How should we treat trans people?

[coffeeplease16]

I have been browsing the feminist thread with interest and been reading lots of arguments that accepting trans = encroaching on women’s rights and women’s only spaces. If you yourself believe that you can’t change sex, and being a women = having a vagina - how do you think we should include trans people in our society? I am genuinely interested, and not meaning to be goady. What is the ideal - how can we protect the rights of women without ostracising trans people from our society?

How do you know they pass if they - well pass?

And yes people on occasion did say ‘what’s her name’ when DS was little because he has huge curls - which of course is an absolute indication of being a girl?

adult who has received such interventions as a child and has since grown to adulthood.

To be clear

lord

Same with my nephew...he ended up getting upset over it and asked his mummy for a haircut

He didnt look anything like a girl he just had long hair

I once got called ‘son’ when I was about 17. Granted I did have a short back and sides (as was the fashion) but I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, was very skiny and had very large knockers back then.

HumberElla

I'm not saying it's no longer possible or likely. I'm saying that I don't believe that anyone can say that they always know.

I have no idea of the prevalence of puberty blockers usage, though going by this forum it would seem that the prevalence is high.

It definitely is becoming less rare and there are examples of them being used for a good few years now so I think it's reasonable to accept that there are young adults now who are in the category of people that have used them.

I was once stopped going to the ladies by an older man who said

You can’t go in there lad (i was in my 20’s)

I told my mum and she said oh he probably thought you were a man because of your short hair

I said...i was wearing makeup!!!

And she said...well some men do wear makeup

WHAT???? IN (insert name of small village)

Now, medicine is able to prescribe puberty blockers to pre pubescent children so that they don't go through the normal changes that develop characteristics of their sex. There are also surgical techniques to alter facial structures to remove or add characteristics associated with the sex they want to identify as.

Chilling. These are children.

It is chilling

And I’m sure it’s unintentional but its a dreadful way of trying to get a gotcha

Yes I’m sure it’s unintentional too.

But it is deeply disturbing that this is being presented in such a ‘this is how things are now’ sort of way.

RufusthebewiIderedreindeer

Are you not kind of proving my point though - people are that great at always correctly identifying sex?

Chilling. These are children.

The surgery is happening to the adults though. Thats the point of the blockers - to arrest the development until the person becomes an adult and takes the next steps.

By the way, I'm not saying that I agree or disagree with this. I'm discussing the effects of these interventions and how they will change perceptions in society if they continue at the rates that they appear to being developed.

And I’m sure it’s unintentional but its a dreadful way of trying to get a gotcha

It's not a gotcha. It's the precise reason why people are keen to prescribe puberty blockers - because it will make it easier for the person to "pass" as an adult.

re you not kind of proving my point though - people are that great at always correctly identifying sex?

No im kind of not

25 years ago an old man thought i might be a man from the back

But yeah...point proved

Off out now...have a good evening everyone

The surgery is happening to the adults though. Thats the point of the blockers - to arrest the development until the person becomes an adult and takes the next steps.

But if Susie Green has her way then the surgery will happen to young kids too.

"I completely disagree with that. I think many mums have been in the situation where strangers comment on their baby boy and girl but have got it completely wrong."

You are correct people do make this mistake. My daughter was frequently mistaken for a boy, but this was exclusively by the older generation and was despite her wearing a top with flowers on it or other clothes associated with girls. The reason she was mistaken for a boy was solely because she was bald or had very short hair until she turned 3 and also mainly wore trousers. She had very feminine facial features. This does not prove people cannot correctly sex people just that the older generation expected a baby girl to have long hair and be wearing a dress (I know this as they used to tell me when I could be bothered to correct them).

But brains don't mature until they have gone through puberty. A child on puberty blockers will never be able to give informed consent.

But brains don't mature until they have gone through puberty. A child on puberty blockers will never be able to give informed consent.

I agree. But Susie Green & Mermaids don’t think that matters.

