignment' surgery is a very nice or harmless thing to do.

Chamomiletea "This is a very broad question but why would someone knowingly go through such horrible surgery to join a part of society that from what I know is marginalised and ridiculed. It seems like an awful lot of effort and must have some very strong convictions behind it."
You know that women are treated as second class citizens, but there are people out there who think that women have it easy, they're more privileged than men, blah blah blah. They don't see us as marginalised and ridiculed. They see the door being opened, not the smaller paypacket. Here's an extreme example - mensresistance.wordpress.com/female-privilege-checklist/. It is very extreme, but a watered-down view of women's 'easy life' is pretty common. SO again, no , they don't see us as marginalised and ridiculed .

Oh and 2 more things, there are people who believe they should have been born disabled. Who vlblind themselves or cut off limbs. That's a mh condition.

And read miranda Yardley's work. Transwomen herself, although I've no idea what terms she uses but v clearly understands the issues & is on 'our' sude

I font think anyone has a problem with people with gender dysphoria getting help, & in some cases that help may involve 'living' as what they perceive is the opposite gender.

But op- have you read the cps document? Put out but GIRES and that goes round schools telling children that if they are uncomfortable with a biological male, even completely untransioned in their space they are commiting a hate crime? And that lesbians should give blow jobs? Google cotton ceiling. Or tara hudsen- male rapist who takes that rapist penis into a women's prision. Look at the resource thread on here- the huge studie that shows pre and post op transwomen commit violent crimes at the same rate all other biological males do. Or google cotton ceiling. Or look at how us women are being told by tra's that we have front holes, we chest feeding babies and get chest cancer, we are 'cis' women not women, we have pomegranit peepee not menstrate, doodle berry's and naughty doudle berry's for ovaries and pcos, and discussing fgm is cissexist and offensive to transpeople. Look at their orwelian use of facts- the sui stats are taken from a study claiming 2000+trans people but the actual study of over that number of people contains less than 30 transpeople. And the murder stats are taken from those in sex worker-and the stats for murder if bio women in sex work much higher. The stats on American murders actual show the least likely to be murdered group, if adjusted for sex work bias, is transwomen. Both men and women are murdered at higher rates than this group. Yet we are gaslighted on a national scale, us/canada/irland all changed their laws to make sex based protections meaningless and the UK is about to jump suit. Which will mean Ian Huntly gets into female prisions-because he claims to be she. And women fleeing abusive husbands have to tolerate men, including said abuser in they're refuge. Rape victoms will have to shut up if their dr examining them is a he claiming to be she, because if not they would be commiting a hate crime, and already the NHS advise is that vulnerable women in psych hospitals (often there because of what men have done to them) will have to accept bio males in they're wards, even if said male has no interest in appearing to pass as female. It's the trendy thing for gnc children to be transed, parents to say my 4 yrold is a girl because he likes pink, followed by medication that damges their life and sterilises anyone slightly different.

Do you understand yet? This is not about your ex, or anyone who struggles with the mh condition gender dysphorIa, this is about the mass erasure of women.

That's a brilliant article datun

I've just seen this link on another thread. For me, every sentence of it comes across as authentic and illustrative of my experience online with individuals with AGP.

Chamomiletea

I'm wondering if any of it correlates with your experience of your ex. The part where the blogger mentions how nice, kind and supportive some of these individuals can be with women.

culturallyboundgender.wordpress.com/2013/04/27/but-theres-no-such-thing-as-autogynephilia-phone-sex-the-male-gaze-and-how-blanchard-and-trans-activists-both-get-it-wrong/

Why would someone who is stick-thin firmly believe that she is fat, to such an extent that she dies from malnutrition?

Good point CoteDAzur.

Because that question is often asked. Why would someone go to all that trouble?

When you consider the difficulties with transitioning, particularly the surgery, all the trauma involved in coming out to friends, family and work, etc, the motivation must be strong indeed.

It's used as an argument for the 'born in the wrong body' narrative.

Anyone, with an ounce of imagination, would suddenly think, crikey, that would be like living some kind of nightmare.

But when you read more, the premise that the person is actually mentally female, just doesn't ring true.

What does come across, for many (though not all) is a strong self obsession that becomes evident very quickly. Plus an irrationality that is difficult to address.

I think it has a much greater correlation to conditions like anorexia, than anything else. You might as well ask why do the transabled have healthy limbs cut off? It sounds to me like very much the same thing.

And where does the anger come from? There is a lot of (narcissistic?) rage at the merest hint of dissent.

"why would someone knowingly go through such horrible surgery to join a part of society that from what I know is marginalised and ridiculed."

Why would someone who is stick-thin firmly believe that she is fat, to such an extent that she dies from malnutrition?

Mental health problems can be scary. And (by definition) they make no sense.

Datun - I am finding your posts on this thread really interesting.

I am quite new to mumsnet and find the viewpoints on this topic interesting to read and consider.

Thankyou for sharing

Chamomiletea

I know, it's a rather surreal solution to a problem.

From what I can gather, gender dysphoria can be so severe that the only possible option is complete removal of the male genitalia. People like this will often say they are almost asexual. They certainly would not have wanted to have used their penis in a sexual way.

I don't know whether actually constructing a neo vagina is the only option, or whether there is some other urinary system that is also an option.

People with autogynephilia sometimes also take this extreme route. The compulsion is very strong and becoming the object of your own fantasy can be a yearned for goal (also called female embodiment fantasy. Again, it will often reduce, what I can gather, is an exceptionally strong sex drive.

Overall, it is a minority who opt for surgery in the first place.

When people say they have had gender reassignment surgery, this can often just be top surgery, i.e. breasts or even just facial surgery.

This is the problem with the all-encompassing 'trans umbrella'.

Men transition for a variety of different reasons. Women, I believe, on the whole, are either lesbians who feel they should be male as a result of internalised homophobia, or they are young women trying to escape sexual objectification/abuse and think that transitioning will give them protection.

Men who remain attracted to men are largely not the problem. It's the men who remain attracted to women and retain their male genitalia who are the most aggressive and misogynistic. Not always, obviously. Gender dysphoria can afflict anyone, regardless of their sexual orientation.

But the transactivists are the dangerous ones. They are making it difficult for both women and genuine transsexuals. It's all such a bloody mess.

I do think there is something fundamentally wrong with society that we encourage people who are unhappy with their appearance, to have expensive, dangerous, harmful surgery. And that's aside from the mental damage we are doing by tacitly agreeing with distorted self image. You wouldn't tell an anorexic that they are fat. I wouldn't tell anyone that they are not exactly what they are.

We need to help people accept their bodies exactly as they are and fight restrictive gender stereotyping that makes it seem wrong for boys to cry/be gay/wear what they want and for girls to behave and wear what they want.

Thanks for clarifying, chamomile. I apologise again for my post misunderstanding you- I came to this directly from a very goady thread, and over reacted. I don't know why mnhq haven't deleted my post...

Otherwise, what irene said goes for me too.