Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Stoppelmann]

There is no denying that there are people with a need to identify as the opposite sex and we should be in the position to honour that by allowing them to undergo the transition they want. By all accounts, the transition from woman to man, except for the medical aspect which, like all medical interventions, carries side-effects, has little social impact, except on the transitioning people themselves. Biological females are less disagreeable and more socially compatible, including when they transition to transmen, and less likely to sexually abuse others. Sexual duplicity and abuse are the socially inflammatory issues. The issues that transmen sometimes have are the late awareness of their infertility and consequent regrets about not being able to give birth.

The problems seem to arise with biological men, whether it is their acceptance of other men transitioning into trans women or in their exploitation of the ambiguity of social transition, especially when it they are only cross-dressing, whether to disguise, comfort, entertain or express themselves. Medically transitioned transwomen may still show a masculine emotionality and have further medical issues, but normally, the social controversy is over when they have had genital reassignment surgery reshaping them to their required appearance. It remains a problem if a fully transitioned person is not open about their background and a male partner feels deceived.

Of course, there is a desire amongst people who have transitioned or those enabling transitioning, to catch the person requiring transition before puberty. There seems to be a number of issues that can be “nipped in the bud.” However, the biggest problem with that is the ambiguity of sexual identification prior to maturity. A number of transitioned people who went through the process as teenagers have made public their regrets and raised allegations that they were pressurized into an early transition which downplayed the probability of “growing out of” their gender dysphoria and then accepting being either non-conforming hetero- or homosexual adults. Amongst those people raising the alarm are people who had mental health problems or autistic symptoms at the time of transition.

There is no reliable statistical evidence for the success or failure of early transition, but the numbers of people who have detransitioned suggest a grey area, in which people may regret their transition but find themselves unable to detransition. There may be many reasons for this, one of them being the fact that it is not a reversal, and it renders detransitioners in a mentally vulnerable position, with the problem of finding acceptance after leaving the trans community. Even though the lack of statistical evidence makes this rather speculative, it is clear that an irreversible process to change the human body requires a high degree of reflection for which adolescents in pre-puberty are not mature enough.

The problem becomes socially explosive when it is ideologically appropriated and taken out of context. It seems to me that the discussion about what is acceptable and what is not in terms of sexuality has become a question of what fetishism is allowed to be shown on the street. But the biggest concern that has brought many women to the streets is the widespread and uncritical acceptance of the wishes of trans people and legislation that is full of loopholes that these people who want to abuse a newfound liberty are sure to exploit. Above all, the people who are expected to accommodate the wishes of trans activists are women, even though the problem initially only affects biological males – those that want to transition and those that do not accept transwomen. It is through the backdoor of this conflict that the abusers sneak in.

The fact that above all it has been feminists that have suffered abuse, been publicly boycotted or had financial support withdrawn, is telling. It is enough to bring a potential problem to the attention of those responsible, or state a biological fact, or to criticise a statement to become subject to criminal enquiry in increasingly more countries. A woman in Norway is said to be threatened with up to 3 years imprisonment for saying men cannot be lesbians. This kind of procedure has until now only been known in authoritarian countries, and to call a contradiction of an opinion a “hate crime” is “doublespeak” and deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words, a concept which comes from George Orwell’s "doublethink" and "newspeak" in the novel 1984. It should be pointed out that Orwell was warning of the excesses of socialism and communism, which is coincidentally (?) often behind the activism for transgender issues. The use of words like “Transphobe” has become inflationary and doesn’t meet the requirement at all.

The hysterical protests against and shutting down of feminist meetings, where women gather to talk about women’s issues have been attacked so badly, that some venues are not prepared to accept women’s groups unless transwomen are admitted to them, despite the fact that there is a danger that these will disrupt the proceedings. This hasn’t been such an issue since the suffragettes picketed for women’s rights. It seems to be an apt comparison, since the people protesting that women discuss their issues are biological men. Above all, the speed at which legislation has now been passed allowing biological men to identify as women to gain access to women’s spaces, previously meant to protect women, has been driven by ideology that a majority of people can’t understand. There are pressing issues to be addressed, but this one is exaggerated.

The inflammatory and pejorative language that trans activism has used has itself provoked the reactions it protests against. The threats that activists have made against prominent people or condoned by not criticising them have made it clear that these people are only protesting for the sake of protesting and are in fact anarchists who care little or nothing about the minorities they claim to support. A sensible approach to the problems would be to look for solutions and not dictate to the detriment of women, especially as the problems come from men. The new year must be a time when the new legislation is reviewed and at the very least, known sexual predators refused the right to self-identify except under considerable scrutiny.

What do you think?

