Debunking some myths

[pallas81]

I know I will be crucified for this but I aim to reach out to those who consider themselves open minded on the issue of reform to the Gender Recognition Act.
There is a great deal of talk about the dangers of male predators in female only spaces. It needs to be pointed out that this has nothing to do with the 2004 Gender Recognition Act or its possible reform. As the law currently stands, transgender women are perfectly entitled to use female toilets, changing rooms and facilities such as shelters and rape crisis centres. A Gender Recognition Certificate is NOT required. In fact, in law, it is illegal to demand such a certificate.
Transgender people are protected under the 2010 Equality Act. For those who are vehemently opposed to trans people having certain rights, you should be campaigning against the Equality Act instead of occupying yourselves with self identification.
However, I should point out that in the countries that have already adopted self identification as law there is no evidence that male predators have used it to prey on vulnerable women.
I'm afraid that much of the anger around this issue looks like paranoid fantasy when one knows the facts. Despite the best efforts of squalid sites like Transcrime, the rates of criminal behaviour among self-identified trans people is much much lower than the societal average and there is ZERO respectable evidence that self identified transgender females represent any threat to non-transgender females of any age.
If you wish to comment, please try to be courteous. Thank you.

You need to get some sort of grasp of class analysis. What was actually said was "of the sex capable of bearing offspring", not that all individual members of that sex are capable of bearing offspring. One thing we do know is that no male mammal, ever, in the whole history of mammals, has ever given birth to live young. The fact that there are some women who through some biological quirk can't have children does not make a man a woman.

"Cis" is a scientific descriptor in the context of stereochemistry. It has been hijacked by the transactivist movement to mean "someone whose gender identity lines up with their biological sex." This is not a neutral description because it suggests that (a) the existence of some sort of nebulous gender identity (akin to a soul, or ladybrain) has been established, when in fact it has not and that (b) gender as a system of social stereotypes imposing socially approved behaviour patterns on individuals because of their sex is somehow secondary to this sort of nebulous gender identity, when in fact most women experience gender as something that is done to them, not inside them.

So you're in effect saying to a bunch of women with a keen awareness of the history of feminism (women barred from universities and medical schools on account of having "lady-brains" - the concept of lady brains does not have happy implications for women), women who've suffered from sex based oppression all their lives (I had to take a former employer to court to get equal pay), you're saying to them "cis women, get back to your kitchen sink and be happy about it because you're cis." Then disingenuously wondering why we all get so pissed off about it.

The proportion of people with genuine dysphoria is indeed very very small - and they do indeed need more support, and they are marginalised. However, self ID legislation and the idea that any Tom, Dick or Harriet who feels like playing around with declaring themselves gender fluid (which is what is going on now) is actually likely to make their lives a lot harder. Because if the law can't distinguish in future between a person with genuine gender dysphoria and a fetishistic cross-dresser (of which there seem to be rather more) then women are going to worry about anyone who calls themselves trans, since the ability to distinguish legally between the genuinely dysphoric (who I have no problem having in most, but not all shared spaces) and the piss-takers is removed.

As a percentage of the population transmen and transwomen are actually very small - and already incredibly marginalised.

So you're not using the Stonewall definition of trans which boils down to anyone who doesn't conform with stereotypical gender expectations, then? If you're not prepared to define women, can you give us your definition of transwomen?

And speaking of not conforming to stereotypes, I think India Willoughby's recent shock at finding out that Mumsnetters didn't just talk about prams and makeup remover might make a pretty good case for most of the women on this forum meeting the Stonewall definition of trans.

Bibijayne - what is gender? What is the universal indicator of gender in, say, London that remains constant in Liverpool, Glasgow, Swansea, Nimes, Cairo, Calcutta, Ulaangom, Funafuti or Rosario? Or how gender was expressed 10 years ago, or how it will be in another 10 years? How does the gender expression of this little girl playing with Lego fit your model?

Gender is imposed, not innate.

My understanding is, that in most prisoners, sex offenders are kept in different parts of the prison to the general population because of a risk to others and themselves.

Incorrect. Male bodied prisoners are already being housed in female estate - with female prisoners. There are insufficient places for separate housing. So bunking, showering with them for example. Why should a vulnerable female population have to shower in a communal shower with a male bodied person just because they self ID? It leaves incarcerated women who are extremely vulnerable open to abuse. I know prisoners are pretty far down the ‘trendy victim ladder’ but they have a right to safety and dignity. Sex offender male prisoners are not held in isolation away from other inmates and prisoners have already been assaulted.

If you’d be kind enough to answer my other question bibijayne - do you believe humans can actually change sex?

I ask because nobody seems to actually believe this. And it’s the core of many arguments.

I believe they can change gender.

I believe they can change gender.

What do you mean by 'gender'? To me, gender just means the stereotypes places on men and women by society, there is nothing objective or universally truthful about it, like there is about sex.

And how far do you take gender? For example, if you believe that someone can change 'gender' , do you believe that that means they can use the changing rooms of the opposite sex? Because sex and gender are different things? So should we be changing sex based things to apply instead on the basis of 'gender'?

Yes.

I believe they can change gender.

Gender is a social construct. It’s the set of expectations society hangs on each sex, so while it’s related to sex, it isn’t sex. But that’s not what I was asking. I was asking if a human can change sex

A woman is a biologically female adult human. So if transwomen are women, it means that a biological human Male has changed sex to become a biological female. They would have changed sex.

Can humans change sex?

