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.....

So what you mean is completely ignore the misrepresentation and made up "facts" and don't call us out on it because you know?

She didn't "make up" a fact. She made an off hand reference to the apparent lack of middle aged late transitioning FTMs compared to the huge number of MTFs.

Women in India run the gauntlet every time they have to relieve themselves in the fields where they work and there are not such safe spaces. They are frequently raped.
Conversely, because of all the sexual harrassment by men on trains there are separate women's coaches.
Yes about the toilet, those with penises in your home are not asking to join women whilst they are in there, which is an actual equivalent.

I'm not arguing that you never ever get late transitioning women

Sorry, but that was exactly what you argued.

Just as you then said there are only 2 groups of men that transition - gay men and AGP. That isn't correct either.

No, what she actually said was that middle aged women do not transition. Then only climbed down when people said what all of them?
And someone linked to a middle aged transman.
It's there to read. Assuming you can see what you don't want to see.

There are broadly two types of men who transition
I'm sure Prawn used the word broadly deliberately

See Dr Az Hakeem's chapters in 'TRANS: Exploring Gender Identity and Gender Dysphoria. A Guide For Everyone including clinicians (Pulling the Trigger).
The book was published earlier this year. (Profits to a MH charity.) & is very accessible. Some chapters open access on the Amazon link

The opening chapters by Dr Hakeem provide clear descriptions of sex, gender, sexuality, transsexualism, transvestism and autogynephilia etc.

There are then a series of essays from a range of different perspectives.

www.amazon.co.uk/TRANS-Exploring-Gender-Identity-Dysphoria/dp/1911246496?tag=mumsnetforum-21

Dr Az Hakeem:
Medicine MBBS : University College London
Fellow of The Royal College of Psychiatrists
CCST in Forensic Psychiatry
CCST in Psychotherapy
MSc Group Analysis

www.drazhakeem.com/about/

Many severely abuses women try to destroy their bodies to avoid being an attraction for attention from men.

They will mutilate themselves and despise any trappings of the feminine, hence hacking off breasts. These are women that can only feel safe by denying their female existence, hence feel the need to be men instead, to have some power and not feel continually unsafe

I don't want to be different. I don't want to advertise it and I certainly don't want to celebrate it. I want to go unnoticed. I want to blend in. I don't want to be the freak show so that others can marvel at my "differences".

I see your point but sometimes people’s biology means they need different things e.g. toilets. No one thinks anyone is a ‘freakshow’ for using disabled toilets.

And I don’t think men should be seen as a ‘freak show’ for wearing ‘women’s’ clothes or make up.

*severely abused women

Here's Tara Hewitt co-founder of TELI, trans rights advocate, NHS adviser & consultant describing to a group of NHS professionals who is included in the descriptor 'trans'.
Tara explains that trans is an umbrella term, including those who cross-dress fetishistically (overwhelmingly males)

'trans people and cancer'

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD3RfsVu73Q

Tara Hewitt also referred to in the recent Spectator lead article by James Kirkup:
(extract)
"What explains the disproportionate number of girls (child ‘assigned female at birth’, to use the approved term) who are starting a journey that can lead to hormone treatment, then binding and ultimately removing their breasts? Is it possible that this is simply part of a wider crisis of mental health among girls?

I don’t know, and neither do the doctors and scientists who study this issue. If you talk to the clinicians at the Tavistock Clinic in London, the NHS centre for the treatment of gender-variant children, they’ll tell you that all the factors I mentioned may be at work, but the evidence base is still incomplete, that they need more time and data before offering explanations. (They’ll also tell you that quite a lot of the children referred to them as transgender will in time desist – although this is not a term the clinic would use – and decide to live in their original gender.)

The government now intends to commission research into all this. You might think that sounds sensible and mundane. You would be wrong.

According to Tara Hewitt, founder of the Trans Equality Legal Initiative (TELI), prominent campaigner for transgender rights and an adviser to numerous public bodies including the NHS, the proposed research is ‘absurd and offensive’. The project should be ‘dropped in the bin — it’s simply not an inquiry that needs to happen,’ Hewitt reckons.

This is the quintessential trans-rights response to scrutiny: even looking for facts about children’s welfare is transphobic. Just accept that trans girls are girls and trans women are women. End of debate." (continues)
www.spectator.co.uk/2018/10/trans-rights-have-gone-wrong/

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3385533-Prominant-campaigning-role-of-Tara-Hewitt-NHS-TELI-Social-work-universities-etc

Yes about the toilet, those with penises in your home are not asking to join women whilst they are in there, which is an actual equivalent

Well, not quite the same as they're all cubicled off. Not "in there with you."

