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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

Can we be honest about the need for affirmation?

384 replies

FortunateCookie · 11/06/2018 21:54

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?

OP posts:
DixieFlatline · 12/06/2018 00:02

A patient cannot be said to unlawfully discriminate under EA 2010, although of course they can be victims of discrimination. It is one-sided

Are you being willfully obtuse? It would be the employer excluding the trans HCP from performing smears due to it having the potential to put female patients off/cause them upset.

pombear · 12/06/2018 00:02

My life isn’t some fucking walk on part in some blokes cosplay experience.

I'm going to borrow that. Fucking awesome statement!

Pratchet · 12/06/2018 00:10

After that science thread 'women are nothing special' etc there is no way on God's good earth a tim will be conducting any intimate care on me or my daughter.

BronwenFrideswide · 12/06/2018 00:15

Gib Asking for a nurse who has had it done so can help you understand it is reasonable. A nurse who has had it done will be an adult human female, i.e., a woman not a trans woman.

I'd really like Gib and some of the other TW's and their cheer leaders who have appeared on this board in the last few weeks to be honest about why they are staging this pernicious assault on:

The language women use to describe themselves and their biology
Women only spaces, service, sports, scholarships, etc.

I believe it is all about power, control and a deep seated hatred for women and nothing any of them have said to date has altered this view.

thebewilderness · 12/06/2018 00:24

I believe it is all about power, control and a deep seated hatred for women and nothing any of them have said to date has altered this view.

Everything they have said here affirms your belief.

Ereshkigal · 12/06/2018 00:24

My life isn’t some fucking walk on part in some blokes cosplay experience.

This this this with big shiny bells on.

Ereshkigal · 12/06/2018 00:25

It would be an added disturbing headfuck to deal with when I am already vulnerable having my sex organs painfully poked about with.

YY.

AornisHades · 12/06/2018 00:26

When you're at work you should set your personal emotions aside and get on with the job. If you are unable to do that then you shouldn't be at work, especially if you're dealing with vulnerable service users.

GibbertyFlibbert · 12/06/2018 00:26

It's simple. I want women to be seen positively, not as transphobes

PermissionToSpeakSir · 12/06/2018 00:28

I want women to be seen positively

Please expand. I am not catching your drift.

thebewilderness · 12/06/2018 00:30

I am suddenly reminded of a man standing in the doorway while I was having dialysis in the intensive care unit arguing with me that because he had provided intimate care for me while I was unconscious I should be fine with having him assist me with a bed pan instead of a female nurse. That was the most vulnerable I have ever felt in my life. I just stared at him until he went away.

PermissionToSpeakSir · 12/06/2018 00:31

Hugs

OldCrone · 12/06/2018 00:31

I want women to be seen positively

Meaning what? We're all quite positive on here about upholding the rights of women.

Why do you care how women are seen? I don't care how people see me, but I don't intend to have all my rights stripped from me because some men think they're women.

thebewilderness · 12/06/2018 00:31

Gebber wants us to submit so men will like us better. Maybe they will stop killing us if we are nice enough.

Pratchet · 12/06/2018 00:32

Are we at the bit in the gaslightwrs' script where they're 'only trying to help'

PermissionToSpeakSir · 12/06/2018 00:34

Well yes, you think.. seen by who?

I have nothing but warm admiration, respect and joyously positive feelings about the women defending our rights on this thread..

Couldn't be seen more positively by me.

OldCrone · 12/06/2018 00:34

or out yourself and risk damaging your career and your ability to pay your mortgage.

A law that gave men the opportunity to pass themselves off as women, which in some cases might be used by predators to gain access to women or children in vulnerable situations, was not a well thought out law.

Ereshkigal · 12/06/2018 00:35

Why do you care how women are seen? I don't care how people see me, but I don't intend to have all my rights stripped from me because some men think they're women.

Me neither.

thebewilderness · 12/06/2018 00:35

Once again, from Why Does He DO That, Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men, "When they see their dirty face in the mirror they wash the mirror."

Ereshkigal · 12/06/2018 00:37

It's simple. I want women to be seen positively, not as transphobes

How odd. So you do know what an actual woman is sometimes then? We're the ones who get smeared as "transphobes" when we assert our rights to privacy and dignity.

AnotherQuoll · 12/06/2018 00:45

Oh. So it only looked like Gib doesn't gaf about how we feel, our rights to comfort, privacy and our sex-based rights. In fact Gib is only doing this out of concern for our public image. How kind.

Italiangreyhound · 12/06/2018 00:51

"GibbertyFlibbert it is you who is being unreasnable and you now it. I can refuse treatment from any person for any reason. The thing is if I was forced to do that it would put my health at risk. My health verses someone else's identity feelings? That is't something i need to weigh up!

If trans people are uncomfortable with patients making preferences about intimidate procedures they need to work on that field. Just like any other person who might be unable to do their job if following a patients preferences caused them issues. You can say it as many times as you like, it is nothing to do with race, it is not to do with being trans, it is to do with being male.

A woman appearing to do the smear and casually saying 'By the way I identify as a man' would most likely not cause many women any concerns.

GibbertyFlibbert · 12/06/2018 00:51

It is very simple. The only thing which should matter is the professional skills and training of the nurse. His/her personal life is just that - personal - and unless there is misconduct his/her personal life is irrelevant.

I say that as a woman who has been in stirrups while a male doctor did an intimate examination.

bd67th · 12/06/2018 00:52

@SarahAr, a trans woman with intact male genitalia in an open female changing room will be viewed as Schrödinger's Rapist by at least some of the females present, and this will cause alarm and anxiety, and possible PTSD symptoms for any rape victims present. To compare this to an obese woman, who has no penis and cannot rape, is the most disingenuous thing I have seen from the trans lobby yet. I am an obese exercise class attendee and I am beyond livid that you are trying to use me as a human shield for your woman-hating agenda.

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 12/06/2018 00:56

Over years fighting this fight I have learned far more than I really wanted to know about the motivations men have for claiming that they're women. And most of them are not for the squeamish.

The porn related to transition is hideously misogynistic. Men with these tastes present themselves as a woman because it's humiliating. Because of course all woman are secret sluts.

What I've read convinces me that one of the reasons for the narcissistic rage of some non dysphoric TRAs is an urgent need to obscure and deny the sexual and fetishistic motives behind their transition

I'm sure answer A is the right one. Validation is key to so much of what TRAs demand and try to enforce. In the process they display the worst of male behaviour. Their identities are made of glass. A side eye can smash them. So they bully and manipulate.and they try to smash female boundaries. A woman's no means nothing to them.

Demanding that we ignore our senses and our life experience, TRA are trying to force women to agree that men can be women. But they aren't, and we don't.

The old school transsexuals often showed empathy with women. They never bullied or intruded.

Now we have a vastly expanded population under the TIM umbrella. The great majority keep their penis and are sexually attracted to women. So women very reasonably don't want them in single sex spaces.