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

defensible in law, not defensive

Although I was born and socialise female, I would never have met the criteria for treatment at Charring X, with my lack to true commitment to skirt wearing, doing as I'm told or ridged heterosexuality. I would have been out on my ear, with a personality disorder diagnoses, just for being a normal (ish) product of the time I was living in.

Actually, this is a really good point.

As I mentioned before, I regularly get grief in women's toilets, to the extent that in the past, before society got all happy-clappy Loving The Gay, I have avoided social situations where I might be out long enough to have to use the loo. I'm going back a while now but even now, when equality has come to the extent that I can a) get married with hardly an eyebrow raised and b) even if someone doesn't like it, there's fuck all they can do about it, when I get challenged in a public loo it still bothers me. And subconsciously I think I still steel myself for it happening every time I go into one.

I've been thinking about that a lot while reading this thread (and I am the type of person who likes to make it all about me anyway!). And Still's above point is a really good one. If I rocked up to a GI clinic (assuming in this scenario I was biologically male) there is no way I'd meet their criteria for change and no way anyone would take me seriously. I don't present as a woman in any visually recognised way at all but I have no doubt I am anything else.

I came across the attached image a long time ago so I thought I'd post it here. It breaks down gender, sex, presentation and sexuality pretty well and it (still) gives me lots of food for thought. But it also helped me separate out the different aspects of gender and sex. Maybe someone else might find it useful too.

I know plenty of trans women who have felt forced to ‘femme up’ just to be taken seriously, and trans men who have struggled to let themselves wear nail polish and eyeliner in case they weren’t taken seriously.

Bloody men though!

It's not bloody men, most men are screwed over by the patriarchy, it's a system that benefit very few people.

But I believe 100% that some sex-segregated spaces are life-savers. How do they differ from “women know your place” spaces? It is something to do with women being in control of them

Do you mean places like domestic violence shelters or somewhere else?

It is disappointing to see a straight line from woman to man, pink to blue. And odd that it mentions hormones as part of an identity. Does that mean the post menopausal women by definition must have a different gender identity to when they were still pre-menopausal?

Why this insistence that gender identity is a straight line from woman to man?

Well anyone who didn't think the call to amend/scrap the GRA was widespread, it certainly seems to coming up more and more - and from the big names too FFS :(

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3193236-Living-as-a-woman?pg=10

Sorry, derail.

thanksjanes I love the turn of phrase "women know your place" spaces! I'm definitely going to think more about this....

Behold interesting diagram. I was doing some research for an argument I was having on a thread some weeks ago about the reason gender identity was not simply a question of conforming to stereotypes. I read something about "signalling"; so where a person is driven to express themselves in such a way as to signal membership of a certain group, or to signal an allegiance.

Obviously there would be certain reproductive benefits to signalling your sex, social aspects to signalling your interests or "people", all sorts of reason why you might want to "signal" that to other people. Also many reasons why you might not want to signal it, or why you might want to deliberately subvert expectations or a particular thing that you objectively are.

Anyway, the original context was to say that stereotypes exist externally to ourselves, we might choose to express ourselves within or outside of them, but in so doing we essentially play into a "feedback loop" of what those stereotypes are. So if a load of feminists decided they wanted to reclaim the apron, it may eventually become a stereotypically feminist look to wear an apron, and people wanting to show themselves as feminist may wear one.

A rushed example, but anyway. I thought it was interesting

“domestic violence shelters”

Yes.

You are too charitable to men!

Oh yeah Assassinated, I didn't see that bit about hormones; that's weird!

Well, it's a straight line, but as a tool for explaining concepts that might be new for some people, it's pretty good. There's a far more complex updated version but I also think it makes it clear that there is a scale with lots of places to land between one end and another. It's not a direction of travel, its a way of illustrating that things aren't simple.

As someone who's trained a lot of people on stuff like gender identity and sexuality, overwhelmingly the feedback I've had is that it is a good way of explaining complex concepts to people who have never had to consider them.

As for mentioning hormones. I think it makes it pretty clear that your gender identity is how you interpret your own chemistry or at least the parts of it that emotionally impact on you: hormones, feelings etc.

Do you have any truck with the idea that gender identity is essentially a synonym for personality?

I've not explained that very well I know.

But to use myself as an example; I think of myself as a woman. Not because of my socialisation or my biology but because that's is simply how I interpret the things that make me, me. It's no less a thing I can substantiate than why I seem to be incredibly untidy. It's just another one of the things that makes me, me.

Now in terms of my gender presentation. I used to wear elaborate underwear and makeup and I spent my whole time finding the whole thing incredibly complicated and difficult. So I mostly wear men's clothes and swing between androgynous and masculine and it just feels right to me. There's nothing as comforting as a nice pair of cords and a jumper and nothing makes me feel as confident as a nice sharp suit. Both with flat shoes obvs.

