Question about gender change

[lougle]

If someone is making a transition to one gender from another, what does their sexuality relate to - their original gender, or their new one?

For instance, if a man is transitioning to become a woman, and is attracted to women, would that make them 'straight' or 'gay'?

If a woman is transitioning to become a man, and is attracted to women, would he then be 'straight' or 'gay'?

I'm likely to have to explain 'gender change' to my children, but it occurred to me that I really don't understand the 'gender' part of it at all.

I understand the physical processes and the medical timeline, etc. (ie. live as new gender for x period, medication, initial reassignment surgery, final reassignment surgery), but I don't understand how someone who has had gender reassignment would identify their sexuality.

I hope I haven't offended anyone - I may not have used the right terminology and may have been clumsy in the way I've asked the question.

Do people on this thread even believe that there is a biological cause

I believe it has a biological cause. I do believe gender identity is innate, in a similar way that sexuality is. I think (again, the same way I view sexuality) that there are people at various different points on the gender scale and that the societal response to this is problematic (he's a boy? Who likes dresses? Does this mean he's trans? Gay? Bi?' No - it means he's a boy who likes dresses).

In a similar way I consider the gay/straight thing to be innate, and we're all on there somewhere, and we even move to different places on the scale depending on where we are in our lives.

I know, fully and wholly, that I am a woman. I'm not going to qualify that with statements about what makes a woman, or the fact that I menstruate or have given birth. Nor am I going to qualify it with statements about physicality and strength. Nor am I going to say I know I'm a woman because I respond in the same way that women do to certain situations.

I'm not going to say any of these things, because any of them imply that women are a certain way, and respond in the same way to everything, and that they're not diverse at all. And they obviously are.

But despite this, I know, fully and completely, that I am a woman. I knew I was a girl even when I kept my hair short and wore my brother's cast down clothes and climbed trees and refused to be the princess roles in our games (that was something that DSis liked to do - I did not). Despite being 'one of the boys', I knew I was inherently a girl.

And that's the other confirmation; I know fully and completely that I am not a man. I do not feel the affinity when I'm with a bunch of men the same way that I do with a bunch of women.

So yes, there is something in me that's inherently 'woman', and I think it would still be there if I had to have my breasts and womb removed. I would still be as female.

So that's my personal opinion of it.

Kim, is it not a case that trans people legally have the rights they want, but the enforcement and awareness ofthose laws is poor? Or are there new laws that need to be made?

No I don't think Trans people make it up. Although I think the law as it stands means that someone with nefarious purposes could pretend to be Trans for a short while.

I don't think it has a biological cause though. I have read a lot of the scientific literature around this and the studies that argue a biological cause I would compare to studies that show homeopathy works i.e. they are junk science.

I think there are a number of causes of transgender. Indeed some Trans people themselves express the reason why they think they are transgender.

This is an interesting facebook group that brings together people with very different views to talk about transgender. It has Trans people in there like Sandy Stone, as well as radical feminists like Elizabeth Hungerford. You don't have to be a member to read the discussions.

www.facebook.com/groups/genderdiscusssion/

It's not true that a transsexual woman must be permitted to compete against cis women in competitive sports if this would give her an unfair advantage (13.45 of the Code of Practice to the Equalities Act 2010 makes this clear). Not in the UK, anyway. It's also not true that a man can "claim" to be transitioning and thus force entry to a women's bathroom (2.24 and 13.57 of the same).

Cis men who assault people don't generally bother with so much as a wig, let alone a traumatic gender reassignment process, they just go straight in there.

The fear of what a trans woman might do in a women's loo or changing room is disproportionate to the reality.

I don't say that to diminish the experiences of women who have been sexually assaulted (I have been) but let's remember who does the assaulting in these situations, it's cis men.

To the best of my knowledge there has not been a case in the UK in which a trans woman has sexually assaulted another woman in a women's loo or changing room. However there are dozens of examples of cis men attacking women in women's loos and changing rooms and quite a few of trans women being attacked themselves in these spaces.

The government should have made it very clear, when the law was changed, that same sex facilities had been abolished and replaced with same gender ones. Then people would no longer have an expectation that they were going to be naked next to a person of the same sex, and the feeling that a transgender person was doing something wrong would go.

People who are uncomfortable in same gender facilitieswould then have to request private facilities.

