"Trans people have always been here!"

[GoldenBracelet]

God I'm tired of reading "Trans people have always been here!", like it's some kind of unarguable gotcha 🙄

Yes, there have always been men who think they are women.
No, they have never been women.

See also women who think they're men.

If you are relying on the "Integrity Project" for your opinions on the Cass review you may, in the interest of acknowledging bias, consider the thorough breakdown given to it by Jesse Singal.

https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/yales-integrity-project-is-spreading

The report you cite, like most research in the area, is trash.

@PriOn1 I don't want to quote you because it's a bit long, but that was an excellent balanced post and I agree with every word.

This sounds suspiciously like gender stereotypes.
Which many groups for many years have tried to battle against.

But what remains strange about this is that the transgender group (from my under standing of what you are posting) is that they are trying to pull away from one set of stereotypes (saying that they are wrong/don't fit) but are wholly buying into and forcing another set of stereotypes on everybody.

The only vaguely ‘transgender/transsexual’ people in historical record are the Hijra in South Asia. Some, but not all, have their male genitalia removed, and then dress and ‘live’ in a traditionally female style. There’s also the ‘lady boys’ from Cambodia/Thailand. The big difference between these groups and current TiMs is they live in third spaces, in their own communities and don’t demand to share female spaces.

The mechanisms by which unfounded theories and ideas - the Dutch tulip mania in the 17th century, the South Sea bubble in the 18th - take hold only become clear in retrospect.

Future social scientists will look at the mid-2020s and will find reasons why an idea which is demonstrably at odds with scientific fact - that some people are born in the wrong body, and that they can change sex - gained so much traction in certain societies that it exerted disproportionate influence over education, law, media, religion, medicine, etc.

Taking the UK as an example, it is difficult to explain rationally how a tiny percentage of the population - approx 250,000 people in a population of approx 69 million - could successfully make demands like obliging people to misuse language, to lose their single sex spaces, and demand special toilet facilities everywhere - for 0.03% of the population!

It's too soon to explain how the fact that some people [myself and many other posters on here included] have difficulty with the gender stereotypes that coincide with their biological sex has been turned into a noisy, sometimes violent movement for 'trans rights', which turn out not to be rights at all - because trans people have the same human rights as everyone else - but extra privileges, disproportionate to their number.

The internet and social media will probably be found to have played an important role.

I suggest that the anti-women nature of transgenderism - it co-opts women's identity by making 'womanness' something that anyone can have regardless of their sex, and thereby appropriates women's rights as well as identity - gave it extra fuel to power through societies, as a backlash to the achievements of the women's movement. Women were never going to be put back in the boxes we had escaped from, so transgenderism had a role in undermining - and sometimes ridiculing, as in drag - women as a distinct social group.

If the group 'woman' in fact contains anybody, man or woman, what is the meaning of women's rights, women only spaces, etc? They have no meaning.

I think that the transgender movement has been used as an instrument - there are others - to give men the means to attack women, sometimes literally, as in literally, as they have done for centuries, but this time under the guise of being liberal and progressive supporters of transgenderism.

The rocket-fuel that propelled such a tiny percentage of the population into such an inexplicable position of power and influence - while claiming to be 'the most marginalised'! - is running out, as evidenced by legal victories and shifts in public opinion.

To transpeople- their rights and no more.
To women - our rights and no less.

Absolutely. We've gone from "I'm really much happier if you treat me as a woman and I would appreciate it greatly if you would" to "I AM a woman, because I say so, and I demand that not only do you treat me as such, but you recognise its much harder to be a woman like me than a lucky woman like you, so my needs will trump yours".

Re: WI

If there were truly a group of men who were tolerated as honorary women, it says a lot about how women are conditioned to tolerate a lot from men.

What was going through the mind of the first man to put on his wifes/mothers/sisters dress and ask nicely to join in and promise he'll sit quietly at the back? Every woman in the room thought that was normal?

