to disagree with gender ideology/pronouns

[changednameforthiss]

Genuinely don't understand why this is a controversial statement, but somehow we're so far removed from truth and reality, and saying there are no more than 2 genders is enough to get you fired from your job and cancelled forever.

I believe in man and woman as science dictates, and that's it. Why is that hateful? I am not hating PEOPLE for stating this, because I simultaneously believe in the idea that any adult should 100% have the ability and right to freely express themselves in ways that feel congruent with their inner. I also believe people can medically transition to appear as a woman/male if they deal with actual gender dysphoria i.e. genuinely loathe of the sex they were born it; and I believe people have the right to perceive themselves as a woman/man . However, that does not make you the opposite sex. This is a perception, i.e. it is subjective...

So if someone does not want to refer to someone as their preferred pronouns, it is rude at best, but it's certainly not criminal as many people try to make it now. Personally, I will call you by your preferred pronouns because I think it's just good manners, but I honestly don't think it's the truth and I don't think anyone is what their biology (thus hormones) would reject. But we are allowing this to happen and the topic of gender ideology is impacting and in some cases damaging our children who have to deal with adult topics they are wayyyyyy too young to comprehend, as well as women's safety by opening doors for biological men into women's spaces that should not be opened. This is a big problem!

Why is this so controversial? Can we not respect everyone and their right to self-expression and femininity/masculinity across sexes without changing our vocabulary to affirm people's self-perceptions as well as rejecting biology?

If you think I'm hateful, I beg of you please explain why because I'm not getting this and it's driving me insane.

Totally.

even JK referred to her trans friend as “She”.

Why do you say "even"? JK Rowling is very middle of the road in her views, just braver than most in expressing them under a pile on.

I would also bet that this friend is a sex-dysphoric transsexual, not autogynephilic transgender.

I’m old enough to remember when “trans” was short for transsexual; then there was a brief period in which we were told we should spell it “trans*” with an asterisk to include transgender; then it was just “trans” again but now meaning transgender; now the term “transsexual” is considered “transphobic”. The lunatics have successfully taken over the asylum.

I am still inclined to “be kind” to the original cohort, but I fear we are past the time for that. We gave an inch and the AGP men took a mile. So now we have to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Yes I too remember when there was a difference between people who believed they were born in the wrong body and people who dressed as a woman for sexual thrills. I have trans friends in the first catagory who agree that it’s the second lot who are fucking it up in the name of inclusivity.

@morebiscuitslessinequality

Science and biology are a very small part of what makes up a human being. As someone who identifies as she and a woman I do not feel threatened by a rise in young people wanting to explore themselves and what they identify as but intrigued that you can navigate life without suppression and fear of rejection for being honest.

I agree with all of that. What I disagree is that exploring yourself should include appropriating the language of the opposite sex, because that is a statement not just about who you believe you are but about who you believe they are.

Do you understand that? A male person who claims womanhood is imposing his projections, his assumptions about who women are mentally on to us. It's not actually us he is seeing or identifying with, it's all coming from him.

And if we accept this, if we allow society to redefine womanhood as a state of mind, we, female people, lose so much:

We lose the history of our oppression and marginalisation, and with it our ability to explain the roots of today's social inequalities. Women were not disempowered and marginalised because of our inner identities, we were disempowered and marginalised because we were the ones with female bodies. Indeed much of feminism has been about showing that the minds of people with female bodies are not lesser, feminised or significantly differently to the minds of male people. The reality is that no trans woman experienced the controls and limitations society applied to female people - we should not allow appropriation of our language to erase the truth of our history and the challanges we have overcome.

Related to the above, we lose the rights, supports and mitiogations we have to counteract the drag of that historic sexism. Just as the reality of sex based opporession is that is happened to female people, the reality of "women's" rights, supports and protections is that they were created for the people who suffered that opporession, ie the female people. If you redefine "women" to include male people you break the link between the people who need those things and the people who benefit from them, you break the link between their existence and their purpose.

And we lose the language to identify and understand the things that happen to us today because we are women. Some of these things are the consequences of our bodies, and some of these things are the consequences of having those bodies in this society.

What do we gain? Nothing. We become reduced. We change from any persoanlity in a femnale body, to a subset iof personalities that society decides are "women". And what happens to those of us who do not identity with that new version of "woman", a womanhood of the mind? Are we no longer women?

But even if we lose the name woman it doesn't mean that historic and sadly in many ways still current sexism magically didint happen to us after all.

And for me that is where it all falls down. Woman is a material reality. We are women whether we chose to be or not, so the things that society and biology mete out to women will still happen to us, just as the benefist that society and biology give to men still happen to trans women. Moving labels around just moves labels around, reality si still there underneath and for women especially, that still affactes us physically and socially.

So I don''t want to stop anyone exploring their identity. I don't want to stop men and women finding common ground like that which trans women and female people who identify as cis women believe they share. But these things are not sex, and they need to be done under new names for new ideas, not appropriate words we still need for ourselves.

As someone who identifies as she and a woman

Do you mean identifies as and is, or identifies as but is not, @morebiscuitslessinequality ?

