Stonewall change definition of transphobia - questioning gender identity ok now

@Janine2363
The same person might be treated differently in different countries due to differences in the law. The impact they have on others remains the same though. It doesn't matter if the severely traumatised girls in my family encounter men - no matter how those identify - in a public toilet in the UK, Germany, Spain, India or wherever. Due to the impact of male violence on their brains, these girls are biologically programmed to have such an intense fear reaction that they will be unable to use that toilet.

Some countries care more about women's rights than others. Some countries have stronger feminist movements than others. The reality that many traumatised women and girls cannot share intimate spaces with men is universal though, because it relies on the women's and girls' survival instinct - something culture has no impact on.

I really don't think that is happening now though. Just looking at Netflix Female Friendship shows loads of shows w close platonic friendships, about both teen girls & adults.
^https://www.netflix.com/gb/browse/genre/1143288^
Over here we've had the hugely popular Derry Girls & We Are Lady Parts, ok both focus on group friendships, but they are still about friendship. Both feature lesbian characters who later get gfs- it doesn't have to be zero sum between lesbian relationships & female friendship ofc, & I don't think TV is treating it that way.

I agree to some extent. People shouldn't oppose any suggestion that someone could have been gay, esp as for women in particular the conventions of romantic friendship could be a useful mask for lesbians, and if everyone took assertions that people were 'just friends' at face value, most actual lesbian relationships would probably be missed. At the same time, it shouldn't be used to imply that platonic friendship is always sexual, it's a lovely thing in its own right obvs.

Ir can be more complex though : the political lesbian/woman-identified woman/lesbian continuum 1970 s style stuff often tried to subsume both platonic and romantic female-female relationships under the banner of 'lesbian'. Not v helpful ofc, as actual lesbians again had lesbianism defined as platonic (political lesbians who were straight disliked defining lesbianism by sexual attraction) & it implied that straight women who'd rather build lives based on female friendship were the same thing as lesbians.

I look forward to this too.

it all sounds wonderful, until you point out the lack of coherent definition.

To accomplish this, there's no need to prove anything but that transgender people are just that: transgender people.

What is your working definition of a transgender person?

"Not all countries have the same laws on single sex spaces. Laws are formed in the context of society based on the needs of society."

Would you like to list the countries that don't have laws on single sex spaces that they should remain single sex? Considering that there seems to be a fairly constant stream of countries revoking the laws that they can easily and quickly do so for now on self id, and single sex spaces, I expect that your reliance on these will be disappointing for supporting your arguments in the future.

And please explain this "A phenomenon like transgender is universal, as it is part of humanity".

How is transgender a universal phenomenon? Please explain this. Are you leveraging other cultural social values that have recently been politicised and misrepresented in this statement? Because to me, you seem to be using a false 'appeal to history and culture' here. But I am happy to see how you work this through with evidence and with clear examples and details.

Please link us up to the evidence. If I have missed it or forgotten where you have posted it, please remind me where I can find your post with this evidence.

This is a wonderfull post/reply. Many thanks for that.

I'm now searching for words, as to why, the way yuo write certainly strikes a chord, but as I don't know you, I don't want to sound presumptuous, so apologies if I am too forward, but to me you represent a person who is a bridge builder and who can effectuated change. By describing different angles and views that matter and include genetics, biology, culture, as it is and as it can be, but in realism and in balance.

In the story you reacted on, I mentioned the 'axiom' from maths, the position one starts from and on which the rest is build. A rigid single facet axiom will rule out a lot of possibilities, people may pick it because it make there position and concerns more solid.

I remembered one more thing from the time when I studied, coming from Philosophy: What is true, what is ethical, and social philosophy, e.g. human rights.

On what is real, one can take two oppsing points of view. Reality is outside of us, and by our senses limitations we cannot perceive it completely. Or as people we are creative, reality springs from our minds, but because of our limitations, we cannot fully form it.

In my work, I have to invent and create, so you can imagine a discussion between me and collegas, on "when does something exist" ? For me from the moment I imagine it, it will only take a bit of time until I have made it. For my colleague, only after I have made it. Just to show that I personally am very positively biased towards the individual and prefer a sociaty where people can bring what they have to offer, not reject them on what they have not.

