Ok. I don't normally post here, but I think you wanted responses.
- Does everybody have a gender identity?
I don't think so. I certainly don't. But then I probably experience things and have a strong sense of identity about stuff that doesn't matter to others - everyone is different. I also suspect that sometimes if you're in a majority you might not experience an identity because it's all around you - like a fish doesn't have a sense of water. It's like I definitely would have said I had no sense of national identity as a kid until moved to live in a very different culture as a teen at which point I suddenly realised with a painful bang that I definitely had an English identity. And I found it so frustrating when I came back to England to visit and my friends there insisted they didn't feel English at all.
- Why did this all seem to have come out of nowhere?
I don't think it has. I knew trans people at university 25 years ago. A friend of mine there had a trans parent who transitioned in the 1980s. It's more common now because it's more accessible and talked about but humans have been trying to figure out what gender is and how gender roles work forever.
- Is transition safe? Does transition work?
Statistically, yes. Anecdotally, I know a number of people who have transitioned and they have all been vastly happier afterwards. Obviously there are some sad stories of people who aren't happy as a result of transition but the same is true of all surgical procedures. Statistically, nothing has a 100% success rate with no side effects. If you banned any elective procedure that did, you'd lose everything and as the happy recipient of breast reduction surgery and complex dental surgery I'm very glad that such surgeries are available!
- What's going on with so many kids identifying as trans out of the blue?
I think it's a mix of it being an option in a way it wasn't when I was younger and also kids being kids and wanting to figure out their identity. In my experience of watching my kids' friends, a lot of them do just use it as an identity, like goth or punk used to be, and don't want to go down a long medical route and just want to change their name and maybe dress differently and I think that's mostly healthy and positive. I kind of wish I'd had the freedom to explore my identity when I was young.
- Why are the new euphemisms for 'female'—’bleeder,’ ‘uterus-haver,’ ‘menstruator’—so degrading to women?
I think a lot of those words are awful and would like to see them being used less often and more of a focus on language being accessible and dignified and not just trans inclusive. This stuff has to be for everyone. Having said that, I think offering inclusive terms as an option (so, if a midwife is meeting with a trans masc parent, knowing 'chestfeeding' is a term that might be welcomed, or maybe have some tailored literature for them) is a positive.
- Why are trans demands so lopsided, with much demanded of women and very little demanded of men?
I'm not sure that's true.
- Why do ideologically-noncompliant women take so much more heat from trans activists than violent men?
How many violent men are active in the public sphere loudly demanding their right to punch trans people in the face? I think gender critical women are very active and loud in the public sphere and so get a loud reaction in the public sphere. Violent men get reported to the police. When the attacks are raised in campaigns (so, for example if discussing assault on trans women in prison) they seem to promptly get absorbed into arguments with gender critical women.
- Why are we deferring to the gender identity claims of male rapists and serial killers?
Because you can't make basic human rights conditional on being "nice". If trans women are women, then shitty trans women have to be women too. It's the same logic that says taking passports away from convicted criminals is shit. Fundamental parts of someone's identity needs to be allowed to remain consistent no matter what.
- Why are women’s movements being co-opted?
I have no idea what this is referring to.
- Does anyone abuse self-id policies?
Probably. Shitty humans beings will abuse most things. That's not a reason to not have them exist - like - the place women are most likely to be assaulted is a public park. But I'd not want parks closed entirely because those spaces are being abused.
- What’s the difference between a ‘transwoman’ and a man who says he’s a woman?
That's a gigantic stupid rabbit hole of nit picking semantics waiting to happen.
- How is it fair for someone like Lia Thomas to demolish women’s swimming records?
I think women's sport is a really complicated and difficult subject and I think that I'd like a lot more discussion amongst endocrinologists and sports scientists and a serious conversation about what the point of sport even is. I don't think that conversation is happening now. I also think we need to accept there isn't a one size fits all solution as different sports will have different needs. And a fair and equitable solution would probably annoy both trans rights types and gender critical types.
- What's the difference between Rachel Dolezal and Caitlyn Jenner?
I actually am more sympathetic to Rachel Dolezal than a lot of people. I think she's a vulnerable and fragile woman who's identity problems sprang from her abusive family who then unmasked her in order to take the identity she's constructed as an escape away from her. I think it's shit that she's been turned into a debate point instead of treated with compassion as a victim of abuse. I am not African American, tho, so probably shouldn't argue this point too far. Am also not white if that's relevant.
- Why does gender id come up all the time, when trans activism doesn’t really have anything to do with [name your pet progressive issue?
I don't know that is always does. I often manage to work on progressive issues without discussing trans people. Maybe if you're looking for it all the time?
- What was wrong with what JK Rowling said?
Do you mean the dodgy anti Semitic stuff about goblins or the weird racist Nagini plotline or the odd "love is all powerful and good except gay love which creates wizard Hitler" plotline or the awful foreign names which make no sense or the cringey cultural appropriation for the foreign magical schools or the strange epilogue where happiness = marrying the first person you ever fancied or the creepiness of Snape's fixation with Lilly? Or just the transphobia?
Would take an essay. There are lots online if you Google, which go through her article point by point.
- Does gender id belong at work?
Well, yes. Because gender expression happens all the time anyway. Unless you're suggesting that workplaces shouldn't allow make up or heels or skirts and we should all wear gender neutral boiler suits? Which was the case at one job of mine and I kind of liked it.
- Isn't it all kind of sexist and regressive?
Our society? Yes. But it is what it is and trans people have to live in it. In an entirely gender neutral society I imagine the trans experience would be wildly different.
- Why is it so hard to talk about any of this?
In my experience because if I express any reservations, one person will appear out of nowhere to say "SEE! TRANS IS AWFUL! GENDER AFFIRMING SURGERY SHOULD BE BANNED! PENIS = RAPE! REVERSE THE GRC LAWS! I CAN ALWAYS TELL A NATAL WOMAN BY THE LOOK IN HER EYES! CIS IS A SLUR! TRANS WOMEN ARE PREDATORS" and someone else jumps out to scream "IF YOU THINK A TRANS POWER LIFTER HAS AN UNFAIR ADVANTAGE THEN YOU ARE A BIGOT. GENITAL PREFERENCES ARE TRANSPHOBIC!" and we end up in this shitty situation.
I'd like to see a world where people were accepted as their chosen gender 90% of the time with some sensitive and compassionate and nuanced conversations about the 10% when this is challenging but right now the whole subject has become so aggressively policed I think that's impossible.