What does your network think about trans people?

[deeter]

Immediate family think it's all a bit silly, trans people should be treated well but you cannot change sex. Women's spaces should be protected etc.

But interestingly all of my university friends think trans women are women (did go to a London uni with well to do sorts).

I'm 31 btw.

Resolve the basic issue and everything else goes away.

Totally agree with this.

But the TRAs don't like the answer to that question.

While everyone on this green earth knows that humans can't change sex. They want us all to lie and pretend they can. Because ... reasons.

Except maybe if they're sex offenders - then it's okay not to pretend. Again because ... reasons.

I don’t know what makes a woman. There isn’t a checklist

vagina
xx chromosomes

HTH

I'm always trying to straddle two stools on here amd thereby pleasing nobody, but I'm with @StolenCookie on everything except the fundamental analysis. I don't see why I can't disagree with Stolen in saying that i believe sex remains an important reality for kaw, policy and public life, but agree with Stolen in saying that Stolen is being repetitively shouted at, that there are a lot more aggressive threads on this issue than there used to be and that far more posters cite the kinds of online troublemakers that are motivated entirely by their income and simply not worth our attention (eg Matt Walsh, Joe Rogan, mostly Piers Morgan etc etc etc). I can still say that refusing to discuss this issue at all gives space to the worst to run with it, because I don't think any serious decision implying male people are actually female can stand. Maybe young people do have a more flexible view of gender, I see that myself and also see some of the positives in that compared to my own youth, but I stand by the reality and importance of sex for everyone, including young people.

A lot of the stats that get cited on the GC side are just as dodgy as anything else, as stats cited as conclusive from ANY agenda tend to be (an example from this thread is that the only authority citing 26% regret that I'm aware of is Dr Az Hakeem, and that figure is based on a specialist clinic he ran for post surgical transitioners with unusual issues including regret! He himself in the past would not usually say that 25% should be seen as a general figure, though it does strongly suggest that the 1% figure from the NHS study is equally unrealistic as a general guide. Both have value on their own terms, neither is useless).

But you believe that keeping trans women out of your changing rooms is a legitimate discrimination, which I disagree with.

Everyone agrees that you can’t change sex, but we disagree on what that means. To me, it means nothing in the debate of what makes someone a woman.

All the diagrams of body parts and endless refrain of chromosomes, cells and biology isn’t going to change that.

Indeed Dotjones.

This is the conundrum that is slowly dawning on those who declared that everything is fine and that there is nothing to see here.

So, we have the few cases that need to be treated as their sex in certain conditions. Why?

Why has the UK government now stated that no male with a background of sexual crimes should be housed in a female prison estate?

why? Because of the exact reasons that I have been discussing. Because it has come to be understood, finally, that male people don't loose their propensity to commit sexual crimes at any stage of transition. Even a male without a penis can still commit sexual crimes. Therefore, this fact is known. Some posters choose to call this fact ideologically based or try to use absurd arguments to refute it using false comparators or straight out misinformation.

Many sporting bodies have now created policies that exclude male athletes from female sporting categories.

Why? Because the science is in and there are now numerous studies that prove what was pretty widely considered common sense until some groups used philosophical devices to convince sporting bodies otherwise. That male bodies do not lose their physical advantages after puberty.

There is now even research that shows definitively that children as young as 6 will show male physical advantages in many sports.

But getting back to post puberty starting males, there are numerous girls and women being injured badly by these male athletes as well as them losing unfairly. A teenage girl's face was fractured by a male opponents volley ball spike last year. How? Because it is a scientific fact that female skulls are more delicate than male skulls. Not only that, but due to more delicate brain fibres, female people are more susceptible to concussion.

These are irrefutable facts that some people and groups wish to deny in the face of philosophical theory that someone is what they say they are merely because they believe it or say it.

One extreme trans activist (ie. those activists who are demanding that gender is always prioritised above sex, even when this harms female people - not just trans people advocating that they have needs that should be considered) who was a philosophy academic, convinced sporting federations that they were 'female' and all trans people are eligible to be in female sports based on how kind people used 'she/her' pronouns for them. They successfully argued that it is inhuman and cruel to exclude them from female sports. So, those sporting bodies that consulted with this academic changed their policy.

