If you're GC, what should trans people actually do?

I haven't read the entire thread (sorry, too many pages). FWIW here's my take on the OP's question.

My opinion is the minute we start calling them trans men/women we've already conceded the battle. Simply put, there's no such thing as a transman/woman.

There are men who were dresses and lipstick, and women who grow facial hair. That's it. There's nothing deeper or more meaningful to it. Some men grow beards, others work out at grit and sawdust gyms, while others prefer to act femininely and wear high heels.

The common denominator for all those people is that they're men. Some might appear more manly than others, but that's of no relevance at all.

Ditto for so-called transmen or enbies. Some women prefer long hair and feminine looks, while others get buzz haircuts and wear denim overalls. They're all still women.

We have to get out of this mentality of referring to made-up men as transwomen or to masc women as transmen. They're just men and women, respectively.

And if a man with makeup and heels feels at risk of abuse when he uses the men's loos, well for starters that's wrong, as nobody should ever be subject to abuse because of how they dress. But in this imperfect world, you know what, they can always not wear dresses and makeup. It's a personal choice, and with that choice comes a risk. Unfortunately.

To win this war we have to pull it back to where it began. We have to refuse to recognise the words transmen/women. When someone says for example Lia Thomas is a woman, the correct response should be, "Huh?"

Feign ignorance of the word transwoman, and let the other party try to explain how Lia Thomas is a woman. It should be fun to watch.

Welcome to critical thinking. It does get easier the more you do it.

Understand themselves* as trans

Benjamin Boyce does long form indepth interviews with Detransitioners on YouTube, it's really fascinating to hear from young people themselves why they came to understand as trans, what "care" they received and how they came to detransition.

What I've found fascinating is it's not like there's just one group you can separate off from "true transexuals" there are so many different stories.

There was a really good article that might interest you, I'm struggling to find it. It was about a lesbian who had come to realise that societies/social groups set up for LGB people had become dominated by heterosexual people with interesting genders or vague identifying as queer. She talked about feeling pressured to date trans women.

Reading more by Kathleen Stock "Material Girls" and Julie Bindel "Feminism for Women" might help you understand where gender critical lesbians are coming from.

I think lots of us who are gender non conforming can feel sympathetic towards girls and young women who try to identify out of womanhood. But we have the perspective to see that you can't really identify out of the reality of being female, and that you can tell gender stereotypes/expectations/sexism to fuck off without harming your body and becoming infertile.

A key misunderstanding in society at large is because trans adults claimed to have cross sex identification as children that therefore all children with cross sex identification are future trans adults so the kind thing to do is affirm them and transition them ASAP. But this is false.

There's been research into this following these children and the majority are not trans as adults. Many are gay and trying to make sense of that difference. The increase in teenage females identifying as trans also seems to include a lot of autistic girls (who also feel 'different' and can have quite rigid ideas of stereotypes as rules to follow) and traumatised girls trying to understand their dissociation and distress and seeking a solution. Add in that's become a fashionable identity amongst some groups...

Then you add in that even for the ones who would grow up to have trans identities that actually medicating them young, lying to them and pretending that living as if the opposite sex is no big deal really is horrible care that leaves them infertile, unable to orgasm, not having the psychological support they need, with riskier, more experimental surgeries and complications.

It just isn't kind at all.

@PurpleGreenandWhiteAreTheNewPrimaryColours "Progressive liberals are anything but."

Sad that's all you took from my post. But hey ho.

I'm always amused too that trans women never talk about getting paid less and taking on the majority of the domestic and caring responsibilities! 🤣

In my ideal world we wouldn't gender stereotype, so men wouldn't feel like they had to be women because they liked "womanly" things like wearing dresses, high heels and make-up.

In any event, I do neither of the first two things, and only wear make-up for work, but I am definitely a woman. I didn't feel like I must be a boy because I liked playing with non-pink lego and climbing trees as a kid, either.

Progressive liberals are anything but.

