We need to talk about what transgender means

that we have to have a clearer definition of what it actually means as it is not going to just disappear

You won't get one because that is not the political aim. And hasn't been since the 1990s. You're not listening.

it was influential 'transexuals' who have and continue to fight for removal of boundaries and safeguarding.

Stephen Whittle for example.

I absolutely reject the suggestion that recognising sex is binary and stating that sex matters in certain given contexts is radical in anyway.

The 'no debate' strategy has gone phenomenally well for me this year. I just state 'nonsense' and put my position forward. This has seen really positive changes in the contexts in which I work.

I believe that most people still think that trans gender is used to refer to people who have had surgical treatment - in fact THAT (gender reassignment) is protected in law, not gender identity.

To be protected under 'gender reassignment':

A person has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment if the person is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning the person's sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/7

No surgery is required, and you don't even have to be thinking about it. Under the law there is no difference between transgender and transsexual - the 'other attributes' that a person changes could be simply wearing opposite sex clothing.

Middle ground positions do not help women or children

There are conflicting interests. Until these are acknowledged and explored/discussed, there is the risk of winners and losers.

There are ways of protecting everyone's rights to safety, dignity and respect. Unfortunately, these do involve loss for those seeking validation for their identity through accessing single sex provision. However, where single sex provision is warranted, this is the only reasonable solution.

My point is that the debate is becoming extreme - and we are losing because people think we are bigots.

Quite the opposite, actually. Sunlight is providing disinfectant. Ordinary women are radicalising, civilians are shocked at the practical outcomes when they become aware, and the unsustainability of the trutrans position is becoming more obvious by the day. None of this means anyone hates transsexuals.

This feels a bit like atheists being asked to define god.

If we were being told we were going to have to live in a society where belief in god was compulsory, I think atheists would have a right to discuss what god was and why we should have to believe in him or her.

This is where we are.

The crux of the issue, as I see it, is that we have some people who want to be categorised according to how they view themselves in terms of femininity and masculinity and for their sex to be ignored or lied about. In such instances, definitions and language will be used to subvert sex.

For me, I don't want to be categorised according to masculinity or femininity or by my sex - with the exception of categorising me by my sex when sex and sexed bodies are relevant to the context. I cannot think of a single situation whereby by identity as masculine/feminine/ something in between has any relevance to any context.

I'm not a fan of categorizing people either. Too-often this whole area of debate involves an elaborate form of doublethink. Rigid, exclusionary categories are upheld by the insistence on femininity and the oft-parrotted proclamation that TWAW - as if women were one homoegenous group with one set of wholly coinciding interests and needs; one mind, as it were. Try telling that to the likes of bell hooks and the earlier intersectional feminists whose ideas have been completely misappropriated.

On the other hand, distinct 'gender' categories are resisted by pronoun-policing, erasing things like venus symbols from the front of sanitary packaging, 'neutralizing' the threat of the women's bogs and the insistence that 'outting' people as something other than the way they choose to present themselves is incredibly damaging.

This whole, individualistic, identity-categorizing obsession sounds extremely confused to most people.

For my part, I'm not in the least impressed with being re-categorized as a menstruator, gestator, chest-feeder or cervix-haver. I find those epithets profoundly offensive. But somewhere along the way MY rights to self-definition have gone far down the path of being completely eroded.

Shades of Burdekin's Swastika Night. And it scares the liver out of me.

But transgender means zero to me. It has, in my brain, never included transsexual.

In legal terms there is no distinction. The change in the law now being discussed is for 'transgender' people, which includes transsexuals as well as fetishists and cross dressers. Transsexuals is now seen as an obsolete and outdated term by campaigners.

Does it not bother you that the law is to be changed to accommodate people like Pips 'when I put on a dress it turns me into a woman' Bunce and beardy Alex Drummond in their quest to access women's spaces and awards for women?

OP, yes, but I think that's why you're focusing on the wrong thing.

the MRAs and TRAs are asking us to accept men as women. That doesn't need to be divided by category.

like I said, unless you're encountering a lot of this IRL, I would try not to worry and do any campaigning based on bio sex.

I have to go out now so not ignoring any replies!

But whether or not you think they are female, surely it might be a better tactic to fight for them not against them?

You'll find the majority view hereabouts is not positive about the trutrans position. We understand that some people suffer significant distress with regard to their sexed bodies. This is sad and such folk must be respected, helped and not discriminated against. They don't ever become the opposite sex, however, and should not be treated as such in law. It's not a matter of nice people and not nice people or how much surgery you have. It's a matter of women's rights - which can never include anyone XY.

when I write to anyone about this, I never mention any of the stuff linked up to what's listed in the OP. I just emphasise the separation of spaces by sex.

I really don't want to get into a situation where any of those categories actually become important. Can you imagine what that would be like?!

x post with Lang Cleg

yes, when I first raised this with my MP he said "don't worry, it will get sorted, it was only about gay marriage anyway". How wrong he was. But I don't think many people could have predicted the explosion of crazy we've had.

OldCrone Oh I think it's hugely important to talk about biological sex, yes.

But transgender means zero to me. It has, in my brain, never included transsexual.

People can talk about transgender till the cows come home, pop their slippers on and relax with a whisky in front of the fire, but the only conversation I'm interested in is keeping spaces separated by biological sex.

re transsexuals being thrown under the bus - yes, I think they are. But I have to fight my fight while they fight theirs. My fighting energy is limited.

The current state of play was always the end game, as per the 1995 image I posted earlier.

People can't change sex. The GRA was only instituted due to societal homophobia about gay marriage. It should be repealed and men should learn to accept their non-conforming brethren. That's it. No more to it than that.

Really I’m wondering why you want to talk about what transgender means.

Do you not think it's important? Laws are possibly about to be changed for the supposed benefit of 'transgender' people, which would also have an enormous effect on the rest of us, particularly women and children. We really do need a clear definition of what it means to be 'transgender' if these people's rights are going to be given priority over those of women.