The vast majority of male born transwomen still retain a penis

I genuinely appreciate the dialogue and input by the transwomen who have taken their time to participate in this conversation. I am reminded of how painful and incredibly challenging it must be to live with such a profound dysphoria. I am truly empathic for what you have experienced.

That said, there are a few statements in this thread regarding which I feel simply cannot be left without any challenge or discussion.

You're entitled to your perspective and its not wrong - but neither is everyone else's which they're entitled to also. They're all just different lenses to view the same stuff through. And are useful in different ways and contexts.

No. When we are discussing the safeguarding of girls and women and the permanent sterilization of our children, there cannot be “agreement to disagree.” There IS a right and wrong and I will not be silent. Failure to speak up is being complicit in allowing policies that will (and do) cause great harm to females. Rape is not a matter on which we can just view through “different lenses.”

I'm a victim too - so I'm fully aware of all of this. Many trans women are victims of sexual violence - usually at the hands of men also, though sometimes women are the abusers too.

I think we need to define violence here. These “abusive” women… Are you referring to “misgendering?” Curious glances? Even statements asking why one is in a sex-protected space? I’m sorry. These are NOT forms of violence. They certainly may cause one to feel sadness and pain, but they are NOTHING compared to assault.

Otherwise, if you are suggesting that women have been physically or sexually assaulting transwomen, I’ll need to see some evidence. I think we all know who the perpetrators of sexual violence are, and they are not XX individuals.

@Lougle your question about ‘downstairs surgery’ isn’t upsetting.

It’s really hard to explain Gender Dysphoria to people who don’t suffer from it and that’s 90% of the problem - it’s like an invisible disease to everyone else. Below is just my experience- others might have different experiences.

I can’t tell you why but part of my Gender Dysphoria (from earliest memories) has always been down a question of ‘why do I have these appendages down below?’ and a total discomfort with them that only grew worse at puberty and continued to get worse (this is just part of my dysphoria).

Surgery I guess offers us a chance to be rid of that daily battle and to live a more productive life.

I’m well aware surgery doesn’t make me a natal woman or change my biology. And I’m aware that it’s not for everyone and it’s not right for everyone which is why the gatekeeping needs to be there.

As I’ve said elsewhere, in my opinion trans women are trans women (TWATW not TWAW) and that is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. It is just another variation in life.

This conversion therapy concept. If you are transsexual - which means you KNOW you have a body that is one sex and yet have an intractable inner awareness that this is wrong that grows into an inability to carry on without correcting what you see as an error of some sort - then you have to know something is wrong here.

By the time you are old enough you know this is not a mistake by God, my first belief, or something that magic spells will cure, but a reality clash between inner and outer self.

So you are pretty well driven to see doctors because they are there to fix problems and this is by any definition a big problem.

It really helped seeing this in the 50s and 60s as I did in an era where there was no go to - oh you are trans - scenario. None of us - my teachers, my parents, my GP, me, thought this because we had never heard of it.

So this was treated as a medical anomaly to be investigated in ways science then could study. And it was a long game involving various 'cures' throughout childhood to try to tip me into the right direction.

The focus was solving the problem. Finding a cure. And they tried hard and I was willing to try with them but I was never convinced because the inner sense was there all the time and you could shove it into the background but it never went away.

So I was able to see what was attempted in the days when there was no trans ideology and no medical practice as such. I saw doctors before there even was a specialist in the UK. When I started on the transition path they asked me to write up my childhood diaries as a document they could put in the hospital library to help new doctors understand what was still something they did not get taught in med school.

I find it easier to look at this realistically now because of these things and whilst it remains only my experience and I should not impose it onto others it is obvious that in today's world how this is panning out and treated by society and science is far different because of the context that surrounds being trans.

But, yes, at heart it was regarded as an illness and a problem to be solved and I think that way worked better than just accepting it as a widespread 'thing' that 'just is' and which is best handled by doing what the (non) patient says.

Because I think in something like this you are too close to be the sole judge of what is the right thing to do here.

I'm talking about relieving the symptoms of dysphoria, which makes people require major surgery and a lifetime of medication. It seems similar to people who feel the need to change their bodies through plastic surgery because they are distressed that they don't measure up to a fictional ideal. Or people who feel the need to have a limb amputated because it feels 'wrong' to them. I think it would be better for all these people to feel comfortable with the body they have, rather than requiring surgical and pharmaceutical changes to it.

Now you are equating medical transition with amputation of a limb.

"Homely", though...

I know, right?

