"Transphobic bullying is rife": 15 y/o trans boy's view of coming out at school

[ButterflyHatched]

A rare and refreshing example of the mainstream media actually publishing a young trans person's own words on the subject of their own existence and how the government's draft guidance is likely to affect the people it directly pertains to.

‘Transphobic bullying is rife’: a 15-year-old trans boy’s view of coming out at school | Transgender | The Guardian

Rapid, many of us have been at that point of extending sympathy to this poster only to discover, just as you have, that the answers to any posts simply show the misogyny this poster denies vehemently. It is hilarious really to see how much they deny it, because it is so apparent to most people reading along who know what to look for.

Albeit, those who have the belief that anyone can be ‘born in the wrong body’ or that ‘gender identities (ALL 130+ OF THEM) are real, are not going to pick up the misogyny or the traits we keep pointing out.

Our biological sex is the expression of our genes and many of us are born with imperfect bodies/congenital diseases. It's not too far fetched to understand the possibilities that many would have been females are born with penises and vice versa, hence gender dysphoria. Who we are is a lot more complicated than whether we have a penis or not. I do think if we try and understand the pains trans people are experiencing, a compromise somewhere is possible. It doesn't have to be a zero sum game.

A lot of posters are engaging strawmen fallacies, whether deliberately knowing or not. It's hard to have meaningful dialogue if all we try and do is bash each other, make fun off one another's positions, score points or 'win' an argument. Bun fighting is exhausting and gets you nowhere other than heightened emotions and everyone ending up losing.

Time is precious; we can't respond to every post. Merry Christmas, and happy new year to everyone - and I mean it.

It's not too far fetched to understand the possibilities that many would have been females are born with penises and vice versa, hence gender dysphoria

So you are positing that 'trans' is a DSD or genetic condition. Should be very straightforward to test for, in that case.

So much effort to justify and reify gender stereotypes.

Phenotypes and epigenetics and sex is so very complicated so we can reinforce pink is for girls and sport is for boys level nonsense.

Plus a ‘oh you’re all so
mean’ and strawmen and other online rhetoric bingo stuff just so you can claim
that sometimes our innately gender stereotypes souls are born into the wrong body and need hormones and surgery to fix this.

Intersex women who are actually women (ie not men with 5 ARD) are obvs the same as non intersex women under law.

There are almost no Intersex people who look like women phenotypically only later discovering they are genetically male, CAIS, basically.

CAIS is totally irrelevant to changing rooms, prisons etc as CAIS people are girls from birth and women in adulthood.

Cliteromegaly is not the same as a penis!

There is no such thing as a woman with a penis.

ButterflyHatched

Intersex groups have repeatedly asked not to be brought in to this issue.

Hard not to be brought into this issue when you have posters in this thread advocating for our removal from single sex spaces.

No person is born with both ovaries producing ova or testes producing mature sperm.

If any person is born with a working and not deformed penis and external testes they are not female. Can you name the difference of sexual development that you refer to where a female person has a penis, not a virilised clitoris, a penis?

Also, what straw men arguments are being posted here on this thread?

“I do think if we try and understand the pains trans people are experiencing, a compromise somewhere is possible. It doesn't have to be a zero sum game.”

Tell us what your compromise looks like? One that isn’t a zero sum game for female people?

Seriously. Rather than scold posters, actually state your solution. And if you have no solution, why are you telling us to compromise female safety, privacy and dignity?

Merry Christmas to you too!

I don't necessarily agree with your 'born in the wrong body' wording (though I would have when I was at GIDS!) - I think this mind is the product of a body with malfunctioning androgen receptors which led to a sense of gendered incongruence. People clearly experience this phenomenon, regardless of cause (which frankly is irrelevant when talking about treatment) as a lifelong, consistent phenomenon even despite changing terminology and I don't actually think it matters what you call it.

Here is yet another comparison; not an analogy, as analogies are virtually never a perfect match.

Some people have congenital limb deficiencies. We do not organise society entirely around their needs. My close relative with severe physical disability has to accept that there are places he will never go. I am beginning to experience the disabilities of old age. I too will have to accept that there will be places I will no longer be able to visit. We do not campaign for every footpath to be wheelchair accessible.

We're not anti trans inclusion Butterfly, we fully support trans people participating in society and to be free from discrimination. The issue is that they need to use the right spaces, transwomen are male and should therefore be in the gents, male sports categories, male prisons and hospital wards.

