Consquences of self-identification

[MrsKCastle]

Sorry if this has already been done. I've been doing a lot of thinking about current trans thinking in the media.

As far as I understand it, this is the predominant view:
Anyone can be man or woman, male, female or neither. It doesn't depend on your genes, appearance or potential ability to hear young. What's important is how you identify. We should always treat people as they identify, with regard to how we speak about and treat them, and what spaces/roles we allow them to access.

What I'm interested in, is how this self-identification will or could change society. I'd love to hear your thoughts as I think it will help me to get things straight in my head.

So far I'm thinking:
No more single-sex schools
No more single-sex hospital wards
No more single-sex clubs, whether that's Brownies or exclusive golf clubs
Anyone can apply for any scholarship or award, regardless of sex

What else?

Don't assume that your feeling "not male" catapults you immediately into "female".

This, this, this :)

Also every word of ponti's brilliant 'rant'.

As a trans person when you are still possibly questioning your own identity sometimes and seeking little nuggets of external validation to help you.

It seems not to have sunk in yet that this is the normal state for billions of women. Young women, constantly being told what they are and what they aren't, what they can do and what they can't, who they may be and who they may not ... always that they aren't good enough. And can never be good enough, but must keep trying. Doing hundreds of quizzes & questionnaires to tell them who and what they are. Buying more & more stuff to change them into something more acceptable. Being judged. Judged by strangers on the street and on the Web, judged by their parents and friends and siblings, judged by their schools who insist they must not sexually interest the males while ignoring the males' inappropriate behaviour, judged by employers who demand a certain level of attractiveness as defined by them, judged by boyfriends and potential boyfriends, ex-boyfriends and husbands. Being shamed on a daily basis. Every young woman suffers this. If it doesn't bother them too much, they have been lucky so far. It is normal for young women to cut, to starve themselves, turn to substance abuse, even to attempt suicide because of it.

Did you know nothing about it, ATM? Did you think it's something exclusive to transgender people? If you did, then you've got male privilege.

If you know about it, then your arguments display a staggering lack of empathy for the sex class you want to join. You're dangerously close to Paris Lees asserting that this - this insistent, life-threatening, humiliating abuse - is for you 'empowering' and affirming.

How dare you.

If it's a 'thing' venusinscorpio wouldn't that put paid, pretty quickly, to the argument in favour of sharing womens' spaces ? I can see transactivists finding all sorts of arguments in favour, from being born in the wrong body, to gender identification, etc, but however uncomfortable it may be, if AGP is even a possibility as a reason to transition, wouldn't that be IT in terms of shared spaces? I can't imagine (m)any women being happy with it. Would it then come down to finding a way to make a distinction ? How on earth could that ever work? For me, it's the most compelling argument for people who might be 'on the fence'.

Yes, Datun, that's why the trans movement's advocates are so keen to dismiss the theory. Despite the extraordinary weight of evidence in its favour.

Many of the 'diagnostics' even include criteria of sexual excitement at imagining oneself as a woman or wearing stereotypically feminine knickers clothing.

Datun that is exactly why I think we should use the already collected and put together evidence of silly's she is arguing the same point.

I admit I felt a sense of trepidation about even asking about it. The trans threads are often dominated by a sense of outrage over womenhood being appropriated. Which I understand and agree with. But when you get the sad and distressing stories of transwomen, transitioning early, living for decades as women and quietly getting on with it, people tend to get, quite naturally, compassionate and understanding. I'm sure this is why it's such an emotive subject, why so many say 'oh, live and let live'.

When you add AGP into the mix, it is not two sides of the same coin, is it? It's a different coin altogether. Completely different currency in fact. AGP immediately discredits (some of) the trans movement's motives. However unfair that is on the non-AGP individuals.

I don't have an answer.

I think the whole 'scientific evidence' thing is a bit of a red-herring as regards rights. Even if the pink brain/blue brain thing was true, okay we'd have to argue a bit harder perhaps as regards feminism. Even if that were true, you'd then still have a proportion of trans folk with a potential brain sex/body sex mismatch or complication (leaving room for other reasons behind people being trans, like autogynephilia and that sort of target location error). Even if a transwoman had been scanned and been found to have an authentic, 100% certified by the goddess, baby-pink all the way through lady-brain, they would still have a male body and male socialisation. Hence still reasons for not wanting them in the ladies loo.
Plus I bet that if such a scan existed (I'm thinking simple MRI scan lots of brain regions kind of thing), TRAs would resist it like anything, because then it would be claimed to distinguish 'true' trans from 'false' trans. Or science doesn't know anything you know, and we'd be back to totally subjective self-identification again.
From a treatment of dysphoria viewpoint (given that some trans folk do experience considerable dysphoria), it might be diagnostically useful, and potentially help in treatment for dysphoria. But I don't expect to see it, given the current climate, which rather than investigated actual treatments for dysphoria and their effectiveness, we instead see self-identification and surgery on demand as the objectives. Which isn't science or medicine.

