How did people start to believe in this trans stuff?

[IsThereAnEchoInHere]

I’m talking about the ’allys’, the one’s who believe in all this?
How did it make sense to them that women have penis’ now, that transwomen can compete with women, that men who were so oppressive yesterday can today be the most oppressed transwomen?

How did they get to that point?
How did it make sense to them?

To be complitely honest, I tried/ am trying to ’be nice’ and understand, but the more I read (from trans people, allys) the less it makes sense.
I wanted to understand, but my brain won’t let me.

I'm waiting for a response to the suggestion that one could identify as another race or another age group, as Stefoknee apparently does. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/transgender-father-stefonknee-wolscht-who-left-family-to-be-a-sixyearold-girl-uses-child-s-play-to-escape-adult-life-a6775051.html

I mean, I have had to express milk in a toilet near the sinks because there were no cubicles available, the line was huge, as usual and I had to express and dump in between seminars.

But, hey... feel fucking free to give away my right to only have female people around to save from complete humiliation! What a wonderful privilege to never have had to perform the tasks associated with being a female person in the toilets that were straight up peeing.

I don't understand why my post was deleted. I think it's an interesting comparison to look at sexuality and gender identity and how one is seen as a mental illness when diverging from the norm whilst the other is seen as a genuine and unquestionable identity despite neither having any concrete scientific explanation for their existence.

In some ways there are similarities as one claims to 'know' they have the brain of the opposite sex, whilst the other 'knows' they are attracted to what the brain of the opposite sex is typically attracted to.

I don't think there's anything homophobic/transphobic about this comparison so I can only assume people have downvoted it to try and avoid it undermining their agenda.

it's not particularly hard and costs you nothing. Be kind gurl

Sadly, this is not true. It costs as

• our words, which we need to fight against sex-based oppression in this world
• our own way of defining our gender if that is an embodied one, based on living in a sexed body
• our places on the podium, our scholarships and grants, our shortlists (aimed at correcting past discrimination against people of the female sex)

This (flawed) argument (rights are not slices of a pie or "you do not lose anything from being inclusive"), when applied to examples other than about women, clearly shows how it is boundary violating.

Think of someone advocating that you let homeless people in your house if it is large one (so nobody is inconvenienced), because it costs you nothing to be kind. Or how someone might try to justify the invasion of a country by a colonising force, as long as that force doesn't act rudely and as long there's plenty of space, etc.

I would, for a chance, love to see men urged to be kind or trans activists urged to be kind. The only group I see that request aimed at are bog-standard women, because our role has been defined as social and psychological support people. Real kindness extends kindness to all affected groups and individuals, and must be based on some concept of fairness to do that.

No, I was not put on this earth to validate another person's identity. They can believe what they want about themselves but I don't have to nor will I believe it.

Singles sex female only spaces, services and sports are for females only, not males whatever they think they are.

I would, for a chance, love to see men urged to be kind or trans activists urged to be kind. The only group I see that request aimed at are bog-standard women

Yes, well, that’s why he/she/they said, ‘be kind gurl 😉’

It’s only we ‘gurls’ who must #bekind. Oh, nearly forgot: 😉

As I regularly mention, glosswitch writes that you can always tell who is a woman by the direction in which kindness is supposed to flow.

Yay! Another dancing clown has joined the thread for our amusement! Happy happy joy joy.

I do wish we could attract a better class of clown dancer. The arguments being advanced here are from the unimpressive performances of a few years ago. Where are the modern, fresh clowns with today's laughable talking points?

In some ways there are similarities as one claims to 'know' they have the brain of the opposite sex, whilst the other 'knows' they are attracted to what the brain of the opposite sex is typically attracted to.

WTF?

That's one hell of a reach. If you are genuine, it also betrays a lot more than you probably intended about the way you think.

Homosexual people, other than perhaps those sad souls who have only been able to understand their same sex attraction through the lens of a trans gender identity, don't understand their sexuality as "I am attracted to what the brain of the opposite sex is typically attracted to". Just like straight people, gay, lesbian and bisexual people know who they fancy because it's them doing the fancying!