If the former, what does your 'identifying as' consist of that is separate from the 'is'? What aspects would be shared by someone who identifies as but is not, but not shared by someone who doesn't identify as but is, or by someone who doesn't identify as and isn't?

I agree completely moderate

Or

If you can't see sex, you can't see sexism.

No. You absolutely cannot segregate biological sex and the concept of gender. It is impossible. It isn't the same as religion. The gender identity "female" is inextricably tied up with the biological sex "female" - how you experience your biological sex cannot be separated from the development of your gender identity. Nothing about religion (or any other aspect of identity) is linked with an aspect of your biology. Ergo, a biological male can never assume the gender identity "female" because there is no external definition of what female is. There are clear external definitions of what it means to identify as a Christian or a Muslim or a Buddhist - it's not the same. Let everyone express themselves however they see fit but, @Crispsandcola , your loved one is not female. They're male and free to express themselves however they choose, wear typically female clothing, make up, even go by she/her but they will never be a woman and never be female and should never use female-only spaces or demand the hard-fought rights of women, because they are a man and because to really be those things, you are born with a vagina and female hormones and, as a result, you have an authentic, lived experience which leads to the development of your female gender identity.

Coda: The people who don;t see the problems with cross sex appropriation are thinking only about the transgender person's identity. They aren't thinking about how accepting the transgender person's beliefs about identity also changes identity for every single other human being.

Transgender identity beliefs might be about acceptance and exploration for the transgender person but they also mean putting everyone else into the same mental framework that stopped the transgender person accepting their identity as valid in their own sex, which of course it always was.

It's really important to realise this, because when you do you understand it is not a movement of openness, exploration and acceptance, it's a movement that takes transgender people's beliefs about the limitations of sex and personality and imposes them onto everyone else.

Excellent post. Absolutely right, sex and gender are different but they do not vary independently.

Brilliantly put and 100% correct. 👏

"What I disagree is that exploring yourself should include appropriating the language of the opposite sex, because that is a statement not just about who you believe you are but about who you believe they are."

"Do you understand that? A male person who claims womanhood is imposing his projections, his assumptions about who women are mentally on to us. It's not actually us he is seeing or identifying with, it's all coming from him."

This is key.

Using the language that we need for ourselves, including pronouns, for a person who is demanding that we comply with their philosophical belief about themselves that then, by logic, redefines our own identity. The outcome of that is that it changes own language to describe ourselves.

That is not kind or tolerant.

*Science and biology are a very small part of what makes up a human being.

I don't think anyone would disagree with any of that.*

I do. Biology is the entirety of what makes up a human being.

We don't exist as ethereal wisps of "humanness" stored in bodies, any more than we have a gendered soul. You could swap out the non-biological elements of a human with the non-biological elements of a bedbug, and neither would change at all.

Fair enough. I wasn't meaning to be rude. It's just often the case that posters that are already very invested in a subject will sort of 'jump' on you with an overwhelming amount of points and it can be a bit...well...overwhelming.

On a slight tangent, I remember people mentioning a study which seemed to contradict the 'social contagion' theory. Have managed to find it I think but I'm not usually very good at decoding the data so I'd be keen to hear what other posters think.

“Social contagion” is not driving an increasing number of adolescents to come out as transgender, according to a new study published Wednesday in the journal Pediatrics.

The study also found that the proportion of adolescents who were assigned female at birth and have come out as transgender also has not increased, which contradicts claims that adolescents whose birth sex is female are more susceptible to this so-called external influence.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna41392

@KattyBoomBoom95 take a look at this. There's a ton more data, including in the Cass report, showing a huge increase both in girls identifying as transgender and in the proportion of girls compared to boys.

Reuters, so well researched and citing sources.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-topsurgery/

That's interesting. Thanks for linking it.

Ok. But are you going to attempt to explain why you think finding a brain difference will make a difference? Honestly, can you think about the questions and answer them?

Here they are again (without typos)

you said:

“But if we suddenly discovered it was a brain development issue I imagine there would be a lot more empathy and less talk of fetishes, perversions, and power plays.”

I asked:

If a physical brain development issue was discovered but fetishes, or paraphilias, and misogyny were still hugely prevalent in those male people who had that brain development issue, why would and why should discussion about males with this brain development cease?

As in, if there is a brain development issue but the actions of these male people remained, just because a reason was found why should women stop pointing out this is causing women harm? Why should male people who have sexual paraphilias and misogyny be allowed to access female single sex spaces and treat female people as a resource for their sexual fetish because of a medical condition? Because when you look at the outcome, whether they have a brain development issue or not, the outcome is still the same. Female people being harmed by male people’s sexual fetishes and their misogyny.

I am asking you that if this brain condition is found yet the behaviour is still prevalent, why should the discussion stop as you suggested. Surely, if the behaviour is still happening we as a society need to discuss it and find solutions so female people are not harmed even if the behaviour is arising from a health condition. I will explain the next one separately.

“But if we suddenly discovered it was a brain development issue I imagine there would be a lot more empathy and less talk of fetishes, perversions, and power plays.”

My next question relates to if a brain condition was found in only some of these male people’s brain, how does that then work given the current approach of acceptance without exception.