I'm quite sure that all the women who take pregnancy tests, scrub blood out of their underwear, miscarry, or throw up with morning sickness in a public toilet, frequently glance about them and think well this is homely.

Just popping in to reiterate how happy I am to see tryingtolisten and homefromthehills contributions. Oh, and that snap is talking shite again, obvs.

Yup. Someone who talks about millennia of misogyny as women needing a homely place as they can't handle it. And subsequently demanding access to that space.

It's a real head scratcher as to why women are objecting.

"Homely", though...

Iirc originally we did it because of sexism and thinking women couldn't handle being in society for very long without having a homely space to escape to.

Yup. Someone who talks about millennia of misogyny as women needing a homely place as they can't handle it. And subsequently demanding access to that space.

It's a real head scratcher as to why women are objecting.

homefromthehills
I think we're pretty much in agreement on this. Lots of psychotherapy, and surgical and hormonal interventions as a last resort. I'm sure some pretty appalling things were done to transsexuals in the past, and I am not advocating a return to that. But irreversible medical treatment should not be seen as the first or only treatment for people who have gender dysphoria.

OldCrone therapy with the declared purpose of making someone not be trans is conversion therapy and you are advocating it.

No I don’t think she is. She’s (I presume) talking about therapy to untangle the complex and of very toxic narratives around gender stereotyping in our society. What makes, for example, a teenage girl who may be autistic/lesbian/feeling under immense pressure in our hypersexualised society feel so uncomfortable. That’s exploratory therapy.

There is also a clash between sexuality conversion therapy (which I believe to be wrong) and the call to ban any other therapy than affirmative for minors.

If our teen later turned out to be lesbian, then affirmative therapy to tell her she’s in fact a straight boy IS conversion therapy.

snappity how do you reconcile the potential clash here?

I've got a question for the transwomen on here. If it were possible for some type of therapy to be developed which would make you comfortable with your body so that you didn't need to take hormones or have surgery, do you think that would be a good solution?

I cant see where oldcrone is trying to stop someone being trans

In fact we are always being fucking told on here that people dont need hormones or surgery to be the opposite sex as long as they FEEL it

So stop doing that 'extrapolating' shit please

Snappity

You've got the wrong end of the stick. See my reply to Tryingtolisten2. I'm not trying to convert everyone who is under the trans umbrella. If people want to be cross dressers, that's fine - in fact, I'm probably one myself since I buy half my clothes from the men's department.

I'm talking about relieving the symptoms of dysphoria, which makes people require major surgery and a lifetime of medication. It seems similar to people who feel the need to change their bodies through plastic surgery because they are distressed that they don't measure up to a fictional ideal. Or people who feel the need to have a limb amputated because it feels 'wrong' to them. I think it would be better for all these people to feel comfortable with the body they have, rather than requiring surgical and pharmaceutical changes to it.

I think it's reasonable to feel 'not male' and identify with being a woman, yet not necessarily want to undergo painful surgery with risks of ongoing health problems.

OldCrone, the point you made about what if there was a way to stop you being trans, would you accept that?

50 years ago this was one of the first tests carried out by psychologists on the 1000 or so people a year who went to doctors saying they felt they were the opposite sex.

It involved some kind of thing like a scanner that you entered and it cleansed your body and removed the 'disease' of being trans. Some doctors implied it existed. It did not of course.

They devised quite elaborate questions around that which had various responses graded. It was a common way to weed out those whom they could dissuade. If they showed any wavering at all - especially when it was put to them as they looked at pictures of gender reassignment surgery - they were immediately put into a category of no transition pathway and psychotherapy was applied.

Sometimes it worked. Sometimes they tried other drastic things to reinforce it. How it worked long term I have no idea but they cut the1000 down to about 100 cases a year through things like this.

I have no idea what it means in real terms to say yes or no to this. There must be psychological papers somewhere on this. But it did appear to be an effective means of uncovering who should not be suitable candidates for even being considered to go through a drastic medical and surgical pathway.

Which at that time you had to sign a waiver fully understanding and explaining in therapy you understood that you do not change sex by agreeing to have surgery. If you dud not then you were not put through to the surgeon.

This kind of gatekeeping would be viewed as horrific by today's trans community. I think it worked very well in sorting the genuine cases from the ones living a fantasy or the semi sure cross dressers. And it made very sure you were not going to argue you had physically changed sex if you did go through with it.

In the end over those decades the detransition numbers were 1 - 2% - one of the highest success rates for any surgery in the NHS at the time.