No one needs to imagine what people of the opposite sex and sexuality would find attractive to know who they themselves find attractive. It's quite the heteronormative statement to assume everyone is defining their own sexuality based on straight people.

Indeed, in that archetypal imaginary island of women who'd never even met a man, lesbians would quite happy fancy women without even knowing the opposite sex exists!

So, thank you for highlighting a great demonstration of the difference between sexuality and gender identity. Sexuality comes from your own knowledge of yourself. Gender identity requires you to assume something about other people.

Nrft.
I think of it like when people used to believe in those faith healer types who rummaged around in people's skin and 'pulled out' 'bad' lumps of gristle. Remember those?
Makes as much sense as believing in changing sex. Like hey, I know what people are saying and I know what that must mean but the process in between is just a hazy mess of confusion that I like to ignore with the power of belief.
Also, Southwark were WAY ahead of this with their dolphinoplasty episode. That was comparatively so long ago and I really had no idea what it was making fun of...until I did.

I think you understand very little!
Do you know if you fancy someone? Yes? OK. Fine.
The only way you can compare that to gender identity is if you then think it's OK to have sex with anyone you fancy, and they don't have to consent. That's the equivalent.

Also sexuality is internal. I have no problem with internally feeling masculine or feminine. But sex is your body and unrelated to either of those things, sexuality or any other feelings. I hate football. I like purple flowers. I like short hair. I fancy men. I may be male or female and be all of those things. I happen to be female. So I am a woman. If a male is similar to personality to me great, he is still a man.

MovinGroovinBarbie

Gay is a label we put on people who feel attraction to others of the same sex. That's a concrete feeling that someone can describe.

Woman is a label we put on people who are female and adult.

If people want to also have a term for people who are male and feel a sense of dissociation from their sexed bodies, they are welcome to have a term for that.

What you can't do is redefine woman to mean 'someone who has a feeling that they're a woman'. That's circular nonsense. Nobody can describe what that feeling feels like. It would be like defining gay as 'someone who feels they're gay' regardless of who they're attracted to.

Men who feel dissociated from their sexed bodies is a completely different category from women, with different needs, different bodies, different experiences.

I can only assume people have downvoted it to try and avoid it undermining their agenda.

This isn't reddit, you can't "downvote", only report to MN for a breach of talk guidelines, so someone obviously reported your post and MN deleted (not necessarily meaning there was anything wrong with it, we've all been victims of zealous reporting and moderation).

In some ways there are similarities as one claims to 'know' they have the brain of the opposite sex, whilst the other 'knows' they are attracted to what the brain of the opposite sex is typically attracted to.

The brain of the opposite sex being characterised by what, specifically?
Which things are unique to male or female brains?

People who come out with this sort of stuff must have never given it more than 2 seconds thought.

I recognise trans people. I can't validate their identities because I don't subscribe to that belief system but I would ask trans people to be kind to women because currently they aren't being. Identity is not reality and it is reality which should be the focus in single sex spaces. But in the men's - a man can wear high heels and a skirt and call himself Sue and I defend his right to do so. That's being kind. A man (TW or not) in women's sports? That's the opposite of kind.

Costs nothing?

How about Kathleen Stock loosing her career? Kelly JK beig assaulted and having to leave New Zealand for her own safety?

Caroline Farrow being arrested and questioned for hours and who is still under investigation for what?

Women being attacked when they want to meet and talk?

The women who not only had to compete with Lia Thomas but undress with him? Even when he was wandering around with an erection.

The young woman deprived of her place in the Olympics?

The cyclists having their medals and prizes taken by biological men?

Toilets in theatres / schools that have become unisex meaning some women cannot use them?

Women only swimming that isn't any more eg the Hampstead pools?

Then we get to the big ones, the women sexually assaulted in a psychiatric ward and in prison by a rapist claiming he is a woman?

So, thank you for highlighting a great demonstration of the difference between sexuality and gender identity. Sexuality comes from your own knowledge of yourself. Gender identity requires you to assume something about other people.

Note that you could fuck up sexuality in the same way by using the same identity model, rather than having the concept of "homosexuality".

