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.

@TheFairPrincess

Does misgendering trans men and women defend women's rights?!

Correctly sexing people does, yes.

Right but the situations in which trans women and women need to be treated distinctly are few. In most cases of everyday life this is not necessary.

A bright eight year old could spot the potential problem there.

Quite.

@TheFairPrincess

Right but the situations in which trans women and women need to be treated distinctly are few. In most cases of everyday life this is not necessary.

Agreed. The problem is that many TRAs insist that there should be no cases where women and transwomen are treated differently due to their different sex.

But you are pretending that anyone who says they are trans can do whatever women do.

As if we don't already have protections and the ability to make decisions on a case by case basis?

it just seems very hyperbolic and based in the misconception that trans people think being trans makes them biologically the opposite gender.

Constantly forcing the conversation to, trans women are men, and trans men are women, is misgendering which is unnecessary and really hurtful. I don't understand why there are people dedicating so much time to being deliberately hurtful. What is the end goal here?

Blimey where to start? So that I don't have to have males in my female changing room! So female prisoners don't have to share with male rapists! So pay statistics are recorded on the bases of actual sex so we can still measure sex discrimination! So lesbians and gay men don't get bullied for only being attracted to their own sex and not being attracted to a "gender"! And on and on.

If trans activists weren't trying to force these issues, which they most definitely are and with a large degree of success in policy and law, I wouldn't be fighting back. I would never "misgender" someone out of spite or to hurt them. It's just that they should recognise their own sex and act accordingly. Gender is not sex - but TRAs make demands as if it is.

Oh and hurtful? How fucking hurtful do you think it is to women who are told a male is a woman by performing a load of sexist shite we are trying to move on from and not be defined by? What about how hurtful it is to be assaulted or raped in a prison where you should have been safe from males? Why does the pain of being misgendered matter so much but not these things?

Agreed. The problem is that many TRAs insist that there should be no cases where women and transwomen are treated differently due to their different sex

Right, and if there is this rhetoric in any position of power (and not just on twitter) then I'm sure there will be public discourse.

Debating the very idea of being transgender is a different matter though.

How is someone else supposed to prove how they feel?
If a man is claiming to feel like a woman it would be helpful for them to clarify exactly why they feel this, yes.
We can all feel whatever the hell we like, but when we're requesting that the world at large accepts and validates it, a bit of clarity is not too much to ask.

Identity. What does it mean? Usually, it means an aspect of yourself that is important to you. But it has to actually be an aspect in the first place, otherwise we say they are mistaken or confused.

If someone identifies as a musician we might be able to conclude that they enjoy playing or singing music. If they're tone deaf and have no sense of rhythm, we might think them mistaken or lying.

If someone identifies as a goth, we might expect to see them wearing black. If they dress in pink suits and blonde ringlets, we might think they have misunderstood.

If someone identifies as English, it's a good bet they live or have roots in England. If they have Chinese ancestry and have lived in China all their lives, we might think them mistaken.

If someone identifies as a foodie, I'd expect them to enjoy and know about fine food. If they live off beans on toast, we might think they were mistaken.

If someone identifies as fat and they're size zero, we might say they are mistaken (and maybe have an eating disorder that is distorting their perceptions).

If someone identifies as a lesbian but is only interested in dating men, something is wrong. They're lying about their identity, or someone is coercing them into dating people they don't fancy.

So if someone identifies as 'a man', what does that tell us about them? What is the information content of telling me someone 'identifies as a man'?

Words have to mean something, otherwise there is no point in talking. 'Identity' or not.

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

Maybe that's because 'what it's like to be trans' has resulted in women losing their sex segregated spaces everywhere, including prisons and rape refugees. And Being called cervix havers, menstruaters and having the word woman erased, along with the concept.

What do you imagine the term TWAW actually means? It means transwomen are women. Not men who want to be women. You're making a fundamental error, in terms of the ideology. I agree that not all trans women subscribe to the ideology, but many do.

The idea is that biology does not determine your sex, your inner gender identity does.

