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?

"People are normally attracted to a sex, i.e. lesbians are attracted to other women, not to gendered performance. Indeed a lot of those attracted to their own sex don't do gender much. "
Just to add, some lesbians (well, in the past when I was on the scene!) are femme and primarily attracted to butch, and vice-versa (and butch-butch gets frowned upon), and some would refer to this as lesbian gender. But in my experience, it is usually sex comes first (i.e. I'm female and attracted to others of the same sex), followed by 'butch or femme or neither'? When this gets expanded to butch/baby butch/soft butch /butchy femme etc becomes more personality rather than 'gender'. Plus always used to be strongly resisted making the obvious butch/femme = masculine/feminine = male/female heterosexuals link. No more mysterious than some gay men being active as opposed to passive.

Sex is primary for almost 100% of the lesbians I have ever met. (okay, stop sniggering at the back! You know what I meant!)

As for the not going out with dripping wet hair, I've done that - not being very appearance conscious - and you get a lot of disapproving looks

From whom? Men , other women. Genuinely interested. Do you really think anyone cares? I towel dry my hair but don't blow dry it. it's not dripping wet but it's still wet when I leave the house. Never noticed anyone looking aghast at it.

I honestly think many posters on here are obsessed about being scrutinised by style police when actually most people just go about their own business. I'm obsessed with my own clothes yet I still could not tell you what the person who sits 2 feet from me was wearing today. I just didn't notice.

Miley Cyrus described herself as "genderfluid" last year
Along with her little human fashion accessory, Tyler Durden. I haven't seen such obvious publicity stunts in a very long time.

Been out with wet hair and also unbrushed hair (I know..taking it a bit too far but it was urgent and DD had hidden my brush)

I feel so conscious when doing so..I think its kind of ingrained in me that I should make some kind of effort, but often don't. I have 'noticed' funny looks and stuff but this may very well be because I am hyper aware and kind of...unconsciously looking for peoples disapproval. If that makes sense.

@WitchingHour - quoting sections of the DSM to support your claims is a poor technique when you skip the whole paragraph at the start of the Gender Dysphoria section which separates sex and gender.

It also doesn't say 'the vast majority of late transitioners are AGP' in any sense. It actually says:

'Additional predisposing factors under consideration, especially in individuals with late-onset gender dysphoria (adolescence,
adulthood), include habitual fetishistic transvestism developing into autogynephilia'

Not quite sure how you can turn the words 'additional predisposing factors' into 'vast majority'.

Your second last paragraph is logically flawed. The sentence reads '...autoerotic asphyxia is associated with transvestitism in a a substantial proportion of fatal cases'. The link is from AA -> TVF. Not the other way around. A implies B does not mean B implies A - that is totally false logic.

Suggesting that some people that I know personally have hung themselves due to wanting a sexual high, and not due to the burden of gender dysphoria coupled with the constant micro aggressions and bullying of today's society is incredibly disrespectful.

I will happily accept scientific evidence when it stands up to inspection, not when you are trying to find weak correlations and using bad logic.

Well none of that matters as much as what a woman is. The reasons men are 'transgender' are not for women to fathom in an effort to allow a select few into a female space and keep out 'the dangerous ones'. It's much more straightforward and safer for women to say, men, be respectful, and use the men's spaces. If I saw a transwoman using the disabled loo I wouldn't think 'ha! a trans!' I'd think they were actually far more considerate and 'female socialised' than a transwomen barging into the women's.

Historical evidence of trans people - which culture would you like? Hirja in the Kama Sutra? Two spirit people in Native America? Plenty of ancient cultures had trans people mentioned and some venerated them (commonly alongside femininity). Being trans is not a 21st or event 20th Century issue. It's just recent medical discovery (well, 50+ years of medical discovery) and acceptance of the LGB community, as well as the connected nature of the internet has enabled us to come forward.

There are a lot of trans men out there leading very successful lives and countless articles about how trans men actually gain male privilege.

Here's one: everydayfeminism.com/2015/05/male-privilege-trans-men/

The Hirja I am pretty sure are treated as a 'third sex' not women.

That transman admits they fully pass as a man. If people mistake you for the opposite sex, they will assume opposite sex things about you. No one is disputing that. The point about male privilege is that transwomen still have elements of it, especially late transitioners.

In the interests of understanding, I've asked quite a few questions on here on areas where I am unclear, but I think my posts may be appearing in white?

No obligation to reply, of course, although I got that there was a desire to enhance appreciation of respective experiences and perceptions?

@Prawn - If you are using Reddit as the basis for your arguments I can see this not going well in the longer term. Try factual sources and not the ramblings of the internet.