But I can't tell you why that is, why the clothes I wear make me feel comfortable and capable in a way that a more traditionally 'female' way of dressing doesn't. But I can tell you it has nothing to do with my gender or my upbringing or anything else. It's just another part of me.

@Ratrolypoly

Here's a news article about the Self ID legislation having been dropped. I don't think it's been more wildly reported, lots of people seem to have an investment in keeping the 'they are coming for you' rhetoric going.

www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/12/28/government-delays-transgender-rights-review-amid-right-wing-press-backlash/

There are (at least) two ways of defining gender both are sociological theories, they are ideas. There is no proof that either is right or wrong. We will never cut into anyone's brain or examine DNA and find absolute proof.

Rad fems believe that gender exists as a political system or a social construct.

Liberal feminism and queer politics, believes that gender is an innately held identity.

The tension exists because both sides have taken absolutist positions on this and feel that their entire believe system is being insulted if anyone doesn't believe what they believe.

It's an odd hill to die on.

Well, rad fems and other gender critical people aren't attempting/lobbying to enshrine their theory into law as a compulsory belief, that any comment to the contrary becomes a hate crime, and to make this internal belief dominant over biological sex.

Do you really think it's odd to object to an attempt to make some people's beliefs into law, and any objection to it a hate crime?

Beholdtheflorist

I can tell you in the good old days at CX under John Bullmer Randell , M2F were expected to fullfill Randells criteria (most of them pretty crazy ) I first saw him April 1976 aged 18 , although I had been taking (Stlbesterol )female hormones since Feb 1975 aged 17
before your first appointment you were sent a list of what you could wear down to the size of heels

first appointment I wore a dressvery little makeup my own hair cut in a bob , got the expected abuse , Randell liked to hear the classic you were brought up by a dominant mother and an absent father , he also liked to know you had wet the bed too !

on my second appointment 3 months later it was scorching hot 1976 , so didn't wear any makeup during the day anyway !my hair longer do I put it in a pony tail , and wore a pink sirls tracksuit , ( I am only short) Randell went ape refused to see me , as I had turned up dressed as a man !

my friend Jack D f2m turned up in jeans and a t shirt Tandell refused to see him , he expected the stereo typical men in harris tweet , women in dresses and skirts

I am told these days it doesn't really matter , as long as you present as a female or male

now I rarely think about it , wear what I want , don't need to jump through any hoops am decades post op
the last time I wore a dress was 1992 , was a bridesmaid for a work colleague (she didn't know about my past ) all the bridesmaids looked hideous
sometimes know I wear Ralph Lauren hoodies, that belonged to my son , after his g/F has shrunk them down to XS as I am still only a 34 inch chest

wear what you want be who you want
when it starts to be about the clothes that's Transvestism or AG ,and why most folks avoid the gay scene in Manchester on a Wednesday night , I often wonder where these Tramsvestites get the crazy idea,s to dress like they do

I like socialising with Transmen (they are nearer my height )
a sfew years ago was out with my friends 5 or 6 transmen, , I had my Levi 501,s on t shirt no bra and just a biker jacket (I have very short hair )
a gay guy saw us all together and picked on me as I was the shortest , he laughed at me , and said you,ll never make a man !! you are too short and too feminine ! I so said thanks you are probably right
but as I am just a woman who once attended CX and jumped through all the hoops it made me and my friends laugh !

I have tried posting in that 'Living as a woman' thread referenced above. But I don't think I was getting past the hard line they were presenting. It is the first thread on here which I found just too polarised to really feel I was contributing.

The changes to the GRA have been kicked into the long grass as the government thought it was a quick fix way to appeal to the younger generation after the election caught them out. But they were not expecting the opposition I think.

They seem to be doing this with a lot of policies these days (drop the 1p and 2p coins for example) - come up with an idea they think might be popular, discover it really isn't and quietly push it into the future somewhere.

Everlasting, I saw Dr Randall from late 1974 through to just after you started there as he passed me on to Mr Phillips in Summer 1976.

At no point did I ever get a list of what to wear. I will take a look back at my diaries from the period to see what I wrote about those sessions as it is years since I read them.

But I really did not find him the same way as you did. And he met my parents on the very first visit. Asked them both to come with me. So I don't recall him making any assumptions about dominant mother/absent father - which was not true in my case anyway. As he will have known from meeting them up front.

