Continuation of Polypostwonder thread

It is not just fuckwittery to deny scientifically proven facts using philosophical theories. It is gaslighting.

It is a version of gaslighting to declare that a philosophical theory such as ‘social’ and ‘cultural’ sex is in anyway meaningful to a person ‘changing sex’ to access female single sex provisions.

That is your belief.

I and many others do not share your belief.

I do not agree l that physically adjusting your body through surgery or hormones changes its fundamental sex, nor do I share your belief that presentation, behaviour or how others treat you is a more meaningful, useful or sufficient definition for the existing and longstanding words "man","woman","male" and "female" than their already extant sex-based meanings.

I agree there is a reasonable case to recognise presentation or behaviour as a meaningful thing in its own right which for convenience I will in this post call "gender", but you have not in my opinion made any case to replace the very useful meanings of the existing words, nor to change to basis on which existing laws and provisions were made from sex to "gender".

Here’s some quotes. I’ll go through later and find more

“almost immediately knocked my testosterone level to almost nothing”

“Nothing in the way of sex development happened to my body until after I began taking oestrogen.”

“well before tanner stage three.”

“To be clear, I have no idea what actual pubertal tanner stage I was in when I started HRT.”

I love that you claim you had no sex development until you started oestrogen. So hoe did you pee before transition?

Were the hormones you were given HRT or not?

After several attempts to respond in a way that will make sense to you, I now believe you are purposely misrepresenting what I have said. You didn’t provide proof of the post. If you are genuinely interested in my puberty or my transition, there are dozens of posts in Advanced Search.

"Share the post I said I was Tanner stage 3, no ifs ands or buts."

Ok, here you go.

Then you added this on page 13 at 21:55, handily at the top of the page.

"To be clear, I have no idea what actual pubertal tanner stage I was in when I started HRT. I was extremely underweight and undersized. I was making a guess based on the lack of stage 3 developments and maybe had some fine public hair and hadn't had any voice cracking, or a growth spurt."

You say you didn't go through male puberty, then say you started hormones mid-puberty. In your newer post today, you say

"I was prescribed hormones as a teen."

Which could be anywhere from 13-19. Male puberty would have started by then. This still doesn't account for the pre-pubescent advantages male children have, or the fact that puberty in males usually starts before 13.

Now I'm pretty sure you swing between using hormones, oestrogen, blockers and HRT interchangeably, while also saying you didn't get prescribed them and you did (depending on whether you are using your meaning or another poster's), and now you are quibbling about whether you were prescribed them by an endocrinologist and a GP.

And you say that the oestrogen and ethinyl estradiol (which is a synthetic oestrogen which is used in contraceptives and HRT - so oestrogen... and synthetic oestrogen.) gave you a "very strong testosterone reduction". That's a very different way of putting something than saying you had basically zero testosterone, which would either kill a person or make them very sick.

Now, my original list of things you have lied about was:

• Being a woman
• Having basically 0 testosterone
• Having literally changed sex
• Not going through male puberty at all because of early puberty blockers
• That you went through female puberty

• Lied about what Tanner stage you were at, because you admitted that you had in fact just guessed.

And while it's none of my business really, I notice you haven't replied to the last bit of that post which was

"I wonder if your romantic partners may not actually know you are a trans identified male, because of the way you are determined to ignore material reality and insist you are in fact an actual woman when you really aren't.
You said in the last thread that your partners have never thought of you as anything other than female. but I really, really hope they know your actual sex is male."

Mid-puberty was well before tanner stage three.

ETA: Above is male... And for symmetry, concluded at female stage five.

So you lied when you said you had been given hormones as a young boy/teen.

Oh really?

So you're saying you didn't get given puberty blockers now! So you've gone all the way through male puberty then!

Yes you did, you told us you were Tanner stage 3, no ifs ands or buts. Then a few posts later you admitted that you'd taken a wild guess and you had no idea what Tanner stage you were.

And so now you don't pass? Well I can believe that!

Nice to see you aren't disagreeing with me on all the other lies you told.

No one was giving HRT to trans teens in Canada back then either.

