Still Genuinely Willing To Discuss In Good Faith

[Catiette]

I've taken the plunge and started a new thread. In the interests of good manners, an addendum that I may be disappearing to work for a while myself, as this has all been far too interesting to allow me to achieve any of my urgent weekend work to-dos today - I hope that, in the light of that, creating this follow-up thread isn't bad form. I just thought other people may want to continue discussing these issues (mainly, now, the redefinition of woman, and statistical trends re. women globally), and I'd definitely dip back in when the urge to procrastinate overcomes me next. No worries, of course, if people think we did it all to death on the old thread - we were fairly thorough, methinks(!), so can also just let Good Faith Discussion #2 rapidly fade into Mumsnet obscurity. 😀

Tube is female apparently. And likes dressing up in very tight pvc tubing.

Also I DO like to have my views challenged and I am NOT looking for a 'gotcha'. I would genuinely like there to be more substance to the whole reason women are losing rights than 'its a feeling I cant explain'. Currently I cannot see it.

And surely to God we are not sterilising children because of 'a feeling I cant explain'?

I want to be very clear that I have absolutely no intention or expectation of changing someone’s mind here. Admittedly I sometimes get caught up in a debate because on some level I would like to change someone’s mind and if it feels like it might be possible then the temptation can sometimes be too much, but when it doesn’t work and I feel myself getting frustrated I have to take a step back and remind myself of what I feel like I have had to learn and relearn over and over again. It is not possible to change someone else’s mind, only to change my mind. If someone else is going to change their mind they have to do it themselves, I can’t do it for - or rather to - them. And so I go back to choosing to spend my limited personal time responding to the posts that are interesting to me and ignore posts with the goal of mind changing. And if you think that proves you right and me wrong then so be it.

Adding to this, I can see that first sentence, “I think it’s worth pointing out that no one wants to listen to views that oppose their worldview. No one.”, coming through in many instances.

Such as all those posts, on other threads, where activist posters assume that only people who agree with speakers go to events to hear people speak. And that people shouldn’t listen to x, and conferences/seminars shouldn’t have alternative speakers therefore any speaker at x event must therefore be aligned with x and y.

I think some of the best discussions come from groups who do understand that many people have an inquiring mind, are up to understand different perspectives and who use listening to alternative viewpoints to make decisions.

If people don’t listen to alternative viewpoints and don’t seek to understand where those viewpoints are being formed from, how do people gain a deeper understanding? It is the very basic foundation of knowledge, of hearing diverse viewpoints, evaluating them, analysing them and if something is new and different but adds to the knowledge, into the foundation it goes!

What is interesting though is that I believe most regular posters on FWR work that way. It is also why I think some of us are confused with the concept of ‘safe bubbles where no adverse thought can enter’ and I am confused by repeated trope that this is an echo chamber. Because we take apart points and analyse them doesn’t mean we are an ‘echo chamber’. It means we analyse and chase information back to their origins to work out the veracity of that information.

And I guess some people find that confronting because they don’t do it themselves.

I honestly think you'll find that, yes, many of us have attempted, before this thread, to understand and read of trans identity stories and experiences. Of course, people understand that people are human beings with the full gamut of feelings, thoughts, struggles and so on. Personally I've done all of the above; watched every programme on Netflix and Iplayer that deal with the trans/de-trans experiences and stories.

(I've also been winessing, from a distance, the transition journey of a young man ( on another forum I post on) that has been going on for the last 10 years or so.........I'm forbidden from commenting, though, on my own experiences as a woman and am closed down very quickly. Regular updates are given, alongside photos of 'work' he's had done, and lots of people congratulate him and tell him how brave he is. It is a forum that is 98% male, and many of them gay).

Some of us have been/are teachers, therapists, counsellors, people with a wide range of experiences which involve working with the developing identity, with children, with grandchildren, with patients, with clients, with friends and family members.

But it always comes back to the intangible, the inexpressibie, the indescribable and the vagueness that is typical of a certain type of belief structure; and more to the point there comes with it an assumption that others must recognise this reality and affirm it; and not critique it, or question it, or be concerned when vulnerable young people get drawn into it.

Spooky - no I haven't - challenge accepted! Can you suggest a suitable trans inclusive space where I could try this out? And it'll need to be one where I won't be booted out for wrongthink. Otherwise, pointless.

Yes.... and no IMO. I think there is an exception, when that challenge to someone's world views is based on a belief. Sometimes it's impossible to explain why you hold a belief or what that belief is really based on. I come back to religion on this point.

"Nobody wants to be the atheist who goes in to a church and announces that God doesn't exist". Indeed.

