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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Please can someone explain like I’m 5

325 replies

Justdontgetit000 · 05/07/2022 23:29

I’ve name changed for this.

I feel very weird about the trans issues lately, something feels “off” but I can’t put it into words. I’m pretty left wing, very pro-choice, I consider myself a feminist.

I “hang around” online with others who have similar beliefs to me mostly, they are the ones I find myself agreeing with and wanting to defend. So I feel like I know where I am with most topics. Then on a forum I lurk on, someone got banned for saying they don’t want to be referred to as body parts. The person who started the thread (who is also a mod) said that when discussing Roe v Wade we can’t just say “women” we also need to say AFAB or “womb/uterus owners”. If we don’t our posts will be removed. I don’t post on there anyway so doesn’t affect me, but it rubbed me the wrong way.

I can’t articulate why, I feel like I’m in a place mentally where I SHOULD be fine with this because of all my other beliefs. Does that make sense? Yet I felt angry reading this. I don’t want to be offending people simply for using the word “women”. Then I feel guilty and like I’m transphobic?

I want to say I have no issues with any trans people, in that I’d have nothing but love and support for a friend for example who was trans, and would never ever be rude to or abusive towards trans people. Yet I get the feeling my mixed emotions towards all this would get me called a TERF. I know what that stands for but don’t really understand the term, I know a little of JK Rowling and her situation and I read that she got some awful messages after her controversial tweets, and that scares me. So I’d only talk about this anonymously.

Can anyone help me figure out, in a very basic way, what is happening in my mind and perhaps point me in a direction where I can learn more? I’ve tried to look for threads like FAQs about this issue but can’t find any.

Thanks for reading!

OP posts:
Thread gallery
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Justdontgetit000 · 07/07/2022 19:02

drhf · 06/07/2022 08:31

Since social media came along, many adults have begun to take a childishly tribal attitude to important issues, behaving like a clique of primary-school children who must all think alike. If you deviate from that in any way, you're a bad person and must be bullied and treated like an outcast.

Demands for women's rights and single-sex spaces elicit rage not only from misogynists but also from a lot of otherwise pleasant people who have been told that these demands go against progressive values. If you talk about women's rights, you will be accused of being a transphobe, a Trump supporter, a Covid denier, a fascist, a right-wing extremist and a beneficiary of Koch funding. Initially these accusations will cause distress, but eventually you will become inoculated against this line of attack and you will begin to ignore it because it is so far from reality.

Truly liberal politics cannot mean forcing people to profess the same beliefs on pain of public humiliation or worse. A progressive coalition is not built on requiring everyone to think the exact same way on every issue. A kinder society is not created through threats of violence and shouting past each other. Twitter's version of "progressivism" looks a lot like a fundamentalist religion where blasphemy is punished and apostasy leads to shunning.

The solution is to begin treating yourself and other people like adults. Treat complex questions with respect, and don't try to oversimplify them - but be suspicious of answers which make no sense, and notice when rage or personal attacks are used in place of actual answers. Notice how you are affected by interactions with groups, especially on social media, and try to identify your patterns - and look out for how others use alternative strategies for engagement which you too can employ. Watch out for the buttons other people can press which intimidate you, and practice becoming more resilient, while remaining focused on the discussion and without giving into anger.

You might feel like the weirdo eating lunch on her own in a corner for a bit, but you'll find your people. And we all know it's the friendless weirdos who grow up to change the world.

Just want to say this is a brilliant post, sums up a lot of this inner conflict, and is really well written. Thank you.

OP posts:
Justdontgetit000 · 07/07/2022 19:05

Baaaaaa · 06/07/2022 20:48

I think its something about horseshoes (but I can't remember either)

I found Helen Pluckrose absolutely excellent at explaining where many social activist ideas come from.

The theory of hierarchies of oppression and how they effect power and knowledge. Grouped under the ideological heading of "Postmodernism".

What people term "progressive" or "liberal" (in the American political sense) or Social Justice (as a movement).

Like communism it is idealistic and sounds great in theory, but seems inherently illiberal to me (and power driven).

newdiscourses.com/2020/06/helen-pluckrose-evolution-postmodern-thought/

Yes, the horseshoe theory!! I found it yesterday because I was googling about it and it came up. Thanks for that other info too, very interesting.

