Transgender is it just me that is totally perplexed?

[bimble]

Where, for instance? I am hesitant to infer too much from nonsense found on the internet.

Just chatrooms where people are talking about their gender identities, if you google ‘sage gender test’ you’ll see a few.

 

[Red Cat]

It would be so much simpler if things were as black and white as you suggest in your second paragraph, if all men stuck together and there was something like the protocols of the elders of the sons of Adam. But it's not, it's more complex than that with some women supporting trans people, some women insisting they're men in skirts and doubtless male opinion divided too. I fully appreciate your point about gender as mere identity, but it seems to me gender exists as e.p. thompson says class does at the start of making of the english working class, in people's everyday relationships (sadly on bus with no copy to hand but will find I hope when get to work - here it is, it's just the first couple of pages). I feel gender not simply a hierarchy imposed from outside but a series of negotiations in the course of which it changes.

The comparison of experiences is imo something very much not limited to men on this thread. It's my view that the experience of trans people differs from that of both men and women who are happier or more comfortable in their bodies and sex and so maybe forms a distinct body/corpus of lived experience, a third way if you will.

Those first couple of pages are great. Print them out and put them on the fridge.

(I've read them before, but not got further than the intro because of time and stuff)

 

[Magnus McGinty]

google suggests that the image was not created recently, has been around for a while. Maybe not made by Mermaids.
Here it is in its full glory.
View attachment 125531
It shows up in various places such as
Self Reflection: Analyzing Our Own Gender Identities - Gender Spectrum

That’s hideous.

 

[Miranda Yardley]

Yes, it portrays a totally one-dimensional way to do gender, which means that people not at either end of the line are by definition somewhere in the middle instead. If the identities at each end are axiomatically given the position of “Barbie” and “GI Joe” it means by definition you aren’t being fully male-gender or female-gender if you are not “Barbie” or “GI Joe”.

It’s horribly retrograde to suggest that these are the “full, complete” versions of each gender. I am about as appalled by it as I have been by anything I’ve seen in recent years. At least the shit that appears in the Mail, for example, is just the rantings of lunatics rather than state-sponsored messaging to our children.

They are equating personality to sex, thus saying if your personality is X then you are Y. What this has to do with 'people being themselves' or how this passes for 'progressive' is beyond me.

 

[MochaSoul]

They are equating personality to sex, thus saying if your personality is X then you are Y. What this has to do with 'people being themselves' or how this passes for 'progressive' is beyond me.

It gets funny though when they call us gender essentialists such as in the Labour AWS crowd-fund comments.

 

[Miranda Yardley]

It gets funny though when they call us gender essentialists such as in the Labour AWS crowd-fund comments.

I find that most people who use the term 'essentialism' don't know what they are talking about.

With the AWS, we can now see an intractable situation is being created where women are expected to comply or suffer the consequences. It's appalling.

 

[Pickman's model]

I find that most people who use the term 'essentialism' don't know what they are talking about.

With the AWS, we can now see an intractable situation is being created where women are expected to comply or suffer the consequences. It's appalling.

What do you propose the role of people who've been described as 'men in skirts' like yourself should be to resolve this? Should trans people start to see their identity/gender as separate from women in the case of trans women and men in the case of trans men?

 

[Nigel Irritable]

With the AWS, we can now see an intractable situation is being created where women are expected to comply or suffer the consequences. It's appalling.

It’s absolutely true that expressions of transphobia are increasingly carrying a social cost, a process that has also occurred with homophobia etc. I can’t agree that this process is “appalling”, but it’s certainly not pleasant for people running into opprobrium from their friends and political associates.

The aspect that’s repeatedly glossed over or actively misrepresented on this thread though is who exactly is implementing this new social norm. It’s not trans people, although obviously the bulk of them are in favor of transphobia becoming unacceptable, simply because there aren’t enough trans people to have that kind of effect. Nor is it (cis) men, who as a group are the most likely to be transphobic. The main role is being played by women who are not themselves trans but who are revolted by what they see as transphobic bigotry. It only takes a minute browsing the social media reaction to the “no trans women on all women shortlists” fundraiser for the demographics to become very clear. There are men who are vehemently opposed to the fundraiser, but the bulk of the appalled hostility is from women.

That shouldn’t really be a surprise: women, particularly younger women, are on average both more socially liberal and more left wing than men or older people as a whole. Every survey shows this to be the case on trans rights too. Yet those women are constantly disappeared from the conversation here, or, on the odd occasion where they are mentioned, patronized as “brainwashed” or socialized to put others first. It’s a strange approach for people who consider themselves feminist to take but one that’s necessary for their self image.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

It’s absolutely true that expressions of transphobia are increasingly carrying a social cost, a process that has also occurred with homophobia etc. I can’t agree that this process is “appalling”, but it’s certainly not pleasant for people running into opprobrium from their friends and political associates.

