AIBU to think a male paedophile rapist should definitely go to a male prison?

[HermioneWeasley]

And it shouldn't just be "likely"?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-35726292

FFS.

From attheendoftheday:

'... we know that brain structure is different between men and women and that male babies are exposed to testosterone in two separate bursts, giving the possibility that if only exposed to one burst a baby could have the brain structure of one gender and body of another.'

Also from attheendoftheday:
'... one example which talks about brain imaging and transgenderism.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889852913000509'

And from the (abstract of the) article referred to:
"GD [sc Gender Dysphoria] without DSD [sc Disorders of Sex Development] may be associated with atypical brain anatomy or function, but abnormalities of systemic hormone levels or receptor functions have not been established." (My italics.)

Am I missing something, or does this latter tell against the possibility attheendoftheday canvasses in the first quotation above?

Did/do you understand this, attheendoftheday? Maybe you could explain.

Whats the paper called - it wont let me in via the link, i'll have to go and log in then search it?

I hope they'll be quantifying exactly what a 'gender' is in their context. Cause how can you decide something 'doesnt match' without that definition?

Please stop calling women CIS.

We are NOT CIS. We are women, females, ladies, girls, she, her, etc. Not CIS. FGS it has taken us hundreds of years to get to the point where we are finally getting relatively close to some form of equality with men. Don't even think of taking that away from us.

We have rights too. This seems to be being forgotten in this argument.

Every prisoner, no matter what crime they have committed, should be held in conditions which are safe, humane and dignified (I'm aware that all too often this doesn't happen). The only way to achieve this in this case is to have separate units for trans people. This will cost money, of course, but we already have some separate facilities for several classes of prisoner - e.g. mother and baby, vulnerable prisoners, psychiatric units, older prisoners, young offenders, and we also have close supervision centres for the most dangerous prisoners - around 60 prisoners in the whole country, housed in five csc's.

I don't think money is the issue here, neither really is the safety of trans people, because otherwise what would be wrong with a trans unit? The real issue is validation: sending a transwoman to a trans prisoner unit would not validate their belief that they are female. This is why transactivists are not campaigning for their own facilities but are instead muscling in on women's facilities (and groups, organisations, awards, sports ...)

I don't believe that validating a transwoman's belief that they are a woman is worth risking the safety and dignity of female prisoners.

Is CIS an acronym - what does it actually mean?

(Someone needs to produce a glossary, before people start getting deleted for using offensive terms!)

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cis–trans_isomerism

Trans - on opposite sides (in this case sex and gender dont match)
Cis - same side (sex and gender match)

But its offensive because many non-trans people do not believe gender is an innate thing, it is a social construct.

Not necessarily, one could throw him into a particular ly nasty women's prison along with a pair of scissors. (Brutal!)

hazey "cis" means opposite to trans from the Latin or from chemical terms (taken from the Latin) - so you have trans fats and cis fats for example.

It has been adopted because the word "woman" has been rendered meaningless by including anyone who feels like a woman. It is generally used in a derogatory way - "check your cis privilege" (as though being a woman is such a fucking joy)

I will keep talking about "woman" to mean "woman". If necessary to distinguish I prefer to talk about trans women and biological women, though plenty of people on both sides don't like that for various reasons. I hate the term cis and reject it utterly.

As soon as you open a prison wing for TW, TW will realise what's wrong with 'self-identification' as an entrance criterion.

I find CIS offensive. And I imagine I'm not the only one. Why is it ok for someone to use a term I find offensive to describe me, but I cannot speak out against losing my hard earned rights as a woman because it might offend someone who isn't a woman?

It's simply another way for males to keep us in 'our place' and take away rights and safety. Why should my safety be at risk because someone who is 1 in a whatever tiny percentage it is has the right to use the same loos, changing rooms, wards, etc just because they are able to say that although they have a penis they want to be a woman.

Ah thank you, that makes sense, and yes, it seems utterly ridiculous that rather than just 'being a woman' (which is a biological fact) I have to distinguish myself from someone who wants to be a woman (despite the fact that apart from wearing dresses and saying, 'I am a woman', still hasn't been defined by any of the posters who are accusing everyone else of being bigots and transphobes)

Sorry, in these conversations I feel about 150 years old, I haven't got a fucking clue.

Beyond, paper is

Sex Steroids and Variants of
Gender Identity
Heino F.L. Meyer-Bahlburg, Dr rer nat

(Endocrinol Metab Clin N Am 42 (2013) 435–452)

(I think there's a rogue quote mark in the link as I posted.)

You're probably right about 'gender' (the word, to make it explicit). It's a can of worms, the whole area. Indeed I suspect much - maybe most - of divergence of opinion here rests on conceptual confusion rather than scientific ignorance. But I thought it might be worth pointing out to attheendoftheday that the reference given seemed (to me at least) to count against rather than in favour, even allowing (what I don't believe) that 'gender' is univocal and clear in this context.