[JackDaydream]

There is no denying that there are people with a need to identify as the opposite sex and we should be in the position to honour that by allowing them to undergo the transition they want. By all accounts, the transition from woman to man, except for the medical aspect which, like all medical interventions, carries side-effects, has little social impact, except on the transitioning people themselves. Biological females are less disagreeable and more socially compatible, including when they transition to transmen, and less likely to sexually abuse others. Sexual duplicity and abuse are the socially inflammatory issues. The issues that transmen sometimes have are the late awareness of their infertility and consequent regrets about not being able to give birth.

The problems seem to arise with biological men, whether it is their acceptance of other men transitioning into trans women or in their exploitation of the ambiguity of social transition, especially when it they are only cross-dressing, whether to disguise, comfort, entertain or express themselves. Medically transitioned transwomen may still show a masculine emotionality and have further medical issues, but normally, the social controversy is over when they have had genital reassignment surgery reshaping them to their required appearance. It remains a problem if a fully transitioned person is not open about their background and a male partner feels deceived.

Of course, there is a desire amongst people who have transitioned or those enabling transitioning, to catch the person requiring transition before puberty. There seems to be a number of issues that can be “nipped in the bud.” However, the biggest problem with that is the ambiguity of sexual identification prior to maturity. A number of transitioned people who went through the process as teenagers have made public their regrets and raised allegations that they were pressurized into an early transition which downplayed the probability of “growing out of” their gender dysphoria and then accepting being either non-conforming hetero- or homosexual adults. Amongst those people raising the alarm are people who had mental health problems or autistic symptoms at the time of transition.

There is no reliable statistical evidence for the success or failure of early transition, but the numbers of people who have detransitioned suggest a grey area, in which people may regret their transition but find themselves unable to detransition. There may be many reasons for this, one of them being the fact that it is not a reversal, and it renders detransitioners in a mentally vulnerable position, with the problem of finding acceptance after leaving the trans community. Even though the lack of statistical evidence makes this rather speculative, it is clear that an irreversible process to change the human body requires a high degree of reflection for which adolescents in pre-puberty are not mature enough.

The problem becomes socially explosive when it is ideologically appropriated and taken out of context. It seems to me that the discussion about what is acceptable and what is not in terms of sexuality has become a question of what fetishism is allowed to be shown on the street. But the biggest concern that has brought many women to the streets is the widespread and uncritical acceptance of the wishes of trans people and legislation that is full of loopholes that these people who want to abuse a newfound liberty are sure to exploit. Above all, the people who are expected to accommodate the wishes of trans activists are women, even though the problem initially only affects biological males – those that want to transition and those that do not accept transwomen. It is through the backdoor of this conflict that the abusers sneak in.

The fact that above all it has been feminists that have suffered abuse, been publicly boycotted or had financial support withdrawn, is telling. It is enough to bring a potential problem to the attention of those responsible, or state a biological fact, or to criticise a statement to become subject to criminal enquiry in increasingly more countries. A woman in Norway is said to be threatened with up to 3 years imprisonment for saying men cannot be lesbians. This kind of procedure has until now only been known in authoritarian countries, and to call a contradiction of an opinion a “hate crime” is “doublespeak” and deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words, a concept which comes from George Orwell’s "doublethink" and "newspeak" in the novel 1984. It should be pointed out that Orwell was warning of the excesses of socialism and communism, which is coincidentally (?) often behind the activism for transgender issues. The use of words like “Transphobe” has become inflationary and doesn’t meet the requirement at all.

The hysterical protests against and shutting down of feminist meetings, where women gather to talk about women’s issues have been attacked so badly, that some venues are not prepared to accept women’s groups unless transwomen are admitted to them, despite the fact that there is a danger that these will disrupt the proceedings. This hasn’t been such an issue since the suffragettes picketed for women’s rights. It seems to be an apt comparison, since the people protesting that women discuss their issues are biological men. Above all, the speed at which legislation has now been passed allowing biological men to identify as women to gain access to women’s spaces, previously meant to protect women, has been driven by ideology that a majority of people can’t understand. There are pressing issues to be addressed, but this one is exaggerated.

The inflammatory and pejorative language that trans activism has used has itself provoked the reactions it protests against. The threats that activists have made against prominent people or condoned by not criticising them have made it clear that these people are only protesting for the sake of protesting and are in fact anarchists who care little or nothing about the minorities they claim to support. A sensible approach to the problems would be to look for solutions and not dictate to the detriment of women, especially as the problems come from men. The new year must be a time when the new legislation is reviewed and at the very least, known sexual predators refused the right to self-identify except under considerable scrutiny.

What do you think?

There just seem to be so many people, especially on media sites, who seem to take objections to trans identification. What seems so odd is that many of these people who speak about their views on trans issues seem to think that their objections are as important if not more important than the people who choose to transition. There have been trans people who have spoken publicly but there are many who simply wish to have hormones and surgery, live their lives and be left alone.

