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.

It's not a 'trans' debate. It's a womens rights debate. And since we are winning and gaining ground, your statement makes no sense.

I very much feel we have been played by the right wing.
You are misguided and misinformed. Once again, it is the LEFT WING that are driving this. You really haven't been paying any attention at all, whatsoever, have you?

So many great posts on this thread, thanks for starting it OP.

I bet what mymindispuff means is that the only reason we object is because the right told us there is something to object to, not that there is a problem with the left-driven GI agenda, because we women couldn't possibly have opinions of our own. Remember all that cash we're getting from the US Christian extreme right?

And the free Tunnocks. Don’t forget the tunnocks.

I saw a cake stall by the roadside yesterday that had a stack of tunnocks besides all the home baking and was briefly wondering if it was a secret MN signal.

That's the whole problem with politics nowadays. The reality is that if you don't find a perfect fit for you as voter, abstaining amounts to voting in the winners. So, the logic whereby a party has to do better and actively deserve our vote rather than win by default is flawed considering that by not voting for those who 'should do better', you end up supporting the other guys by default. And the outcome in our system is binary: either the 'could do betters' win and in that case what have you really gained or the other party gets in and in that case you end up with an even worse option.

I think why the party isn't a perfect fit is relevant here.

Imagine you were Jewish and your choice was between a party with bad policies all round, and a party which had decent economic and social policies in general, but was overtly antisemitic.

Nobody could reasonably expect you to vote for an antisemitic party, could they?

Sometimes a red line is a red line, regardless of what else might be happening.

RESPECT MY SEX IF YOU WANT MY ‘X’

Simple.

It's also worth pointing out that this time last year gender critical feminists on this board were coming under sustained attack from people who thought we all had a moral obligation to vote to get the Tories out of government, even if that meant getting a government that might bring in self ID, because after 14 years of Tory misrule the country was on its knees and needed Labour to save it.

I said I hadn't seen any real evidence to suggest that Labour actually had a plan to fix the country and would be more competent than the Tories. If they really had seemed obviously better in every other way I might have voted for them even with their problematic views about women's rights. But there's no point abandoning your feminist principles to get the Tories out if the likely result of a Labour win is just same shit different colour.

A year in, I do feel rather vindicated. Most people seem pretty disappointed by the performance of the current Labour government, and it's not clear that getting the Tories out has actually made a positive difference to people's lives so far.

I do think that the impact on women's rights of having a Labour government hasn't been as bad as I had feared, but the credit for that largely goes to the Cass Review (which was commissioned by the Tories) and the Supreme Court judgment. I am hoping that Labour starts to find its feet and make some positive changes for the country, and that the combined impact of Cass, the Supreme Court judgment and increased public awareness of this issue keeps the trans activist lunatics in the party in check. I'm cautiously encouraged by the responses of people like Wes Streeting and Bridget Phillipson, and comforted in the knowledge that the Supreme Court has knocked self ID by stealth on the head, and that if trans women are to be allowed in women's spaces it will take new legislation to remove women's sex based rights in the Equality Act.

Thank you! I have had so many tedious and annoying and, frankly, patronising conversations along exactly these lines - people explaining patiently that The Wrong Ones might get in if I don't ignore my red lines and obediently put my cross in the box.

Going to try this analogy.

Alas it was not to be @Shedmistress I’m sure there is an answer out there somewhere though, I have hope.

When I read a comment like this I realise that many of us have just been banging our heads against the wall for years.
Sooo frustrating......

This one is particularly interesting to me because we seem to be in the same position but looking at it from completely different angles.

My DD also is not trans but has trans friends.
These "trans" friends suddenly became trans when the ideology first began.

I feel they have been drawn (DD included) into a kind of cult and all I can do is watch. Any logical queries from myself, DH and DS result in tears, tantrums and almost break ups.

Apparently I have now become a CIS woman who doesn't understand trans? And I'm transphobic even though I welcome the trans friends into our home and they are happy to visit???
Fucking crazy!

We actually feel oppressed. We know that even the smallest amount of reasoning from ourselves will result in losing our daughter and DS losing his sister.
So we put up and shut up..

They speak in the same language as this poster.
a sizeable number of people who are fanatically obsessed with the idea that trans rights should be curtailed - and maybe eliminated altogether.

WTF????
What rights are being curtailed?
Who wants to eliminate what?
They have the same rights as everyone else.
Except being allowed into womens spaces and womens sports.

