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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions
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15
Sunnibee · 30/07/2026 00:00

thirdfiddle · 29/07/2026 23:49

Childhood shouldn't be about exploring or expressing "gender", it should be about exploring life and expressing your own unique personality. Thank fuck for feminist parents who protected us from gender role nonsense to the best of their ability. I hope we have given our kids the same opportunity, we've done our best in a sexist world.

I don't disagree with you , but that is an idealistic perspective. Learning about and exploring gender is a normal and basic part of early childhood social and cognitive development. https://www.mentalhealth.com/library/early-childhood-gender-identity-sexuality

Childhood Gender Identity

Learn about how children develop an understanding of gender concepts and identity through typical developmental stages.

https://www.mentalhealth.com/library/early-childhood-gender-identity-sexuality

Sunnibee · 30/07/2026 00:02

OldCrone · 29/07/2026 23:52

Of course there will be some differences in behavioural markers for adults and children as children and adults have different behaviours

Yes, the sexual element which is the main driver for transition amongst many adults, older males in particular, is absent in children.

That's not the case at all , thats just harmful stereotyping

OldCrone · 30/07/2026 00:03

Sunnibee · 29/07/2026 23:46

Social role includes things like pronouns/ names, what toilet you use, etc- the social markers that signify whether someone is a boy/ girl / man/ woman and recognised as such.

It's not referring to social roles in the sense of- if you put on a frilly apron and bake cakes you are a woman and if you drink beer and watch football you are a man.

Edited

Social role includes things like pronouns/ names, what toilet you use, etc- the social markers that signify whether someone is a boy/ girl / man/ woman and recognised as such.

Names aren't a "social role". Third person pronouns used by other people (most often when the person referred to isn't present) aren't a "social role".

People should use the public toilet appropriate for their biological sex. Again, this isn't a social role.

It's not referring to social roles in the sense of- if you put on a frilly apron and bake cakes you are a woman and if you drink beer and watch football you are a man.

OK, that's what it's not. How about explaining instead what it is?

Sunnibee · 30/07/2026 00:03

ScrollingLeaves · 29/07/2026 23:59

@Sunnibee

but dress up and role play can be part of how trans children express and explore gender, just like all children.

I find this sort of talk so wrong that I am simply not going to engage with it anymore.
It is pure coercive transactivist jargon to say ‘trans children’ and it is egregiously abusive to children that it is being spouted around.

No jargon, just very basic , well established and researched social psychology,
Learning about and exploring gender is a very normal and basic part of early childhood social and cognitive development. https://www.mentalhealth.com/library/early-childhood-gender-identity-sexuality

Childhood Gender Identity

Learn about how children develop an understanding of gender concepts and identity through typical developmental stages.

https://www.mentalhealth.com/library/early-childhood-gender-identity-sexuality

OldCrone · 30/07/2026 00:06

Sunnibee · 30/07/2026 00:02

That's not the case at all , thats just harmful stereotyping

What's not the case?

Are you saying children are also driven by sexual motivations?

Or are you saying that all those older males who have said that they transitioned because of autogynephilia or because "sissy porn made them trans" are lying?

Sunnibee · 30/07/2026 00:07

OldCrone · 30/07/2026 00:03

Social role includes things like pronouns/ names, what toilet you use, etc- the social markers that signify whether someone is a boy/ girl / man/ woman and recognised as such.

Names aren't a "social role". Third person pronouns used by other people (most often when the person referred to isn't present) aren't a "social role".

People should use the public toilet appropriate for their biological sex. Again, this isn't a social role.

It's not referring to social roles in the sense of- if you put on a frilly apron and bake cakes you are a woman and if you drink beer and watch football you are a man.

OK, that's what it's not. How about explaining instead what it is?

As above, this is referring to the social markers that signify whether someone is a boy/ girl / man/ woman and recognised as such- eg what name/ pronouns a person uses and are used to recognise a person.

Sunnibee · 30/07/2026 00:09

OldCrone · 30/07/2026 00:06

What's not the case?

Are you saying children are also driven by sexual motivations?

Or are you saying that all those older males who have said that they transitioned because of autogynephilia or because "sissy porn made them trans" are lying?

Characterising adult trans people as mostly sexual perverts/ sexually motivated is harmful stereotyping. Also apologies but im too tired for this.

