The main flaw in the 'trans rights' argument

Aren't there just more 'identities', and more people are simply 'identifying' as the opposite sex rather than becoming. I read say 'non-binary', (a term I might well have used) just an identity much like a punk, mod, skater, rocker, chav, goth.

Yes, exactly. But saying you are "trans" covers all this and it is automatically taken seriously.

Musomama1

Yes. Well. Acceptance without exception!!!

That is what our lawmakers and policy makers / influencers have also been told to follow.

So, while you may believe that, and I might or might not believe that, we are told we have to accept without exception. To question someone’s gender identity is to not believe they exist.

The fact that those activating for males to access female sex based rights and protections are the same ones stating acceptance without exception haven’t seemed to understood their cognitive dilemma is quite a feat really. It shows their motivation clearly though.

If there are new genders then there would have to be new sexes, as gender is fundamentally a statement of material fact first and then secondly a bunch of stereotypes.

Aren't there just more 'identities', and more people are simply 'identifying' as the opposite sex rather than becoming. I read say 'non-binary', (a term I might well have used) just an identity much like a punk, mod, skater, rocker, chav, goth.

Aren't gender identities just the new trendy tribes that kids and teens have always had and which they are furiously guarding in the way they always have?

Making a distinction between sex and gender has allowed the lines to become blurred - gender and sex have been interchangeable it is only in the last few years as this issue has developed that some people are now saying the are different. I continue to believe you have male and female and can't change that sex or gender. Of course you have traits that are from the opposite gender/sex but that does not make you either non-binary or the opposite gender/sex in my view

People (and many other biological organisms) have sexes. A stark, hard, binary reality, in the same way a magnet pole can either be N or S, never both and never neither. Yes, sometimes the earth’s magnetic field shifts but N & S always remain 180 to each other.

Gender is the cultural phenomena (material objects, colours, activities, interests, skills, behaviours etc) that become culturally coded and have a tendency to coalesce on the social level around the dimorphic human sexes on an aggregate scale. So, one individual woman liking, say, combat pants and carpentry, isn’t indicative of anything, other than just liking what she likes. But at a larger scale, through the lens of pattern recognition, it’s observed that it doesn’t fit the typical gendered mould of cultural phenomena that are layered up around the empirical reality of the sexes. Just means that humans are unique and complex individuals (personalities!) with a variety of culturally coded interests that says very little about their sexually dimorphic status.

No. Many transsexual people don’t want to be recognised as trans anything. They want to live and be recognised as the men and women the feel they are and have transitioned to.

And therein lies the issues.

Trans people transition to the gender they identify themselves as but are materially not. And there are so many genders these days.

A transitioned male transitions to what their perception of a female and their perception only. They do not transition to the material reality of a female’s lived experience based on their life since birth.

And what about a transitioned female who is non-binary or one of the other very many genders? What rights do they need?

In the case of the female, they still need sex-based rights. Even if they are ‘cat gender’ they still need sex based rights.

There are conflicts and it is ridiculous to deny there is conflicts. And there is also this confusion where the ‘woman/man’ genders seem to get all the priority. But when you start to unravel it, it is far better that trans people have their own rights that reflect their needs, but they retain sex based rights if they are female. Because if you take this argument that ‘transitioned males should have access to female sex based rights’ where does that leave the non-sexed genders? Does that create a hierarchy there that definitely should not be allowed to exist?

Transitioned males should have access to trans rights but not female based sex rights and protections of having single sex spaces, the right of having equal and sex specific representation, the opportunities set up to encourage female achievement after centuries of negative sexist discrimination (that still is around in abundance), in sport, education, employment etc.

Those sex based rights and protections came into being because of females having a body formed around one reproductive function whether that function is/has/can ever happening/happened/happen.

The phrase "sex-based rights" itself did not even exist before this "debate"

Yes it is a debate whether males can ride roughshod over women's rights, sorry and all.

The phrase "sex-based rights" itself did not even exist before this "debate", and was coined specifically to attack and exclude trans people.

It actually did in some countries. I studied industrial relations at university in the 90s and we certainly used the term then.

But if we are going to change this we should have an open and honest debate about the pros and cons. Change should not be introduced by the back door and forced on the overwhelming majority who want to keep sex segregation in some areas by a bunch of self appointed zealots who have no support outside their self reinforcing bubble.

Completely agree.

