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.

Your reply is utter word salad bollocks.
You are the one discouraging questions by trying to insinuate an absolute fact is somehow extremist. You are somone who is evasive and dishoinest even to yourself to serve your dogmatism which you have elevated well above critical thinking. You're not after a debate. You want control, hence your priortization of policing the thread over answers to difficult questions.
I was prepared to engage you on your rules, and did so. But this just proves to me I was wrong to assume good faith on your part.
I am firmly in the NO camp where you are concerned from now on.

NO NO NO and NO again.

You say being gender non conforming is not adhering to social expectations expected of your sex but you also say that gender is nothing to do with sex stereotypes.

What the difference between social expectations associated with sex and sex stereotypes

But it might not mean he's gender non conforming either, just that he's a teenage boy who likes to push boundaries and break rules because they're there, like many teenagers. Why are you putting him in a box?

Poor child then, poor man now.

Reminds me. He was castrated on his 16th birthday. Given that he might have been born at 11.59pm, and given he may have had the op at 1am, and given Thailand is 6 hours ahead of the UK, is is possible that he was castrated the day before he turned 16 (if his age were to counted in days and hours). Looking at the date on the calendar he was clearly a 16 year old (but far too young too consent)

Would you agree that perhaps you don't find it meaningful because you use "gender" instead of "sex" to define the difference between male and female?

(See my suggested definitions of sex and gender above for context)

But it is important Tandora.

Many women experience the type of things you advocate for as a denial of our sex and of the consequences of our sex. We see you advocating to ignore our perspectives as female people and undo the rights, protections and even language that we rely on.

As we are talking honestly and sharing our various perspectives, you need to understand that from the perspective of many women, for all this supposed acceptance of gender diversity, it just feels very much like the age old Patriarchal treatment of women: what do you need rights for? Why do you need poliics? We know better than you how you should feel or think, just do as you are told and fit in the boxes we give you.

I'm sure you are horrified to think of that. Your first reaction will no doubt be disbelief. But nevertheless I am telling you, this is true. This is how many women are experiencing your movement.

How can you tell the difference between a genuine transwoman and a fake transwoman who is using the trans ideaology as a way to get into spaces with vulnerable women to commit crime? They kinda look the same.

Please explain the pathway that an adult human female has to take in order to become a trans'woman'?

You cannot be or become a trans woman unless you were born as a male child.

I'm not sure about this either.
A person who is female and rejects gender identification entirely would fall under the trans umbrella due to being agender. Such a person may well feel comfortable calling herself a woman, because the dictionary definition of woman is 'adult female', and no other definitions have been put forward. So a woman with no gender identity could be described as a trans woman.

Hey, I'm often accused of not answering questions. There are a number of factors here:

1. there are dozens of questions directed at me and I simply don't have the capacity to answer all of them.

2. linked to the above, I do exercise some agency in choosing which questions I answer. I realise this frustrates people, but I think it's reasonable.

I answer those questions that I feel it would be most productive/ interesting to answer. I also try to answer questions where I think the poster is genuinely curious to hear the answer.

Some questions I find difficult to answer:

• because they are phrased in ways where I have to agree with some in-built assumptions in order to answer them (complex question fallacy).
• Other questions I find incoherent and so can't identify an easy way to respond to them.
• A third type of question is really just a statement/ opinion disguised as a question and I don't see the benefit in pretending it was a question.

Not saying that any of these apply to your question - I'm not sure what your question was as I get so many.

I was being tongue in cheek.

I've already said it wouldn't be legal!

I don't think it would work at all. But I do think it would be interesting to see what would happen, as I doubt there would be much support of it from any side.

Women would opt out and men who identify as trans would still want to be in the women's spaces. 🤷 It would therefore be a useful demonstration of the actual motivations of this group.

You are somone who is evasive and dishoinest

This is not a thread for personal accusations and attacks.

Since no answer was forthcoming to my previous questions on the other thread - which were perfectly civil unless you believe that not conforming to certain beliefs and according them special obeisance is uncivil and unacceptable as the OP does - I do not see a point to this thread. This would seem to be a thread the OP wishes to control on terms of engagement, requiring posters to conform to their prescribed definitions and beliefs, but still boils down to a belief in no spaces permitted to women, no independent perceptions permitted to women as to who and is not a man (the man will tell them what to think and perceive) and no equality of men and women.

Although a lot of discussion of how binary sex isn't a thing.

I am not willing to participate in this exercise of subordination to a political belief under the twisted word 'respect' (it isn't respectful), either here or in women's spaces, and would leave it alone save that I feel it's important no one runs away with the idea that this is how 'respectful dialogue' looks and what 'middle ground' looks like. Clue: I can guarantee at still under 200 posts, it will still end in women who cannot use mixed sex spaces being excluded and they needn't expect any 'respect', it will not ever be a mutual thing.

Describing someone as "gender non-conforming" is not intended to put someone in a box - it doesn't assume anything about who that kid is, why they are engaging in that behaviour or how long it will last.

It's simply a description of behaviour in the same way that:

"likes to push boundaries"
"breaks the rules"

is a description of behaviour.

@Tandora are you campaigning to change the law as clarified by the SC ruling?

Why do you think this isn't a meaningful statement? Is it because you attribute different meanings to words than I do? Or is there another way to read this that I am missing? To me, it is axiomatic that in order to be a trans woman, you have to first be a man. Otherwise you are "just" a woman.

I asked similar. What does the trans bit mean? I don’t understand

If you think that asking posters to be respectful and not engage in bullying/ personal attacks is "controlling [the] terms of engagement" I would politely request that you take your posting elsewhere.

Oh come on, trans people are the most gender conforming people in existence! They’re still adhering to stereotypes- they’ve just chosen to perform the ones commonly associated with the opposite sex rather than their own sex.

You won't get a reply to this because it requires a belief that 'men' and 'women' - both referring to 'people of either sex' - are in some way differentiated.

I keep asking what Tandora thinks women have in common with 'transwomen' that they don't have in common with other men and I haven't got an answer

I would consider all trans people to be gender nonconforming because their bodies/identities do not fit conventional social understandings of sex/ gender.

So a woman wearing a dress is gender non-conforming? What?!

10/10!

I feel you!

I've persevered with my polite, numbered questions across 3 threads in 4 repeat posts now.

With such thorough replies from Tandora to a range of other posts, and the emphatic focus on courtesy, I'd have expected at least one line of acknowledgement of my efforts by now - "Sorry I've not got to you, Catiette - way too many other interesting posts." This, I would totally understand (Tandora's totally besieged!)

But its complete absence across such a length of time, and in this context, does make it a bit hard to uphold the standards of the opening post yourself by presuming good intent, and instead kind of force the conclusion that other posters quicker than me have drawn: the most difficult questions are being studiously avoided.

I guess I'll take what I can by seeing this, at least, as a compliment! 😁

Yeah. I can't see anything productive coming from a debate where words can mean whatever you want and to use actual definitions is 'extremism'.