ScrollingLeaves · 30/07/2026 00:10

Sunnibee · 30/07/2026 00:03

No jargon, just very basic , well established and researched social psychology,
Learning about and exploring gender is a very normal and basic part of early childhood social and cognitive development. https://www.mentalhealth.com/library/early-childhood-gender-identity-sexuality

You spoke of ‘trans children’.
Only adults, one way or another, make trans children.

Sunnibee · 30/07/2026 00:12

ScrollingLeaves · 30/07/2026 00:10

You spoke of ‘trans children’.
Only adults, one way or another, make trans children.

I'm tired otherwise I would have been more careful about my language as I know it triggers a lot of people and can lead to misunderstandings.
what I should have said is children with gender dysphoria/ incongruence/ issues with gender.

OldCrone · 30/07/2026 00:23

Sunnibee · 30/07/2026 00:00

I don't disagree with you , but that is an idealistic perspective. Learning about and exploring gender is a normal and basic part of early childhood social and cognitive development. https://www.mentalhealth.com/library/early-childhood-gender-identity-sexuality

That article is about how children learn about sex: how they learn that people are either male or female, that this is a fixed, permanent condition, and what this means for them growing up as either a boy or a girl.

The word gender is used there sometimes as a synonym for sex and sometimes to mean sex role or stereotypes.

It's not about gender ideology. The main reference is this one from 1966, long before transsexual children were invented:

4. Kohlberg, L. (1966). A cognitive-developmental analysis of children’s sex-role concepts and attitudes. In E. E. Maccoby (Ed.), The development of sex differences (pp. 82-173). Stanford University Press.

OldCrone · 30/07/2026 00:28

Sunnibee · 30/07/2026 00:09

Characterising adult trans people as mostly sexual perverts/ sexually motivated is harmful stereotyping. Also apologies but im too tired for this.

I said many, not most. It's true.

FlirtsWithRhinos · 30/07/2026 00:30

Sunnibee · 29/07/2026 23:21

The thing is in small children how they explore and express gender can be in very stereotypical/ basic ways. Thats normal for all children regardless of gender. Of course that doesn't mean every little boy who likes princess dresses thinks they are a girl, but dress up and role play can be part of how trans children express and explore gender, just like all children. Of course people latch onto criteria like that and say this proves that gender dysphoria is all about stereotypes but it really isn't. That's a misunderstanding. The description I shared from that online blog, which includes questions about experiences during puberty is much more useful in explaining the symptoms and experience of gender dysphoria

Edited

Isn't....isn't....isn't....isn't

So very sure what Gender is not.

Never enough courage to say what it is though.

OldCrone · 30/07/2026 00:32

Sunnibee · 30/07/2026 00:03

No jargon, just very basic , well established and researched social psychology,
Learning about and exploring gender is a very normal and basic part of early childhood social and cognitive development. https://www.mentalhealth.com/library/early-childhood-gender-identity-sexuality

You've misunderstood what "gender identity" refers to in that article. It's referring to children learning that they have a sex and that it's a fixed, unchangeable condition.

Catiette · 30/07/2026 00:33

To be honest, Sunnibee, I'm regretting a little responding with a sarky post, as some of your posts on the diagnosis issue are sounding fairly reasonable to me as an assessment of "trans" as it used to be more commonly understood, as well as thoughtful and polite. Apologies for that!

But the group on which you seem to focus is that with which I have most sympathy in this debate (that and so-called "trans children", because a large proportion of those currently labelled such are, the evidence suggests, likely to have been misdiagnosed or not even formally diagnosed).

And therein lies the issue, for me at least...

That previously careful diagnosis of a miniscule number of individuals has expanded into an ideological framework that does, quite explicitly and emphatically, claim that it is about feelings. As such, on an individual level, it's arguably doing considerable damage to people who don't fit the criteria you post. And on a societal level? Well, read any thread in FWR.

I think both of the threads of discussion here - what "trans" is and what a clinical review should be - are coming up against this issue. It complicates every aspect of the discussion.

It's also, arguably, complicated even the original parameters for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, insofar as these diagnostic criteria are somewhat problematic from a feminist perspective, legitimising - in a sense - gendered roles in a way that we argue could be harmful. In the sense of trans-as-dysphoria, I can see these as helpful signifiers of a complex condition. In the sense of trans-as-identity, though, such an approach has ballooned into reductive simplifications which are doing myriad damage.

All this also, of course, raises the relevance here of the complex intersection of some conditions, particularly in mental health, with embedded social and cultural idiosyncrasies (eg. shell-shock) in any case. We should always be alert to this, and this links, in part, I think, the gender critical thinking on both the issues being explored here.