The things you mentioned, are part of this process from the day humans started thinking and creating and trying to make sense of the world. The metaphores things in our religion, but also the roles and stereotypes we have created for ourselves. But as we learn more, are all the old ones still relevant, or can we change to adopt better ones. If not women would still be owned by men as in the roman society, and was maintained until a 100 years ago.

Also because of my work in a very much male environment, I take my strength based on who I am, more than 'the prizes' for every bit I did. And in this context I look at womanhood as something that is (must be) more than the biology of the body, but definetely including the biology of the mind.

So I am coming from an angle that transgender person can fit in there, without (for me) being required to be exactly this or that.

All the more supprising (to me) that, as you write, certain activest apparently write that sex does not matter. This is contradicting to what I write, because taking in all angles requitres, well taking in all angles, and very definetely not leaving out any concerns. And given society as it is, with the real problems it may have now, one has to recognize that and cast it in law in a way that works and expresses a balance

So I accept transgender as real, a need for recognition and supportive law, but also the reality that this requires a society where there is women's rights are protected and the belief that can be achieved without complete sex based seggragation, but separation where it is appropriate. And where law has some guards against abuse by bad actors. To accomplish this, there's no need to prove anything but that transgender people are just that: transgender people.

Male-bodied people are never women, irrespective of what country they are in.

It’s fine to throw about terms like “bias” but here, unlike other spaces, you’re actually expected to back up your argument and make a case to be taken seriously.

What makes you think that a self selecting group of men should be classified as women @Janine2363

Hi,

I tried to explain that culture is leading more than biology. Not all countries have the same laws on single sex spaces. Laws are formed in the context of society based on the needs of society. Different societies, different laws, although laws can be more universal, but for instance a phenomenon like 'brexit' shows that sometimes a country does not want that.

A phenomenon like transgender is universal, as it is part of humanity, not country, not society, but how they are regarded is. So because of the difference of culture and laws, the one and same person is treated entirely different depending on which country he/she is in. As it is the same person, that person will also not become more or less criminal when crossing the border. So even group statistics may apply, whether they are more or somewhat less relevant depends on culture.

So an argument for or against something is then set, not based on the individual, but on the behaviour of groups, and thus basically on how the groups behave towards each other.

To me it seems that because of culture and history, some movements are more typical for the UK than elsewhere. It is what it is, but I think existence of transgender people also is what it is, just like that some groups believes that it is not.

To me it appears that in this forum there is some bias in one direction, which probably means that what I write here is not felt to be logical or reasonable, same as I find some things written in reply to me I do not find logical and reasonable. But that's the value of conversation, so I'm OK with that.

“What I try to say is that there is a reality, and we as humans observe that reality, give it names, try to explain and so fir into a human perspective, but the perspective it being put in is very strongly shaped by religion and culture.”

“The problem with reality is that it does not care for our explanations, it simply is, and (through science) we are still trying to make sense of it. Also because there is much we have not made sence of, or we have not yet created the means to discern there may not be objetcive evidiece yet, but emperical, ... or we got it wrong.”

Yes. Reality abides. And the reality of human sex classes has abided since humans developed as a unique species.

Your future whataboutery is not going to change the reality of human sex until such time as a machine can break down a human into atoms and reconstruct that human from genetic code up with opposite sex body parts as an infant and reverse time so that every experience for that infant is completely new. That way the person will have only the experience of having a body the opposite sex to the original and will develop from
those experiences.

As you say, reality couldn’t give a fuck about what we feel we are, because reality involves our every experience as the person we are.

And your points miss seem to miss the most relevant points of why we have single sex provisions in the first place. The evidence needed to make strong and robust safeguarding decisions is already available.

It cannot be shown that any group of male people, regardless of the stage of transition, has the same risk of committing sex crimes as female people. It frankly is irrelevant to how that male person feels. The evidence has shown there they do not commit sex crimes at the same rate as female people.

It is also now well evidenced that male people retain male physical advantage over female people regardless of the stage of transition. They are stronger, they have leverage of their skeleton that gives them more power, including height. There is a quite a list.

Then there is the needs of female people to have space away from any male person. Male person, based on them having a body formed around the production of small gametes, regardless of whether those gametes are produced or not.

Can you please explain how future findings will change these three points?

Can you please explain why you believe society should accommodate male people accessing female single sex spaces based on future findings? What other laws and policies are based on future findings and not what we know here and now?

