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!

@Justa47

A post op person is that sex. Jeez.

Jeez? You think that’s as much as needs to be said, in rebuttal to this whole thread? Well that’s it, I for one am convinced! How silly I’ve been.

Off topic but the internet algorithm has got it spectacularly wrong for the adverts it's showing me on this thread. It's clearly thought "she's usually Googling expensive dresses but she's now wittering on about communal changing rooms- she'll love this ! . A snip at £989.

www.vitkac.com/gb/p/sock-sneakers-balenciaga-shoes-1109511

@Justa47

A post op person is that sex. Jeez.

First question - what makes them that sex?

Second question - what about transgender people who have not had surgery?

A post op person is that sex. Jeez.

Jeez! How completely frustrating!!!

That women all over the world will not believe that a male who has had surgery and hormones has actually changed sex. And fuck. Even more frustrating that doctors treat them as males (those whose body is designed to produce small gametes) who have had major cosmetic surgery and hormones when they are saving their life. That must be so frustrating for some people.

What a pity that governments are allowing a legal fiction that people feel entitled to compel others to believe rather than pay lip service to, but never believe.

Those socks are weird; I'm going to have to investigate.

@Positrans

Too many posts to answer, but perhaps I can get through a few points:

Most of your arguments are based on the notion that sex is a simple binary purely defined by gametes. It isn't - they are just one of thousands of sex characteristics. Having said that, some of you seem to prioritise gonads rather than gametes whilst others prioritise chromosomes. But that's the point, there are many sex characteristics and the particular ones we use when trying to fit a person into the artificial binary that our culture has constructed vary. You use the above, I prioritise gender identity above all of those.

Changing rooms: eek, I can't imagine why anyone would want to change or shower in a public space, particularly if it's a place where people are just openly wandering around full-frontal naked. If you do that, you're going to see genitals, and as some women have penises, that's going to potentially include a penis on occasion. Your choice.

Did someone imply I'm a rapist? Well, I posted that no trans woman should feel obliged to say she is trans before having intimate relations. Shortly after that the following appeared on the Bunbury thread:

"It is very, very creepy though - to take such obvious delight in outing yourself as a would-be rapist on the feminist section of a very female dominated forum. This is definitely someone who gets off on boundary violations, at the very least in the virtual world. I couldn't possibly speculate about the real world, but let's just say if certain behaviour patterns visible on here carried over, I would not be in the least surprise."

But hey, maybe it's just a coincidence and they were talking about someone else.

"Born in the wrong body"? It's a metaphor - always has been. I use it on occasion myself just as way of telling someone what being trans feels like. It's not literal. People are moving away from it because non trans people (we need a word for that) seem to have difficulty understanding that it's a metaphor.

Referring to infertile women when talking about trans women is only offensive if you think that there is something horrible about being a trans woman.

DSDs are relatively uncommon differences of sexual development. So is being trans, hence the reason both often appear in the same conversation. See previous posts about issues like the pelvic structure of trans men being masculine or genetic issues in trans people like these:

www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/4592/presentation/578abstract

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22810992/

Can a human change sex? Well, I consider trans girls to be female, so they don't have to. Having said that, many of the thousands of sex characteristics are highly mutable, especially if you take cross-sex hormones at puberty, so there's that.

So transition isn't what you think it is - it isn't a change of sex, except in a legal and social sense - physically, it's just a matter of changing physical characteristics that cause you distress. As I said before, it's the same as a non-trans woman having excessive facial hair removed or a non-trans man having breasts removed. Humans are social animals - we don't like to look completely different to the people we identify with - it's the same for trans and non-trans alike.

"Trans race" and "trans age" are red herrings. Your race is defined by your ancestry, your age by chronology, but sex is much more complex and can be defined in various ways from gametes to gender identity and can vary by context. People here have a very narrow definition, people like me, and indeed most biologists acknowledge that it's way more complexed and nuanced.

Hope that helps.

The masculinity drips from every word.

A post op person is that sex. Jeez.

Is that sex that there were before the op? Absolutely. There is no operation that actually changes a person's sex. As stated on this thread, sex is much more than just visible sex characteristics, it's the matching internal organs and chromosomes in every cell of your body.

If you have a penis you are not a woman. If you chop off your penis, still not a woman.

I have been told that there are differences in male brains and female brains and that the brains of transgender people more closely resemble that of their desired sex rather than their own.

