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?

The 'trasitioning children' thing is a massive can of worms. Do we really want to open that?

I knew I was trans at age 7. I had no idea what to do with that information, how to unpack it, or how to handle it. With hindsight and the benefits of counselling I now understand how I felt back then.

4 is far too young to have any clue. 7 is an age where you might be trans, but frankly should just carry on in your current gender unless you really can't function in it.

The reason TA's go crazy around puberty blockers is that they remember how freakishly hellish puberty was when you have massive dysphoria for your own body parts. You perceive that your body should be male (i.e. you are a trans man) and your boobs start growing. Or you perceive that you should be female and suddenly your voice starts to drop and hairs start springing from everywhere.

Stopping a trans child going through that torturous process is all consuming. But sometimes they forget that kids are kids. They might want to wear the princess dress or play with barbies because they enjoy that and their parents haven't drilled in pink vs blue toys with them.

But that's a whole new battlefield (and probably a separate thread).

"ATM why are you talking about stereotypes in that lofty way as if they're nothing to do with trans?"
Indeed, I seem to recall earlier ATM referred to lesbians being attracted by their femininity? But if someone is pre or non-op and has only been on hormones a short time, what can be constituting this attractive 'femininity' apart from stereotypes?

Or lesbians can somehow detect the magic, innate female-gender essence?

Or just 'cos they are honestly mistaking you for a female (and using the conventional social markers for female as a short-hand)? Whilst necessary, it is not sufficient. (By which I mean, after getting all mathsy, is that if you think someone is female, and you find how they are presenting interesting, well, it is necessary in that I would find it hard to be attracted to someone if I found their presentation totally unattractive -- but it is not sufficient, in that however nice the presentation is, I would also need the contents, as if were, to be correct. So, attracting lesbians by your femininity is, at best, a con!). Just as straight men are quite capable, say, of finding a transwoman or a gay male drag artiste attractive in terms of their presentation of femininity, but that is all because, well, they're male, and that isn't what they want inside the package.

I don't have a problem at all with people wearing whatever they like, I just object to them using lesbians as some of true-femalesness-detector affirmation ploy.

Cherry picking questions

"7 is an age where you might be trans, but frankly should just carry on in your current gender unless you really can't function in it."
Except wouldn't it be better to get rid of gender for 7-year olds (and the rest of us), if what we have is causing so much angst?

Kids (should) have a sex, not a gender. Problem solved.

From those it is logical to infer gender is therefore partly nature, but different from sex.

Erm...yes? Gender is partly nature and partly nurture. As I believe gender IS ones personality?

However gender is not linked to ones sex? Same as personality is not?

Not entirely sure where you are going with this...

I've been thinking. A (false) analogy is often drawn between trans and gay, including using some of the same terminology (like outing someone etc). So, I was thinking about what (used) to be the position of gay people in the workplace. It used to be okay to sack someone because they were gay. Someone who was openly gay at work was afraid of harassment if not outright violence (I mostly worked in academia, rather than, say , construction, so was rather sheltered!). But there was a fear of violence, and a desire to hide.

So what was the gay response? Did we campaign for the right to officially hide our gay status, or for all the gay men to come hide in the ladies cos the straight blokes might think they were checking out their dicks? Nope, we wanted a right not to be discriminated against in employment and the right to be openly gay at work.

Whereas the whole ladies loo argument seems to be so often fear of male violence, and can we come and hide in the ladies. Rather, than, say, males being proud of their 'gender' and non-conforming presentation and walking into the gents regardless. Along with their local drag queen who might occasionally feel like getting fully glammed up at work. Which I would be all in favour of, to be totally frank!

OK here is my line of thinking about how some of personality is nature. I will use an actual example of people I know in real life as I feel having some kind of marker should make it easier to understand my view a bit

X and Y are twin sisters, friends of DSS. 12 years old. Brought up together, same parents obviously, did nearly everything together as young children, to the point where they even dressed the same most of the time, and still do now sometimes..etc etc. However, their personalities are miles different. One is quiet and quite reserved whilst the other is extremely loud. So...if there is no nature in it, how do we explain the polar opposites in twin girls who were brought up in the same environment?

I still do not understand how my thinking nature has a role in personality means anything in regards to the discussion we are having though. As again, personality is not linked to ones sex in any way, it is unique to each person.

Yes but ATMs argument goes no further than bits of personality are innate therefore gender is innate therefore there is a brain marker therefore it's more important than chromosomes. None of which follows. You could turn that argument into a calculation via the methodology of mathematical logic and it wouldnt get past the hurdle of first premise = first conclusion.

There are 7.4 billion human personalities in the world. Two sexes, a minute number of intersex anomolies, and no such thing as gender.

