Transgender is it just me that is totally perplexed?

[MochaSoul]

I only use it to mean 'not trans'

"You" only use it to mean "not trans" but the term itself does posit a gender identity
'Cisgender' has been added to the Oxford English Dictionary

The term is defined as 'designating a person whose sense of personal identity corresponds to the sex and gender assigned to him or her at birth'

 

[bimble]

It's useful if you need an antonym to 'trans' (there's a bit of organic chemistry in my academic background so it feels natural), but I think aside from on Urban the only times I've used it was to explain what it meant to someone when they had heard or read it somewhere.

I mostly see it as part of the list 'white het ..' etc used to mark your position on the old intersectional wheel of privilidge / oppression, so as to say that being cis is an advantage structurally in a similar way to being white or straight or a man.

 

[MochaSoul]

It's taken me ages to get even a toe hold on this one. Ploughing through the ID politics thread is too daunting task for a lazy man even whiling away the hours till home time from work!

I just find it intimidating. I don't feel I have read enough or developed sufficient debating skills to get in there even if I have been slowly reading it.

 

[8ball]

"You" only use it to mean "not trans" but the term itself does posit a gender identity
'Cisgender' has been added to the Oxford English Dictionary

Yes, I think we can agree on the problems with that. I don't have a problem with it meaning 'not-trans' which was actually the original intention from what I can tell, but the usage given there can easily lead to reinforcing simplistic gender expectations.

I don't know why these problems aren't more generally flagged up by institutions like the OED who are presumably trying to be 'progressive', but I can also see why they will have problems coming up with a concise definition that doesn't define something in reference to its negative (which would also cause issues).

 

[MochaSoul]

I mostly see it as part of the list 'white het ..' etc used to mark your position on the old intersectional wheel of privilidge / oppression, so as to say that being cis is an advantage structurally in a similar way to being white or straight or a man.

Except its used against women and complete strangers too. My first run into the term was to be accused of "showing my cis privilege" because I dared to express not taking kindly to having the thread (about race) derailed a second time with questions about transgender issues.

 

[MochaSoul]

Yes, I think we can agree on the problems with that. I don't have a problem with it meaning 'not-trans' which was actually the original intention from what I can tell, but the usage given there can easily lead to reinforcing simplistic gender expectations.

I don't know why these problems aren't more generally flagged up by institutions like the OED who are presumably trying to be 'progressive', but I can also see why they will have problems coming up with a concise definition that doesn't define something in reference to its negative (which would also cause issues).

The OED is meant to be merely descriptive of people's usage of words. It's done that and nothing more should be demanded of it. I have a problem with people ascribing me with a term ideologically applied to me in total disregard of my experience or even my own word that I have no such thing as a gender identity by people who claim their own words to be final on the matter.

 

[8ball]

The OED is meant to be merely descriptive of people's usage of words. It's done that and nothing more should be demanded of it. I have a problem with people ascribing me with a term ideologically applied to me in total disregard of my experience or even my own word that I have no such thing as a gender identity by people who claim their own words to be final on the matter.

As for 'people's usage of words', outside discussions like these I've usually just seen it used to mean 'not trans'.
I don't think the OED is beyond bowing to PR and political concerns.

 

[Santino]

Whatever the intentions of speakers I don't think any term that is supposed to simply mean not-x ever maintains that sort of neutral meaning. They always acquire other connotations.

 

[smokedout]

At what point does someone who has been living 'as a man' become this 'transgender woman', and thus rights accrue 'as a woman'? Are women to have this imposed, to share resources and spaces with someone who hitherto has lived 'as a man'? Or do they have any recourse to object?

What rights are these, other than protection from discrimination, which really just means that people who are victims of gender related violemce can access gender specific services.

 

[8ball]

Whatever the intentions of speakers I don't think any term that is supposed to simply mean not-x ever maintains that sort of neutral meaning. They always acquire other connotations.

Would have been easier to stick with 'not trans', but when you start with a prefix which has a ready-made antonym it should be obvious what's going to happen...

 

[MochaSoul]

I mostly see it as part of the list 'white het ..' etc used to mark your position on the old intersectional wheel of privilidge / oppression, so as to say that being cis is an advantage structurally in a similar way to being white or straight or a man.

Yeah, because it's a barrel of laughs to be told all of your life to be beautiful and behave in a quiet and demure way and still be raped if you're "unlucky" to be beautiful regardless of how demurely you're dressed and then probably be blamed for the rape anyway.

 

[bimble]

Don’t be angry MochaSoul it’s unladylike.

 

[MochaSoul]

Don’t be angry MochaSoul it’s unladylike.

I'm mad as hell and I can't take this shit anymore!!!

 

[smokedout]

The problem is that the starting point is 'trans women are women no debate'. How on earth do we move forward from that point?



To oppose sexual violence, one needs to be able to identify the agent. If the agent is misreported, for example as female when male, we are not identifying where the problem lies. For example, the imprisonment statistics for sexually violent women are often quoted by transactivists claiming 'woman can be violent too'. Yes, they can, sure. But as the figures released by the government last year show, a proportion of the 110-odd women reported for being in prison for sexual violence are 'trans women' with gender recognition certificates.
.

Can you link to these figures, because the proprotion is obviously quite significant.

 

[bimble]

Its in the indie but its quite good, shows how impossible it is to actually get the facts as they are not available.
A recent study claimed that 41 per cent of transgender prisoners are sex offenders – this is why it's false

edit: To add, this is what the above article was arguing against.
Half of all transgender prisoners are sex offenders or dangerous...