I've never been on blockers. This is another false claim that I have been repeatedly accused of making.

I've never said I had reached a specific Tanner stage prior to transition. I estimated my development to have been before Tanner stage 3, and then repeated that it was a guess further in the discussion.

I mean, surely you can see that even from the range of voices and approaches in this thread!

That's fair. There's a much deeper and marginally related discussion here about the efforts of American Christian Conservative organisations within the variously aligned culture wars in the UK. But point accepted.

At the same time, trans people are not a monolith. But I suspect everyone is aware of this, but for expediency and messaging, prefer to platform the publicly problematic as examples of the whole.

As such, when you say, "if the gender critical beliefs were reality", which beliefs do you mean?!

Perhaps I should have specified FWR instead of ‘gender critical’ here. But, the specific and pervasive belief that I am a man and that my husband and I are gay.

It's true that many on this thread have expressed scepticism about your passing. Some haven't, though. And almost all have expressed their scepticism in a way that acknowledges that you may well in some / many / almost all contexts - just not all. I've not commented on this: 1) I just don't know enough about what conditions and treatments like those you describe may lead to and 2) I don't like to use the more personal in my posts - neither about my life, nor yours!

Passing wasn't in my thoughts though, when I wrote this. I was thinking about my marriage and relationship with my husband.

I said much earlier in my posts on FWR that I don't pass. And I still believe that. I live. I am not moving through the world in disguise. I am not concerned that I will be 'discovered.'

Qatar is very anti-trans and anti-gay. It was, I thought, a simple real example that refutes the belief that I am a man and my husband and I are gay. The laws and cultural rules impact people based on biological sex, but the execution of those laws and rules are applied within a social context rather than biologically. Even the laws against lesbian and gay people and trans people are somewhat biological (in the GC sense), but enforcement occurs socially.

It's probably just wasted energy at this point, but as long as my lived reality is denied by gender critical people, I am unlikely to be able to discuss anything beyond my life experience.

However, in this context, the choice of "requirement" is curious. It suggests that you're extrapolating from your personal experience some kind of rule or necessity: presumably that, by logical extension, there's no "requirement" for 'woman" to be sex-based.

I was referencing observation from personal experience as well as discussions with friends over the years. “Requirement” is in reference to the gender critical belief that all human life emanates from one of a pair of immutable essential internal sex states.

Some gender critical people do extend this out to the body, which I very much agree with. But, when I claim my body within my experience and treatment within cultures in this discussion, it is denied as invalid. And shortly following, my life is projected into the land of maleness that I've never occupied.

1. Do you believe that adult human females retain any practical need at all for a word with which to distinguish themselves as a demographic sharing certain commonalities and associated challenges? ...*

A practical need? I understand some women feel very strongly about needing to control the word. The gender critical framing of ownership is problematic as gender and usage of the word as one of two genders has been defined culturally and still functions culturally, thoroughly independent of gender critical direction.

I agree the exceptions you include are self-evident (though I imagine there wouldn’t be universal agreement within gender critical people). I don’t believe anyone has ever run through the exceptions whenever they think ‘woman’ (or ‘man,’ for that matter).

The declaration that ‘woman’ is being made meaningless because some tiny number (in comparison) of trans women also find affiliation in the word is observably not true. The infinitesimally larger pie doesn’t modify culture’s social forces upon women or the first thoughts in anyone’s mind when the word is generally used in almost any context.

1. If not, could you explain why such an (unusually consistent, in biological terms) universal pattern of shared practical need (eg. periods, a capacity - or, yes indeed, a perceived capacity for - pregnancy, menopause, relative physical vulnerability etc.) is insufficient to justify retaining a noun for this particular class of human?

People’s understanding of 'women' still defaults to encompassing everything you list above. Social services and organisations are able to provide support to those above, even when ‘trans women’ were supported in peak ‘acceptance.’

