Royal College of Psychiatrists Statement

[dorade]

What hope is there when respected scientific organisations uncritically adopt phrases like "sex assigned at birth" and use "two spirit" people as evidence for the need to mutilated bodies to a facsimile of the other sex?

Report here

New diagnostic techniques are developed all the time. Just because it isn't possible now, doesn't mean that there are no biological differences that may be used for diagnosis in the future.

I didn't mean to say that there is no possibility of there ever being a diagnostic brain scan for trans (although I think it highly unlikely) - only that there isn't now and the studies touted by activists are generally poor and don't mean what the activists say they mean.

As I just said to Rat, the only real way any of this will be of any genuine use in the context of the way in which humans conduct social presentation and relationships will be to establish to what extent brain plasticity is responsible and how far what is innate is responsible.

I cannot imagine how we will ever establish that to any degree of certainty - impossible to control for - so really, we are stuck with the same old nature vs nurture argument we've always been stuck with.

I don't mind trans people making sense of their dysphoria by telling themselves the story that they were born in the wrong body. Whatever gets them through the day is fine by me. But medical professionals and legal institutions should not be telling them that this is objective truth because it isn't - it's a coping strategy. And women's rights should not be sacrificed for anybody's coping strategy.

But medical professionals and legal institutions should not be telling them that this is objective truth because it isn't

Can wholeheartedly agree with this!

ie definitely not neurotypical but not necessarily ill

This is a very useful analogy. ASD is diagnosed by professionals, so should gender disphoria, imo.

The glossary in that document makes no sense.

Gender identity - Self-identification and/or social identity as male/female/other gender. Other gender identities may include gender neutral, non-binary, fluid, and genderqueer.
Gender identity as an identity of a gender is a meaningless circular definition. The term gender is not defined at all.

Transition - Process of change from the gender role associated with sex assigned at birth to another gender role.
Since the term gender role is not defined, I suppose the assumption is that it just means stereotypes. Where does this leave people who do not accept or wish to conform to stereotypes?

More worrying is this:
Conversion treatment - These include any approach that aims to: ... 2) persuade or pressurise trans people to accept (or align their gender identity with) their sex assigned at birth
This seems to be saying that trying to persuade someone that there is nothing wrong with their body is unacceptable. So it would be better to affirm that their body is wrong, and needs fixing. Does this happen in any other area of psychotherapy?

Agree, nosquirrels

oldcrone that's a really good point about the definition of gender. A clear definition is seriously lacking in this debate and a big part of the problem imo

Going back to what Ratty said: "Well it's certainly evidence that there is discomfort between their sex and something inside them, isn't it. And they call that thing a person's "gender"
It's not something INSIDE them; gender isn't inside. Gender is a societal construct.

If you pushed me to define my own gender, I'd have to go for gender neutral as I genuinely don't have a strong affinity to being female gender, although I am clearly female sex Don't a lot of people feel that way? Does that make us all trans? Genuine questions. Not sarcasm. I've never discussed this irl

MrsWooster Is gender just a societal construct though? Might there not also be biological components to gender that are not well understood?

From the basis of no study whatsoever other than being a woman for 51years, no, I don't think. I think sex is innate and carries an enormous amount of influence in terms of physical and emotional behaviour. Gender is societal expectations.

mrswooster you've have 4 more years experience of being a woman than me.

If I was made to wear hyper-feminine clothes, high heels and make up I'd definitely feel discomfort. I've often described it as thinking I'd probably feel pretty much the same as most men would if they were made to dress like that too.

If you pushed me to define my own gender, I'd have to go for gender neutral

This is really interesting to think about, I was just wondering what I'd think about myself. I feel kind of neutral I suppose, but then if someone asked me outright, "are you a man, a woman or "other"?", I'd be answering "woman!", no doubt!

So I guess that's me identifying myself as that gender.

I guess I identify myself as a woman in society in other ways too; some stereotypical ways like wearing my hair long, and some less so like not wearing makeup (I don't wear makeup not because I don't feel "womanly" about it, but rather that I like being the kind of woman who sticks two fingers up at slathering expensive shit on my face). So I suppose I do "feel like a woman" in the things that I do.

I'm really trying to comprehend how it would feel to answer the question "are you a man, a woman or other?" with "a man" and really mean it... Perhaps it would be the difference between my not wearing makeup now and feeling like a "cool woman" about it, and not wearing makeup because I desperately didn't want anyone to mistake me for a woman because I didn't feel I was one.

