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.

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?

A man who is performatively 'living as a woman' is a man who is performing some sort of stereotype of women's dress or behaviour. It doesn't actually change his sex. Only a very young child might think it did.

@HexedBoogie

that this will not get us anywhere for as long as you keep conflating gender identities with sex.

To insist, as the genderists do, that pre-existing single-sex provision become single-gender instead is undeniably conflating gender identities with sex.

Presumably then, you do not believe that people of the male sex who identify as a woman or girl should automatically be given access to the pre-existing women-only spaces, groups, rights and opportunities that were set up when the social constriction of "woman" included being of the female sex, and you would support a movement to keep pre-existing single-sex provisions single-sex until it can be proved that socially constructed/imposed differences between the sexes (which is obviously not the same as gender identity since one is imposed externally while the other comes from an identity internally) have gone away?

But you've got the chicken and the egg the wrong way round. Trans people perform gender stereotypes to fit in to society's idea of each gender.

They are not trans because they wear dresses, they wear dresses because they are trans. Is this really earth shattering?

It's not trans peoples fault that these stereotypes exist. If a transwoman walked round in non gendered or masculine clothing the chances of them being misgendered is incredibly high.

Trans people perform gender stereotypes to fit in to society's idea of each gender.

You mean they like to reinforce sexist stereotypes. Do you understand now why feminists have a problem with this?

Who is saying men should not wear dresses if that's their thing?

Who gives a toss?

I am a feminist who doesn't have a problem with it though, I'm not the only one.

It's not up to already marginalised groups to smash the patriarchy and end the hypersexualisation of women.

As a feminine woman, and I know this is a separate topic, I also find the notion that femininity in women is something inherently "stereotypical" or negative somewhat irksome in and of itself.

@TheFairPrincess

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.

But why are there socially created gender constructs? Is it because one sex is seen as lesser? That sex always being the one that could give birth?

What performativly does a man do that I dont? My DP gets up on a morning, showers, goes to work, comes home, eats food and goes to bed, same as me. What's manly about his day but womanly about mine?

But they don't feel like men in dresses do they? There are men who like to wear dresses but they do not identify as trans.

....come to think of it, if tonight we're gonna party like it's 1981, and the new romantic lads are out in force in their kilts, the girls in their boiler suits and big peaked caps, what shall we do with ourselves?

[quote TheFairPrincess]@OldCrone yes, clearly. Do you think trans people think they are biologically the opposite gender?[/quote]
Gender isn’t biology. It’s a social construct. This question makes no sense.

simplistic understanding of sex and gender

The thing is hexed, I think it's who has the simplistic understanding, because you can't stop conflating sex and gender when they're different things.

Gender is behaviour, personality, cultural expression, stereotypes assigned to the sexes by society. We know this because gender stereotypes and roles are generally different in different societies and different times in history. There's nothing innate about them - they are just behaviours that society decides are masculine or feminine.

I accept that to some extent gender roles may be associated with biology, eg men being expected to show strength and domination and woman weakness and deference. But they are a still just roles. A woman can wear a suit, have short hair, enjoy boxing and work as a mechanic, and despited these things being generally "gendered" male, is still a woman.

You talk as if "experimenting with gender" somehow means you are a man or a woman based on your behaviours and choices. Why can't you just be the sex you are, and do what you like? Sex still exists, whatever you do. And sex is important because it has biological implications that means the different sexes need different kinds of support, healthcare, safety protections etc. - especially women because of certain biological disadvantages they have - namely being on average physically weaker and being prone to carrying and birthing babies.

Of course it's possible to be trans and wish you were / identify with / try to emulate the opposite sex, but you can only do that via stereotypical gender expression and hormones and surgery to imitate the opposite sex. Many trans people do this because it helps them, while understanding fully what sex they are.

If you could actually change sex using these measures, we would expect trans people in general to be like their "chosen" sex in measurable terms - number of pregnancies per 1000 women, for example. But they are not. They cannot be the opposite sex.

So what GC people favour is being able to express yourself in whatever gender expression you like, while helping everyone to understand you can't change sex. That is what the girls in my OP seemed to be doing - while not proclaiming themselves GC feminists, just because it's what seems to make sense to them – and I saw that as hopeful.

Whereas you seem to have a thought process that goes: 1) experiment with gender ----> 2) become the sex that is stereotypically associated with your chosen gender expression.

Can you really not see that that is hugely sexist, because it tells people they're only a girl if they do and only a boy if they do ?

