My son can tell...

[allthevitamins]

Watching 'Inside the Factory' on BBC1 with DS, 10.

Cherry Healy was talking about lightbulbs with Dr Clara Barker, Materials Scientist.

Please note this is not personal in relation to Dr Baker.

Dr Barker is Transwoman.

DS says, 'is that a lady?'.

I say no, it's a man.

We left it at that.

I mean Dr Barker is quite feminine.

But unprompted, my DS knew that Dr Barker is not a woman.

Why should I have to lie to him about this?

I don't think I have the words to describe to a 10-year old what a 'transgender person' is, in a factually-accurate and age-appropriate way. There's a lot of concepts in there.

In terms of equivalence, it's a bit like Cherry Healey introducing someone who claims to be God, as God - fact.

That's what got me. Just the assumption that we need to accept that this person is a woman because of presentation, pronouns and name. As a member of the audience, I felt like being complicit in the deceit was being imposed on me.

I think I could cope with the presentation alone, without the pronouns and name. 'Here's Dr Dave Barker, he's explaining the various interesting properties of lightbulbs'.

And I'd think, ok, well, Dr Dave has got an interesting dress sense, he dresses in clothes that are conventionally chosen be women.

As it was I was like, hang on, I don't agree that Dr Barker IS a woman, and now my son is asking me what's going on, what can I say? And why do I feel awkward about it?

You feel awkward because the party is asking you to reject the evidence of your ears and eyes.

Cognitive dissonance is uncomfortable.

@iwafs Op you must be aware that you’ve posted in an echo chamber.

Yes, a group of women (and a couple of men) discussing issues that are really important to them and to society is such an "echo chamber"....🙄

Why don't you pop on over to the sewing thread and tell them all their endless embroidery talk is such an echo chamber?

Women are allowed to gather and speak

@Leafstamp I hope you don’t have young kids, because you would be screwing them over royally by only telling them one-sided extreme opinions. Setting them up for failure intentionally. Again, it is NOT hard to say “It’s a man who would like to be a woman,” “I think they are still a man.” “Lots of people think they are a woman.” THAT is factual information, and a fair appraisal of the situation.

This makes no sense. What does "live as a woman" mean

🙄You know what it means.

It means 'wears a dress'?

This particular male is a transwoman male so it is appropriate to use he
she is a pronoun for those born female - he was born male, he still is male.

calling him 'she' is to accept and be part of the deception that is being played out - that is why some people are so adamant that you must use these incorrect pronouns - because they wish to suck you in and force you to be a part of their view on reality...

fortunately as has been proven in court - being gender critical is a protected characteristic in court, so no-one can compel you to use the wrong ponouns

born male = he

A man wearing a dress is still a man, always will be.

Being a woman has fuck all to do with what clothes we wear.

It means 'wears a dress'?

It means they think they are living like a woman.

Of course the idea of living like a woman is bollocks. This is a thread about explaining a trans woman to a ten year old child. You can have the more in depth conversations about what it means to be a woman when they are a teenager or adult. But the fact is, they think they are “living as a woman.”

This makes no sense. What does "live as a woman" mean

🙄You know what it means.

Actually I don't. That is why I asked you as you seemed so sure. What does it mean to you?

Edit - apologies, of course you could be a man so wouldn't know. In which case my question would be what does "live as a man" mean.

'Metaphysical implications', huh? No you don't have to worry about anything like that. Perhaps you might consider the semantics of (parts of) some of your claims, though?

You might try, 'What does "woman" mean?' for example. Or, 'Is there a sense of 'gender', non-conterminous with 'sex', in which someone could be said to have or be a certain gender? - If so, what is it?' ... And so on ...

[There is a move here that takes metaphysics as essentially semantic anyway, but this is probably not the place for that. Let's not do it.]

You might also look at a bit of logic. For example: For any human X, 'X has reduced risk of prostate cancer' entails 'X is not a woman'. Can you see how that entailment goes?

And, no, you don't have to prove anything. We know you think you have changed sex. Some of us think you're mistaken in that, a thought based on our knowledge that it is impossible for humans to change sex. I suspect you know that too, @ButterflyHatched, although you find it difficult to admit to yourself. (Of course I could be wrong about this. But, well, experience, ...)

["... lazy ontological essences ..." Hmm. Really, @ButterflyHatched? Seriously?]

Exactly. You can't 'live as a woman' without a female body. You can be a male person enacting your own male perceptions of some heavy stereotypes of current western femininity and that's about it.

Well, I have taught my kids from dot that they do not have to subscribe to sexist stereotypes, that they can dress as they please, wear their hair as they please (within reason/hygiene/practicality). I'm buggered if I'm going to now offer them the bollocks lie that a man can 'live as a woman'. The man is wearing a dress. That's about it, really. He is pretending to be a woman.

I think 'ontological' is one of those words that people like using because they think it sounds impressive.