So, I agree that this 'well they are considered female for this but not for that' is causing problems. Far better would have been for activists to discuss solutions with the feminist groups to find ways to make sure that their demands did not harm female people. Equitable solutions would be in place by now if this had been done.

I'm 46 and the topic doesn't come up massively often in my friendship group / family. As a rule we generally think that we don't mind what people decide to call themselves, what they wear, etc.. I am happy to use the name Julie if that's what you want and I certainly wouldn't challenge anyone on it or be rude or unkind.

BUT a dude in a frock does not belong in women's sports or the ladies changing room and I don't want to be called an ovary haver.

"A lot of the stats that get cited on the GC side are just as dodgy as anything else, as stats cited as conclusive from ANY agenda tend to be (an example from this thread is that the only authority citing 26% regret that I'm aware of is Dr Az Hakeem, and that figure is based on a specialist clinic he ran for post surgical transitioners with unusual issues including regret! He himself in the past would not usually say that 25% should be seen as a general figure, though it does strongly suggest that the 1% figure from the NHS study is equally unrealistic as a general guide. Both have value on their own terms, neither is useless)."

It is indeed Dr Hakeem's figure. I believe I stated that at the time. I was also quite specific that this is his figure for 'regret'. What do you believe that I used the figure for? Detransition figures are different and there are several studies from even before the exponential increases in female adolescents registering at gender clinics that put the figure then at around 8 - 9%. That is Detransition not regret.

I agree that anyone using statistics should back them up. As you know, I am quite happy to do so and I do not generally make claims I cannot support.

You’re on a hiding to nothing if you think you can undermine @Helleofabore ’s meticulously researched data.

I see.

So you have a philosophical belief of what a woman is. And because of that you feel that any person who challenges that is transphobic and it should be called out for this transphobia. Even if society in general and law doesn't agree with your personal definition of transphobia.

I think it is really important for readers to understand this.

You have a personal definition of what a woman is, and because of this, you support safeguarding measures that declare that male people should always be treated as female people, even though you have now confirmed you are directly working with young people?

Can you please confirm that this is your belief and that I am not misrepresenting that belief?

A woman is an adult human female.

Not complicated in the slightest.
Your feelings, or any man's feelings are irrelevant to that fact.

Being called a transphobe for not believing in gender ideology is like being called a heathen for not believing there is a god. Utterly meaningless.

Yours is the position of faith not ours.

Transexuals used to require a diagnosis of dysphoria. This gatekeeping was put in place to help provide some protection from the fetishists and chancers.
Which is why it's the first thing the genderist men got rid of. To remove the gatekeeping so they can claim to be women with no dysphoria or any change at all. How convenient.

To the poster that said it was a 'pile on'
I disagree.

Not one of the posters like this ever actually answered any of our perfectly reasonable questions.

Because they can't.
Because it's all nonsense.

They can't even define the meanings of the words their ideology is based on.

Yet women's sexed based rights and protections are being removed around the world just to accommodate the entirely subjective feelings of a group of men and their fantasy ideas of womanhood.

Everyone agrees that you can’t change sex, but we disagree on what that means. To me, it means nothing in the debate of what makes someone a woman
What does this actually mean, @StolenCookie ? You can't change sex, therefore men cannot become women, right? What am I missing?

Permanent Temporary has plenty of research that I don't believe will negate my own. They are right to query statistics being used. They know that I regularly will query statistics too.

If Permanent wants to point out where I have made an error, I will be very happy to correct it. I am not infallible at all.

But you believe that keeping trans women out of your changing rooms is a legitimate discrimination, which I
disagree with

So how would that work legally? How can you allow men in who say they are a woman but not other men when trans is based solely on say so and you're not allowed to ask questions?

If a man who presents as a man, says he's a woman are you ok with letting him in?
What are your parameters of when these men actually become women?

Can you show me in the Equality Act where excluding males people who say they are women would be a disproportionate act for the purposes of female people’s safety?

Because just you saying it is not a legitimate act of discrimination does not make it fit your opinion when the guidance is clear that this is a legitimate act of discrimination. You might feel the law is wrong, but I would suggest again that you are in the minority with that opinion and that you cannot identify and understand strong safeguarding measures .

As I suspected. A complete none answer. Which is typical.

Yep it's the classic, self aggrandising Word Soup which the speaker thinks makes them sound worthy and righteous. Except they're surrounded by more articulate people pointing out that it doesn't actually make any sense?

