To be baffled by and disappointed with the amount of transphobia on MN?

[ShutTheFuckUpBarbara]

I know I'll get flamed for voicing my opinion on this, but I don't care.

I just don't understand why there is so much hatred for trans people on here.

Yes, some trans activists are extremists and no I don't agree with them, but should all other trans people suffer because of them?

I get that there are issues that need to be addressed, as highlighted by recent items in the news and recent threads (which prison should trans people be sent to, can a MTW be a girl guide leader and various others). I don't have a solution for these, but I feel that as a society we should work together to make it work, rather than just spout hatred and insults.

It is especially disappointing as there are a lot of people in the trans community suffering mental health issues, often as the result of how they are being treated, and MN is usually a safe haven for people with MH issues.

I used to enjoy reading the Feminism chat (or most of it anyway), now almost every thread on there is transphobic

Most of us here are women, a lot of us are from ethnic minorities, or have a disability, a lot of us have been discriminated against, we know what it feels like so why do it to others??

Same as with homophobia, misogyny has never actually died, and now it has found a way to express itself

The genius of the trans movement, though, is that it has convinced liberals and supporters of human rights to align themselves with the forces of misogyny and homophobia. Everyone I know on FB who thinks of themselves as liberal is uncritically pro-trans, including the LGB people, and the tiniest expression of doubt or concern is shot down. If it wasn't for MN, I'd think I was the last person alive who hadn't swallowed the Kool Aid

I filled out a job application yesterday. It asked me what gender I had been assigned at birth, and I could tick 'male' or 'female'. There was no box for me to write that I wasn't assigned a sodding gender at birth, the midwife didn't pick me up and go, 'Oooh, look, isn't this one sweeeeet! See the smile at the fluffy kittens! Look at the pink lady brain I can see when I look in her ear! This one is henceforth she and must wear lacy socks and play with dollies!' Nope, the midwife took one look at what was between my newborn legs and went, 'Congratulations, you have a daughter!' And so my sex was noted on my birth certificate.

I don't self-identity as female. I'm a woman. That's that.

The "assigned at birth" bollocks really gets me too. It's not like the midwives are going "eeny meeny miny mo..." and deciding on a whim what you are. You're either male or female and that is decided by the presence of genitalia, not randomly "assigned".

How has this happened, how has it become a thing that these frankly lunatic ideologies have become normalised in mainstream culture? Who did this?

The Gender Sorting Hat

jelly I find the definition of disease fascinating so I will waffle!

As a term disease refers to something that is wrong, a negative effect, a distinction...but which human conditions, given the variety of ways in which we function, should be correctly identified as diseases as opposed to mere variations?

Maybe we go with what is normal for humans, but that concept has huge normative problems. What do we mean by normal?

• statistically the case: but his doesn't help as because some things are statistically rare, e.g. red hair, without being in any way diseased.

• true for people like me: this one is clearly biased by who I am and who is around me e.g. a Northern European may find Afro hair very different from anything she has ever seen but that doesn't make Afro hair diseased.

• conforming to the function of man: there are two versions of this argument. The simplistic one sets whatever the speaker wants to promote as the function of the species thus prejudging the conclusion and making the argument circular e.g. the function of humans is to procreate, any sexual act that doesn't lead to procreation does not fulfill the function so is diseased. The sophisticated one harks back to Aristotle and sees nature as teleological (having an end), so the function of the eye is to see because that is what the eye does, a good eye is one that sees well, a diseased eye is one that cannot see very well.

Now this latter physiological argument has been challenged by social constructions of disease and disability. According to those diseases can be created by social responses to them, so in a society with no glasses people with myopia become severely diasbled, whereas in a society with glasses they are not even classed as disabled.

Some diseases are better accounted for with physiological models, some with social models, some have elements of both.

