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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

You can't be 'born in the wrong body'

220 replies

Charliethefeminist · 15/10/2018 08:59

A lot of people watching Butterfly still think it's possible to be 'born in the wrong body'. I wanted to start a thread to explain why it is impossible.

Being 'born in the wrong body' would have to mean there were such things as 'male' and 'female' brains and that it's possible for these to be in an opposite sex body.

Take 'male'. There would have to be a certain thing about the brain that would make it specifically 'male' and that female people don't ever have. Call it Trait M.

Firstly, no such trait M has ever been discovered. No such trait M has ever been described. No such trait M can ever be defined or named, even by the most ardent and medically qualified transadvocates. No such trait M can be found on a brain scan.

This is because male and female people (when male and female are used in the biological sense) can and do share every and any brain trait. There are no brain traits that are unique and exclusive to either sex. That means the 'male' brain and thd 'female' brain don't exist.

The reason we use the words male and female in the first place is to describe biological sex. There is no point to the words otherwise, and if they are taken away from reproductive role, there's no word to describe people with the same reproductive role.

It's clear that male people share personality and style traits right across the spectrum from David Sylvia to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Females share personality and style traits across the spectrum from Ariane Grande to Lea DeLaria.

Transgender people themselves prove that there is no such thing as a male brain in a female body and vice versa. There can be a male brain with personality and style traits across a vast spectrum, but the brain remains male.

Naturally then, society needs to accept once more that men can wear sparkles, pink, high heels and make up, they don't have to say they're a woman to do it. We used to, and we should do again. Especially when it comes to kids.

OK that's it.

OP posts:
FFSFFSFFS · 15/10/2018 10:18

I think that some people do suffer from gender/sex dysphoria where they feel that their body is not as it should be and they feel like they should have the body of the opposite sex. i.e. they feel like they were "born in the wrong body". This is a well documented condition. And for some people transition does go some way to alleviate this distress.

I think this thread shows a lack of understanding and compassion for what would be a very distressing condition.

It demonstrates what I think will be the very sad outcome of the hijacking of the interests of people who suffer from a genuine distressing health condition by trans activists with a whole other agenda.

CountessVonBoobs · 15/10/2018 10:19

i seriously doubt that the trauma described by Countess is what's going on with the majority of 'so-called trans people these days.

Probably not. But the thread started with a specific and total denial that there was any possibility people could feel they were "born in the wrong body". I have serious doubts about that, based on what I know about psychiatry and psychology, so I said so. If all OP wanted was a round of uncritical positive reinforcement, well, she's had plenty.

I wouldn't lean too heavily on comparisons of human beings to insensate plants, either, unless you're willing to accept that your own internal experience is irrelevant to your life and should be ignored by others.

I don't have any easy answers. But I'm not going to uncritically accept a premise that looks to me to be shaky at best. We know very very little still about the relationship between the brain and the body.

ShotsFired · 15/10/2018 10:21

Paris Lees needs to shut the hell up with the suicide chat.

They are doing the equivalent of "don't think about polar bears", but instead of a harmless bit of fun, they are pushing extremely dangerous ideas into the heads of vulnerable (mostly young and very confused) people, all to suit Paris Lees' own personal validation narrative.

Sickening.

PinkyU · 15/10/2018 10:21

Just because it’s happening in a person’s head, doesn’t make it any less real.

We have barely touched on treating mental health disorders, we barely understand the complexities of the mind.

To think it abhorrent to treat what is perceived as a MH disorder by way of physical means shows a like of research into how MH conditions have been treated since they were first recognised.

As a society we really haven’t advanced far beyond lobotomies for psychosis or forced orgasm for ‘hysteria’, it’s just now we try to take into consideration the trope of treatment the patient want and what’s thought to cause least ‘damage’.

RiverTam · 15/10/2018 10:22

what they are suffering from is body dysmorphia. Anorexia is a form of body dismorphia. Has anorexia ever been treated in this way? Should we buy into the delusion that a girl with anorexia is actually grossly obese instead of skeletal and give her laxatives and send her on her way? And ensure that everyone else understands that she's actually obese not skeletal, despite that being the evidence of their own eyes?

