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!

What a surprise positrans quotes an article about someone with a DSD. Do you have a DSD? Do all transwomen have DSDs?

Apparently not:

twitter.com/zaelefty/status/1280971665539620864?s=21

So you lied or allowed a lie to be recorded?
A medical untruth.
And again, you are showing that you do know you are not female. You do you the meaning of the words

Actually, I was always female - that's why I had to transition.

If you were always female, you wouldn't need to transition.

my GP has me registered as female

And when you attend with heart attack symptoms, will you tell them you are male? How about if you need a blood transfusion? Because you know some males will have severe reactions to female blood if that donor has been pregnant....

Surely, you have had all this explained to you by your doctor's? If not, I would be finding new doctor's.

Yes, a blood transfusion from a woman who has been pregnant can be dangerous for a male.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/blood-tranfusions-pregnant-women-kill-men-study-trali-journal-american-medical-association-a8006946.html

X post

And again someone's medical condition. Not proof that sex is spectrum or that males can be pregnant.

Yes.

This is pointless - you know I'm going to say that not all females produce eggs, and then you'll say "the class..." and I'll say, if you don't produce eggs, your not in the class that do, and it'll go in a pointless circle at the end of which I will still believe I am female and you still won't.

You don't understand what is meant by "the class of people who produce eggs". If you were observed to be female at birth and grew up not to have periods the doctors would investigate why you weren't developing as expected.

If you were observed male at birth, due to having a penis, it would be no surprise that you don't produce eggs or have periods because you are not female.

You can believe you are female if you want, but it's not true. I know I am female.

Well, I also remember a transman who could not admit that they were female and who went through months and months of testing before the doctors realised they were a female. The patient was very very ill by that stage, but once they realised they needed to look at the results from a female perspective, they were able to diagnose and treat.

That was very sad to read. just how poor that person's mental health was that they could not admit the truth even facing life or death.

It's probably best if we draw a line between gender identity and biological sex and stop pandering to these beliefs. It's not possible to change sex and the evidence for being "born in the wrong body" is largely unconvincing. But people of course should have the right to identify however they like, dress how they like etc.

Positrans so to recap:
You believe in biological sex, although you believe there are more than 2 sexes.
You believe that not all pregnant people are female (so male or one of these other (nameless) sexes?)
You say you haven’t changed sex, because you were always female, yet you had to transition.
You said you previously didn’t pass (for a female?) but now you believe you do, except you’ve always been female
You said you are a transwoman and we’re also a tomboy
You also said you’re not a transwoman or a transman

Sounds like one of those riddles out of a Christmas Cracker that no-one understands

the evidence for being "born in the wrong body" is largely unconvincing

I had an interesting conversation with an internationally fairly famous philosopher (as far as any philosopher is famous ) about this belief - her view was that it is a very masculine-socialised world view, deriving from Descartes, whose separation of the mind from the body, and whose rational (but reductive) proof of existence was, "I think, therefore I am" was a peculiarly gendered & classed view.

To be able to separate one's mind/thinking from one's body & bodily functions, is a privileged position: a position that suggests one is not a manual labourer, for example, in a position where the labour of one's body is at the centre of continued existence (food, shelter).

Or it's a position which suggests that one is not subject to bodily conditions which can dominate one's consciousness (regular/cyclical uterine pain from ovulation and menstruation, or swings in mood caused by hormonal cycles), or it's a position which suggests that one has not been through experiences where - as much as one is a thinking being - one's body takes over - pregnancy and childbirth, for example.

Women have always been necessarily aware of our bodies; we rarely have the luxury of pretending we are only minds/consciousnesses. I'm privileged to spend most of my time thinking, but I am still reminded daily that I live in, and only exist in, my sexed female body.

I suspect it's always been easier for men, and particularly privileged men, to behave as though they are minds only.

This philosopher I was talking to about this said to me: "Oh as far as I'm concerned, it's just another version of the problem of the Western mind/body split, and all the trouble that's got us into over the centuries."

She published something on this in the 1980s - feminist concerns about transgender /transsexualism are not new.

That's a very good point/argument, Alethiometrical. Makes a lot of sense to me.

What trouble has the western body mind split created ( other than the current shenanigan)

@midgebabe

So you accept that not all people have a gander identity

And we know ( you do too, I don't believe you are stupid) that everyone has a sex

Yet you seem to conflate the two.

I have a gander identity, although I was assigned goose at birth.

@positrans thanks for replying, but I still don't understand why you would use the terminology 'assigned'. Surely the general usage would be that sex is observed, even if in a tiny minority of cases there are people like you who choose to transition? I just wonder why you use terminology that to me is basically nonsensical? I'm not disputing your identity as a trans woman, but surely you can see that sex isn't something that's assigned? It just 'is', and in the overwhelming majority of cases there's no confusion about it.

For instance if I did some baking and had flapjacks and cupcakes in the oven, when I take them out am I assigning them as cupcakes or flapjacks depending on my whim? Or am I just observing the obvious fact that they're one or the other?

This whole discussion is insane.

Literally every human being who has ever existed was born from the fusion of a male and a female gamete. Mammals are sexually dimorphic, by definition. Anything else is a disorder of sexual development, ie. the exception that proves the rule.

Sounds like one of those riddles out of a Christmas Cracker that no-one understands

You have to ask the first gargoyle what the other gargoyle would tell you to do, and then the block of ice melts, it turns out that the surgeon is the boys mother and she was the only one going to St Ives! Do I win?

I had an interesting conversation with an internationally fairly famous philosopher (as far as any philosopher is famous ) about this belief - her view was that it is a very masculine-socialised world view, deriving from Descartes, whose separation of the mind from the body, and whose rational (but reductive) proof of existence was, "I think, therefore I am" was a peculiarly gendered & classed view

That's really a interesting way of looking at it Alethiometrical and I think she definitely has a point.

This whole discussion is insane.

This.

Good point re the gendered luxury of being able to believe oneself above the mundanity of the flesh.

When I got through menopause I was completely gobsmacked at how easy life is with no periods, cyclic pain, hormonal swings, fear of or longing for pregnancy etc. Post menopause feels much closer to being a man than pre menopause does- the sense of liberation is real. No wonder older women are seen as so dangerous- we bloody are!

@titchy " Indeed, but not all pregnant people are female.

"All pregnant people are biologically XX, owners of large gametes and specific phenotype. The word for those people is female. It's the very definition of the word."

I was recognised at birth as a female - luckily for me my female reproductive organs all worked once - so I have given birth ( they ain't great but it happened once .) I know that there are females recognised at birth who unfortunately cannot conceive or give birth to children - but by and large the chromosomes , hormones etc and the organs required I have. Not all have all of those things which work as well ( & indeed nor do those recognised as male at birth ) I do not mean to offend those who have difficulty conceiving - I really don't and anyone please ask for this to be deleted if it is upsetting , but there is a difference between being recognised at birth as being female & choosing to live as one ( I think ) probably really naive, but my view.

wifman was the anglo saxon work for Woman over a thousand years ago. It has transmogrified into woman. I'm happy with that. I use that - Adult human female.

@SophocIestheFox Ha ha - love that.

the sense of liberation is real.

Looking forward to it! Not much longer for me.