Changing gender without any medical care/advice/opinion - just saying 'I'm a woman' and it being so

[Oscha]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40692782

I feel so naive right now-I didn't think this would really get to this point: So they actually want to make it possible to turn around and say, 'I am a man/woman' without any kind of doctor's confirmation of gender dysphoria?

What the fuck is this going to do to women's prisons? How many female criminals will end up abused, raped, killed by MEN in what should be safe places for them?! This is nothing to do with trans people-this is just going to be taken advantage of by predatory men.

One of the things that gets to me most is the way that the likes of Maria Miller don't even engage with the objections properly They don't even bother to respond. How the fuck are they getting away with this?

In my view, much that is driving this is a search for identity in a world becoming very complex indeed. A key part of this is social media which seems to be an environment very difficult to navigate in terms of what it demands. Appearance and fitting in are everything and I think it must be hell for those who feel they are falling short. I think trans provides young people with an alternative to feelings of failure and inadequacy.

There'll be other reasons too of course.

Whenever I grumble to myself about getting older I think "well, at least you grew up before social media came on the scene".

In terms of identity and 'I am what I say I am,' this video is very interesting:

Okay, it's just a small number of students, but the idea that it's necessary to be polite and not disagree even when that means flatly contradicting objective reality just strikes me as utterly bizarre. Very Emperor's New Clothes.

OMG that video. This is what we're dealing with: a whole generation of young people who have no real understanding of what truth is or why it matters. They really are so close to a totalitarian state - it's like Kim Jong whichever one it is now telling the people of North Korea they're living in the best place in the world, and they believe it because they've been brainwashed. Does a lie like that not matter either?

They really can't see why it might be... problematic... to have an adult male as a class member with a group of actual 6/7 yo first graders. If they can't see that then no wonder they can't see the problem with males in women's toilets etc.

And so many of them say "how does it hurt me what you believe about yourself" - well it hurts you if you are then obliged to say you too believe the obvious lie, you chump. It hurts everyone if deluded people are indulged in their delusions, in so many ways.

This is so scary. And the frighteningly large numbers of people who are old enough to know better who have gone along with it too. Why do people have this collective need to deny reality? What are they getting out of it?

Shame that video was made (predictably) by a group that appears to be classic Christian Right, pro life and no doubt homophobic etc. What a strange new world we find ourselves in, when our allies are the people who we are fundamentally opposed to.

Oh and re the spiked article linked upthread, I don't think the author realises that the retrospectively changed birth certificates are ALREADY in existence here and have been for some years now (don't know if the 2004 act or the 2010 one?). The only difference with the proposed changes will be that you no longer have to wait two years and go before a medical panel to get your GRC and your shiny new untrue birth cert.

That was one of the things that made my brain explode the most when I first became aware of all this. I was outraged at the current legislation never mind what they want to bring in. I just think most people - and the author of that article demonstrates this - just have NO IDEA what legal changes have taken place over the last 13 years. I certainly had none until I was enlightened here on MN, thanks to the brave souls daring to speak up when all around were shouting burn the witch transphobic bigot at anyone with a grasp on reality.

Sorry, one more rant... re the whole "where's the harm if you believe something that's clearly untrue" bullshit, where would we end up if you took that to its logical conclusion? How would that work in a court of law? No need for "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" any more.

Do you identify as the person who raped this woman/murdered that man?

No, I firmly believe I didn't do it, even though the evidence proves overwhelmingly that I did.

Oh, ok, if you believe you're not guilty that's all we need, not guilty, off you go.

Dear God, that video. How are these idiots going to be able to make decisions like should we go to war? Should children be vaccinated? Should the age of consent be abolished? How about paedophiles? Should they be able to access children?

If you can't accurately describe what is in front of your very eyes and make a judgement based on that description, how are you ever going to hold down a job? Be a manager? Plan sick leave and maternity leave for people? Tell someone off for taking a two hour lunch break? Raise a family? Run a country?

They know full well the emperor has no clothes. They are just hoping that there are enough people to collude with them in the delusion so that everything will be fine.

That and the fact that real life hasn't yet happened to them.

Those young people in the video... they know that he isn't an elderly Chinese woman, but they're prepared to go along with his pretence out of kindness/a desire to appear tolerant and accepting. I'd be amazed if any of them were prepared to say that they know he's an elderly Chinese woman. So we have the situation where a polite pretence has replaced the truth. And then where does the polite pretence stop? When he's claiming a scholarship for elderly Chinese women? When he wants to represent elderly Chinese women at a student body meeting? When he wants to represent elderly Chinese women in a debate about discriminating against Asian people in the US? Would they be happy for him to do all of those things?

Assassinated Would they be happy for him to do all of those things?
At the moment, I actually think the zeitgeist is such that they would. They would actually go along with all that (albeit somewhat uncomfortably) rather than challenge the central doctrine of identity politics, "I am who I say I am because I say I am". If no one has called "Danielle" Muscato on his bullshit yet, that must be the case.

It really is a religious dogma that brooks no deviation from the doctrine. And the world seems to be swimming with paid up believers. To quote from that spiked article: As trans-sceptical feminists have discovered, the utterance ‘Men cannot become women’ is to the early 21st century what ‘Jesus is not the Christ’ was to the 15th.

