So ... Does this indicate that you CAN be 'born the wrong gender'?

[Garrick]

www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/im-girl-meet-twin-boy-6348318?

Summary: Twins Alfie and Logan, 4yo, are both boys. Logan has insisted on wearing girly clothes, doing girly things, and that he is a girl since the age of two. His mother, who sounds brilliant, reports him wishing his willy would fall off.

I'm somewhat flummoxed. When I were a lass, little boys like this were described as camp (behind their fathers' backs) and, as far as I know, mostly grew up to be camp and fulfilled their rightful destinies. Rather like Ugly Betty's brother.

But this is what some transwomen say they felt like as children, isn't it? And I have rubbished it because I find it hard to believe in gender as an innate feeling. I'm not sure whether I think little Logan proves me wrong

WhenShe - You are so deep into the rabbit hole of your world view that I don't know if any counterexample we give can bring you back out.

So some male children who feel like girls or girls with unusual genitals are becoming child brides in Chad, are they? Do you really believe that men in Chad take children with dicks as their child brides?

You might first like to consider that FGM is very widely practiced in Chad. That is Female Genital Mutilation. Do you really think that a child's genitals is his/her personal secret in a place like that and that a girl is anyone who "feels like" a girl?

& I'm sorry if I sound a bit pissed off but the logical end-point of all of this is that we can't identify & therefore talk about and try to address sex based oppression

The term FGM has been flagged as potentially problematic FYI.

Not by many people as far as I know, but it has been mooted that the name needs a rethink.

whirlpool

Like I said earlier this thread wasn't started about the 98% to 99% of women that do fit a simple definition.

The whole thread is about the 1% to 2% that don't fit into a neat definition.

You seem fine with the intersex group but not the trans.

Also like I said before if you want to give me a definition - fine, but it won't fit 100% of women. Now I know you argue that 99% is close enough and for most conversations it is
But this thread is about the 1%

disclaimer, lots of 1%s and 2%s in there I'm just sticking in very approximate numbers

I read a bunch of stuff in something called the transfeminist manifesto a few years ago and the concerns were around workplace equality, dv, lots of issues. Anything to do with reproductive health or rights which obviously forms a very major stand of more mainstream feminism was (naturally) not included.

Again, I don't know who wrote the document or whether it was a small group or a more legit document, but yes, the trans version of feminism represented did (obviously) exclude everything to do with the root of our oppression.

Interestingly the blogs I've read by transmen (only a couple they seem to be quieter!) talking about growing up as a girl and getting the shit from boys and men, their perspective on feminism is much more in tune with what a woman on MN or these boards might see as concerns.

Which kind of makes sense, doesn't it?

The idea that people growing up as girls and people growing up as boys don't have different experiences, in how they are treated and what their biology gets up to, it just doesn't make sense. And yet, that is what the new reality is. It erases women's reality. And it is women - transmen don't seem to be telling men what they can and can't do, say and so forth.

I don't have an issue with defining either intersex or trans people. I think they both do fit into neat definitions.

I am certainly not going to advocate for intersex people to be legally made into a third gender group because it is up to intersex people to decide what they want their legal rights and categories to be. I've no reason to believe intersex people with entirely different conditions from each other want to all be lumped together, or that they want to be put in the same legal category as trans people.

But I understand what intersex means and what trans means. I understand that being intersex is a biological condition, while being trans is for some trans people a sex dysphoria, for others a social dysphoria, and for others both. I understand that trans people consider trans to be an umbrella term that is much broader than the old term transsexual, and is inclusive of those with no sex dysphoria and those with no gender identity.

So I don't think it should be that difficult to define the word woman just because those groups exist.

I don't understand how it is possible to claim that we can define and identify people as Intersex (which is biological) but we can't define and identify biological females.

There are people (I think they're called Kins?) who believe they are squirrels. Their existence doesn't make it difficult to identify actual squirrels.

Hermione - Yes, it's called Species Dysphoria. Parallels are actually quite striking.

In a 2008 study by Gerbasi et al., 46% of people surveyed who identified as being in the furry fandom, (usually defined as a person with a strong connection with some sort of animal), answered "yes" to the question "Do you consider yourself to be less than 100% human?" and 41% answered "yes" to the question "If you could become 0% human, would you?"[6] Questions that Gerbasi states as being deliberately designed to draw parallels with gender identity disorder (GID), specifying "a persistent feeling of discomfort" about the human body and the feeling that the person was the "non-human species trapped in a human body", were answered "yes" by 24% and 29% of respondents, respectively.

