CPS change the proposed 'sex by deception re gender' legal guidance

What always is clear though is the attempt to dismiss or distract from a male person knowing they are male and have been since birth, taking in all the cues of being male, being treated as being male and all that entails.

Whether it is fallacious ‘I was always female, just in a male body’ or whether it is trying to obfuscate it with language ‘been female for most of my life’ or whatever. The fact remains that those male people are male. There is no ‘nuance’ to be discussed. Everything they present is about wheedling some way to find their demands acceptable.

It is about manipulatively trying to find the right formula of sympathy, pseudoscience, science and whatever they can borrow and reapply to convince people to believe the impossible.

I didn't claim they were - I'd been (rightly, I think) very dubious about research into this area ever since that BSTc study from way back in the 2000's - it seemed like a dangerously paternalistic, medicalising and essentialist way to start defining people's validity and I was deeply concerned about the temptation to start basing human rights legislation on it.

I was honestly quite surprised that research teams kept going as I thought it was going to be a pointless rabbithole without any conclusive findings.

By 2016 various different teams had, however, seemingly found a surprising weight of evidence that there are particular (pre-CSH treatment) morphologies for the brains of at least some people reporting a transgender identity from an early age.

I don't consider that evidence in any meaningful way for trans people having 'gendered souls' but rather that there do seem to be particular distinct neurological patterns that arise, as far as we can tell, from fluctuations and variations at early developmental milestones - which, like somatic intersex conditions, can have an impact on how that brain perceives itself as an embodied whole and who or what that person grows up to be.

This can lead to very significant life struggles for people so affected.

I'm certainly aware of the journey I've taken through life and what has been apparent to me from a young age. The problems and practicalities I face today are not things faced by men. I do not experience all the things that all other women experience, but anyone who knows me would find the notion that I am to be classified as a man to be completely ridiculous.

Agree.

The distraction of brains is and always has been meaningless. And has no bearing on whether it is ever acceptable to withhold the sex category of your body from a person you are about to have sex with so they can fully consent.

The brains issue is meaningless. And the ‘safety’ issue that was presented is wildly inconsistent because it is apparent that it is just as unsafe to not disclose as it would be to disclose.

None of the pivots and twists to try to present sex by deception as being ever justified support that justification. None. But let’s see, I expect another attempt will be forthcoming. Maybe not on this thread but soon.

@ButterflyHatched

As others have engaged with your brain analogy can you answer these questions about my cousin who I described here.

Do you think my cousin is black and should be able to be in all black spaces? Take scholarships and bursaries for black women etc?

I reckon that is the case. I also was waiting for the other shoe to drop and … there it was.

Sex by deception is wrong. No matter what kind of brain you believe yourself to have.

There is no excuse for not being honest with potential partners. I don't buy the unsafe one either. You'd be more vulnerable if you don't tell in advance, not less.

And I know this thread has moved on to brains etc, (again there is no evidence of Butter's argument being based in reality). But I do think it is important to come back to this fundamental point. Lying about your sex is just wrong. Lying to yourself about your sex doesn't even make you happy seemingly.

There are distinct, readily identifiable brain phenotypes for subsets of trans people, especially early-onset groups that suffer from powerful and debilitating lifelong dysphoria, that differ from those of their 'born sex'. Our brains are, quite literally, structurally different in many cases. They become even more so after exposure to CSH treatment.

Very carefully put, since we both know I'm sure, that those 'readily identifiable brain phenotypes' are still distinct from the female ones..

eg www.nature.com/articles/s41386-020-0666-3

I assumed the answers would be obvious enough as to not be interesting. It would just make my life easier in multiple ways.

That's exactly how it has become though. To fix it, the first thing we need to do is recognise that this is what has happened.

Things are not how they were 20 odd years ago. I cannot imagine any of the employment tribunals that have happened over the last few years happening in the early 2000, for example. Would 'Sarah' have been denied single sex group therapy at a rape crisis centre back then?

I don’t have a gender identity and I am female because that’s the body I have. I have PCOS and before I was diagnosed as a young teenager I thought I was turning into a boy due to the bad hirsuitness and lack of periods. Anyway, it was a long time ago and I came to accept and even enjoy my female body, hairiness and insulin resistance included, when I realised that no one has an ideal body and I should make the best of what I’ve got.

however, if I woke up tomorrow in a male body I’d be intrigued, not horrified. I think I’d quite enjoy exploring the extra strength and different reactions in public as a manI’d also like to experience sex as a man, but at that point I’d have to acknowledge that DH may have a somewhat different perspective on this experiment. Actually thinking about it I don’t know how much of my sexuality is influenced by my body versus brain and whether I’d want sex with a man or woman if I was suddenly a man. Interesting, I’ll have to think on that one.

And I’m not trying to frame it as trans woman vs women. I’m trying to look at solutions that benefit everyone.

But it seems as though the only option trans activists are putting forward is accept trans people into all areas of the sex they identify with and that’s it. No compromise. Which is why the climate is so hostile.

I don't think one needs to trump another - I don't think framing it as an adversarial contest like that (trans women vs women) is a helpful or future-proof way of looking at how we handle discussions about how we structure society and protect those with varied needs

Really? Perhaps then maybe transwomen and activists should not have demanded no debate and insisted on taking what was not theirs to take.

