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actually publishing a young trans person's own words on the subject of their own existence and how the government's draft guidance is likely to affect the people it directly pertains to.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

Misgendering is calling men 'she'.

Is it still a lie if it is told from personal experience by someone who transitioned during puberty, was bullied due to transitioning in school, benefited massively from coming of age alongside her female peers and went on to be happy and fulfilled for the next 20 years of her life?

Why not engage with someone who has actually experienced the results of transitioning young and can attest wholeheartedly to them rather than claiming it is all about middle aged missed opportunity regret?

Your line of argument is profoundly unfair to people who didn't have those opportunities, implying that it is somehow sinister or otherwise unvirtuous to try and help future generations have wider opportunities in a more supportive social climate.

Weaponised like those of us who willingly transitioned on our own initiative with no imposition from adults, you mean?

Ah Helleofabore you really do love to conveniently ignore that whole thread I created inviting people to share their own experiences of growing up as a gender nonconforming teen. I've never claimed you or anyone else here wasn't/isn't gender non-conforming. However, you do not know what transitioning at school is like because you did not transition at school. You have not experienced it. I say this not to score points or imply that you do not have grounds to comment on experiences that you did have.

I suppose if you can't find an actual reason to discredit me you have no choice but to invent one. It's awfully rude, however.

I'm a feminist, by the way. It might not be the same strain of orthodoxy as yours, but it's still feminism.

If a person has a belief that defies the direct lived reality of others and demands that they be treated in a particular way due to their genital configuration, ignoring their interiority and any hint of nuance or subjectivity because of an ideological adherence to the concept of an immutable sex essence, why on earth should any person believe anything else they say is credible and based on a balanced view of the world?

If a person has a belief that defies the direct lived reality of others and demands that they be treated in a particular way due to their genital configuration, ignoring their interiority and any hint of nuance or subjectivity because of an ideological adherence to the concept of an immutable sex essence, why on earth should any person believe anything else they say is credible and based on a balanced view of the world?

Wow, that's a whole load of word salad

If a person has a belief that defies the direct lived reality of others and demands that they be treated in a particular way due to their genital configuration, ignoring their interiority and any hint of nuance or subjectivity because of an ideological adherence to the concept of an immutable sex essence, why on earth should any person believe anything else they say is credible and based on a balanced view of the world?

This is such utter garbage it’s hard to know where to start. But you’re saying that people who believe in scientific fact, biology and reality and stick to that rather than feelings aren’t to be trusted with any credible view on the world. Bonkers.

Interiority?! Is that what we’re calling gender feels now?

Immutable sex essence? Is that a new fragrance? Sex is immutable. It cannot change. It’s not an essence, it’s reality.

'Genital configuration' 😆

However, you do not know what transitioning at school is like because you did not transition at school. You have not experienced it. I say this not to score points or imply that you do not have grounds to comment on experiences that you did have

Butterflyhatched, what would you like to see done differently now than in your schooldays? How should schools handle the bullying of and support children who transition to the opposite gender?

It is not bullying to restrict toilets, changing rooms and sports to sex. It would be bullying to demand other children share with those of the opposite sex in these situations.

It is not bullying if children use sex based pronouns instead of gender based pronouns for a child that has transitioned. Schools cannot and should not compel speech.

Would it be bullying if kids slip up and use the previous name? How do you suggest that is dealt with? Should it be dealt with? What if it is an honest mistake?

What else? Making fun of clothes? That is never ok, regardless of transitioning. What other bullying occurrences are you thinking of that does not occur for every other child in school? What should schools do differently?

Where are you from @ButterflyHatched?

Which country was this where they were giving puberty blockers over 20 years ago to adolescents who wanted to be the opposite sex?

It's a shame they didn't publish any of their research findings if their experiments had such a positive outcome.

“I'm a feminist, by the way. It might not be the same strain of orthodoxy as yours, but it's still feminism.”

No feminist puts women and girls in a situation where they are distressed by the presence of a male in their single sex spaces.

You call yourself whatever you want, no one on this earth has to believe you are what you say you are. And material reality persists despite your assertions.

So, keep calling yourself a feminist, you are the very opposite. And readers of this thread and any other post of yours can see that immediately.

Material reality is the absolute fucking pits, isn’t it.

Mumsnet is a site with 119 million users. There is an infinite variety of posts, questions, views, worries, joy, sadness, nonsense & fun. The fact that butterfly comes here and thinks all this wonderous variety of women can be reduced to a feeling of some kind of womanly essence that all women share says everything.

My child is in high school. Bullying is rife. General low level violence pushing , shoving, bashing people over. Swearing , vaping. The standards of expected behaviour are low.

Translation:

People are not allowed to form
their own opinions or have their own beliefs, especially not beliefs about the biological reality of sex. They are not allowed to act in alignment with their beliefs.

The only thing that matters is the subjective experiences of trans people. Their thoughts and preferences should define reality.

Trans people’s strong belief in their gender identity being a true and unchanging is the only thing that matters (note: even where this identity is ‘non-binary’; it is some sort of higher order truth about what exists and how it exists).

