Bloody hell BBC

[WorkingItOutAsIGo]

Reading the BBC news online this morning and there is not one, but two stories about transgender people. One promoting the transition of a small child, and the other promoting sport for transgender athletes. The latter in particular looks like a direct attempt to counter the news discussion over the last few days in sport.

This isn’t news, it’s wartime propaganda.

Sarah what that definition got wrong is that the phrasing 'potential' was missed out. So a female has the 'potential to produce eggs and bear young'.

But I don't think that's what you're really bothered about, is it? You've just latched on to that point.

You just don't like adults teaching children facts about what can and can't be.

I just noticed I can't count. My 'couple of questions' turned out to be 3 questions, and the 'one more' turned into 2.

Do you think it is right to teach children that they can change sex?

Yes absolutely. For a child such as Autumn who appears to be experiencing gender dysphoria I think all options should be explored including the possibility of transitioning at a later stage.

How do you feel about telling a child lies which could have such an enormous effect on their whole life?

I don't see it as a lie. I see it as supporting a child who is most likely going through a very difficult time and exploring all the options with her.

*Sarah you seem to be missing the point here. We’re not concerned with semantics about the definition of the word ‘mother’. We care about a 9yo kid who is being told a pack of lies and being led down an unrealistic and impossible path. We can’t bear to see kids being unnecessarily deprived of healthy bodies, the chance to become a parent, future sexual function.

Yes, this basically!

You just don't like adults teaching children facts about what can and can't be.

I like adults who teach children about all the options including those that many here disagree with. People can and do transition and have gender reassignment surgery, hormone blockers etc and I really don't see anything wrong with that if it's what the person experiencing gender dysphoria wants.

Yes absolutely. For a child such as Autumn who appears to be experiencing gender dysphoria I think all options should be explored including the possibility of transitioning at a later stage.

Why would you teach a child that they can change sex when it's not true? You yourself just said you know that you can't change sex?

Why would you teach a child that they can change sex when it's not true? You yourself just said you know that you can't change sex?

I think we can't change our chromosomes but we can (and people do) change gender via transitioning. I can't see any harm in that really and don't understand why people are so against it when it has no impact on their lives.

Ta Sarah. Missed that.

I like adults who teach children about all the options including those that many here disagree with. People can and do transition and have gender reassignment surgery, hormone blockers etc and I really don't see anything wrong with that if it's what the person experiencing gender dysphoria wants.

Yes, but if that person has been told that having surgery and taking drugs will actually change their sex (when it won't) its not really informed consent is it?

Also, if someone with body dysmorphia hated their legs and wanted their legs chopped off, would you be fine with that happening if that was what the person wanted? Why is that not common practice?

Actually the law says that lesbian couples who had a baby through donor insemination, carried by one of the partners are the mother and ‘parent 2’.
How the family describe themselves via pet names is up to them. Up until very recently the birth mother had to relinquish her rights and co adopt her own child with her partner. Bonkers. I’m glad that’s been sorted out (I know this because I was interviewed by SS as a character reference for a lesbian friend).

As for surrogacy - the baby remains the child of the birth mother until adoption takes place, even if the child is genetically not her baby. I’d rather see surrogacy completely outlawed, as in Sweden, but failing that, I support the legal precedent remaining as is in the U.K.
A baby is a human, not a commodity, and the law, favouring the the birth mother, reflects that.

I’d rather see surrogacy completely outlawed, as in Sweden

Slightly off topic but why would you rather it be outlawed?

Re lesbian parents I didn't necessarily mean from a law perspective, I meant from an every day perspective.

I think we can't change our chromosomes but we can (and people do) change gender via transitioning. I can't see any harm in that really and don't understand why people are so against it when it has no impact on their lives.

Yes, but you are still changing sex. A boy can never become a girl. A perfectly healthy, sexually functional male becomes a permanently infertile male who may well have lifelong complications from surgery and sexual dysfunction.

Is that really what you are advocating?

People are against this because they care about children and they don't want children pushed into changes that will affect them forever, when they are at a stage when they cannot possibly understand that.

What exactly are you all trying to achieve except promoting transphobic, backwards thinking hate speech?

How about 'a greater chance of long-term happiness for children'? I think that's what we all want, but we strongly disagree about whether clear explanation of facts to children (and indeed adults) is the best thing.

We do need words that denote the two sexes separately in order to explain such things. I think we get mired in Total Doofus territory very quickly otherwise.

Remember that a child doesn't automatically know that only females give birth. If s/he's told a transgirl can become a mother, s/he won't assume that's by adoption, surrogacy or stepparenthood. S/He'll think it means 'grow a baby in my tummy', and that some awfully clever medical thingy will make it happen.

S/He needs to know that that is a far, far distant if not impossible prospect, fraught with ethical and immunological difficulties, and that male bodies DO NOT give birth.

Gender and sex are two different things. I think a person can change gender.

At last something we can agree on, Sarah. How do you think gender relates to sex?

Here are my definitions. Sex is biological, male or female, and dependent on chromosomes (normally xx or xy). Intersex conditions are variations of these, but are defined as female intersex conditions or male intersex conditions. Thus everyone is either male or female. Since chromosomes cannot be changed, people can't change sex.

Gender is a set of stereotypes and attributes which are culturally defined and change over time and between cultures. Certain attributes are defined as feminine and masculine according to customs and culture.

An example of a gendered stereotype is 'girls like pink'. If a boy likes pink, that doesn't make him a girl. However, if a boy wants to think of himself as feminine, and enjoy stereotypically feminine things, he should be allowed to do that . But having a feminine gender identity doesn't make him a girl.