There has been a large backlash against transgender in the last few years. This may be the shadow side of libertarian freedom and I am inclined to think that it is also about projection, with transgender people being the moral scapegoats.

[Sculptor1]

The only reasonable view is to realise that transexual behaviours are common to most of the world's cultures.
They exist freely and openly in all cultures that do not negatively react towards them.
Even in natural systems there are many examples of every thing from homesexual practice, to gender mimicry to fully fledged and naturally generated sex changes and hermaphroditic existences. Clearly enough that what we normally consider and male and female are fluid.

Transsexual feelings are not about choice.

Given the difficulties, prejudice, hatred, and violence suffered by people following lifestyles that are outside the "norms" it ought not be a surprised that following these practice is not done lightly or an a whim.

For individuals coming out the pathway is difficult and fraught with personal danger, and social rejection.

MY view is good luck to them all; all LGBTQ etc..
And f u c k the bigots

[Stoppelmann]

There just seem to be so many people, especially on media sites, who seem to take objections to trans identification. What seems so odd is that many of these people who speak about their views on trans issues seem to think that their objections are as important if not more important than the people who choose to transition. There have been trans people who have spoken publicly but there are many who simply wish to have hormones and surgery, live their lives and be left alone.

There has been a large backlash against transgender in the last few years. This may be the shadow side of libertarian freedom and I am inclined to think that it is also about projection, with transgender people being the moral scapegoats.

I think that this is a common misconception because there are people that transitioned 30 years ago who have said that, yes, initially there were a few problems socially, but these died down long ago. However, they flared up again when trans activism became a thing and it was no longing a thing to call oneself transsexual, but transgender. I think the gender discussion has broadened the scope of people who identify as trans to include people with AGP, which is in particular a male thing, but also any number of fetishes, that the trans-umbrella try to make acceptable for their display even in public and before children.

The people, very many of them women, quickly recognised an opening for those men that they didn't want in their changing rooms or safe spaces, and expressed doubt regarding the gender issue, especially the idea that children, even toddlers, notice that they are "in the wrong body", which suggests the transmigration of souls (how else would they notice the difference?). The ambiguity of the whole gender ideology, which is what it has become, took on religious features and it didn't take long before the legislation passed showed that loopholes had been created through which undesirables were able to exploit their access to women's spaces, and practise their exhibitionism.

The problem has been caused by the claim that this critical approach and pointing to the loopholes wants the "annihilation" of trans people, which is far from the truth, but that the opposite has occurred, that males who have only socially transitioned are claiming women's spaces, dominating in women's sports, and when convicted of a crime, "self-identify" as women to have access to women's prisons. The fact that many of these are sex offenders only worsens the situation.

Meanwhile, transsexuals who very often were reticent about joining the debate have come out on the side of women, because the aggression displayed when closing down women's meetings, debates, or conversations has been very masculine in nature, and hardly feminine at all. There is the added observation that detransitioners are coming out, despite the mental health difficulties they have, and showing how they were often quickly led to transition despite being mentally infirm, vulnerable and unresistent to the "affirmation therapy" that had them transition.

[LuckyR]

In my experience, there has always been a small group of individuals whose mindset is closest to that which their culture traditionally assigns to the opposite gender of their genetics.

In the past (before hormone and surgical treatment) they either lived closeted, lived as homosexuals or engaged in tranvestism.

In the recent past, the advent of hormones and surgery allowed some to transition. Good for them.

Currently, especially in youth culture, transsexualism is such a hot topic that it is my prediction that a percentage of youths who declare themselves to be "trans", are in fact better represented by "Q" (questioning) than "trans", and therefore are extremely poor candidates for hormone treatment, let alone surgery. This is the group that reports regret after treatment.

As to the backlash they suffer, since racial minorities were taken off the "culturally okay to attack" list awhile back and Muslims and gay folk more recently so, trans folks represent the last group still on the list. And some insecure individuals seek to use the list for personal ego soothing.

[Stoppelmann]

A quote from "Playing the intersex card"

by Jonah Mix – on Medium where his article was removed

“Any time I try and talk online about male violence, reproductive justice, or gender abolition, one of the most common replies I get is NONE OF THIS IS TRUE BECAUSE GENDER/ SEX/ WHATEVER ISN’T A BINARY. And yes, it usually is in caps.

Gender is a binary, of course, because you can’t wring more than two roles out of Who gets to hit and Who gets to bruise. But even if that weren’t the case, some radical feminists have already pointed out how making gender less “binary” doesn’t actually make it any less problematic. After all, race isn’t a binary, but that’s probably small comfort to the indigenous woman raped by a white man or the biracial Afrikan shot dead by a white man or the Latino man worked in slave conditions by a white man. When it comes to gender, feel free to pack as many netrois genderfluids or pansexual demiqueers in the hierarchy as you want; it’s still gonna be Man at the top and Woman at the bottom. As for the sex binary, it seems pretty clear that the vast majority of biologists, anatomists, doctors, nurses, kindergarteners, and humans in general throughout time recognize the idea of male and female as discreet biological sets  (article referred to has been deleted).

