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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

School guidelines on gender identities/trans out this week

674 replies

ArabeIIaScott · 19/06/2023 10:36

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/22733965/schools-banned-letting-pupils-change-gender-parents-rishi-sunak/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12208907/PM-says-children-not-allowed-switch-identities-schools-without-telling-parents.html

These are the only two articles I could find so far.

'Schools will be forced to tell parents if students are questioning their gender under new Government guidance to be published this week, according to a report. '

Schools to be banned from letting kids change gender if parents say no

SCHOOLS will be banned from letting kids change their gender if their parents say no, The Sun can reveal. And children who want to be called by another pronoun — he, she, they — will not be able to…

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/22733965/schools-banned-letting-pupils-change-gender-parents-rishi-sunak

OP posts:
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26
HipTightOnions · 22/06/2023 20:51

And finding exclusively male changing spaces to be intensely unpleasant and oppressive

Just asked my son about this. He hates male changing spaces. He reckons everyone does except those who are super-confident.

ButterflyHatched · 22/06/2023 20:51

Signalbox · 22/06/2023 20:23

And finding exclusively male changing spaces to be intensely unpleasant and oppressive

Yes and guess how the women in the previously exclusive female changing rooms feel when the men who found exclusively male changing spaces to be intensely unpleasant and oppressive appear in our spaces?

I know it probably won't be received in the manner intended, but I'm really genuinely sorry that this situation makes you uncomfortable and I hope things become easier. It's very difficult to interrogate my own feelings on this subject but I can't help but feel a similar discomfort when it happens. I know that'll be read as hypocritical, and I suppose it is...but there it is. This seems to not be an uncommon feeling, from speaking with other trans women of a similar age and history. Really not wanting to appropriate anyone else's experiences, but it's definitely something we see and acknowledge -at least to some extent- as well. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I really hate the feeling.

Right, there's a traybake with my name on it and I'm going to try and be strong and not reply to anything else today. Hopefully we'll get an update tomorrow.

SunnyEgg · 22/06/2023 20:52

And finding exclusively male changing spaces to be intensely unpleasant and oppressive

Tbf we’re not keen on males in our changing spaces either.

FlirtsWithRhinos · 22/06/2023 20:54

Ereshkigalangcleg · 22/06/2023 20:06

My brother hates football. Perhaps he's actually a woman.

Depends dosn't it? American football? Clearly a woman. Rest-of-world football? Clearly a man, if American, or a woman if not.

Not stereotypes though, oh no no no.

Boomboom22 · 22/06/2023 20:56

There is no supposedly. If you took puberty blockers and or opposite sex hormones then long term damage has been caused and it most certainly will shorten life span. Osteoporosis being the very mildest problem.
Do not deny reality. This is not an opinion. Off licence drugs which even when used as intended have hoffiric consequences.

anyolddinosaur · 22/06/2023 20:59

"feeling a sense of relief over having a sluggish puberty and finding exclusively male changing spaces to be intensely unpleasant and oppressive, however "

You wouldnt know but many women hated communal female changing spaces at school too, this is nothing to do with you hating your body.

I'm sorry you were bullied at school but had you received appropriate medical treatment and "found your tribe" at university you'd now be a healthy, probably homosexual, male instead of deceiving yourself that you are a woman. You'd probably have normal fertility and be able to father your own children. You'd be just as happy but more healthy.

I wonder what your relationship with your parents was like and how much this has to do with your self-hatred.

and btw it was not only popstars who ignored gender stereotypes.

BreatheAndFocus · 22/06/2023 21:19

ButterflyHatched · 22/06/2023 18:55

Couldn't agree more - it makes me quite uncomfortable to see this behaviour pattern amongst kids as well.

When I've been able to, I've done what I can (as a vaguely respected, I guess, at least in circles who know I exist!) older trans person to challenge this kind of 'you like Call of Duty and wearing baseball caps: you must be a boy!' nonsense. It's important to bear in mind, though, that this often first manifests in ways that appear deeply questionable or ridiculous to us at first while people are trying to work out how to articulate how they are feeling.

We really don't help anyone by gatekeeping.

