General Trans thread part 2

[ChiefClerkDrumknott]

Following on from this one General Trans thread
Because I'm not Elsa and can't let it go

Even a quick read of this thread suggest there is a lot of anger. ..
Some examples...

You don't need examples. I told you that we are angry

This "debate" between radical feminism and the trans community is being seen by mainstream as a particularly nasty fight with some issues, risks and fears (on both sides) being deliberately exaggerated.

And who do you think started the fight? I think you'll find some rad fem fears stem from being threatened with death and rape when they bring up objections to some of these 'issues' you glibly dismiss. Do you not think that's an understandable reaction? By the way, have you popped over to Twitter or Tumblr yet to plead with 'TERF' killers to be less aggressive?

As mentioned earlier, I may be completely wrong. Perhaps the best solution is to get even angrier, even more offensive and aggressive...

You know what, as I said we are angry and we are 'aggressive', if you term defending women's rights vocally and loudly and consistently aggressive

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3587561/The-real-reason-Caitlyn-Jenner-considering-returning-man-Kardashian-biographer-reveals-Christian-belief-sinful-date-women-gender-struggle.html

And now Caitlyn Jenner wants to reverse the transition-allegedly.

That's the second story in as many days. The Kardashian/Jenner family leak to the DM. I didn't believe the articles that Bruce was going to transition. I do believe that Caitlyn is going to re transition as the DM were accurate before on this family.

Lurked for a long time and learned a lot.

One thing I'm wondering (sorry if it's been addressed before; I've missed it if so) - when did the term "transsexual" stop being used? Surely if gender is a social construct etc the only think that can be (physically) changed is sex, not gender? Is if just a case of misuse of the terms?

Slightly off topic but re: Jenner. How can you be a 'devout' Christian and believe you were born in the wrong body? ? ?

As a devout Christian aren't you meant to believe that God is never wrong, never makes mistakes.

I think Jenner has realised that while some sections of American society will accept transgender they won't accept gayness. That they see transiting as a 'cure' for homosexuality. So Jenner essentially by transitioning made herself gay.

If you see what I mean.

I guess this Jenner situation you describe is partly why post transition the suicide rates are no lower than before.

I think as a Christian in the states you can believe absolutely anything you like. All opinions exist in the spectrum. I've not heard of transitioning as a "cure" for being gay (in America - I've heard of it in Iran). Which isn't to say it doesn't exist but Christians seem to be against anything that seems "unnatural" if they're conservative. Unfortunately I think that's part of the problem with this issue. It's like the boy who cried wolf. Because the Christian right has gone to town on how wrong certain completely normal things are (being gay, teaching evolution in schools, a lot of liberals hear protests about trans issues and just automatically assume it's bigotry. And a lot of it is. The fact that there are real areas of concern get hidden.

Don't know what happened to my last paragraph above. Sorry!

One thing I'm wondering (sorry if it's been addressed before; I've missed it if so) - when did the term "transsexual" stop being used? Surely if gender is a social construct etc the only think that can be (physically) changed is sex, not gender? Is if just a case of misuse of the terms?

You can, in fact, only change gender because it is a social construct. You can not, however, change sex. (Not in mammals. In some fish species, though ...)

I think they don't use transsexual because the word acknowledges that, try as they may, they were not born women and will never be actual women.
"Transgender" implies that they just were assigned the male gender role out of accident and want to transition to the female gender role ... which is actually possible if they manage to get enough surgery to look convincingly female.

That's my theory. It could be just that the word "sex" has fallen out of grace with them because it is too much to do with facts and actual biology.

Thanks Vestal. I think that's what I don't understand, how someone can 'transition' from one intangible thing to another intangible thing. Transsexual would seem more accurate (to me) if surgery was undergone and hormone therapy etc so that the person resembled the sex they wanted to be so far as is possible. If not then there is no transition.

Does that make sense? I'm guilty of previously being a bit nouveau-lefty-feminist about the whole thing and thinking that I should automatically be on the side of someone who feels oppressed. Having read through a lot of posts on here, I'm trying to make sense of what I actually think about this issue instead of just what I automatically assume I should think.

Vestal, yes to your earlier point, it is people being divorced from nature. This is related to age, presumably.

Young people (twenties) online a lot, grown up in an age where cosmetic, surgery is normal, middle class young people usually spend little time around either children or the elderly, so aren't involved in caring, birth or death, frequently are in urban areas so don't see many animals.

I think a lot of people in the UK still believe what I believed a year ago - that "transgender" is just an Americanized, PC term for "transsexual", i.e. someone who has actually had sex change surgery. I believed for years - probably since the 90s, now I think of it - that there is a condition that makes people feel from early childhood like they were born in the wrong body, they feel disgusted by their genitals to the point that they want surgery. Although I couldn't understand it, I had a lot of sympathy for what they must be going through.

When I actually started reading what transgender people say online in their own forums, I was shocked. I couldn't believe how many of them admitted that the "born in the wrong body" line was created to get people on their side. I had no idea that the majority of trans people don't have surgery, and not just because of the risks - a lot of them have absolutely no dysphoria about their feminine penises, they just think society needs to wake up to the fact that a penis isn't automatically a male body part. I couldn't understand why most of them are attracted to women - lesbians are a minority among cis women!

So many of them say that they never had any feeling of being transgender before puberty, when they started having sexual fantasies about being women. So many of them admit that they still feel male, they just "want to be a girl" (girl, not woman) - and the other members assure them that it's all the same thing, wanting to be a girl means that you are a girl. And I couldn't believe the utter contempt many of them hold for "cis" women.

