Women's rights general conversations - Thread 8

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of Thread 7.

There is so much excellent information and so many active discussions on FWR that I wondered if it would be useful to have a thread to sort of "cross-fertilise" between them - airing little thoughts or vignettes that wouldn't themselves merit their own thread, to highlight other posts/threads of particular interest or to point to notable developments on fast-moving threads so that casual observers know where to look.

(For example, "the X thread has meandered onto a fascinating discussion of Y" or "Poster P's amazing analysis on thread Z might have relevance to the scenario in thread W" or "Has anybody noticed this recurring theme that keeps coming up??" or even "Random bloke asked me to smile while I was choosing onions in the supermarket, grr"- that sort of thing).

Just saw this: ‘The SNP can now squeeze its MPs around the flip-down dining table of a motorhome’.

Ouch.

Another burns victim

Osha beastie! That's a sair one

ArabellaScott · Yesterday 07:32 on the DSM thread

Excellent article on Twitter - a clinical look at 'gender dysphoria'.

https://x.com/Psychgirl211/status/1808825717204922755

I don't think anyone else on this thread has linked to this xtwitter article that Arabella Scott found - it's by a trained and experienced psychiatrist, and includes a helpful suggestion that the real and distressing condition currently described meaninglessly as gd would be better referred to as Embodiment Anxiety Disorder and treated accordingly.

Yep it is a good article, and draws similar conclusions to this previously posted piece which considers the piece through a more anthropological lens:

https://bprice.substack.com/p/trans-is-something-we-made-up

That’s a good article, I like it.

Western-Tumblr-Trans has already metastasised tho - many of the young people who now identify as trans aren’t gender stereotype outliers at all - the MtF are gamers and world-of-warcrafters, and the FtM are into make up and fibre arts. Transition (if sex change were actually possible) makes them become GNC, they are overwhelmingly heterosexual (in old money!) so transition makes them into gay transmen or transbians.

It’s arse backwards from phenomenon such as the Fafafine or Kathoey, which starts out with naturally effeminate, homosexual boys and gives them a societal role to fulfil as adults.

Not to say that the western equivalent to Kathoey aren’t being medically transed (eg Jazz Jennings) but as a cohort of former Tavi kids they were the OG main population that rapidly became vastly outnumbered by ROGD girls, and more recently the teen boys who want their mums to call them she/her pronouns while they game crossdressed, but they don’t want to go out in the world in ‘girl mode’ at all.

I vaguely recall Mermaids refuting the idea that the Tavi were ‘transing away the gay’ by pointing out that the majority of the kids they ‘supported’ became gay after transition (or identified as bisexual/pansexual). On first glance it sounds like one
of the two camps must be telling porkies but actually the discrepancy was ex Tavi staff talking about the referrals seen 15-5 years earlier and Mermaids talking about current teens, many of whom were on long NHS wait lists/getting medications from GenderGP and not actually being assessed by the Tavi at all.

Anyway, imo we can’t resolve whatever Gender Dysphoria currently is solely by finding a better societal model for GNC kids (although we still should do that!) because the majority of the current crop of Transitioners were never GNC kids to start with, they are older males from Malaga Airport and teens experiencing a new culture bound disorder (that is disguised as an existing one).

It's always struck me as odd that body dysmorphic disorder is categorised as a mental illness and treated with therapy and medications to improve their MH rather than help to change the way they look, whereas people with gender dysphoria are encouraged to change their appearance and offered drugs and surgery to achieve this.

I wonder how gender dysphoria will be thought of in, say, thirty years time. Will it even still be a thing? Or will it be looked back on with knowing eye-rolls?

This is an amazing, thorough article. Thanks for posting!
The initial information/examples about the symptom pool, come from Ethan Watters book, 'Crazy Like Us', I believe. In case anyone wants to read more about that.
The final 'join the dots' link at the end of PsychGirl's article is indeed very telling (and shocking)

Won't it be in the midst of blocked compensation claims?

Possibly, but I won't be here to see it! 😀

This jumped out to me from that Psychgirl link:

Mother Nature is not suddenly making huge numbers of developmental mistakes (to mainly White, Western children).

Mother Nature is not suddenly making huge numbers of developmental mistakes (to mainly White, Western children).

Yes! Excellent point!

Excellent and thought-provoking articles above by Psychgirl and the Substack one. I would like to add this one, it's quite a long read, posted by BonfireLady on another thread.

https://www.philosophersmag.com/essays/321-the-transgender-rights-issue

@Kucinghitam I would like to add this one, it's quite a long read ...