You could say that a man who fancies men is actually a woman, because what makes you a woman is fancying men.

But then you'd end up in the same sort of bizarro paradox circular world.

Because if two men fancied each other, then they'd both be women. But then they'd both be women fancying women, which would make them both men again. Their identities would oscillate continuously. I haven't computed the oscillation frequency.

The concepts of "men who fancy men" and "men who say they feel like women"* make sense. Having distinct words for those concepts make sense.

But the statements "people who fancy men are women" and "people who say they feel like woman are women" fail because they accept words as an input, and then change those same words, in a feedback loop.

You've held the microphone up to the speaker and either got a dreadful squeal of oscillation or a totally floating signal.

• Pedantic footnote: "men who say they fancy men" also makes sense as a category - but it's less useful than "men who fancy men". And that latter group definitely exists because it's very clear from behaviour whether men do or not - we don't have to always rely on self-report - and this is the sort of thing sexologists keep an eye on. (I recall one talking the other day about research into how many 'bisexual' men were actually bisexual - you can research that). Whereas there's no coherent definition of what a "man who feels like a woman" is - it's something internal to a man that's not testable, and probably not the same feeling in many cases. The "beetle in a box" concept...

Also "person who fancies men" is also a meaningful concept, but again, less useful than "woman who fancies men" and "man who fancies men" as distinct categories.

All these categories make sense, with no circularity, they're just of varying utility.

whilst the other 'knows' they are attracted to [the same sex]

It's rather repulsive to put 'knows' in inverted commas like that as if gay people don't actually know that they're gay. Obviously knowing your own experience (the experience being attracted to the same sex) is a very different proposition from presuming to know other people's experience, or presuming to know something that by definition cannot be true (that you feel like the opposite sex, or even that you are the opposite sex.)

I think comparing these experiences is why there's so much conversion therapy type rhetoric coming from trans activists - "gender identity" is a product of [internet] culture, it's basically a meme, whereas exclusive same-sex attraction is fundamental, and of course they have to invert that to feel secure about themselves.

This is my thing, why do Transgender women have to be considered women. Why can they not live their life as similarly as possible to ‘real’ woman whilst understanding they can never actually be a woman.

I’m only 24 but when growing up, I thought people who were Trans women always knew that they weren’t women but were trying to ‘live their truth.’ I don’t even understand where this ‘we are woman’ brigade has come from.

I really do agree with this comment, I believe that trans people deserve the same human rights as everyone else. But that’s not what we are being asked to support any more, it’s gone way beyond that.

Because if two men fancied each other, then they'd both be women. But then they'd both be women fancying women, which would make them both men again. Their identities would oscillate continuously. I haven't computed the oscillation frequency.

I’m only 24 but when growing up, I thought people who were Trans women always knew that they weren’t women but were trying to ‘live their truth.’ I don’t even understand where this ‘we are woman’ brigade has come from.

You've nailed it here. This was what most people still think a trans person is - someone that recognises their own sex and, for whatever reasons, deeply wants to be the other sex.

It's fairly recent (last ~6-7 years?) that this has been replaced with 'they are not actually their birth sex because their gender, which is a feeling, is their sex, although their sex isn't their gender. And if you are confused by that then NO DEBATE, BIGOT'

Did people sit around at meetings in LGBT charities, and left-wing NGOs, and be like, "you know, I think we can get away with pushing the message that trans women are really women"; "it seems crazy, but if all of us just repeat it enough and call any opposition 'transphobic' then I think we can get away with it..."?

Maybe started off as a bet because they were bored or something?

It's fairly recent (last ~6-7 years?)

About 8 in the mainstream, that I'm aware of. Longer in feminist circles etc. Not at the time the Equality Act was passed in 2010. The video evidence during the Trans Equality Inquiry held by Maria Miller is quite interesting. It seems to me that the power grab in earnest and self ID for all via the back door came about then. There's a video submission where it seems to be taken for granted that women would be uncomfortable with members of the opposite sex in their changing room, and that that is reasonable. Including by the TRA.