New Trans thread as requested by HQs.

[oilfilledlamp]

Please forgive the intrusion but I've been out tonight and only recently got back. I wanted to respond to MadWomanintheattic earlier when she posted

"If I were an mtf trans (pre op or post op) the last place I'd want to fetch up is in a women's refuge, because of the potential for making other people feel ill at ease. But nothing is clear cut, really.

How often does this happen, really? Has there been any research into prevalence and motivation?

Did you Kritiq? Would you say more about it? It is fascinating.

Oh, yes, sorry, I see. That is what I was trying to say, that black can eb an identity.
I'm sorry, I will bow out as this is going over my head. It is interesting, though.

I don't know in terms of men and FTMs, interesting point. Maybe we could ask Fathers 4 Justice for their view?

Radical feminists don't believe that being female or male is based on a feeling. Male and female are based on 2 things.

1. Sex - this is basically the body we are born with. I am born with a female body, so I have a female sex.

1. Gender: These are the roles men and women are pressured by society into playing. So as a woman I am supposed to care more about the house, my blooks and shopping for example than men. I might reject that, but society still pressures us into particular roles and punishes us if we step outside of those. Look at the ridicule in the press female celebs get if they put on weight for example.

So based on this, how can someone born in a man's body claim to be a woman? How would he know what a woman feels like, especially when many women just say they feel like people and not particularly like a woman.

Hully, I can't really explain it. I can't remember a time when I didn't "know" I was in the wrong place and I'm not sure how or when I worked out where the right place was. My parents thought it was just a phase - didn't stand in my way, but didn't financially or otherwise support me. It's easiest just to blame the Bay City Rollers really.

Of course I believe you HugeManatee - I wish I didn't :(

How interesting Kritiq! I know a couple of people from Australia who've always wanted to come to the UK and feel much more at home here (possibly a result of post-colonial conditioning?) but nothing as extreme as your case!

Yes, I know what radical feminists believe about gender... and certainly I agree that gender as performed around us is highly socialised and people are subjected to a vast amount of pressure to behave in a gender-suitable way. I hate this and it's one of the things that makes me a feminist.

But - there are clearly a fair few people who feel from infancy that they were born in the wrong body, and feel much happier and at ease with themselves when they've transitioned. Rather than saying 'they must be delusional', I don't quite see why radical feminists, while by all means raising the various problematic issues re gender performance and same-sex spaces, can't admit that maybe there is something we don't know yet about what makes people feel the way they do.

What an interesting discussion. One thing that strikes me is that it seems many posters hold unconsciously white, female-centric views bordering on prejudice. I understand that, for a white feminist, this is possibly inevitable and arguably necessary. I'm highlighting a couple of things:-

I do believe there is a difference between the people who identify as trans who just want to live and let live and the small but extremely vocal trans activists whose policies I find deeply problematic and do reduce gender/sex to a binary

• Is exactly what people say about hardline feminists! "I do believe feminists have a point and I respect their need for women to live unmolested, but have a problem with the small but extremely vocal radical feminists whose policies reduce gender/sex to a binary". Most thinking feminists accept that all movements need their radicals to drive change, yet you don't respect the same principle for TGs?

For other clients, the fact she is Black and may have had quite a different life experience from them doesn't matter a jot.

• Doesn't matter a jot because we assume the clients are white? Black, female clients would likely prefer this counsellor due to her relevant life experience, no? So why approach this anecdote from the pov that her colour is a problem (or not). White therapists go for special training to understand issues that are specific to skin colour. What a pity you didn't see the black counsellor as advantaged in this respect.

Banging on again about Brazilian travestis - who are a significant part of the culture and can achieve positions of power, not exclusively in showbiz - here's an extract from this book (I found the book by googling; don't know anything about it or the author):-

Far from laying claim to a female subjectivity, there is a consensus among travestis that any biological male who claims to be a woman is psychologically unbalanced and in need of help.

• This is possible because Brazil acknowledges travestis as a third gender. I'm not saying their lives are without problems (they have very high suicide rates) and I don't know what happens in public changing facilities. I believe They are addressed in the feminine; no Brazilian mistakes them for woman or man. Here's wikipedia.

So I wonder if we need to stop being so hung up on binaries? Can't we accept that gender, colour, phenotype and everything else are spectrums?

This has helped me identify why I felt so much more at home there than here, actually. I'm pretty well-defined by colour and gender, but have a violent dislike of "othering". For all its problems, Brazil embraces human variety. Maybe we should do the same.

