Confused about Trans and NonBinary

[CactusMactus]

I am going to get terminologies wrong here... soz in advance.
Friends gown up daughter-at-birth has recently had top surgery to become trans. She has used pronouns 'they/them' for a while and continues to consider themselves non-binary.
I don't understand how that works. Surely if you are trans you have changed from she/her to he/him not she/her to they/them.
Does one transition to non-binary?
Genuin question...

Why is a removal of breast tissue an unnecessary disfigurement but breast enlargement is not?

I would argue that it is.

Who said it wasn't?

People getting breast enlargements are absolutely nothing to do with anyone else though, so what if you think it's an "unnecessary disfigurement?"
It's not your body.

True, you can go through life not giving a shit about anyone if it doesn't affect you. That would be nice.

I do care about girls and young women intervening unnecessarily on their healthy bodies. The list is quite long, including breast augmentation & removal, plastic surgery, fillers, botox, anorexia and other eating disorders, cutting themselves, and so on.

I don't want to live in a society where this happens. Women have enough to deal with biologically, as we're the ones who get pregnant and give birth.

I read an interview with Amy Childs from the Only Way is Essex who'd had breast implants, which subsequently ruptured. She went through hell.

This is such an unnecessarily dramatic response. Do you have the same reaction to people who get breast lifts/implants/nose jobs/change their body in any other way?

Have you read any of this thread? This false analogy has been demolished several times.

Women who have breast implants are not asking or expecting others to address/treat them as if they were the opposite sex or do not have a sex at all.

But aside from that, yes I feel as sad about most cosmetic surgery* as I do about ‘top surgery’ and ‘bottom surgery’. I’d be devastated if my DD wanted implants or a mastectomy or phalloplasty or liposuction. She has a healthy body and I hope she always feels at home and comfortable in it (same goes for DS). If she had MH problems that lead her to want to change her body, my first priority would be supporting her to access help to accept her body as it is, not to change it. IME cosmetic surgery doesn’t solve MH problems.

DD had an eating disorder when she was a younger teen. I found a good therapist for her, read around the subject as to what I could do as a parent to support her, and kept up good communication with her. What I did not do is encourage her to lose more weight or get weight loss surgery.

*Breast reduction is a little different as large, heavy breasts often cause physical pain and problems.

@newmum0604 Do people who get nose jobs do it because they subscribe to a belief that you can change sex? That pronouns are necessary and that others should be compelled to refer to them in a certain way or face being ostracised or worse? To force themselves into single sex spaces they don’t belong to? To support puberty blockers for children etc etc?

If, however, someone wanted a nose job that involved cutting off their nose because they believed they would be their authentic self by living as someone without a nose they should receive the appropriate mental health support - not have their nose removed surgically and have it called some sanitised term that doesn’t define what it actually is.

I do care about girls and young women intervening unnecessarily on their healthy bodies. The list is quite long, including breast augmentation & removal, plastic surgery, fillers, botox, anorexia and other eating disorders, cutting themselves, and so on

Plastic surgery and cutting yourself are in no way comparable.
I'd never get it personally but wouldn't see someone else getting say a face lift or a boob job as self harm.
How can it be self harm if it makes them feel better about their body, comfortable in their own skin?
Weird to put any issues you may have on them.and say plastic surgery is self harm.

I think it might be because Gayle Rubin, the originator of Queer Theory was an advocate for "intergenerational sex", ie paedophilia. Michel Foucault, a big influence on Queer Theory was also a paedophile. Doesn't mean that all people who identify as Queer are also paedophiles though. That's my understanding, but I am not an expert in the subject.

Women have enough to deal with biologically, as we're the ones who get pregnant and give birth
So?! It's not an either or situation! 😁 You can have plastic surgery or whatever and give birth, you know!