Wokesters are the most authoritarian bullies I've seen, wolves in sheep's clothing

I just want to say thank you for everyone on this thread, especially @AmaListening. I've found this topic incredibly challenging- I am a 1970s feminist and always expect myself to be on the "progressive" side of any debate. It was incredibly difficult to realise that I was on "wrong side of history on trans issues. I marched for gay liberation, rocked against racism, went to Greenham, supported our gay brothers during the AIDS crisis, campaigned for marriage reform-and then suddenly the children I brought up to be progressive liberals think I'm a bigot because I believe women only spaces are vital. This is the first discussion I've been involved with that gives off more light than heat. So I will read it carefully and thoughtfully, and hope that by the end I will have my brain in order.

why 'a transwomen'? CalMeKate was using 'a women' and 'a transwomen' today as well. Smells odd.

Oh I missed the point, sorry. I do remember that now.

Hi Op, I think what you are doing is really admirable. I think one further thing to think about is that, even aside from the womens' rights arguments (which I happen to think are important), is it "kind" to tell people they can change sex, especially young people. I mean, if you were a surgeon or doctor who was giving drugs or performing surgery on someone, you'd want them to know the limitations, right? (If they didn't, you might expect to get sued by those with suboptimal outcomes)

Does "trans women are women, no debate" and "Emily bridges the female cyclist" really help with this?

At some point, any trans person will need to accept themselves as they are, however much surgery they have had to get to that point. Which must logically involve accepting that there are sex based limitations to their state - if you are a TW you can't get pregnant, if you are a TM, your "penis" will have minimal sensation and will have to be pumped up manually, if you are 6ft 6 with massive hands you will never pass etc etc. As you age, you may be susceptible to the illnesses of your birth sex, as modified by hormone treatment. This is why I think that those TW who do accept that they have not changed sex seem happier for understanding that what they have gone through is to get to a particular place in which they feel comfortable, for themselves, not because they need reassurance from others.

There is gathering evidence that medical transition as performed now is not making a difference to suicide outcomes in young people who transition. Unfortunately, many universities would not even permit researchers to study this, which kind of suggests that some elements of the trans community and medical profession are comfortable with experimenting on young people to further a cause.

Quite. Perhaps you'd like to have a look at this thread @AmaListening do you think the person described in it has the right to expose children to his living as himself?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4870506-today-i-had-my-first-encounter-irl-with-a-transwomen?reply=128364539

Thank you to all (including OP) who have written such thoughtful and thoughtful-provoking comments. I have only been able to read a subset so far but would like to read more. Is there any way to archive this thread?

I totally agree that the term cis is based on an ideology and therefore shouldn't be adopted or seen as normal

@AmaListening

The right of that person to live as themselves, without having to conform to anyone else's definition.

It is amusing that you put this as a definition of what trans is as defining what other people are is what trans activists are trying to do.

Yes, Sharron Davies is fabulous - her interview on Triggernometry is really worth a listen/watch (either YouTube or podcast).

The PP was using the line which is directed against women who complain about males in women’s sport: that the female athletes should just “train harder” if they want to beat the males changing female sporting competitions into mixed sex competitions.

Sharron Davies talks about this on a podcast from a couple of days ago. She trained from childhood, 6 hours a day. Her father/swimming coach put both her plaster-casted broken arms in plastic bags to keep them dry and made her train regardless, ditto when she had a leg injury he tied her legs together and made her train just using her arms. Then of course she was pitted against east German women who’d been hormone-tampered, and made all the difference between her being a gold medal Olympic champion and an also-ran in the history books. She is such a wonderful experienced voice for fairness in women’s sports.

“Bridges did not have what it takes to make it beyond it, for various reasons (I believe an accident was involved). That's just the way it goes. Career ending accidents happen to professional cyclists all the time. It's part of the sport.
^^
What Bridges wanted was the sanctuary that a different spot offered. A spot where Bridges would almost be guaranteed to be better than the other competitors and wouldn't have to deal with the failure. What better place than women's cycling? Easily beaten competitors, the fanfare of having extra special status (as opposed to being the "odd" boy people avoided) and forgiveness from Mamma Bridges who no doubt reminded Bridges every day of all the sacrifices she made (and there would have been plenty, it's a full time job for any supporting parent to get a kid to BC).”

