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.

Please don’t call me “cis”. I’m a woman. I need no prefixes. And I’m not responsible for honouring the rights and needs of men who want to be women when those rights and needs clash with mine.

This. "Cis" is quasi-religious language. I don't see that the lives of these males are anything to do with my life as a woman. If "cis" actually just meant "non trans" a trans woman would be a woman who identifies as a man. But it doesn't just mean that. It presupposes that I think these males are women. Which I don't.

With regard to Elliot Page - when a young depressed woman starts hearing voices in their head telling them to do things I expect them to get appropriate mental health care and therapy and not be ‘affirmed’ into a fantasy. Hearing voices should be a contraindication to surgery and cross sex hormones

What I would like is evidence-based, quality, accessible mental health services for the huge numbers of often neurodivergent young women and girls who feel desperately unhappy in their own bodies and need support.

Please don't use the prefix "cis" in reference to natal women; it's unnecessary and disrespectful.

I think I assumed that people who wanted to restrict trans rights would equally want to restrict my rights.
What specifically are rights that trans people do not have? Unless those perceived rights include males in women's single sex spaces or sport, or claiming that humans can change sex, I'm not sure what rights trans people are lacking.

Sexuality or sex-based preferences - homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual - have nothing to do with the feelings and perceived identity of the trans ideology. Adults have the right to sleep with other consenting adults who will have them (to paraphrase JKR), and I make no judgment or critique of those consenting adults - enjoy yourselves.

The expectation that I will acknowledge a male's inner feeling that he is something other than his sex which was set at conception is something I will not do. A male such as Cox or a female such as Page cannot convince me to believe they are anything but the man and woman they are, and to suggest that I must adhere to another's mindset or else is something I will not do.

I object to cis for two main reasons. 1. It's a Latin prefix meaning 'on this side of', co-opted by a social science researcher in 1994, with the intention of referring to women as a sub set of their own sex class. It's made up nonsense.

1. We are told that we must be referred to and refer to ourselves as cis. I'm not into compelled speech.

As far as what GC think they should do - they should stop expecting everyone else to live a lie to uphold their fantasy. They should stop expecting us to pretend we do not see what we see.

I reject cis because it's a descriptor when I don't need one. I'm a woman.

’cis’ tells us women identify with their gender where gender is a set of stereotypes and behavioural expectations that oppress us. It suggest women are oppressed, suffer disadvantage in society because that is what we identify with. It is victim blaming - women are responsible for their mistreatment. It is the fault of women in Afghanistan that they have had their human rights removed, or the girls in Nepal that they died in menstrual huts, it is the fault of women that they must cover their heads in Iran or be beaten and imprisoned, that it is women’s fault if she suffers from domestic violence - that is what they identify with.

’Cis’ is extreme misogyny.

I think I assumed that people who wanted to restrict trans rights

Again OP I'd like to understand what you mean by "trans rights"?

Thanks for articulating that.

Its the mismatch between the fantasy presented by Cox on a TV show and the reality of Blast and his vicious, horrible crimes that I find especially galling.

Also the fact that Cox went as far as to support this organisation, record a video in support of Blast, without for one minute thinking to ask what Blast's crime was. That, I think, illustrates the unthinking leap to support someone for their 'identity' that we are now dealing with.

The fact of someone being a transwoman means they get instant, unquestioning support - we saw similar with Sarah Baker in the UK, who shared a platform with Labour MPs, despite a history of kidnap and torture and violence and despite making overt threats to harm or kill women. I could list other instances of violent men being lauded, brought into parliament, etc.

Nobody should be discriminated against for their trans status, of course. But equally, presuming someone must be unquestioningly supported because of it creates a dangerous situation.

Also the fact that Cox went as far as to support this organisation, record a video in support of Blast, without for one minute thinking to ask what Blast's crime was. That, I think, illustrates the unthinking leap to support someone for their 'identity' that we are now dealing with.

The fact of someone being a transwoman means they get instant, unquestioning support - we saw similar with Sarah Baker in the UK, who shared a platform with Labour MPs, despite a history of kidnap and torture and violence and despite making overt threats to harm or kill women. I could list other instances of violent men being lauded, brought into parliament, etc.

Yes, excellent point. Karen Jones for example, who murdered a man and attempted to rape a woman in a shop, and claimed it was because of his struggle to deal with his womanly identity. Went on to be invited to speak in the House of Lords about trans prisoners.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3180050-Invited-to-talk-at-the-House-of-Lords

From the MN thread back in 2018:

A big part of her defense was that she was confused and distressed by her sexuality and gender (thus leading you to kill - as you do). Shortly after release Jones went to a trans clothes shop and took the shop assistant hostage, stuck a lemon in her mouth and violently assaulted her and tried to rape her. Jones only stopped when she failed to become aroused with her "female penis". Jones claimed she was driven to commit the crime to be put back in prison in order to get the gender reassignment surgery she needed. She was given an indeterminate sentence but was released after several years.