Just for anyone who hasn't seen it, in 2015 Stonewall were making recommendations in a submission to Women & Equalities Select Committee Inquiry on Transgender Equality, calling for the removal of single sex services and spaces -

https://womansplaceuk.org/2018/06/25/references-to-removal-of-single-sex-exemptions/

You don't know much really do you?

Whether trans people felt Sonewall was working for them or not, it is a fact Stonewall's Equality Index and Top 100 Workplaces list moved increasingly away from LGB factors to trans factors and this has sadly been hugely influential in misleading employers about what is required or reasonable with respect to the balance between supporting and respecting trans people and supporting and respecting other employees, up to and including encouraging employers to implement policies that the SC have now confirmed do not comply with the Equalities Act.

There is a direct line between the malfeasance of Stonewall and the climate of fear that many UK women live under at work when it comes to trans issues.

Women genuinely do feel that they cannot speak up about their distress at being relegated from a person with rights, protections and a voice to a hand wavy instance of a gender identity because they may lose their job. Whether you agree with them or not, that surely is not something you think is acceptable?

My the recycled arguments are coming thick and fast nowadays! I remember that 'what if some possible undefined point in the future that we discover that lady brain really is a thing!' argument from about four years ago.

Then as now, the answer would be 'well, it's like if in some point in the future we find out that pigs can in fact fly and we need to put in some rules for making sure that we don't have porcine deposits descending on us from above, we can deal with it then but at the moment, given it's not actually a thing....'

Can't see it (literally) and I'm not going to go onto a site chocoblock with far right to read something by the pisshead sadist who told trans people that they should all get AIDS (if he knew the first thing, he would know that's a really really sick thing to say to a group of people who were affected by it). He's an incredibly evil person.

Anyway, I don't know why GCs are so obsessed with Stonewall, like, they barely acknowledged we exist until a decade ago (they were a LGB charity) and don't really listen much to trans people..hell, I personally wrote to them dozens of times to correct something they had on their site which was factually wrong and they only corrected it recently, years later. GCs seem to have this weird idea that they're some kind of 'leader of the trans' or something, whilst trans people think they're a bit clueless and not that much to do with us.

@Janine2363

Interestng post, thank you. On my journey to the position I have today I followed some of the same lines.

Here's my take....

I agree with you that there is reality, and there is the meaning we attach to reality, and they are not necessarily the same thing. But in this there are couple of things to consider:

Firstly:

We can frame realiity and add to it, but we cannot change it.

So we can, for example, decide that there are multiple subdivisions over the sex binary and they can be "real" in that they are meaningful in society and have social structues and gendered beahviours attached to them. And indeed we see societies where exactly this happens.

But we can't undo the reality of the mamalian sex binary in humans. Even if we made every word that named it, every image that showed it, verboten and forgotten, humans would still by and large fall into one of the two sexes, would certainly bear different physical consequences based on their sex, and given the significant time and resource commitment of pregnancy, breastfeeding and infant care, likely different social consequences as well.

So while we can pf course have cultural beliefs that some male people are ersatz women, or in agender mixed sex groups, despite this no male people through culture become female in the physical sense so many aspects of "womanhood" will always be closed to them (Leading to an interesting aside about the role of male birth myths and ritual from Zeus to the Molly houses.) And going the other way, a woman who becomes an ersatz man does not take on male stength and is still vulnerable to male on female sexual assault.

So whether or not trans is "real" in a sense that it reflects a genuine natural variation of the human mind that exists regardless of culture or indeed language, no matte how we may recognise this identity socially it can never make the body of the person socially immaterial in the way that genderist activists wish us to pretend because the body is real and it does have consequences outside the self image / mind. It still does not justify unrecognising and unsupporting female people in the challenges that come with being female.

Secondly,

I am also a "Does it have to be like it is? How much of what seems inevitable now could have gone a different way? What could we change if only we could escape this perspective?" person. So I can absolutely envision a society where we sliced reality diferently - perhaps to decide that men of different height are actually two different social groups, or to map additonal subclasses on to the sex binary.

Imaginging the thing is easy. Working out how to get there from here (if indeed there is where we want to go) - that is hard.

The thing that is often missed in the "culture can change" analysis is that change takes time.

