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?

It it everyone’s ‘circus’ who cares about women’s rights and equality of opportunity. Politics affect all of us, it is everyone’s business and the op has the right to question such absurdity.

Ah there it is - the very charm that keeps so many of us away from the feminist threads. Winning hearts and minds as always, no doubt.

Failing to engage with the actual arguments and just calling us all a bunch of meanies won’t wash anymore.

Creating a legal fiction is always wrong.

For a lot of the AGPs of course they keep their penis, it's a fetish.

It's difficult to see how key issues facing society will ever be resolved whilst there are people who claim to care/be interested in an issue but fail to engage in it in good faith.

Essentially, there are thousands of different ways to classify people (hair colour, place of birth, vegetarian/meat eating etc.). People can be classified as being one of two sexes (even those with DSDs/intersex conditions). They can also be classified by their gender identity (or which there are many, and some people don't have one).

Views about when and why we may or may not want to apply these classifications differ. Some people don't want to be classified a certain way (this applies to both sex and gender identity). Some try and address this by arguing the case, others simply change the definition of the classification to try and swerve explanation/justification - which is often accompanied by a refusal to discuss the issues at hand or a suggestion that trans people exist and this can't be denied. Trans people do exist and, like everyone, can be classified according to their sex or their gender identity.

I get that it is difficult, even distressing, for trans people to have to face the facts that their natal sex matters in some contexts, even though they don't want it to.

When doing the grocery shop, or participating in an open book club, males and females should be welcomed, and there should not be different expectations about how they present themselves (their clothes, make up etc.) as this is irrelevant to the task at hand. When providing a changing room, or a support group for females who have been raped, entry should be determined by natal sex, not identity. People suggesting this is hateful are conflating 'upsetting for some' with hate. In doing so, they are causing more, and avoidable, upset to trans people.

Sex- segregated provision is both inclusive and excluding. Creating a female only category in sport is inclusive as it enables women to participate in meaningful competition and without it men would always
win. It is also excluding as it excludes males, which can be upsetting for some. To say this is hateful is absurd. To suggest that discussion about this need to be hidden away in a corner of the site as they are so disturbing is ridiculous, and I would argue, causes more harm than good.

If people who think posters are hate fuelled when they challenge or question the appropriateness of a natal male (with or without a functioning penis) having a passport which states they are female, they need to look again at the reasons being provided. The majority of objections are not based on hatred. Many do suggest that the upset caused to people with trans identities doesn't justify eradicating classification by natal sex in specific instances. They see this upset as avoidable (the ends justifies the means), they do not want to 'eradicate trans people', they are willing to afford trans people equal respect as they go about their daily lives, and want them to have the same rights as everyone else.

There are solutions that would allow trans people to fully participate in society on an equal footing as everyone else. However, activists are harming their cause by holding out for gender identity being a trump card that places some natal males within the category natal female.

This isn't on the feminist board so I'm not sure what your point is apart from trying to make everyone else responsible for the way you feel.

You voluntarily posted on a thread you did not need to open to complain that you didn't like these types of threads and now you're bothered about my lack of charm.

You have contributed zero of substance or value but still expect respect. Grow up.

All your messages sound like is that you are trying to silence and gaslight. I don’t see any ‘frothing’ just genuine concern. And what has ‘charm’ got to do with it? I prefer honesty.

I would never want to see any group of people discriminated against and I support the right of anyone to wear a dress/make-up and to call them by their chosen name. I don’t have hate for anyone. But sex is binary, whether you like it or not. Being a women is a biological fact, one that actually comes with a lot of disadvantages in terms of size and strength. We live in a patriarchal society where women are murdered every week usually at the hands of men. Women have valid concerns for wanting to retain single sex spaces and women only sports. If you can’t see that then you’re being wilfully ignorant.

Garbage.

Hi.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/transgender-applications

They leave it up to anyone who is transgender to add previous names to the DBS application forms, and to make the call to the Trans Hotline to declare their past history. Which means all those [redacted] guys who get suspended sentences after being convicted just need to change their name, not declare it and the new name won't be linked to the old name so unless someone at a school for example knows the person they will pass any DBS check.

And who can be transgender?

Why, anyone who says they are.

You have to be joking

"I would never want to see any group of people discriminated against and I support the right of anyone to wear a dress/make-up and to call them by their chosen name. I don’t have hate for anyone. But sex is binary, whether you like it or not. Being a women is a biological fact, one that actually comes with a lot of disadvantages in terms of size and strength. We live in a patriarchal society where women are murdered every week usually at the hands of men. Women have valid concerns for wanting to retain single sex spaces and women only sports. If you can’t see that then you’re being wilfully ignorant."

This.

