Controversial but curious.....

[JBEM4]

I'm fully aware I'm putting myself in a position whereby I'm going to be massively offended by some replies to this but I hope that they can at least be respectful.

I'm not sure what the point of my very long essay is but I do hope that I can at least make just one person be more open minded and realise that discrimination of any form is a choice and an unnecessary at that.

Here goes.....

I have a trans son (19). He started his journey aged 13. It was a natural and organic transition and I, as everyone who knows him, expected it.

He's done 3 years of counselling with a clinical psychologist (monthly), has never questioned who he is not even for a second and is finally starting testosterone this month that will (he hopes) give him facial hair, give him a more masculine appearance and deepen his voice. For context, if you met him today you wouldn't know he was trans.

Fortunately FTM individuals don't seem to attract a fraction of the hostility, outrage and offence that MTF people do - why is that?

I do try to understand others opinions but for the life of me can't fathom how/why people feel qualified and entitled enough to be so personally offended, judgemental, ignorant and vocal in their views that the trans community aren't worthy of respect let alone basic human rights.

No one chooses to be trans and those who are brave enough to transition do so because being at peace with themselves and living THEIR best life is more important to them despite the adversity, discrimination and abuse they'll receive from society.

My son is my son. His genitals do not define him. As parents we fight for our kids, for their right to have support, opportunities and advantages in life.. Parents will take on the whole damn system to get an autism diagnosis for their child because as a parent YOU know your child needs the right support and all that the health system can offer so your child can live their life and be the best they can be......

Why are trans kids/adults any different?
I've been accused of abusing my child, grooming my child, been told that he needs psychiatric help, he'll grow out of it, and that he doesn't have the right to live his life as he needs to.

These are comments that no one is brave enough to say to my face.

Not understanding what it is to be trans, not having experiences, contact or relationships with someone who's trans does not afford anyone the right to decide/debate on their existence. Being so absolute in opposition/denial/disgust of how another person lives their life while having zero impact on anyone else's.

So come at me. Please tell me how a trans person has personally offended you or negatively impacted your life and why a human beings value can't be based on their character and whether they're simply just a good person?

*not "agreeing" with being trans isn't a valid excuse.....

Gah I did. Oh for an edit button!!!

This is very personal to you OP and I'm surprised that you're placing your child's choices at the centre of your thread.

Still - it takes all sorts.

I have a trans son (19). He started his journey aged 13. It was a natural and organic transition and I, as everyone who knows him, expected it.

That’s a very interesting statement and I’m curious what you mean by that. Will you come back and explain?

Is it because they way your child dresses, or their hobbies? Was there something else that was obvious to you and everyone else? Im struggling to think of what an external marker that others can pick up on would look like.

Gender ideology beliefs means more venues including schools are using this a reason to have mixed sexed facilities with full height doors. This makes public places or education inaccessible or less safe for those with other beliefs (religious), for those suffering with post trauma from sexual assault (usually female victims) and for those with medical needs (my Dd who has seizures and has collapsed inside the toilet cubicle so needs to be seen to be safe like in traditional female toilet cubicles with a door gap).

So by altering resources for one group’s preference, it is more profoundly detrimentally affecting many more vulnerable people with medical needs, trauma and other beliefs.

So that’s a direct reason why your child’s ideology is hurting my child’s safety.

Fortunately FTM individuals don't seem to attract a fraction of the hostility, outrage and offence that MTF people do - why is that?

Because they exhibit female pattern offending behaviours (albeit with some additional tendency towards aggression, same as women who take PED for sports reasons).

'Come at you'? No thanks. Given the posting time, I'll guess you're American?

FtM people are not seeking to destroy women's equality and access, this is not really a 'trans' issue, it's a misogynist issue in that way.

I am absolutely fine with people being trans if they want to be, and adults choosing what they wish to do in terms of adapting their body. I don't agree that children should be assisted into pathways that they may find highly traumatic and harmful further down the line.

