If born male you biologically stay male until you die? Yes?

[daisiesonmydress]

Just that really. That's my understanding. No matter how you dress or what surgery you have?

And you can legally say this too?

'Right side of history' was always an exceptionally silly thing to say. There was a time this was being shouted about how wonderful Thalidomide was, that lobotomies were bringing in a new modern and enlightened age of freedom from depression and other mental illness, and that shipping children in care off to Australia was a lovely thing to do. There were hundreds of years where slavery was thought to be an excellent thing and that weirdos arguing about the problems with it were just foolish and unable to see the bigger picture.

It's the mindless soundbite blethering of politicians, it makes no sense when you unpick it, and like most of the slogans at this point it's so tired everyone rolls their eyes at the sound of it.

History is written by the victors (or I suppose you could say people in control)

I am actually stunned by that tweet, Pots.

'Here's Professor Grace Lavery of Berkeley tweeting something very similar.

Text for people with screenreaders

Tweet 1: Just realized: someone alive today will become the first trans woman to get an abortion.

I really can't say what I think about fetishising the experience of becoming pregnant intentionally to be able to have the experience of ending that pregnancy.

All other humans are just puppets on the stage, it's like womanhood is some kind of theme park where you can tick off the experiences.

And when you unpick that...

• to have a uterine implant (at huge expense, risk, danger, enormous amounts of medical input)
• to then manage to get a foetus created and successfully viable (at huge expense, enormous amounts of medical time and input and effort)
• to then get the foetus implanted and successfully reach a viable, growing pregnancy (enormous amounts of drugs, input, hours and hours of medical care, expense)

.... to then be able to have the outcome desired which is the experience of ending that pregnancy.

It's never going to happen, even if the science existed and ethics aside it would be a really quite astronomical waste of time, money and resources, but the entitlement and really quite disturbing way of thinking and viewing the pregnancy here is quite staggering in the insight it gives.

it's like womanhood is some kind of theme park where you can tick off the experiences.

Maybe this is the way out of this. Create a theme park, let people who want to claim they've ridden the crimson wave actually do so and leave women alone.

A professor of English, critical theory, and women's studies. Showing how much empathy Lavery has for women and the difficult decisions and struggles they face. I can't say what I think of that tweet.

Yep. Hardly a random internet troll of no significance. Also Guardian journalist Laurie Penny's ex (pre-transition) so Lavery is connected to all sorts of people. Doesn't seem to have been cancelled.

I really hate the world I live in sometimes.

If you are born male, you remain male.

If you want to give yourself a female name and act/dress like a female - fine. But you cannot claim to BE a female. Ever.

A professor of English, critical theory, and women's studies. Showing how much empathy Lavery has for women and the difficult decisions and struggles they face. I can't say what I think of that tweet.

I cannot say I was surprised when I first saw that tweet in April last year. It is just another tweet amongst many that Lavery has let their 'personality' shine through.

What surprises me, is the number of people who post on these boards declaring that these are the extreme views of the minority. When these loud and 'extreme' views are being amplified as being the majority supported line that policy and decision makers.

And nary a wave of dissent to be seen from those 'reasonable majority'.

Yes, Lavery's attitudes are not all that uncommon I suppose - banal, even.

The outrageous and incredible thing is that someone espousing those views is not just made a professor, but a professor of women's studies, and apparently lauded by various women.

@Artichokeleaves

And when you unpick that...

• to have a uterine implant (at huge expense, risk, danger, enormous amounts of medical input)
• to then manage to get a foetus created and successfully viable (at huge expense, enormous amounts of medical time and input and effort)
• to then get the foetus implanted and successfully reach a viable, growing pregnancy (enormous amounts of drugs, input, hours and hours of medical care, expense)

.... to then be able to have the outcome desired which is the experience of ending that pregnancy.

It's never going to happen, even if the science existed and ethics aside it would be a really quite astronomical waste of time, money and resources, but the entitlement and really quite disturbing way of thinking and viewing the pregnancy here is quite staggering in the insight it gives.

And if that person was in the UK.... how much of that would be funded by the NHS?

A uterus implant because then that male could have an abortion?

And I cannot say anything about medical diagnosis of conditions without this post being deleted.

I do hope though to see at least a modicum of acknowledgement that this is problematic from posters like Empress .

It's the same issue we have with people misusing/abusing the police to carry out personal vendettas against individuals - this is something that is always going to happen, and I don't think we will ever, as a society, not have people who are going to exploit loopholes or jump on opportunities to abuse vulnerable people when they can. What is needed is robust procedure to counter the inevitable attempts to abuse systems.

It's actually the principles of safeguarding applied more widely, I think? How as a society we deal with bad-faith actors.

