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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

I am Janice Turner's No 1 fan - another excellent article

538 replies

Stopmakingsense · 23/09/2017 07:19

This one picks up in particular the huge rise in women identifying as men, and the increasing inability of anyone being able to question it:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/even-asking-questions-is-now-transphobic-ztk3rlrfk?shareToken=1f64a5116171eb54a9a866590e6432ec

OP posts:
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Ereshkigal · 26/09/2017 21:55

Thanks Selma.

Backingvocals · 26/09/2017 21:57

That's incredible selma. So in the case below you'd have to not share with the consultant your suspicion of prostate cancer if the patient wanted to continue to be known only as female ? That seems extraordinary and as if you are being told to collude in a dangerous delusion.

SelmaAndJubjub · 26/09/2017 22:06

Well, there would be no point referring a patient without his permission - which would have to include agreement to share the information that s/he has a prostate in this scenario. My worry about patient safety when I originally posted was more about delay, especially for suspected cancers, as a lot of these use referral pathways with rigid criteria and tick boxes - if you don't appear to fit the criteria, for example if you are a 'woman' on the prostate pathway, you are likely to be bumped off the urgent referral route and might wait a lot longer to be seen routinely.

And I am completely outraged that it is a criminal offence to tell the truth about any individual's sex. Not specific to healthcare - it is totally wrong that the state is compelling us to lie.

Ereshkigal · 26/09/2017 22:12

And I am completely outraged that it is a criminal offence to tell the truth about any individual's sex. Not specific to healthcare - it is totally wrong that the state is compelling us to lie.

Yes I agree. This law should never have been passed.

Poppyred85 · 26/09/2017 22:15

That's really alarming Selma and clearly you have direct clinical experience of this.
This was the paragraph I was basing my info on:
"Statutory Instrument 2005 No. 635 introduced some additional exceptions to Section 22 so that it is not an offence for the disclosure to be made by a health professional if it is made for medical purposes and the person making the disclosure really believes that the individual has given consent to the disclosure or cannot give such consent. ‘Medical purposes’ includes the purposes of preventive medicine, medical diagnosis and the provision of care and treatment. There may still be gender-speci c treatment such as that related to screening for breast or prostate cancer where surgery has not taken place. A ‘health professional’ means a registered medical practitioner, a registered dentist, a registered pharmaceutical chemist, a registered nurse, a person who is registered under the Health Professionals Order 2001 as a paramedic, or operating department practitioner. It also includes a person working lawfully in a trainee capacity in any of the professions specified."
Taken from guideline CR181 by Royal College of Psychiatrists www.rcpsych.ac.uk/files/pdfversion/CR181_Nov15.pdf
Perhaps things have changed since then. I think either way I'd be having a chat with my indemnity organisation before I did anything....

SelmaAndJubjub · 26/09/2017 22:25

Hi Poppy, I think the key bit in the paragraph you quoted is, "it is not an offence for the disclosure to be made by a health professional if it is made for medical purposes and the person making the disclosure really believes that the individual has given consent to the disclosure or cannot give such consent.

So it is not an offence if it is for medical purposes AND (a) the HCP genuinely believes that consent has been given or (b) the patient is unable to give consent - in which case you would be making a best interests decision under the MCA in the same way as for any patient who lacked capacity.

But (a) and (b) are likely to be very rare scenarios. In most cases, a trans patient will be capable of giving consent. If you disclose trans status without that consent, you are certainly in breach of GMC guidance and potentially committing a criminal offence.

Ereshkigal · 26/09/2017 22:27

But does "cannot give such consent" mean that the patient is incapacitated in some way? It still implies that explicit patient consent is required by law to gain the exemption by my reading.

Ereshkigal · 26/09/2017 22:28

Cross posted with Selma

Ereshkigal · 26/09/2017 22:29

It seems truly to be a minefield!