You treat the mind that is suffering these distressing thoughts, not mutilate the body. How can you even think that's acceptable?

ScipioAfricanus · 15/10/2018 10:24

twofalls I’m in exactly the same position. And when I look back on being a child and a teenager I remember how upset I got about it and how hard it was in lots of ways. It’s only even in the last year that I’ve realised why I find parking so difficult - I am too short to see the lines 90% of the manoeuvre! Obviously I’m not saying this is the same as feeling born in the ‘wrong’ body, but it is interesting how something that felt very difficult and bothersome about my body has slowly got easier as I got older and accepted it (I used to ask about treatments for it) and as I’ve got better at fending off people’s ‘amusing’ comments about it.

On the plus side, I grew up on the 80s and 90s so despite being a rotund, short girl who liked Dr Who and read science fiction books from the 60s which said ‘for boys aged 11 and over’ on the back, I didn’t feel I had to question my gender.

Charliethefeminist · 15/10/2018 10:25

I think this thread shows a lack of understanding and compassion for what would be a very distressing condition

Really? All I want to say is that you can't be born in the wrong body. If you are a man with dysphoria then you are a man with dysphoria. Have compassion for that. You are not a woman. I don't have to pretend you are a woman to have compassion for you. We are talking facts here. We have to be able to state facts.

As for understanding, we are actually clearing up the very common misunderstanding that it is possible to be born in the wrong body.

OP posts:
Charliethefeminist · 15/10/2018 10:28

But the thread started with a specific and total denial that there was any possibility people could feel they were "born in the wrong body"

Untrue.

The thread started with a specific and total denial that you can be born in the wrong body.

Of course you can feel like that, thousands of people do. But you haven't been. It's impossible. You can't have a female brain in a male body.

OP posts:
OldCrone · 15/10/2018 10:29

But the thread started with a specific and total denial that there was any possibility people could feel they were "born in the wrong body".

That's not what the OP said. It was a statement that nobody could literally be 'born in the wrong body'. I agree with that statement.

None of us can get inside the heads of everyone on the planet, so it would be ridiculous to deny that anyone might feel that they are 'born in the wrong body', since some people have stated that they do. I have no more right to tell them what they think than they do to tell me what I think.

LangCleg · 15/10/2018 10:30

The feeling that one has been born in the wrong body is real.

The fact that one has been born in the wrong body is not real.

These are two very different things and, as transactivism is currently demonstrating, the quasi-religious movement promoting the latter is resulting in some very frightening consequences.

Elephantinacravat · 15/10/2018 10:31

I think this thread shows a lack of understanding and compassion for what would be a very distressing condition.

I don't think anyone is denying the condition of gender dysphoria are they? But gender dysphoria is a mental condition where you are deeply unhappy with your sexed body. It does not mean you have been 'born in the wrong body'.

I thought they were trying to step away from the whole 'born in the wrong body' thing anyway? Because, as part of the appropriation of gay rights, the narrative now is that being trans isn't a 'mental illness' or something you need 'conversion therapy' for. Unfortunately, the whole trans ideology by its very definition rests on something being 'wrong' that needs 'correcting' in some way, otherwise being 'trans' wouldnt even be a thing, so they are tying themselves up in knots a little bit with it all.

LangCleg · 15/10/2018 10:31

Sorry - "the quasi-religious movement promoting the latter as real

PinkyU · 15/10/2018 10:32

But part of the counselling process for anorexia nervousa is accepting that the patient truly does believe they are overweight, not continually denying their thoughts and feelings surrounding their weight, it’s really one of the first steps in creating a trust filled and respectful relationship.

You don’t have to agree with their view but you do have to accept that to them it is REAL.

I think that this is a huge point when it comes to this debate on sex/gender, the conversation Never goes further than “I’m right and your wrong, and I won’t listen to any other point”, on BOTH sides.