Why would anyone want to put a child on untested life long medication that will stunt their growth, make their bones brittle, mean their brain won't reach its full maturity, and limit their sexual function, just so they can pass as the other sex? That cannot be right.
Cui bono?

I have read that it also has the effect of lowering iq.

Now isn’t that what every parent only every wants for their child - brittle bones, lower iq and immaturity?

But brains don't mature until they have gone through puberty. A child on puberty blockers will never be able to give informed consent.

I don't think that's true.

A) age of criminal responsibility in the UK is 10, so the law expects that a child's brain is sufficiently mature pre puberty for them to be responsible for their behaviour

B) children are able to give or refuse consent for medical procedures and their view will be considered by drs. This isn't dependent on them having gone through puberty.

So smell, facial features etc will develop in accordance with the sex hormones that are being administered rather than the sex hormones that would have been released by the body.

Are you sure? Because I'm not. I'm paging @BowlOfBabelfish for help with the science here because I'm not a biologist.

The authors of this rather impenetrable paper found that 6500 genes are expressed differently based on sex. I spotted the following:

"We found that three of these X-linked genes are located at pseudo-autosomal region 1 (PAR1), which undergoes relatively frequent recombination between the X and Y chromosomes and is known to escape X-inactivation."

I've bolded the bit that makes me doubt that altering a prepubescent child's hormones will stop all the secondary sexual characteristics. Some genes recombine with the X and Y chromosomes to express proteins, including peptide hormones. (As an aside: This sex-based recombination with sex chromosomes might help explain the distinctive physical appearance of people with some disorders of sexual development, e.g. the neck webbing associated with Turner syndrome.) Altering the hormones in the body won't stop that recombination from happening. We don't know what will happen if a child's ability to make endogenous sex hormones is suppressed long-term or permanently whilst their genes carry on recombining with their X and Y chromosomes. We don't know what will happen if that chold is given cross-sex hormones whilst their genes carry on recombining with their X and Y chromosomes. We don't know enough about genetics to predict what will happen.

What I do know, thanks to being occasionally involved with the kind of research that has to be approved by ethics committees, is that it's unethical to administer blockers to children of such young age when we don't even know fully what they do in adults.

‘age of criminal responsibility in the UK is 10’ that’s not saying they have the maturity of an adult, just that they are old enough to know right from wrong.

And I don’t think a child can refuse life saving treatment.

If you block puberty, remove the gonads and then give opposite sex hormones isn't it the case that the person will develop secondary sex characteristics of the sex they identify with

Sorry, late to the 40-page party. Can you run me by this statement again. Along with the facial feminisation thing.

So.
-You've blocked the hormones that enable a human to develop on their development pathway, which includes brain and body development.
-You've performed invasive surgery to remove a significant part of their sex-specific reproductive organs.
-You've given them hormones that correspond with the exact other sex category that they're not part of.

Before they're an adult?

But at least they won't develop a beard/low voice/muscle development so you won't be able to pick them out of a 'guess-who' line up of who's a woman, who's a man.

And that's cheer-worthy? because it will make it easier for the person to "pass" as an adult .

Invasive surgery. Un-evidenced meds. Potentially no sexual function.
A decreased pool of partners. Lifetime medication.

But at least you'll 'pass'.

Insane.

All that and what - you have created a child who will not mature? Why would anyone do that?

wacademia

But those genes exist from before birth. What causes secondary sexual characteristics to develop during and after puberty? It must be the processes that occur during puberty. If you halt that then it stands to reason that you stop those changes from occurring.

I was talking only about the physical manifestation of this process. Not the ethics around it.

Comparing a 10 year old knowing the difference between right and wrong in, say, a case of theft or assault bears no resemblance to making a decision to be drugged and mutilated.
We have rules and ethics around experimental medical treatment. Based on what we have, hopefully, learned from WW2 and Josef Mengele.
I am utterly horrified that we are even discussing the acceptability of this kind of experimentation on children.