If you're GC, what should trans people actually do?

[AmaListening]

I'd like to understand what someone with gender critical views thinks trans people should do.

Maybe let's make it specific with a couple of famous examples: Laverne Cox (trans woman), and Elliot Page (trans man).

Imagine you had it exactly your way. What should those human beings, who feel and identify the way they do, do about every aspect like: names, pronouns, surgery, clothing, relationships, social spaces, work, sports.

How should Laverne speak about her own identity? Should Elliot not have had top surgery?

I'd really like to understand what the world looks like for trans people if we carry GC views through to their end points.

An interesting thought experiment is to ask why we would have words such as 'women' and 'men' at all if they were not based on biological sex.

The concept of gender identity (the unfalsifiable secular-religious belief in a gendered soul) doesn't make sense if it's not propped up with the cis-construction, because only by forcing everyone to pretend to have the gendered soul is it universal enough to replace biological sex in laws etc.

So people who don't believe in the gendered soul but base being 'woman' or 'man' on the sex of their body are just told that they are wrong, that they do possess a gendered soul but because it just happens to match their sex they don't notice this!

A clever device. It retains the necessary foundation for transitioning of all types by keeping biological sex but it also discards it by that cis-construction! It works very well as long as nobody is allowed to ask what 'woman' now might be, and hence the dog whistle -accusations.

Of course many services offer one to one counselling. But this is presumably no use to a male who requires the presence of women, for whatever reasons.

Ok, so in your ideal world, where would Laverne Cox go to the toilet, if out in public?

Toilets are designed and engineered around sex and the biology/mechanics surrounding this. This is why the male sex toilets has urinals and female sex toilets do not.

Toilets are a place for dealing with a bodily function, not to indulge in gender experimentation.

Otherwise I am not interested in their gender choices, pronouns etc. If they are happy great, but I do not need to be constantly have their gender choices slapped in my face. Neither do I need the associated threats and actual incidents of violence & insults because I do not find their life choices fascinating.

Good point Arabella

It should also be noted that the woman in question, a rape victim in need of the LA and tax payer funded services this charity has been commissioned to provide, is not asking for the existing women's group to be changed from mixed sex to single sex. She merely asked for an additional female only group to be added to the three currently in existence that are accessible to male people.

This was regarded as unacceptably distressing and unsafe for male people.

It is not women who wish to deprive other people of resources, or have everything for themselves regardless of impact on others.

I'm still pretty stunned that anyone would suggest that rape survivors are in some way obliged to provide their presence to validate a male's feelings.

But I suppose this is how Mridhul Wadhwa is able to suggest that traumatised women need to be 're educated' out of their 'bigotry'.

Some people see women as an amorphous source of unconditional love and support, I guess. We are not really humans who may have our own suffering, wants, or preferences. We are just here to service the men and put them first, always.

I'm here. This thread contains so many interesting POVs that haven't showed up in my usual everyday world so I'm reading and contemplating.

Exactly this. I wasn't expecting it to play out a certain way, and I wasn't looking for any gotchas. Just to understand viewpoints I don't usually hear.

How would you describe your usual everyday world?

This is exactly what I'm thinking through. I'm reading Pageboy, Elliot Page's memoir, at the moment and wondering at various points: okay, so what should he do about X? Elliot identified at age 3 that he felt male. I have a 3 year old son so I'm imagining what that must have been like for Elliot.

@AmaListening Can you say what you mean? Most of the opinions on here strike me as pretty mainstream. Basically-live and let live, but there are a few issues that need to be ironed out which require give and take on both sides.

Hi OP, I’m a teacher (secondary).

My main concern around gender ideology is twofold:

1. Safeguarding. ANY loophole (e.g. self-ID) is the antithesis of safeguarding. I cannot in good conscience support self-ID because untrustworthy people will inevitably exploit that loophole. It’s unacceptable. Note that I haven’t even mentioned ‘trans’.
2. Autistic children (ime and according to recent studies) are many, many times more likely to identify as the opposite sex, because they usually have limited cognitive flexibility and are therefore more likely to believe that gender stereotypes are ‘a rule’ that must be followed. I do not support the push to transition autistic children, who might have found other (safer?) ways of expressing themselves previous to this ideology permeating the internet.

