What would they say to the kids?

[catkind]

Yesterday I had one of those conversations with the kids where I explained different anatomy. Y'know, boys have penises, girls have vulvas, what happens to girls at puberty, what happens to boys at puberty. It struck me just how impossible that conversation would be in genderland.

Small children don't actually have an innate sense of gender do they? Then they go to toddler groups or nursery and start observing and generalising. And generally draw the wrong conclusions at first. Over-categorising. They say things like "I'm a girl because I'm wearing a dress" or "I like football because I'm a boy". Then adults explain that actually no, you're a boy if you have a penis and a girl if you have a vulva, and everyone can play football or wear dresses or like pink if they want to.

Is it actually proposed that instead of explaining biology, we tell children "you're a girl if you feel like you're a girl"? How would you even explain to them what feeling like a girl feels like so they can tell?

I posted something gender critical on my own social media and got told I should go and listen to trans "lived experience". So I did go and read some more stories (not that I hadn't before). It's noticeable how many trans narratives start with something along the lines of "I always knew I was different, from a very young age I wanted to wear dresses/hated wearing dresses/wanted to climb trees/hated rough and tumble". It sounds like a 3 yr old's conception of what being a boy or a girl means. It's not helping cast light. How would transactivists explain to their kids what being a boy/girl is?

nuffaluff

what made it scary for me was the amount of venom. i wanted to understand what was happening to and in my family whereas many partners there didn't seem interested in understanding anything - they just wanted to lash out.

For some people that catharthis was what they needed..but it made it the wrong place for me. So I left.

Oh I see.
Why do you think the wives were venomous? What would your take on it be?

My children are all well grown by now. The question did not really arise with them, athough questions about sex-based stereotypes (what some of us still think of as 'gender') did. I am happy enough with how that worked out with my own children, at least, whether through mine and my partner's efforts at answering questions or not.

The question of changing sex and so on has arisen with more than one of my grandchildren, however, and as well as being faced with this directly, I have had discussions with my children and their partners about how to deal with it.

I have to say I disagree wholeheartedly with much of what QueenNooka has to say. It seems to me important that we tell our children the truth. As I have written on another thread recently in similar vein, this is more important than Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy.

The truth? People cannot change sex. If you are born a boy, you will grow to be a man. If you are born a girl, you will grow to be a woman. No matter how much my grandson wants to be a 'mummy' when he grows up, he cannot. And so on.

Children often want things they cannot have, for one reason or another. It is our duty to let them know this, always in an age and developmentally appropriate manner, of course.

But what of people like QueenNooka's ex, who 'just know that they don't match their genitalia, as she says'? Equally easy peasy, but opposite to what QueenNooka suggests: such people are mistaken in thinking they are women even though they have willies ... and it would be kinder to not challenge them about that. Just as we would not tell a one-legged man who insisted he had two legs that he was wrong; it would be unkind.

There would also be opportunity (again, appropriately age and developmentally appropriately) to explain how we probably should not believe someone who tells us he or she 'just knows' something, if that person cannot explain how he or she came by that knowledge.

Lots of people think they know something-or-other, but if they are unable to explain how they know it, we have no reason to believe what they say. So we should be at best sceptical in such cases. That is a good lesson for children to learn in general, not just regarding sexual characterisation.

Of course, if the justification for claimed knowledge has already been debunked (for example see 'sex-based stereotypes' above), so much the more sceptical we should be - and so should we teach our children.

I'm not going to mince my words: you are basically an apologist for transgenderism, which harms women. You may dress it up with pained expressions of good intention and #whycanteveryonebenice, but basically that's what is going on here.

Thank you QueenNooka for your thoughtful reply....

And - not directed to you - but generally this is what I think is the problem now:
That's why however a trans person presents they should be given the benefit of the doubt as long as they are just going along and getting on with just being them and leading the life they have to lead that isn't hurting anyone else.

