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.

Nursey, they are not identifying with their own body. That isn't resolved by them being near my naked body. It is resolved by the personal actions they take- be that surgery, clothing or other changes in appearance.

So men's experiences are more valid than mine because penises can be moulded into vaginas?

No I never once said that.

That's what you are insinuating though Nursey.

Queen You keep talking about the female experience as though there's just one. There isn't.

Of course there isn't one "female experience". There's an awful lot of shared bullshit though.

I'm still struggling to understand the RF POV on this. Do you have trouble understanding transwomen because you can't imagine why anyone would want to be a woman? Are you seeing being a woman as being so badly treated that you don't understand why someone would give up a male body/privilege for it?

Personally I'm happy being a woman despite the disadvantages and happy to welcome anyone who identifies as a woman. I don't see that as conflicting with wanting to challenge gender stereotypes. I can be a woman and not fit the stereotypes so why can't transwomen?

Ignoring the changing rooms stuff as a red herring.

Queen I'm not sure how much of it (the bullshit)is shared. I suspect very little. Intersectionality is key. I think we all get a degree of bullshit but I think it's very different depending on your class, your income, your educational background, your race, other issues (eg disabities, MH issues etc), your age, your appearance, your size....

SR, because many people don't consider themselves to have a gender identity and identify solely on bio sex. They can't therefore share a gender identity with trans women because they don't have an internal gender identity.

I think the rad fem point of view is that people like Kim want to be women without having gone through all the crap that goes with being a woman and so a born man cannot understand what it's like to be a born woman.

HERC, yes. And women who are biologically female experience specific disadvantages that do not apply to trans women. That gives them a different intersection of disadvantages.

QueenStromba I recognise a lot of what you say about yourself. I'd have loved to have been socialised as a boy, for starters, as I think I'd be a lot more confident (and have, I daresay, a much bigger sense of entitlement, which I really struggle with and am doing my best to improve).

I've heard about this cis thing quite often on twitter over the last year, and don't identify with it at all. My external gender doesn't match my internal gender because I don't have an internal gender. I've had to live as a woman because of what is between my legs. Maybe cis is as true for some as trans is for others, but I suspect there are just as many like me, on both sides of the gender divide.

Thinking about this thread, the fundamental difference seems to be between those who think that trans women are more oppressed as a class than non-trans women, and those who don't. I think it ought to be possible to recognise the difficult life that those who go down the transition route (medical, social and psychological difficulties) while still acknowledging that they've started off from a position of greater power, and that women who have lived their whole lives being treated by society like lesser beings - ie girls - do have quite a lot to offer in terms of discussions about privilege.

SelfRighteous you are in a happy position if you can dismiss the changing room thing (or any intimate space) as a red herring. Plenty of women aren't so fortunate.

I agree with Levianne. A lot of people genuinely feel trans and cis. A lot of people don't. It isn't really anybody else's business what somebody else's personal thoughts are, unless that person wants to share them.

Almond I suspect that there is a specific set of disadvantages experienced by trans people when they are growing up too. I do not think that all girls going up experience the same disadvantages qua female, even if you take out the effects of other factors (eg educational potential/attainment, wealth etc).

But surely everyone has their own specific feelings about gender and their own specific set of disadvantages regardless of how they were born and how they end up or want to end up? A woman in Saudi Arabia probably has less in common with me than a transwoman from the UK for example.

Queen, they may not have gone through the same crap as a 'born woman' but surely have been through other crap. Not to mention 'born women' who don't feel they have had all that crap.

Interesting thread. I'll delurk to say I agree fully with loller's post below and would also love to hear what "feeling like a woman" means.

I was born XX and grew into a woman. At no point in my life did I feel drawn to pink glitter or had an irresistible urge to get dolled up, nor am I submissive, emotional, or a hundred other things a woman's gender role might entail. I feel like a person who is attracted to men. If I were born XY, I suppose I would be a gay men.