OP posts:
Justdontgetit000 · 07/07/2022 19:08

LaughingPriest · 07/07/2022 12:13

Oh ok interesting way of looking at it. I do think people assume anyone GC is automatically right ring

I think the US and UK cultures are vastly different. In the US ALL my lefty friends are pro-trans. In the UK most are GC. I guess a few family members are on the right but they'd be casually misogynist and transphobic in the original sense rather than being pro-women's rights.

It's because Trump was so divisive and their left/right are so different from our right - we don't really have a deeply Christian right-wing demographic of any real size. There have been a few in the news but the other Christians that have been vocal about this have been the right-on, modern types like Oasis Academy, who Mermaids aligned with.

When I've talked at all about this online with intelligent trans people - usually me listening, not pushing any kind of GC views - the trans people are the first to say that gender is harmful bullshit. When it's a thoughtful person I'd say we probably agree on 90%, and just differ in how much emphasis should be put on sex or gender.

I think you’re so right here, about the UK vs US differences, there’s most definitely a much more religious slant on politics over there compared to here. That does muddy the waters a bit, and I have no doubt at all that a worrying number of Americans would love a theocracy, including no doubt, the banning/othering/lynching (?) of trans people. I definitely don’t want to be mistaken for being one of those extremists!

Thats great actually that you’ve been able to have discussions with trans people in a mature, intelligent way and gives me hope.

OP posts:
Justdontgetit000 · 07/07/2022 19:11

Roseglen84 · 07/07/2022 12:59

Justdontgetit000
So would you also say this AGP has something to do with the “cotton ceiling” theory too? This is something I came across last night and read a bit about. Like it’s a sexual fantasy for a man to “wear down” an authentic lesbian and would feel like some kind of victory? I have to say it makes me extremely uneasy to read that some trans women will call lesbians transphobic if they don’t want to have sex with someone who is biologically male.

Yes, I believe so. Although much of this is conjecture, because of course they are not going to admit to being sexually coercive, as that makes them look bad. So they turn it around on young lesbian women, as claim that they are the ones being mean and hurtful by rejecting them. It's all a bit weird, but I think there is some sense of validation at breaking the 'cotton ceiling' and getting an actual lesbian woman to accept you as 'female'. Anyway, we are veering into dangerous territory here and may well end up getting this thread deleted.

That is another thing you will learn if you hang around this board enough - posts and threads that get a little too close to the truth, tend to get deleted as being 'not in the spirit of MN'. It's very frustrating to think that on a website that is mainly for women, women cannot openly talk about issues that affect us without being shut down or censored. It's worse on Twitter, where people who say 'men cannot become women' get permanently banned, and yet men who send rape and death threats to women are allowed to keep their account.

It's quite infuriating, so if you are new to all this, I would advise taking a break every now and then or you will just drive yourself demented. There is so much going on, and so much to take in, and it can feel like you are in the 'upsidedown' at times. Go easy on yourself, take breaks when you need to, and know that there are many of us now, fighting all this and it will take time, but we will keep going.
If you feel like you want to do something more, there are organisations like Sex Matters and others that are taking legal challenges that you can subscribe to and be kept updated. And crowdfunders you will find out about on here that you can support if you are able.

It helps me feel as if I am doing something more useful than just ranting angrily into the void.

Noted, will be careful about certain terms and areas of discussion.

Thanks very much for the info about ways to help, I’m very keen to learn more and if I can, definitely help in some ways.

OP posts:
Justdontgetit000 · 07/07/2022 19:15

stealtheatingtunnocks · 06/07/2022 18:47

Welcome, sister.

Thank you.

OP posts:
Justdontgetit000 · 07/07/2022 19:20

morescrummythanyummy · 07/07/2022 14:00

Hi OP,

It is really hard to confront the fact that you are now "the enemy" in the eyes of some of your tribe (even if they couldn't actually properly explain why) and, without trying to patronise you, I really applaud you for trying to think for yourself.

