Aren't transpeople still a tiny minority?

Yes, because it is a shitty and insidious condition, very complex to treat, and obviously the consequences of not eating are eventually fatal.

I am not sure what you are trying to say? Affirming the anorexia sufferers distorted relationship with food and their body will somehow work out better????

Do you have any experience of supporting someone through this illness? I would suggest you know fuck all about the reality if you are suggesting that affirming wrong psychological beliefs is the best way to treat mental illness.

I do think it’s striking that so many people feel confident enough to lecture us about being kind but you never see the equivalent on the trans forums. Or am I missing that?

@Diverze Just out of interest, does your son plan to fully transition? Does he want to go down the path of having surgery?

I think it's mentally unhealthy not to admit to oneself that one is trans and being trans is ok

Hmm. This rests on the idea that 'trans' is an identifiable, verifiable, unfalsifiable state. Which some people believe, and some don't.

No analogy is perfect. Gender dysphoria and anorexia are similar in that sufferers of both believe something about themselves that isn’t true. Anorexics shouldn’t have the belief that they are fat affirmed, not only because is it false, but it might lead to them starving to death. People who believe they are of the opposite sex shouldn’t have that belief affirmed, not only because it is false and materially impossible, but because it might lead them to harmful medical interventions which may not ultimately help, or may even make things worse (the Finnish study suggests this might be the case).
People with anorexia may or may not recover; some will have issues all their lives, but manage them in ways such as controlling food intake. The same for people with gender issues; they may manage them by the way they present.
Both conditions are likely to impact those around the sufferers adversely, but only one at present is widely celebrated and supported and impacts wider society, especially compromising the rights of women. The puzzle is why it has gained such traction, drawing many people into a faith-based belief system which makes little sense.
Analogies are useful tools to help us understand things, but they shouldn’t be pushed beyond usefulness. Despite similarities, anorexia and gender dysphoria are different conditions whose origins are largely unclear, though they both seem to exist within a pattern of similar related co-morbidities.

More compassion from both sides, more actual listening to each other, would enable this to move forward. I fully accept that some trans people will not be happy with 3rd spaces but I think it's mentally unhealthy not to admit to oneself that one is trans and being trans is ok. I think that mental shift would happen once 3rd spaces are provided, and those who really are just doing it for kicks and to wank in the ladies'...well, they won't be getting those thrills any more.

So which trans organisations are you going to have this conversation with?

@Diverze You are just repeating yourself now. You basically want every post aimed at the fetishists and misogynists to have a caveat of 'does not apply to men like Diverze's son'. That is not going to happen. You can hold the caveat in your head if it helps you to negotiate this space more easily.
We are advocating for young people through our actions against affirming schools and affirming medicine, so obviously we recognise there are innocent, vulnerable children (some now adults) caught up in this.
As PP have repeatedly said, many of us did/do advocate for third/fourth spaces. Those that don't have good reasons relating to expense, encroachment on spaces for people with physical disabilities and the dangers of toilets that are fully enclosed rooms.
You are just rolling out another version of #BeKind. Stop asking us to advocate for men. Get the autism charities on to it.

I don't care if a man wants to wear a dress/skirt, because that is really a cultural. At different times/ places men have worn dress type clothing. Adults can do what they want to their own bodies. I don't like tattoos for example, but others can ink their body because it does not affect me.
Where I draw the line is TWAW stuff, so having to pretend that a thought makes them female and I have to roll over and oblige them in their wishes. And that is how we have got to all the stupidity of men being allowed into women's spaces.

A fear this pervasive is a mental illness

No we don't affirm, because anorexia will lead to death if unchecked.

This is very much the standard TRA response nowadays, developed because the question is very awkward for them

I really do feel that everyone /is/ taking your kid and similar into account. At the highest level the SC judgement said that people uncomfortable being in spaces with their own sex should not be left with nowhere to go. Good practice is to have M, F and a small number of gender neutral spaces for anyone uncomfortable with their own sex for whatever reason.

It's like a religion. We have to respect people's right to hold the beliefs they do, but we don't have to join in ourselves and it's not disrespectful not to do so. That includes pronouns.

There are still people telling me over and over that my young person just needs to deal with reality and stop asking women to budge up.

They aren't yet acknowledging that trans people do have a right to present as they wish and to move through life with dignity.

They are saying that DC like mine must stay out of women's spaces (fair enough) and must use men's spaces (not fair enough). All I am trying to do is hold the line that some trans people, especially the young adults, are vulnerable and that just saying you are all perverts and fetishists who need to stay out of women's spaces and pull yourselves together is an unhelpful oversimplification of a complex problem. More compassion from both sides, more actual listening to each other, would enable this to move forward. I fully accept that some trans people will not be happy with 3rd spaces but I think it's mentally unhealthy not to admit to oneself that one is trans and being trans is ok. I think that mental shift would happen once 3rd spaces are provided, and those who really are just doing it for kicks and to wank in the ladies'...well, they won't be getting those thrills any more.

Which is better than affirming anorexia would achieve.