I really do find it interesting trying to imagine life in someone else's shoes.

A former colleague has been asked to co-sign a letter (along with what seems to be a large group of doctors) asking for further clarity on a number of matters laid out in the statement.

I haven’t seen a draft.

" "are you a man, a woman or "other"?" - is this asking about your sex or your gender identity? Man/woman are descriptors related to sex, "other" would apply to intersex people.

I suppose if you were being asked about gender you'd be asked if you felt/identified like a woman, man or other.

gerbil, I'm with you. I feel very uncomfortable in 'feminised' (for want of a better phrase) clothing- it is alien and I feel like I am in fancy dress. I am a woman though.

If you pushed me to define my own gender, I'd have to go for gender neutral

I would say stop framing the question so that I can't answer it meaningfully.

If you asked me my sex, I would say female/woman.

If you asked me my gender, I would need a text box so that I could reply - Do you mean my gender identity? If so, I don't have one because gender identities do not exist. Do you mean what role does society try to force on me whether I want it or not? If so, gender would be feminine but I'm doing my best to reject it.

All of this is framing the question so that people cannot dissent or deviate from a pre-set ideology. Not on.

I would probably say I felt more masculine than feminine but I would definitely say I'm a woman. But really the whole gender thing is nonsense!

I suppose if you were being asked about gender you'd be asked if you felt/identified like a woman, man or other.

I don't think that's what it means, is it? You don't identify with, you identify as. If you identify with that makes it sound like you're something other than that thing.

The notion of "identifying yourself as" something just means you've done something to let other people know what you are.

So if someone says "can all the women please put up their hands" and you put up your hand, you've identified yourself as a woman. You identify as a woman.

Likewise if you tick the "woman" box on a form, or answer the question with "I'm a woman"; then you will have identified as a woman. And a transman would say, "i'm a man".

That's all it means isn't it? Or is it something specific I'm not aware of?

Sorry, like not with in my first paragraph.

RatRolyPoly wrote - "I'm definitely not making a direct connection between transgenderism and homosexuality (yes, yes, one is a sexual orientation), but I am genuinely curious as to why our inability to currently identify transgenderism in the brain means it can't be something present from birth."

Today, heterosexual people everywhere are sexually attracted to people of the opposite sex. Homosexual people everywhere are sexually attracted to people of the same sex. It was the same 1,000 years ago and it will be the same 1,000 years in the future.

In brain difference studies, sexuality is a relatively static target in terms of the behaviour of people in both time and place. It still seems to be proving very difficult to find brain differences, even after decades of searching.

A male child who likes kicking a ball is currently gender conforming in Brazil, the UK or Germany. If he spends time in other less-football-centric societies, e.g. the USA, he is at risk of being assessed there as gender non-conforming, because different gender stereotypes prevail in those societies. Nowadays, he is at risk of his behaviour in less-football-centric societies being used to diagnose him as transgender, at least for the duration of his visit. If he then returns to his home country, he is suddenly gender conforming again. At home, is he still transgender or is he not transgender again, or is he something else? How will scientists control their experiments to cover such scenarios? Supporters of gender identity expect brain studies to explain this gender conformity and non-conformity as "nature" not "nurture".

In brain difference studies, gender identity is a moving target because it varies with time and place. I think gender identity brain studies have to control for more variables than are involved in brain studies of sexuality. I'm not impressed with the quality of gender identity experimental controls that I've seen so far. I don't expect gender identity to be found in the brain in the near or medium future, but I won't be surprised if some people claim this prematurely.

I realise I was unclear, it would be better written as "if you felt like/identified as a woman, man or other".

If you asked "who here is a woman?" and "who here identifies as a woman?", would you expect to get the same people answering yes to that all the time?

Assassinated I think by rights they should be the same people replying yes to both; because the second simply means "who, when asked, replies "yes" to being a woman", and the first of course means "are you a woman"; so logically they're the same thing.

...but given the climate of things these days I'm sure they wouldn't be the same people in practice, not least because loads of women these days seem to take umbridge with the notion of "identifying as" a woman - probably because it implies the severance of womanhood from biological sex. Which is fair enough.

Fair enough to take umbridge I mean.

That lets the medical and insurance community off the hook to treat transgender identified people and makes it an exclusively political issue.
"Pilate washes his hands in public."