The aspect that’s repeatedly glossed over or actively misrepresented on this thread though is who exactly is implementing this new social norm. It’s not trans people, although obviously the bulk of them are in favor of transphobia becoming unacceptable, simply because there aren’t enough trans people to have that kind of effect. Nor is it (cis) men, who as a group are the most likely to be transphobic. The main role is being played by women who are not themselves trans but who are revolted by what they see as transphobic bigotry. It only takes a minute browsing the social media reaction to the “no trans women on all women shortlists” fundraiser for the demographics to become very clear. There are men who are vehemently opposed to the fundraiser, but the bulk of the appalled hostility is from women.

That shouldn’t really be a surprise: women, particularly younger women, are on average both more socially liberal and more left wing than men or older people as a whole. Every survey shows this to be the case on trans rights too. Yet those women are constantly disappeared from the conversation here, or, on the odd occasion where they are mentioned, patronized as “brainwashed” or socialized to put others first. It’s a strange approach for people who consider themselves feminist to take but one that’s necessary for their self image.

The two aren’t comparable given homosexual rights didn’t impact on heterosexual rights. You have tunnel vision on this and are just ticking off right-on boxes without thinking everything through.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

The two aren’t comparable given homosexual rights didn’t impact on heterosexual rights. You have tunnel vision on this and are just ticking off right-on boxes without thinking everything through.

Trans rights don’t impact on anyone else’s rights, outside of the paranoid fantasies of bigots. There’s been self ID here for two and a half years now. The impact on anyone bar less than 300 trans people has been zero.

 

[smokedout]

Meanwhile, Maria Miller's Trans Inquiry was completely devoid of women's groups voices because trans groups dictate that only trans voices are allowed to speak on trans issues. That is akin to government wholly delegitimising women's voices.

Did trans groups dictate who gave evidence? That would usually be the job of the cross party Women and Equalities Committee, made up largely of cis women. And it was their report not Miller's the enquiry was part of a longer term strategy that began back when she was still in charge of murdering disabled people at the DWP. It has been presented as Miller's report by some trans critical feminists to make it sound more tory.

The Inquiry was not devoid of women's groups voices. It was an open inquiry and several providers of women's services submitted evidence some of which was included in the final report. They were not asked to give evidence in person. I think this is a shame but as much of the evidence given by service providers was fairly positive about trans inclusion then it might not have led to the results some want. It's also true that what look like several front groups from the trans critical faction were not asked to give evidence in person, but then neither were the Evangelical Alliance who also submitted evidence. It was a transgender inquiry, not a trans critical radical feminist inquiry. There isn't much time allotted for in person evidence and much of this was taking up with people from healthcare, prison services, police, education etc

I ask my first question in this, so called civil, thread. Who speaks for my friend who has a fear of men due to a previous history of abuse and feels uncomfortable with being touched intimately by them knowing the NHS won't be able to discriminate between female nurses and transgender women nurses once they've acquired a GRC? Who speaks for the female police/prison officers who might be required to strip search a male body daily on the say so said body's voice claiming to be a woman? Who speaks for young lesbians still learning to navigate sexual encounters who may be emotionally manipulated by men claiming to be women into sexual relationships? Who will speak for the lesbian woman, who gives consent to sexual intercourse only to find an artificial vagina and then be condemned by claims of transphobia if she's put off? Who will speak for me, who also had a temporary fear of men due to domestic violence and might have been made to feel uncomfortable in an already fragile state by finding a man in the Surrey Women's Aid refuge that housed me for 8 months? Who will speak for the woman who gives up going to a domestic violence support meeting having found a transgender woman there and feeling uncomfortable talking about her issues decides to forgo the group altogether without mentioning her reaosns for fear of being dismissed as a transphobe? Who speaks for trans men at the Green Party who have now replaced woman with non-man but have not similarly created a category of "non-woman"?

Another question I asked and went undiscussed was what happens to statistics? What will happen to, say, sexual crimes against women when the men perpetrating them class themselves as women a la Martin, nay, Jade Eatough? How is it fair on women, especially on his raped victim, that his crime is recorded as perpetrated by a woman and his suicide mourned solely on the basis of his transition with the undertones that go with it such as "No doubt she's been a victim of transphobia?" How will women be able to argue about crimes against woman when crimes against them get recorded as "woman on woman"?
Who speaks for women in these matters?