I don't require a gay gene to establish the position for gay rights, just that it is a natural human capacity and does no one else any harm for gay people to have such rights. Whereas trans is obviously a human capacity, like gayness has variable social expression over history, but potentially has may social consequences for females.

I do agree with what you are saying.some

In the other hand though, if the TAs science can be discredited and shown that there is a distinction from
autogynephilia. Then it means there should be, a 'pause for thought' on the implications of opening womens spaces.

If you can't name it, how do you fight it?

This has happen because autogynephilia has slipped in under the trans umbrella. Its always been part of the umbrella but transgender is now all encompassing. No such distinctions are made. They need to be made again. Its the first step in a bigger picture.

I agree with all the reasons - male violence, discomfort, hell - pee on the seats is my bugbear. My point was, although those reasons are infinitely valid and definitely need a massive airing, telling women at large that they might be having a pee next to a man who is aroused by it would knock the argument out of the ball park. It doesn't lessen the rest of the argument but if it is indeed 'a thing' and there is respectable evidence to back it up, more people would listen.

I don't care if people have a fetish, more power to you, if that's your thing, but requiring me to be unwittingly complicit is not on.

I think what I'm trying to say is most men won't care, it's not in their interests, but also MANY women don't care. They don't think male violence will be a problem (NAMALT), they're not bothered about gender stereotyping being harmful. Male socialisation and privilege are only something I've recently become aware of. And I live with three men !

The trans lobby has managed to harness the zeitgeist by aligning themselves to the LGB community so it sounds progressive and right on. If a 'normal' mum like me can see the glaring hole in the argument (I can find a pun there if you give me a min...), which ALL women will see, why not use it ?

Transwomen tend to fall into two categories (according to Blanchard, I'm not just observing) - gender non conforming children who transition early, and tend to be attracted to men. Boys who would have grown up into feminine gay men if they hadn't transitioned.
And late transitioning, fully masculine appearing/presenting, heterosexual men who often work in very macho industries. They tend to be 'lesbians' (except they aren't lesbians by any stretch) and they are far, far less sympathetic than the first category.
Since Blanchard did his research a new category seems to have emerged; young, early transitioning hetero men who aggressively identify as lesbians. The same old male entitlement and privilege, different outfits.

Poldarks, I've read several first-hand accounts by young males who found their sexuality expressed in trans porn. What follows tends to be a pretty fast progression into transification via online groups, which start by introducing members to ever harder porn while simultaneously building fantasies of 'being' a woman in the sexual context. From there it's easy to engulf him in praise of his femininity and real-woman-ness, guiding him towards the stages of transition.

It's unclear what brings them to this genre in the first place: accident, introduction or spontaneous interest. All but those who've detransitioned will, of course, insist it was spontaneous.

Datun, a lot of transwomen are fetishistic cross-dressers. The old-style transsexuals were typically effeminate attracted to other men which, for one thing, made them less of a threat to women. The huge surge in trans numbers recently appears to be largely composed of autogynephiles who, having transitioned, often describe themselves as lesbians. 80% of transwomen have - and intend to keep - their penis.

If you want an eye-opening experience, visit the Reddit sub asktransgender. This is one of the places online where trans people chat. And when they do, for the MTFs at least, it's clearly very much to do with sex. They're perfectly frank about, for example, using their wives or sister's underwear as aids to masturbation, and gems such as:

"In my experience, falling onto the trans* spectrum is a lot like needing to go to the bathroom: if you think you might, you probably do."

I do hope Maria Miller is being advised by people who actually explore what's being said on such forums, and on Tumblr. The "born this way" narrative of transactivists is not supported by what transwomen say to each other.

There's a lot social contagion going on, and there's a lot of sexual obsession. The tales told by the wives gaslighted, abused and deserted by late transitioning men are spookily alike. There's an extremely long discussion thread So Your Husband is “Becoming A Woman”: Advice from women who’ve been there on a feminist blog, which is both sad and horrifying to read. Dozens of women who've all had such similar experiences. There's a term for these women: transwidows, because the men they married have died for them.

Is anyone in Maria Millers constituency (Basingstoke)?

I hate all this justification and I'm not looking at any more links. It's just look at us, listen to us, validate us.

Thank you Prawnofthepatriarchy and others for the info. I have long lurked on these threads as a result of the IOC thread last year (me and many others). I've clicked on a lot of links, but avoid the most contentious as it gets my blood boiling.

I'm with you all the way, for all the reasons. As I personally find AGP so alien (God knows how I'd ever hold down a job if my CLOTHES were arousing me all the time), I just feel that the utter 'maleness' of the condition is very enlightening. It's soo not 'being a woman'.

