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. 😀

@SpookyFBI, can you tell me if you commented in the previous thread about whether prisons, hospital wards, sports, refuges etc should be mixed or single sex? If so I’ll go back and look, because this is a very big part of the whole issue for me.

Science, actual science, show us how much the mind, emotions, personality, thinking, are absolutely part of the body, not separate from it

Mainly as the function of the brain, but there is also the influence of hormones, gut biome, illnesses.

We are most definitely our bodies.

(And there's the influence of the people around us, of course, right from birth.)

It also struck me that the additional meanings of the word mother, that go beyond the one, single traditional/generally accepted meaning of the word “mother” [which was the biological meaning: a woman who has given birth ] have been added legally or have evolved over time to attain more general acceptance. So an adoptive mother would now broadly be accepted to be a mother, though there are still exceptions when the biology matters, such as in considerations of genetic/heritable disorders.

That evolution over time, with its associated growth in understanding of whether the new definition will cause legal or practical difficulties for the original group is an important part of this process.

The only reason the new definitions of mother have passed into general acceptance is that they have stood the test of time and have evolved naturally.

What is happening now is that evolution of the word women had begun, with a general acceptance that it was beneficial for the group “transwomen” without it being detrimental to women, or at least that the detriment to women was balanced against the benefit to “transwomen” and the benefit to “transwomen” was considered to outweigh the detriment to women. That argument was mostly made upon the assumptions that:

1. “transwomen” would be very traumatised if they were not treated as if they were women.
2. The change to the definition was being made on genuine medical grounds and
3. The detriment to women, while acknowledged, was limited because the numbers of “transwomen” were very limited because of point 2).

What is happening now is that new demands are being made that no longer rely on a medical diagnosis.

Inevitably that does away with point 3) as the number of men who claim to be women is no longer limited to the small group of men who are suffering from gender dysphoria, but are now joined by groups of men who enjoy dressing as women for sexual kicks and (impossible to prove, but realistically inevitable) men who want to access women’s spaces for nefarious reasons and would use any available loophole that makes that access easier.

So that process of gradual acceptance has gone into sharp reverse and that is closely related to the attempt to change the definition again.

In our mother analogy, this new change might be, as others have suggested, equivalent to some people (likely women) claiming to be mothers for material gain. There is also the question of people claiming or pretending to be mothers for sexual kicks and those people would almost certainly be from the group “men and transwomen”. I think the numbers of women claiming or pretending to be mothers for sexual kicks would be either so low so as to be irrelevant, or indeed zero.

I think that if anyone tried to extend the term “mother” to those trying to extract money from the state without having any children or to anyone wanting to “mother” a child for sexual purposes, then those claims would be very quickly rejected.

Makes sense! I've been wondering how I step away this weekend too (it's a long weekend with a public holiday today in the UK).

It's been my most intense use of MN yet 😬
I'm justifying to myself through a combination of the fact that the kids (both with and without me) have had lots of things they've been doing this weekend and I'm personally finding it very helpful to pull together my own thinking. I've seen and been a part of some of the most thought-provoking and genuinely "exchanged in good faith" conversations yet. Which will ultimately make me a better mum to my kids as well as a better me (mum guilt rears it head 😬😂). Without that discourse, everyone is just talking at each other.

Enjoy your time with your daughter.

That's a lovely summary from @BonfireLady. I just woke up (in addition to everything I should be doing this long weekend, am recovering from illness too, so excuse myself a lie-in!) and have been catching up for the last half hour, absolutely fascinated by all the contributions. It definitely woke me up more quickly than the usual coffee - so much to think about. I began making mental notes of thoughts I wanted to respond to, but lost track within a few posts as there were simply too many. @SpookyFBI, you've been amazing - thank you so much for engaging so fully in such genuine good faith. I used the word "uplifting" earlier in one of the threads to describe it (goodness knows where now!), and briefly wondered if it was justified. It has been now. If only our policy-makers were prepared to engage with these issues in the way everyone here has.

I very briefly touched on prisons and sports somewhere, but not the other topics. I would very much like to emphasise that I am by no means an expert on any of these topics and nor do I have any intention of presenting myself as such. If you’re still interested in hearing my personal and potentially incomplete thoughts on these topics as a lay person then I’d be happy to discuss them if I get the time tomorrow, but as a lay person I don’t have any studies to present to support my arguments or anything like that, so if that’s something you’re after then you’re probably better off looking to experts in the various fields than to me

If I reflect upon the question of "what does it feel like to be a woman" or " what does a being a woman feel like" I would honestly say it comes at the times the female body is doing its thing.

Sex. Pregnancy. Giving birth. Menstruation ( I used to keep a We'moon diary to chart my cycle). Menopause ( I had a very early menopause - age 36 - very sudden).

