Am I alone in wondering where the WOMEN wanting to trans are?

[loveyouradvice]

They feel so invisible....

Everywhere I look there are men who have or are transitioning to be transwomen - on magazine covers, on all women shortlists, in the media....

But where are the natal born women who are/have transitioned?

The only two I've come across are:

• one who detransitioned and wrote movingly about it, after ten years as a transman
• the american high school wrestler who is fighting to be allowed to fight in men's categories

Sorry, managed to cut of the bottom half of my post somehow

Plus the question of what to do both at elite level and at school level are complex, and I don't think we currently have the best solution. But overall I think it's fair to say sport welcomes transwomen.

No we do not have the best solution. I think most can see that. But it will remain the solution until enough people kick up a fuss about it, as its only women who are disadvantaged. So who cares really..any woman who does make a fuss can just be written off as a hysterical transphobe and all is well.

I don't think anyone thinks transwomen should be excluded from sport. But unless there is a trans league in sport (which I doubt as I cannot see enough transpeople weanting to compete to make it possible) then it should remain based on biological sex. You know, like its meant to be.

This may make some transwomen a bit uncomfortable of course. They may chose not to compete because of this discomfort. But people cannot compete for a variety of reasons.

In the case of transmen, obviously they compete with females. Unless they are on testosterone, in which case they would be disqualified (or compete with men instead) as it is doping and no other woman would be allowed to do that.

Else we just let all female sportspeople take steroids. Make it an even playing field again. I don't think that would be too popular though somehow.

I can't tell you how delighted I was at the discovery of the 'gay finger'.

Oh wow. I had never heard of this before, so just googled it.

omgfacts.com/does-your-finger-length-predict-your-sexuality-3eb5f66d1538

“If your ring finger is longer than your pointer,” she began, “you’re a lesbian. Like, genetically.”

My ring finger is at least an inch longer than my pointing finger, so I am 'genetically' gay?

Or following another link, this makes me a man too

www.theguardian.com/science/2010/dec/01/what-finger-length-says-about-you

According to that article, my finger says I am

-Gay
-A man
-Less fertile (though if I am already a man based on my finger, then I am actually more fertile, hmm)
-More chance to be rich
-A better driver

My new thing for today learnt

Thanks.

Assassinated can you pinpoint anything specific that makes you think that? I'm not clear how you're coming to that judgement, or indeed why you would feel this were the conversation for personal remarks? Assuming there isn't anything specific you're referring to, we could just leave it at that?

No we do not have the best solution.

I meant specifically we don't have the best solution for either the very top of the top sorting competitions or the entry level. But that everything in between - all those hundreds of thousands of people competing in leagues and competitions alongside transwomen all the time without issue of incident beyond the usual stuff, that seems to be working okay.

But of course it would work okay, because that's how leagues work. Unless it's a sport with a very small uptake that is, but such a sport would likely have so few transwomen as to make no difference. What I mean is, the structure of leagues purposefully sorts people so that you only come against people/teams against whom you could meaningfully compete. I'm not going to clatter a schoolgirl at the weekend or be run rings around by an Olympian, because the league I am in is appropriate to my standard. The better or stronger I am, the better and stronger my opponents. As I get older I will undoubtedly shuffle down the leagues, thankfully! Or I could get hurt, trying to "punch above my weight" so to speak.

So you see, the pinch points are at the very top, and at school level. At school level because there are not enough competitors in such narrow age bandings in any geographical area (e.g. there are far few 14 year olds in Kent than simply adults in Kent) to be able to have each competing with those ONLY of a similar enough standard. Personally I think trans athletes at this level would be best encouraged into extra-curricular sports, or to Friday formal competition until adulthood. I don't think it's too big a thing to ask, not least because they wouldn't have long to wait before adult competition.

The other end of the spectrum is at the top of sport. I think it's acceptable for trans athletes to win some of the time, but if they are winning all of the time, or achieving disproportionate success simply in virtue of being trans, then you know there's an issue with the entry criteria (these are different for each sport by the way). And actually sport will always seek to rectify that situation, because it means they are failing at one of their fundamental aims - that of there being no forgone conclusion. Likewise if people are getting hurt at that level; that indicates too great a disparity of standard and that would 100% be addressed.

then it should remain based on biological sex. You know, like its meant to be.

To be fair, that isn't how it's "meant" to be. You know in the Equality Act, completely apart from anything to do with trans, but the bit where it says you can't treat people differently because of their sex? Well that applies to sports competitions too. The reason sport has been able to segregate thus far is because they utilise that clause that says you can discriminate so long as it is a "proportionate means to a legitimate end".

Safe and fair competition are the legitimate aims.

It is proportionate to generally separate male and female. But to exclude a man who is demonstrably disempowered to an extent of your own deciding goes BEYOND proportionate action. If you can achieve the aim of safe and fair competition without further discrimination you are not legally entitled to discriminate.