And yes ErrolTheDragon surely if a report landed on her desk, she couldn't ignore it (could she...?)

Anyway, thank you for all the posting. It really has been a light bulb moment for many of us.

I did a long post about AGP and porn on the "Thoughts on MNHQ's response to the Spartacus thread" thread, with links.

I won't attempt to make you share my brilliant research skills a second time () but it included the fact that a 2015 CNBC report tells us that sales of transgender porn have increased 14% in the past year, and now make up 10% of its overall revenue. On the free porn site PornHub the number one searched category is "lesbian" porn directed at men.

The idea that 10% of porn is transgender is bad enough, given the effect of the ideology on women, but the speed at which the category is growing is even more concerning. Many of the new recruits on asktransgender are in their teens or very early 20s and are taking hormones, often without medical supervision. The porn thing is distorting people's lives.

Been out a lot of today, after picking my kids up from nursery we went for a meal for my husbands birthday. Used the bus as car is knackered. Had a slightly surreal experience given my obsession with trans stuff recently. A bunch of school kids were getting on the bus and (embarrassingly) 4 year old started pointing out loudly 'thats a girl' 'theres a boy' and so on. Also commenting on bags and such. Pretty much standard kid chatter but at a very loud level where people were looking...

Anyway, this person got on, long lovely hair (I was jealous of it, to put it that way). Uniform but with skirt instead of trousers (every other person out of approx 30 who got on that stop bar one had trousers on). Makeup pristine. Etc. About as feminine as one could get. 4 year old shouts at the top of her voice 'theres a boy!'

Well I wanted to die of embarrassment. I thought she had just called a girl a boy and started apologizing profusely. He sat just behind us and started talking, mainly reassuring me that there was no problem and kids are kids. It turned out this was indeed a boy, and honestly I was gobsmacked. He sat talking to my daughter for the rest of the journey too..he was not even slightly embarrassed by being called a boy (when I obviously figured..he must be trans..once I found out he was male) infact he was happy about it. He asked her why she thought he was a boy. She just laughed and said 'because you are, aren't you'. This kid was so open I decided to ask a few questions of my own. He hates being assumed to be a girl because of how he choses to dress and such. Everyone at school knows him as a boy. He is simply...gender-non conforming. I can't help but think...this is actually the future. (And wonder how the hell a 4 year old could 'know' immediately when I didn't. )

Slight anecdote from my day.

Also turns out this lad goes to DSSs school...as DSS was at the bus station when we got off and started talking to him and then diddled off with him when we got our second bus. DSS has mentioned previously that there is a lad on the rugby team at school who 'looks like a girl'. I honestly thought he was making it up just to be part of a conversation me and DH were having a few weeks back. So it seems that kids really are accepting of other kids even if they are different, though him being on the rugby team may well help ward off any potential teasing...

A few more kids as comfortable as this one in expressing themselves, rather than deciding their interests mean they are actually girls...and the 'problem' begins to right itself, I feel?

There's a boy who lives near me who has a very androgynous style, I love it, I always want to tell him how cool he looks but that would probably put him right off
I hope that is the future

Thanks prawn...I already do too much internet stuff and now I will be on here all the time, this asktransgender thing is so...weird

www.reddit.com/r/asktransgender/comments/54plk7/i_am_a_male_transgender_growing_up_as_a_girl_tell/

This thread is worrying. It is ALL stereotypes. Every answer. I find it a bit...creepy (?) asking what you missed out during a non-existant 'boyhood' too tbh

Out of the mouths of babes, WM. Fascinating and cheering. Perhaps its that small children are so into dress- up and make-believe(but know fact from fantasy unless adults solemnly tell them about santa, the tooth fairy, god...) that they look under the surface of paint and clothing? And presumably little monkey is being raised with less indoctrination into stereotypes than many. Suggests you're doing something right!

Yeah I did think it may be because 'dress up' is such a prominent thing at her nursery. Along with her brother (2) (who she refuses to call james, he has been 'baby' since birth ) spending the majority of his time in princess dresses and sparkly shoes at home. Heh. DH had a bit of a crisis about that to begin with but it was easy enough to chill him out with a 'they are fucking kids, leave them alone' and then forcibly telling him that if DS choses to wear dresses, he can do so, even outside. His face was a picture mind...but he understands now and does try very hard to not be all 'no, thats your sisters' and such. He was strangely fine about DD doing 'masculine' things and wearing tracksuits or typically 'blokey' things and playing with trucks. His crisis only started when he came in from work to find DS (at about 18 months old) in an Elsa dress, complete with wig and bright red wizard of oz style shoes, sat nursing a doll to sleep I would give anything to see his face that moment again...