I remember my mum allowing me to wear whatever clothes I wanted, whereas Elliot writes about being forced to conform to feminine dresses/bows in hair etc.

It's interesting how many people who identify as trans had a childhood where they were forced into very stereotypical gender roles.

OP a phrase I think represents the feminist view on cases like Page's is:

No child is born in the wrong body.

It sounds like Page was deeply disturbed and unhappy. And equally, being forced to wear certain clothes, act a certain way, embody a certain role - I don't know what the rest of the family dynamic was like but perhaps the problem was that Page was 'forced'?

I do feel.sympathy for Page. However Page is a role model. How will unhappy girls who feel disconnected from their bodies feel on reading Page's 'journey'?. Will more girls be deciding that taking testosterone and having mastectomy is going to solve their unhappiness?

The OP's post at 16:37 yesterday explains so well why the TRA side has pushed "no debate" so vehemently. God forbid people hear the measured, rational concerns of most on the "terf" side of the coin.

I have a trans woman friend. Known her for years, including when she was a biological man. She's now married to a woman and happy. She's had all the surgeries but doesn't use female toilets. She uses mixed toilets. She doesn't compete in sports. She just goes quietly about her new life.

I'm still critical of biological men in female toilets and sports. It's perfectly possible to gender reassign and not invade women's spaces.

Also worth separating out: young girls and young women wishing to transition - listen to what they say, and it's to do with running away. There is no sexual component involved. Detransitioning girls and women also discuss this and are well worth reading up on.

Adult male transitioners are running to something, and the voices of those transitioners and the wives and children left behind are well worth reading as they explain in depth exactly what, but behaviours very similar to those suffering from sex addiction are quite common in their accounts.

I am posting this as another example of the degree of coercion that is happening here in the UK when women and girls make requests for single sex spaces.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12398959/Retired-solicitor-left-deaths-door-surgery-cancelled-dared-object-trans-woman-nurse-hospital-room-tells-shocking-story-vowing-cancel-Im-not-scared-speak-out.html

I am sure regulars on this board remember this case. We discussed it extensively on the board. And were duly shame posted by some posters for discussing it, I believe it was said or inferred that Teresa was a bigot and deserved to have her operation cancelled. That the hospital was righteous in doing so.

This is happening. This is not a drill.

“But someone who has such a dislike of their body doesn't know how they'd actually feel if they had a different body. They might feel just as repelled by any other body they might have had.”

This is such a good point.

We hear this quite often. There are enough out there who choose to use other alternatives. Both male and female trans people.

It makes a mockery of the mindless whataboutery attempted on this board repeatedly . The ‘what about the male people’s safety’ argument? There are plenty of males who are trans even using the male toilets without an issue. Women have searched for statistics on male on trans attacks in the male toilets, there seem to be none at all.

And don’t forget that wonderful argument of ‘if a male person is going to attack you, they will anyway. And besides they can be prosecuted by the law after the attack’. That one is used to shame women into silence but is never used on male people who are portrayed as most vulnerable and need female human shields. The hypocrisy is so fucked up and ingrained and so many people cannot see it.

Not RTFT but I want a world where gender norms are less constrictive. At the moment we have fairly rigid social 'rules' of what is acceptable.

I would like it to be socially acceptable for men and women to wear clothing of their choice, make-up if they want, hair styles of their choosing...etc.

If the world was actually like this, and it became normal for women and men to present themselves in a hugely diverse way, would trans even be a thing?

I appreciate we're not there yet which is why the people you mention have to become trans to be accepted. It's a shit situation.

I’ve heard/read men saying that nobody notices or cares who else in in the men’s toilets - problem solved, surely? Everyone can use the men’s and leave the women’s facilities for women!

And the hypocrisy of trans women - or their TRA megaphones - saying they’re too scared to use the men’s because of the men in there, yet cannot accept or tolerate that yes, that’s exactly why we don’t want men in the women’s loos, no matter how those men feel on the inside. No solidarity with women there, no evidence of “sisterhood”.

They don't have to 'become trans to be accepted'. They 'become trans' because they believe they have an opposite sex gender identity (whatever that is).

Where do you live that has 'fairly rigid social 'rules' of what is acceptable'? In the UK the 'rules' are pretty flexible, but obviously in countries like Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia they are less so.

'not there yet'

We were there until a few years ago, the new 'rules' about fashion (which don't thank goodness apply to old women, we can stomp round happily in our skechers and feel the breeze through the hair we cut short in our late teens if we like) baffle me. Why have the young become so conformist?