Biology is not as simple as one might think trust me i am a biologist….

[Karensalright]

Is it the case that those supporting gender ideology have developed a new tactic? Coming on here pretending to be a scientist stating their profession, and then proffering their expert knowledge via a link to wiki?

Surely if they were telling the truth they would link us to a peer review paper from a scientific website.

Is it a new trend or have I just cottoned on to it. In an attempt to influence new comers.

Replies and discussion gratefully appreciated, as long as you don't point out that i can be a bit thick..

"A rejection of the limitations imposed on girls in my generation. I’ve never been a conventionally girly women"

Very off topic, but a trend I've noticed a lot in the last 7-8 years is people both online AND when speaking using the word "women" when they mean "woman" or vice versa.
I can't for the life of me understand why or where this phenomena is coming from - Has anyone else noticed this?

Never mind the fact that a purported 68 year old female biologist can't seem to use the correct word to refer to herself🙄

There was a female marine biologist arguing that DSDs mean the genetics of sex is not straightforward on Twitter the other day. The problem comes with the leaps they make.

I mean “DSDs exist and therefore our understanding of the genetics of sex is a little more complex than simply XX and XY” is a reasonable take.

But to move from there to “therefore some men are women” is ludicrous.

Similarly, the idea above, which sounds like a version of “hormone washing”. I can get behind the idea that hormonal differences in utero might potentially lead to feminine men and masculine women. It’s the leap from there to “having an opposite sex sense of self” which is a massive overstep.

Personally, I think it’s likely that feminine boys, who have traditionally been bullied for not being “masculine enough” probably experienced that bullying at the stage when their personality and understanding of the world and where they fit in were being formed. No wonder a boy, meeting with parental disapproval for his behaviour, might easily conclude that he should have been a girl. It’s a very child-like concept. That theory would also explain why there were traditionally more boys with gender identity disorder than girls, as being a “masculine girl” has always been more socially acceptable. That seems way more likely to me than people having some kind of “sexed soul” that dictates that they “are trans”.

I saw that post and my fingers hovered over the key board, then I just thought, no, can't be bothered, and went and put a chocolate hot cross bun in the air fryer and made a cup of tea. I was impressed with the number of people who did have the patience to repeat all the sensible arguments.

Unless im mistaken, even the peer review is subject to the politics of the day ?

I see it a lot on Twitter - 'the GC's are obsessed with this third gamete!! Weirdos!!'

It's because they won't twatting answer the question!

Yes. The entire ideology is driven by blatant sexism. Butch girls and fey boys are entirely unacceptable.

Well i guess am not that thick after all. Thing is ignore and move on from these is fine if we are resolute and well read in our information, BUT there are new people here, i am going to ask them to expand on teir description of their profession in the future.

Very true. I suppose we're going to see torrents of fake facts, denial and wailing tomorrow. But maybe not on here so much?
I was reading the comments under Suzanne Moore's article in the Telegraph earlier - over 800 of them and a majority of the posts would have fitted in on here. They were child safeguarding centred, many giving sad examples of their own children and grandchildren caught up in this. Lots of posts challenging the outrageous social grooming of children in schools, relevant links, lots of knowledge re the history of GIDs and several gay men talking about their experiences and their fury at what's happening to children. And some posts that would have ben deleted on here.

I'm saying all this because it often feels that women have been fighting this battle alone - but no longer. Involving children is what will bring much of this to an end.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2024/04/09/cass-report-trans-children-have-been-lied-to-by-adults/

Yes. Because I do it and it is my fingers working faster than my brain and the e is easier for me to reach often mid sentence with my thumb. I did wonder why I was doing it and I recognised the pattern. It was something I did on my phone with thumb typing.

Now for the life of me I seem to have a thing about their and there when typing from thought with both phone (thumb typing) and using a full keyboard. That is a different story.

Yeah. I haven’t read anything reliable about hormone washing. I get that people propose it as theoretical but it doesn’t seem to fit. And wouldn’t it be only for male people….?