I'm going to imagine a conversation where an atheist probes a Christian on why they believe in God:

A: you tell me you have a faith and that God is the father, the son and the holy spirit. What does that even mean? How can someone be the father and the son at the same time?

C: it's a metaphor. But it's also the basis of faith. Jesus died for everyone. He's the son of God. God is the father.

A: but I thought God was the father and the son. What on earth are you going on about?

C: I can't really explain my faith. It's not that simple. It's a mix of metaphors and teachings.

A: yes. But what about science? Was the big bang real or did God create the world in 7 days?

C: it's not that simple. I have a belief. I have faith but to explain it I need more time.

A: well I'm on an internet forum so can you make it snappy. What is it in a simple explanation? If you don't need proof that God exists to have faith, why can't you tell me that? Why can't you answer all my questions [insert hundreds of questions about how science explains lots of things that we didn't know 2000 years ago]

Or..........

A: I don't believe in god (God) but I do respect the fact that you do. I'm not going to dwell on whether God is real or not but can we talk about some practicalities where I'm finding it difficult to reconcile my thoughts [insert difficult world questions such as abortion rights in the US and how religious views impact laws]

C: OK. It's difficult to discuss this because my views are predicated on my faith and my belief, and help inform my views on [the right to life]. But let's try and listen to each other.

Utopian. Maybe?
Impossible? No.

I think the truth is some of us have lost patience. It is not that they don't want to "understand", it is more the case of having been having the same sorts of conversations for years and still being no further forward; with no obvious solution to the inherent conflict of rights involved in radical trans thinking.

Personally, I've now become more pragmatic and goal oriented, and the only time I spend extended time on posting, explaining or expounding, is when I think that someone really doesn't understand something.

I see what you are trying to say. But in my case, if I know that what I have is a belief that cannot be substantiated, I accept that I have a belief that cannot be substantiated. I also don’t ever expect others to believe that belief. (And FFS, never think laws should change based on that unsubstantiatable belief).

I think the assumption that women haven't done this and tried to understand actually very bloody insulting.

It assumes that women have made no effort.

Ironically I think some of the women who have made the most effort are the ones with the most skin in the game and have been the ones most directly hurt. I'm talking about the trans widows, the parents, the siblings, lesbians, the sportswomen, the child clinicians at the Tavi and often non white activists. The women who have been ousted from jobs have been the women who work in certain fields with a great level of understanding of their subjects.

On a wider level, I think others go through a journey of giving the benefit of the doubt and then have changed minds as time has gone on and they've started to realise the extent of the impact on women and that it's not a neutral act to simply 'be kind' or be affirmative.

By contrast, I find the demands for validation really dismissive of women's concerns in various ways and there is a deliberate and active move to discredit and silence the women who have gone through the process of trying to understand and come out the other side going 'no'. And that in itself leads to stronger 'nos'.

I really don't think you can frame women for the most part as 'not trying' because our whole culture is set up to get women to empathise and socialise them to accommodate others before themselves. That's the very essence of misgyony - to get women to put themselves after males. It's ingrained in us from birth.

You see, judging by some of your responses, I actually think many of us here have given far more thought to the whole business than you are giving them credit for, or that you yourself have given it. You seem very eloquent on your own experience ( aren't we all!), but seem to have been nurturing a lot of fundamental misconceptions about what 'gender critiicals' think.

The reason I've not posted at great length myself, is because I've been here so many times before - in exactly this same place - and so have managed to distill my thoughts and reflections down to the essentials. More condensed thought forms and conclusions.

I also think that's why there's a number of women on this thread who are finding it uncomfortable despite it supposedly being 'more productive' because it's rolling back to this point that women should do all the emotional labour and try and be 'more understanding of the issues'. The premise is to frame women as either ignorant or not trying hard enough.

And that really angers me tbh.

Sorry, I'm reading the thread backwards, that was in response to your question of whether we've ever tried to discuss any of this in trans inclusive space.

I would suggest Mumsnet is trans-inclusive, and what distinguishes it from most other spaces is just that it permits other views. But I think trying to do that is a good idea. And I would be happy to do so.

(NB - anyone thinking of doing this, I would caution using a throwaway email, not sharing any personal info when registering with a website, using a VPN, not sharing any identifying info.)

I do wonder why some people think regulars have not had almost replica conversations on this forum before though. It might not be a thread dedicated to it often, but many threads hold pieces of this discussion. And sometimes threads have pages and pages of this type of discussion.

I have not seen anything new on this thread that has not been covered before though. It is important to do this exercise though as often as needed.

Yes indeed. If we fail to understand 'gender identity' it's because we're not trying hard enough. Rather than, say, this concept that laws are being rewritten to accommodate and irreversible medical treatments given is insufficiently explained.

That said, thanks to the pp who listed some 'further reading', I will check those out.