I think gatekeeping is crucial for children and teens. I get what you’re saying but there are many reasons for gender non-conformity, one being the teen being lesbian or gay but still getting their head round that. For others it’s more of a fashion thing. Others might use it as a defence. A tiny percentage of those GNC teens grow up to be trans, but the majority of young people feeling unease with their gender and insecure about their sexed body grow out of it.

FlirtsWithRhinos · 22/06/2023 21:28

I also really strongly think you are overeating unusual at the time. I am 40 and being gender non conforming in the 90s was conformity in many ways not unusual. It sounds like your family were way more traditional than most which was the problem not you

Butterfly is American I think by the language and posting times? IME the US in the 80s and 90s (and indeed today) was much more gendered than the UK. I suspect the experiences Butterfly assumes were universal were quite culturally specific. (This is quite standard for USians.)

Which leads to an interesting thought.

Many of us growing up in the 70s to 90s had a childhood that was physically lived in the UK but mentally massively influenced by American culture via TV and films. I'll hazard many of us genuinely felt we knew "America" better than our own culture (being, of course, unaware both that the culture in which you are immersed is invisible to you, and that the "US" we experienced was in reality a bunch of cultural tropes produced and reproduced reflexively for entertainment), felt more aligned to that (perceived) identity than the one to which we were born and that life had somewhow dealt us an unfair hand being born where we were. (Interesting segue into the active and deliberate action of advertising on identity here which I don't have time to take)

We were, in short, Trans American. The intersection of the constellation of identity of being born American, and the constellation of identity of being born British but influenced by American culture was statistically significant enough to make us American, self identified at least.

I wonder, will the US establishment be ready to recognise our trans identity with citizenship or green cards, self id, no questions asked or challenge valid? After all, as Butterfly explained so clearly, there is no fundmental, necessary factor in an identity, it's merely a tipping where the constellation of factors within an individual that are correlated with a particular identity becomes statistically significant. So there's no valid reason that the small fact that I was not born in the US, naturalised to the US or born to US parents should negate full legal recognition of my identity an American with full access to all the rights and opportunities that come with it.

And if not, why is one fact of birth and the rights it carries immutable, a fact of the life actually lived regardless of ones personal subjective evaluation of said life, while the other is merely optional?

Boomboom22 · 22/06/2023 21:33

Yes exactly. Could not have put it better. You have consolidated the whole point into this example. Brilliant, actually brilliant 👏

OldCrone · 22/06/2023 21:37

ButterflyHatched · 22/06/2023 20:51

I know it probably won't be received in the manner intended, but I'm really genuinely sorry that this situation makes you uncomfortable and I hope things become easier. It's very difficult to interrogate my own feelings on this subject but I can't help but feel a similar discomfort when it happens. I know that'll be read as hypocritical, and I suppose it is...but there it is. This seems to not be an uncommon feeling, from speaking with other trans women of a similar age and history. Really not wanting to appropriate anyone else's experiences, but it's definitely something we see and acknowledge -at least to some extent- as well. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I really hate the feeling.

Right, there's a traybake with my name on it and I'm going to try and be strong and not reply to anything else today. Hopefully we'll get an update tomorrow.

Are you really saying that you're sorry your presence in women's changing rooms makes us uncomfortable and you hope things become easier?

Of course you know what the solution is - stay with the men and keep out of women's spaces.

I really hope I've misunderstood your post.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 22/06/2023 21:46

Are you really saying that you're sorry your presence in women's changing rooms makes us uncomfortable and you hope things become easier?

Funny that you never see these apparently very common sentiments among MTF trans people on Reddit MTF or other trans forums, it's all a bit more gloaty and entitled than that, none of them are angsting about how they might make women uncomfortable.

TheBiologyStupid · 22/06/2023 22:17

But transwomen are men, otherwise they wouldn't be trans surely given that no human can change their biological sex?

Hepwo · 22/06/2023 22:31

What a lot of boasting!

FlirtsWithRhinos · 22/06/2023 22:41

@ButterflyHatched

I don't think we need to be bound by the historical precedent of what came before, though - in the same way that we don't need to pretend atoms are indivisible, fundamental units of matter anymore. We just need to be clear which definition we are using, and make sure it is the correct model.

