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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

General Trans Discussion Thread

337 replies

IBelieveTheEarthIsFlat · 22/10/2016 14:24

I seem to be hitting #PeakTrans on a daily basis now and thought it would be useful to have another general thread to discuss/post/share

If you haven't seen Magdalen Berns' recent blog post it's really worth a look

OP posts:
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IAmAmy · 23/11/2016 21:45

Thelilywhite it is difficult! It's reassuring to see these threads too and find others who think the same.

Twogoats · 24/11/2016 11:06

Owen jones has an article in the human today saying that racism in the LGBT community needs to be tackled. I commented that misogyny also needs to be tackled, especially by the trans community, and got deleted for breaking community guidelines... Sigh!

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 24/11/2016 11:16

Twogoats, I don't post on the Guardian site any more for precisely that reason. It's shit to see the way they've thrown women under the bus.

lightupowl · 25/11/2016 08:50

I am fairly new to the feminism boards so apologise if this is OT, has already been covered or is a stupid question.

What happens when male/female DNA is recovered from a crime scene but the criminal now officially belongs to the opposite sex? If a criminal's records have been 'corrected' and sealed, might this cause the police to look for, say, a male person when the criminal is now officially female? Or are there procedures to get around this?

illegitimateMortificadospawn · 25/11/2016 09:11

Excellent question, lightup.

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 25/11/2016 13:33

I'd be really interested to know. DNA is, according to the FBI site, male or female. So if a transwoman was registered as female then detectives seeking a man due to DNA evidence might be bamboozled. However I suspect that the police will keep their own records, registering offenders by sex, maybe as well as gender presentation. They'd be mad not to. The powers that be have already pointed out the high rate of violent prisoners applying to transition.

On the topic of crime, I am beginning to wonder whether transwomen commit even higher rates of certain crimes than other men. It's not all, just a certain type of transwoman, the highly sexually motivated ones. Because we're told that trans people are a tiny fraction of the population, 0.3% isn't it? And yet they are turning up in court at a worrying rate.

Datun · 25/11/2016 14:05

Prawn

Are they turning up for the crime of voyeurism? If many transwomen have AGP and just legitimately walk into a ladies and do except secretly get aroused by being there no 'crime' is committed. Up to and unless they start recording.

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 25/11/2016 17:43

Just this year there have been a load of rapes, murders and lower level sex crimes committed by transwomen - and those are just the ones I'm aware of, which is far from an exhaustive list. Women committing any sort of sex crime are very unusual, and crimes of violence are pretty rare. Men commit 98% of sex crime and 90% of violent crime.

I suspect it's the AGP group who are responsible for all these offences. Cross-dressing, I understand, is the most common fetish among sex offenders.

Of course, if or when violent male prisoners are allowed to transition things will get significantly worse. Testimony admitted by the British Association of Gender Identity Specialists to the Transgender Equality Inquiry in the UK Parliament last autumn sounded the alarm over what they warned is an “ever increasing tide” of transwoman criminal sex offenders.

From the report by British Association of Gender Identity Specialists: (it's a PDF)

"The criminal justice system merits quite a bit of thinking about."

"On the one hand, many of us can remember patients who were charged with crimes, convicted and who ended up on the sex offenders register when we thought that the same thing wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t a trans person. A good example would be the transwoman charged with sexual assault after some brief fellatio with two males who were two and three years younger than her own age at the time (she was eighteen). They were visitors to the area and boasted to their cousin of their recent sexual encounter. The cousin, enlightening them as to the nature of the person they had had a sexual encounter with, caused them to feel embarrassed. One thing led to another and the patient was charged with sexual assault. Given that she was in a kneeling position at the time and that it would have been perfectly possible for either one of the males concerned to run away this seemed a bit implausible. In the end, she was convicted of being reckless as regard to age. This does place her on the sex offenders register, though. One suspects that she would never have been charged at all if she had been a born female."

