How was your gender transition?

[MilesOfCarpetTiles]

NC but am a regular on here.

I'd previously assumed that 'transitioning' meant, essentially, a person who very much wanted to be perceived as the opposite sex taking on - usually, not always - stereotypically culturally masculine or feminine aspects of appearance to assist with this perception (clothes, hair, make-up, etc), although I also realise that transitioning can be simply a change of name and requested pronouns. I have sympathy with people who are deeply unhappy with the sex of their bodies, as well as people who feel they do not appear feminine or masculine 'enough' for society to accept them, so this is in no way a dig at them but an exploration of what I have learned.

Reading Bristol Council's proposed Trans Inclusion and Gender Identity Policy at
www.ask.bristol.gov.uk/trans-inclusion-and-gender-diversity-policy-consultation -
(essentially, to help trans people, they want to make all single-sex spaces mixed-sex and you can 'choose' the one you prefer - the consultation is open for a few more days if you feel there are safety or dignity issues with this - however, the policy does already state that "Whilst some people may feel less comfortable because they do not accept transgender identity or perceive that trans people pose an increased safeguarding risk to others, this is not itself a legitimate or proportionate reason to exclude trans and gender-diverse people from using preferred toilets and facilities.", so you would need to correct the false assumption that the objection is to 'being trans' rather than to a person's biological sex) -

I realise that 'trans' also includes 'agender', defined as: "a term for individuals who are genderless or who reject gender identification completely." Reading their guidance, I clearly identify with this - some years ago I would have said I was a 'cis' woman but educating myself made me realise this is not a label I'm at all comfortable with, and as I reject gender identification, agender appears to match what I am.

Their definition of gender is as follows:

"People often use the terms ‘gender’ and ‘sex’ interchangeably when talking about a person being male or female, or masculine or feminine. However, ‘sex’ is recorded at birth and refers to a person’s biological status as either male or female, based on their physical attributes and external anatomy.

‘Gender’ refers to the characteristics typically associated with being feminine or masculine that are constructed by society. This includes norms, behaviours and roles associated with being a woman, man, girl or boy etc. as well as relationships with each other. Ways of understanding gender vary from society to society and can change over time. Gender identity is our own internal and individual sense of self as being feminine, masculine, a mixture of these, or rejecting current gender norms entirely."

I'm still a woman, as far as I can tell, as that means either 'female' or something else I'm unsure of. So if asked my sex, I would say I am a woman or female, but if asked about my gender I would say I am agender. Others may view my behaviour as masculine or feminine, but I believe that is irrelevant to anyone's sex, and that linking types of behaviour to sex is often sexist, regressive and not borne out by evidence. I don't believe that what 'society constructs' has much to do with my own individual sense of self - I have very little control over how others see me and judge my behaviour, except I suppose my clothes or haircut.

Bristol's policy clearly states that 'Transitioning’ is a term used to describe the steps an individual takes in order to live in their affirmed gender identity, which may be as a man, woman, non-binary, gender fluid or a-gender person.

'The steps' I have taken were more of an internal realisation rather than a deliberate change to my appearance - I don't personally believe my gender identity or lack of changes depending on what I feel like wearing - but it does appear that I have transitioned from a cis person to an agender one (although perhaps I was agender all along).

Is anyone else in the same boat? Do you feel comfortable as agender, even though that may be incorrectly presumed to mean you don't believe you have a sex? Do I need to tell my employer or anyone else?

I will add that even though the policy takes pains to ensure that they are including agender people in their use of 'trans', it does seem rather logically challenging that they keep using the term 'affirmed gender identity' to include those that don't have a gender identity - it's rather dismissive of agender people in my view. For example:

"Bristol City Council will support trans service users and citizens, including non-binary, gender fluid, or agender people, to use the facilities (such as toilets, changing and washing facilities) that best fit their gender identity." but also "Please Note: Although not all terms will be referenced throughout the document, this policy is applicable to people with non-binary, gender fluid or gender variant identities, including those who are a-gender."

I have long been asking on here and elsewhere how one identifies their gender, and this document actually seems to be the most helpful - do I embrace this identity or do I decide that not having a gender identity isn't really having a gender identity after all?

I don’t understand why anyone wants other people to know about their sexual feelings, really. How does this impact on how you behave or are treated at work, or indeed in most of the normal activités of life ( food shopping, filling up the car, watching tv, walking the dog).
I understand the process of ROGD in all its terrible implications, I understand about the delights of cross dressing, and I suppose the parading in bizarre sexualised costumes, but I don’t really understand why anyone should ba concerned about how other people identify if it doesn’t impact on them.

Gender identity is, or should be, separate from 'sexual feelings' though.

For nearly all interactions and experiences we go through, our sex (and gender) should be irrelevant. For those where sex is relevant (medical, political, safety, etc) the appropriate provisions should be made for each sex. (e.g. maternity policies at work).

