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Original poster

DC15 wants to identify as female

677 replies

FrogInAHat23 · 10/12/2019 13:22

I'm still struggling to figure out how I feel about this, to be honest. DS (now DD?) wants to identify as female. They are 15. I fully subscribe to the 'do no harm' school of thinking, but it has raised so many questions for me. Saying they identify as female isn't hurting anyone (although there will be some close-minded individuals who are offended by that, which I don't think should be a barrier). However, what do I do if they say they want to use women's toilets or changing rooms (esp if a unisex version isn't available)? They identify as female (and is very effeminate, to be fair). We haven't discussed the whole sex change op situation yet, and I'm wary of bringing it up because I don't want to put ideas in their head (given the risks etc I'd rather they didn't!). DC has ASD and is very young (mentally) for their age. I've been buying them makeup and very feminine clothing, which they wear around the house. I had hoped it would just be a case of having a DS who was more feminine with feminine tastes, but it seems not.

I think my feeling is that, while DC has male genitalia then they ought to stick with unisex and mens changing rooms / toilets. I think. Argh.

What do you think? I know trans stuff is a hot topic at the moment, this isn't me trying to get a response from people. This is the genuine situation I find myself in currently!

OP posts:
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8
nolongersurprised · 11/12/2019 23:23

It’s complicated. It’s not easily defined. It is ambiguous.

If you can’t define why human biological sex isn’t binary, then you don’t really get to say that believing otherwise is “simplistic and reductive” do you? Or that it promotes a trans exclusionary feminism.

You don’t get to just make up biological facts and then get lofty when people think that’s funny.

JanesKettle · 11/12/2019 23:24

And, more importantly, has NOTHING to do with the OP or her child.

Bizawit · 11/12/2019 23:25

which by definition are a “disorder”, ie something has gone wrong.

Actually this is an ideological position that many people find offensive and are challenging. It’s a form of difference: a different developmental pathway. Some of these differences give rise to health challenges, others don’t. It is possible to have a perfectly healthy body that does not easily fit into binary, medical classifications of male and female.

Yes these people are in the minority. So are trans people. It doesn’t mean they don’t matter/ exist, or that they are disordered.

The more we learn about the human body, the more complicated our understanding of sex becomes, and when it comes to gender and identity things get even muddier..

feelingverylazytoday · 11/12/2019 23:28

It's complicated
No it isn't. If it was then the human race wouldn't have been able to reproduce so successfully. 7 billion human beings, looks like most people get it.

HandsOffMyRights · 11/12/2019 23:31

The more we learn about the human body, the more complicated our understanding of sex becomes, and when it comes to gender and identity things get even muddier..

Er...no it doesn't.

Anyway, OP, some sound advice from Janes throughout the thread.

nolongersurprised · 11/12/2019 23:36

Actually this is an ideological position that many people find offensive and are challenging.

And here you are again using people with DSDs to forward the trans agenda. Of course they can be healthy - but there are frequently associated hormonal, sexual function, fertility issues.

Please explain without using people with DSDs why sex isn’t binary.

nolongersurprised · 11/12/2019 23:39

The more we learn about the human body, the more complicated our understanding of sex becomes, and when it comes to gender and identity things get even muddier..

I have a medical degree. I’ll be able to understand the jargon. Please explain why biological sex isn’t binary.

JanesKettle · 11/12/2019 23:39

If posters acknowlege that our understanding of gender and identity is muddy, then they should surely acknowledge that for the OP, she is well within the bounds of good parenting to be cautious about how she helps her son navigate his current feelings.

When things are muddy, we wait, and we try to gain clarity, before acting on the basis of...well...mud.

This may include watchful waiting with mental health support, a reality-based approach to a young males use of female spaces, not raising issues of medical intervention and considering the role that ASD may be playing in a child's current feelings.

Don't stand there and say 'gender is muddy, we don't really understand it' but then suggest on the basis of that non-understanding, parents should take a strongly affirmative and interventionist approach to newly presenting issues of 'gender', whatever it is (and again, we don't know what it is. We have hypotheses, none of them proven or even very strongly suggested, but there is zero evidence for an objective gender identity which exists independent of the body. That sort of suggestion is religious body/soul dualistic stuff...very old fashioned).

Bizawit · 11/12/2019 23:42

Please explain without using people with DSDs why sex isn’t binary

Its difficult to explain why sex isn’t binary, without talking about cases when it isn’t binary Confused.

Here’s a really helpful article by a biological scientist from Brown University:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/opinion/sex-biology-binary.amp.html

NiceLegsShameAboutTheFace · 11/12/2019 23:44

I’m arguing that women’s spaces should be for all people who identify as women

No. No. And thrice, NO!!!

Whatsnewpussyhat · 12/12/2019 00:04

Women are oppressed because of their SEX.

The majority of trans teens are vulnerable females being told they must take drugs that leave them infertile and have irreversible surgeries in order to be trans.