"The converse is the ever-increasing tide of referrals of patients in prison serving long or indeterminate sentences for serious sexual offences. These vastly outnumber the number of prisoners incarcerated for more ordinary, non-sexual, offences. It has been rather naïvely suggested that nobody would seek to pretend transsexual status in prison if this were not actually the case. There are, to those of us who actually interview the prisoners, in fact very many reasons why people might pretend this. These vary from the opportunity to have trips out of prison through to a desire for a transfer to the female estate (to the same prison as a co-defendant) through to the idea that a parole board will perceive somebody who is female as being less dangerous through to a [false] belief that hormone treatment will actually render one less dangerous through to wanting a special or protected status within the prison system and even (in one very well evidenced case that a highly concerned Prison Governor brought particularly to my attention) a plethora of prison intelligence information suggesting that the driving force was a desire to make subsequent sexual offending very much easier, females being generally perceived as low risk in this regard. I am sure that the Governor concerned would be happy to talk about this."

Worrying stuff. The report was discussed at the time on the blog GenderTrender.

canijustsaysomethingplease · 25/11/2016 17:48

CoteDAzur

You say I don't know what I am talking about... what I am talking about is someone who was a real life man who has a profession and a family who is transgendering because they have felt from a young age that they were born in the wrong body. They have had to go through intensive counselling. They are very clever and have informed themselves in relation to most issues. I take what they say at face value. I knew nothing about it at all until they told me.

They are not and are not intending to be porn stars... they have a partner, and work, and have a social life.

My understanding is that cross dressing is a sexual thing, a fetish, whereas transgendering is a psychological thing. The porn stars you have watched would be the sexual fetish thing, and I assume they aren't taking the hormones I mentioned. That is the difference.

I am told that a study has shown that men's brains and women's brains are wired up differently, and that a study has shown that people who want to transgender have the brain of the sex they want to be.

When people who want to transgender and take hormones they are assessed by doctors/psych people so if you want to know more about it I think it would be easy to find out. They don't just wander into a doctor and walk out with powerful hormones in the UK.

illegitimateMortificadospawn · 25/11/2016 17:58

I am told that a study has shown that men's brains and women's brains are wired up differently, and that a study has shown that people who want to transgender have the brain of the sex they want to be.

You are misinformed. Time to start doing some independent research instead of uncritically lapping up the TRA bullshit about ladybrain.

Datun · 25/11/2016 18:56

Where people are transitioning later on in life, having spent their entire previous life sucking it up, many will have children, who will be dealing with some very difficult possibly conflicted feelings, and I do worry about how they may feel reading some of the Spartacus comments.

Statistically, late transitioners, who have gone down the general male route of marrying and fathering children, are secret cross dressers who have AGP. They are not gender dysphoric, do you not want to have surgery, and remain attracted to women. I have no doubt that they find the Spartacus threads quite difficult.

canijustsaysomethingplease · 25/11/2016 19:01

Illegitimate, I am not lapping up any bullshit one way or the other. You think I am misinformed - would you link your authority/evidence/independent research?

Saying male and female brains are different is a world away from referring to any women's mind as a "ladybrain".

canijustsaysomethingplease · 25/11/2016 19:07

Datun, link the statistics?!!!

I was saying that the children might find the comments to be difficult.

The person in my family is now in a relationship with a man, not that that means anything in terms of statistics.

Datun · 25/11/2016 19:29

canijustsaysomethingplease

Googling how many transwoman have autogynephilia will bring you exactly the same results that it brings anyone else.

I realise having a transperson in your family is very difficult. I have no doubt that there are genuine trans-people. I have said that over and over.

But they are also being marginalised and criticised, along with women. The trans-activists have got hold of this and are turning it into something very different.

Spend a short time online to get perspective.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanchard's_transsexualism_typology

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/gendertrender.wordpress.com/2012/11/21/what-many-transgender-activists-dont-want-you-to-know-and-why-you-should-know-it-anyway/amp/

alicedreger.com/autogyn

And absolutely! The children should be no-where near this.

HermioneWeasley · 25/11/2016 19:42

canijustsay there is no evidence for inherent sex based brain differences. Trans activists point to small studies to say there are differences, but their results can't be replicated. Meta analysis of published research has found nothing.

