Hilary Cass Interview in the Times

[Igneococcus]

Depressing that she doesn't feel safe in public anymore:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/3121a27a-fd54-46d9-894a-f715de429675?shareToken=323bde6f9666d56951b1eb073ded85b1

Your dismissal of detransitioners has always been plain to see. You can mock all you want, however, history will show your dismissal as being what it is. Ideological.

I don't think anyone reading along can miss your inconsistencies, your contradictions and your lack of evidence.

And we are discussing authenticity.

You are 'authentically' a male person who has adopted a female gender identity, made extreme body modifications to their body, and lives how they perceive a female person lives.

It is not an authentic female lived experience, no matter how much anyone tries to emotionally manipulate others to affirm that.

Detransitioners do exist right now. Refusal to see or count them does not make them go away. We don't know how many there are because clinics refused to collect data rigorously, or hid it. The data from the adult clinics might be useful.

But it's those who are providing and promoting the medical and surgical treatment who have to show that it is both safe and effective, without serious side effects. (We are after all talking about kids.) 30 years have been wasted. We could have had longitudinal studies by now which would enable us to assess this treatment, had it been carried out on clinical rather than ideological principles.

That's what this is all about, though - we are just being ourselves - in many cases after trying for some time to conform to societal expectations based upon how our bodies were configured at birth. Nobody asked us then, because there wasn't a person to ask yet. Once we are able to communicate what we are experiencing, we align ourselves physically as best we can with a configuration that minimises the incongruence we experience and hope that the technology (and society) is up to the task.

I don't need to try to convince anyone; everyone I interact with every day in person already knows I'm a woman. I regularly attend conferences for work with thousands of people who have never met me before and know nothing about me, and am handed leaflets and stickers that are only given to female attendees.

It worked. The treatment worked. It worked so well that I don't have any convincing to do, and haven't for decades.

I don't actually believe you, but who cares? You do you! I'm not bothered by what you think, and I don't expect you to care that I'm sceptical.

It depends to an extent. It is relevant for some things but certainly not clinical outcomes. Certainly I do think the experience of women in maternity settings is very important and it should be part of process. The issue is, if the ONLY thing that matters and is considered is feelings of a vocal set of patients who have more positive outcomes and no voice is given to those who have unexpected or difficult outcomes. These are the voices that should be listened to most, not the ones that are in effect happy. You have most to learn from patients who have poor experiences / clinical outcomes and equally these tend to be the people who are least listened to - precisely because they tend to be the most disadvantaged and vulnerable.

That's what this is all about, though - we are just being ourselves - in many cases after trying for some time to conform to societal expectations based upon how our bodies were configured at birth. Nobody asked us then, because there wasn't a person to ask yet.

This is what I don't understand. If you don't want to conform to societal expectations based on your sex, just don't. Be who you want to be.

Based on the rest of that paragraph, though, I wonder if what you are saying is that society expects men to look a certain way? If you are talking about men's physical appearance (height, hairiness, hip-to-waist ratio, eyelash length etc), then that is not dictated by societal expectations - that's just how men look relative to women.

So I don't understand what you mean by "societal expectations" if not gender stereotypes, which most people chafe at to some extent and many people break out of through their behaviour, or mode of dress.

Also
..based upon how our bodies were configured at birth
This is interesting phrasing. There are only two possible configurations of the human body, one female, one male, and they are dictated by the respective reproductive roles. The presence or absence of sex organs is not random. If you are male, you get the organs in column A, if female, you get those in column B. That's the way it works - you have testicles because you are male, you have a uterus because you are female.
Sex in human beings is determined at conception and cannot be changed.

I believe you when you say you have a strong belief or sense that you "are" a woman, I just know that that belief is false, because being a woman is the material reality of a female sexed body. I don't need to know how you feel to know what you are. Nobody has to meet me to know that I cannot fly or breathe underwater unaided.

It's gaslighting and offensive to women tbh. Women don't want to conform to stereotypes a lot of the time. Nor does it stop us being vulnerable to abuse and harm.

Indeed transition for women seems to have worse clinical outcomes than it does for males but rarely is this talked about because it's the late transitioning males who get all the media attention and airtime even when the subject is the massive increase in teenage girls transitioning.

Cos trans is all the same - except Cass points out correctly it's really not and there isn't a homogeneous group it's a heterogenous group.

Something that makes really don't seem to be able to get their head around - females have different health needs, symptoms and outcomes. And that's one of the reasons sex really matters.

Cass is particularly concerned about young girls. Not exclusively, but it's a significant majority of girls who identify as trans as teens - NOT boys.

This post again shows the inconsistencies in the formation of this belief.

It is very clear here that you are saying you made extreme modifications to your body to fit in with what you believe society expected of your behaviours and your choice of presentation. You are stating that pressure from society forced those changes. That is not ‘authenticity’ that is conformity.

And again, people can correctly identify your sex. Does it matter at a conference? Hardly. That is an irrelevant example except for toilet usage. Giving you brochureware meant for female people is irrelevant. People will do that even if they have doubts because they will be too polite (or fearful) to check. Using that as a support for ‘I pass’ is weak. It is a strong example of where it doesn’t matter in the general conference area. I would expect if you got up and spoke on women’s rights issues at that conference, that would have a different outcome. In fact, if your male entitlement and often misogynistic thinking shone through at that conference, I am also pretty sure that no one is going to do anything to convince you that you are mistaken but it doesn’t mean that they haven’t correctly sexed you.