FlirtsWithRhinos · 30/07/2026 00:35

Sunnibee · 30/07/2026 00:07

As above, this is referring to the social markers that signify whether someone is a boy/ girl / man/ woman and recognised as such- eg what name/ pronouns a person uses and are used to recognise a person.

And if you take the social markers and pronouns away, what is left?

What makes a child a boy or a girl?

My answer is simple - physical sex.

What is yours?

And for bonus points - if it isn't sex, why do you want to use the same names for it and appropriate pre-existing sex based provisions and rights for this "gender" thing? How does this thing that is not the same as sex somehow end up wanting exactly the same accommodations as the ones that arose to help female people especially navigate and thrive in sexist society?

helderste · 30/07/2026 00:35

OldCrone · 30/07/2026 00:03

Social role includes things like pronouns/ names, what toilet you use, etc- the social markers that signify whether someone is a boy/ girl / man/ woman and recognised as such.

Names aren't a "social role". Third person pronouns used by other people (most often when the person referred to isn't present) aren't a "social role".

People should use the public toilet appropriate for their biological sex. Again, this isn't a social role.

It's not referring to social roles in the sense of- if you put on a frilly apron and bake cakes you are a woman and if you drink beer and watch football you are a man.

OK, that's what it's not. How about explaining instead what it is?

I don’t think you’ll ever get an answer; it doesn’t seem to be possible to define what gender identity is without recourse to stereotypes.

OldCrone · 30/07/2026 00:38

helderste · 30/07/2026 00:35

I don’t think you’ll ever get an answer; it doesn’t seem to be possible to define what gender identity is without recourse to stereotypes.

Yes, @Sunnibee is so insistent that it's not about stereotypes, when it's quite clear that that's all it is.

Sunnibee · 30/07/2026 00:40

OldCrone · 30/07/2026 00:23

That article is about how children learn about sex: how they learn that people are either male or female, that this is a fixed, permanent condition, and what this means for them growing up as either a boy or a girl.

The word gender is used there sometimes as a synonym for sex and sometimes to mean sex role or stereotypes.

It's not about gender ideology. The main reference is this one from 1966, long before transsexual children were invented:

4. Kohlberg, L. (1966). A cognitive-developmental analysis of children’s sex-role concepts and attitudes. In E. E. Maccoby (Ed.), The development of sex differences (pp. 82-173). Stanford University Press.

Yes exactly - this is a well established part of social psychology and it applies to all children.
Children with gender dysphoria learn and explore in the same way.

Catiette · 30/07/2026 00:45

Sunnibee · 30/07/2026 00:40

Yes exactly - this is a well established part of social psychology and it applies to all children.
Children with gender dysphoria learn and explore in the same way.

They do, of course. We can't separate the child from society, or the nature (biology) from the pink/blue nurture imposed on day one.

But the criteria for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria which you posted earlier solidifies gender roles with all their problematic history (yes, even Mr. versus Mrs/Miss and Miss - people have probably written dissertations on those, including their psychosocial impact, alone) into something more fundamental and impactful. Perhaps they always had some potential to compound that complex nature/nurture interaction in trans individuals. Now, I'd say, they're being used/exploited/misunderstood to bury nature in nurture - and it's causing concrete harms.

Sunnibee · 30/07/2026 00:51

Catiette · 30/07/2026 00:45

They do, of course. We can't separate the child from society, or the nature (biology) from the pink/blue nurture imposed on day one.

But the criteria for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria which you posted earlier solidifies gender roles with all their problematic history (yes, even Mr. versus Mrs/Miss and Miss - people have probably written dissertations on those, including their psychosocial impact, alone) into something more fundamental and impactful. Perhaps they always had some potential to compound that complex nature/nurture interaction in trans individuals. Now, I'd say, they're being used/exploited/misunderstood to bury nature in nurture - and it's causing concrete harms.

Edited

I really agree with most of this apart from the last two sentences which I didn't fully understand. I don't believe that being trans/ gender dysphoria is something that is externally imposed/
coerced. It's something that seems to come from within a person- there may be complex psychological, social, biological roots. Maybe if we lived in a less gendered society there would be no experience of gender incongruence , but that seems to me to be a somewhat utopian idea.

