Guardian article

[TerfyMcTerface]

The Guardian has published one of its typically woke articles on transgenderism. Interesting tactic, likening critics to flat-earther types. The big surprise is that they've allowed comments. And that, in the main, Guardian readers aren't buying it:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/08/understand-solar-system-gender-ignorant-transgender

There used to be some great female (and some great male) posters from whom I learned a lot but I noticed over time that the female ones I knew and looked out for seemed to fall away - seems you may have been one! - with only the dudebros remaining.

Once again I'm so glad I found MN!

Thank you and so am I!

"But now we are gathering observations from people who feel profoundly uncomfortable presenting as the gender they are classified in. We know that somewhere between 0.3% and 0.5% of the world’s population experience gender dysphoria and don’t feel they “fit” with a binary model. Are millions of such people wrong? Or is the current model wrong?"

Nobody is classified as a gender. They have a sex. It's just how mammals reproduce.

"The ancient model that divides us into two distinct “sexes” is deeply ingrained. As a trans person, I prefer an “all human” model: we all identify individually."

But for some reason it's not enough just to identify as human, you have to 'identify' as a woman?

It's all so disingenuous. The writer isn't interested in issues that affect people who are actually intersex or the real consequences of having a male or female body. It's just a rant about everybody having to have an identity, which is apparently a choice between male or female or at a push 'non-binary'. The possibility that we don't have gender identities doesn't seem to have occurred to Tea.

I know that some Guardian journalists don't believe all this tosh, but who are the women who work for the Guardian and believe they have an innate gender identity?

It's just a rant about everybody having to have an identity, which is apparently a choice between male or female or at a push 'non-binary'. The possibility that we don't have gender identities doesn't seem to have occurred to Tea.

Yes, that was my takeaway from this foolish article.

This is an interesting, if old report from 2012, looking at things like the proportion of male to female front page bylines in daily papers.

The Guardian results are pretty unimpressive - 78% male to 22% female - but I expect that must have something to do with female journalists just being innately feminine. It can't possibly have anything to do with the consequences of taking maternity leave and women's disproportionate caring responsibilities and societal expectations of women.

womeninjournalism.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Seen_but_not_heard.pdf

You cannot call a person a bigot for not believing someone else's identity because you are never entitled to change that belief. Therein lies the rub here; there is never going to be a point where people either fail to make these distinctions or cease to care. The best you can hope for is they (courteously) keep it to themselves.

I really agree with this. thanks Itis for reposting it.

Sorry I mixed your name up ifonly!

"We know that somewhere between 0.3% and 0.5% of the world’s population experience gender dysphoria and don’t feel they “fit” with a binary model. Are millions of such people wrong? Or is the current model wrong?"

2.7% of teenagers have anorexia, believing they are too fat, even though they are underweight. Are millions of teenagers wrong?

42% of Americans believe in creationism - are millions of Americans wrong?

It's such a lazy argument - "lots of people think it so it must be right"

Changing our idea of gender is more challenging because we resemble the men who opposed the Copernican revolution

As a trans person, I prefer an “all human” model:

Shouldn't that be people who opposed Copernicus??

Christ on a bike! DH is rolling about on the floor laughing as I read that article to him.

The ancient model that divides us into two distinct “sexes” is deeply ingrained.

Yes, yes it is. It's actually really truly ingrained in our flesh and bones, in every cell in our bodies.

This is a great comment posted under the article:

"What it boils down to is the entirety of the gender debate - all of it - is about courtesy. Nothing more complicated or sophisticated than that. It's about working out and codifying a certain social contract that stops people from causing upset or being arseholes: using the correct names, correct descriptors, correct pronouns, that sort of thing. But that's all it is. Even when these things are accepted across the board, all they are is courtesy. They are not indicative of anything else, certainly not 'belief' and it's this reality that trans people need to come to terms with and their allies (such an odd term) need to stop pretending doesn't exist.

As a bunch of shaved chimps, our ability to discern (and indeed, need to discern) between males and females is as subconscious and innate as our need to breathe in and out; changing pronouns for someone makes not one bit of difference to this and so you cannot insist that people stop doing it. You cannot call a person a bigot for not believing someone else's identity because you are never entitled to change that belief. Therein lies the rub here; there is never going to be a point where people either fail to make these distinctions or cease to care. The best you can hope for is they (courteously) keep it to themselves."

