Did anyone watch Doctor Who?

[ZeldaFighter]

So on an existential level, I'm confused. 11 Doctors and only 1 woman - it seemed like finally progress had been made. Now we're back to male people playing the role of the teenage daughter (who is explicitly transgender, so I suppose is really OK but now women can't even play the women).

Irl, I'm embarrassed because my husband immediately realised the actor was a transgender woman, whereas I didn't twig at all 😞

Actually you're right! We are watching an adult male who thinks he's a woman playing a boy who thinks he's really a girl.

The walking and running gives it away if the face doesn't. Males and females have different hips you can tell from a mile off if someone is male or female

No. The issue is that people either affirmed that this person was a 15 year girl OR they were shown to be bullies or were re-educated.

That is real issue here.

It is not really about whether they pass or not pass. And the posts from posters stating that it is possible that a male 'could' pass at 15 are also not relevant.

The very real issue is the storyline around this character.

Trans people are well aware of the reality of expected outcomes and have been for a very, very long time. We can't not be - it's one of the first sticks used to try and beat desistence into us. It clearly doesn't work, because people transition even when they know they won't pass afterwards and that isn't even on their radar as an option.

Occasionally someone gets lucky and life can be much easier for them if they want it to be. This actually happens to real people - and as I'm one of them and have lived decades of that life, I am compelled to spend my time online dispelling the mythology that surrounds the subject.

The chance is generally higher the earlier you start, but at the point where you are getting treatment after negotiating a waiting list for multiple years, you are already very bored of people smugly saying 'you won't pass' and then framing it as concern.

It's nice to see a trans actor playing a trans character on tv who is allowed to be happy and loved. I've never been much of a Who fan and this episode was particularly high on the cheese/anvil scale in a way that isn't to my taste but that's just what it is and has always been as a production.

I don't think it is creating unrealistic expectations about transition outcomes - well, other than the fantasy of still having a supportive family afterward which sadly is still a fantasy for many.

The passing element seems very important to many trans identifying people (mainly males it seems, or perhaps as with everything they’re just more vocal).

Trans people are well aware of the reality of expected outcomes

Some are. Some, not so much. Still others, not at all.

people transition even when they know they won't pass afterwards and that isn't even on their radar as an option.

That too. But the realists (and I do know some) are a declining minority among a swathe of deluded and self-deluded young people who can't even be told the reality because it's "transphobic" to warn anyone they don't pass or that they wont pass.

And what does passing even mean? For every occurrence when people believe you are the sex you say you are, there is either the reality or the potential for other occasions when people wont. Passing can never be guaranteed to anyone. Not outside of science fiction.

I don't think it is creating unrealistic expectations about transition outcomes

I agree. Dr Who is as fantastical as fantasy gets. I didn't even suppose that Rose was meant to be just a "trans character" rather than some kind of sci-fi hermaphrodite brought to life by the BBC costumes make-up and camera angles.

Maybe that's something to do with the way trans women are constantly attacked over our appearance as if it is the only meaningful attribute worthy of consideration, and accused of vanity if we engage with it in any way? Disqualified by default from womanhood if you don't pass; disqualified for daring to talk about it otherwise. What are your options? Shut up and look pretty? No thanks. I walked that road for years but now I am older, grumpier, and very, very tired.

I'll stop talking about it when there is no need to talk about it; when it is no longer weaponised against us.

Maybe that's something to do with the way trans women are constantly attacked over our appearance as if it is the only meaningful attribute worthy of consideration, and accused of vanity if we engage with it in any way?

Well, it would help if your activists didn't keep telling women that we can't police our boundaries because we can't tell what sex trans people are. The obvious riposte is "oh yes we can". Certainly we can and do tell enough of the time to contribute greatly to our own safety, privacy and dignity.

And it would also help a great deal if gender affirmation doctors didn't prioritise appearence so totally over physical function or sensation. But since appearence is all they have to offer I suppose it's inevitable.

women are constantly attacked over our appearance as if it is the only meaningful attribute worthy of consideration, and accused of vanity if we engage with it in any way

That’s part and parcel of being a woman in our society. Why should TW be treated differently?

You are 'disqualified' from womanhood because you are MALE. It is completely irrelevant to how you look.

Shut up and look pretty? Fucking spare us! You are male. If you look pretty, great! Good for you. But do not fucking attempt to claim that line of oppression that so many of us have experienced all through our lives as female people, ie. women and girls, for yourself.

How fucking offensive and tone deaf do you have to be to make such a comment on a feminist chat board?

Misogyny really has no boundaries and male people really cannot see their own actions with a framing in reality.

Exactly what @Str8talkin said.

I am also older, grumpier, and very very tired of men pushing their way into women's spaces - I have many decades of it and this latest version of male entitlement is one that I refuse to bow down to. There will be weaponising until men get the hell out of women's spaces and stop seeing womanhood as something they can opt into. Trans identifying men haven't got a clue what it means to be a woman.