This, of course, upsets many in the transgender community. After all, it commits the cardinal sin of queerness: Defining someone by something other than an internal identification. To say that biological sex exists as a real fact about the world is to say that I can’t have individual, personalized control over every single aspect of who I am, and that simply won’t do! So abolishing the sex binary — and with it, the reality of females as a specific class with a specific oppression — has become the project du jour for the queer community lately.

Their most sophisticated argument against the ideology of human sexual dimorphism (besides I just don’t like it) is pulling the “intersex card” — male and female can’t be distinct, binary biological types, they’ll say, because intersex people exist! Gotcha! Intersex people, it seems, have joined the illustrious family of Oppressed Groups that Genderists Pretend to Care About Only to Discard Immediately After They Aren’t Useful as Weapons Against Radical Feminist Critique. Hey, while you’re there, say hi to lesbians, prostituted women, and indigenous people!

All intellectual dishonesty from the queer community aside, the argument itself is absolutely absurd. Far from shattering the narrow-minded bigotry of those nasty radical feminists, the existence of intersex people goes a long way towards confirming sexual dimorphism. After all, the prefix inter- means between or across. Intersex, broken down, would translate to between or acrosssexes. It’s hard to understand how this could be a meaningful concept without the existence of two discreet, recognizable things to be between or across. What could intersex mean if there weren’t two sexes as a point of reference? How could we understand international without the concept of distinct nations? Or intersectional, that holy incantation of the genderist, if we said that there were not separate types of oppression?

The universal recognition among both radical feminists and queer theorists of intersex individuals demonstrates clearly that male and female are understood by all of us to be discrete categories; If biological sex was a nebulous, ill-defined cornucopia of genital shapes and hormone profiles, there would be no such thing as intersex because the ontologically privileged position of male and female would not exist as reference points for a biology that was ambiguous in relation to them. So while both queer and radical analysis (at least implicitly) acknowledge that male and female are meaningful ways to organize biological type, only the latter is capable of making any kind of meaningful room in its worldview for intersex people. Queer theory simply cannot do this without temporary (and clandestinely) borrowing the terminology and theory of the people it claims to oppose. There simply isn’t room in a non-binary understanding of biological sex for intersex people to exist as intersex people.
...
Queer theory’s conception of biological sex — one that considers multiple, non-binary sexes to exist along a spectrum — fails to make room for intersex people. On queer theory, what we now describe as intersex is no more inter-than anything else, the privileged position of male and female as reference points having long ago been tossed out as archaic and oppressive.

The result of this, of course, is that queer theorists can either decide to continue describing intersex people in a sensible manner by pillaging the ideology of sex dimorphism, or they can completely erase the reality of intersex people’s bodies and lives by collapsing the concept into a larger amorphous stew of uncategorized biologies. Unfortunately, while they sometimes choose the former, the latter seems more common. As is the case with many vulnerable populations that come in contact with queer theory, the ability of intersex people to name their material reality openly and honestly is sacrificed to prop up shoddy, male-centric philosophy.

Despite this obvious fact, genderists have been able to position themselves as somehow on the side of intersex individuals while casting radical feminists as aggressors. It’s not too hard to understand why: Radical feminists are so often painted as being unfriendly or unaccommodating towards intersex people because radical feminists are the ones consistently naming the social and political structures that actually do oppress intersex people, and liberals have a nasty habit of confusing someone naming the reality of an oppression with someone propagating that oppression.

They seem to think that saying Hey folks, our violent gender system currently separates people into two absurd and inhuman classes based on genital shapemeans the same thing as Hey folks, wouldn’t it be great if a violent gender system separated people into two absurd and inhuman classes based on genital shape?And thus, radical feminists and gender abolitionists more broadly are pegged as the reason for intersex people’s oppression, when in reality that oppression is being propagated by the very system that radical feminists and gender abolitionists oppose — you know, gender.

Gender abolitionists work to (surprise) abolish gender and, with it, any society that determines its social arrangement around genital shape. In a post-patriarchal, gender-free society, male, female, and intersex people would exist quite a bit like blue-, brown-, and green-eyed folks do now; one might be comparatively rarer than the other two, but no system would exist to put massive social value on one biology over the other.

