Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

to object to MNHQ forcing a MALE/FEMALE gender binary on my account.

732 replies

HairyLittleCarrot · 14/01/2016 11:43

I don't have any GENDER.

My MN account forces me to pick from two 'genders'.

I can't even opt out, it's a forced binary choice.

I'm not agender, pangender, cisgender, transgender, male gender, female gender or ANY GENDER.

If you want to know my sex, I am happy to provide that information. But you'll have to add that in as a field, because it doesn't exist currently.

Sex and gender are not the same thing. If you insist on collecting data by gender and making it a forced choice I would like an option as follows:

"Reject gender as a harmful, made up, bullshit concept".

Then when you analyse your account database you can say
X% identify as female gender
Y% identify as male gender
Z% reject gender as a bullshit concept.

AIBU to request MNHQ to alter my account details so that they do not misrepresent me?

OP posts:
SmillasSenseOfSnow · 15/01/2016 13:44

My point is just showing people who might not know what trans people are expected to do at GICs. To give an example of how gender roles seem enforced by a medical profession.

I have had many a chat with psychiatrists about " male / female / androgenous clothing". My experiences on FWR shone through.

That's a really good point. I guess they're just working with what the majority of patients decide is the issue/how the majority present (presumably generally having already decided that the problem is that they 'feel like a woman' and let confirmation bias run riot with that idea for a while, instead of saying 'I don't feel right in my body', or whatever, and approach it from that stage in the process). Certainly not the most scientific approach - more of a patient-centred, 'if that is what you think is the problem then I'll offer you the solution you think is best' approach. Which is perhaps unintentionally strengthening the view that these people actually do have 'the opposite gender'.

ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight · 15/01/2016 13:51

Possibly GIC clinics don't actually know how to deal with sex dysphoria. I'm not sure how evidence based the current treatment is, in terms of treating the mental health symptoms that result from sex dysphoria. The requirement to live as the opposite gender for 2 years seems to me like clutching at straws and also possibly an attempt to get rid of people before any more permanent treatment starts.
As you point out ego - living as the opposite gender is pretty meaningless other than as a sign of commitment:

whatdoIget · 15/01/2016 13:53

There's a thread in active asking for advice about their 4 year old trans child starting infant school Confused

whatdoIget · 15/01/2016 13:53

Sorry I probably shouldn't have posted that, I'm just absolutely horrified tbh

bigbuttons · 15/01/2016 13:56

whatdoIget It is horrific. Bloody stupid parents, poor kid.

whatdoIget · 15/01/2016 13:57

The op has asked for only helpful comments (eg ones that agree that a 4 year old can be trans). I'd love to be a fly on the wall in some of these households. These children are not plucking the idea that they're trans out of thin air.

SeekEveryEveryKnownHidingPlace · 15/01/2016 13:58

I'm trying not to comment on that thread now I know the age of the child, as I have nothing at all supportive to say.

liz70 · 15/01/2016 14:00

"This is becoming quite an interesting thread, actually."

It is, isn't it?

If I may ask Ego (or anyone, really)

If you imagine that you closed your eyes, then when you opened them again, and looked down at "yourself", "you" weren't there - there was nothing to see - no "body", nothing. And yet you could still see everything else around you, still hear sounds, still think etc. "You" very much still existed, just without a physical body.

Do you think you would still feel/identify as female, and if so, why woud you feel female? Or do you think you would then feel genderless?

I'm not trying to put you on the spot, just musing really on the concept of a soul gender not necessarily equating to that of the physical body.

There is more to us than our flesh, blood and bones and all the other stuff, so I do wonder how this relates to gender identity.

whatdoIget · 15/01/2016 14:00

I quite agree bigbuttons. The op is saying that she's going to explain to her son that there's something about his body that makes him different from other girls. In fact I'm wondering if it's a troll threadHmm

whatdoIget · 15/01/2016 14:00

Same here Seek

SeekEveryEveryKnownHidingPlace · 15/01/2016 14:04

... except I did Blush. But I won't go on and on.

Anyway - Liz10's questions are very interesting - I would guess that I would still feel female in that situation insofar as I do now, and I can't imagine that an absence of body would be enough to make me feel differently (I'd be more concerned at being a bodyless entity Grin). I don't think that makes it a soul, though - I think it's that my mind has been in a female body so long that it is part of my sense of myself.

whatdoIget · 15/01/2016 14:04

Ha, I notice we both cracked Seek

whatdoIget · 15/01/2016 14:05

X post!