Because I have been on these boards for years and it is always used as a comparator, don't be disingenuous.

Just checked. The non affirmation of anorexia enables 46 percent to recover fully, 33 percent to get better than they were, 20 percent remain fully anorexic and between 4-10 percent die. So less than half of anorexics make a full recovery from their condition.

But you’re still not acknowledging that most sex realists are perfectly happy with any solution that keeps them out of our spaces & would always have been fine with the unisex spaces idea.

It’s the TRAs you need to persuade. Not us. This is a conversation to have with TransActual or whoever their main organising orgs are nowadays now they all hate Stonewall.

Edited to add that it’s not fair to expect women who have been fighting the battle to keep our spaces for years to also take responsibility for trans-identifying boys. You would never expect the TRAs to advocate for traumatised girls & women who couldn’t share spaces with men.

No, they aren't, because as a cohort they are highly introverted with significant social communication deficits. They were always going to exist in liminal spaces.

I wish that TRAs and 'sex realists' would recognise their existence and advocate with them in mind. They are much less bothered about being allowed in women's spaces and much more bothered at feeling like there is a space for them.

No we don't affirm, because anorexia will lead to death if unchecked. Yet despite not being affirmed, a number of people die anyway and some struggle with eating their entire life.
If not affirming was a simple solution anorexia would be much easier to deal with, wouldn't it?

@Diverze, I think you’ve acknowledged that we were the ones who started out wanting to be reasonable & find solutions that worked for everyone, & got NO DEBATE FUCK OFF TERFS in return. And we’ve been pretty much driven to fight back because talking nicely didn’t work.

Now you’re saying that we should be talking nicely with the reasonable transpeople to make everything ok - I know you say that your child & friends are like that, but are they the reasonable transpeople who are going to negotiate nicely with Sex Matters et al with the result of single sex spaces for us & unisex spaces for them? How are they going to push their way past the TRAs who demand absolute acceptance & submission?

No people don’t “choose” to be anorexic. But we don’t affirm them with weight loss drugs and gastric band surgery do we? If you want to call him Helen that’s up to you, but you can’t get upset when people choose not to join in the affirmation.

@Diverze why are you putting trans alongside anorexia?
do you believe then that anorexic people should have the confirmation and compliance that is being expected and demanded for trans collusion?
”yes of course… a BMI of 11 is absolutely fine, you look great, although let’s see if we can get down to BMI 10? Anyone who doesn’t agree is clearly just hateful!”

No, I don't want to sacrifice your child's safety. I don't want women to budge up. I have repeatedly said as much throughout this thread.

I want a world in which my (adult) child and yours both get to live safely. One where mine can access 3rd spaces and live in dignity.

You simplify the situation when you say my young person "chooses" to be trans. There was no choice to be autistic. There was no choice to feel a disconnect between body and mind. My DC didn't choose to be taught about gender versus sex. That "being trans" might or might not be the answer as to why my YP has never felt a sense of belonging or a secure identity is not as simple as a casual choice. It's a deeply held belief. Using terminology elsewhere in the thread, people don't "choose" to be deluded. Anorexic people aren't "choosing" not to eat. "People in psychosis" aren't choosing to be psychotic.

To you it's a simple lie and question of accepting reality. If I just tell my DC that he's male and always will be and stop pandering to him, this silly mess will all be sorted out. All I can tell you is that when it happens in your family it is substantially, ground shakingly more difficult than that. I wish it were that simple.

Yes I agree we are sitting here and saying yes as a male he's a boy and will become a man. It's absolute. If he wants to transition as an adult and live as a Transwoman that's fine by me but he'll still be male and should stay out of female spaces. Your job as a parent should be to help him navigate this reality not manipulate women to budge up move boundaries and keep quiet to 'be nice'. I'm glad your autistic son has found trans spaces helpful but pretending he's a she is damaging to women and the conflict of rights you pretend to care about results in a urinary leash, murder and rape for women.

Your child is an adult male who believes he is a female. He is not.

My child is a female who is actually a child and actually female.

Your child's rights are only in conflict with mine because yours chooses it. Mine is actually female, not through choice but due to biology.

Yours is male and had decided to pretend to be female. Who should make allowances? You want my female actual child to budge for your adult male child?

I actually don't care at this point whether he fully believes it or not. I want my daughter to be able to go swimming independently without me having to worry that there might be a man in her changing room.

Your adult son gets to have trans swim sessions. Any women encroaching on those? No. Of course not.

My child daughter does not have that safety because of trans identifying males. The sign on the door to her changing room said until very recently 'women - all genders'. She has neither the capacity or the ability to deal with men who might appear in her space. And you think your adult son is at risk?

I can believe that your son thinks it's real. I'm not in any way missing the point. He might well think it's the truth. But it isn't. That is the thing you are missing - I don't care whether he fully believes it - it is not true. People in psychosis believe all sorts of shit. Doesn't make their delusion meaningful.

You want me to sacrifice my female child's safety because your adult male child can't accept reality. No.

Your child's rights are in conflict with my child's rights.

What do you mean?

I hadn't read that and found it interesting, thank you.