I asked : What do you suggest will happen to all those male people with trans identities that don’t have that issue?

The next questions ask about the practicalities:

Will one group wear a badge to use single sex spaces meant for female people?

Will that badge be somehow integrated into a body so it will never be forged, stolen or transferred?

This is a real question because if you suggest a sub group has a real a medical condition and deserves special treatment and allowances in society to be made because of it, yet the behaviour in found in other male people without the condition too, how do you separate the two populations to give those with the condition special treatment by society?

In my mind, you cannot give one person special treatment in allowing their sexual fetish over another person who doesn’t get special treatment, just because it is driven by a health condition when another’s exactly the same behaviour is not.

Or, do you honestly believe something has coded incorrectly in all male trans people’s brains causing their behaviour, and that none are just simply sex fetishists with brains that are completely functioning normally? Some of these male people will have developed their sex habits due to abuse done to them, for instance. Should they then be treated differently by society because they don’t have a medical reason?

Do you see why I am asking these questions?

I am asking you to think about the outcomes of your proposed brain development issue. You seem to have it in your mind that it will make some kind of difference. That finding a cause is going to explain the behaviour. My questions all relate to whether knowing will make a difference. And how.

There is another issue with your suggestion too.

Do you believe that all those male people with the medical condition will seek medical treatment and then the behaviour will disappear. Is that what you believe? Or do you honestly think that knowing that it is derived from a brain condition that we should just allow other people to be harmed as collateral damage because it is someone’s medical condition?

Because I would suggest to you that you are ignoring a couple of things there. Firstly, no one can be forced treatment. Secondly, we already know from the collective movement aims already widely publicised that some people who have transgender identities don’t WANT treatment. They don’t want to change their behaviours. They want to be left to act the way they are acting, they just want society to accept it happening in public and regardless of the harm being done to others. Hence my questions.

Finally, then remains the issue of what does this new change mean to those who have already been given special treatment by society but who don’t have the medical condition. What happens to them.

Because if feels like you have grasped hold of finding a medical / biological reason for the sexual paraphilias and the behaviour that is harmful to women without following through on what that then means. It is like you want to excuse the behaviour in some way. Or that you are outright denying that there is a group of male people who do have sexual fetishes around being treated as if they were female people. I say this because there are male people telling the world that it is a fetish for them. Should we ignore them? Why should we ignore them? Because they may or may not have a medical condition?

This is how thought terminating suggestions work.

Do you see how I am asking you to explore your thought about a brain development issue and why you think it might make a difference?

Because to me, you seem to have wielded the concept like a magic cure to emotionally manipulate others to stop discussing the behaviour that causes harm to others. Perhaps you even deny that it causes others harm.

I want to know what you think would change if a brain development issue was found as you suggested. Because I don’t believe changing the underlying motivation will stop the behaviours that I see as causing harm to women. Yet, your statement indicates finding a medical reason will make that change. Please explain what it will change. And then why it will make those changes.

Thanks.

I'm not an expert but that study seems really unconvincing. Ignoring the fact that the author seems less than neutral "Dr. Alex S. Keuroghlian, director of the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Cente" the study asserts that a slight drop in trans identifying children between 2017 and 2019 is "is incongruent with the (rapid-onset gender dysphoria hypothesis) that posits social contagion.”

So their logic is that if social contagion was true then the only outcome would be that the number of trans identifying children would increase forever, which is clearly nonsense. That's like saying if covid19 was contagious then more people would have it now than in 2020.

For a start, this study you have posted refers to a period starting from 2017 which is after the exponential increases we have seen started.

If you compare this information to the break down by sex of the data published in the papers around the Dutch protocol and other European papers tracking patients over decades, the huge majority of patients were male. This was reliable.

Therfore using 2017 onwards data to compare to just two years on, is meaningless. First it is comparing data already containing the exponential increase in female people. To then deny that there is an exponential increase in female people presenting to clinics!!

To be meaningful, it needs to be tracking data from pre 2017 and over 10 to 20 years. How can you describe a phenomena comparatively to pre-increase when you are drawing data from after the increase was already happening?

Another issue is mentioned in the limitation mentioned in the article. This is a survey of school children. This is not collecting the data from patients seeking to attend clinics or attending clinics.

This is a survey where children are asked their opinions and it doesn’t reflect the conversion from a self perception concept to a concept being acted on. Registering at a clinic is what they do when they are acting upon their concept of self. And those figures have been proven world wide to have increased between 2017 - 2019. So there is a complete disconnect between what this paper seems to be trying to conclude vs the reality.

I will go and see if I can find it. But already there are huge and massive inconsistencies in what this NBC article is reporting.

Can you tell us what you found about this article that was convincing? Or are you now telling us that you don’t really know very much about this topic?

If you want to learn more, I have a large list of links you can read and listen to. I have links to studies, to papers, to documentaries. It takes a lot of time to unravel what is happening in regards to children’s treatments. If you are genuinely willing to read I am happy to share.

I am also happy to read links posted by others. Many of us on this thread read as much as we can and we discuss it on other threads. that is perhaps why you are finding that we have ready answers. Because none of what you have posted is a new thought on these issues.