Yes. I know we are going through an exercise that we have done before. I am giving it a shot, because each time we do it we have lurkers as we have had on this thread already tell us having it all laid out again is useful to them.

So, at least we know people are reading still. To that end, I have deleted many of my own posts.

I agree.

I spent a working life listening to views opposing my world-view; in my spare time I engaged with others to invite people from all over the world to come and oppose our world-view; we regularly gathered to listen to and engage with each others' radically differing world-views; taught (mostly) young people to engage with other world-views than their own and (yes!) be prepared to change their minds. (Although I rarely taught my own work, except to already-half-convinced postgrads.) And so on.

Kathleen Stock (heard of her, Spooky?) did precisely that, too. She also wrote a book which bent over backwards to understand a particular world-view. (Read this, too, Spooky?: "Material Girls" ... decide for yourself if I tell the truth about this.) Result? She was hounded from her job by people too afraid of her world-view to even consider it, mild and accommodating though it certainly was.

Not the least we can learn from @SpookyFBI is how the attitude to opposing views differs on different sides of the divide this thread straddles. I suppose we knew this, really; Spooky, at least, thinks we all share the view that, for each of us, it is our own (mostly untutored) opinion that really matters. If generalised (and others than Spooky, we know, are even stronger in their self-regard in such matters than she), this explains a lot about 'No debate', as well as the apparent impermeability to reason of trans ideological commitment.

The best you can do for yourself, Spooky and others equally wary of opposing world-views, is to come to recognise that this fingers-in-ears "I don't want to hear you! No! I won't listen! I won't!" is neither ubiquitous, nor good for human flourishing.

Remember Oliver Cromwell to the General Assembly of the Kirk: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken." Always. And teach that to your children, too. It's good for them. (And for you.)

I've been in this conversation (at times fight!) since 2017 and before then been involved in other activism, going back to squatting in the 80s and 90s.
From what I see on this board and talking to women irl - there is a range of views from: trans identity is bullshit and should never be affirmed to a more "let's find a solution but here are the red lines". Some people come in to say TWAW and that's ok, this is a public space. But they have to able to justify their position and let's face it they usually resort to emoting instead of debating.

Quite! When the fact is you''ve been giving this issue a lot of intensive emotional labour, for many years.

I don't feel I can give the time and patience all over again just to arrive at standstill.

Ah, but are we at a standstill? It doesn't feel like it to me.
It feels like we've achieved some listening both ways.
I totally get it that lots of people are frustrated here from years of discussion, so are now taking a hard line. But if those with opposing views also take a hard line, nobody is actually listening to anyone's views and they are filtering out the bits that annoy them. What incentive does someone who has a belief in a gender identity actually have to listen to gender critical people?
Personally I found it the opposite of frustrating that @SpookyFBI said she'd finally started reading what people were saying. I'm not in the least surprised that it took time for her to bother doing that. Some of the threads on this board can be pretty brutal given how strongly posters (rightly IMO) feel about the safeguarding of children and the erosion of women's rights.

Thanks to the pp for posting the article from Alex Byrne 'What is Gender Identity?'

Reading it now!

This is maybe useful:

'Gender identity is the sense of knowing to which sex one belongs, that is, the awareness ‘I am a male’ or ‘I am a female.’This is Stoller’s account of what he called core gender identity — the awareness or knowledge of one’s sex.'
...
'a better way of putting Stoller’s definition is to say that core gender identity is apparent knowledge or awareness of one’s sex'

Okay. That seems reasonable. APA definition is roughly this.

'is there a kind of “female gender identity” that is shared by trans women? Here are some candidates: a sense of kinship with females as a group, a female-typical psychology, satisfaction at being socially treated as a female, a tendency to conform to the norms of female behavior, and a tendency to emulate female stereotypes.'

Hm.

Oh, this is interesting:

'On present evidence, sexual orientation and sex-typed behavior and interests are strongly affected by the pre-natal environment. Core gender identity, on the other hand, is more labile and subject to social influences.'

'sex-typed behaviour and interests' sounds more impressive than 'sex stereotypes', but is it any different?

Ah.

'If there is some kind of “gender identity” that is universal in humans, and which causes dysphoria when mismatched with sex, it remains elusive. No one has yet found a way of detecting its presence, and verifying that it is causally responsible for dysphoria'

Interesting article, if ultimately still (to me) largely unsatisfying.

Hi @SpookyFBI

Firstly, I want to say thank you. Reading your posts has made me realise that I probably should gauge some of my responses to you in a more compassionate way - I'm autistic and can be a bit frank and I absolutely love research, so actually what might come across to you as "trying to pick apart" is just research to me, it's what my brain loves.

