Do you support transitioning at all?

[UnlockedXCX]

I somewhat do, I will admit. I think it's okay if an adult wants to take hormones, dress as they'd like to, be treated as M or F, or even change their name. I'll respect it all. However I don't agree with them being allowed into single sex spaces or conversations (a gay trans person is functionally a straight person, despite what they say, and a gay FtM shouldn't try to date gay guys for example).

I question if this is a common view or is it niche in these more gender critical spaces.

I mean, I don’t believe in being trans or changing sex.

but I also don’t believe in god or being religious.

society would basically fall down if we went around referring to all Muslims as apostates to their faces, and telling any Jehovah’s witnesses they were deluded charlatans.

there are ways of being civil without egregiously trampling on others’ feelings or selling out our own beliefs. Generally this sort of politeness is a much more effective way of maintaining boundaries than going in all guns blazing.

prisons, hospitals, refuges, changing rooms? - the fuck no.

I've only read the first and last pages of this thread, but it strikes me that a common theme is, the more you think about this issue, and become informed about it, the less inclined you are going to be towards the sort of views posed by the OP. Because ultimately, it's all based on a big fat lie. It's hard to stop people damaging their bodies if they want to (at the time), but it should never be funded by the NHS.

No

because even though transitioning is impossible, all the surrounding bits (dress / hormones / pronouns) do not sit in isolation affecting only that person. As we have seen they start to distort society and there is a ripple effect which negatively affects others.

we need blunt, supportive, open honesty about reality and what is possible / not possible

and then for those with genuine body dysmorphia- proper mental health support

That's exactly how I feel.
Men should be able to wear dresses if they want. But clothing isn't what makes people male or female

@UnlockedXCX I very slightly agree - in that I do think that all suitably well-informed adults should have bodily autonomy so there should be a pathway to surgery and hormone treatments. However (i) it should not be publicly funded as it is a cosmetic procedure. The likelihood of transition curing any mental distress is too low to justify the enormous expense, it is more appropriate for publicly funded treatment to be based around giving psychological help and support for each individual to live the best life they can in the body they have, free from the constraints of the sexist stereotypes that come with that body shape and entirely at liberty to live by the opposite-sex stereotypes if they choose without any medical or surgical treatment. Therefore transition treatments need to be self-funded but with extremely tight controls to ensure that it is impossible for service providers to profit from it or encourage it (ii) a prerequisite for being "suitabily well-informed" needs to include a full process to ensure they have fully exhausted all attempts to help them accept their real and healthy body, and ensure they fully understand that the procedure is only cosmetic and does not change their sex, and no surgery exists that actually does change a person's sex.

The pro-surgery lobbyists are also far too blazé about the frequently awful complications and long-term difficulties and there needs to be a crackdown on all the ridiculously rose-tinted-optimist pro-transition publicity before an it is actually possible for "properly well-informed consent" to exist.

The pathway needs to be structured so that it is not possible for an 18 year old to access lifechanging treatments as soon as they turn 18 - a child fixating on their 18th birthday as the threshold for accessing these things is incapable of making an informed adult decision. All treatment of under 18s needs to be focused on helping them to accept and love themselves as the awesome individual they are, very much free to express themselves in any way they wish and with no pressure to dress or act conventionally for their sex, but absolutely not encouraging them to "just wait till they are 18 and sort it out then". A properly ethical process would take several years going through the above steps as an adult so thar no treatments can start until at least age 24 (which is when the brain reaches actual maturity) - though there will still be no guarantee that no mistakes will be made even so - there are still people who detransition after transitioning in their 30s and 40s after all - but such devastating treatments need to be an absolute last-resort, not a goal to be waited for. Any person who is detected as "going through the motions" trying to just get through the required steps to access treatments rather than fully engaging with the process to help them live their life without medical and surgical treatments is almost certainly unsuitable to actually receive medical/ surgical treatments.

