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?

the law expects that a child's brain is sufficiently mature pre puberty for them to be responsible for their behaviour

Ok three things:

1. I was menstruating by nine, so your assertion that 10 is prepubescent is bollocks.
2. Criminal responsibility refers to knowing the difference between right and wrong, not the ability to understand complex and lifechanging medical procedures.
3. The argument that you espouse, in its "but she acted older than she is" form, has been used by adult men to justify raping 14 year olds.and younger.

children are able to give or refuse consent for medical procedures and their view will be considered by drs

Gillick competence only applies if the doctor reasonably believes that the child fully understands the consequences of the treatment. The original case concerned a girl seeking an abortion, which is a well-understood, safe procedure with predictable outcomes. Bearing in mind that I have just said "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", Gillick competence cannot apply to puberty blockers.

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

They can refuse. It will be up to the drs, parents and possibly the court to decide how competent the child is to make that decision and will be based on many factors but it won't solely be based on whether they have gone through puberty or not, which is what the op said ie a child who hasn't gone through puberty dye to blockers will never be able to give informed consent

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

Yes. I think a lot of people care more about the physical results than the ethics, that’s the problem.

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.

I'm not saying a child of 10 can make complex medical decisions necessarily. I'm saying that being able to give informed consent doesn't rely solely on having gone through puberty, which is what a pp said.

Puberty can occur between 8 - 16ish. So a 14 or 15 year old, who may not yet have gone through puberty would likely be considered competent to give consent for medical treatment based on factors other than having gone through puberty.

I was menstruating by nine, so your assertion that 10 is prepubescent is bollocks.

Great. For you 10 wasn't pre pubescent. For lots of other children 10,11,12 is still pre pubescent.

The argument that you espouse, in its "but she acted older than she is" form, has been used by adult men to justify raping 14 year olds.and younger.

Bollocks have I said or even hinted at anything like that.
In fact show me where I've even suggested "she acted older than she is".

If you can't have any form of discussion without just making stuff up then what even is the point? Just continue in your hermetically sealed echo chamber.

Gillick competence cannot apply to puberty blockers.

Maybe it can be argued that no young person is Gillick competent for any procedure then? If they can't weigh the pros and cons for a procedure or treatment then how competent are they? (Didn't think it was still calked Gillick competent either, but that's by the by)

This is ethnically wrong.
It goes against ‘first do no harm’ principles
It is largely untested and therefore with unknown physical and psychological side effects
It makes desistance difficult or impossible.
There is no evidence it helps GD.

So what is it exactly that interests you so much about the physical manifestations and passing?

Because the rights and wrongs seem pretty big deals to me.

We'll end up with a class of humans that are sterile and childlike and have not been through puberty, they may not be recognisably male or female.
Their IQ may be lowered because of puberty blockers, they may have no idea of informed consent about their bodies.
What type of person would have an interest in a childlike human with no boundaries?

Someone who perhaps wants their child to stay a child for ever?

And what type of person would have an interest in people who have the bodies of children but are over the age of consent?

So what is it exactly that interests you so much about the physical manifestations and passing?

Nothing apart from the insistence by some posters that everyone is always able to recognise a TM or TW.

I disagree that this is the case.

What does it matter if some people pass anyway? They haven't changed sex. And the times we are living in now, not 20 years down the line, we have men with a 5 o'clock shadow or even beards slapping on a bit of lippy and a skirt and claiming they are equivalent to women. It's just wrong. And there will likely always be people who fit into this category, however surgically and medically altered some trans people in the future will be.

EmpressLesbianInChair
Good point about them being over the age of consent. That'll be an added bonus for some types of people

You know, as a parent, that makes me feel queasy. I can't get my head around the enormity of this whole cult of experimenting on children.

Nobody said that EVERYONE can recognize a trans person did they? I said I can. And I can. Always.

What does it matter if some people pass anyway?

It doesn't to me.

I just don't like the sneery "well none of them pass anyway" derrogatory comments that some posters seem to take delight in posting.

Anyway.... we all accept that DecomposingComposers doesn’t agree so shall we get back to why women need single-sex spaces and it’s not our responsibility to accommodate males there, however they present?

I wanted to answer I'm simply saying that many transpeople do "pass" with Prove it but I fear this would simply prolong the agony.

Because I'm pretty sure there's a logical fallacy in there somewhere, but I'm thirsty so I can't think.

IsadoraQuagmire how do you know that's true

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.

What is the point of trying to create an adult who 'passes' as the opposite sex, when that person is probably sterile and has little or no sexual function as a result of this intervention? Why is anyone doing this to children?

Decomposing said the law expects that a child's brain is sufficiently mature pre puberty for them to be responsible for their behaviour

I said The argument that you espouse, in its "but she acted older than she is" form, has been used by adult men to justify raping 14 year olds and younger.

Decomposing said Bollocks have I said or even hinted at anything like that. In fact show me where I've even suggested "she acted older than she is".

I illustrate my point with this Japanese case where a father raped his own underage daughter, the courts ruling that she could have fought back. Using your words, "the law expect[ed]" that "child's brain" to be "sufficiently mature" for her "to be responsible for [her] behaviour" and that of her adult father.

Have I made it sufficiently clear how ascribing too much maturity to children in any aspect of life paves the way for paedophiles to abuse children with impunity?

What is the point of trying to create an adult who 'passes' as the opposite sex, when that person is probably sterile and has little or no sexual function as a result of this intervention?

If I had to hazard a guess, it's perhaps a means of bypassing that whole "sex is supposed to be enjoyable for both parties" thing.

A class of mentally-immature feminine-accoutrements people with a penetrable hole and no expectation of sexual enjoyment - I wonder who could possibly benefit from this?

Have I made it sufficiently clear how ascribing too much maturity to children in any aspect of life paves the way for paedophiles to abuse children with impunity?

You took my comment about the age of criminal responsibility in the UK, twisted it every which way and somehow conflated it to mean that it was a green light for people to abuse children and made out that's what I was meaning????

This place feels like the Twilight zone at times.

This place feels like the Twilight zone at times.

More like Groundhog Day.

Are we at forty pages yet?

Are we still talking about the topic of the thread? No we are not. Because we've had a dozen pages of filibuster.

Round and round we go.

Are we still talking about the topic of the thread? No we are not. Because we've had a dozen pages of filibuster

WE CAN STILL CLAW IT BACK

(Not me...I’m incapable of clawing it back...already feeling a leeetle bit guilty about being quite so direct to a certain poster)

Right. Back on topic.

I propose we treat trans people as human beings, with all the rights and responsibilities that entails. One of said responsibilities being 'not shitting all over women's sex-based rights'; and none of said rights being 'the right to impose my belief system or sexual fetishes on non-consenting women and children'.