You miss the point (several points in fact).

Firstly, the point about history isn't that we can never change, or even that the historic view was even right (in the case of historic sexism, I clearly would say its not). And it's not about who has the "right" definition of womanhood.

It's simply that whether what was historically understood by "woman" was right or wrong, the historic injustices dealt to the people who met that historical description were still real, and they did happen to that group of people and not, for example, the people you now believe women to be.

Do you understand that? They didn't happen to the word Woman, they happened to the people who happened to be under that word at the time.

Similarly, the physical facts of (old definition) womanhood - the vulnerabiliity to rape and other physical abuse, the physical burden of reproduction and the social burden of the assumption of reproduction whether we chose to or not , the on average lower strength and speed, compounded by structural assumptions of male norms - these still exist and still apply to the same people regardless of whether you allow us the name Woman to describe our commonality or not.

And why does that matter today? Because whether right or wrong about "woman", these facts have shaped our culture. There are men who festishise female spaces and violation - that's why there's a market for hidden cams and upskirt videos. There are still men (and women) who believe female people are less suited to the type of work that earns good money, or that we should bear the heavier caring and domestic burden, or that our choices for how to spend our time are never more important than a man's desire for our company, or that if we reject a man we are a stuck up bitch who needs to be taught a lesson, or that our murder is a lesser crime than to feel humiliated by us... this all still happens. They don't check our identity or plot us within a corruscating constellation of statistcially significant correlations, they just do it to us because we meet the criteria for the people to whom they have always done it.

So sure, you may have a deeper, more subtle, just gosh darn righter conception of womanhood than those who foolishly believe their victims to be women based on some old, outdated notions but from the point of view of the victim that makes fuck all difference because these acts of sex-based oppression happen to us not because we meet your new and improved definition but because we meet the definition of sex under which they are constructed.

And here you are with your "oh but things can change, we can have better understanding" and you think that word salad alone, the clvereness of your concepts, is enough to ignore all that, as if by changing the meaning now, all that cultural baggage, all those toxic beliefs, just evaporate. As if we don't need to worry about what men (old meaning) did and still do to women (old meaning), as if just because you changed the definition of "woman" they won't connect us and our bodies to that old idea any more.

And so you allow yourself to appropriate everything that exists for "women", that we need to counter that age old opporession, while you do nothing - nothing - to change the fact that the men (old version) who had those toxic ideas about women (old version) before still have them about us now and will cntinue to act on them regardless of whether you allow us to name our sex Woman or not.

In short - of course I can imagine different ways to think of sex, or to structure society. I can imagine all sorts of better worlds. That's easy.

The hard part, the part that makes this fair, the part you are skipping, isn't where should we go to, it's how do we get there from here in a way that acknowledges the reality of how sexism embedded in our society continues to impact female people on a personal and societal level, and makes sure any social transition deals fairly with female people as well.

And on that, for all your words, you are notably silent.

JanesLittleGirl · 22/06/2023 22:48

So, when all is said and done Hatched , what exactly is it that gives you the right to enter a women's single sex space, knowing that it makes women feel embarrassed, demeaned and frightened?

ButterflyHatched · 22/06/2023 22:54

Just to smooth out a couple of kinks:

@FlirtsWithRhinos UK based here with a flexible work schedule; have been all over Eastern Europe over the years and scrambled over many, many American tanks in army bases in my youth, but always based here. I went to early-days Mermaids waaay back, was referred to the Tavi in the late 90's and was prescribed blockers by the Middlesex hospital team. Nice analogy about national identity - really like that!

