Transgender is it just me that is totally perplexed?

[kabbes]

Disagreeing with AuntiStella is a crime, and the penalty for those commiting the crime is to be put on ignore

Ironically, my response to this observation a few years ago now was to go for the pre-emptive ignore strike myself.

 

[iona]

Sex roles or just what's expected of us as men or women. As for that social response, the best I can offer is a hope that the debate moves in that direction.

Thanks.

Transition isn't just about those roles and expectations though. It's perfectly possible to be gender non-conforming instead of transgender, or both GNC and trans.

I'm just trying to understand how you think a social response regarding what sex roles people feel comfortable in would help someone experiencing physical gender dysphoria?

 

[Jonti]

I'm not saying I have any answers, just that it seems undeniable to me that the culture and society have a role to play. What else?

 

[Sea Star]

Disagreeing with AuntiStella is a crime, and the penalty for those commiting the crime is to be put on ignore

Anyway, fuck this, I'm putting the whole thread on ignore

yay!!

No - the 'crime' is being a tedious arse and going out of your way to deliberately misinterpet or misunderstand.

And my attitude is - I really don't the energy to waste.

I've been taking people off ignore for this thread for the purposes of understanding the arguments being made - but being selective so i can respond to people that i consider to be making valid points and not just spouting incoherent rubbish.

andysays joins the incoherent pile.

 

[Shechemite]

yay!!

No - the 'crime' is being a tedious arse and going out of your way to deliberately misinterpet or misunderstand.

And my attitude is - I really don't the energy to waste.

I've been taking people off ignore for this thread for the purposes of understanding the arguments being made - but being selective so i can respond to people that i consider to be making valid points and not just spouting incoherent rubbish.

andysays joins the incoherent pile.

You've ignored several of my questions.

Which pile am I on?

 

[Jonti]

That's a joke, no?

No. Male sexuality is

 

[iona]

I'm not saying I have any answers, just that it seems undeniable to me that the culture and society have a role to play. What else?

Less rigidly defined and enforced roles would be beneficial to everyone, trans and cis. I'm not disagreeing with that, or with the fact that they can cause people distress.

What I was questioning is the way you identified them as leading people to seek medical assistance to "better fit into one of the rigid sex-roles on offer" and suggested treatment other than medical transition might be preferable. No recognition of other factors that also contribute to people seeking transition (which is about much more than fitting into roles, btw - gnc trans people exist, as I mentioned), and subsequently no suggestion of how reducing or eliminating the pressure to conform to those roles could work as an alternative to medical transition.

 

[Jonti]

I think FabricLiveBaby!'s post and kabbes' response is a great read for where we are. Worth every word.

"suggested treatment other than medical transition might be preferable" I'm not sure I did this, but certainly wouldn't like to rule it out.

 

[trashpony]

I read this today and thought it was bang on re gender nonsense: Let’s drop the gender stereotypes – we are all non-binary

 

[Magnus McGinty]

trans people weren't excluded. They were invited. Most of us decided to stay away.

The gender recognition act is about transgender rights.

You seem to be implying that there are no trans women who are also radical feminists. Not true. You also seem to be implying that all radical feminists are TERFs. Not true.

Sure there's nothing to stop TERFs discussing this amongst themselves but this wasn't intended to be that - one of the speakers is a self identified transsexual and i know of at least two trans women who were asked to speak and declined.

But - without trans people present and included don't run away thinking that any kind of valid conclusion can be reached. Why exclude trans people from a discussion about trans unless you're trying to skew the discussion in some way? Explain.

How can you have simultaneously been excluded AND chose to stay away?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

the trans people I know are all involved in the struggle against murderous poverty. Also, the assumption that trans people are a) middle class and b) not affected by poverty is ridiculous and wrong

A little bit naughty to alter my characterisation of identity politics to being exclusively about trans.

 

[Treacle Toes]

DP

 

[Treacle Toes]

I read this today and thought it was bang on re gender nonsense: Let’s drop the gender stereotypes – we are all non-binary

Well it is truism but the analysis is a very superficial IMO. It's like when people say things like 'we're all mixed anyway' when they really don't have a clue what it's like to grow up in a mixed ethncity/cultural family and develop a mixed ethnicity/cultural identity. Listening to world music and dating someone not from you ethnicity really isn't the same thing. These observations and attempts at unification might come from a positive, well meaning place but it's also dismissive and silencing of those people that actually do know what it's like and have a far more nuanced insight.

 

[trashpony]

Well it is truism but the analysis is a very superficial IMO. It's like when people say things like 'we're all mixed anyway' when they really don't have a clue what it's like to grow up in a mixed ethncity/cultural family and develop a mixed ethnicity/cultural identity. Listening to world music and dating someone not from you ethnicity really isn't the same thing. These observations and attempts at unification might come from a positive, well meaning place but it's also dismissive and silencing of those people that actually do know what it's like and have a far more nuanced insight.

I'm not sure what you mean re silencing - who is it silencing? can you elaborate?

 

[Sea Star]

How can you have simultaneously been excluded AND chose to stay away?

we weren't excluded from the meeting. But the meeting is about removing our rights and excluding us. Oh, come on, it's not that difficult is it?

 

[Treacle Toes]

I'm not sure what you mean re silencing - who is it silencing? can you elaborate?

I mean as a natural consequence...If we are all mixed anyway, why would we care about listening to those who actually are and have an insight into what it's like living with, developing, inhabiting those idenities? The dismissing/silencing comes because there is no place for those voices if others claim they know all they is to know etc. even when their actual experience is superficial.

