AIBU .... to open a transgender discussion thread for respectful debate !

[wrexhamtrans]

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...

1. No self id. All those identifying as women to be psychologically evaluated and screened. Gender Dysphoria is no joke.
2. 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.
3. 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.....

But if someone has gone through the torture of gender dysphoria, most people understand that it does not make them ‘just a man’ and it is so niave and condescending to keep saying it.

I can feel compassion for people's experiences but it doesn't make me believe they can change sex. And the current behaviour of many trans women just reinforces for me that they are not women. Not just the abuse but the hyper-femininity. I'm sure NATALT but a sizeable proportion seem to be.

Crap it sent before I had finished the essay and a half apologies. I also do believe that we need to support those more vulnerable, and that includes all. The likes of Stonewall have lost their way, and Gays, Lesbians, trans peoples and women are all being thrown under the bus / we are all being told to conform. The in fighting allows the patriarchy to segment, divide and ultimately to win.

And a trans woman who looks exactly like a woman, has had gender reassignment surgery and doesn't look like a man?

Well, according to some, those who pass have been doing this for ages, and we haven't noticed. In which case they can carry on. I don't think there are a great number of people who fit into this category.

They will pass a law to cover all transsexuals. So trans men might find that they have to use ladies toilets for example.

I can't imagine a law being passed about this. If they completely pass as men I assume they'd prefer to use the men's. If they don't pass as men they won't be a problem in the ladies since they'll be read as women and hence no more of a threat than any other woman.

That's nice for you - if you're happy with that then great! I don't have that sense and I'm happy with that. Where's the problem?

There isn't if you put it like that.
There is though if someone denies it is a thing for some women though as it means transwomen must be lying or about the feelz when actual biological women say for them it is.

Weetabix, you do understand that the reason we don't want FTM trans people in our spaces is because they - as part of the male sex class - pose a huge risk to women. They are dangerous and put us - as a female sex class - at risk. The easiest way to minimise that risk is to retain single sex spaces. Which is what every country, development organisation, legislature etc in the world knows.

(FTM transpeople do not pose that same risk to the men in male spaces. And as has been mentioned, if men don't like it, then it's up to them to speak up, just like we are.)

Pointing out that a female doesn't have a penis might feel invalidating to your friend but you can't expect the entire world to lie.

But that is what makes someone a woman, Verbeena. It is being an adult female human that makes you a woman - dictionary definition. But being a woman doesn't say anything about your personality, your likes and dislikes, how you like to dress or what you like to do.

But there is something more to us than just our biology and our likes and dislikes. There's an internal idea of who we are. Now what forms that I don't know. Does it come from within or do we form it as a result of our socialisation? Whatever, we are where we are. We do live in a very gender stereotyped world. We might fight against it but it is what we live amongst. That will be contributing to the internal dialogue of what it is to be a man or a woman. Even if you reject it you are still forming your view around it. Many posters say things like "I am not a typical woman" or "I don't conform to stereotypes" or " I am a woman working in a male environment". Even those who would like to reject stereotypes are still influenced them.

It's like the old joke where someone asks for directions and is told "well I wouldn't start from here".

I take it you haven't been on Twitter much
Sorry I should have rephrased, no one here. Twitter seems full of tHose onboard the crazy train tbh. I’m never sure who is taking the piss and who is serious.

a sizeable proportion seem to be if I’d only ever engaged with isis i’d Think the same about Muslims. Those who shout the loudest are usually those with the least valid opinions. I don’t think it’s fair to say that, I’m not on twitter anymore and all of the transpeople I’ve met have been lovely people getting on with their lives. Depends on who and what you know as to what you believe I suppose. The likes of Karen white do not show what trans people stand for, like the likes of rosemary west do not show what woman stand for.

I don’t believe that anyone has to conform, but if everyone made an effort to try and understand those that are different to themselves, it would have stopped a lot of wars and oppressive movements.

And you are entirely missing my point. If it comes to it there won't be 1 law made for trans women and another for trans men. I cannot see that this would be allowed because you can't discriminate on the grounds of sex. They will pass a law to cover all transsexuals. So trans men might find that they have to use ladies toilets for example.

If a transman passes, who would know that they don't belong in the men's loos? And if they don't pass, they are not going to cause a problem in the women's toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards and prisons.

Transmen using women's facilities isn't the worst case scenario you seem to suggest.

Pointing out that a female doesn't have a penis might feel invalidating to your friend but you can't expect the entire world to lie.

Well what do you want me to call it? A dangling fuck stick? It’s clear you’re just being petty in order to invalidate him.

"I don’t believe that anyone has to conform, but if everyone made an effort to try and understand those that are different to themselves, it would have stopped a lot of wars and oppressive movements."

This I love 💖

You’re scared of them, because you don’t understand them.

How DARE you!!

1. I am not scared of transpeople.
2. what is there to understand? I have heard all the arguments/reasons: Born in the wrong body. I have a womans brain. I am living as my authentic self. I live a womans life every day. It is not a mental illness.....but i also want to chop off healthy body parts and take drugs for the rest of my life even if they may shorten my life anf ate not life saving.

I am scared of the many many men who have and will abuse an open door policy to access women and children at their most vulnerable.
I am scared that every award, position and place women have fought hard for will go to a born male...this is already happening.

My fears are not because transpeople are different! My fear is that their drive for full acceptence means women and children end up at the bottom if the pile after we have fought so hard to reach somewhere at least close to the top. Lets face ut TW knoe they will never have the full acceptence as women unless they make women a bad/evil/unspoken/vile word.

