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

@Hygge I'm so sorry you had that experience with that guy badgering you so cruelly about the nurse.

@birdsdestiny lots of excellent answers.

@Stillscreaming I find it quite hard to understand how you think sex segregated places should be segregated by something other than sex.

But just for the record in line with the title of this thread I believe numbers of females identifying as trans has grown exponentially in the last few years.

Yes, some are genuine trans men who are experiencing dysforia.

However, I think many young women are so unhappy being female (which is not the same as being male) that they are exploring this route. Surely, society should be exploring this phenomenon?

For some this will involve hormones (sometimes dangerous puberty blockers being heralded as safe) and surgery. Shouldn't we as a society be looking into this massive shift?

These young women some of us are concerned for are not random strangers. They are the children and family members of our friends and wider family.

They are being told they can become male, that they should bind their breasts in ways that can be harmful to them, and some of these young people have ASD which means they may feel quite out of place in the world - hence looking for reasons why they do not fit in. I am not talking about just adults, but young teenage girls.

The pressure to find a label seems very great. It can be an internal and external pressure. This seems to be being communicated via the internet to many young women.

It is possible some would grow up to be trans but many more would simply become lesbians, and accept themselves as femake, IMHO. As many, many women before them have done. Ironically, there seems to be a big pressure not to be gay.

So this is an issue which many people may have views on, concerns with. Quite a lot of trans people I have spoken to are equally concerned with self id.

I would always be very respectful when speaking to people about any of these concerns. But asking questions on a discussion forum is not being disrespectful.

I really hope common ground can be found.

Stillscreaming - great posts. This is a thread about transmen with posters expressing concern about transmen just being uncomfortable lesbians then that somehow being dropped to move to the old 'penis in womens spaces'.

And when anyone disagrees it comes back to the 'trying to silence women, what about my feelings' and accusations of misogyny. Then usually accusation of being a MRA or TRA.

The issues can't be discussed with that attitude. You can fear self- ID as I do without invalidating the concept of being transgender and invalidating the lives of thousands of trans people.

And it is odd that 'oh, so I just have to STFU because I'm a woman' is trotted out so often when MN has become a forum where trans issues are discussed in depth every day and have been for the last 2 years at least.

Just have to point out that women are not repressed because of our biology, we are repressed becasue of social constructs and a mainly patriarchal society. Repressing our bodies is part of that social construct. Biology is not the root cause. If you think it about it, women can do a lot more with their bodies than men. I wonder if we would be repressed if we lived in a matriarchal society? That’s why it’s quite hard fo me to argue that trans people should feel they have to repress their bodies to keep another section of society happy, because I feel the whole argument comes back to some peoples bodies being viewed as unacceptable to society. However my head understands the practical problems with self ID, my heart doesn’t really.

Really rumpled? The list of the ways our biology is used to oppress women is long.

True, in western culture it is less obvious. But there are many, many cultures where women’s biology is used to deny them basic freedom.

To ignore this is to erase those women and their struggles. Do we have to give up talking about biological oppression so as not to offend some people? Women have spent long enough being forced to be silent about their bodies in case men are made uncomfortable.

This is such an interesting thread with some really interesting contributors.

Stillscreaming, you're perfectly representing my perspective on things, and it's nice to hear it expressed so well.

Rumple, I've seen your posts on a few threads, particularly about prisons. Really interesting stuff. Like you I have considered myself to be pro-trans but anti self-ID (in the simplest terms), but I'm starting to think self-id wouldn't actually make any difference AT ALL to anyone except trans people looking for legal recognition. As long as the Equality Act isn't changed in starting to think nothing would change.

Anyway, that's by the by. I wanted to say about "oppressed because of our biology" - I agree that we aren't. The lack of respect for women and failing to see or treat women as equals is why our biology is so poorly accommodated or accounted for, not the other way round.

Rat you are putting the car before the horse. Give an example of how you think women are oppressed by lack of respect that isn’t linked to biology.

I’ll wait.

I’m not denying it. Women’s bodies are used as another tool to beat them down in a patriarchal society. There’s no biological cause or validation for that. The statement that women are ‘repressed by biology’ makes it sound like there is an actual valid reason that their bodies are less able and worthy than men. Counter active to the whole feminist argument.

No Nanny, what I'm saying is that it is perfectly possible for human beings, with their differing biology - to be equal in society. Indeed I believe at some point we almost certainly were equal, if not the same. Certainly equally valued.

Someone didn't wake up one day and say "hang on, that lot have different bodies, that makes them inferior, better treat them as such" did they. More likely men found themselves able to weild power over women, and found it validatory so carried on! The patriarchy wasn't a biological inevitability.

In this country in this day and age men simply don't care about the issues associated with our biology because we're just women, they don't not care about women because of our breasts and periods!

I agree Rumpled, our bodies are used to keep us in check, undeniably. But they're not why.

Thanks Rat I’m the same, but was starting to feel like total outcast on trans threads because I do consider myself a feminist, I’m wondering how my views seem so different to most on the feminism boards.

I can’t work out if I think that self ID would actually make a difference to ‘most’ people. But it could have a big impact for those who wish to use it. It’s an incredibly hard thing to weigh up and get your head around.

I have a huge problem with gender self id, however if a person has undergone full medical surgery and hormone treatment to change the outward body gender then I feel that they should be able via the medical gender reassignment team to change their gender status legally.

So a person that self id's but still has the body of the sex that they were born with, they can absolutely not legally become the 'newer' gender.

A person that has undergone full reassignment and now has the body of the opposite sex that they were born with, absolutely become legally the 'newer' gender.

Rumplefaceskin why do you think 'social constructs and a patriarchal society' came about in the first place if not for biological differences?

