To be saddened by the transphobia and homophobia on Mumsnet?

[spannablue]

I used to come on here for a good laugh. But now there's just so much casual, vitriolic, uninformed rubbish om here!

Do people really think that trans women are secretly trying it on to take over women's space? Have you not seen what they have to go through (for some, horrific surgery; for others, lashings of abuse; job losses; loss of contact with family; street attacks)? Why would anyone choose that?

Did you know that if your kid comes out as trans, they are around 48% likely to attempt suicide, and around half of them succeed? All the literature/research on this shows that it's transphobia, stigma and bigotry that causes this, rather than some innate pathology. When a trans kid is supported to be who they want to be, those suicidal feelings tend to go away. If you've ever had or known a child with depression, anxiety, or who self harms, you'll know the fear and terror that they might succeed.

We're talking about a tiny minority of people who are trans. But what I'm seeing on Mumsnet amounts to collective bullying.

When did it become ok to be so judgmental? Have you ever actually met a trans person and listened to them with an open mind?

There are people of all kinds on social media - trans, not trans, gay, straight, bi, lollipop ladies, lawyers, teachers, academics and bus drivers. Some talk a load of crap. And others engage in intelligent, informed, openminded debate. Please consider trying out your ideas thoughtfully with these people before perpetuating the sort of hateful kneejerk nonsense which can have terrible consequences.

For the record, I'm an academic researcher in the field of applied sociology. I'm not trans. I'm a lesbian with four kids aged 3 to 25, one of whom is nonbinary.

I believe gender dysphoria actually fits within the Equality act definition of disability so I wouldn’t say there’s any problem with a person with GD using the disabled loo.

Yes, I've seen this argument before.

For me, the problem is that the majority of these children will not have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

Gender dysphoria is not considered a criteria for social transition, it would appear.

I don't think "ideological divide" is the right term.

Biology is not an ideology.

Knowing where babies come from isn't either.

I see no "theoretical approach" that can bridge a disagreement over whether reproductive sex is a material reality or an individual belief.

I therefore totally agree with Datun about gender identity / segregation.

I see no "theoretical approach" that can bridge a disagreement over whether reproductive sex is a material reality or an individual belief.

No. How would you expect to go about it, OP? Perhaps we're missing something.

Talking about Gender as a toxic social construct sidesteps the reality of GD and the use of gender to treat and assuage symptoms. In this particular instance gender norms are not oppressive: it is only when they imposed upon non GD sufferers that they become oppressive.

But surely it’s at least partially because gender is such a toxic and oppressive social construct that GD exists at all? I am sure there are some who would feel unbearably uncomfortable with the sex of their body no matter what, but in many cases aren’t the limitations of gender roles at the root of dysphoria?

Hi Datun

I agree. We have not got a functioning health system in this particular regard.

We also appear to have amateurs dabbling in affirmative approaches further muddying the waters.

I believe gender dysphoria actually fits within the Equality act definition of disability so I wouldn’t say there’s any problem with a person with GD using the disabled loo.

Seeing gender dysphoria as a disability is highly inconsistent with the way I’ve mostly seen trans people talking about this. I.E. making it very clear it is NOT a mental illness and so on. If it’s not a mental illness or a physical illness, why is it a disability?

Hi Sloth

I think the ROGD is likely due to toxic gender stereotypes much as anorexia and bulimia are.

But I’m not convinced that is the case in every instance.

I think that GD is likely congenital but is likely exacerbated if you are in a culture which doesn’t allow for fluid gender expression and which conflates sex with gender

Ereshkigal I would be interested to hear the OP's response to this too.

But I'm not holding my breath as the OP hasn't answered any of my questions (even the easy ones).

I was broadly still in support until you said about robbing disabled children's facilities from them.

Indeed. I never thought I'd say this because over the years I've been very sympathetic to trans people's plight (there was a trans woman in my dance class for a while until she moved - she was lovely and went a huge way towards informing my thoughts on the matter). I still am sympathetic to the plight of true trans people.

But the more the current discourse goes, the more uncomfortable I am getting. I've never had a problem with trans women using female facilities, it's never caused me a problem before. But now that the goalposts are shifting. Most people are sympathetic to needing time off work for, say, mental health issues - we just ask that you get a doctor's note to certify it. Yet when it comes to the spaces of women and disabled people, now the call is to do away with certification and accommodate anyone who simply SAYS they're a woman. And people are telling us women that we are being paranoid for saying this system is open to abuse? Have any of these people lived as women in our society? Have they not witnessed first hand, since childhood, what many men will do if they think they can get away with it? Did MeToo only happen to other people???

However this is sliced, it always comes down to: 'The rights of people with penises trumps the rights of women and disabled people. The solution is for women (the biological ones) to be nice and kind and accommodating to the people with penises.'

That's progression? That's supposed to be something new?

Seeing gender dysphoria as a disability is highly inconsistent with the way I’ve mostly seen trans people talking about this. I.E. making it very clear it is NOT a mental illness and so on. If it’s not a mental illness or a physical illness, why is it a disability?

Indeed. Mind, there seems to be an element of 'it's insulting to call it a mental illness', despite the clear fact that many people suffer some sort of prolonged - even lifelong - mental illness and we've made some headway in not thinking it's insulting or denigratory to say this.

Seeing gender dysphoria as a disability is highly inconsistent with the way I’ve mostly seen trans people talking about this. I.E. making it very clear it is NOT a mental illness and so on. If it’s not a mental illness or a physical illness, why is it a disability?

How could it be neither a mental illness nor a physical illness? What is it then?

