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).

Removing penis and testicles doesn’t stop them being men.

I don't think anyone is saying this is appropriate, where are you getting that from?

Men can present how they want.

The idea that you can be 'born in the wrong body' is worth looking at, as it seems to be the motivation for a lot of the 'lovely trans people who feel they were born in the wrong body just want to get on with their lives'

First of all, it's obviously impossible - everybody is born into their own body, that goes without saying.
Can people be unhappy about their bodies? Of course - ask any teenager!
Can people be profoundly and dangerously unhappy about their bodies? - tragically, yes, ask any anorexic person.

Secondly, it has in the past been seen as a problem to be overcome, with the ideal outcome being a person who is at one with their body.

No parent tells a teenager - 'yes you're right, everybody is going to laugh at you because your wrists/nose/skull/eyebrows are a really weird shape.'

A person suffering from anorexia is not - except on malevolent websites - told that yes they are overweight and they must continue to limit their food intake.

Thirdly, a strong body positivity movement arose in the 2010s which called for acceptance of all sorts of body types, and being happy in your body, whatever its shape and size.

But in a complete reversal of body positivity, 'born in the wrong body' became a badge of honour and a rallying-cry for the trans movement.

A child so unhappy about their body that they actually think it is the wrong sex needs loving support to help them accept who they are, what sex they are, and how they can ignore gender stereotypes to grow up to be a non-gender-conforming woman or man, in the body they were born with.

Thanks to the trans movement, those children were instead encouraged in their body negativity, and offered as a solution the impossible idea of 'transitioning', changing their sex.
This may go so far as taking damaging medication, and possibly even surgical intervention on their perfectly healthy bodies.

All this to 'fix' the imaginary problem of being 'born in the wrong body'.
The problem is not the body, it is the feelings of negativity about the body.
Reinforcing that negativity by saying 'yes, poor marginalised transgender you, you were born in the wrong body!' is irresponsible and unhelpful.

And ultimately, the exact opposite of #bekind.

Within the confines of standard dress codes and what's normal in society.

There are times and places where it might be OK to push those confines, but the workplace, a benefit for a children's charity, etc etc., are not appropriate times and places.
A man pushing the boundaries of normal menswear in the workplace is one thing; a man dressing up as a parody of a woman is another.

The issue being that what a 'parody of a woman' is, is very subjective.

I don't think we have any grounds to prevent men dressing in regular feminine coded clothes if they want.

It's perfectly acceptable for women to dress in a more male coded way - so that has to apply across sexes I think.

But it should be in line with general dress codes. If it's not acceptable for a woman to wear fishnets and fuck me boots in the workplace, it's not okay for a man to either.

I agree that the term "trans" is unclear. I think the umbrella term muddies a bunch of different things and confuses rather than clarifies.

It can mean gender stereotypes, a fetish, discomfort with one's body or gender role, or many other things. For me, sometimes my internal body map is male. I don't know why, it's odd and I cognitively know that I still have a female body. But I've known others whose internal map is consistently different than their body, i.e., it is male while they are female or female while they are male. I think that would be difficult to live with and have a lot of empathy for them.

I think that's a big component for some trans people, though not all (most?) of them.

What is Somatognosia? The Brain’s Map of the Body - Biology Insights

That is an enormous caveat

TheKeatingFive
It's perfectly acceptable for women to dress in a more male coded way - so that has to apply across sexes I think.

I think that's a 'Discuss in 3,000 words or less' essay title, to be honest
The reasons why it is socially acceptable for women to dress in a male-coded way but not the opposite are complex, and include status - in a society where male-coded =high status, and female=low status, females crossing the code are referring to a high status which is socially harmless because they will never have the higher status of men.

Men crossing the dressing code have been seen as referring to a lower status, and therefore not socially acceptable, and associated with fetish or some kind of 'aberration'.

All of that should have been thrown out decades ago in a bonfire of the gender stereotypes, but I suggest that 'men dressing in women's clothes' as in female-coded clothes is still less socially acceptable than 'women dressing in men's clothes'.

I'm not saying that I agree with that, I'm just saying that there isn't a 1:1 equivalence, and men dressing female-coded clothes is still a bit... questionable.

If they are wearing female-coded clothes plus other things like wearing make-up, calling themselves by a female name, and using the women's toilets, the clothes take on a different significance.

But if they can do that, why can't they just go in the right rooms that time too? It can only be for validation via a sign on a door.

