We need to talk about what transgender means

[smemorata]

Now that Stonewall has put just about everyone who ever even thought about wearing a dress under the transgender "umbrella", they have more or less forced women to push back at everyone. I find this really ridiculous and also counterproductive. Women (and men surely?) know that we are talking about different things. For example -

1. an "AMAB" who feels acute gender dysphoria and goes through a lengthy process (both legally and medically) to gain a feeling of acceptance is not the same as -
2. an "AMAB" who occasionally wears women's clothing but also enjoys male privilege in most situations
3. an "AMAB" who always wears very OTT sexualised "feminine" clothing as part of a fetish which women are expected to collaborate in.
4. a woke "AMAB" who dresses as a man, has a beard but claims to know what feeling like a woman is. Has no intention of giving up male genitalia but expects women to recognise it as female.

I have met some lovely people who are in category 1 and would actually have no problem in treating them as women in most (though not all) circumstances. But what do they have in common with the others? Are we expected to forget that festishes exist? I really resent the way that the MRAs and TRAs are asking us to treat such very different people in exactly the same way - and that's before taking into account the ROGD people and trans men. I don't see how the debate can move on until these differences are recognised.

I think having a GRC rather than relying on self-ID is a big part of this - not so much because the certificate would need to be produced to use a bathroom (that would never happen) but because it recognises the conflict of interests

How does the existence of GRCs recognise the conflict of interests ? I don’t see a lot of government or other “ equalities “ “ spokespeople talking about any such conflicts ?

How do GRCs protect women and children ?

How does having a GRC

The definition of transgender probably does need some discussion and clarification as it's become meaningless and damaging to some transexuals.

Having spent a lot of time debating these issues on Twitter, my thoughts on all these issues have crystallised in my mind as I now refuse to use any language other than that which is sex appropriate. The more I use clear language, the simpler it becomes to express the problems I see. And that applies to “trans” as much as it applies to “woman” or “male”.

Personally I find it helpful to revert to a point where trans stops being some wishy-washy inside-someone’s-head concept and returns to what it really is: a controversial treatment for gender dysphoria. So a trans person to me, is anyone who has undergone that specific treatment process in a meaningful way.

So in the same way I refer to anyone male as a man, a transitioner is a person who has undergone a medical process in an attempt to reduce dysphoria by treating the body so that it more closely resembles the opposite sex.

So for me that goes hand in hand with use of straightforward language. The whole purpose of the shifting language is to throw us off balance and I refuse to use it. I think perhaps we are in a difficult position as especially online, there have been huge attempts to change the meaning. But as others have implied, the huge majority of people still consider the definition I have given to be correct.

Part of the transactivism trick has been to change the meaning only in the places where power is flexed. Thus they push for laws using their new definition while the majority of the population believe something entirely different is happening.

Definitions matter in this debate, perhaps more than in any other that has gone before. So the more we speak plainly and point out the truth, the better.

And once we have clear definitions, perhaps then we can discuss again whether the groups involved need any special dispensations. But this time all affected parties should be involved in the debate. Transsexuality cannot be used again as a wedge for placing males in women’s spaces.

AnyoldPrion - I agree with everything you've written.

Imogen - part of your message is missing but as far as I see it the GRC recognises that the person carrying it has changed gender - certifying a chnage puts that person into a different category with respect to AFAB women which means that distinctions can then be drawn as to what that status gives access to (e.g. no to sport, yes to being considered female at work - off the top of my head!)

Of course, the fact that the person is in a different category to AFAB women is also exactly what transactivists are objecting to.

Can someone please explain the terms AMAB/ AFAB etc?

I have never felt threatened by the people in category 1

You do realise that many of these people start out as the husbands of trans widows? And as the perpetrators of a lot of the behaviour on the trans widows thread?

I guess it's easy to be OK with something if you've never experienced the damaging effects of it yourself?

the terms AMAB/ AFAB

Assigned male/female at birth. It's a reference to how sex is recorded on the birth certificate.

AMAB and AFAB are terms normally used in relation to people with DSDs. It's fairly offensive to use these terms to describe trans people who were not 'assigned' anything at birth, IMO.

Their sex was noted either at birth or before with prenatal testing.

TinselAngel - I don't see what that has to do with the definition of trans. I have every sympathy for trans widows but I am talking more about definitions and public perceptions of them.

It's relevant if you're seeking to define "trans" on the basis of how much harm they might cause.

