Can you all just lay off trans people

Olenna,

I do not know the answer as to what extent gender is innate or socialised. But nor do the people on this thread who repeat the mantra 'gender is a social construct'.

It is worth investigating, as you rightly said. I will be interested in the 'answer', if they find it in my lifetime. I am not sure there is a lot of funding to research it (apparently the large cohort genetic study is still awaiting further funding) as, whatever the outcome, someone is going to get offended. If there is a genetic cause found, 'trans' becomes 'treatable' with all the moral baggage that brings. If not, the trans community will be found to be the emperor's new clothes, again hugely offensive to a section of society.

Pink and blue is clearly a silly example (my boys were made to wear many a pink item when it was cheaper and my oldest is now rather partial to it). As is a particular sport. I totally agree that this is just socialisation. Risk taking, modes of play and social interactions, on the other hand, are more interesting and worthy of study.

The case for transgirls liking pink is not that pink is a fundamentally female colour but that they feel, in some way, female and choose to signal that by adapting behaviours that are typically female.

Barracker,

That is plain silly. It did not even occur to me that terf was any different to terftastic, it was a simple abbreviation.

Just another goady post telling women to STFU, with dozens of women defending their right to have an opinion on their own lives. Breaks my heart.

Excellent post DN4!

@MoseShrute Have you seen any info about Dr Kenneth Zucker, who was fired in Canada? I think his ideas were close to what you were describing. I'll try and add a link here:

www.thecut.com/2016/02/fight-over-trans-kids-got-a-researcher-fired.html

Haha - sorry real Facts not truths. Having a funny 5 minutes.

Terf - in the case of my username stands for "Telling Everyone Real Truth" - so it's not a problem

AH - Barrack you are probably right. I namechange often - but whichever name I'm under, LarryGrylls is on the Feminism section, telling women they're wrong. And it often has something to do with gorillas.

Just me, or is larrygrylls appearing to enjoy abbreviating terftastic to 'terf' just a little too much?

It strikes me that the scientists doing the study are not all innately stupider than those who keep posting on this board 'gender is a social construct'. They clearly feel it is worth looking at.

We're not saying that scientists doing that research are stupid

Scientists like to probe issues that lack definitive research and / or that are "of the moment". they like testing theories by taking them apart and seeing how they go back together. They like looking at issues from a different angle to see what they might find - often it's not the answer that they thought they were looking for but something else that's interesting or useful in a different context.

So of course scientists right now are researching gender (and lady brains and so on). I suspect that there is a lot more money available to fund this than in the past too. But it doesn't mean that they will find "proof" that gender is innate.

And personally I don't see how they can find this: think of how pink used to be for boys and blue for girls (this only changed in the last 60 years or so). Or how all children wore dresses until they were about 7 years old (what significance would unpoppering a babygro have when both boys and girls wear dresses, other than babies fiddling like babies do?). Or how in the US soccer is a girls' sport, but in the UK it's for boys?

I really hope this whole idea that you can chose your gender will have blown over by the time my children are old enough to have a sexual preference (and I do not have an opinion on what their sexual preference is).
You cannot choose your gender (or should not be able to) just as you cannot chose your race or age as it's biologically determined, nor should you be compelled to feel or behave a certain way because of it.

Yes Mike I've been worrying all week about your 'friend' and his imaginary tears.
Just fuck off. Your friend is a bloke. Always has been, always will be. Deal with it and ffs stop with this bollocks that transwomen are women. They're not. In the same way that if I draw on a moustache and wear trousers it doesn't make me a man and give me rights to use the men's toilets, changing rooms etc. I would be making myself vulnerable if I did this in ways you can't begin to imagine.
So again, fuck right off.

Nobody mocks all trans people on here, Larry. How dare you suggest that?

That's a typical argument used against women, again, who just want to protect legislation protecting them due to their biological sex.

Women have only X chromosomes.

That’s a biological fact.

It’s not discrimination.

Terf,

FWIW, I am totally with the protection of female safe spaces and being very careful about allowing people to self identify.

Equally I don’t think trans people should ever be allowed to compete in women’s sport.

I also think a lot of the trans trend is mass hysteria.

However that does not mean overly simplistic arguments and mocking of all trans people will serve anyone well.

Oh I remember a primate gender study!

Wasn't that was the one where they saw that the female monkeys played more with the frying pan, instead of the ball, and so they quite rightly deduced that there was an innate female gender "I'm biologically destined to create warmed up cuisine" identity in female marmosets?

Yes that was very compelling.

Larry - No of course you won't be drawn on that. I've read years worth of your posts on here - telling women they're wrong, talking about Gorillas and evo-psych crap.

Maybe, Larry, think about why women do not want "sex" to be replaced by "gender" when it comes to legislation - because sex is scientifically quantifiable - whereas gender is not. Although, as a PP said, the WHO have a good take on it.

"They clearly feel it is worth looking at."

Yes, never underestimate the extreme lengths people will go to to try to evidence their theories, rather than DISPROVE them, which is what we ought to be doing.

Even if, across a population we were able to find slight variations of behaviour, AND somehow demonstrate that these were innate and not learned, these would a. not be binary (like sex) and b. would mean about as much as suggesting that short men are like women and tall women are like men, because look, we found a characteristic with a slight variance between the two groups!

Baffling that people are prepared to argue that corpus callosum thickness might be hugely meaningful, but having a dick isn't.

And if we were to separate humans into groups based on whatever fun criteria (affinity with dolls in childhood? brain circumference? parallel parking ability?) is currently flavour of the month I'm certain that the advocates for revering this new, true gender difference would be quite reluctant to take their findings towards any logical conclusion.

Mind, what would I know. I'm just someone posting on a board that gender is a construct, not like those super clever scientisty people.

(who say gender is a construct. Read Cordelia Fine and Gina Rippon)

Looks like Mike pulled the Saturday night shift again at TRA HQ. Mike, has your imaginary trans friend stopped crying yet?

Terf,

I am not going to be drawn into an oversimplified yes/no debate into a complex area.

Many Scientists (both male and female) feel the idea of a biological basis for gendered behaviour in human beings is worth investigating.

You clearly believe they are all idiots. You are entitled to your opinion, as I am entitled to mine.

thegoals I believe the idea is one of "signalling*. So a culture has an external construct which represents a particular gender, and that each individual has an innate gender. There are many reproductive and sociological reasons why people would befit from "signalling" their innate gender, or indeed why they would not. Apparently it can be like a feedback loop; when people feedback their self-expression into the social construct it helps shape and change it, and as it changes that changes what people do to "signal" their allegiances within society.

All theory of course.

Larry's going on about primates again - he must be right. After all, there is no quantifiable difference between primate behaviour and human society.

Larry - do you deny that women that women's reproductive biology determines how they have been and are treated in society. Try not to talk about primates - let's stick to humans when we're discussing women.

Obviously my statement about strength was meaning, as a class. I know some women are sronger than some men, and such. Just incase thats read wrong.

But gender changes accoring to culture, and time. So I don't understand how it could possibly be innate? Sorry if I am missing something here. I cannot see gender as anything but taught behaviour. I see no reason why girls would be attracted to pink and pretty things or whatever nonsense.

The only things that would be innate is stuff like..men are better for work involving strength/speed. Because..biology. But even then, there have been times in different cultures where its actually the women who go out and hunt where the men stay home with the kids and stuff.