Frank Maloney - Gender Reassignment

[CKDexterHaven]

Lived over 60 years with full male privileges - Check
Rose to the top of a male-dominated profession - Check
Right-wing political candidate for UKIP - Check
Homophobic public comments - Check
Believes in family values and traditional morality - Check
Believes in a 'female brain' (like people used to believe in a 'negro brain' and a 'Jewish brain') - Check

Nasty radical feminists are meant to be the reactionary ones but, to me, it is the transactivist movement that is conservative, homophobic and longs for the days when homosexuality was criminalised and men were men and women were women.

It is a real thing, that happens in the womb, a hormonal imbalance

What is your evidence for this; and if this is the case why did it only start happening in the 20th century?

People who have an intersex condition which consists of a hormonal imbalance, are no more likely to be intersex than the general population.

vicmackie what makes you think it only started happening in the 20th century?! Transgender people have been around since time began, in cultures all over the world. Ancient Greece & Rome for example, where men castrated themselves and wore women's clothing.

LRD No, when I say subconciously I am meaning that for most people, their minds and bodies DO fit. So you are not even consciously aware of that fit, because it's innate and how it's supposed to be. It's therefore easy to believe that you have no gender.

You talk about offensive - what I find offensive is the prevailing attitude on this thread that gender dysphoria doesn't exist. It is a real, medically recognised condition
www.nhs.uk/conditions/Gender-dysphoria/Pages/Introduction.aspx

I can't think of any other condition where it would be acceptable anymore to deny its existence like people used to do with ASD, dyslexia etc.

I understand why people feel uncomfortable with the idea of innate gender or male/female brains. I used to subscribe to the idea of gender as a social construct too, until somebody close to me came out as trans. Having spoken to them at length about how it feels, I now know that this is so much more than not wanting to conform to stereotypes (and fortunately the medical commmunity agrees with that and enables people to transition on the NHS.)

Male and female brains do exist. Studies have shown that the brain of a straight man and a gay man are the same, and that the brain of a straight woman and gay woman are the same. Sexuality doesn't come into it. But guess whose brain a trans woman's is most like? A biological woman's.

Yes, there have always been a few people who wanted to be the other sex, and for that reason I am very sympathetic to old-style transsexuals who have surgery/hormone treatment and make every effort to live as the other sex. Often such people are very sensitive to the complexities involved.

I'm a bit less sympathetic to those who seem to just want to put on a frock, change their name, make a big fuss about how they should now be treated as a woman and have access to single-sex facilities used by vulnerable women (I am not aware of any transmen trying to get into facilities reserved for vulnerable men, though of course it may happen. Frock - fine, namechange - fine, using facilities reserved for vulnerable women - not fine.

'Studies have shown that the brain of a straight man and a gay man are the same, and that the brain of a straight woman and gay woman are the same. Sexuality doesn't come into it. But guess whose brain a trans woman's is most like? A biological woman's.'

Can you link to any evidence for this?

I believe gender dysphoria exists. It is a psychiatric disorder manifested as an inability to accept or a severe unhappiness with one's sex. There is no consensus on what causes it. However:

• not all trans people have gender dysphoria
• the evidence of male and female brains and the significance of differences are controversial (see Cordelia Fine)
• having gender dysphoria does not mean the sufferer is actually of the opposite sex
• there's no evidence that transwomen's brains are the same as women's brains (however there is evidence that their behaviours map those of men for eg criminal convictions even after transition)

All it took was one person to come out as trans to cause you to throw away your scepticism about biological determinism and embrace your lady brain? Score one for patriarchy.

i think aligning today's transgender people with eunuchs of antiquity is a pretty dodgy argument, and transgender people today would be horrified by it (though please do correct me if i've got that wrong)

my understanding is that eunuchs were usually servants or slaves who were castrated to perform specific functions in society and this was rarely voluntary

You talk about offensive - what I find offensive is the prevailing attitude on this thread that gender dysphoria doesn't exist. It is a real, medically recognised condition

I didn't say that gender dysphoria doesn't exist. It has a whole chapter in the new DSM-V, the psychiatric diagnostic handbook for the US and in ICD-10 (the UK version) it is also listed under adult personality disorders. So, yes, it is a real recognised condition. The DSM-V chapter is a new thing, up until the new version, it was listed under paraphilias.

promised - don't you think it's very rude to tell me (a person you've never met) that my mind and body match, that I'm not even aware of it ... but you magically are, somehow?

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm certainly not saying gender dysphoria doesn't exist. I'm saying it's rude to decide, because of that, that you can make up a whole ideology of gender and slap it onto other people you don't know, backed up by a load of pseudoscience.

'Studies have shown' is a nonsense phrase. Cordelia Fine (sorry to state the obvious, but ...) deconstructs the 'male brain/female brain' idiocy nicely in her work.

But I'll ask again: what do you think characterises a 'male brain' or a 'female brain'?

You'll probably ignore the fact that many women on here (not me, I admit) have commented that in tests, they come out with a 'male brain'. It seems feminists very often have those.

