To wonder if I’m just old and possibly on the wrong side of history

[bambambini]

I do wonder if we are possibly seeing the start of a huge shift in society and how people are generally perceived. Many of our young seem to want the future to be different from what we've always had - man/woman, male/female - the binary i guess.

Maybe the future will be where everyone is non binary, where all divisions as we inderstand them are broken down. So you won’t be able to tell for sure what sex anyone is, what body parts they have etc.

I’m critical of the current identity politics debate but that doesn’t mean to say I’m right. Maybe I’m struggling with getting my head around it and accepting it because I’m much older and grew up in different times.

We’ve already seen a huge change in social norms with women getting the vote, the break down of racial segregation, legalisation of homosexuality etc. Maybe identity politics is the natural progression.

When it comes to feeling like a particular gender; I genuinely feel that although many men/women feel a certain way according to their gender, many don't, its takes most people into their 30/40's to feel secure as a person and defining your personality or sexuality should be something you explore in your teens, rather than having surgery or taking drugs that will affect your reproductive future.

I've never given a second thought to being female. I imagine it's a bit like wearing a pair of pants, if they fit you don't give them a second thought but if they don't fit, you can think of nothing else.

The trans people, I've been close to have all known themselves to be gender disphoric from long before they've known the words to describe it. They have dreaded puberty, I've known a couple who have stopped eating to delay it. These are people of my own generation, who are now late 40s/early 50s, they didn't experience even the level of openness we have now or the access to help. They have been far more damaged by their pseudo anorexia than they would have been by chemically delaying puberty.

I find it difficult to imagine a parent who would encourage their child to be trans, I'm not saying it couldn't happen but it would be vanishingly rare, the chances of that rare parent being coupled up with a group of incompetent medical professionals (it takes a team to diagnose) makes me fairly sure that very few, if any mistakes would happen.

everything is fucked up

Why do you think everything should become mixed sexed silently? Bit odd when one sex causes the majority of all violence and almost all sexual offences. In the climate of #MeToo why now? Why choose now to end all sex segregation?

Not sure where the term Tim actually come from though maybe from the name Timothy possibly because Catholics are more likely to have saints names

Strange you should say that as I think of Timothy as a very Protestant name! Like Wesley and Calvin. The only Timothys I've ever known have been from very Presbyterian type backgrounds

In the UK so far, it seems authorities closely supervise trans women in womens prisons and then segregate those conduct suggests they may rape again.
However, women inmates have to suffer fear and harassment from men until this is done

e.g. The double rapist Martin Ponting / Jessica Winfield kept his penis, but "identified as a woman" and was sent to a womens jail in Surrey
He has now been segregated for sexually harassing women inmates

(I normally use "she" for transwomen, but I refuse to do so for rapists)

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4400327/transgender-rapist-womens-prison/

Women inmates should not be forced into close proximity with men who have been convicted of rape
That is cruel and unusual punishment

Of course transwomen who rape would be in danger in a mens prison - all sex offenders are; hence they are segregated from the rest of the prison population
The solution is to put transwomen into a special wing of a mens prison, where they will be safe, not give them access to women prisoners

The wishes of men who rape should not be prioritised above the safety and human rights of women

the new law would uncouple gender disphoria from being trans.

They have dreaded puberty

I don't think that is in any way exclusive to people with gender dysphoria. I know I dreaded it and absolutely hated being female until I was about 20. Hated growing breasts and used to self harm because I hated them so much. Couldn't bear to see myself in the mirror because I hated having breasts.

I've tried to be very positive to my daughter about growing up but she has said she finds the idea of breasts and periods 'disgusting'.

I think dreading puberty is fairly standard.

I honestly think your heart is in the right place silent, but you should be brave and educate yourself on the harm that is being caused to women's rights by TIMs. Go on, delve into the feminist pages and get your eyes opened to what is coming.

I did once step into the cesspool of hate that is the MN Feninist board but I didn't find any feminism. Not a single thread about FGM, nothing about equal pay, not a word about male violence, it was just light homophobia to back up transphobia.

I was told that my writing was too difficult to understand and that I shouldn't use long words. I don't think it's a place of education, just an ignorant echo chamber. I had a shower after I'd finished posting there because I was feeling grubby. There is considerably more considered feminism in the style and beauty section.

Transhumanism is the aim.

@treaclesoda www.thecelticwiki.com/page/Tim

Not a single thread about FGM, nothing about equal pay, not a word about male violence

Rubbish

Lots of the posters on the feminist board are lesbians Silently. Most actively fought, and are still fighting, for the rights of homosexual people.

Trans issues are choking up the boards because it's a pressing issue.

You can't have women's rights if you can't say what a woman is. Clever innit.

