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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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AIBU to think that this child should be allowed to compete as a girl? Transgender topic.

999 replies

Cassort · 02/07/2019 00:53

www.bbc.co.uk/news/video_and_audio/headlines/48800075/transgender-skater-fighting-to-compete?ocid=socialflow_facebook&ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbcnews&ns_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3SHOZZproHs8lkaYi9tz5VcKPnE9xQRt7AR8m8rRPu5lPTJkp1m1808Os

It's an 11 year old (born male) ice skater. There's a little video where to me she looks female.

I daren't put this on the feminism board, but AIBU to think that in 20 years time we will look back in shame at how we have treated transgendered individuals?

I just put myself in those shoes for 5 hours. What on earth would I think? How much hate would I feel? How fucked up/strange/weird would I feel?

I have a very uneasy feeling in my soul about the vociferous opposition to transgenderism on MN currently. It doesn't sit comfortably with me.

I came across this story just now and it's typical of I suppose what the feminist MNers want transgender people to face. I.e. that they can't...

Should she compete as a girl? Or AIBU?

OP posts:
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15
SoupDragon · 04/07/2019 15:53

If someone identifies their gender as non-binary which team do they play in? 🤔

owlalwaysloveyou · 04/07/2019 15:54

There's absolutely horrible discussions on here at times regarding trans issues. I feel lucky I'm comfortable with the sex I was born which matches my gender. I can't imagine how difficult it must be for the individuals who go through this and their families. It has no impact on others who seem to have such negative opinions on it. The child will likely be offered medicine to stop puberty until they are an adult and have received appropriate counselling and support to make the decision about their own health and life. Mental health issues are much more prevalent amongst individuals not allowed chance to postpone puberty or consider transitioning. They cant be counselled out of being trans. There are plenty of studies to back up how NHS treat and support these people. Why can't this child compete in the sport they choose with their peers?! It's hardly an advantage to have a life struggle they and their families didn't choose. Can't understand the idea that families are pushing this on children. Trans isn't a new thing, understanding is but clearly we have a long way to come in treating people with respect and not online bullying children.

Rufusthebewilderedreindeer · 04/07/2019 15:55

I dont think you can argue with ‘and?’ soup

Its like a mic drop moment

OldCrone · 04/07/2019 15:56

Compete in the gender they identify as...

Are you suggesting that everyone chooses a category depending on how masculine or feminine they feel? So we'd have a 'masculine' category (mixed male and female) and a 'feminine' category (mixed male and female).

Might as well have just one category, which would end up being all or nearly all male. Is that what you're aiming for, Thump? The complete removal of women from all sport?

SoupDragon · 04/07/2019 15:59

Why can't this child compete in the sport they choose with their peers?!

They can. But only based on their biological sex. I said earlier that in every other scenario I have no issue whatsoever with treating someone a their preferred gender. None at all. Unfortunately I think that cutting competitive sport is one sacrifice they have to make when living as their preferred gender. It just doesn't work any other way.

OldCrone · 04/07/2019 16:00

The child will likely be offered medicine to stop puberty until they are an adult and have received appropriate counselling and support to make the decision about their own health and life.

Sadly, this is all too likely to happen. So their brain won't properly mature (a child needs to go through puberty for this), nor will their genitalia. This person will end up as an adult in terms of years, but with a child's mental capacity and genitalia. Everyone advocating for this is advocating for child abuse.

HiHoToffee · 04/07/2019 16:00

It's hardly an advantage to have a life struggle they and their families didn't choose They will apply to lots of children albeit different struggles, they still have to compete in their biological sex category.

RedDogsBeg · 04/07/2019 16:00

You cannot identify into or out of the sex you are born. There are two sexes and they are different.

Laws and fair competition rules are based on sex, not gender, or identity or feelings.

It has no impact on others, yes, it does.

jellyfrizz · 04/07/2019 16:00

You could start with defining gender.

This would be a very useful start.

OldCrone · 04/07/2019 16:03

I feel lucky I'm comfortable with the sex I was born which matches my gender.

What do you mean by gender?

Datun · 04/07/2019 16:04

Trans isn't a new thing, understanding is but clearly we have a long way to come in treating people with respect and not online bullying children.

You might have missed the memo about the 4000% increase in kids showing up at London's gender clinic, largely girls. You might have missed the memo about Penny Mordant launching an investigation into rapid onset gender dysphoria, largely affecting girls.

You might have missed the memo about 76 children coming out as trans in one school in Brighton.

Or the 10 girls, simultaneously, in one year in a well-known girls' school.

AutumnCrow · 04/07/2019 16:13

we segregate by sex, not clothes preference

In a few words, this lays bare the issue for me.

Lumene · 04/07/2019 16:13

owl if you see posts that don’t match talk guidelines report them. Not sure what you mean by ‘horrible’ posts, can you be specific?

I agree it must be tough feeling you are born in the wrong body.

You say this issue does not affect others. This is simply not true. Males competing in women’s sports mean women lose out on prizes and scholarships even at young ages - see the recent examples in the US or watch Martina Navratilova’s recent BBC Documentary.

