I am a science teacher teaching secondary sex education and genetics

[Clairetree1]

Ever single time. Every single time. Every single time.

I am being asked how men turn into women.

I say they can't. They turn into transwomen. These are men who change their bodies to be as much like women as possible, but are still men.

Every single time I teach pregnancy I am asked how men can do it.

Every single time we go through genetics I get a shocked response for saying "this is male, this is female"

Every single time I make any distinction between male and female I am asked "are you allowed to say that?

I equate being ordered to teach that men can become woman to previous generations of teachers being ordered to teach nazi race science.

I am quite sure I will be sacked one day

What’s noticeable is that you haven’t offered any mechanism for how humans have changed sex.

I know the linky battle thing works nicely on twitter but we have more space here. If you make an assertion that humans can change sex, you need to back that up. Not with a link, with your own words.

I realise the thread has moved on but just wanted to point out that we thrashed out the Transfish Bollocks on here last year.

Was a pop-up exhibit put on by a Transwoman who is not a biologist. Was risible.

Gibb
The last link you posted about 'assigned' was about a boy with hypospadias and cryptorchidism who was 'assigned' female at birth.

Assigning a sex at birth is what is done with children with ambiguous genitalia. Most babies are quite obviously either male or female.

What was the point of the link?

Was this sea horses ARE horses

There is no point to the link. It’s from the Big Book Of Links - you google or PM whatever words you want as keywords and slap it down. Then you throw some big words in. Epigenetics for example (doesn’t it sound impressive!) but the link doesn’t show what you think it does, or want it to.

But then debate and critical appraisal of evidence doesn’t seem to be a strong suit with TRAs. It’s all about feelings.

This is a good link that covers a lot of the issues discussed.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=CqmW9CL80q0

Those seeking to co-opt the struggles of intersex people to somehow legitimise the transactivist agenda need to back the fuck off. It's got so bad that Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group (AISSG) have had to issue a statement:

'Trans' Terms

Intersexuality is not the same as a transsexuality (gender dysphoria) and is not a transgender state. Neither of the latter terms is one that we recognise as belonging in any general discussion of intersex. We are not happy with the recent tendency of some trans groups/people to promote transgender as an umbrella term to encompass, for example, transsexuality, transvestitism and intersex. We object to other organisations/individuals putting us in categories without consulting us, especially categories that imply that interexed people, of necessity, have gender identity issues. See the paper by Mazur et al cited at foot of this page.

The problems this causes...

We are constantly trying to get away from the idea that intersex is necessarily to do with gender identity, a notion that others (including the press/media) like to impose on us. Moreover, the prefix trans- infers a "moving across", and although a few people with intersex conditions may choose to change their gender role, the vast majority never "go" anywhere in terms of their sex or their gender, but are happy to stay in the status in which they grew up.

XY females may suffer various problems on finding out their diagnosis. Problems such as:

- confusion
- anger at secrecy and paternalism (withholding of diagnostic information)
- shame and stigma
- an existential type of identity crisis
- low self-esteem
- difficulty grasping how this biological phenomenon can come about
- grief at being denied fertility and rites of passage (e.g. lack of menstruation)
- a feeling of freakishness and isolation compared to their peers
- a fear that others might see them as 'male'
- a concern regarding their ability to function in a relationship (e.g. vaginal hypoplasia)
- the burden of keeping a secret, or uncertainty over who to tell and how
- a retreat from medical care leading to failure to take HRT with a risk of osteoporosis
- etc., etc.

These are the issues that are of major concern to most of our members; and none of these necessarily means that their inner sense of gender identity is compromised.

This trend towards 'muscling in' on intersex issues seems to be a initiative on the part of certain politically-minded people in the 'trans' community, to bring intersex under their banner (for whatever reason - it lends more credibility to their cause?) or even to actively interfere in clinical issues relating to intersex. See Announcements for an account of the problems we had in 2000 with a gender dysphoria/transsexual organisation trying to interfere in protocols for 'gender reinforcement' surgery in intersexed infants with so-called genital ambiguity.