Secondly, I really liked your point about the counselling sort of channelling people towards making a decision - it's not pleasant being interrogated on your feelings as a condition of accessing further medical care and I can see that the counselling itself might harden people's views on this, though I can't see any way other than quite a lot of counselling where children are involved (and it seems that you agree).

Thirdly, I wanted to explain a bit more on fear, from the gender critical point of view. I don't fear trans people. I also don't fear having an adult trans child. What I do fear is that children might make irreversible changes to their bodies (puberty blockers etc) without true understanding. The basis for this fear is very highly personal. As an autistic not really gender conforming girl who was already being bullied for not fitting in at school, I really struggled with puberty and focused on my weight as a form of control (and because I didn't want things to be "even worse" for myself by being fat too) and developed anorexia. I recovered to a functional level after university, but to be honest I only properly recovered when I had my kids and even then I found the post partum period really destabilising. When I was in my teens, I had lots of doctors and my parents tell me what I was doing to my body and I understood intellectually, but it didn't register in my distress and actually just hardened my feelings that no one understood me. It was only in my 20s that I fully took to heart that I needed to try to take steps to improve my health, my bone density and ensure that I kept weight on to ensure I had some prospect of fertility. I am really lucky to have been able to have children, to have reversed the osteoporosis that I was diagnosed with at one point and to live a good life, but I am aware that my bone density is still on the lower end and that I probably have done some damage to my body underneath it all and have had to come to terms with that. I struggled to breastfeed both my children and I do wonder whether if I had had a better puberty my body would have functioned better on that front. I can see now, as a woman in my 30s, that I didn't value the option to have children as a teenager, but really really value it now. So for me, it's the fear for those children who are narrowing options for personal and physical growth by pursuing labels and medicalisation without the perspective of being what an adult really involves that really scares me.

Fourthly, I've been trying to reflect on trans vs gay more in answer to your question, which I do agonise about because I do understand how it comes across when I say that they are different. I think that actually in terms of my own feelings about the personal decision my reaction is that they are not different at all in adults. So, if my 25 year old adult child told me that they were gay or trans, then that would be the end of a conversation, in the sense that I'd fully accept that they had made the decision that felt right for them. I would feel the same for a teenager who announced they were gay, save that I would probably let them know that they didn't have to feel any pressure to label themselves if they didn't want to (especially if they hadn't had a sexual partner yet). I think with a trans child, coming out can never be the end of a conversation - it's the start of a conversation, for all the reasons what @BonfireLady has expressed. I get the impression from your responses that you maybe feel this way too?

Finally, I agree that actually many of us on here feel the same way as you about gender stereotypes. In fact, most of us are uncomfortable about the right wing traditionalists that we are often force teamed with (tricky, because in the U.K. we often look to the US, wrongly in my view because the culture is not the same, and in the US these are the people with a voice and with money). I think that the language used on both sides would serve to divide us. Many of us on here really despise the trans extremist argument for personal reasons, because we were or are ourselves gender non conforming and therefore fear for our younger selves if presented with "you don't like girls' stuff, therefore you are a boy" - frankly, if someone had told me that at 13 I would have been very vulnerable to making irreversible changes to my body. I have been thinking about what would I would say to my own teenager and I think I disagree with you that it would be ok to frame it as "living as a boy", because I still think that is reinforcing a stereotype, but I think that the ultimate answer would be the same in practical terms, in that my response would be "no puberty blockers just yet, but let's explore what might make you feel comfortable right now". From reading @BonfireLady's amazing contributions, I wonder if there might be a way of "reclaiming affirmation", so that rather than focusing on removing negative things that are "uncomfortable" and changing pronouns etc, we try to encourage children to think more positively about what aspects of their identities they are embracing - "ok, great, you like trousers more than skirts and want short hair, that's fine", "ok, what masculine things are appealing to you right now, let's try those on for size". Less about what you are not and more about what you are?

'“female gender identity” that is shared by trans women? Here are some candidates: a sense of kinship with females as a group, a female-typical psychology, satisfaction at being socially treated as a female, a tendency to conform to the norms of female behavior, and a tendency to emulate female stereotypes'

I guess it's based on the Platonic Form of 'woman'? Which many women don't subscribe to, agree with, or even particularly resemble.

I think perhaps the biggest difference here has been that Spooky has not attempted the usual tactic of shaming a whole board that we usually see. It does mean people are more likely to engage.

I always ask the question about what posters expected would be the reaction to shaming first posts, and usually get no answer. Or told that there was nothing shaming in using the terms they did, when the reality is those terms have been used extensively to denigrate women in these discussions. But it seems to have become so normalised that those posters cannot see the denigration. So they post shaming posts and wonder why no one engages positively.

So again, I do thank Spooky for not going down that route.