I do not believe in gender ideology myself and while I respect other people's faiths I don't want to be involved in someone else's faith, made to participate or to state things I don't believe myself, and expect reciprocal respect from the person of faith that my own beliefs are not subordinate to them and neither am I.

I'm lesbian, which is a female homosexual. I do not want to be harassed to have heterosexual sex with someone I perceive as male on the grounds that the male person's sense of self is all that matters and I owe them sex. Or that I should be raped or murdered for saying no, and that when I go to a lesbian group I want to be there with other female homosexuals and not with male people harassing for sex and trying to tell me I need to 'learn to cope' with penises.

I want equality of access so that female people who do not perceive male people as women, or who cannot use mixed sex spaces, are not excluded from any women's space to provide male people with their preferred choice of all the spaces. I want spaces that provide equality of access, privacy and dignity for all people, and that does mean male people respecting that female inclusion matters too and not everything can be controlled and entered by them.

I want female people to be able to have health support groups for female only health conditions, sport, refuges and health services that are female only regardless of how male people feel about this or identify. Again, very happy for there to be additional mixed sex womens services and provisions, and some women will be happy to use those with male people of TQ+ identities, but this cannot come at the expense of removing all access from female people.

If you feel you need to call that hate? I'm good with it.

I do try to understand others opinions but for the life of me can't fathom how/why people feel qualified and entitled enough to be so personally offended, judgemental, ignorant and vocal in their views that the trans community aren't worthy of respect let alone basic human rights.

Well I don't think you've tried very hard because you seem completely misinformed so its a bit rich for you to accuse others of ignorance. Come back when you have actually researched what our objections are. Hint: it has nothing to do with trans peoples right to exist or have exactly the same human rights as the rest of us. Falsified legal documents are not a human right.

I was supporting someone very close to me through their transition before your child was even born. Sorry for not being the hateful bigot you need me to be to justify your own hate.

No one wants to come at you OP - though I very much doubt you’ll be back

your child is going to spend their life on medication in order to live as a male whatever that actually means but they can never change their sex

And I’m sure you’ll be able to tell us what rights trans ppl don’t have under UK law

I genuinely hope that you and your child continue to be as happy with the medical interventions you have chosen to make at such a young age for the next 10, 20, 30 years. I hope your child does not experience serious health implications or regret.

It is not about hatred or transphobia, it is about concern that being told that these extreme medical treatments are necessary immediately, while children's minds and bodies are still developing.

I became vegetarian in my teems and still am. However I also thought I would adopt rather than have biological children and this changed.

I have the feeling that you have posted on here because you have a niggling doubt in the back of your mind and are looking for an opportunity to strenuously defend what you have done, hoping that any difference of opinion can be viewed as 'transphobia'.

Please look for mental health support for you and your child if you do begin to feel regret.

OP, you are encouraging your daughter in the delusion that she can change sex. She can't. Medication and surgery will shorten her life and damage her fertility. Surgery may result in complications. She will never be a man, simply a woman with health problems and reduced or non-existent fertility. I'd urge you to read what Scott Newgent, a lesbian who has transitioned, has to say about the impact of testosterone and repeated surgeries has had.

With respect to your other question: how have trans people offended us or negatively impacted our lives? Apart from the ones who send out threats of rape, torture and murder on Twitter, you mean? Apart from the ones who get feminists thrown off social media, or report them to the police or to their employers?

OK, we'll leave those aside. This isn't about trans people per se. It's about men and their entitlement. It's about men who take women's spaces on football teams, or who win women's swimming or cycling events. It's about male rapists who are put into prison with vulnerable women. It's about male sexual predators or go into women's changing rooms and expose themselves. I could go on, but you get the idea. These men may call themselves "trans" but it's up to you whether you think they are trans or whether they are simply aggressive, entitled men leaping at the chance to exercise their power over women.

