The liminality of sex perception, sex-based spaces and bodily autonomy.

[polypostwonder]

This thread continues a discussion between BonfireLady (sorry, I wanted to tag you but the system says your username doesn't currently exist) and I on biological sex vs perceived/observed sex in https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/5530455-us-to-open-worlds-first-childrens-detransition-clinic-texas-hospital-to-offer-free-services-reversing-the-effects-of-gender-affirming-treatments?page=10&reply=152406258

She has requested I answer the following two questions:

1. would you consider that a viable way forward is for you to self-exclude from women's spaces and instead either advocate for third spaces for anyone to use (e.g. unisex facilities in addition to single-sex) or (probably your least preferred) use the men's?
2. would you support a restriction on anyone under 18 (or 25?) making permanent changes to their body, to match it with their perception of their "gender"? Similar to other restrictions on permanent body changes.

I believe I have previously answered them both. My answers today are superficially the same, but I have better thought out my answers (maybe?). To do this though, I need to share some assumptions.

In the previous thread, I believe there was somewhat of an agreement on the following statements:

1. People can identify a man when dressed in clothes 'traditionally associated' with women. Clothes are superficial to sex.
2. People look at other people and perceive their sex. People are not identifying the gametes/sry/chromosomes/other unobservable immutable biologic factor inside another person.
3. Assumptions about sex are made based on a person’s sex characteristics amongst other observable cues.
4. Pretty much every person in the whole world "exists within the expectations of sex categories". Very rarely it's unclear.
5. If a person exists within the expectations of sex categories, then socially they are treated as that sex whether they wish to be or not.

Building on those statements and previous discussion, some additional thoughts:

1. ‘Biological sex’ is defined by a person’s gametes/chromosomes/sry/other unobservable immutable biologic factor. This cannot be changed.
2. ’Observable sex’ is based upon the perception of sex characteristics rather than known biological sex and influences the placement and treatment of people in social sex categories. Perception is not under control of the observed, nor is it a demand of others.
3. Observable sex can be heavily influenced by biological sex and sex-based function. But sex-based function is not a requirement for the perception of sex.
4. Women’s rights are a cultural accommodation to rebalance access to society and ensure health, fair treatment, safety and/or dignity. Not all women require or access every right, but these rights are a vital benefit to women as a class.
5. Users of a culturally defined space for members of one sex may feel comfort, privacy or protection through separation from non-users. But all users share an equal right to feel comfort, privacy or protection.
6. Misogyny is not biologically based. It is a prejudice directed at women’s observable sex. Sexism can be biologically directed, but it can also be directed at members of an observable sex.
7. Sex realists believe every person should live and be treated by society according to their biological sex, no exceptions.
8. Trans people have a wide range of beliefs and goals. They do not share a single motivation.
9. Better quality research should be done with trans people of all ages.

I think BonfireLady is correct in saying each of us sees the other's "belief" as non-sensical and our own as position as factual. I'm hoping we can discuss this from a somewhat sensical space.

It's certainly marginalising and belittling of men, not to mention factually wrong.

Whether it's specifically misandry rather depends on how one defines misandry.

Misandry is much more slippery than misogyny because misogyny is in effect an extreme expression of common, indeed at times openly accepted, cultural beliefs about women that have been codified into the cultures of patriachal society. So, for a man to impose a definiation of ourselves on to women is something operating within that power structure and very often also within those cultural beliefs about who/what women are in our minds as well as our bodies.

Whereas misandry plays against the expected power structures and cultiral tropes and is therefore manifests in much more personal and, I would say, disordered ways.

But really, I think this is something men should be taking the lead on. Do you think it's misandry? And either way, why do you think that?

I am not poly. I don't know any poly people that I know of. I did not expereince any thoughts that 'poly' would be interpreted to represent sexuality on mumsnet.

Your original birth certificate.

In that case I find it a strange choice.

My original birth certificate was altered in a different country prior to modern trans acceptance laws

I am a woman in law and culture

In law you are a biological male and for the purposes of the Equality legislation you remain a man.

Your insistence that your own ability to break the law without being noticed means that the law is wrong and that all female identified trans people should be allowed in women's spaces shows a startling lack of care for many of the people you claim to be one of.

But if you insist that you are a woman then I would say to you the same as I would say to any woman.

Your own lack of concern about males being in female spaces does not entitle you to make a decision on behalf of other women.

You were still born male. And you know it. Which means you’re not entitled to go into women’s single sex spaces in the uk.