The majority of new adult trans are privileged heterosexual white males who have been more than happy with their genitals and want to keep them and tell us they don't have to change anything as they claim womanhood. Do you honestly think this group are "vulnerable" and should have all access to female only spaces?

nolongersurprised · 12/12/2019 00:05

Its difficult to explain why sex isn’t binary, without talking about cases when it isn’t binary confused.

So, like the article you posted from a professor of gender, the reason why sex is binary is because of DSDs?

So DSDs are why trans women can change sex?

isshoes · 12/12/2019 00:20

I'd be interested to know how some of you would react if it were possible to change biological sex. Let's imagine that it were for a moment - that in 100 years time it becomes possible for a course of treatment to change a person's biological sex. Would you then be completely willing to share a 'female only' space with someone who had been born a man and then changed into a woman? If so, why? They could just easily change back to being a man (albeit without the penis perhaps). Would the fact they had no penis and did not look typically male or trans be enough to allay your fears? Or would the fact that they had been born and raised a male be enough for you to remain concerned?

theflushedzebra · 12/12/2019 00:28

I'd be interested to know how some of you would react to women's rights being taken seriously.

I mean, say in a 100 years time, if women's concerns were taken seriously, women being assaulted and intimidated wasn't considered collateral damage because some males feel like they identify as women?

It would be great, wouldn't it. It's been 100 years since we got the vote - let's hope that in the next 100, the definition of the word "woman" isn't completely lost into the annals of time.

JanesKettle · 12/12/2019 00:30

It's not possible, so what is the purpose of engaging in thought experiments about what might (is unlikely) to happen in some hypothetical future.

Socialisation is always a concern, as is puberty.

It's why CAIS individuals are the only category of male person I consider to have social 'womanhood' - more importantly than the fact that they are phenotypically female is that they 1. were socialised as female from birth and 2. they did not experience a male puberty.

WotchaTalkinBoutWillis · 12/12/2019 00:33

OK this is just a stand alone musing out loud post as you tend to do, not to any particular post
I have an inate sense of being female and nothing to do with my biology, or whether I liked Barbies or Action Man.
As a girl growing up I much preferred the boys version. Climbing trees, trousers, sci fi stuff etc (even now I get are you sure you're not a bloke with your likes) nope really not lol
If it's there for me, why is it so hard to think that it could be that way for trans people too?
I don't profess to know everything about biology/human make up, who knows what goes on before we are born?
I think there's a lot yet that we don't know
If it exists in me, what's to say that it doesn't in others?

JanesKettle · 12/12/2019 00:39

What's to say that this unprovabl feeling you have (that many women don't have - I don't have 'an innate sense of being a woman' for example, my sense of being female is linked entirely to the female characteristics of my body) makes a good basis for ordering society and law ?

theflushedzebra · 12/12/2019 00:39

Wotcha, your feelings about yourself don't affect the fact that women's rights are sex based.

WotchaTalkinBoutWillis · 12/12/2019 00:42

Wotcha, your feelings about yourself don't affect the fact that women's rights are sex based

Never said they did, but all I was saying was that for me it's not just what's between my legs and if it's like that for me, then it could feasibly be like that for others too?

JanesKettle · 12/12/2019 00:44

Also, developmental biologists study what goes on before birth ? And before conception, there is nothing within the realm of science to understand ? You're starting to get into religion there...I hope you're not suggesting 'wrong soul' business or some such. Thats...eccentric.

Like most other things, our risk of experiencing gender dysphoria is likely to be caused by a variety of genetic, developmental and environmental factors.

It's highly unlikely that there is one single causative factor that occurs during pregnancy.

Not all trans people have dysphoria anyway, and even if they did, that's not a reason for the OP to insist that her son uses the girls facilities at school!

theflushedzebra · 12/12/2019 00:46

Im saying your own feelings about yourself have bearing on this argument, Wotcha. Women's rights in law are based on their biological sex, not their feelings.

theflushedzebra · 12/12/2019 00:48

*have little bearing on this argument.

JanesKettle · 12/12/2019 00:53

If feelings, rather than observable fact, is to be the way we order society, whose feelings get priority ?

I mean, I have feelings too. Some of them quite intense and important to me. Why should a males's feeling that he should have been female or is female any more important than my feelings ? Why should we discount the feelings of women and girls who have experienced trauma at the hands of male and prioritise the feelings of the male who feels feminine ? I mean, really, why ?

WotchaTalkinBoutWillis · 12/12/2019 00:56

I hope you're not suggesting 'wrong soul' business or some such. Thats...eccentric.
No, wasn't thinking about souls so need to worry

nolongersurprised · 12/12/2019 00:58

Why should we discount the feelings of women and girls who have experienced trauma at the hands of male and prioritise the feelings of the male who feels feminine ? I mean, really, why ?

Because apparently transwomen are the most vulnerable and persecuted group ever and men beat them up and kill them. Men assault and murder women as well - all the bloody time - but somehow this isn’t as important as how men who identify as women feel.