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?

This

I'm finding your utterly patronising condescending bollocks rude. And disrespectful.

I don’t feel victimised by biology, no. As far as you know, science works, men/the patriarchy aren’t responsible for period cramps - are they?

Nobody forces us to have children and take maternity leave, that’s the benefit of choice.

Read - you have an opinion that differs to mine, so I’m going to be personally offended by that.

So what OTHER features do all women, and no men, have in common?

I'm 5'2"

The way I've been spoken to in the past due to my sex and stature has utterly shocked 6'2" DH.

My mere height is an issue related to biology.

I don't have to get onto my reproductive organs to be a verbal punching bag for the insecure dickheads of this world.

I got IDed until I was 35. Not because I have staggering youthful looks, but because I'm regarded much easier to challenge than a hulking great 17 year old rugby playing lad.

You're very lucky thay you've never been "victimised by biology".

And yes, having children and taking mat leave can be a choice. But ultimately men can have consequence free sex. Women can't always. Men can chose not to use protection anf walk away from any resulting child. Women can't. Yes they can chose an abortion. But they might need time off work for it. Or counselling. It's not the same.

Like I said, you're lucky you've never been affected by any of that.

So you are going to dismiss my book recommendations?

Good. You illustrate the point about intellectuals so far up their own arse they can't see the blindingly obvious in life. Because they don't want to.

Have I been lied to by feminists? I was promised that if we conquered patriarchy then period cramps would be abolished.

I'm not sure having a gender studies degree qualifies one as an intellectual.

I said disadvantaged, not victimised.

And "nobody forces us to have children"?

WOW.

Yes, I am going to use the "P-word" now. (Privileged.) Because only a woman who has grown up in a developed country, where contraception is freely available and abortions are legal up to 24 weeks, where marital rape is a crime, and where the birth rate has until now remained high enough that the government doesn't need to think about restricting women's choice not to have children, could possibly think that.

Billions of women worldwide today, and close to 100% of women throughout human history up until the mid 20th century, have had little or no choice about whether they have children or not.

And should the birth rate plummet to significantly below replacement levels, we can't guarantee that we wouldn't start to see explicitly pro-natalist policies in countries like the UK at some point in the future.

She clearly identifies as one because she made a huge deal out of her qualification in this area.

I think the rest of us have managed to see straight through that.

One obvious example: if you have had a baby and were granted paid maternity leave from.your job, you have benefited from a social and legal accommodation made specifically for women on account of their biology. Even if this hasn't happened to you personally, there are thousands to whom it has.

Some medical treatments and services are only needed by women, but society still provides them. Should it not?

Have you never, ever, felt unsafe in the presence of a man and felt you needed to get away to a place where he couldn't follow you? Perhaps you have been fortunate in this respect. Many of us haven't.

I dislike the word "privilege" because nowadays it is frequently abused as a gotcha. But you don't have to be privileged in a socioeconomic sense to have been lucky in avoiding unpleasant experiences which have happened to other women, or to have lived a life where you haven't needed things that some other women need.

Now I know you’re trolling or you’re a man. What a ridiculous load of old bollocks. I wish I’d known I had a choice about bearing the children, because had I known that, my husband would definitely have had the second. Is Reddit broken or something?

We could talk about how drugs work differently for men and women and how in general because of how drugs are tested (not on women of child bearing age) this has an impact on how effective treatments are for all manner of health conditions.

The fact that women CAN get pregnant has had a massive impact on the health care available to ALL women regardless of whether they choose to have children or not.

Why?

Because biology.

I know there was a point during COVID where it became apparent that women had better survival rates. Why? Because they discovered that oestrogen had a protective effect against the disease.

Because biology.

Women also suffer diagnosis issues for conditions women and men have because the test book symptoms are related to the male body. Women present differently to men for the same condition which leads to delays in diagnosis and therefore survival rates because symptoms in women are often not well known.

Because biology.

And then somone comes along to tell me that biology doesn't affect women and we aren't disadvantaged because of it and it's our choice to have children.

And that they have a degree in gender studies.

That degree isn't worth the paper it's written on.

I've just lost my temper and failed the gender studies entrance exam haven't I?

Btw spot the genderists pronoun in this post.

I.

It's like a plague.

I haven't experienced x therefore it must not exist and be a reality.

Sorry, do the real intelligent people refer to themselves using some other means than I? Maybe I should use “one,” but I’m not the Queen so I’ll likely pass.

You’re very upset about a degree I did 11 years ago, very upset indeed. I don’t think I’ve ever claimed to be an expert in the field, or to have some sort of huge vested interest in keeping up academic studies. Big parts of it were about the various waves of feminism - what’s this one, tell women off for not agreeing with each other?

The only reason I mentioned it was because there’s some assumption that people who don’t follow your exact line of thinking must be stupid or brainwashed by men.

God forbid a woman is capable of independent thought, or follows a different line of thinking to you. We must all be a hive mind, or thick. How very feminist.

I may have been born female, but I will not see that as an automatic disadvantage or feel somehow victimised by the facts of science. If we are victims (which we’re not always), it’s not your uterus doing it, it’s society and the expectations within it. Going on and reducing it back to being about basic biological fact won’t change a single thing in that.

But please do continue. I’m quite enjoying taking breaks from Netflix to be reprimanded; and you specifically seem super keen to do so.

Er, no. OP's sibling-in-law is and always will remain female, a type of woman, and as such, heavily dependent on women's rights.

Example: if they don't undergo a hysterectomy, they'll retain the ability to get pregnant, and will need to be covered by all the maternity rights granted to women. That was one of the points covered by the UK SC in its judgement, and which the TRA's would have happily ignored, thus leaving transmen with no maternity rights.

If they don't have a hysterectomy and don't take testosterone (or taking testosterone doesn't have enough of an effect), they'll keep having their periods, something that men don't have but so many women do.

They'll also have to consult a gynaecologist regularly, to take proper care of their female reproductive organs.

If they do undergo a hysterectomy, they'll have to take the same life-long care of their female body with no more uterus than other women who have a hysterectomy do. Their body is not, and never will be, a male body. It will always be a female one, not matter how modified.

Conclusion: OP's sibling-in-law may identify out of being a woman as much as they want, but they can never identify out of having a female body, with all the consequences that come with it, and the need for women's rights and accomodations.

It depends how you lost your temper, as long as you say three hail Butlers after you should be fine.

I think 26 is old enough to make that call so you just need to get on with however he likes to be referred to.

Well done.

Are you really this oblivious to the specific rights that enable women to have a choice?

In the U.K. unmarried women did not have a right to access contraception until 1974 (I’m sure within the lifetime of many posters, and certainly their mothers) and rape within marriage did not become illegal until 1991.

Many women alive today are still profoundly impacted by their lack of choice, and America demonstrates that women can’t take their rights for granted.

Your apparent lack of knowledge of the history of feminism and female issues does make me wonder what your gender studies degree covered.

Even the Guardian recognises that women’s sex specific health concerns are under investigated and downplayed as ‘women’s troubles’ that just need to be tolerated.

’invisible women’ by Caroline Criado Perez might fill some gaps in your knowledge.

My biology isn't just my uterus, but crack on.

Oh don't be silly.

@Primrose86's sister-in-law is a woman. Therefore her sister-in-law. People can't change sex.