Stealthing is illegal.

if both 'man' and woman' are expanding circles of all who are included, then there must be some double-counting.

@FlirtsWithRhinos But really, I think this is something men should be taking the lead on. Do you think it's misandry? And either way, why do you think that?

Firstly, I acknowledge the context of power dynamic on the relationship between misogyny and misandry. I would say it is generically different at the cultural level, but in so far as trans men and trans women are involved, I would say it is mostly identical. Gender critical people will disagree.

I also see how you would understand 'expanding' to mean inclusion of new groups. I was envisioning increasing populations rather than a wholesale relabeling and subsuming of additional subgroups. I also believe there can be mobility between groups obviously.

A prostate check will sort that one out for you and since 1 in 8 white men and 1 in 4 black men get out you'd be an idiot not to get tested.

And I hope you don't plan to contest any elite level sport as there's one for that too.

How are you accessing hormones if you aren't recorded anywhere as trans?

Yes, it's misandry and homophobia to boot. If we adopted your definition in law, men, particularly gay men, would be deprived of a lot of important rights, relating to positive action, freedom from discrimination, personal dignity, and freedom of association. Sure, women, particularly lesbians, are the worst affected, but are not the only ones. Religious minorities of both sexes are also affected, so we can add bigotry against them too.

My prostate has been pickled in oestrogen for longer than my adult life. No one is concerned about it. Trans women who begin transition and HRT in adulthood are within a sliding scale of male-typical prostate monitoring.

I'm as likely to compete in elite sport as any almost-retired 5'4" size 6 woman.

Hypogonadism.

You have a prostate, pickled or not. You are a man. Your doctor knows you are a trans-identified male. That is why you are being treated for 'hypogonadism'.

I do not take your identity. You have not been removed from 'women.'

I agree you do not take our identity for yourself, because your understanding of what a woman is is something completely different to how we experience ourselves. What you identify as is not what we are and you cannot change that, cannot in reality ever assume that identity, because achieving the actual thing that we are is physically closed off from you forever.

However, in labelling this thing you do identify as "woman" and making that word mean what you are rather than what we are, you nevertheless are taking our identity as women away from us because you are destroying it as meaningful for us.

You leave us the choice of accepting the name "woman" and being defined on your terms not our own, as you see us not as we see ourselves, or giving up the name "woman" altogther. Either way, we lose our own existence as women because of your actions in appropriating our name to label your own feelings.

To give an analogy, if "Irish" suddenly become divorced from having citizenship of or being decended from the people of Ireland and instead became a general term for liking Guinness, fiddle music and suffering at the hands of the colonial British, I think the orginal Irish people would be rightly pissed off about that.

Being told they "aren't having anything taken from them" because they can still call themselves "Irish" in an expanded circle of Guiness-drinking fiddle-fancying former colonies is justing adding insult to injury even if hitherto they actually felt quite a lot of kinship with those people due to their shared expereince of British colonisation, because recognising you have something in common with someone is not at all the same thing as being told you are not allowed to be different to them, and finding that to speak about differences that you know exist and know matter becomes forbidden.

Interesting. So, if you were asked to prove your birth sex, could you do it? I appreciate you wouldn't want to, but could you? Or would you use your falsified documents to 'prove' you were really born female? I do hope not.

You absolutely nail it every time @FlirtsWithRhinos

Thank you 🙏

There are no documents in any country that record my birth as a sex other than female.

I don't disgaree with any of this other than using the words "men" and "women" to label your "expanding groups".

I really do not see the utility of this. It is not like body sex ceases to exist and have consequences, nor can the historic expereinces and social constraints atatched to body sex somehow never have happened. So the idea that we no longer need the words that pertain to body sex, that they are floating around like unassigned pointers ready to be reapplied to something else just makes no sense to me at all.

Seems far more sensible and rational to give these new groups that you want social recognition for their own names and identities entirely separate from those that have historically meant and for most people still do mean body sex.

Thank you. That’s it exactly.

But you know you were born a male.

I know that I'm a woman.

So if you as a male is a woman, what is the word for an adult human female? It can’t be woman as that’s now a word for males.

You are not of the sex class of woman.

We've been discussing this on one of the EHRC threads. If, in the UK, access to women-only services, inclusion on women's shortlists, and membership of women-only club, become contingent on proof of sex, would you gracefully demur or would you put yourself forward anyway, using your falsified documentation?