Let's dissect some statements:

'Transwomen are, on average, taller, heavier, and very much stronger than women, and they, like other males, pose a potential physical and sexual threat to women, and at the same rate'

Trans women (as opposed to fetishistic transvestites) take HRT. A small subset don't, but it's very small. Getting access to hormones is the first thing any trans woman wants - it's why we self medicate when we can't get access to them via the NHS or whatever. Have you studied their effects? Because trans women on hormones for a certain period are allowed to compete at some competitive sports on the same basis as cis women (source: The IOC). Which means they aren't 'stronger'. Blocking testosterone will reduce muscle mass (especially in the top half).

Testosterone blockers which are often prescribed first, decrease sexual drive (often quite dramatically) and have a strong chance of causing erectile dysfunction for those that have not had lower surgery. So that removes the 'sexual' threat quite a bit. This is quite a quick effect, by the way.

Yes, we are taller on average. I would debate heavier - we are on the lower percentiles for weight compared to men.

And finally 'all the rapes and murders committed by transwomen'. Really? Can I have some evidence please? And some underlying statistics that prove this is an alarming trend rather than some random example. I'm not saying that no trans woman has ever committed a sexual offense, we are still people and come in all shapes and sizes.

But painting us as perverts and rapists is just like Donald Trump saying all Mexicans are rapists and we should build a wall to keep them out. Or perhaps you don't like the comparison?

It's worth noting that lesbian rape is also an interesting statistic here (although technically under UK law rape can only be committed by penetration with a penis, which means lesbians can't legally commit rape, so you need to adjust statistics to accommodate for that). But sexual assault by women on women does happen. Or do we ignore that? You are already sharing your bathrooms with people who have committed sexual offences on women.

(Note that I'm not saying or trying to infer that lesbians are sexual predators in anyway. Far from it in fact.)

An alarming portion of the transgender community have been sexually assaulted (primarily by men). Statistically this is much higher than any other community. Trans women of colour being the highest. Putting us in the men's bathroom isn't going to reduce this risk, and it's going to make a tiny percentage of women feel 'safer' (and I mean tiny percentage).

This is why I say it is fear-mongering and posts such as yours are just propagating this.

That's a bit rich about Reddit, ATM, given that you've just posted an article from the frequently ridiculous Everyday Feminism.

Also I think you'll find that many women on this site don't agree with the IOC that transwomen should be able to compete in women's sports and that they do think it's unfair.

I think you are including women of colour, specifically sex workers, in some regions, in your statistics there ATM.

Not wanting transwomen in my changing room has bugger all to do with trans. It's to do with men.

Lass, you are deliberately missing my point which was about the very long & persistent battles women have fought over every tiny bloody detail of our liberation. Strange, since I explicitly said so

If you aren't a feministy woman whose career started in 1975 and who plugged away at everything from paid maternity leave to sexist dress codes, my experience outweighs yours.

Scrolling back to read the other posts now.

ATM - Two spirit people. The poor buggers get yanked out by the TG movement all the time. You are misappropriating other people's cultures by applying contemporary Western norms: a horrible thing to do, not least because it's exactly what colonists and slavers did.

The native American cultures to which you allude have an understanding of gender which is similar in some ways to radical feminism (and common sense), since they don't deny their born sex or believe in an inborn sense of gender. Most importantly for those wheeling them out as other-worldly examples of 'spirit gender', two-spirits are chosen by their elders to fulfil these roles. There's no deep'n'meaningful yearning for an 'opposite gender' self; it's about other qualities - closeness to spirit ancestors; healing magic, etc - as perceived by the elders of their community in that particular culture.
othersociologist.com/2013/09/09/two-spirit-people/

I can give you loads of other examples of cultural clumsiness regarding various attitudes to sex, gender & sexuality from the poor hijra to ancient Greeks & Romans - but it's not a single topic. It's about individual cultures, which should never be translated without full contextual recognition.

That said, I'd be more comfortable with the reappearance of a European-style third sex than what we seem to have right now.

Your questions have been interesting, First, and I share your disappointment at the lack of decent answers!

Here are two of my favourites:

1. Did ATM mean "I was alongside [my girl friends] whilst they went through those experiences"? - as compared with going through all of those experiences alongside them which would've meant having period leaks, being cornered by your dad's lecherous friend, discovering your vaginal discharge, the ticket officer grabbing your tits, etc, etc, etc.

1. Why are you a woman, if the other questions are a bit tricky?

An alarming portion of the transgender community have been sexually assaulted (primarily by men).

Please notice the statement in parentheses. It is men who do the violent assault and rape.

Why aren't you lot trying to address this?

I dispute that 'this is much higher than any other community'. The community of women - a full 52% of the population - is raped on a regular basis, beaten up and, if you count any level of sexual assault, nearly all women have suffered it.

In case you missed it last time, "WOMAN" DOESN'T MEAN "PERSON WHO MIGHT BE RAPED". Women's spaces are women's - for a variety of reasons - NOT spaces for people who think they might be raped.

Anyway, how many transwomen have been raped in men's toilets & changing rooms?

One last question, ATM. Was it you who said your serum estradiol before treatment was twice the male upper limit and you had gynecomastia?