Of course, you may find it hard to understand why those of us who don't take part in sport, or aren't in prison, or don't much use changing rooms should care about the women who are on the receiving end of male entitlement and sexual aggression. You'll just have to accept that there are women who are capable of caring about other women, and don't form their political views based on their own selfish needs. And that we will fight for those women till our dying breath, regardless of the fact that there are other women who are prepared to throw them under the bus.

Totally.

Also three years of monthly counselling must've cost a fortune. Unless this is all on the NHS? In which case, the service is a lot better than we were led to believe!

Sanluca have you mixed up FTM with MTF. OP's son is FTM but the main risks to women are from MTF surely?

The OP won't be back, typical plopper.

However, on the off chance that they ate reading, I will say this. If your child was sent to prison, would you want them put into a male prison, sharing a cell with another man, locked in at night, using an in-cell toilet with minimal privacy? Would you be happy for them to shower with other male offenders, many of whom will have committed acts of violence against women? Does your level of belief really extend to putting your child at that level of risk?

Yes, I mixed them up, Dcbc1234. It is the MTF people who's actions and demand are generating the most negative impact on other people's lives. I wanted to show that this person's claims that 'they just want to live their best lives and it impact no one else so why all the hate' is just a rubbish statement to make.

But as they haven't come back, I will leave this thread alone from now. Their post was not in good faith, as they say

How does a F2M negatively impact me?

It narrows the definition of female and women to feminine, to those without interest and capabilities defined as masculine in our society

My biology doesn't define me - nor does it define anyone else - yet the minute you accept a transgender identify you have defined someone's identity as inconsistent with their biology. Which means you think that identity and biology ARE linked

I feel sadness for F2M people - the actions they need to take to be at all convincing are harmful to their bodies and you only get one life , one body

I feel hate towards those who encourage and support F2M transitions. Because it's not necessary - women in the past learnt to accept their body , learnt to reject sexism and gender constructs that didn't apply to them

I feel angry that those transgender supporters can't accept people as they are , can't let them live as themselves , can't see past their bodies to see the real person , but have to support them instead to be physically changed , and usually as a result sterilised

And sterilisation of none conformists has never been a good idea in any circumstances

very possibly, my feelings were

"So come at me. Please tell me how a trans person has personally offended you or negatively impacted your life"

that I could not imagine any possible reason this would be a productive thing to do

I don't generalise I really don't think all trans people are like that - so how could revealing anecdotes possibly feel like anything except an attack on her son.

Whilst (1) I don't think the OP will be back and (2) I don't believe there is any good faith in their posting I will comment as follows on two points in the opening post:

of how another person lives their life while having zero impact on anyone else's.

False. I can give a list of impacts but doubt the OP would be interested.

No one chooses to be trans and those who are brave enough to transition do so because being at peace with themselves and living THEIR best life is more important to them

True. Their best life is the only thing that is important to them, everyone and everything else is either collateral damage or required to perform service.

A question to the OP is "are you happier that you have a trangender son, rather than a lesbian daughter?"

It seems a lot easier to medicalise a gay child and say that they have a medical problem rather than accept a gay child. We see this a lot with homophobic religious families in America, as it's much easier to cast the "disease" as a sin rather than the child as a "sinner".

My son thought he was trans, he came out to me at the age of about 14/15. We went to GIDS with him and very luckily had a great family counsellor there who helped him to realise that a lot of his feelings were due to internalised homophobia.
If it wasn’t for the Covid lockdown then I expect he would be a heavily medicalised transwoman now, but lockdown did put a pause on all of it, long enough for him to realise that he was quite happy to be a (slightly effeminate) man. He’s now 21 and loving life, a lot more than if I had rushed him down the puberty blocker and medical route.
So yes, I know, or more correctly knew a trans person, and I loved him enough to ask the tough questions and help him question just what ‘trans’ is. I did not want a life for him where he was always wanting to be something that he could never achieve, let alone a life of medical interventions.