A space for respectful dialogue about sex, gender and diversity

[Tandora]

This is a thread for posters who want to talk and share a diverse range of opinions about sex, gender, being gender non-conforming and/or trans, and public policy. It is to learn from each other; to engage in a productive exchange, and to hear different sides of the story.

It is not a space for bullying and insults. Please do not join if your intention is to control the conversation and undermine those who disagree with you.

Preaching tolerance whilst simultaneously telling someone this isn’t the space for them if they disagree with you is hypocrisy in the highest.

It is also ironic that you feel it’s inappropriate to tell biological men they can’t be in biological women’s bathrooms but you’re happy to tell people what spaces are for them.

Until you catch up on the bizarre contradictions of your own beliefs, you’re unlikely to find that people think you, or this thread, are credible.

Do tell us all about the further sexes you have discovered?

I doubt it. When your charge of the light brigade is not 'into the valley of death rode the 600' but more 'rode the 4 or so', you don't scold them.

It’s not about me. I am one of millions. I am old and angry about how I was treated and worried for all of the other women who for whatever reason won’t speak out. Who are afraid to tell anyone because of domestic violence or abuse, or cultural or religious reasons.

The police are shit at investigating this sort of crime. (Yes I have a complaint in.)

And I’m given, in the U.K., by virtue of the EA, the RIGHT to a single SEX space based on the SEX not the internal cognition of the individual.

internal cognition is unobservable and there’s no way for anyone to tell what it is. People know when they look at me that I’m a woman. And most people can tell a trans person (unless they do extensive surgery).

And people have to obey the rules. The rule of law. That’s the social contract on which society is founded. We play by the rules.

And the rules say no blokes in women’s spaces, respectfully.

And trans is not a useful category.

One could say that (in the context of this debate) there are men and a sub-set of men called trans'women'.

It makes much more sense to say there are men. Some of those men claim to be trans in order to access vulnerable women and children. Some of those men claim to be trans because they are paraphilic (we can further split into autogynephiles and transvestic fetishists). Some of those men are self-loath homosexuals who wrongly believe that they can become straight women. Some of those men are transmaxxers (or is that just another subtype of predatory trans'women'). Some of those have a variety of MH co-morbidities and social / contagion / cult grooming background to suck them in.

The sub-group "men who are trans" is pointless - we have men and we have all the very different types of men who say they are trans.

I don't think "anti-trans moral panic", and the analogy with gay, is a completely fair way of categorising concerns on this issue, for several reasons.

Yes, there will be some people who object on principle to the existence of gay people and the existence of trans people. In their case there is a parallel.

But the critical difference between gay and trans for a lot of parents is that gay is not irreversible and trans can be. These parents are not phobic. If their child is gay, that's fine. If they later realise they are not, that's just water under the bridge in the same way as having had straight relationships that didn't work out.
If they feel they are trans, and later realise they are not, it might just be water under the bridge but there is a strong possibility that they might clinch the matter with surgery before they realise it wasn't right for them. Parents worry about that, even if they are not "anti-trans". They also worry about the physical effects of hormones and surgery, even if their child's trans identity turns out to he stable.

And I think it's unwise to dismiss the idea of social contagion and assume that nobody will take the trans path unless it's innate to them. Social contagion isn't a myth. It's absolutely a thing. Human beings learn from each other, copy each other, mirror each other without even realising they're doing it. It's the driving force behind changes in language (the organic change that happens over time), behind fads and fashions (advertising can lead the horse to water but can't make it drink), and much else. It certainly operates within groups, and can include outbreaks of damaging behaviours, like cutting yourself, or hooliganism. Some of the people who do those things would have done them anyway. Some, left to themselves, would not.

To assume that gender identification would be exempt from this normal human behaviour trait is naive, especially if particular identities have social standing within the social groups that matter to you, and if your present identity carries stigma in your eyes or other people's.
A young woman who has internalised the idea that being identified as a girl degrades her, *and" has a peer group who admire and support people who come out as trans, and rank cis women as second grade oppressors, has a lot of reasons to conclude she is really a man.

Oh, it's you.

Well, quite 😂

Honestly I think no, as the truth is you cannot chge sex, trans women are men, trans men are women. I have never seen how any discussion can get over that tbh. Sorry.

So what are the sexes that you know about in addition to male or female?

Try using your words if you are able to

It never does get over that @Daysgo, hence the word salad, smears, insults, derailing and deflection which are features of these discussions.

Are you under the impression that this is a good look?

@Tandora I work at a secondary school. We have a (fairly small) number of pupils who identify as other than their birth sex (in either direction) and a member of staff who used to be "Mr X" and is now referred to as "Ms X".

The system we have (and I assume other schools have similar systems) is that there are boys toilets, girls toilets and some single cubicle toilets (some of these used to be staff toilets, some were initially designed for physically disabled pupils to use). Pupils who identify as other than their birth sex can either use the toilets for their birth sex or they may choose to use the single cubicles. The teacher uses one of the toilets for female staff which is a single cubicle, and by agreement does not use the others which have multiple cubicles (partly as several female members of staff who are Muslim said they needed to have a space that they could be guaranteed there would be no biological males).

Is this the sort of arrangement you would like to see more broadly in society, or would this not be acceptable to you as transwomen would be excluded from the ladies toilets/changing rooms?

If this would not be a situation you would support please could you suggest what would be a solution you could get behind?

Which was presumably to reinforce the feeling that TRAs are unhinged bullies. Well played sir.

What do you make of the fact that birth females who have transitioned to male may be excluded from both women's and men's spaces under the new EHRC guidance
As a female is a sex category the addition of ‘birth’ is completely unnecessary. One cannot become female at any other time in one’s life other than at conception. Similarly with male.
The reproductive process determines at conception what sex the foetus / baby / child / adult will be. It is unchangeable. One cannot ‘transition’ between the two.

@Tandora have you answered this? I find it interesting that you feel able to enter this space relatively recently (I haven't noticed your username before this year) and challenge the rules of engagement here so boldly. How will you feel if others don't agree with you?

Which is exactly why I didn't.....

Or a fetish.

Pro tip: if you're a prolific PBP, it might help to change your posting style every so often. If you use the exact same style, and can't help admitting that you're here to troll... well, that's very low energy. One might even say it's not respectful.

You've just described the whole stated raison d'etre and ethos of the Sex and Gender board. Bit meta, but okay. Whatever floats your boat.

A trans woman is a person who has some observable physical male characteristics but who recognises self as female.

In order to recognise oneself as female, one has to ascribe some meaning to the English word female. What meaning is that and how are we to explain it to a child who does not yet know?

Anyone else feel that one particular poster has become seriously creepy?

Yep. Reported…

You can wish as you please but women’s spaces and identity are not for you to dismantle.

You’re welcome to add what you want; extra identities, build third spaces.

But no. You cannot just dismantle other people’s things. You should have been taught this as a toddler.