I think it was probably such a bizarre request that the women didnt know what to say, and waited from someone else to say and do something. And then no-one wanted to be the one who went against the group.

Then it became 'we'll ask him to leave when he does something wrong'. As he gets more involved the 'something wrong' standard is erroded, and suddenly he's leading talks about his journey to womanhood, having a leadership role and on the cover of WI magazines.

Did that outcome cross his mind when he popped on the dress and asked nicely to join?

I think so, every man who puts on womens clothes and then says hes not imposing, just want to sit at the back, has the aim about being the ultimate 'woman' and control every women. The 'journey' there is the thrill.

I dont believe trans is real, but i think lots of men want to control women and will use any means possible. Thats why trans is an umbrella term - men are using gender in a variety of ways to control and humiliate women.

Previously women didn't want to believe that of men they knew, couldnt express it, dont want to face the humiliation of the redefining of woman into an outfit, so pretended its deeper than cross dressing and he's not intending to harm them.

I think that the transgender movement has been used as an instrument - there are others - to give men the means to attack women, sometimes literally, as in literally, as they have done for centuries, but this time under the guise of being liberal and progressive supporters of transgenderism.

I agree that it isnt just the trans identifying man thats the problem, its the fact that it supported.

Even non progressive will say that they dont believe it, but Clive is a mate and should go into the womens changing rooms.

When I knew a man many years ago who 'had a sex change' as it was known, he had been advised that prior to starting medical interventions he must first spend a year 'living as a woman'. This required him to gather evidence to prove his desire was genuine. This basically involved adopting a female name and pronouns and engaging in as many female stereotypes and activities which are the preserve of women as he could. Joining the WI would have been an excellent example to prove he was sincere.
While I've no doubt much pleasure was had from drinking tea in a flowery dress and otherwise role playing tropes of women, I think its fair to acknowledge that these men were actually advised by care practitioners to do this, and their route to a 'sex change' required this sort of thing.

Hi everyone, I haven't had time to read all your great replies!

I guess what I was saying in my first post was, even if we meet them at their argument that "There have always been trans people", it's not a slam dunk because people thinking they can change sex does not = actually changing sex. Because that is impossible.

But, yes, generally I agree with those PPs (from skimming the thread) who point out that there haven't always been trans people, as they insist upon understand themselves to be today, in that they state they are literally women. Just a different type 🙄

(I also CBA to read the interrupteron's posts 🙄)

Yes. It all traces back to the first male people who went through treatment. I remember reading about one of these very early male transitioners who said clearly that his doctor (it was a male doctor because he mentioned his name) told him to use the female toilets etc from now on.

Because he said, his doctor told him that he was a woman now.

Of course, we know there are female doctors who say this too (Webberley, Dr Ada Cheung etc) but I think it is fair to say that this initial 'permission' was granted by male doctors with little thought to female people at all.

I just think it's really pointless as a phrase. But I suppose it sounds good to uncritical thinkers. What's it meant to prove? OK, you've always been here, but honestly...so what? What am I meant to do with that information? You're still a bloke and women still need their SSS. The End.

Exaclty. I just like to keep track of their pivots, as each one stops working they try another one. "We have always been here" seems to be the latest one.

Yes, it is. Gender discomfort, as it is now called, is predicated on social and cultural and experiential factors such as childhood trauma, same sex attraction etc.

Thats interesting. The person I knew described himself as having been born 'in the wrong body' and approaching his doctor to request a 'sex change' and was then advised of the 12 month trial period/evidence gathering before treatment could commence. This person didn't think he was a woman 'yet', but that he would be at the end of a process of treatment that culminated in removing his testicles and inverting his penis.
The idea that changing genitalia could result in (and was required to) 'change sex', which I think persists to an extent in mainstream thinking today, is interesting (true trans). As is the idea that a person was actually changing, rather than aligning with what they always really were. Both being quite different from the thinking of the current TRAs.

