Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

State of this.

52 replies

AbsoluteStateOfThis · 09/03/2024 21:21

I’m in a local ADHD Facebook support group. A student has asked people to compete a questionnaire for a dissertation. I responded that asking about sex would be helpful given the different presentation that and can have in the 2 sexes. And got this absolute shite in response from a moderator. Who is apparently an expert. (Not sure how a PhD in the microbiology on earth 650m years ago is relevant.)

She then said I couldn’t use the term “natal” in relation to sex as it is offensive to those who believe they’ve been trans since birth. Apparently she’s been advising the govt on gender for the last 10 years, so at least we know one person responsible.

FFS.

State of this.
State of this.
State of this.
OP posts:
TheMarzipanDildo · 10/03/2024 07:07

Crikey. So sure of themselves and yet so wrong.
I’m going to end my next uni essay with “I am an expert and everything I’ve said above is correct” They can’t argue with that!

ArabellaScott · 10/03/2024 07:14

Paradiddlediddle · 09/03/2024 22:00

“I’m an expert and everything I have said here is correct” is brilliant and how I’m going to end all my conversations from now on.

Definitely a market for T shirts.

HagoftheNorth · 10/03/2024 08:00

Actually, I think it would be interesting to better understand whether differences in neurodivergent presentation were driven by sex or gendered socialisation. The only problem with researching that would be finding trans people who weren’t socialised (in those key early years especially) as their natal sex. It has been noted very often how some transwomen appear to exhibit some very masculine-gendered behaviour traits.

It’s not my area, but I’d be surprised if there is research to back up this expert’s statements (and that’s skipping over the periods and menopause nonsense! Since when did transwomen have a hormonal cycle?!)

SinnerBoy · 10/03/2024 15:16

popebishop · Yesterday 21:47

If you claim transwomen have periods then you don't know what a trans woman or a period is.

Well, quite. Even a palaeomicrobiologist should have learned enough, erm, biology to have realised that.

NitroNine · 10/03/2024 15:21

If you’ve a transperson socialised since birth as the opposite sex you’ve a victim of abuse, frankly.

I initially thought they were claiming to have done their doctorate 650 million years ago & that was still more believable that the GenderWoo 🤦‍♀️

WaterWeasel · 10/03/2024 15:30

Is this person a real she or a 'she'?

SilverTay · 10/03/2024 15:39

A PhD from the university of my mum's basement, most likely.

That genuinely made laugh out loud! In fact was more of a guffaw!

AbsoluteStateOfThis · 10/03/2024 15:48

WaterWeasel · 10/03/2024 15:30

Is this person a real she or a 'she'?

Biological woman. Lesbian. Has a pic with a “they” badge some way back in their profile.

OP posts:
Redpencil99 · 10/03/2024 15:52

HagoftheNorth · 10/03/2024 08:00

Actually, I think it would be interesting to better understand whether differences in neurodivergent presentation were driven by sex or gendered socialisation. The only problem with researching that would be finding trans people who weren’t socialised (in those key early years especially) as their natal sex. It has been noted very often how some transwomen appear to exhibit some very masculine-gendered behaviour traits.

It’s not my area, but I’d be surprised if there is research to back up this expert’s statements (and that’s skipping over the periods and menopause nonsense! Since when did transwomen have a hormonal cycle?!)

As neurodivergent, I can totally see, "I don't fit into the "narrow social constraint of definition feminism". E.g. not delicate, not dainty, not eloquent, too blunt.

Therefore must be male.

Rather than: there are so many different ways to be female, and wearing makeup and fitting into size eight clothes and sitting and counselling other people and being the centre of attention for my looks and partying all night doesn't make me a female.

What does make me a female are my genetics that caused me to have a womb, ovaries, wide hips, breasts and restrictions from my family as to who I was meant to be friends with, what was acceptable as my interests, where I could and couldn't go.

I didn't ask for any of that to the point of naively age eleven trying to work out how many periods I might have "to get used to" before my mid forties, and wonder if I wished it hard enough I could have them done 12 weeks a year, so 12 weeks or three months, for 35 years so 105 weeks, so can I put them end to end and get periods done in 2 years please.

The mess, the unpredictability (especially in the first and later years) little red dictator every four weeks. I didn't want it, I didn't like it.

Why wasn't this put to us as celebratory? Explained it was part of life? So happy I haven't had my period for two months, intermittent for the last year. At last!!

No man would wish for periods, if they knew what it involved, physical and social and the pretence of it by those pretending to be female is insulting.

Redpencil99 · 10/03/2024 15:53

SinnerBoy · 10/03/2024 15:16

popebishop · Yesterday 21:47

If you claim transwomen have periods then you don't know what a trans woman or a period is.

Well, quite. Even a palaeomicrobiologist should have learned enough, erm, biology to have realised that.

They will have. They are just pretending.

Geebray · 10/03/2024 15:57

"I am an expert and everything I've said above is correct"

Jesus.

duc748 · 10/03/2024 15:58

When people are prepared to mouth stuff that they know perfectly well isn't true, that's never good, is it?

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 10/03/2024 16:04

WandaWomblesaurus · 09/03/2024 22:49

A word salad spewed out by a clueless fuckwit.
What is wrong with these people.

I was thinking 'what a load of jabberwocky' but your's will do.