@AssassinatedBeauty I hope you don't mind but I wanted to break your statement into two halves:

Well, rad fems and other gender critical people aren't attempting/lobbying to enshrine their theory into law as a compulsory belief

Anyone lobbying for self-ID isn't lobbing for anything to be enshrined in law, they would be lobbying to change the process for getting a Gender Recognition Certificate, the laws surrounding which have been in place for 14 years.

So no-one's lobbying to have gender identity enshrined in law, beyond what is already enshrined in the 2004 act.

As far as I'm aware radfems are equally not lobbying to have their ideals dictate law, although I know some are not keen on the GRA.

So broadly speaking no-one's doing any significant lobbying to eliminate the other's point of view; so can't we agree not to argue it?

that any comment to the contrary becomes a hate crime, and to make this internal belief dominant over biological sex.

This idea of hate crimes is understandable on the basis of what I hear of the climate of things on Twitter, bit I don't think there's any danger of widespread Orwellion police state. I know it's reasonable to think, given how some TRAs appear to be being entertained by police in the accusation one might think so, but I think there's a pinch of salt to be taken there.

A hate crime requires an actual crime to be committed. That can be harassment I believe, and trans-specific harassment can be a hate crime. But if someone isn't harassing someone else with their point of view then they're quite entitled to hold it! If there's no crime, there's no hate crime, and I'm so far trusting that the police won't be changing their definitions of things any time soon - TRAs or no TRAs.

@AssassinatedBeauty

I'm uncomfortable with using the phrase 'gender critical' to describe the people you're talking about, it implies that trans inclusive feminists aren't critical of society's construction of gender and that gender essentialism is the opposite of 'critical'.

I don't think that 'rad fem' is suitable either, which is a shame as it's lovely and short. Radical Femininism is a whole political ideology that embraces much more than trans issues. For example I know that Shelia Jefferries spoke to a meeting of this group last night at the House of Commons, (which I take no issue with, I'm a full advocate of the exchange of ideas, free speech etc.) but I know that she didn't touch on the cornerstone of her idological view point, that straight women shouldn't have sex with men. Furthermore, some rad fems are trans inclusive and it seems unreasonable to appropriate their radical label.

Honestly, it's a bloody mine field, isn't it?

To get to your question, no one is trying to control your thoughts. There is no suggestion of compulsory belief. You can think and believe anything you want. I don't think that anyone would be able to monitor your thoughts or beliefs, can they?

It's discrimination and malice that the law is concerned with. For example I've mentioned that my wife is tall butch and female bodied, currently sex is a protected category in the Equalities Act but no one comes running if anyone accidentally calls her 'sir', it's a mistake, no crime is committed, she isn't even offended.

However, if someone didn't give her a job because she didn't meet their idea of what a woman should look like, and if she could prove it, she'd have legislation that would protect her.

The primary qualification for a 'hate crime' is for a crime to be comitted. So, if someone punched my wife, that would be assault. If someone shouted 'you big lesbian' and punched my wife, that would be a hate crime. While there is no crime, there is no hate crime.

Yes Jaycee I've just read the last few pages of that thread and I can see why it might feel unproductive. Been there, done that

@RatRolyPoly I'm quite sure that simply expressing a view in public that is contrary to the accepted current beliefs about gender identity will be treated as harassment or malicious communication and so on. So I'm free to hold my wrong belief, but I must not mention it in public.

Especially considering how quickly organisations like politics parties (all of the main ones and several minor ones) have accepted this new belief system and will brook no exception to this.

That's a very dim view you have of the police and the judicial system you have Assassinated; what makes you think they would be so keen to stretch the definition of harassment simply to persecute someone with "gender critical" views? What makes you think that would be their prejudice?

@thanksjaneshusbandatcaresouth

I don't share your views on single sex spaces but I respect them, more importantly, no one knows that the current exceptions for places like DV shelters will be removed. When people claim that people who have self IDed as women will be allowed to work in these exempted environments because of a change in the law, they are either fibbing or have misunderstood the current situation.

The regulations were going to be updated but they have now been dropped/delayed by the government, (I've put a link on the previous page) and no one knows what the legislation that they have dropped said, just the advisory document which, did say that there was a need for exemptions but not what those exemptions were.

You are too charitable to men!

They're like regular people, some nice, some nasty, mostly okay but I don't think it's true when people say that they can't be funny, some are quite amusing. :-)

Oh, I see. Well yes, as certain views become adopted as mainstream it does get harder to express unpopular views in public. But even when that happens I don't think we see swathes of prosecutions for hate crimes for expressing unpopular opinions. They may get "no platformed"
in the end, but that's not the same thing.

I'm not necessarily down with "no platforming" by the way, but I'm thinking about it relation to that couple who weren't allowed into Britain recently to peddle their anti-immigration views, or the guy who gives lectures on how to coerce women to sleep with you being cancelled on by venues.