@Boomboom22 Not sure where these assumptions about puberty blockers came from - please do be careful about consuming the output of the US misinformation machine that's been flooding the media recently. Repeat a lie enough, etc. Certainly doesn't match my experiences anyway. Bear in mind that my puberty was already heavily suppressed by my own genetics - blockers just cut that from 'very little' all the way down to nothing. I wouldn't have been able to grow a beard if I'd tried, my voice sort of hung around the creaky '14 year old boy' stage and never went any further meaning my natural comfort register never got me 'clocked' even through a couple of years of call-centre and voice acting work, and I'd almost certainly not have been fertile to begin with. Nothing dodgy and off-label here - no way would my mother have allowed that even if I'd have had the faintest idea where to look! Risk factors from CSH aren't outliers when compared with general HRT figures, afaik? Suuuper don't want to get into another multi-page discussion about blockers, anyway. Been there, done that a couple of years ago, think we hit 1k posts eventually.

@OldCrone Can't speak for other TW; deeply uncomfortable at the thought of own presence making others uncomfortable, but very unlikely to be an issue given circumstances. Sometimes feel discomfort at seeing people I heavily read as male in changing spaces I'm using; absolutely hate feeling that way but it is what it is and it feels important to acknowledge that it happens.

@Ereshkigalangcleg I'm sadly not all that surprised to hear this, though I remain perpetually disappointed. Lot of poorly adjusted people out there handling their trauma in deeply unhealthy ways. If I wanted to self-destruct I'd go take a look (said the trans woman posting on the Mumsnet feminism board) - I think I'd rather gnaw my own arm off than willingly read Reddit, though!

Boomboom22 · 22/06/2023 23:01

Boys don't usually end puberty until after 21. So that's not unusual in itself. If you do have abnormally low testosterone perhaps that may explain why you felt you are not particularly masculine.

knittingaddict · 22/06/2023 23:01

For some strange reason I'm feeling less sorry about the situation Hatched finds himself in. Couldn't happen to a nicer bloke.

Boomboom22 · 22/06/2023 23:04

I do know transwomen and transmen who pass BTW. They so exist. And I also know bio men amd women who look like they could be trans and are not, so I'm not one to say you can always tell etc. I'm not an extremist. I am a teacher and I do care about children. As a psych teacher I'm slightly concerned my teaching 10 to 15 years ago may have confused people about gender despite being clear on social construction. The evidence base is complex and hard to understand and interpret. Research is always biased. Big pharma are not known for ethics.

ButterflyHatched · 22/06/2023 23:07

FlirtsWithRhinos · 22/06/2023 22:41

@ButterflyHatched

I don't think we need to be bound by the historical precedent of what came before, though - in the same way that we don't need to pretend atoms are indivisible, fundamental units of matter anymore. We just need to be clear which definition we are using, and make sure it is the correct model.

You miss the point (several points in fact).

Firstly, the point about history isn't that we can never change, or even that the historic view was even right (in the case of historic sexism, I clearly would say its not). And it's not about who has the "right" definition of womanhood.

It's simply that whether what was historically understood by "woman" was right or wrong, the historic injustices dealt to the people who met that historical description were still real, and they did happen to that group of people and not, for example, the people you now believe women to be.

Do you understand that? They didn't happen to the word Woman, they happened to the people who happened to be under that word at the time.

Similarly, the physical facts of (old definition) womanhood - the vulnerabiliity to rape and other physical abuse, the physical burden of reproduction and the social burden of the assumption of reproduction whether we chose to or not , the on average lower strength and speed, compounded by structural assumptions of male norms - these still exist and still apply to the same people regardless of whether you allow us the name Woman to describe our commonality or not.

And why does that matter today? Because whether right or wrong about "woman", these facts have shaped our culture. There are men who festishise female spaces and violation - that's why there's a market for hidden cams and upskirt videos. There are still men (and women) who believe female people are less suited to the type of work that earns good money, or that we should bear the heavier caring and domestic burden, or that our choices for how to spend our time are never more important than a man's desire for our company, or that if we reject a man we are a stuck up bitch who needs to be taught a lesson, or that our murder is a lesser crime than to feel humiliated by us... this all still happens. They don't check our identity or plot us within a corruscating constellation of statistcially significant correlations, they just do it to us because we meet the criteria for the people to whom they have always done it.

So sure, you may have a deeper, more subtle, just gosh darn righter conception of womanhood than those who foolishly believe their victims to be women based on some old, outdated notions but from the point of view of the victim that makes fuck all difference because these acts of sex-based oppression happen to us not because we meet your new and improved definition but because we meet the definition of sex under which they are constructed.

