Trans sibling in law

[Primrose86]

DH's sibling has just come out as a man. She is 26 and autistic, lives at home with mum, spends life on the Internet, got kicked out of school at 16 etc etc She has plans to go overseas and transition in germany where apparently you can get surgeries on the public health system while living with her grandpa. Her mum is fully supportive of this.

How should I react to all this. Should I start referring to him as my brother in law? What usually happens after people come out. I assume they progress to hormones and surgery but honestly based on what I read, Germany is quite resistant to health tourists who never paid in even if they are citizens. Are people really happy identifying as another gender when they wouldn't look like the other gender?

You might experience sex based discrimination because society judged you to be a gender non conforming woman.

Unfortunately it isn't actually that easy to escape gender.

However, luckily, you still have sex based rights that protect you from discrimination, even if you don't identify as a woman.

If gender is a performative construct, you’d be performing the male gender.

Indeed. And I would be both masculine and feminine at the same time, and arguably more of a man when I'm annoyed and definitely less of a man when I cry. What a load of sexist bollocks. I'm a man wholly and completely when I (occasionally) do the washing up, and when I (frequently) do the cooking, and when I carry bags for my arthritic wife, and when she comforts me when I'm upset.

Which is precisely how we know that despite all the grandiose pontificating, not one of these gender 'experts' has ever been able to pin down the concept to a clear, cogent and logical explanation. Not one of them has ever defined precisely what gender means, beyond that it's allegedly some mystical, nebulous, essentialist inner 'feeling'.

And is apparently capable of shifting with time and place by a long, drawn-out social process of naming, renaming and reenacting. So if it shifts, whole identities are being built on something entirely ephemeral.

No wonder it causes so much confusion and angst.

Does that make me transgender then - Is my question?

I know what social stereotypes are. What I do not understand is why would non compliance with these require other people to 'affirm' you and a path that leads to medicalisation?

Surely it is much more sensible to say there are two sexes and within that, each sex should be free to 'perform gender' however they like? Without any of the other stuff?

That's so not what being transgender is supposed to be about...

No, we don’t, because it’s nonsense. I don’t have a gender, I’m a woman. When I do the decorating or dig the garden or cook the supper, I am just doing things, they are not in any way related to my sex. The only way that men are in any way superior to women is in terms of physical strength. Far from being progressive, the concept of gender is regressive, misogynistic and homophobic, which sums up GI.

That depends if you think there’s something wrong with acting outside of those gendered norms, and that real men don’t cry etc etc.

You can acknowledge that those constructs exist, whilst also acknowledging that not everyone lives within them and that’s alright.

Unfortunately it isn't actually that easy to escape gender.

If we're viewing gender as a set of ingrained, regressive stereotypes I agree. Which is about as far as anyone, from erudite social theorists to the most committed gender ideologists, have ever been able to pin it down.

The more rigid the adherence to those stereotypes - not least assumptions that everyone 'identifies' with those stereotypes and are thus imbued with a gender identity of 'cis' (utter cobblers) - the more regressive.

No wonder we've ended up in the antediluvian state we are now in.

They’re not anything to do with your sex, you’re right, because sex and gender are different things.

For a while I’ve not fully understood whether the GC didn’t acknowledge gender constructs as a thing at all, or whether they simply rejected their application. Do they not believe in gender, or do they reject being defined by it.

You’ve just answered that, I think, so thanks!

I think people are free, generally, to ‘perform gender’ however they like. But does that not extend to them being referred to as whatever they like, if that’s how they’re ‘doing’ gender?

Up to you. If you want to stir things up it's she. If you want to keep the peace it's he.

But we have always used pronouns to refer to sex, not gender.

Evidenced by the fact that we use pronouns for babies and animals - who don't have a gender identity.

So why would we change this to align pronouns to something no one can even define? Especially as we're going to revert to sex anyway if people don't declare 'their pronouns'?

I don’t acknowledge it because it’s unnecessary and regressive, like GI. I have never conformed to anything other than being a person on the planet living my life, and bringing up my children in the same way.

The only reason that GI has such a hold on society is because it benefits men and directly disadvantages women, which is why I find it so utterly astonishing that some women cheer it on. But then there were women who were against the suffrage movement 🤷‍♀️

Well I'm none the wiser about what gender is and how we can change it.

I've been told (both on here and irl) that it's the stereotypes placed upon us due to our sex. Eg men like blue, football and beer.
And also that it isn't anything to do with stereotypes it's an inner feeling which no one can explain.

Reject being defined by it, which as I understand is basic feminism.

The clue is in the name ‘gender critical’.

If you want to tell the truth it’s she, if you want to lie it’s he.

Gender is bollocks, in my humble opinion.

When we ask people to explain what they mean by gender, it’s because we are baffled that anyone would identify with it. We view it as a means of oppression,

Well I'd agree. I don't feel that I have a gender. I'm a woman purely because I'm an adult human female.
I happen to be a fairly feminine woman, probably because of the expectations placed on me as I grew up. But I don't have an inner female essence. Or think that liking feminine things is what makes me a woman.

You think these can’t be characteristics of a woman? Interesting

Obviously not. I think it's all nonsense.

I was referring to this definition of how you can 'change your gender' apparently supplied by the WHO - quoted by another poster upthread.

Gender refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed. This includes norms, behaviours and roles associated with being a woman, man, girl or boy” The World Health Organisation. You can change your gender by adopting the characteristics of the gender you identify with as demonstrated by transgender people all over the world.

You described gender as societal expectations of how a man or woman should behave and appear, so logically you think these aren’t characteristics of a woman, if woman = somebody who conforms with expectations of femininity.

I didn’t say what these characteristics were though. You did. I just provided the definition of gender from a global health body for someone who said they didn’t know what gender is

To be clear, the WHO did not say this:

You can change your gender by adopting the characteristics of the gender you identify with as demonstrated by transgender people all over the world.

That's why I said 'apparently'

I'm still none the wiser as to how anyone can 'change gender'.