Whether personality is innate or nurtured is an interesting question but irrelevant to the question of groups or categories. It's irrelevant to whether the population of the world can be meaningfully categorised into two groups for the purposes of toileting. Or having a shower. Or, ensuring sanpro availability. Or ensuring all human children have a right to an education, not just the ones with penises. Or understanding which group is more vulnerable to sexual crime. Or is at risk of pregnancy. And which group commits violent crimes. And which group is denied legal rights.

We group people because they share common characteristics. Grouping them allows us to see clearly which group has common needs and get on with addressing those needs.

There is zero reason to segregate anything by personality, and every reason to segregate by sex.

I think that was some kind of trump card, which now it's been played, iso found to be nothing of the sort, and instead is a sort of three of clubs, which sits wanly on the green baize while its holder gazes forlornly at the empty place where their chip pile used to be, and goes to find their cloakroom ticket.

No more ability to ask for female officer

When faced with domestic above or sexual assault

Yes fishwife. Exactly.

first premise = first conclusion.

Yep.

Yknow I bet there's a tumblr conversation going on about this somewhere and puzzling about what to say next. Heads together guys!

Finding oneself alone in a room ready for a cervical smear without a chaperone present and faced with a HCP insistent that they ARE a woman and you are at risk of committing a hate crime if you refuse them access to your vagina based on their gender identity.

That poor woman forced to wee in front of a man for some kind of drug testing and she couldn't complain at all because her future 'clearance' was entirely dependant on her compliance and he could have written her down.

WM, there are many reasons why kids develop differently, there is no way to control for all variables. One child could have been praised more for being out spoken, one could have been disciplined for being more rambunctious. The incident may have been so slight, as to be imperceptible to others, but could have had a large impact on the child itself. There are so many different experiences each child could have had, that has shaped their personality. Not only that, but it is also how a child learns to process information and make sense of the world around them. They will then use those skills in their encounters with others.

We also know the brain is plastic and develops and changes, due to our interaction with the sociocultural environment. Which is why people can stop watching porn if they are motivated enough, or if they do not like eating a particular food, they can train themselves to like it and so on.

Claiming any personality attributes are innate, is a slippery slope because it is so often used against oppressed groups, to "prove" their natural inferiority.

The reason TA's go crazy around puberty blockers is that they remember how freakishly hellish puberty was when you have massive dysphoria for your own body parts. You perceive that your body should be male (i.e. you are a trans man) and your boobs start growing. Or you perceive that you should be female and suddenly your voice starts to drop and hairs start springing from everywhere

Sorry to go back to this, I've only just come in from work and it related to a question asked earlier and not answered as far as I can tell. TM if the disgust at your own male body parts was so massive, how did you feel able to have PIV intercourse with your wife, and impregnate her? It's personal I know, but key to our understanding I think. I'd expect the level of disgust at your penis that you describe to mean you'd struggle to function.

One reason TAs need child transing is because it validates the idea of innate gender identity. They're throwing not just women but children under the bus. It's terribly, terribly low.

m.calgarysun.com/2016/09/28/female-molester-facing-strict-release-conditions?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=recommend-button&utm_campaign=Female+molester+facing+strict+release+conditions

I don't care if this vicious rapist had their equipment chopped off, they should NEVER be described as a "female molester".

Finding oneself alone in a room ready for a cervical smear without a chaperone present and faced with a HCP insistent that they ARE a woman and you are at risk of committing a hate crime if you refuse them access to your vagina based on their gender identity.

This is what I was driving at with my question about medical consent earlier. HCP can be charged with assault if a patient has not consented to an examination. If I book a smear with "nurse Jane" at my practice, I assume I have booked an appointment with a female HCP. If nurse Jane turns out to be a transwoman with a penis, I have been misled. Yes, I could rebook or go to the family planning clinic instead of my GP practice & hope for the best, but its hard enough to time a smear at the right point in your cycle & not have a work clash, or to find childcare if you're a SAHM with babies or toddlers as it is. Why create more barriers to life saving screening? To be honest, if a TW was the smear nurse at my surgery I'd either insist on one of the busy female GPs doing it (clue: it's been delegated for a reason) or would I deregister from the screening programme. It's such a bloody faff as it. Which is quite a difference from the "squeeee! I'll get a validating smear letter now I'm a woman!" reaction upthread. Still, what's a few more late cervical cancer diagnoses or deaths in service of furthering the trans cause?

That whole story should start with

A transwoman who..

just as if it were

A father of three who..
A former security guard who..
A pensioner who..

it's just a fact - it's information

I also don't understand why people think penis removal = woman. A postmenopausal, post mastectomy or post hysterectomy woman is still a woman.

Do transwomen really get letters for smear tests? I thought Ego had said before, that there is some mark on her file to exclude her or something?

Actually, thinking about it, one of the male GPs would do because at least I'd have the right to a chaperone during an intimate examination in that scenario.