It would be unethical to provide medical care and surgery based on club membership, and how could any prove which toilets they use?

To get at diagnosis, the patient would have to demonstrate that its a persistent feeling and presentation, not a temp one. So name change. A therapist might ask how successful their 'transition' is, and are happy with the limitations. And an unethical one might suggest pushing boundaries, but that would never have been a conditionof treatment.

You are looking at something that happened over 30 years ago through todays lens.
The condition of treatment was to convince the practitioners that before embarking on this life changing irreversible journey, that the person was genuine in, and certain of, their wish to 'change sex'.
The recommended means to be certain was to trial life as that sex. Which absolutely included using women's facilities. Obviously it wasn't provable, but no less so than today's 'diagnosis' that rests on self reported feelings.
The idea this pushed boundaries wouldn't even have occurred as the impact on women of men using our facilities wasn't anything that was greatly considered. Certainly not by practitioners arranging 'sex changes' for men.

My country is a bit behind, and all that was still happening 13 years ago when I transitioned. The "official" medical teams - the ones people went to when they couldn't afford the surgeries through partially private means - demanded exactly that: "You first have to live one or two years as a woman, but we are not going to provide you with anything to help you pass."

The idea this pushed boundaries wouldn't even have occurred as the impact on women of men using our facilities wasn't anything that was greatly considered.

Indeed.

I have read descriptions from early transitioners saying that doctors/psychiatrists gave guidance on when and how to start using women’s spaces.

I also read an account, perhaps by Blanchard, but perhaps another early medic, saying that it was discussed, but that the men had mostly already been using women’s spaces.

We know, for example, from his own description, that Eddie Izzard invaded the women’s simply on the grounds that he felt uncomfortable in the men’s with women’s clothes on. Presumably for such men, women were irrelevant and all consideration was for themselves and perhaps their fellow men.

My guess is that there would have been a mixture. Some early transitioners would be completely self-centre, others less so. This might also be somewhat correlated with their reasons for it and their sexuality.

@timesublimelysilencesthewhys

“If there were truly a group of men who were tolerated as honorary women, it says a lot about how women are conditioned to tolerate a lot from men.”

This, of course, is a massive factor. I think though that you missed the other angle that transsexuals were also broadly tolerated because women felt sorry for them. Hayley from Coronation St presented a warm and gentle image of a poor soul, subject to bullying when discovered, rescued by a nice kind man. Doubtless women would have been keen to show their kindness credentials and that they were welcoming to those in a difficult position.

Absolutely, pity was a huge part. I can personally testify to feeling very sorry indeed for the man I knew. How awful for him to long so much to be what I was! How horrible it would be to have that operation! What a shame it was that despite all his efforts he did not and never would really look like a woman, and people would laugh and be unkind to him. My empathy cup was overflowing and I would bend over backwards to affirm him. (Though I didn't know that word for my OTT compliments on how nice his dress looked and my performative public references to him as a lady then.) All I knew was that this nice man was suffering because he wanted something I had and the least I could do was to share it with him.

And if you have a problem with this then you must wish me harm and/or be actively trying to kill me.

And, of course, you're a bigot 🙄

That too. Your polite tolerance and social courtesy isn't enough. You need to be all in with every single demand, every single claim we make. There is no compromise. Pick a side. Small wonder how many of the formerly tolerant have done just that. And what an own goal for the TRA thats been.

Obvs. IIRC that's box number one on the TRAs bingo card.

Thirty years ago was 1995, not 1950.

I'm just not buying the idea that in the 1990s NHS therapists would tell men to use the womens toilets and changing rooms in order to get a diagnosis and treatment. Its not provable, therefore cannot be used as part of the diagnosis and the risk to the therapist if something bad happened would be too high.

Its far more likely that these men would say anything to justify what they want to do, and saying its being sanctioned by a doctor sound as if its out of their control.

Also, how many of these men got anywhere near a therapist? Its probably a myth they've been told by other men.