Sorry, just dipping back into discussion cos my other half was running late.

or to Friday formal competition until adulthood.

Or to DELAY formal competition, bloody hell!

Oh, any I misspoke in my haste; it's not that you would be excluding a MAN who is demonstrably disempowered, it's that your would be excluding a legal woman. So somewhat different to the idea that you can't exclude that man, it's that you can't exclude that woman beyond what is proportionate. My apologies.

God, really shouldn't multitask these things. So put simply, short of repealing the GRA transwomen must be included in as far as it is safe and competitive. But to be honest, so long as it is safe and competitive that shouldn't be a problem. If ever there are so many trans athletes as to justify two new categories, I don't see why not. That's a looooong way off though.

The reason sport has been able to segregate thus far is because they utilise that clause that says you can discriminate so long as it is a "proportionate means to a legitimate end".

The GRA 2004 says sport is an exception to being legally treated as the other sex:

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/section/19

Yes jelly, so trans athletes are not treated the same as women. Women do not have any additional criteria placed upon them which they have to satisfy in order to compete.

What I was actually referring to with that though is the legal means by which male and female are allowed to be separated at all for sport, regardless of the GRA. I mean pre-trans, if you like.

I think with proper restrictions like there used to be - insistence on GRS for one - you can set the bar high enough for fair competition.

Fairer as I pointed out earlier than if a big hairy bloke self declaring as a woman but without any physical intervention was allowed to win a trans woman event versus a trans woman who has been on blockers so never been through male puberty and been on oestrogen from 14/15 and had GRS.

That is far worse than now because the bloke would win all events and there have only been one or two trans successes not many when the restrictions were tighter than now.

Also trans men are allowed into competition with men with no restrictions at all. So in effect get positive discrimination because if you view biology they are women and so have no chance against men!

Which is something you might regard as a bit chauvinistic by the men.

Looking back I did specify earlier in the same paragraph:

"You know in the Equality Act, completely apart from anything to do with trans, but the bit where it says you can't treat people differently because of their sex?"

Sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear.

What I'm saying is sport can only be segregated at all because it utilises the "proportionate means to a legitimate end" clause. Otherwise it would be subject to the Equalities Act that says you can't discriminate.

As in quite a few areas the GRA allows for individual choice to a level that a lot of people do not realise, I think. There is exemption for marriage too in cases where ministers object. That was fought against but people's views were taken into account when defining the GRA.

Which is why I have said a few times that as it stands it is a fair act.

It gives benefits to the trans men and women who fulfil the requirements but with acceptance of exceptions where opt outs are allowed.

An equitable balance.

Changing the act as planned will destabilise that balance in major ways and make the act a totally different thing to what it is now.

Hence, as I suggested, the act should stay as is with tweaks in procedure to help some of the complaints. But no alteration to the fundamentals.

And those wanting much more sweeping reforms should not do so buy scrapping this act but by proposing their own for different circumstances and with proportional benefits for proportional commitment.

It really should be that simple.

@TheGoalIsToStayOutOfTheHole

I've just finished reading the submission to the Transgender Equalities Inquirey, you linked to and quoted from.

I agree that it's bad that anyone would claim to have any condition they didn't have, to try and gain extra privileges. It's excellent that the British Association of Transgender Specialists reported their concerns to the Inquire.

A number of things occurred to me about it. Firstly, if prisoners are able to access the proposed self ID, how would it benefit them? If they aren't receiving any medical treatment, they wouldn't get the trips outside prison, that are reported to be a motivating factor in pretending to be trans.

Their prison allocation would still be decided on a case-by-case basis and prisons being well used to prisoners pretending to be mentally or physically ill to obtain privileges, will be able to spot those pretending to be trans as well.

I would imagine that it's a misapprehension that the parole board are more likely to release a trans prisoner, particularly one that has undergone no treatment.

I hope that it's not offensive to say that prison is mostly populated by the nasty and stupid and that sex offenders with long sentences are probably among the nastiness. The idea that those charged with keeping them off the streets and under control will suddenly go soft and crumble because a few have the bright idea of getting themselves a GRC, seems unlikely to me, particularly now that they have been warned by this professional body.

@TheGoalIsToStayOutOfTheHole I've just read your long post - I absolutely feel your frustration and I can tell it's coming from a good place, although as you know we largely disagree on the details :)

Let me ask you though, you refer several times I think to removing the exemptions in the Equality Act. Now I know the original report made that recommendation, along with the recommendation for self-ID and others.

I was under the impression that the Conservatives had explicitly said they were not proposing to carry through with that proposal? You'll see in the thread linked below on the Fem board that several posters state as much:

"This govt has said it will not abolish the single sex service exemptions"

"Conservative - reconsult on self-ID and do not amend EA"

"The proposed amendments to the GRA don't change the EA at all, they just change the process of getting a GRC."

