Please help me clarify my thinking....

[Thanksforthatamazingpost]

Have been on mumsnet since2008, on this board for a couple of months.(by the way, does clicking on my name show how long I’ve been around.)?

Here’s my issue/question:

When it comes to the vogue for children to be trans, I am absolutely opposed to prescription medication or surgery on children. I believe all children should be permitted to be gender non conforming. Fine to feminise/masculinise their own name too (kids have always done that).

However, when it comes to transitioning adults, much of the objection on this board is to do with the notion of transitioning without medical involvement (it is just self ID and a legal paperworkprocess).

Should we not be encouraging adults to experiment by just doing a social transition?

Please help me think!

I think the notion of self-ID as the opposite sex (ie a man self-identifying as a woman) is problematic because there is no gate-keeping at all. By experimenting, you mean being able to access all the opposite same-sex facilities, no questions asked.

I see the logic of making the process of getting a GRC less intrusive and onerous, but not at the price of having no safeguards. If it was self-ID as trans, that is a different matter, if rights to access the opposite same sex facilities did not automatically follow. Only the individual can say they are trans. But self-IDing as trans and having gender neutral facilities does not seem to be enough.

I think you are half right, and avoiding unnecessary surgery on healthy body parts is a very good thing. As for transitioning, I would like the aim to be not to present oneself as the opposite sex, but to simply be the most fabulous version of oneself, dressing and behaving as one likes - providing that doesn't adversely affect anyone else, as appropriating their sex would.

Like this awesome human being: smashinggenderchange.wordpress.com/2017/01/28/a-call-to-feminine-men-to-erase-trans-madness/

Should we not be encouraging adults to experiment by just doing a social transition

What would that look like?

When I transitioned, you had to 'socially transition' for a period of a year even before HRT was given. I was self medicating before that. I don't know if the rules have changed now.

Nice link!

Thanks yet.
Truthfully I don’t know.

yes, I have thought this. I would never advocate SRS surgery. I do know that for some people it brings peace and for that reason it should be available. But it should never be a first resort.

I'm not sure what I'm saying here tbh. I think I struggle because I fundamentally disagree with the concept of GRCs, so discussions about the gate keeping to get one seem a bit academic.

It would be wonderful for both sexes to be as gender non conforming as they like, that would be great, wonderful even. What is happening though is an eradication of sex based protections. Woman has become meaningless and we are, again, what men tell us we are. This is a board full of women who have said "no" and that surprises and shocks some people. Women aren't supposed to say no, we are supposed to do what others ask us too, accommodate these men who feel sad.

But it should never be a first resort

It takes a very very long time to get surgery. I don't know the statistics and outcomes from people who are referred to a GIC and the eventual outcome when they are discharged. It would make interesting reading - just to see a summary of what eventually happens.

Someone on here said there were about 150 operations in the UK per year. That's very low compared to the referrals.

To be fair if a man is comfortable with his body then what makes him a woman?

Yet,

Sounds like social transition alone would have done little/nothing for your dysphoria?

Sounds like social transition alone would have done little/nothing for your dysphoria

For me, no.

But for others - well maybe many people do just socially transition.

Thank you yetanother.

Ok so-

Social transition only for kids. Because they are kids.

But same rule for adults benefits neither trans people with dysphoria nor women.

yetanothertranswoman, I'm very aware that I'm talking about something that I have no personal experience of here, and we probably come from rather different view points, I do not wish to offend.

I'm with stilettos
I think the whole concept of social transition is odd. Dress how you want. Do what you want. Use whatever name you like. No skin off my nose. Not really a transition.

Medical transition seems to be the accepted and necessary treatment for severe gender dysphoria and I have no problem with that either.

I think that transition should be treated as a medical, not social, issue and we should have gatekeeping to ensure that people are only having damaging treatments such as cross sex hormones (infertility) and SRS (very invasive) as a last resort when there are not other options.

Don't think the current system is that broken TBH

I think the point is - no hard and fast rules.

so yes for kids, social transition only because they are not capable of consenting to something as fundamental as SRS.

For adults, the situation is complicated. What ever suits the person in question. I don't even have an issue with AGP individuals taking hormones, growing breasts and retaining their penis. My red line is believing your sex has changed.

Wss ^^

@reluctantcamper

No offence taken. It's just it takes a long time to get to surgery and you really really have to prove yourself to the people involved and get second opinions before you get the ok for surgery.

I've had people think 'it just happens' once you go to the doctors

Should we not be encouraging adults to experiment by just doing a social transition?

The bit that I personally don't like is saying that man is now a woman or vice versa. Wear what you want, present how you like but don't claim to be someone you are not.

