Reflections on Trans Arguments

[LimeFinch]

I've noticed a lot of general discourse about trans people that is based on misinformation, some of it dangerous, most of it born out of ignorance, so here's a handy reference to counter some of the claims I've seen.

Trans People are extremist! That's wot I done heard!
Transgender extremism doesn't exist - it's just a right-wing talking point used to discredit legitimate healthcare and equality efforts.
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/uk-un-view-trans-rights-much-needed-common-sense
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/11/hilary-cass-trans-children-review
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/02/gender-critical-beliefs-under-the-microscope

Puberty Blockers are Dangerous! My total lack of medical knowledge says so!
Puberty blockers are often lifesaving interventions. They're prescribed only after long assessments involving NHS gender clinics, parents, and specialists. They are fully reversible and shown to reduce the risk of suicide in young people with persistent gender dysphoria.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/treatment
https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/tonic-psh-consultation-analysis-report.pdf
https://www.bmj.com/content/386/bmj.q1638.short
https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/resources/interim-service-specification-specialist-gender-dysphoria-services-consultation-response
https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/news-events/news/rcpch-responds-publication-final-report-cass-review

I Heard They're Changing Kids' Genitalia!
No people under 18 are getting genital surgery in the UK. NHS policy and private clinics alike restrict this to adults.
Indeed, more cisgender teens receive breast reduction surgery on the NHS than trans teens receive chest masculinisation surgery. The procedures follow similar approval processes, yet only one group is routinely scrutinised.
https://pure.johnshopkins.edu/en/publications/breast-surgery-in-adolescents-cisgender-breast-reduction-versus-t
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/10/revealed-thousands-of-trans-surgeries-carried-out-by-nhs/

They're in Women's Sports! I read it on teh internets!
There are only a small number of openly trans athletes competing at a professional level in the world, and none are dominating their fields.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/61346517
https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/sport/athletics/65051900

But, but, but, Women's Sports! No men!
Sex-segregated sports were historically introduced to exclude women, not because men were being beaten. The idea that it was about fairness is a myth.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/jun/13/how-the-fa-banned-womens-football-in-1921-and-tried-to-justify-it
https://research.birmingham.ac.uk/en/publications/health-gender-and-inequality-in-sport-a-historical-perspective

Ok, but Trans-women are Stronger. That ain't Fair!
There is no consistent biological advantage for trans women in elite sport. Oestrogen therapy significantly reduces muscle mass, strength and performance over time. Regulations often require minimum hormone levels and transition periods before competing.
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/15/865
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/59312313

Trans-Women are Men!!!!!! Any fule knowe that!
Identity is personal. “Man”, “woman”, “boy”, and “girl” are social roles - that’s gender. Not to be confused with biological sex - male and female. No trans woman claims to be biologically female, and no trans man claims to be biologically male. That’s another right-wing straw man argument.
https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/media-centre/interim-update-practical-implications-uk-supreme-court-judgment
https://www.stonewall.org.uk/resources/lgbtq-hubs/trans-hub/the-truth-about-trans

Trans History is Different to Women's History
The idea that trans women have a “separate history” to cis women echoes the same tactics once used to exclude Black women and disabled women from womanhood.
https://blog.bham.ac.uk/socialsciencesbirmingham/2024/03/08/international-womens-day-trans-women-cannot-be-left-behind/
https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/news/trans-and-disability-justice-how-are-our-struggles-linked
Tall women, Black women, trans women - these are all adjectives describing different types of women. Every woman’s experience of womanhood is unique. If you exclude trans women from being women, what condition are you using to define womanhood? There isn’t one necessary condition. So trans women cannot be excluded from womanhood on this basis.

Trans-Women are Men in Dresses! I read it in the Daily Mail!
Crossdressing is not the same as being trans. Many cis men crossdress and are not trans.
https://fiorry.co/glossary/crossdresser/

But Anybody can be Trans in an Instant! I'm scared!
The risk of coming out as trans due to internalised homophobia and sexism is a real thing but is not as common as many would have you believe. That’s why the NHS has a structured care pathway with long waiting times and assessments. No one can simply walk in and access hormones or surgery. Many people are left in limbo for years unless they are in crisis or suicidal.
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/referral-pathway-for-children-and-young-peoples-gender-services-community-and-hospital-paediatric-services/
https://transactual.org.uk/trans-lives-21/

Organisations are Convincing Kids They're Trans! Think of the Children!
No one is trying to “convince” people they’re trans. If you feel deep discomfort with the sex you were assigned at birth, you might be trans - but that’s for you to explore, not for anyone else to decide. The queer community is generally very good at spotting people who are dealing with internalised issues - no one wants anyone to transition unless it’s truly needed. This whole “kids being convinced” thing is another empty scare story.
https://transactual.org.uk/healthcare-professionals/inclusive-healthcare/
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/referral-pathway-for-children-and-young-peoples-gender-services-community-and-hospital-paediatric-services/

Now, I'm very aware of the MN reputation for shutting down the threads - and removing the accounts - of anyone who doesn't go along with the anti-trans-hate-cult, but for the short time this thread remains up it's worth taking some time to actually look at the links, to think about the status of trans-women in the current society, and consider how this judgement - and the subsequent interpretation of the same by those who are a little hard of thinking - might reflect on us as self-assumed rational, reasonable human beings.

😁

I tried telling my GP I identify as a TW so that I could access laser hair removal on the NHS (PCOS beard) apparently I can't be a TW. Even though TWA (apparently) W .
So if TWAW then why aren't women transwomen?