So doing what trans activists demand, throwing away the belief that sex matters and opening up all the female protections to men who say they feel female (whatever that is - I am female and I don't know!) might indeed be viable in an alternative cultural structure, but right now we need to deal with the men (and women) whose "reality" and rules of engagement were formed in this culture, with these ideas about men and women, and sadly in this culture female minds (the minds of female bodies) have been marginalised because of the body they came in, female labour has been undervalued and exploited , female bodies have been fetished and objectified by men,.

Applying the rules of that envisioned culture now, without tackling the sexism and male entitlement of this culture first, will not bring that new culture into being, it will just damage a lot of women.

(The point about "trans people have always been there" I have covered in another thread, but can't find the link so here's a quick precis: all cultures seem to come up with beliefs around talking to the dead, talking to or becoming animals, and becoming the opposite sex. My take is is it not that these things are "real" but that sex, death and animals have been with humanity all through our existence, are literal life and death to us, are everyday with us and yet are ultimately uncrossable divides. And this means they are go-to metaphors both in our religions and in our subconscious minds. Universal yes, but not meaning they reflect an actual reality outside the metaphor. Very interested in your thoughts on that?)

What I try to say is that there is a reality, and we as humans observe that reality, give it names, try to explain and so fir into a human perspective, but the perspective it being put in is very strongly shaped by religion and culture.

The problem with reality is that it does not care for our explanations, it simply is, and (through science) we are still trying to make sense of it. Also because there is much we have not made sence of, or we have not yet created the means to discern there may not be objetcive evidiece yet, but emperical, ... or we got it wrong.

For instance it took us as humans to figure out earth revolves around the sun rather than the other way around, and it was not until long ago we discovered the working of DNA

And as of today nobody knows how the brain works, how we actually have free will, how (if) we can innately know good from bad, why there are homosexual and heterosexual people

In one of the posts above, at least as how I read & interpreted it, was the 'shaping by society': The impact on society -if- we would accomodate, in the context of how in -this- society people behave towards each other, Thus in a -different- society, the impact would be different and the reason for taking a certain position would go away, be diminished, or just different.

But the transgender person would be the same, that person is not defined by society, but by reality of nature yet different societies respond different to the same realities of nature.

Now that I am writing this, a thing from math came back to me. Mathematical proofs are very precise, very strong evidence, but the math basis is not given by proofs, but by axioms. Not things we know to be true, but hold to be true and the rest is constructed from that.

In this audience my impression is that most of us start with the axiom that there is no such thing as a transgender person. While I come from the axiom, given that they're around for ages from before the culture wars, being transgender is real.

Obviously this does not say how people or society best responds, but if real, you can understand my reasoning that it is normal to respect their identity.. Cause if it is real and I would respond differently I'd negate their existence (and that would then be bigotry). If 20 years down the road we figure out it is something else, then I'd made a mistake.

In my reasoning I take it on an individual basis, becasue that is how I approach and value people: As they are, not by an assumption on a presumed community they may be part of. For instance, someone wrote that 'Vanessa insisted on rights', as an individual she didn't, but in the narrative here, she's not taken as an individual, but a a representation of a community where -others- apparently want something. Well, one cannot pin the crimes of one on another, so I don't go with that.

Then there is the question on manipulation. Don't take this wrongly, but in the way those replies are brought, at time they seem to be a bit suggestive and perhaps leaning towards manipulative, yet without the facts of being there. Now I don't take this badly, becasue you like me try to explain how you look at things and I am thankful for the conversation, but it appears my way of thinking is not the majority here, but for me that's OK, as said, those conversations are helpful in my situation

A last thing, although it does not fit with the above, but in one of the replies it was about possible brain related differences between men and women.

I work in a male dominated environment, nice colleagues, no complaints in general, but the diffeenes in how to deal with things can be soooooo frustrating at times. From my PoV, they totally miss the point of what is important and thus how to proceed and when I try to explain (credit that they listen), at times I can see that they have no idea what I am talking about.

To me it appears as if we look at the same world, but from different side, they head on, me, from the side. They see the point at the end, straightline path to get there, me, I see the perspective, all the things that break and would fall over if they'd take that path. They say: "this is it !", I say "Is that what it is ?" They say: "Take care to build a network before the moment you need hel to get further" I say: "Take care to have a network, such that others can call on me if they have a need"

Perhaps I painted here a bit black and whitish, it is not that bad (I do have nice colleagues !) but this is rather real in my world and it is seems to be neither genetics nor culture

Yes. It is the individual who is left at the end wondering how it was allowed to happen. I think many of us can see how it was allowed to happen. All in the name of ‘live and let live’ and theories described as progressive.