SuburbanRhonda · 26/09/2017 22:52

@theendisnotnigh

Thanks for taking the time to read the training materials. I thought I'd posted a reply to you but I can't see it on this thread.

I completely agree with what you've said about being manipulated, but I didn't realise I had been until you pointed it out!

The sad thing is that those of us who work in schools are in a great position to challenge gender stereotypes but all the focus seems to be on affirming and validating people who want those stereotypes to be even more deeply entrenched.

I was told by our PSHE lead that if a child were to ask me if a trans pupil was now the opposite sex, and I were to reply that they weren't, I could be in serious trouble Shock

SelmaAndJubjub · 26/09/2017 22:57

I was told by our PSHE lead that if a child were to ask me if a trans pupil was now the opposite sex, and I were to reply that they weren't, I could be in serious trouble

'We have always been at war with Eastasia.'

SuburbanRhonda · 26/09/2017 23:00

I know, selma

On the plus side, I've been looking to change career for a while now ....

SelmaAndJubjub · 26/09/2017 23:02

Don't choose medicine then Wink

SuburbanRhonda · 26/09/2017 23:06

Luckily not clever enough Grin

SelmaAndJubjub · 26/09/2017 23:08

.. daft enough, more like Smile

SuburbanRhonda · 26/09/2017 23:22

If that were the qualification I'd be a consultant by now Smile

SummerflowerXx · 27/09/2017 07:38

So, basically as a doctor, it is not an offence to discuss the possibility of prostate cancer with a transwoman (what about regular screening letters after a certain age? You would not get them if you were registered as a woman). But if they stick their fingers in their ears and go 'la-la-la I identify as a woman, regardless of my male biology', then it is an offence to mention their natal sex if you refer them.

The person receiving the referral letter will presumably have drunk the Kool Aid and know that woman can get prostate cancer too, though.

I wonder how one teaches the history of female inequality without teaching ideas about the basis of difference being reproductive systems and the mental instability they allegedly caused women, the 'weaker' female body frame etc. Or are pupils taught that we have equality now, such things are irrelevant (despite inequality persisting and being prevalent not only here but certainly in developing countries etc). Is it a crime to teach actual, real life women's history? Women were not given the vote for a reason. Because they make babies. It's the hundredth anniversary of suffrage being granted for women over 28 next year - but we cannot talk about the fundamental, historical premise of women's inequality (we have wombs and other female biological bits) and we certainly cannot own it (the wombs and other biological bits make one a woman).

The whole entire argument about female suffrage made by women was the need for women in Parliament to plead women's causes for better maternity care, access to contraception, family allowances and so on. Things which women with women bits need. Imagine that very Parliament now saying it is an offence to mention what makes a woman (or a man). And we think we are more forward thinking than a hundred years agoHmm.

SelmaAndJubjub · 27/09/2017 07:59

Totally agree Summer. We also (quite rightly) make a big fuss about FGM, but are encouraging children and teenagers to think it is fine to remove your genitals and, if a girl, breasts. The media constantly reinforces this as a positive choice. So, it's terrible if a girl undergoes FGM, but it's fine if she is encouraged to hate her body so much and to so dread puberty that she chooses to have mutilating surgery that will prevent sexual pleasure and leave her infertile.

(Am not minimising FGM btw - it's appalling - I just think it is also appalling that teenage girls are encouraged to think of self-mutilation as self-liberation.)

SuburbanRhonda · 27/09/2017 08:25

That's an excellent point, selma.

JigglyTuff · 27/09/2017 08:27

I wonder if the 40 women who are to fill the remaining places in the 100 women will all be actual women or men who feel like women?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-41394055

"In 2017, we're challenging 100 Women to tackle four of the biggest problems facing women today - the glass ceiling, female illiteracy, harassment in public spaces and sexism in sport."

So if we take each of those in turn - by identifying as women, Martine Rothblatt and Jennifer Pritzker have already smashed through the glass ceiling, I've read at least two articles by transwomen moaning that they're not harassed enough in public spaces and we all know what's happening to women's sport.