No one thinks anyone is a ‘freakshow’ for using disabled toilets.

And I don’t think men should be seen as a ‘freak show’ for wearing ‘women’s’ clothes or make up.

My point is though that when I have to use the disabled toilet I feel different and my difference is being advertised. I'm not the same.

And I don't think a man in a dress is a freak show. But I can see how a transwoman, living a fully transitioned life, does not want to advertise their birth sex every time they have to go to the toilet.

As a society it doesn't feel very inclusive. As a person with sometimes an invisible disability I'm treated differently. In an attempt to include me my differences are highlighted. It makes me shy away from some situations or when I can't avoid it impacts my emotional health. Having it pointed out, multiple times a day, that you different is painful and difficult.

I'm not arguing that you never ever get late transitioning women but they are a tiny demographic.

YY.

But what when they don't blend in, Weetabix?

There are broadly two types of men who transition
I'm sure Prawn used the word broadly deliberately

But no mention of transsexuals who have gender dysphoria? Do you have a break down of numbers per category?

But what when they don't blend in, Weetabix?

Why does that make a difference really?

'm not arguing that you never ever get late transitioning women but they are a tiny demographic

But you literally did though. You said middle aged women do not transition into transmen, and that was an interesting YY from one to your point near the end of the thread, it's kind of like trying to bury the fact you did say it with a YY (told ya mid thread there was lots of YY and no actually listening to anyones points, it's kind of robotic and you can spot the pattern

Because you're making women uncomfortable and invading their privacy for the sake of the male person's feelings. Got it yet?

August 2018, Daily Mail article:

'Female Home Office employees are refusing to use new £36,000 gender-neutral toilets because they feel 'distressed' by their male colleagues leaving the cubicle doors open
Notice on bathroom at Westminster headquarters asked men to keep doors shut
Five male and five female toilets have been converted into ten unisex facilities
Home Office said bathroom was designed to create a comfortable environment'
(extract)
Women have been avoiding new £36,000 gender-neutral lavatories at the Home Office because men are leaving their cubicle doors open while they’re inside.

A notice has been placed outside the unisex toilets at the department’s Westminster headquarters asking men to ensure they only use them with the doors shut because their behaviour was keeping female colleagues away.

‘Women are finding use of the toilets quite distressing and are not using these toilets as a result,’ (continues)

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3337295-DM-Women-avoiding-new-gender-neutral-toilets-in-the-home-office-because-men-cant-close-the-door

Current threads:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a3427085-Men-in-gender-neutral-toilets

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3426959-NHS-managers-called-in-a-handwriting-expert-to-track-down-opponents-of-transgender-friendly-toilets

September 2018
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3353054-andrew-gilligan-in-the-times-sex-pests-target-unisex-change-rooms

February 2018
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3157790-study-finds-massive-rise-in-sexual-offences-in-target-gender-neutral-changing-rooms

Male students' protest May 2018:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3241624-dirty-protest-over-somerville-college-oxford-s-gender-neutral-loos

Dr Nicola Williams, Fairplay For Women quoted in today's Sunday Times article about Ambulance Service (linked above):

“Whether women have to share their private spaces with men may not matter to Jules Lockett, but it does matter a great deal to other women, including clearly to many of her own staff. This is a classic example of someone trampling on women’s rights and safety and congratulating herself for it.”

Have YOU got it yet? That people do not have to agree with you?

YY or NN?

Er, you can't dictate whether I feel my privacy is invaded.

And you can't tell me that my experiences as a woman are wrong either.

Far more of an equivalent than the example used clearly.

I'm not in the least interested in your experience because it's entirely irrelevant to the point being made. Keep up.

And yet look at the transman that R0wantrees linked to. He could use the ladies toilet if he wanted to because he was born female? And that wouldn't make women feel uncomfortable?

He is looking to transition back to a woman. I'm guessing that at times during this process he will have the appearance of a man dressing as a woman, yet following your rules he will be fine to use the ladies toilets. Yet how will he look any different to a transwoman?

It isn't as clear cut as you make out and your claim that women will feel uncomfortable just isn't solved by simply segregating by sex. Appearance will factor into discomfort of other users of the facilities too.

Why would you assume you are advertising your transition simply by using disabled toilets??

They are not somehow below you or I, or any of us. Women with DC use them, they are used when Q' are long. They are used for many reasons, ppl with ddogs, with buggies. They are not a valid reason for gaining access to women and children