To be completely confused about gender and trans

[sirlee66]

I just don't understand!! It feel like this year, the gender debate has just sky rocketed and I've realised that I don't actually understand what it's all about!!!!

I was wondering if someone could please explain to me?

I understand that when sex cells form, the pairs of sex chromosomes (XX and XY) are separated. Females carry XX, males XY. So, all normal egg cells produced by a human ovary have an X chromosome and half of the sperm carry an X chromosome, and half a Y

So a human baby’s gender is determined by the sperm that fertilises the egg cell. The baby will be a girl if it carries an X chromosome. It will be a boy if the fertilising sperm carries a Y chromosome.

So to me, you are either a boy or a girl because you're either made up of XX or XY..

I understand that someone who is a girl can feel more like a boy and therefore want to look like a boy/get a sex change. But, technically, you'll never actually be a boy because your chromosomes will always be XX and can't be changed..?

Am I being.. I don't know what the word is.. genderist?

I just don't understand it!! We didn't learn anything about it in school and because this issue has never effected me, I've never had a reason to research into it.

Until now... It seems like transgender is constantly in the media these days and I don't know what to think about it because I just don't know enough.

Can anybody enlighten me?

Jesus Christ! Apologies for that rediculously long OP! Got carried away!

It's dead simple - it's just the TRAs would have you believe it's really long and complicated.

Sex is male/female and determined by whether or not you have a Y chromosome.

Society has decided that because biologically women bear children, their roles should be related to caring, while men, being bigger and stronger on the whole, should have 'provider' type roles. Interests should match roles - girls are nurses, boys are doctors. That is called gender.

You can see how this came about when we lived in caves, but given that we no longer live in caves, and are supposed to live in an egalitarian society, and have evidence to support the fact that females perform the same as males in terms of jobs, intelligence etc, that pretty much renders the entire concept of gender as irrelevant.

Hence why a lot of women don't subscribe to, or identify as a gender at all.

Can we have a trans board already 🙃

Good post Sir I too would like to know what to be outraged, or not, about but can't make sense.

So gender is Man /Woman and is optional?
Sex is chromosomes male /female and can't be changed?

So a post op xy is a?

( told ya I was confused)

Ever tried to use google, OP?

Oh and what is meant by AGP? Is that just an insult or is that a gender too?

Apparently is all men signing bits of paper to get into your daughters changing rooms. Or take her place in the Olympic weightlifting squad
or some other such bollox spouted daily

Google it Lemon and then come and explain to me because I have googled and still can't make arse nor mane.

'Sex' refers to your biological sex, its decided at conception and cannot be changed.
'Gender' refers to the way your sex is perceived according to the expectations of the society you live in. Gender is a performance.

Trans activists want 'gender' to trump 'sex'. But while you can change your clothes, make up and hair, you cant change your biology.
So it does not make sense for women to agree to go along with it.

Then I doubt a poster on a message board will have the necessary skills to educate you in a way you can understand, Fanny.

Don't put yourself down Lemon I'm sure you have the skills.

It's not complicated Fanny Sex is biology, gender is perception.

Great post, Lemon. Really adds to the debate. Why don't you put that as the stock answer to every single question on here, and then we can dispense with the chat forum altogether?!

How does someone born male who has an operation become female though?
Because they have male chromosomes. Won't they always be male?

Gender means masculine or feminine. So stuff like blue vs pink, toy truck vs toy doll, working as an engineer vs working as a nurse, DIY vs cleaning the bathroom. That kind of rubbish.

If you don't believe that someone's sex depends on what kind of toy they play with as a child, then you're on the gender critical side of things.

Sex is determined in the way that you've described, and is unchangeable.

Gender is the idea that sex is intrinsically linked to personality, and it takes the form of societally enforced roles for men and women (e.g. men are rugged and adventurous, women gentle and nurturing; men are for action and women are for ornament; blue is for boys and pink is for girls... etc.)

Feminist thought recognizes gender - this linking of biological sex to presumptions about personality, aptitudes, interests, abilities - as an oppressive social construct, a hierarchical system which places men at the top and subjugate women, but ultimately harms both women and men (e.g. by denying men the ability to show vulnerability or tenderness).

Much of the work of feminism over the last century and more has been about abolishing gender. It was gender that said that women weren't rational enough to vote, shouldn't hold jobs outside the home, that men should be embarrassed to be seem pushing the pram, all those things. Progress has been made. Many of those gender rules seem ridiculous now. The feminist perspective is that 'girl' and 'woman' are biological categories (that is, a girl is a juvenile human female, a woman is an adult human female.. And there are real differences between the biology of men and women which must be recognized and which have real implications for our respective life experience).

The trans narrative rejects the idea that 'woman' and 'girl' are biological categories, and recast them as social categories. Whichever set of stereotypes you fit better, that's what you actually are. Biology is irrelevant. Womanhood has nothing to do with having XX chromosomes and a vagina, it's only to do with your internal sense of gender identity (i.e. your personality) and how well you fit the gendered expectations assigned to women in this society.

Feminists recognize the trans narrative as regressive, because all it does is reverse the equation about sex and personality. Old fashioned sexism said your sex should determine your personality. Trans ideology says that your personality determines your sex. The truth is that sex is a fact of nature and personalities are individual and diverse in both men and women.

So what if we, as a society, scrapped "Gender"? Would nobody then need to have hormone treatment or surgery because everyone could be whatever they damn well wanted to be?

Could it be that simple?

If people were allowed to dress/act/be whoever they wanted to be, would they still feel the need to change sex?

Say for instance my DD decided she doesn't like pink, or dolls, or makeup - that doesn't mean she's a boy, does it? It doesn't mean she should have a penis and cut all her hair off, it just means that she doesn't "conform". But so what if she doesn't conform, who says we all have to stay confined to our little "boy"/"girl" boxes?!?!

If we do away with "gender" then do we solve a problem?

I have to say, that this whole issue is extremely confusing.

Peng So would I be correct if I said a trans woman was a woman but not a female?

As said above, sex and gender are different.

A biological female can decide to transition to being male. They live as a man, wear men’s clothes, undergo hormone therapy and surgeries to change their “femininity”. They feel no more a woman than a gay person feels straight. Obviously the same goes for someone transitioning between male and female.

Yes you are right, their chromosomes cannot be changed.

I think people should respect others. If someone identifies as female and wants to use female pronouns then use them. If someone wants to change from David to Anne then call them Anne.
If someone changes their name from Connie to Amelia, we would call them Amelia. The same applies. When someone gets married and changes from Miss Smith to Mrs Carter, we call them that. Or from Mr Carter to Mr Smith. Etc.

You're not confused, FooFighter, you have eloquently articulated the feminist perspective on this issue.

The perspective for which feminists are called 'terfs' and bigots and told to die in a fire.

Some individuals are born with a different pattern of sex chromosomes--single X, XXY, XYY, etc. I believe that there can also be individuals born with normal XX/XY chromosomes but has other conditions that cause them to develop sex expression differently (androgen insensitivity syndrome, for example).

I'm not a crusader and I have concerns about how trans activism is providing yet another avenue for misogynists these days, but I think it's really important to remember that there are a small minority of individuals who have a real medical reason for things not being so straightforwardly "you are either male or female and your chromosomes will reflect your true identity."