There really aren't many "TERFs" who hate trans people. That is not what being GC is - most of us dislike labels and stereotypes. Many of us are actually gender non confirming, or were as kids, and fear that our past selves would have been vulnerable to the ideology that we could opt out of female puberty and rid ourselves of the requirements and expectations involved in being female - those of us who are mothers are absolutely appalled that our younger selves might have denied us the option to have kids if we had chosen a medical route for ourselves.

The suicide stuff that is used to blackmail people is not very scientific, because there is a correlation between being trans and having mental health conditions and also with being non-neurotypical (particularly in girls, where the rate of trans boys is up 4000 per cent, but not trans men, suggesting that there are quite a lot of women out there who have found peace in being female given time). In some cases, being trans can be a reaction to feeling rejected for other reasons, a response to a difficult puberty etc. The suicide study that is most often quoted was a survey of 27 people. The studies following trans people over the long term to understand their health outcomes really are not great (Javid announced one a couple of weeks ago and many transgender charities seem to be opposing it - why?).

There are some studies out there showing that transition doesn't necessarily make a difference on the mental health side (and certainly not to all) - obviously, you could pin that on societal discrimination, but on some level I think that even if you transition quite fully and ban anyone from saying anything about biological sex ever, you do have to accept that you cannot change sex and accept yourself. Because you will be reminded of it (as a trans woman post op, you may have no bladder control and may have to dilate your vagina twice a day to stop it closing, you won't be able to give birth; as a trans man, your penis has to be pumped up manually and you will likely have no feeling in it; others may have preferences for someone who's sex matches their inherent sexuality from time to time; your childhood and earliest memories will be that of someone who was accepted as being of the opposite sex etc). You can see in the accounts of detransitioners (who are starting to come to the surface - for a long time academics have been denied funding to study them, even to understand which therapies benefit whom) that transitioning to what you thought was your "true self" doesn't always lead to self acceptance. I'm not saying that medical transition is always unnecessary or that others should be intentionally hurtful or remind yourself of your past constantly, but that it is actively mentally unhealthy to live in total denial of the reality of what sex you are born in, even for trans people.

I don't think any "TERFs" want to deny everyone access to hormones for ever. Most of us just think that in adolescents the brain is still in the process of maturing and are concerned about medicalising children who may not even be old enough to fully understand their sexuality. Or who may be traumatised for other reasons.

Most of us are in favour of third spaces and "open" categories (with closed female categories) in sport and other solutions. We are not people who deny that trans people should be treated humanely or who wish to exclude them from society. Frankly, if Emily Bridges wants to race against the men in a cycling race in full make up and a push up bra, I will be cheering her on - making space for gender non confirming men in our society within MALE spaces would be a very good thing. But we do want to ensure that the protections for females, which were extremely hard won and exist for good reasons, are upheld where they matter.

I’m getting confused with who I’ve replied to and who I haven’t, but I just want to say this post is brilliant and so informative.

Also on a technical note, I know since the update Mn hasn’t been at it’s best but it’s really really bad with this thread! I’m on my phone, (browser) and it just keeps crashing and not loading the posts properly. There’s so much white space where there should be posts. It’s not normally this bad when I’m just reading or replying to someone else’s thread!
It also crashes while I’m writing replies so that’s why some are quite short.

I have another question if I’m allowed to briefly just mention a point from earlier about trans women wanting to sleep with a lesbian for validation as part of the reason, and the pressure they can put on women about this. Well I’m wondering if this happens the other way round too? So a biological woman who has transitioned to a man, wanting to have sex with a gay man - or I guess could be straight I’m not sure? Basically an equivalent of the cotton ceiling.

OP posts:
Theeyeballsinthesky · 07/07/2022 19:35

There is - it’s called the boxer ceiling. It isn’t as prevalent as the cotton ceiling but it’s there. You’ll be unsurprised to know however that gay men are not threatened with rape & suggestions they die in a grease fire. Almost as if transmen can’t identify out of that female socialisation to be nice but don’t worry! The anime TRA crowd are thete swinging on their behalf

Boxer ceiling

Roseglen84 · 07/07/2022 20:13

Justdontgetit000
I have another question if I’m allowed to briefly just mention a point from earlier about trans women wanting to sleep with a lesbian for validation as part of the reason, and the pressure they can put on women about this. Well I’m wondering if this happens the other way round too? So a biological woman who has transitioned to a man, wanting to have sex with a gay man - or I guess could be straight I’m not sure? Basically an equivalent of the cotton ceiling.

