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

I find it incredible that anyone would suggest that women aren't oppressed because of their biology.
Of course they are... the whole basis of oppression is controlling our reproductive capacity. Hence the whole raft of taboos and restrictions around female sexuality as well.
Simply put, you want your women where you can see them so no other sperm can get near.

Is there an epidemic? How many people are transitioning to male? What proportion of them are undergoing surgery? When doctors are following internationally recognised standards of care, who should their prescribing practices be checked by?

Personally, I find the ubiquitous use of antidepressants a bit worrying. I don't actually have any evidence that it's a bad thing and I'm not a doctor but there are loads of people take them who didn't take them before. Back in the olden days, when people were depressed they just got on with it or killed themselves or something. We don't know what long term effects these antidepressants have. Maybe my next step will be to insult depressed people or claim that they read about it on the Internet? I'm sure if I dug around enough, I could find some jack shit crazy site on the Internet, that would agree that depression wasn't real, that antidepressants were only a short step away from crack and that money spent of antidepressants was leading to the underfunding of kiddy cancer wards. I could probably find someone who advocate skipping doctors and buying something directly from a website in Hong Kong. However, I'm not going to do that because I know some depressed people and I think that doctors know more than me about prescribing medication.

Of course they are... the whole basis of oppression is controlling our reproductive capacity. Hence the whole raft of taboos and restrictions around female sexuality.

This would be believable if male on female was the only form of human oppression, if you totally disregarded class and racial oppression, or if the oppression of women stopped when their reproductive capacity did so, at menopause.

I think that the horrible reality is that some types of people like to oppress people and have used any difference they can find to do so.

From the Tavistock NHS Trust (source:Guardian):

According to the Tavistock figures, more girls want to become boys (893) than boys want to become girls (579). Carmichael said the larger number of girls was likely to have a complex explanation. “It might be to do with increased confidence in natal females coming forward but there are lots of unknowns. But we’ve seen a large rise in natal females coming forward, which deserves fuller exploration,” he said.

Lots of other sources noting the huge spike in children, particularly girls, seeking help with transitioning ( if your search engine isn't broken) but I have to get back to work.

I worry about anti depressant use too, having used them and knowing scores of people who do. I wonder if there are better solutions.
That doesn't equate to me insulting depressed people!
I would very much like to see the long term effects of gender reassignment reatments on young people's mental and physical well being.
I hope such studies are being done, because it would seem very rash to just passively accept that dangerous drugs and radical surgery to mutilate sex organs is the best way to deal with teenage identity crisis.

StillScreaming you're reaching here. Just because it's not the only form of oppression doesn't negate the cause, in this instance.
As for post menopausal women... firstly it's not like it's a big conscious plot with decided upon rules. Secondly in many cultures things do become less restrictive for women beyond child bearing age.

So, from a total population of 66.5 million, you're calling just over a thousand children an 'epidemic'? I don't think that's the way that word is usually used.

I've tried to look up the number of gender reassignment/confirmation surgeries carried out per year in the UK, the nearest I can get in a quote from The Sun, :-/ which claims that there were 172 carried out on the NHS in 2014, up from 86 a decade earlier. As a comparison, 9,652 breast augmentations were carried out in the same year and over 5,000 breast reductions.

I think if any studies were to be done on 'mutilated sex organs', a very loaded and some would find insulting term, we might be better off starting elsewhere. Don't you?

StillScreaming you're reaching here.

No, we're both reaching here. We agree that woman are in a state of societal oppression, we're both looking for the root of this oppression and we've come to different conclusions. You see biology at the root and I see human nature. Neither of us can prove our theories.

I believe mine to be slightly more likely because we can, and to some degree have, overcome some of the more overt types of oppression, in some parts of the world, while our biology has remained the same. These improvements wouldn't have been possible if your theory was correct.

I'll leave you to it then. If you are so determined to overlook the blindingly obvious as it doesn't fit your ideology fair enough.

We’re arguing over semantics now. I don’t think anyone is actually disagreeing. I just took issue with someone saying that Women are repressed ‘because of biology’. If we’re arguing that biology and sex do matter then that could be interpreted the wrong way, as though the blame lies in a womans physical being rather than the society around her.

Everlasting - I looked through those pictures on the Buzzfeed article, and all I could see was mastectomy scar after hysterectomy scar after mastectomy scar. I found it very sad rather than hot TBH

No-one can make you find someone hot Olennas, that's okay. But even if you think those people had suffered gender dysphoria and had treatment for it, that doesn't mean their bodies are no longer able to be found beautiful just because they bear the scars.

