Is it time to stop the pretence that people can transition?

[happydappy2]

I really feel gender ideology is a cult, that has totally warped some peoples minds. It brings so many problems to society I’m not sure it’s sustainable. It damages the health of young people, shortens their lives and often rips families apart. At what point do we say no, this is not healthy, it’s incredibly antisocial to expect everyone else to pretend you are the opposite sex when they can see you aren’t….for the good of society let’s stop this madness. Gender dysphoria exists yes but I don’t think we’re treating it in the best way. We don’t affirm that an anorexic patient is indeed too fat so why do we affirm people who think they are the opposite sex?

I think what we need is what we always needed - good evidence-based research into what leads to the best outcomes for people experiencing gender dysphoria (recognising that this is not a homogeneous group). That research needs to be non-ideologically driven.

Yes agree. Having listened to the brilliant Dr Az Hakeem on this topic he talks so much sense and should be across the mainstream media much more than he is. He has opened my eyes to this topic and the categories of transvestism and autism that dominate the root causes.

But now we know that some porn addicted middle aged men want breast implants for sexual gratification, why is civilised society allowing it to continue? At what point do we say no? What you do in private is one thing but not in public. Porn has become violent & degrading to women & its warping mens minds. Transgender ideology has nothing to do with being same sex attracted, it’s actually incredibly homophobic at its core. Look at the chaos this is causing, how far do we let it go?

There's no such thing as gender dysphoria.

The 'dysphoria' is based on, and informed by, concepts of the opposite sex that are completely rooted in gender stereotypes.

Yes! I hope that this decision shows that you cannot change and that you are either male or female. Any other choice of word is a bit like being a punk, emo, hippy, mod etc ie its label you can use but its not for life and you can easily move in and out of it.

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/tavistock-clinic-whistleblower-doctors-captured-trans-ideology/

Agree

Agree with BlueBrush. But before we even get to outcomes, I don’t think we have a good understanding of what gender dysphoria is. It’s pretty clear to me that what is considered transgender now covers very different phenomena.

Evidence-based, nonpartisan research on the nature of gender dysphoria and what benefits those experiencing it is what we need.

It’s crazy to me that we’ve skipped these phases and gone straight to accepting it is a human right to receive medical interventions and the reordering of wider society upon uttering the magic words.

Agree that autism plays a huge part in people latching onto a trans identity.

i just wonder how much more damage will be done to vulnerable people before we collectively say No more.

the ideology is so harmful as it literally alienates children from their parents, hence so many adults don’t wish to speak against it, for fear of losing their child. It has infiltrated the judiciary, schools, Unis, hospitals and is causing so much harm, at what point do people realise it’s not healthy and needs to be stopped.

The concept also pathologises a normal transition. There is absolutely nothing wrong or abnormal about finding puberty uncomfortable.

I think it's more about the limits of other people's beliefs.

We all have beliefs, some are rooted in formal religion, others are more fringe.

To what extent are other people's beliefs permitted to dictate our own words, choices and lives? More importantly should belief be allowed to construct laws that other people have to obey or affect policy in public institutions such as schools or the NHS?

I'm agnostic about whether or not there really is a thing called 'gender dysphoria'. However, I'm absolutely clear that if it is a thing, I had it!

I was a very gender confused and unhappy little girl, and if puberty blockers and transitioning had been around back then, left to my own decisions I'd have snaffled them up without a second thought. Thank heavens they weren't around, and I sorted things out in my own head, came to terms with reality, and grew up to be a reasonably OK adult human lesbian female.

Well that's what I think anyway😉

So if gender dysphoria does exist, and if I did have first-hand experience of it, I can categorically state that the best 'treatment' for it is support in accepting who you are, what kind of body you have, and how gender stereotypes don't have to rule your future.

Offering puberty blockers, surgery, transitioning just seem like piling on more and more long-term issues for a young person already struggling to deal with their immediate unhappiness.

