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?

What is a mott & Bailey argument?

If you aren't a medical expert on the many ways gender and sex can fail to line up neatly, or someone who, yanno, it actually effects in a significant way, may I suggest you realize you're ridiculous and go find something to do besides eagerly try to control and look down on other people?

You're welcome!

Sweetheart, people can feel however they want about themselves on the inside. It doesn't give them any moral or logical case to expect to be given the name, rights or protections of the opposite sex, nor does it give them the right to redefine what is is to be the opposite sex based on nothing but their own projections and prejudices.

Because once that inner belief that something about how they see themself on the inside gets taken as somehow justification that they should be treated as the opposite to the sex they actually are on the outside, that they should be treated in all ways just the same as the people who actually are that sex, that their self image and prejudices should actually override the reality and self-knowledge of other people, it's not just they who are "effected in a significant way", it's every person who actually is the physical sex they claim to mentally be.

And those affected people, especially if they are women, who live with the consequences of the sex they actually are regardless of how they may feel inside or how much they may want to reject those stereotypes or escape those dangers, have a right to say "no" to being redefined in ways that feel inauthentic and reductive and regressive to them simply to accomodate some else's concept of their "gender".

Is there any reason why gender and sex should line up neatly? Sex is binary and physical. Gender is a complex mix of personality characteristics seen through a lens of stereotyping. Most people I know, whether male or female, are more "feminine" in some respects and more "masculine" in other respects. In no way do they match all masculine or feminine stereotypes. So how could they possibly line up their personalities neatly with their sex?

Not everyone defines gender the same way as you. Stop trying to make people’s lives harder because you have a surface level understanding of these topics. Gender is far more than ‘stereotypes’. I know plenty of trans women who aren’t ’feminine’ and don’t care for make up and lipstick or dresses but just know their gender identity doesn’t align with their birth sex. It’s highly complex and you clearly don’t get it, so to quote the post you quoted, go find something else to do!

But gender isn't real.
There isn't 1 gender let alone 100s.

I'd like to see the discussion split because there's a difference between young people getting to grips with the world and older men getting their kicks.

The man I know who now wears what he considers stereotype women clothing came to it late in life after we suspect spending too long in the darker areas of the internet. We avoid spending too long with him because eventually he has to just push the envelope, last time he spoke about tampons in front of the full range of family. It was a brief mention but he got a kick out of it. So grim.

After a lifetime of depression and poor coping strategies this is the latest but not the cure because he still has depressive lows. I appreciate at the the beginning it may, to him, have felt like the solution but it's being built on a life time of poor mental health and a fairly unpleasant character.

Is there any reason why gender and sex should line up neatly?

No.

Is there any reason why that should rule your life? Is there any reason why your sense of gender should rule anybody else's life?

No.

Your gender is part of your sense of self, of who you or what feel you are.

People whose sense of self does not line up neatly with what they see in the mirror or how their body behaves:

A transgender person.
An anorexic person.
Me (eg an ordinary person).

What's the difference between them?

A transgender person demands and expects the world to change around them.
An anorexic person forces their body to change.
I (eg an ordinary person) shrug and move on. Or maybe ask someone "Does this shirt suit me?"

@CosyTaupeShark I think its time you educated yourself on autogynephilia this is a good place to start, nobody is born in the wrong body a man can express a more feminine side of himself all he likes but he isn't a woman, a woman is an adult human female any claim to the contrary is a literal nonsense.

Amen!

(I've never used this utterance other at the end of a prayer, but felt it might be an appropriate word to use here)

Why would I educate myself on that? I’m not going to waste my time watching something on autogynephilia which is a REALLY outdated and discredited theory. It was pushed by Ray Blanchard decades ago, but it’s been rejected by major organisations like the American Psychological Association and WPATH because it doesn’t reflect the reality of most trans people’s lives. It basically reduces trans women to a sexual fetish, which just isn’t backed up by proper research.

In fact, studies like Moser (2009) and Veale et al. (2008) found that the kinds of feelings Blanchard described aren’t even unique to trans women. Some cis women report similar things too, which kind of defeats the whole point of the theory. It’s not solid science. It’s been used more to shame people than to understand them.

If we’re going to have a serious conversation, we should stick to proper peer-reviewed research, not theories that have already been picked apart by the scientific community.

I know plenty of trans women who aren’t ’feminine’ and don’t care for make up and lipstick or dresses but just know their gender identity doesn’t align with their birth sex.

How do they "just know"?
Do they ask to be referred to as "she"? Have they changed their names? What other aspects of feminine gender identity do they express?
You are correct in thinking that I don't get it - could you explain?

Hopefully. It's all a lie.