The thread is still there.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5045414-older-generations-show-resistance-to-trans-rights?page=10&reply=134409147

To be fair if someone really thinks just wishing very hard identifying as the opposite sex makes it happen I imagine that for that person simply identifying as a biologist/scientist/expert in genetics is a damn sight easier than doing what (say) Professor Lord Robert Winston did and put in a lifetime of exceptional, peer reviewed, groundbreaking, internationally recognised, globally published research into genetics.

I mean, let’s face it, if it worked we’d all do it, for lots of things, not just pretending to be special on an anonymous Internet forum.

And yet every person on the planet has a male and female parent. 🙄

Such a weird coincidence, that.

I quite like the Clownfish. Asking how we know that they are able to change sex usually does the trick, because to identify that something has changed sex, you first have to be able to understand what definies sex in the first place.

The same goes for hermaphrodites. To understand why an animal is classed as a hermaphrodite, you need to be able to define sex.

TRA's suffer from terminal inexactitude when it comes to defining sex.

https://www.nature.com/articles/378068a0

It’s funny how reduction in oestrogen hasn’t changed my taste in frocks.

And how the men taking oestrogen still aren’t very kind- I must admit my public spiritedness has declined rapidly along with my oestrogen. Why hasn’t theirs increased?

Ahhh I see - I rarely use my phone these days so perhaps that's why the connection never clicked!

I can't help but wonder still about those who confuse them verbally though!
(Though to be fair the culprits who do this verbally tends to be men rather than women, so I always get a caveman impression forming in my head 😅)

I blame my grammar Nazi brain!😅

Cannot remember where or when, but Helen Joyce described this as the Scooby Doo moment "if it wasn't for those pesky kids, we would have gotten away with it". Quite. Dress how you like, believe any old fucking nonsense you like, but come for our kids and watch out for the fireworks.

You've reminded me of this.

Having taught biology and sex education, it amazed me just how misinformed people are. Some of the things male politicians say are cringeworthy. All the ‘women and cervix’ stuff. I was desperate for a tv presenter to ask them what a cervix actually is. I would love to know if they even had a clue.

Seriously though, it was a privilege to teach sex education as I was taught how to teach it really well. Strict rules in place. No personal anecdotes. Correct biological terms used. Questions written down and posted into a box anomalously so I could go through them later and answer them in a clear manner next lesson. I was pretty unshockable though buying 30 cucumbers, a marrow and many boxes of condoms at Asda was always a bit cringy. (The marrow was brought out when the inevitable some can't use condoms as they are too small was mentioned - always got a laugh).

Absolutely no pupils ever asked me if anyone could change sex. I would have remembered such a surreal question. But I haven’t taught for a few years in schools. I wonder if pupils are so confused now they would really believe you could.

It is one of the big questionable statements - I carefully don't say lie - 'There have always been trans people, in all societies'. But we barely heard of them in Europe until the last decade and a half, and the tiny number of historic examples all seem to be either cross dressing three letter men or women who wanted to pursue a closed career.

Other societies had defined groups that homosexual men got put into, or women with no male relatives to conduct business.

But it all gets lumped together - excuse my scepticism.

I had that one trotted out to me recently. I'm still waiting for how they are defining 'trans' and for the evidence of stone age trans people.

I wonder if Neanderthals were also Trans?

I’ve never been a conventionally girly women. But I’ve never had any “sense of self” as anything but a duck billed platypus.

'Trans people' used to mean people that wanted to be the opposite sex, for whatever reason. I'm somewhat sympathetic to a point - society is sexist and if you don't want to challenge the notion that men are like this and women are like that, when you're not, I can see why life would be 'easier' in some way if you try and change which sex people view you as.

The problem is trans now means a male really, literally, is a woman (and female = man) because woman doesn't mean female don't you know, it means [tbc once they have deigned to define it]