I'm no doctor, but wouldn't this indicate a 'feminising disorder' probably associated with hormonal disease? Did you have a pituitary or testicular illness, for instance? I imagine your condition was a symptom of something more physical and dangerous than 'feeling like a woman'. I hope you didn't just ignore it!

You might get on my saggy old tits, but I wouldn't like to think of you hurtling towards an ignominious doom for want of medical intervention.

Ha. I typed out a huge rant about cultural misappropriation of two spirited people but lost it. Agree totally that two spirited people are NOT comparable to transwomen. They do not deny their birth sex. I support their inclusion in gender narratives, but not where the aim is to prove that there is cultural and historical precedent to prove it is possible to 'change' sex. It is just disrespectful. Particularly in support of narratives advocating hormonal and surgical intervention to 'change' sex. We have renewed stigma attached to the modern cross dressing trans-narrative on our local reserve. Let's not pretend that First Nations communities are some sort of transgender utopia. That's just embarrassing.

And I wear fucking mukluks. I culturally appropriate for 6 months of the year.

I also know a raft of nice transwomen on HRT who entirely fit the bill of fetishistic cross-dressers. I was on tv chix back in the day and found it very strange that so many people who identified as transgendered were also so much at home in the fetish community. I mean, I know there are women in the fetish community, but the sheer numbers of ordinary Jane transwomen in their skirts and jumpers who were actively posting their fetishes online as well as using the forum to set up dates with each other and 'admirers' was bizarre. Not so much 'oh we just want to get on with ordinary life' as 'I want to spunk in my neighbour's laundry', 'am I the only one that gets an erection when I put on stockings?' and 'do you think this rubber corset with nipple holes is too much for the Rubber Ball? Wanna come?' Hur hur.
I don't think I know a nice everyday transwoman on HRT that doesn't own a pair of black thigh length boots and a black rubber mini dress. It's like a uniform. Look at us being 'women'! I mean, in everyday terms they wear their skinny jeans and pride themselves on passing. But given free rein in a closed group, the fetishes are rampant.
You can sit and read three hundred pages of people discussing feminine hygiene products in deeply sexual terms, knowing that none of them have any actual need to use any of them, and believe that it's all perfectly normal if you want. I choose not to. (Let me additionally reassure you that I care not if you are post surgery and have maintenance requirements for your newly fashioned fake vagine. I'm aware of the maintenance requirements, thanks.) They are all lovely people. Invited me to the Rubber Ball and everything. But they ain't women, and I don't want them in my washroom, wanking by the tampon dispenser or having erections in the cubicle next door listening to me ripping open an always packet. That doesn't mean I think I'm going to get raped. I just can't unknow that a large section of the MTT trans community has some bloody (ha) odd ideas about the realities of being a woman.
What I found really weird is that I was barred from formal trans groups on account of my sex, but my male colleague (not even remotely trans) was lauded. I dutifully didn't go - it was their choice, after all. And now those self same dudes want in to my bog. And won't take no for an answer. Go figure.

Let's be clear about one thing - I'm equally as concerned about stopping rape or sexual assault of any form. But associating rape with kink isn't a great start. Ironically the canonical rule in the kink world is consent.

One thing I get heavily involved with is promoting proper sex and relationship education - I was standing outside parliament earlier this year speaking at a protest demanding unilateral and age appropriate SRE across the curriculum. Teaching people about consent and SRE in general is one of the most powerful tools in combating sexual assault.

Ironically the reason we didn't get it was because of a man (the then Prime Minister), despite numerous high profile female MP's promoting it.

Again this is an area of common ground we could be fighting together rather than being at loggerheads.

And I'm on hols with my kids this week so I can't answer all your questions - but I'll answer some more later today :)

(Probably should have though of a better avatar name as the acronym isn't great either...)

Here you are, ATM, here is a comprehensive list of transwomen who are accused or have been convicted of violent and sexual crimes. I suspect you won't like the source, but perhaps you should bear in mind that mainstream media will not report accurately on crimes committed by transwomen. See also the recent scuffle over Lauren Jenks, a transwoman who attempted to murder a sports official who had launched an inquiry into the legitimacy of Lauren's eligibility to compete in women's sports. Most of the papers declined to identify Lauren as a transwoman, despite this being materially relevant to motive for the crime.

So as we're trading stats, can you please furnish us with the stats on transwomen being assaulted by men in male segregated areas? As it's so worrisome, and so prevalent, I would imagine that it is quite easy to come by. I myself have not seen the evidence. Perhaps you have?

In passing, the IOC is in my opinion completely, lavishly, devastatingly WRONG in its reliance on testosterone levels as eligibility criteria. HTH.

I'd like to know why you keep insisting on using the disrespectful term 'cis' [women] when you know how many women on here feel misidentified and offended by it.

Limey is not the only one who rejects the label "cis". Please don't use it, ATM. It's considered a sliur. Offensive.

MN Policy is to delete abusive posts . Several posters have asked you not to use this offensive ( and usually inaccurate ) term .