As Theeyeballsinthesky points out, this does happen, but not to the same extent. And there isn't the same sort of threats or intimidation

I think this may be because many of the young women who choose to transition do so for reasons that are not really sexual, but more about discomfort with womanhood, or other mental health issues etc. for example it may be simply a manifestation of distress in teenage girls that 10 or 20 years ago would have resulted in bulimia, cutting or anorexia etc. whereas now trans is the new social contagion.
There is a strong belief that the huge uptake in teenage girls to become non-binary or trans is simply a trend, fed by social media and a discomfort with our hypersexualised society in which porn is ubiquitous. They are trying to find a way to opt out of womanhood somehow. But of course, we cannot identify out of oppression, and even in the trans community transmen are bottom of the heap (funny that, even in this oh so progressive of communities, biological women are still 'lesser' somehow).
There are also interviews online with detransitioners (Benjamin Boyce has some on his youtube channel), many of whom are teenage lesbians who were simply confused or uncomfortable with their sexuality - being a lesbian isn't cool these days apparently.

TheCurrywurstPrion · 07/07/2022 20:46

Hello Justdont. I see you are getting a super-swift education. There’s a lot to take in!. Stick around a while and when you open something you expect to be complex, like a government consultation on the Gender Recognition Act, you will be amazed to find you can give coherent answers with references to relevant laws and cases that illustrate them without the need for external help!

It really is a mind-bender when you go from the well intentioned assumption that this was the next logical human rights struggle, to realising that there’s something off about it, to seeing it clearly as the men’s rights activism it really is. Once seen, you can’t unsee it. You may even wish, from time to time, that you’d never noticed, but hopefully our views are becoming more widespread, even though there’s still enough name calling and vitriol to make it tough to stand up for yourself.

I wanted to come back to your second post and the image/writing that you found disturbing. I’m not surprised you did. I feel like I should have seen it all by now, but very occasionally something really twists my brain. The last I remember was listening to an interview with doctors from GIDS (the only NHS children’s gender clinic in the UK) and realising that they were talking about their patients and calling the boys, boys (even though activists would tell us they’re girls) and vice versa. It was a shock to realise that even they didn’t really believe boys were girls.

The phrase in your screenshot (which I will add again) that is really disturbing is “children with uteruses”. It really strikes me as dehumanizing to call your own girls that. Even if I swallowed the rest of it, when it came to my children, that level of extremism would give me pause. And it is extremism. We’ve become so used to it that it doesn’t really shock any more, but sometimes something strikes a chord, and that was one of them.

Please can someone explain like I’m 5
goldfinchonthelawn · 07/07/2022 21:05

Sorry, it's a huge thread so I haven't RTFT and am replying to your OP.

What's 'off' is that you recognise you are being threatened for thinking. You are being warned not to use your critical faculties or come to your own conclusions. That's what is off. There is nothing off about being trans. there is nothing off about being a Terf. What's off is the vociferous aggressive people who thrive on telling others what they may or may not think, say, believe and who get kicks out of bullying others to see how much power they can wield. That's what is off.

I personally see no discrepancy at all between being supportive of transpeople and being extremely circumspect about the abuse of transrights by fakers who want to invade female spaces and protected places such as rape crisis centres and refuges.I see no discrepancy between being supportive of transrights and standing up for biological women only in sport. It is perfectly possible to hold a complex view about a complex issue. Some people hate that this is possibel and want to bully us into reductive side-taking views. You don't have to comply.

Justdontgetit000 · 07/07/2022 21:41

Theeyeballsinthesky · 07/07/2022 19:35

There is - it’s called the boxer ceiling. It isn’t as prevalent as the cotton ceiling but it’s there. You’ll be unsurprised to know however that gay men are not threatened with rape & suggestions they die in a grease fire. Almost as if transmen can’t identify out of that female socialisation to be nice but don’t worry! The anime TRA crowd are thete swinging on their behalf

Boxer ceiling

Wow interesting, thank you for the link. It doesn’t surprise me at all to learn that there aren’t the same threats of violence and entitlement that goes along with this version.