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3188687-impact-of-self-id-on-equality-act

I don't have a source for that (but I will look - I'm on my phone!) but I have been taking it as fact. If it were not fact I would be more concerned about self-ID, but surely you can see that the worry is nowhere near as great if there would be no change to the EA?

"There hasn't been a single case of fraudulent application"

If the only criterion by which people can apply for self ID is that they self ID as the opposite gender how could one possibly ever know fraud! The only requirement seems to be 'do you want to change gender' if the answer is yes, you are in, if not, then why would you do it!

" ... people who aren't trans haven't notice any difference in their day to day lives." How many non-trans people have you interviewed, in private?

That letter, my goodness that is not representative of women at all. And if it is, how very sad.

"...currently in the UK people are forced to go through the indignity of medical diagnosis in order to have their gender recognised"

What indignity is that? 'Living as a woman' for two years? Explaining to others why you think everyone should accept you as the opposite sex to the one you were born?

I've got no issue with trans people working for the end of patriarchy. But...

Just read down to the letters and see some people in relation to Speaker's Corner saying stuff like:

"You went there with an agenda and you are only too delighted that they assaulted you."

"I’m not saying she deserved it. I’m not saying she asked for it."

If you want to align yourself with people who think women who want to talk about law changes that will directly affect them are effectively asking for it. Go for it. But that to me is NOTHING to do with feminism.

"Both the Labour Party and the GG set their own membership rules. Their actions have nothing whatsoever to do with proposed (or no longer proposed:-)) changes in the law." The labour party has broken it's own rules in electing Lily. GG has thrown Girls under the bus in its rush to accept trans girls.

Do you want to extend the same right to 'Piss in Peace' to natal women aside from your wife? Do you think sharing a bathroom with a male might be off putting for some women?

To put that quote in context... From the responses to the letter...

"I’m not saying she deserved it. I’m not saying she asked for it. But she did go looking for an altercation and that is where it sets it apart. I don’t condone the attack but she was not an innocent bystander."

@IG

*If the only criterion by which people can apply for self ID is that they self ID as the opposite gender how could one possibly ever know fraud! The only requirement seems to be 'do you want to change gender' if the answer is yes, you are in, if not, then why would you do it!

Nobody has been caught doing it for nafarious purposes.

" ... people who aren't trans haven't notice any difference in their day to day lives." How many non-trans people have you interviewed, in private?

I haven't interviewed anyone personally. I'm having to rely on the Review Group, which is a sort of quasi judicial thing, which has invited public submissions and radio, tv, a couple of feminist groups and the fact that, culturally the we Irish tend to get pissed off rather than offended and aren't shy about sharing being pissed off. We're a tiny country and we talk a lot.

That letter, my goodness that is not representative of women at all. And if it is, how very sad.

That letter was signed by a group of high profile Irish feminists and the following organisations,

The Abortion Rights Campaign
ARN – Anti-Racism Network Ireland
Bi+ Ireland
Choice Ireland
Galway Pro-Choice
Gay Community News
Hate and Hostility Research Group at the University of Limerick
National LGBT Federation
Parents for Choice in Pregnancy and Childbirth
Rally for Choice
UCD Centre for Gender, Feminisms & Sexualities

We are a very small county and that's a fairly good sized chunk of women's organisations. I don't think that it's reasonable for you to judge women's groups being inclusive of trans women and defensive of the laws of our own country as 'sad', that's a bit imperialist really.

The single offensive below the line comment that you've quoted was addressed with vigour. It's not usual to be held responsibility for below the line comments when a link is shared.

Do you want to extend the same right to 'Piss in Peace' to natal women aside from your wife? Do you think sharing a bathroom with a male might be off putting for some women?

Who do you mean by 'males' do you mean the trans women, with GRCs who've been pissing next to you for the last thirteen years or non trans men?

Either way, perhaps a bit more diversity in the bathroom might give my wife a more peaceful existence. I'm not trying to claim any extra rights for her, she's a woman who's gender and sex match up, socialised as a woman since birth. She's perfectly happy being a woman and has no desire to transition into anything else but she does get a hard time for not having a regular gender presentation. She's not binding or growing facial hair, she's not attempting to look male but she is masculine and she's very tall, almost 6'.

It was suggested to her by a security guard at a service station in Kent, that she used the accessible loo, she's totally able bodied, a bit sporty in fact. That's not reasonable at all, is it?

My ex, another very butch woman (I'm afraid that there is a bit of a theme), also got a hard time. Her worst experience was while hurrying to the women's loo in a hotel lobby, having just finished breakfast, she was grabbed by a man, who decided that she didn't look woman enough, with such force that she almost ended up of the floor.

Most butch women have stories like that, some ending very badly.