I don't see why women should get to define trans any more than trans people should get to define what a woman is TBH.

The problem with GRCs is their function is to enable people to be treated as the 'gender' they identify as.

What does being treated as a woman/female entail? I don't want to be treated according to my sex unless sex is a key factor. I want to be treated decently, as a human being, and I want this to be the case for all human beings. Where sex is relevant to a given context, sex - not identity- needs to be addressed

I've never read a trans story that made me feel like the individual actually identified as the opposite sex - for most it seems a case of not identifying as their own sex.

I get that, because I've always felt I don't identify with women. Doesn't make me a bloke though.

And the fact that you think that 'treating them as women' is appropriate implies that you think that in some respects they actually are women

I think this is a huge illogical leap!

Why is it illogical? Why would you treat a man as a woman unless you thought they were in some way a woman? If you believe a man is a man, no matter what he is wearing or what name he calls himself etc, why would you treat him as a woman? And what do you mean by treating someone as a woman?

Because I think transexuals are getting thrown under the bus by the whole debate so yes, I think it would be helpful to have a proper distinction

Exactly this, we only have to see how transexual people have been sidelined from their own cause by loud individuals with bad intentions to see what will happen to women.
It helps them to blur and muddy meaningful language so that they can put themselves front and centre.
Transexual is now seen as an offensive term even when people who identify as transexual use it to decribe themselves.

But what do they have in common with the others?

They are male.

I promise I will read the whole thread but wanted to jot down what I think transgender means before anything else.

Simply, transgender is an internal feeling that you, as a person, meet more gender stereotypes associated with the sex opposite your own.

But you can never be the opposite sex and these feelings do not indicate any similarity to or affinity with the opposite sex, merely to stereotypes which unlike sex, fluctuate with time periods, fashion trendsand cultures.

Being ‘nice’ to transsexuals got us into the mess we are in today where predatory men are being locked with vulnerable women and raping them, female victims of sexual assault can no use rape crisis centres for fear of having to share sleeping arrangements with men, where young women who have dedicated their lives to sport are being pushed out by men with male physical advantages, when young girls are expected to get changed alongside grown men and told they mustn’t say ‘no’, where health campaign messages get blurred so women no longer realise they apply to them and may die as a result....

Simply, transgender is an internal feeling that you, as a person, meet more gender stereotypes associated with the sex opposite your own.

More and more it seems to be less about internal feelings and more about how the transgender person is perceived and treated by others.

If a male person errneously thinks they are/ought to be female, in what way is this any different from other forms of psychiatric delusion?

Because I think transexuals are getting thrown under the bus by the whole debate so yes, I think it would be helpful to have a proper distinction

There isn't one. There has never been the aim of being one, ever since the political movement began. I'll post the 1995 image again, so you can see. The distinction isn't between transsexual and transgender in the way you seem to think it is. Transgender has always been a branding exercise creating a term that conflate all the groups named in the image, between which there are distinctions.

The sociopolitical movement did the conflation because its aim is to abolish sex as any meaningful distinction in society. Many transsexuals were and are front of centre in this political movement and their lobbying has resulted not just in legislation, but the wording of that legislation, with the express intent of dispensing with sex in such a way that nobody would notice until it's too late. Well, we've noticed.

Nobody and nothing of the adult XY variety has been thrown under a bus - only women and child safeguarding.

If a male person errneously thinks they are/ought to be female, in what way is this any different from other forms of psychiatric delusion?

It's not. But somehow the trans lobby has persuaded huge numbers of people that being transgender is similar to being gay, so shouldn't be considered as a psychiatric disorder.

I don't understand why so many people are convinced that having a delusion that you have been born in the wrong body is similar to being attracted to someone of the same sex.

As ever Lang is more patient than I am.

This is why the experience of wives of "transexuals" is relevant. They can see how the transexual claim to womanhood is as flimsy as any other claim to womanhood made by any other male.

Here is a 'trans umbrella' from 1994.

From this page:

public.oed.com/blog/march-2018-update-release-notes-formal-language-sexuality-gender-identity/

I'm not interested in the false beliefs of men, or how I distinguish between varieties of men with false beliefs

Gender just means sex stereotypes throw out the stereotypes, treat all humans as human, separate by (immutable) sex when necessary for safety, fairness, dignity.

And as Sweary isn’t about I feel the need to add #fuckkind