OldCrone · 30/07/2026 00:58

Sunnibee · 30/07/2026 00:51

I really agree with most of this apart from the last two sentences which I didn't fully understand. I don't believe that being trans/ gender dysphoria is something that is externally imposed/
coerced. It's something that seems to come from within a person- there may be complex psychological, social, biological roots. Maybe if we lived in a less gendered society there would be no experience of gender incongruence , but that seems to me to be a somewhat utopian idea.

Edited

Other than not conforming to gender stereotypes, what would make a little boy, who knows he has a boy's body, think he's a girl?

Catiette · 30/07/2026 01:16

Sunnibee · 30/07/2026 00:51

I really agree with most of this apart from the last two sentences which I didn't fully understand. I don't believe that being trans/ gender dysphoria is something that is externally imposed/
coerced. It's something that seems to come from within a person- there may be complex psychological, social, biological roots. Maybe if we lived in a less gendered society there would be no experience of gender incongruence , but that seems to me to be a somewhat utopian idea.

Edited

I don’t see “less” as “utopian”. One’s a qualification, the other an extreme. And that’s my point, in a way. To use your own words to explain my viewpoint…

These diagnostic criteria used to be applied in a measured way in a clinical context (“less”).

They’re now being imposed quite indiscriminately on children in a significant proportion of schools (see the Barbie > GI Joe spectrum, or indeed m/any of the “child-friendly” representations of “gender-identity” by charities and in children’s literature) - as synonymous with “being yourself”, “joy”, “everyone” being “welcome” and pure uncomplicated “kindness” (does that perhaps sound a bit… utopian to you?!)

The proportionate (to incidence of dysphoria on a population level; to corresponding need; to balancing rights) has been overwhelmed by the disproportionate (the attempted wholesale redefinition of “man” and “woman” and effective abolition of sex); the measured (“less”) with the impossible and unreal-istic (dash intended) “Utopian”.

And because what’s being sought isn’t possible - never was, never will be - it’s distorting all kinds of things in the meantime: kids’ health - their very bodies!; women’s march towards equality; gay and lesbian rights to identify and meet as same-sex attracted… Even transsexuals are being negatively impacted in the inevitable backlash we’re now seeing, as society wakes up to the damaging imbalance weighing on it, and clumsily seeks to right itself (catastrophically, at a time when genuinely prejudiced, undemocratic attitudes are just waiting for excuses to flare).

Behind every utopia, a dystopia - or the risk thereof. Cf. Mao and Communism. New World Salem, even. Try too hard to pull necessary truths out of shape, and they spring back ever more violently. Social change needs to be possible in the first place (and also by gradual consensus in any case) to prevent or mitigate this.

Seethlaw · 30/07/2026 06:41

OldCrone · 30/07/2026 00:58

Other than not conforming to gender stereotypes, what would make a little boy, who knows he has a boy's body, think he's a girl?

This question is really at the heart of it all.

Note: I personally have an answer to it, but it's never one that TRAs give - when they give one at all.

BonfireLady · 30/07/2026 07:10

Sunnibee · 29/07/2026 23:21

The thing is in small children how they explore and express gender can be in very stereotypical/ basic ways. Thats normal for all children regardless of gender. Of course that doesn't mean every little boy who likes princess dresses thinks they are a girl, but dress up and role play can be part of how trans children express and explore gender, just like all children. Of course people latch onto criteria like that and say this proves that gender dysphoria is all about stereotypes but it really isn't. That's a misunderstanding. The description I shared from that online blog, which includes questions about experiences during puberty is much more useful in explaining the symptoms and experience of gender dysphoria

Edited

Of course that doesn't mean every little boy who likes princess dresses thinks they are a girl, but dress up and role play can be part of how trans children express and explore gender, just like all children.

Some children role play consisently. I remember a friend of mine who had an invisible friend that she spoke to and involved in all her games for months. She was my best friend at the time and I ended up feeling like I was competing for her friendship.

Children can be very persistent with their imagination and imaginative play.

If a boy enjoys wearing Disney princess dresses and being Elsa/Jasmine/Moana, how would parents know the difference between him wanting to be a girl for childhood role play and wanting to be a girl for life?

thirdfiddle · 30/07/2026 08:51

Maybe if we lived in a less gendered society there would be no experience of gender incongruence , but that seems to me to be a somewhat utopian idea.

So you consider we're potentially making kids into lifelong medical patients as a cure for society's sexism? Even as a possibility, doesn't that horrify you? If that was the case shouldn't we at least be having a go at explaining to the kids you're perfect as you are, it's society that's screwed up?