Transwoman on women's ward

[Sallycinnamum]

Had a minor gynae procedure today but nevertheless was very anxious leading up to it.

Was wheeled back to the day ward to be greeted quite literally (started waving at me) by a transwoman in the bed opposite me.

There was no doubt he was a man and being completely immobile due to a spinal anaesthetic with no underwear on I asked the nurse to completely close the curtains so he couldn't look directly at me.

Spoke to a nurse who confirmed it wasn't a mixed ward.

I am so upset. I felt so vulnerable especially as I couldn't walk so had to pee into a bedpan in clear earshot of him.

I've emailed PALS but I feel so bloody fed up of it all. Had a man next to me in the M&S lingerie changing rooms a few weeks ago and was made to feel like a total bigot when I complained to the staff.

So, a study with a sample size of 72 people, which didn't include any female trans people, and which suggested that trans women are still more like other men than they are like women?

<slow hand clap>

Also pretty much irrelevant given that almost no trans people are actually getting their brains scanned.

So when they did that study, which is I think the one that was debunked, they were testing male brains against female brains, amd found that transwomen still didn’t have the same brains as women. I wonder how they defined the women they were using as control subjects. I mean, if no one can define what a woman is, how could they know they were comparing TW to women?

Because they do in fact know what a woman is and what a man is. And that study is a load of guff.

Yup. That’s the one I was meaning had been debunked. And which proves the hypocrisy of the TRA.

What did they mean by "significantly more female than cisgender men"? It reads like they're saying there are noted differences in brain chemistry.

It's the one situation in your life where you have an emergency button right next to you.

I didn't have an emergency button when I was last in hospital, which was last year. There was a button I could press to call for help if I needed it but, as I discovered, you could press and press it and you might be lucky if someone came along to check on your after 10-15 minutes. Much of the time the call went unheeded and patients had to try and sort each other out. And of course the elderly, or those on morphine, or people groggy from a GA, or who've had a stroke or broken limbs or major surgery aren't able to react quickly.

Talk about revealing how little understanding you have of the reality of life on a hospital ward.

I'm guessing they used the biological classification. From what I'm reading the trans lobby seem to be trying to dismiss biology as being the deciding factor.

If I was a predatory man intending to assault a woman in her hospital bed I would first move the call button out of her reach

I've just googled to try and find an article debunking it but could only find one from a gender critical site. There's also a study from the European Society of Endocrinology which says “Although more research is needed, we now have evidence that sexual differentiation of the brain differs in young people with GD, as they show functional brain characteristics that are typical of their desired gender".

Either way, I don't think it's an argument for self ID or any of that stuff but I'd not be surprised if there was some biological basis behind the way some people feel. Although definitely in a lot of young people it does seem to be a bit of a trend like the 'neurodivergent' TikTok fad of recent years with teens faking tics in their videos.

Those scores put men with a trans identity firmly within the male range. The 'cis' male range is 0.59 to 1.41. Men who identified as trans had a mean score of 0.75. The top of the 'cis' female range was 0.41.

A marginally less 'manly' man is still a man, not a woman.

I wonder what the "functional brain characteristics that are typical of their desired gender" were.

I also thought it was refuted that there were 'male' and 'female' brains? I'm sure it was Transgender Trend that wrote an article on the myth of pink and blue brains. Personally, I would've thought that there must be some marked differences if not just because of hormones. Testosterone for example is known to influence the fight or flight mechanism in the brain.

I wonder what the "functional brain characteristics that are typical of their desired gender" were.

Indeed. Thousands of measures to choose - which ones are picked as determinants of 'brain sex' can give very different results.

And there are huge changes in brains according to what they do. (See the taxi driver experiments, in which those who've done the Knowledge have an enormous growth in the 'maps and navigation area' that then shrinks back to near average again after they retire.) So men who do 'typical women things' will develop 'more womany' brains - effect, not cause.

Even if we assume for a minute that at some point scientists will discover that there is in fact a key brain marker which shows which people are trans, it doesn't actually change anything at a societal level. It may lead to better treatments for trans people, which would be great. But our society is divided (when necessary) based on physical/reproductive sex. I use the female changing rooms because my body is smaller, weaker, penis-less, not inclined to sexually assault other people etc etc. Whether I enjoy watching boxing or ballet is not relevant to where I get changed.

Well, yeah, men should still use the men's changing room. But I see a lot of people on here claiming that the majority of transwomen are middle aged perverts/crossdressers and I'm not sure how true this really is (it could be!).

Whatever the truth is, I think if you have a penis between your legs then I don’t really want to see it in my changing room. But apparently men’s rights always trump women’s rights/safety and wishes so…🧐

Oh well that makes it all okay then 🙄 I wonder why the woman who was raped by a trans woman didn’t press her red button then to prevent it 🙄 What a stupid comment.

Honestly, I don’t understand at all how any man can live as a woman, think he’s a woman, when he has a fully functioning penis and uses it for it’s purpose (other than urinating). Blows my mind that society doesn’t see this 🤷‍♀️

Not according to the law!

