How to respond he/she?

[Manchesteruser]

Out with friends. One friend's son has a TIM friend. Obviously male but fake boobs and wearing a dress, about 25. Everyone refers to him 'as she'. I asked one, 'why do you refer to him as 'her/she' rather than 'he' and was told that that was what he prefers.

How would you have responded?

Ugh the underlying humiliation fetish is just disgusting isn't it?

He enjoys the validation. Very odd.

This is all they think of women - we're just sex objects to them.

They whole thing is so gross, dehumanising to women and fetish fuelled - how anyone supports this as 'progress' I'll never understand.

So if they are not changing their sex, they don’t need to use the pronouns relating to the opposite sex or to use the opposite single sex provision do they.

I don't really understand why so many trans identified males think they pass.

If I hear footsteps behind me when I'm walking down the street, I can usually tell whether they belong to a male or female without even having to look. I think a lot of women can do this.

Using my eyes makes it even easier!

To quote Dennis

"because we have eyes"

Well delusion. But apart from that it has become clear to me that women are much better at recognising sex than men. I guess that stacks up from an evolution pov

Using filters a lot has been shown to alter your self image, you essentially begin to fall for the lie.

I guess we understand it from the pov of thinking we are uglier than we are and why people feel the need for plastic surgery etc.

I hadn't considered it from the reverse.

I guess we should be banning mirrors as they are transphobic.

Its just like gay people. There's nothing physically wrong with them but they can develop mental health problems as a result of not conforming to the norm or not being accepted.

it's nothing like gay people.

Trans people seek a diagnosis of gender dysphoria so that they can access medication like puberty blockers and opposite sex hormones and/or surgery to make them resemble the opposite sex. Gay people don't do anything similar to this.

Not all trans people have gender dysphoria as their non alignment doesn't give them psychological distress or significant psychological distress that rises to the level of requiring medical help.

So if they don't have gender dysphoria and don't have any medical treatment doesn't this just make them crossdressers or gender non-conforming people?

A more closer psychological/behavioural/ cultural identification/association with the opposite sex they were born.

What does this mean? Why does it matter?

Not all trans people have gender dysphoria as their non alignment doesn't give them psychological distress or significant psychological distress that rises to the level of requiring medical help.

So if they don't have gender dysphoria and don't have any medical treatment doesn't this just make them crossdressers or gender non-conforming people?

Fuck only knows. You can get a GRC and NHS surgery following a diagnosis of "gender incongruence". Doesn't have to be "dysphoria".

I think "incongruence" means you don't have to experience much distress from the body you already have, you just believe that you would be happier as the other sex and that having boobs / removing boobs or attaching a non-functioning penis contructed from arm or leg tissue or removing your penis or having a neo-vagina constructed... would improve your life.

But maybe someone with a better grip on the diagnostic criteria can put me right?

And while ROGD might not be a "proven" beyond all reasonable doubt theory (and how many psychological theories are that well proven?) and there may be better explanations for some individuals, social contagion is still a better evidenced theory for the rapid spread amongst teenage girls than the alternatives.

You can get a GRC and NHS surgery following a diagnosis of "gender incongruence". Doesn't have to be "dysphoria".

This is incorrect. You need a diagnosis of gender dysphoria confirmed by a specialist before you can get a GRC. Mere gender incongruence is not enough as gender dysphoria is written into the legislation.

Ah, thanks for the clarification. I had heard of someone seeking a GRC that a specialist said they had "incongruence" but promised to write a support letter. Maybe the specialist treats the two as equivalent and used the legal wording "dysphoria" when it came to writing the letter.

There must surely be TRAs doing adult gender in the NHS. And if what I heard is true then I can see how one thing leads to another.... you have incongruence, I'll bend the rules a bit and say you have dysphoria so you can get a GRC.... then a few years down the line there you are on the waiting list for surgery, must be what you really want because you have a GRC.... and all that time no-one has wondered whether there could be a less dangerous way to mitigate the incongruence.

Perhaps I am too cynical or perhaps adult gender transition will become another medical scandal.

But anyway, the idea that "trans people" don't all have "dysphoria" seems to make the whole transition business - social, medical or legal - thoroughly pointless. If it's not that big a deal then why all the effort?

