UKC

I grew up in a fairly old fashioned community and it took me until my mid 20s to understand and 'accept' homosexuality. More recently ive been seeing in the news people changing gender, not just cross dressing but surgically. What prompted me to think more deeply about this was on the BBC website recently about a child who identified as the opposite gender.
I dont want to judge as it makes no difference to me or my life, but theres still a small part of my brain that feels that the whole thing is somehow wrong. Sure you can change your clothes, hair, surgery to change body parts to an extent, hormones to change your physiology, but surely you are still physically of a set gender, i.e XX or XY chromosomes.
Is it a psychological issue, is it an illness, can the brain be of a different 'gender' to the body, whats it all about?
Tia.

edit - hmm not sure why I posted this in the pub, oh well!

In reply to The Potato:
First off, chromosomes are a poor measure of sex. There are intersex conditions, such as being XY but being insensitive to testosterone, which will give female appearance - the girl may not realise that she has a Y chromosome until she doesn't start her periods. There are even fertile mums with Y chromosomes who give birth to daughters with the same condition. You can be partially insensitive to testosterone, or you can be XX and be androgenised in utero. Then there are XXYs... if you haven't had a chromosome test, you can't be 100% sure you have the chromosomes you think you have.

The brain and the sex organs develop at different weeks in the womb. Male and female brains have certain differences when scanned. One theory for transgenderism is that it is a kind of intersex condition where the hormones switch one way for genitals and another way for brains. Others say that we shouldn't be preoccupied by why or how it could happen, because we know that it does happen, and it is not clear that it is something we should prevent.

Trans people often (but not always) feel that their body is wrong from an early age. They can't always articulate why, but I have also heard of distressed three year olds insisting for months on end that they are girls and trying to cut their penises off with scissors. In previous generations, the topic never came up, and people tended to hide it.

As well as the body issues, most trans people suddenly feel much better, happier and less depressed when they start taking cross-sex hormones. If you are not trans, the chances are that cross sex hormones will make you feel horrible, (they gave oestrogen to gay men to try and cure them, like Alan Turing, and it was disastrous) and so anyone transitioning because they thought it was 'cool' would end their experiment at that point. However, as with sexuality, there is probably a spectrum, with some people having brains that could be comfortable as either gender.

There was a famous experiment by Prof Money where a baby boy who had lost his penis was raised as a girl without being told of his back story . He was utterly miserable, raged against the female hormones, and insisted he was a boy. Eventually he was allowed to transition back, although the trauma continued and he ended up dying by suicide.

The rate of regret after trans surgery is lower than almost any other non emergency surgery. Trans people allowed to complete transition live fulfilling lives as their new gender and most have no lasting problems. Those unable to transition do not do well. Like with ex gay therapy, there is no successful psychotherapy that can cure transgender feelings. In that way it is not like a mental illness such as anorexia. You are who you are, and gender dysphoria (feeling that your physical sex is out of whack with your brain ) kills through suicide. Who knows how many people in the past who died that way were actually trans?

In reply to The Potato:

I was born in the wrong body. I'm sure I was meant to be very handsome but nature has made a terrible mistake. I feel some what aggrieved however I've not got round to seeking redress. I guess trans people are just more proactive, than I, in holding nature to account and seeking help from health processionals to make amends.

In reply to Gone:

Your post is utterly compelling, thanks for taking the time.

But there's quite a fashion at the moment, which I'm sure you're aware of, of claiming that there is no evidence that gender reassignment is helpful and that gender dysphoria is best treated as a mental illness. They claim that the science supports their views. It strikes me that these people (alt-right/Brietbart wankers) talk complete and utter bollocks, continually stating that their toxic opinions are factually justified when in fact they're just motivated by prejudice. But I'd be interested if you knew what the research really does say about outcomes from gender reassignment?

In reply to Gone:

That's a great reply thanks

In reply to The Potato:

Must admit I find this difficult to follow. "Some people are sexually attracted to people of the same sex rather than the opposite sex" is not a particularly difficult concept to grasp. I'd imagine your average 10-11 year old (or whatever age they get the birds and bees talk these days) can "get" that fairly easily.

In reply to Neil Williams:

He 'has' accepted it, which is the main thing. I'm more interested in the trans topic of the OP.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

The science has been clear cut enough about gender reassignment for long enough for a medical consensus to emerge, and randomised studies which would compare reassignment and non-reassignment would be horribly unethical.

There is a paper here about general measured outcomes, which is a pooled meta analysis which should rule out some of the dodgiest stuff:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2265.2009.03625.x/abstrac...

The link came from this
https://genderanalysis.net/2015/09/paul-mchugh-is-wrong-transitioning-is-ef...
which explains why a lot of the stuff quoted by the alt right is wrong. Also, check the dates on all studies - in the past trans people had more difficulties in society - e.g. Having to move away and go stealth. Trans people for historical reasons have been very suspicious of the medical community and tend to disappear from long term contact for follow up.