OP posts:
Justdontgetit000 · 07/07/2022 21:45

Roseglen84 · 07/07/2022 20:13

Justdontgetit000
I have another question if I’m allowed to briefly just mention a point from earlier about trans women wanting to sleep with a lesbian for validation as part of the reason, and the pressure they can put on women about this. Well I’m wondering if this happens the other way round too? So a biological woman who has transitioned to a man, wanting to have sex with a gay man - or I guess could be straight I’m not sure? Basically an equivalent of the cotton ceiling.

As Theeyeballsinthesky points out, this does happen, but not to the same extent. And there isn't the same sort of threats or intimidation

I think this may be because many of the young women who choose to transition do so for reasons that are not really sexual, but more about discomfort with womanhood, or other mental health issues etc. for example it may be simply a manifestation of distress in teenage girls that 10 or 20 years ago would have resulted in bulimia, cutting or anorexia etc. whereas now trans is the new social contagion.
There is a strong belief that the huge uptake in teenage girls to become non-binary or trans is simply a trend, fed by social media and a discomfort with our hypersexualised society in which porn is ubiquitous. They are trying to find a way to opt out of womanhood somehow. But of course, we cannot identify out of oppression, and even in the trans community transmen are bottom of the heap (funny that, even in this oh so progressive of communities, biological women are still 'lesser' somehow).
There are also interviews online with detransitioners (Benjamin Boyce has some on his youtube channel), many of whom are teenage lesbians who were simply confused or uncomfortable with their sexuality - being a lesbian isn't cool these days apparently.

Thank you for this reply, it’s very interesting to note the differences. After looking on the Terf is a Slur website, I noticed a lot TW when angry or rejected make reference to their penis, or lady dick, or whatever term they use. There’s a lot of focus on that part of their anatomy. Same when reading the JK insults, they made a lot of disgusting remarks about her sexually. I think you’re right that the Male to Female aspect of transgenderism is also heavily related to sexuality and sex in general. Maybe it is a bi-product of easy access to porn, who knows? I’ve worried for a while now about the mental effects of porn on young minds, and detest that is so easily available.

OP posts:
Justdontgetit000 · 07/07/2022 21:50

TheCurrywurstPrion · 07/07/2022 20:46

Hello Justdont. I see you are getting a super-swift education. There’s a lot to take in!. Stick around a while and when you open something you expect to be complex, like a government consultation on the Gender Recognition Act, you will be amazed to find you can give coherent answers with references to relevant laws and cases that illustrate them without the need for external help!

It really is a mind-bender when you go from the well intentioned assumption that this was the next logical human rights struggle, to realising that there’s something off about it, to seeing it clearly as the men’s rights activism it really is. Once seen, you can’t unsee it. You may even wish, from time to time, that you’d never noticed, but hopefully our views are becoming more widespread, even though there’s still enough name calling and vitriol to make it tough to stand up for yourself.

I wanted to come back to your second post and the image/writing that you found disturbing. I’m not surprised you did. I feel like I should have seen it all by now, but very occasionally something really twists my brain. The last I remember was listening to an interview with doctors from GIDS (the only NHS children’s gender clinic in the UK) and realising that they were talking about their patients and calling the boys, boys (even though activists would tell us they’re girls) and vice versa. It was a shock to realise that even they didn’t really believe boys were girls.

The phrase in your screenshot (which I will add again) that is really disturbing is “children with uteruses”. It really strikes me as dehumanizing to call your own girls that. Even if I swallowed the rest of it, when it came to my children, that level of extremism would give me pause. And it is extremism. We’ve become so used to it that it doesn’t really shock any more, but sometimes something strikes a chord, and that was one of them.

There really is a lot to take in, and I’m so so glad I made this thread. This is weird as well, but I’m wanting to tell others about what I’m learning! Like I have an urge to talk to my husband about this, we’ve touched on transgenderism briefly in the past, he’s always been on the same page as me and we’ve both always been non judgmental to anyone who is trans, but he has said in the past about how you can’t change sex. This was years ago and I’m wanting to revisit it and tell him about the direction it’s moving in.