Postmodern ethics is always going to be problematic because it pushes moral relativism. This coupled with extremely individualist drives and ideas about personal liberation, extreme liberation, etc, can get us into really murky territory.

And I'm not sure if this isn't exactly the situation a lot of academia is in at the moment. Judgement of any kind is deemed 'a bad thing' therefore we can never draw boundaries for fear of being 'judgemental'.

I must admit the set of tweets of that academic tweeter that sealed my low expectation was those of inflicting abuse on their transitioned male partner. ie. a pretty accurate depiction of traditional male to female abuse within a relationship in the name of 'sexual choices'.

Celebrated. On public twitter.

Liberal individualists will always be on the side of the person seeking 'freedom', and are very wary of ever drawing boundaries or saying 'no' to anyone because that's seen as 'judgemental'.

@ArabellaScott

It's the same issue we have with people misusing/abusing the police to carry out personal vendettas against individuals - this is something that is always going to happen, and I don't think we will ever, as a society, not have people who are going to exploit loopholes or jump on opportunities to abuse vulnerable people when they can. What is needed is robust procedure to counter the inevitable attempts to abuse systems.

It's actually the principles of safeguarding applied more widely, I think? How as a society we deal with bad-faith actors.

Often summarised all over MN on many subjects as 'this is why we can't have nice things'.

I'd love to be able to walk into any church at will as I could when I was a child. I can't. They're all locked. Because some people are arses and will take personal advantage that does damage. They see this as their entitlement.

I'd love to be able to explore the local ruins close to as I could when I was a kid. I can't. They're fenced off and strictly supervised because some people are arses and will take personal advantage that does damage. They see this as their entitlement.

And we're still debating why female people should be trying to persuade and beg male people why they should be listened to and permitted space of their own, and to meet their own needs, and sorry, really sorry that this infringes male people's wishes to be with females whether those females consent or not, are affected or not.... why are we debating this as though we accept and agree that female spaces are in the gift of males? A privilege that male people may bestow?

That male wishes to make use of female people however female people feel about it is something that has to be reasoned and explained to be able to say no to?

We are actually living in a time and country where we have females who have been harmed, are excluded, are now without access to crucial resources their taxes paid for, because of male wishes to have what they want regardless of the cost or impact on females - and we're still patiently trying to explain and reason.

See relationships board: you cannot reason with unreasonable people. When faced with an abusive dynamic in which you are not respected, listened to or seen as an equal - LTB. Go NC.

Sorry. Their transitioned female partner. Not male partner.

I suppose when we're talking about 'gender' and 'sex', this is inevitably about sexual boundaries and consent, also.

Which can be a very large and complex subject, I think. Wider than one realises at first.

Lavery is a very well educated individual, too. Selective secondary school, undergraduate degree at Oxford, post-graduate study at Sussex, and now a professor at an American university.

And despite all this, Lavery believes or professes to believe that functional uterus transplants are possible and desirable, and is promulgating the idea on social media.

If we told David Lammy MP, Shadow Justice Secretary (who said on a live radio broadcast that transwomen have cervices) that uterus transplants aren't possible, I rather suspect he'd trust Lavery's judgement over ours.

@Artichokeleaves

I really can't say what I think about fetishising the experience of becoming pregnant intentionally to be able to have the experience of ending that pregnancy.

All other humans are just puppets on the stage, it's like womanhood is some kind of theme park where you can tick off the experiences.

I'm hoping that the thought of it, talking about it, and intentionally shocking people, particularly women, is the extent of it.

And actually going through a procedure, even if it was at all possible, would not be desirable.

The trouble is that women are not following their cues anymore, are they? Too many cheerleaders smiling warm kind inclusive tolerance. So boundaries must be pushed further to elicit the required response.

Eurgh! I'd forgotten about the very existance of Lavery.

And am now reminded of the reason Lavery was confined to a brain dump.

Gross - doesn't begin to cover it.

Still trying to get my head around this.

Presumably once the goal is achieved of having (by huge medical input, surgery, donated uterus, created foetus implanted and growing successfully) medication to end the pregnancy, the implanted uterus would then have to be surgically removed. The foetus cannot be evacuated any other way and the uterus has no other purpose plus all the drugs and complications of trying to keep it in situ in a male body.

So a dead woman's uterus is implanted specifically to create a fetus, specifically to start it growing, specifically to then be able to take medication to end it.

After which major surgery is needed.

What is all this for again? To have an emotional experience?

And it requires two female donors in the process, one to donate the uterus to specifically be placed in a male to grow a fetus who will then be disposed of, and another to donate the egg to create the fetus who again is being specifically engineered and grown to be disposed of.

All so the male person can have an experience.

Yes, empress, do come and tell us why this is ethically for the greater good for humanity.

I am all ears.