Can you all just lay off trans people

[cjferg]

There is a difference between sex and gender. Some people's align, other people's don't. Some people are biologically female, and their gender doesn't match that and vies versa. Some people don't have a gender. Why do you care so much?

One of my best friends in school was biologically a female. When he 'came out' to me as trans and explained how he had never felt comfortable in his body all I thought (and anyone who knew him) was that I wasn't surprised and that it made a lot of sense and we all got on with our lives. This was about age 17 and he said he had known this since he was a kid (not saying that any kid who says they want to should be able to willy nilly block their hormones, etc, btw)
It wasn't just about 'presenting as a male'. He was actually a male in a female body.
Yes, when he started presenting as male he felt a lot better. I remember he didn't want to go to our prom because of all the dressing up, etc. until we suggested he wear a tux, and it was amazing to see him so comfortable.
But still he hated having tits and having to wear a binder (can be done safely if you get a proper binder and don't just use bandages or w/e so don't even start)
It wasn't enough to just stuff the front of the trousers.
I repeat, he was a man trapped in a woman's body. Not just a cross dressing woman, not just in an experimental phase.

I have another friend who is biologically a female but they don't have a gender. They are known as 'they' not 'he'or 'she' and knowing them you would in no way think that they are either male or female, again not just about looking a certain way.

I also see a lot of people on here ranting about trans people and they literally only care about transwomen. Genuinely, what has happend to you that you feel so threatened at the thought of someone with a penis being the same gender as you?

Stop ranting about how men are going to use it as an excuse to perv on your kid in a changing room. I'd bet quite a lot that more women will perv on your kid in a changing room than men pretending to be trans will.

Gender is evolving all the time there are no definitive rules to being a man or a woman.

For every thing that you think being a woman is, there will be a woman who disagrees with you.
You say that being a woman means having a uterus - does that make people who've had theirs removed for medical reasons not women?

If being a woman means the ability to have babies then does that mean infertile women aren't women?

If you think being a man is the ability to grow facial hair does that mean that men who can't aren't men?

I read about a woman who had poly cystic ovaries and had a luxurious, thick beard and moustache as a result. Does that mean she is a man or less of a woman? Or should she have continued to try and shave and wax it off and be ashamed of it rather than accept herself the way she was and rock the beard?

Seriously, we've come a long way from being a woman meaning you're your husband's property and having to squirt out babies and clean your whole life. Why are you so determined to go backwards?

Stop using the teeny possibility of a man pretending to be trans to invade women's spaces as a vehicle for your hatred and open your mind enough to at least try and understand the issue, because it might be your kid. It might be your dad. It might be your bff 4eva. If that were the case would you ostracise them from your life and declare them a fraud, or have a little empathy and try and support them through something potentially life changing.

drops mic

Rosie - the argument goes that there is no such thing as "the wrong body" because if an individual feels that they are female then the body they have is automatically female. Even if that body is comprised of XY chromosomes, has a penis, a prostate and an Adam's apple. It is still a female body. Because the person whose body it is says that they are female.

Trans people who pursue the "wrong body" line of thinking and seek medical intervention to change their body can be derided as "truscum" (google it if you are not faint of heart)

@italiangreyhound yes a sense of not being at home in the world can contribute as well but that in itself comes partly from not being able to pick up on social cues. My dd kind of presented as dysphoric at one stage but she was actually afraid of what she would become (puberty) rather than what she was. Mixing the transgender narrative with a promise of puberty blockers is a very tempting combination for an ASD family whose child is absolutely terrified of the changes that are coming to their body. Of course, what she really wanted was to remain a child. And it isn't just girls with ASD that are affected. Her male autistic friend was visiting us once, around 12 yrs old and high functioning, he looks at my toddler son who has short hair, a fairly well known boys name and was wearing blue clothes that day, and asks us "is (ds name) a boy or a girl?"

Genuinely, what has happend to you that you feel so threatened at the thought of someone with a penis being the same gender as you?

I've lost count of the number of times I have been assaulted, mostly sexual but not all, but always done by someone with a penis who is bigger and stronger than me.

Forgive me for not wanting to undress in the presence of someone with a penis.

I have another friend who is biologically a female but they don't have a gender. They are known as 'they' not 'he'or 'she' and knowing them you would in no way think that they are either male or female, again not just about looking a certain way.