I've heard of words like sex-based rights, sexual discrimination, sexual stereotyping, sexual harrassment, sex pay gap, sexual preferences, heterosexual, homosexual through my life. Along with the normal meaning for male and female. These words didn't start to appear to prevent people identifying as trans they were there first.

Trans people are trans people. They need respect and specialist and relevant trans healthcare and facilities. A TW does not need a smear test for example, but does need a doctor to support medication if the choice to take this occurs. I don't need this doctor's advice because, as a woman, I won't need to discuss choosing to reduce testosterone as I don't produce it at a high male level.

Why should we be socially segregated by sex in the first place?

That is an excellent question. But strangely enough I am unable to think of any society on the planet, at any time, which has not distinguished between sexes on the basis of their biology. Some of that distinction has served to protect women against sex based violence. Some of that distinction has served to oppress and control women mainly on the basis of their reproductive abilities.

But if we are going to change this we should have an open and honest debate about the pros and cons. Change should not be introduced by the back door and forced on the overwhelming majority who want to keep sex segregation in some areas by a bunch of self appointed zealots who have no support outside their self reinforcing bubble.

When did gender become different to sex, because this has been news to me. Isn't it a bunch of beard stroking academics that have argued a distinction?

Again I would argue they mean 'gender stereotypes' than the true meaning , i.e. adult human make it female.

Obviously that should read spurious notion, not serious notion.

The term sex based rights may be relatively recent. This is because those rights were associated with being a woman and it is only relatively recently that the word woman has started to be redefined from underneath our feet, without discussion or debate. If you change the meaning of the word woman so that it is no longer associated with our sex, we female women will feel the need to point out that all of the rights and exceptions that were given to us because we we are women were given because of our sex, not some serious notion of gender identity.
We do not accept the redefinition of the word woman, but for clarity are pointing out that the important difference, the one embodied in our existing laws, is sex, not gender.

In what way are transwomen not treated as equals? They have the exact same rights as any other male human being. Do you mean transwomen want to be treated as equal to women? In what way? How is making all spaces mixed sex going to help either women, men or transpeople? If transwomen are in danger when using male facilities, wouldn’t they be in danger when using mixed sex facilities?

It could just be trans women wanting to be treated as equals, rather than some malevolent conspiracy to subjugate women or whatever.

Women, cis and trans

Can you define what are the qualities of each? Otherwise I'm assuming you're saying "women, those who are female and some who are male and have said that they are "women""

They are different though. Sex occurs at conception, it isn't assigned at birth but is evident at birth if not before. I knew the sex of both my DCs in their 20 week scans. Where was I supposed to look for gender?

When I ask them now and they laugh and say they don't join in with that or the pronoun stuff, I guess like most people life goes on as before. They also don't follow stereotypes and it's a good thing young people aren't pigeonholed.

Perhaps there should be sex based toilets for men and women and gender fluid for anyone with dismorphia?

I'd go further, some tw (please goddess not many) probably don't want permission or acceptance from women. That wouldn't make it 'fun' for them. They post, tweet and tiktok about it. I think if all women suddenly decided that, yes, twaw, come on in girls! Some of them would be gutted.

I think you are correct. They wouldn't know what to do with themselves if they didn't have a group of resisting women to channel their feelings into.

To be recognized as trans in a society that has "constructed gender" they need to work within the structure provided.

No. Many transsexual people don’t want to be recognised as trans anything. They want to live and be recognised as the men and women the feel they are and have transitioned to.

That means being treated as their acquired sex in most, but not absolutely all situations.

I think for transsexual people this distinction between ‘gender’ and sex is very artificial and meaningless in practical terms/ everyday life.

I'd go further, some tw (please goddess not many) probably don't want permission or acceptance from women. That wouldn't make it 'fun' for them. They post, tweet and tiktok about it. I think if all women suddenly decided that, yes, twaw, come on in girls! Some of them would be gutted.

I am finding it somewhat contrary that on one hand the high-profile trans person on my FB feed never misses an opportunity to remind the world that they are as much a woman as anyone who was actually born female... then in the next breath is wittering on about Trans day of Visibility and how trans people are more special and worthy than any other type of people

Just proves to me that they want to have their cake and eat it... they want the world to acknowledge their Trans Specialness while they continue to still trample all over the spaces of Adult Human Females

I do not believe that you can change sex - you are born and remain the sex are born with. I personally believe that gender and sex are the same - and that people cannot change this. This view is now seen as unacceptable but I suspect that many think like me but increasingly people feel they cannot express such an opinion openly