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?

Seconding a trans board, the subject seems to be flooding every board at the moment and frankly I don't give enough of a shit about it for it to be EVERYWHERE.

Pengggwyn
In fact hospitals and sports and women's refuges and rape crisis centres and sports centres with changing rooms ARE allowed to provide sex segregated spaces as the Equality Act allows for this.
Sadly there is a group of men who have transitioned to women - many of them self identified rather than going through the process of gaining a gender recognition certificate, who are determined that their right to access a women's refuge, hospital ward, changing room, toilets in schools and women's sport is much greater than the legal right that women have to access sex segregated spaces for reasons of privacy, dignity and safety.
It IS a difficult issue as most of us have considerable sympathy for those suffering from gender dysphoria. However, when their demands negatively affect the rights of women, then we are pushing back.

To date, their mantra has been #nodebate and they have organised while calling ANY opposition, 'transphobic' (which of course just means 'anything I don't wish to hear'). That is why it suddenly appears to have come from nowhere as debate has been shut down.
Meanwhile the pressure groups have been busy training in schools and promoting falsehoods about suicide rates, playing fast and loose with safeguarding principles with some groups promoting the idea that young children can and should have access to drugs and surgery to 'change their sex' while they are below the age of consent.

This is what feminists are standing up and complaining about.

titchy--you may be right about sex ultimately being determined by the presence of a Y chromosome (regardless of any abnormalities).

In my opinion the jury is out on whether these biological differences actually introduce shades of grey between straightforward male v female.

The concept of other sexes in addition to male and female has existed for a long time in a number of cultures. Our current mainstream thinking about sex may not be the final answer--any society's mainstream thinking can be proved wrong by the test of time.

Sadly, I think that greater understanding of this, or willingness to explore it, is getting drowned out in the way trans activism is getting used as yet another platform for misogyny.

FannyWisdom
AGP is autogynephilia - it describes those men who who have a sexual fetish for being seen of as a woman. These people generally will not have had surgery.

I believe that the transgender organisations are not very keen on people talking about it as it does not present men transitioning to women as a vulnerable group, more a creepy group. And women are very clear that this group have no place in accessing vulnerable women in shelters, rape crisis centres, undressed. in hospital wards etc.

I think there is an LGBT board.

Ok so AGP is more an insult to the ones hijacking?
I'd gathered it was a sexual thing but didn't know if it were a legitimate thing I.e.
I am AGP so need access to single sex space as opposed to don't let them in they are AGP.

If I'm following these AGP types are exploiting the changes for trans people?

Sex = Male/Female Biology
Gender = Masculine/Feminine Role - Femme

In my opinion, gender is mostly stereotype, and I'd prefer it not exist. The trans narrative seems to reinforce that females should be "feminine"... I'd rather people were just people, and presented as they felt comfortable.

I think sport, prisons, refuges etc should be based on sex not gender. The oppresssion women face is largely based on sex, not gender.

According to many in the trans community AGP doesn't exist. The problem is that the Internet is brim full of it.

www.reddit.com/r/crossdreaming/

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..?

You understand it perfectly.

We are all either male or female. That's our sex, never changes.

Gender is different. Gender is about what society thinks males and females should be like. Our society says women should be into pink, and frilly things and follow careers like nursing. Men should be manly and tough, and into rugby and work as builders.

Some people want to push aside the rules of biology and say that sex is basically what you state it to be. They want anyone who says they are a woman to be accepted as a woman, irrespective of their biology. So a man with lipstick and a dress isn't just a man who likes wearing something not associated with his gender, he's a transwoman.

Some transwomen want to go even further. They want transwomen - born and raised as men, might have had surgery and might not - to be welcomed onto women's sports teams, or to be eligible to apply for women-only jobs or training programmes. Just on the basis that the person declares that they are now "identifying" as female. Some of these people get very nasty and scream TRANSPHOBIA at women who want a female to do their smear or work in their rape centre, not a transwoman.

FannyWisdom
I think so, (but I am no expert)
What I do know is that there are a lot of people who would have been called transsexuals, who have been quietly living as women for many years and sharing spaces with women with no issues. These transgender women are horrified at what is happening. They see the obliteration of women's identifies, language, safe spaces etc as disrespectful and misogynistic. They are also hated by the activists (they call them truscum).

Titchy and Upstart - not on this thread, no. I HAVE seen this argument multiple times when people are arguing re trans women though.

CousinKrispy, for years now transactivists have sought to co-opt the struggles of intersex people to somehow legitimise their agenda and a lot of intersex people are getting seriously pissed off. It's got so bad that Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group (AISSG) have had to issue a statement:

'Trans' Terms

Intersexuality is not the same as a transsexuality (gender dysphoria) and is not a transgender state. Neither of the latter terms is one that we recognise as belonging in any general discussion of intersex. We are not happy with the recent tendency of some trans groups/people to promote transgender as an umbrella term to encompass, for example, transsexuality, transvestitism and intersex. We object to other organisations/individuals putting us in categories without consulting us, especially categories that imply that interexed people, of necessity, have gender identity issues. See the paper by Mazur et al cited at foot of this page.