Each one of those transmen is a person, a whole person. It would be unfair to reduce them all to simply the sad product of a gendered society - although I know you can't help your own feelings - but they can be hot! Maybe not to you, but they can be hot, and as much as it's okay for anyone to be lauded as such (I'm not keen usually) then it's okay for them.

Screaming Thats the number of surgeries ( which are rising exponentially).
Do you know any secondary teachers who have been doing the job a while? Believe me, girls wanting to be boys is the fastest growing trend in schools, and when organisations with (for some reason) a vested interest in "helping" young people transition, these kids are going down a path that they can't always return from.
SURELY it has to be acceptable for people to step back and question it? Especially since the party line for schools, youth mags and government policy all seems to follow an identical narrative, that supports transitioning but doesn't question the sharp rise in kids wanting to do so.

@RatRolyPoly "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."

Yes, I think that this is how it happened and maybe due to settling and stopping being nomadic and having property, and women becoming part of that property, maybe.

This makes interesting reading...

www.ibiblio.org/ahkitj/wscfap/arms1974/Regl_womens_prog/Women%20and%20Men%20in%20Partnership/05e%20Historical%20Analysis.htm

@Stillscreaming "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."

One of the saddest bits of this whole shit-fest for me is that I am naturally tolerant and inclusive and for a long time was very much on the side of trans people. I am hope that does not sound big-headed, it is not mean to! I was interested in the topic, read about it, watched documentaries, signed petitions and met trans people. Then I started hearing about women being told to shut up about their biology for fear of upsetting trans women, and I was told by a trans woman who had fathered children and been married to a woman that there was no difference between them and me, they were just a woman like me.

That all made me feel very much like I and my sex group were being erased, although at the time I could not have expressed it as such, simply that that was not true. The gaslighting of this, the 'there is not difference' really worries me. young women are being told that to know there is a difference is to be bigoted. This is hugely worrying, to me.

"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 don't think anyone is suggesting you can genuinely 'catch' being gender dysforic from the internet but I do think that you can mistakenly believe yourself to be 'trans' or a 'boy' because you are a female who does not like being female and an attractive, articulate person on the internet says 'Hey, i am just like you, I was mixed up and did not fit in and now I know I am trans."

Believe me, we are seeing it as parents of teens. The massive numbers of trans identifying females cannot be a natural phenomenon, I am surprised older trans people are not concerned about this. It is often linked to being 'gay' but it s not the same. The terminology is linked, "Coming out" etc, but actually realising or acknowledging you fancy the same sex is not the same thing as believing you are somehow born in the same body, IMHO. They are very different but the use of the LGBT umbrella has kind of made them sound the same, IMHO.

In terms of friends who transitioned with or without support. Were I in this position of a family member, and this were happening, I hope I would be supportive, whether or not I believed their thoughts were genuine, I would want to be with them, because that is what love does. But it doesn't mean you think your kids have got it all correct.

Your friends had a tough time, and I am sorry for that. But you seem to be suggesting because something was not easy that must make it true. I could ell you or Christian martyrs who gave up their lives for beliefs many do not believe.

"All three have happier, less chaotic lives now" Is that because being a lesbian is not really accepted, still in society? Just a question.

"... but I think they'd laugh at the idea that it was something they fell into, in search for a label." In my defense I am assuming your friends are adults and I was talking specifically about teenage girls too young to legally transition. I am sorry if that was not clear. My concerns are for young women and girls. Older women are, of course, entitled to make the life choices they wish to make and I will, of course, respect those choices.

"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 really do not think that clinics are throwing out anything and my fear for trans people is that if self id comes in the limited resources will be even more limited!

pS "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."

I do so agree with this, I am horrified by porn and its influence on impressionable young people and especially on boys (I have a boy and a girl, and I hate that there is so much in the world that can corrupt their young minds and give them warped expectations on the world and on others).

"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."

YES, these are massive issues, I wish we could stop fighting each other and work out some strategies. But again, we do need to be able to say that it is male violence at the root of much of these issues.

Oh sorry that was long!

I understand your concerns especially when it comes to very young people physically transitioning but can’t get way from the fact that it sounds very much like the arguments people used to use against gay people. ‘They’re confused, it could be mental illness, they might grow out of it, it’s a trend’. I have a friend who has been out gay his whole adult life and his dear old gran still thinks he’ll ‘snap out of one day’.

Italian that link was really good, thank you so much! That's almost exactly what I had in mind, with the added consideration that I think a certain kind of man would have risen to the top in the days when the wandering hunters became warring tribesmen. And it wouldn't be the diplomatic sort! Great big empires were built on the back of subordination after all.