You say they will be given hormones. They may or may not be. This is a very complicated area, please take the time to read some of the many experiences of ‘detransitioners’. These are people who used some physical means of ‘transitioning’ to live as though they were the opposite sex, and then decided against it. Their initial decision was often made at a young age. It just isn’t as simple as saying ‘you can’t counsel someone out of being trans’. What are you basing that assertion on anyway?

Talking about women’s right to single sex spaces and caution related to children undergoing experimental and irreversible medication is not ‘horrible’.

There are plenty of places online you can find people being genuinely horrible about trans people - try kiwi farms for eg- if you want to go head to head with some genuine horrid transphobia.

Lumene · 04/07/2019 16:15

Medicine to stop puberty not blockers, sorry.

Lumene · 04/07/2019 16:16

Mental health issues are much more prevalent amongst individuals not allowed chance to postpone puberty or consider transitioning.

This is not true based on the evidence I have seen so far. What evidence are you basing this on?

MoaMartinson · 04/07/2019 16:22

I have a beautiful 5 year old granddaughter, born male, but who is insistent she is female

When I was five until I was 8, I was insistent I was a boy, wore clothes traditionally associated with boys and so on…by the time I was 8 I lost interest in defining myself as a boy, instead I saw myself as a female who rejected gender stereotypes. My family were fine with all these phases…now it might have been that later in life I decided that I was trans…again not a problem. But I feel bad for your granddaughter, as they are not being allowed to play with identities but being forced into an identity being fixed at an extremely young age. If that approach becomes standard then children like your grandchild could end up being castrated at five in order to fit one specific gender role, I personally find that horrifying. It seems to me the equivalent of FGM in other cultures and I don’t want to see it normalised.

And yes OP, the Rosa Parks analogy was racially offensive, and analogies do not make something fact. Just because language allows for comparisons to be made doesn’t make a comparison reasonable or factual, it’s a claim nothing more. Many things are considered inappropriate in a society, sometimes this is unreasonable, sometimes this is reasonable. There are adults who want to have sex with children who might compare themselves to Rosa Parks and lament that they are not accepted and should be – doesn’t validate their claims and doesn’t validate the analogy or make it any less racially inappropriate or insensitive.

And finally, as so many posters have pointed out, the whole basis of female/male sports came out of awareness of physical difference not gender, for which there are clear reasons. As someone who has been involved in martial-arts based contact sport, I can tell you physical differences between male/female make a huge impact in a fight-based scenario. I could spar with teen boys but even the ones who were the same height/weight as me could have wiped me out with a simple punch. A number of Hollywood movies and films cast tiny women in roles where they kick the asses of much larger men, but these are contrived scenarios not reality, and although they are uplifting in some ways I wonder if they are communicating a false image of physical advantage/disadvantage between the majority of women and the majority of men?

OldCrone · 04/07/2019 16:37

This is a very complicated area, please take the time to read some of the many experiences of ‘detransitioners’.

www.piqueresproject.com

Fibbke · 04/07/2019 16:40

Interesting hearing a programme about Alan Turing today and the 'physical and mental problems' casused by his chemical castration (female hormones)

But i thought taking female hormones had no side effects? Which is why we can prescribe them to teens?

Fibbke · 04/07/2019 16:42

I can understand the mental issues caused by being given hormones against your will, it was fucking barbaric. But how come its all hapoy happy joy joy according to mermaids?

Loopytiles · 04/07/2019 16:46

Most sports should be single sex, for fairness and safety. Transwomen have different biology and unfair advantages.

TigerJoy · 04/07/2019 16:47

@cassort it's really heartening to see your post.

Gender is not as simple as male / female. There are people born intersex. People who look female in every sense and have female sex organs but also undeveloped testes and XY chromosones. There is excellent scientific evidence that transgender people have brains that are wired as the opposite gender to their body.

To say our sex organs determines our gender is not only simplistic but deeply unkind to trans people.

I haven't read all the comments because I can't stand how vicious the anti trans stuff gets here. I just wanted to know you're not the only one x

SoupDragon · 04/07/2019 16:48

To say our sex organs determines our gender is not only simplistic but deeply unkind to trans people.

They do determine our sex though which is what matters with sport.

bellinisurge · 04/07/2019 16:49

But what does intersex have to do with trans?

Madvixen · 04/07/2019 16:52

TigerJoy, do you believe that women's brains operate differently to men's brains?

Eaudear · 04/07/2019 16:53

Gender is not as simple as male / female. There are people born intersex. People who look female in every sense and have female sex organs but also undeveloped testes and XY chromosones.

Intersex is absolutely nothing to do with transgenderism or gender identity. And people from the intersex community have actually specifically asked for their conditions not to be appropriated by people trying to make the sort of argument you have. So please stop that.

There is excellent scientific evidence that transgender people have brains that are wired as the opposite gender to their body.

Could you please link to this 'excellent scientific evidence'? I am very interested.

To say our sex organs determines our gender is not only simplistic but deeply unkind to trans people.

What do you mean by 'gender' here? To me, 'gender' is a bullshit social construct, largely desgined to keep men and women in very neat boxes. I am interested to hear your version.