And the idea that if you don't conform to the gender stereotypes most commonly associated with your sex (dresses, makeup, two fucking towels) then there is possibly something wrong with you that needs correcting is an abhorrent idea that I do not want my children learning.

What is wrong with telling children that they are perfect the way they are? That they don't need to change their physical bodies irreversibly, that there is nothing wrong with them and that they can live the way they are living, doing the things they like, in the perfectly healthy body that they have.

Why is that such a 'bigoted' concept?

s/he won't assume that's by adoption, surrogacy or stepparenthood. S/He'll think it means 'grow a baby in my tummy', and that some awfully clever medical thingy will make it happen.

Then that misrepresenation is on the parents and they should be explaining these things, that yes Autumn you can become a mother but only via these means - either by using somebody else's genes or by freezing your sperm before transitioning.

How about 'a greater chance of long-term happiness for children'?

Yes but shutting down conversation with your child who's experiencing gender dysphoria and saying no darling you can't transition is only going to make them feel a lot worse. A friend of mine transitioned many years ago FTM, is now happily married to a lovely lady and is so much happier now then when he was experiencing all the pain and turmoil of being trapped in the wrong body. And to look at him you wouldn't even know he's transitioned unless he told you.

Sarah, you were the one that bought up legal fictions (adoption, changing one’s ‘gender’) and then lesbian parenting. I just joined those threads together.

There are lots of posts on the problems with surrogacy on this board already. It’s exploitative and it’s shit for women. There are now women in developing countries raising the disabled children of westerners, who declined to take custody. Babies aren’t something to buy and womens’ bodies aren’t something to rent.

www.stopsurrogacynow.com/gay-rights-and-surrogacy-wrongs-say-no-to-wombs-for-rent/#sthash.2bIRGczj.MKnqlRWq.dpbs

breeders.cbc-network.org

and none of that means they have changed their sex, Sarah. It is all superficial stuff.

Dealing with issues in the mind by dosing the body and surgically removing healthy body parts is so bloody unethical I can't imagine how anyone can think it a good idea.

why people are so against it when it has no impact on their lives

Hasn't affected a child of yours yet, then, I take it?

Has your daughter had single-sex school loos removed to be replaced by 'gender neutral'? How does she feel about it if so?

Has your niece tried playing hockey against a supposedly female but actually mixed-sex team?

Have several female children you've know since they were tiny suddenly declared themselves male, mid-teens? Are they breast-binding, with risks to their health? Are they taking testosterone when they hit 18, with increased cancer risks and sterility on the cards? How are their families coping, including their siblings?

I don't quite know how anyone is being UNaffected by this if they have teenagers. Transition in any medical sense has to be a last resort for the truly dysphoric only. It's not neutral, and it's not like coming out as gay.

Then that misrepresenation is on the parents and they should be explaining these things, that yes Autumn you can become a mother but only via these means - either by using somebody else's genes or by freezing your sperm before transitioning.

Autumn is 9 and has been 'identifying as a girl' for two years. Are you saying you'd have this conversation with a 7-year-old?

Dealing with issues in the mind by dosing the body and surgically removing healthy body parts is so bloody unethical I can't imagine how anyone can think it a good idea.

Not all transgender people have gender reassignment surgery, especially in the case of FTM. Your first part strikes me as odd re dosing the body. Extrapolating that does that mean you think mentally ill patients should be given antidepressants or other mental health medication because that would mean dealing with issues in the mind by dosing the body

The point is that Autumn is being led down a path that could see them losing a very important part of their life. The fact that it might end up being replaced with Autumn being perceived as a woman and being a caregiver in that role to a child is missing the point.

People should be permitted to make those kinds of trades. But only if they properly understand what's involved and so can give informed consent. Anyone facilitating such choices in the absence of informed consent is carrying out abuse.

Yes but shutting down conversation with your child who's experiencing gender dysphoria and saying no darling you can't transition is only going to make them feel a lot worse.

I don't think anyone here has suggested that the right course of action is to 'shut down conversation'.

And don't parents have to say 'no darling, you can't...' quite frequently?

shutting down conversation with your child who's experiencing gender dysphoria and saying no darling you can't transition is only going to make them feel a lot worse.

Are you sure? Has there been genuine controlled comparison of long term outcomes, not for the tiny proportion of 'old-style' dysphoric people but for the much greater numbers who now come under the trans heading?

Parents have to say No to children all the time, on both trivial and huge matters. No, you can't have a second ice cream/ dog/ baby sister/ dad back here to live with us/ granny back from Heaven. It's tough, but it's better to be truthful to children.

Has your daughter had single-sex school loos removed to be replaced by 'gender neutral'? How does she feel about it if so?

Not yet and I can't imagine they would in a Catholic school. Personally I see nothing wrong with gender neutral toilets as long as there are cubicles. Considering how long females queue for loos compared to men maybe having gender neutral toilets with more cubicles would alleviate some of the issues.

Has your niece tried playing hockey against a supposedly female but actually mixed-sex team?

Again I can't see the problem.

Have several female children you've know since they were tiny suddenly declared themselves male, mid-teens? Are they breast-binding, with risks to their health? Are they taking testosterone when they hit 18, with increased cancer risks and sterility on the cards? How are their families coping, including their siblings?

I don't know anyone from tiny, only from teenage years so it's different. However I can see that those with supportive families have dealt a lot better with it all than those with families like those presented on the feminist boards. Those with families like those here have had severe mental health issues and really struggled to deal with it and instead turned to self harm, eating disorders and even suicide.

Autumn is 9 and has been 'identifying as a girl' for two years. Are you saying you'd have this conversation with a 7-year-old?

My 7 year old DSD knows where babies come from. There are age appropriate ways of saying things.