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?

They were always around, but they were referred to as transvestites. They waited for their wives to be out before raiding her wardrobe and parading around in front of the mirror, went to underground fetish clubs at the weekend (there was a documentary about them years ago but I can’t remember what it was called).
They’ve just crawled out of the woodwork and been welcomed under the trans umbrella, so now they parade around in public feeling all sexy and euphoric because the general public have been told they need to affirm them as their “authentic selves”.

Well said

Agree, OP

Why can't politicians see how harmful this ideology is? It's so blindingly obvious to some of us.

It's social contagion in the young, often autistic and vulnerable young people.

This should be mainstream aibu, not hidden away

Totally agree; you are born male/men/boy or female/woman/ girl - this a fact of nature. It is not possible for a male to become female or vice versa, that too is a fact. An ideology which says you can be what you want and choose is fantasy. This fantasy is similar to small children who think they can be batman, superman, a fairy princess or Elsa and dress up accordingly. The problem is that is in some cases what young people have done to their bodies is irreversible and that is a tragedy. We all don't like bit of ourselves from time to time but we need to learn to be happy in ourselves not changes something that can't be changed.

Delusion. Fantasy. Harmful. Sad

To adapt a quote from 'The life of Brian' "He's NOT the Messiah: He's a very naughty boy". In this case "He's not 'trans': He's an autogynophile," And "He's not gender dysphoric: He's a bullying fetishist".

I had a look on twitter to see how the SC judgement was being received. And saw someone assert that trans women were biologically women because their HRT changed their chromosomes from male to female.

Part of the harm being done is by the charities and groups supporting transgender individuals, telling them falsely that they will become the sex they want to transition to. Being sold a false dream is risky and damaging and I wonder if those same charities and supportive groups are prepared for tue backlash that will come when their members realise that no, they don't actually change sex. Obviously, not all transgender individuals believe it, but some of the more vulnerable and deluded ones do (as per the twitterer).

It must be best not to use the invented Stonewall language. Nobody can become a unicorn, so even if a man aggressively demands everyone must pretend to believe in his 'unicorn identity', nobody except his mental health ward-mates should collude, encourage him, or ever call him a 'trans-unicorn'.

I thought that before 2010ish, the only people with gender dysphoria were a tiny number of boys and a handful of girls who insisted they were the opposite sex in the face of a consensus that sex is immutable.
Around 2010ish, the idea that people can change "gender", and should be celebrated, became normalised. That caused confusion in the minds of some autistic children and young people who don't understand social linguistics. It also created opportunities for adult males to take advantage for various nefarious purposes.
Once a few people had committed themselves or their children to extreme body modification the ideology gathered momentum. More and more people are going along with the trans ideas and so more children are growing up with a confusion over sexed words such as boy girl he she.
The nub of the issue is language, and there is a need for words that specify boy, girl, man, woman as sex/age classes of human.
(Sexed pronouns aren't necessary, some languages have none).
Trans is a nebulous concept and means whatever whoever says it means.

Sexed pronouns aren't necessary, but they are what we have in English, and it does cause damage when they are used misleadingly - they affirm untruths and deny reality, and they make the concept of "sex change" seem less ridiculous.

I am quite concerned about the number of males posting images of themselves on X stating I’ll continue to use the ladies loo, I’ve used it for years. They have no concept of the fact female spaces are for females NOT males. I don’t know how the government will resolve this problem….

This is the most openly transphobic thread I’ve seen on mumsnet yet. I see that your veil of ‘live as you please, dress how you please, just stay out of our spaces’ has now been completely removed and you’re now openly calling trans people perverted fetishists, mentally ill, or people going through a phase.

What you’re all saying undermines DECADES of peer reviewed studies that show gender dysphoria is real and not a mental illness or a phase. The 2021 study in Psychological Science (Olson) found that trans adults have stable gender identities over time, just like cis people. A 2016 review in The Lancet Psychiatry (Winter) made it clear that being trans isn’t a disorder but the distress often comes from stigma and discrimination, not from being trans itself!

And we can’t ignore the brain imaging studies like those reviewed by Guillamon et al. in the Journal of Psychiatric Research (2016) which show that some trans people have brain structures more aligned with their gender identity. That’s biological evidence backing up what trans people have been saying for years.

Quoting and pushing pseudoscience doesn’t change the fact that real studies say otherwise. We should base serious conversations on evidence, not fear or misinformation. Everything everyone is saying on here is SO biased.

Is it transphobic to believe there are only 2 sexes?