When I lived in Lisbon for a while, I used to babysit a friend's dog a lot and, that requiring walking it, one day this guy sat on the same park bench I was sitting and his conversation and keen questioning of where I lived " Around the corner" and and did I walk the dog here frequently "Sometimes" and at some point I started getting really suspicious and just stopped walking the dog in that particular park when I spotted the guy a few days later at the same seclude spot while cursing myself incessantly for feeling myself obliged to be nice and courteous when I didn't know the man from Adam. A few weeks later there was a rape at that park. It's true that I have no idea if the rape was perpetrated by that same guy (I didn't follow the story), but I keep imagining another young girl being told by some guy with a face splashed with make up that he is a woman and she letting her guard down. What happens to her if she talks to her friends about it and all she hears is a chorus of "You're being transphobic."? Does that not have the effect of silencing her?

Paris Lees loves being cat-called and wolf-whistled. So does Ann Widdecomb. If I critice Ann's opinion she'll take it in her stride and argue it out. Maybe she'll also call me a silly young woman in between arguments but she'll be happy with "We agree to differ." in the end. If I criticise Paris Lees I get called a transphobe and my tweets will go half around the world with TERF headlining them. How is that not the silencing of women's voice?
What is your definition of "to undermine"?

It's fairly obvious to me you don't give a hoot about my describing of being a woman as a painfully long and drawn out process of coming to terms with being treated differently for possessing a vagina. It's only by dismissing my own experience of "living woman" that you can refer to it as being "happier and more comfortable". The only difference between me and those people who suffer from sex disphoria (but insist on it being called gender disphoria in a move that undermines my claim to full humanhood), is that I don't think my problems would go away with hacking away my boobs and surgically attaching an artificial penis on. The series of negotiations arises precisely from it being a hierarchy.

I don't want to undermine your experiences but where are people going with this stuff? Should crimes by trans people be especially recorded in a way that happens to no other equivalent group? Should trans women be denied help if they are victims of gender related violence? Should trans people be compelled to announce their status to anyone they are intimate with? How would they work, should they get a tattoo or something? Should the Gender Reognition Act be undone, or changing gender be criminalised? Should trans women be prevented from using public toilets? Or are there ways to work through these things without basically creating a sub caste as has happened to the Hijra people? Because it seems to me that is the end point of a lot of the demands of trans critical feminists which may sound fine in theory but when applied to the world as it is could prove horrifying for an already highly marginalised group. Or perhaps that's the intention, I really hope not.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Trans rights don’t impact on anyone else’s rights, outside of the paranoid fantasies of bigots. There’s been self ID here for two and a half years now. The impact on anyone bar less than 300 trans people has been zero.

This is a bizarre proposition. Nothing ever happens negatively until it does. The titanic didn’t sink until it did. Are you saying there’s no possibility of it impacting negatively on women based on the fact it hasn’t in Ireland?

 

[Nigel Irritable]

This is a bizarre proposition. Nothing ever happens negatively until it does. The titanic didn’t sink until it did. Are you saying there’s no possibility of it impacting negatively on women based on the fact it hasn’t in Ireland?

There’s always a possibility of anything, up to and including a meteor strike killing us all tomorrow. But when people are making bigoted claims about the consequences of a change in the law and the next country over has had that changed law for years without a single one of those claims coming true, the rest of us are entitled to draw conclusions about the reliability of the paranoid bigots and their fears.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

There’s always a possibility of anything, up to and including a meteor strike killing us all tomorrow. But when people are making bigoted claims about the consequences of a change in the law and the next country over has had that changed law for years without a single one of those claims coming true, the rest of us are entitled to draw conclusions about the reliability of the paranoid bigots and their fears.

Naturally it won’t be you who is affected so who designated you the tub thumping spokesperson?

 

[smokedout]

The two aren’t comparable given homosexual rights didn’t impact on heterosexual rights. You have tunnel vision on this and are just ticking off right-on boxes without thinking everything through.

When I lived in a hostel about 25 years ago now one fellow resident was very upset about having a lesbian key worker assigned to her, on the basis it made her feel unsafe. It's not directly comparable but there are some parallels - Gay and lesbian people were often attacked for representing some kind of existential sexual threat, to other women in the case of lesbians and to young boys in the case of gay men.

(As it happened they were a really good worker and the situation resolved itself because of that which led to the service user becoming a bit of a lesbian and gay equality advocate. Sometimes these things just need to be worked through)

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Notably it won’t be you who is affected what makes you the tub thumping spokesperson?

