Can we have a general Trans thread?

[Brugmansia]

Sorry for another trans thread and I feel this is a bit of an imposition given I don't post really.

Anyway reading FWR over the past few months has re-radicalised me. I've been reading lots here and wider.

Anyway just now been watching TV and there's been some stuff that's given me the rage but didn't seem to fit in existing threads or it's own thread.

Anyway thing that gave me the rage.
On BBC3 program on transgemder teen's the doctor just said "creating a vagina". Are doctors redefining vagina as pocket rather than a passage? Makes me want to screem.

Also Sarah Ditum being no platformed.

slow I'm still baffled. Yes, if a TW passes so well that no patient/client and no colleague would ever suspect them of being male, and a woman is requested and they don't declare their sex, then that would be highly unethical (and IMO assault depending on the nature of the interaction). I think it all highly unlikely TBH though.

The concern is that people just get to self declare their sex, and women will have no choice but to accept men when they have asked for women. This is obviously unacceptable.

I don't care what a woman looks like - what the hell has that got to do with whether she is a woman, or whether I want her putting her hands inside me?

I trust an HCP to inject me with things, to put me to sleep and cut me open, to rummage around inside me and remove bits.

I don't need anyone proving they are or aren't a woman. All I ask, is that if I ask to be treated by a woman, whoever comes to treat me is a woman. I don't need to know anything about the people who felt that as HCPs they couldn't treat me. That doesn't matter at all, and what they look like matters even less.

Rage, of course. What else would you call women voicing their dissent in a calm and articulate manner?

It's not just about trusting the professional integrity of HCPs, it's about explicitly stating that this is a matter of professional integrity for HCPs in a way that is easily understood by employers, employees, patients and regulators. Currently the law is a mess and the direction of travel is in the opposite direction: that NHS trusts may be legally obliged to place the rights of HCPs above the rights of patients to effectively decline examinations by a member of the opposite sex.

You're zooming in on anything you can possibly stretch to define as rage and ignoring everything else.

Trust is only a solution if the system sees a request by a patient for a woman rather than a TW as valid in the first place. If the request is not seen as valid because "TWAW" and the rights of TW to be anywhere and everywhere they want to be are seen as trumping everything else (as plenty argue they should at the moment), then there is no valid request that a HCP could then be trusted (or not) to respect.

Hermione
I am for women who have genuine concerns about being examined by a TW to have the option to request a guaranteed woman.

But how would the NHS (the UK's biggest employer) provide the evidence that females claiming to be female are born female?

slow can you please not use the term 'guaranteed woman'; I find it offensive

We don't want proff, we need this matter to be important enough to them (the NHS) that our wish for a female to poke around inside is more important than the transwoman medical proffesionals feelings, so we can just trust them.

Windy - I pointed out the Rachel Doleza analogy on one of the trans threas in chat a while, although not in regard to Bruce/Caitlin Jenner. It is a perfectly sound analogy as far as I can see. RD is not African American and no matter what she does to herself, no matter what she says, no matter how she chooses to present herself, she will never be African American. Full stop. She is widely regarded as being both white and bonkers. Yet when it comes to men claiming that they are 'really' women, suddenly it is all perfectly reasonable??? I don't think so.

But how would the NHS (the UK's biggest employer) provide the evidence that females claiming to be female are born female?

This shouldn't need to happen

The point is, the law should not be used to alter the definition of woman or female. Then there will be no room for confusion

There are all sorts of requests made by patients that the NHS implements without proving to the patient that they've done this. Think catering and vegetarians, people with religious dietary rules and so on. You don't have proof when you sit in your hospital bed that that cheap mince is definitely beef and not pork or pork and not beef, you have to take it on trust.

What gives you the best chance of having a request met is a climate in which that request is seen as reasonable. That's not the direction in which things are going at the moment when it comes to trans issues - I think that's the issue here, not what proof you could show or not show.

Yes to 'guaranteed women' being offensive (and daft). The term 'born women' is redundant. I am not a 'born' woman. I am a woman. That is enough. (Or at least it bloody well should be.)

Slow - "I am for women who have genuine concerns about being examined by a TW to have the option to request a guaranteed woman."

There is no such thing as a "guaranteed woman".

The term you are looking for is... "woman".

So you support women who have genuine concerns about being vaginally examined by a transwoman to have the option to request a woman.