This isn’t what’s been said on this thread and you know it. This is a manipulation tactic and a mott and bailey argument.

oting and pushing pseudoscience doesn’t change the fact that real studies say otherwise. We should base serious conversations on evidence, not fear or misinformation. Everything everyone is saying on here is SO biased.

Such an interesting final paragraph that I agreed with in respect to your assertions. I would mention that your final sentence includes you although it’s more an insight into your own processes.

You are always able to search for many previous discussions about the ‘evidence’ and studies that you cite if you wish to be better informed.

You still don't get it do you?

The only bias is your belief that whatever might be going on in someone's head somehow overrides the fact of their physical existence in the world.

Even if everything you just posted were true (it's not, most of it has been debunked or is misrepresented) - but even if it was, as a female bodied person, the sex-based needs I have and challenges I face are because of the body I have and the experiences I have in the world because of that. They are not because of some unrelated and unbodied inner quality of mind that no one can perceive apart from me.

So a man might wake up every morning of his life believing with every fibre iof his body that he will see a female body in the mirror, and spend every single day in deep deep psychological pain because he didn't, and it still doesn't make him in any meaningful objective way more like me than any other male bodied person, nor mean that he faces any of the challenges that I do simply because I am a woman, so it does not justify giving to him any rights and privileges that are not justified for any other man.

He may have problems. He may need support. He may need protection, and love, and sympathy. But he does not need them because he is a woman, and so he does not get to take them from women.

Whatever it is that he needs needs to be in his own name and based on his own needs, not in our name and based on ours.

These are peer reviewed studies.

You’re straw manning.

I was explaining that gender dysphoria is a very real phenomenon and isn’t a fetish or a phase. I was explaining that isn’t true by providing peer reviewed studies, of which there are MANY. But if your only exposure to trans people are mumsnet posts, I can see why you might have a skewed perception of the reality of trans lives.

Don’t drag this conversation into needs based on sex: that’s NOT the point I was making and is a manipulation tactic to divert the conversation away from the fact everyone has been saying widely transphobic things on this thread. Just to spell it out for you: saying being trans is a perverted fetish is transphobic.

Oh and @CosyTaupeShark , do you really think none of the men who claim to be women have a sexual motive?

Not Grace Lavery?
Not Andrea Long Chu?
Not Jessica Yaniv?

And if you do accept at least some men transition for fetishistic reasons, why should women not be free to point that out and to reject any claim from men who identify that way to somehow share "womanhood" with people who just want to get on with their lives as the female half of humanity?

I agree, people can dress how they like, grew their hair or shave it off whatever but its impossible for humans to change sex and there is no way anyone should be buying into the fantasy that you can. Some institutions and people did this and look where we are now that finally common sense has prevailed? There are a lot of very angry and potentially dangerous men out their spoiling for a fight literally or legally over their access to women's spaces and the women within them. Something their delusion and sexual fetish requires for its satisfaction.

This is a good channel that talks openly about the sexual motivation for transition that men have its by a man who did transition then detransition. He is open about living with AGP and how this is at play in the majority of men who transition.

https://www.youtube.com/@RayAlexWilliams

And denying trans sometimes is a perverted fetish is misogynistic, naive or both.

Do I think all trans people have a sexual motive? No. Do I think it's reasonable to protect the ones who do not by gaslighting women that no trans people have a sexual motive? Hell no!

What I do think, sexual or not, is that all trans identities are rooted in disordered and sexist beliefs that the trans person projects onto others, believing what they perceive to be genuine differences when they are simply reflections of that person's own inner prejudices, and I think society should not be accomodating and validating sexism.

Trans people can be genuine and still wrong. Gender dysphoria can exist and still be a manifestation of the sexist and/or homophobic beliefs of the sufferer.

I think there is need for more evidence based research. My personal anecdata is that I have known three MtoF transitioners. All three were in their 40's. All three dress in what I would call a Hayley from Coronation St style, so not dolled up just normal middle aged women trousers and cardigan clothing. One I was very surprised when I heard as there was no clues to me but I knew him in a professional capacity mostly. But he/she was much happier after the transition. One I knew vaguely in a professional capacity as a female and was actually surprised to find out he/she wasn't born female. The other I think probably these days would lead a happy gay life. And one person I had meet three times and couldn't decide if they were male or female.

I think it is easier for women to just dress in jeans and a tee shirt and no one questions their gender/sexuality, whereas men wear trousers and a 'pretty' top and they are referred to and thought of as gay.

in the 80's we had the whole New Romantics movement of men in eyeliner and frilly shirts and women with short hair. Gender was much less stereotyped and I think we need to go back to that.