India's outburst to JKR 'I will always be more of a woman than you.'

Everyone else can't go with someone else's internal flow.

Ultimately we all know the truth and we aren't mind readers about how someone might react to a tiny comment or slip of the tongue.

I was speaking to a transwoman the other day, and when they introduced themselves (in relation to someone else) the very first thing they did was slip up themselves using the male relationship rather than female one! Yet everyone else is supposed to skip along always using the male ones. It doesn't work.

Changing identity like this affects the identity of those closest to them because it affects how they relate to others (I find 'do you have a brother or a sister?' a really difficult question because people are looking for ways to relate to you. They are trying to understand you not learn about the life and personality of your relatives. It's about your identity not your siblings).

I've had mental health treatments in the past when things happened, or came to light, that made me mentally unwell. There are various treatments available. Talking therapy, CBT, antidepressants, lifestyle changes and so on.

This appears to be the only situation whereby the treatment is not only to pretend that the distressing thing is not true, but to get society to reorganise itself around pretending it isn't true. I was never told that everyone else in the world had to affirm the situation that I dearly wished was true but sadly simply was not. The therapy and treatment were all based around helping me to make changes where possible, and cope and adapt where they were not.

People who experience distress and think that gender is the root cause should receive effective treatment. People who are not distressed or disturbed (typically those who fit the labels ‘odd’, ‘quirky’, different) don’t.

Single sex provision should be accessed by only those who are the sex the provision is designed for.

Nobody should be forced (by law or by social norms) to pretend people aren’t the sex that they are.

Society should treat everyone the same, regardless of their sex, other than where sex matters. It was the failure to do this that led women being denied them basic freedoms - for centuries.

But everything you describe is a description of mental health issues. Surely, like all mental health issues they need to to seek appropriate professional treatment to help them navigate their internal battles rather than rely on everyone to just go with their internal flow

Not my guest for me to throw out, and DH hadn't witnessed it. I explained afterwards what had happened and that particular person is not welcome here any more; my DH agreed this had been poor behaviour of which he did not approve, and made that clear to both of them.

You also committed the cardinal sin of using the word sex and not gender.

I very much hope you threw him out of your house for picking a fight and being aggressive to you.

I know. Bad Asking; no asking-biscuit.

You failed to pander to the ego @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

I promise you, I wasn't interested enough to be bothering to notice the sex of someone who was nothing much to do with me: I'm not into table-top games as a hobby so I wasn't particularly involved. The first I knew of it was when he told me that I probably hadn't realised he was trans. My mistake was saying I didn't see why it mattered, because they were simply a person in my house and what sex made no nevermind; this was obviously intolerable provocation.

There must have been physical signs to indicate it to you. Picking fights and talking TRA shite alone don't prove someone is a man.

I am sure that there are men who have had extensive plastic surgery and hair transplants, and taken oestregen to look more like women, that I would not clock. Doesn't mean they're women.

Yes, it's all our fault. There can be no fault for the men who think they're women. We must all move aside for them.

Enough4me
They don't pass. Women can spot men

Well, there was one who had passed as far as I was concerned (not that I cared what sex the partner of a friend of my husband's might be, so I wasn't exactly looking much) right up until the point that he first picked a quarrel with me in my own house and then started to give me The Script, culminating in accusing me of having said all trans women are rapists. But he'd done very well until then.

Only if people believe it I guess.

So he's suggesting the SC judges were bought? Isn't that libel?

They don't pass. Women can spot men and there isn't a final point where transition worked.
They will have constant turmoil as they need mental health support to get through dysphoria. It's kinder to be honest and manage expectations than to lie to them.

The mad thing about the fox-botherer is that he doesn't realise his wife was (allegedly) challenged in the gym as a direct result of trans ideology. Back in the "good old days", a womany looking person with no breasts in the women's changing room would have been recognised as exactly that. No difficulties. Nowadays, what are staff to think? "Looks like a woman, but no breasts, yikes, could this be a man? Better ask."

Nope - still MRA!

Many thanks for the share token. This was the third most read digital article this morning according to Times Radio, so getting plenty of attention!

I would describe the state of mind as "pitiable" right up to the point at which I am coerced and threatened to try to force me to tell lies in support of someone else's clearly implausible fantasy. At that point I cease to pity and become annoyed.

"they know that even these people don’t understand their experiences."

But no human being fully understands the experience of any other human being! Without actual telepathy, which as far as I know has not yet been found to exist, to expect another person fully to understand you is an absurd and unrealistic expectation: they have not and cannot share your entire experience. It is never going to happen.

And this is common to every single human being alive; it's not unique to transgender ones.

I agree that it isn’t oppression, and little of what I described is discrimination, with the exception of hostility where this tips into aggression.

I think the lack of acceptance that people with trans identities experience (both internally and externally) is essentially that of not being regarded as being the sex they want to be but are not. I do not think that there is widespread lack of acceptance that they deserve dignity, respect alongside all humans. By positioning dignity and respect as only being afforded/delivered through accepting them as being their desired sex, they are creating the problem - in both the internal and external world.

This is what makes me most angry about TRAs - they are causing the harm and the damage. They should be promoting resilience and letting trans people know that their wellbeing is not dependent on external validation. They should be promoting trans acceptance through ‘live and let live’ attitudes to gender expression and fighting for equality in health, housing and employment outcomes. They should not be trying to dismantle sex based rights and trying to position people who will never view a male as a being female as the problem.

@Brainworm Thank you. I don't think however what you describe is mostly oppression, it is internal upset at not being / being perceived as who they want to be. That may well be mentally distressing but that isn't the same thing.

The trans umbrella has a very diverse group sitting beneath it, so I think it’s difficult to present a single picture of what it is like to be trans in the Uk.

Leaving aside the external world, the internal world of trans people is often hard to navigate. Many are fixated on their bodies and their identity and rarely experience reprieve from ruminating on this. Many feel shame and dread about how others perceive them.

Non passing trans people do, I think, have a tough time navigating the external world. They know that those who affirm their identities do it out of kindness, and they know that even these people don’t understand their experiences. This typically results in feeling isolated. Interactions with people who don’t affirm their personalities range from benign to hostile and aggressive. All of which tend to experienced as distressing.

None of the above provide a basis for requiring people to refer to males as females nor to permit some males to use female only provision, but I do think that it is tough to be trans identifying in the Uk.

Magnoliasunrise · Today 11:59

Ach, sorry! I thought you were having a misplaced go at me...

Totally agree, how can anyone give that level of vileness any serious consideration or justification?