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

I have seen no evidence either that male people with all the same symptoms of gender dysphoria, same interests etc who declare that they are female have a different brain to another male person with those same symptoms and the same interests but do not declare they are female have different brains. Before or after treatment.

Just because they have brains where there is some grouping shown, didn’t make those brains ‘female’ either. They were still in the range of ‘male’ if I remember. Certainly the studies that people have linked in the past show no very clear evidence. They controlled for some things but they didn’t do the obvious matches. Such as comparing if a male who has the same interests, who exhibits the same grouping of comorbidities, and has the same chemical treatments but didn’t declare a trans identity vs one that does.

The relationship between psychiatric conditions and brain structure is bi-directional and complex. It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation - the plasticity of the brain means its structure changes in line with behaviour, but behaviour can also be influenced by its structure.

I don't think there is convincing evidence to indicate a genetic or neurological basis to gender incongruence or distress. That doesn't mean that there isn't one. I am also not sure what relevance this has to most threads on this board.

Resolution to the nature/nurture debate will have little bearing on debates about sex-based rights, or in this case, deception relating to natal sex.

I can understand why people with trans identities are preoccupied with causation. I can understand wanting proof that 'it isn't a choice' to be widely understood. However, even if there is a condition whereby there is an innate reason why some males and females don't feel like they should be males or females, the issues arising on this board remain the same. Males will still be males and females females, and sex-based differences will still present the same issues. It might change the level of sympathy/ empathy extended to the plight of those who experience gender incongruence/distress, but I don't think this will change their views on deception relating to sex.

A male who withholds information about being male, when being male is significant to the context is in the wrong. There are no caveats or mitigations - it is wrong. How they feel about their sex, the measures they have/haven't taken to remove identifiers of being male, and the reasons underpinning them not wanting to be male are not relevant. Whether people are or aren't sympathetic to their plight is irrelevant to the point at hand.

Another analogy - apologies in advance!

I have a cousin who is mixed race - Jamaican mum and white dad - but she looks completely white. Blonde hair and blue eyes.

She grew up with a Caribbean culture (can cook Jamaican food, the music, the specific customs around cleanliness etc) so she is technically as Black as my other darker mixed raced cousins.

She has to explain herself a lot but she also hasn’t had the same barriers darker skinned women. She is culturally black but has white privilege. Therefore, I doubt she would insert herself into a space for black women. Why would she? She does not share their experiences and certainly wouldn’t think that her experiences (which were at times traumatic and confusing in their own ways) are more important than those of black women who need spaces to feel safe and share their experiences.

I can’t claim to understand how that would feel. All I can explain to you is how I felt as a young girl growing up.

I didn’t have a dad, just a single mum on quite a rough estate who worked all the time. As such, I spent a lot of time in precarious situations often involving older boys/men etc.

I wouldn’t even say I was abused, but every one of the sexual experiences I had as a teenager growing up was something that resulted in confusion or shame.

As a young working class black girl, with a low adult presence in my life, I now realise that I was pretty vulnerable.

I had experiences that solidified the fact I was female because of my sex. You had other experiences that shaped you growing up as a child with gender dysphoria. I’m not claiming that mine are worse but I am saying that they are different.

The experiences I had growing up are shared by many other young girls. The experience you had is shared by many other trans people. We are different.

I want you to live in a world that supports you but why should your needs trump mine? Especially given that only a handful of people experience the world like you and millions of girls grow up like I did.

@ButterflyHatched do you have any references for your statement above: “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.”

Gina Rippon is a neuroscientist who wrote a book on how there is no significant difference between male and female brains. What research has emerged?

@ButterflyHatched 02:18 I'm glad you choose to be sensitive - thankyou.

The question was are you prepared to reciprocate and show sensitivity to others? If not (and I've yet to see any evidence you do) then why not?

The studies seem to tentatively show - and my experiences certainly match this - that this isn't really anything to do with prescriptive ideas of what men and women should be. There's a much more fundamental, physical bodily incongruence at play here.