I hope this makes sense, please feel free to question anything you’ve read.

Elliot identified at age 3 that he felt male.

How does a child come up with such an idea? Most of the reports that I've read where children have supposedly 'identified' as one sex or the other have referred to toys or clothes.

In my house, children were allowed to wear what they wanted (within reason) and play with whatever toys they pleased.

I mean, what is it to 'feel male'? And how can a female know?

The psychologist who wrote this article is interesting and well informed on little children and 'gender identity'. A quick read but a good one.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4868763-article-about-childhood-transition

Elliot identified at age 3 that he felt male.

And you take that seriously? Bearing in mind this:

I have a 3 year old son so I'm imagining what that must have been like for Elliot.

How can anyone, at any age but especially not 3 years old when they have enough trouble identifying what day of the bloody week it is, feel they are/should be the opposite sex? It is just risible fucking nonsense.

I imagine it would be very similar to the experience of many women who post on this very board. From a young age, many of us 'felt male' and 'wanted to be boys'. It didn't 'make' us male though.

I would expect that Page has written their history with the framing of their current status. Would you believe your 3 year old son if they told you they were a cat? What is the difference in your mind? Why would you give credence to a 3 year old's view on what sex they were then, vs what they as an adult who may or may not have received appropriate therapy about their belief that they are the opposite sex (equally as impossible as being a cat because not one person on this earth can change sex).

Doesn't mean that Page is not a female person with gender dysphoria and that they felt that they needed to make irreversible modifications to their body.

No - recreational sport should be the same as competition. Are you seriously suggesting that females play rugby with transwomen at any level?

of course EP is going to write they felt male for oooooh forever. Look at what they’ve sadly done to themselves

its bollocks of course. At 3 my niece thought she was owl & spent a lot of time trying to fly. A 3 year old has literally no idea about sex let alone gender

I think it’s far more likely EP wanted to feel male to get away from all the appalling things that happened to Then. Things that happened entirely because of their female biology

Paige is clearly a person in need of a huge amount of support & love and if they feel better identifying as a man to cope then that’s up to them

they’re not male though & they never will be.

Sure - quite an echo chamber, I guess. Self-employed, and with friends across the world who would consider themselves LGBT+ allies, so I've really only been immersed in that way of thinking. I've learnt so much from this thread and have made a long list of people, articles and events to continue exploring.

I've never questioned that I'm a woman. I felt I was a girl growing up. So when someone else born with XX chromosomes and a vagina writes that they've always felt like a boy, that's fascinating to me and I "believe" them because they're telling me their experience.

Recreational sport needs to be segregated by sex too. My ds went to a very sporty school, and he was good but by no means elite. By year 9 he could beat several of the girl's records easily. Imagine how damaging if he'd actually been able to compete against them.

And yes, my 3 year old has told me he wants to be a tractor! But not repeatedly and he doesn't look in the mirror every day and feel sad and alienated that he's not a tractor, and I doubt by the time he's 30 he'll still be saying the same thing. I guess that's the difference?

No. I don’t think so.

I remember telling my mother clearly at 12 that I wanted to be a boy. She gently told me it was simply impossible and gave me a hug.

And no… I never did change sex.

Safeguarding of biological women is just cast to one side though in all this as something which is a privilege we, as biological women, have enjoyed. If you want to see the effects of rape on young girls watch the iplayer series about Gaia Hope - a death on dancing ledge, learn about the toxic male behaviour which biological women have to contend with daily and it will become clear why we are so defensive on your safe sex spaces. By making traditionally safe spaces for women unisex, the risk just escalates. And with the police not always particularly interested in protecting biological women it just makes us very vulnerable.