But you keep using female socialisation, which you don’t have, to convince yourself otherwise.

Yep.

Research could well find that transition works better for young males (but puberty blockers prevent good surgical outcomes) but is awful for young teenage girls and that the detransition rate is exceptionally high after 10 years. My point being that there could be sex differences just as there are for all kinds of medical conditions which we are only just beginning to recognise as problematic because male and female bodies are different. This may well have knock on effects for women though in certain situations too.

We just don't know. Cos we have not got the necessary research.

Can't see sex. Can't see sexism.

I hope the ‘transition’ part is looked at for all children

What is the impact from compelled speech, or sharing spaces if those should be suggested

Yep.

And the framing of female transition to be treated as the same as male and the rejection of the research proposals in the past as transphobic is misogyny. The dismissal of the differences is harmful to female people. But I don’t believe those male people care at all.

I hope I've misunderstood, but from this post it seems that you went through this whole medical process, with all the potential dangerous side effects of drugs and possible complications from surgery, because of stereotypes.

Why? Why would anyone put themselves through this just to appear to conform to regressive gender stereotypes?

Surely by the 90s it was clear that nobody had to conform to stereotypes.

My brother felt he had to. My parents really did not help matters.

Sexism was very much alive and kicking in the 1990s still unfortunately.

This seems simply abusive, @ButterflyHatched. It's probably a mistake to expect any coherent attention or response. But still ...

Are you suggesting Biggs' work is based on an (or several?) untruth(s), so his conclusions only follow by ex falso quodlibet? Do you have any examples of untrue premises in his work?

Just to be plain. The main untruth gender ideology is based on is clear: "transwomen are women".

So. Look. Here we go again: If transwomen are women, then puberty blockers are safe. That conditional is true by ex falso quodlibet, although its antecedent (or protasis: twaw) is false and its consequent (apodosis: pbas) likewise false.

By the same token, the argument

• Trans women are women
• So puberty blockers are safe

is valid by ex falso quodlibet, just because its premise is false, although its conclusion isn't true (so far as we know, says Cass, characteristically even-handedly).

An example of one of Biggs' arguments/conditional statements exhibiting this characteristic wouldn't go amiss here, @ButterflyHatched. Otherwise we would be wise to assume you have nothing to offer on the point you have taken up other than raw abuse.

[Abuse of Michael Biggs, I note: why him, specifically? -- Left as exercise.]

This sounds like what Susie Green & her husband did to Jackie Green.

The ad hom attack is all that is left. And on form, hatched makes it as hyperbolic as possible.

Why Biggs? Because Michael Biggs has been consistent on this for a long time. And is highly respected.

There is nothing left. If that poster had anything supporting evidence or even logic to support their claims, they would provide them. If I remember correctly, they did link up the evidence supporting their claims some times, but the evidence was never quite what they thought or was large scale biased respondent questionnaires from heavily biased sources without any academic merit. They stopped trying after people showed the flaws in their thinking and their evidence. I could be wrong and thinking of a different poster.

Either way, now all we get is this hyperbole, and emotionally manipulative and highly emotive posts.

The script. Plus ad hominem attacks.

But I can't think of anything which is socially acceptable for women but not for men apart from some clothing choices. Are people really making major changes to their bodies because of clothing choices?

Yes oldcrone and it is called authenticity and it is called progress.

And the ‘elders’ who adhere to that totally real authenticity, advise the next generation to do exactly the same. And are celebrated apparently.

We're already here. It's something like 70%+ who agree with GC views when surveyed, isn't it, women's spaces, peadiatric transition - different figures for diferent questions but overwhelmingly GC, even if they reject/arent familiar with the GC . At base, everyone knows there are two sexes and you can't change sex, and sometimes it's sex that matters more than identity.
Otoh, nearly everyone agrees that adults can live as they wish, as long as they don't impinge on anyone else's right. Old school liberalism.

What's changed is that the TRAs can't tantrum and silence and bully anymore. Now they must make their case in an evidential manner, same as everyone else.

Yes. Which is where this is all falling apart as there is no evidence to show that children thinking they're the wrong sex thrive and flourish in adulthood. In fact the evidence is the opposite in terms of mental and physical health.

Yet still they persist in telling children that their bodies are wrong and need fixing..

I picked this up from another thread:

Trans folks can be agents of transmisia as well (particularly when acting as representatives of cis-dominated systems, such as higher education) by perpetuating the notion of gender binary or "passing" superiority and using it to discriminate against other transgender people. For example, a trans woman at a company may refuse to hire a genderqueer person because their gender presentation might "confuse" customers, or a trans male administrator at a traditionally women's college may deny the application of a non-passing trans woman for not "transitioning enough."

I don't know if this reminds anyone of a pp.

It is indeed AMAB late transitioners who historically received the lion's share of the media coverage, often without even a shred of compassion or regard for their own wishes. It's been nice to see that balance slowly shift.

When did you personally first discover that we (young transitioners) exist? We put a lot of effort into infosec, and it was only through the kindness and forethought of the healthcare professionals of that era that we that we were able to escape into society (and the healthcare system) without a glowing paper trail. At some point over the course of the last decade, the anti-trans lobby sadly discovered the intolerable horror that is our existence and from that moment on - cue the screaming headlines and new heights of moral panic as the crusade entered full swing.

Were you aware of our existence prior to the first indignant tabloid howls?