Male and female (and intersex) people would still be recognized as distinct categories, and sex-specific medical care — as well as sex-specific spaces to deal with things like pregnancy and menstruation — would still obviously exist, but only in the way that we currently treat different blood types or left- and right-handedness. The current pressures on intersex people to “pick” manhood or womanhood would not exist, and the coercive genital surgeries and hormone treatments given to intersex children would be considered a barbaric cruelty of the past.

Isn’t that what we’re all looking for? A world where individuals can live, male, female, or otherwise, as human beings first and foremost, pursuing their dreams and desires in a way that isn’t constrained by two artificial gender boxes? Where your genitals matter when they actually matter (reproductive health and other sex-specific considerations) and not when they don’t (99% of every human being’s life ever)? That world is possible, and it doesn’t require closing our eyes and pretending that male and female don’t exist as discreet categories. In fact, rejecting male and female as discreet categories smacks a little of admitting defeat.

After all, if you met someone who had the bizarre belief that the only solution to white supremacy would be dyeing everyone’s skin purple at birth, you would assume that they have adopted this strategy because they can’t imagine a world where people could have different skin colors and still be equals. And when I see queer theorists saying that the sex binary is inherently oppressive, I can’t help but think it’s because they can’t imagine a world where male and female could exist and not dominate each other. Radicals see the material reality of biological sex and reject a system that uses those facts to organize its oppression of females; queer theorists, on the other hand, can’t separate the two — the non-oppressive reality and the oppressive fiction constructed in relation to that reality — so their only option to avoid the resultant abuse is to deny the facts.

Queer theorists see the intimate connection between biological sex and oppression, and they react by dismantling the notion of biological sex; feminists see the intimate connection between biological sex and oppression, and they react by dismantling oppression. That’s the fundamental difference between liberals and radicals; one sacrifices truth to avoid confronting power, and one confronts power to avoid sacrificing truth.”

[Pattern-chaser]

In my experience, there has always been a small group of individuals whose mindset is closest to that which their culture traditionally assigns to the opposite gender of their genetics.

I think this is a much more useful way to approach this topic. I think it might go farther than "mindset", though.

Our brains are 'fitted' to our bodies. A male has a penis, testes, and the associated hormones, etc. His brain is normally in accord with this. It controls and regulates his sex organs and associated biochemistry. A female has complementary differences in body and brain. In this sense, if no other, there is a 'male' brain and a 'female' brain.

But humans differ, due to genetic variation of all kinds. And surely a few of them will be born with a brain that does not match their apparent biophysical sex/gender? Might such a mismatch give rise to feelings of being in the wrong sort of body? This is my understanding of transexuality.

[Stoppelmann]

In my experience, there has always been a small group of individuals whose mindset is closest to that which their culture traditionally assigns to the opposite gender of their genetics.

I think this is a much more useful way to approach this topic. I think it might go farther than "mindset", though.

Our brains are 'fitted' to our bodies. A male has a penis, testes, and the associated hormones, etc. His brain is normally in accord with this. It controls and regulates his sex organs and associated biochemistry. A female has complementary differences in body and brain. In this sense, if no other, there is a 'male' brain and a 'female' brain.

But humans differ, due to genetic variation of all kinds. And surely a few of them will be born with a brain that does not match their apparent biophysical sex/gender? Might such a mismatch give rise to feelings of being in the wrong sort of body? This is my understanding of transexuality.

A mindset is “a fixed mental attitude or disposition that predetermines a person's responses to and interpretations of situations.” There are a number of responses to and interpretations which we notice do not confirm the common perception and there may be several reasons for that, some of them are reason for concern. In psychology, an idée fixe is a preoccupation of mind believed to be firmly resistant to any attempt to modify it, a fixation. There are many examples of fixation in literature, whether Don Quixote, Captain Ahab, or in politics when, for example, Iraq was portrayed by President Bush’s government as the most dangerous thing in national security.

We could also talk about belief perseverance, cognitive bias, confirmation bias, delusional disorder amongst other predetermined responses and interpretations of situations. Human beings are susceptible to them and they arise in everyday life, with people convinced that they had seen something that a second look doesn’t confirm. In such cases people can feel betrayed or duped in some way and even become violent. It is real for them and people suggesting that they were deceived by their mind is regarded as insulting.

When a child feels that they are "in the wrong body," there must be a point of comparison upon which to base the feeling of being wrong. If it is an observation, many children have such a brief episode in which they doubt that their circumstances are right. I was switched at birth, but it was soon noticed, and even though I was only a few days old, I still had the feeling of being switched later in childhood. This raises the question of how I could have known? It also begs the question, where does our consciousness come from? Is transmigration or reincarnation, which is prevalent in human culture, a reality? Could a "soul" have a gender identity before it enters a body?

