Can someone please explain... (trans)

[WednesdayAllTheWay]

So I've been trying to follow this trans situation for a while but now having skin in the game in the form of a child (and also noting through work how more and more people are identifying as the opposite gender) I need to understand it better.
Feel slightly embarrassed asking but:

1. How exactly do the words sex and gender differ in this area?
2. What reasons do trans people give for wanting to change their physical bodies? As in what do people believe they will get from this that they couldn't get in the body they were born with?
3. What are children being taught at school about this?

Thanks!

I do wish people would stop using the phrase 'sex assigned at birth', it's just a nonsense. Nobody 'assigns' you a sex (apart from God, if you believe in that), it's simply something that's observed from the pretty obvious evidence at hand, isn't it? There may be occasions when mistakes are made due to some types of intersex conditions, but those are rare enough that I see no reason to use this 'assigned' terminology.

but nothing you have said alters my belief that I am female

It's perfectly possible for people to believe things which aren't true, and aren't likely to be possible.

thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-23/edition-7/naturalness-weird-beliefs

What does your sexuality have to do with your sex? Asexual women still know that they are women who might get pregnant if raped. Asexual women under 40 who don't have periods know to see a doctor.

Also, if these future archaeologist dig up a trans woman who transitioned at puberty with estrogen, they will find a skeleton with a typically female structure (as much as any female has one).

Please explain how the pelvis completely reshapes itself? And bone density in prepubescent males is still higher than females.

@Winesalot

But you see how this works - it doesn't matter what science is presented to you if your mind is not open to what the science is telling you, so I could post a thousand links, invite a professor human physiology to join in and explain all the complexities in detail, but it won't make any difference.

Please do post your links. Please do show us the studies by Professors of Human Physiology. If you have been on MN for even a week, you know we read and watch and educate ourselves.

How else do we learn? I am an eternal student. But I ask that what you post does not use people with DSDs as the explainer. Can you do this?

@Winesalot "How else do we learn? I am an eternal student. But I ask that what you post does not use people with DSDs as the explainer. Can you do this?"

You mean post links about variations in sexual development without mentioning any examples of variations in sexual development?

Or if they dig up a trans man, they may sex him as male anyway because of the sex-based anomalies in trans men's pelvic structure:'

Sex based anomalies???? Do you mean that they have female pelvises?

@Positrans

" you are expecting me to take your word for it and I am afraid that I can't do that."

That's quite alright - my passability is not contingent on your believing it exists.

But passing is solely about what other people believe. So yes, it is contingent on other people believing it. Not people on the Internet, because any of us could present ourselves as anyone or anything, but there’s a big, wide physical 3D world out there where physical sex matters, and can be discerned more often than it cannot.

Riddle me this, posi, why is it that you think posters here have to respect your identity (your belief that you’re female), but you’ve littered this thread with fairly patronising insistence that most of us have a gender identiny that we simply haven’t been able to find. Is that respectful?

And it’s also pretty clear that you don’t believe posters here have any expertise in law, biology, or any other specialism, and I can tell you that you’re dead wrong on that. But we get a kick out of people believing we’re nappy brained no marks, it makes it easier to get the radicalisation done

Variations in sexual development are not different sexes. Just the same as blind people are not a different type of human.

@Winesalot

Also, if these future archaeologist dig up a trans woman who transitioned at puberty with estrogen, they will find a skeleton with a typically female structure (as much as any female has one).

Please explain how the pelvis completely reshapes itself? And bone density in prepubescent males is still higher than females.

Actual in trans girls and women it's lower than average, so that's another clue for the archaeologist:

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23369987/

The adult female pelvis reaches it's adult shape under the influence of estrogen at puberty. That's why trans girls who got estrogen very young often have broad hips.

@334bu

*Or if they dig up a trans man, they may sex him as male anyway because of the sex-based anomalies in trans men's pelvic structure:'*

Sex based anomalies???? Do you mean that they have female pelvises?

Read the science linked - they have various masculine pelvic characteristics.

@Aspiringmatriarch

I do wish people would stop using the phrase 'sex assigned at birth', it's just a nonsense. Nobody 'assigns' you a sex (apart from God, if you believe in that), it's simply something that's observed from the pretty obvious evidence at hand, isn't it? There may be occasions when mistakes are made due to some types of intersex conditions, but those are rare enough that I see no reason to use this 'assigned' terminology.

You don't have to use it.

None of the studies you’ve linked so far prove what you say they do

You know that, right? You know we can go and read them?

You mean post links about variations in sexual development without mentioning any examples of variations in sexual development?

No. I mean that you have suggested sex is a spectrum and posted a YouTube link that uses people with DSDs to explain why sexism is on a spectrum. According to medical doctors, leaders in developmental and evolutionary biology and intersex organisations, they are clear that people are either male or female in all bar one or two people with the most rare DSDs.

Each type of DSD happens in male or females. Now. I don’t want to end up politicizing them myself.

