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.

And this is the point at which people try to extend their own experience to make feminism all about them and their life, rather than women as a group.

Obviously women are oppressed on the basis of their biology. A woman dies as a consequence of pregnancy and childbirth every minute. There are many forced pregnancies and forced abortions. There are women who face extreme prejudice in the UK while giving birth. There are many women who are sacked because they are pregnant. Their are women who received inadequate care during fertility, women given dangerous or unsuitable forms of contraception, women given poor treatment during menopause.

Obviously women are also oppressed on the basis of their gender role - devaluing of anything considered feminine, low pay for people in traditionally female jobs, problems of entering male fields, harassment of anyone who looks or behaves in a feminine way.

Both of these are forms of disadvantage. And this seems to me to be the real conflict. There is a conflict between women who experience disadvantage mostly based on gender role and women who experience it mostly based on biology, and trans women are merely a vehicle used to push their own situations in life as being the one people should be caring about and fighting for rights around.

anonmum please be reassured that there are transpeople who live perfectly normal livess.

From what I understand, early transition is the most difficult time and providing she has got some support it WILL get easier.

My DH was 15 when he transitioned. He went through the same stuff, actually worse as he was locked up for his own safety. He is now a perfectly happy 36 year old with a senior position in the NHS, a lovely family (if i do say so myself!) home, and all the trappings, car, pension, streams of weddings, christenings, weekends away, blah blah blah.

Sorry, during infertility, not fertility.

I will also clarify that I mean other people are using transwomen as a way of promoting their own issues, not that transwomen are creating this situation.

I should proofread more.

Absence of evidence means nothing

Did you read my info on genetics that I put in a previous post? There is also the hypothalmus findings.

So some evidence actually.

You don't have to justify yourself to anyone Cheers.

Happy wine drinking! We have given it up for lent in our house so have one for me!

Men are a threat to women. Women are at risk of violence from men. This is particularly so in places where women are more vulnerable. I don't know whether the incidence of violence by transwomen against women is any different from that of men against women. There certainly have been reported cases of violence and sexual assault by transwomen against women. It is sometimes claimed (as in the link posted by a pp above) that this was a man claiming to be a transwoman but if a person who claims to be a woman is a woman (as many transactivists believe) how can anyone else say who is or isn't trans? It's another example of faulty, circular thinking.

If transwomen are less violent to women than men are, how is a woman supposed to know if she feels safe in the presence of a stranger? As DonkeySkin said, women's fear of men is rational and often is based on their own personal experience. It's not acceptable to ask women to put aside their experience or PTSD and disregard their boundaries so as not to hurt someone's feelings. Women are always asked to put their feelings last. Now feminists are also telling them this.

So an androgen receptor NR3C4 means a person with a penis is a woman but his penis, gonads, hormones and chromosomes do not mean he is a man? That study compared 149 transwomen with 258 white men. There were no female subjects so the study is certainly not evidence that transwomen are women.

There is no scientific basis for transgenderism and many transactivists are not arguing that there is.

chocolate is evil because it makes people fat. i have a right to live in a world away from chocolate and indeed fat people, therefore there should be no chocolate and all fat people should live in fields.

But god forbid If i ever become fat myself or someone i love becomes a fatty, then i will change my schema because, actually, it's ludicrous. There is chocolate and there is fat and it is possible to inhabit a world with chocolate and fat in it and it is actually no threat at all even if my auntie Marion ate so much (not just chocolate - but there was lots and lots of chocolate) that she needed bariatric furniture. (She's dead now) But really it's because of Auntie Marion (she's not actually my real auntie, we just call her auntie marion, i dont actually even know her, she just lives down the road)

Comparing sexual assault and violence against women with chocolate is offensive.

'Absence of evidence means nothing. The brain is incredibly complex.'

I was responding to beanella, who stated that there was indeed evidence for gender being biological. The idea that brains are gendered is very harmful and regressive for women.

Kim, I am not denying the fact that some male people feel dysphoria over their bodies and/or gender role. I merely point out that this does not make them female.

And your statement that trans people are not a threat to women's rights is not exactly true. Individual trans people going about their lives is not the issue. The issue is the legal and political agenda being pushed by trans activists, which is undeniably a threat to women's rights and safety and to the feminist understanding of gender as part of the structure of women's oppression. Already we have seen the erosion of many legal protections for women, with real consequences for some of the most vulnerable women, such as those in prisons and homeless shelters who have been exposed to violence at the hands of male serial predators who 'identify' as women. It doesn't matter that these are 'isolated' cases - if trans activists get their way, there will be more and more of them to come.

