When/How did the transgender debate start?

[FunderAnna]

Can people tell me the date/s when plans to change the Gender Recognition Act and go for self ID started being discussed? When did moving to self ID become the declared policy of parties in the UK?

[ferntwist]

This is Stonewall’s official transgender umbrella (the cynical will say they are trying to catch the biggest possible client base here):

• Gender benders • Gender blenders • Drag queens • Drag kings • Butch women • Effeminate men • Cross-dressers • Transvestites

“Anyone who chooses, for whatever reason, to self-identify as transgender.
“In the broadest sense, transgender encompasses anyone whose identity or behaviour falls outside of stereotypical gender norms. That includes people who do not self-identify as transgender, but who are perceived as such by others.”

[SuperLoudPoppingAction]

Why are they so nasty to lesbian women with a butch presentation then?
Or is a flannel shirt and blundstones no good? Does it have to be a leather cap and all the s/m stuff?

[ferntwist]

Stonewall has identified trans as its new emerging market, now that so many older LGB battles have been won.

[Yarnswift]

I live in Sweden - here we have fantastic sex education that starts in an age appropriate way very young. They learn about boundaries and respect from starting kindergarten at 18m ish. The society generally is very open about sex and sexuality. It’s generally held up as the model of all the ‘should do’ things about how to create respect in sexual relationships.

We still have a problem with young teens viewing extreme porn on smartphones. A big problem. These kids HAVE the background in the good sex education. It’s discussed freely in a way it isn’t in many other countries and online porn is STILL a big problem.
I just can’t accept the argument that it’s all fine, because I’m seeing friends have their eight year olds come home freaked out after older kids have shown them this, or 12 year old kids pressured into naked selfies that are shared or 15-17 year olds having their first sexual experiences with boys who expect to choke them and do anal. It’s awful for these kids - and this is a country that’s done all the right things regarding good sex education and societal attitudes.

[AngryAttackKittens]

A teacher explaining boundaries in class just doesn't have the same dopamine activating, classical conditioning to associate stimulus A with orgasm impact on developing minds that porn does.

[ReanimatedSGB]

Good sex education should be teaching kids about porn - that it is entertainment/fantasy, not an instruction manual. But kids are not getting good sex ed.

[Yarnswift]

Kids ARE getting good sex ed where I live. It’s held up as the best practice model. It’s open, it’s frank, they talk about all this stuff.

It’s still not enough. The change in what’s on offer and the availability of it is the issue. When I was a teen poem wasn’t accessible. We had no phones, any poem was what these days would count as very softcore seen in a mag or a VHS tape.
Now at a click kids can be exposed to really extreme stuff and the extreme is the norm. Acts that would be likely to cause serious physical injury in women unless done under close supervision (and even porn actresses get injured at a fair rate, these women are using numbing gels and still experiencing prolapses etc.) if you go into any of the landing sites for the main porn providers you see that most of the categories are what was considered non mainstream even ten years ago.

No young girls first experience of sex should be coercive or likely to injure her. Choking in particular is worrying - not only is it something that should be done only in consenting circumstances by people old enough to understand consent, it takes very little pressure in just the right place to cause catastrophic brain injury or death.

When you’ve got visual imagery on tap it’s overwhelming. It’s so much more powerful to have a visual stimulus/orgasm reinforcement loop than it is to be talked at in class.

I’m afraid I can’t agree with you SGB - I live in one of the places that’s the best on earth for sex education and liberal attitudes to sex and my friends kids are still having these issues. They do NOT see porn as fantasy - because it’s saturated with violence to the point that ALL they see is violence.

[Ereshkigal]

That screengrab upthread about 'the victim's name' - are you sure that isn't either a common name, or a name shared with a popular adult performer?

Do you have any evidence that that's the case?

[OrchidInTheSun]

Yes have a look @ReanimatedSGB. I'm at work and can't log onto porn sites

[OrchidInTheSun]

Nearly 19,000 child rapes were recorded in India in 2016

[RosenbergW]

I wonder how many of those would need to be uploaded to the internet for reanimatedSGB to admit there was a problem.

Porn is not entertainment or fantasy to the women and children abused to make it and abused using it.

[RosenbergW]

In any case reanimatedSGB the point I was making wasn't about porn itself, if was about the hypocrisy of trans identified non-women like Fae and Kaveney who argue vociferously against censorship of extreme porn but equally vociferously for censorship of feminist women. You dont have to be the smartest kid in the room to see the obvious in that contradiction.

[xxmarksthespot]

“In the broadest sense, transgender encompasses anyone whose identity or behaviour falls outside of stereotypical gender norms. That includes people who do not self-identify as transgender, but who are perceived as such by others.”

Isn't that everyone then ?

[HawkeyeInConfusion]

I'm reading Kat Barnyard's 'The Equality Illusion'. In it she talks about all the money in porn. That, along with this thread, has made me wonder whether it is the porn industry who are the money behind all this trans activism.

I'm new to this feminism thing, so apologies if that idea is either blatantly obvious or completely ridiculous.

[Trousersdontmakemeaman]

That, along with this thread, has made me wonder whether it is the porn industry who are the money behind all this trans activism.

Porn mainstreaming is definitely convincing some men that kink should be socially acceptable, to the extent that women at work have to tolerate male cross dressers in the workplace using the women's room.

Bring your fetish to work is a key tenet of Stonewall's gender expression.

We are supposed to believe it is not a kink but a legitimate sexuality or gender identity, I can't work out which they think it is as they deny any sexual aspect to it.

It's just about the clothes? In which case go in the men's, I am happy in the women's with my trousers on so you can use the men's with your dress on, no?

[HawkeyeInConfusion]

I wasn't thinking about the kink trousers although that is another factor to consider. I was thinking more along the lines that it is mainly the radfem group who don't regard porn and sex work as empowering for women (please correct me if that's not the case). And one major aspect of the TRA agenda is vilifying and silencing radfems. And if they are vilified and silenced then no one will listen to their arguments against porn and sex work.

[ferntwist]

@xxmarks Exactly. We’re all trans basically. It’s madness.

[Trousersdontmakemeaman]

It's one and the same to me Hawkeye.

I don't label myself.

I read feminist literature from the 60s and 70s as a young woman, Marylin French, Greer, Orbach, Fay Weldon and so many more over the years, no matter what people say about the waves or the radical, the message is the same.

Don't be diverted by the message that there are many strands of conflicting feminism, that's all intended to undermine.

We know in our gut.

Trust your gut.

[HawkeyeInConfusion]

Thanks trousers. Sorry to derail.

[Trousersdontmakemeaman]

don't apologise