I believe They are addressed in the feminine
Failed deletion.

KRITIQ - I suppose the question is, if you had not been in a position to be able to jump through all the administrative hoops in order to naturalise, do you think that you should have been permitted to do so on the basis of your 'feeling' alone?

The majority view certainly is that you should not be permitted to change your nationality on the basis of wishes or feelings alone, even when your nationality can have a profound impact on your ability to choose where you live and work, and consequently how you provide for yourself or your family.

What do trans people actually need to do to be able to change their birth certificate etc following the 2004 Act? I can't believe they just go to the council office and say 'I feel like being a woman from now on, can you change my documents?'

I'm pretty well-defined by colour and gender, but have a violent dislike of "othering". Yep, garlic, I'm with you.

I didn't even post on the previous thread discussing trans issues (the one that got to 1000 posts) because the first thing I saw when I opened it was a thread talking about the characteristics of 'these people' (ie transpeople). In my experience 'these people' is a phrase that pretty much always prefaces a statement presenting a prejudiced generalisation as fact, whether it's about immigrants, poor people, gay people, transsexuals or any group the speaker wants to 'other'.

Accepting individuals and accommodating their beliefs, even if I find the underlying premises of those beliefs insulting to me as a feminist, seems basic to me. But that doesn't mean that I don't get to disagree with these premises on a general level. Seeing this debate get shut down time after time (not just on MN), especially by people who seem to want to support a situation that benefits none of us, is misguided and I think this attitude will stop us as a society from making any progress with any side of the issue.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. And this, too actually:

Why is it in situations like this e.g. with Transgender people with male bodies in women only space, it is always women who are expected to make accommodations and just get over their feelings of unease. Why is it always women's feelings that are dismissed when they say they don't want to share a communal changing room with someone with a male body?

The whole problem with this debate and issue is that, effectively, MTF transgendered women and other women are expected to just duke it out to see whose preferences prevail, while the whole entrenched privilege that men enjoy is not addressed. Special interest group politics always ends up like this-the oppressed minorities fight one another for the meagre resources, public space or whatever available while the privileged group does not give up any more of its privilege.

That is why I think the radfem position of pushing the very hard (though rare) cases of transactivists acting against the interests of other women, and challenging society to consider definitions of womanhood, does have some merit, however much I deprecate some of the hostile-to-trans tone in whch it may be conducted. It really isn't just about saying women must accept trans women in all circumstances or be considered transphobic.

The case is presented to a Gender Recognition Panel.

Applications

(1)A person of either gender who is aged at least 18 may make an application for a gender recognition certificate on the basis of?
(a)living in the other gender, or
(b)having changed gender under the law of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom.
(2)In this Act ?the acquired gender?, in relation to a person by whom an application under subsection (1) is or has been made, means?
(a)in the case of an application under paragraph (a) of that subsection, the gender in which the person is living, or
(b)in the case of an application under paragraph (b) of that subsection, the gender to which the person has changed under the law of the country or territory concerned.
(3)An application under subsection (1) is to be determined by a Gender Recognition Panel.
(4)Schedule 1 (Gender Recognition Panels) has effect.
2Determination of applications

(1)In the case of an application under section 1(1)(a), the Panel must grant the application if satisfied that the applicant?
(a)has or has had gender dysphoria,
(b)has lived in the acquired gender throughout the period of two years ending with the date on which the application is made,
(c)intends to continue to live in the acquired gender until death, and
(d)complies with the requirements imposed by and under section 3.
(2)In the case of an application under section 1(1)(b), the Panel must grant the application if satisfied?
(a)that the country or territory under the law of which the applicant has changed gender is an approved country or territory, and
(b)that the applicant complies with the requirements imposed by and under section 3.
(3)The Panel must reject an application under section 1(1) if not required by subsection (1) or (2) to grant it.
(4)In this Act ?approved country or territory? means a country or territory prescribed by order made by the Secretary of State after consulting the Scottish Ministers and the Department of Finance and Personnel in Northern Ireland.
3Evidence

(1)An application under section 1(1)(a) must include either?
(a)a report made by a registered medical practitioner practising in the field of gender dysphoria and a report made by another registered medical practitioner (who may, but need not, practise in that field), or
(b)a report made by a [F1registered psychologist] practising in that field and a report made by a registered medical practitioner (who may, but need not, practise in that field).
(2)But subsection (1) is not complied with unless a report required by that subsection and made by?
(a)a registered medical practitioner, or
(b)a [F1registered psychologist],practising in the field of gender dysphoria includes details of the diagnosis of the applicant?s gender dysphoria.