Now add to this that we tend to have different approaches to physical and mental diseases. With mental diseases we often want to deny the legitimacy of the source of concern, e.g. a person with phantom limb pain is treated for the delusion of pain not for the pain (I know this is not strictly true for all researchers but that just shows how our perception of how we understand diseases changes, e.g. is homosexuality a mental diseases which should be cured by changing the person's desire for a same sex artner, or is it a genetic predisposition? (Of course there is the option that it is not a disease at all and this brings us back to the definition of what is a disease in the first place)).

To be continued...

@terrylene be careful someone might think that's a real suggestion, we are living in strange times you know

@terrylene be careful someone might think that's a real suggestion, we are living in strange times you know grin

Too right - they were only talking about Trump's Mexican wall taking off as a concept because of the ice wall in Game of Thrones (disclaimer - never watched/read it). I am hoping the social policy of the future is not built on the plot of the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings.

(sorry missed out the bit where the Wall was discussed on Radio 4 start the week this morning)

So how does this related to transgender?

Firstly it isn't not clear what is transgender? Is it a physiological condition? If yes does it have to do with external sexual characteristics, and/or with genetic information, and/or hormonal imbalances? Is it a mental condition? Does I think stem from psychoanalytic disturbances or from chemical imbalances in the brain? Is it a personal preference?

Of course the answers to the questions above change both whether it is a medical condition and how we should respond to it, e.g. attempt to eliminate the desire to change gender or satisfy it.

Traditionally gender was determined by the appearance of external sexual characteristics at birth, so there was a threashold above which the sexual organ was termed a penis and below which it was termed a clitoris. This proved to be out of alignment with the person's own understanding of their gender. Further research suggests there may be a genetic component to transgender desires and that hormone markers may be a more accurate predictor of a person's gender self-identification that external sexual characteristics.

The transgender research has raised questions about biological dual gender identification. Why not accept three genders instead of two? Intersex people are rare, but so are red heads; they have two characteristics where others have one but some people have eleven fingers where most have ten; they are unable to procreate but that is true of some one sex people. Intersex people are not in any way clearly harmed by being intersex (by the condition itself rather than social attitudes to it) and mere difference cannot identify disease given the diversity of the human condition.

Intersex isnt the same as transgender

Gender isnt the same as sex

Nicked from Facebook...

"‪How are people peeing out of their gender identity instead of peeing out of their physical anatomy? Neat trick, Title IX erosion..."

The genius of the trans movement, though, is that it has convinced liberals and supporters of human rights to align themselves with the forces of misogyny and homophobia

Shinynew - Call me cynical, but I don't see liberals and supporters of human rights to be particularly pro-women to begin with. Enlightenment liberalism explicitly excluded women and later versions of liberalism have defended porn in the name of free speech and prostitution in the name of rights to body / free commerce. Some also argue that human rights are really men's rights and women's rights to freedom from violence and bodily integrity are sidelined and popped in a separate charter.

I think there are plenty of people who think like ' us' but just too afraid to voice their opinion. As an anti-theocracy feminist I'm used to being labelled so people don't have to have awkward discussions.

Firstly it isn't not clear what is transgender?

According to homophobic trans campaigners Stonewall, transgender is anyone who doesn't conform to the expected behaviours for their birth gender, or who has an "absence of gender identity". In which case that would be all gays and a lot of feminists, for a start.

I don't think such vague definitions do people who really suffer from body dysphoria any favours at all.

PureConcentratedEvil The girls did not believe they biologically had "additional fat cells". Their belief in "being fat" was a subjective description of how they felt and believed they looked.

But presumably their concept of "being fat" is similar to what anyone else's would be, and one which by any objective measure did not apply to them. And never mind being fat, people with this condition are often dangerously underweight.

A different sort of thing than an ideological dispute over what it means to be a man or a woman. It is not that transpeople look at themselves in the mirror and "see" something that is not actually there. Their physical perception is not off-kilter. They correctly know what is physically there. They just do not agree that a man or a woman is necessarily someone with (or without) these physical characteristics.

P.S. People asked earlies for examples of transphobia. Implying that transpeople and/or the transmovement have malevolent motives might sail close to the wind of demonstrating prejudice at least.

