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?

aha, I understand that, but is it because they associate body parts with gender roles?

Sorry, not "they"; rather, the patriarchy would have us associate gender roles with body parts

Ok. For me, I am sometimes uncomfortable disagreeing with you. In fact, often and have a good think afterwards. At other times, I am more comfortable. This issue I am more comfortable, through friend's experiences, and some professional experiences. But it's the internet, with bursts of prose writing which doesn't reflect real life interraction.

if that's the 'last word' on that, then that's it!

Transgender people believe that they are really a man or a woman although their body is of a different sex.

But what causes them to believe that?

They believe that they feel like a man or woman or girl or boy. Sometimes they describe it as just a feelinga nd sometimes in terms of stereotypical gender roles e.g. although everyone told me i was a boy, i never wanted to play football like the other bots. I only wanted to play with dolls and the other girls and I wanted to wear pretty dresses like them.

If you look on the internet for trans people's stories, this kind of stereotypical narrative comes up again and again.

So in other words, it's a result of gender roles, which need deconstructing.

I think so yes.

Thank you, madwoman, for your elucidation at 20:53 (rape counselling thing) :)

I have the impression the 'wrong sex' dysphoria goes far deeper than not wanting to play with guns and liking Barbie. We all know kids choose their own interests, which are certainly not guaranteed to fir gender stereotypes. There's loads of discussion in here about stereotyped toys & play expectations, and we always agree that children choose a wider range of activities if left free to express their own interests.

It would be disingenuous to claim that gender stereotyping causes gender dysphoria. I was a "tomboy" - and had the added incentive of parents who preferred my brother - but never doubted my sex. People who've suffered it describe a deep-seated conviction that their physical identity is wrong; that there's been a mix-up at the most basic level. I think it's very belittling to reduce this to superficial preferences; I'd rather suppose those stories are desperate attempts to explain something which is unimaginable to the majority of people.

Some of my British friends have very fluid gender identity. They are mostly, but not all, born male. They don't 'change sex' but express their more-male and more-female sides (going by appearance, manner and sexuality) in whichever way feels right to them at the time. The one thing they all have in common is parents who never constrained, ridiculed or doubted them. They are all, also, talented and confident: successful in their fields. That's probably due to the parental support.

As I keep saying, I'm quite depressed by sex/gender polarisation. When it shows up as strongly in feminism as it does in patriarchy, I diverge from feminist thought. Luckily, feminism in my day seemed more welcoming to other non-standard-male persons than it now appears.

Elephants, I'm not sure that better or different Treatment is needed to bring down the suicide rate tbh. That would suggest the suicide rate is high because of the gender dysphoria itself, rather than the fact they live in fear of getting the crap beaten out of them every time they leave the house. Or if not being physically or verbally attacked, fearing the same of they don't 'pass'. Or having to deal with endless mn threads about how they are all forcing themselves into spaces they aren't wanted.

Completely understandable that in a society where trans are mocked and ridiculed at best, that surgery doesn't provide a magic 'fix', and they might experience a sense of disappointment that they still can't live in peace, even after jumping through all of the socially constructed hoops to get the surgery in the first place.

Nyac - I think it's rather that extreme rad fems are viscerally opposed to more liberal feminists, tbh. Even going to far as to not recognise them as feminists at all. A lot of the rad fem blogs make me distinctly uncomfortable, but that doesn't mean that I don't support their existence. Women need rad fems in the same way that trans need extreme trans activists.

I said somewhere (but the threads keep getting deleted) that I am absolutely a feminist, but that where there is more than one oppressed group in the picture, I have to try to balance my sense of fairness. I can't be as single minded as the rad fems, and prioritise women's rights, when to do so could be damaging to another group that is equally affected by the patriarchy. In those situations, my gut feeling is that we should be working together.

As an aside, whilst I was tootling into the city today with dd1, I remembered that I have actually been banned from a trans only safe space due to my birth gender. this made me chuckle a bit, as at the time it didn't bother me at all, and i hadn't even remembered. My male colleague was going to be allowed in, but as a born woman, my presence wasn't deemed suitable. funny old world.

I take your point that the suicide rate may be high because basically a lot of Trans people can't pass and so are treated as freaks and attacked, etc. If you read stories of people who regret having sex changes a lot say that they now recognise that they can't change sex and that surgery and hormones have made them into an it rather than a man or a women i.e. neither man or woman.

So I take your point that it doesn't mean the gender dysphoria isn't real. But surely it means for those who will not be able to pass that surgery and hormones are a questionable treatment?

I know it is not the world we live in in Britain, but I would really like to be able to see people with gender dysphoria accepted as a third sex.

Also wanted to say that the rights of disadvanatged groups do sometimes clash. For example, orthodox muslims and gay people. And I think the issue is that the rights of Trans people and those who want women only space (usaully women suffering trauma such as rape or DV or women in spaces where they will be undressed or semi naked such as changing rooms and communal showers as well as safe space for lsebians) do clash here. And when rights clash, the people involved do have to take sides.

After all I have never seen women involved in say rape crisis centres organise to keep Trans people out of stuff such as general work, housing, mixed public spaces, it is only where rights clash with those of vulnerable women. And that is why I don't think trhere is an easy solution to this.Because ultimately it means some vulnerable group is not going to be happy.

Would it fair, then, to say that your objection against MtF transgendered people accessing (born) women-only spaces is that you feel they are not, in fact, "women" and ought to stick to exclusive third-sex places rather than try to find a home amongst women or men? And, further, that you feel their attempts to find comfort amongst women is misguided?

If so, that's a hard one to crack.

Yes that is fair to say garlic. I don't think they are woman. And no I don't think there is an easy solution to this.

