For the last couple of days I enjoyed a great discussion over transgender rights on a thread that has now closed. Despite over 1000 posts it was on the whole very respectful and insightful.
So let's have something new.... let's have a thread started by myself, a transsexual woman where we can have a healthy dialog. No TRA agenda, no erasure, no abuse or disrespect......
To kick things off I'd like to pick up on a comment made on a previous thread.
I fully accept many other women, who would previously allowed this [transgender women in women's spaces], now wouldn't because "we gave an inch and they stole a mile"
In the past there existed generally a happy coexistence between transsexual women and women.
Unfortunately the goalposts moved and we now have this broad umbrella of transgenderism which I will be the first to say is completely ridiculous. It is this new label that campaigns for cross dressers rights and acceptance of those who are sexual motivated. And of course self id is a dangerous and foolish idea.
Please remember there is still a quiet minority of transsexual women who do want to live their life in peace and who are as much against this as any woman. These TRAs do not represent me.
Being a woman for me is who I am. It's how society sees me because it cannot accept the way I am as permissible as a man. I am castrated and hormonally transitioned and awaiting surgery. I live every day as a woman and i am treated as one in many ways including misogyny, oppressed by male privilege, sexualisation....For some transition was the only way to have a life.
Those who cross dress and are sexual motivated are making a choice. Those with gender dysphoria are not.
There needs to be compromise on both sides, probably more so on the TRA side.
As transsexual I would like to have seen the following...
- No self id. All those identifying as women to be psychologically evaluated and screened. Gender Dysphoria is no joke.
- Any rights given to trans women go to dysphoric transsexual women who are in physical transition. No rights at all to other groups eg cross dressers....in other words is transsexual rights not transgender rights.
- Access to some women's spaces permitted after X months of HRT and testosterone blocking therapy ie when Oestrogen and Testosterone levels are that of a natal female.
Unfortunately I think too much has been conceded already to revert.
I am fed up having my identity hijacked and turned into something it's not. I wouldn't wish gender dysphoria on my worst enemy. People with GD are damaged people who struggle considerably with gender identity and face daily abuse, ridicule and violence.
I absolutely do believe it is possible to born in the wrong body.....to have a brain chemistry of one gender and a body of another. Indeed we know of one generic condition called Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome which does exactly that. The idea though that it's ok to mix this up with sexual fetishism is sooooo wrong.
Can you think of any other medical condition where it would be accepted for someone else to claim that condition because they like to pretend they have it ? If I applied to the Council for a Blue Badge because it turns me on to sometimes pretend I am disabled I would be told, rightly so, where to go. Why oh why would the Government capitulate that with gender dysphoria ? You were born in the wrong body, have significant mental health issues ? Yes, we will help you. You like to pretend you are a woman because it turns you on ? Of course, jump in there too.....