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?!

A feeling of femininity/masculinity would be different for everyone, I'm assuming, so I can't do that, LOTM.

Dittany, I believe that a person can choose how they wish to be referred to. It's incredibly rude not to refer to someone as their preferred personal pronoun. IMO it is equivalent to racism or homophobia.
I cannot articulate properly how angry it makes me, and I find it difficult to talk about without losing my temper, so I shall respectfully leave this tangent here.

So your definition of a woman, is breasts, vagina and ovaries?

I'm not arguing with you, I'm just trying to understand what you are clarifying as a woman.

I don't refer to transgender people as the gender they "choose", I refer to the them as the gender they're born FWIW.

I seem to remember Germaine Greer wrote in The Whole Woman that a study had shown that volunteers treated infants differently, according to what sex the volunteers had been told the infants were. The "female" infants had to wait longer to be fed, for example.

Remembering that makes it easier for me to understand these parents' points of view.

"So if you can choose a gender, surely gender can also be fluid or ambiguous, and you can indeed feel 'feminine' one day and 'masculine' another."

I don't think you can speculate so widely.

A man puts on a Hubbard and bakes a cake, is this him feeling "feminine"? Or a woman decides to, I don't know, change a tyre, is that "masculine"?

If that's what it means to them, LOTM, then of course it is.

I don't think there are such things as "feminine" and "masculine" unless you are to stereotype, so I think your reasoning is flawed.

People do stereotype. That is the whole point in the OP. So for some people, yes, feeling 'feminine' would be putting on an apron and baking a cake.

I think you're wrong, you think I'm wrong, I can't imagine either of us cares much.

By the way, as a general point. If you feel uncomfortable addressing a transsexual by their chosen pronoun, isn't there an easy, respectful, non-offensive, non-confrontational way out that needn't compromise your values? You could refer to the individual by their name

I think this is the the second time in the thread I've made such a post, but I doubt it'll be the last.

You don't need to explicitly address people according to what genitalia they have.

By the way, as a general point. If you feel uncomfortable addressing a transsexual by their chosen pronoun, isn't there an easy, respectful, non-offensive, non-confrontational way out that needn't compromise your values? You could refer to the individual by their name

Absolutely. Although this is often merely a cover for the bigoted views underneath. But it's a start, and certainly less offensive on the outside.

Toby, it's nothing to do with being "bigoted" and I do wish MNetters can find new terminology.

I don't believe being fitted with a new set of of genitalia changes the sex just because someone wanted to change.

I wouldn't treat one any differently to anyone else. I just don't approve of their choice.

I wouldn't treat one any differently to anyone else

But by refusing to use someone's preferred personal pronoun just to make a point, you are! It's rude and yes, I believe that view is bigoted.

It is absolutely not "erasure of [womens'] reality" for someone who was born with male genitalia but feels that they were born in the wrong body, to have surgery to correct this.

That's like saying it's an erasure of 5-fingered peoples' reality for someone who was born with an extra digit to have one surgically removed.

Stillstanding I was typing on a phone yesterday so couldn't type much. What I should say is that I will not allow gender specific items as gifts from friends and family for a start, such as little frilly pink things to put in her hair.

Of course it is near impossible to avoid these things in RL but I will try to discourage it as much as possible where I actually can, like the ideas that little girls do ballet and little boys play football. My children will be encouraged into all sorts of creative pursuits that have been stereotyped to belong heavily to one gender IYSWIM.

Yes she can wear skirts but I will keep her away from the idea of prince charming and his rescuing beautiful princesses who are fragile and can't rescue themselves for instance.

She will be taught that though she may not be physically as strong as her male counterparts, she should not see herself as having to comply with what is deemed acceptable by society of women (that they should be meek and mild) and should follow her own instincts on who she is.

Obviously it is much more complex than this when put into practice.

I studied Anthropology and one of the things that struck me is how gender is massively socially constructed and the way one identifies his or her gender is almost always a result of nurture as opposed to nature.

The Hibeto Tribe of Papua New Guinea is a good example of the way in which gender roles are socially assigned. Unfortunately I could only find a very old youtube link to illustrate the mens lifestyles, which calls them lazy (it is very old and eurocentric) as opposed to highligting that it is because women in this tribe take on traditionally male attributes (hunting and construction for instance), while the men are effectively child rearers and spend most of their day grooming and keeping home.

I don't know Dittany, what my definition of "woman" would be.

While I don't approve of transgenders, I must ask (and not to reference the conversation we had yesterday) but what about women who feel they should have been born a man?

It's not just changing gender just because they wanted to change. Being born into the "wrong" gender's body is actually a recognised medical condition, Gender Dysorphia. It's not a purely psychiatric condition either. It's to do with hormone levels, possible malfunction in gender development in utero and in some cases, hermaphroditism. It's not as simple as a man fancying having a go at having a pair of breasts and a vagina/woman fancying a penis and a set of testicles.

And it doesn't just include men wanting to be women. It includes women wanting to be men too. I don't think it's misogynistic. I don't think that anyone would choose this disorder, it's distressing and causes all sorts of MH issues. It's not as cut and dry as simply wanting what the other gender have in terms of genitals.

I actually know quite well a MTF transexual. I do struggle to accept her as 'female' sometimes as she was a very imposing man before the op and stands 6' 6" in her heels. She gets very, very aggressive with anyone who accidentally or otherwise calls her 'sir' or 'he'.

She also makes statements like, "Men are all the same, only after one thing" or "Men only ever talk to your cleavage". I never know quite what to say really and she is very predatory and full on with men.
Several of them have been very, very blunt with her and I do feel for her.

She has been cut off from many members of her family because of her decision and puts up with ridcule and abuse most days. Not a pleasant place to be, but her belief that she was a woman in a man's body was so strong she was willing to face everything that a sex change entailed.

It's not as simple as a man fancying having a go at having a pair of breasts and a vagina/woman fancying a penis and a set of testicles.

To be fair, neither is 'standard' transgenderism. It takes years of living as the gender you choose to be, counselling etc. It's not really that simple.

But yeah, I know what you mean.

Idiots.

It's not up to you to approve of transgender, LOTM, as you clearly have no understanding of the condition.

To be honest, gender dysorphia is viewed as homosexuality was in the '50s; something that the person chose and as something to view as disgusting or unnnatural. Hopefully in another 50 years time, we'll be treating people who treat transgender people as freaks in the same way as we treat homophobes now.

Bupcakes, while I agree that it affects both genders. I can't say I agree that because it's been called a "medical condition" that it is indeed that. I think it's to do with social conditioning entirely...unless of course there's a case study of Eskimos/Amazonian tribes who have been affected by the same "condition/disorder"?

Out of interest, LOTM, would I be correct in assuming that your religious views have a lot to do with your views on transgenderism? Do they also colour your views on homosexuality?

I'm not sure how you can say it's social conditioning. Surely, the only social conditioning required would be to mix with the opposite sex?

It's not as simple as chromosomes, dittany. Everyone would be a women, no matter what the chromosomes, if male hormones produced during development didn't change the female default into male.

Sex and gender, from a biological point of view, are very far from static and hard-wired. Transgenders are not men dressing up as women. There are chromosomal men with women's bodies (Jamie-Lee Curtis is one) and vice versa.

It's definitely not as simple as saying you are sex you appear to be based on your genitalia and need to live with it.

WTF do Eskimos/Amazonian tribes have to do with anything?