Ugh. The naked racism in this post makes me sick. How many times have we read TRAs parroting ‘if Black women can be a subset of women then so can men’? And the blokes who say this imagine they are making a liberal/progressive argument rather than being grotesquely racist.

“Personally I trust the refuge workers who say that genuine trans women are never the problem but I'd love to see any data.”

it rather begs the question as to why a philanthropist had to set up a woman only rape refuge, using the law in order to exclude men.

This s nagging away at the back of my mind but I’m sure I remember one of the researchers who’d been commissioned to look at this issue saying they’d been told not to include any dissenting voices in
The published report 🤔 it was a few years ago which is why im not 100%

I seriously wouldn't take the Republican-controlled US Supreme Court as the moral benchmark here. Trump and his useful idiots are in bed with misogynistic fundamentalists who are keen to reinforce the patriarchy, not redress wrongs against women. Sometimes the 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' doctrine really doesn't work.

I'm pretty sure the rape crisis sector said trans women weren't a problem too, and in a shocking turn of events that turned out not to be true.

The 3 that opposed the Supreme Court judgement were all put into their positions by Obama who was put into his position by the Prizkers who are extreme TRAs what with one being a man who says he is a woman.

So I'll take people that oppose them any day thanks.

You of course would be free to write to the Supreme Court explaining what 'Trans' is to assist them. If you think you know better than the brightest and best of the USA Trans Activists and Lawyers who were unable to even explain the basics.

Until one of the many posters I have politely asked to explain, not even exactly what "trans" is, but simply why it should be assumed to override physical sex in language and provisions that only ever existed because of physical sex, I am forced to conclude that what "Trans" means in practice is "whatever I need it to mean to get what I want"

So I'll take people that oppose them any day thanks.

That is deeply fucked up I'm afraid. I will fight the MAGA extremists and their cheapo UK avatars as long as I breathe.

I did giggle at that one 🤭

There is a fantastic piece in the New York Times about the US judgement. Apparently many trans activists were worried about taking the Tenessee case tovthe Supreme Court because it concerned minors but the ACLU wouldn't listen and now the defeat has huge implications.

I think we need to take the wins where we can.

So after the Midrul Wahwa court case, you expect people to consider your assertion that you trust what people working in refuges say when denying male people in female centres are not the problem?

That statement of yours gets actually more remarkable the more I think about it.

I’d rather look at the facts around the actual issue than give my support according to my “tribal allegiance”.

As long as you're lucid about the iceberg of shit that those guys trail behind them.

Just checking what the American Supreme Court judgement has to do with UK Law?

I can agree with someone that 1+ 1=2 without agreeing with every view they have.

Bloody hell! I personally think this whole trans debate is utter nonsense concocted by the right wing. On the day of that judgement, I noticed there were several news items on women murdered by men which sat really uncomfortably next to pictures of women celebrating and Rowling smoking that cigar. For me it feels ridiculous and I don't think it makes anyone safer. Our daughters (regardless of how they dress or identify) are not safer, sexual assaults, domestic violence, harassment are all on the up. Go read Laura Bates and Jess Davies latest books and tell me I'm wrong. WE ARE BEING PLAYED.

How are you fighting the 'MAGA extremists' exactly?

Perhaps if the Democrat extremists hadn't been so batshit, the 'MAGA' extremists wouldn't have got a look in. It is this attitude that created MAGA in the first place.

Anyhow.
My point was that with the highest and mightiest legal activist minds in the country that brought us this anti humanist agenda still, unable to even define 'trans' it is now officially done.

Would that be the same Midrul Wahwa, a male person occupying a women only position as head of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre, who said that any female rape victims who wanted a female only space should learn to reframe their trauma? Prioritising the needs of males sexual fetishists over female rape victims, that Midrul Wahwa? The same malke Midrul Wahwa who with no counciling qualifications liked to listen to the stories of the female rape victims rape from their own mouths?
Or would it be the other male Midrul Wahwa who unlawfully hounded the female worker Roz Adams out of her job at the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre resulting in a £70K payout. The tribunual describing the gender identity theory embraced by ERCC as “dogmatic”, “extreme”, and “hardline”. Is it that male Midrul Wahwa your talking about? Or the first one?

Yeah I find it far more easy to believe “Personally I trust the refuge workers who say that genuine trans women are never the problem but I'd love to see any data.” in the context of Midrul Wahwa and any others like him.

It is the country that has been pushing this whole shit show. It is probably the most significant judgement across the globe.

On the day of that judgement, I noticed there were several news items on women murdered by men which sat really uncomfortably next to pictures of women celebrating and Rowling smoking that cigar

so just to be clear women are now - checks notes - to be blamed for the juxtaposition of how media outlets lay out stories on their webpages and newspaper?

Bloody Nora! 2015 again?

I'm a little late to this one. I look forward to reading all your responses 😀

Perhaps if the Democrat extremists hadn't been so batshit, the 'MAGA' extremists wouldn't have got a look in. It is this attitude that created MAGA in the first place.

So? Something bad came out of a handful of activist puritans. Does it mean that women have to embrace the MAGA bullshit? How is that the logical consequence? Two wrongs don't make a right.

I dunno. I think the Cass Review was heard fairly clearly around the world. The For Women Scotland Supreme Court decision clarifying what a woman means in the Equality Act also got a fair bit of attention.
While I'm only tongue in cheek arguing which might have had the biggest impact, I'm enourmously grateful for all of them. I'll take any and all wins with a huge smile irrespective of where they come from or who is associated with them. A win is a win, and there's been a lot of BIGLY, THE BIGLYEST EVER, UUUUGGGEE wins recently ;)