Young people who identify as trans and wish to 'change sex' (impossible, obviously) are also very likely, according to Cass, to be autistic and/or have various MH issues including eating disorders such as anorexia. Do autism and MH issues show up visibly in the brain? I'm a complete ignoramus on these things. No idea, just wondering.

No. They’ve searched for years and differences are minimal. The best they’ve managed is a multi-genetic marker but that’s not exactly the diagnostic tool they’d hoped.

Thanks. I know that anorexia can have a massive effect on cognitive function and thinking skills, wondered whether that might create visible differences.

That's interesting. I've defo read before that a lot of trans identifying teens are autistic.

According to some research (although there is much debate) homosexuality is possibly influenced by in utero development. For instance it's been suggested that if a man's brain isn't subjected to as much testosterone then there is less of the innate drive towards opposite sex attraction. That's why I find it interesting to consider the potential effect on transgenderism.

I also find myself wondering what it is that causes people not to question homosexuality in the same way as gender dysphoria. Forgetting about toilets etc for a minute, I think it's safe to say that very few people consider homosexuality as a mental illness, even before we had any idea of what caused it (we still don't know really).

Why is this?

Why is a non default sexual identity much more acceptable than a non default gender identity?

And why do so many lesbians adopt masculine personas and gay men adopt feminine personas?

People certainly did consider homosexuality to be a mental illness for quite a long period of time — for example between the 1860s and approx. 1960s.

Homosexuality doesn’t involve claiming to be something you’re not, though. “Transgender” requires both a concept of “gender” (as distinct from sex), and also the idea that the body can or should be changed to fit into the metaphysical concept of “gender”. Whereas until recently people really only believed in sex, as a material fact. If you fervently wished to be the opposite sex, this was taken as an indication of homosexuality, or just not fitting into social convention.

What is now called “Transgender” used to have two forms in the late twentieth century: transsexuals and transvestites. Transsexuals were considered to have a rare and unique mental illness; they were most often same-sex attracted, and desired to “become” women so as to have sex with men. The few who were already married to women and wanted to remain so, like Jan Marsh, were considered most unusual.

Transvestites were widely agreed to have a sexual fetish involving women’s clothing, especially underwear; and largely to be straight men with a fetish. Women concerned about transvestite husbands used to be reassured (for example by counsellors, or agony aunts), that such a fetish did NOT actually mean their husband was a transsexual or really wanted to be a woman — far from it.

A fetish, however, was and still isn’t considered “normative” sexuality by psychologists and psychoanalysts. Instead, it’s a form of erotic displacement or fixation, caused by an arrest or disruption of normal sexual development. Whilst not relatively unusual, a fetish wasn’t and still isn’t considered particularly sexually healthy, especially if it interferes with developing and maintaining healthy adult relationships. So whilst not a mental illness per se, a fetish isn’t quite “normal” sexuality; and certainly becoming consumed by one’s fetishes to the detriment of one’s normal life can be considered a form of mental illness.

Homosexuality doesn’t involve claiming to be something you’re not, though. “Transgender” requires both a concept of “gender” (as distinct from sex), and also the idea that the body can or should be changed to fit into the metaphysical concept of “gender”. Whereas until recently people really only believed in sex, as a material fact. If you fervently wished to be the opposite sex, this was taken as an indication of homosexuality, or just not fitting into social convention.

Yes, I defo feel like the sticking point for trans ideology is the fact that humans can't change sex. So in material terms they're not women as they claim, which undermines their credibility for many.

However, it's not impossible that both homosexuality and transgenderism arise from a developmental condition that subverts the standard impulses usually observed in that sex. The homosexual man feels the sexual orientation of a woman and the transgender man feels orientated to women in other ways.

The studies that have found transwomen to have brains more similar to women than other men do (even accounting for the diversity between individuals of both sexes) possibly support this hypothesis.

They could both feel more aligned with the opposite sex for developmental reasons and it's just a physicality that prevents the TW from manifesting their 'femininity' because they want to change sex rather than just embrace a female sexuality. But the physicality of a male body doesn't necessarily negate a cognitive makeup which is somewhat closer to women than the typical man's brain is. .

In effect the TW identifies as a woman whilst the homosexual man just acts in a feminine manner and manifests a feminine sexuality. Like how one person may identify as a cat whilst the other just walks around on all fours and meows.

I'd find it less confounding if homosexual individuals acted exactly the same as other members of their sex aside from their choice of sexual partners but they don't. Lesbians often have masculine haircuts, dress in a masculine fashion, and have butch demeanors whilst gay men often have camp mannerisms and gravitate towards female friend groups, etc etc.

Apologies if it sounds like I'm casually debating the lived experience of gay people/being insensitive. I'm just trying to view it through the same lens we use to examine trans ideology

The homosexual man feels the sexual orientation of a woman

Women can be attracted to either sex so I'm not sure this is a very strong point.