Lived experience should be treated not as partial, subjective and idiosyncratic but as the objective truth of how the world is. But only the lived experiences of trans people. Other people don’t have ‘lived experiences’, anything else is a misguided ideological belief in biological sex. Even if they’re talking about the experience of having a sexed body, this is not evidence of anything.

Because of that, no one should ever listen to anyone who accepts the material reality of biological bodies as just how it is. The only credible or balanced way to understand the world is to believe that everything should be determined by gender stereotypes.

Up is down.

I was trained to PhD level in the wankiest of wanky structural continental philosophy inspired cultural studies bullshit. I’ve read Foucault and Derrida and Deleuze and all the verbose nonsense.

I can throw around words like interiority and immutable - and even more ridiculous shite - if I feel like it.

you know what though? Trying to bamboozle people with word salad doesn’t make your point better.

Especially not when your argument about how (some people’s) subjective reality is the only thing of any ontological significance is so unbelievably problematic. It’s not just solipsism; it’s actually closer to narcissism. Only the self exists and ‘trans’ selves are what reality should be organised around. That is the only subjective experience that matters and everyone else must play their part in trying to make the material and social world fit the subjective experience of people who say they have a gender identity distinct from (and at odds with) their biological sex.

Same here. And I’ve also worked in a sector which asked for plain English so clients could find it accessible.

The mangling of language in gender ideology is used on purpose, it’s because the foundation is a fundamental lie and it’s hard to talk around that plainly.

Is it still a lie if it is told from personal experience by someone who transitioned during puberty, was bullied due to transitioning in school, benefited massively from coming of age alongside her female peers and went on to be happy and fulfilled for the next 20 years of her life?

What was in it for the 'female peers' (aka support class)?

Me too. You may have made the same transition work-wise that I did.

A truly troubling aspect of this ‘only my self exists and the rest of the world are mere props in my reality’ line of argument is that it is entirely devoid of empathy.

The rest of us might know that we cannot get direct access to the world outside of our senses and our subjective processing of that sensory data - but we strive to find ways to extend that, to acknowledge and empathise with the experiences of others and to find ways to be more objective about the world which exceeds our ability to grasp it.

Any discussion about the need to use those methods to try to look beyond the end of our own noses or any suggestion that the diverse needs and experiences of people collectively should be part of the discussion is met by word salad to try to assert that no - only @ButterflyHatched has a lived experience and the rest of the world must fall in line to align with what they want. But in a way that sounds clever rather than egotistical.

Well said - it's very troubling. Especially when the focus of it is to persuade others that children should be set on a path to transitioning at any age and that parental involvement is optional.
Then it becomes sinister I'm afraid.

Definitely, you have to worry about someone who employs this line of reasoning and then engages in activism to ensure that other people’s children are put on medical and surgical transition pathways to shore up their own sense of self.

Thats the most charitable interpretation too.

"Misgendering" = refusing to pretend that someone is the opposite of what they actually are.

I'm sorry that some people in society have led you to believe that this is a reasonable thing to expect people to do, but those people don't actually speak for the rest of us.

If we are forced to pretend that men are women it becomes much more difficult to object to them being in women's spaces. Which is precisely the point, and precisely why we are being forced to pretend that men are women.

We need to regain our grip on the truth.

I started using preferred pronouns out of courtesy, until I saw how it was being used against us. Until I saw men competing as women in the Olympics and men being celebrated on International Women's Day and male rapists being housed in women's prisons and women no longer having single sex rape crisis support.

And now I won't pretend any longer.

We gave an inch, you took a mile, and now unfortunately we are going to have to take the full mile back, including that first inch.

That's why I can't bring myself to use preferred pronouns anymore, even when the person is totally sweet and innocent, even for someone like poor Brianna Ghey. I just can't do it. Because of what it has led to.

You cannot be a feminist if you don't believe that women are entitled to have words for themselves, and their own single sex spaces and sporting categories which don't include trans women.

Because if you believe that women should be forced to share these things with trans women, your position is that women born with penises are more important than women born without penises, and that the feelings of that very small number of women born with penises trump the feelings, rights, safety and right to self identification of the 51% of the population born without penises.

That is literally the opposite of feminism.

That is old fashioned misogyny, identifying as feminism.

Oh and sex isn't an "essence".

Incredibly rare disorders of sexual development (which have nothing to do with trans people) aside, sex is about what kind of reproductive organs you have.

No "essence". Maybe you're mixing it up with gender, which might be an "essence" of some sort, but certainly isn't something objectively real and observable.

'Immutable sex essence' has fucking killed me.😂

I know, do you think they actually believe this shit they come out with?

Are they sitting there with a vagina that morphs into a penis at sunset and then turns back into a vagina at sunrise thinking, "Why do all these people think sex is immutable?"

This

there was a post on here saying that because some people were using the word transwoman that it meant that they believed that transwomen were absolutely women and by extension female

so i have stopped using preferred pronouns on here, completely down to that poster