Being transgender now is a broad umbrella, including gender dysphoric individuals who take hormones and have surgery, through to bearded men who simply say they identify as women, and fetishistic cross dressers. Once the law changes, there will be no requirement for medical assessment, all a man will have to do is say he identifies as a woman and he legally will be one. There will also be no exceptions in the Equality Act to allow women to meet and provide services on,y for those born women.

It's frankly terrifying, and I don't care whose feelings that hurts.

shinynewusername · 25/11/2016 19:53

I am told that a study has shown that men's brains and women's brains are wired up differently, and that a study has shown that people who want to transgender have the brain of the sex they want to be

This is absolutely untrue.

You cannot be born in the wrong body. However you absolutely can feel that you are in the wrong body, suffer profound distress and - in some cases - be happier if you live as if a member of the opposite biological sex. One of the many problems with the TRA movement is that it shuts down debate about the best way to relieve the deep distress of gender dysphoria - we are not allowed to discuss any option other than transition, despite many trans people reporting that this has not helped them.

CoteDAzur · 25/11/2016 20:26

"They are not and are not intending to be porn stars"

Seriously? That is what you got from my post? Hmm

I didn't say that your relative wants to be a porn star. I said that your claim that HRT shrinks the penis to a "very very small" state is demonstrably false. And as evidence, I said that you can check out any porn website where you will see normal-sized erect penises on transwomen with feminine body shapes and rather impressive boobs.

As a RL example, you can also check out the prostitute Tara Hudson's boasting of their "seven-inch surprise". Not what I would call "very very small", personally.

WitchingHour666 · 25/11/2016 21:31

"I have no doubt that there are genuine trans-people."

Who are these "genuine trans people" though? There are males and especially females who suffer from body dysmorphia, and believe part of their body should be removed or altered. There are also people who genuinely believe they are the opposite sex stuck in the wrong body. However, both of these feelings/convictions are a result of faulty thinking/reasoning, the underlying cause for these beliefs needs to be addressed.

For example one of the effects of child abuse can be to develop a revulsion with the body, particularly the genitals. Another cause for girls specifically believing they are the opposite sex, is they are now growing up in a culture where females are expected to be highly sexualised. Many girls do not feel this represents who they are, and so feel they must be male.

Moreover, those who believe they are the opposite sex have rigid thinking about the sex roles, and think if they like particular activities, clothes etc, that makes them the opposite sex. Young children and especially autistic people tend to have rigid thinking, which is why they in particular can easily think they are "trans". Then there is the internalised homophobia element, where it is more acceptable to think of oneself as being stuck in the wrong body then homosexual.

I do not think any of the above makes one a "genuine trans"; which is a product of an ideology. In fact I think it is doing a great disservice to survivors of child abuse, girls who do not want to be sexualised, children, autistic people and homosexuals to confirm they are indeed stuck in the wrong body: "trans". Furthermore, one can only believe "genuine trans" exists, if one buys into the ideology that either "brain sex" or a female/male soul or essence exists that overrides biological sex. Both of these ideological beliefs are of course anti feminist, so no feminist can really believe in "genuine trans" in my opinion, only in "feminine" men and "masculine" women.

lightupowl · 25/11/2016 21:57

Prawn
"However I suspect that the police will keep their own records, registering offenders by sex, maybe as well as gender presentation."

I certainly hope that the police are allowed to do this. That it is not possible to seal or erase traces of a person's former official existence as with health records. Tracking down new offenders would depend on there being a central record of a person's sex being officially 'corrected'.

I am learning a lot on this thread. Thank you everyone.

Datun · 25/11/2016 22:34

WitchingHour666

I do largely agree with you. I was making a distinction between those with gender dysphoria, and those without. I too, think the reasons for gender dysphoria have not yet been explored to a significant extent. And that is why therapy, to me, is the first line of treatment.

One of the main problems is the trans-activists and those with a dubious motive have hijacked the entire ideology. It does leave those with a genuine concern, rather out in the cold. Is those I call 'genuine'. But I agree, there is no such thing as brain sex and it ought be treated as a mental issue on a much larger scale than it is at the moment.

