To think I have solved the heart of the trans gender identity issue very simply.

[JapaneseTea]

The basic problem with the proposed bill is that it conflates two discrete groups:

People with body dismorphia who want to have surgery and live as the opposite gender.

Men who wish to identify as women but keep their genitalia, and have access as women to women's spaces.

I support fully the first group. I do not support the second group.

How can the needs of the first group be met, without women having to give access to the second group?

Working today so may not reply quickly.

My neighbours daughter dislikes puberty she told school she wanted to be a boy she is also autistic the school have called her parents in and told them if they must help her transion to being a boy... A child who's just started puberty and has other issues and off a one time comment to her school is being labelled as trans.

BTW people seem to be obsessed with male to female trans.

They do form the majority of transpeople. But yes, if you knew nothing about this stuff then from these discussions you would think that there are only transwomen, only the word "woman" is being sought to be altered, only women are going to be "erased" by such redefinitions and reconceptualisations.

Basically there are no guarantees that challenging notions that girls like pink and boys like football will end all trans as that is all it is.

But with no gender how can you be transgender?

My neighbours daughter dislikes puberty she told school she wanted to be a boy she is also autistic the school have called her parents in and told them if they must help her transion to being a boy... A child who's just started puberty and has other issues and off a one time comment to her school is being labelled as trans.

Almost every girl dislikes puberty.
I hope she'll be okay. And not forced by the school to have her body ruined with testosterone. Poor girl.

I don't see how restricting people to the changing facilities of their genitals will work, unless you expect employees to check before they allow access???

The 'honour system' we have used up until the shouty TAs pushed for laws seemed to work pretty well? never heard of any issues. people are only up in arms as the law changes proposed/wanted allow ANY man to enter any female area for any reason...

Men should be educated to be tolerant of men in dresses/make-up being part of the spectrum of 'man' and share their 'male' spaces with them. The law already is there to protect people from being assaulted.

The very same law that those supporting allowing men into female spaces claim will protect the women. Funny that. These laws will not protect trans women, but they will protect women...how does that work?

Men should be educated to be tolerant of men in dresses/make-up being part of the spectrum of 'man' and share their 'male' spaces with them

This. A thousand times this.

the point of all silent whatsits words is they are fine when WE do not have to give anything up.

We are being told to look the other way, NOT talk about it and accept that a woman can have a penis and be allowed to women's safe spaces.

Yes all those poor trans people. Let's work together to help them. Without removing women's rights and shutting down every conversation about it.

Re racism. Can I change the colour of my skin artificially then self identify as black?

But my original post was simplistically addressing that trans is not one group, and that some of that group want to erasure women's identity.

Basically there are no guarantees that challenging notions that girls like pink and boys like football will end all trans as that is all it is.

Well it would end claims of 'transgender' which is a ridiculous large term that basically encompasses anyone who is not a walking stereotype.

Transsexual people (those who suffer sex dysphoria) will still exist of course.

The very same law that those supporting allowing men into female spaces claim will protect the women. Funny that. These laws will not protect trans women, but they will protect women...how does that work?

They will of course not protect women.

Misogynists just do not care. As long as males have access to women to rape us, and to transwomen with actual sex dysphoria to beat them up, they are happy.

Once we've lost the legal distinction of womanhood we won't get it back.

Fucking. Frightening.

People self identify on race and it is accepted. I was told when doing a survey on employment that I had to speak to/write to every member of staff as regardless of what their skin looks like and other features they are the people who decide if they are black, white or green.

My kids are mixed race, if you looked at forms they have filled in for education/employment you would see they sometimes identify as white, sometimes as mixed race and sometimes as afro caribbean. I'm not sure why it changes but they are entitled to how they feel.

A hysterectomy does not remove the vagina that is a total vaginectomy. I know this as my mother died of cancer of the vagina, it is a pretty horrible procedure.

People self identify on race and it is accepted.

Oh no, it is not. Ask Rachel Dolezal. It is not accepted to self identify as an oppressed group if you are white.

Your mixed race kids are mixed race, of course no one bats an eye if they identify as white. That does't get them anywhere they don't belong, after all.

I've not read the whole thread so apols if I'm repeating what someone else has said.

I wanted to respond to one of the ideas raised by the OP.

Body dysmorphia is not the same as gender dysphoria. The first is a mental illness, the second is not.

There was a time not so long ago that homosexuality was considered a mental illness.

I'm coming at this as a mental health professional, btw.

Body dysmorphia is not the same as gender dysphoria. The first is a mental illness, the second is not.

What is the second, then?

What is gender dysphoria then?

VertalVirgin, Rachel Dolezal isn't British, I was talking about the UK. I was doing a government employment survey and was told I couldn't fill in people's ethnicity and I couldn't question what they said they were, however I could fill in their name, address, date of birth and accept what I had on record was right.

I don't know about how it works in the USA, never been there not interested, I assume that the information I was given by a government body was the applicable legal situation in the UK, or at least England I know it can sometimes vary in Scotland and Northern Ireland so I can only say England.

VestalVirgin, my kids aren't white, they aren't black they are mixed race but they swap and change between the three for reasons I don't understand.

I don't understand where they don't belong if they aren't white?

Vestal

I was being too simplistic I admit.

So. In more detail. Strictly speaking, gender non congruence is a better label than gender dysphoria for many trans people as it describes the discrepancy between their biological sex and gender identity. Dysphoria relates to the distress associated with that discrepancy, & it's the distress which if severe enough can be & has been seen in terms of mental illness. But increasingly there is agreement in the mental health professions that this distress relates less to gender non congruence than to responses from others to that non congruence.
I.e. Identifying with the gender that doesn't match your biological sex isn't in itself a mental illness. I guess if you want to know what it 'is' my view is that it is a variation of the human condition. You asking what gender dysphoria is, if not mental illness, is a bit like asking what homosexuality 'is'.

I think this article is pretty good www.google.co.uk/amp/amp.timeinc.net/time/4424589/being-transgender-is-not-a-mental-disorder-study/