Robin Moira White on Woman's Hour Now (Tuesday 28/9)

[WinterTrees]

Just turned on and heard this. It seems WH is really going for it this week with this issue. Making up for lost time.

Seems to be about RMW's work as a lawyer.

@Gncq

There are alternatives for voice box feminisation that don't involve experimenting on minors with off-label drugs 🤷🏻‍♀️

There are, and I have explored them carefully, but given that I’m an oral advocate the risks of the more extreme forms of vocal surgery are too great.

You can’t have it both ways. If you oppose assisting young people who know their own mind with puberty blockers you have to accept that some trans women will retain deeper voices.

If you oppose assisting young people who know their own mind with puberty blockers

Robin, do you genuinely think children not even at the age of puberty can really understand the impact of taking puberty blockers (so we’re talking here 10, 11?)

It's very clear to anyone observing what's going on, that large numbers of males who transitioned in later life, are pushing for children to have access to drugs that will render them sterile. Mothers/women are aghast at this prospect and rightly fighting against it.

Let children be children-they are fine as they are and don't need to changes their bodies or voices.

You can’t have it both ways. If you oppose assisting young people who know their own mind with puberty blockers you have to accept that some trans women will retain deeper voices.

Sorry is the implication here that children should be started on a pathway to sterilisation and loss of sexual function, in order to make sure they don't have the "wrong" voice?

There are, and I have explored them carefully, but given that I’m an oral advocate the risks of the more extreme forms of vocal surgery are too great.

A recognition that surgery can be harmful when weighing up the pros and cons for your own health.

Followed by:
If you oppose assisting young people who know their own mind with puberty blockers you have to accept that some trans women will retain deeper voices.

No consideration of the harm done to children by treating them with powerful drugs with harmful and irreversible effects at an age when they don't have the capacity to give fully informed consent.

Or maybe children that actually received proper psychological help wouldn't grow up feeling like they need to damage their bodies in order to live out a fantasy of being the opposite sex.

If adults who have had some time to experience a bit more of life, are able to understand what sexual pleasure and fertility are, then are happy to give that up in order to transition, then that is their right (though I would note that plenty of young people think they don’t want children and then may later change their mind).

For some trans people, it may well be worth sacrificing sexual function or fertility for greater ability to “pass” cosmetically as the opposite sex. Becoming dependent on surgery and hormones lifelong may well be an acceptable price to pay to alleviate psychological distress.

But a child who hasn’t even begun puberty to embark on a treatment that has a high chance of them giving up their future full sexual function, health and fertility? They cannot possibly understand the consequences of that. How can a child who may never have even had an orgasm ever fully understand what it means to embark on a treatment that may well lead to permanent loss of sexual function or fertility?

But we can't have that either can we... no "conversion" therapy for deeply troubled young people.

You can't have it both ways. You can't say these kids are certain enough in their own minds to make irreversible changes AND that they are vulnerable and about to commit suicide. Anyone who is suffering and suicidal is NOT in a good place to make big decisions from.

If you oppose assisting young people who know their own mind with puberty blockers you have to accept that some trans women will retain deeper voices.

I'm perfectly happy for TW to have whatever voices they choose to have. Why wouldn't I be?

It doesn't matter if a male is bass voiced or soprano: it makes no odds at all to the fact that many female people need female only spaces to exist. And words that they can describe themselves by. And the ability to define themselves and group and organise themselves and have an inch of this world to do things without being organised, harassed and controlled by male people who feel entitled to do so.

Good point Artichokeleaves. It doesn't really matter what laddo with his cock out at the Wi Spa sounded like when he said "but it's a lady dick!" , does it?

I don't think anyone should have surgery they don't want in order to change how they appear to others.

Listening to RMW on Women's Hour - I find it worrying that someone who presents as a legal expert has such a poor grasp of the reality of the law.

Also, RMW says they would have transitioned in RMW's 20s so puberty blockers are irrelevant

I’d really like Robin to come back on the thread and provide a full opinion as to why it would be acceptable to say that pre-pubertal children “know their own mind” about a complex medical treatment related to their future full sexual function, fertility and/or sexuality; when it isn’t acceptable to say that about, for example, pre-pubertal children getting married, having sex, enlisting in the army, voting, and so on.

And even if one did believe pre-pubertal children could meaningfully understand this, how would you design a test to make sure you knew which ones did understand the full implications and which didn’t?

(And none of this has to do with Gillick competence by the way.)

@TinselAngel

You can’t have it both ways. If you oppose assisting young people who know their own mind with puberty blockers you have to accept that some trans women will retain deeper voices.

Sorry is the implication here that children should be started on a pathway to sterilisation and loss of sexual function, in order to make sure they don't have the "wrong" voice?

Also, should girls be started on such a pathway, when the voices of female adolescents don't even go through pubescent vocal changes that mirror the changes for boys?