His family were very very old fashioned. He wasn't allowed to do 'girly' things at all as a kid and stuff I have been told, such as his cousin breaking her heart because she wanted to go fishing with the 'guys' but was told she had to stay in baking with her grandmother like a good little girl...its heartbreaking really and kind of understandable why he was a bit like that himself. Until I educated him a bit.

@GarlicMist - I made a statement about my experience and the experience of trans people I know and you generalise that into a massive straw man.

I grew up with female best friends. My peers were primarily girls and I went through all of those experiences alongside them whilst doing a lot of the same questionnaires looking at my own gender and trying to figure out where I was. I've been there and seen some of the very darkest sides of this in my friends (trans or otherwise). Please don't think I'm ignorant to female or feminist issues - quite the opposite.

On a more general note the majority of trans people don't have repressed homophobia. It's very easy to offer an external diagnosis about trans people based on their sexual attraction (and well done for totally erasing bisexuality like the week after bisexual pride by the way). An awful lot of people I know identify as bi or pansexual, some with preferences one way or the other.

Now I believe that biological sex and gender are different things (as is gender expression). But of course some people don't understand that. Trans activists (and I count myself as one) explain this all the time and the model makes sense. For most people all three are in line. For some people their gender expression can vary from their own gender through to androgyny and out the other side. I think everyone agrees that this is a good thing and freedom of personal expression is important and isn't something you should be attacked for.

But the middle one - your internal feeling around gender - is a mix of your life experience, societal impact, brain chemistry and hormone balance. There is science behind this (my natural oestrogen level was almost double the top end of the range for a male for instance - and I had bilateral Gynecomastia).

There is still research required into this and I'm a firm believer in science. The whole pink vs blue brain concept is flawed - it's going to be shades of grey like everything in life and different parts of the brain are going to be wired differently (for instance in my case I have very high emotional intelligence, compassion and empathy - I get a lot of satisfaction from running support groups and helping other people which are traditional 'feminine' traits). But you also need to factor nurture into this.

The thought experiment of a genderless society is interesting. I suspect in a large enough peer group you will get some that identify with their peers of different genders. There is evidence of trans people through history so it's hardly a modern thing. Different cultures had different approaches to gender historically and it's a fascinating area of study.

It's very easy to say we are animals and have dimorphoic sexuality but you also need to realise that we have intelligence, intellect and individuality far above any other species we know.

No other species has done anything like what humans have done - so using biology as a simple comparison seems flawed as it erases the one thing that separates us from the other animals - our minds.

@WankingMonkey - that anecdote is the future for me as well. Seeing people able to have whatever gender expression they want and also dismantling misogyny as well. Boys can wear makeup (and frankly some look amazing). I know quite a few trans girls that are makeup artists and their skills are outstanding.

Getting the rest of society the accept this is one of the challenges we face. Just being accepting to someone who is dressed a little differently is a massive challenge. And ironically it is almost always men that make the transphobic comments, usually to reinforce their own masculinity and cover their own internalised homophobia or doubts. And then probably go home and watch trans porn!

As to online trans support groups I am a member of quite a few closed FB groups and various other online spaces and most of what we discuss is nothing like those links. Primarily it is emotional support (suicide and self harm is quite prevalent), discussing hormone treatments and In the U.K. offering advice around the NHS system or bitching about how slow it is.

There is almost zero sexual context in any of the groups I'm involved on. In fact anything sexual tends to get you kicked (the last thing we want is chasers/admirers in our spaces - that we can agree on).

That is the difference between trans people and the AGP/ fetishistic side. A lot of cross dresser forums are incredibly sexual and I try very hard to differentiate myself and other trans people from that.

I'm not saying trans people are asexual - far from it. But our desire for sex and our desire to be accepted in our preferred gender are totally separate things, not mixed up together.

@WankingMonkey - that anecdote is the future for me as well. Seeing people able to have whatever gender expression they want and also dismantling misogyny as well. Boys can wear makeup (and frankly some look amazing). I know quite a few trans girls that are makeup artists and their skills are outstanding.

Getting the rest of society the accept this is one of the challenges we face.

I am glad you agree that the future is anyone 'presenting' however they like and being accepted for it. I feel this is kind of at odds with being a TA though? As if we keep telling people who wish to 'present' as the opposite sex that they are indeed the opposite sex...then we will never come to a future where it is seen as ok to just...be who you are?

The thought experiment of a genderless society is interesting. I suspect in a large enough peer group you will get some that identify with their peers of different genders.

I don't really understand this either? Noone could 'identify' with the opposite gender, if they grew up in a gender neutral environment. Unless you are using gender meaning sex?

I don't think trans is a new thing at all. Infact I wouldn't be surprised to find out that there were more 'trans' people years back (though obviously it wouldn't be spoken about back then, as oppression was even worse). You know, back when the boxes for 'gender roles' were even tighter than they are today...always going to be some who say 'fuck this, I am more than just a tick box exercise' and break away from whats expected of them.