This is all correct. But the “Bridges could just train harder” point which you’re responding to wasn’t the PP having a go at Bridges. The PP was using the line which is directed against women who complain about males in women’s sport: that the female athletes should just “train harder” if they want to beat the males changing female sporting competitions into mixed sex competitions.

So I'd like transwomen to use male toilets, changing rooms, etc, AND for men to be broadminded enough that for them to do so is utterly unremarkable. And the same in reverse.

Hear, hear! @Motorina

Yes, accept their bodies, grow up, be happy as they are. Keep away from the drugs and knives of the cynical profiteers. I wish that people didn't end up in the sort of heartbreaking situation this young man describes.

https://twitter.com/kittypurrzog/status/1682908313149927424

Being told that I am 'cis' by others is exactly the same as a Christian sect member calling me a heathen because I don't belong to that sect and don't accept its beliefs, or exactly the same as a fundamentalist Muslim group calling me an infidel because I don't share its beliefs. And so on.

In other words, the label 'cis' comes from an ideological belief system which posits that there is such a thing as an abstract inner gendered soul and that this soul is NOT based on the sex of the body a person inhabits. Within this secular religion those whose body just happens to match their inner abstract gender identity are to be called 'cis'.

If I accept that label, then I am accepting the tenets of the gender identity ideology, and would agree that I am a woman not because I am female, but because I feel somehow inherently feminine (whatever that might be).

To see this better, note that the gender identity ideology does not even have a name for an adult human female being, because it is a heretical concept within that ideology.

We are both told to pretend to believe in their religion and also told that expressing disagreement with that is heresy.

This is extremely dangerous in a secular democratic society where people are allowed to believe in their own religions, but others cannot be forced to also pretend to believe, and it will also logically result in the kind of thing we now observe in the academia (both teaching and research) where content is scrutinised for lack of proper belief and where facts are erased if they don't match the current religious teachings.

Accept their sex
Get therapy
Learn to live with their sexed bodies
Trans-identified men should not try to colonise what it is to be female, or a girl, or a woman.
Use the correct single sex spaces where privacy, dignity, and vulnerability to sexual assault is a factor
Not cheat in sport
Accept that women's single-sex rights are not transphobic

But mainly, direct their complaints about and analysis of "transphobia" to men, and masculinity. As far as I know, no GC feminist has ever assaulted a trans-identified man.

Bridges was doing okay and was on the elite British Cycling training programme. I know some of the youngsters that were there at the same time, it's a tough tough tough world and unforgiving of any weakness whatsoever. Genuinely unforgiving.

Bridges is not the only youngster who didn't make it beyond that level, and some of the young adults that went no further, just like Bridges, achieved far far far more in their cycling careers with BC than Bridges ever did or will. Bridges' potential was obviously there, but it never came to fruition.

Whilst I can't describe Bridges as mediocre (nobody who makes the BC programme is mediocre), Bridges did not have what it takes to make it beyond it, for various reasons (I believe an accident was involved). That's just the way it goes. Career ending accidents happen to professional cyclists all the time. It's part of the sport.

What Bridges wanted was the sanctuary that a different spot offered. A spot where Bridges would almost be guaranteed to be better than the other competitors and wouldn't have to deal with the failure. What better place than women's cycling? Easily beaten competitors, the fanfare of having extra special status (as opposed to being the "odd" boy people avoided) and forgiveness from Mamma Bridges who no doubt reminded Bridges every day of all the sacrifices she made (and there would have been plenty, it's a full time job for any supporting parent to get a kid to BC).

I think what Bridges tried to do is utterly contemptable but I will make some allowances for a young person who was probably put under a horrific level of pressure at home and at BC and who, clearly, cracked. I hope Bridges gets the help Bridges so desperately needs.

I'm delighted that UCI have put a stop to this crap.