Gay/trans false equivalence

[Toblerone345]

Not really sure how to word this but hoping someone slightly more eloquent than me can help me get my thoughts in order. This is something I've seen people bring up time and time again, and it frustrates me that I find it difficult to construct a decent argument against it despite feeling instinctively that it's a load of rubbish.

I often see people compare the treatment of gay people to the treatment of trans people. For example, I've seen people argue that saying trans women aren't women is the same as saying a gay person is just going through a phase. I've also seen people argue that suggesting the best thing for a young 'trans' person might not be to start taking hormone blockers or have surgery is similar to advocating for conversion therapy for gay people.

I don't believe these things are particularly similar but find it difficult to verbalise why. I think at its core it's that the only requirement for being gay is being attracted exclusively to the same sex, and that feeling is completely internal - nobody other than you can say whether you are or are not gay. Being trans, on the other hand, is related to physical reality and claiming to be a woman when you biologically aren't one isn't correct. Can anyone explain simply why the comparison doesn't work?

Well gay people didn't tell people they were straight and everyone else was cis straight

Gay people didn't demand we change or drop the very words we use to describe ourselves.

Nothing gay people did affected anyone else.

Being gay means same sex attracted. Of you cant acknowledge sex then gow do you acknowledge sexuality?

short answer- it's all bollocks
long answer (or reply) in what way, exactly is being gay like being trans?what is the logic in grouping them together?
I asked this question when we had 'LGBT training' and the trainer (an older middle aged gay man) shuffled rather and embarrasedly confessed there was no logical link
it's just a big con because trans activists know that many decent progressive people would hate to be thought of as homophobic and - to their shame- haven't actually applied any logic to the question, so the con works. Then there are also the people who are happy enough to go along with what seems to be the mainstream, aka 'you can't say stuff like that these days' despite what they may think in private. These people, and their commonsense of what is real, what is OK are also silenced.

I must confess to having been in the first group inititally but the more I thought and read the more it all fell apart

The greatest achievement of the TRAs was to hook the T on to the LGB when in fact it’s something entirely different.

Everything @SarahTancredi said (always makes so much sense) and I had the same questions re gay/trans but having thought about little else for months have come to the conclusion that a) nature rules - being gay doesn’t involve any surgery/artificial hormones b) being gay is a very personal expression of attraction to a limited number of people (other gay people) so doesn’t involve the general public in any way other than tolerance. c) the more I have looked into this, the less plausible the ‘wrong sex brain’ idea seems. We are all individuals with a unique set of inherited/ developed/ microbiome characteristics which are inevitably shaped by our sex and the idea that an undefinable feeling (the question has been asked so many times with no answer) of not fitting with the accepted but wholly undefined ‘gender’ feelings should trump physical reality is preposterous and damaging to the sufferers.

I can answer the conversion therapy conflation if it helps.
I underwent conversion therapy. The aim was to convince me that my same sex orientation was sinful and not an inherent natural inclination, and to 'reorient' me towards the opposite sex. It wasn't pleasant, involved being kept awake for hours with intense 'prayer' sessions, 'accountability partners' to confess any sinful thoughts to, and eventually, corrective rape.

None of it was about accepting me for who I naturally am, the whole thing was pure abuse designed to coerce me into being someone else.

Contrast this with what TRAs call 'gender conversion therapy' - advocating the watchful waiting approach, no permanent or dangerously untested medical interventions, letting the young person express themselves and explore their feelings and learn to deal with their body issues without pressure to conform to gendered roles.

Anyone with the slightest objectivity can see these are not the same thing, not even slightly. That the TRAs take my trauma and try and cuckoo it to justify what is done to young people with identity and body issues is one of the things that make me most angry about all this.

I'm so sorry that happened to you Flora. That's horrendous. It's making my blood boil just reading it. I hope the people responsible have been held to account in some way.

Oh god @FloralBunting that just stopped me in my tracks. Horrific, I can’t imagine. I’m so sorry that happened to you.

The greatest achievement of the TRAs was to hook the T on to the LGB when in fact it’s something entirely different

I really wish there was a 'like' button for comments.

Bloody hell Floral. I am so sorry you went through that.