I hate that they've sucked all the joy out of things that are supposed to celebrate women for me :(

Albadross · 27/09/2017 08:33

It's starting to really piss me off that the TRA movement is talking about mental illness as if it's something dirty and unacceptable. My GP is at liberty to disclose my mental health history to a consultant even if for unrelated issues, because it can and does affect my care. My diagnoses follow me around whether I like it or not, I can't tell a medical professional not to mention it and if I want the best care, why on earth would I? How is a transition more triggering than, say, schizophrenia?

The idea that transgender people are somehow 'above' mental illness only serves to further stigmatise those of us who have mental health conditions and that's totally unacceptable to me.

SuburbanRhonda · 27/09/2017 08:41

But if the oft-quoted figure of 50% of transgender young people with suicidal
Ideation is true, isn't that a mental health issue? You can't have it both ways.

badbadhusky · 27/09/2017 08:44

I hate that they've sucked all the joy out of things that are supposed to celebrate women for me sad

I felt the same listening to this initiative promoted on R4 this morning. In a world with ~3.5bn women and girls in it, they should be able to drum up 100 female candidates.

QueenOfTheSardines · 27/09/2017 09:00

Jiggly - yes - every time there is a "woman does X" or "first woman to do Y" my first thought is not longer "wow that's great" but "I wonder if / expect it was a man".

Thinking about it from that perspective, there's a point there. It's generally accepted that men are hierarchical, always establishing their position in pecking orders and so on, and gender is an instrumental part of hierarchy. With certain types of men at the top (big, strong, probably violent) and other types at the bottom (gay, gender non conforming, effeminate).

Women's rights have gained ground so much in the last 10 years or so - with women's achievements starting to be recognised in many fields, including historically. Women's sport is shown on TV, talked about more, women's contributions to the space program, war efforts, all sorts of things are coming up. There's a distance to go, but things are improving, women and our accomplishments have more visibility.

At this point there is maybe a nervousness that the "better" women might end up higher in the hierarchy than lower ranking men, and this won't do, will it. As well as being wrong, according to gender rules and roles, it feels that if there are opportunities / rewards there to be taken and they are being taken by women now, then shouldn't they really be going to men first?

So you get what is happening, that things that have started to be given to women, done by women, are now going to men who accordingly to male hierarchy would be low, thus making everything right again.

So you have women's sports, women's scholarships, women's writing / science / etc prizes, women's positions on boards and stuff (if quotas/aims to improve ratios), going to men.

On the other side of the coin, you take men who would be dominated in places like prison, and you put them in with people they can dominate instead, again righting the balance, as it's not right for a man to be treated like that (like a woman).

So we end up with 3 castes -
High ranking men
Low ranking men who get the stuff that women used to get
Women who end up with fuck all, all over again, and reduced means by which to get it, due to no longer being able to self organise or identify themselves as a group in any meaningful way

Huh.

The "first woman to fight on the front line" was a really annoying one, as the person was already serving in whatever regiment it was, and they transed, and voila first woman. Meanwhile the old cunty type of women had no chance whatsoever of being first, as when it was opened up to women they had to do the training first. So there was literally no way that a woman could have got there quicker, so that goes down in history to a man. And when they first cunty type woman gets there - nothing - so what - not the first.

Same with some films recently (I forget which) where it was the first trilogy to be directed by a woman but there was a complaint, and they were changed to the second to do that after the wachowski's, even though they were men in a male dominated industry when they made the matrix.

The desire to take what women have gained and give it to men is very clear.

YesVeryGoodVeryStrong · 27/09/2017 09:20

Great post Queen. It's so fucking depressing and I hadn't seen it like that before.

The only thing that struck me about the 100 women thing was the "we're challenging 100 women to solve these 4 problems". Haven't women got enough to do without trying to solve their own oppression? And why should is it up to us? We didn't create the problem.

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