SeekEveryEveryKnownHidingPlace · 15/01/2016 14:07

We are uncannily in tune!

liz70 · 15/01/2016 14:07

"I'm just absolutely horrified tbh"

But all that means is that the child will be allowed to dress and present as their (currently) preferred gender, and be addressed as such. Nothing physical will be altered, nothing that can't be reversed if the child decides otherwise later on. I don't see the issue tbh. I have more problem with circumcision or piercing baby's or young children's ears. What gives anybody the right to make irreversible physical changes to a child without their consent, purely for religious or cultural reasons?

whatdoIget · 15/01/2016 14:08

Woo woo Grin

bigbuttons · 15/01/2016 14:09

Liz I would be female because of my life experiences. Because of my genes, because of my hormones.
I am female because I gave birth and breastfed 6 children. I am female because I have female genitalia. I am female because I have breasts( even though they're tiny. If I closed my eyes and suddenly my body wasn't there What I was would still be imprinted in my mind. I am female because I have grown up and lived as a female from the day I was born. These experiences fashion who you are regardless of your body.

I do not believe that someone born as a male can become a true female, no, any more than I could become a male simply by having hormone treatment and getting some dr to fashion a penis for me.

whatdoIget · 15/01/2016 14:11

liz70 fine, everyone should be allowed to wear what they like, whatever sex they are, why does that make a boy into a girl though? Surely the op's child is a boy who likes clothes/toys/whatever that are usually thought to be for girls. It doesn't make the child a girl.
I just can't believe it's good for the child's mental health to be told he can be a girl, when he never can be. It sets the child up for a lifetime of disappointment.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 15/01/2016 14:14

But all that means is that the child will be allowed to dress and present as their (currently) preferred gender, and be addressed as such. Nothing physical will be altered, nothing that can't be reversed if the child decides otherwise later on. I don't see the issue tbh

I suspect there may be psychological issues stored up for the future if the young boy is continually told by his mother that he is actually a girl and has a female penis. (Aside: Have you read th e "Wasp Factory"?) It is also blocking him I to a corner where he may feel unable to change back to being male for fear if disappointing his mother. And of course hormone treatment to prevent puberty is started well before adulthood.

SeekEveryEveryKnownHidingPlace · 15/01/2016 14:17

I think most people who've transitioned would say it's a difficult thing to say for the first time, and to change. Imagine how much harder if it's the second time you've done it!

(And yes, I've read The Wasp Factory - apposite!)

venusinscorpio · 15/01/2016 14:20

Surely, "how can a 4 year old know what the concept of gender is? I would take a look at your own psyche before you interpret perfectly normal behaviours as a serious life changing condition and set your very young child down a path which will be difficult to reverse" could be construed as a helpful comment!

liz70 · 15/01/2016 14:20

"I'd be more concerned at being a bodyless entity"

Well, yes, in this mortal human physical form there is a tendency to think that way. But if you can think as "I am not "my body", and that when that body is gone, "I" will still exist, still thinking, seeing, hearing etc. as I said previously. That's a soul, just not housed in a body i.e. you and I, and everyone else, are souls, not bodies iyswim?

I agree that it is odd to think of, but again because of the limitations of our thinking in this form. And ftr I myself have no idea if I would "feel" female (or any other gender) without my physical body!

whatdoIget · 15/01/2016 14:22

Yes I would think so, venus, but for some reason the op only seems to want people who agree that it's possible for a 3/4 year old to be trans to comment.

SeekEveryEveryKnownHidingPlace · 15/01/2016 14:22

But if you can think as "I am not "my body", and that when that body is gone, "I" will still exist, still thinking, seeing, hearing etc. as I said previously. That's a soul, just not housed in a body i.e. you and I, and everyone else, are souls, not bodies iyswim?

Ah but I don't think that - I'm a materialist: my body is what makes me, along with the stuff that happens to and around me, and the discourses that surround me. I absolutely don't think that when my body is gone, "I" will still exist.

venusinscorpio · 15/01/2016 14:23

I suspect there may be psychological issues stored up for the future if the young boy is continually told by his mother that he is actually a girl and has a female penis.

Yep. And peer pressure etc - I also think it will be difficult to go back on. I do find it disturbing how uncritical the media is when adult gender concepts are applied to describe children.