Positrans tells us that transwomen have always been female though so wouldn’t therefore their brains be “female” because they are female, even if they’re nothing like the brains of the people with the cervix/vulva/womb etc and more like the sperm-supplier people?
Although I’m not sure if Positrans means female is a sex or not as Positrans has yet to define sex despite agreeing that it exists.

So transition isn't what you think it is - it isn't a change of sex, except in a legal and social sense - physically, it's just a matter of changing physical characteristics that cause you distress. As I said before, it's the same as a non-trans woman having excessive facial hair removed or a non-trans man having breasts removed.

As I said before, it's the same as a non-trans woman having excessive facial hair removed or a non-trans man having breasts removed.

Just breaking this sentence out. Did you realise you have again appropriated a female medical condition to explain yourself. Females with ‘excessive facial hair’ is often associated with PCOS.

And ‘non-trans men’ have their breasts removed? You mean men? Having their breast tissue removed? Why???

Or do you mean females having their breasts removed. Again, females do this for medical purposes. Some females may have breast reductions but that is usually for health purposes only due to pain and other impacts. I know of not one female who has had their breasts removed simply because they didn’t like breasts and it distressed them.

Do you realise that you make light of other’s medical conditions to justify your position? You use others conditions as ‘gotchas’.

If you were really interested in making strong points for your discussion, you might want to consider whether you can make a strong point without abusing others.

@Justa47

A post op person is that sex. Jeez.

A post op transperson is still the sex they were born, although they may have taken more permanent steps to make their body appear more like that of the sex they wish to pass as.

And I am assuming that by 'post op' you are referring to those who have had phallopslasty/vaginoplasty as opposed to eg a male adult who has facial feminisation and breast implants but keeps his penis?

Still the same sex as they were born, though!

Those shoes confuse me. They look as if they'd catch on rough surfaces and trip you up.

But it IS a female penis then, isn’t it Justa? It is a female penis.

Claiming surgery actually changes sex raises two problems.

First, how do we then categorize trans individuals who do not have surgery?

Which surgeries qualify? I would assume you are thinking about vaginoplasty for trans women.

Most trans men do not have bottom surgery because it’s results do not either look or function very much like a penis.

Your proposal that recognition of someone having changed sex be contingent on surgical altering of the genitals is abusive because it would exclude many trans women and all but a small percentage of trans men.

Many people around the world felt coerced into surgery in countries where this is a requirement.

So then, accepting that such laws are unjust and coercive, the question becomes simply, do we treat anyone who says they are as if they are the opposite sex in law, or do we maintain in law that people remain the sex they were born as, regardless of how they may cosmetically alter their bodies?

So, trying to pick up a few of the points raised again:

@sanluca "Positrans, your own copied words show very clearly that they think there might be something, but there is no actual evidence."

The article is all about how there is now enough evidence for science to proceed an the basis that gender identity is biological. Is it proof? No, but proof is rarer than you think in science - they generally look at the evidence they have, even if incomplete, and draw preliminary conclusions about what that evidence likely shows.

@OldCrone "Most of the studies are on people with DSDs, not transgender people. The studies are small. They say that the conclusions should be interpreted with caution because of small sample size. Also, some of the 'biological' results were in MTF transgender people who had been treated with oestrogen or FTM transgender people on testosterone."

I agree with all of that, but it is still strong enough for the scientists to say "Considerable scientific evidence has emerged demonstrating a durable biological element underlying gender identity.1, 2 Individuals may make choices due to other factors in their lives, but there do not seem to be external forces that genuinely cause individuals to change gender identity." And note the the actual existence of gender identity isn't even a question - it's a given.

"The reference list this time is up to 13, and it looks as though they are all different this time."

Yes, the evidence is growing all the time, and it's all going in the same direction.

@TyroTerf "The implication being that the normal human developmental pathway involves identifying and adhering to the sex stereotypes relevant to one's body type."

Again, being trans is not about sex stereotypes, it's about gender identity. That's why some trans girls are tomboys:

www.newsweek.com/transgender-kids-living-identity-develop-cis-children-1471729

""Within both transgender and cisgender children, we find a wide range in the strength of their identity and preferences. For example, we had some 'tomboy' transgender girls in the study, just as we had 'tomboy' cisgender girls.""

@Winesalot "Thanks oldcrone. Seems quite astounding that the NHS Tavistock could not access or provide such evidence that this 'august medical institution' has stated definitely exists and in quantity."