As for that screenshot of the comment - yes it’s really unnerving isn’t it? It took me by surprise and I couldn’t understand for a split second before I realised “Oh she means she has two daughters”!!! I don’t want to talk that way about people and I won’t ever. I’m not describing people by their reproductive organs. As you said, talking about children in that way seems a step too far…way over the line actually.

OP posts:
Justdontgetit000 · 07/07/2022 21:52

goldfinchonthelawn · 07/07/2022 21:05

Sorry, it's a huge thread so I haven't RTFT and am replying to your OP.

What's 'off' is that you recognise you are being threatened for thinking. You are being warned not to use your critical faculties or come to your own conclusions. That's what is off. There is nothing off about being trans. there is nothing off about being a Terf. What's off is the vociferous aggressive people who thrive on telling others what they may or may not think, say, believe and who get kicks out of bullying others to see how much power they can wield. That's what is off.

I personally see no discrepancy at all between being supportive of transpeople and being extremely circumspect about the abuse of transrights by fakers who want to invade female spaces and protected places such as rape crisis centres and refuges.I see no discrepancy between being supportive of transrights and standing up for biological women only in sport. It is perfectly possible to hold a complex view about a complex issue. Some people hate that this is possibel and want to bully us into reductive side-taking views. You don't have to comply.

Brilliantly said, thank you for this. I really appreciate you taking the time to help put it into words, that’s exactly what it is, the absolute determination to shut down voices. I understand transphobia is a big NO, but to not even be allowed to ask questions and automatically labelled a bigot or terf is jarring. And being punished for simply using the word “women” feels honestly ridiculous.

OP posts:
PearlClutch · 07/07/2022 22:16

What's off is the vociferous aggressive people who thrive on telling others what they may or may not think, say, believe and who get kicks out of bullying others to see how much power they can wield

Yeah. It's actually depressing how much so called discourse is actually just endless ad homs.

DdraigGoch · 08/07/2022 12:27

I’m ... very pro-choice

Then on a forum I lurk on, someone got banned for saying they don’t want to be referred to as body parts. The person who started the thread (who is also a mod) said that when discussing Roe v Wade we can’t just say “women” we also need to say AFAB or “womb/uterus owners”.

There it is in your original post. You are in favour of letting people make their own choices (so long as it's not to the detriment of others). Therefore you are uncomfortable with censorship.

Justdontgetit000 · 08/07/2022 13:35

DdraigGoch · 08/07/2022 12:27

I’m ... very pro-choice

Then on a forum I lurk on, someone got banned for saying they don’t want to be referred to as body parts. The person who started the thread (who is also a mod) said that when discussing Roe v Wade we can’t just say “women” we also need to say AFAB or “womb/uterus owners”.

There it is in your original post. You are in favour of letting people make their own choices (so long as it's not to the detriment of others). Therefore you are uncomfortable with censorship.

Very true yes, I take issue with being told we’re not allowed to say “women” anymore as a stand alone group. Not even in case some people don’t agree with this, but some might forget this rule! And if so they’ll have their posts removed and possibly banned. It does indeed seem like extreme censorship, however I accept it’s up to the mods and not a “free speech” issue.

So last night I found an AMA type of thread on Reddit, where the OP invited people to ask a trans person anything. I read quite a lot of it but was tired and forgot to save this one particular comment and now can’t find it.

Someone had brought up what exactly defines a man and a woman, and the (trans) person answered by saying there are actual medical differences in male and female brains. That trans peoples brains have different areas that correspond more with being either male or female. They then produced several links to actual studies that they said proves this! Again I was really tired so didn’t read them and now can’t find this, but it seems to contradict everything I’ve read from a gender critical viewpoint, where the belief is that there’s no difference in the brains of men and women.

If I were to attempt to have a conversation with someone who isn’t gender critical, I’m not sure how I’d argue against this. They are saying that their bodies literally don’t match their brains, so that’s why they need to transition. Does anyone have any knowledge of these studies or just about this concept in general?