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.

Whether you contextualise those differences as 'variant maleness/femaleness', Blanchard-style 'super-homosexuality', a form of CNS-specific intersexuality/DSD, or a more postmodern identity-based interpretation of gender incongruence is in many ways a personal ideological issue - but the practical realities of living with those differences don't go away regardless of ideological framework because for some people they are all-encompassingly debilitating and their effects persist right through puberty into adulthood.

Even just revisiting this scenario is a source of immense distress - in a way that actually surprised me.

You talk about sensitivity; denying those experiences is a pretty profound epistemic injustice even if you disagree on how they are best treated. I'm glad you choose to be sensitive - thankyou.

This made me sad to read even if it is a strange science fiction version of how you view your existence.

I wish the world had not been so prescriptive with its ideas of what men and women should be so that you could have just been happy to be in the body you were born with.

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?

Why would it not be enough to use gender neutral bathrooms instead of single sex? Why would sharing your born sex with sexual partners be so awful? Why is your need for the world’s recognition bigger that other people’s need to have laws that protect them from male violence? Or laws that prevent young girls from consenting to sexual experiences with trans people that they don’t fully understand?

I am sensitive to the feelings that you’re describing but are you sensitive to mine?

I'm not working from some kind of external playbook of canned talking points.

Of course not! The very thought!

I'll run with it since you seem to be genuinely interested in the answer and you appear to be engaging in good faith.

I will assume your question involves finding myself suddenly in an entirely phenotypically male body rather than one that has only experienced a short period of exposure to low levels of endogenous testosterone and then decades of oestrogen therapy.

You mentioned 'retaining its character and memories' and talked about having a male ID which is quite a different scenario to mine, more akin to some kind of mystical ghostly possession of an existing fully grown and intact person than a hypothetical (fanciful but potentially achievable within the realms of known physical laws) body transplant. Quantum Leap rather than Ghost In The Shell.

So I'm possessing someone's body, who I'm presuming I can be confident is metaphysically 'dead' even though I can access his memories and personality and thus there's no ethical consideration about ownership etc etc, and I'm presuming similarly there are no close familial or romantic connections to avoid that entire can of worms.

I know for a fact that I am a mind that experiences gender dysphoria in a phenotypically male body. I know that this feeling gets worse over time when untreated. I know that I have absolutely no interest in interacting with society as a man while being perceived to be male, and that it will cause me great and debilitating distress if this is something forced upon me. I also know I have no interest whatsoever in pretending to be someone I'm not.

I'm going to be honest here; I'm not sure I survive more than a few months of this. That's a pretty grim state to be trapped in, especially while living with the trauma of escaping it once.

However, perhaps I'm feeling particularly masochistic and bloody-minded and decide to effectively start again in adulthood without the benefit of the treatment I fought so hard to get in my childhood.

I would alter my ID to F because it accurately reflects who I am, the journey I am on, and its destination

I would ask people to be sensitive debating my existence because I've already been on this journey once and it was horrible enough the first time. Obviously they won't listen - they didn't the first time round - but I can at least ask.

I would make use of whatever means exists to make this body as tolerable as possible.

I would be extremely careful about how I use single-sex spaces knowing that my impact on other people using them will be perceived quite differently and harm could be caused in ways that my previous body would not cause.

In having chosen to medically transition it, I would know from experience that any male social privilege this body would otherwise grant will immediately be rescinded by the patriarchy - and I would find little refuge amongst many different groups of women who are hostile to trans people. Even those who might otherwise be sympathetic are likely to be significantly less so now. There's only one community that is likely to provide refuge.

I almost certainly would not pursue sexual relationships at all - I think the dysphoric grief it would be likely to trigger would be far too distressing. I'm sure for some people it would all be a fascinating novelty but for me it would be going straight back to pure hell. Mercifully, I know that transitioning would spare me from a male sex drive at least, though it would be horrible at first. Since current waiting times to access CSH are measured in half-decades via the NHS, that's an incredibly long time to have to endure.