Pretty sure I would think that they're one or the other, OP. When most of us look at a person we see their sex, rather than their mystical inner gender essence.

Sarah, have you read The Girl With The Curly Hair by Alis Rowe? It's a good read for anyone with a teenager/ young adult with ASD in general. In it she describes her struggle with gender identity, and how she comes to the conclusion that she is a "person in a female body". I think your comment of people with ASD being immune to gender is very apt.
My transidentifying DD also fits that description, just hoping that by the time she reaches the top of the waiting list for the GID Clinic that some of the common sense and critical thinking shown by the psychiatrist posting earlier in this thread has made its way there.

Thank you Stop I will get that. We got as far as the CAMHS screening appointment for a Tavistock referral but I managed to bodyswerve it thanks to insight from Mumsnet feminists. I have emphasised over and over again that she is in the wrong world not the wrong body and she seems comfortable with that explanation now. My being gender critical has helped her a lot I think because she is aware of attempts to push gender on her (she sees it when other kids don't) and she knows I'm her ally and can see it too. Unfortunately her growing up talk at school was massively gendered and this caused a big problem as she began to associate puberty with femininity. If I had my time again I'd have withdrawn her from that and done it my way.

It strikes me that the scientists doing the study are not all innately stupider than those who keep posting on this board 'gender is a social construct'. They clearly feel it is worth looking at.

Male scientists have been trying to prove women are just shit at STEM for years... Seems to be dying out as more women have ironically gone in to stem careers though 😁

Still get some who think black people have inferior brains. Scientist are just people with all the biases that comes with.

Scientist are just people with all the biases that comes with.

Yes,I was thinking that - scientists aren't above social conditioning or bias free,though you'd hope they'd be more aware than average of it.

Separately,I've just read again the phrase "squirt out babies" and I think it is an offensive and denigrating phrase.Not saying at all that giving birth is the be all and end all of being a woman,but it is something that woman as a class do.Its important - to society and to many of us individually.It is not something like cleaning,with which OP matches it.

Can you all just lay off trans people

I'm not on the case of trans people. I'm on the case of people who are in denial of reality and are happy to get rid of women's rights in pursuit of gaining a status above women and generally just don't give a shit about women.

I wish they would lay off women. They are not the victims they make themselves out to be in the way they are.

I accept trans people as trans people. I do not accept them as being something they are not. Because you can not escape the limits of your own existence even if you try to.

Gender Identity politics is a 'woke' way of saying 'she was asking for it' and 'boys will be boys'. It claims that the reason we as a sex class are oppressed is innate. It is a homophobic, racist, sexist ideology so no, I wont be giving it a rest in my opposition to it anytime soon. Why don't you just say 'woman, shhh, the men don't like it'?

OP your age makes me believe that you come from a position of kind ignorance rather than a Machiavellian double-think. May I suggest that you read Saini, Inferior , Fine, Delusions of Gender, Fine Testosterone Rex ,Dworkin, Pornography , Millet, Sexual Politics as a start.
Sister Outrider has just published a great essay on Womanhood which outlines the feminist position and where we believe genderism and queer theory falls dangerously short in its analysis.
Genderists have bought into a sexist lie which is supported by neo-liberalism. Hyper-individualism prevents a structural analysis and class challenge to oppression. Arguably, feminism and black lives matter are the last bastions of class analysis against systematic injustice.
In light of this, I wont be silenced anytime soon.

I will "lay off trans people" when they accept this...

fairplayforwomen.com/whomever-may-concern-re-gender-identity/

Contemporary,

It is good to at least be slightly open minded about neurological questions.

Most scientists feel that gender differences are caused by the interaction between genes, hormones and environment, and it is very hard to pull them apart.

You might care to read this critique of the oft quoted (on these boards) Delusions of Gender-Cordelia Fine

thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-23/edition-11/book-reviews

It is clearly written by one of the scientists she takes issue with. However, the counterpoints stand in their own right and show her bias.

You could also look at the interesting book Brain Gender by Melissa Hines, a neuroscientist at Cambridge University, who argues that it is extremely hard to pull apart DNA, hormones and societal influence in gendered behaviour.