Noeffingidea no one knows the answer to that, least of all me. Since women were the ones who gave birth I would imagine in ancient culture that women’s bodies were revered and respected. Maybe as people realised the link between sex and childbirth men just went off on one showing off that the human race couldn’t carry on without them? I don’t think it’s likely that men just decided that women’s bodies bleed, give birth and nourish an infant to childhood, are smaller and potentially weaker therefore are totally inferior. Human societies must have developed partriarchal views over a long period of time, I wish we knew the root of it!

But what if it's all part of the same debate, what if not listening to women's views and feelings, and the pressures of society around the gender issue are creating conflicts for some women. I haven't dropped any subject and italiangreyhound has clearly explained some of the concerns about girls and women transitioning. If I am being told to get changed in a toilet I think I can express the belief that women aren't being listened to.

@ Italiangreyhound

I'm glad that you're respectful. The lack of respectfulness and not seeing real people during these threads is my main beef. Most of us do manage to show some empathy towards those living lives in a way we don't understand but, collectively, the gloves seem to have come off when it comes to trans people and that's a massive failing.

However, I don't think that seeing anyone's identity, in terms of being a social phenomena, is respectful. When I was younger, people used to muse on where gays might have caught the gay. I won't bore you with the list, I'm sure you know that affectionate mothers and distant fathers loomed as large as the 'wrong' type of haircut. Society is over that now and it's recognised that it's innate. The position that young, vunerable children catch being trans from the Internet, will also past into the social history book of, weird stuff we used to believe.

I know a few people who've transitioned to men.Two of them with good support from their families and one who was totally cut off. I think that all three of them had to give up a lot, they went from presenting as lesbians and being part of an established community, to having to rebuild all of their professional and social contacts. From the outside, it didn't look easy and I'm sure I haven't even considered half of the ramifications.

All three have happier, less chaotic lives now but I think they'd laugh at the idea that it was something they fell into, in search for a label. I mentioned the guy who's parents haven't spoken to him for years. One of the other guys had to dissolve his civil partnership before being issued with a GRC and the third went to live on the other side of the world, to get away from the residual shite of being called the wrong name and having the wrong pronoun used in front of his kids.

All three were treated on the NHS and laugh bitterly about the claim that clinics are throwing out medication, support or surgery, they had to fight every step of the way.

I am really glad that's your experience stillscreaming. But it's not mine. The woman I know was advised to buy testosterone off the internet which she did with no medical advice, the reasons she gave for feeling like this were a list of gender sterotypes.
Does it not strike you as odd that some older women have suddenly become frothing bigots. Women who were not bigoted around sexuality, who were not bigoted about transgender. Could there be more to it than sudden onset bigotry. Could we just be asking questions.

birds some people are just asking questions. More power and all the respect to those people. And some people think they have all the answers.

@ 0ccamsRazor

I totally sympathise with you view and I do share it, up to a point but it does raise some questions.

Firstly, the part of the medical profession who deal with trans people, have a list of guidelines that state, no one should undergo surgery immediately, that seems reasonable to me, it's a big step. So we have a small groups of people who are undergoing hormone treatment but have not surgery. They are left with no where to be.

Secondly, there are those with physical medical conditions which mean that their bodies aren't suitable for undergoing any surgery, ever. This isn't a specifically trans thing, there are people in the wider population who can't have surgery.

Asking these questions, doesn't mean that I think that women should automatically capitulate to those in difficult circumstances. There has been a big shift towards single occupancy changing rooms etc.maybe we need more of that?

@ Rumpledfaceskin

Feminism is a broad church. There isn't a single feminist view on, well anything, really. I think it's quite common on MN for some people to argue that they are not just Every Feminst but Every Woman, don't let them get away with it.

I believe that feminist discourse has been hijacked by the trans issue. There are so many issue that impact women horribly around the world that we should be discussing while so much time and energy is wasted on what I'd respectfully call a fringe issue.

Another man murdered his wife and then jumped off a cliff with their children earlier in the week, it was discussed on a single thread, whereas trans threads we have coming out of our ears. They are a total distraction to the real issue of male violence. There are endless discussions about what might happen if someone might get into the wrong dressing room, while women are being murdered in their homes and on the streets. We don't need to discuss hypothetical violence, we have an epidemic of real violence.

rumpledfaceskin so you don't think they developed in order to give men control over women's sexuality and reproductive capability then?
Interesting. I can't see any other reason for them developing.

I knew a girl who transitioned years ago. She was around 24, and prior to surgery/name change she was a very butch lesbian.

It's interesting how f2m seem to always be lesbians.
I do wonder why a doctor could be found to remove the uterus of an 18 year old girl, yet a woman I know couldn't get a hysterectomy at 28, even though she had 2 children and endometriosis. She was told she might change her mind.
I don't think it's odd that girls would rather be men. So would I given the choice of which sex I was born.
Men are automatically worthy of respect in society, girls are mocked and demeaned.
"You throw like a girl"
"I decided to become a man, not a mouse".
I'm not scared of transpeople, and I don't care what adults do to themselves, but the absolute fucking epidemic of girls "transitioning" needs to examined urgently ! It isn't "fine" to take life changing hormones and cut bits off yourself if there might be other ways you can feel better!
It's not remotely comparable to being gay 50 years ago or whatever.

Stillscreaming that was one particular incidence of male violence, one in which very little information has been released as of yet, so it would be surprising if there were multiple threads about it. Male violence is always been discussed on munsnet, both incidents reported in the news, and poster's personal experiences.

I know two, both middle aged now, ine transitioned in his 20s and the other in his 30s. Both with a long history of dysphoria, they live quietly and pass easily. I got to know them after transitioning and could not have guessed. They’re open with friends about it.