Blimey, males are now considered a marginalised minority I see. If there was ever a statement showing the similarities between this ideology and that of incels, there it is.
Those poor poor men, who can grow up with all the advantage and confidence instilled by patriarchal society, then decide they're women so that they can add to their already abundant privilege by winning women's prizes and beating women in sport and accessing women's spaces whenever they like. I'm not sure I can find a violin tiny enough to do justice to their victimhood.

Show me where therre a term used called ''Cookie' for vagina/vulva?

Exactly.
The young woman in the OPs post will have to deal with all that on top of what she's gone through. Even if she doesn't want children you can't escape female biology.

I think it's worth a thread in it's own right to debate whether cosmetic surgery is a form of harm.
Personally I think it often is. And the argument that how can it be self harm if it makes them feel better about their body, comfortable in their own skin? sounds familiar....
Because it you unravel that a bit, why would someone be uncomfortable with how they look? Maybe because of an arbitrary beauty standard? Male gaze perhaps? How many women go on to regret surgery and tweaks? How many can't stop even when arguably they have made their faces look very strange? Removal of a rib to create a smaller waist?
It's not so very different really to surgery to make yourself look less feminine.

There's so much male entitlement written into the ideology isn't there?

Just take "Emily" Bridges as an example. A mediocre male cyclist who says that they are now a woman and suddenly start breaking women's cycling records. The cycling organisation changes the rules so that transwomen cannot compete against women, instead opening a separate category for transgender people in the interests of safety and fairness. Emily claims this is "genocide". Emily claims to having been "excluded" from the sport and gives it up. Totally refuses to enter in the transgender category. The only thing good enough for Emily is cheating in the women's category. Emily becomes the poor marginalised victim. Zero consideration for all the women that were cheated out of medals, sponsorships, records. Women don't count in this ideology. It is all about validating men's feelings.

Just today there is a story of a transwoman on a basketball team injuring three of the female players in one game so the team have to withdraw for their own safety.

Plenty of other examples of women being injured or cheated by men inserting themselves into women's sports while claiming to be the marginalised victim.

I don't know how TRAs close their eyes to the misogyny of the entire movement.

We probably could dedicate a whole thread for sure.

I mean breaking it down though, it all comes down to how fuckable we are as women, isnt it? Its always about the male gaze.

Wow you've really missed the point. The point is that using euphemisms like cookie to mean vulva (which is common in some parts of the UK) is a safeguarding risk.

Making young children deny reality and call a man a woman is also a safeguarding risk.

Calling a double mastectomy top surgery is a euphemism aimed at sanitising major surgery (often leading to chronic pain and mobility issues) for political reasons. Why do TRAs like to argue that top surgery isn't the same as a mastectomy? It's because they want to obscure the grim reality of it with nicer sounding words. It's another example of obscuring the truth.

Its always about the male gaze
🙄 Speak for yourself. Some women are capable of doing things FOR THEMSELVES, you know on account of them being their own person with their own likes and dislikes.

"How can it be self harm if it makes them feel better about their body, comfortable in their own skin?"

Apply this logic to another form of body dysmorphia: anorexia. How can starving themselves be self harm if it makes them feel better about their body, comfortable in their own skin?

What about BIID where people want to feel "more like themselves" by amputating a limb? How can this be self-harm if it makes them feel better?

In fact, how can self-harm itself (like cutting) be self-harm if it makes them feel better about themselves?

There's a total lack of logic in gender ideology. That's why TRAs like to fling insults and flounce off because they don't have any rational arguments.

Duh.

Not successfully

Likes/dislikes/preferences - not made in a vacuum. Shaped by the exposure to fashions, expectations, peer influence, socialisation. There are structures driving the illusion of choice.
A lot of make up/styling is about looking a certain way - often youthful (correlating to fecundity on an unconscious level)
You might not be aware of the factors driving your choices, but they're there. It's good to be free to make those choices but they're not absolutely free.
I don't mean this in anyway as a sort of conspiracy theory - it's true across all cultures and times. Our choices are shaped by when and where we are born and live.

This is such an eloquent explanation - thank you.