And here you are with your "oh but things can change, we can have better understanding" and you think that word salad alone, the clvereness of your concepts, is enough to ignore all that, as if by changing the meaning now, all that cultural baggage, all those toxic beliefs, just evaporate. As if we don't need to worry about what men (old meaning) did and still do to women (old meaning), as if just because you changed the definition of "woman" they won't connect us and our bodies to that old idea any more.

And so you allow yourself to appropriate everything that exists for "women", that we need to counter that age old opporession, while you do nothing - nothing - to change the fact that the men (old version) who had those toxic ideas about women (old version) before still have them about us now and will cntinue to act on them regardless of whether you allow us to name our sex Woman or not.

In short - of course I can imagine different ways to think of sex, or to structure society. I can imagine all sorts of better worlds. That's easy.

The hard part, the part that makes this fair, the part you are skipping, isn't where should we go to, it's how do we get there from here in a way that acknowledges the reality of how sexism embedded in our society continues to impact female people on a personal and societal level, and makes sure any social transition deals fairly with female people as well.

And on that, for all your words, you are notably silent.

Thank you for taking the time to write this. I'm wondering if we want to take discussion into another thread as it's important, I don't want to just ignore it and really want to do it justice, but also really feel like welcome here has been outstayed and I've already broken own promise to self about re-engaging on this thread.

Will be spending the next three days obsessing over tanks with family so am unlikely to be about much!

Boomboom22 · 22/06/2023 23:07

I think they are misguided but genuine. It's not their fault they don't get it not having gone through female puberty.
They are trying to explain. They have different understanding of terms of reference which makes it hard.
No one tries to be a villain apart from people like isla taking advantage of the situation. Even the alt right think they are doing the right thing. The tras think they are right. The parents believe they are preventing suicide. The gay men on side think they are similar.

NotBadConsidering · 22/06/2023 23:14

I'm wondering if we want to take discussion into another thread

You haven’t offered anything new or insightful on this thread compared to any of the previous threads you appeared. It’s like déjà vu all over again. I don’t think you realise how much your posts strengthen the case for most people on this board.

ButterflyHatched · 22/06/2023 23:17

knittingaddict · 22/06/2023 23:01

For some strange reason I'm feeling less sorry about the situation Hatched finds himself in. Couldn't happen to a nicer bloke.

Why ever would you be sorry? I'm a ridiculously smug asshole who has, despite all expectations and despite the best efforts of many, many unpleasant transphobes I have encountered in my life over the years, made it - lived a brilliant life and will likely continue to do so for many, many years to come. Acutely aware of the immense amount of multidimensional privilege on display here, but someone has to challenge the tedious 'your life will be terrible and you will hate and lament everything forever' narrative about blockers being broadcast on all channels which is manifestly, patently untrue.

Hepwo · 22/06/2023 23:24

Someone has to! Oh, what a burden

There's a few hundred 14 year old muppets every day on Twitter calling them a reversible pause button.

So you have plenty of company.

ButterflyHatched · 22/06/2023 23:35

NotBadConsidering · 22/06/2023 23:14

I'm wondering if we want to take discussion into another thread

You haven’t offered anything new or insightful on this thread compared to any of the previous threads you appeared. It’s like déjà vu all over again. I don’t think you realise how much your posts strengthen the case for most people on this board.

Perhaps the mainstream media should pay me ludicrous amounts of money to keep posting, then, if it helps the cause so much?

I'm afraid I feel something of a moral obligation to challenge the rampant misinformation about adolescent transitioners, given the extent to which it is actively causing harm to people I personally know and care deeply about.

Perhaps I've got it all wrong. I should get aboard the grift train - I hear it's extremely lucrative. Couple of years of pretending nobody ever once told me over years of appointments that having your balls chopped off and your willy turned inside out would hurt a bit and make you infertile. Couple of documentaries, spots on the news, thinkpieces in the telegraph, mail and guardian (well, maybe not the mail. Think is quite a big word). Nice little earner, that. Would mean I could give up the day job entirely and go full-time on the Ukrainian aid work.