As far as Im aware, no one wants to make transpeople's lives more difficult - but It is the real concern on here that the TRAs are actively wanting to hurt GC people and threaten to do so, frequently as well as impacting on the rights of women and children- as well as being clear they are not up for a discussion about something so very significant..... Few would want

Re the heterosexual men - this is how I see the cross-dressers who live their lives as men (with wives and families) and then want to be "lesbians" when it suits them... and the variations upon that. But this thread is NOT about that and I don't wish to derail, just to explain.

soapboxqueen
I think we're pretty much in agreeance (which is always nice).

We are at a point in a process of acceptance, similar to the one gay people went through, and people are pushing boundaries and then theres a push back and then we settle on a new level of acceptance - that's how these processes tend to work.

The general direction though is towards acceptance of trans people. We've gone too far for anything majorly retrograde to happen.

The next step is to accept non binary people and I don't have a problem with that...

both 'sides' seem to be flinging words like misogynist, racist, homophobic about becuase noone ever gains ground by pointing their finger at the reasonable people in the middle ground. Polarised discussions always need extremists to justify their existence.

Forget the people with baseball bats (in the US, on social media) and look at the many decent trans organisations who have been working hard for decades in real life, in parliament and in communities with trans individuals.

As I said before gender is complicated from the outside looking in AND from the inside, not everyone understands where they are at, most trans people are trying to work through really complex stuff as well as live their daily lives and if someone is at a point in their life where they feel they would be best served by coming into the same changing room as me... as long as they come in and get changed and don't give anyone grief... then why not?

queen I think the difference is that most people thought that a transwoman was somebody who had full surgery, was more than likely gay, was part of a tiny, tiny community and was therefore not a threat. Most businesses took an approach that meant penises would be excluded and obvious men would be removed. At very least, women could complain.

We find that most do not have surgery to remove their penis, many are attracted to females so I would be unsure what the material difference would be for your average woman when risk assessing any given situation.

Many businesses and organisations have decided to get 'ahead of the law' by changing to either self ID or making spaces unisex without consultation with women. Many not even making the changes public. Such as the girl guides deciding that trans girls should be treated as girls, would be allowed to share sleeping spaces with girls (though boys would not be allowed to do this) and parents cannot be informed.

Self ID within itself will become redundant as most business will just ignore who uses what facilities thereby making any sex segregation impossible. Any woman who fears a male person is in a female space will not be able to ask for help for fear of committing a hate crime. Businesses will be unable to act for fear of discrimination law suits.

What is the point of single sex wards in hospitals if they are for anybody?

How do single sex services or those requiring a same sex carer or those wanting a same sex hcp for intimate examinations etc etc etc work if sex doesn't mean anything? How do we protect those things?

why were they venemous? as I said - it was a form of catharthis for them i think.
Maybe also..if I find out my child is gay I'd just say...ok..lets carry on with life.
But someone who is already homophobic might lash out at their child, throw them out of the house and go onto social media and pour out that cathartic venom becuase they are angry and feel cheated of having a 'normal' child...whatever.
I suppose when I found out my partner was trans it was difficult, it was challenging but I wanted to get to a point of acceptance becuase i didn't hate the concept. Whereas some people just don't like trans people and aren't interested in understanding or coming to a point of acceptance.

If the 'other side' want to tell me I'm homophobic, misogynistic or racist they need to come up with a reason for their accusation.

I claim TRAs are homophobic because they have issues with same sex attracted people saying they are same sex attracted. Since by their logic a woman with a penis is a woman and therefore lesbians should be equally as attracted to them. Same sex attraction cannot exist if a person's sex doesn't exist.

I claim TRAs are misogynistic because their claims make woman an idea in a man's head (Twas ever thus) or a series of stereotypes that harm women. Womanhood is not a costume.

I claim racism because they often use statements like 'transwomen are women in the same way black women are'. No black women are not a type of woman, they are women. They are not similar to males in any way.

Usually boys have penises and girls have vulvas.

Usually doesn't help the child define the term though does it?

"I'm a girl because I like pink and I have long hair."
"Boys can like pink and long hair too. People with penises are usually boys, so you're probably a boy. Do you feel you're a boy?"