Here's the link to Announcements where you can read all about the shoddy behaviour of GIRES in 2000.

And if scientists did discover there is such a thing as a female brain (there isn’t) and that that a transwomans brain was the same as this ‘female brain’ that is only proof that that kind of brain also exists in men.

The brain is highly flexible (neuroplasticity) and is constantly evolving based on many factors like genetics, environment etc. To date, there is ZERO conclusive evidence of 'different brains' based on sex. However, every cell in your brain contains your sexed chromosomes but does not determine behaviour.

Brains are HIGHLY individualized.

AFAIK, no scientist can look at scans from neonates and sex them accurately.

I do not think transgender advocates can argue that their mental illness is not a mental illness at all but rather an physical condition without using the physical condition of intersex to support their argument.

I think the 'brain' notion is really just an example of theoretical reasons for why someone might feel they're the wrong sex.
Ultimately, there actually has to be a reason why we all think and feel as we do, even if we're little more than a biological and electrical mass - there's still some cause and effect at play somewhere.

What happens when a man feels violent but don't have much of a body - is he trapped in a weak body but ought to be a muscle man?
What happens when someone deeply longs to play the piano but doesn't have the skill set? are they born with the wrong body too?

I just can't help but feel so many people are not content with their lot, and as a result, being somebody or something else is their solution. It's overwhelmingly compelling for some.

GibbertyFlibbert - What is noticeabe is that while I have been linking to scientific studies those on the other side are offering nothing

Sadly for you, just posting a link to a paper that happens to mention a word that features in one of your strange assertions doesn't convince anybody here that you have the faintest clue what you're talking about.

This was my favourite: - ^Even nearly 50 years ago the understanding of sex was much broader than that swarb.co.uk/corbett-v-corbett-otherwise-ashley-fd-1-feb-1970/^

You have linked to a law page with a summary of the legal grounds for the annulment of April Ashley's marriage. Not only is this completely irrelevant to a discussion about science, it says the opposite of what you are asserting:

Ormrod J: ‘It is common ground between all the medical witnesses that the biological sexual constitution of an individual is fixed at birth (at the latest), and cannot be changed, either by the natural development of organs of the opposite sex, or by medical or surgical means. The respondent’s operation, therefore, cannot affect her true sex.

This was funny too - That's the director of a gender studies department at one of the UK's top universities saying that sex is not binary.

You do realise that 'gender studies' is not a scientific discipline?

I suggest you swap " chromosomes " for genes and add epigenetics and hormonal balance during pregnancy but in essence you are right

I literally tear my hair out over this.

people who shout and yell "epigenetics" as if it proves something, without having the faintest idea what it means.

You get it is sex determined, I trust.

You get it is entirely to improve reproductive potential, I trust.

This thread should be pinned at the top of Feminism Chat. Sod that, it should be pinned on Active until this terrible attack on women's rights is over.

Still unsure what those who don't 'believe' in being transgender hope to achieve?
It's a pretty widespread phenomenon and unlikely to go away so the least we can do for our kids is educate them about it. Even if it's just the different opinions on the subject.

Complete science ignoramus here

I did several hours ago

If you did then it will be fucking easy to repost won't it

Now mosaicism is fascinating and I could blather on about it for ages but it has nothing to do with humans changing sex.

This is this gishing shit isnt it?? Where people who have no fucking clue post some vaguely scientific bullshit in the hopes that it will impress science duds like me...isnt it?? Isnt it???

I'm right arent i

I see some of the posts on here and i wonder how the fuck these people are able to breathe and talk at the same time...and these are the sperm that won!!!!

