Aren't transpeople still a tiny minority?

[Waheymum]

Over about fifteen years, I've noticed growing awareness and concern about transpeople. This may be my age and simply a case of when people I knew started to transition.
What I'm wondering is whether there are statistics further to the last census on how many people are transitioning or have transitioned. This is because I'm pretty sure that men are still a bigger threat to women's safety than transgender (m-f) women are. I'm not saying that no transwoman poses a risk to women, I'm querying whether, statistically, I'm better off crossing the road to avoid a cisgender man or a transgender woman (if, hypothetically, one were on each side of the road).

Because I have been on these boards for years and it is always used as a comparator, don't be disingenuous.

Just checked. The non affirmation of anorexia enables 46 percent to recover fully, 33 percent to get better than they were, 20 percent remain fully anorexic and between 4-10 percent die. So less than half of anorexics make a full recovery from their condition.

Which is better than affirming anorexia would achieve.

There are still people telling me over and over that my young person just needs to deal with reality and stop asking women to budge up.

They aren't yet acknowledging that trans people do have a right to present as they wish and to move through life with dignity.

They are saying that DC like mine must stay out of women's spaces (fair enough) and must use men's spaces (not fair enough). All I am trying to do is hold the line that some trans people, especially the young adults, are vulnerable and that just saying you are all perverts and fetishists who need to stay out of women's spaces and pull yourselves together is an unhelpful oversimplification of a complex problem. More compassion from both sides, more actual listening to each other, would enable this to move forward. I fully accept that some trans people will not be happy with 3rd spaces but I think it's mentally unhealthy not to admit to oneself that one is trans and being trans is ok. I think that mental shift would happen once 3rd spaces are provided, and those who really are just doing it for kicks and to wank in the ladies'...well, they won't be getting those thrills any more.

I really do feel that everyone /is/ taking your kid and similar into account. At the highest level the SC judgement said that people uncomfortable being in spaces with their own sex should not be left with nowhere to go. Good practice is to have M, F and a small number of gender neutral spaces for anyone uncomfortable with their own sex for whatever reason.

It's like a religion. We have to respect people's right to hold the beliefs they do, but we don't have to join in ourselves and it's not disrespectful not to do so. That includes pronouns.

No we don't affirm, because anorexia will lead to death if unchecked.

This is very much the standard TRA response nowadays, developed because the question is very awkward for them

A fear this pervasive is a mental illness

I don't care if a man wants to wear a dress/skirt, because that is really a cultural. At different times/ places men have worn dress type clothing. Adults can do what they want to their own bodies. I don't like tattoos for example, but others can ink their body because it does not affect me.
Where I draw the line is TWAW stuff, so having to pretend that a thought makes them female and I have to roll over and oblige them in their wishes. And that is how we have got to all the stupidity of men being allowed into women's spaces.

@Diverze You are just repeating yourself now. You basically want every post aimed at the fetishists and misogynists to have a caveat of 'does not apply to men like Diverze's son'. That is not going to happen. You can hold the caveat in your head if it helps you to negotiate this space more easily.
We are advocating for young people through our actions against affirming schools and affirming medicine, so obviously we recognise there are innocent, vulnerable children (some now adults) caught up in this.
As PP have repeatedly said, many of us did/do advocate for third/fourth spaces. Those that don't have good reasons relating to expense, encroachment on spaces for people with physical disabilities and the dangers of toilets that are fully enclosed rooms.
You are just rolling out another version of #BeKind. Stop asking us to advocate for men. Get the autism charities on to it.

More compassion from both sides, more actual listening to each other, would enable this to move forward. I fully accept that some trans people will not be happy with 3rd spaces but I think it's mentally unhealthy not to admit to oneself that one is trans and being trans is ok. I think that mental shift would happen once 3rd spaces are provided, and those who really are just doing it for kicks and to wank in the ladies'...well, they won't be getting those thrills any more.

So which trans organisations are you going to have this conversation with?

No analogy is perfect. Gender dysphoria and anorexia are similar in that sufferers of both believe something about themselves that isn’t true. Anorexics shouldn’t have the belief that they are fat affirmed, not only because is it false, but it might lead to them starving to death. People who believe they are of the opposite sex shouldn’t have that belief affirmed, not only because it is false and materially impossible, but because it might lead them to harmful medical interventions which may not ultimately help, or may even make things worse (the Finnish study suggests this might be the case).
People with anorexia may or may not recover; some will have issues all their lives, but manage them in ways such as controlling food intake. The same for people with gender issues; they may manage them by the way they present.
Both conditions are likely to impact those around the sufferers adversely, but only one at present is widely celebrated and supported and impacts wider society, especially compromising the rights of women. The puzzle is why it has gained such traction, drawing many people into a faith-based belief system which makes little sense.
Analogies are useful tools to help us understand things, but they shouldn’t be pushed beyond usefulness. Despite similarities, anorexia and gender dysphoria are different conditions whose origins are largely unclear, though they both seem to exist within a pattern of similar related co-morbidities.

I think it's mentally unhealthy not to admit to oneself that one is trans and being trans is ok

Hmm. This rests on the idea that 'trans' is an identifiable, verifiable, unfalsifiable state. Which some people believe, and some don't.