And then where does the polite pretence stop? When he's claiming a scholarship for elderly Chinese women? When he wants to represent elderly Chinese women at a student body meeting? When he wants to represent elderly Chinese women in a debate about discriminating against Asian people in the US? Would they be happy for him to do all of those things?

I wish the interviewer had gone further and asked those things. Because suddenly rights will clash.

He should have said he was a black woman and has applied to talk about the oppression of black women in society.

I'd love to see them go on record saying that was okay.

And then led it back to saying so if that's not okay, is it okay for a man to say he's a woman and talk about feminism.

Oh and re the spiked article linked upthread, I don't think the author realises that the retrospectively changed birth certificates are ALREADY in existence here and have been for some years now (don't know if the 2004 act or the 2010 one?).

It's Brendan O’Neill. He's no stranger to adjusting reality to suit his argument. That said though I do largely agree with the article.

And now we are going to be compared to FUCKING Trump for sending up for our rights . I am very much against what he's just done but also very much against the self identification proposal.

Was just about to post about that Indominus

All but one of my (leftie) friends are completely on board with this.

I'm genuinely sad because I consider them my gang, where I belong, and I agree with them on everything else. I daren't speak out

Why can't we discuss our concerns?! I've never felt silenced like this before. I mean, I've experienced negative reactions to 'banging on' about feminism, but this is a whole new level.

Sorry, just to continue my rant - how much can these overso right-on people really care about women's oppression, when they're not listening to our concerns? It's almost as if they've been virtue signalling all along (losing my faith in human nature emoji)

I'm genuinely sad because I consider them my gang, where I belong, and I agree with them on everything else. I daren't speak out

I can identify with this although I have a couple of close friends who agree with me. I'm not sure what's more frustrating, friends who are feminists who are on board with all this (dangerous) nonsense or boys who consider themselves great on matters of equality being so. On something of a similar note I do think a lot of such men revel in the issue as one which enables them to attack women/feminists who oppose it, a sort of acceptable platform for the misogyny which they'd been harbouring.

Yeah and I reckon they may not even be consciously aware that's what's driving them.

You are more generous than I. At the very least they're showing a complete lack of concern for women.

It reminds me of how women have always had to fight tooth and nail for every scrap of liberation. If all the men who claim to care about feminism really meant it, think what good they could be doing.

@weyhay sorry about my garbled mess of a poster up thread. I was trying to agree but dyslexia, frustration and my phone conspired to make what I wrote nonsense!

I despair at the "liberal" men I see bleating on about this. Because I never hear them protesting about the relentless, relentless stories of men assaulting, raping and murdering women day after day. I can open any newspaper and see at least six horror stories, but they have no interest.

Exactly right cuirderussie.

Indominus And now we are going to be compared to FUCKING Trump for sending up for our rights

Yet Trump is the one championing "alternative facts". Like transactivists/supporters.

What I find incredible is that IME it's the same people who would happily really tear into "alternative facts" type thinking or religion, using science and known reality to make their point, who are just going along with this insanity.

Walking It's almost as if they've been virtue signalling all along (losing my faith in human nature emoji)

I've been thinking about this. I think an awful lot of outspoken political types* don't actually have a coherant worldview; it's more of a tribal thing. So for example, for myself I have an underlying worldview of "all humans are equal", which means naturally racism, sexism, disablism etc make no sense. Plus it will show in other ways, across the board. Whereas the people I'm talking about seem like they've just taken on board "racism (or whatever) is wrong" and run with that, without thinking why. And it shows, when they are dealing with people who may be disadvantaged or struggling but don't fit neatly into one of their chosen "ism's" to care about. There is also a hierachy of "ism's" - racism may trump sexism, for example. Anyway this means they will merrily join the cause of transactivism without applying critical thought, just seeking out any argument to further their cause, and ignoring less sexy causes that may conflict (ie. feminism).

[*White males tend to be worse for this, IME. Goes with the territory, I suppose.]

Trump is a skidmark on the face of humanity, he really is (mind you, I have said all along that I have no problem whatsoever with defending trans people's right to employment, housing, access to services, freedom to go about their lives free from harrassment - that should be defended to the hilt. My reservations are entirely around the small number of areas where segregation by sex is appropriate - women's sports, women's shelters, women's prisons, and round issues of informed consent - it is unethical to trans children).

That video is quite a shocker. (Obviously it's been edited and they will have only stuck together segments from the complete muppets though - I'd love to have seen him interview an atheist who was switched on enough to work out what the guy's agenda was, and turned it round on him, and made the point that the Christian right thinks its belief system - anti abortion, anti teaching of evolution in schools - is equally deluded, and yet they, just like the identity politics muppets, want to impose the real world consequences of their crackpot beliefs on the rest of us).

@walkintowork I feel the same. This will be law in Scotland in 2020 and there is no organised opposition. Political parties, voluntary orgs... I am totally silenced and cannot speak about it except with one woman friend when we are in my or her house. Confined to the domestic sphere like middle class ladies in centuries before.