Everyone, whether or not they are trans, should be treated as a human being. The only differences in how men and women are treated should be in the limited circumstances where women are disadvantaged relative to men and are legally entitled to something additional to mitigate that - so in those circumstances transmen remain entitled to those mitigations as female and transwomen remain not-entitled due to being male. Therefore there should be no difference in how a person is treated before and after transition interventions. I am sure there are differences in reality but any such differences in treatment are fundamentally based on illegal discrimination that is being dressed up in fancy language. Transition is not about how other people treat you, because you don't get to control how people treat you.

Not going to re-quote your long post @RareGoalsVerge , but absolutely that is what should happen in a sensible society. I fear we are a long way from that, though.

If you want to compare transideology to Islam then being expected to refer to men as woman is akin to expecting all women to wear Burkas regardless of their Islamic faith. And being expected to use ‘preferred pronouns’ or state my gender is akin to being forced to say Islamic prayers.

That is all lovely except that you ignore the sexual motivation.

Yeah. Sexually mature adults will do things with sexual motives. Shock horror. Completely reasonable to think carefully and broadly about the impact of behaviours and sanitised publicity about those things. But also, neither possible nor desirable to prevent adults taking sexually motivated actions if the impact on others is limited.

If an AGP transwoman isn't using anypublic funds for their treatment and isn't gaining access to any women's rights/spaces/services thereby then it's none of my business whether they get a thrill out of it. They have bodily autonomy over their own body. The safeguards I described should ensure that anyone under the delusion that their treatment will force everyone to treat them as a woman will not be able to access such treatments. If they want to do it for their own gratification at their own expense then, like those who want a "Prince Albert" piercing or a clitoral piercing or any other cosmetic body modification of that ilk, they should be free to do so - the rigorous constraints should aimed at ensuring they have no expectations or intentions to affect anyone else's life other than their own, and for their own protection to ensure that their decision is based on reality not fantasy and is made with full mental capacity and maturity. It would be perfectly possible for an AGP transwoman to meet those conditions and I have no problem with that.

While the state is allowing these men to change their id, basically helping them conceal their sex, it is my business.

I dont want to be treated by a doctor, or my child taught by a teacher in fetish gear. And the state is make no attempt to stop these people 'transitioning'.

It ridiculous to say its no-one elses business when we are can be forced to interact with them. We dont get to pick our doctors or the people teaching our children.

The state cannot give so much support to men who are sexually excited by acting like women, its not fair or safe for women and children. And if the state cannot distinguish between a man with or without a fetish, they need to err on the side of caution.

@illinivich I agree with you that no one should be able to falsify their official ID. I believe ID should be changed to have an almost-100%-unchangeable sex marker (which could only ever be changed in those incredibly rare cases where a baby with an intersex condition is thought to be female at birth and is later found to have internal testes and male chromosomes and male levels of testosterone, actually being biologically male like as with some well-know sporting cases). I am fine with there being a 2nd (optional for those who don't have one) marker for "gender" allowing those who wish to believe in gender identity to practice that belief. We have freedom.of belief and that is important.

If by "fetish gear" you mean overtly sexualised outfits with low-cut tops exposing cleavage, fishnet stockings etc then you are quite right as that is totally unprofessional for a doctor or teacher etc to wear to work and the professional standards bodies for those careers should include sexualised fetishistic behaviour at work as something that can get you disqualified.

If you mean you want the state to force everyone into the sex-stereotype clothing for their sex and bar everyone from accessing even the most sober and modestly-cut clothing that is culturally associated with the opposite sex then I vehemently disagree with such facist control over what should be an individual freedom. That would be totally abhorrent.

This is a very good point. What does the word even mean?

If you mean you want the state to force everyone into the sex-stereotype clothing for their sex and bar everyone from accessing even the most sober and modestly-cut clothing that is culturally associated with the opposite sex then I vehemently disagree with such facist control over what should be an individual freedom. That would be totally abhorrent.

Dont put words in my mouth then call me a facist.

Theres a world of different between people being gender non conformist and a man wearing a bra and making children call him a woman.

Why are people pretending that its the same?

Mentally capable adults can do what they like within the parameters of the law, I neither support or don’t support it. But I don’t call males “she” and I don’t accept them in women’s spaces

I don't think its any of my business on a personal level if they are adults.
I don't think its about whether individuals support individuals.
Its like religious beliefs. I don't want this pushed or for people to have to go along with peoples personal beliefs, and to have to pretend to believe what they believe.
People can have plastic surgery etc all they like, even stuff i hate.