THIS is why that procedure became established. But it was inextricably linked to the psychoanalysis up front and the gatekeeping that acted as a pre selection process.

You can see why I am so frustrated by how today so many would not see why this actually worked and why it prevented what is going to be an epidemic of detransitioning if we go to self ID and remove all assessment.

Irresepective of the serious implications for women's spaces self ID involves and the obvious nonsense (and sorry it is nonsense of being a trans woman with a penis - you are not actually a woman biologically if you have GRS - so you sure as hell are not one if you don't) - then this is not helping trans people as they think it is. For some - yes - it might make it easier but if they are genuine they can do it anyway like everyone else up to now has without self ID..

For others it is leading them to the edge of a cliff and pushing them off hoping they can swim.

First, HRT stands for hormone replacement therapy. As a trans woman you are not replacing any hormone. You are introducing a completely inappropriate hormone into a body for which it is not designed. (Yes I do know that males with prostate cancer might be treated with female hormone analogues but not healthy males).

Second, just because a trans woman feels threatened in a male space (rightly or wrongly) it is not right to barge into women's spaces: in effect saying budge over because we don't give a shiny shit about your needs or your feelings. Such arrogance - the epitome of male entitlement.

Tryingtolisten2

I'm pleased that you are happy with the outcome of whatever treatment you've had. I suppose it would be better to ask my question of people who have not had any medical treatment, since once it's done and you're happy, the question is no longer meaningful.

The point I was trying to make is that it's unusual to treat a psychological condition (dysphoria) with surgery to remove or alter healthy organs and/or start medication which will be required for life unless there is no other way to relieve the patient's distress.

I agree with floral

I don't think anyone should feel compelled to have the op downstairs.

Either we have one rule for people who have had the op and those who haven’t, and so we incentivise major, irreversible surgery, or we have one rule for everyone regardless of whether they have physically transitioned or not.

OldCrone therapy with the declared purpose of making someone not be trans is conversion therapy and you are advocating it.

It is vastly different to neutral therapy to help someone decide the best option for them

What I don't understand, and I really don't want to cause upset, is how the knowledge that 'downstairs surgery' causes such almighty upheaval in your body, to the extent that you have to have life-long medications, and it is a risk to your life, is not anything other than utter confirmation that you are male/ a man? How can that all be true, and acknowledged, but you still believe yourself to be a woman?

@oldcrone I might have taken your question the wrong way, but to me it implied I’m maybe not happy now.

So I’d have to answer no to the hypothetical question.

I’m personally in a really good place at the moment and happy with my life, my family and a decent job.

It took a lot to get here but all that made me, me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way no matter how hard things have been. Transitioning has been good treatment for my Gender Dysphoria.

Snappity
Can I assume from your reply that you don't think this would be a good outcome, and an outcome requiring major surgery and a lifetime of hormonal treatment is preferable? Can you explain why you think this outcome is better?

I always think that when men trivialise our need for privacy in toilets it massively demonstrates how little they know about being a girl or a woman

THIS. Every person who trivialises this - and takes the "why is it a problem?" stance - is either a man or that rarity, a woman who has conveniently forgotten all that makes women afraid.

SarahAr
In order to change legal gender identity to female in Ireland (and also one of the options on the consultation) you need to live as a full time as a women and intend to do so until you die.

Can you explain how someone 'lives as a woman'? How does this differ from living as a man?

Can I just say that I am really pleased to actually have some transwomen on the thread interacting with us.

Fwiw, I don't think anyone should feel compelled to have the op downstairs. Because honestly, I think it's horrific to do that to a perfectly healthy human body.
But I understand some men find it helps their dysphoria and that is a decision for them and their doctor. Fair enough, now thing to do with me.

However, there is an intractable issue here, which is that, however nice you are, however respectful, however good your reasons are for not having your penis removed - you are a male, possessing a penis, and you have no automatic welcome into a female space. You may come there with permission - but that is not the same thing.

Oh, and if I had my brain removed and put into a male body, then clearly, if I retained my memories of being in a female body, it would be extremely strange. But I would still be viewed, rightly, by all around me, as a male, possessing a male body with all necessary accoutrements, and I could bleat all day long about my former memories of being a female and it wouldn't make the slightest difference because my body would be male and that would be that.

I have really tried to understand the trans argument and even agree partially that a man can become a woman (at least hormonal and, to some extent, genitally).

However if you are male with a penis and male levels of testosterone, you are quite simply a man. If I want to make a table into a chair, I need to do some carpentry. Merely sitting on it and calling is a chair is just silly.