OP posts:
AmaryllisNightAndDay · 08/07/2022 14:42

If I were to attempt to have a conversation with someone who isn’t gender critical, I’m not sure how I’d argue against this. They are saying that their bodies literally don’t match their brains, so that’s why they need to transition. Does anyone have any knowledge of these studies or just about this concept in general?

"So if someone had their brain scanned, and the scan for their brain was more like scans for their own sex than the other sex, does that mean that they can't be trans?"

LaughingPriest · 08/07/2022 15:08

Someone had brought up what exactly defines a man and a woman, and the (trans) person answered by saying there are actual medical differences in male and female brains. That trans peoples brains have different areas that correspond more with being either male or female. They then produced several links to actual studies that they said proves this! Again I was really tired so didn’t read them and now can’t find this, but it seems to contradict everything I’ve read from a gender critical viewpoint, where the belief is that there’s no difference in the brains of men and women.

This is really dodgy.
Firstly, you'd need a robust definition of 'trans' to be sure you were looking at trans brains.

Secondly, there are not really any differences in male and female brains apart from size. The averages vary but overlap so much that it's not much better than chance if you look at a brain and try to predict whether it is in a male or female body. Huge meta-analyses have shown this.

Thirdly - one of the biggest issues in all this is knowing which children are trans and will be genuinely helped by surgery etc and which will desist. One solution could be to look at the brains and check if they have this 'different area'. (Which, even having barely studied neurobiology is Hmm )
Obviously, the trans community will be dead set against this, as it's 'gatekeeping ' and anyone is trans if they say they are.

So what if we had two people who say they are sure they are trans, and only one has this hypothetical brain difference? Do we provide surgery / hormones etc to one and not the other?
The whole thing is so unscientific and really badly thought through.

If any replicable research suggested that this was even vaguely plausible it'd be worth discussing - but it hasn't.

Again, there's no such thing as a body 'literally not matching a brain'. The brain is part of the body, it's part of who we are. If a 'male'-seeming brain is in a woman's body, then that is an example of what a female brain is. It's astounding how many people cannot grasp this fact.

OhSister · 08/07/2022 15:40

If I were to attempt to have a conversation with someone who isn’t gender critical, I’m not sure how I’d argue against this. They are saying that their bodies literally don’t match their brains, so that’s why they need to transition. Does anyone have any knowledge of these studies or just about this concept in general?

The question comes down to which of these two things is the determining characteristic of what it means to be female or male: the personality [as manifested by the brain], or the body?

It's fine to say that a person can have a male body, with male reproductive biology, and also feel that in his mind / sense of self, he feels more feminine than masculine, or he has interests and attributes that society deems to be 'feminine' or 'for women'. Our brains are plastic; the areas that get exercised get stronger. So it's entirely possible that a brain scan might in some cases bear out similarities between that person's brain, and findings that might be more typical among women. But you can only take the leap from there to say 'therefore that person is really a woman in a male body' if you concede to the idea that certain personality traits, interests and attributes really are solely for women, and are in fact the very defining characteristics of womanhood.

But if you believe that the defining characteristic of femaleness is having a (mammalian, sexually dimorphic) female body, and that both women and men are fully human individuals with potential for the full spectrum of human personality traits, then none of that brain scan stuff matters.

What else would a brain scan be trying to prove, other than the presence of 'female' personality traits?

I would always try to frame the discussion as 'what makes a woman a woman?' as opposed to 'what does it mean to be trans?'.

I am not trans, so I can't answer the latter question for anyone.

But I am a woman, and that qualifies me to say: "A woman is a person with a female body and any kind of personality, so it seems pointless and pretty sexist to me that anyone would be trying to categorise brains / minds / personalities as either male or female. That's regressive and offensive to women, who have fought and still are fighting to be freed from such limiting stereotypes. Why would we want to be dragged backward?"

TL;DR:

Feminists understand that the defining characteristic of femaleness is the female body, and so a woman/girl is a person with a female body and any personality or sense of self.

Genderists assert that the defining characteristic of femaleness is a personal, changeable, subjective, self-declared, unverifiable sense of female 'gender identity': essentially that a woman/girl is a person with a female personality and any (i.e. male or female) body.