.

Name changed for this because I don't want to identify anybody. I am slightly involved with a rape crisis centre that has historically been women only. It has started to provide support to men (on a different day and in a different part of a shared building so the support to women remains women only).

The centre has transwomen clients. They are seen on another day - separate from the other women clients. Many of the women clients would not access services if they had to share space with people with penises whether they identified as women or not. The transwomen clients would not want to share space with men. This way everyone who needs help gets it, which is the aim of the service.

This is clearly a compromise that some transactivists would be very unhappy about (the transwomen are just given appointment times not told that they are seperate from the times when most women come). But I think any of the alternatives would be worse and would involve some people not accessing services.

I've been reading a lot of on-line debates on this issue and the language is often very polarised with some pretty horrible things said by both sides. I've been at conferences where women were shouted down for wanting to discuss child-birth or refusing to say 'women and men who need abortions' and accused of excluding transwomen/menbut most transpeople i know wouldnt do that. I think accusations of transphobia ARE thrown around a bit too readily by some activists. Equally I've heard some very hurtful things said about transomen, but most feminists, even radfems who dont accept transwomen as women politically would treat any transwoman they met politely.

I can see that if you take either the radfem or transactivists position to their logical conclusion then compromise is impossible. But most of us live in the space between logical conclusions on anything. We come up with a compromise like the one above that can work.

I can see that your compromise would work well and that is great. Just that compromise is not always possible. What about a support group for women born women around sexual abuse. You can't reach a compromise if women want to keep that women only and Transexuals want to access it. Although I agree wherever possible a compromise is great.

refusing to say 'women and men who need abortions'

Sorry, but

On the other hand - how hard is it to say 'people who need abortions'?

yy falling

and elephants

and garlic

Isn't this all the point?

That it is really difficult, so one has to keep talking and trying out different solutions with loving-kindness and goodwill?

But why a third sex?
The entire gender hoo ha is the cause of all the bother. All of it.

And there is enough inconsistency and discord within the trans community concerning identity without yet more external oppression and dictation about they are supposed to think and feel being dumped on top.

Falling is absolutely right. The polarised debate can only be resolved with compromise on both sides. And that doesn't look terribly possible on mn, does it? Unless the 'compromise' looks like 'well, we don't want them and men don't, so we'll both ostracise them'. The insistence that trans need an 'other' identity because we don't want them messing with ours makes me feel very uneasy.

It's really hard. If the only trans (that you know) you have ever met are shouting you down in a conference, then compassion must be pretty hard to dig up. I suspect if some of these much loved sons get to 20 and decide to transition, then compassion might be easier to find. You'd have to be pretty hardcore to have a weeping child telling you they just want to fit in and feel normal, and still maintain 'well, you're not. You're a third sex. Completely different. Don't think you can fit in anywhere, you don't. But you can use the third sex toilets so you don't upset anyone, and make sure we all know you're different so the bozos know who to beat up. Sorry darling. Suck it up.'

A few posters have touched, very delicately, on parallels with racial discrimination. I do have to say that whilst I have sympathy with the desire for (born) women-only spaces, it inexorably reminded me of Enoch Powell's infamous 1968 speech (here it is), I'm afraid the Torygraph was the only full transcript I managed to dig up).

Just as the argument here is that women may be upset at knowing they are sharing a space with women who used to be men, Mr Powell's constituents felt threatened by black immigrants, because they were, you know, black and, like, immigrated innit. Powell's solution was to subject them to fewer immigrants. OK, I believe people's feelings should be respected and validated and all that, but sometimes the feelings are irrational and so they should be helped, not to get their way (ie not having to share their street with black people, or their book club with a woman who used to be a man), but to overcome their fears/dislikes. Otherwise we'd have ditched every non-white person in the country just in case someone who had once been knocked on the head by a black person - admittedly a very justifiable basis for fear/dislike - was alarmed at the sight of other black people who are not violent criminals. The problem is not with the presence of what upsets you, but with your upset, understandable though it may be.

As someone fairly gently said a lot earlier on this thread (and you'll excuse me for not scrolling back to check who or precisely what they said, it took long enough to get to this page): if you have been raped it may be understandable if you feel uncomfortable in the presence of people with penises, but it by no means implies that everyone who has a penis is going to rape you. Rationally, you know they're not. What you need is help in overcoming the irrational element of your fear (and far more rigorous elimination of rapists!) rather than to be isolated from every human being who possesses the equipment with which he might sexually assault you. If you've been hit by someone you won't find much joy trying to avoid people with arms for the rest of your life. We might sympathise greatly with your trauma, but the solution needs to be realistic.

Oh, just one objection to the proposal for communal toilet facilities: men's bogs are usually far smellier. I don't know whether the reason is biological or societal but that's my main objection to sharing one. (I share my house with three young men who don't make my toilets reek at all. Am guessing therefore it is not biological.)

Bah, failed on the brackets, thought I was so smart. Well at least the link turned out like a link.

It isn't all compassion for other people though, is it? If I had the most compassion in the world, and told trans women that I identified with them, and considered myself to be in every way like them, it would be a lie.

What is the point of pretending to share an identity with somebody? Why should I pretend to have an identity that I don't have?

I am not talking about basic things like people choosing their own pronouns and being polite to people. If I had a neighbour who considered themselves trans gendered or cis gendered, I would be polite to them in the same way that I would be polite to somebody who expressed a religious or political belief that I didn't believe. But I'm not going to pretend to share their view if they ask me about it, or pretend to share an identity with them when I don't.

There is simply no analogy to this situation because no other identity group has ever insisted that it gets to define the identity of other people.