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?

Big parts of it were about the various waves of feminism - what’s this one, tell women off for not agreeing with each other?

I thought every wave of feminism was about telling people off for not agreeing that female people matter as much as male people.

But then I don't have a gender studies degree, so what do I know?

It’s not a lack of knowledge, it’s a lack of seeing why it’s relevant now.

Yes, I understand that women’s fights for contraception took place. I’m grateful for that. But also have access to contraception that means I can choose, or not, to have children. Same for the vote, and employment, and so on and so forth.

What use talking about already won battles has on the here and now is always beyond me.

OP’s post wasn’t even about a male person, so in fairness when I said in my original response to treat her in law politely, even if she doesn’t agree, I wasn’t asking her to prioritise a male.

Female people already do matter as much as males. Strikes me sometimes that what we’re asking for is to matter more.

Spot the poster who reduced women to their uteruses.

The way society treats women is NOT why women aren't used in medical trials. Women effectively suffer because of OTHER WOMEN'S uteruses! (For arguably good reason!)

The way society treats us, has nothing to do with size differences in various situations. I can't physically lift certain things. This is dictated by my biology.

I am unlikely to win a fight with a man for all sorts of biological reasons. Nor am I likely to win a race against a man for all sorts of biological reasons.

The conditions I can get as a woman can be down to X chromosones and nothing to do with my uterus.

I find it more than slightly amusing that the gender studieress has been the one who reduced us to our uteruses!

The basic principle of "trans rights" is that male people matter more than female people.

JKR doesn't have any particular beef with trans men, who are in many ways pawns in a game that doesn't benefit them at all. (No disrespect to people with genuine dysphoria who understand that humans can't change sex and that trans activism is problematic but still feel that presenting as the opposite sex helps them in some way.)

You've VERY CLEARLY not read the book.

HTH.

PS Try reading it.

I wouldn’t ask you to confirm because it would be outing, but I’d love to know where you studied your degree.

To take your first point, as explained in my post, women who couldn’t access contraception, or had no recourse to legal protection if raped, are still alive today and still impacted by their experiences.

Contraception cannot be taken for granted. We saw this when circumstances changed during the pandemic, and a change to insurance based healthcare could also impact access. I don’t understand why you think rights can be taken for granted in the U.K., when it is clear, as I said in my post, that they are being taken away in other countries.

The rise of pro-natalism has already been mentioned, but seems to have gone over your head.

What use talking about already won battles has on the here and now is always beyond me.

Yes, I see that. Again, interested to know who awarded you a degree.

Again, interested to know who awarded you a degree.

The thing with rights is you should never take them for granted.

All those 'battles won' need to be defended. They are never battles that are 'done and dusted'.

This is 101in understanding liberal democracy.

I mean, in fairness I have 3 and one of them is from a RG.

But yes, I gained them from Idiot College.

Even RG universities aren't immune to Mickey Mouse bullshit.

Do you think we should be impressed that you have 3 degrees?

I know someone with 6, he’s completely unemployable. It’s not a marker of supreme intellect.

I mean, all that says to me is fewer years spent in the real world.

Are you so blind to how men regard women that you think these can never be taken away?
Or have you not been paying attention to the USA?
Do you not realise that coercive men will try to limit women's access to things that are legal?
Or perhaps you just don't care about women who are poorer than you?
Tell you what though: that makes us feminists because we fight for all women to have access to rights that we have, and for other rights we still don't have (like the right to safe healthcare, and to not be basically legally raped).

I did think people who did gender studies were a bit dim but now I've had it confirmed.

And yet, intellectually, you can’t understand why rights might need to be continuously protected or why social and political change might impact or have unintended consequences for existing rights?

What do you think is discussed in Parliament when people propose legislation? Make amendments?

Ooo so you are the only person on the thread with multiple degrees and went to a RG?

Imagine that...

(It's also not true)

Hi.

I just realised I have degrees from two different Russell Group universities but I only found that out 30 seconds ago because it was the first time I thought to Google whether the university I got my master's degree from is in the Russell Group or not.

I didn’t say that I was.

I said that it’s rude to assume someone lacks basic intelligence because you don’t agree with them; and that other people may have read different books and formed different views off the back of that, but it doesn’t make them stupid.

I’m aware that doesn’t fit your “we’re superior” narrative, though.

It's a reasonable assumption to make when that person lacks basic knowledge of the subject they apparently have a degree in.

Assumptions can only be based on your arguments.

I can’t relate your arguments to books or other references because I’m not aware that you have mentioned any.

Still not clear on what basis "females who don't say that they are not women plus males who say that they are women" is considered to be a meaningful and coherent group; or why it is considered a more valid grouping than "females" for the purposes of toilet facilities, changing rooms, hospital wards and prisons.

You failed it because you have a brain.

@SleeplessInWherever you keep accusing posters of being condescending and talking down to you, but there are several points when you have conflated two separate things (ie. gender and gender identity), or claimed other posters have said things they quite literally haven’t.

You said a poster below me had said they were not affected by gender, and two posters replied pointing out that they had clearly said they didn’t have a gender identity, not that they weren’t affected by gender.

I posted that your position as you’d articulated it was actually very gender critical, and in your reply to me you fulminated that this was an example of you being “excluded by the GC community” — which was in fact the very opposite of what I’d said (and what’s this “GC community”, as if we all hang out at the same social club?)

Quire a few times people have articulated their position quite clearly and precisely, and you’ve then accused them of saying things that appeared nowhere in their posts.

This is a real problem when trying to debate on an internet forum. It’s frustrating to articulate a point clearly and precisely, and then to be told disagreement is attack, what you really mean is xyz (which you have said nothing like anywhere), or that something very precise is “reducing women to biology” when it’s quite obviously not. That’s why so many posters here are getting irate. You need to debate the things posters have actually written, not some other thing you claim they’ve said when they haven’t.

On a final note: I’m not sure why you think biology doesn’t matter. I’m 5ft 2in. If I do any kind of physical job I can’t physically do it as well as pretty much any man. I can’t carry the weight an average man can. I can’t reach the pedals if a man has been driving a car. I have to ask supermarket attendants to get things for me from the top shelves. After childbirth I have issues with continence and prolapse that no man has to face. And I’m very aware of my lack of physical stamina and strength compared to my male colleagues and my partner.

A question: why do you think sexual assault and rape is so asymmetric between men and women? Why can’t women just fight men off? Do you think women don’t try? Because men, even the weediest ones, are generally so much stronger than women that women can be physically overpowered by men relatively easily. Any woman who has ever been hit or sexually assaulted or restrained by a man knows how asymmetric that strength is. I’m very glad for you if you have escaped that experience. But the reason so many, many women haven’t, is not because they didn’t try, or they really wanted it, or it was their culture, or they didn’t fight back, or they “reduced themselves to their biology”, or they identified themselves wrongly.

It’s because men are stronger than women on a mass scale, and can physically force women to submit to assaults they can’t get away from. And when women feel unsafe on a dark road, or in a confined space with an unfamiliar man, or with an angry husband, it’s not because “GC feminists” have “reduced them to their biology”; it’s because they know that the man could hurt or even kill them, and they wouldn’t be physically able to stop him.

And if you think the battles are won, then you’re disregarding the biggest fear nearly all women face in relation to men, which (as evidenced by our current rate of rape convictions), has never gone away.