Saw this headline, thought "It's GOT to be a Mumsnetter!"

[bupcakesandcunting]

Yeah, yeah, it's a Daily Mail article but still [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1389593/Are-PC-parents-world-The-couple-raising-genderless-baby--protect-right-choice.html BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA!"

They're coco loco, right? Surely no-one can say "fuck off, there's a dear" to THIS one?!

I also think this is a fab idea and wish I had taken this extra step when raising my dc.

I understand tambern, but when it's so far advanced, so irreal, one can hypothesize endlessly, and then it gets pointless.

weDontneed - you wish you made this extra step - what is the end result you are looking for? What Is missing in your children's upbringing now without this step?

Ok, what's bothering me more about that article is the parents' smugness, talking about 'loving a child for who they are' and having 'two adults who love them unconditionally'.

They are not loving them unconditionally though-they are denying them a huge part of self. I am convinced that Storm is a boy-and the message that he will get is that his parents would have preferred a girl.

Dittany why do you keep ignoring my posts? I find it very difficult to believe that you haven't seen them.

You called into question Annie's professionalism in a way that would be insulting for any rational person, let alone a scientist - you accused her of believing in urban myths.

You were wrong. Why can't you admit that you made a mistake?

As I said before, I agree with your views on transgender men.

However I don't agree with your conduct here and have to conclude that you hope that the unfortunate fact that you were wrong will go away if you continue to ignore it.

That's a poor way to conduct a debate or win converts.

Dittany Thanks for responding.

I'm not a liar and am dismayed that you think I am or seek to portray me as such.

I have not subjected you to a 'barrage of dishonest hostile questioning'. I have asked you to acknowledge a mistake. You have not done that.

My comment about winning converts is not patronising. That is your interpretation of my comments and I will not be held responsible for it.

Our points of view are equally valid.

And feminists face hostility or indifference to our views. Do you not agree?

Many people do not agree with your views. I read yours on this thread and agreed with all of them until you crossed with Annie on the point of JLC's adoption of two children.

That was because you were wrong in your facts, not your beliefs. I have no argument with your beliefs. But when you are called out when you get facts wrong you should admit it.

You have not acknowledged that you were wrong to state that JLC has given birth and wrong to use that mistake to call into question Annie's professionalism and training.

Your comments had the effect of ridiculing her, and if you will forgive me, I'll pop them into a lower post in case I lose this one.

My professionalism, training and human decency demand me to admit when I've made a mistake. I have no problem with that.

If people don't do the same I conclude that they can't bear to have it pointed out that they could possibly be wrong.

Here you go Dittany, in your own words:

Was that on a science course at a university? I didn't dismiss you Annie, I dismissed the piece of science you were taught that claimed that JLC who has had two children has an intersex condition.

That line of questioning is what I would class as what Dittany describes as 'dishonest' and 'hostile'.

It is also disingenuous to say Dittany was only criticising Annie's lecturer as Annie described herself here as:

Dittany - I find it interesting that in the same post, you say you're not interested in engaging with people who dismiss you posts, and then dismiss me in the very same breath. Yes, I am a real scientist. I have various degrees and a job to prove it.

and

Yes it was dittany. A real course on real genetic disorders for a real biology degree at a real university. One of the most highly-regarded ones in the world too. Just because a website said it's an urban legend doesn't mean it's not true. Nor does hearing it in a class mean it is true. But this is beside the point, surely. These genetic disorders exist whether a celebrity has them or not.

Anyway, I'll bow out now and probably wake up tomorrow to find out that Annie is cursing me for taking up cudgels on her behalf. Sorry Annie, if that's that's the case.

However, I don't like being called a liar, I don't like other people being ridiculed and I don't like people who twiddle with the truth.

I do have enormous respect for people who are essentially right but admit to making a mistake without blustering.

Bupcakes, I don't think your explanations of the difference between gender dysphoria and transsexual are correct. They may reflect the experiences of your friends, but they are not the correct definitions for those groups as a whole.

Gender dysphoria is a medical diagnosis for people who, at some point in their lives, experience a conflict between their gender role and their biological sex. Not all of these people will actually want to change their physical characteristics through surgery or hormone treatments. Not all of them will be unhappy with the way their body looks. Some of them will continue to have GD, but most children with GD will not have GD as adults.

Transsexual is a form of self identification for people who feel that their gender is the opposite to the one that they were given at birth based on their biological sex, and who want to live within society as the opposite gender. SOme transsexual people have surgery and most do not. Some transsexual people believe that they have always had the brain/hormonal state/other secondary biological function of the opposite sex and some do not.

Transsexual people are a subgroup of transgender people. Transgender people are people who self identify as having a gender identify that is different to their biological sex. They might consider themselves to be male, female or neither gender. Some transgender people feel that they really are the opposite sex (in their brain etc) to their biological sex, and some don't. Some believe they have always been the opposite gender, and some feel that their gender has changed at some point in their lives. Some want to live all of the time and be accepted as a member of the opposite sex, and some want to sometimes be one gender and sometimes the other. Some want to be seen as neither gender.

