Am I GC?

[GCornotGCthatisthequestion]

I have been looking into the trans issue for a few months now, looking at sources from both "sides" to try and understand the issues properly and form a view. I think I have come to a position that would get me called a terf in some spaces but also falls short of the view that most on on this forum hold. I would be interested to hear if you would consider me gender critical.

I don't believe that people can change sex, however, I do think that for some people, taking hormones and having surgery to resemble the opposite sex is the right thing for them.

I don't think that women should be forced to compete against transwomen in sports, particularly when prize money is involved or in sports like boxing where the risk of injury is high. I don't think it is reasonable to expect volunteer-run events like Park Run to be able to police whether or not someone who registers as a woman is a transwomen or not. While I understand the frustrations around women being beaten by transwomen in this race I can't see how they could stop this.

I have a close friend from childhood who identifies as non-binary, takes testosterone and has had their breasts removed. While I don't understand their decision I can see with my own eyes how much happier their life is now and I believe that this was the right decision for them. I care about them deeply and I am happy that they were able to make these changes and live a happier life.

I think children who have distress about their sex should receive exploratory therapy to try and understand what they are feeling and why. I don't think they should be given puberty blockers or any kind of hormone therapy until they are adults. I do, however, think most older teens have the capacity to decide how they dress and what name they want to be referred to as.

I will generally use the pronouns that someone asks me to about them. I don't look down on or sneer at people who add pronouns to email signatures. I don't agree with companies mandating that people have it add them.

I think people should be able to ask for a female doctor for intimate medical care and it mean biologically female rather than a transwoman.

I have felt uncomfortable with some of the content on this forum. The "tranvestigation" threads that seem to target black female athletes because they don't fit European standards of what a woman is meant to be. The overlooking of terrible behaviour from people because "at least they know what a woman is".

Would you say I was GC?

I believe very strongly in bodily autonomy for adults.
The price of living in a free society is that others can use that freedom to do thing you find monstrous. I think it's a price worth paying.

I did say earlier up thread that I don't agree with puberty blockers etc. Children need the chance to grow up before making these kind of decicions.

Toilets - I personally don't care who else uses them as long as they leave them clean and there are private cubicles - however I understand that it is not my place to consent on behalf of other women. I have no issues with gender neutral loos as long as women's ones are there as well.

Change rooms - an ideal situation is private cubicles. I always find this one an odd one as the very limited number of trans people I have come across would never in a million years have wanted to be in a communal changing space due to the crippling discomfort they felt with their bodies and self excluded from entering places that required communal changing. I would like to see more private spaces so everyone can feel comfortable.

Rape crisis centres - I think trans people need these services so I would like them to be in addition to women's ones.

Prisons - I think we need to apply common sense here. If someone transitioned 20 years ago and has led a peaceful life and is in for not paying their tv licence then there could be an argument for them being in a women's prison , although they should use separate showering facilities or shower at a different time and shouldn't share sleeping quarters unless with another transwomen. However, a rapist who conveniently decides to transition just before sentencing is clearly trying it on. I think maybe a case by case approach might be best.

I'm reminded of this fascinating (and quite long) article from 25 years ago (astonishingly) that I think I first saw linked on FWR. It explores the idea that the identification of, and development of treatments for, a mental illness, creates patients with that illness, and demand for the treatments. (I think, haven't had time to reread yet.)
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/12/a-new-way-to-be-mad/304671/

Change rooms - an ideal situation is private cubicles. I always find this one an odd one as the very limited number of trans people I have come across would never in a million years have wanted to be in a communal changing space due to the crippling discomfort they felt with their bodies and self excluded from entering places that required communal changing. I would like to see more private spaces so everyone can feel comfortable.

Personally I don't think this is an ideal situation. It would be extremely expensive to convert existing areas to private cubicles and often the space just isn't there. I have talked about this before but I know of a sports club where a trans woman insists on changing with the women and girls despite the fact that another space has been offered and that they don't want to share with males. You can't set up systems which rely on people being nice and kind because often they are not.

Rape crisis centres - I think trans people need these services so I would like them to be in addition to women's ones.

Has anyone, anywhere, said that trans people shouldn't have access to rape crisis services?

Whether a male is 'just' in for not paying a tv licence and hasn't been in bother for years is by the by. They are male. They belong in the male estate. You put a male in the female estate it becomes mixed sex (like everywhere else), whether they shower at different times or otherwise. They can be segregated in the male estate.