"I am also older, grumpier, and very very tired of men pushing their way into women's spaces"

Absolutely. It is remarkable that time and time again, some people continue to display that some male people will always lack any respect at all for female people's needs. That they will always prioritise their own needs and enter single sex spaces knowing that their very presence will likely cause those female people using that space distress. Even if they didn't know at the time, the damage can still be done discovering that they were in the presence of a person who was male who they would not have consented to be in the presence of if they had known.

I get it though. Imagine understanding that you have transgressed so many women and children's boundaries with your actions. It must be rather hard for any person with any semblance of self awareness to take in after years of prioritising oneself. But for that have any impact, the person would have to have a base level of self awareness.

I am older, grumpier, and very, very tired.

Gosh. So am I. One of the things that makes me grumpy is trans activists on mumsnet dismissing the death of an 18 year old, who died from the complications of an attempted vaginoplasty.

Oh wait. That was you.

Go.away.

In the very first of Jodie’s episodes, I thought she was fun, zany and assertive. I was delighted as I really thought it was going to work, having been wary of Jodie as I thought she might be a bit bland.

Then it turned out that the fun, zany and assertive parts of her character were merely a sign she wasn’t herself yet after regenerating.

I know each doctor has their own character, but the crime, for me, was that Chibnell made her kind, empathetic and thick, which perhaps reflects his general view of what women are like. I really wished he’d written the part for a male doctor, then given it to Jodie Whittaker to make of it what she could.

All the overt lecturing (in place of interesting storylines) finished it off completely, but it was the writing that let it down, I suspect, rather than Jodie’s acting.

Wow! I had not seen that!

Mind you, I have come across a couple of extreme activist posters this year who have attempted to shame anyone questioning the brutality of transition on a female body. They dismiss it constantly with a breezy, it is 'life saving' surgery / hormonal changes and literally dismiss the life limiting, and life damaging aspects of it to attempt to frame it as positive and consensual treatments. They even deny the life limiting aspects of double mastectomies, apparently these are wonderful gender affirming surgeries and not brutal at all.

It does seem to be a feature and not a bug that it is female people and their lives that seem so easy to dismiss here. The direct and indirect negative discrimination never seems to occur to some extreme activist posters. Ever.

You realise you actually wrote this in direct response to a comment lamenting that trans women are constantly told they don't live up to a superficial set of visual standards and in the rare number of cases where they point out that they actually do, they are then accused of vanity?

I'm not interested in going round in circles so let's just assume I spent a page demonstrating how none of that applies in this case and you then switched to implying that I'm vain and appearance-fixated or only transitioned for fetishistic reasons or words to that effect. It'll save us both a lot of time and tedium.

Blimey. Talk about a self awareness fail and blatant hypocrisy!

And I am not talking about Str8talking's post.

a superficial set of visual standards

😂

You should take up comedy.

Superficial is the operative word here.

A superficial set of visual standards prevent me from entering this stunning, record-beating racehorse in the Grand National.

@NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision

It never seems to compute does it?

The listing of the visual cues that come from being 'male' are now 'superficial commentary on how one looks'? Missing the entire purpose that those visual cues immediately alert someone to exactly why a person entering into a single sex space should not be there.

Can the claim for victimhood, and the twisting needed to do so, be any clearer for those reading along?

I don't consider it vanity. I believe it is something else that has vanity as just one of its indicators.

neighbourhoods analogy is spot on though. That 'horse' simply cannot be entered into the Grand National. But I am sure that 'horse' would tell us, if it could, that any discussion as to the visual cues as to why it could not be entered into the Grand National is worthy of some sort of sympathy. But then again, no cats can type and I doubt that cat lacks the self awareness to think it should even be in the Grand National. Unless it was the Grand National for Cheetahs....

I don't think it is creating unrealistic expectations about transition outcomes - well, other than the fantasy of still having a supportive family afterward which sadly is still a fantasy for many

Before the current wave of fact erasure around the causes of gender identity disorder, it was widely accepted that GID was caused by abusive behaviour (often parental) during the formative stages of childhood.

That was, of course, back before the current wave of social contagion, when the majority of transitioners were feminine gay boys with homophobic parents.

The parental dysfunction probably predates the GID and is likely the cause of the rift, rather than transitioning being the trigger.

Of course now there are homophobic parents cheering on their children in their transition as it’s less shameful to have a transitioning child than a homosexual one. It’s incredibly sad all round.

I don't think it is creating unrealistic expectations about transition outcomes - well, other than the fantasy of still having a supportive family afterward which sadly is still a fantasy for many

I mean, families should be supportive. However, there is such thing as a fantasy of rewriting a family's history that no family should be forced to accept. And yet, that rejection of having the family history rewritten is considered abusive. It is really a bizarre time in the world.