1. Do you believe that adult human females still have any right to a word to distinguish themselves in language and law (particularly given that a significant proportion globally have made their wish for this clear, including taking this to the highest courts in several lands)

I believe a very very small (statistically unclear) percentage of women refer to themselves as ‘adult human females.’ I believe they have the right to build support for their goals to distinguish themselves uniquely as women in language and law. I recognise the efforts of one UN Special Rapporteur who supports this effort globally, however every other UN Special Rapporteur would seem to be supportive of broader human rights efforts that are inclusive of trans people.

I'm not aware of several other countries seeking to adopt UK-like definitions at this point…except maybe NZ’s conservative leadership? Several UK-ish-framed human rights lawsuits, if successful, may initiate a longer, separate process to change law in other countries such as AU? But, the underlying gender critical goals don’t appear to have wide support domestically within those countries at this time.

1. If not, on what definitive, democratic basis (beyond your own personal, anecdotal impressions of probable popular opinion), would you absolutely, confidently deny them this right?

I don’t believe I have the ability to deny anyone the right to build support for their goals and ideas and reinforce them within laws and language—definitively or democratically. I also don’t believe it has yet been achieved in the UK to the degree or clarity most gender critical people wish it to be. There is lots more work to be done there.

I know!!! My response was predicated on knowing this!

Okay, then! Thank you.

I don't understand this. How could "culture" possibly "separate out individuals" for 'special treatment'"? What does this mean? Culture's an abstract concept used to describe wide-ranging commonalities in behaviour, belief etc. It has no direct relation to individuals in the sense you seem to use above. Are you using hyperbole, to make a rhetorical point? Or perhaps countering a belief you honestly think we have? Or yourself misunderstanding or misusing the word? or concept? of culture?

I probably should have just said that everyone is a member of a social sex class, even if they feel they don’t belong and wish they weren’t.

I suspect you would say the exact same, except for biological sex and I would agree, mostly. Repeating, I don’t feel most people think about biological sex classes the same way as gender critical people. I think most people are experiencing a person’s body, sex characteristics and movement.

"Idealised personally navigated pattern" is similarly hard to understand - by "idealised", I think you must mean "ideal", in the sense of optimised personal preference, because "idealised" has a rather different meaning... but again I'm unsure. Fundamentally, though, you seem to be saying we're all influenced by culture again? If so, then again, I know that!!! Perhaps assume as a starting point that I understand this key concept. I'm not seeking oceanic metaphors (nice as yours actually is!), but rather just asking you to describe, clearly, the commonalities that suffice to define "woman" in "cultural" terms. AKA: what do we share culturally that, in your view, supersedes the 99(.9?)% universality of my period analogy?

I meant ’Idealized’ in the ‘projected ideal vision’ sense. Yes, but more of the same.

I believe culturally, speaking of the UK, my experience and place in society would primarily be recognised within the ‘wife and working mother with a grown family’ roles and expectations. My friend groups and work life have been arranged around this in ways that still surprise me. Before this, my experience and place has evolved as I and my family have evolved.

Primary amenorrhea is a big deal. There are far more girls experiencing it in the 99(.9?%) than there are girls with DSDs.

I’ve been assumed to have had a period more times than I can easily count, in many contexts. It is socially relevant and culturally expected. It is shared by the 99%. It is an experience that I do not share.

I’ve shared this already here, but my most of my friends know that I’ve been on hormones since my teens because I have no ovaries. They know I have no uterus and have never had a period. A handful know that I’ve had genital surgery. They know I am not one of the 99%. Excluding me as a woman because of this has never been a topic of discussion.

I don't entirely agree with the "not permitted", though. Posters have thanked you for your relation of your experiences, sympathised with you and responded to them. Many have also, it's true, expressed scepticism to a greater or lesser degree. I haven't, and am instead just asking you to move beyond the personal to debate in general terms as well.

I somewhat agree. I’m getting better at filtering, but the basic broad-based denial is a lot to move beyond. It is difficult to separate the personal because I cannot place myself into the archetypical ‘trans woman’ straw man (for whatever it’s worth) that FWR/gender critical people have built.

Maybe this is me being really dense. And maybe I’ll get slaughtered.

But I read some of poly’s posts and I have no idea what they’re supposed to mean.