Private cubicles are not without problems. Most are too small for parents with children, or to be accessible for various disabilities. And if they are private cubicles in mixed areas men can and will wander around without towels between shower and cubicle, and can plant cameras inside cubicles.

As for prisons, that's the 'mild mannered accountant' argument. It crops up a lot.

Did you know virtually all (I don't have the figures to hand but I'm pretty confident it was over 80%) women in prison have a history of violence at the hands of men - domestic abuse, pimps etc? To the extent that the majority have lasting damage from head injuries. That means they will have deep, instinctive trauma responses and a hypersensitivity to sex markers.

They should not ever be put in a situation where they are locked in with a man with no escape. No matter how sweet tempered and genitally altered he may be.

Change rooms - an ideal situation is private cubicles. I always find this one an odd one as the very limited number of trans people I have come across would never in a million years have wanted to be in a communal changing space due to the crippling discomfort they felt with their bodies and self excluded from entering places that required communal changing.

And yet there are at least two cases currently going through the courts in which males have been insisting on using women's changing rooms in NHS hospitals.

Have you read any of the Sandie Peggie threads or the ones about the Darlington nurses?

Beth Upton, a male doctor at a hospital in Fife, insisted on using the women's changing room, and objected when a nurse, Sandie Peggie, waited outside until he left before using the changing room herself.

In Darlington, a male nurse who calls himself 'Rose' insists on using the women's changing room, even though he admits to being in a heterosexual relationship in which he is trying to get his female partner pregnant.

It's always the women who feel uncomfortable with having a male in their changing rooms, not the man who identifies as transgender. In fact the men are insistent about using the women's changing rooms even when they know that the women are uncomfortable with their presence.

The trans people you are acquainted with seem to be quite different from most of the ones we hear about.

Has anyone, anywhere, said that trans people shouldn't have access to rape crisis services?

No. Can you quote I implied that they have? I was asked what my opinion was on them and gave it. Not quite sure how this was interpreted as an accusation that anyone days that they shouldn't.

The trans people you are acquainted with seem to be quite different from most of the ones we hear about

That's not particularly surprising if you think about it. Transpeople (or people in general) who just get on with their lives don't tend to make the news. If your sole interactions with transpeople is consuming content about badly behaved ones then your perspective wlll be different to someone who has met some in real life.

Yes. If one is focussed on the wants, desires, and fears of the male who wants to access women's prison, then one can argue that he should be put in women's prison.

If one is focussed on the wants, desires, and fears of the females in women's prison, then the issue becomes very clear.

I just found it puzzling that you felt the need to state something that no one has mentioned having an opposition to.

Just like if I were to state ‘I believe the world is indeed round’, the implication may be that someone has said that it isn’t. In my opinion.

It was a direct answer to the question on what I thought about transpeople in rape crisis centres. My answer is that they should have their own in addition to ones for women rather than coming into womens ones . I'm not sure what is puzzling to you about me answering a question.

It's like you saying that earth is round to answer someone who asked you what shape it is.

You said earlier that your experience of trans people was very limited. Perhaps you should look into this in a bit more detail and you will see that some are not as harmless as the the limited number of trans people you have come across.

You must understand that it's unreasonable to expect women to share their changing rooms with men like Upton, 'Rose', Lia Thomas, India Willoughby or any other men who pretend to be women, just because the limited number of trans people you have come across would never in a million years have wanted to be in a communal changing space due to the crippling discomfort they felt with their bodies.

Obviously the limited number of trans people you have come across wouldn't even be affected by a ban on males using women's changing rooms because they wouldn't use them anyway. It's obvious those aren't the people we're talking about when we say we don't want males in women's changing rooms (although we obviously don't want those 'nice' males in there either). It's the men who do want to be there who are the problem.

Edited for clarity.

You must understand that it's unreasonable to expect women to share their changing rooms with men like Upton, 'Rose', Lia Thomas, India Willoughby or any other men who pretend to be women, just because the limited number of trans people you have come across would never in a million years have wanted to be in a communal changing space due to the crippling discomfort they felt with their bodies.

I absolutely agree with you.

You said earlier that your experience of trans people was very limited. Perhaps you should look into this in a bit more detail and you will see that some are not as harmless as the the limited number of trans people you have come across.