However, for the time being, this is not happening. And until it does, I would like to see the trans-activists version of the ideology held up to more scrutiny, as it is the least credible and the most dangerous.

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 26/11/2016 00:42

Regarding trans offenders, some of you may not be aware of a site called Allison's Law. The site's purpose is to "Ban rapists and violent predators from changing legal gender & name" as currently offenders can to all intents and purposes "vanish" from the criminal justice system by transitioning. They leave the crimes and the public awareness of their offences behind with their unwanted "dead name".

The site is named after the brave and stunning Allison Woolbert, aka Dennis Wayne Woolbert. Up until early 2015, Allison was a prominent American TRA, founder of TERF Tracker, executive director of the Transgender Human Rights Institute, the Trans Violence Tracking Portal, etc, etc.

Allison was doing great as a human rights activist until it emerged that back when Allison was Dennis, he committed a violent sex attack on a 15yo relative.

The fact that Allison could change his name and gender ID allowed Allison to create a new identity, separate from his criminal record. We've already seen what can happen with the reporting on the recent case of a runner who tried to murder the man investigating him misrepresenting his sex in competition.

For more about Allison Woolbert, click here .

ToastDemon · 26/11/2016 15:35

For the person who for some reason believes there are brain sex differences, here is a link to a recent study of the meta-data. It debunks it.

canijustsaysomethingplease · 26/11/2016 21:42

Yes, agreed that more studies are needed into the mental health aspects (although, witching, there is therefore equally lacking research pointing to the assertion that there may be no genuine trans). Agreed that hardline and abusive comments coming from transactivists should be challenged - as I said in my first post, within the trans community there are significant differences of opinion, to put it mildly. Agreed re banning of any person who had committed a violence crime, sexual or otherwise. In summary, surely the issue is complicated, not least because of the lack of research re mental health aspects, and it isn't worth meeting extreme (trans activitists) with extreme (ban all penises from toilets etc).

And in relation to that last bit in parentheses, Datun, a quote from your last link (alicedreger) is "But socially, if you tell me you’re a woman, I believe progressivism (which is political)—and in particular a respect for human rights—means you’re fully entitled to join me in the bathroom I usually use. (I say “usually” because I use the men’s when there’s too long a line at the women’s. You’re welcome to join me there, too. The guys are usually quite nice about it if you first seek consent to enter and don’t stare at their penises once you’re in)" Thanks for posting the links, have only skim read so far but will read again. Yes, it has been damn hard, thanks for that empathy too.

In relation to the brain, thanks for posting the link, toastdemon. I have googled and there seem to be studies going either way. Some are based on extensive scan reserach indicating different activity, not exclusively related to the hippocampus. I am a female (born a female!) and I wouldn't consider my brain to be particularly challenged - I have post grad qualifications and worked for a decade in a high pressure, male dominated profession, had no problems, can reverse park, yadadada, and am now a sahm - but based on my life experiences so far if I had to put money on it I'd say there would be differences - boys/men being treated differently by society alone is going to lead to brains being wired up differently (though making a huge generalisation there obviously).

PoochSmooch · 27/11/2016 06:56

That's certainly a factor, cani - the brain isn't something that is set in stone at birth - it develops over our lifetimes in response to the world around it. Plasticity is a huge issue when studying the brain, because there's no way to fully control for what the "natural" or "inborn" brain function is, to contrast against what the brain becomes in response to a lifetime of experience.

It's also worth remembering that the science in this regard is not neutral - there is a massive amount of money to be had when studying gender differences in the brain, and that influences what is being researched and reported. And yet, despite that, the evidence is still broadly inconclusive. Which is interesting in itself.

Something worth thinking about is - even if there was a measurable, functional difference in male and female brains - so what? If a male could be born with a typically "female" brain, what do you do with that information? He still has male biology.

Datun · 27/11/2016 08:26

As transwomen retain male pattern violence and any associated sexual philia is almost exclusively male, it disproves any suggestion of brain sex anyway.