Where are all the trans men? An Answer.

[1955stephen]

Someone asked: I have also wondered where the trans men are in all this!

So decided to do a little of record ethnographic research and talked to a few of my 'trans men' mates about this, over my orange and soda, and their beer or two. I asked whether they would consider to contributing to an online debate., like the one on Mumsnet.
All said they really limit their online stuff to what is absolutely necessary for family and friend's purposes i.e. a bit of facebook and that's that. Though many said they used Whatsapp to talk with family quite a lot.
It seems some go onto computers when at work, but most don't even do that - they are very hands on people; a doctor, a ceo, a dentist, a teacher, a manager of a day centre, a physio, a occupational therapist, a firemen, a stable owner, a policeman.
They only go online when real life obliges them to do so - such as talking to their mum.
They said they go on to buy absolutely essential items; a sprogget needed to fix a toilet flush, bracket to fix the kid's bunk beds, or when told to change the milk order cos their partner was going to bed.
Two said they went online to get a new book on their kindle, or to find a film for their partner, their kids, their mother etc.
Most said they don't want the hassle of participating in online talking. As another put it: "by the time the evening has arrived, I have run out of words. I simply cannot carry on talking, and typing means saying the words in my head". (I understand that feeling) .
Another said "going on the computer is just too much when all I want to do is stop, eat, wash and go to sleep."
Another said "ask me to come round, and choose between 1. digging your garden, 2. print and pack 2000 newsletters, or 3. type words, I'll chose them in exactly that order: 1, 2 then 3".
And another said; "as a journalist I am online a lot - watching, but I limit my participation to when I have something worthwhile and different to say. That's not often".
It seems, therefore, from my small selection of consulted trans men, that most trans men limit computer use to work. And we just don't want to do it after that.
I understand because that is how I feel, and have no urge to change that.
There will be some who participate online (as I do to a limited extent), but if people don't want to, they don't have to - and they are probably mentally healthier for not doing so.
Has anyone counted up men's and women's use of talking chambers on the internet? I wonder what hormones have to do with it..

www.girlguiding.org.uk/making-guiding-happen/running-your-unit/including-all/lgbt-members/supporting-trans-members/

It is not a requirement - or best practice - to tell parents that a trans person will be attending a residential event.

I heard my name mentioned....

I haven’t read the whole thread but the instruction that girlguiding leaders should not disclose that a trans person will be present at a residential event is stated on this page: www.girlguiding.org.uk/making-guiding-happen/running-your-unit/including-all/lgbt-members/supporting-trans-members/

When we asked for clarification on this, GGUK confirmed by email that are not to make any disclosure.

As I have stated repeatedly, no one at SistersToAllGuides is advocating outing individuals, which would likely breach data protection laws as well as being totally unethical.

But GG does need to be upfront from the outset that it does not necessarily provide single sex accommodation.

X-post

I have alerted the agnes via the fb group

Stephen, thanks for coming back.

I'm interested on your views on a specific situation.

The double rapist Martin Ponting was moved to the women's prison estate where Martin Ponting (can't call this individual 'she' - sorry) then went on to have to be segregated due to making 'unwanted sexual advances' to fellow prisoners.

You have said My passions are my family, the rule of law, justice, peace, and the idea that all should have the opportunity for a fulfilled life.

How does Martin Ponting's opportunity for a fulfilled life as a woman contrast with the rule of law and his fellow prisoner's right to be free from sexual assault while in prison?

whoops, a stray 'he' crept through there. It was unintentional, honest.

Thanks AgnesBadenPowell

*However, the definition of male and female has for some time included reference to biology and to medical intervention. In the last 30 to 40 years, there have been added 3 other elements:
--- social-construction,
--- psychological presentation, and
--- medical evaluation.. *

In what way would pyschological presentation have any bearing on sex?

Where to begin? Stephen's comments in bold.

Clarification: THE GIRL GUIDES

When I said YES (I was asked to answer yes, or no)
I mean: absolutely it is in the right of the Girl Guides Association (GGA), and their individual leaders to choose to have a single sex (or mixed sex) residential or camping weekend

The Girl Guides Association was renamed The Guide Association some time ago. It's operating name is Girlguiding UK. GGUK already takes girls on mixed residentials and jamborees, sometimes internationally. The issue here isn't the mixed sex nature of the event, it's the mixed sex sleeping and sanitary facilities, which parents are not informed of and girls may feel uncomfortable with but may be too scared to speak up in the current climate.

