If you're pro Self ID for trans people please could you explain it to me?

The point vesuvia is self id is here already, at least for more day to day scenarios. While there may be many who do so in good faith, the sort you describe can already change their name and gender in enough situations, such that proposed changes will make such little difference in practical terms. I assume you also mean transsexual women unless I've been using the wrong terminology all my life.

Also would it not be easier for a refuge or prison to refuse a man who has self id without taking any other steps to reassign his gender than someone with a GRC who looks and sounds like a woman?

some non-transsexual men who want to abuse women and girls will also not change gender on a whim - they will change gender in a long-term, planned, calculated way. I think there is a naivity about how changing gender takes so much effort that people who are not genuinely transsexual will be too lazy to do it. This does not match evidence that some non-transsexual men who abuse women and girls, are perfectly capable and very willing to make extraordinary efforts to access their victims.

Not only that, but the option to identify as 'gender fluid' and therefore only identify as a woman on a part time basis enables such men to continue living their lives as men and only identifying as women on those specific occasions when they wish to abuse women or girls.

mummybear701 wrote - "It takes a lot of paperwork and practical implications to change those so it can't be done on a whim."

What has a whim got to do with changing gender?

Genuine transsexual people will not change gender on a whim, but unfortunately, some non-transsexual men who want to abuse women and girls will also not change gender on a whim - they will change gender in a long-term, planned, calculated way. I think there is a naivity about how changing gender takes so much effort that people who are not genuinely transsexual will be too lazy to do it. This does not match evidence that some non-transsexual men who abuse women and girls, are perfectly capable and very willing to make extraordinary efforts to access their victims.

Girl Guides (bold mine) are already using self id.

Reading the comments under various articles about Hannah Mouncey - invariably there are comments of "you women wanted equality, this is equality." We want equal opportunity for women to play contact sports, not to insist on mixed sex contact sports obviously. And in the past women were not allowed to do so many sports because of arguments that primarily referred to their biology, not the social construct of "woman". I've heard so many people say women shouldn't box because of their biological fragility, not because it's not "ladylike". So even if people are secretly thinking it's "not ladylike", it is biology that has been used to make the case.

langcleg How can you bring up Jimmy saville into the self ID debate? Fairly well documented that he was proud to be a man.

None so blind as those who won't see.

I was - quite clearly and in plain English - describing how safeguarding responsibilities evolved in response to crises generated by scandals. One such scandal was the Savile scandal. Protocols were changed in response to it to reduce the chances of it ever happening again.

Self-ID proposes that we shred protocols and statutory responsibilities vis a vis safeguarding that we have built up over decades. It proposes that it is more important to validate the inner identities of trans-identified males than it is to maintain safeguarding protocols built up to include the knowledge and understanding that a large proportion of male sex offenders also like to cross dress.

I know you think you're being a devil's advocate. You're not. You're defending increased risk to women and girls.

Any trans-identifying male who wishes to live life as close to womanhood as he can possibly get should immediately understand the vital need for safeguarding and should be more than happy to go through gate keeping procedures to establish that they are no risk to women and girls.

Any trans-identifying male who thinks that his glitter sparkle inner identity trumps the need for safeguarding and should override consent and boundaries SHOULD NEVER GET A GRC AT ALL LET ALONE GET ONE VIA SELF-ID, because he is demonstrating to you that he is a safeguarding risk. The inability to perceive the needs of others, the belief you have the right to override safeguarding of others - THIS PAINTS YOU AS A RISK.

Flamingowings I found your post really confusing.

You could argue that transwomen are women. Fine, have it that way for a minute. But then a lesbian might say that people who have or have had a penis do not fit in line with their preferences

This is exactly the type of slippery thinking that ends with lesbians being pressured to accept dick. Lesbians don't fancy transwomen because they are male. Being a lesbian is not a preference it's a sexual orientation and as such is protected under the equality act for very good reasons. is good on this stuff.

Did anyone ever explain how I (we) know I'm (we're) a woman (women)?

I came to the conclusion many months ago, that I am no longer a woman based on current usage.

To be honest, I personally wouldn't be too upset at giving up that label. After all, it's just a word.

Then for a long while, I thought that although 'woman' didn't apply to me, I could still consider myself 'female '. That usage has changed as well now.

So how it seems that I no longer have a name for myself that identifies me as being 'of female biology.' And that does bother me, a lot.

Apparently the argument for 'transwomen are women' is that we have no right to say how others can or can't define themselves. Yet I feel that my own right to name myself as a biological female has been eradicated.

The problem being pro trans and ambivalent about self id is I don't feel my views are taken seriously. I'm in a minority, easily ignored or drowned out. To cut to the chase.

As I understand we already have self id for everything except the birth certificate, all other ID can be changed by a deed poll for name and gender pronouns. It is the very institutions that go on the birth certificate (sports, refuges, prisons etc. Previously pensions and marriage, but they are equalised anyway) that are exempt under the GRA. So on paper it seems a pointless exercise, more a symbolic move for transgender people. At present someone challenged over say toilets or changing rooms could produce a document with the self id gender including driving license, passport (with a GPs note), Citizencard etc. so we already have self id in your more everyday scenarios. It takes a lot of paperwork and practical implications to change those so it can't be done on a whim.

Whether existing self id has gone too far already is another debate.

My views come from contact with quite a few TG, all male to female including a fully post op having hell over her GRC application, a pre op but on hormones over a year, and a couple at DDs school and dance class.

That is a shame. I really would like to know how I know I am a woman, so I can understand why some men claim to be a woman. How do I know. How do they know? There must be an answer, I have my answer but it's to do with biology which I'm guessing some think is wrong. So please tell me the 'right' answer.