I feel like I was tricked into supporting a movement that actively works against my rights as a woman.

Valanice - aye, aye! Agree completely and that was how i saw it.

Which forums have you read valanice?

I believed for years - probably since the 90s, now I think of it - that there is a condition that makes people feel from early childhood like they were born in the wrong body, they feel disgusted by their genitals to the point that they want surgery. Although I couldn't understand it, I had a lot of sympathy for what they must be going through.

Me, too. I didn't think much about it at the time, though I was a bit uncertain as to how those people would cope with the abolition of gender (which has always been my goal). If everyone wore the same (i.e. choose from the whole range of) hair styles and garments, then how would they signal their identity to others?

Only recently have radical feminists brought to my attention that I was right to wonder and that the genderists work against feminism in that they seek to reinforce gender roles.
People already treat gender-non-conforming women as transmen, as they'd obviously rather offend a woman than a person with a male brain, who is therefore worthier. (Okay, they don't say that, they claim trans are more oppressed than women, even lesbian women, but that's bullshit).

@almondpudding: Do you think the approach that is used to show city kids how their food is made would also work to combat genderism? Like, send them to a farm and let them milk some cows (or see how it is done, let's be realistic here ...).
Obviously that would mainly be interesting for parents with children who think they are transgender, but those are a pretty large group by now.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that people being divorced from the real world and real consequences of their actions is cause of many problems in the world. Like, managers who make wrong decisions and still get loads of money, and investment bankers who poker with the grain price, and so on.

If they had to gather mushrooms in the forest, they'd quickly learn to not take as many risks and behave more sensibly, I think ...

There are some people who would be better suited to living in a wholly virtual world where no one else is real.
The translobby especially .... apparently, they don't think women are real, anyway ...

I don't think so in terms of humans, because so much of it is areas that people want children to not know about, or don't want to know about themselves.

Very few people have family members come home to die. People want breastfeeding mothers to be discreet. People get concerned if kids play naked on beaches. People are concerned if a 4 year old girl goes swimming in only trunks. People would rather disabled people and their carers were out of the way somewhere.

Ordinary bodies and things that happen to the body are something shameful to be hidden away and not talked about.
Except in porn.

Even toilets and changing rooms are being reinvented as some kind of social space rather than places for bodily functions and temporary nudity.

Maybe in terms of plants and animals, yes.

We talk a lot on here about how in the seventies there was more gender neutral stuff. At the same time people were pushing for seeing the body as natural and not all about sexuality. I think we're missing both of those things.

singingsixpence82, I don't know if I'm allowed to directly link to the forums here, but this website is a starting point. I looked them up about a year ago after lurking on the MN threads on trans rights. I was initially shocked that there were some MNers who were "nasty" enough to say that transgender women aren't real women, and that they shouldn't be allowed in our spaces. But then someone posted about , and I found myself thinking, "Oh fuck, didn't really think this through." I assumed Colleen was an anomaly, so I looked up some transgender forums to try and see their point of view - and I hit Peak Trans pretty quickly.

Thanks Valanice - very interesting!

I have not read the whole thread but have been reading the trans threads with much interest.

Like many liberal minded people, my instincts would have been to support trans rights to live as the gender they identified with. However, I had not fully understood the impact on women and the conflict that trans rights has with women and feminism.

I have discussed this at length with DH and he also has seen the light as to the utter ludicrousness of the trans argument to define TW as a subset of women. We have had quite a laugh about it too. In fact, my reactions tend to lurch from a somewhat hysterical hilarity to the despairing incredulity of it all

To be clear, I wish trans people every happiness, opportunity and safety, but not at the expense of mine or other women's.

I frequently listen to political podcasts, particularly covering US politics and it is extremely disheartening to find that liberal voices pretty much all accept the trans activism argument with virtually no discussion of the impact on women's rights. Instead, opposition to the trans arguments tend to be the far right evangelical numbnuts associated with Ted Cruz and the like.

I would like to see the feminist argument getting out there more. Thanks to all here for the ongoing discussion

So Caitlyn Jenner is uncomfortable having a transition Op because she is not gay and is still attracted to females but that's wrong because same sex partnership is wrong as she is a Christian? So he can keep his dick, still be a woman and be a good ol' Jesus lover. Or transition back.....

You seriously couldn't make this shit up

It's going to go down well with the LGB community....

I really hope Caitlyn does detransition - it will show this for the bullshit it is

The reality is starting to hit in the US too... time.com/4324687/even-in-liberal-communities-transgender-bathroom-laws-worry-parents/

Yes, all the bearded men accessing women's spaces is quite helpful to our arguments!

I am all for supporting minorities, but how can 1% of the population be allowed to redefine 50% of the population, when it doesn't even belong to it?

It's beyond bonkers!

That Time article makes me furious. Why should 18 teenage girls be expected to squeeze into a single room so that a man can take their space?

It is outrageous but at the same time, the more shit like this gets publicised the better. People need to see what female being "just something anyone can identify as" leads to.

If there is a cohort of 10 transwomen and 10 real woman (for want of a better term) and 5 real woman developed ovarian cancer, would you say 50% of women developed it or 25%?

Ok I'm slightly exaggerating but this is the sort of thing which is of real worry to me.

Funding considerations for medical research etc would mean if you claim it's 25% less money would be forthcoming. I can't understand why Maria Miller and the TW community can't see that this will be a total erosion of womens healthcare provision.

I'm willing to bet when 25% of my example "women" develop prostate cancer there will be no end of funding etc.