Sloth

It’s a diagnosable condition. Used to be considered under mental health and now sexual health. It’s politicised so there’s a lot of lobbying to change the definition.

There’s still a stigma about disability and mental health issues so I imagine that, yet again, instead of tackling the stigma some trans people want to remove themselves from the equation

I think that GD is likely congenital but is likely exacerbated if you are in a culture which doesn’t allow for fluid gender expression and which conflates sex with gender

Yes, I think I would broadly agree with this. Unfortunately every culture conflates sex with gender (though obviously some are far more restrictive in this respect than others), so it’s really impossible to say for certain how far this contributes to GD, as we have no control group...

There’s still a stigma about disability and mental health issues so I imagine that, yet again, instead of tackling the stigma some trans people want to remove themselves from the equation

This.

Erishkigal

It looks more and more like a flight from reality

Have they not witnessed first hand, since childhood, what many men will do if they think they can get away with it?

As a society we never learn from our mistakes.

Predatory men have used their careers to get close to women and children so they can abuse them since..... forever. Look at the Catholic Church, children's homes, the BBC, doctors. The list goes on. But we're supposed to belive that men won't take advantage of self id to gain access to women and children.

The fact is self id only serves two groups, it's saves money for the government because they no longer have to fund doctors to diagnose GD, and it serves predetory men who can access women and children. The genuine trans people will also be at risk of the same men, the ones they are apparently trying to get away from.

And self destructive

If GD ceases to be defined as a health condition of some description then hormones cease to be necessary

It does. I think the "it's in no way a mental illness" is political posturing driven by the unchallenged stigmatising of people with mental illnesses. Schizophrenia also has a genetic basis (for the sake of argument if GD also does). I don't see why that would be a mental illness and gender dysphoria wouldn't.

There’s still a stigma about disability and mental health issues so I imagine that, yet again, instead of tackling the stigma some trans people want to remove themselves from the equation

Yes, that makes sense. I also think when something is categorised as an illness there’s an implication that it should be “cured”, which obviously could have some sinister implications here.

The more it's in the news the more I think self id is being put forward to save the government money. Its got nothing to do with trans rights, its being positioned as that but its really about taking services away.

If you don't need a grc you don't need a diagnosis, so the limited funding will be taken away. If you then can't get a gd diagnosis or better yet, there is no such thing as it's not an illness its a 'way of being', then you can't treatment, whether that's surgery, hormones or counselling.

So it sounds as if we all 'agree' that we can't 'agree'.

The only possible common ground then is that both groups are concerned about male violence/oppression and the need for spaces that protect from them from that. I assume that, as for women, that most violence against people in different trans identity groups is from men? I'm not saying women can't be violent but overwhelmingly it's men and statistically far, far more often than women and in ways that are far more devastating.

So technically we should be able to protect each other from male violence

BUT

that doesn't solve the problem about the possession of a 'penis'.

I think that some people are arguing that a 'penis' attached to someone with a gender identity that is not male, shouldn't be threatening. I can relate to that on some levels, I know when I was going out to clubs more that I felt safer in gay and/or trans clubs than in other spaces, and that in the trans circles where I felt perfectly safe many of the trans people retained the sex organs that they had at birth.

HOWEVER I knew people in those spaces, they were friends and they could vouch for those I didn't know, and I know that the people in those spaces were genuine.

In other spaces an unknown person with a 'penis' would bother me, I wouldn't feel anywhere near as comfortable in a hostel, or a toilet on a station late at night (where often the spaces are tucked away and isolated). For most women an unknown person with a penis in a space where they are vulnerable is a source of anxiety, and reasonably so given women's individual/collective experience. If someone who is in those spaces, however they present, and has a penis, there is no way of telling who they are and how safe they are.

And anyway this isn't just about personal comfort levels, because other women have had far more devastating encounters with people with a 'penis'. And a lot of women are in spaces that they can't opt not to enter and where they are very vulnerable - homeless hostels, prisons and so on...Also in some of these spaces there are also children. And having done work in a women's refuge I know these aren't just pointless anxieties they are very real fears.

So Spanna the question is how to resolve this very real/material problem? Theory isn't going to get us out of it.

It’s interesting isn’t it that instead of challenging stigma (both for gender nonconformity and mental health)there seems to be a strong reaction to attack the observer rather than dismantle the stigma.

Although maybe I’m asking too much from people who are clearly suffering

But this is where the goalposts keep being moved.

If you say it's a mental health condition, you are transphobic because it's a way of expressing one's authenticity and you must respect a person's identity.

But if you say oh, it's a lifestyle choice, and very many youngsters even seem to see it as an aspirational one, you are transphobic because it's not a choice, it's a congenital condition that you're born with, and makes life exceptionally difficult. And you must respect that.

Although how that applies to Philip Bunce, God knows.

Or, indeed, 'femme presenting non-binary people'.

Which is why, for me, gender dysphoria should remain firmly as the cornerstone of identifying as trans.

There should be no other reason, whatsoever. And it should be diagnosed by a medical professional who can spot the cross dressing chancers at 50 paces.

It should remain a medical condition and be treated as such. Not celebrated, feted and promoted as brave, stunning and progressive in one breath, but heartbreaking, depressing to the point of suicide, and subject to the worst oppression imaginable, in the next.

Datun

I agree. I believe GD is the key to this

Which is why, for me, gender dysphoria should remain firmly as the cornerstone of identifying as trans.

There should be no other reason, whatsoever. And it should be diagnosed by a medical professional who can spot the cross dressing chancers at 50 paces.

Yes exactly.