We are such a complex body, so many functions depend on what sex the body is, and the role of sex even today has underappreciated implications for physiology and pathology. By addressing the interrelationship and integration of biological markers (i.e., sex) with indicators of psychological/cultural behavior (i.e., gender), gender medicine is the critical enabler for achieving the personalized health care needed in the third millennium. We must face the fact that biological, genetic, epigenetic, psychosocial, cultural, and environmental factors interact in defining differences between the sexes while creating potential undesirable differences between the sexes.

It is significant that this is a field of research that deals with the diagnosis of somatic and mental disorders, which until today has been based too much on male physiology. Being male or female is indeed important from a health point of view and can no longer be avoided.

In addition, there are societies today in which disorders are often the result of a combination of psychiatric disorders and stimulant abuse. The most common, namely major depression, panic disorder, schizophrenia, and borderline personality disorder, often go hand in hand with stimulant abuse/dependence or multiple substance abuse/dependence and alcohol abuse/dependence. We are a sick society in more ways than one, and we need to take that into account when we observe what amounts to social contagion, when we consider the statistics that show a huge increase in the number of Generation Z people with gender problems.

[Pattern-chaser]

When a child feels that they are "in the wrong body," there must be a point of comparison upon which to base the feeling of being wrong.

I think that one of the difficulties in discussing and considering this subject is that there is not — there cannot be — a "point of comparison", but only a feeling...

[Gertie]

In my experience, there has always been a small group of individuals whose mindset is closest to that which their culture traditionally assigns to the opposite gender of their genetics.

In the past (before hormone and surgical treatment) they either lived closeted, lived as homosexuals or engaged in tranvestism.

In the recent past, the advent of hormones and surgery allowed some to transition. Good for them.

Currently, especially in youth culture, transsexualism is such a hot topic that it is my prediction that a percentage of youths who declare themselves to be "trans", are in fact better represented by "Q" (questioning) than "trans", and therefore are extremely poor candidates for hormone treatment, let alone surgery. This is the group that reports regret after treatment.

As to the backlash they suffer, since racial minorities were taken off the "culturally okay to attack" list awhile back and Muslims and gay folk more recently so, trans folks represent the last group still on the list. And some insecure individuals seek to use the list for personal ego soothing.

Nice post.

[Gertie]

Stoppelman

You seem to be rallying every possible objection, from all sorts of different types of viewpoints, which doesn't add up to a 'reasonable view of transexuality', whatever that might be.

It strikes me that if your own sense of gender is so at odds with your biological sex that it affects your ability to be at ease with yourself, or flourish, that can be an awful thing to have to live with. If there are treatments which can help, that's great. If there is bigotry which hinders, that's ****.

And more generally speaking gender norms are unnecessarily restrictive and can cause misery to those who don't see themselves as trans, but feel constrained just by societal gender expectations. Norms and expectations which we've inherited from past norms prescribed by those with the power to set and enforce them. (You can analyse that in all sorts of ways - patriarchal, religious, hereditary aristocracy and wealth, and so on). It's right that we continually re-evaluate them, with a view to creating societies where all can flourish.

There will be practical situations to be dealt with re trans people, which are hardly beyond our ability to handle. And in terms of medication and surgery I'd like to see adequate counselling and support services and age limits informed by professionals best able to assess these things. That's the responsible thing to do re medical intervention.

As a feminist who has some views which some would consider radical, TERFs disappoint me. I'm not just a feminist because I'm a woman, but also because I understand that gender identity, race, disability, sexuality and class, as well as biological sex, can also make you disadvantaged in ways in society. Our lived experience is individual and inter-sectional, and we should be involved in helping each other over our different hurdles - or kicking them out the way. But you look intent to put as many in the way of trans people as you can find. Why not be more constructive?

[Stoppelmann]

Stoppelman

You seem to be rallying every possible objection, from all sorts of different types of viewpoints, which doesn't add up to a 'reasonable view of transexuality', whatever that might be.

I asked a question and am offering whatever evidence I find for the various perspectives. At present I think that my contribution has been quite exhaustive, but I’m up for suggestions.

It strikes me that if your own sense of gender is so at odds with your biological sex that it affects your ability to be at ease with yourself, or flourish, that can be an awful thing to have to live with. If there are treatments which can help, that's great. If there is bigotry which hinders, that's ****.

I said at the beginning “There is no denying that there are people with a need to identify as the opposite sex and we should be in the position to honour that by allowing them to undergo the transition they want.” Adults should be able to do this. However, the whole scene has been radicalised and the change of terminology from transsexual to transgender indicates the widening of the umbrella under which so many different groups can gather, has seen longtime transsexuals saying that the acceptance they had once achieved has been disturbed. The point is that there are clear attempts to make the age of transitioning people lower by flooding schools and youth centres, even kindergartens with material that confuses children at an age when they should either be playing games, or who are at the confusion stage of puberty. Treatment that involves therapy is at that stage okay, but if you start medicalising them, even preparing them for surgery, that is going way to far over the line. If that is bigotry, preemptive medication and surgery is child abuse.