They know that something they can’t define doesn’t match?

Sure! If you’re asking in good faith for an explanation, I’m happy to oblige. However, I’m not them so I can’t tell you what it feels like to be trans. I suggest you look up stories from REAL and vocal trans people to understand that.

I get that it can be hard to understand if you’re thinking about gender in terms of appearance or biology. But gender identity isn’t the same as how someone dresses or whether they wear makeup. Plenty of cis women don’t do those things either. The idea that someone has to ‘prove’ their womanhood through femininity sets a standard we don’t apply to cis women. A trans woman might not look or act how you expect, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t clear on who she is. Identity isn’t about ticking boxes, it’s about how someone understands themselves.

It’s fine not to get it straight away, but it helps to start from the idea that there’s more than one way to be a woman.

How is it ok to say "I'm not them so I can't tell you what is feels like to be trans" but not ok to say "trans women aren't female so they can't know what it feels like to be us"?

However, I’m not them so I can’t tell you what it feels like to be trans.

And men are not women so they can't tell what it feels like to be one.

There are as many ways to be a woman as there are adult human female people in the world.

Being an adult human male is not one of them.

If you want a new word that means "all the ways trans women think they can be a woman which some female people also feel" that is fine, but adult human female people still exist. So please do not appropriate our name to label this different thing, and absolutely donot use the fact that they have stolen the name of a different group to claim this now gives them the right to the rights, resources and spaces of the group whose name they stole.

If you’re starting from the belief that trans women aren’t women, then of course you’ll reject their experiences. But that’s a belief, not a fact. What I said was that I can’t speak on trans experiences because I’m not trans. That’s about recognising the limits of my own perspective. Saying trans women can’t know what it feels like to be a woman is something else entirely. It assumes your definition of womanhood is the only valid one, and uses that to exclude others by default. That’s not a neutral position, it’s circular logic that starts with exclusion and ends with more exclusion. It’s actually a perfect example of why people on mumsnet are in an echo chamber chasing their tails.

Transwomen aren't women. That's a fact not a belief.

And no one, man or woman can say what another person feels like, because they are not that person.

All humans have variation. Eye colour for example is an example of variation.
And women aren't one being, but they are all women. There aren't variations of women, you cannot be, for example 1/3 woman. You either are, or you're male.

You can use the word pretend though. People know what pretend means.

I don't reject their experiences. I reject their claim that these experiences are womanhood because to do so means rejecting my own experiences. They know what it is to be them but they do not know what it is to be me.

The overreach is not when they say "I feel like this", it is when they say "I feel like you"

Because you need to realise that Women defined as adult human females are not saying "we are women because we feel like each other" - how would we know that any more than a trans identifying man does? - we are saying "we are women because we have the same physical sex", an ojective fact which is known at birth for almost all of us and does not require us to make any assumptions about anyone's inner life.

Yes there are a very small number of people, like well below 1%, where it may not be clear immediately or may even be initially wrongly observed, but those exceptional experiences do not invalidate the experiences of the 99.lots% of people whose sex is known by both themselves and others from the day they were born, and for whom the way their body exists, the way they see themselves and the way people treat them because of it, and how these threads entwine and intersect with each other and their other life experiences form part of the formative story of their lives. Our sex is a fact and it is material in our lives physically and socially. We need to name it and we need to be able to name the people who share it with us.

Do you see? This is not about which is "valid", it is about two experiences which cannot be the same thing because they are mutually exclusive trying to claim the same name and space.

A "woman" cannot both be "a state that does not require having a female body" and "the state of having a female body", because those definitions are mutually exclusive. They are separate concepts and they need separate names.

And given that they undeniably are separate concepts and so need separate names, I believe the only moral choice is that woman continues to mean adult human female because that was the original meaning of the word, that group of people still exists, and there are legal rights and cultural and social histories and experiences that belong to those people wriiten under that name which have no connection to trans-identifying men.

The trans identifiying men and the women who feel kinship with them are the new group. They have every right to exist but they need to find their own name and their own identity.

This is not a case of who is "valid", this is just a case of logic and fairness.

pls do explain what a mott and bailey argument is?

Motte and Bailey is explained here. Basically switching back to a strong point which is used whenever a weak point is challenged, and claiming this supports the weak point.

An example frequently used with trans activists is “but what about people with this rare disorder that means their genes are male but they appear female” when really they are arguing for people whose sex is unequivocal (male born with a penis and gone through puberty) to access female spaces. It comes in the form “not everyone’s sex can be assumed, let trans people go where they want”.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

Also used for justifying alterations to birth certificates, although a gender recognition certificate is not required if a genuine medically evidenced mistake has been made.