The problems this causes...

We are constantly trying to get away from the idea that intersex is necessarily to do with gender identity, a notion that others (including the press/media) like to impose on us. Moreover, the prefix trans- infers a "moving across", and although a few people with intersex conditions may choose to change their gender role, the vast majority never "go" anywhere in terms of their sex or their gender, but are happy to stay in the status in which they grew up.

XY females may suffer various problems on finding out their diagnosis. Problems such as:

- confusion
- anger at secrecy and paternalism (withholding of diagnostic information)
- shame and stigma
- an existential type of identity crisis
- low self-esteem
- difficulty grasping how this biological phenomenon can come about
- grief at being denied fertility and rites of passage (e.g. lack of menstruation)
- a feeling of freakishness and isolation compared to their peers
- a fear that others might see them as 'male'
- a concern regarding their ability to function in a relationship (e.g. vaginal hypoplasia)
- the burden of keeping a secret, or uncertainty over who to tell and how
- a retreat from medical care leading to failure to take HRT with a risk of osteoporosis
- etc., etc.

These are the issues that are of major concern to most of our members; and none of these necessarily means that their inner sense of gender identity is compromised.

This trend towards 'muscling in' on intersex issues seems to be a initiative on the part of certain politically-minded people in the 'trans' community, to bring intersex under their banner (for whatever reason - it lends more credibility to their cause?) or even to actively interfere in clinical issues relating to intersex. See Announcements for an account of the problems we had in 2000 with a gender dysphoria/transsexual organisation trying to interfere in protocols for 'gender reinforcement' surgery in intersexed infants with so-called genital ambiguity.

Here's the link to Announcements where you can read all about the shoddy behaviour of GIRES in 2000.

At work today, had a person phone up with the name Jane, think to myself, hmm, that sounded like a very male voice. Lo and behold 'Jane', used to be known as John. Not passing, still male, despite what he wants you to believe.

"Not passing, still male, despite what he wants you to believe."

All you know is that they wish to go by the name Jane. Enough of the sneering.

LemonShark
Agree with the not sneering but important to note this in case they're phoning up to make your smear test or mammogram appointment or your counselling session re a recent sexual assault.

He's saying because my sex is female, I have to adhere to a stereotypical gendered role? Have I got that right?

Actually I think yes you have got that right. He assumed you should have a particular role (ie gender) based on your sex.

Peng is a trans woman someone without a (working) penis?

Nope. Current legislation to get a Gender Reassignment Certificate does NOT require any surgery. It does however require a medical diagnosis. (The current debate is so heated because Maria Miller MP wants to change legislation so that no diagnosis is required - people can simply compete a form and send it off and legally, but not biologically, be regarded as the opposite sex. This obviously opens the doors to predatory men to legally be able to use women's DV and rape crisis centres, prisons, changing rooms etc.)

AGP is where men get their kicks from being validated as women. There is a debate about whether it's just a fetish, like being spanked, or an actual psychological condition. Regardless, a lot of AGP type men are dangerous, not all obviously, but the likes of Marie Dean, Danielle Muscato definitely are.

I suspect if that was the case (and yes that would make it relevant) PP would have said. Instead of just gleefully noting that in her eyes Jane will never 'pass' as a woman. Okay then. I'm sure they give a shit.

The thing is, none of us have actually experienced any of this have we?

I’ve never looked at my body and felt disgust that I have breasts and a vagina. I’ve never felt wrong for the way that I look or the way I’ve been “classed” by society. I’ve never questioned who I am deeply. I’ve never wished to have my vagina turned into a penis via an irreversible surgery. I’ve never wished to have a mastectomy or take hormones to make myself grow facial hair and change the shape of my features.

I think it must be extremely hard to feel that way, to feel so completely wrong in your body. To question your very existence and self.

I try to be empathetic in as many aspects of life as I can. Just because I can’t experience these things, doesn’t mean that I can’t try to understand and feel that these people should be respected if they want to change themselves to make them feel truly happy.

There is a very good thread here which addresses a lot of the basics.

It's worth noting that even though the proposed amendments to the bill haven't even been debated in parliament, let alone passed into law, a lot of organisations are adopting policies that assumes it has become law. Hence M&S and Topshop allowing any man into a female changing room if he feels like it, Women's Aid saying they'll allow men in, Girl Guides accepting boys, schools putting pupils on trips into shared rooms according to how they identify rather than sex - without informing parents, universities allocating shared rooms in halls according to gender identity not sex, and not being able to tell those sharing that their roommate is the opposite sex.

I think it must be extremely hard to feel that way, to feel so completely wrong in your body. To question your very existence and self.

Absolutely. I entirely agree, as I think do most others here. However having empathy for someone doesn't, and shouldn't, extend to giving up your rights in favour of theirs, particularly when you yourself are vulnerable.

And tragically it's those individuals who have as much to lose from the TRAs, because predatory men are PRETENDING to be trans in order to abuse women, and women can't tell the difference between the genuine ones and the pretend ones.