Anyone in the middle?

[piesforever]

All I see on here is GC rants. I am in the middle, I support trans people but do agree they shouldn't take part in gender specific sport, and there needs to be more caution in "changing gender" for sure, especially hormones and surgery for young people. I do agree some are troubled or young people, who are hating puberty or have had some trauma. Let's support them overall though, it must be horrible whatever the outcome. Anyone else feel a bit of sympathy to both "sides"? In fact, why are there sides, we need to find common ground and help each other!! Instead of being furious all the time. It's not healthy.

Great points about trousers and dresses.

I wanted to add a general thought about autism. Many trans-identified people are autistic (48% according to the Tavistock's own figures, if you also include those who clinicians identified as having traits that would likely lead to a diagnosis but there wasn't one. 35% if you only include those with a diagnosis) and when I'm on Twitter talking to trans people (I'm already the enemy, so I often get both barrels from the start), I'm reminded of how my daughter processes information and responds. An autistic detransitioner that I follow made the comment that you can often tell someone is autistic from the way that they engage. Obviously some people just come out and say they are autistic.

To share my own experience on this: My daughter is caught up in the cognitive dissonance of processing where she sees stereotypes as very rigid things, even though she agrees with me that many aren't fair, and where she wants to challenge that. She's had a lot of input from me on this e.g. it's great that the Lionesses play football, it's great that women can do what they want in their careers unlike previous generations. She sees a lot of safety in understanding the rules by which she can navigate the world. Without lots of positive role-modeling on this, I have no doubt that she would default to "that's a man thing", "that's a woman thing". Her confusion over what gender identity means during her mental health crisis a year ago was very much based around this and she still defaults back to a few stereotypes when she thinks about what being a girl means.
I can fully imagine her defaulting back to "But what about dresses?" randomly. I can also imagine her rigidly sticking to the idea that robes (e.g. that middle-eastern men wear) are not dresses and kilts are not skirts.

Am I projecting? Maybe. But I'm not sure that matters TBH. My only concern on that would be that I'm not overreaching. I only have my own experience to go on and I'm really not trying to psychoanalyse anyone for shits and giggles, despite what any harassed poster may think. (For clarity, that's not harassment either. I can't be both victim and perpetrator at the same time). I just wanted to add a perspective about autism.

I don't agree with his views just because I like the look of him in a certain outfit.

Ha! I see. I am so used to being told off (other threads) for being too reasonable, and also that I'm naive, that I figured it was a nudge to woman-up 😁
A near-enemy friendly-fire shot across the bough if you like 😉

In the spirit of self-deprecation and irony combined, I'll accept that that was a completely unnecessary bought of paranoia on my part and that I should draw inspiration from the stirring quote that you carefully edited back in to shape!

But do you want men to be able to wear dresses without remark or do you want dresses to still equal woman?

I'm also interested in the answer to this.

This dresses equal women, but robes and kilts and sarongs worn by men, even if they are exactly like dresses and skirts can't be dresses and skirts because dresses and skirts equal women is such idiocy.

Likewise long hair equals women, but Sikh men with long hair are not women, and 17th century European men seen in portraits are not women despite their long hair.

Whereas we all know that a human being, regardless of hair length, dropped into any society anywhere on the planet will have their sex identified as soon as anyone takes a look at them.

People, autistic or not, know that, whether they are prepared to admit it or not (I have autistic people in my family, I'm very familiar with the way arguments about 'rules' get made and played with). Sex is real, gender is imaginary, and clothing style and hairdressing are not secondary sexual characteristics. Genderism is such a rich world middle class fantasy, it's really offensive.

@ApocalipstickNow@popebishop

"But do you want men to be able to wear dresses without remark or do you want dresses to still equal woman?"

That's probably the best question I've been asked so far. The answer is that it is Complicated.

As a child, I had major sensory issues around clothing, and to an extent I still do. I hated harsh fabrics (eg denim), along with anything constricting or even slightly uncomfortable like belts, buttons and, above all, wearing a tie. Male clothing, in other words. So a dress, particularly the loose, soft kind you just pull on over your head was (and is) the most comfortable garment imaginable.

As a kid, I didn't have that choice, and that was probably the main unfair advantage I attributed to being female. I added a few more over the years, admittedly from a limited perspective, generally around the idea that society perceives females as being more vulnerable than males and is more protective of them. To be fair, TV and books provided me a constant message that females get protected and rescued from bad stuff by males.

Yes, I DO understand that, in the real world, things are a bit more complicated than this, but it certainly gave me a strong attraction to the idea of somehow becoming female and being treated in the way I believed females are treated.