Hence, without relying on their medical histories to justify the spectrum theory, is there any other evidence that sex is a spectrum? Or do you only have evidence using their medical histories?

So if we medically alter someone we would need to take dna to correctly sex them . Fortunately that's going to be quite unlikely in the uk where the harm of early hormones seems to be considered

Still wouldn't make you female.

Are there any other characteristics that you think people can just claim? Pretend you have a degree when applying for a job? No that would be illegal. Pretend you are rich when broke? No that would lead to a visit from the bailiffs. Pretend you are a pregnant male?trip to mental health assessment centre.

@SophocIestheFox "But passing is solely about what other people believe. So yes, it is contingent on other people believing it."

In my case, they believe it, which is a relief, cos when they didn't they were often extremely, and violently unpleasant to me.

"Riddle me this, posi, why is it that you think posters here have to respect your identity (your belief that you’re female),"

They don't. Disrespect it all you like - nothing happens.

"but you’ve littered this thread with fairly patronising insistence that most of us have a gender identiny that we simply haven’t been able to find. Is that respectful?"

That was a single comment made ironically to illustrate the the fact that telling me I don't have a gender identity when I do, is no more valid or useful than telling you that you do have a gender identity when you don't.

"And it’s also pretty clear that you don’t believe posters here have any expertise in law, biology, or any other specialism,"

What can I say, other than the fact that it doesn't matter what science I post - no progress will be made on your belief that trans women are simply men. Here look, this is an article in Scientific American - a well respected mainstream scientific journal. Now watch what happens:

www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the-idea-of-2-sexes-is-overly-simplistic1/

Your problem is that I simply don't believe I'm not female

No.... No, that is your problem. It definitely ain't mine!

@Winesalot

You mean post links about variations in sexual development without mentioning any examples of variations in sexual development?

No. I mean that you have suggested sex is a spectrum and posted a YouTube link that uses people with DSDs to explain why sexism is on a spectrum. According to medical doctors, leaders in developmental and evolutionary biology and intersex organisations, they are clear that people are either male or female in all bar one or two people with the most rare DSDs.

Each type of DSD happens in male or females. Now. I don’t want to end up politicizing them myself.

Hence, without relying on their medical histories to justify the spectrum theory, is there any other evidence that sex is a spectrum? Or do you only have evidence using their medical histories?

Statement of the first objective of the European Intersex Meeting in Riga, 2014:

"To challenge the definition of sex as consisting of only male and female and promote the knowledge that sex is a continuum, as is gender."

oiieurope.org/statement-of-the-european-intersex-meeting-in-riga-2014/

But again, this not an outlier view - this is pretty standard knowledge in biology.

@Passmeabottlemrjones

Your problem is that I simply don't believe I'm not female

No.... No, that is your problem. It definitely ain't mine!

Well, it feels fine to me, and it's not a problem for you, so I'd call that a happy conclusion.

Here look, this is an article in Scientific American - a well respected mainstream scientific journal. Now watch what happens:

This discusses DSDs. And Claire Ainsworth has also clarified her thinking on this.

‘No, not at all. Two sexes, with a continuum of variation in anatomy/physiology.’

twitter.com/claireainsworth/status/888365994577735680?s=21

But again, this not an outlier view - this is pretty standard knowledge in biology.

No. It is not.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Also, if these future archaeologist dig up a trans woman who transitioned at puberty with estrogen

Children are not permitted cross sex hormones at puberty in the U.K., and a recent High Court judgement has restricted the use of "puberty blockers".

That's a different argument. Trans girls have accessed estrogen at puberty in the UK and across the world, so the possibility still stands.

Why do you keep dragging intersex into this? Intersex conditions have nothing to do with transgenderism? There has never been this much handwringing before about what a woman or a man is, funnily enough, people have been able to tell for thousands of years, particularly when it came to knowing which class of human to deny basic human rights, such as a right to education or a right to vote.

If anything, DSDs prove that sex is binary.

Some humans are born with one leg, that doesn't mean that humans aren't a bipedal species.

[quote Winesalot]Here look, this is an article in Scientific American - a well respected mainstream scientific journal. Now watch what happens:

This discusses DSDs. And Claire Ainsworth has also clarified her thinking on this.

‘No, not at all. Two sexes, with a continuum of variation in anatomy/physiology.’

twitter.com/claireainsworth/status/888365994577735680?s=21[/quote]
Of course - a continuum has 2 end points. And there is a separate sex continuum for thousand of sex characteristics, of which we all have a mixture.

This is a good one for some background science:

blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/stop-using-phony-science-to-justify-transphobia/

Of course - a continuum has 2 end points. And there is a separate sex continuum for thousand of sex characteristics, of which we all have a mixture.

Oh does this mean that I could have got my DH to do the whole pregnancy/birth/breastfeeding thing? Why didn't anyone tell me?! I could at given the job to him for at least one of our kids!