@ArabellaScott We actually share the same views on this. But the thread was all “woe is me, it’s impossible to explain a trans woman to my ten-year-old child, why are they allowed on the BBC?”. Bollocks. It’s not hard to explain the simple existence of a group of people with certain opinions to a ten-year-old child.

You don’t have to be mealy-mouthed about it. And the intricacies can be saved until they’re old enough to understand it. And as much as I don’t agree with much of the current trans agenda which threatens woman’s rights, saying trans people shouldn’t be on television or even exist is actually offensive and very extremist.

They think they are living as a woman.

Factual.

I know because her profile on the uni of Oxford (her employer) uses she. And it’s more than likely she had input to that! How can I ask her when I don’t know her?

In the days when you'd occasionally see a man in 'feminine' clothes and make up, and not care other than being mildly interested, my DD asked about a male in a dress 'is that a lady?'. At that point, it was easy to just say 'no it's a man. But some men like to wear dresses and make up'.
Nothing has fundamentally changed since then. It's still, though simple, the right answer.
Yet here we all are, being made to go through the most egregious logical contortions about it.

"one sided extreme opinions"?!

I am doing everything I can to get rid of gender identity ideology as a belief system, just like scientists before me who did everything they could to get rid of the belief that the earth is flat.

There are men and there are women.

Yes, there are people who are confused about what it means to be a man or a woman and some who believe in some sort of gendered soul. I will not unlawfully discriminate against them. But to me, they are flat earthers.

To be fair, the rhetoric only gets more heated as people claim impossible things.
The initial post and its answers were fairly straightforward. It’s fair enough to worry about getting into dangerous waters while watching teatime telly with your ten yr old.

Sadly the prevailing narrative requires people to be extremely cautious about explanations that could get DC in trouble at school.

You can’t baldly state ‘He’s just a man that likes to wear a dress’, without exposing your DC to a world of hurt at school.

You can’t baldly state ‘He’s just a man that likes to wear a dress’, without exposing your DC to a world of hurt at school.

Please can we wake up and see that the emperors has no clothes on!

I don’t think it would be exposing DC to a world of hurt. We need to have these conversations. Including at school.

They are men who like wearing dresses.

The emperor has no clothes.

"They think they are a (cat, furry, woman)" can be equally misleading though as no, there's no way to know what the person thinks or what their agenda may be.
The requirement for good faith belief in this has been exploited to the nth degree, and is as unpleasant as the requirement that people enact pretending belief whether or not they do.

It is very difficult. I would not want to put a child in the way of saying something innocently that unleashes a lot of politics on their head. But equally I would not be willing to mislead a child for the benefit of someone who is in fact playing a game for their own personal reasons. Particularly to encourage good faith belief when I do not want to enable their manipulation should they encounter someone not trustworthy or honest in this way. How complex or conscious the game is, and what their individual reasons are, is not something that as a passing stranger, it's up to me to invest in unpacking.

How about: a transgender woman is a man who claims that he thinks that he's a woman.

Both verbs are needed. "Claims" alone would include non-transgender but fraudulent individuals. "Thinks" alone would make assumptions about their beliefs.

I seem to have managed to exclude the fragrant Debbie though. Back to the drawing-board...

If a child referred to their teacher Debbie Hayton as a man that likes to wear a dress- perhaps explaining that to a younger pupil, for example, that child would quite likely face a world of hurt.
If a child referred to another pupil as ‘a boy who likes to wear a dress’, ditto.
And if that child was reluctant to use the incorrect pronouns or share changing rooms, they certainly would be.

Surgery has not made a man into a woman. Hormones have not made a man into a woman. Clothes, hair and makeup have not made a man into a woman. Your dna ,chromosomes, and gametes are and will always be that of a man no matter how extreme the surgeries or how high the dose of cross sex hormones. Or how feminine you are, or whatever age you "transitioned". Woman are not castrated males. If you are born male, that is what you are and what you will exit this world as, long after the feelings in your head and heart and mind are dead. Biology is real, it doesn't bend to your will and it cannot be cheated. Sex is immutable. And that is a fact you can never change no matter what you do to our language. Men cannot be women, and there is no way to "live as a woman" without being one biologically.

Great comment
We are having to roll back on this - children are being socially groomed into believing an untruth - and that's incredibly dangerous, for democracy, for human rights and for safety The public are starting to realise that this ideology appears to be breaching every social convention. Just this week:
A male lactation fetish being sanctioned by an NHS trust with the BBC condoning it.
The Scottish government doubling down on state sanctioned sexual abuse of women in prison
The John Lewis debacle where a legacy business centred staff displaying fetish& bondage gear and shamefully lectured parents that dangerous breast binding for girls is a good thing
Yet another vile murder / animal cruelty case where the alleged murderer is incorrectly described as a woman.

No boundaries at all.

That's why it's so important to be clear with children. The time for indulging the fantasy that it's possible to change sex is over. Brutal honesty is now needed. And that's not going to be easy.