Gender is largely irrelevant, except I guess in fashion.

I don’t really understand why anyone should ba concerned about how other people identify if it doesn’t impact on them.

Because this policy is being introduced to say that other people's gender identities means that spaces such as swimming changing rooms can now only be mixed-sex, so it does impact on everyone. I don't yet quite grasp how being agender factors into this.

Is there an agnostic gender identity? One that is broadly vague? That would be my identity.

Well I don’t identify as anything. But I am a woman, the adult human female
kind.

And I’d also like to use sex based facilities, not facilities based on misogynistic gender stereotypes.

So would you say you accept that you have a gender identity, or that you reject this?
Because if you reject gender identification, Bristol City Council says that falls under the definition of 'agender', like me!

If there are over 100 types of gender (and counting) I don't see how they can all be catered for. Do they intend to install litter trays for catgender?

I think if someone held a knife to my throat and said I had to pick a gender (assuming knifetothroatgender wasn't an option), I'd probably pick agender. But I'd deliberately misunderstand it, insist on having everything minuted and my pronoun would be chairmum.

Oh wow. I’ve been labelled Agender!

So does that mean I am ‘cis agender’?

Fuck me someone is working really hard to erase the word woman.

Surely that is just accepting someone else's stereotype. Religious people cause those without religious belief negative words like heretics, infidels and heathens.

I do not believe in gender, I will not accept an imposed gender of agender to force me into a box within their belief system.

The same as I choose not to identify as an infidel because I don't believe in that mystical idea either

I think if someone held a knife to my throat and said I had to pick a gender (assuming knifetothroatgender wasn't an option), I'd probably pick agender.

Don't give the London School of Economics gender studies students ideas.

thecritic.co.uk/watch-me-take-a-knife-to-your-throat/

I had a visceral reaction to this in that it is such insane level of naval-gazing that I can't believe people waste their time thinking about it and I can't believe that anyone expects anyone else to care about about it.

Then I thought that since I do reject gender 'identification' in so far as believing I am a woman, on a biological basis, with female and masculine traits (I call this my personality), then that would make me 'agender', according to Bristol City Council.

However just because Bristol City Council gives this 'agender' definition, this doesn't make this definition true. Why are you taking it at face value?

I am a woman, I do reject gender identity based on outdated stereotypes, and I am not agender!

Actually, the thought of having someone spit in my ear grosses me out more than the thought of the knife, just.....ick.

However just because Bristol City Council gives this 'agender' definition, this doesn't make this definition true. Why are you taking it at face value?

Well, that's what I wanted to discuss! They are making actual policy that will have actual consequences based on their wording and definitions, so if we don't accept it, it will still manifest. So do I say 'yes, ok, you say rejecting gender identification means I am trans and agender, so you are free to call me that' or do I say 'you are wrong and that's not what agender means'?

I 'care about it' precisely because when gender replaces sex in law and policy it has real-life consequences. They'd love you to think it's all a semantic irrelevance. If it was a random blog saying 'Hey! If you answer all 'C' in our quiz, congrats you are agender!' I would ignore it. But it's a City Council.

Good analogy.
What if you were receiving better services if you identified as a heathen? (Not saying this is the case - but we have seen examples of trans people being listened to over people who do not identify as trans)

MilesOfCarpetTiles
I 'care about it' precisely because when gender replaces sex in law and policy it has real-life consequences. They'd love you to think it's all a semantic irrelevance. If it was a random blog saying 'Hey! If you answer all 'C' in our quiz, congrats you are agender!' I would ignore it. But it's a City Council.

Good point. You are clearly passionate about this - it possible to find and post a link to where we or Mumsetters from Bristol can complain about this to Bristol City Council, maybe with a call to action in the title in a new thread? It took me a while to get through your OP and even longer to realise we are on the same page, and you could create more impact by driving direct action than encouraging conversation here, interesting though it is.

There is no such thing as gender identity in the sense of something universal in humans which causes dysphoria when mismatched with sex. Knowing this does not make me agender.

I have, or am, a particular sex; I do not have, nor am I, a particular gender if 'gender' is not synonymous with 'sex' but is taken to mean something connected with gender identity in the above sense.

In fact, no-one has a particular gender in that sense, since there is no such thing as gender identity in that sense.

I know some people think otherwise. We need to learn to live with this disagreement, just as we have with disagreement about whether or not there are such things as immortal souls, paranormal auras, guardian angels and the like. But, no, I am not agender or cisgender, any more than my aura is green, my soul free from sin or my guardian angel hard to please.

In the sense intended, I have no aura, soul, angel ... or gender. There is no such thing.

Absolutely - I think two threads got started about it:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4645060-bristol-council-consultation-into-trans-inclusion-gender-identity-policy

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4620377-bristol-city-council-consulting-on-new-trans-policy

Really worth reading the documents on the Bristol page - they are not very long but their definitions raised my eyebrows, as well as their dismissal of religious groups etc on their Impact Assessment as 'not accepting of trans people'.