And what Petula said.

The brain sex research was carried out on Trans people who had been taking hormones for many years. And the sample of Trans people the research looked at was tiny.

The research is not scientifically valid.

Btw, petula, I agree with the offensiveness of the historical argument.

It is the same with all sorts of things. People will decide some historical figure 'was a lesbian' or 'clearly had Asperger's'. IMO it is irresponsible and rude. We can't know, and we don't have the right to label someone with our own society's labels, when we know those concepts did not exist in the same way in that society.

Incidentally I spent most of my childhood up to my mid-teen years hating being a girl... if someone had offered me a way of becoming a sexless agender being I'd have taken it like a shot.

However, I gradually came to terms with the annoyingness of being a woman and realise now that my 'gender dysphoria' was the result of living in a society rife with pointless sex bias where I didn't fit into any neat little boxes of femininity (or indeed masculinity).

I'm not keen on 'agender' as a label, I admit.

It implies that gender is a concrete reality. I'm not convinced it is. In my (limited) experience, people who identify as asexual do not believe that sexuality is a socially-conditioned means of oppression.

Well said, buffy.

Can I ask your opinions about something. Like most of you on this thread, I believe that the fundamental binary gender divide (like the binary race divide) is a social construct. However, gender assignment has real effects on how people are treated and their experiences and hence their identities. Thus, to me, in makes no sense for someone assigned to be male at birth to say they are fundamentally female as a) there is no such thing as a fundamentally female brain or soul AND b) female identity is based round your position and experiences in a patriarchal society.

OK but what about the very rare cases where someone is born intersex? those with a Y chromozone who have androgen insensitivity syndrome for example. For them sex as well as gender is assigned at birth- Are they women?- I think so but would be interested in your thoughts

I don't think gender is a binary, it is a hierarchy. And a hierarchy that is used to oppress women. That is why gender is not benign and needs to be abolished.

All it took was one person to come out as trans to cause you to throw away your scepticism about biological determinism and embrace your lady brain? Score one for patriarchy.

What on earth has it got to do with patriarchy?

But yes, it only took one person to change my outlook on gender. A sibling. When it's somebody that close, and it affects the whole family, it's pretty impossible not to reassess how you look at things. How many people on this thread have actually had a child / partner / sibling come out as trans, as opposed to just looking at the issue from a detached, intellectual point of view?

That's not to say that I don't still dislike gender stereotypes. I've been conscious of it ever since DD (3) was born and we try hard to keep those stereotypes to a minimum with regards to clothes, toys etc.

I think it's possible to accept that gender exists whilst still fighting against limiting stereotypes. The 2 things aren't mutually exclusive imo.

dr - I would think people would want to decide on an individual basis, there.

For me, an important issue in all of this is socialization. Sometimes, people who are socialised in the same discriminatory way need to be able to identify one another and talk together. Doesn't matter what people choose to call their group, but it matters the group can be seen to exist. Such groups of discriminated-against people with common experience might be women, or lesbians, or black men, or trans people, or whatever. And obviously, the groups intersect.

If someone has an intersex condition, sometimes they might want to be part of the group who were raised female, with everything that goes with that. Other times, maybe not.

a friend, promised, though i only met her after transition

i think it's possible to both understand a person with gender dysphoria experiencing deep pain and unhappiness and agreeing that there should be structures in place that support them and help them to live a life where they are comfortable and content, whilst also recognising that the limitations placed on people through society- (patriarchy-) enforced rigid gender roles are enormously damaging and should be eradicated so that everyone can feel comfortable and content

Cross posted with promised.

Please - tell us what 'male brain' and 'female brain' are.

I think claiming that the sexes think differently is at the root of patriarchy. Can you not see that that is a form of discrimination based on sex?

I'm not a neuroscientist, but the differences are well documented. We accept that we have different bodies to men, and that the sexes carry out their own biological functions. I don't understand why it is therefore wrong to believe that the sexes can think differently too. Our brain is just part of our body. I'm sorry but I don't see that in itself as a form of discrimination.

enforced rigid gender roles are enormously damaging and should be eradicated so that everyone can feel comfortable and content

and I do agree with this also. But even in that vision, is it not still possible that gender dysphoria would still exist, and that even in the absence of oppressive stereotypes, people may still wish to identify as the opposite sex?

No, they're not well documented, promised. They've been challenged, even discredited. I mentioned Cordelia Fine upthread - this really isn't something people just accept.

It's not 'wrong' in the sense of 'a stupid idea' to believe brains could be different - but they're not. Sorry.

And please - how do you believe they are different? And are these physical differences, or do you believe the mind differs too?

My hope is that, if gender were eradicated, far fewer people would suffer. Imagine it. No-one insisting that 'you are female, you must love pink!' or 'you are male, it's revolting that you want to wear a dress'. Or 'women should be compassionate so I don't understand why you don't love children!'

All of these are gendered stereotypes. As is the idea that men and women have different brains.