Oh Floral that's awful
You are who you always were and you endured. I hope we have moved past that abuse.

Well yes, it would be rather nice to see sensible, workable legislation to end the practice - unfortunately the TRAs are doing their damnedest to hook gay conversion therapy and what they term gender conversion therapy together, which I suspect is one of the things delaying the legislation.

Thank you for all the flowers, wims. I'm so used to relaying parts of my history now I sometimes get a bit numb to how shocking some of it is.

Bloody hell @FloralBunting that's awful, I'm so sorry
Thank you for sharing
Can I ask if that was in the UK?

Oh god floral :(

Lobster, yes, it was in the UK. Very conservative evangelical church group, now disbanded.

I'm so sorry that happened to you Floral. A close friend of mine went through something similar in the 90s - I assume it was similar, she didn't want to talk about it but there was a religious element and it nearly destroyed her.
Some of the detransitioners' stories and reports about Tavistock fill me with dread and rage. Homophobia seems to be a factor in so many cases, and some people have the gall to accuse those who advocate for watchful waiting of promoting conversion therapy!

I've also seen people argue that suggesting the best thing for a young 'trans' person might not be to start taking hormone blockers or have surgery is similar to advocating for conversion therapy for gay people..

No one is saying trans people shouldn't have surgery but once on beta blockers before puberty the pathway rarely deviates from surgery and towards a loss of sexual function and infertility.
This is in direct contradiction to later life transition for males where only around 30% commit to surgery when they decide to transition.
The Stonewall definition is that you don't have to look like a woman to be a woman, you can have a female penis etc, but these choices are taken away from children at an age when they can't really understand what they are committing to. They are forced to maintain a rigid presentation of their new gender through life long drugs with associated problems of the possible side effects of Lupron which include brittle bones, oseoperosis, joint pain, blurred vision , depression.

www.statnews.com/2017/02/02/lupron-puberty-children-health-problems/

Exactly the same group- non conforming 'feminine' boys that were pushed into gay conversion programs are now being pushed into trans programs if they express a preference for girls toys/clothing.

This is in direct contradiction to later life transition for males where only around 30% commit to surgery when they decide to transition.

I don't think it's that many. The figure I've seen quoted is less than 10%.

I'm so sorry floral

Op, I think the main argument that convinced me was the comparison about the groups objectives:

The gay rights movement was about wanting the freedom to practise sexuality without interference from others. Sexual preference was no one else's business and certainly not the state's.

TRAs want to make gender expression and the language around it everyone's business. They want the state to intervene and enforce their perspectives, and for all definitions to be rewritten to reflect them.

They really aren't remotely the same. Gay rights but about carving out a space for individuals to live out their lives in freedom and safety, TRA is about policing the whole of society around the needs and experiences of one group of people.

Eg Gay marriage does not affect my marriage. There's nothing different about the process, experiences or reality of straight marriage because same sex marriage is possible.

Redefining 'woman' to include transwomen affects the experience of being a woman on every level. My life would be different if I was legally required to share all female only spaces, experiences and opportunities with males.

Trans ideology is inherently homophobic and misogynistic. In itself it’s a form of conversion therapy- if you can’t name sex the there’s no same sex protection, the cotton ceiling basically advocated corrective rape of lesbians while silencing them with shouts of transphobia.

Beside which, wait and see approach with gender dysphoria isn’t the equivalent of conversion therapy, it’s the equivalent of wait and see approach if kids come out to their parents. Not necessarily saying that’s right, but conversion therapy for sexuality isn’t the equivalent of not providing life altering, damaging medicalisation of a feeling.

Christ, floral, it's like Oranges are not the Only Fruit. So sorry to hear what happened to you. Sending my love to a lovely person. You are one of the big reasons that I keep coming here. xxx

I look at this from a different angle, though of course I also supported gay and Lesbian rights:

Gay and Lesbian rights do not infringe on my rights at all. Transgender rights, however, are very likely to do exactly that, because they seem to include things which general concepts of rights do not: The right to redefine all our words, the right to decide what a woman is, the right to turn all single-sex female spaces into mixed sex ones, the right to erase the significance of the female body in womanhood and so on.