I also think men need to loosen up and wear something other than a defacto uniform. Strict gender rules are not good for anyone.

And yes, if silicon implants float your boat, go for them. But they don't make a woman.

If we allowed both sexes to behave how they wanted there would be no ground to trans into, just recognisable sexed bodies and an open world.

If social transitioning meant being openly GNC while still accepting that you'll always be the sex you were born as then yes, absolutely! The world would be a better place if everyone felt free to wear what they want, have the hobbies they want, not hide their natural personality, etc.

If it means insisting that you now are the opposite sex because that's how you feel and you may or may not have changed your clothes, hair, etc, then no, because then what you end up with is men who look like men in spaces where women are vulnerable (changing rooms, toilets, etc) and that's uncomfortable and alarming for the women and girls who're already using those spaces.

The idea of a social transition is a bit weird in general, and very sexist. What's changing, exactly? Pronouns, possibly clothes, possibly whether or not someone wears makeup, maybe they might feel more free to express aspects of their personality that they'd been suppressing or pursue interests that they'd been socialized into feeling ashamed of. Why can't they do all of those things without declaring themselves to have a new gender identity? The strictness with which those lines are drawn has increased over the past decade or so, there was more freedom within the living memory of most people here. So isn't loosening up the lines (ideally to beyond even where they were in the 70s and 80s and 90s) and having it be OK for men to wear dresses and lipstick and be emotional, and women to want to be car mechanics and get buzzcuts and wear stompy boots, actually the better way forward? That way only the small minority of people for whom whatever incongruence they're feeling really is about their body and not the stereotypes will even need to consider a medical transition. Everyone else just needs the stereotypes to go away.

I think finding your tribe as an adult is a necessary step - if that's what you mean by social transitioning. But that goes for everyone. Maybe there just needs to be more directories of "tribes" for people to access - who are genuine folks not people in a "cult"

much of the objection on this board is to do with the notion of transitioning without medical involvement (it is just self ID and a legal paperworkprocess).

My personal objection to Self ID is the lack of transparency over what might happen as a process - nothing is confirmed one way or another and I want to be sure women’s rights are considered when that consultation happens, before a law is changed.

For me, the GRC allows an individual to legally ‘change sex’. This is so drastic a life choice, really, that it seems to me that medical opinions should be sought.

Social transition is available already to anyone, in effect. Paris Lees, for example, is vocally on record to say she doesn’t have a GRC and can live life fine identifying as a woman. She’s a very successful ‘social transitioner’.

The issue comes where then the social transition therefore = woman in all senses. For instance Paris Lees is neither legally a woman (no GRC) or biologically a woman but is outspoken on how transphobic it is to suggest trans women are not ‘real’ women. I would always use ‘she/her’ etc in description, but I cannot personally believe biology is irrelevant. But that would make me in need of re-education in the trans narrative.

The difficulty then comes when you are expected to ‘toe the line’ on your thoughts and feelings just because someone has self-identified themselves as something they are not based on just their thoughts and feelings.

In the case of PL, who ‘passes’ extremely well, and has lots of feminisation surgery facially, for example, I’m sure she’s committed and not a threat to women in their sex-segregated spaces. But that doesn’t mean dropping all gate-keeping over quite a serious legal issue won’t have the unintended consequence that other men could abuse the system for less than honourable reasons.

Paris Lees, for example, is vocally on record to say she doesn’t have a GRC and can live life fine identifying as a woman. She’s a very successful ‘social transitioner

I don't know if she's had HRT or surgery.

I'm against the idea of sex change completely. It's impossible for a start and you are a liar if you say "I am a woman/man" when you are not one.

So as this as a stating point, gender non-conforming children have my full support in wearing whatever they want, choosing whatever name, playing with whatever toys doing whatever things, expressing themselves but I will never lie to them that they are a different sex and I will never encourage them to believe they could ever be a different sex.

It is child abuse imo to ever give a child hormones or surgery or allow them to think they are of the opposite sex. At the very most they are trans but I would encourage them to simply be a perfect gender non-conforming child in their own body.

Adults, whatever you want. Be a cross dressing Izzard, be an India Willoughby with all the surgery in the world and everything in between once you're old enough to pay for it yourself. But please please be honest with yourself and the world that you are Transgender you are not of the opposite sex. Trans women can be some of the most beautiful interesting incredible people but they are not women. So what's the point of changing your birth certificate, ticking "female" on medical forms etc. Just be yourself.

If gender non conforming people were better accepted in the world, like, they were yknow 20 years ago, then maybe no one would need to lie about sex changes.