This.

@GCornotGCthatisthequestion
But people cannot remove their body parts by themselves, they need a surgeon to do that for them. So a more salient question than just saying it's the individual's right to bodily autonomy is whether it's ethical for medical professionals, who are bound by the principle of first, do no harm, to remove body parts that are physically healthy just because an individual wants that. It's a very individualistic approach to only consider the rights of the individual and not the wider impact this might have on humans on a societal/group level. In terms of the gender question and adult women removing their breasts (I'm not talking about children/youth - that's obviously off the charts of completely unethical) we should be thinking about what this means for women far beyond any one individual who wants the surgery.

Many societal changes can seem very well-intentioned at first glance but have all kinds of implications for society that become apparent later. The assisted dying debate is similar - I live in Canada and it's very apparent that there's a lack of any kind of deep thinking about how Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) was going to impact society in the longer term and now there are proposals to widen assisted dying/suicide to people with only mental health conditions as the cause of suffering. I don't want to derail the thread into a whole other very contentious debate, but my point is that we need to think far more deeply about these issues and the effect on society, and not simply see them as a individual right.

On the other hand, I do also strongly believe in freedom of expression (and as an aside I think the freedom of expression of GC/sex realist people has very much been curtailed by institutions adopting gender ideology) and I also believe in the right for adults to make bad decisions. I understand your point about bodily autonomy because it's part of freedom of expression and the right to make your own decisions, even if those decisions have negative consequences and you regret them. The question I think we as a society should be wrestling with is where does the state (ie the NHS and the medical profession) have a responsibility to say "no, it's not ethical for a surgeon to remove your breasts, even though you really want that". Doctor's won't do this for other body parts, including for people with body integrity disorder (people who want amputations - I might have the name wrong), and they don't treat anorexia with liposuction and Ozempic, so why is gender different?

“Prisons - I think we need to apply common sense here. If someone transitioned 20 years ago and has led a peaceful life and is in for not paying their tv licence then there could be an argument for them being in a women's prison , although they should use separate showering facilities or shower at a different time and shouldn't share sleeping quarters unless with another transwomen. However, a rapist who conveniently decides to transition just before sentencing is clearly trying it on. I think maybe a case by case approach might be best.”

This approach of yours is not common sense at all.

This approach is one where you have somehow turned being considered female into being a reward for how long ago a person transitioned, and their ‘good’ behaviour. It still prioritises the male person while dismissing the needs of female people.

Plus it again ignores the fact that this is gender identity is a philosophical belief. That is the only commonality between all people with a transgender belief. So, those male people would be put into a female prison because they have a philosophical belief that they are female.

What other philosophical belief about oneself gets a prisoner such privileges?

And even if that male person had extreme body modifications done 20 years ago, they are still male. It also doesn’t mean that the rest of their body looks anything but like a male person who has had their penis and testicles removed, and grown breasts. (Not that access to any female single sex space should be based on passing either, but on excluding all male people beyond the age of around 8 years old). As mentioned up thread, female people
are highly likely to correctly identify a male person’s sex with interaction. And a large portion of those will do so very quickly. So why distress female people in prison to allow in any male prisoner?

It doesn’t matter if that male is the nicest male person on earth. They are male. They have not changed sex, no matter how sincerely they hold that philosophical belief. They are male. Any male prisoner being placed in a female prison is going to be highly likely to cause distress just because the person is male.

And again, what other philosophical belief gets such privileges such as being placed in a female prison when the belief holder is male? If that male person is vulnerable, the prison services have policies that protect vulnerable male prisoners within the male prison. That is the common sense approach.

Prison segregation has been based on sex for a reason. Sex, the materially and objective categorisation of a human body. Not philosophical belief that defies material reality. Philosophical belief is not the over riding category criteria that prisoners are sorted on.

And a case by case situation you advocate for is discriminatory. Which criteria gets priority here? The materially real criteria? Or the philosophical belief criteria? A case by case scenario then has someone, an individual or a panel, arbitrating which male deserves to be considered ‘female’ enough based on the axis of deservingness.

No female person has to go through such a process. But now you have this male person being able to go through a special process to receive the privilege of access to female prison which no other group of male prisoners receive. All based on one particular philosophical belief. And all up to the reviewer/s as to who gets that privilege.

It is particularly worrying when you consider the amount of harm that a male person can have done that was never reported.