Oh no we are sure about what you hope to achieve. The erasure of biological sex as a legal distinction and by association the erasure of women's sex-based rights. #weseeyou

even if it's just the different opinions on the subject

This isn't happening...at all

Still unsure what those who don't 'believe' in being transgender hope to achieve?
It's a pretty widespread phenomenon and unlikely to go away so the least we can do for our kids is educate them about it. Even if it's just the different opinions on the subject.

I don't think there's any goal that people want to achieve, and I do believe it's widely discussed.
Religion is a widespread phenomenon too, more so than Transgenderism, and that's widely debated too, but still, the supporting evidence for a God is scant at best.

I don't think people (generally) take issue with someone wanting to live the life of the opposite sex, I think they just object to the declaration that they are 'actually' the opposite sex. Want to live as a man / woman? fine. Want to tell the world you are an actual man / woman? not fine.

TornFromTheInside - Yes, if you could conclusively prove you had a female brain / soul or whatever, would that trump having a cock? (to put it bluntly).

Well quite!

Rebecca Reilley Cooper has written an excellent series of essays that can help untangle things for anybody who's feeling a bit blinded by 'science'. She's a philosopher not a scientist so only refers to 'basic' science. My understanding is that advanced biology (the proper sort) expands on the basic stuff rather than contradicting it.

How can you expect children to 'think critically' if you want to deny them the opportunity to hear both sides of a debate?

Going back a bit just I just want to second this from LangCleg:

I mean, we're at the tail end of Western civilisation if the main concern of the elite liberal academy is to deny how babies are made, aren't we?

We really must be.

Anyway. All TRAs excel at talking gibberish but Gibberty is in a class of their own.
How does a person who produces sperm change to a person who produces ova, Gibberty? Or vice versa? And the answer is not “I already posted that upthread” because you really didn’t. We know some people are intersex. We are talking about a non-intersex sperm producing male changing to a non-intersex ova producing female. Something every rational person knows is beyond the bounds of possibility. But you persist in reality-denying gobbledygook.

Are you responding to me, Daim? Because you seem to be accepting that transgenderism is a terrible attack on women's rights.

I'd love it if EVERYONE was gender variant. In fact it should be accepted that everyone IS gender variant. Knock yourselves out with presentation. You can't change sex. Ever.

How can you expect children to 'think critically' if you want to deny them the opportunity to hear both sides of a debate?

Until science proves otherwise, I think science teachers should be teaching the facts as we know them today. We don't debate flat earth, or the Sun's position in the solar system anymore.

In terms of social sciences, then sure, we can address how we deal with people who would like to live as the opposite sex. The morals and laws associated with that etc, but that isn't biological science.

There's also the issue that a school curriculum can only host so many topics, and we're already having to deal with cultural debates, religious debates, and now sexuality and gender debates.
It's hard enough to guide a child through puberty already, but teaching them that their cock might actually be the wrong attachment for them, or that their vulva is missing a penis and testicles just seems like overloading them with confusion.

If a child asks about such things, I think most teachers will answer as best they can, but that's not the same as proactively having them debate their own sex and sexuality before they've even been allowed to grow into their biological ones.

Still unsure what those who don't 'believe' in being transgender hope to achieve?

It's not that I don't believe people have body dysmorphic disorders but they are PSYCHOLOGICAL and shouldn't involve mutilating healthy bodies, especially those of children. If you're an adult and want to pay for your hormones and surgeries, I have no issue with that but govt. should NOT be funding this and we shouldn't have to pretend you're something you're not.

Therefore, my main goal is:

To stop transactivists from erasing sex class and therefore womanhood and the entire feminist movement.

That's pretty much it. I mean, I could explain the multiple ways men try to do this and how it's played out but that's the gist of it.

Also, to stop experimenting on children and medicalizing them for LIFE before they've had their first kiss. Especially since we know that these medical interventions involve things like GnRha's which have a number of harmful side effects.

I see some of the posts on here and i wonder how the fuck these people are able to breathe and talk at the same time...and these are the sperm that won!!!!

Rufus

I wonder that too.