HappierTimesAhead · 10/03/2024 16:13

'Many transwomen have a 28 day cycle' ??? WTF does this even mean?
Many of us natal women have a 27 day cycle or 30 day cycle. Some of us have heavy bleeding and some of us light bleeding. Some of us have gone through the menopause. Some of us have endometriosis. All of this is entirely unique to WOMEN.

Igneococcus · 10/03/2024 16:16

dp says there is a female biologist who posts frequently on Quora who is really sound on pretty much everything, very good at debating with creationists for example, except on trans stuff. There she keeps spouting stuff about chromosomal abnormalities, more complex than most people imagine it to be, blah blah blah and will have no opposition. I don't get it, but it's not uncommon it seems.
The PhD here isn't really a paleomicrobiologist, she just worked on a deep-branching microorganism for one of grad thesis.

HappierTimesAhead · 10/03/2024 16:17

A while ago I ended up on a forum (never again) where transwomen were discussing being on hormones. The overwhelming sense I got was how much it was about 'playing at being a woman'. Phrases like 'this must be what it's like' and 'Oh, this is how I imagined this would feel'.

popebishop · 10/03/2024 16:31

HappierTimesAhead · 10/03/2024 16:17

A while ago I ended up on a forum (never again) where transwomen were discussing being on hormones. The overwhelming sense I got was how much it was about 'playing at being a woman'. Phrases like 'this must be what it's like' and 'Oh, this is how I imagined this would feel'.

You mean they were huge terfs that think being a woman is in any way related to being female?

EasternStandard · 10/03/2024 16:38

popebishop · 09/03/2024 21:47

If you claim transwomen have periods then you don't know what a trans woman or a period is.

Which is quite an embarrassing thing for them in this context.

It’s nonsense

Yet it seems they ‘advise’ with this nonsense

HappierTimesAhead · 10/03/2024 16:44

popebishop · 10/03/2024 16:31

You mean they were huge terfs that think being a woman is in any way related to being female?

I think it's only terfy when it's biological women talking about what it means to be a woman-have I got that right?
Transwomen have free rein to describe it any which way they want.

AbsoluteStateOfThis · 10/03/2024 16:53

Bit more digging and a few trans hints on their social media. As in transman but no evidence of hormones/surgery. A strange post about the importance of correct data categorisation in relation to intersex children by biologists to prevent inappropriate surgery on minors. 🤔

OP posts:
stealthsquirrelnutkin · 10/03/2024 17:43

So sex is too open to confusion because it might mean legal sex due to having a gender recognition certificate, or a feeling of having been born the opposite sex despite all physical evidence to the contrary, or an insistence on having changed sex due to taking opposite sex hormones?
Best to always ask for "sex at conception" then, no room at all for confusion or (wilful) misunderstandings.

WaterWeasel · 10/03/2024 17:45

Sex at conception? Stealing that one.

ADHDAHA · 10/03/2024 17:51

I am exploring a potential diagnosis of ADHD - am 2 years on an NHS waiting list after referral from my local Mental Health team who I’d self-referred to for CBT. I was doing a lot of research and was interested by the fact that ADHD presents differently in men and women. I started following what I specifically thought was a Female-focussed ADHD Instagram account/community. I decided to attend one of their events where I discovered that the AF in the title which was specified as meaning ‘As Females’ actually didn’t (more likely ‘couldn’t’) mean that but actually meant ‘’As Fuck’ and OF COURSE they didn’t exclude any genders and of course men are included etc…

I paid good money to attend one of their events which consisted of 98% females, about 2 blokes who came with their girlfriends and a few non-binary/transwomen. To add insult to injury they played bingo and a transwoman won the first prize.

I should have asked for my money back but I just stopped following. I was actually really angry because the whole reason there are so many undiagnosed women realising they might actually have the inattentive version of the condition is because they were overlooked and ignored as children while the focus went on the young boys bouncing off the walls dealing with their hyperactive presentation (a real simplification of course but you should get my jist if you’ve looked into it).

Sex DOES matter when it comes to ADHD.

PermanentTemporary · 10/03/2024 17:52

I agree that research into ADHD incidence and presentation in trans people would be very interesting. Is there any? They're writing as if it's settled science but given they don't know what a period is I take leave to doubt.

I remain unsurprised that the presentation in trans men is similar to that in women.

FlirtsWithRhinos · 10/03/2024 17:54

Igneococcus · 10/03/2024 16:16

dp says there is a female biologist who posts frequently on Quora who is really sound on pretty much everything, very good at debating with creationists for example, except on trans stuff. There she keeps spouting stuff about chromosomal abnormalities, more complex than most people imagine it to be, blah blah blah and will have no opposition. I don't get it, but it's not uncommon it seems.
The PhD here isn't really a paleomicrobiologist, she just worked on a deep-branching microorganism for one of grad thesis.

The thing is, even if all this is true, even if we somehow totally misunderstood what a woman is, the people we had hitherto erroneously believed to be women, ie the adult human females, still suffered the sexism and marginalisation that they suffered. The physical and social reality that comes with having a female body still happened. The fact it was done under the name women and now apparently that was a misunderstanding of what a woman is doesn't mean if we redefine woman then none of it happened!

And by the same token, the need for rights, opportunities and protections to mitigate these challenges doesn't suddenly switch from the people who actually suffered the challenges to a another group just because society decided we got the name wrong!