I agree. In this specific thought experiment, Butter's brain would be put in a female body.

But there are girls and women saying that having people who were born male and have the advantages associated with that in certain spaces, makes them feel disadvantaged, threatened or unsafe.

So why is that not enough to warrant the use of third spaces. I just don’t understand why your need to be seen as a real woman is more important than that need.

I agree theilltemperedqueenofspacetime I think that reality and ruthless honesty about everything around trans would improve things no end for everyone.

TWAW/TMAM is the first thing that needs to go in the bin. It is a lie, it damages everyone and you cannot force people to believe it. It is no coincidence that Stonewall focussing on the 'T', TWAW and 'no debate' changed the landscape around Trans issues for the worse, for everyone. The medics who have lied to parents ('a dead daughter or a live son' etc.) should no longer be able to practice. The sugical butchers who have left a stream of fistulas, necrosis, incontinece, etc. should be struck off. The medics who still want to prescribe 'puberty blockers' to children at Tanner stage 2, should be struck off.

No more sending women to the metaphorical gulag when they know that human being cannot change sex and are brave enough to say so. Everyone, including trans people themselves should be able and willing to say this and recognise it as reality. No more calling women who need/want single sex prisons/toilets/rape centres/hospital wards/single sex imtimate care/other 'bigots, Nazis and Transphobes.' Telling the truth is not 'hate'.

Trans identifed people need support and evidence based healthcare. They need to have realistic expectations that are tethered to reality and biology. They don't need to be subjects of substandard heathcare, unrealistic medical intervensions, ideological flights of fantasy and medical experimentation that reminds me of Unit 731.

No, XXX, you are not going to be the first tranwoman to have a uterus transplant and then be the first transwoman to have an abortion (remember him everyone?).

As the parent of an ASD boy this terrifies me. And my son age 5 routinely tells me he wants to be a girl since his baby sister was born.

He just prefers me and his sister to his (poor) dad and says he wants to be like us for various reasons. But in the next breath he says lots of other random stuff. Imagine I encouraged this.

I don't think one needs to trump another - I don't think framing it as an adversarial contest like that (trans women vs women) is a helpful or future-proof way of looking at how we handle discussions about how we structure society and protect those with varied needs

But surely your brain is a muscle that develops over time. Don’t trans people say they were always the sex they identify with so how does an adult brain being transplanted mirror this?

Unless trans people believe their brain was already a fully formed female brain at birth. Is a female brain a thing or does it being housed in a female body make it female?

This is confusing IMO.

The problem is there is no therapy for autistic kids male or female. Both the school and I have been trying for years to get my asd ds help with his crippling phobias and anxiety but cahms refuses to do anything because they have deemed it as "a normal part of autism" and as such there's nothing that can be done. Well I know that this is bs as I'm autistic and with therapy I've successfully treated my phobia of bees and delt with my mild anxiety so I know quite wrong they are.
I place the blame for the number of ass kids dragged into the gender bs squarely at the door of cahms for refusing to treat all asd kids for anything other than gd and we know that they don't treat it with therapy

In most sci fi, having your brain put into another body would be horrific anyway, because it would imply the original owner of the body had been killed in order make it available.

I think Butterfly asked how we would feel put into a male body, thinking we'd be horrified.

Obviously, Butterfly thinks they have a female brain.

Wasn’t the question about having a brain being transplanted into a body of the opposite sex? Not a brain being put back into the same sexed body?

That was a sad read, @ButterflyHatched : you clearly have a high level of disgust toward your male body (which is not necessarily shared by all transwomen, many of whom have previously fathered children and/or keep their male genitals).

I can't understand an adult wanting to alter their body, but, on libertarian grounds, I can't entirely fundamentally object, either. Where we part company is on how it affects others.

Altering your ID, concealing that you are male, telling children that changing sex is technically feasible, sneaking into refuges and onto shortlists - it's all dishonest. Unlike you, I think a lot more ruthless honesty would reduce transphobia, not increase it.

And people might even be more willing to make concessions if they didn't feel deceived and/or coerced into it. For example, I have no problem with trans-inclusive provision (of what would otherwise have been single-sex). The problem is that genuine single-sex alternatives, for people who need it, have effectively been banned. Why cannot they coexist? Why do you demand affirmation, rather than simple politeness?

The law can't force us to see a man as a woman, but nobody wants to be deceived by a simulacrum either: it's a fundamental flaw.

@Bex5490

I feel as though all of the contentious points in this debate arise because of trans people’s need to be affirmed. Why? Why do you feel you need others validation so much?

The alternative is the crushing realisation that they are the victim of medical and philosophical charlatans, and have devoted their life and body to a harmful and abusive ideology and encouraged others to join.

In the same situation I might feel a little comfort from that validation too.

It is a medical scandal that autistic male children who have a fear of adulthood (such as the developments that arise from puberty), who have been ostracised from society due to their neuro-divergence yet think it's the "patriarchy" are deemed good candidates for gender transition.

The lack of personal relationships (or any sort), leads to place the blame on the patriarchy, and there is a desire to remove their sex drive as that causes them to want to form relationships with the opposite sex.

Really therapists and others should focus on how to improve the interpersonal relationship skills of autistic individuals because for some reason autism just seems to stand out at the moment.