Why do you think everything should become mixed sexed silently? Bit odd when one sex causes the majority of all violence and almost all sexual offences. In the climate of #MeToo why now? Why choose now to end all sex segregation?

As a lesbian who came out in the 1970s, I've had more experience of single sex spaces than most and I think that they are valuable. I also think trans people are valuable. I know of few examples of when these two concepts have butted heads but they are few and far between.

I think that it's perfectly possible to be respectful towards trans people and to have segrated spaces, it's been happening for a long time.

However, I don't think that this is the real crux of the issue. I think that some people are transphobic and use the segrated space argument as a stick to beat the trans community. I think that these transphobic people are usually the last people you'd see in a women only space and would know sisterhood if it slapped them in the face.

Do many of the women that spend a lot of time on the feminism boards ever spend much time on the other boards where women need help and support.

If medicating and sterilising children who would otherwise stand every chance of being perfectly happy in their bodies (and gay) is being on the “right” side of history, I am very happy to be wrong.

D'ya know, back in the good old days when mra's were out in the open they always accused feminists of not focusing on the right thing,

If you mentioned unequal pay or the mental load women carry then an mra would be along to tell you that you should be focused on fgm.

Which we were, because women can focus on more than one issue at a time.

Plus Silenty you had a shower? Really? A bunch of women talking on the internet made you have a shower?

Vitalogy
Yes - sometimes name changing and sometimes not. And many of us work with vulnerable women and children in real life.
Those worried about transphobia should report any transphobic posts - MNHQ are rigorous about deleting them. Sadly there are a number of people who 'plop' onto threads on the feminist board, shout 'transphobia' without identifying which posts are transphobic and then disappear so you do need to be clear which posts are transphobic.

Not a single thread about FGM, nothing about equal pay, not a word about male violence

This is simply not true.

trans issues are choking up the boards because it's a pressing issue.

No, while two women a week are being murdered at the hands of their partners or former partners, trans issues are not the pressing issue.

While women only earn 75% as much as men, thirty years after equal pay legislation, trans issues are not the pressing issue.

While less that 6% of rapes end in a conviction, trans issues are not the pressing issue.

Anyone who really gives a fuck about women couldn't say with a straight face that trans people are the pressing issue impacting women. It's the most ludicrous strawman argument used to cover...something.

vit Of course they do.. have you only ever read the feminism board? Head over to relationships it might open your eyes

I find it difficult to imagine a parent who would encourage their child to be trans, I'm not saying it couldn't happen but it would be vanishingly rare, the chances of that rare parent being coupled up with a group of incompetent medical professionals (it takes a team to diagnose) makes me fairly sure that very few, if any mistakes would happen.

Sorry, I find this näive.

1. Parents don't need to push the notion of 'trans', all they need to do is, from birth, push (without even necessarily being aware that there is an alternative) the idea that there are 'boys'' and 'girls'' clothes, toys, hair, names and, finally, behaviour. The kid will then, as all kids do, use language crudely to reflect their understanding of how their primary caregivers have used language since they were born.
   Adults will then interpret kids' language through their own adult lens, not the child's own lens, without realising the influence that they have had on how children come to see themselves. They don't retrace the steps the child takes to arrive at this conclusion, but rather the steps they themselves took to reach the conclusion that fits with normative thinking around gender in our society. I do try to watch news features and docs on trans kids with an open mind, but every single time, without exception, it's parents banging on about how their little boy wanted to play with 'girl' toys - and they wonder how these little kids, who can't yet be expected to possess more sophisticated critical thinking skills, put the desired two and two together! Language guides thought, especially in young children, much more than thought guides language.

2. The act of diagnosing dysphoria will soon be irrelevant, it seems. NHS provision for trans patients is being dismantled (see Theresa May's speech at the Pink News reception - gotta parse for her ominous hidden meaning) and steps in the process currently required for for legal change of M or F status will probably, following modification of the GR Act, be streamlined so that self-identification of your 'gender identity' need not involve a 'team' of competent medics.

Feministphobia is, actually, just as big a deal as transphobia. It comes from a similar level of ignorance, misinformation, resentment and spite. We are constantly told that feminism has 'gone too far', that feminists 'hate men' (along with all the stuff about feminists being ugly, sexless, fat, single, etc).

And, yes, there are feminists who are spiteful, deluded bullies. Most are not. Most simply prioritize women's rights over men's feelings. And (if you want to get specific regarding MN) many of the posters who hang out on the feminist boards are also often found on AIBU/relationships, offering support and sound practical advice to women stuck with abusive men.

Vitalogy yes, in real life.

Silently, why don’t you go and post a thread about those issues on the feminism board then?

Plus Silenty you had a shower? Really? A bunch of women talking on the internet made you have a shower?

Yeah, I'm sort of used to violence, hate and stupidity on the internet but seeing so much of it under the heading of 'Feminism' made me feel dirty.