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?

TheApplesOfTheGoldenSun has flounced on Flouncers' Corner btw.

Actually, I have some hope that single sex secondary schools may be bastions of sanity. I would imagine that the parents of 'transing' kids wont want their education disrupted, will want them to stay put with their classmates. The schools might have to make some adjustments to uniform (easily enough solved by having an ungendered option available to all pupils) and might need a safe alternative for 'mtt' kids in a boys school. But they would stay as single sex. If the kid isn't happy with that then they could move to a coed not an opposite sex school.

TheApplesOfTheGoldenSun I take it you would be happy with doing away with any sex segregated areas completely?

But Errol, don't you think there will be a load of appeals and lawsuits from parents who want their child to go to the school that suits their gender? I'm thinking particularly of children who trans (is that the verb?) during primary and then want to attend an all-girls/all-boys secondary.

WankingMonkey she has flounced so I doubt she'll reply. Apparently MN is full of people who shout at each other and don't listen. Who'd have thought it?

I suppose I would be interested in women self-identifying as men being able to become full-on Freemasons and 'learning the mysteries'. Would that be allowed? It surely can't have a religious exemption.

Ditto women self-identifying as men being able choose to be knighted rather than accepting a damehood.

I'm thinking particularly of children who trans (is that the verb?) during primary and then want to attend an all-girls/all-boys secondary.

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I think any parent who encourages this is a damn disgrace.

We don't have schools to suit 'gender', we have schools according to 'sex'.

But yes, I expect there would be a massive fuss made out of it, as why on earth should girls need separate space to boys. We are only separated by pink or blue brains afterall...

That motherless babies article is offensive and the science it is reporting on is hideous.

In Right Wing Women, Andrea Dworkin says the following:

"For women life is in the uterus and the well-being of women - economic, social, sexual - depends on what the value of the uterus is, how it will be used and by whom, whether or not it will be protected and why. Whatever her race or class - however much she is privileged or hated for one or both - a woman is reductible to her uterus. This is the essence of her political condition as a woman."

That whole article goes on about the marvellous (and artificial) fertilisation technique but only makes fleeting mention of the mother as surrogate i.e. a living incubator.

Dworkin is right that women's well-being depends on the value of the uterus but I guess she didn't imagine that one day the value of our eggs would plummet. If she were to write that now it might read as "depends on what the value of the egg and the uterus are".

Patriarchal society hates the fact that it needs women due to its needing children.

Beachcomber, these were my thoughts when I read about this new procedure.

I thought - with all the terrible health problems there are in the world, why are they spending so much money and so much time and effort and brains and focus on this?

But of course I knew, really. Same old same old.

goldenapples, is that the same Battlestar Galactica where women are reduced to ovaries/uteruses by the wannabe humans?

I teach at a girls school. We have several trans students. It used to be that they could only change name and pronouns in the sixth form, which is coed. They can now do that in lower school. They also now have the option to have trousers instead of skirts in lower school. Not all of them have chosen to though. The ftm student I teach is still choosing to wear a skirt as not keen on the trousers (student has changed names but not yet decided which pronouns are to be used). None of them have been removed to boys schools. I'm sure our place in the league table has nothing to do with that As far as I know, we are not accepting mtf trans children. I suspect we're a little way off that yet. But my guess is that it will happen. Any opposition will be shut down as bigoted. Especially as we have boys in sixth form. But then we're not a girls school. Or are we? Or are we not with ftm students, but we would be with mtf? I wouldn't want to be a governor at the moment!

I don't know which toilets our current ftm students use though. There has been a campaign for unisex toilets. Personally, as the only boys are over 16, I don't think it'd be great for our 11 year olds to share with them suddenly, with no culture of it throughout the school, when they were expecting to be at a girls school, as were their parents, and for some there were cultural reasons behind that.

There is a FTM pupil at my kids ( co-ed ) school.

They use the individual toilet and indivual changing room for PE. Apparently there has been no pressure on the boys to budge up. None of the boys have been called transphobic for not being comfortable with a person with a male vulva and male breasts in their changing area .

I wonder why that is .

Kr1stina, I very much doubt it is the other boys' discomfort that they are worried about.

Patriarchal society hates the fact that it needs women due to its needing children.

What confuses me is why science and the patriarchal society would do away with the need for men for procreation decades before sidelining women.
I don't buy it at all.

Not all scientists are slaves to the patriarchy, you know! In fact most of them are rather independent-minded. Also, if you want a rationale for research which sidelined males, bear in mind that agribusiness would probably be delighted if dairy cows could be produced without bulls or 'waste' male calves.

What confuses me is why science and the patriarchal society would do away with the need for men for procreation decades before sidelining women

Because in patriarchy, men are the default humans. Men have worth regardless of their role in reproduction. Them being completely superfluous doesn't change a thing.

And of course, scientists playing around with mice is something entirely different from widespread practices. I don't think there's a child yet who really has two biological mommies and no daddy.

And there's no hormonal contraception for males, even though an effective medication exists - the men it was tested on complained about side effects. (Which were much milder than those of the pill, but, who cares? For men, it is not a choice between that and pregnancy.)

Kr1stina, I very much doubt it is the other boys' discomfort that they are worried about.

The boys would be probably very happy to get to ogle or even grab some "male" breasts. So, yeah. Probably not the boys' discomfort, but the transkid's safety. Most FtT don't want to use men's toilets, by the way - they only feel safe doing so if/when they pass as male.

Kr1stina, I very much doubt it is the other boys' discomfort that they are worried about

The boys would be probably very happy to get to ogle or even grab some "male" breasts. So, yeah. Probably not the boys' discomfort, but the transkid's safety. Most FtT don't want to use men's toilets, by the way - they only feel safe doing so if/when they pass as male

So you are suggesting that the problem is male violence . Interesting. I wonder why transactivists don't target this problem .

And why male violence is only a problem when it's targeted AT trans people by men and not BY trans people towards women.

And why there's a name for the first kind of violence ( transphobia ) and not the second ?

There will be no more Tom-boys. If a young girl fancies dressing in boyish/boys cloths, doing 'boyish' activities (climbing trees, football, building outdoor dens, etc.) and hanging out with boys then she will have to 'identify as a boy'.

The violence they would be concerned about is called sexual assault and/or rape, not transphobia, and the sex/gender of the assailant is largely irrelevant.

How can the gender of the assailant be largely irrelevant ? It's almost exclusively men who perpetrate such crimes .

And a person without a penis can't commit rape .

That's why women want safe spaces - to get away from sexual violence .

If the violence isn't gendered , why do transmen NOT wish to use men's changing rooms but transwomen DO wish to use womens changing rooms. That doesn't make sense if they are equally at risk of violence .

One also wonders why the transwomen want to use the women's changing rooms, despite the danger of terrible, violent, transphobic terfs being there. Those evil terfs who "literally kill" transwomen surely are waaay more dangerous than men ... or are they?

Perhaps Grayson Perry, Izzard and similar should not be seen as 'colourful', benign entertainers. Their very presence on TV may be softening us all up for a slide into a deliberately gender-fudged society.

And don't forget - Male bonding is always stronger than heterosexual love. Men will unite to control women at a societal level, even those who are at first reluctant, and regardless of how they 'identify'.

Yes - to kill a mockingbird springs to mind

Perry is ok on trans. He says he's a man and admits cross dressing turns him on.

How can the gender of the assailant be largely irrelevant ?

Under UK law rape is defined as penetration with a penis. If the person carrying out the assault does not possess a penis, whatever they do cannot be classified as rape.