There is a general principle paper here:
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/bjprcpsych/204/2/96.full.pdf

Appropriate medical care in the UK should follow the WPATH standards of care, which is a worldwide professional body which has been busy working out best practice for 50 years, including decreeing the minimum wait times before surgery and suchlikes. I certainly hope they should reference their work somewhere, but there is so much stuff by alt right and gender critical feminists that a quick google is swamping the proper stuff.

Also, there are plenty of people who are gender variant to some degree who might benefit from pyschotherapy to explore it and be comfortable but choose not to transition. Cross-dressers, butches, etc. That in no way invalidates transsexualism.

In reply to Gone:

Bravo. An excellent reply.

In reply to The Potato:

I've long been fascinated by body dysmorphia, especially where someone thinks they shouldn't have a limb, for example a leg. Having exhausted the standard treatments (cognitive behavioural therapy, drugs), a small number of people will go to great lengths to amputate a limb, or to damage it to such an extent that the health service are forced to professionally amputate it.

I don't understand how we can embrace surgical solutions to gender dysmorphia whilst denying them to other dysmorphias and insisting it's a psychological problem that can be addressed with CBT and drugs.

Perhaps some factor I'm not aware of makes these less comparable, this seem like a good place to ask.

I baulk at the idea of the state amputating healthy limbs where as the gender surgeries to me seem entirely appropriate.

In reply to JLS:


I actually have the opposite problem.

In reply to Gone:
Excellent reply, the concept of a sliding scale with most people fitting in relatively easily into a clear gender with a small but probably bigger than realised minority somewhere on a scale in between either mentally or physically
Ironically there is a higher proportion among female fashion models, with the tallness and slim hips and strong facial features and low body fat being "male" characteristics

In reply to Gone:
Excellent post: maybe you can help with something that I have been pondering recently?

There seems to be a popular trend which tries to demonstrate that gender identity is primarily a result of environment and conditioning as opposed to biology. The BBC is currently running a series on this.

How does one square this with the trans-people you describe who were presumably mainly "brought up" as one sex but nevertheless maintained their absolute commitment that they were really the opposite sex and having transitioned, felt that they were finally in the "right" body? Doesn't this suggest that gender is not the result of environment?

In reply to Postmanpat:

Aren't those programmes more about assigning "boy" values or "girl" values to things, rather than actually about gender identity.

Ie "girl" traits of sugar and spice etc may be introduced by nurture.
Won't actually affect identifying as female though.

In reply to off-duty:

So what is it that people in the "wrong gender" are aspiring to? If you are a woman born into a man's body what is it that you can get from transitioning?
What is "identifying as female" if not aspiring to "female" traits?

In reply to Postmanpat:

In scientific circles there is consensus that gender identity- whether you feel male, female, or neither - is formed either at the time of birth or very soon after. So either down to one's DNA or hormonal effects in utero - possibly the latter, as if you have an identical twin who is trans, you are very likely to be trans yourself, but not certain. This is proven by the Prof Money case I referred to earlier - the poor chap who lost his penis was David Reimer if you want to read more about it. However, gender identities can be somewhat fluid - there was another case of a boy reassigned to be a girl after accidental penis amputation, and in this case they remained as female and were content with their assigned gender,but were lesbian! So some interplay between gender and sexuality going on.

I think the gender-neutral upbringing is a different thing completely - it is about not absorbing positive or negative stereotypes relating to one's gender - Ie whether we are affecting self confidence, chosen profession, hobbies and ambition by giving boys soldier t shirts and girls ones about shopping. However, if one of the kids does happen to be trans (or gay) a more gender neutral upbringing may alleviate some of the social pain they feel.

The amputee case is slightly different, as apparently those with body dysmorphia have seen a person with a bodily impairment in early life, and it has stuck with them somehow - one probably isn't born body dysmorphic, although maybe the potential is there. It would seem sensible to do follow up studies of those who had managed one way or another to get rid of the offending limbs and compare those with those who have had to stick with them and find out who was psychologically healthier, but I imagine such communities are even more secretive than the trans community.

In reply to Gone:

Thanks, but I still don't get what "gender identity" means. It doesn't mean physical characteristics. Nor does it mean sexual preference. And people now argue it is not about traditional gender "traits". So what is it?

In reply to Postmanpat:

If you transition, I gather that you don't feel that your body is wrong when you look in the mirror, and don't get depressed after masturbation or having sex, due to the physical experience not matching up with what the mind is seeking.


It's not about traits, but about the body feeling wrong. Somebody could be born male and want to transition to female, and still finding 'boys things' to be what they're interested in as a kid. It's not about the qualities or interests which one applies to being male or female, but about 'physical wrongness'. or people not being comfortable in their own skins.

In reply to Postmanpat:

I identify as female. Fortunately I was assigned female at birth, so I am not trans. If I woke up a man, I would be very upset. EWwww! The body would feel all wrong! I did try a dose of testosterone once just for a laugh, and it made me jumpy and anxious.

I don't aspire to many female traits like : enjoying wearing makeup, liking pink, wanting to be a mum, preferring arty subjects to maths, following fashion, celebrity magazines.

