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??

Not just transgender people, Sister Moonshine.

The Women's Equality Party & Caroline Lucas tabled a joint amendment to Article 50 which included the removal of sex as a protected characteristic. They put gender in there instead.

Looking at the WEP's track record, I'm quite certain they knew exactly what they were doing.

Still a different type of thing than looking in a mirror and having an incorrect physical perception of what you are seeing

Not if you look in the mirror and see a woman when you are clearly a man, in every sense.

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.
So they want to widen the concept of 'woman' to include 'someone who looks exactly like a man but says he feels like a woman'.

Rachel Dolezal (according to her actions) wanted to widen the definition of 'black person' to include 'someone who was white but felt like a black person'. She got howled down.

How is what Danielle Muscato wants fundamentally different from what Rachel Dolezal wanted?

Similarly, most groups of people, especially those who can argue (as women can) that they are oppressed by current societal structures, are allowed to define their group themselves and determine their preferred name e.g. women. Why should Danielle Muscato be allowed to tell women how we should define ourselves? What gives any TRA the right to tell women that we are 'ciswomen'?

Is it because we're women, and are supposed to act per the script and just lie down quietly and be steamrollered?

So they want to widen the concept of 'woman' to include 'someone who looks exactly like a man but says he feels like a woman'

Not just looks like, but is, biologically and physically.

Insisting that the definition of woman must be included to embrace men is inherently misogynistic.

My understanding of the majority of transgender is that it is an internal feeling, and the external changes are an addition to fit into society. I have never heard it described as being a visual body dysmorphia like anorexia, in fact that's usually the issue that causes the most stress and depression - passing as a woman. A lot of transwomen KNOW they don't look female, but they feel female and try to fit in with the stereotype. So therefore they transition.

Transwomen like Danielle are seemingly deciding to buck this tradition of wigs, shaving and female clothes. They are refusing to transition.

Then I believe there is a section of society who do have body dysmorphia related to gender which is different to gender dysphoria. Mental health services probably aren't able to be as robust in these cases, because surely a health care professional will find it very hard to be open about mental health factors and gender dysphoria for fear of being transphobic? That's what concerns me.

Transwomen like Danielle are seemingly deciding to buck this tradition of wigs, shaving and female clothes. They are refusing to transition

And they can do that. What they can not do is demand we agree that they are women in the same way that we are, and call us bigots when we state the truth that they are not.

Transwomen like Danielle are seemingly deciding to buck this tradition of wigs, shaving and female clothes. They are refusing to transition

And they can do that. What they can not do is demand we agree that they are women in the same way that we are, and call us bigots when we state the truth that they are not.

And I agree with this. I'm all for whatever path they choose, for THEM but they cannot choose mine!

I'm just not convinced this is always a type of body dysmorphia

Then I believe there is a section of society who do have body dysmorphia related to gender which is different to gender dysphoria. Mental health services probably aren't able to be as robust in these cases, because surely a health care professional will find it very hard to be open about mental health factors and gender dysphoria for fear of being transphobic? That's what concerns me.

I am worried particularly about some young girls with ASD, I can see a lot of people insisting their have issues with their gender.

NiceMoustache, have a look at Tania marshalls work...

twitter.com/taniaamarshall/status/806793232386396160

Vestal you are incorrect. True gonard intersex, some of whom have a testes and an ovary, exist.

Here is a description of known cases
adc.bmj.com/content/archdischild/44/238/666.full.pdf

And a medical definition
medlineplus.gov/ency/article/001669.htm

In the 80 there was a porn star who appeared to have a functioning penis and a vaginal opening.

Danielle Muscato started their transition a few weeks ago. They posted a picture of the drugs they were taking on Twitter.

Thanks beyond.

Thanks for explaining your thoughts Booboo. I found what you said about less frequent variant vs. disorder really interesting.

Personally - and certainly no expert here- I would think that, for the purely physical attributes at least, anything that is genetic (red hair, afro hair, eye colour, myopia etc) is a variant and those that are not (e.g. limb deformity, intersex conditions) are a disorder.

Happy to be educated by someone more knowledgable though.

I believe that what defines male or female is purely physical and as it is not a genetic condition, a disorder rather than a variant.

oops, as intersex is not a genetic condition....

I don't know if anyone's inked to this before but it's incredibly worrying. It's an account of how a medical scientific conference (U.S. Professional Association for Transgender Health) was disrupted when the transgender activists present objected to one presenter because he tried to put the view that irreversible surgery on teenagers is a bad idea and it would be better for them to hold off for a few years and see if they still want to proceed - better still for them to learn to live with their body as it is.

