Can we be honest about the need for affirmation?

[FortunateCookie]

I posted some of this on the misgendering thread but it was lost in amongst everything.

I asked on that thread whether refusing to affirm someone’s gender identity was a big deal or not, and many people thought it was, and that it could lead to mental health problems and possibly suicide.

If non- affirmation is so damaging then it also follows that positive affirmation would be extremely rewarding and fulfilling.

It seems obvious that this could lead to serious conflicts of interests. For example, in the case of the woman who asked for a female nurse to carry out her smear test, and was faced with a trans nurse.

Here, when the patients needs should be paramount, she instead becomes either a cause of huge distress, or a vehicle to experience the reward of validation. Either way, it is difficult to see how her needs could be centred against the pull of such a powerful motivation. Do eg hospitals, rape crisis centres recognise this dynamic?

Either it is a big deal that a trans person has their identity affirmed, in which case it should also be recognised that this can cause conflicts of interest in situations where affirmation or not is a factor (ie performing smear tests, working in a women’s refuge)

Or it’s not that big of a deal if a trans person has their identity affirmed and therefore they won’t be offended when a patient asks for a female nurse to carry out their smear.

Which is it?

Italiangrayhound

I'm sorry I don't know the answer to that I know she is very good at her job and is well supported by her team but I don't know the details of how she supports people as I've never asked her.

@Bespin it's ok I would not expect you to know necessarily.

@GibbertyFlibbert: Why aren’t you seeking unisex everything? Because you are a woman, I assume.

No, I'm seeking female-only spaces because I don't want males forcibly inserting the rape weapon (penis) they were born with into the unpatchable security vulnerability (vagina) I was born with.

Same with trans women. It's not about validation but simply flows naturally from their womanhood.

I actually do not understand that statement. "Womanhood" is a euphemism for vulva, and if transwomen experience anything other than urine or semen flowing from their male genitalia or surgically-constructed vulvas (delete as applicable), they need to see a doctor because something has gone very wrong. Female humans want female-only spaces for safeguarding reasons.

All of these threads about resisting the erosion of women's rights by transactivists are rooted in a need for safeguarding females from male sexual violence.

Is this still relevant? Has anything moved on?

No. The colour of a woman's skin is still being compared to males stating they are women as somehow this makes them both women.

Very depressing.

Bespin got banned. Otherwise, business as usual.

Bespin got banned.
And snowblight joined the site.

Anyway, "IF it was THIS, then it would be THIS" is still being used.

Wow bespin got banned? I haven’t been here for ages (the gaslighting of women on mass scale is so bad for my mental health) that I’ve missed loads.
Sooooo depressing that we’re still nowhere

BeSPUN

(just laughing at my own stupid pun MNHQ, not aimed at anyone else)

I’d happily put up with Bespin again if we could also have LangCleg back, mind you.

It’s not all bad, more and more people are getting sick of the wokerati. Comments on social media are far more ‘WTF?’ and a lot less ‘can’t you just be nice?’ now.
The arse has completely fallen out of #nodebate, and the wave of young female detransitioners that we all worried about has started to arrive and they are fucking fabulous, far more resilient and insightful than I could ever have imagined.