It isn’t anyone who has been effected. Feel free to contact any of the many feminist groups and women’s rights campaigns in Ireland and ask them if you don’t believe me or the media reports dealing with the issue. Brit TERFs don’t do this because they know they’ll be told that self ID has created no problems and the entire women’s movement supports it. They prefer their bigoted fantasies. And you prefer to take their bigoted fantasies seriously.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

When I lived in a hostel about 25 years ago now one fellow resident was very upset about having a lesbian key worker assigned to her, on the basis it made her feel unsafe. It's not directly comparable but there are some parallels - Gay and lesbian people were often attacked for representing some kind of existential sexual threat, to other women in the case of lesbians and to young boys in the case of gay men.

(As it happened they were a really good worker and the situation resolved itself because of that which led to the service user becoming a bit of a lesbian and gay equality advocate. Sometimes these things just need to be worked through)

It isn’t a pretend threat here though given we’re witnessing physical attacks against women for expressing a dissenting view (hence the thread).

 

[Magnus McGinty]

It isn’t anyone who has been effected. Feel free to contact any of the many feminist groups and women’s rights campaigns in Ireland and ask them if you don’t believe me or the media reports dealing with the issue. Brit TERFs don’t do this because they know they’ll be told that self ID has created no problems and the entire women’s movement supports it. They prefer their bigoted fantasies. And you prefer to take their bigoted fantasies seriously.

There’s no bigoted fantasies. A woman got attacked in Hyde Park for not toeing the line and some serious bullying happened at the London Anarchist Bookfair over some leaflets.
That’s why so many people are now looking at this.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

This is a bizarre proposition. Nothing ever happens negatively until it does. The titanic didn’t sink until it did. Are you saying there’s no possibility of it impacting negatively on women based on the fact it hasn’t in Ireland?

The combined experiences of Argentina, Ireland, Denmark and Malta do constitute very relevant evidence, though. You may have found something I haven't. I have looked for negative news about self-declaration in the countries that have it, and haven't found any. My guess is that if any does come to light, it will be publicised very loudly in certain quarters.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

The combined experiences of Argentina, Ireland, Denmark and Malta do constitute very relevant evidence, though. You may have found something I haven't. I have looked for negative news about self-declaration in the countries that have it, and haven't found any. My guess is that if any does come to light, it will be publicised very loudly in certain quarters.

What about Hyde Park and the Bookfair? Women being attacked for dissenting.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

What’s going on in the Labour Party at the moment?
Women being expelled for dissenting.

 

[8ball]

There’s always a possibility of anything, up to and including a meteor strike killing us all tomorrow. But when people are making bigoted claims about the consequences of a change in the law and the next country over has had that changed law for years without a single one of those claims coming true, the rest of us are entitled to draw conclusions about the reliability of the paranoid bigots and their fears.

I think that's correct, assuming the veracity of the claim. Although calling all of these fears 'bigoted' isn't how I'd put it. I mentioned earlier a hypothetical case (which you didn't respond to) which I don't think could reasonably be called bigotry.

 

[smokedout]

What’s going on in the Labour Party at the moment?
Women being expelled for dissenting.

Has anyone been expelled?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Has anyone been expelled?

They’re getting expelled over spurious accusations of anti-semitism so that’s surely the logical next step is it not? Or do you think they’ll want to be tainted by ‘transphobes’?

 

[smokedout]

They’re getting expelled over spurious accusations of anti-semitism so that’s surely the logical next step is it not? Or do you think they’ll want to be tainted by ‘transphobes’?

I don't know, I just think if people are making claims about this issue it helps if they are actually true.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

What about Hyde Park and the Bookfair? Women being attacked for dissenting.

Neither the scuffle in Hyde Park nor a few Labour Party TERFs managing to piss off other Labour members by raising funds to sue Labour to promote bigotry were caused by self ID laws quite obviously.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Neither the scuffle in Hyde Park nor a few Labour Party TERFs managing to piss off other Labour members by raising funds to sue Labour to promote bigotry were caused by self ID laws quite obviously.

There’s absolutely nothing for women to worry about regarding men like you being empowered to call them bigots.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I don't know, I just think if people are making claims about this issue it helps if they are actually true.

I know Corbynism and the pretend left enough to know I’m on the right ball park.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

There’s absolutely nothing for women to worry about regarding men like you being empowered to call them bigots.

As has been pointed out many times here, most transphobes are men. Most people supportive of trans rights are women. And we are all already “empowered” to call bigots bigots and will remain so regardless of whether self ID laws are introduced in Britain.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

As has been pointed out many times here, most transphobes are men. Most people supportive of trans rights are women. And we are all already “empowered” to call bigots bigots and will remain so regardless of whether self ID laws are introduced in Britain.

What about your abortion laws oh progressive trans place?