Following on from the TERF thread...

[CailinDana]

Trying to get my head straight on this. Surely the whole malarkey around transwomen wanting to be recognised as women even though they have penises will eventually actually help to break down the idea of gender?

What I mean is, if a person with a penis can be labelled a woman simply because they want to be labelled in that way, surely gender becomes meaningless as it tells you nothing meaningful about a person except perhaps the clothes they like to wear?

This is a half-formed thought, feel free to develop/challenge.

kim147 wrote - "It's amazing how many times we are asked if we are male or female. Even things where you would have thought it's not important - they ask. Why is it so important? Why do they need to ask so many times?"

Perhaps it's to enable the questioner to apply the patriarchally-determined "appropriate" level of discrimination.

feminists should stick out of what they think is best for trans people.

And why might that be?

Increasingly born women are seeking GRS because they are non gender compliant and attracted to women. Women are having body mutilating surgery as a reaction to lesbophobia, the rigidly enforced social construction of gender and rigidly enforced sexist stereotypes and harmful sexist cultural practices.

If that isn't a feminist issue I don't know what is...

So Beachcomber - would you deny me HRT and surgery?

I don't have the power to deny you anything Kim. Your question is a moot point and comes across as making this discussion aggressively personal.

If you are asking me if I agree with GRS, the answer is no, I absolutely do not. I think it is a medical scandal and a lie. I think it is a brutal body mutilating practice which consists of experimentation on human bodies and smacks of "playing god". I think it is a deeply misogynistic and homophobic practice and is teetering on eugenic. I think it breaks the Hippocratic oath and is negligent at best and a crime against a person's humanity at worst.

I know surgery does not just happen because I've had various family members who have waited a long time, in agony, and in some cases at risk of death or disability, for surgery.

As I have said, I don't know much about gender reassignment, but I would assume it involved counselling as it is such major treatment.

I'm not sure what this has to do with the thread, TBH.

I will also point out that self harm isn't, of itself, a psychological disorder.

Quite honestly - feminists should stick out of what they think is best for trans people.

..what? What? Have you not read or listened to anything on this thread? Did you not read what I said?

Kim, I've always taken you as a moderate, but now I'm not so sure.

You do know surgery just does not happen. It takes a very long time. You have plenty of time to think about it. Of course, chances are you might have killed yourself or self harmed yourself extensively by the time it's offered as the waiting times are so long.

But the (paltry) research that exists suggests that GRS does not resolve suicidal feelings long term. Which leads many of us to wonder if what we are dealing with here is a psychiatric/mental health issue which has nothing to do with male/female brains being born into the "wrong body" - particularly as the notion of the existence of "male" or "female" brains does not stand up to scrutiny.

IMO a person who is suicidal or self harming because they are not allowed body mutilating cosmetic surgery (or have to wait for it) needs extremely sensitive and careful mental health care.

Yes, of course I took that personally. I can see what you are trying to do, here, but since almost everyone has been quite, quite clear that they know it isn't all trans women - but it IS the visible trans women - who are putting forward the dangerous, misogynistic, homophobic ideas many of us object to, frankly it looks like you are just trolling.

OP, sorry I know I have added numerous links, but this is Daphna Joel explaining from a biological perspective, explaining why 3G sex exists (genes, gonads, genitals) and can define males and females, while male and female brain sex and gender identity is not real and should not matter. She then concludes that gender should be abolished in the way believing left handed people are mentally different has been abolished.

It presents a very clear argument about the biology of it, if you feel like sitting through the science.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=kKeKCxPApKQ

Kim, you asked what people's opinions were, on a feminist thread. That is why people gave opinions, not because they are all trying to dictate to you what to do.

Many feminists want to widen the treatment options for trans people, precisely because these feminists are very well aware that various methods in the surgical, psychiatric and pharmaceutical fields do not always focus on the best interests of patients.

If the current treatment options for trans people can be questioned but no better options are found following that analysis, including feminist analysis, then so be it. But current medical practices for trans people MUST be questioned! (Likewise for current medical practices for every other aspect of the human condition).

