Pregnant trans men Guardian article

My daughter 'signalled', I suppose. She has elder brothers, quite a few years older. She wanted all their toys and none of her own. She would also use something innocuous as a gun. She wanted to pee standing up , and asked almost daily where her penis was. She wore boys' uniform in reception, and occasionally asked to be called 'Lucas'. She grew out of it.

What she was actually signalling was that in her world, boys had it better: better stuff, more freedom, later bedtime. Because they were 7-10 years older. She didn't want to be a boy as such; she just wanted what they had. To the extent of sobbing, aged 2, because we had left her 'Latin' book in the car. It was just a picture book; but they had Latin books for school and she wanted one too.

But girls do this too

And yet it is a recognised stereotype of boyhood

Stillscreaming and her friend despite (I assume) thiking of themselves as gender critical have simply decided that fairly typical child behaviour is typical boy behaviour.

...and not of girlhood.

But girls do this too.

And yet it is a recognised stereotype of boyhood.

By about four, they were pulling the arms of their beautiful dolls to use as pretend guns to shoot each other and taking great delight in peeing standing up.

But girls do this too.

I don't have an extra hand for washing up or an extra set of eyes for watching a child but, overwhelming, women do the majority of shit work throughout the world.

Because historically women have been stuck at home having babies and many still are.

Women have less access to education in many countries because they don't have access to sanitation when they have a period.

Women struggle to earn money or access education once they have children.

There are many, many countries where maternal death rates are higher than 1 in 100.

Period poverty exists in the UK.

Women only started to be in control of their fertility in the 1960s.

Men aren't even biologically impelled to stick around after sex.

This is just one more of the Guardian's endless and tedious "me, me, me" articles by and about people doing perfectly ordinary things which the rest of the world just gets on with but which the writer has to make a song and dance about.

The "pregnant man" stories caught attention with the first few until readers realised it wasn't a pregnant man. What this person needs to realise is that apart from themselves and the Guardian no one is interested.

I have anything in common with other women beyond living with the consequences of similar biology.

There is nothing about our biology that presupposes us for the shit work. I don't have an extra hand for washing up or an extra set of eyes for watching a child but, overwhelming, women do the majority of shit work throughout the world.

On the whole, men tend to be bigger and stronger but there is a lot of human variation, there are some women bigger and stronger than some men. Those bigger and stronger women aren't pulled and role swapped with the smaller weaker men. You can't but gender roles purely down to biology because we have some variation in biology.

Believe in the existence of sex is evidence based. Belief in the existence of gender isn't.

Knowledge of gender is evidence based, we know that we gender clothes, names, pronouns and loads of other things. There is nothing innately biological about calling girls Kate and boys Kevin, that's a social construct.

What we have no proof for, is how much of gender or gendered behaviour is taught and how much is innate.

As an old lesbian, I know loads of other old lesbians many of whom have had children via assisted conception, which overwhelming, leads to male children. Some have done their absolute best to raise their boy in as gender free an environment as they can.

One is particular was quite a committed second wave feminist, her boys were taught to pee sitting down, had an array of colourful, non gender specific clothes, were give dolls, not toy guns etc, were encouraged to feel and share their emotions. All of the stuff that we thought would cure gendered behaviour.

She didn't raise them in a lab, the did socialise but they didn't have television and didn't spend much time around adult men.

By about four, they were pulling the arms of their beautiful dolls to use as pretend guns to shoot each other and taking great delight in peeing standing up. They are nice young men but they don't stand out as being particularly sensitive or unsullied by gendered behaviour.

Of course, this is an anecdote about a single family, it's not 'evidence' of anything. We don't raise children in laboratories because that would be cruel, we can't establish what's outside influence and what comes from within.

merry I'm pretty sure I understand what you're saying but I don't think I understand your final question. What is being signalled... by who? In what circumstance?

I don't claim to have the definitive answers any more than I think anyone else has, but Stillscreaming touched on it on a post earlier on; if you analyse yourself, your behaviours, your preferences, I think all of us have to admit we can't be completely sure those things were a free choice for us and not somehow a product of our environment. But equally we can't ascertain which are the manifestation of something innate - an inherited aptitude for music perhaps - or was it that your mother was a wonderful pianist and expected you to be? It's impossible to unpick why you are who you are, short of scientists identifying the genes for one thing or another, or identifying the environment most like to produce "X" result.