Meanwhile, the ladies runs the risk of masterbating men leaving their evidence in the changing cubicles (run across that myself more than once in 'changing villages')

Again, this 100% can be done. Just not under the word woman, or with female names and pronouns.

Because women are real people with our own needs and challenges, and we need our own social, cultural and political voice.

It is not OK for people with genuine needs but at heart different needs with a different root cause, whether this is ASD or something else, to use our reality as a social metaphor for whatever it is they are really feeling.

You would I am sure not expect people to be tolerant had your son adopted a racial persona as his metaphor/source of meaning, because you would recognise that while his motivation and belief in that identity may be entirely innocent and genuine, the experience of people who truly are that race is so unrelated to your son's conception of it that it is an insult to them and a racist act in itself for him to claim to be it.

Yet you seem to think women should accept his needs and accomodate his belittling insult, albeit unintentional, with accommodation and sympathy.

An unintentional insult, the first time at least, perhaps deserves education and explaining rather than immediate anger. But it should not be treated as acceptable.

Trans people have the right to present as they wish subject to the very few rules on dress and slightly more rules on public behaviour that we all have to adhere to.

What they do not have is the right not to told that other people find their appropriation of the opposite sex's reality as some sort of social costume morally ugly and offsensive.

It is not the sign on the door, it is the women in the space. That is why it was not enough for Dr Upton to use the female nurses changing room, he wanted Sandie Peggie to undress in front of him too.

Men can present how they want. No one should be discriminated against for presenting in a way that isn't typical for their sex.

Men who are wannabee ladeez shouldn't be abusing oestrogen to change their appearance any more than we allow a wannabee Mr Universe to abuse anabolic steroids. The health risks alone in terms of stroke & cardiovascular events should always prevent prescription of cross sex hormones.

Also Upton was in no danger in the mens changing room. Or is he saying his kale NHS colleagues were threatening? If so that's the bullying that needed addressing

Just like Henderson & the Darlington nurses (who I met at the London rally, by the way, & they were bloody lovely).

I always found it hard to believe that one could be born with a correct body map that was just wrong for ones body. Broken/flawed map yes, but accurate map of body parts one doesn't have? No. I mean just simplisticly, if the brain thought it had a penis when it actually has a short urethra, would one not be incontinent because the brain tries to fire non-existent nerves? And why always sex, rather than, say, a 6ft man with a 5ft body map?

And it turns out that what is super interesting is that ones body map is not built in, but controlled by ones external image of oneself

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_transfer_illusion

Which creates a fascinating chicken and egg question between starting to think of oneself as trans and the "wrong body map" experience.

Adding to the 3000 words, there is a difference between wearing clothes traditionally coded for the opposite sex because you like them and don't see why they should be coded by sex, wearing clothes traditionally coded for the opposite sex because you want to break gender barriers or shock, wearing clothes traditionally coded for the opposite sex because you get a thrill from the transgression, and wearing clothes traditionally coded for the opposite sex because you want to express that you see yourself as the opposite sex.

The first two are feminist and progressive, the second two are sexist and regressive.

I don’t know if you’ve been following the reverse ferret thread, @Diverze, but it does emphasise our point. Kezia Dugdale, the new chair of Stonewall, dared to talk about compromise & grey areas.

She’s now grovelling.

if the brain thought it had a penis when it actually has a short urethra, would one not be incontinent because the brain tries to fire non-existent nerves?

I don't think it necessarily would. Someone with phantom limb syndrome still feels pain in a limb that is no longer there. This seems similar to me: you feel like you have a body part that isn't there. It's also similar to how someone with anorexia genuinely believes they are fat.

Body image (one's internal view of one's body) is different than body schema (the sensorimotor representation of the body that integrates inputs from multiple sensory modalities, including vision, touch, proprioception, and vestibular signals and generally operates unconsciously). One can be disrupted while the other works well. A person with damage to their body schema might have trouble coordinating movements even though they can correctly describe their body, while someone with a distorted body image might move through space with no difficulty but perceive their body as a very different size or shape than it actually is.

Why would women advocate for males with a trans identity? Have women not got enough to deal with? Where are the trans males advocating for women? Why should women keep these males in mind when advocating for our rights? They’re big enough to do it themselves.

Obviouly the child should immediately and forever stop co-opting AB- reality and stay out of AB- spaces. Governments shall enact laws to protect AB- safety and dignity. 1000s of newspaper articles must be annually published decrying the evils of false AB- identity.