It is, isn't it! I'm somewhere between a third and half way through and my eyes are starting to struggle with the paleness of the font, so have cut'n'paste it into something they're happier with and will print it out to read in daylight, rather than on a screen.

I thought it was a good piece, and the point about making a clear distinction between 'equality' and 'belief' is an important one, which can't be over-stressed. One point he didn't really to cover (although I think it would have fitted in with arguments very well) was the way in which TRAs have sought, generally successfully, to portray 'the fight for trans rights' as a continuation of the gay liberation movements of past decades. The liberal left, with a few notable exceptions, have swallowed this lazy and easily de-bunked concept hook, line, and sinker.

I guess that's what I find so galling. A group of people that think they are so smart and well educated, and I was one of them once.

How disappointed I am to find their education, which cost so much time and money, has rendered them arrogant complacent smug and self satisfied. Just a more expensive way to turn into their boomer dad.

I think it's a lazy leftwing trope - that I've been guilty of too - to think that we're all smart if not super smart and that although there are smart people on the right a lot of them are very thick. It's not untrue but it ignores the fact that the left is not short of the thicker side of the population. Sometimes the thick lefties are well educated and should know better but they don't. Until they do again and by then they're either too embarrassed to acknowledge that they've fucked up and/or it's too late because the damage has already been done.

@Kucinghitam I'm going to read your article tomorrow because I've just read the other two and I don't have the energy for a third right now and I want to do it justice.

Thanks others for the other two. I loved the one from Twitter and the follow up one from Dolly the 21st century salonniere was the perfect follow up, from the medical to the anthropological cultural. I loved her style and tone as well. I loved that she kept repeating that people are not making it up but that we accept the things that have been made up within our own culture. They're two of the best articles I've read in quite some time.

You’re way ahead of me Mouse - I have all three pieces open in new browser tabs and am armed with good intentions but lack the concentration to start.

I vaguely recall Mermaids refuting the idea that the Tavi were ‘transing away the gay’ by pointing out that the majority of the kids they ‘supported’ became gay after transition (or identified as bisexual/pansexual).

I looked into their figures. Given that the general population has <10% gay/lesbian then 90% of their kids should have been "gay" post-transition. The figure was much much lower than that (can't remember, wish I had good records) indicating a high rate of transing gay children.

Interesting things to read linked earlier - will catch up with them later.

I may be alone on this, but I don’t share the widespread distrust of Dodds and Phillipson at this stage. They both have lots to bring to the wider aspects of the brief. On the sex/gender question, yes Phillipson has been very TWAW, but while Dodds has prevaricated in the past her position has become clearer over time and I do think they will listen to a variety of views. I am waiting to see how things develop. I don’t imagine any legislation in this area will be rushed. Of course I could be being hopelessly naive but I’m reserving judgement. Supporting Rosie Duffield will be a crucial test though, and one they may very easily fail.

I’m watching and waiting with a sceptical view. I think JKR’s article was very well timed in that it gave them a heads up that we are watching and don’t give them a free pass for not being Tories. There was a good reaction to that article and the government know that and if they try and enact Self-ID in the whole of the UK like in Scotland then they will have a humongous, messy fight.

For now they’re going to be aiming for the good headlines and given the TRA propensity to yell transphobia as loudly as we can yell misogyny they will probably want to steer as clear from the whole topic as possible.

I was interested to read this in The Guardian. Rather a more nuanced/cautious stance on hormones when it's not teen/trans related.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jul/05/prescribing-of-testosterone-for-middle-aged-women-out-of-control

There was a thread (I think it was titled something like International women's day) that was accumulating posts about remarkable women. I don't know if this lady already had a post but I just happened across her

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilda_Lyon

She has a shape named after her, submarines!

in the experience of my friends, it is extremely difficult to get testosterone for menopause related symptoms, even low libido, on the NHS. I know two who have gone to a private clinic and even then only have the lowest dose. But both say it really helps with their energy (they are coy on the libido issue and we don’t have the kind of friendship where we’d discuss such things).

I’m fine with saying we should be cautious and the evidence level is currently weak for anything other than low libido. However, given how bloody difficult it can be to get some GPs to take peri- and menopause symptoms seriously, and the hit and miss approach to HRT treatment, I don’t agree with the sentiment that testosterone prescribing is “out of control” in middle aged women in the UK just yet. Maybe it’s the fashion amongst a certain cohort, but not yer average woman on the street.