This is a link to Maria Miller's Transgender Equality paper for those who haven't seen it

It is well worth a read as not only is it broadly the basis for this entire thread, but has been passed to the govt for consideration for ratification into law. What is in this report is absolutely real and could be law very soon.

I fully support the rights of transgender people to live peacefully and free from oppression and discrimination. I don't believe this should happen by taking hard fought for rights away from biological women.

I also think that the insistence that trans people are exactly the same as biological women/men is disingenuous in the extreme. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings or infringe on anyone's rights to exist peacefully, but there are a great many medical conditions that are sex dependant. There is no such thing as female prostate cancer or male ovarian cancer. At some point in their lives, in order to remain biologically healthy, almost all trans people will have to acknowledge their biological sex.

Pretending this isn't so does the trans community no favours whatsoever. And the skewing of statistics around biological sex affects epidemiology which then potentially affects the entire population in terms of health research and resource planning.

And to pretend sex differences don't matter is also disingenuous from a safety perspective. I don't believe trans people are all potential rapists because that's utterly ludicrous. However, I do believe that there are many predatory men out there who will take advantage of a law that says that the only modification men need to make in order to access protected women only spaces is to open their mouths and say "I identify as female". That is all they will need to do. And some men will do that - of this I have no doubt whatsoever.

I get the reticence of some posters about entering into a debate that might feel transphobic or go against the accepted social narrative around inclusion, but honestly, as a society we need to have a critical and open debate about this on all sides so that we can move forward safely and equitably as a society. Otherwise we are sleepwalking into a situation where women and trans people are at risk of harm.

I hate cis too, as it implies a 'fit' to some weird narrow idea. I am me, and don't in anyway feel like a 'normal' example of my gender, I feel like me. There should be 'people who don't feel like people they feel like a label' and 'people who feel like people'.

Beyond
I am unsurprised that the nhs is wrong.

You've already declared your opinion on this matter to be 'non-expert'. You say the NHS is wrong, but it's not alone in its position. Other professional organisations and entities support the non pathologizing of gender dysphoria.

You agree with the WHO's classification of gender dysphoria as a mental disorder. The same organisation classified homosexuality as a mental disorder up until 1990.

The DSM, also quoted by you, has changed its terminology from Gender Identity Disorder to Gender Dysphoria - another step away from pathologizing.

Agree the distinction should be 'woman' and 'transwoman'
NOT
' Cis woman' and 'woman'.

Transwomen are not women, they are transwomen.

fascicle, but what is gender?

I can see that there are generally accepted ways that women and men are expected to behave. I don't think stepping outside those norms means that somebody is ill.

However I have no clue what it means to 'live like a woman' in anyway that isn't just endorsing that binary concept of gender.

If "cis" means being comfortable with society's gender based expectations of your sex, I don't know a single woman who is "cis". Or is comfortable in her body.

I think if anyone wants to have a bash at answering Beyond's question, that would be great.

'can you define what a woman is, without using sexual characteristics or dresses and makeup?'

Actually would it be easier if I defined things thus?:-

Sex= Biological make up and sexual characteristics that are immutable and can't be changed except in the most cosmetic external sense (chromosomes, penis/vagina etc)

Gender = Societal expectations placed upon people dependant on their sex. May vary according to culture/geography. These can be freely disregarded or adopted at will as they are just ideas.

Dysphoria is in its very nature a mental condition.
I dont have to buy into it not being just because a load of people at the top have drunk the kool-aid.

MrsTodds your posts are amazing on this

Telling transwomen that they really are women and enshrining that fact in law makes about as much sense as giving an anorexic liposuction on the nhs. It's dysmophia, and recognising that does not mean that we do not have sympathy or compassion for them, it just means that we recognise that it is the brain that's 'wrong', not the body, and no matter what they do to surgically alter their body, it will never be what their brains want it to be.

If I decide to identify as a Dog, do you think I can get medical treatment at the Vets? I could save a fortune.

You can enter (and win!) crufts too, blueeyes!

These are excellent blog pieces by Miranda Yardley on Maria Millers attack on women.

mirandayardley.com/the-transgender-equality-report/

mirandayardley.com/written-submission-to-the-transgender-equality-inquiry/

I regularly ask these questions on trans issue threads and rarely get an answer.

1. When I fully support anyone's rights to present themselves to the world in any way they choose, why can't my right to choose who I and my daughter share intimate spaces with not respected?

1. Why do the rights of a tiny group of people (a Channel 4 news report put it at around 650000 I think) come before the rights of 50% of the population?

1. Why are the transactivists so obsessed with the erosion of women's rights? Why not campaign for their own spaces? - I'd fully support unisex toilets, changing facilities, trans safe spaces etc.

1. I will happily call anyone by their chosen name, pronoun etc, why can't some resist labeling me as 'cis', a label I completely reject?

1. Why can't some see that self determination will lead to women being less safe?