@foxgoosefinch

Yeah, I remember seeing a middle aged trans woman on social media talking about how when they transitioned they could experience the “girlhood” that they “had been denied”; and the idea of this girlhood seemed to be like a cross between a Katy Perry video and the “virginal Sandy” song in Grease, all giggly sleepovers trying on makeup, talking about sex, comparing breast sizes and practising kissing on each other.

There was no awareness whatsoever that real teenage girls don’t even have “girlhoods” like that - nor that these were all images made up by films and TV. Even less awareness of the fact that most teenage girls have a difficult time going through puberty, what with body insecurities, changing friendships, school pressures, and so on. An episode of Blossom it is not.

But no, this person was convinced there was a whole fluffy porny schoolgirl experience they were missing out on and could now enjoy. 🤷‍♀️

Quite. It always seems to be them 'transitioning' to girls, or young women. Never middle aged post menopausal women, which given their age profile would be far more appropriate.

Not sexy enough I guess, which tells you everything you need to know about the motivations behind it.

Here’s a $64,000 question, and I wish you’d come back on to answer it, Robin:

If a ten or eleven year old told you they were, and had always been, non-binary/neutrois/asexual, do you think they would at that age be competent to consent to puberty blockers as a first step towards later nullification surgery and vasectomy/hysterectomy at age 16-18?

If not, why not?

You may not have had vocal feminisation surgery but your sense-of-ironyectomy was a complete success.

'You can't have it both ways'.

At the moment, we appear to have it not at all. Men in women's facilities, and experimental meds for children too young to understand.

Meanwhile, older male transitioners grumble about unwanted male puberty.

Dear god, you don't know you're born, do you? No periods, no cramps and blood loss during exams/lessons/holidays, no hormonal contraception, no mastitis, no prolapse, no miscarriages, no hyperemesis, no fibroids, no PMT, no pregnancy-related incontinence, no fucking bastard menopause.

That's before we get to the man-imposed and society-imposed rather than body-imposed difficulties.

Do us a favour and leave the women's loos and women's wards to the genuinely female half of the population. We have enough to cope with and we'd like our privacy for it.

@MistandMud

'You can't have it both ways'.

At the moment, we appear to have it not at all. Men in women's facilities, and experimental meds for children too young to understand.

Meanwhile, older male transitioners grumble about unwanted male puberty.

Dear god, you don't know you're born, do you? No periods, no cramps and blood loss during exams/lessons/holidays, no hormonal contraception, no mastitis, no prolapse, no miscarriages, no hyperemesis, no fibroids, no PMT, no pregnancy-related incontinence, no fucking bastard menopause.

That's before we get to the man-imposed and society-imposed rather than body-imposed difficulties.

Do us a favour and leave the women's loos and women's wards to the genuinely female half of the population. We have enough to cope with and we'd like our privacy for it.

This entire thing has been rumbling on for over a decade now.

Everything you just wrote about periods and stuff? Transphobic.
Not even kidding.
Theres a phrase used is it weaponising our biology or something like that, how very dare we talk about our own biology in our own groups with the same type of cunty people who also can go through these biological acts of warfare.
On the other hand absolutely everything can also be a fetish (except menopause for some reason) so we are supposed to indulge such things whilst never talking about such things.
It's a proper head scratcher innit?

On the other hand absolutely everything can also be a fetish (except menopause for some reason)

Gosh, it's never occurred to me, but I think that's right! I suppose it's not much fun turning on the heating, having an electric blanket and 15 hot water bottles every live long night for years.

If people can be so certain of the benefits of transition for "trans kids", then why hold back on cross-sex hormones and further treatments for so long? Surely that would be cruel.

The answer of course is that anyone who's read up on this knows the certainties aren't there and these days no one can be sure if a "trans kid" is indeed trans.

One of the saddest things I've encountered is a well known child transitioner saying that they understood (in their zero experience) that having an orgasm was like having a sneeze.

If 'talking about periods' is now transphobic, the word has lost all meaning.

I now hear news reports on 'transphobic abuse' and assume it means 'mentioned a biological fact'. That's not fair on sufferers of actual abuse.

@MistandMud

'You can't have it both ways'.

At the moment, we appear to have it not at all. Men in women's facilities, and experimental meds for children too young to understand.

Meanwhile, older male transitioners grumble about unwanted male puberty.

Dear god, you don't know you're born, do you? No periods, no cramps and blood loss during exams/lessons/holidays, no hormonal contraception, no mastitis, no prolapse, no miscarriages, no hyperemesis, no fibroids, no PMT, no pregnancy-related incontinence, no fucking bastard menopause.

That's before we get to the man-imposed and society-imposed rather than body-imposed difficulties.

Do us a favour and leave the women's loos and women's wards to the genuinely female half of the population. We have enough to cope with and we'd like our privacy for it.

Amen to that.

An understandable mistake

There was no mistake.

I suppose it's not much fun turning on the heating, having an electric blanket and 15 hot water bottles every live long night for years.

It would take a certain level of dedication!