These sorts of bodily experiences and their associated mental and emotional states are what make me uniquely female, or cause me to reflect on my being 'a woman'.

Anything else is just me and my individual taste, preference, interest and so on.....although i accept that there are areas of interest which tend to be more indulged in by women rather than men, and vice versa - but just liking football, sport, urban design, politics.... and so on does not make me a man or make me feel like a man - but sometimes it means I associate and 'hang out' quite a bit with men.

I would like to echo all the thanks - especially to spooky, who has been inundated with questions and counter-arguments. And it is perfectly fine, of course, for any poster (particularly if she's outnumbered on one side of a debate) to choose what she responds to. There's a big difference between reasonable, good faith engagement with selected points (because otherwise, let's face it, she wouldn't get time to breathe) and the sort of tactic we've seen elsewhere, where someone dodges all rational debate while claiming that their points are unanswerable.

I also wanted to add that the "mother" analogy is both telling and false, because "mother" is a relationship. You cannot be a mother unless someone else is involved. It is a role you play, defined only and entirely by the existence of another. (I mean this linguistically, definitionally, of course, before anyone accuses me of making a value judgement about motherhood.) It is deeply misogynistic to see "woman" in the same category.

TBH, in all this, I don't actually care about precise definitions of womanhood. It's an utter waste of everyone's time. In my opinion yes, a woman is an 'adult human female' and, very very occasionally, that woman is a transwoman. People are tying themselves in knots about 'definitions', but humans can actually navigate life with a bit of ambiguity, it's one of our talents.

I believe trans rights do have a unique issue that, unlike others, they can impact on other rights (women's in this case) and we need to be mindful of that - sport is an obvious example, or women's prisons (NB, as far as I know no trans sex offenders in female prisons are ever supposed to be mixing with other prisoners and are always on separate wings and I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting they ever should be mixed). But we can deal with issues on a case by case basis.

The chances of walking into any 'intimate space' with a trans woman are tiny, I suspect the chances of walking into an 'intimate space' with a cis male sex offender are higher than the chances of walking into one with a trans woman sex offender. Trans women have been using loos and changing rooms for over a decade in the UK with no evidence of a boom in people assualting women and claiming to be trans.

But I do get why some women, especially SA survivors can feel uncomfortable and people shouldn't be accusing them of transphobia on that account - they're generally worried about men, not trans women.

Dysphoria is a mental health issue. The problem, the pain exists in the mind and is projected upon the body.

A difficulty coming to terms with gendered expectations, or with the sexualised attention of the opposite sex ( particularly true for girls)

Experiences of same sex attraction and at the same time an internalised homophobia or lesbophobia - maybe coming from one's family or culture.

Perhaps experiences of sexual abuse, or other traumatic experiences associated with the sexed body

The family of birth or culture is insistent on imposing rigid gender roles or expressions - perhaps through clothing, toys, play activities, emotional expectations ( boys don't cry/pretty girl)

A very strong desire in the mother for a child of the opposite sex ( see French prpgramme on Netflix 'La Petite Fille)

Ok spooky, so there was nothing there that backed up the statement :

“By contrast, the vast majority of people who undergo transition report that it has greatly enhanced their quality of life compared to before they transitioned.”

I am also concerned, because that link you posted includes a statement about suicides that is open to interpretation. It says this:

‘Suicide rates among transgender people are markedly higher than the general population’

This gives no context and it is very misleading. For instance, Is the suicide rate higher than mental illnesses including dysphoric conditions?

The biggest issue is that this website you link to, has made this statement from the US trans survey. The executive summary made that declaration about suicide ‘attempts’ and not suicides. But your link has published the statement about suicides not attempts.

There is also some clinician reports that state that these ‘attempts’ when drilled into with the patients that mention this, has been exaggerated from suicidal thoughts. And that the usage in the trans community of suicide attempts seems to have become misused.

It is still very concerning and so much more needs to be done for mental health support. However, this language creep needs to be understood and checked every single time you see it.

The American Pyschiatric Association should either remove that statement or find an original source document that supports it properly.

That trans survey, is a voluntary questionnaire, where a prize draw is offered as a reward for answering. Fine to do that, but that then becomes an incentivised study. Also questionable because answers maybe ‘skewed’ to increase some
factors of the trans life experience and there is no verification about whether this is true. This is not a ‘random’ population selection - these are people answering an hour long questionnaire with the view to ‘assist’ trans people.

This is very problematic if a document such as this is being used to change or create policy. This is very troubling.

So, I know you have found it all very demanding with so many questions.

