Women's rights general conversations - Thread 3

Really good article here on the investigation into why the police are so bad at investigating sexual offences, and how they can improve (step 1, investigate the suspect!) www.mumsnet.com/talk/feminism/4757830-long-read-on-betsy-stanko-and-the-policing-of-sexual-violence?

I did, can't remember where I got it from myself!

Thanks, Winterborne. Not imagining things, then! 😀

I linked it a few months ago, but I think I got it from here in the first place!

A quick search shows that @Ereshkigalangcleg posted it in June last year. It obviously resonates with a lot of people.

That's an interesting piece. I'm sure it's been linked to here before (or even at the other place?), I'm sure I remember that stuff about windigo.

Kucinghitam · Today 05:52
Another fascinating article and promising discussion here:
www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4757655-brilliant-article-trans-is-something-we-made-up?

Thank you for linking it. It is brilliant.

"EvelynBeatrice
Bit of a non sequitur but... a while back I was stunned by article by male Times journalist- maybe Sunday times - exclaiming at silly women unhappy at sharing shop changing rooms with men ... after all, everyone is just there to try on clothes. I waited to see his next post explaining to black men why they are wrong to worry or complain about racism, but strangely enough, it never appeared

What an odd comparison?!!??! Racism is against segregation?"

I assume you are deliberately missing the point - which is that white people generally (ought to) avoid telling black people what racism is, feels like, is nothing to worry about etc. The same goes for men opining to women about what they should worry about in the complete absence of the life experience of these women.

Great article @Kucinghitam - thanks for the link.

That looks like an interesting thread @Kucinghitam I shall give it a read.

I like Mary Bourke and am not even a tiny bit surprised that the Hoxton crowd booed her.

If only the Guardian read their own articles.

Although even in that I note a little number fudging - hard to spot because the 2 bits of info are well separated: up to 18% suicide rate in people who get treatment; up to 1 in 5 suicide rate in those who don't.

I didn't - thanks!

Did you find this summary?

genderchallenge.no/onewebmedia/ARIF%20summary%20gender%20reassignment.docx

Goodness me, how times have changed! In 2004 the Guardian published this article: quite impossible to imagine them doing that now.

www.theguardian.com/society/2004/jul/30/health.mentalhealth

I've looked for the report they mention but can't find it. Maybe someone else can?

Indefatigable efforts again from the OP there. 👏

There’s a ratio.

And here’s some light relief. Don’t know if Mary Bourke is well known but I’ve come across her for the first time tonight. I shall be adopting the term SMURF.

vm.tiktok.com/ZMYPNAAbB

just read the Erica Anderson Telegraph article via the MSN link on another thread and got this WaPo article as my suggested next read…

Brit Awards, the Sequel?

www.msn.com/en-us/movies/oscars/the-push-to-ditch-best-actor-and-best-actress-for-gender-neutral-awards/ar-AA18d6Or

Interesting likes to dislikes ratio tho!

That endometriosis thing is insane so I went to look and apparently, there have been 16 cases in actual men but all of them were men who had had long-term hormone treatment with female hormones. My suggestion would be that what these very, very few men were suffering from was something akin to endometriosis and not actual endometriosis.

Of course, the people who published that article know full well that endometriosis is a female health issue and the pretence that it isn't is absolutely bloody pathetic.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Interesting figures in your study @nepeta, particularly the higher rates of surgery in FTM people. The rates of males having genital surgery are clearly low (in the US at least), and I've never seen any evidence to the contrary. It's quite striking, when the procedure for female bodies is more difficult.

Yes, that struck me, too. The negative side effects are more common and more severe in phalloplasty than in vaginoplasty.

Interesting figures in your study @nepeta, particularly the higher rates of surgery in FTM people. The rates of males having genital surgery are clearly low (in the US at least), and I've never seen any evidence to the contrary. It's quite striking, when the procedure for female bodies is more difficult.