I do and will support the rights of the GGA to determine what that means in any set of circumstances, but I would advise them that it should be done only in consultation with the parents of the girls attending an event, and the girls themselves. where they are capable of comment i.e. Brownies would probably be too young to make serious comment, but they may well have something to say which should be heard, and may be considered

GGUK is not consulting parents, leaders of girls. Brownies and Rainbows are capable of making comment and should be listened to - as is the ethos of self governance in GG - but they still need adults to advocate for their best interests

It is up to the GGA, in discussion with
• regions, districts and troops, AND
• in consultation with parents,
• and girls in some circumstances,
to determine what single sex means, and if that definition might vary in different circumstances. And if they would prefer instead a mixed sex event.

If you're going to pontificate about GG then at least please do some research. We have districts, divisions and counties and units, not troops.

We don't need to determine what single sex means. It's perfectly clear. Sex is already defined as a protected characteristic in the EA2010. In relation to the protected characteristic of sex a reference to a person who has a particular protected characteristic is a reference to a man or to a woman; a woman is a female of any age; a man is a male of any age.

This matters because GG invokes the part of the EA that allows it to restrict membership to those people who share a protected characteristic - sex, specifically female.

If GG no longer wants to be single sex then it can of course change its charter to become mixed. But GG's own research shows that the membership doesn't want to be mixed sex. Lots of info about this on the website.

If parents and children want mixed sex activities for their children then there are many other options - scouts, cadets, Sj Johns Ambulance, Woodcraft Folk, all spring to mind.

The issue with trans children is particularly difficult because no one wants to add to a young person's distress. But I fail to see how it's fair for a male child to be treated as female when legally they don't have female status, and at the same time females are being managed out of GG because they do not identify as girls or are otherwise gender non conforming.

Thanks so much Agnes for the clarification. I too thought that single sex is something everybody understands.

Is the purpose of trans activism to tie everyone up debating understood definitions, to an extent that is disorientating, so that one no longer knows what is up, down, left, right, male or female?

Guiding is a voluntary world-wide Association. It has had to deal with many complex cultural questions in different countries and differing cultural groupings. times, of course, it had a mixed record on how it has managed those questions, but it is acknowledged that the safeguarding of the children is rightfully their paramount and primary concern

This is not true. We are talking about GGUK / The Guide Association. It's a UK organisation. It is part of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts but each affiliate organisation has its own rules. GGUK has no jurisdiction over Guides in other countries.

As UK law is, in the context of discussing Girl Guide activities, Single – sex can be any one of three things (I explain what I mean when I am using single sex iin my next post). Single sex may include:
*1. all children categorised as girls on the original birth certificate, without any amendments, or

1. children who are now categorised as girls on the birth certificate, including those where the birth certificate has been amended because of a 'mistake', or a 'change' (see the p.s below), or
2. children (in the GG) who are 'girl identified'*

Only 1 and 2 relate to biological sex. 3. Is a complex social construct but children who identify as girls and are not female will still have a male birth certificate and are not legally female. While I wouldn't use this as a means of excluding a trans girl from GG, it would be reasonable to invoke single sex exemptions for sleeping, washing etc in order to protect the privacy and dignity of both girls and trans girls.

I don’t believe I have the right to determine what the answers are for the GGA, but my view is that the law does give the GGA those 3 possibilities

With participation in decision making, and appropriate information (e.g. if a trans identified child is attending a troop, that should form part of the discussion, but other parents should not be given the identity of that child), the parents of girl guides might then choose not to send a child to a (1) or a (2) or a (3) event, just as some parents might choose not to send a child to an event where children will take part in activities such as hill walking without adult supervision

I agree that no individual trans child should be identified to other parents. However, the difficulty with the stance you and GG take is that we are now indirectly discriminating against girls who are or would have been members but for the inclusion of Male persons in their unit. Is a trans girls right to join GG more important than a Muslim or Jewish girls, or indeed any other girl, who shares the protected characteristic of female sex with other members (that the trans girl doesn't), who's parents require her to have a single sex activity?

I would advise the Girl Guides (as I did in their consultation) that they have a responsibility to all girl guides, and in a plural society, this includes acknowledging that some parents might limit their child's participation in some aspects of Guiding, in some circumstances. for example: some parents might choose not to let their children participate in church parade

This reads to me like a big FU to anyone who believes that in some circumstances, single sex facilities are appropriate, regardless of trans status. Attendance at church parade is not all comparable to sharing sleeping or washing facilities with members of the opposite sex, which the parents won't know about and the girls may be unhappy with but are too afraid to speak up about for fear of reprisals.

I would argue that GG has a responsibility to its girls first and foremost, and their parents. Its a shame that wider society does not take its responsibilities to our girls more seriously.

Is the purpose of trans activism to tie everyone up debating understood definitions, to an extent that is disorientating, so that one no longer knows what is up, down, left, right, male or female?