Oh, great, almondcake, then women who had been at the receiving end of male violence would be pushed to the back of the queue, as usual, and they would have to struggle for any accomodation, as if what they'd already suffered wasn't bad enough. What a triumph for social justice that would be.

I do think the way people express themselves in life (commonly named 'gender') is a mixture of nature and nurture. Where that puts me on the 'gender and biology' spectrum, I'm unsure.

Levianne, but the situation I have described is the situation we are currently in as a society. Me pointing it out doesn't somehow make me responsible for it.

Posy, I don't understand what you are saying. Nobody is going to be there checking passports or whatever to get into a swimming pool changing room. There is no forcing their way in. Men just walk in to assault womenin these cases.

There have been cases of Trans people exposing penises in sex segregated spaces in the UK, as mentioned above.

There has also been a case of an individual who looked exactly like a man but wearing a woman's blouse, being given the right to use a woman's communal toilet. The individual went to use the toilet, two women objected to a man in the toilets, this individual fetched security and said they were a MtoF, and the security staff reprimanded the two women who had objected.

And I am not sure you understand Posy what transitioning means. Many Trans people in the process of transitioning can spend some of their time presenting as one sex and then some time as the other sex. For example, MtoF's who continue to present as male at work, but female outside of work. For many this is a temporary stage in the process of transitioning, but there is nothing to say it need be.

let's remember who does the assaulting in these situations, it's cis men

This. I'm not minimising the experience of those who have been sexually assaulted but having a penis does not make a person innately risky.

almond I think we're agreeing. A PP suggested that the law was that if a man claims to be transitioning he is allowed to go into a women's area and the staff are powerless to stop him - my point was a) this isn't true and b) if men do want to go in and assault people they don't bother pretending to transition, they just go in there and do it.

What, Grennie, you want my lesbian feminist queer rights activism credentials? Thanks for the concern but I am very clear on what transitioning means. It remains the case that a person who presents as male in day to day life, even if they are in the early stages of transition, is not expected to be allowed into women's space, I know this because I wrote a sodding volume of advice on it for an org who were having a panic and that's three days of my life I won't get back.

In the example you gave (and I'm not suggesting it didn't happen) the security staff were wrong.

The Eqs Act gets misinterpreted nearly as often as the Data Protection Act.

It is sometimes easier for someone to say "That person is allowed in because of the Eqs Act" when it is not the case than to actually look it up, just like you will often find a bored call centre person claim they can't give you your own information "because of the Data Protection Act." Both are just wrong, and the answer is better education on what is and isn't allowed rather than hoping trans women never need to pee.

almondcake that's why I am saying it has to be changed, which you don't seem to think necessary.

Posy, I think the issue is that people don't want to start questioning others or being questioned by others as to whether or not they are transgender in a changing room, either as staff or users of the changing room?

Kim, I agree with Spork that the best solution in the long term is to get rid of segregated facilities.

Kim this comment of yours stands out for me But I do agree a male should not be able to say "I'm female because I feel like it", make no attempt to "pass" and walk into a female changing room.

That is all I ask really. I find it very aggressive when someone dresses in a way I perceive as confrontational e.g. the bikini. It feels like they know they are dressed in a way which will attract attention but are daring anyone to comment. I feel really understanding of someone trying to pass.

Yep almond many years ago I was a little baby dyke with a VERY short haircut, a newly out strut, and unisex clothes that hid my boobs (I hated the male attention I got from revealing clothes so I didn't wear them) and I was quite frequently challenged in the women's loo. Not because I looked like a threatening man, because i looked like a teenage boy I used to get old ladies thinking I was lost and saying "the men's is that way, dear." However I didn't pass as male well enough to use the men's and having been sexually assaulted in the past I didn't think that was a good idea. Questioning others or being questioned is often awkward.

Having said that when I worked in a pub I would often have to go and ask men to leave the ladies' loo that they had "accidentally" walked into (up a flight of stairs and across a corridor, while the men's was on the ground floor right next to the bar ) - not one of those men made any effort to say they were transitioning or look like they were. Not even a dab of lipstick. This is because they were entitled arseholes. And THOSE are the people who are a threat to women's safety.

Levianne, it isn't going to be changed. Everything is heading in the opposite direction. I would far rather focus on providing women who are made vulnerable by this more privacy options so they can feel safe, because it is possible to make that happen.

almondcake, I'm fed up of being pushed to the back of the queue so no, I won't just accept it. If everyone just accepted unjust stuff and tried only to mitigate the consequences, nothing would get better, ever.