Along with the aggressive push to stop women from talking about abortion, or pregnancy, or anything to do with female biology as a women's issue, lesbians have been under assault from trans activists who are trying to reframe lesbian sexuality as bigoted if they won't consider sleeping with people with penises - trans author Julia Serano dedicated any entire chapter of her new book to berating lesbians for daring to prefer female-bodied people. And the boys and girls who refuse to conform to sex roles are being 'diagnosed' as trans at younger and younger ages and put on the road to puberty blockers and eventual sterilisation. All of this is the logical outcome of the ideology of genderism, which claims that biological sex isn't real but gender (i.e., sex-role stereotypes) is immutable.

It is simply disingenuous for you to claim that this is not happening and there is not a large and very aggressive trans lobby that has shown no concern at all for women's rights, children's health or female reality in pursuit of its agenda.

Comparing sexual assault and violence against women with chocolate is offensive

It was penises.

Actually florafox I am genuinely interested in your view. If you could set the agenda on how the world 'deals with' Tras sexual people, what would you have happen? What would be acceptable and not acceptable to you?

I'm not being goady, I am genuinely interested. Please could you bullet point t as i'm struggling a bit with anything too complex! (sleepless nights!)

According to this study, transwomen commit violent crimes at the same rate as other males.

www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0016885

Donkey I recognizing what you say about Transactivism. I really think that is why there needs to be a different definition for medical and social transition.

There is a lot more ambiguity now that there was many years ago. And, you might feel that this has resulted in less protection for women, but it has as a result also meant that Transsexual people are experiencing more widespread discrimination and are unable to access safe support. (safe - i.e support that will not expose them to further dysphoria)

The things a person needs to begin medical transition are a lot more accessible and the psychological and psychiatric processes are not as rigorous.

It is really important I believe that people don't just place all Transexual people under the same umbrella.

There are deviant groups within the transactivist movement (who i have unfortunately met) And this group have appeared to gain a great deal of influence over public policy over the last 5-10 years.

There was primarily a gender binary view of transsexual. For someone with gender dysphoria, it is THE ONLY view.

Now there is a movement emerging where people without dysphoria are identifying THEMSELVES as transexual (rather that having an eventual diagnosis by a psychiatrist - this used to be the per-requisite for having treatment)

If the gender binary view is presented as the only view then Transactivists will cry discrimination.

That is why there needs to be two very separate definition. Transgender and Transexual.

beanella, you are the one spreading fear and confusion about transgenderism. You don't seem to be listening at all to what women here are actually saying, but just filling in what you imagine we are all thinking, based on your own prejudice. If you want people to understand what you want them to understand, maybe attacking them, repeatedly denying their lived experience, calling them liars and throwing slurs at them is maybe not the best way to do it. People like you are exactly why people who have honest questions are afraid to ask them.

All I am hearing levianne is that women don't want to share changing rooms with transwomen because they might get raped because transwomen might have a penis.

It just seems a little OTT to me.

I am also reading a lot of posts that are attempting to discredit the very real and very honest experiences of people who either are transexual, or are the friends and family of transexual people.

It is abhorrent to refer to a transexual woman or transexual man as a gender of which they do not identify.

beanella you are still comparing someone choosing to eat chocolate with violence against women. It's really not on.

Your analogy is no different than men saying "not all men are rapists" and therefore women should not talk about rape culture or boundaries or safety.

bean I don't want to set out my "agenda". My experience of discussing these issues with trans activists is that it is less than productive. You seem genuine and not goady however so I'll bite.

• I agree with everything DonkeySkin has said above about transgenderism and the harm this ideology does to women and feminism, without the cultural roles inflicted on women (and men) by patriarchy, there would be no transgenderism.

• Gender should be dismantled so that people are free to live their lives however they want without the constraints of expectation on them

• In the meantime, people who cannot live within society as it currently is and who need to live as members of the opposite sex for survival should be able to do so and everyone should be treated with dignity and respect.

• I would accept a formal recognition of people living as members of the opposite sex (transsexual) with objective criteria (only with surgery and hormones etc) and with exceptions for things that are related to socialisation of women (for example, a job reserved for a woman should not taken by someone who grew up socialised as a man). Also, statistics should record transsexual status separately so that diversity, health, crime statistics etc. show the true picture for women.

I agree with people being treated with dignity and respect. I don't agree with silencing women, putting women last or denying biological reality.

Gender should be dismantled so that people are free to live their lives however they want without the constraints of expectation on them

This is exactly what the transactivists are trying to achieve!! ^^ And you are saying it is harmful to women. You want protected womens spaces free from Transexuals but you also want gender to be dismantled? How utterly contradictory!

I would accept a formal recognition of people living as members of the opposite sex (transsexual) with objective criteria (only with surgery and hormones etc)

I actually agree with that part of your statement ^^, if you mean in terms of birth certificate, driving licence. Though it might be difficult for people who are having to undergo 'real-life' tests. Perhaps there could be some interim formal things to enable people to live their live safely. For example, they can change their name through deed poll to a female name/male name just as anyone can change their name from Donna to Elinor or whatever they like.