There is no aspect that an approach that allows any male prisoner into the female prison centres the needs of female prisoners or focuses on the reason why prisons were segregated in the first place.

As we have gained a greater understanding of the health needs of people, private lockable cubicles really add an unnecessary element of danger to some people’s public lives. There is a reason for gaps between floor and door in cubicles.

But in the rush to create this space that allows a small group of male people access to female single sex spaces, policy decision makers seem to have forgotten why those gaps were important in the first place.

“Change rooms - an ideal situation is private cubicles. I always find this one an odd one as the very limited number of trans people I have come across would never in a million years have wanted to be in a communal changing space due to the crippling discomfort they felt with their bodies and self excluded from entering places that required communal changing. I would like to see more private spaces so everyone can feel comfortable.”

Safeguarding policies are not based on someone’s knowledge gained from a well behaved group of people. They are based on the risk presented by those who intend harm.

And some people’s personal understanding of changing room usage by male people with transgender identities has just been shown to be incorrect in the light of Upton’s behaviour in the NHS Fife case. I assume the upcoming NHS Darlington case will show a slightly different aspect but will still show the issues of basing someone’s opinion on how people use spaces based on limited personal knowledge.

We know due to testimony, that Dr Upton had access to a private space and refused to use it. Instead that male person insisted that they use the female communal change area because that male person held the belief they were ‘female’.

Plus, does access to a ‘private’ space mean access from a single sex space. Or from a mixed sex space? For instance, with changing rooms, would what some people consider acceptable be a bank of private changing cubicles directly opening into a single sex space or from only a mixed sex open air corridor? Because any male accessing even that single sex space waiting area to enter a private cubicle can cause distress and harm.

Female single sex spaces were single sex for a reason. To protect female people - safety and privacy. Whether they are toilets, changing rooms, crisis provisions or prisons. Just because one female person doesn’t mind sharing any of these with a male person, doesn’t remove the needs of other female people.

Dr Upton needed the room to contain a woman who was changing her clothes and witnessing him changing his. His complaint was about her leaving him privacy as well as her wanting privacy herself. He needed the presence of a a non-consenting woman in order to get whatever it was he liked getting.

@VeronicasMonocle That's a very good post. Your point: But people cannot remove their body parts by themselves, they need a surgeon to do that for them. So a more salient question than just saying it's the individual's right to bodily autonomy is whether it's ethical for medical professionals, who are bound by the principle of first, do no harm, to remove body parts that are physically healthy just because an individual wants that. It's a very individualistic approach to only consider the rights of the individual and not the wider impact this might have on humans on a societal/group level.

Brings me back again to the different reaction to women a generation or two ago whose internalised misogyny and self-destructive impulses were expressed in cutting and self-starvation. They could do that themselves, and it was seen as symptomatic of illness and worthy of societal intervention to try to stop it. With variable success. Why, in this one instance, does the medical profession intervene to assist the harm?

I suppose it's directly linked to the push for assisted suicide for the depressed. Not good for society as a whole imo.

It's an interesting question to consider why the 'eunuch maker' was sent to prison, while NHS gender doctor and WPATH member Jon Arcelus is free to suggest that 'eunuch' is a gender identity that can be treated by castration and penis removal.

What's the difference?

I can provide links to these subjects if needed, but I'm on my phone rn!

NHS Scotland linked to WPATH Standards of Care v8 on their website. This document contains references to the Eunuch Archive, a repository that includes extensive CSA material.

NHS Scotland were forced to report themselves to Police Scotland when this came out.

NHS Nottingham still links to SoC v8.

(Again, can't do links on as on phone)

So the question of whether it's okay for adult males to castrate each other is a good one.

Is it fine when a doctor does it? When the instruments are sterilised? What are the criteria for deciding when castration is okay and when it's GBH?

There are other groups out there too that undergo extreme body modification because of their belief.

The people who identify as reptiles and other things. Those with extreme tattoos and bits cut off and implanted. Tongues split etc.

No one can ever tackle the question of why are those people not getting surgeries paid for by the NHS and why they are not allowed to demand that they live as if they have achieved their goal and are the things their body’s now resemble. And I have to assume their minds resemble those things as much as any one who says they are the opposite sex.

But what is the difference between those two groups? Why is one treated as if they have changed sex, but the others are not treated as interspecies?