So Julia Serrano, for example, considers herself to be a woman. She does not want to have surgery on her penis and considers it to be a female penis. She is a transsexual. Another transsexual person will have different feelings about their body.

So I feel many of the statements made by posters on this thread are untrue. Not all transsexual or transgender people have some kind of different brain function or biological womb environment as a foetus. Not all transgender or transsexual people believe that they think the same way as people born with chromosones of the opposite sex or that they have always really been a man/woman. Trans is an umbrella term for many people who are unhappy with various aspects of gender roles or feel ambiguous towards them.

I don't see how people can point out that trans or GD is a medical condition and then call people who deny this condition's existence transphobic and compare it to homophobia. The fact that homosexuality used to be a medical condition is evidence of homophobia in the medical community. Many transgender people want GD as a medical definition to be removed.

I've not read the whole thread

I think this is fucking brilliant.

If there is ever a time a person is gender neutral, it's when they're a newborn baby & the subsequent months.

I love how much it's playing with people's heads & the strong feelings it evokes.

Personally I'd burn every pink & blue item made for babies & outlaw pink / blue toys.

In retrospect I wish I'd kept babies gender quiet too.

milly - agree. and if you've ever spent time on a tg forum of any kind, there is absolutely no agreement in the trans community as a whole as to even what the terms mean. defining transexual on a trans forum is akin to posting an aibu on bf/ff or state/private on here.

i wouldn't read the whole thread, mrsd. it might spoil the moment.

Millie thank you for your post. I did state earlier that I didn't have a brilliant understanding of the conditions. I said to another poster in PM that when I read up on it there were lots of grey areas/blurred lines. Your post is helpful though :)

It is fairly easy with a newborn baby-you don't have to go in for pink and blue-it is once they have a mind of their own that parents need to stop playing games and respond to the DC they have-not experiment to try and get what they want.

I have not read the entire thread, just the article.

They are fucking nuts. Not just the whole genderless thing (you can raise a happy confident chid without that nonsense) but because they expect a 5yo and a 2yo to keep a secret.

It mentioned that they decided to do it after Jazz had issues with looking like a girl despite being a boy and being teased/excluded for it. Why on earth do they think Storm is going to fair any better?

Asking a 2 and 5 year old to keep secrets like that is totally unfair on them, the parents have to be prepared for their kids spilling the beans to others. Eventually the child will grow up, start to read books look at other children and know that their are biological differences between boys and girls. You can't for force your opinions onto your child just support them in their choices within reason.

niceday I've tried to raise my children out of the confinments of t gender stereotypes (dd is 5 and ds in 19 months) as far as DD had cars and garages DS plays with dolls, avoiding pink and blue and so on. However family and friend buy them gender stereotypical toys/clothes and more importantly treat them differently and expect them to behave different because of their sex.

I truely believe if I had brought them up gender free they would not have had these expectations assigned to them because of their sex

Well I knew my sex, but my parents supported my decisions to wear boys clothes, play with both boys and girls toys, without all this crazy behaviour of the parents. If you don't like to be given gender specific fir your baby, tell people or give them away. What if the child goes to school or has friends over and they say that they don't know what sex they are a quick look will sort that out. It is a Childs right to know about themselves, and yes what biological sex they were born I into

I always think it's funny to see trans supporters on Mumsnet, given that sex is completely situated around reproduction, and female is the sex that gives birth (even if each female in the group doesn't).

TiggyD said it, for me:

But you are denying 'transwomen' are women. Yes we do compare transphobia to homophobia to racism. When we hear comments like yours we rate you in the same category as Bernard Manning and the BNP. I'm sure Manning and the BNP don't/didn't see themselves as racist or sexist but to the people they pick on they are/were. I don't care about your opinions. Manning, BNP, Dittany. Same thing, different targets for their hate/ignorance.

The world is changing and the old views are dying out. Thank goodness.

All this "it's not a woman until it can produce a child" bollocks is exactly that. Many women can't produce children. That doesn't make them any less women.

Men aren't oppressed. Why would you say they were?

dittany, men ARE oppressed. Gay men are oppressed. Transgender and transsexual people are oppressed. Mainly by people with views such as yours. It disgusts me that you can bang on about how unfairly women are treated, while blindly and wilfully being so discriminatory about other oppressed sections of society.

So Julia Serrano, for example, considers herself to be a woman. She does not want to have surgery on her penis and considers it to be a female penis.

LOL LOL I've heard it all now! A female penis! Brilliant

What a silly twat

"All this "it's not a woman until it can produce a child" bollocks is exactly that. Many women can't produce children. That doesn't make them any less women."

Toby, infertility to one side, a female with ovaries IN THEORY can produce children, regardless to problems conceiving. A man who decides to have his penis removed and wear dresses, even in theory, cannot produce a child, due to no ovaries and no egg production, regardless to conception difficulties (the obvious physicalities to one side of course).

How would you define the word FEMALE given that you reject the scientific and language definite of it?