The dreaded issue arose with my son…

They will have a unique experience certainly, and a valuable one. But it will not be the same experience as a woman, born in a female body and having lived entirely within a natural female body from the start.

People can do to themselves whatever the hell they want. And they can get off everyone else's toes while they do it.

I imagine CRISPR gene editing will eventually enable biological sex change in humans, though the person would still have the wrong set of internal organs, and have to have transplants.

We are knee deep in straw men from everyone who states there is a problem with this thread.

There never seems an ability to actually read, understand and connect with what women are actually saying. And it's not that women are not explaining, in detail, frequently.

Is it a set to broadcast and not receive issue? A terror of having personal faith tainted by listening/reading and understanding? Deep discomfort with dissonance? Being trapped in an identified as reality with a fear of listening to facts/anyone not enabling it? I wish I knew.

Over on the trans widows threads women are having to explain to their children that Daddy doesn’t want to be called Daddy anymore and that the parent-who-used-be-known-as-dad is going to wear a wig and a dress to meet their teacher at Parents Evening.

It wouldn’t be kind to those children to tell them their Daddy has changed sex and is now their other Mummy and it wouldn’t be respectful to their actual mother(and even if you do try and hide the truth a cheek swab and a 23andme account will show them which ’Mummy’ supplied the sperm chromosome that made them).

Is it only the kids with special gender identities that have to be treated with kindness or can the kids with trans parents, siblings, aunties, uncles, cousins etc have a smidgen of compassion too?

If you teach your child people stay the same sex throughout life then Uncle Julian becomes Auntie Julia, what are you going to say? That's wrong and a lie and don't talk to that person?

No, of course not. Why do you people always pretend that we would act in such a way, the evil TERF trope. It's absurd.

You'd tell them Uncle Julian want you call him Auntie Julia. He's still the same person only he wants to pretend to be a woman. We'll be polite and in a limited way go along with the pretence to make them happy. A white lie like telling someone their bum does not look big in those jeans. But as we know, Auntie Julia is still the same man he always was.

I wonder how this thread would go if year 6 boys talked about chopping off other parts of their bodies they didn't want to a younger child...
It's so acceptable for primary school children to consider castration is it?
"I'll pluck out an eye if I feel like a pirate when I get older".

At least hair grows back... kids dreams need to remain dreams until they understand what they are asking for.
I definitely wouldn't be explaining eye plucking to future pirates! Even with santa involved. Just don't harm yourself until you are old enough to live with the consequences. End of.

The rest of this is just too batshit.

Sometimes it can be very hard to see outside our own experience. Men often find it almost impossible to see things from the pov of women.

I know some people here take issue with the concept of "gender identity". Personally I don't see the problem.

I see more of a problem with the idea that anyone could "change gender". Maybe there are exceptions, but a lot of the time trans people can't pass as the gender they identify with.

Whether it's all "stereotypes" or not, they can't pass. We would recognise that at the psychological level they don't fit with being a woman or man.

Maybe we shouldn't care. Maybe gender is meaningless. I'm not so sure.

What did you tell him?

That some men like eyeshadow and baking so they must be females as men can't like those things and some women like to have short hair and drink pints of beer so they are really men?

Indeed.

Actually, I am really still struggling with how a poster can simply dismiss feminist discussion of rejection of there being a particular way of ‘living as a man/woman’ as transphobic undercurrents.

Bizarre to expect anything different from a feminist chat board. Maybe that poster doesn’t understand feminism?

"Because having been through this with my own child where five out of their friends (there was 7 in the group) all declared trans identities within 6 months of each other, I can fucking assure you that you really need to have some pretty clear definitions to give when you are asked questions in conversations such as the OP has had. Calling it transphobic to expect to be able to substantiate your answer with non-circular logic or falsehoods is not going to cut it I am afraid. It will simply mean your child has little to base their knowledge on. And at the end of the day, that is on you as a parent"

Well said.

Teaching biological facts aka the FACT that males cannot become females is not "transphobic". This is exactly why I've already had to pre-warn my children about what is being taught in schools right now and how the trans narrative taught in schools/society comes from a very fascist view point in that the narrative doesn't follow biological facts and breathing even slightly in a way they don't like will land you a label, as is evidenced by many of the bigoted comments from the "you are transphobic" lot.

