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.

@BonfireLady
No I haven't - do you know where it is available?

Yes I feel exactly as you do.

I think it was on Netflix where I saw it.
It's in Swedish (they are both Swedish) with English subtitles.

If that's the case, buckle up for a wild ride and enjoy the thread.....!
I say that in jest but if you end up reading the whole thing (I'm not sure there's quite any other way TBH) I reckon it'd be worth the investment if that's your starting point. As you'll see from the first few pages, it's a shared view.. but the middle ground is not an easy plot of land to be standing on.

Thank you for answering alpha I did not think you would, so I appreciate that, however frustrating it is for the rest of us.

But I stand by my previous comments that at best* it’s a romanticised and highly select view of what it means to be a woman.

*I don’t know how to do italics, pretend that bolding is italics.

Not appears. IS.

Not point of view. SEX.

But you know that.

@ApocalipstickNow surrounding the text with ^ puts it in italics

thank you

I hated harsh fabrics (eg denim), along with anything constricting or even slightly uncomfortable like belts, buttons and, above all, wearing a tie.

So don't wear denim. And don't ever wear a bra.

I've heard it all now. Were we not women when our bodies were strapped into tight, dangerous corsets and girdles and bustles in order to confirm more closely to male ideas of femininity? Are women forced into full hijab on boiling countries not your idea of women?

What about the girls aborted before they even get to be born? Are they not female, because they don't fit your perception of valued and cared for? The women being forced out of education & work in Afghanistan?

I bet my house these 'perceptions' are based in some sexualised fantasy porn.

I've heard it all now. Were we not women when our bodies were strapped into tight, dangerous corsets and girdles and bustles in order to confirm more closely to male ideas of femininity? Are women forced into full hijab on boiling countries not your idea of women?

It's funny how these are exactly the idea of womanhood of other male people who identify as women. Ah the varied tapestry of womanhood which joins us all!

I still cannot reconcile that this male poster believes that women’s clothes are free floating and non-constrictive. And male clothes are not loose and not soft It is almost like a parallel universe.

And yet! I see male people all the time wearing free floating tunics sometimes with trousers. It is like a whole section of the globe has bypassed this posters attention.

And surprisingly, I wear my husbands t shirts because they ARE soft fabrics and non clingy fabrics. Because so many female t shirts are full of figure hugging elastane! Because female clothes have become more about objectifying the body.

The arguments simply don’t seem to be based in reality and seem to be all leading to another underlying reason that we cannot discuss.

I would imagine that anyone who was a fan of the subject (that I think you're thinking about) wouldn't make a very clear statement that such people shouldn't be allowed anywhere near women's toilets.

I can't help but observe that male people who say they are ladies, are often the ones eagerly strapped into tight leather corsetry and other such restrictive uncomfortable garments

Not necessarily. For a start, we only have a posters word for it with other inconsistencies. We also don’t know if someone they love and respect has not told them that the line between them being supportive or not is that males should not use female single sex spaces.

And males don’t have to admit they have that issue for them to actually have that issue. They may well explain it in other ways that people seem more acceptable.

It would be stereotyping for us to expect that group to only act in particular ways.

I would imagine that anyone who was a fan of the subject (that I think you're thinking about) wouldn't make a very clear statement that such people shouldn't be allowed anywhere near women's toilets.

Yes, well, people make all sorts of "statements" for various reasons.

When I read the Sue and Marcus Evans book on gender dysphoria, the chapter on boys who experience it was particularly interesting. I had initially ignored it as irrelevant because it didn't help my daughter and it all got very Freudian, unlike the rest of the book. However, as I learned more about gender identity belief I realised it was pivotal for my own understanding so I looped back and read it.

In summary, they described two distinctly different presentations:

1. Becoming what you love. A desire to feel loved, based on a perceived image of the perfect woman. The book explores the role of the presence or absence of a person's mum in this.
2. A sexual angle. The subject we can't really talk about.

From what I've read, I think you're describing type 2 here.

I relate to this. Even as an adult I put off wearing certain clothes. (Pop socks and dainty shoes are the worst, I used to envy my DP wearing thick men's socks and trainer type shoes). Ties don"t actually restrict any more than a shirt collar though, do they? So that's an interesting one.