There will be more court cases. This will all be overturned. In the meantime, most of us are contributing what we can so that the affected children can get the blockers they need.

@gardenbird48 "the mahoosive industry that is forming off altering the bodies of transgender people"

If trans people get blockers at puberty, they generally need a lot less surgery. Also, transition resolves most of the mental health problems so if the medical industry wants to make money out of trans people, it's more lucrative for them to have a psychiatric patient for life (typically £250 a session for a private gender specialist), than a happy patient who needs nothing more than HRT. That's one of the reasons we want self ID - so we can stop giving our money to these people.

@Datun "You wanting a certain cohort of males/transwomen/y-chromosome people to have the right to shower and change with teenage girls/female children/elderly women, adult XX chromosomed people isn't happening. "

It's already happening - has been for years. It has been interesting to learn that communal changing rooms still exist. I thought they died out in the 70s. I don't know why you would want to get naked with a bunch of strangers, and I don't know why you would look at their genitals, but here's the thing - if you do glimpse a woman's penis, be it on a trans woman, or perhaps on a woman with the highly virilised form of adrenal hyperplasia, you won't actually die.

Also, given the prevalence of sexual assaults in women's prisons and the existence of women like Becky Reid who starved, beat and then murdered her girlfriend, I would be wary of sending my teenage daughter naked into a room of naked strangers, even if it was exclusive to people you would define as female.

A post op person is that sex. Jeez.

That's a slightly ambiguous sentence, but I hope most people understand that the definition of a woman is not 'a man who has removed his penis'.

It's quite astonishing the number of times I have to say that women are real human beings. Actual entities who exist in their own right, who share characteristics that place them in the same category.

Not some supplementary unit to be mined for validation.

@Positrans

So, trying to pick up a few of the points raised again:

@sanluca "Positrans, your own copied words show very clearly that they think there might be something, but there is no actual evidence."

The article is all about how there is now enough evidence for science to proceed an the basis that gender identity is biological. Is it proof? No, but proof is rarer than you think in science - they generally look at the evidence they have, even if incomplete, and draw preliminary conclusions about what that evidence likely shows.

@OldCrone "Most of the studies are on people with DSDs, not transgender people. The studies are small. They say that the conclusions should be interpreted with caution because of small sample size. Also, some of the 'biological' results were in MTF transgender people who had been treated with oestrogen or FTM transgender people on testosterone."

I agree with all of that, but it is still strong enough for the scientists to say "Considerable scientific evidence has emerged demonstrating a durable biological element underlying gender identity.1, 2 Individuals may make choices due to other factors in their lives, but there do not seem to be external forces that genuinely cause individuals to change gender identity." And note the the actual existence of gender identity isn't even a question - it's a given.

"The reference list this time is up to 13, and it looks as though they are all different this time."

Yes, the evidence is growing all the time, and it's all going in the same direction.

@TyroTerf "The implication being that the normal human developmental pathway involves identifying and adhering to the sex stereotypes relevant to one's body type."

Again, being trans is not about sex stereotypes, it's about gender identity. That's why some trans girls are tomboys:

www.newsweek.com/transgender-kids-living-identity-develop-cis-children-1471729

""Within both transgender and cisgender children, we find a wide range in the strength of their identity and preferences. For example, we had some 'tomboy' transgender girls in the study, just as we had 'tomboy' cisgender girls.""

@Winesalot "Thanks oldcrone. Seems quite astounding that the NHS Tavistock could not access or provide such evidence that this 'august medical institution' has stated definitely exists and in quantity."

There will be more court cases. This will all be overturned. In the meantime, most of us are contributing what we can so that the affected children can get the blockers they need.

@gardenbird48 "the mahoosive industry that is forming off altering the bodies of transgender people"

If trans people get blockers at puberty, they generally need a lot less surgery. Also, transition resolves most of the mental health problems so if the medical industry wants to make money out of trans people, it's more lucrative for them to have a psychiatric patient for life (typically £250 a session for a private gender specialist), than a happy patient who needs nothing more than HRT. That's one of the reasons we want self ID - so we can stop giving our money to these people.