It's like the old joke where someone asks for directions and is told "well I wouldn't start from here".

But we are here and we have to choose a direction of travel. At the moment we seem to be heading towards making gender more important than biological reality when actually everyone would be happier to live however they want regardless of what body they have?

Yeah. All petty and shit using actual words for things. All to "invalidate" someone I will likely never meet.

You are free to indulge in any delusion you please, trying to force me to is where the problem is.

You know that thing as a kid where you pat your head and rub your tummy, and when you start you have no idea how to do it because your brain does not have a map of your body that includes doing that, but as you do it more it becomes second nature? Or the thing where you move your fingers separately in different patterns (is that from Star Trek?), or the teens were doing something where you formed a circle with your fingers then flipped it over your eye, which was impossible to begin with until your brain learned how to do it. Well I imagine gender (sex?) dysphoria is like that, your brain has an incomplete or wrong map of your body. Hebb's axiom is that neurons that fire together wire together. This is how we learn things, but it can go wrong, which is why you can end up with chronic pain after an injury has healed. That is all I think the sense of ourself is, our brain's map of the body. It says nothing about our personality, it's just a physiological thing.

I don't hate my gender identity or conform to it, I don't have one to hate or conform to.

Is it so hard to accept that gender identity might manifest on a scale from 0 to Very Prominent and other people do have a perceptible sense of their gender identity, be it cis (eg Shania) or trans?

if everyone made an effort to try and understand those that are different to themselves, it would have stopped a lot of wars and oppressive movements

It's not women who don't do this.

You’re scared of them, because you don’t understand them. Just like what used to be the case with gay people. Thank god (well not literally) that people have seen the light now and have moved on to accept that some people are different to ourselves and just because we can’t feel it or see it does not make it a ‘choice’ they’ve made to go against the good old fashioned status quo and cause outrage amongst those who refuse to believe it.

What do you think of the view that if we did not have gender stereotypes that people wouldn't have gender dysphoria because there would be no stereotypes to conform to or not? This is what the OP said about their own experience. Just a couple of quotes from the OP to show what I mean:

It's how society sees me because it cannot accept the way I am as permissible as a man.

At the end of the day I couldn't have gender dysphoria if we could eliminate gender stereotyping.

It appears to me that the pressure to transition is similar to gay conversion. When being gay was illegal and unacceptable, an effort was made to make gay people straight by various means. Making gender non-conforming people undergo medical treatment to make them resemble the opposite sex is a similar process.

If we just accepted people for who they are (e.g. some men like to wear dresses and makeup, just as some women prefer trousers and no makeup), we would not have this problem. And we'd all know where we should go to have a pee.

I'm not talking about people with sex dysphoria here, just gender dysphoria. The distinction is important. Those who are repelled by their own sexed bodies have other issues which go deeper than societal norms.

Is it so hard to accept that gender identity might manifest on a scale from 0 to Very Prominent and other people do have a perceptible sense of their gender identity, be it cis (eg Shania) or trans?

1. Please don't "cis" people here/in this context - it is seen as a slur/offensive.
2. Just because you or someone else feels they have a gender identity, does not give you the right to classify me or anyone else on the same scale. Your 'identity' is meaningless as any form of comparison or "rating" of what makes a woman or not.

ShotsFired

No I just don't buy this. The argument doesn't just boil down to the potential danger of certain classes. The arguments I am seeing out forward are threat of assault but also that some women will absolutely not want trans women as doing smear tests or examining them in hospital for example. This isn't a safety concern because men working as gynaecologists etc examine women daily and apart from a vanishingly small number don't pose a risk. So this is more about the psychological impact of a vulnerable women being confronted by someone that they "read" as being male. I'm sorry but if I am approached by a 6 foot, bald person with a beard I am going to see them as male. If my issue with men was a psychological one I would be affected by this.

If a transman passes, who would know that they don't belong in the men's loos?

Is the opposite also true?

EarlyWalker - you are the one who brought up your friend's genitals as a gotcha! No, a testosterone poisoned, mutilated clit is not a penis. Sorry.

I know the thread has moved on but: Barracker
So as a mother, if you're expecting me to be strike the right 'tone' in defending my daughter's rights you need to expect my tone to sound like a roar of any mother protecting her child. It will be loud and it will be unapologetic.

LOVE! YES I'M YELLING I'M FUCKING ROARING.

You "don't buy" the fact that 98% of crimes are committed by men?
That there are more male sex offenders in jail than women prisoners in total? What is hard to get about those bald facts in a population that is approximately 50:50 male:female? Why aren't jails equally populated?

The whole smear test/related things is another trope wheeled out as some kind of gotcha. The issue here is about CHOICE. If my gynae is a man and I know that and I consent, cracking. If I express a clear preference for a female gynae (for any earthly reason I want, as is my right) and a man waltzes in and tells me he is a woman and plans to perform an intimate procedure on me - as has happened - then that is unacceptable.

I'm sorry but if I am approached by a 6 foot, bald person with a beard I am going to see them as male.

And when they tell you they are a woman, what then?

But that is what makes someone a woman, Verbeena. It is being an adult female human that makes you a woman - dictionary definition. But being a woman doesn't say anything about your personality, your likes and dislikes, how you like to dress or what you like to do.

I'm not ON about personality, why can't you see that? Or at least accept that for me, I have a sense of female self?

Sorry I have only just seen this.

If he was to drop his pants, the average person would say he had a penis.

No. No they would not. Not 1 male or a female who has seen a penis before would think it was real. Same way as no man or female would think bottom surgery on a male was a vagina.
People are not as stupid as TRAS like to think they are.