Men with AGP aren’t exercising their sexual motivations in isolation - they are using unconsenting women and children in order to get aroused and for sexual satisfaction. It doesn’t matter if they do that in a babydoll dress or by dressing as a stereotyped middle-aged woman. Their fetish has no place in the
public sphere.

And do not forget two things - they are trying to transgress boundaries so where they fail to shock they will push more, like Grayson Perry turning up at a children’s charity event with a black dildo pushing out of the dress he was wearing. And that paraphilias come in groups.

Clearly a lot of these men have been or are married and with children.....and their pre-occupation and obsession takes over their family's life. Other people are quite often involved, through no choice of their own.

You can't legislate against men being selfish bastards. Certainly gaslighting children to make them pretend their parent has changed sex is abusive and should be illegal. Outside of that limitation it would be entirely unreasonable to legislate again thos particular manifestation of narcissistic self-indulgence while leaving all the myriad of others as entirely legal and unconstrained. The protection of the spouses and children is entirely covered by the limits above of the gatekeeping to transition treatments including serious levels of analysis and counselling to ensure that they understand and agree that they will not actually be changing sex and will not be convincing anyone that they have. Any evidence that children have been lied to about this and told that daddy is actually changing sex would be evidence that they are not suitable for accessing the treatments as they don't have sufficient grip on reality to be thinking rationally. There are plenty of transwomen who entirely accept that they are and always will be male and have made these choices for themselves only, without doing anything to trespass on women's rights. It is right for these men to be able to follow that path in a way that doesn't harm anyone. If there is a reasonable risk of harm then identifying and preventing that harm needs to be worked into the rules surrounding these processes, rather than shutting down the process altogether.

Nothing boosts the popularity of something as much as banning it. It needs to be entirely legal with rational reality-based controls that can be explained in terms of the harms that are being prevented by such restrictions. If it is banned it will happen more, and without such safeguards.

But also, neither possible nor desirable to prevent adults taking sexually motivated actions if the impact on others is limited.

Where do you draw the line with ‘limited’ impact on others? Is sexual exposure/flashing ok? Is masturbating into knickers at M&S and putting them back on display limited? Is normalising fetishistic behaviour by teaching young children whilst dressed in fetish-wear limited? Is putting on a ‘family sex show’ with live sex limited?

In what world do you think these limits on displaying sexual fetishes in public, where-ever you choose to place them, would continue to be observed?

‘While the state is allowing these men to change their id, basically helping them conceal their sex, it is my business.
I dont want to be treated by a doctor, or my child taught by a teacher in fetish gear. And the state is make no attempt to stop these people 'transitioning'.
It ridiculous to say its no-one elses business when we are can be forced to interact with them. We dont get to pick our doctors or the people teaching our children.
The state cannot give so much support to men who are sexually excited by acting like women, its not fair or safe for women and children. And if the state cannot distinguish between a man with or without a fetish, they need to err on the side of caution.’

@illinivich

🎯

I would just like to add that we shouldn’t place too much weight on the needs and desires of one person/ set of people, if that infringes on the well being and rights of others. I’m sure that RMW and SW would argue that their ‘transitioning’ has been beneficial to their mental and emotional well being, but that has come at too high a cost for other people. And the ‘other people’ are out numbering the T by thousands to one.

That’s a civilised society, general principles which ultimately benefit the greater number of citizens ( and I include children in the category of citizens).

There are plenty of transwomen who entirely accept that they are and always will be male and have made these choices for themselves only, without doing anything to trespass on women's rights.

They are the reason women’s right have been destroyed.

I didn't. I gave two extremes of a range of possible options to interpretations of something ambiguous you said, and said that one was fine and the other was facist. I would assume a reasonable person would clarify what they meant and guve more detail about what rules they would want, if any. Responding with outrage at having this ambiguity challenged isn't a good look.

It is not facism to put limits on what people can wear in the work place. It is facism to demand that men must be allowed to wear fetish wear and there must be no opposition.