Robin Moira White on Woman's Hour Now (Tuesday 28/9)

You can’t have it both ways. If you oppose assisting young people who know their own mind with puberty blockers you have to accept that some trans women will retain deeper voices.

Sorry is the implication here that children should be started on a pathway to sterilisation and loss of sexual function, in order to make sure they don't have the "wrong" voice?

It's very clear to anyone observing what's going on, that large numbers of males who transitioned in later life, are pushing for children to have access to drugs that will render them sterile. Mothers/women are aghast at this prospect and rightly fighting against it.

Let children be children-they are fine as they are and don't need to changes their bodies or voices.

If you oppose assisting young people who know their own mind with puberty blockers

Robin, do you genuinely think children not even at the age of puberty can really understand the impact of taking puberty blockers (so we’re talking here 10, 11?)

You can’t have it both ways. If you oppose assisting young people who know their own mind with puberty blockers you have to accept that some trans women will retain deeper voices.

the answer for today's young people is surely stop the homophobic and sexist adults and peers?

Yes. And, in the interim, appropriate emotional and psychological support.

I've written elsewhere that sexual abuse and assaults in schools have been a problem for decades and yet we're still victim-blaming little girls and exculpating with 'boys will be boys'.

Bullying and abuse are social 'wicked' problems. Medical interventions to deflect that sometimes feels like using an aggressive medical model to resolve these social and cultural problems. I have no optimism that such interventions are durable resolutions.

Exactly purgatory

And the transitioning stories are always about non acceptance, abuse, trauma inflicted by homophobic and sexist adults and peers in the person's childhood. I have a lot of sympathy. But the answer for today's young people is surely stop the homophobic and sexist adults and peers? So they won't need to transition? Otherwise it just implies medical transition is a fashion choice.

It's like me saying that in order to get my ptsd better understood by society, all young people should experience what I did so they can have ptsd too and then society will be better to us?

Gabbi Alon Tuft (formerly known as the wrestler Tyler Reks- t. rex geddit?!?!?) has come out in favour of childhood transition, and made vague comments about wishing that they'd had that opportunity themselves.

But Gabbi didn't. Gabbi went through puberty, and presumably developed full fertility and sexual function. Also had a career based on being as strong as an ox. Now Gabbi has a daughter and Gabbi poses with her on social media a lot, actually. The exact opportunities children childhood transitioners won't have.

by = be
enact = intact

Yup re female puberty = harassment by males out of fucking nowhere. And I'm afraid I'm struggling to drum up enough sympathy to cry into my morning coffee for someone complaining about "enduring male puberty" no matter how dysphoric they claim to be in later life. Sorry duck, but it doesn't fly for me.

I've not really checked in with the rest of the thread so apologies for the derail but that comment needed a sense check in my view.

Plus the implication that we should by poisoning young people with cross sex hormones that damage fertility, sexual function AND long term health because people who have lived a life with those things enact want to live vicariously through damaged young people?

No thank you.

Yeah I think sexual assault of some form is almost universal for girls through and post puberty. There was no narrative to understand it with in the 90s/00s. We all internalised the shame as our own fault. I really hoped that young girls currently would be more educated about male pattern violence. But it seems to go hand in hand with identity so if you don't want to be objectified /groped /raped you should at least be non binary. Which really seems another way of saying the girls that do get objectified /groped/raped wanted it or deserved it.

I have no knowledge of your background and whether you have children or not Robin, but are you actually saying that you think that giving children drugs which may render them infertile and compromise future sexual fulfillment is a good idea.

I want some of those pills WomaninBoots!

Absolutely, woman. Wish they’d get a shift on inventing those.

It's weird which voices seem to dominate in trans spaces. Clue: it's not the voices of the ones born female.

Magic anti-sex based oppression pills weren't available when I had to endure female puberty. So here we are, eh?

There are alternatives for voice box feminisation that don't involve experimenting on minors with off-label drugs 🤷🏻‍♀️

But then, puberty-blockers weren’t available when I had to endure male puberty.

That is certainly true in a few areas of trans law,

?????

I never wear skirts or heels, does this mean I should be using the gents toilets?

I wear skirts but not heels, do I just pee in the street?

Thought RMW was a man when I heard the voice in the radio.

I wonder why I thought that.

Its an interesting point you make. I have a friend who works at a breast screening clinic and she was telling me about the noticable difference between when men and transwomen turn up for appointments. Men tend to be very quiet sit in the corner and generally seem very awkward about being there, whereas the transwomen are much more assertive, almost like its a validation for them.

I thought it was a really interesting observation.

Men can get it too. Male men.

DH had a lump and I went with him. Clinic v efficient. Consultant> mammogram> ultrasound > back to consultant for results and any next steps.

When we went for the diagnostic tests. They asked him to sit in a currently empty room off the waiting room.

And that was fine obv.

The fact that RMW is unaware that breast cancer can occur in males.

Means using that example demonstrates a lack of knowledge on the topic they decided to use as an example.

Oopsy.

But no, this person was convinced there was a whole fluffy porny schoolgirl experience they were missing out on and could now enjoy.

I'm sure they can, if they're ok with enjoying it with other adult males.