"Smart" for a woman tends to mean fitted, restrictive and tight, or at least it did traditionally (can't stand wearing fitted shirts but they look lovely) - things may have relaxed slightly in the workplace more recently.

Ps type 2 splits in to 2...

a) Genuinely dysphoric e.g. confused adolescents
b) completely performative

Their book only focused on type 2a.

Becoming what you love.

I rarely, if ever, see any evidence of this.

Wanting to attract love, yes (Blanchard's HSTS). Displaying it to the women being appropriated, no.

If these males loved women, we wouldn't have any problem. Because they would respect everything we're saying.

1. *The book explores the role of the presence or absence of a person's mum in this.

That's interesting. Can you expand?

Because it sounds like if their mother was absent they're more likely to trans, and also if their mother was very present they're more likely to trans.

Kind of damned of you do and damned if you don't, which is fairly par for the course, for women, obvs!

Fwiw, makes me think of...performative helplessness, the worst sort of Disney princess, waiting for your handsome Prince to come along and take you away from all this. Wafty dresses and all.

Wanting to attract love, yes (Blanchard's HSTS). Displaying it to the women being appropriated, no.

Indeed. Interestingly one of the detransitioning men from the Regretters documentary was very introvert and felt he really didn't know how to interact with women. In his own analysis of himself he "became a woman" as the solution to finding someone to love. He's the one with a very rigid understanding of what a woman should be like and what a man should be like. The other man (who is attracted to men) talks about roles being much more fluid. But each rely on stereotypes to understand their points of view. There were times in the documentary where I felt angry at both of them (essentially for seeing womanhood as a costume for want of a better description), but that wasn't my overriding feeling at the end. They ask each other some pretty hard hitting questions. I can only think of one example where one (the heterosexual man) passed judgement on the other. But to your point, there wasn't any love towards women as such when it came to the desire to be one. It was more of a selfish act per se. Minor typo correction from when I wrote about it earlier... I meant insightful, not inciteful 😂 Although the latter kind of describes the mess we're in on the whole rights conflict thing.

That's interesting. Can you expand?

It's been a very long time since I read it and you're getting a layman's take on it (this chapter was tough going for me as my brain starts to scream that it's all Freudian woo) but from memory it was all linked to the Oedipus idea of some boys being in love with their mum. It was emotional presence or absence that was behind both. Either being drawn to become what felt good and safe or being drawn towards finding a way of creating what should have been there (with the idea of how it should be being informed by stereotypes of what women are).

The current conversation reminds me of the Parkinson interview with Eddie Izzard. He said that his mother died when he was 6 and he looked for attention elsewhere (acting) He also said that he was 'just a bloke who was a transvestite' then when Nigella Lawson (who was another guest on the show) started to question whether his transvestite-ism was because of his mother dying, he went off on a tangent, at first he said he didn't think so, but acknowledged why she would think that, then he becomes quite defensive, then he states that he thinks it's hereditary. "Hereditary?" says Nigella. He then describes how yes, he feels it's genetic or 'something to do with chromosomes' And then he shifts to talk about being transgender.

This interview was over 20 years ago.(2002)* and it speaks volumes to me that even when kindly questioned (at the time) it made him go from a bloke happy and relaxed to identify as a transvestite, to basically 'don't question me!' and therefore take a more hard line / more radical view of how he identified.

*ETA year of broadcast

Very interesting. Reading that makes me feel a certain sympathy with Eddie Izzard, but that still doesn't change my hardline no when it comes to (not) accepting anyone using their own belief/needs to cross over some else's boundaries.

One of the first things that struck me when I finally read the chapter in the gender dysphoria book was that I was very annoyed that it somehow all comes down to the mum. Whether we like it or not, and as mentioned by Alpha, most cultures view women as synonymous with being gentle and caring. Nigella asking Eddie Izzard comes from the same viewpoint. It's very telling that this was immediately where she went, rather than assuming that his dad could have filled the exact same emotional need as his mum.

There were times in the documentary where I felt angry at both of them (essentially for seeing womanhood as a costume for want of a better description), but that wasn't my overriding feeling at the end.

It's my overriding feeling, has been for nearly a decade, and that's unlikely to change. Women are people with feelings too. We're not just props in men's lives and aids for their self absorbed identity crises.