I can only assume that your statement is repeating something you have read or heard rather than you, personally, checking original source documents to make sure that it is not just another misinformation being spread. If you come back, maybe you will confirm this?

I was a girl who spent her whole working life in construction.

I had a penknife for my 9th birthday.

I had one week from starting senior school to request doing the 'boys' subjects and they made it as phenomenally difficult as they could through the whole of my school and working life as they could.

I ask these questions from the angle of 'if you are so wedded to forcing me to pretend that these men are women, at least explain yourself'.

They never do. They never can. And then they always go do some cake making/ironing/looking after someone thing to try and force some element of busy empathy on us.

It's text book. We've seen it on here for years now. They want this good faith debate then never explain themselves.

That's on them. Not me for not including enough 'pleases' into the questions.

I can imagine! Can you tell we very rarely get to talk to anyone representing gender ideas in good faith? 😂

Honestly, we've been asking for this for years. So it's great to have your input, thank you, and please don't allow yourself to be overwhelmed. Wee baby takes a lot of looking after.

Maybe there are other lurkers who could step in and take the weight off Spooky?

Steel manning or otherwise, all good faith input is always appreciated.

I want to echo my thanks to Spooky though for coming back and engaging. It has been an interesting look into what has convinced some people and how they navigate the cognitive dissonance that I cannot navigate at all.

Thanks Spooky was I was trying to convey is not that I feel 'neither male not female' but I that I don't have a feeling of gender at all, that if the seat of gender feeling is housed in a body part that I am somehow missing this part. I'm not non-binary because I believe sex is binary and I definitely have a sex, it was determined at my conception and can never be changed. I , for want of a better word 'feel' female because I am female and I 'feel' like me. I have no clue how I could 'feel' like anyone else. My experiences, my upbringing, my beliefs all feed into my sense of self and I can only experience life as a woman because that's what I am.

In people with body dysphoria my take is that it is a reaction to something probably often triggered by guilt or shame or some other damaging reaction. Young men who have been told that to touch themselves is disgusting and have internalised this, same sex attractive people who grow up in an atmosphere where this is seen as sinful so they think they can escape sin by 'changing' sex.

I can totally understand teen girls trying to reject their bodies as they change and along with the surge of hormones and the blood and the pain and fear of pregnancy comes a barrage of unwanted sexual attention and the media onslaught of impossible beauty standards. Who wouldn't want to opt out of that?

But I don't think these feelings reside in a separate 'soul' or 'essence'. I don't think gender is a separate 'ingredient' to mind or body.

There is also the fact that the vast majority of trans people don't have body dysphoria. When 'Lia' Thomas happy strolls around the female changing room post race with Lia's penis visible I don't think Lia has dysphoria because surely someone who finds the sexed parts of their body distressing wouldn't what to show them to the world. They would do all the can to keep those parts hidden, to disguise them, to stay under the radar.

We have tried to be kind to the vanishing small percentage of people who's own bodies horrify them but the TRA lobby demands that dysphoria isn't used as a marker for 'transness'. We aren't just being asked to 'be kind' to a handful of people who, probably due to some unresolved trauma, find their own bodies deeply uncomfortable but also to people who are very comfortable indeed in their male bodies.

For the chances of being tiny, there does seem to be a lot of the random 'chances' happening. I would also like to argue that even if the chances are tiny, the impact can be massive and on a larger group.

Sports: one male athlete winning the womens cycling race last weekend (it were actually two in two different races) impacts many women. Women who do not win gold, women who don't win any medal, women who will stop cycling races because why bother, girls who stop training because why bother etc.

Prisons: one male rapist in womens prisons, many women uncomfortable sharing sleeping quarters and showers with him.

Changing room at the gym: one male person, many women coming in later, skipping classes, changing at home, ending their membership.

Why is it necessary to exclude women so male people can have more options? Why not have male, mixed and female facilities and sports? I really don't get it why women are deemed of so little value.

The thing that bothers me about forcing people to go into the service based on what was between their legs the day they was born was that for the most part, it's going to make women more unsafe*.

Right now we're arguing that men could pretend to be women, put on a dress and a wig and go into women's services and say "oh it's okay for me to be here, I'm a trans women".

If we force people to go into the service based on their birth genitals, men will be able to walk into women's services and say "oh it's okay for me to be here, I had a vagina when I was born". No requirement to pretend to be a woman or change how he dresses. He can just do it anyway.

There's no indication that trans people want to hurt anybody, so this whole idea of hurting trans people to make it harder for cis men to commit harm - which then enables cis men to commit harm more easily - is abhorrent to me.

I do not see transgender people and feminists as enemies, I see us as allies with a common enemy - cis guys.

*talking about services that are voluntary, i.e. you choose whether to walk into them.

