I found this slightly reassuring - re girls IDing as boys

[QueenPeary]

Until recently despite engaging in the gender debate a lot and having a VERY full-on TRA family member, I hadn't had much direct experience of trans-IDing children.

But recently 2 of my DD's female classmates (year 6), one a close friend, have started IDing as boys, have boys names etc and this is being embraced by the school. My DD knows my GC views and we discuss it, but I have agreed to be respectful in using the right names etc (though I avoid using he pronouns).

Anyway - what I found reassuring is that both have discussed it with my DD and said they know they are not actually boys, and are not interested in taking drugs or having a penis. So despite the school being captured and going along with the full TWAW/TMAM etc, the kids (sometimes) aren't. They seem to realise it's an identity to try on, akin to a fashion or music tribe, and so maybe - I hope - there's a way in which girls (and maybe boys too) can go through this without it having to involve the long-term risks to their health.

I still don't think they are a "he" and I don't think it's going down a very healthy or feminist path to ID as a boy instead of just being a girl of whatever type you want to be. But I am kind of heartened that maybe this trend could default back to something more akin to good old 80s "gender bending" and away from the idea of actually changing sex.

Of course many kids still are at risk of both harmful medicalisation and anti-science ideology and I'm not minimising that – but wondered what people thought.

Yah these TRAs sound crazy for sure, I can't empathise with there position at all unfortunately. We just have to be careful not to ostracise a hugely marginalised group in the name of these idiots.

Define "sex-based rights". What exactly are you organizing for, besides sex segregation?

Look at the law, sex is part of the Equality Act. Sex has a definition in law too. Yes. Sex segregation. The right of females to have spaces and resources and services where male people are not present, regardless of how they identify.

This is because some female people's needs cannot be met in mixed sex provisions, and it's insanely sexist to require that females give up sex based needs and manage without them regardless of how it impacts them, because male people don't want them to be allowed it any more.

[quote Mummyoflittledragon]@HexedBoogie
Look up the effects hormones have on the body

I am well aware of the changes, which occur when someone takes cross sex hormones and puberty blockers.

Which components of biological sex do these hormones alter? I can’t see any.[/quote]
Are external physical characteristics not part of biological sex? If not, how can you possibly tell the biological sex of strangers?

It's not like you get to test strangers' DNA. Every woman you meet could have XY chromosomes for all you know.

I'm exaggerating of course, but to assert that biological sex is strictly a matter of DNA or chromosomes, or gametes, and nothing else, is to assert thst you cannot possibly tell a person's biological sex at a glance.

@HexedBoogie what is your understanding of the reasoning behind sex based segregation?

@HexedBoogie but honey biological sex is defined by genetics. There is much more to gender than biological sex though. It's okay to be transgender.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Define "sex-based rights". What exactly are you organizing for, besides sex segregation?

The right for women to not face discrimination and harassment on the grounds of our sex, which supposedly we already have.

What I'd like strengthened - Rights for women to have privacy and dignity and to be treated with respect in situations where they are vulnerable such as hospital, prison, refuge, secure unit, receiving intimate care. Right to monitor inequality in relation to males by the collection of sex disaggregated data. Many many things.

Trans people are opposed to discrimination on the basis of sex. In fact, we also oppose the sex-based discrimination that you consider to be part of your "sex-based rights".

Excluding trans women from women's spaces is discrimination on the basis of sex. I mean, you are literally excluding someone because of their sex.

Where’s the dress, heels and lipstick here? And can you really not see where this is all leading?

There was another chap I saw recently - I believe it was somewhere in Canadian academia - saying he was now a transwoman, but wouldn't actually be undergoing any social transition. No appearance or name change, and would still expect to be referred to as "he/him".

But he was now legally and administratively a "woman". That's fine in Canada, as it's self ID.

Sorry, no reference this time though.

@QueenPeary sorry I cross posted with you re the attack helicopter thing, it's no problem

How about the right of elderly women in hospital not to be put next to a male-bodied person with a tendancy to sleepwalk in a state of undress?

Trans people are opposed to discrimination on the basis of sex. In fact, we also oppose the sex-based discrimination that you consider to be part of your "sex-based rights".

It is part of sex based rights. That's simply what it is, however disingenuous you want to be.

If not, how can you possibly tell the biological sex of strangers?

it's quite the conundrum.

until someone takes their trousers off I have literally no idea what sex they are

welcome back Hex, I've missed you

Excluding trans women from women's spaces is discrimination on the basis of sex. I mean, you are literally excluding someone because of their sex.

That's why there are specific exemptions for this. They apply to other males too.

@NecessaryScene

Where’s the dress, heels and lipstick here? And can you really not see where this is all leading?

There was another chap I saw recently - I believe it was somewhere in Canadian academia - saying he was now a transwoman, but wouldn't actually be undergoing any social transition. No appearance or name change, and would still expect to be referred to as "he/him".

But he was now legally and administratively a "woman". That's fine in Canada, as it's self ID.