Meanwhile, it seems that many transactivists seem determined to cast current treatment options in stone, want to make criticism or even discussion taboo, and refuse to accept the possibilty that future alternative treatments could be better for trans people than the currently available options. With patriarchal "friends" like that, which trans person needs enemies?

Oh come on. Feminists do not stand around outside clinics with placards, like anti-abortionists.

A more similar analogy would be someone gently regretting that patriarchal punishment of single mothers had led, over the years, in many cases, to abortions and adoptions that the mothers found damaging, and regretted. It isn't like harrassing individuals in abortion clinics.

In fact the more I think of it, the more I see the rush towards hormonal and surgical alterations, at the moment, the emphasis on all this style of "treatment" (not that it ever happens at all - but the zeal and enthusiasm right now) as being analogously heavy handed as almost-forced consent to abortions, hormonal contraception and even sterilisation in the 60s - as a misogynist "cure" for the inconvenient truth that women will conceive from PIV sex - and wouldn't it be more convenient to patriarchy if women were fuckable without fertility?

It's a misguidedly orthogonal thinking. Making the indvidual, and reality, the problem, rather than our society.

I am also reminded - having just read "health at every size" - of all the tinkering with people and their diets that is supposed to make everyone a perfect size and shape. Diet tinkering has led to disaster, as a society. Now we are on surgery. The long term outcomes of bariatric surgery are poorer than we are led to believe, and a lot of this is hushed up because the victim is ashamed. "I should have been fixed. What is wrong with me?" and they don't share their misery.

The use of "fixing" is gone into brilliantly by Mary Daly, I now remember.

For me it comes down to not denying any woman the things they need to get by in a patriarchal society:

transwomen - should have suitable medical assistance and be treated politely addressed in the way they prefer

women born female - should have full reproductive autonomy, and physical integrity, and the exclusive social and physical space they need to feel safe and free

I genuinely hope that surgery is the answer for you kim, as you seem determined to go for it. I do worry though that it will not result in the happiness you're looking for.

It is entirely irrelevant whether feminists should have any influence over any individual trans person's access or not to surgery because feminists are not the ones who decide. Again it is a moot point. Doctors and medical ethicists are the ones who decide.

Personally my feminist viewpoint is that I am concerned about women. I am concerned about women having surgery due to lesbophobic and misogynistic societal norms, institutions, hegemony, stereotypes, etc. I care about women being punished for not complying with heteronormativity and not "knowing their place" in the gender hierarchy. I care about women's bodies being mutilated by misogynistic society, whatever the reason - because their breasts aren't porny enough/because they are to be hobbled by shoes or clothing/because they aren't allowed to duck femininity and love other women.

I am less concerned about men who choose to mutilate their bodies as men are not the focus of feminism and men must speak for themselves. I care in a general human rights way and in a humane way as outlined above but not to the extent that I would do anything much about it.

I think there are a lot of feminists who feel similar - we disagree in principal with genital cosmetic and mutilating surgery for both sexes, but women are our focus.

So I wouldn't worry Kim, no feminist will stand in the way of your surgery; in part because no one gives a shit what we think and in part because our focus is women.

This always happens. kim you invited other people, repeatedly, to say what they thought trans was and what trans people should do. Several people, including SmallPress and CailinDana gave very personal (and moving) accounts of their feelings and your response is to state baldly that feminists should stick out of what's best for trans people. The idea that feminists are trying to dictate anything about surgery for trans people is absurd. I'd love to know where all this feminist power resides.

The comparison with "gay therapy" is also absurd. Gay people do not have to take potentially dangerous medication or remove healthy organs to be gay. The similarity with "gay therapy" is that it is society's attitude to gender non-conforming people that needs to change, not the people themselves.

Feminists question cosmetic surgery for women to conform to patriarchal beauty standards, they question the use of hormonal birth control and its effects on women, they question how the medical establishment in general treats women. Feminists can question genital surgery for trans people, and particularly whether and to what extent that makes a difference in the accommodations made for transwomen.