Dear fucking god.

I identify as trans and bisexual – except that bisexual implies you like both sexes. I’ve recently realised I can’t really call myself that: I’m running out of sexual identities because they all rely on this idea that humans are either one kind or the other – gay or straight. I am attracted to all kinds of human, beyond narrow binaries of sexuality and gender.

I am the snowflakiest human that ever lived! Behold, how amazingly special and beyond mere fleshy considerations I am!

Comments are great. Every time nonsense like this is published in a major media outlet a hundred new TERFs are born.

at the literal violence of suggesting that left-handed people are not simply a type of right-handed people.

Gosh, this transgender movement is so, so, self-absorbed, it's unbelievable. I am of the opinion that generally a person's sexual orientation is their own business (and none of my business), let alone is it important for me to know whether they FEEL like a man or a woman today.

Just had a look at that article in Medium.

I wish I could explain to you why this hurts: while transgender people are the victims of sexual assault at a rate far higher than cisgender people. As many has half of transgender people have been sexually assaulted. As many as half of those have been sexually assaulted multiple times. Myself included. I wish I could explain to you why this hurts, while sexual assault is tied to the fact that I exist

Sexual assault is run of the mill for any woman who doesn't live in a convent.

Sexual assault is run of the mill for any woman who doesn't live in a convent.

Yes, I don't think I know of any woman who hasn't been sexually assaulted numerous times.

I haven't seen the article in Medium - sorry if there was a link and I missed it - but does the article provide any context for where the sexual assaults take place?

If those sexual assaults are on trans sex workers, I'm sorry but that is par for the course. Being a sex worker is a dangerous profession. Or is it also domestic violence? Are there stats on how many transwomen die at the hands of the violent partners every week?

For a group who claim that mis-gendering is 'actual' violence I wonder, too, if some of those assaults are verbal rather than physical.

Finally, given the transwoman who claimed that almost every trans person she knew was "severely mentally ill" I wonder how much credibility some of the claims of sexual assault are.

And before anyone jumps on me - I am not doubting that sexual assaults happen to trans people. What I am questioning is the evidence to support the assertions made by the person in the article.

(Apologies if this post is less than clear - I haven't yet had a cup of tea.)

while transgender people are the victims of sexual assault at a rate far higher than cisgender people.

Or alternatively there is no such thing as a cisgender person because gender is a social construct that isn’t innate in people.

Transgender people definitely suffer discrimination and abuse and action needs to be taken to stop this.

However, there is no crossover between the abuse and discrimination that a biological woman suffers because she has a vagina and the abuse that a biological man suffers for challenging gender norms. To pretend otherwise is to fail to address the problem.

Aha. Found the Medium blog post.

And, author dear, it's foul not fowl taste.

And still with the "allies" nonsense.

And "Nazis are openly walking the streets"? And comparing TERFs to Nazis?

What a bunch of tripe.

And "Nazis are openly walking the streets"?

If the author’s American that’s not entirely unfair, that “unite the right” neo-nazi March they had last year was terrifying. But it does lose the impact when the author goes on to say that “TERFs” sound exactly like Nazis. You have people openly marching chanting Nazi slogans and throwing Nazi salutes, and your problem is with... feminists who are afraid of male violence? Catch yourself on, mate.

That Medium article!

Trans, nonbinary, femme, womxn, queer, and pansexual.

That's a whole lotta labels the author has chosen to adopt. Don't some of them cancel others out?

One neo-Nazi march in one city last year that was widely reported does not equate to "Nazis openly walking the streets".

This is just more overwrought hyperbole by the author.

It's not 'overwrought hyperbole' to be concerned about the rapid growth of the far right across Europe and the US. That's a totally reasonable thing to be concerned about, especially when fucking Trump refused to condemn them. That latest school shooter in America had swastikas drawn on his gun, I am not going to take issues with Americans being concerned about that.

Seeing all that and then claiming that the real problem is feminists, now - that's overwrought hyperbole.

Trans, nonbinary, femme, womxn, queer, and pansexual.

Would anyone like to open a book on how many of these right on, gender queer blowhards will be living straight, vanilla lives in suburbia with a wife and kids by the time they are 40?