Therefore we should segregate everything, including the concept of man and woman, on that basis.

It's highly sexist. You may not accept that people should constantly strive to eliminate sexism, but you can't expect feminists to agree with you.

A man 'living as a woman', is not living as an adult human female of or demoting the sex who bears eggs in any conceivable way.

He is living as a man and his stereotypically, largely detrimental idea, of what it means to be a woman.

Where do you think the misogyny comes from that we see all around us connected to transgenderism? That rape survivors do not get to choose the sex of the person examining them and that it is bigoted to want to?

The Ideology itself is based in sexism. You may think it's not worth challenging, but clearly, it is, when many of our children are being told they can't be a girl if they like football, or be a boy if they want to watch Frozen.

Or get kicked out of the Olympics and a lifetime's career, because biology doesn't determine sex!

The whole point is that TRAs are seeking to remove these protections. There are already women who have been raped and sexually assaulted because transwomen have been allowed in women's spaces.

Those things do matter! But you just can't generalise every person of an already marginalised group into the same category. There is a word for that.

@TheFairPrincess

But you are pretending that anyone who says they are trans can do whatever women do.

As if we don't already have protections and the ability to make decisions on a case by case basis?

it just seems very hyperbolic and based in the misconception that trans people think being trans makes them biologically the opposite gender.

I genuinely don't understand what you are saying here? You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the TRA movement is fighting for.

Again. Gender is a social construct.

Please stop conflating it with sex when its sex that you mean, when you're also using it to mean innate gender identity occurring in the opposite sex, a completely ideological belief.

There is no "biological gender".

Debating the very idea of being transgender is a different matter though.

Why? It's an ideological belief I don't share.

Debating the very idea of being transgender is a different matter though.

I have seen very few people say that transgender people do not exist. I and many others on this board understand there are people who have a deeply held belief that they are of the opposite sex.

The debate occurs around how these people should be treated both socially and medically.

I'm not saying nobody should fight against sexism, I'm saying that expecting ridiculing people who are trying to identify as women for dressing in a feminine way is unfair/.

The debate occurs around how these people should be treated both socially and medically

Then why does the question "what is it to feel transgender" always coming up?

Because that is a sensible discussion if had sensitively and an important one. It's just always obfuscated and ridiculed by others because of all of the other "debate" which does seem to take up a lot of space.

@TheFairPrincess

Agreed. The problem is that many TRAs insist that there should be no cases where women and transwomen are treated differently due to their different sex

Right, and if there is this rhetoric in any position of power (and not just on twitter) then I'm sure there will be public discourse.

Debating the very idea of being transgender is a different matter though.

What on earth are you talking about? There HAS been a public consultation about reforms to the GRA.

Women have just emerged from a court case to force the judiciary to accept that 'a belief biological sex is an opinion that deserves respect in society, and that sex matters'. Prior to that, the belief that sex exists was deemed discriminatory and a woman was fired on that basis.

Seriously, where the hell have you been???

Then why does the question "what is it to feel transgender" always coming up?

Because it's interesting learning about other people's belief systems?

Because of TW want to be treated as women in all circumstances (as TRAs argue for) there needs to be an objective way to distinguish TW from predatory or fetishistic men?

ridiculing people who are trying to identify as women for dressing in a feminine way is unfair

20 years ago I would have just politely ignored them, assumed they had had surgery and respected their belief, although I did not agree with it. I am not into ridiculing people at all.

What is ridiculous is being expected to believe a man is a woman and act as if he is a woman in every way, including having my right to a woman-only space, which is extremely valuable to me, taken away.

Now THAT is unfair.

Then why does the question "what is it to feel transgender" always coming up?
Because when a man declares he feels like a woman we need to know exactly what he thinks a woman is, given there are billions of women on the planet who are all individuals, not one giant homogeneous mass having the exact same experience.

What women only space?

If you want to dress up as Napoleon, then I have no problem.

If you demand that I address you as votre majeste l'empereur and scream Bonapartephobia when I don't, then we have a problem.