Right now we're arguing that men could pretend to be women, put on a dress and a wig and go into women's services and say "oh it's okay for me to be here, I'm a trans women".

If we force people to go into the service based on their birth genitals, men will be able to walk into women's services and say "oh it's okay for me to be here, I had a vagina when I was born". No requirement to pretend to be a woman or change how he dresses. He can just do it anyway.

I'm trying to grasp this. You're saying that currently a man has to put on a dress, but if it wasn't for trans ideas being accepted, he wouldn't need to put a dress on?

I'm trying to grasp this. You're saying that currently a man has to put on a dress, but if it wasn't for trans ideas being accepted, he wouldn't need to put a dress on?

No. I'm saying that I see a lot of arguments that with trans women being allowed to use women's facilities, cis men might pretend to be trans women to hurt cis women.

If this was then changed, so that trans women had to use men's toilets and trans men had to use women's facilities, it would be easier for cis men to access women's facilities. They would not have to pretend to be trans women anymore, they could just pretend to be trans men.

The idea that forcing people to use the facility matching their birth genitals will therefore reduce the level of safety.

Re: the reflections on the provenance and nature of "gender", my perspective - which I think has been expressed in different ways by different people upthread - is that it's become a catch-all term for a multitude of facets of, I guess, the human condition.

I'm in no doubt that gender dysphoria exists - I think any suggestion that it doesn't would be akin to questioning the fundamental validity of being gay or lesbian - and also feel that, because of its implications, the input of medical experts, including those in mental health, should be necessary as a prelude to undergoing any physical interventions, eg. to guard against co-morbidities / diagnostic over-shadowing / underlying factors. Ironically, I think the current ideology, in advocating for a smoother and shorter pathway to physical transition, has made this interim process more important than ever before.

This is because gender dysphoria as a "condition" has become melded with "gender" in the public consciousness, when, in fact, concepts of gender in itself surely derive from the impossibly complex interplay of an almost infinite number of different areas and issues, both internal and external. All of the following could, I'd assume, could shape an individual's thoughts and feelings on "their" gender in the current, confused context: sex, age, mental health, physical health, education, intelligence (difficult to acknowledge, but must be acknowledged as relevant, I think), upbringing, community, society, culture, personality, beliefs, values, needs, ulterior motivations (sad but inevitably true)...

Most of the items in the list above are, themselves, inadequate as descriptions of a multitude of different considerations. Within the category of sex, each individual has a complex relationship with their sexed body; for age, just to focus on puberty, each individual responds differently, if within overall identifiable trends; mental health encompasses an infinity of different states, many (most?) not fully understood, and diagnosis sometimes a matter of degree etc. And each of these interacts in highly complex ways with external influences, of course.

And these external influences also include large-scale capitalist and political forces.

We like - need - to categorise, and "gender identity" offers a neat way for individuals to feel they are managing what may, in fact, be a multitude of complex issues, by reducing these down to a word, an identity, and an answer. I think we may see the same instinct in identity politics more generally, for example, in so-called hierarchies of oppression which disregard the sheer, impossible complexity of reality. It's partly the product of po-mo theorising - language and meaning as fundamentally slippery and utterly subjective - being, paradoxically, marketed (pun intended) as an easy answer to a multitude of barely-defined questions.

This doesn't negate the validity of "gender" as a (malleable but very real and important) concept to many, many people. But it does, surely, raise serious questions about it being used as a foundation for reorganising our society and re-writing our laws.

I just read this - Wittgenstein (apparently!) said, “Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language”. I may be quoting it entirely out-of-context, but, in its own right, it seems relevant here. "Gender" as a word is bloody complex, and there's a resistance to acknowledging this that is actively dangerous.

(Hence the fabness of this thread - thank you again, everyone).

Men aren't my enemies. I just don't want to use changing rooms with men in them if they are called female changing rooms. I don't think my trans friend is going to attack me, but I still don't want to share a female changing room with him no matter what he comes in wearing.

He's always going to be male, not female.

We have single sex exemptions for more reasons than violence, including the privacy and dignity of each sex.

I don't know what "allies" means on this respect.

I see. How can you tell the difference between a transwoman and a 'cis' man?

But most trans men that come and post on this board tell us that they are fully aware of the distress that their presence can cause already traumatised women and they find alternative solutions.

And if you think that many of these females are not quite easily discerned as female upon seeing them in real life, seeing them move and hearing them talk, then maybe you have very high expectations of how well these female people ‘pass’.

Yes,that is also how I see, and interpret, what Spooky is saying. They are fitting and accommodating their feelings and experiences into an existing framework of identity - that is gender identity theory, borne of post structuralist/post modernist theories of the self.