I went to a talk about trans issues.

[FrankTheThunderbird]

Disclaimer... if I accidentally use the wrong language I apologise. I'm trying my best. And I'll be using the pronouns we were asked to use.

It was more balanced than I expected. But still biased, and all questions had to be handed in before the session and pre- vetted.

The panel was led by someone who didn't say how they identify. (If they did I didn't hear) but in the 'old days' would be a butch lesbian. There was an enby, afaik they were born female, mentioned using he/him at one point before becoming they/them. 2 TW. And a TM.

They talked about their journey to become who they are now. It was interesting. No mention from the older TW about how her then wife coped/felt other than they got divorced as a result. I felt sorry for them all, it sounds like they had some bad times (so have I so that's not exclusive to trans people, but I have empathy)

They mentioned sharing pronouns and said you should never feel you have to, but also don't do the jokey "well obviously my pronouns are..."

So far so good.

Then we had

Sex and Gender are the same thing. Feminists pretend they aren't so they can deny our existence.

Sex isn't fixed or binary because of seahorses. Not only do male seahorses carry the eggs, they also fertilise them themselves. (No idea if that's true. DS said if it is are seahorses technically clones?).
I wanted to ask why that's relevant to humans, I mean seahorses can breathe underwater and I can't so we aren't the same. But we weren't allowed.

One of the questions was from a 12 year old who thought they were trans. The answer from one of the TW was "tell your parents. If they don't believe you I can't say what i recommend as it's illegal". If that isn't a veiled recommendation to threaten self harm/suicide I don't know what is.

And some things I didn't fully understand. One of the TW kept mentioning a book, should have made a note of the title, about trans children in history, or the medicalisation of them. Or something. I couldn't work out why experimental surgery in the past,which we don't do on children any more, was therefore meant to be a sign that trans people exist. Or something.
All the books they mentioned were firmly on the side of TWAW, nothing from the 'other side' or in the middle of the road as it were.

Finally, if anyone recognises this talk and was there maybe you can clarify if I've got any of the content wrong. I don't think I have. That's certainly how I understood it. And there were people there who I overheard afterwards saying they didn't know anything until then, there were also some younger teens there. So they've learned some wrong 'facts' and may well go away believing them.

Sorry its long!

I apologise for not realising a vanishingly small number of women with a horrible distressing genetics anomaly, and an even smaller number would seek to carry a foetus, would be used to prop up trans ideology.

Lesson learned!

Because they lack ovaries, girls with Swyer syndrome do not produce sex hormones and will not undergo puberty (unless treated with hormone replacement therapy).

I apologise for not realising a vanishingly small number of women with a horrible distressing genetics anomaly, and an even smaller number would seek to carry a foetus, would be used to prop up trans ideology.

But it is being used for that purpose, which is one practical reason why I think it is more useful to base a practical definition of sex in terms of reproduction rather than genetics.

This is the wrong place for this discussion. Apologies.

So even though things can get very complicated, the basics of XX being the sex that produces large gamete and XY being the sex that produces small gametes is never violated

Thank you, that's clear.

So even though things can get very complicated, the basics of XX being the sex that produces large gamete and XY being the sex that produces small gametes is never violated.

This is very clear, thank you.

I am conscious not to align the term female to those who have ovaries as this excludes women with hysterectomies.

A female is a person who has a body formed around the production of large gametes regardless of whether that production has happened, is happening or will ever happen.

A female who has had a hysterectomy is still a female. It is only ever extreme trans activists who have ever tried to make that point to exclude them.

It is ridiculous.

I still can't get past the sex and gender thing. Gender is a polite term for sex? Surely? Or am I experiencing the Mandala effect!

I've been filling in forms asking for my gender for most of my life, way before gender ideology. Gender stereotypes means the stereotype given to that gender (i.e. sex), otherwise we wouldn't have the term 'gender stereotypes'.

*Mandela!!

Oh I completely agree. But when debating with fanatics any small loophole in a argument seems to be gauged open.

It's only complicated what a woman is to those who want to attack it.

I had a similar experience (not the same talk). The talk started with personal histories and challenges, self deprecating jokes about pronouns and acknowledgement that friends and family will innocently misgender from time to time...and ended with a passionate rant that all groups with objections to remaking society entirely along gender lines are part of the rise of a US funded right wing conspiracy

self harm or suicide surely aren illegal?

Or am I experiencing the Mandala effect

Brilliant typo 😄

No. But suggesting it to teens probably is.

Have you?

All the forms I’ve filled in during my life, which has involved a LOT of forms, have asked my sex, up until very recently.

And there have been two options, F/M.

There used to be a joke about it: Q: Sex? A: Yes please.

I first noticed forms changing in around 2017 or so. Gender instead of sex, more than 2 options.

First on drop-down menus from online forms, so probably US originating (and that’s I think where gender started as a euphemism for sex)

A transman is a biological female, and thus XX - not XY.

Sorry but your reasoning is confused. You don’t take exceptional cases and try and make general rules from them as I have said.

This nonsense originated in the US (of course) and sadly spread to the U.K.

There was a group of American students on YouTube being challenged that there are only male and female. Their answer was to respond with a load of abuse that to say they were not an infinite number of genders was some form of right wing conspiracy and to try and argue logically from science about these th8ngs would cause people to commit suicide. The alarming thing was they were obviously intelligent young people who had been brainwashed by this stuff

Maybe it has been more 'sex', but my maternity unit still refers to gender scans and what about gender reveal parties? People ask you, what gender is your baby bump etc.

It's probably a term most people haven't given much thought to up to now.

It was more balanced than I expected. But still biased, and all questions had to be handed in before the session and pre- vetted.

So still 'no debate'.

In ten years this’ll all be over just like false memories , multiple personalities etc

my understanding...
your chromosomes set you on a path towards whether you'll be the sort of human who can produce an egg, gestate and lactate OR the kind of human who can produce sperm and fertilise an egg.

Exceptionally rare mutations which are not fully understood may well exist in families have a history of dsd but they really shouldn't be part of this conversation.

DSD's exist and of course people have fertility issues but if a person was sat in front of a fertility specialist with the right test results the specialist would know which type of system that person had. No human has ever been fertile as a male and as a female.

Multiple personalities (DID these days) has been co-opted in a big way by the trans community. Every other SM profile has ‘trans, NB, DID, autistic’. It’s a made up badge of honour among the blue haired. Oh, also Poly.

The kids aren’t alright.

Yup. And what made that so annoying was that the write up for it didn't sound like that. They didn't discuss toilets, biology, sports or the word 'woman'

Really interesting essay by Dave Hewitt about this very thing, and how a very small number of anonymous influencers drove huge cultural changes.

Longish read, but excellent

voidifremoved.substack.com/p/the-quiet-erasure-of-same-sex-attraction?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyMTY2MTczOSwicG9zdF9pZCI6NzIzOTAzNTUsImlhdCI6MTY2MjgwNDEwNywiZXhwIjoxNjY1Mzk2MTA3LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMTc4Mjg2Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.8inj2w2i4-tmurmms61FlQV05S6ovIU4e754SS0RjiU