This is absolutely the intention. That this is so utterly transparent seems to pass them by. We are not taken in by this.

Steohen
You wrote this about the GRA

We suggest that the UK Gender Recognition Act 2004 challenges what constitutes a sex change through the Acts definitions and also the conditions within which legal recognition is permitted. The sex/gender distinction, (where sex normatively refers to the sexed body, and gender, to social identity) is demobilised both literally and legally.
''Sex Changes'? Paradigm Shifts in 'Sex' and 'Gender' Following the Gender Recognition Act?'
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a3212371-Where-are-all-the-trans-men-An-Answer?msgid=76967682#76967682

So the intention was to literally and legally demobilise women and girls?

I laid out my position in my first post – gender isn’t real, except in the power it has when used to oppress others.

Wow.

What then is 'transgender'? What is 'gender identity'? What is being recognised by a 'Gender Recognition Certificate'?

You, who were so instrumental in getting the Gender Recognition Act passed, believe that gender is not real. Have I got that right?

'Sex' is a difficult word as so many people have pointed out.

It's really not and I haven't seen anyone here saying it is. Male, female and a tiny few intersex people. People with DSD are not additional sexes. Some people with DSD are getting very fed up with being dragged into discussions around trans and have respectfully requested that this stop.

The 3 other elements you state are part of sex -

--- social-construction, - this is what most here would call gender

--- psychological presentation, - this is possibly what is meant by some people when they talk about 'gender identity'

--- medical evaluation.. - this isn't part of sex or gender, surely. It's a process used to attempt to determine whether someone with a DSD is male or female.

I'm absolutely gobsmacked that you are attempting to include 'social construction' as part of 'sex'. You say 'gender isn't real' but then include what most people understand by gender (social construct) in your definition of sex.

No to this. Just no.

Is the purpose of trans activism to tie everyone up debating understood definitions, to an extent that is disorientating, so that one no longer knows what is up, down, left, right, male or female?

Thank you vaginafetishist yes this is exactly what's going on here, isn't it?

I had hopes for this thread but I'm not playing this game.

Stephen: you used a lot of words about sex. I don't know why it should be determined by anything other than reproductive role. It's not as hard as you try to make it.

@Pratchet

Please read the paper I linked to written by Stephen in 2007, SW tells us why sex must be made legally irrelevant. It will come as no surprise.

www.socresonline.org.uk/12/1/whittle.html

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121128024242/lgbthistorymonth.org.uk/history/lgbt-people/inspirational-trans-people/stephen-whittle/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A leading community organiser for almost 30 years

Stephen’s campaign CV can be traced back to 1973 when he joined the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (still attempting to identify as a Lesbian at that time). In 1974, he co-founded the Manchester Lesbian Collective – a radical group which was involved in setting up the first Manchester Women’s Refuge. He announced that he was a man shortly afterwards and, with the group’s support, contacted other trans people in and around Manchester. Along with others he started the very first support group in the UK for transsexuals and transvestites. The group was to be instrumental in the setting up of the Manchester Gay Switchboard.

In 1975 Stephen joined the Beaumont Society, as a trans man and became co-editor of the Beaumont News, a magazine for what was ostensibly a heterosexual male transvestite organisation at that time.

Stephen has used feminist theory to support the GRA argument and present the desire to eradicate the elimination of legal sex as something feminists have articulated.

Apologies for the double negative. Legislate for the elimination of legal sex.

Stephen said - I would like to start by saying I am presuming that we are having this conversation because we all have as our primary concern the shameful, ongoing and pervasive victimisation of children and women by some men.

That was certainly my presumption. Ah well.

Mouth, PM me a link to the proscribed bear, will you please? I could do with some light relief

We are looking back at the recent history of why we are where we are.

We find ourselves in a position where politicians and LGBT training organisations tell women and girls they should never automatically have the right to any privacy from men and boys. We are also frequently not permitted to say the words men and boys in the circumstances we find ourselves.

We reserve the right to think and talk about this.

Ted 2 funny scenes

Ta.

My eyes are popping reading the report authored by Whittle. It was intended that gender would supplant sex. But gender 'isn't real' according to Stephen.

It is absolutely chilling to see it all laid out in black and white and for Stephen to come on here and claim to share our concerns is astonishing.

I'm out too.

'For most people, at birth there is no incongruence between their genitals and the gender identity chosen for them.by the midwife when s/he pronounces the sex of the baby'

The midwife does not choose a gender identity of a baby. I hate midwives being cast in this weird oppressive role. This is just sophistry, trying to find a rationale for trans identities by distorting reality out of all recognition. Time's up, surely.