I don't think she can answer. She admitted that her notion of what self ID means was a utopian ideal and I suppose the thing with utopias, like identities, is that they are subjective and mean whatever you want them to mean.

I don't think MrsMcGarry has any hope of respond8ng- our questions are piling up!

Did anyone ever explain how I (we) know I'm (we're) a woman (women)?

Tbh I think if someone can explain that to me I might be swayed but no one can ever answer, except with the biology thing obvs.

Justanotherzombie wrote - "it's not for me to decide who anyone else is".

Self-identification of gender identity (and biological sex, if transactivists win their demands) is not about individual people deciding another persons sex, because individuals have never had this power over other people. Self-identification is about removing the power of the state to decide someone's biological sex. Government politicians, civil servants, medical experts and scientists will be silenced about the reality of biology. Women and girls are oppressed through their biology. Therefore, self-identification will harm women and girls.

Where are the transgender people (in the old sense of transsexual sex dysmorphia, not the new sense of cross-dresser), whose gender identity is not already recognised by the state, without self-identification? I think we can probably count them on the fingers of one hand.

People, who are not transsexual, are already benefitting from many organisations acting as if self-identification is already law, out of fear of transphobia (but it is not yet law). If self-identification does eventually become law, it will only make it even easier for transsexuality to be hijacked and for rights to be removed from women and girls.

@MrsMcGarry "I think that the majority of discrimination that women face is down to the social construct of gender rather than biology." Can you explain what this means, please?

^Dear Flamingo,

Don't worry, just ask him to tell you he is smooth shaven. Then you can happily sleep with him despite your beardphobia.

HTH

Popcorn.^

No one wants to discriminate against people who ‘used to have a penis’ btw. But I absolutely do want to discriminate against someone who DOES have a penis (but claims to be a woman and wants to work in a refuge, be incarcerated with women, and shower next to naked female teenagers at the pool.)

There has to be a line.

Btw to say this stuff means I'm being 'a biological essentialist' which like terf and truscum is another term of abuse for someone preoccupied with material reality.

Medical science = some article in a journal that's been debunked multiple times. Hospitals aren't brain scanning babies to identify their sex, they do it on a brief visual scan in utero based on seeing external genitals. Archaologists are digging up humans centuries old and knowing pretty much at first sight if they're male or female by the bone characteristics, and definitely via DNA.

Its rather like the suicide stats that are constantly shared. The origin of those stats was from a tiny, tiny sample of self selected people, and is not in any way representative of the population a whole.

Unfortunately anything that 'proves' a useful point tends to be appropriated and not always used honestly.

Myunicorn

Quite. It seems that as well as the revival of lady brain ideas there has also been a revival in the idea of racial brains too. Do the pro self ID people support these theories too?

africacheck.org/2015/03/12/analysis-black-brain-white-brain-the-new-wave-of-racist-science/

The last decade has seen a revival of a very old and long-discredited idea: that intelligence is influenced by racial origin.

Is it a coincidence that both these things are seeing a renaissance?

I wonder if Transwomen will be accepted more when all the late transitioners are gone and most TW trandition as kids without going through male puberty. They would fly under the radar more and the sports issue wouldn’t be do in your face.

Thanks - so the GMC is advocating treating trans people with drugs and surgery to make them happier but not because they are actually on board with the mind/body split? Because seeing people saying "medical science agrees with us" is freaking me out a bit!

Miriyou will not be able to make a coherent narrative out of it. No one can, and that's part of the issue. It's full of contradictions.

You will often see bits of quoted medical research used to appear to back up claims like the lady brain theory or that chromosomes aren't actually xx or xy. When you dig down into those sources they're usually very fringe, often not reliable and the kind of fringe science stuff you could find to prove aliens existed, or that the Loch Ness monster is swimming around. There are bits there that show its a field still being discovered, but it's not fact and it's not established, where there's overwhelming established centuries of evidence and research that prove the contrary.

My biggest issues with the sexed brain: (you'll find lots of discussion on this around FWR)

• how can I have a sexed organ. My kidney is not a female kidney. My heart is not a female heart.

• the brain works in conjunction with the reproductive sex organs in the body to produce the necessary hormones to make them function. If there's a confusion then surely those organs would not be in working order

• To believe there is some consciousness in the brain that is separate from the body and capable of 'landing' in the wrong body is basically a belief in a sexed soul. (Actually most people believing in reincarnation believe the soul isn't sexed and that people incarnate sometimes as a man and sometimes as a woman in different lives). If it's a belief in a soul then it's a religion, a faith, and cannot be legally encoded as compulsory for all people than any other religion.

• Women interested in women's rights are deeply cautious and cynical about the 'lady brain' suggestions, as this was the given 'science' for oppressing women for centuries, including withholding the vote. Their lady brains were biologically less strong and able than those of men, they were by birth inferior beings in need of guardianship and ruling by the superior class, and their little brains could not handle legal comprehension etc etc. To agree with a 'lady brain' or that gender roles are physically innate is to agree that women are rightfully inferior to men and the oppression of women is therefore right and good.

I've just come across this person, who is 'widening the bandwidth of being a woman'.

Alex has taken no hormones and had no surgery. Surely Alex is widening the bandwidth of being a man?

Can anyone explain to me why Alex is a kind of woman, not a kind of man? Alex is a lesbian by the way, in a long term relationship with a woman. Apparently previously straight women are finding their inner lesbian by fancying Alex.

Now don't get me wrong, Alex sounds fun. Alex doesn't sound like a woman.

www.buzzfeed.com/patrickstrudwick/this-transgender-woman-has-a-full-beard-and-she-couldnt-be-h?utm_term=.kuKKoXERm#.gwp9XdWQy