But before we even get to outcomes, I don’t think we have a good understanding of what gender dysphoria is. It’s pretty clear to me that what is considered transgender now covers very different phenomena.

Yes, good point, completely agree.

It's pretty clear to me that at least some people experience a huge amount psychological distress around their sexed body, and have feelings as if they are somehow in the "wrong" body, and that their body needs changing to make them feel psychologically more comfortable. That's a real problem, and we need to understand where it comes from and how to help and accommodate those people.

We know that, where children experience those feelings, in 90% of cases those feelings will eventually desist as they become adults. But that leaves 10% needing help of some kind.

Maybe reducing stereotypical ideas of what it is to be a man or a woman will help in most cases. I hope so! But we need research, and we need to be prepared that the research may show that gender dysphoria may not be completely preventable.

I think they are selling a massive lie to young and vulnerable people, who are confused and upset because they don’t conform to gender stereotypes.

You cannot change sex, you cannot become a woman if you are male, taking hormones and having surgery does not make you a woman. You are impersonating a woman and if you do a good enough job people may mistake you for a woman and other people may be polite enough to see you wish to be seen as a woman and play along, but you will always be a biological man.

Trans woman are not women. I’ve seen a lot of people lately arguing sex is a spectrum and if you take hormones long enough every cell in your body changes to be like a woman’s and it’s complete nonsense. It is made up by people who cannot accept reality and is repeated to vulnerable young people who now think they can change sex and this will solve their problems.

Trans women are not women, the qualifier for being a trans woman is that you are male. If they were not male they wouldn’t be trans, they would just be women and we wouldn’t be having any of these arguments or issues. I think if TRAs would just accept this and focus on creating third spaces for trans people instead of trying to gaslight us all into thinking biological men are women then many issues would be resolved.

Transiton to what, I guess.

A man or woman who wants to appear as though they are the other sex may take some steps to change their appearance. These are cosmetic: clothing, wigs, haircut, perhaps studying a practising a certain way of moving or speaking. Could be use of cross-sex hormones: to grow breasts or lower your voice or grow facial hair. Or even surgery to change your secondary sex characteristics.

None of this is transition to another sex. It's a change in your appearance and your body, either minor or major. It's all essentially cosmetic.

I can understand why someone going through some or all of that might consider this a 'transition'. It's a change, for sure. And for some, a drastic and irreversible change.

It just does not change your sex. Because that's not possible.

I’ve been on these boards for years now under different names and the thought that’s always been with me has been - just why? Tbh I’ve hesitated to pose such a dumb question because it seems so simplistic in the face of the superb and informative posts on here, but quite honestly, why, in the last decade or two, has there been a seeming explosion of men worldwide (and it’s largely men, both middle-aged men 'finding their teenage girlhood' 🤔 and younger men in their 20s and 30s) aggressively and dramatically asserting their discovery of a new 'gender identity'?

Where were these men fifty, sixty, a hundred years ago? Are we really to believe that in generations gone by, men secretly longed to 'become women' and were forced by societal pressure to tamp down their innate feelings because they would have faced total shaming and exclusion otherwise? That many of the men fighting in the trenches of WW1, say, desperately believed, deep down, that they were really women?

I suppose what I'm saying is that I struggle to comprehend just why we seem to have gone from 0 to 100mph in such a short time with this madness. Is it just that a kind of 'if you build it, they will come' mentality - social media and normalisation of fetishes above all - has created the conditions for this to thrive? Because some people will always have felt uncomfortable in their bodies - God knows I did as a young girl - but would it really have entered so many people’s heads that they wanted to change sex, let alone embraced the delusion that it was possible?

Sorry, I’m being inarticulate but this question has always been at the back of my mind as I've watched events unfold with horror. I just don’t fully understand why.

Porn has a lot to answer for-hypnotic sissy porn in particular

I really think social media companies need to step up on this and it should be treat exactly the same as ‘pro-ana’ sites/accounts are.

if you google ‘pro-ana’ you’re instantly met with help information on google - same on Tik-Tok. Trans ideology is arguably just as harmful yet TikTok is full of ‘trans kids’ videos.

