To not understand how this means a man can get a female passport?

[Brla]

A close friend of DH recently came out as trans. He’s had surgery abroad (FFS I think it’s called) and has set up an Instagram account with videos of the process and many, many, many outfits and make up videos. He has two sons and was married for 14 years before this.

I don’t really have an opinion as such on being trans. I think it’s likely that it’s a genuine feeling that I just can’t understand as I haven’t experienced it and don’t think it’s necessarily just a mental illness.

I don’t understand though that this person has not had his genitals removed or changed (not sure how you would express it) and yet has still got a new passport now saying F. Am I being thick for being unable to get my head around this? He still has a penis so surely that means he is male? How can he have had a passport issued as female?! Do you literally just need to apply and say you’re now presenting as female?

Well you're doing a terrible job

Thank you 😂.

Of course it's a pretense

Would you consider it to be transphobic perhaps to call the mere fact of being trans a "pretence"?

Would you say that sexuality is a "belief"? I'm guessing not. Why?

Because you have evidence of your sexuality, in who you fall in love with and who you become aroused by.

But this is what I mean. I have been searched at border controls (and been subject to enhanced procedures) but they never consulted my passport to know my sex. They simply had a female officer search me (and once in Norway a male security agent tried to search me with a creepy grin on his face until I asked for a female agent).

They just assumed my gender based on my presentation - my passport was not used in that situation. So I was wondering what purpose it ever served.

It just seems so baffling backwards and a simple loophole that you think could have been easily remedied!

To be fair no one with working eyeballs would need to look at my passport. I'm quite obviously female.

I definitely have not! They just assumed I was female based on presentation (whichever is correct by the way) but what was in my passport was entirely irrelevant as they never looked at it.

It’s definitely random or based on setting off the beep (when passing through the scanners at security.)

Or based on other observable demographic markers or on them just being suspicious of something else (such as when they suspected I was a drugs mule). I have never shown people at the security screeners my passport (where you have to unload your laptop etc and pass through the scanners).

Not once. And yet when searched they just (all but one time) assigned a female officer based on presentation.

Can you explain how a man saying 'I'm a woman' changes any psychological/biological/characteristic about them, what does it change exactly?

It seems we need a reminder on every few pages :

No male can ever experience life as a woman. They can only ever experience life as a male person who believes they are a woman.

Even when they 'act' like a woman, they are acting as they believe a 'woman' should act. Which is fucking misogynistic!

Even if they are treated 'as a woman' by some people, they are being treated as a 'male who presents as a woman and believes they are a woman'. Because their every reaction is based on that. Not on them being female in any way.

Even when they have extreme body modifications, it is to be their own concept of what a female looks like to them. It is not what a female is.

How can it be?

The only way a person can experience life as a woman, is to have a female body, formed around the production of large gametes, even if it doesn't produce those and to navigate their life based on the decisions they and society makes that revolve around them having that body.

A male can conceptualise what it might be like to be a female, but that is all it ever is - their concept of being female.

They may do it because they don't feel they fit into how they conceptualise how a male person interacts with the world (ie. their own stereotypes around being male) or they do it because they want to be seen as a female (using their own stereotypes of how a female navigates life). It really doesn't matter though. Their motivation is irrelevant to the outcome. And I consider the outcome can only be described as misogyny.

Which is that they will always be just a male who believes they are something they are objectively not.

How can the material reality be any different? This is why someone's gender is only based on someone's philosophical belief. And philosophical beliefs are fine for people to hold, but not one person in the UK has to comply with another's philosophical belief.

The logic cannot be any different than that I am afraid.

So let me ask you this question: "Are you a woman?"

I can: yes, because I have a female body.

If I "understood myself to be a man" I'd simply be mistaken.

Great explanation

Well done. You just achieved what you said you could not. You understand yourself to be a woman.

As to the constant denial that being transgender is not based on philosophical belief, transgender support groups and transgender academics who are experts in the topic have made it very clear that it is NOT A MEDICAL CONDITION.

And if it not a medical condition it can only be a philosophical belief.

I really don’t understand why some posters persist in trying to say otherwise.

How can you diagnose being ‘Neptunian’ gender, genderfluid or even non-binary identities? What is the biological conditions of a human body that shows results (and what results) for these genders?

And if it not a medical condition it can only be a philosophical belief.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Being pregnant is also not considered a "medical condition", does that mean it can only be a philosophical belief??

I am a woman because I was born a girl and grew to adulthood. That's the only way to be a woman.I have a body which was formed around the production of large gametes - eggs - not small gametes - sperm.

I don't 'feel like' a woman, because woman isn't a feeling. I don't 'identify as' a woman, because woman isn't an identity. I don't 'experience myself' as a woman, because woman isn't an experience. I don't 'understand myself to be' a woman, because being a woman doesn't require understanding. If I had a catastrophic head injury and was no longer capable of understanding anything, I'd still be a woman. It's just a biological unchangeable fact.

You don't seem to understand.
The pretense is pretending to be a woman when you are a man.

"Being trans" is the state of being that leads you to do the above. What that is, exactly, I don't know. But you don't either.

There's nothing transphobic about it.

I am a woman

I don't 'understand myself to be' a woman

Make it make sense.... 😜

I thought gender dysphoria was considered to be a medical condition (albeit one without a current known cure.)

Well done. You just achieved what you said you could not. You understand yourself to be a woman.

I know I'm a woman.

The point is I couldn't "understand myself" to be anything else. Because I'm female.

Ok so we agree then that being trans is a "state of being?"

So then it's not something that you believe, but rather something that you are.

Correct?

It is an observable function of the human body. It is also a condition of the human body that impacts the health of that human body.

It is also testable.

Please list the tests and these test’s outcomes for having a transgender identity?

Well done. You just achieved what you said you could not. You understand yourself to be a woman.

Yes, due to physical evidence. Said evidence is lacked by anyone who thinks they understand themselves to not be the sex they were born as.

How doesn't what I said make sense?

I don't understand myself to be a woman, I just am one. I'm not required to have any understanding in order for that fact to be a fact. As I said, if I was incapable of any understanding at all, I'd still be a woman. It's like saying I understand myself as a person with lungs, it's a not a thing which requires understanding, it's just a biological reality. It's really not hard.

It is not a state of being except only exists in that person’s mind.

Just because they may change their body, that doesn’t change their sex in any way.

I think you are having trouble with basic understanding