You see, Italian, that letter gets me too.

It is an 'indignity' to face a 'medical diagnosis' to affirm gender.

That seems to argue that gender is an option that you can choose. As opposed to how it is presently understood as a by product of sex.

The current act requires medical assessment because self evidently if sex is one thing and gender is another then something appears to be wrong somewhere.

As such it is appropriate to try to find out what as the options include ones that are benign or harmful to the individual or harmful to wider society.

For instance, brain tumour causing delusions, or the result of a repressed trauma or a side effect of a fetish.

All things that reasonably should be eliminated before okaying access to any women's spaces offered by the act.

If you have true gender dysphoria that makes it impossible to live with a mind telling you one thing and a body another you surely have to want to identify the cause and the best resolution.

Which implies if you do not think this that your state is not something that is impossible to live with. Or that you can accommodate within your life in ways that you have been doing already without any desire to find out why via a doctor.

Or that you think is just a lifestyle expression.

Any one of these things seems to be different from a medically diagnosed problem for which full transition is the recommended treatment.

I just do not see how you can conflate these two different perceptions of a gender dilemma because they stem from different sources, have different depths of expression, might in the non assessed cases pose risks to the individual or society and will lead to very significant degrees of transition that self evidently has to impact on the way that the rest of society will have to interact and adjust in order to accommodate reversing gender.

I think the refusal to seek medical assessment is the acid test here.

If all that is standing between these 600,000 people and getting a Gender Recognition Certificate now is the 'indignity' of seeing a doctor to get the nod - then how come they are not prepared to go through what most will see as a minor inconvenience of an indignity to get what they seek.

When they are happy to as a consequence expect lots of others in society face other indignities such as be in their presence in a same sex environment.

This strikes me as a very selfish demand. One seeking to put all the burden of responsibility or consequence onto others because seeing a doctor is an indignity.

Of course, I also see a slight irony here.

I note that many women activists argue that trans people are making a choice to identify as something they are not likely as a result of some delusion. Hence the concern.

Yet the few thousand who have acted upon that concern reasonably and sought assessment and diagnosis and appropriate treatment and have used the act to be legally registered are the only ones at present you have to accommodate.

In other words the ones who sort of agreed, tried to find this delusion and get medicine to help resolve it.

They appear to be the ones where no obvious mental illness was found, no potentially harmful cause and who transitioned physically as the best cure available to them on the NHS.

Whilst we do not know in these cases it wasn't a delusion one was sought and not found and in any case was successfully treated by proper medical supervision.

And I think most agree that this has not created any real problems of integration or acceptance.

Yet the ones now trying to destabilise that accommodation are the ones most unwilling to go and seek a diagnosis of any such possible delusion because it would be an indignity.

Or you might think because they fear the consequences of what might be found if they were assessed.

"Nobody has been caught doing it for nafarious purposes."

What would those be? And how would you know? Seriously.

"We are a very small county and that's a fairly good sized chunk of women's organisations. I don't think that it's reasonable for you to judge women's groups being inclusive of trans women and defensive of the laws of our own country as 'sad', that's a bit imperialist really. "

Well i can judge as I self Id as a judge! (That's not my joke by the way, someone else made it.)

I am not really keen to keep going down this rabbit hole with you. If lots of women want to potentially throw other women under the bus and call it feminism, that's fine for them. But that rhetoric is not what I believe.

"The single offensive below the line comment that you've quoted was addressed with vigour. It's not usual to be held responsibility for below the line comments when a link is shared."

I'm not holding you responsible. That letter is just not for me. Feminism doesn't have to include people born male, if they want to join the fight against patriarchy, great.

"Who do you mean by 'males' do you mean the trans women, with GRCs who've been pissing next to you for the last thirteen years or non trans men? " NO, I have been very, very clear this is about self id.

If a trans woman (born male) has gone through the GRC I don't expect them to be thrown out of female loos. But even the GRC has allowance for single sex in some instances, like rape crisis centres.

"Either way, perhaps a bit more diversity in the bathroom might give my wife a more peaceful existence." Interestingly, not everyone is as interested in your wife's peace of mind as you.

Anyway, sorry as I am for butch women who get a little hassle in the female toilets you are massively de-railing with your romantic life. I am concerned for women who are uncomfortable with men with self id as women in loos, showers, prisons and wherever else we would not expect to find males (who do not have a GRC).

@ Jayceedove

I can't remember the name of the Doctor who took over from RR but seeing him isn't just an indignity, it's £250, plus however much it cost the person to get to Harley St.

DMS V has now moved away from calling transgenderism a mental disorder, so I'm not even sure if the most appropriate person to see would be a psychiatrist. If it's not a mental disorder and treatment has already been completed, who would diagnose, why would a doctor be appropriate?

[[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/04/gender-dysphoria-dsm-5_n_3385287.html]]