Sorry, no reference this time though.

You people sure love to use fringe cases to justify complete exclusion of any and all trans women.

There was another chap I saw recently - I believe it was somewhere in Canadian academia - saying he was now a transwoman, but wouldn't actually be undergoing any social transition. No appearance or name change, and would still expect to be referred to as "he/him".
You'd have to wonder what the objective of that piece of attention seeking actually was, then?

@HexedBoogie you have to understand it's a complicated issue though right? Only in terms of these specific sex segregated places, which for the majority of people don't make up a big proportion of every day life.

Plenty of women believe trans women should be included on a case by case basis, me included. You must understand the possibility of abuse of this is what these women are concerned about right?

@HexedBoogie, you were asking how DNA makes a person one sex or another. I am not a biologist but as I understand it, the key gene is the SRY gene.

At the moment of conception two gametes come together. The large gamete is an egg and the small gamete is a sperm. Each gamete is carrying 23 chromosomes - in the case of the egg, they are from the mother and will include an X chromosome, and in the case of the sperm, they are from the father, and will include either a second X chromosome or a Y chromosome.

In the vast majority of conceptions, the presence or absence of the Y chromosome is what decides what sex the embryo will develop as, because the SRY gene is normally found on the Y chromosome. In a tiny number of cases the SRY gene will either be damaged and won't therefore have any effect, or will be found on an X chromosome.

Some weeks after conception, the embryo produces a lot of testosterone (this happens in both female and male embryos) and it washes through every cell of the body, which will still be at an early stage of development. If the SRY gene is present and functioning, then the testosterone will be taken up by the cells and the embryo will then develop a male reproductive system. If the SRY gene is not present and functioning, then the testosterone won't have any effect, and the embryo will develop a female reproductive system.

So there you go, the whole thing is predetermined in almost all cases from the moment of conception.

You people sure love to use fringe cases to justify complete exclusion of any and all trans women.
Exclusion from where?

@BernardBlackMissesLangCleg

If not, how can you possibly tell the biological sex of strangers?

it's quite the conundrum.

until someone takes their trousers off I have literally no idea what sex they are

welcome back Hex, I've missed you

Or maybe you can use the external physical characteristics. Which are, you know, malleable and not immutable in any way.

PS You mentioned 'elementary school' earlier. This is not a term used in the UK. Are you perhaps a US visitor?

You people sure love to use fringe cases to justify complete exclusion of any and all trans women.

well yes, that's what risk assessment is about

what risks are we introducing by making this area mixed sex should be part of any risk assessment

no-one ever wants to tak about Jessica Winfield do they? I mean I get it, he's a disgusting child rapist. but transphobia is transphobia right?

so tell me how wrong I am for using male pronouns to describe him

So there you go, the whole thing is predetermined in almost all cases from the moment of conception.

Which is why all this "assigned male" stuff is so funny. Babies don't plop out chromosomes and genitals at birth. I knew my kids' sex long before they were born (had to have NIPT to check for something else).

[quote TheFairPrincess]@HexedBoogie you have to understand it's a complicated issue though right? Only in terms of these specific sex segregated places, which for the majority of people don't make up a big proportion of every day life.

Plenty of women believe trans women should be included on a case by case basis, me included. You must understand the possibility of abuse of this is what these women are concerned about right?[/quote]
The dominant position in the GC movement is to exclude every single AMAB person from women's spaces, with no exceptions.

Included on a case by case basis where, FairPrincess?
Rape Crisis Centres? Women's toilets? Women's prisons? Women's refuges?

What would a successful "case" look like, exactly?

I agree it's in poor taste to bring out a couple of widely publicised examples of very male looking trans women, they surely are fringe cases and are probably only well known because of the fact they are controversial.

FWIW I think it's shitty to retain all of your male privilege down to your bloody masculine appearance and call yourself trans but maybe there is something I'm not getting.

[quote TheFairPrincess]@thirdfiddle I would agree with you but argue that perfomatively living as a man is an expression of a trans man's identity. Of course it's based on gender construct but how else does one expect somebody to express that?[/quote]
I don't expect someone to express being a man because for me being a man is a biological category. They just are or aren't. Performatively living as just means adopting stereotypes, that's nothing to do with actually being a man or a woman.

Someone might express an English identity by waving a St George's flag. Someone else might hate flag waving and still be English. A Chinese person waving a St George's flag is still Chinese. The reality underlying the identity is about your nationality.

Now, being a musician is a different sort of identity, because you're identifying as someone who does a specific thing. So if you play music you can say you are a musician (even if some people don't think you're a very good one!). But I don't think anyone is claiming that being a man is an action - if you wear trousers or act in a particular way you're a man for example? That's just stereotypes again.

I'm not asking about how identities are expressed, I'm asking about the reality underlying the identity. What is the underlying difference between a man and a woman? What aspect of themselves is someone building an identity around when they say they're identifying as a man?