Rufus i did not mean to imply that intersex is the same as transgender. Historically medics thought you could be either male or female, then came the acknowledgement that you could be intersex, both male and female. This third possibility made people think that maybe you could appear in some ways to be male but actually be female and vice versa. Which suggests that there are more options than male or female.

It is not that transpeople look at themselves in the mirror and "see" something that is not actually there. Their physical perception is not off-kilter

It most certainly is that, when they look in the mirror and insist that they are a woman. Even when they have penises and beards. Their perception, both physical and mental is off kilter because they are insisting that what they see , what we all see, is just as much as woman as I am, simply because they self identify as a woman.

It would be different if someone is acknowledging that they are biologically and physically male but feel like they are a woman inside. But activists like Dannielle Moscato are not doing that, they are insisting that we need to change our perception of what a woman is to include a biological male, with a full male appearance and every possible male attribute, which is not only bizarre doublethink, it is offensive and misogynistic.
And then have the cheek to complain that WE are phobic and bullying !

You couldn't have this conversation in many places. Often on feminist groups you would face a barage of insults and be deleted and thrown out. On twitter you are insulted and blocked. So for those who think each side can just discuss this rationally - no. Peter Tatchell, Ian McEwan, Germaine Greer, Alice Eve - all were attacked and punished for saying views that didn't stick to Trans ideology. Many folk are too wary or even scared to say what they really think.

Empress Absolutely

It would be different if someone is acknowledging that they are biologically and physically male but feel like they are a woman inside. But activists like Dannielle Moscato are not doing that, they are insisting that we need to change our perception of what a woman is to include a biological male

So they agree with the rest of us about their physical body and its characteristics. They however think that a concept should be widened to include those characteristics. Still a different type of thing than looking in a mirror and having an incorrect physical perception of what you are seeing.

What is really beginning to worry me is that sexism and misogyny are going to be terms which will suffer from another re-definition.

If a transwoman is showing what is stereotypical male behaviour in a meeting for instance talking over women or talking down to women, you can't claim it is sexiest as it is coming from a woman.

There is a thread started about rank sexism in Uber. The poster could make none of stick because the perpetrator was deemed a high performer. It's going to be even harder if that high performer is classed as a woman.

The whole difference between gender and sex in the argument seems so muddled.
So, the terminology changed from 'trans-sexual' to 'transgender' - which perhaps makes sense because we can lean towards the gender we prefer in our behaviours and the way we express ourselves etc without any sort of reconstructive surgery or hormones to actually make a sex transition.
But as far as I'm aware the safe spaces are 'sex' segregated. Showers, locker rooms etc aren't split by gender.
Or are they now?

Same with same sex relationships vs the cotton ceiling.
Are transgender people often mixing up gender with sex?

Much as I loathe Lauren Southern, I do find this clip illustrates the sort of disconnection from reality that is happening ( imho ). Watch the womans reaction when Lauren informs her she is legally a man, and her response.

I also have a huge issue regarding the language that is used, not only should we address people as their chosen gender but that we must think of them as that gender. Seriously. Policing thought.

Rufus i did not mean to imply that intersex is the same as transgender. Historically medics thought you could be either male or female, then came the acknowledgement that you could be intersex, both male and female.

Nope, nope, nope.

Intersex, in most if not all cases, is not "both male and female". I am not sure there are any recorded cases of a person who is actually both male and female, i.e. has the reproductive organs of both sexes.

A person who appears to be female because of an insensitivity to androgen, but has internal testicles, is clearly male with respect to reproductive capacity, but between the sexes in that the outside appearance defaults to female.

The presence of testicles or ovaries is still a very clear sign of a person being either female or male.

There needs to be a third category on legal documents, as it would be unfair to classify a person with internal testicles as male when everyone perceives and treats them as female and the ability to father children is only present in theory as artificial insemination would be needed.

However, humans still come in two sexes, only, and can reproduce only in two ways; either by eggs or by sperm.

We do not need a third gender. We do not need gender at all. It should be done away with.

What we need is a clear perception of biological reality.