@Diverze Just out of interest, does your son plan to fully transition? Does he want to go down the path of having surgery?

I do think it’s striking that so many people feel confident enough to lecture us about being kind but you never see the equivalent on the trans forums. Or am I missing that?

Yes, because it is a shitty and insidious condition, very complex to treat, and obviously the consequences of not eating are eventually fatal.

I am not sure what you are trying to say? Affirming the anorexia sufferers distorted relationship with food and their body will somehow work out better????

Do you have any experience of supporting someone through this illness? I would suggest you know fuck all about the reality if you are suggesting that affirming wrong psychological beliefs is the best way to treat mental illness.

Transition is impossible. He will always be a man regardless of how many drugs or extreme cosmetic surgeries he has.

They get as far as Be K, and then the splintery rolling pin comes down.

They aren't yet acknowledging that trans people do have a right to present as they wish and to move through life with dignity.

Why do they have ‘a right to present as they wish’ when that wish is to dress in fetish-wear or parody of womanhood? And it is not ‘moving through life with dignity’ to demand everyone around you affirms your delusion, take part in your fetish or trample the rights and boundaries of the opposite sex.

What I am trying to say is that in complex conditions where a person has beliefs about themself that are not in line with objective reality it's not as simple as where many PPS have hinted I should "stop pandering to him and he'll get over it". Because in anorexia, so often used as a comparison as a delusion that is not routinely affirmed, where people may have to be hospitalised for months, tube fed, etc, medically and psychologically aggressive non affirmation still doesn't solve the problem completely for more than half. And it's also closely linked with autism btw.

I really do feel like we are going round in circles here and I feel like I am just saying the same thing over and over so I am bowing out, noting that the poster above this post continues to portray trans women as fetishists parading round. So I am wasting my breath with some people who refuse to comprehend that trans people are just people. Some are horrible, some are not.

To the PP who asked about medical transition - that's a private matter and I won't be answering. Thank you!

To the PP who asked about medical transition - that's a private matter and I won't be answering. Thank you!

I think that you did say upthread that he was on the list for hormones

Whereas starving to death does solve the problem?

@Diverze
"but I think it's mentally unhealthy not to admit to oneself that one is trans and being trans is ok."

May I please ask what your definition is of 'is trans'?

Do you mean wider societal issues have caused the person to form a strong and unshakeable belief? What belief? (I'm trying not to assume or put words into your mouth)

Do you mean someone who was always going to grow up to believe they were trans regardless of outside factors? Again not sure what trans means to you?

You have indicated that your child's school has been massively instrumental in your child being trans. But from what I have quoted, it sounds like you don't think it would be healthy for your child to examine where their understanding of themself came from in any wider context because they are simply trans?

I mean, what IS being trans at its heart?

For me, it's just gender non conformity, which we were becoming a lot more open to before the concept of 'being trans' disrupted it completely.

No human can change their sex. But there is no 'right' way to be male or female. That's the sensible, healthy message in my eyes.

Trans is the exact opposite of gender-nonconformity. It is extreme gender conformity - and imposing this gender conformity on others. It defines men and women by conformity to sexist regressive and oppressive gender constructs.

It's correct that gender ideology has been pushed in schools, by the media, in adult education and the government.

Its a very powerful movement. But at no point did the movement say 'and what we need is to acknowledge gender nonconformity and build third spaces'.

That's something that people outside of the belief system see as a compromise. Those who have trans identifying friends and relatives often think its feminism thats stopping this happening and should do something about it.

It isnt, the trans movement don't want it, so the government didn't legislate for it.

Your son doesn't really want a third space. He wants the woman's space because if transition is real to him, a half arsed compromise will never be enough.

You want what's best for your son, but you are asking other women to spend time and energy providing it for you. If a third space is what you want, you fight for it.

Absolutely.
I had this convo with one of my DC, who thinks I'm a mean old terf. I had to explain that we'd already offered third spaces as a possible solution and been shouted down.

After the behaviour of the trans lobby, and the time and money I've put in to pushing for the retention of women's rights, and the resentment I feel about the waste of that when we could have been making world better for women rather than trying to hang on to what we have already fought for, and the utter fury I feel about all those young bodies forever damaged by hormones and surgery because of this acceptable delusion that you can change sex, well, I'm not helping them.

They did their utmost, in the most aggressive and spiteful ways, to make their problem our problem, and they're still doing it. Not all trans people, obviously, but the influential ones. The more moderate ones (with one or two exceptions) haven't had the insight or the guts to stand up to the bully-boys (and they are almost without exception male) so I find it very hard to dredge up any sympathy. Yes, I know autistic teens and YAs are wildly over-represented, but my concern is with women's rights. Once upon a time, I'd probably have helped the autistic ones find a voice, but not any more. I'm done, and have been for some time. Stonewall can fucking do it. They're a campaigning organisation. I'm not.

I would do what I could to help detransitioners, especially the female ones, who I feel have been sold a pup, but the trans community as a group has been selfish, greedy and extremely unpleasant. The goodwill, the 'let's find a way' attitude that I once had, has not evaporated - it's been burned off by their aggression.

You made your bed, so you can damn well lie in it. Don't expect women to 'be kind' - yet again.