In general, GCS is more common in transgender men than in transgender women, and least common in gender non-binary or nonconforming populations. Transgender men self-report GCS prevalence at rates of 42–54%, while transgender women report it at around 28%, and non-binary individuals at around 9% (7,8). By one study, a transgender male identity was associated with an odds ratio for having had GCS of 1.87, compared with being transgender female (9).

Across transgender populations, chest (“top”) surgery is more common than genitourinary reconstructive (“bottom”) surgery. Chest surgery is generally reported at about twice the rate of genital GCS. In studies that assessed transgender men and women as an aggregate, chest surgery has been reported at rates between 8–25%, and genital surgery at 4–13% (8,9). This could be due to a number of factors. Chest surgery may be more important to outward gender expression for many individuals, as the presence or absence of breast tissue is more readily visible in daily life than are the genitalia. Chest surgery is likely more accessible as well, as most plastic surgeons are familiar with breast augmentation and mastectomy for non-gender affirming implications, while relatively few are trained in techniques required for transgender genital reconstruction (36).

Genital GCS is generally less common than chest surgery, with prevalence rates of about 25–50% for transgender men and 5–10% for transgender women (7,9,32). For transgender women, genital GCS comprises a number of procedures, including vaginoplasty (most commonly intestinal or penile inversion) with labiaplasty and/or clitoroplasty, penectomy, and orchiectomy. Transgender women report bottom surgery at rates between 5–13% (7-9,32). Even more transgender women desire bottom surgery in the future: between 45–54% (7,9). Among non-binary people assigned male at birth, 1% have had vaginoplasty or labiaplasty, and 11% desire these in the future (7).

Anyone can get endometriosis apparently, but risk factors vary by sex assigned at birth. 🙄

twitter.com/healthline/status/1631302843222179844?s

The far-right tends to believe that girls should play with dolls, that gender roles are tied to biology and inherently unavoidable.

The gender identitarians believe that if a child plays with dolls, the child might be a boy, and that gender roles are not tied to biology, but inherently unavoidable. So being a woman means accepting those gender roles, just as it does in the far-right theology.

The difference is that anyone can choose to be this new concept of 'woman', as long as the person agrees to behave according to sexist female stereotypes, whereas those stereotypes are tied to biology in the far-right framework.

The far-right also believes that only men do heroic things in the public sector. The gender identity ideology posthumously transes famous women in history, because it seems that only men do heroic things in the public sector.

Those are some of the ways the horseshoe theory applies to this question in politics. Both are also deeply sexist, and this can be seen among the far right in how its decision power is clearly held by men in public spaces, in gender identity theology this can be seen currently in how only the female sex is being erased (we are now egg producers, vulva havers etc.), while the male sex is carefully left alone (no sperm producers, ejaculators etc.) and still called men and boys.

The gender critical approach does share something with the far-right views, and that has to do with the biology-based (lived experience) definition of 'woman.' But the goals of the far right are diametrically opposed to the goals of gender critical feminism:

The former need to have a clear name for the female sex in order to subjugate and control it (and its reproductive, sexual, and support-role resources), the latter need that clear name to fight against those exact attempts.

So yes, overall the gender identity ideology is a giant leap backwards in women's rights. It tries to return to 1950s gender roles (perhaps because if those rule then a man can transition by simply following all those rigid rules, while if they do not rule, then transitioning is harder as everyone ends up gender-nonconforming).

I have seen several online surveys on this, at least two with large numbers of trans people responding, but the problem with all such surveys is that they are self-selecting so can't, strictly speaking, be generalised into the whole transgender population. Still, there is quite a bit of such evidence and none producing the reverse findings (e.g. that almost all trans women have genital surgery, say).

This is a study which gives some data for both trans men and trans women. tau.amegroups.com/article/view/25593/html

I read it quickly and can't vouch for it. But the rates of surgery do seem to be fairly low.