I honestly don’t care what a load of transphobic people tell me about their beliefs regarding womanhood

You mean women? You don't care about women's beliefs regarding womanhood. Makes perfect sense.

"I hope to see the day they feel safe and valued in society."

For what it is worth, I don't believe any poster on this thread would disagree that people with transgender identities feel safe and valued. The 'disagreement' is purely at the point where their demand for rights conflict and cause harm for another group. In this case, for female people.

I don't believe that this is resolved in denying that sex is important in some matters where gender should be accommodated with other solutions. This should not be a controversial view point and people should stop describing this viewpoint as transphobic.

The EHRC has declared that discussion around women's rights where they do conflict with the rights of male people who have transgender identities is not transphobic.

A pretty dress

Swishy hair

Lipstick

Here is where I used that Dr Hazeem statistic permanent temporary. I was pointing out that Stolen had made a claim that

"The overwhelming majority of trans people who transition are happy with their decision and are able to live more fulfilling lives as a result."

I consider this rather harmful misinformation in the light of the current declarations of there being weak evidence and the fact that even the Branstrom study was shown to have made a strong conclusion that mental health improved that simply did not reflect the data they were using.

Can you point out where I made a false statement please? I am open to have missing something and would prefer to know where so that I can check again. Thanks

Can anyone? Can any single poster, explain how Cookies belief system is NOT men's right's activism?

Cookie believes what men tell her about themselves and doesn't care that women are telling her that this harms them. This, is simply putting what the males want first, disregarding the needs of women who this harms or displaces.

The point about that statistic is that Dr Hakeem's clinic was a separate, specialist clinic not a 'general' population of those attending the GIC - if there is a general population of such a small group. I can't put a finger on his patient numbers but they weren't huge, in which case any figure is easier to skew. The Mail interview skates over that but in his interview on the Transgender Trend website his views are IMO less forcefully put.
https://www.transgendertrend.com/interview-az-hakeem/

It is possible for a statistic to be accurately stated and meaningful but for the choice of statistics made to be misleading. Dr Hakeem's statistics shouldn't be used as a general guide to likely regret and in the past he specially said that they shouldn't be.

OK. Can you tell me where I misused them to point out that Stolen’s claim that "The overwhelming majority of trans people who transition are happy with their decision and are able to live more fulfilling lives as a result." was misinformation and repeating it could cause harm to people who might believe Stolen?. If you notice, I included other statements from agencies and studies too. You may or may not have noticed because it was pages ago, but it was part of bundle of links that showed that Stolen’s claim was misinformed.

We will never agree because our positions begin on different logical premises.

For all of you, having a female biology is a necessary and sufficient condition of being a woman.

For trans people, and people who accept the validity of their experiences, a female biology is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition of being a woman. Sex and gender are distinct.

The two positions can never be debated meaningfully between each other because we can’t agree on the logical starting premise.

The fact that I can’t, and won’t, define ‘what a woman is’ is not the ‘gotcha’ that you all think it is. The lack of definition doesn’t undo my ideology because my ideology doesn’t depend on quantifying the existence of womanhood. For me, and trans people, having a vagina or certain chromosomes doesn’t dictate gender, because people who don’t have those characteristics still feel that they are a woman, and I believe and accept their experience as valid.

You all don’t. We can only agree to disagree. You can tell me I’m stupid until the cows come home. You can tell me my argument falls apart because I can’t define what a woman is. It’s a meaningless criticism to me.

It’s like someone telling you love doesn’t exist and you’re an idiot because you can’t quantify it. It can still be real to you, and their worldview (that love must be quantifiable to be real) is not going to persuade you that your experience isn’t valid, no matter how aggressively they assert it in all caps.

For trans people, and people who accept the validity of their experiences, a female biology isneither a necessary nor sufficientcondition of being a woman. Sex and gender are distinct.

@StolenCookie

So, and I might have missed this upthread, Isla Bryson is a woman and should be treated in all circumstances as a woman according to you?

And the fact that there are some bad women (your example Rose West) means that we should allow increasing numbers of bad women (formerly known as men) like Isla Bryson in because they can't be excluded?

And you don't think that this should concern women? And you think that women who are concerned by this are transphobic?

But you don't think that this is men's right's activism because you believe men when they say they are women?