I recognise that a similar paragraph could be written about the plight of transwomen, because they also need spaces that protect them from men who cause harm. The solution for females is the creation of male free provision, but these protections vanish if/when males are allowed in to female spaces for any reason (including their gender identity). We shouldn't need to remove or dilute protections for females to accommodate a subset of males. All men deserve protection from men that harm. It would be far more fruitful to focus on how to deliver this, rather than labelling women hateful.

Again, not your circus.

Actually this should be every woman's 'circus'. Infact it should be everyone's.
We should care that biological men can be relabelled as women and that biological women should have to accept these people in their safe spaces, in their sports, recorded as their crimes, etc.

I have absolutely no issue with someone wearing what they want, being called whatever name they want, and I don't really have much issue with using a preferred pronoun. I do have some issues with the other aspects of this whole thing though.

It's for the wider security reasons, not to do with sitting on a plane.

I've never been asked to show my passport to verify my sex at an airport. Have you?

No, but I’ve never needed to be strip-searched, for example. Sex matters sometimes.

I've never been asked to show my passport to verify my sex at an airport. Have you?

No, but I've never had to have a more intimate search or had issues abroad where my sex has been a factor.

I have been selected for a general wand search and pat down, which is done by a member of the same sex, as they pat down, and therefore touch. your thighs and chest area I'd rather have a women doing the pat down.

"I've never been asked to show my passport to verify my sex at an airport. Have you?"

I think the significance of having 'female' as a marker on a passport is that it emboldens male holders to use, and feel justified in using, single sex provision that is for females only.

Activists have worked hard to undermine boundaries that females seek to create within female only provision and services, and passports are another tool in their toolkit. They have tried to bring the term 'assigned male' into common parlance, rather than natal male. They try and suggest that female only provision is ridiculous as it cannot be policed because genital inspections will never be permitted. However, many laws are self policing (e.g. not driving whilst under the influence of alcohol) - work on the basis that if caught you will be punished and the expectation that you don't do it.

And there definitely are serious issues arising from it and all countries with Self ID but the stats are not being kept accurately to show this. Biological sex and gender identity are consistently confused so that they are reported as female crimes. In addition, the women most at risk from these trans identifying men are prisoners, have experienced DV etc and are particularly voiceless in society.

Well we obviously know your point of view on it don’t we. Unless of course you’d like to elaborate on the absurdity of another persons life and choices that are nothing to do with you.

They aren't 'nothing to do with you', though, that's the problem. If the category 'women' now means 'people of either sex who feel like women' instead of 'adult human female', it affects all of us. Because we now have no word to describe that group of people who used to be described by the word woman. And if you can't say what a woman is, how do you have women only spaces, like hospital wards, changing rooms and rape crisis centres? How do you have women's sports, or other opportunities? How do you teach girls that they can be whoever they are, be into cars or boxing or join the fire service, if the word woman now means someone who wears dresses and heels?

If you want to be a man and wear makeup, change your name, take up knitting, I don't care. But if you decide that doing those things makes you a woman, then yes it does affect me and all women and the fact that you think men should be able to redefine what the word woman even means shows me that you think what men want is the important thing and women should just shut up and move over and give up their own, often hard fought for, stuff, to make men happy.

No thank you.

This is a great podcast delving into the issues self id is causing in Limerick women's prison

paddyspodcast.ie/episodes-3/

Well it will become my business if, for example, I'm arrested for a crime and need to have a personal body search and a fully functioning male bodied 'women' police officer arrives to to the search. Now if I was a patient in hospital I could refuse smear tests etc from a trans nurse/doctor. I may then be booted out of the hospital and refused treatment but I would still have the choice not to be naked in this person's presence. If I was a prisoner, I would have no choice but to comply. I think police forces have been trying themselves up in knots over this.

"Well we obviously know your point of view on it don’t we. Unless of course you’d like to elaborate on the absurdity of another persons life and choices that are nothing to do with you."

Lots of people are oblivious to the issues relating to how some 'life choices' open up the category 'woman' to some males. They hold in mind a plethora of situations where a persons sex is irrelevant. When presented with contexts that involve nudity or strength most then claim 'but that is different'. Here, they usually recognise that these are the exceptions and suggest trans woman are woman in all instances other than these. More often than not, it doesn't get this far as they accuse people of hatred and transphobia. I think some do this as they know they can't defend their position. I think others do it because they are scared of entertaining thoughts that are construed by some to be transphobic

Completely agree with the sentiment of the thread re the legal and word madness etc.

However as a 6 foot 1 plus size woman (actual adult human female) I hate it when this term is used to demonstrate the non-passing nature of transwomen/agp men.

Women (AHF) come in all shapes, sizes and heights - it's already hard enough being a tall large woman without it constantly being mentioned as a characteristic of the non-women ness of these men.

Well the other thing trans allies do is then claim that person (ie trans rapist whatstheirname) isn't really trans (!!!) Genuine trans people are just going about their business not bothering anyone (in fairness I think most are) and so terfs are just using someone who isn't even really trans to try to prove a point.