So what do you and Caitlin Jenner share beyond what you might share with any other human? The thing is it doesn't matter, because the things you DO share with any other person alive, most of those things we have no idea if you share them because you both have something innate which is the same (e.g. "womanhood"), or if it's just the product of cumulative circumstance.

Caitlin may think it's because you're both women, in some way.

You may think it's just a product of circumstance, randomness or individual choice.

At this point noone can prove it either way.

Yes it can Upstart. There are a lot of competing influences going on at any one time on any individual. Too many in fact for any of us to ever know why anybody does anything really.

In theory if we could unpick all the whys and wherefores we could have a fairly good stab at predicting the future, but unfortunately people remain too complex at present.

ratrolypoly I went back to your post and understand the point that people use cultural signifiers to show that they are part of a group. I also understand wanting to belong or feel part of a tribe. But what if you are trying to join a group because you are projecting on to it qualities that don't exist?

I don't know what I am supposed to have in common with Caitlyn Jenner that I don't have in common with any other human, or as a woman, why I would feel that I have anything in common with other women beyond living with the consequences of similar biology.

I believe in human rights and that because of different biology women and men sometimes need different services, but Katie Hopkins is no more my 'sister' than Nigel Farage is my 'brother'.

So again, what is being signalled?

Exactly; a 2 year old has to be told that dresses are for girls. The way the parent talks about the child, and about girls and dresses can cause a desire to please the parent.

I should point out thought they like aaaaallll of these things on both sides of the argument there are no definitive answers that everyone agrees on. Only theories, some of which one cohort find more believable based on their lived experiences and some which the other do, based on the same.

I believe some people cite stereotypical interests as reasons why they knew they were trans because to them they felt they were being drawn to express their allegiance to a particular group, indicating to them that they really were a member of that group in some way. It's called signalling. It doesn't matter what the signs are that one would use to display one's belonging to a particular group, or that the signs are different in different parts of the world; it is the desire to "signal" one's belonging that transpeople are commenting on in these circumstances. Hope that helps.

Here you go merry, I copied from my other post. So when someone like Jazz says they knew they were a girl because they liked dresses as a toddler, it's most likely a really cack-handed way of saying that they were compelled to "signal" themselves as a girl; by whatever means was currently associated with girlhood (i.e. dresses). And that this, to them, was one of the first indications that something inside themselves truly is a girl.

Ratrolypoly, signalling what?

PussyTrump covered that in response to Olennas up thread. It's called signalling.

Hard to find genes for something that changes over time and place
How did the 2 year old Jazz Jennings know innately that dress=girl when 50 years ago all babies wore dresses

I liked that article, i loved that they had an amazingly positive experience when they had always looked on it with dread. Hope they’re enjoying parenthood - the child seems much loved.

If the starting point in a discussion is that one groups has the 'facts' the discussion doesn't go very far.

Believe in the existence of sex is evidence based. Belief in the existence of gender isn't.

I am happy for Gwyneth Paltrow to believe in the power of crystals and healing stickers. I just don't want her beliefs to influence public policy.

No. The human genome will really not be turning up genes for gender. It’s like saying there will be genes discovered for political belief or religious belief. These are cultural phenomena.

We haven't found those genes yet, we have genes for sex but nothing for gender, there might not be any for gender, who can tell?

Pretty hard to find genes for something that nobody can objectively describe.

thanksjanes go for it; I've been thinking about it more overnight too, it's interesting (to me!).

The difficulty with using subjective tests in laws that give people rights is that they are very hard to police and prove. How could you ever prove that someone had made a false self-declaration of trans just to access women’s spaces - you just cannot. So it is unenforceable. That is the reason that traditionally a Dr’s medical diagnosis has been required, as some kind of objective “proof” from an independent third party (albeit flawed proof, but it is what it is). The Nicot case in Strasbourg found that the State had a legitimate interest in maintaining that as a condition of being treated in law as the opposite sex. Arguments we should be making : we ought to draw parallels to analogous situations such as emerging trends on allowing mental illness and other non-visible illnesses to be grounds for claiming to be disabled. I think there you also need a diagnosis; I’d be amazed if not but I haven’t checked. Clearly this is open to abuse if you can self-declare as suffering from depression or anxiety such that you are eligible for benefits etc. Again, unintended consequences. There appears to be a trend towards using these subjective criteria in law but I think in time the issues will start to become noticeable...

Totally a fad. Really boring way of making yourself more interesting