I wonder if people felt this around other theories of Michel Foucault? That children must surely know themselves the best and be able to make very significant decisions about their lives?

After they leave the trans bubble they see the damage. The drugs and body alterations cause secondary health issues and they realise the changes are irreversible.

We are already seeing what happens to them.

They declare as adolescents that they are the opposite sex, and people act as if they are indeed the opposite sex. Eventually they realise they need the next stage because they are ‘not feeling it really yet’. Then the next stage. That is if no one has been up front and said ‘you really are only making extreme body modifications and this doesn’t change reality’.

There are many detransitioners who tell us their stories and they are very similar. They need to get to the next stage because they feel they almost are ‘there’, but the last stage didn’t quite provide the fix to the issue they feel they have. But then they slowly realise that despite all the well meaning people who kept them in the bubble, they really could never be the opposite sex and that reality seeped in.

All because people felt it was important to support a philosophical belief in a way that people felt made it material fact. But it really never was.

I’d agree, I’m quite concerned what happens when Vanessa’s of the world grow up and realise that they’ve been immersed in a fantasy world for some time and they are not and can never be female.

@Janine2363 Around 7 years ago a friend of mine’s teenage daughter came out as trans to her parents. She had been diagnosed as ASD as a child, and had always had gender non-conforming interests, much to her father’s delight as he’d longed for a son and was disappointed to have ended up with two daughters. At the time of the trans announcement, the daughter already had a new boy name (selected with a friend group online, whom her parents had never met), and had realised she was attracted to another girl at school.

When all of this was conveyed to me by my friend, I listened and asked how their daughter “knew” she was a boy (as she had no male friends or brothers), and not a butch lesbian. To which her mother replied, with a shudder, “Oh God, not a diesel dyke.” Which answered the question indirectly but pretty conclusively.

My friend (whom I’m no longer so close to after that stunning display of sexism and homophobia) is relieved to have a straight “son” instead of a masculine gay daughter.

The whole experience has rather coloured my view of “nice people” and their support for transitioning their gender non-conforming children. I do think they believe they mean well and are being progressive, though underneath there’s actually a deep terror of having an “unpretty girl” or “sissy boy.”

“After talking to Vanessa's parents it was clear that the whole problem is theoretical, Vanessa's doesn't want to be seen by anyone, stress caused by dysphoria.”

Just to clarify, it doesn’t matter what the intention is, whether Vince wants to be seen by anyone etc. The fact that people in his life are already acting as if Vince’s belief about himself is real or that the expectations relating to treating Vince’s sex has changed even though language accommodations, means none of this theoretical. The journey has already started.

It is certainly not theoretical to your children, and you are willing to comply and even have taken into account your children’s reaction if you indicated that actually, there are wider issues for society that indicate that collectively there are significant issues that they, your children cannot even begin to understand. These last few posts really read as if there is a need to be seen as being kind and liberal about this issue and rhetoric is being either created or tweaked to support it. How is this a benefit in the long run for society as a whole? How is this a benefit for a child to think that their demands that fit their identity should be accommodated by society, and that society should act as if material
reality can be changed to be kind to them?

“Vanessa's parents are nice people, they're not pushing her, they're confronted with, in today's climate, a difficult situation. They feel being ostracized, and the stress it causes, to them to Vanessa”

Nice people can still make decisions that are ideologically driven. They also could be abusive and you wouldn’t know.

And they fear being ostracised by whom? Vince or other people? Fear of being ostracised or having a child disappointed in their parent’s decision when their parents are actually the ones who seek to see the much wider picture and the impact on society and the long term impact is not a wise decision platform.

“After talking to Vanessa's parents it was clear that the whole problem is theoretical, Vanessa's doesn't want to be seen by anyone, stress caused by dysphoria.”

It is actually irrelevant whether Vince doesn’t want to be ‘seen’ by anyone. Vince is making societal demands by claiming to be female and expecting to be addressed as if he is female. I think though, you have shown that you don’t really think through these issues without being driven by emotional response and needs for one individual. could it be described as a ‘saviour’ issue?

Either way, you seem keen to celebrate your children’s boundaries being lowered, and they are acquiescing to that lowering to accommodate someone’s philosophical belief that is not reflected by material reality and seems to rely of false science to justify.