As described by those who experience it, species dysphoria may include sensations of supernumerary phantom limbs associated with the species, such as phantom wings or claws.[7] Species dysphoria involves feelings of being an animal or other creatures "trapped in" a human body and so, is considered different from the traditional definition of clinical lycanthropy, in which the patient believes they have actually been transformed into an animal or have the ability to physically shapeshift.[8] However, some cases that have been labeled as "clinical lycanthropy" actually seem to be cases of species dysphoria, involving persons who have no delusion of transformation but instead have feelings of being in some way a non-human animal, while still acknowledging they possess a human form. Keck et al.[9] propose a redefinition for clinical lycanthropy that covers species dysphoric behaviours observed in several patients, including verbal reports, "during intervals of lucidity or retrospectively, that he or she was a particular animal" and behaving "in the manner of a particular animal, i.e. howling, growling, crawling on all fours". Keck et al. describe one patient as a depressed individual who "had always suspected he was a cat" and "laments his lack of fur, stripes and a tail".[10] Except for the persistent feeling of being feline, the patient's "thought processes and perception" were "usually logical".

They have done neurological studies of people with clinical lycanthropy, and the parts of the brain that understand body image are experiencing something different from people who identify as human.

Which makes it hard for me to understand why feminists should be concerned about trans issues any more than the issues of any other minority group

I'm probably going to shock you to the core by agreeing with you on this particular point.
Now people do tend to campaign about what is close to their heart.

So a woman who has lost someone to breast cancer is more likely to activily support / raise money on behalf of that issue.
But I've never met a single woman who would say. There's no breast cancer in my family so its not an issue I care about, stop fundraising and give to heart disease instead.

So when it comes to issues that apply to transwomen I can see why you get pissed off.
If there are some vocal trans activists trying to stop discussion of some women's issues because it excludes them - then that's wrong.

I have to say I can see feminists don't want to support a group if that group just wants the focus of women's issues to be only the issues that apply to them.

Obviously I'm not saying that all trans activists act like this but maybe some do and it might paint all of them in a bad light

Really?

That's really interesting.

I think the reaction to other trans experiences (ethnicity, species, disability etc) compared to the reaction to trans women is very telling. I don't know enough about transmen - high profile or blogs or what have you - to know if the reaction to them is different as well. I suspect that it is slightly different although happy to be shown otherwise.

The differences in reactions is very telling IMO and what it is telling us is nothing good about how society views women and girls.

jenny

I am certainly not going to advocate for intersex people to be legally made into a third gender group because it is up to intersex people to decide what they want their legal rights

That's absolutely not what I meant. A third gender might be useful for some intersex babies where it is hard to know which sex is the most appropriate.
The third option could be used as a short term option until the child was old enough to say what they felt their gender was (or they may want to continue as the third sex).
The idea of reassigning all intersex people fills me with horror.

Erm I don't get pissed off when trans people want to fight for issues that affect them - why would I?

A person who raises money for breast cancer doesn't get angry with people who raise money for MIND.

I get pissed off when the language used to talk about the things impacting women and girls around the world is removed, and therefore the ability to discuss them.

Things are already being reframed as "people" issues rather than women's issues, which kind of changes the focus. Things like abortion.

If you can't say who is doing what to who and why then you're not going to win the fight, are you.

But we've been through all the reasons that some people have difficulties when it comes to accepting trans people as literally the sex that they identify as, and that they have always been that sex.

Things like statistics, single sex spaces, sports, identifying at risk groups and so on. I don't think we need to talk about them all again.

Sorry whirlpool

I think the example I gave was of someone telling someone to stop campaigning for breast cancer and give the money to heart disease.

So not saying that you mind trans issues being discussed - but if it took focus off other women's issues I can see how that would be annoying.

I don't know enough about intersex people to know what is in the best interests of intersex babies.

Adults who have the same specific condition are the best people to advise.

I get pissed off when the language used to talk about the things impacting women and girls around the world is removed, and therefore the ability to discuss them

Sorry but do you have an example of where the language of what impacts women/girls has changed?

"do you have an example of where the language of what impacts women/girls has changed?"

No, because your Newspeak has thankfully not been adopted by the rest of the world, where girl means what it has always meant and woman means what it has always meant.

There is at least one abortion provider in the US that has removed references to women / female / girl in all it's literature / website.

The midwifery body in the US has been sent an open letter signed by a whole bunch of midwives as they have also worked to remove all references to women from their guidance around childbirth etc.

There have been examples from (hopefully more extreme people) on the net wanting to change FGM to a less "cis-sexist" term, and also trouble around terms like vagina.

So yes there are some. I'll find the letter in a minute.

midwives letter

If you google abortion clinic trans you will find plenty of conversations putting various viewpoints forward.

But yes as per cote says that vast majority of people are not confused when someone says "this is a boy" or "women need to go in that queue".

However the changes to language are happening. And it's only things that affect women. Does anyone know of anything that affects men that has been rewritten to exclude the references to men? I've not heard of any lobbying in that direction. Might have a google.

Googling is probably your friend here whenshewas.

I found this interesting as representing some of the things that have been discussed on here.

The don't say vagina thing is here:

slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/08/21/everything-is-transphobic-but-gay-men-draw-vaginas-isnt

Societies or cultures with a third gender generally place women in a low status. The third gender is for men who are gender non-conforming, not for women who are non-conforming.

0.1% of women who are transwoman

These people are not women. Intersex and trans are completely separate issues.