We're sick of repeating it over and over and over again.
And yet here is another poster who still can't get it.

As for DD, we sometimes blame ourselves. Were we too soft on her when she was a child, did we spoil her too much, etc etc.
Then we realise that DD and her friends are behaving and talking in exactly the same manner as others caught up in this Ideology (cult)

Any attempts on MN or elsewhere to have a logical discussion usually ends up with accusations of being terfs, transphobes etc.
OR complete and utter misunderstandings as in the above post.

@JsmeLegie
With the greatest respect, what the hell are you talking about.
Ffs, get real....

I guess there will be transphobic people just like there ard homophobic people

the mistake sone posters are making is to assume that the gender critical position supports transphobic or homophobic behaviour

I think of it as - at one extreme we have men who want to be women and think that society should accept them as women in all circumstances

at the other we have the homophobes and transphobes who want everyone to conform to the norm and see any deviation from that as vile

GC women are in the main in the middle ground. That’s why it’s so hard to explain and to maintain - the middle always is harder to balance. They accept transwomen in a social setting but not in a sex based setting.

it is interesting that such women are being blamed for “enabling” the transphobes to come forward. I actually blame the transgender community for that - by pushing too hard and unreasonably they have heightened the emotions. But by blaming women they attempt to discredit us - since we didn’t ever offer violence they co-opt the violence of others and attribute it to us

nasty really but at this stage in the conversation I am prepared to accept that some posters just hadn’t considered that viewpoint

One of the problem is that parental alienation runs through trans ideology like a stick of rock.
Ask yourself - who benefits from children & young people alone and alienated from their families? Who benefits from young people unthinkingly chanting lies and untrue mantras? And most chillingly who benefits from a generation of vulnerable young people sterilised, their bodies and minds having failed to mature through puberty and all becoming life long medical patients - infertile, so many incontinent and suffering the effects of brutal experimental surgery?

This is what's happening to children and the failure of society to put in place safeguards, to confirm that sex change is impossible and to support parents in saying NO to all this is shameful.

Fundamentalists and extremists can emanate from both the Right' and the 'Left'. Fundamentalist 'progressives' are what did it for the Democrats at the last election.

There are also different ways and different angles from which to view women's rights and female dignity...it doesn't always have to come only from the Left.

or the other party gets in and in that case you end up with an even worse option.

That assumes that the other party is an even worse option than the eradication of women as a sex-class and the failure to safeguard children. You obviously think that there are worse fates than that; I'm not so sure.

I think the main issue is one of totalitarianism. A movement or creed which totally suppresses or censors dissent and creates a whole world view with certain articles of faith and particular dogmas which must not be questioned.. That can come from the Left just as much as it can come from the Right.

I agree. Our UK history has primed us to guard against this coming from the Right, so we were blindsided when it came from the Left. This is why it has taken so long to recognise the danger and to try to re-instate the democratic process.

I'd actually say that in recent times the totalitarianism of the Left - in particular the politics of identity, oppression and grievance , aligned with the cult of 'openness'- has fed, and continues to feed, the extreme Right.

I guess what I am saying is that 'United we stand and divided we fall' and I think this trans debate has divided feminists and I feel we are falling and losing ground

I understand that there was a time when the LGB community (as it was) were divided over whether legalising gay marriage was the right step forwards.

I don't know what the split in opinion was, but some felt that it was regressive to suggest that gay people should be expected to join in an institution that was set up purely among heteronormative lines. However, the fundamental disagreement was not something to just be dropped because "it looked bad" or might cause falllouts. And now we have the option of marriage or CP or nothing, so again it was a conversation worth having and a decent analysis of outcomes. And the gay "community" hasn't suffered from it, afaict.

I would be interested to hear, actually, from any LGB people who thought gay marriage was a bad idea, and how they feel about it now.