(3)And subsection (1) is not complied with in a case where?
(a)the applicant has undergone or is undergoing treatment for the purpose of modifying sexual characteristics, or
(b)treatment for that purpose has been prescribed or planned for the applicant,unless at least one of the reports required by that subsection includes details of it.

(4)An application under section 1(1)(a) must also include a statutory declaration by the applicant that the applicant meets the conditions in section 2(1)(b) and (c).
(5)An application under section 1(1)(b) must include evidence that the applicant has changed gender under the law of an approved country or territory.
(6)Any application under section 1(1) must include?
(a)a statutory declaration as to whether or not the applicant is married [F2or a civil partner],
(b)any other information or evidence required by an order made by the Secretary of State, and
(c)any other information or evidence which the Panel which is to determine the application may require,and may include any other information or evidence which the applicant wishes to include.

(7)The Secretary of State may not make an order under subsection (6)(b) without consulting the Scottish Ministers and the Department of Finance and Personnel in Northern Ireland.
(8)If the Panel which is to determine the application requires information or evidence under subsection (6)(c) it must give reasons for doing so.

The link is here

Thanks hathor! Doesn't sound like you can pop out to do it in your lunchbreak...

But what does "living as the other gender" even mean? i can't see an answer to this without resorting to stereotypes.

That's the entire point, elephants. And trans have no choice but to try and inhabit a stereotype, or there is no legal recognition of their status.

It's frankly awful. The only way you can get legal protection is to perform femininity (or masc of you are ftm)

My friend was frightened to race her motorbike (and in fact gave up) because she was terrified that the professionals would rule she was not fulfilling the criteria of her RLE.

Garlic, perhaps I should have been more specific in describing the experience of my friend and former colleague who is a counsellor. The group practice she works in is within a middle to upper class area and the client group is almost exclusively white.

Thistledew, I have no idea whether I should have been allowed to act on my "feeling" had there not been a legal route for me to pursue this. As I said, I don't know if my experience is meaningfully transferable to the experience of a trans person, but in any case, there aren't legal impediments to them transitioning. Maybe there's a similarity with respect to having the resources to act on the feeling.

Someone who is wealthy and privileged can move practically anywhere in the world and probably pay lawyers to ensure they are able to become naturalised if that is what they want.

Similarly, someone who is wealthy and privileged and wants to transition medically or surgically will have the resources to do so. They will also have the resources to protect themselves from abuse and harassment in a way someone with fewer resources can't.

But, that's kind of taking the discussion off on a tangent really.

This is such a fascinating thread, and so much more enlightening than the horrible bunfights over the weekend.

I'm so grateful to LRD, SGM, elephants and EldritchCleavage for expressing so clearly the things I've been struggling to express on this topic.

On a personal level I'd never be deliberately rude to someone or exclude them based on their gender identity, but nevertheless I do think it's important to acknowledge the very real concerns that some women have about this issue. We have, after all, spent our entire lives struggling with male privilege and desperately trying to carve out spaces - often female-only - in which we feel respected and validated. To be told that our experience is meaningless and our desire for woman-only spaces is bigoted feels nightmarishly Kafka-esque to me. Think elephants' point about women being required to shed decades of very strong socialisation re. women-only toileting, washing and sleeping arrangements is also v powerful.

I also liked GarlicNutter's post about how to define 'woman'. IMO, women are people who have had girlhoods, gone through female puberty, lived a life in which they have been treated by society as female ? in good and bad ways. This is a huge part of female-ness. I would guess that a trans-woman's experience would be fundamentally different from mine in many important aspects (NOTE - in no way inferior, but massively different). And I want a word to describe my own experience, dammit (and I think that word is 'woman' or 'female'). I think that the right to use appropriate language to describe your own experience is fundamental.

Sorry I didn't see the other threads. Were people being abusive in them and awful?

Elephants - the other threads were vile. IMO.

celest - I totally agree with what you have written and I get tired, and I am not talking particularly about this discussion, of being told that as a woman my experience is meaningless.

No. On two of them they were. On one the discussion was actually even more polite and respectful than this one, but we were told it was being deleted because it was thread about a thread.

And then we were told to start another thread. which is what this is.

Well I am glad I didn't see them then.

Yes, the two threads were vile. The other one was not in any way.

but you mean born-women only spaces, celestina?