 

[trashpony]

I mean as a natural consequence...If we are all mixed anyway, why would we care about listening to those who actually are and have an insight into what it's like living with, developing, inhabiting those idenities? The dismissing/silencing comes because there is no place for those voices if others claim they know all they is to know etc. even when their actual experience is superficial.

Oh I see. I actually think it's two separate things: a) gender stereotypes which are shit for everyone and b) gender dysphoria which is shit but only affects quite a small number of people. I think this article is only addressing a).

 

[Magnus McGinty]

we weren't excluded from the meeting. But the meeting is about removing our rights and excluding us. Oh, come on, it's not that difficult is it?

Apologies I misread. No need to be rude lol.

 

[snadge]

we weren't excluded from the meeting. But the meeting is about removing our rights and excluding us. Oh, come on, it's not that difficult is it?

Nobody has ever excluded you, that would be your choice to not attend.

I notice that you edited your post in reaction to mine and never answered my question.

Do you think I am transphobic?

 

[Jonti]

Oh I see. I actually think it's two separate things: a) gender stereotypes which are shit for everyone and b) gender dysphoria which is shit but only affects quite a small number of people. I think this article is only addressing a).

I liked it for this paragraph

Gender stereotypes are too often confused with biology, and you hear this mistake being made as much on the left as you do on the right. After all, it’s not that big a leap from saying boys wear car prints to Eddie Izzard saying he likes having manicures “because I’m trans”. Suggesting a man can’t possibly like having his nails done is a disappointingly reductive take on gender from Izzard, who was once so determined to tear down stereotypes about masculinity.

ETA To say that gender stereotypes are too often confused with biology is to understate the issue. It's more that the notion of biological sex is actively suppressed by some transactivists. To mention DNA at all is to risk being accused of transphobia, by distinguishing between biological women and transwomen.

So we have people with penises who declaring themselves women who then go on to be affronted that lesbians won't sleep with them. No matter that many lesbians simply don't like dick.

It's mad stuff. Toxic-ID politics is the word.

 

[Treacle Toes]

Oh I see. I actually think it's two separate things: a) gender stereotypes which are shit for everyone and b) gender dysphoria which is shit but only affects quite a small number of people. I think this article is only addressing a).

Well that's kinda my point about it being superficial. I get what she means and agree but to say we are all non binary is a bold statement that rides roughshod over real/actual non-binary experiences in the wider context of a world that really is, on the whole non-accepting of non-binary identities.

Example, whilst I don't think of myself as 'normal' I really haven't ever considered myself as non-binary even if I don't conform to many gender stereotypes, am a feminist, actively give traditional gender roles the middle finger if I feel they limit me or others, men or women. Actually I often don't even have to think.. instinctively I know it's bollocks and don't conform, I can't. I don't have time to waste. Conforming limits me. But culturally, that often undermines my attempts to be better at this stuff, the autopilot sometimes is at odds with who I want to be, in the mindful sense of the word.

So, these things are greater than what we have going on in our heads afterall, context and the way that society interacts with and reflects back to us is really meaningful in this regard. The author may chose to buy gender neutral presents for her kids but as she admits, she can't stop the outside world 'genderising' her children. We are just not there yet, it's a process, one which includes us all examining parts of our own unconscious gender identities, and asking why we want to hold on to them, or not and why.

 

[snadge]

Well it is truism but the analysis is a very superficial IMO. It's like when people say things like 'we're all mixed anyway' when they really don't have a clue what it's like to grow up in a mixed ethncity/cultural family and develop a mixed ethnicity/cultural identity. Listening to world music and dating someone not from you ethnicity really isn't the same thing. These observations and attempts at unification might come from a positive, well meaning place but it's also dismissive and silencing of those people that actually do know what it's like and have a far more nuanced insight.

Like you maybe?

What gives you the right to instruct people how they should think?

 

[Treacle Toes]

What gives you the right to instruct people how they should think?

Where have I done that?

FFs you accuse me of doing this for having an opinion here on urban but yet not the author of the article? Imagine if I wrote an article and got it published...I'd be in real BIG trouble with you? Just because.

 

[snadge]

Where have I done that?

You are implying that you should be listened to.

but it's also dismissive and silencing of those people that actually do know what it's like and have a far more nuanced insight.

 

[Treacle Toes]

You are implying that you should be listened to.

...and? Why is my opinion not worthy of being listened to? Why would you be the one to choose whether it was or not? Also, if I knew more about something that someone else why wouldn't you care to listen to me?

 

[snadge]

...and? Why is my opinion not worthy of being listened to? Why would you be the one to choose whether it was or not? Also, if I knew more about something that someone else why wouldn't you care to listen to me?

So you are admitting that you feel you have a 'far more nuanced insight' on transgender issues?

 

[Treacle Toes]

So you are admitting that you feel you have a 'far more nuanced insight' on transgender issues?

Eh no, not at all. I was speaking generally about why I thought the author of that article clearly doesn't and her saying 'we're all non binary' is a bit shit really, however well meaning. I used a comparative example of people saying 'we're all mixed anyway', which is superficial bullshit too.

Also, if you had read my later post #711 you'd never have posted such a nonsense misrepresentation on what I think/feel.

 

[snadge]

Eh no, not at all. I was speaking generally about why I thought the author of that article clearly doesn't and her saying 'we're all non binary' is a bit shit really, however well meaning. I used a comparative example of people saying 'we're all mixed anyway', which is superficial bullshit too.

So who are the 'far more nuanced insight' I should be taking notice of in this instance?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

An awful lot of cis people on this thread have seen fit to tell trans people what their problem is.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Yeah people definitely based their objections to an elderly woman getting twatted on that.