The idea of "living as a woman" (whatever that means) and being allowed to wear clothing I find more comfortable have become difficult to separate. I get the feeling of being valued and cared for when I'm presenting as female even if there is no particular external reason for doing so.

So I probably wouldn't be trans if society didn't have this gendered dress code thing and I was allowed to go to school in a nice comfy dress when I was a kid. But things are the way they are, and I don't think I could easily undo all those neural pathways around gender and clothing.

Maybe I would consider detransitioning if all the stigma around men wearing dresses suddenly vanished, but it's a highly theoretical question. Thank you for asking it, though.

That’s a really interesting, honest and insightful answer - thank you

Sorry that was intended as a reply to @AlphaTransWoman

I’ve fucking heard it all now. Get some fabric conditioner. @AlphaTransWoman

The idea that women's clothes are more comfortable is...an interesting one.

That’s a really interesting, honest and insightful answer - thank you

Really? this bit?

As a kid, I didn't have that choice, and that was probably the main unfair advantage I attributed to being female. I added a few more over the years, admittedly from a limited perspective, generally around the idea that society perceives females as being more vulnerable than males and is more protective of them. To be fair, TV and books provided me a constant message that females get protected and rescued from bad stuff by males.

Yes, I DO understand that, in the real world, things are a bit more complicated than this, but it certainly gave me a strong attraction to the idea of somehow becoming female and being treated in the way I believed females are treated.

Yes, I DO understand that, in the real world, things are a bit more complicated than this, but it certainly gave me a strong attraction to the idea of somehow becoming female and being treated in the way I believed females are treated.

You do understand, don't you, that women are oppressed? You grasp that indisputable fact?

That across the globe, they are used as a resource, by men. They are regarded as second-class citizens. Lesser than. Their opinions are simply not as valid. And they have to fight tooth and nail, in every country across the world, to have anything like the same rights as men. Often, completely unsuccessfully.

That their existence is to provide free service to men in general. From domestic labour, to sex whether they want to or not, to birthing children and in the case of men who identify as women, to provide validation.

And in the UK they are killed by men, especially those you seem to think are there to protect them, at the rate of about three a week.

You do get that, don't you??

And do you understand that this board is about feminism. I.e., women who campaign to liberate themselves from all the above.

Some people like the idea of being oppressed.

This. An MTF trans person once told me that he wished he could be oppressed like a woman in a Middle Eastern country. That he was extremely jealous of them.

@Datun

I suppose it just goes to show how spectacularly different the world appears, depending on your point of view. It's almost as though we are living in different dimensions that happen to overlap (if you see what I mean).

It goes to show that male people don't have a clue what being a woman is like.

Well fuck! Really! Fuck! I am gob smacked.

My school dresses were not fucking comfy at all! What world do you live in? Not reality, that is for sure.

I was most comfortable in shorts in primary school because I could do fun stuff like hang up side down. And the dresses were belted and tight on the shoulders.

And then there was the sport skirts that were also tight around the waist.

And you know there are girls uniforms out there with ties? And women wear ties whenever we want to as well. Doesn’t anyone ever tell you the truth about how false your concepts of being female are all about?

And fuck! Don’t get me even started with the whole ‘looked after ‘ thing.

There ain’t no fucking overlap!

Yep.

Being oppressed means decisions are made for your or are limited in options so less complex.

Reminds me of this awful man with a hijab fetish.

They don't actually want to be treated like women.

They want to wear women's clothes and have everybody to refer to them as though they are women, whilst continuing to enjoy male privilege.

Whenever they actually are treated like crap, they cry "transphobia", even though ironically this is the closest they have ever come to being treated like a woman.

@AlphaTransWoman Datun just listed a lot of ways in which women around the globe are oppressed because of their biological sex and you just replied with a comment about different points of view and "overlap".

Do you not see how that could be construed as offensive?

Because to me, it is starting to come across as a wilful refusal to understand what being a woman actually means to many of us, and the fact that for us, it is not about wearing any particular type of clothes.

Well, there are also other reasons.

Reminds me of this awful man with a hijab fetish.

This type of thing appears to be increasingly common. Taking it to the next level.

@AlphaTransWoman have you ever seen the documentary Regretters? I'm not for a minute suggesting that you regret your transition (that's just the title!) but you may find the conversation between the two men, who were both transwomen for many years, really interesting.
It's filmed in a room with two men in their 60s who are talking to each other about their experiences as transwomen and what it means to be a woman. From their point of view.
There is no structure to the documentary as such, it's just a.conversation. They both ask each other some pretty tough questions but support each other too without judgement.
One of them has a very 50s glamour view of what a woman is. The other is very unsure about how he feels even now but is very rigid in what he feels a woman should be and a man should be.
I found it a very moving and inciteful film. It was recommended to me by another Mumanetter from this board.