Fuck. I am flummoxed by posters thinking feminists are either upholding or supporting gender stereotypes. Or why posters think even indirectly telling children that there is a particular way to live as a ‘man’ or a ‘woman’ is a positive and progressive step.

Thanks Arabella.

I think it is very important to listen to trans people, even the ones who I don’t agree with. Some of those are clear, like Contrapoints, that they will never achieve ‘living as man/woman’. Yet this mantra like line is roll out as some kind of fact.

The reality is that trans people are trans people. They believe in having a gender identity that is not materially definable. They should be respected as trans people, but not at the expense of the needs of children and women. And respecting trans people does not mean repeating mantras and teaching children to believe in mantras.

Older children shouldn't be trying to 'educate' younger children on sex, gender or sex education. The school should do something about it. Its far too close to grooming behaviour to tolerate.

Source: s

What you’re describing as ‚playing with gender‘ is not the same modern day gender ideology promotes though.
Men might wear perfume and hold hands in the Middle East - do they consider themselves women because of that and change their pronouns to she/ her?
I don’t think anyone on this board objects to people being gender-nonconforming.

Yes, let kids be kids.

Let them do sport and music and their frigging homework, rather than sitting around contemplating the gender identity that the members of this weird new religion are telling them they all must have.

'"...there is a certain level of delusion that often accompanies the early stages of transition and I do think it's unfortunate that 90% of people being very vocal about being trans will be people in that stage ..... [you move on with your life] ...leaves you with this unfortunate situation where the people talking about trans don't really know what they are talking about "

"I've learned what transitioning actually means, what is possible, what is not possible......I feel like there was a kind of mania almost that prompts the start of transition where you sort of think that anything is possible ... I feel like now there's a sort of disillusionment that sets in a few years in where you realise the things that hormones are gonna change have changed and at this point you know you've kind of ruined your life. You've ruined your life as it was, your relationship to your family is irreparable.. you have socially started over and you have to deal with the fact that no you will never be a cis person of the gender you identify with and so you are stuck in this very difficult existence.... I just feel very negative about being trans lately ..... I don't wanna be trans it sucks....I feel like I'm stuck with it. Defying the established social order is hard. Violating the most basic categories of human society has negative consequences. You learn that a lot of people are really shallow. You learn to cope"'

Contrapoints

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4793827-some-contrapoint-quotes?reply=125748567

Re: passing - I also think it's a very cruel idea.

If you visit any online spaces where trans people congregate they are often full of pictures of people asking if they 'pass' or not. Reassuring, if unrealistic, comments may provide a bit of an ego boost, but in the long run only increase the cognitive dissonance; unease at being 'clocked', and the pressure to achieve the impossible.

Contrapoints - someone held in high esteem by many trans activists - recently talked quite movingly about his recent realisation that he would never be a woman.

There is nothing wrong with being a non-conforming man or woman.

overtly sexualised ways

Some men look quite feminine, and some women look quite masculine, but you can still tell their sex. Sex is intuited and picked up upon in so many ways that are virtually instinctive.

Young women can pass better than young men - but even then that is only on first impression - a few more seconds and the sex is often apparent.
I saw once such young woman on Sunday. She had a young son ( about 3) or her partner had a young son. She had a moustache and was obviously identifying as trans. I did wonder whethere the child was expected to call her Daddy. I didn't hear - butv what i did hear was very much a female voice/tone - and her intereaction with thec hild was also a give-away.

I see trans identified people on a frequent baisis where i live - and the reason I know that is because you can always tell. i also see an increasing number of cross dressing men - often older, and dressed in quite overly sexualised ways.

Perhaps this poster is referring to us stating that describing 'living as a man/woman' has to resort to gender stereotypes as a point of differentiation.

I would still like to see that defined by the way so that a child can understand what 'living as a man/woman' means. I cannot see how telling a child that some people 'live as a man/woman' helps any child unless they understand what this means materially.

Female people more reliably can accurately sex a person. It has to do with skeletal proportions, gait, voice and other male sex cues. Unless a male has had particularly impressive facial feminisation surgery, it is quite detectable by the face, including eyes.

Yes, there will be people who are mis sexed. However, the whole 'masculine female' thing is usually instantly fixed when that female moves or talks.

If you don't trust your own instincts, why don't you?