The medical profession needs to step up here. Evidence-based practice is important, especially when it comes to using the NHS's increasingly scarce resources on major surgical and drug treatments for what to me as a layperson looks a lot more like a psychological than a physical problem.

A doctor here on another thread said the unofficial BMA policy is the same. You are not supposed to say anything that might be construed as talking trans patients out of it as it is considered "conversion therapy". I foresee a lot of lawsuits if that is the case.

...and limb abnormalities may or may not be directly down to genetics Jelly, it depends on the condition. And certain genes may be present but not necessarily expressed or the way in which they are expressed may vary. It really is very complicated and often poorly understood.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g that's exactly what I'm living with right now.

Unable to access psychological help for my child because everyone is too afraid of being accused of transphobia to offer mental health support.

The cure is blockers followed by hormones. If you don't want the cure then you're on your own.

I am now having to pay for private therapy, but even that was hard to come by. I didn't want someone who would sway my child into or away from being transgender. All I wanted was someone neutral who would discuss the positives and negatives and be realistic. Nobody wants to do that, it's all about acceptance at any cost now. We did find someone eventually, but it's a massive round trip for us and they don't exactly advertise the fact they neutral about transgender issues.

Sadly I can see why. The TAs would more than likely start making threats and get them struck off.

I think the medical profession has two sensitive issues to consider.

One is that a variety of lifestyle choices like being gay, lesbian or a promiscuous woman have been labeled in the past as mental disorders that justified medical intervention against the wishes of the patient. Historically people have been subjected to horrific 'treatments' for, for example, female promiscuity, including lobotomisation. With such a dark history i can see why doctors would want to be very careful before they labeled someone as mentally ill based sexuality, and very careful about embarking on medical efforts to change who people feel they are because they are ill.

The second issue is that, as far as I understand it the onset of puberty is extremely psychologically burdensome for people who find themselves in the wrong gender and if treatment is delayed to past puberty it may not be as effective as it otherwise would have been. Transgender people have very high rates of suicide, party due to the difficulty of accessing medical help to become who they feel they are.

and often poorly understood

As I am proving .

“We are so amazing and we want to be acknowledged for who we are, as a community…we want our power to be acknowledged"

The second issue is that, as far as I understand it the onset of puberty is extremely psychologically burdensome for people who find themselves in the wrong gender

But how can you correctly identify that somebody has the wrong gender when there is no evidence that gender identity exists?

A random group of women don't necessarily have anything in common except their physical characteristics.

A transwoman and a woman don't necessarily have anything in common beyond what they would have in common as humans.

Gender, as opposed to sex, only makes sense if you have a concept of what a man or woman is beyond physical characteristics, and nobody has been able to explain what that is.

I completely accept that we live in a very gendered world and that it is very difficult If you don't conform. However, instead of solving that problem there is an inexplicable drive to accept the constraints of gender and instead take hormones and remove body parts.

I've just been reading the links for the medical definition of intersex. one thing that stuck out for me was "The person has the chromosomes of a woman, the ovaries of a woman, but external (outside) genitals that appear male. This most often is the result of a female fetus having been exposed to excess male hormones before birth"

In the case of transmen who become pregnant, then surely the fetus is at risk of becoming intersex, due to the unnatural presence of testosterone. As a pregnant woman what I did with my body during pregnancy was constantly policed by society. Why not for transmen?

If a transman feels so strongly about being a man and that their female body is alien, why go through pregnancy which is the ultimate confirmation of womanhood? It doesn't fit in with the the idea of body dysmorphia.

Booboos

Being trans is not a sexuality. There's no real connection between the LGB and the T. Lesbians & gays aren't looking for hormones and surgery to change who they are.

Since roughly 80% of children presenting as trans grow into gay adults if they're not put on blockers, trans affirmation can also be described as a form of gay conversion therapy. Let's turn that feminine boy into a straight girl and that tomboyish girl into a straight boy, because once they're on the blockers they won't be able to go through the developmental stages in puberty that would have a high chance of reconciling them to their bodies.

Second, do you know what the puberty blockers are that Fish doesn't want to give her child? This is an article about Lupron, which is given to men in the late stages of prostate cancer in order to chemically castrate them. It has a long and nasty list of side effects and they're only just starting to find out what it can do to children.