OldCrone · 15/10/2018 10:35

I thought they were trying to step away from the whole 'born in the wrong body' thing anyway?

As far as I can tell, children who think they are born in the wrong body need instant access to puberty blockers followed by cross-sex hormones and surgery as soon as the law allows it.

Adults who are 'transgender' need no medical treatment because 'being trans' is not an illness and doesn't need any treatment. It does require legal recognition of change of sex so that lady penises can go into female-only spaces and validate their owners.

PinkyU · 15/10/2018 10:35

Please excuse my typing and grammar, my brain has decided it doesn’t like me today.

ScipioAfricanus · 15/10/2018 10:36

You accept that the patient believes they are overweight but you don’t accept that they are. This is not ‘denying their thoughts and feelings’. It is very important that the anorexic patient is consistently presented with the actual facts. That isn’t unsympathetic and it is crucial in helping them to recover. Otherwise hospitals and rehabilitation centres would throw out the scales!

rightreckoner · 15/10/2018 10:36

I don’t think anyone has ever said gender dysphoria isn’t real. The anguish young girls feel about their bodies is real for instance.

What is not real is the diagnosis of born in the wrong body.

Elephantinacravat · 15/10/2018 10:36

Yes there is a real division between children and adults isn't there OldCrone.

Elephantinacravat · 15/10/2018 10:37

But part of the counselling process for anorexia nervousa is accepting that the patient truly does believe they are overweight, not continually denying their thoughts and feelings surrounding their weight, it’s really one of the first steps in creating a trust filled and respectful relationship.

But you don't diagnose them as actually being overweight.

SaskiaRembrandtWasFramed · 15/10/2018 10:39

How much of the limited difference between male and female brains is innate though? We don't routinely scan newborn babies (for obvious reasons) so we can't say how early these differences appear.

There are differences in the brains of taxi drivers vs non-taxi drivers, I'd struggle to believe they are all born with some kind of route-finding super-power, instead of this being something that develops as they learn to do their job.

rightreckoner · 15/10/2018 10:39

India Willoughby elides the two in her interview on This Morning. They said ‘I’ve got gender dysphoria’ as an explanation for their being in their view a real woman.

Gender dysphoria means discomfort with gender. That’s all. It doesn’t say why. It doesn’t say why some men think they are women. It just says that they do.

OldCrone · 15/10/2018 10:41

PinkyU
But part of the counselling process for anorexia nervousa is accepting that the patient truly does believe they are overweight, not continually denying their thoughts and feelings surrounding their weight

I'm pretty sure that the counselling process for someone who believes they were born in the wrong body would explore why the person feels like that. I'm not sure why you think it wouldn't.

I think that this is a huge point when it comes to this debate on sex/gender, the conversation Never goes further than “I’m right and your wrong, and I won’t listen to any other point”, on BOTH sides.

I've only seen one side do that. I don't think people here are saying that at all. You can think you were born in the wrong body. Science says that is not possible. If you want to deny scientific facts, you won't get very far in a discussion with people who acknowledge them.

ScipioAfricanus · 15/10/2018 10:41

Exactly Saskia! I’ve found Cordelia Fine’s ‘Delusions of Gender’ really interesting for showing how brain behaviour seems to change through life based on gender stereotypes rather than innate characteristics.

RiverTam · 15/10/2018 10:50

The feeling that one has been born in the wrong body is real.

The fact that one has been born in the wrong body is not real.

exactly this. And it's worth mentioning that in a number of cases anorexia has happened as a result of sexual abuse. It is surely essential with all cases of dysmorphia that the family background is thoroughly investigated.

ShotsFired · 15/10/2018 10:54

Some absolutely cracking examples of the sleight of hand in relation to words, that has been continually used to push the like that anyone who isn't 100% unquestioning support is therefore denying a person's right to exist.

Honestly, they are right there on the screen to be studied and read at leisure, not misheard chinese whispers in a playground.