And more generally speaking gender norms are unnecessarily restrictive and can cause misery to those who don't see themselves as trans, but feel constrained just by societal gender expectations. Norms and expectations which we've inherited from past norms prescribed by those with the power to set and enforce them. (You can analyse that in all sorts of ways - patriarchal, religious, hereditary aristocracy and wealth, and so on). It's right that we continually re-evaluate them, with a view to creating societies where all can flourish.

There is no-one on the Gender Critical side that doesn’t allow for non-conforming children. In fact, many of them are non-conforming themselves and object to the stereotyping of gender roles. What they object to is the medicalisation of what seems to be a mindset, and would rather see non-conformity lived out. You seem to think that anything that doesn’t fit should be fixed with a pill or a scalpel, rendering those changes permanent and the consequences dire, if in adulthood the mindset changes. Making people dependent upon drugs for the rest of their lives is not the way I understand flourishing.

There will be practical situations to be dealt with re trans people, which are hardly beyond our ability to handle. And in terms of medication and surgery I'd like to see adequate counselling and support services and age limits informed by professionals best able to assess these things. That's the responsible thing to do re medical intervention.

That would be the responsible thing if it were not such a viable business, with a lot of money to be made, and if the whole issue was less ideological. The lobbying is done with such fervour that Billy Graham would have loved the same kind of fervour in his evangelistic crusades. There are already countries having second thoughts after evidence of people being rushed through treatment and young ages, something we were told never happens.

As a feminist who has some views which some would consider radical, TERFs disappoint me. I'm not just a feminist because I'm a woman, but also because I understand that gender identity, race, disability, sexuality and class, as well as biological sex, can also make you disadvantaged in ways in society. Our lived experience is individual and inter-sectional, and we should be involved in helping each other over our different hurdles - or kicking them out the way. But you look intent to put as many in the way of trans people as you can find. Why not be more constructive?

If you betray women who have suffered abuse by making them share supposedly safe houses with biological men who only have to self-ID to gain access; if you allow biological men with male genitals to parade around young girls and women in changing rooms; if you deny a paralysed woman the right to same-sex intimate care; if you fail to see that by giving biological men who have AGP the right of entry to women’s spaces, you lower their ability to safeguard against abuse, then you are not a feminist.

The problem, as I have often said, is with men who don’t feel themselves to be men, with men who can’t accept cross-dressers in the changing rooms, with men who are violent towards transwomen, and with men who only want to exploit their possibilities for sexual satisfaction. Why it is women who have to accommodate these men, I do not know. How long have feminists been minions for men?

[Belindi]

I experience a gut reaction against bigots who are at fault for refusing to recognise that people are just people whatever they look like.
It's shameful that bigotry causes some people to decide what permanent category they fit, to the extent of invasive medical or surgical interventions.

[Gertie]

Stoppelman

You seem to be rallying every possible objection, from all sorts of different types of viewpoints, which doesn't add up to a 'reasonable view of transexuality', whatever that might be.

I asked a question and am offering whatever evidence I find for the various perspectives. At present I think that my contribution has been quite exhaustive, but I’m up for suggestions.

It strikes me that if your own sense of gender is so at odds with your biological sex that it affects your ability to be at ease with yourself, or flourish, that can be an awful thing to have to live with. If there are treatments which can help, that's great. If there is bigotry which hinders, that's ****.

I said at the beginning “There is no denying that there are people with a need to identify as the opposite sex and we should be in the position to honour that by allowing them to undergo the transition they want.” Adults should be able to do this. However, the whole scene has been radicalised and the change of terminology from transsexual to transgender indicates the widening of the umbrella under which so many different groups can gather, has seen longtime transsexuals saying that the acceptance they had once achieved has been disturbed. The point is that there are clear attempts to make the age of transitioning people lower by flooding schools and youth centres, even kindergartens with material that confuses children at an age when they should either be playing games, or who are at the confusion stage of puberty. Treatment that involves therapy is at that stage okay, but if you start medicalising them, even preparing them for surgery, that is going way to far over the line. If that is bigotry, preemptive medication and surgery is child abuse.

And more generally speaking gender norms are unnecessarily restrictive and can cause misery to those who don't see themselves as trans, but feel constrained just by societal gender expectations. Norms and expectations which we've inherited from past norms prescribed by those with the power to set and enforce them. (You can analyse that in all sorts of ways - patriarchal, religious, hereditary aristocracy and wealth, and so on). It's right that we continually re-evaluate them, with a view to creating societies where all can flourish.