Cis gender

Is this some new nonsense that you have invented?

The constant use of cis is really getting on my nerves. It's not needed
Extra annoyance points for the use of 'Cis gender'
And what's this 'women engaging in AGP? Not possible is it?

One person, whose voice deserves to be heard. Because all detrans people.deserve love, care and support.

As do all the trans people whoee testimony you've chosen to ignore.

In that case, since everyone deserves to be heard, can we revisit to what level you have been educated in propaganda because you went very quiet after that part of the conversation.

You said we should educate ourselves on propaganda. My degree included studying political propaganda. I have observed that the problem here is with TRAs to a fairly unparalleled extent.

The whole idea you can change sex is a form of 'Big Lie' propaganda. You can't. Unfortunately.

The unsubstantiated claims of 'if you don't do this, you'll damage the mental health of transpeople and make them kill themselves' (Appeal to Fear propaganda)

If you don't go along with it, you are on the wrong side of history (Bandwagon propaganda)

TWAW (thought terminating cliche and Ad nauseam techniques)

You either a trans ally or a far right supporter (Black-and-white fallacy / guilt by association)

Don't get me started on the cognitive dissonance and cherry picking where transpeople are absolutely the same sex as they claim until they want to claim their trans status...

The level of disinformation we've had to wade through and have successfully disproven is special.

Exaggeration or hyperbole (genocide anyone?)

Flag waving (think this one is fairly self explanatory. We dont see many women's rights flags on public buildings)

Framing - JKR Rowling is anti-trans rather than pro-wonens rights thank you BBC.

Gaslighting. There's entire books on this one. No men are still unable to ever become women or be female.

I could go on about gish-gallop, milieu control, oversimplification etc etc.

And whilst yes, there has been the use of some propaganda in response to this shite from the GC side it has not been on anywhere near the same scale and it doesn't rely on propaganda to hold the entire façade up. Why?

Because ultimately the truth remains that you can't change sex, no matter how much you want or how much you do.

So yes, would you care to state your level of education in this area since we have so far had tumbleweeds on this matter. Id like to discuss this point further.

You can keep telling yourself that being 'trans' is a fixed state of being all you want but all the evidence points to it being a mental disorder and social contagion which has had an especially dramatic affect on girls over the last 15 years. In the 80s - which you remember - there was no-one at your school who was trans. There were goths and other youth subcultures but no-one was giving the kids hormone blockers because of the ideas they had in their rapidly changing brains. I'm glad you are supportive of your child who clearly has issues around their birth sex but please have an off-ramp and a way they can change their mind. Because detransitioners exist and many girls end up regretting the hormonal and surgical changes they made to their bodies while believing they couldn't possibly live as a woman.

This is a great post. I'd love to hear @TransParentlyAnnoyedresponse to it.

At the heart of this issue is this. There are gender non confirming children. There are also a much smaller number who are genuinely uncomfortable with their sex organs (ie dismorphia). These children all deserve love and support to become comfortable in their bodies and live their their lives to the full.

The big mistake was the idea that these children are somehow the opposite sex and that it's possible to change sex or 'live as' another sex and these problems would go away.

This is an egregious lie, started by a small coterie of people who know exactly what are doing and spread by many more who don't have a clue. It is wrong and deeply damaging, both for the children affected and society as a whole.

We need to go back to supporting these children through their distress while remaining firm that their sex can never change and sex specific boundaries remain intact.

I’m glad you’re hearing detransitioners- are you also listening though? Are you understanding what they are saying about the pressures they were under, and the ease and speed with which some of them were progressed onto medical pathways without sufficient counselling and therapy?

If TRAs were anything close to honest, the very first thing they would tell anyone who wonders whether they might be trans is, "You do realise you can't change sex, right? You can make modifications to your body - some superficial, some enormous - but you will always be the sex you were born."

As long as they don't do that, they can't claim to have the well-being (physical as well as mental/emotional) of trans people in mind.

Absolutely. This is fundamental

You either a trans ally or a far right supporter (Black-and-white fallacy / guilt by association)

To be a I've seen a lot of that type of thinking on here too. You are either gender critical or you are a handmaiden / too thick to understand the issue.