 

[Pickman's model]

not to mention If you really want women to be safe in prisons, it's not transgender prisoners you need to be wary of

 

[smokedout]

Its in the indie but its quite good, shows how impossible it is to actually get the facts as they are not available.
A recent study claimed that 41 per cent of transgender prisoners are sex offenders – this is why it's false

No Miranda Yardley specifically said figures released by the government last year, not figures made up by the trans critical rad fem movement. I can't find them though so a link would be useful.

 

[Pickman's model]

But as the figures released by the government last year show, a proportion of the 110-odd women reported for being in prison for sexual violence are 'trans women' with gender recognition certificates.

a proportion. what proportion, precisely?

 

[smokedout]

Well, no it isn't really. If one accepts that a woman is an adult human female, and that 'trans women' are male, one follows the other. It's reasoning not appeal to authority.

Except within the scientific field, where you draw your authority from, the idea of what makes someone male or female is contested: Sex redefined

 

[smokedout]

No. I asked where was the border between being "cis" and not and where do people who use the "cis" label put a woman who is aggressive (an attitude ttributed to masculinity) and likes pink (attributed to femininity).

It's very difficult not to gender someone when you meet them, based on physical characteristics but also dress, mannerisms, speech patterns etc. Surely that's where the line is drawn, and it's something we do with every new social interaction.

 

[Miranda Yardley]

Can you link to these figures, because the proprotion is obviously quite significant.

Key facts - Women in Prison

Prison population figures: 2017 - GOV.UK

We don't know how many transgender prisoners are incarcerated who have a GRC and are thus counted by their legal, as opposed to biological, sex.

 

[Pickman's model]

No. I asked where was the border between being "cis" and not and where do people who use the "cis" label put a woman who is aggressive (an attitude ttributed to masculinity) and likes pink (attributed to femininity).

if you work in an office you'll see a fair proportion of men (at any rate in london) wearing pink, pink ties, pink shirts... it is lazy and untrue to say that liking pink, let alone wearing pink, is exclusively attributed to femininity. in addition, what you discern as aggression in women may be but assertion.

 

[Pickman's model]

Key facts - Women in Prison

Prison population figures: 2017 - GOV.UK

We don't know how many transgender prisoners are incarcerated who have a GRC and are thus counted by their legal, as opposed to biological, sex.

where does it say how many women are imprisoned for crimes involving sexual violence (the only mention of sex or sexual comes with 53% of women inmates having experienced emotional, sexual or physical abuse in childhood, in your key facts; the 29/12/17 excel spreadsheet is silent on the matter)? and .'. where's the evidence for your claim about a proportion of women prisoners inside for sexual violence derived from? it seems to me to be based on nothing more than your imagination. but i am sure that cannot be the case. you wouldn't lie to us, now, would you?

 

[smokedout]

Key facts - Women in Prison

Prison population figures: 2017 - GOV.UK

We don't know how many transgender prisoners are incarcerated who have a GRC and are thus counted by their legal, as opposed to biological, sex.

Neither of those links support the claim you made.

 

[FabricLiveBaby!]

Except within the scientific field, where you draw your authority from, the idea of what makes someone male or female is contested: Sex redefined

Bollocks is it. One oped piece does not scientific consensus make.

I can find geneticists who deny evolutionary biology. Climate change scientists who deny climate change. Then I can say the science is contested.

Don't start science denislism.

 

[Miranda Yardley]

Except within the scientific field, where you draw your authority from, the idea of what makes someone male or female is contested: Sex redefined

Yet every single person who has ever lived was made by an egg taken from a female human being who was fertilised by sperm from a male human being...

The nature op ed is interestng but misleading, possibly because it would have had editorial rather than peer review. Whatever, it's not very helpful to the transgender cause, and obscures that for DSDs the person can ultimately be shown to be either male or female. This is a good piece written by someone I know, who is a professional biologist, which is interesting for the way he attempts to work through sex determination by reference to half a dozen or so characteristics. Obviously it's an opinion piece, and I'm linking you to it because of that discussion in it:

Is Julia Serano right that transwomen are female? – Marcus – Medium

It does however remain that we as a species remain dimorphic, we don't appear to have a third sex. And on the basis that sex is based upon reproductive class, again that type of argument isn't going to help 'trans women' claim 'female'.

 

[FabricLiveBaby!]

Shit man. I'd better tell my gynecologist to retrain.

 

[Pickman's model]

Neither of those links support the claim you made.

yeh but answer came there none

 

[Miranda Yardley]

Bollocks is it. One oped piece does not scientific consensus make.

I can find geneticists who deny evolutionary biology. Climate change scientists who deny climate change. Then I can say the science is contested.

Don't start science denislism.

Some of the DSDs identified in that piece are incredibly rare, and themselves hardly redefine sex (based of course on reproductive class):

We report herein a remarkable family in which the mother of a woman with 46,XY complete gonadal dysgenesis was found to have a 46,XY karyotype in peripheral lymphocytes, mosaicism in cultured skin fibroblasts (80% 46,XY and 20% 45,X) and a predominantly 46,XY karyotype in the ovary (93% 46,XY and 6% 45,X).

Report of Fertility in a Woman with a Predominantly 46,XY Karyotype in a Family with Multiple Disorders of Sexual Development

 

[smokedout]

Bollocks is it. One oped piece does not scientific consensus make.
.

Which I why I used the word contested.