It would be interesting to hear what "I feel like a woman" means in a frank and detailed manner from a trans person but it's probably not likely on this thread.

lollerskates Mon 14-Apr-14 10:31:36
And I have no idea what "feeling like a woman" means or entails. I've been female since birth and I have no idea what "feeling like a woman" means. I know what "being treated like a woman" feels like and it's shit. As someone once said, my inside doesn't match my outside either: on the outside I'm a woman, but on the inside I'm a person.

The changing room stuff is always at the forefront of these debates though, despite explanations that in the UK, the law permits exclusion of pre-operative trans women from women's communal changing rooms. It's almost as though people don't care what the law is if it doesn't fit their agenda.

I did ask whether anybody could find a news report of a trans women sexually assaulting another woman in women's space in the UK. I haven't found one although I have found many, many incidences of cis men attacking women in women's space.

I think someone came up with two examples from Canada, one of which was a cis man, and the other was a hoax,, and a PP gave her own example of a man with visible nuts and bolts in a bikini in mixed space.

What I have not found any evidence for is the suggestion that there are people displaying penises in women's communal changing rooms in the UK.

I'm therefore drawing the conclusion that the changing room thing is a straw woman.

Everybody agrees that there shouldn't be penises in women's communal changing space. The law agrees. It hasn't apparently happened here. (There are doubts that it has happened in Canada either.) So why is it constantly referenced other than to stir up panic over a non-existent problem?

It reminds me of the gay panic in the 80s. We were coming for your children, remember that? And it wasn't a biological cause, we were just the product of smothering mothers (gay men) or distant mothers (gay women), and we could be cured if we weren't just deviant and deliberately recruiting YOUR child. I remember reading those headlines and knowing there was something dreadfully wrong with me that I'd better suppress. If there had been an internet, no doubt there would have been posters arguing that the gays WERE coming for your children because there was a report of it happening once in Canada and anybody who was in favour of gay rights MUST be in favour of paedophilia.

Fortunately the law now offers some measure of protection for both groups.

Sorry cross posts there.

Levianne I see the changing room thing as a red herring because if someone is waving a penis about in a communal women's changing room then they are being offensive and probably criminal (exposure? not sure) regardless of whether they identify as women or not. It makes no difference what genitals someone has if they are being offensive with them. If a transwoman is being discrete I don't see how you would even know or care they were there.

SelfRighteous you are talking about systematic discrimination in terms of "feelings". It's great if some women don't feel they are particularly disadvantaged (or if their other advantages outweigh the sexism directed at them), but that doesn't mean social and institutional sexism doesn't exist. Send a "born woman" who doesn't feel discriminated against into a different environment from her usual and her opinions about feeling discriminated against might change a great deal.

I didn't say it didn't exist! I just think it's impossible to decide who is the most disadvantaged and say they are or aren't women on that basis.

SR and HERC. This is how intersectionality works. There are bio female people, anxious people, Saudi women, trans people, disabled people, gay people and so on. Any of these groups of people can intersect. You could be an anxious female bodied Saudi lesbian.

The fact that intersectionality exists doesn't mean the groups don't exist. It doesn't mean that when people mention they are biologically female, gay, disabled etc, that you can say, "You shouldn't identify as that! You are not really disadvantaged by that, because person X is not only gay/disabled/biologically female, they are also anxious and from Saudia Arabia. Your group doesn't really exist."

Intersectionality means that you have to look at the intersections as well as the larger groups. If there are no larger groups, then it is impossible for those groups to intersect to create the intersections!

And yes, there are people who are agender. Some agender people consider themselves trans and some do not.

Why is the changing room thing a red herring? It's the law in Canada that men can claim that they feel like women and come into our safe spaces. It's probably the case that if we let it, we'll end up with similar laws to Canada. Women have to object now or otherwise we won't be able to.

Men in women's changing rooms is not a red herring. It's shorthand for "men being given access to female-only spaces" and it is already an issue - are you not familiar with the events surrounding the Radfem conference last year?

So you object to men in those spaces not just abusive people? If a man wants to attack a woman he isn't going to go to all the trouble to dress as a woman and risk being attacked himself when he can just walk in there as a man and attack.