Brain scans to evidence a 'female personality' only matter if you take the genderist view on what it means to be a woman.

AmaryllisNightAndDay · 08/07/2022 16:03

Did you know that when a mans penis is removed, the root still stays with all the nerve endings and it hurts when aroused, Also the Designer Vagina never heals and has to be padded all the time to stop it healing closed.

I didn't know the first bit at all. I didn't know that the second was forever - is it always like that?

I was disappointed by the discussion of surgically constructed vaginas and vulvas in Rachel E. Gross's book "Vagina Obscura" about vaginas. Her book is divided into separate chapters that don't all connect with each other. Early chapters about anatomy are fascinating - who knew the roots of the clitoris wrap right round the vagina? Not me!

But the chapter about surgical construction (for transwomen) ignores all that. This chapter is - tellingly - called "beauty". It is all about looks and ignores function. It celebrates a surgeon who can construct beautiful looking vulvas and vaginal openings with no visible scars. And whose idea of a functional vagina is one that doesn't gape open - apparently that is significant progress in surgical construction. No mention of what nerves that vagina has, what sensory or physical experiences it is capable of giving to the rest of the body, good or bad. As long as it looks neat and doesn't sag. The rest of the book is amazing but how sexist and misogynist is that?

I'm not in a position to speculate what this idea of a "vagina" means to trans people, the enormous difference between what we might wish or imagine modern surgery is capable of and how little it can really achieve. But I do wonder if some people are being sold short.

Roseglen84 · 08/07/2022 19:19

Justdontgetit000
Someone had brought up what exactly defines a man and a woman, and the (trans) person answered by saying there are actual medical differences in male and female brains. That trans peoples brains have different areas that correspond more with being either male or female. They then produced several links to actual studies that they said proves this! Again I was really tired so didn’t read them and now can’t find this, but it seems to contradict everything I’ve read from a gender critical viewpoint, where the belief is that there’s no difference in the brains of men and women.

Well I wouldn't be rushing to get my medical information from someone on Reddit for a start. Maybe they did link to lots of actual studies but as we have seen many times on the FWR board, when you dig down into these 'statistics' they tend to be dodgy, or based on a sample size of 12 or something.

I'm not a neuroscientist, but I will say that as far as I'm concerned I'm sure there are differences between men and women's brains, and maybe some people do align more with stereotypical 'male' things or 'female' things. But most of that could be explained by socialisation or personality, as stated by previous posters. In any case, that wouldn't make a man into a woman, it would simply be a man who has preferences for 'female' things. Very nice for him, but it doesn't change his biology or his right to enter women's spaces.

The thing is, you will hear lots of bullshit 'facts' like sex is a spectrum etc. and I urge you to take this stuff with a pinch of salt, there is so much crap going around twitter claiming to be science. However, you should do your own research, don't just take my word for it.

But also remember that this person was trans, and so had a vested interest in defending their position. And that you can get bogged down in the bullshit. It's actually very simple - men cannot become women, no matter how they feel in their heads.

Roseglen84 · 08/07/2022 19:22

Also OP, if you are looking for some well researched reading on this topic, Helen Joyce has a book out called Trans which is very good.

She is also on several podcasts discussing the issue and is very clear and no nonsense.

Baaaaaa · 08/07/2022 19:43

The studies usually rolled out by TRAs are the Swaab studies on the INAH3 a nucleus in the hypothalamus (which does seem to have a statistically significant size difference between men and women) It is thought to be involved in sexual target location and more to do with sexual orientation. This article debunks the myths about those studies fairly comprehensively.

ourduty.group/2022/02/13/is-gender-innate-spoiler-no/

Justdontgetit000 · 08/07/2022 21:35

AmaryllisNightAndDay · 08/07/2022 14:42

If I were to attempt to have a conversation with someone who isn’t gender critical, I’m not sure how I’d argue against this. They are saying that their bodies literally don’t match their brains, so that’s why they need to transition. Does anyone have any knowledge of these studies or just about this concept in general?

"So if someone had their brain scanned, and the scan for their brain was more like scans for their own sex than the other sex, does that mean that they can't be trans?"

Very good point!

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