@Datun "You wanting a certain cohort of males/transwomen/y-chromosome people to have the right to shower and change with teenage girls/female children/elderly women, adult XX chromosomed people isn't happening. "

It's already happening - has been for years. It has been interesting to learn that communal changing rooms still exist. I thought they died out in the 70s. I don't know why you would want to get naked with a bunch of strangers, and I don't know why you would look at their genitals, but here's the thing - if you do glimpse a woman's penis, be it on a trans woman, or perhaps on a woman with the highly virilised form of adrenal hyperplasia, you won't actually die.

Also, given the prevalence of sexual assaults in women's prisons and the existence of women like Becky Reid who starved, beat and then murdered her girlfriend, I would be wary of sending my teenage daughter naked into a room of naked strangers, even if it was exclusive to people you would define as female.

The answer is still no, positrans.

No.

Also, given the prevalence of sexual assaults in women's prisons and the existence of women like Becky Reid who starved, beat and then murdered her girlfriend, I would be wary of sending my teenage daughter naked into a room of naked strangers, even if it was exclusive to people you would define as female.

And again with the deceptive ‘women do it too!’. You cannot ignore the male prevalence for sex and violent offenses. Nor the crimes of those transwomen currently serving time.

I would be wary of sending my teenage daughter

Just out of interest positrans is that a hypothetical teenage daughter? Or are you telling us that you are a late transitioning man who has reproduced?

And as such you support teenagers being sterilised and not having the options you had?

The point, Dido, is you could just say “thanks for the clarification.” You liking them or not is irrelevant.

And in terms of the OP wanting to know more? Women can, and do, explain exactly what is happening, and will frequently be disbelieved, or certainly looked at through a narrowed, sceptical gaze.

So, if it can be done, it's always more effective to see it straight from the horse's mouth, as it were. It's one of the reasons I rarely report even the most outlandish or misogynistic comments. It's far better to shine a light on them.

So in terms of answering the OP, this thread has been invaluable.

There will be more court cases. This will all be overturned. In the meantime, most of us are contributing what we can so that the affected children can get the blockers they need.

Excellent to hear there will be more court cases. Each time more and more of the public realise what has been decided for them. The more court cases, the more debate. Debate is the best way to find a solution.

And it might also just get the studies needed to provide that evidence that you keep saying is out there and is irrefutable but never seems to be provided. Or say quite what you think.

Positrans

The article is all about how there is now enough evidence for science to proceed an the basis that gender identity is biological

Even if it it could be properly evidenced that a belief in gender identity was biological, male people are still male, female people are still female. And where would it leave gender fluid people?

On what basis do you think children need puberty blockers?
Where is the evidence that people in past generations have been harmed due to lack of such technology?

@EdgeOfACoin

Changing rooms: eek, I can't imagine why anyone would want to change or shower in a public space, particularly if it's a place where people are just openly wandering around full-frontal naked. If you do that, you're going to see genitals, and as some women have penises, that's going to potentially include a penis on occasion. Your choice.

This says it all, really.

Also, 28 pages in and there is still no definition of 'woman', no definition of 'female' (beyond 'it's complicated'), no explanation as to how Positrans' femaleness manifests itself and no explanation as to which traits are shared by all women and transwomen but are not shared by any men or transmen.

I sincerely hope lurkers are reading and taking note of this.

Let me try to answer those for you:

1. Shon Faye had the best definition of "woman" that I have seen:

"'Woman' is a loose, shifting constellation of biological, political and cultural phenomena which varies according to context, place and time. While it's possible to notice strong correlations among these; it's impossible to mandate exclusive criteria."

And of course it's the same for "man". That's as close as you're going to get I think.

1. My femaleness manifests itself in biological characteristic called a gender identity. But as I mentioned above, not everyone has one, and explaining what it's like to have one to someone who doesn't, is like trying to explain what red look like to a person who was born blind. It's not going to work.

You can see from the Endocrine Society link that gender identity exists, and some of the reasons scientists now think it's biological. You are of course free to dismiss the science if you want to on the grounds that you haven't personally experienced the thing they are talking about, but the science continues despite your opinion on it.

1. The problem here is that you're thinking in simple binaries again - there aren't any traits shared by all trans women and non-trans women that are not shared by any trans men or non-trans men. That's precisely why sex is complicated and nuanced. I appreciate you want clear, concise, sound-bite definitions, but I'm afraid that just isn't the reality.

@Deliriumoftheendless

The point, Dido, is you could just say “thanks for the clarification.” You liking them or not is irrelevant.

How arrogant. You twisted what I said.