I am a woman because I say so

[Darrowisred]

Bought Grazia not realising it was a special gender issue.

Paris Lees has three pages of editorial.

Gems include;

'I don't need permission to use the label 'woman', I'm a woman because I say so'.

And

'Womankind is a broad church, and it's time to celebrate our wonderfully diverse congregation'.

And

'When my win (as female comment writer of the year) was announced, it unleashed a barrage of transphobic abuse. 'What a farce, Lees is a man' wrote one'.

Finally

'I love being a woman'.

Aaaargh.

I have some of the same genetics as a woman

Yeah, that is part of that whole belonging to the same species thing. Fun fact: A chimpanzee also has some of the same genetics as a human female.

The first issue that jumps out at me with regards to the study above (other than eensy weensy sample size) is the question they asked in the first place is so loaded they should never have been considered unbiased.

They have basically assumed 'lady brain' is the absence of something the male brain is assumed to have by default.

So, again men are the 'default' gender and women are 'lesser' or 'lacking'.

It's so fucking Freudian!

I do wonder whether we are now seeing, with the huge rise in trans people (mainly MTT), is because of two main reasons.

Firstly when I grew-up in the 60s & 70s, there was much, what I would define as 'structural' sexism around gender roles. Girls did cookery & needlework rather than woodwork & metalwork at school, girls career opportunities centred around nursing, teaching ot the civil service. Women were not expected to have a career after marriage and so forth.

However children were far less forced into gender specific play, a lot of our time was spent away from adults, play dates with children of the same gender were not yet the thing, we just played with other kids (M&F) in our neighbourhood; climbing trees, making dens, playing tennis, skipping, football irrespective of our biological sex. Pink, glittery and blue clothes, toys were just not that prevalent.

For the past 30 years, the reverse has become true. Male & Female 'structural' sexism has (in the main) been abolished. Girls and boys have equal choices in subject and career options. However play and clothing has radically changed. Children are a huge commercial market for both clothing and toys, and designers have responded to this by creating a gender stereotyped market. Adults control and manage play like never before and observe and comment on children's non-gender-conforming play choices. Thus if you are interested in something not of your normalised gender you feel that you are 'different' or thinking like a girl.

Secondly in recent years the media have begun to heavily focus on gender in fashion, beauty and other roles together with the whole trans question. I guess this is sometimes because they are just being tacky and after a good sensationalised story to sell copy. No doubt certain types of readers like to think 'what does he/she think he looks like' and have a good snigger. The media can no longer get away so easily with articles that are fundamentally racist, ageist, sexist, homophobic (yes, I do know this is not always the case) because the majority of their readers are not particularly interested anymore. So they have started to fill their pages with articles about trans individuals. It then becomes topical, fashionable and desirable to some people who are not so comfortable with the restriction of specific gender expression who think to themselves 'maybe I'm trans?' FFS, even I have briefly wondered whether my lack of interest in fashion and make-up together with an aptitude for maths and an interest in technology is because I have a bit more maleness than other women.

I don't want to deny that feeling trans is indeed a very real and sometimes painful issue for many people, but I can't help feeling somewhat skeptical about the scale of the issue.

It seems to me that the great rise in trans people in the UK is among teenage girls. I would suggest that is because of very many teenage girls have mental health problems (some due to it is hard being a teen and some due to societal issues) and that there is chronic underfunding of mental health services. It is incredibly difficult to get any kind of mental health support either at school or through the NHS unless you have very serious issues.

The trans thing gets you attention and help. It often gets you at least counselling. I know trans teens complain they have to go on long waiting lists or don't get specialist counselling, but very many teens with mental health issues don't even get on any kind of waiting list for counselling.

The health care professionals are saying many of the young trans people they see have no dysphoria (about their sexed body presumably). So why are they there? If they have no dysphoria - the only element that makes this a 'medical condition' and everyone says that being trans is not a mental health issue, why are they seeing a counsellor at all, when so many other teens can't get access to counselling?

So I'd say that was a major part of it - access to finite services. As a parent of teenagers I would say that being trans in teen circles is just another identity. It is not difficult to declare if you have alternative friends, and is very easy to learn a lot about on social media. It's certainly a lot easier to come out as trans than as a lesbian if you are still at school.

I also think that when people get into counselling, counsellors often want to focus on whatever the fashionable counselling topics of the moment are. At the moment gender identity is the fashionable topic. I agree with what Bertrand said recently on one of these threads, there is always some fashionable explanation as to why people feel uncomfortable in their own skin.

I think the dreadful focus on pornography being so easily accessible on the Internet has something to do with it as well. Many girls - my DD as well - are rejecting what they perceive to be the female norm, whether it is or not; they don't want to shave every bit going, they don't want to dress in a certain way and if male attraction means what they perceive it to mean, they don't want that either. And who can blame them? There are all sorts of anti-porn posts elsewhere so I won't bring that up again. It's just too horrific for words, really.

As a rejection of all that is 'feminine' (teenage perception here), they decide on something that is more male. They reject traditional female dress, haircuts and the like because this will minimise the attention they get from males. It's a sort of protection. Sexuality may or may not come into it. Once these young women were recognisable as butch women in every lesbian space, but now one can't be butch anymore- one has to be trans.
That's my observation of my teenage DD and her mates - the rejection of what being young and feminine has become - which is precisely what the trans women are trying to emulate. What a mixed-up society!

Did i see a post upthread where Grazia have admitted that subscriptions have been cancelled due to the gender issue? I guess it may have felt to some readers that their space was being encroached upon. Grazia is meant to be a womens magazine aimed at women in their 20s/30s .

I cant imagine Esquire or GQ giving space to FTM

I should imagine Grazia has lost readers who used to buy it off the shelf as well as subscribers.

FTM seem to get very little support and very little voice from what i can tell.

My dad came round to day

He had read in the paper that "women want sanitery bins in mens toilets as men menstruate too"

ffs

Some trans acrivists want that...some fuckwit women want that....and some fuckwit men want that

Not women as a class

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3567616/Students-call-sanitary-bins-placed-male-toilets-transgender-men-periods.html

I know it's the Daily Mail but other papers have reported it too.

Just read the sanitary bin story.

Menstruating men.

No words.

Pretty sure if you're a trans man on your period it won't kill you to go into the ladies to change your tampon.

Students!!!

Right, thats not women is it

There may be women in there but students Are generally very open to being "sensitive"

This is the man who also told me that women prefer designer stubble,

Some women!!!! Some women!!!!

And actually i think thats bullshit as well

I am going to take the paper away from him