Another interesting article is:

animalwise.org/2012/01/26/born-this-way-gender-based-toy-preferences-in-primates/

This links to three (referenced) primate based studies. Interestingly, 6 of the seven authors are female, so I don't think this is a conspiracy.

Ah, Italiangreyhound, I'm glad I've found you! And that you've posted that Tumblr again as I'd like to break it down with you. I think that will go some way to not only explaining my position but may also help answer some of the questions you direct at Larry (if you don't mind some cross-input Larry.)

You see to my mind there is quite a glaring error with it, which I can easily point out with reference to the "dollar bill" example.

Well, the only thing that the posters post has done for me, is to confirm my original thoughts.

That they haven't a clue what they are talking about.

I am not a 'feminist', have never been a feminist and NEVER will be. I refuse to pander to them in the slightest.

I am all woman though, much more than woman than every single feminist that I have met.

As for 'trans' - they are just living out their fetishes. Pure and simple.

Ah, well at least you're superior to everyone equally Sally, can't argue with that

@RatRolyPoly I'm listening. But just to say I had no input to that web link. I think it just goes Some way to explaining social construct.

I understand social construct, don't worry, it was really interesting to see how it is being used in the context of this debate though.

So here's the problem; take that dollar bill example. There are two things, the physicality of the object and the social construct which gives it its "meaning", correct? And the idea is that that's the same for people; we have a particular physical reality and then there's an external social construct that applies "gender" to our physical "sex", right?

So to summarise, two things, only two things, physical sex and external gender, am I understanding that correctly?

Just realised my first paragraph may have seemed snippish, I didn't mean it that way, I meant it to be reassuring! I really was pleased for the insight.

Sally, could you explain why you consider yourself to be "more woman" than any feminist ?

I am not a 'feminist', have never been a feminist and NEVER will be. I refuse to pander to them in the slightest

What does this even mean? You do not beleive women should have equal rights to men? You believe we our rights should be inferior?

Is that really what you intended to post? Or are you confused as to what the definition is of feminism?

As for 'trans' - they are just living out their fetishes. Pure and simple.

If only that were true.

The whole reason women are protesting this shit is because they are trying to getting it enshrined in law - which will erase women's rights against sex discrimination.

The result will be that a man with a sexual fetish will be legally indistinguishable from an actual biological woman.

So here's the problem...

I see I didn't finish that paragraph with the actual problem, I just segueed into clarifying the assertion.

So the problem is that that works for a dollar bill. There are only two things for that dollar bill, certainly, but there is something quite crucial that a dollar bill does not have. It doesn't have a mind. It doesn't have a consciousness, it doesn't have a "sense of self". This is why people are not comparable to dollar bills, or indeed to disembodied sex organs as these are actually a part of a conscious organism with a sense of self.

The thing is if I sound like I'm talking millennial mumbo-jumbo about "feelz" I assure you I'm not. The question of the mind and its distinctness from the physical body has been a problem in philosophy for centuries! It's really very widely written on; mind brain identity theory, mind body duality.

Anyway, I ramble, can you see where I'm going with this? What I'm saying is that yes, gender refers to a social construct, but there's a very good argument to say that it also refers to something very real within the mind (NOT the brain, but the mind), and it's just a confusing shame that we only have the one word to describe the two!

And the idea is that that's the same for people; we have a particular physical reality and then there's an external social construct that applies "gender" to our physical "sex", right?

No that's not what I understand from the article. The author is saying that:

Sex is not a social construct because it functions regardless of collectively agreed meanings. This is different from the dollar bill which only functions (as money) because of collectively agreed meaning. Otherwise it's just a bit of paper.

Gender, on the other hand, is a social construct because it is entirely reliant on collectively agreed meanings of masculinity and feminity which differ across place and time.

The relationship between the physical dollar bill and 'money' is not the same as the relationship between sex and gender. The analogous thing to the dollar bill in this example is the face tattoo, the strappy dress, the neck rings or the lip plate. Not sex.

Rat - that is just a lot of waffle which could easily be written thus:

Gender Identity is a dualist religion which transactivists are campaigning to have enshrined in law. Feminists disagree.

I am all woman though, much more than woman than every single feminist that I have met

Wow

Have said that you did say 'met' so you might not have met many

Plus whats all woman...is it the tits?