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.

@OldCrone

You wouldn't need to raise your testosterone to live as a man

@HexedBoogie can you explain how a woman can live as a man?

By identifying as a "man" rather than a "woman", ergo, not being a "woman". Although like I said, hormone therapy might help to ensure that society recognizes you as such.

HexedBoogie

Come on. What is a gender, and what is a gender identity? Without using the inexplicable words man or woman. Or if you are, you're going to have to define them.

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine

Hormones do alter biological sex Nope

biological sex does not define one's identity.
Agreed

Well guess what, "man" and "woman" are identities.

By identifying as a "man" rather than a "woman", ergo, not being a "woman". Although like I said, hormone therapy might help to ensure that society recognizes you as such.

How can someone identify as a man when you cant define it? What is a man?

By identifying as a "man" rather than a "woman", ergo, not being a "woman".

So if I say 'I am a man', that means I identify as a man, and therefore I am living as a man? Is that right?

Well guess what, "man" and "woman" are identities.

Define them.

Well guess what, "man" and "woman" are identities.
Yes, you got me there. I would never in a million years have guessed that.

@OldCrone

By identifying as a "man" rather than a "woman", ergo, not being a "woman".

So if I say 'I am a man', that means I identify as a man, and therefore I am living as a man? Is that right?

Yes, that's right.

No debate.

Man and woman are sexes upon which there are socially created gender constructs.

Trans people are not identifying as some abstract construct. They are literally identifying as the other binary sex, performatively, by choosing to live as the opposite sex.

I don't understand why there is this huge disconnect. @HexedBoogie, I don't understand why you feel the need to justify the ability to biologically change sex, especially in this particular forum. It's an argument you are never going to win and one that is not even necessary to win. I just don't understand it.

So as a person with XX chromosomes with high testosterone, what sex am I? I'm not talking about gender identity. Because you said hormone levels change sex, so what sex am I?

You've got to love the logic, really. "What is a woman?"
" What you become when you stop being a man".

So if my mum identified as a man and my dad identified as a woman, my dad would be my mum and my mum would be my dad.

It all makes sense now.

Well guess what, "man" and "woman" are identities.
Define them.

Or, to make it easier, please list the main differences between them.

Top three? Just one?

@Jaysmith71 - but who would wear the trousers?

No, living as a man would be living as man. Saying you're a man would be futile or trolling I guess.

But you could, if you felt the need to due to your own internal sense of self in relation to the rest of the world.

Biological sex is real and self evident. Gender is performative.

You still haven’t answered my question about how hormones alter biological sex @HexedBoogie

You keep on saying. But how?

Trans people are not identifying as some abstract construct. They are literally identifying as the other binary sex, performatively, by choosing to live as the opposite sex.

But if all you have to do to live as the opposite sex is say 'I am a man' if you're a woman or 'I am a woman' if you're a man, what's the point?

If living as a woman is no different from living as a man, why does anyone feel the need to make an announcement that they're living as the opposite sex?

No, living as a man would be living as man.

How is living as a man different from living as a woman?

Trans people are not identifying as some abstract construct. They are literally identifying as the other binary sex, performatively, by choosing to live as the opposite sex.

Well that's wrong. Because it would appear to be just a matter of saying it out loud. In which case, as pp have said, what's the point?

If it's not a question of just saying it out loud, then it's riddled with sexism. How does a man performatively 'live as a woman'? And why should performing one's sexist idea of a woman give one access to women's spaces?

If you're not doing anything but sitting there in your house saying "I identify as a man", then yes, your identity as a man is weak or non existent isn't it. No one else is going to recognise you as a man are they?

That's surely the point of being transgender. Your idea of yourself as the opposite sex and your identity within yourself as the opposite sex is strong enough to cause you to want to behave in ways that you are perceived as a man. Not as a masculine woman, not as non binary, but as a man. So maybe you'll just cut your hair and wear clothing designed for men. Or maybe you will take hormones, or get top and bottom surgery, to allow you to be perceived as a man by wider society more easily, as well as to look at yourself in the mirror and not feel a disconnect between self perception and objective reality.

Society allows us to do this by recognising that this is a way that people genuinely feel. If a woman just says "I'm a man", that might be a meaningless statement or it might be how they truly identify. Sadly, either way, everyone else in society is not really going to perceive you as such without some effort to make yourself look masculine.

There is no need to obfuscate the meaning of biological sex in order to live as the opposite sex.

On the plus side, the socially constructed 'women' of Afghanistan can now put on turbans and false beards and all will be fine.

The difference is social perception. People don't exist in a vaccuum, as social creatures, we are capable of deriving understanding and meaning in the way someone presents themselves.

Whether the social constructs of gender are problematic or not is a different discussion. They exist regardless.

Being female is not a social construct.

Your idea of yourself as the opposite sex and your identity within yourself as the opposite sex is strong enough to cause you to want to behave in ways that you are perceived as a man.

You mean that your idea of yourself is completely at odds with reality?

@OldCrone yes, clearly. Do you think trans people think they are biologically the opposite gender?