And that is is also harmful, because it encourages kids to think they can actually be the opposite sex – when in fact going down that road could well lead them to a sterile limbo lad where they will have their biological sex characteristics hugely damaged but will not actually gain those of the opposite sex?

When you say gender experimentation is fine - yes it is but saying you are a "he" when you are a girl is not gender experimentation, it's just misleading, harmful sex mislabelling. Why can't a girl just be a girl who chooses "masculine" self-expression? Why must she therefore become a boy?

@TheFairPrincess

But they don't feel like men in dresses do they? There are men who like to wear dresses but they do not identify as trans.

Which is why it makes absolutely no sense to try and organise things based on someone's subjective idea of themself, rather than on objective reality.

I've spent the whole day WFH whilst wearing a galabeyah. Am I a man or a woman?

@TheFairPrincess

But you've got the chicken and the egg the wrong way round. Trans people perform gender stereotypes to fit in to society's idea of each gender.

They are not trans because they wear dresses, they wear dresses because they are trans. Is this really earth shattering?

It's not trans peoples fault that these stereotypes exist. If a transwoman walked round in non gendered or masculine clothing the chances of them being misgendered is incredibly high.

Ah I see where you get the performative idea from. For some time now transwomen have been more likely to dress in trousers and a shirt as well as dresses. (Which I never wear btw, but that does not make me a man) If you look up Alex Drummond and her beard you will definitely see that simply saying the words, i am a woman and so is my beard/penis/new tits and my pronouns are she/her. then saying the words is what matters, not what they look like.

@TheFairPrincess

But they don't feel like men in dresses do they? There are men who like to wear dresses but they do not identify as trans.

So what, apart from the lipstick and dress, makes a trans person feel like a woman? How do they know what women feel like?

But why are there socially created gender constructs?

As said above though I feel like it's aiming vitriol at the wrong group if you expect trans women to literally end gender constructs.

I'm a woman who wears dresses and red lipstick. Am I problematic or am I free to dress the way I choose?

If the latter, why does it become offensive to dress that way when it is a trans woman but not as a cis woman?

Is it not possible to agree that we all live under patriarchal constructs and that gender stereotypes are a real if not desirable part of society?

Furthermore, is it even desirable to remove gender as a social construct if we can instead move past inequality?

why does it become offensive to dress that way when it is a trans woman
It's offensive to suggest that dressing that way makes you a woman.

If the latter, why does it become offensive to dress that way when it is a trans woman but not as a cis woman?

It is not offensive for a man to wear a dress and wear red lipstick. What is offensive is for a man to think that wearing red lipstick and a dress makes them a woman.

@GreyhoundG1rl I take them at their word that they, being fellow humans who live in a gendered world, are able to recognise their own feelings on this. How am I supposed to explain it? More importantly, why is it so necessary for transwomen to justify their innermost feelings and psychology around their gender identity? Who knows (or cares) the root cause of this, the same way I couldn't care less why someone is gay.

The constant demand for explanation of "what it feels like to be trans" is really perplexing to me.

@CorvusPurpureus

I've spent the whole day WFH whilst wearing a galabeyah. Am I a man or a woman?

Dunno.

But is this a lady?

[quote TheFairPrincess]@GreyhoundG1rl I take them at their word that they, being fellow humans who live in a gendered world, are able to recognise their own feelings on this. How am I supposed to explain it? More importantly, why is it so necessary for transwomen to justify their innermost feelings and psychology around their gender identity? Who knows (or cares) the root cause of this, the same way I couldn't care less why someone is gay.

The constant demand for explanation of "what it feels like to be trans" is really perplexing to me.[/quote]
Most people don't give a shit about someone else's gender identity - it's important to that person, not to other people. They don't have to explain or justify how they feel to other people, it's no-one elses business.

The issue arises when someone says their gender identity = sex, when a man says that because they feel like a woman they actually are a woman.

But again, as said earlier, they don't say that wearing lipstick makes them a woman. They wear lipstick performatively to make themselves more representative of what society considers to be female. The conversation is circular.

Is there anyone who genuinely believes it is commonplace for men to wear lipstick and skirts and for women to have buzzcuts and wear masculine clothes? I feel like this is deliberate misunderstanding.

If you believe that trans people literally change sex then surely they stop being trans as soon as they (apparently) change sex?

They are not actually a woman, they are actually a transwoman.

Again it's a huge misconception that trans people walk around thinking they are biologically the opposite gender, it's an untrue fact weaponised against them.

Why would anyone believe they literally change sex?

Where is this coming from?!