Question for you: What would constitute a genuine concern about vaginal examinations, in your esteemed opinion as someone who doesn't have a vagina and has no idea what it's like to have a stranger insert a huge metal object into one's vagina?

"evidence that females claiming to be female are born female?"

You are confused.

The only possible way to be female is to be born that way. If you are born OF the sex that CAN make sperm, no amount of wishing, hand-holding, trans-allying, surgical removal of penis & balls, artificial hormones, make-up, and surgery is going to make you OF the sex that CAN bear young.

I am trying to quantify the size of the risk and then look at practical, cost-effective measures which would mitigate for that risk in a proportionate way.

Looking at the estimate provided by a pp, we could have 1,575 TW in the NHS today.

Of this number, how many do we think are in obstetrics and gynaecology? No idea but let's say 25% or for the sake of argument.

So now we're talking, about 400.

Of these 400, how many would we estimate to be "trustworthy" and willing to accept that (given the very intimate nature of the work they do), would accept that their claim to be a woman is not appropriate in a gynaecological situation. Let's say at a conservative estimate that only half can be trusted not to lie about their birth sex.

So we have 200 TW in the NHS who would willfully attempt to act in an unethical manner and abuse their position and training to attempt to assault women.

Of that 200 - how many would be known to their colleagues, friends, others in the community that "Jane" was once "John". From the earlier debate here, this seems pretty obvious to most onlookers so let's say 75% would be snared before they could get close to assaulting a woman.

So that leaves 50 people we need to really worry about. Fifty current NHS TW HCPs who are
a) Completely unethical
b) Utterly convincing

Please feel free to redo my maths with alternative assumptions.

Do you think the material risk might be bigger or smaller?

"I am trying to quantify the size of the risk"

It is not up to you to "quantify" anything.

If women don't want a male push a metal object into their vagina, all you need to do is understand and sympathise. If you are not capable of this for some unfathomable reason, you should listen to and learn from people with more empathy or at least understanding of what pelvic examinations are about.

What you should not do is bicker, try to trick, and otherwise disrespect women's concerns in a matter that doesn't concern you, doesn't affect you, and in which you have no experience whatsoever.

I don't quite get the jump from "transwomen working in gynaecology" to "transwomen assaulting women" - neither the sex nor the sexual orientation nor the gender should be relevant in that context surely?

Also, I would like to point out as someone who has studied this subject at graduate level that you are confusing Risk with Probability.

Having the definition of women/female altered by law to include men gives rise to more risks, than that slow

It is bigger than HCPs in the NHS. As well you know

It removes the ability for women to have any women only spaces of services

"It's not up to you"

It is stil a valid question..If someone says x is a huge problem, it is reasonable to ask "How big a problem?"

Women are already being assaulted in obstetrics. Not theoretical, but a real life consequence of the imbalance of power between women in that system and paternalistic (not all male) care providers who think that the 'best interests' of the woman (often elided with the best interests of the fetus) justify coercing her to do what they judge necessary.

Colleagues already do a poor job of preventing these assaults, despite the fact that doctors are routinely chaperoned for intimate procedures. On occasion a chaperone will see her role to talk the woman into a procedure, minimise her objections, tell her it will be over sooner if she cooperates, rather than insist to a (usually more senior) colleague that it stops when the woman asks.

I am not talking about hypothetical situations, I'm talking about things that are happening in hospitals every day, and which Birth Trauma Association and other organisations could say a lot more about. Nothing to do with preference for a particular sex of HCP, just a frequent enough occurrence in obstetrics for it to be worrying.

So, the idea that you think colleagues will automatically prevent TW HCPs from placing women in the impossible situation of refusing care is utterly laughable.

I think your guesstimate of numbers probably overestimates, however.

Would those who think they should have the right to know their HCP's medical history and reject them on the basis of it (where their sex is concerned), also support that HCPs should declare their sexuality (lest a patient may feel uncomfortable being examined vaginally by a lesbian) or other completely private matters?

Confusing risk with probability. How would you calculate the probability?

You may consider the risks too low to justify any mitigation measures

However, the mitigation is actually to do nothing; to not change the definition of women to include TW

And considering that the change isn't being made to mitigate any risk to TW; it is only being done to validate their gender identity...a CBA would undoubtedly find that the definition of women should remain biological in law