I don' think the Tories and Reform are necessarily the same thing at all. There are plenty of centrist Conservatives who are to the right of centre but are not UKIPPERS. In fact, the sooner the Tories can sort themselves out the better. At present Labour under Starmer is simply responding to the loudest and most vociferous voices...in a bid to fend off the potential Reform vote ( which is coming from both the right and the Left)

You are correct that the absurd excesses of the left are a recruitment tool of the right. I don't think the extreme right really exists very much these days. There was about a year ago a training camp for the far right in the UK to go out as a militia and become more militia trained. Sounds scary doesn't it? They posted photos on social media of their training. It was a bunch of wet blokes in wet weather up on wet Welsh hillsides eating pot noodles and pringles outside wet tents. Not one of them had cracked open a can of beans or beans with sausages, or shock horror fried bacon in a pan over a fire. Cooking things in a pot on a fire was clearly far beyond their capabilities. I doubt any of them had thought to bring a pot. Maybe they asked their mums, and the mums said no. I have never been less afraid of the far right. If there was a revolutionary uprising of these guys, closing down the till they were all queuing at at Tesco would have shut down their uprising instantly. They'd still be there now trying to figure out what to do next.
The far left is the biggest recruitment tool of the far right, and to be honest I'm grateful for that, the comedy is priceless. The left however I am scared of they are very violent.

Yes, the extreme Left is becoming increasingly unhinged...and this is fairly mainstream behaviour now.

Many people who have moved to vote Reform are doing so because they feel their views have been suppressed or deemed to be phobic or hateful in some way. Some became radicalised during covid - when nobody was supposed to question the wisdom of lockdown and compulsory vaccinations etc. Many of them would have been traditional Labour voters; maybe more working class and/or socially conservative.

Suppression, censorship and ridicule......which those of us who have been pushing back against trans ideology are only too well aware of is what has escalated/created the current extreme polarisation...especially in the U.S...where a lot of the post modernistic theories which gave rise to 'wokeism' were born.

The U.S has never really had a Socialist party, in the sense we understand that in Europe. The extremes of Progressivism are American in origin and borne out of american culture, society and the american experience.

@Petitchat @MrsOvertonsWindow @Shortshriftandlethal Thank you for your posts regarding how having someone who believes this ideology can have a huge negative impact on the rest of the family. The walking on eggshells (although it feels more like walking on glass with bare feet), the threat of parental/family alienation and the totalitarianism of thought are so familiar in the most awful way. The horrific family gatherings where one person makes everyone else miserable because they (the rest of the family) are in total fear of saying the 'wrong thing' about anything that makes up the omnicause. Being told that you will be disowned. To know that you cannot talk about being upset.

It's hell.

I can't reply to everyone individually right now but just a few points:

Redlines: everyone has them, ultimately those are the core issues that will swing a vote one way or another. For me the red line is a party that pledges to leave the ECHR and lists a number of deeply discriminatory measures in their manifesto. Any party that threatens to weaken the rule of law is a complete no in my book. I know Reform supporters who deny that their party stands for such a thing - but that's it, I think they're frankly in denial.

My understanding of the consensus among gender critical feminists is that the very notion of gender essentially negates the rights of women and without it, no further issues can be considered. It's the '1' before all the zeros. In my view though, that is an absolutist stance and not a pragmatic one. For instance, how can you fight for any rights without a fully functioning democracy and the rule of law? It's complacent to think it's not at risk with a populist government. My red line is that one. I will vote for the party that I consider to be the least of a threat to the rule of law and human rights overall.

Conservatives & Reform - someone said they're not the same. Used to be true. I voted Conservative in the past, for a centre right MP. That suited me fine. That guy, along with all the centrists in the party got purged during the 'great' Brexit years... They're just UKIP/Brexit party/Reform 'Lite' nowadays (and who knows if they might even be that 'lite'). So yeah, I think right now Tories/Reform same difference.

I disagree with much of Labour's policies, I really do. So many points on the economy that I think were bollocks, so much cowardice across so many essential topics (like the EU). BUT the other guys ARE worse. Much worse. And they have no better clue how to grow the economy. For them, it's all about self-serving billionaires and 'bread and circuses' for the masses. I don't want to put a bunch of incompetent kleptocrats in power, thanks very much.

Freedom of speech - Agree on that point. Cancel culture has always given me the rage. It has done much to pave the way to reactionary populism. Yep. I loath censorship of any kind but censorship IS high on the agenda of the nativist nationalist authoritarians circling the UK like vultures. The left has a responsibility to root out cancel culture but also we all have a responsibility to make sure freedom of speech is truly safeguarded.

For those who consider all the issues that affect WAGs wellbeing and still decide to go with the Tories or Reform, or abstain so that those parties win - that's obviously their prerogative but then they have to own up to the fact that they are indeed right wing. The only real power you have as a citizen is as a voter and it's your vote that ultimately determines your political identity. I don't see the need to be defensive about it though. In fact, I have recently come across a lot of GC feminists who are increasingly right wing. Just an observation.