Transwomen being denied their right to male spaces is transphobia, men need to welcome their gender diverse counterparts. Society needs to work towards making all males safe in male spaces, shunting them off to the female ones is not the answer. You need to be free to present yourself as a woman while staying in male spaces. That way nobody is excluded, trans people can express their gender and everyone can have the opportunity to avoid mixed sex spaces.

'Featuring critical essays, erotica, and stitched-up memories, Gender/Fucking explores sexual arousal as a site of knowledge about the self and world.Taking the idea of intellectual masturbation a bit too literally, Florence Ashley draws on their experiences as a transfeminine activist, academic, and slut to interrogate what it means to live in a gendered body in our difficult yet occasionally loving world. With personal essays about the fetishization of trans bodies, recovering from surgery, and losing hope, Florence's collection celebrates the queer messiness of sex and identity.Through the embrace of its raw and lyrical prose, Gender/Fucking invites the reader into the intimate world of academic smut to ask what it means to be horny on main in a sex-negative world--and what power it might hold'

It's not even that though.

It's campaigning for the able bodies to go to places they are physically able to, but socially aren't accepted/banned because you have a disability that you are using to campaign for the previous group and then saying it's not fair to either group without thought as to why these people were separated for safety reasons in the first place.

It's bonkers!

The second you say that you are the same as a group that aren't disadvantaged and aren't tiny in number (it basically includes all men), you make life more difficult for yourself. You don't get to blame this decision making on women!

If you are a woman you'd fight for women's protections rather than trying to undermine them by identifying with people who think they can change sex when they can't.

Yes this is my preferred option

Plus It doesn’t involve lying to children on humans changing sex

A child can be happy to not gender conform and still maintain safeguarding

I think that we have a moral obligation, as a society, to strive for compassionate policies that centre the struggles of vulnerable and marginalised people. I think it is even more especially important to bear this in mind at times like these where the easily-demonised become electorial punchbags.

@ButterflyHatched
So what policy is going to allow men who identify as women into women's toilets, changing rooms, refuges, hospital wards, prisons, sports etc but protect the right to privacy, dignity, fairness and safety of my elderly vulnerable mother, my dear friend who was raped, my Jewish and Muslim friends and colleagues, my teenage nieces and pre-teen goddaughters? If we let you in Butterfly we are letting in any man who chooses to come in and there have been plenty examples of why this is a bad idea. Butterfly may pass but Dave the 6'2" 17 stone trucker who only identifies as Doris every other Thursday and therefore maintains a full beard certainly doesn't so how do we let some male born people who say they have a female identity into female spaces and keep other male born people who say they have a female identity out?

We have disabled parking space and many changes in society to make life as inclusive as possible for all forms of disabilities.

To acknowledge Trans inclusion in as many shape and form in society is a good starting point.

Inclusion does not mean it exclusion as a byproduct though. And that's the big issue.

Trans parking spaces is a new one on me. But okay.

You've said being trans is a chromosomal disorder.

What other accommodation do you think people with chromosomal disorders need? And why?

Gosh! Imagine if all those males who transitioned decades ago laid the groundwork to ‘expand the bandwidth’ of male people not wedge open the word ‘woman’ and insist they were treated like female people.

Imagine if those male people set the precedent to make male single sex spaces safer for all male people.

Only, that didn’t happen. Because it is now clear that that wasn’t the aim. The aim was to force women and girl’s to accept these male people as female people.

This would have a huge extra benefit for those people who are gender non conforming, and even those very rare male people with Differences of Sex Differences. It would mean that no male people would be in female single sex spaces at all. And the endless discussion about ‘passing’ would not have to happen.

And those male people who are fully immersed in their belief that they pass would never have believed they should be in female single sex spaces. Even when their well meaning family and friends threw women and girls under the bus in their need to make their male family member or friend feel better.

If only…

Ah come on. Women are obligated to be kind. So just shut up and let them all in. If Big Dave turns out to be a rapist you can always call the police afterwards.

But what does this mean in actual actions.

So far we have had vague references and assurances it is possible, but no clarity at all.

Please, do tell us exactly what you recommend and describe how that will work in reality. So far, we have seen nothing beyond the usual scolding tactics that we see on these threads every day.

I know. It’s so sad. For women and for children lacking safeguarding, plus dignity and privacy generally

It’s down to the GRA and look where we are now with no mechanism so far to stop male challenge

Can you say what you mean in practise?

Do women accept mixed sex only in this inclusion and compromise?