The problem is, the cult has fairly successfully latched itself onto LGB so any attempts at reining it in is seen as discriminatory/conversion therapy. I don’t know how we change that.

@Szygy Because the Internet spreads every single idea under the sun, and links people who would have been otherwise ignorant of each others' existence. Thus the Internet enables both the Arab Spring and the Trans Movement, and every other modern phenomenon you can name. It's a tool and we are still unclear of how to monitor and use it for universal good and curb it for harm. Which obviously to work properly needs global cooperation, which is still a long way off.

I hope more people are waking up and rubbing their eyes to the absolute lunacy of this idiology. No one can change sex. Fact. So why do our higher institutions pander to it? Learning to accept yourself and love yourself for who you are is always the most fulfilling and healthy psychological goal. For everyone. Why as a society are we not aiming for that?

People can transition. That’s fine IMO. Wear, act, present whatever you want. Couldn’t care less. That’s adults to be clear! And I don’t think anyone should be allowed to self sterilise before age of 25.

We do need to be clear and honest about what that transition is. It is not a transition to the opposite sex. It is not even a transition to ‘gender’ of female. Because what is that?

It is a transition to being trans. And that means whilst hopefully you will be respected as you come by people and you will be protected from discrimination. That they have to recognise they are choosing to move into a space where they do not fit into the boxes of male or female. Most of the time this won’t be a problem (as single room & accessible 3rd spaces in this country are very common); however there will be times when this will cause some difficulty and they need to be prepared to cope with navigating this as well as possible.

I know what you mean, Szygy - and it's hard to be 100% articulate about such an irrational subject.

You're point about 'where were all the would-be transwomen in history' is a very good one. The fact that they don't seem to have been there at all adds to my belief that there's a lot of social contagion/fad/fashion involved, but it happens to be one that is very useful for misogyny/sexism/the anti-feminist backlash.

When male homosexuality was legalised in the UK, I don't think there was such a huge rise in the number of men identifying as gay, who had been there all along but were afraid to come out. I think the percentage of lesbians and gays in the UK has stayed fairly steady, it's the A. N. Others who have mushroomed.

I'm not an historian at all, but I am aware of occasions when a symbiosis between two separate events or movements produced, or assisted in the development of, a latent force or phenomenon. Serendipity.

I think we have been living through one of those moments, when a small, pre-existing group, i.e. transexuals, were used as a fulcrum by misogynists to lever anti-women actions and laws. The spirit of liberalism fostered by the women's movement and the lesbian and gay movement, and our reforming achievements, were used as the weight putting pressure on the lever to dislodge women's rights. The polarisation of right and left added to the situation. Social media was the fuel. The Denton's document DENTON’S DOCUMENT – THE GENDER COLLECTION was the instruction manual.

I'm getting my metaphors mixed up I think, but my point is that we have been at a point in history where a number of factors came together to facilitate the constantly re-occurring and constantly changing assault on women's rights.
This time, it took the form of men co-opting our very identity and our words; very devious, and very powerful.

This is true for me too

Some beliefs are so malign that their adherents should not be allowed to practise them, even exclusively amongst themselves.

They rely on unfalsifiable premises, harm their adherents, force conformity on non-believers to their detriment, proselytise, and brainwash children.

The ruling wasn't about belief, but the law: it has had the effect, though, of limiting the exercise of belief in gender ideology. Specifically, it's no longer legally possible to create an entity (say, a club) which consists only of women and transwomen (even if everyone wants it, and women-only alternatives exist).

Was this an accident? And is it a good thing?

the verb we use for pets, 'neuter', is quite accurate.

@MarieDeGournay
@Joystir59

me third

and it was triggered by puberty changes and bullying because I was a bit strange ( no one would call be strange now but young girls can be cruel. They insisted I was not right and not one of them )