Gosh this is just a very sad, depressing thing to consider really in light of my existing life experiences.

ArabellaScott · Today 11:08

Forced teaming, pompous lecturing, scolding, arrogance, absurd exhortations to obey, and unpleasant insinuations. That's sure to win the hearts and minds of everyone.

It was a rip-roaring success in the American election. Sadly, not for the Democrats.

I would like an answer to the 1010 post too

Oh boy, am I disappointed we’re all focussing on brain transplants when we should be funding Project Quantum Leap.

I guess when you have a child's brain in an adult body, it's not a leap to imagine a woman's brain in a man's body

What I find interesting about the topic of brain transplants is that the individual who raised it is trans and their therapist (I assume) signed off on treatment to transition even though the individual has an obsession over theoretical science fiction and the belief that this could become reality.

There is also a lot of research at the moment about the effect gut microbiota have on brain function, so moving a brain into another body would involve a lot more than just adapting to different hormonal triggers. It's a sci-fi concept that looks less possible now than when Star Trek was playing with it in the mid 60s - see also transhumanism.

These are the justifications for having sex by deception in this case because she was drugged:
The husband had given his consent for them to rape his wife; that they had not “intended” to rape her; that what they had done was not rape; that they did not have the profile of a rapist and therefore were not one. That they believed Gisèle Pelicot was only pretending to be asleep. That they had too much testosterone – that it was their body, not their brain, acting. That they too were victims of her manipulative, perverse husband.

Which ones are given for sex by deception re gender?

You are right. It may as well be, if a human brain was transplanted in X where X could be anything.

In context of this debate on a wider scale. One argument is the gendered soul essence. Some sort of magic essence that makes people either men or women.
Why don't they just transplant that?
No messy difficult biology, just transplant the magic essence.

I know a child who didn't get oxygen to his brain for a short while because of a massive fit caused by a virus. He has had to have part of his brain removed because an area that was then damaged caused more fits and was threatening his life. With any injury to the brain, there are very often lifelong complications.

Brain transplants leading to any meaningful life can’t happen. It’s actually pretty offensive going on about it as though it ever could.

Why is this brain transplant so very fucking binary?

I mean we have this amazing opportunity for brain transplants and Butters is coming across as a massively transphobic, enby hating, furry denying, bigot. I am so disappointed that an elder, and much respected forger of the hard road is pulling that ladder up behind him and ripping away the very safety and succour of his most marginalised tribe, and that he’s been exhorting FWR for at least the last of my lifetime of ever changing constellation data points that is my reference.

I mean, he has the opportunity to bring us all with him, but it’s nah fuck you evry much, I’ve got my Real Girls Brain, so long suckers!

I am be and reft in my horror.

@Bex5490 We can talk about passability etc, but the fact is that there are cases, which have informed the CPS, where people have been duped.

The most current cases are of women pretending to be men and duping inexperienced young girls.

There are probably tropes of drunken men picking up trans women unbeknown to them.

But the reality is that it has happened, and the legal profession is looking into the law around it.

These people exist. More will exist in future. Those definitions are not going to become more concise over time and even if you ban treatments here, we will still have to deal with visitors from overseas who interact with our justice system.

We are well aware trans people exist.

With regard to visitors from overseas to the UK, as you are well aware Ignorance of the Law is no Defence not in any Country in the world. The young British man jailed for a year in Dubai for sex with an underage female - underage by their law - has found that out to his cost.

Leaving reality behind, my answers are the same as theilltemperedqueenofspacetime's.

My experience of being a natal woman has made me very aware of the importance of keeping male bodies out of single sex female spaces. I would work to overcome any cognitive or emotional discomfort or distress I experienced in solidarity with females. I would not expect females to compromise their safety and dignity to accommodate me.

It’s the same principle as that cyclist saying that lesbians would just have to get used to penis.