Is there evidence for this?

Curious - I agree that there is lots of good work being done on this board and elsewhere. And there is very little nastiness.

Clymene - my point is that GC people need to (continue to) call out misinformation and nastiness on their own side - try to make sure that the GC side of the debate is as kind and honest as possible to make sure that it is exceptionally hard for a fair-minded person to criticize it.

Obviously the GC side of the debate could be considerably nastier and more dishonest whilst still being incredibly kind and honest compared to the TRA side... but I think it has to try to (continue to) take the moral high ground

We get monitored for it, ban hammers fall. And those who dislike MN FWR troll us for out of context quotes to Twatter.

Outside of MN we risk jobs, violence, membership of book clubs etc etc.

But we do what we can. As we have been for a fair few years now!

And BB had someone on with CAIS (Complete androgen insensitivity syndrome), who said [paraphrase] we all start out female and that the inability of those with CAIS to use testosterone means sufferers are female.

I was actually taught in biology class that all foetuses start off looking female, because the Y chromosome doesn't kick in until after a certain time. It's why the sex scan can't be done until after a certain time, you basically can't tell from looking initially (only from a chromosome test).

However, if the Y chromosome is present, it's present and you can't undo that, so it doesn't matter if when you were a foetus you looked a bit female for a while.
Also yes, only males can have androgen insensitivity because only humans with a Y chromosome produce androgens. They won't develop a full penis but they won't develop full female organs either. They will have high testosterone levels. Hence overrepresented in female sport.

And you know what else happens in the womb, as a foetus we develop gills like a fish for a certain amount of time too. Oh no we really are clownfish after all.

Unfortunately people with DSD (disorders of sexual development) are also poorly served by the TRA movement. DSD (or intersex as it used to be known) covers a BROAD range of developmental differences of varying degrees and is entirely different to “transness.” People with DSDs have somehow been force teamed into the trans community, even though transness is a feeling and DSD is physiological/biological. Totally different groups with different biology and different medical needs, and I wish that the TRAs would stop conflating the two.

It doesn't really make sense to look at causes when the definition of trans is now so wide as to include just about everyone. There is no single explanation that could account for a predilection for cross-dressing in males, a dissatisfaction with sex stereotypes in girls, a feeling of not being either sex, a sexual preference for being read as the opposite of one's birth sex, a feeling of unease with one's body...and yet we are told that all of these are signs of being trans. How can that be true?

CAIS and any other DSD is nothing to do with transness. If They want me to believe it is then They need to be logical about it.

As it is They are co-opting the research into DSDs to medicalise transness - having fought hard to have it de-medicalised.

I'd have far, far more respect if They said They were gathering funding to look closely at transmen and women to see if there is a genetic, biological precedence.

But no, They choose to piggyback someone else's reality instead!

A slight tangent, but I've recently started following a GC instagram account. Some of the comments are a little nasty. Nothing like rape threats from trans activists, but nasty and unnecessary nonetheless.

The point... I think people who are GC should try to call out misinformation, nastiness and unproven "science" when they see it, really make sure that as more and more people open their eyes they don't find much from the GC side which is objectionable.

I saw the 'all female' discussion on twitter today with Dr Hilton.

twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1420652337597648897?s=20

She says: 'Genetically, around half carry info that will direct female development. Anatomically, embryos are neither male nor female until about seven weeks.'

Some people believe water is medicine (homeopathy), so I'm never surprised when people believe all sorts of nonsense. Remember, they want to believe and desperate to find evidence to justify their ideology.