There is no-one on the Gender Critical side that doesn’t allow for non-conforming children. In fact, many of them are non-conforming themselves and object to the stereotyping of gender roles. What they object to is the medicalisation of what seems to be a mindset, and would rather see non-conformity lived out. You seem to think that anything that doesn’t fit should be fixed with a pill or a scalpel, rendering those changes permanent and the consequences dire, if in adulthood the mindset changes. Making people dependent upon drugs for the rest of their lives is not the way I understand flourishing.

There will be practical situations to be dealt with re trans people, which are hardly beyond our ability to handle. And in terms of medication and surgery I'd like to see adequate counselling and support services and age limits informed by professionals best able to assess these things. That's the responsible thing to do re medical intervention.

That would be the responsible thing if it were not such a viable business, with a lot of money to be made, and if the whole issue was less ideological. The lobbying is done with such fervour that Billy Graham would have loved the same kind of fervour in his evangelistic crusades. There are already countries having second thoughts after evidence of people being rushed through treatment and young ages, something we were told never happens.

As a feminist who has some views which some would consider radical, TERFs disappoint me. I'm not just a feminist because I'm a woman, but also because I understand that gender identity, race, disability, sexuality and class, as well as biological sex, can also make you disadvantaged in ways in society. Our lived experience is individual and inter-sectional, and we should be involved in helping each other over our different hurdles - or kicking them out the way. But you look intent to put as many in the way of trans people as you can find. Why not be more constructive?

If you betray women who have suffered abuse by making them share supposedly safe houses with biological men who only have to self-ID to gain access; if you allow biological men with male genitals to parade around young girls and women in changing rooms; if you deny a paralysed woman the right to same-sex intimate care; if you fail to see that by giving biological men who have AGP the right of entry to women’s spaces, you lower their ability to safeguard against abuse, then you are not a feminist.

The problem, as I have often said, is with men who don’t feel themselves to be men, with men who can’t accept cross-dressers in the changing rooms, with men who are violent towards transwomen, and with men who only want to exploit their possibilities for sexual satisfaction. Why it is women who have to accommodate these men, I do not know. How long have feminists been minions for men?

I said at the beginning “There is no denying that there are people with a need to identify as the opposite sex and we should be in the position to honour that by allowing them to undergo the transition they want.” Adults should be able to do this.

Right!  So the issue is how to constructively enable them and introduce appropriate adaptations and safeguards, yes?

I'd expect that to include normalising it,  education playing a role in that. Childhood and puberty are times to learn and explore, but not make major life altering changes.   Medical interventions should be at an appropriate age, properly informed and with proper  medical  and psychological  assessment and ongoing supervision and support.    This is what the UK's NHS does, it's happening, and I assume it's fairly typical.  There's a lengthy specialist assessment, then the first treatment is psychological, after that if appropriate living for at least a year as your gender identity, then after that hormone blockers for a year, then after that irreversible hormones (minimum age 16), and then at earliest age 18, surgery and the legal right to change your gender identity. That's a graduated, monitored progression over a long period, partly because we know puberty is a time of change and confusion. There are obviously still some risks, but there are risks in not helping youngsters too.

It seems reasonable to me, how about you? 

Same sex spaces or services can be tricky. Public toilets, changing rooms and showers can have cubicles, that's easy enough.  And we can have third option unisex facilities too.  Nurses, doctors  and care workers come in two sexes already.  I'd expect if someone has particular needs the provider should do their best to help, that already happens. And there might be particular situations like prisons or safe houses where you'd want to either check the person has been through the above processes and got their gender certification, or have facilities for those who haven't.  Otherwise it's a judgement call, one which will hopefully become less necessary as society adapts.

Currently we're undergoing change and there's some turmoil, new ways of thinking being aired,  and jockeying.   We've seen it before, and during the relatively recent 'progressive' decades minorities have made significant progress and then things settle down, with new norms becoming integrated into the mainstream.  You'd hope it would get easier and easier, but we're living in a time when progressivism as the fragile mainstream veneer is on the defensive.  And 'radical' is now embodied by Q Anon,  Trump, conspiracy theorists, men's activism, white supremacy and  resurgent religionism.   If TERFS are worried about diluting the essentialism of their particular feminist ideology and activism if transwomen are allowed to join the gender club, I'd say there are bigger existential fish to fry.  It suits our common oppressors to focus on trans people as the scary 'other', and it's working. 

[Stoppelmann]

I experience a gut reaction against bigots who are at fault for refusing to recognise that people are just people whatever they look like.
It's shameful that bigotry causes some people to decide what permanent category they fit, to the extent of invasive medical or surgical interventions.

I experience a gut reaction against people who cannot engage in a discussion but fall into stereotyped statements that avoid the simple matter at hand. It is the inability to listen to the concerns of other people that causes the whole issue to become so inflamed.

All the same, I overcome my gut reaction and seek communication, balancing the opposites and locating the real problem: Men.