I don't think you necessarily need to live in Bristol but if you work there or use services there you will be affected.

They seem to have got a bit confused about the difference between gender and sex and the reasons we have single sex facilities in the first place.

They say:

"People often use the terms ‘gender’ and ‘sex’ interchangeably when talking about a person being male or female, or masculine or feminine. However, ‘sex’ is recorded at birth and refers to a person’s biological status as either male or female, based on their physical attributes and external anatomy.

‘Gender’ refers to the characteristics typically associated with being feminine or masculine that are constructed by society. This includes norms, behaviours and roles associated with being a woman, man, girl or boy etc. as well as relationships with each other. Ways of understanding gender vary from society to society and can change over time. Gender identity is our own internal and individual sense of self as being feminine, masculine, a mixture of these, or rejecting current gender norms entirely."

So they are quite clear that gender and sex are different. They acknowledge that sex is about the physical body and gender is about feelings.

So this bit doesn't make sense at all:

"Bristol City Council will support trans service users and citizens, including non-binary, gender fluid, or agender people, to use the facilities (such as toilets, changing and washing facilities) that best fit their gender identity."

Someone needs to explain to them that the single sex facilities are for people who share a sex, not a gender identity. They are respectively for male people with any gender identity (or none) and female people with any gender identity (or none). What is the purpose of single gendered facilities based on people's feelings about their gender, when the people using them can have either male or female bodies? How is this different from just making everything mixed sex?

Have they explained why they think people who share a gender identity but not a sex should share facilities which are segregated on the basis of sex?

How do they intend to label these 'gendered' facilities? They can't use the normal terms women/men, ladies/gents, or the person wearing a skirt/trousers, because these have always been used to designate sex and it will be confusing to nearly everyone.

Is it even legal under the Equality Act to have single gendered facilities? There is a single sex exemption, but no single gender exception, so surely they have to be either single sex or mixed sex (any gender).

I will not be labelled agender. That assumes I believe in gender identity ideology, which I don't. Any questions should be phrased like religion: what is your religion (none, Christian.....). So what is your gender identity: none, trans etc.

I am going to do the consultation later so thanks for the ideas here. I definitely don't want single sex facilities to be turned into gendered facilities. This may be Bristol but if they publish their report then other cities and counties may use it as a template. So it does affect us all.

Is anyone else in the same boat? Do you feel comfortable as agender, even though that may be incorrectly presumed to mean you don't believe you have a sex? Do I need to tell my employer or anyone else?

No because I don't believe in any of it. The myriad genders are just a way to label personality in a fashionable way and gender has forever been a cage which traps men and women in society into pre-assigned roles and behaviours, so none of it is for me. I find the whole ideology suspect and entirely too restrictive. The fact it is being applied to legislation and spaces such as prisons, sports and changing rooms when these should be separated by sex (why was it that we did that in the first place?) is outrageous and patently demonstrates complete disdain for the safety of women and children. And that is before I get going on the muddying of language and definitions. Don't get me started ...

Have they explained why they think people who share a gender identity but not a sex should share facilities which are segregated on the basis of sex?

No, of course not. Sex and gender are noticeably conflated in some areas of the documents and separate in others. I would feed back that they should take more care not to conflate the two and be mindful about which one they mean.

Yes it is a really fudged policy.

I get where you are coming from OP.

It's kind of taking Bristol CC's own words at face value and following to their logical conclusion.

(Obviously the people who wedged the trans policy in will be expecting the majority of people over 30 to identify as "cis". They won't have a concept of what the feminist position on gender is.)

Playing along, the first thing that strikes me, as a similarly agender person, is that why are non male /female identities discriminated against with no facilities of their own? It almost makes me feel as if transwomen and transmen are cis trans, because everything is shaped to fit around them. Why are the non binaries, agenders and others so marginalised?

I don't really think the idea they are suggesting of gender as a personal identity is particularly coherent.

It makes me think of a young non-binary person I worked with for a while. Clearly female, but short hair, very uni-sex clothing, tended to like a lot of anime etc. On the other hand obviously a female body.

But even in terms of gender, very clearly not a "manly" person in terms of personality, In a lot of ways, less so than I am. And in fact didn't even particularly seem to like men as friends and such.

Trying to parse this idea of gender just tends to show how silly a concept it is if you divorce it from sex. Which suggests that legislation that includes it will not work out all that well.

The more they try and explain gender, the more it seems like it fits my own definition of 'how the world expects you to look and behave in a masculine or feminine way solely because of your sex' which I'd always been brought up to believe is a thing that is unhelpful and patriarchal and inevitably harms women, and men?

Yet they propose to categorise people in this way in situations where biological sex matters?