I ask because nobody ever gives me a straight ‘yes’ to this question. They twist themselves in know linguistically when it’s tally a straight yes or no. If you literally believe that trans women are women, you believe humans can change sex.

Do you believe humans can change sex?

Which expression of gender is the 'right' one to enable a man to transgress sex-based boundaries? Would a man who performs female gender expectations in the UK be allowed to go into women's spaces in China? After all, the performance is very different there and he would not match it.

You still haven't answered what you mean by gender? Do you believe in self id? So a man who looks like a man can just declare he is actually a woman and be allowed into a female changing room or wherever else?

Do you understand that some women might not want to share their spaces with a male bodied person, whether that person looks straight up like a man, or whether they are a man who has made some modifications to look more stereotypically like a woman? Are the feelings of those women valid?

Can you explain the basis on which you believe that transwomen are women? You are giving very short answers which are not really explaining your position.

And what is your view on Pip Bunce, who is sometimes 'a man' and sometimes 'a woman'. Do you think that Pip should just be allowed to use which ever sex segregated space they feel like that day? What is your justification for this?

I'm not sure why we don't just have unisex cubicles for toilets and changing rooms. This always made more sense to me.

Yes, I believe in gender ID. Like sexuality I think gender is more complicated than a simple binary system.

I have a question for you all... Are you okay with transwomen who pass - ie those who look obviously feminine and unless they said something or you ran a chromosomal test on, you'd assume they were cis-women? A lot of these arguments seem to be based on comfort derived of physical appearance.

But do you believe humans can change sex?

First, several women on here have already explained why we object to "cis".

Second, back in the days when trans meant a small group of people with body dysphoria severe enough to need surgery, women were a lot less bothered. We're now looking at trans as per the Stonewall definition above, which means that women who have objected to sharing communal changing rooms, hospital wards, rape shelters etc with people who are very obviously male-bodied have been expected to put up with it or leave. There's no expectation any longer that "transwomen" do have to pass. Or even that they have to define themselves as anything but "not always male".

Do you appreciate the difference?

Sex is a biological term. We're talking about gender.

However, scientifically there are some rare cases where even sex is confusing. A good friend at university was hemaphrodite. She was brought up a woman and gender-identified as female. But her chromosomes were XXY. She was born with both sets of reproductive organs. As she went through puberty she needed to take additional hormones. Technically her sex is both male and female. Her gender identity is female.

Sex is a biological term. We're talking about gender.

No I’m asking about sex. Forget gender. can humans change sex?

Your friend if they were XXY is Male, NOT Male and female. They probably had kleinfelter syndrome. They are genetically Male.

DSDs and intersex conditions are NOT any kind of proof that humans are not sexually dimorphic any more than a child born with sirenomelia ‘proves’ that the default number of lower limbs is two.

do you believe that humans can change sex?

You’re twisting and prevaricating, just like every other person who I have asked this. If you believe transwomen are women, the answer is yes. If you believe that humans cannot change sex, then the answer is no and transwomen are male.

So - can humans change sex?

Proves that the default number of lower limbs is not two, sorry.

Sex is a biological term. We're talking about gender.

But gender is either about social constructs & stereotypes, or about some nebulous concept linked to personality. Facebook in the US has about 70 genders. New York recognise around 30.

In principle, I have no problem with the concept of "gender neutral" - I would be all in favour of neutralising gender or indeed eliminating it altogether. At the very least we could have changing rooms etc for people of all genders of the female sex, and people of all genders of the male sex.

Sex is a biological term. We're talking about gender.

No, we are talking about sex. I don't give a fuck how anyone chooses to 'identify'. Gender is stereotypical bollocks anyway, so if a man wants to don a dress and makeup then he can knock himself out. That does not make him a woman though. And the things we are talking about here, the legalities of segregated spaces, are based on sex.

Which means no penis in the women's refuge.

No - I think you're confusing gender and sex to suit your purposes. It doesn't help that the English language is somewhat messy and makes semantics different.

I think sex and gender are different things.

Sex is your chromosomal make-up.

Gender is more psychological and can be changed based on gender identity. Gender Dysphoria is a well-researched and recognised medical condition where someone's gender is different to their sex.

Woman is used both for gender and sex. Female tends to be used predominantly for sex (but there has been some interchangability - because English).

If we're going to get in to etymology - man was originally (and in some usages still is) a gender neutral term. You added the prefix to identify gender if necessary (the prefixes were were- to identify men. And wo- or /wyf- to indentify women). There are a number of medieval texts which say things like 'the man was with child' - to refer to pregnancy.

So yes, transwomen are women in definition of gender. In the same way transmen are men. Their sex is a biological term, which is not something which changes. But that doesn't mean they cannot use the pronouns which identify their gender. Him/ Her and she/he are predominantly gender terms taken from the French.

@Moonkissedlegs You can believe that if you want. But I think you'll find you're on the wrong side of comprehensive medical and psychological research. In the end, I think you'll find your views - like those who believed in racial segregation and eugenics - will be on the wrong side of history.

I do wonder why you have so much hate to an already marginalised group. I think you should really take a moment for serious introspection on that and likely seek therapy - because this level of hatred and bigotry is pretty unusual and unhealthy. It's pretty damaging not just to those you seek to persecute, but to yourself and those around you.

on the wrong side of history

House!

Why can't women just be nice?

It's not house yet though. There's been no comparison to gay rights.

And speaking of gay rights - the priority of gender over sex is homophobic. It erases the concept of same sex attraction and as a lesbian I find that offensive.