I'm going to post it again just in case anyone else finds it interesting:

www.ibiblio.org/ahkitj/wscfap/arms1974/Regl_womens_prog/Women%20and%20Men%20in%20Partnership/05e%20Historical%20Analysis.htm

But Rumple, young people are genuinely confused by what they are being told. Do you have a handy teenager nearby? Can you ask them what transgender means, and whether it makes someone biologically the opposite sex, and whether that means a trans-girl will grow up and get pregnant?

it sounds very much like the arguments people used to use against gay people.

It may "sound like" but it isn't the same. Accepting that homosexuality is natural for a percentage of humans is different from thinking that because you don't fit into a very narrow set of gender norms you need to "change sex".

Maybe only feeling happy doing everything one can to live as or be the opposite sex is natural for a percentage of humans ifNot. Perhaps to them it has nothing to do with our narrow gender stereotypes.

@IfNot

I don't think that a social transition matters much to anyone except the person involved. If a teenager called Nancy turns up at school tomorrow, announcing that she now called Sid, some poor administrator will have re-tick some boxes. I no more think that the majority of teenagers who do that, are really trans than you do. Those boxes will be re-ticked on the off chance that the teenager is trans, rather than doing so in the full and certain knowledge that they are.

The teenager will then go to their GP and be referred on to a specialist clinic, those people are the gatekeepers. I don't doubt for a moment that they have far more experience and knowledge than either of us about what a makes a trans person and the appropriate way to treat them.

From your own figures, they are treating just over a thousand people in a population of 66.5 million, a few hundred of whom go on to have surgery every year. This is hardly endemic. Personally, I don't see a need for a moral panic.

Argh. Talk to teachers, talk to teenagers. It's not moral panic (how patronising!)

A point above in that long post, Italian. About why older trans people are not concerned about the change in numbers of girls who identify as trans boy.

We have noticed and commented and there are two different views on this, as I mentioned somewhere else.

One is that it is a consequence of social change meaning that in the past trans women had to transition because society was less accepting of boys wanting to be girls whereas girls wanting to be boys could more easily be accepted as tomboys.

Tomboy is a term widely seen as positive and Cissy is widely seen as derogatory.

That alone might have meant more trans girls existed in the past than trans boys. And certainly at 90% + trans women versus trans men up to the past few years something has changed.

Plus until a decade ago trans children existed (I was one) and were 'seen' by doctors (ditto) - but nothing was done other than hope it would all go away until you were 18 and then it was long and slow.

Possibly more trans boys (tomboys) will grow out of it around puberty when there are so many changes to a female body. And so in the past most never got to the point of forcing transition post 18.

Whereas today because there is more openness about seeing all trans children early the numbers seem high.

I guess we will find out over the next few years if many of these trans boys never progress to full transition. If the above argument is true then only a small number will permanently transition.

Or there could be two different things going on. That trans women emerge in early childhood as a consequence of some as yet unidentified problem that is predominantly (though not exclusively) tied to those born male.

This has always been a small number - a few hundred per year in the UK. And the rise in numbers of self identification trans women not seeking physical transition might be something else - as it appears more easily resolved than those of us who had to physically transition. Given that there appear to be tens of thousands of such cases.

These might be latent cases of dysphoria that involve both boys and girls and that in the past were never medically progressed because there was no 'persistence of insistence' that they were the opposite gender and had to physically transition.

So they could find other ways to resolve their discomfort - often into later life - through things like expressing themselves slightly cross gender, or secretly cross dressing and so forth.

But with todays much more open discussion and acceptance of actual transition and the idea to alter the law to remove any need for medical assessment or any desire for physical transition then it has become more easy and potentially attractive for both trans boys and girls who in the past would not have been progressed towards surgery to consider that route because it is there.

There are serious consequences either way and I think the number of girls coming out as trans boys has been a surprise to doctors involved. Because the old concept of mainly trans women has been seemingly evident for a long time.

Understanding the reasons for this is important and, as those involved in treating these cases have noticed it and commented, then I am sure that research will be occurring.

I only know one trans person in real life and they are FTM

I know the numbers are small overall, but it's not 'a few thousand out of 66.5 million', it's a few thousand children per year referred to the Tavistock.

The sudden increase, from a baseline 40 or so girls per year to 1400 in 2016, is of concern.

There are (ballpark) 700,000 babies born each year in the UK, so 1400 new referrals per year would mean 4 in every thousand girls are referred to the Tavistock alone.

I should say there that the Tavistock seem entirely child-focused and generally a Good Thing for questioning children. I hope that our friends' child will find the right answers for their own life there.

I cannot remain unbiased though: I do hope that that will mean no medical treatment and no surgery, actually, as that's so permanent a decision for a very young person to take.

Jaycee, you were clearly utterly sure it was the only way for you, despite the different atmosphere at the time you transitioned, but I honestly think that current 'affirmative' practice could make permanent mistakes and lifelong regret very much more common.