How does that help a child work out what the category boy actually means? They've understood the meaning wrong, their intuitive understanding is based on shallow stereotypes, because that's the most obvious difference they've observed at preschool. But you can't offer them anything more definitive. Usually girls (in their experience at preschool) like pink. Usually girls (you're telling them) don't have penises. That doesn't even tell them their initial pink hypothesis is wrong.

Interesting nooka
Did you have an inkling your partner was trans before they declared it or was it a surprise?

What is woman?

QueenNooka

I find it very interesting that in your last post when you used the gay analogy you switched from partner/husband to child.

Can you not see that someone's child coming out as gay is one thing, but that if their husband came out as gay that's a much harder thing to accept, with completely different connotations (I would be devestated if my husband came out as gay - and I have zero problem with gay people).

I don't think women needing catharsis after finding out their husband/partner is trans means they "just don't like" trans people, more likely that finding out your partner is not who they said they were is always going to be shocking.

soapboxqueen

it has always been the case that the Equaity Act protects anyone transitoning or who is thinking of transitioning (ie they've told someone officially) - so for two years that means effectively men, with their penises with no hormone or surgical amendments accessing female spaces.

But nobody has been hurt. (happy to have you come back with lots of instances of women being assulated in female changing rooms by trans women).

Most people transitioning (or planning to transition) who are in this position are well aware of how they look, and are as reticent to share space with you are you are with them...becuase it's awkward, its embarrassing the only thing that gets them in there is their legal entitlement and the fact that it's massively more preferable than going into the mens.

Self ID works in many countries, it's worked so well in Eire that they are going to extend it to include non-binary people...again... no instances of harm.

Pro- trans as I am...I've no wish to have some posturing male teen queen waving his cock at me in a womens changing room. It would be an annoyance and I'd be complaining straight away about their behaviour not their gender identification....same as I'd be complaining if some woman was sticking her breasts in my face.

But again... these things don't tend to happen. mostly they are scare stories spread by those who are actually transphobic. The same way many people are turned against muslims because their worries about difference and immigration are blown out of proportion and are turned into hate fodder...it's how radicalisation works..

So queen you do not believe women should have the right to female only spaces?

And if you feel uncomfortable about that penis being waved about you will not be able to complain as you could be discriminating against that woman because she has a penis. At best you might be asked to change somewhere else until you learn to behave better.

There are plenty of men who claim all sorts of things in order to access women and girls. What is interesting is that they are often denounced as 'not real trans' after the fact so I'm not sure how women on the ground are meant to know the difference. There's also no way of analysing data as it is unclear which crimes are being recorded as male or which as female.

I have wondered about how people very much switched on to trans ideology as it currently is on twitter etc explain this to their children. I told my kids the difference between boys and girls was willies and vaginas and that they could play with whatever toys they wanted when they came home from nursery talking about ‘boys’ toys’ and ‘girls’ toys’. I’ve emphasised that girls can like dinosaurs, cars, football, Spider-Man and boys can play with dolls, kitchens etc. I think it’s so important to fight against gender stereotypes as they are so bombarded with them at such a young age.

I did notice a vocal supporter of trans rights that I know who was very scathing about TERFs did have a baby daughter and has clearly not succumbed to the notion that ‘assigning’ a sex go babies is ‘violent and coercive’ at least. I don’t know how she may reconcile her attitude to bringing up a daughter with her position on trans issues. I would like to know how she will talk about sex and gender to her young child when explaining the difference. She’s always been a very passionate feminist (obviously liberal rather than radical) so I’m sure she won’t tell her daughter that little girls wear pink dresses and play with dollies or else they’re a boy but then how can she tell her that boys and girls can do all the same things if she believes in pink/blue brain aka innate gender identity?

At this point i give in. I hope I gave the OP some insight from personal experience and now I think I'll step back out of mumsnet.

I've noted from lurking on here that a lot of people are arguing from a position of almost zero knowledge of trans issues or without knowing even the basics of transitional process or legality but it looks like some people are happiest that way.

love and peas.