Biology is not as simple as one might think trust me i am a biologist….

It’s like when you’re teaching basic GCSE Biology monohybrid inheritance, using the good old “brown eye gene dominant, blue eye gene recessive” example, and some bright spark always pipes up up “But miss, I’ve got green eyes”...

…and you have to say “yes, biology is actually more complicated than that…”

Weaponising qualifications and lack of same is classic internet argument though, not in any way confined to feminist or gender issues. It sometimes takes an effort at self control not to join in.

If you actually are qualified in a particular area, it's always very obvious who is spoofing (and how cringe-inducing some of their pompous assertions are). It's also seems clear that the people who respect the expertise of others, and who understand how research works, are usually pretty good at stuff themselves, with or without paper qualifications.

I did consider reporting this thread and getting it deleted (on grounds of a personal attack)

…but I believe in free speech. Let people show just how nasty they are.

Quacks aren't ducks. Same way Transwomen aren't women.

Well then you sadden me with your broadscale acceptance of cod science.

You may choose to believe me or not…as you wish. I am 68 with a BSc Hons in a biological science and a qualified secondary science teacher.

God, what a nest of vipers this place is.

Putting aside late male transitioners, I fully accept that a significant majority of those with gender dysphoria have/will be something to do with feeling different, autistic thinking, and exposure to social contagion.

My thoughts were in relation to some older research finding some chromosomal differences (including unresolved karyotype) linked to neurodevelopmental differences along with querying why do some, but not all, young people experience gender dysphoria. To be clear, I’m not claiming anything other than ‘wondering’ and this is in relation to young people.

However, as I say, whilst it might be one explanation for gender dysphoria, along with many others, but what matters more is how that individual is helped to accept themselves as they are rather than misleading them.

Been applying for lots of jobs that insist on decent communication skills 😀

@SerendipityJane

That is pretty much what I meant by my next paragraph

Making the world as bit less shit for girls/women would do more good than telling girls they can be boys instead.
You just said it better 😁

Cool teacher!

The time, effort and other resources that have been put into trying to persuade us all that sex isn't fixed would have been so much better spent trying to fine ways to help those with dysphoria accept themselves for who they are.

Or even better spent on addressing gender differences in society that affect us all. If just 1% of the brain power that 50% of the population possess could have been engaged in science, technology, politics and all the other preserves of masculinity, it's hard not to feel we'd have a much nicer world. But the art of politics is not to do the possible but promise the impossible. Because that's a gravy train for life

agree with all of that @Runningupthecurtains

My DS is likely to end up 6'3" plus, with at least size 13 feet, shovel hands and his father's brow ridges (which have launched a thousand neanderthal gags). Fortunately he has never shown any sign of buying into this nonsense but if it did it would be really remiss of anyone to let him believe he could ever be regarded as a female by society.

I don't think it is fair to let children (or indeed adults) believe that sex is something that can be changed, it can't and for the majority of people, certainly the overwhelming majority of MtoF is can't even be convincingly pretended.

The time, effort and other resources that have been put into trying to persuade us all that sex isn't fixed would have been so much better spent trying to fine ways to help those with dysphoria accept themselves for who they are.

Making the world as bit less shit for girls/women would do more good than telling girls they can be boys instead.

Hopefully the juggernaut is slowly, the tide is turning and we can focus on finding ways to help those in distress rather than harming them.

With the Malaga airport cohort it is a fetish.

In their case examining how people develop fetishes of all sorts would be far more useful and relevant than any consideration of hormones or genetics.

Of course there may be something out there that we don't understand still.

There are lots of things we don't understand still ....

I think most girls who have gone through the very awkward puberty stage have wished they weren't a woman at one stage or another, haven't they?

DD1 has learning disabilities. During a sex ed class, about pubertal development changes, she said she didn't want to be a girl anymore. The teacher calmly asked her what she did want to be. She decided on 'a dog'. The teacher said "DD1, they have eight nipples." DD1 muttered in disgust "I'll be a girl then."

Now I appreciate she has LDs, but so many young people are expressing a distress that their body is changing in uncontrollable ways and they hate it. If there's an easy thing to blame, and an 'easy' solution, they'll take it.

This part of biology is not that difficult.

It's actually a serious point. "Intelligence" being on a spectrum must go two ways along the graph. Up and down.

Bearing in mind unlike sex, we really [still] have no idea what "intelligence" is. Although on current behaviour it seems to be a magic word that makes government money appear from nowhere.

When my brother was going through transition they did brains and tested his chromosomes.

They found everything to be completely normal.

He's a sample of one but this was from him directly.

So for me, I do find this hard to get around as an idea.

Of course there may be something out there that we don't understand still.

Putting aside social contagion for the moment, I’ve also wondered if there’s some biological/neurobiological basis that might account for an individual to experience gender dysphoria (hormonal, chromosomal, a combination). However, even if there is, it still remains that our individual has grown up as, for example, a biologically intact male. So whilst fully sympathetic to their dysphoria, the answer is not to mislead them into horrific surgeries or lifelong harmful medication and to pretend that in doing so they’ve become female. But rather to work with them on acceptance and expression.

"Artificial Stupidity" (currently more advanced),."

snortle, true story!

The thread title could have read:

"<insert discipline> is not as simple as one might think. Trust me I'm a <disciplinologist>"

and been (a) just as accurate and (b) just as useless.

Try it. It works for "Quantum physics", "Laundry", "hairdressing", "Artificial intelligence", "Artificial Stupidity" (currently more advanced),.

We’re on holiday and watched the film Junior last night (it was the only thing in English). In the film, Arnold Schwarzenegger gets pregnant and has a baby. The hole thing about how he’s actually carrying the foetus is completely hand waved away. My family kept shushing me as I was pointing out the million of ways it wouldn’t be possible for a man to be pregnant.

I wonder what TRAs make of this film….

The real question TRAs need to answer is how can TW's "womanhood" qualify them to access "women's" resources when those resources are only "women's" under a definition they reject.

So True 😄

The Cass Review is saying 'hey look at evidence' today.

This isn't a coincidence.

This is an important point.
I still feel strongly that getting the explicit definition of, broadly, "a woman is a person who is feminine in some way" out there would help expose the sheer misogyny of it all. That's the underlying premise and it's wrong.