I like: science,computers, outdoor sports, straightforwardness, nerdy hobbies. Women are in the minority for all of them. Still not a bloke.

Some trans women have the same hobbies as me. Doesn't mean they shouldn't have transitioned! There are all sorts of women!

In reply to Gone:


>
Yes but 1) you've identified what you don't think gender identity isn't, but not what it is, except a feeling that things ain't right.
2) that not all people of each sex conform to simple stereotypes could be used to show that it is nature not nurture that influences their "traits".

In reply to bouldery bits:

>"I actually have the opposite problem."

I have a baseball bat if you want some facial reassignment?

In reply to Postmanpat:



A feeling that you "are" a woman compared to a woman who might be less assertive/confident etc due to fact they have been brought up in a gender biased way.

One could learn to be more assertive, one couldn't learn to feel like a man.

In reply to Postmanpat:
I watched a morning TV programme that is following two young children, under 10, who have identified as being a different gender than the one that they were born with - if that's the right way to put it.
I found the whole issue quite disturbing in that both sets of parents had accepted the child's gender issues at a very early age, about 5 if I remember correctly, and since then had allowed their children to live as the gender they identified with.
I find it difficult to understand how such young children can be sure that they have a gender issue.
Most 5 year olds I know don't know anything about penises, breasts, etc and certainly couldn't articulate that any unhappy feelings were down to being trapped in the wrong body.
Apologies if any of my terminology is upsetting or offensive, that's not my intention.

In reply to The Potato:

It's your body.
Do what you want with it.

In reply to Postmanpat:


That is basically the definition of "Gender Dysphoria" - a feeling of distress, of things not being right, caused by your gender identity not matching your physical, hormonal and social gender.

If your gender identity matches up with everything else, like a well engineered user interface or tool, you won't really consider its existence, until you do thought experiments of waking up in another body perhaps! But if you were just a brain in a vat, all on your own, you would still think of yourself as male or female, and that is your gender identity.


To what extent gender stereotyped behaviour is nature vs nurture is another discussion completely (which may be the one the BBC are having, I haven't seen the programs) , I'm just saying that those traits are irrelevant when considering gender identity.

In reply to Gone:

Ok, thx

In reply to Gone:



Are you sure I wouldn't simply identify as a brain in a vat? I'd probably also be like 'aaagh! Get me out of this vat! Not because I'm the wrong gender but because I don't like being in a vat!' - unless the vat was full of cider, in which case I'd be like 'come on in! The Waters' lovely, *hic*.'

Nobody can be sure of anything, but if it is a longstanding complaint for them (rather than I wish I was a dinosaur) and potentially consuming their life... kids can go from utterly miserable, self-harming, withdrawn to happy outgoing joyful kids just when their parents tell them "you can wear a dress at home if you want" or " choose a male nickname and we will use it for you"


Most don't. Exactly. Trans kids will be hyper aware of the differences. We don't know how innate a body image is (is the 3year old trans girl trying to cut her penis off with scissors because she has been told that she can't be a girl, as girls don't have penises, or because she has an independently generated view of her female body that doesn't have a penis in it) but spotting boys and girls and identifying one tribe vs the other comes, I believe, very early on. I am told that adult and teen patients going to a gender clinic say "I should be the other sex" whereas little kids say "I AM the other sex".

In some ways trans kids are easier than older patients because you don't need to worry about hormones or surgery or sexual issues. You just have to start treating them as the other sex, gradually at first if you wish. If they suddenly start getting much happier and behaving much better, bingo! They are probably trans. Nothing irreversible has happened, so if they get older and start articulating things and say being trans is not for them, then they can return to their birth gender, but in practice that doesn't seem to often happen.
Kids only get the one childhood and giving them a chance of happiness has got to be the best strategy.
There was an infamous gender clinic in North America which aimed to cure kids who were expressing transgender thoughts or even gender-inappropriate play (sissy boys, butch girls, etc) by encouraging kids to conform to the stereotypes of their birth gender and denying them the opportunity to have any characteristics or close friends of their preferred gender. It was finally closed down after campaigns from its former patients (many of whom transitioned in adulthood), who said that it was a form of torture.


I am not trans but it seems fine to me.

In reply to bouldery bits:

Ah, but the philosophy of a "brain in a vat" problem is that you could hypothetically wire the senses up to experience anything - your sight, hearing, sound and touch could tell you that you are a man, a woman, an octopus lolloping along a pink seabed on an alien moon, or a sentient boulder - and you wouldn't actually know it wasn't real. So if someone came and cut your head off and plugged you into the Matrix as an otherwise-similar-looking person of the opposite gender, would you get dysphoric? Any volunteers?

In reply to Gone:

How do I know this hasn't already happened?

In reply to baron:


Really? I don't think it's that unusual for young children to see other children naked, and observe that little boys are different to little girls.

And most children are aware of breasts, and that adult women have them, and adult men don't. Breastfeeding, for instance...

In reply to bouldery bits:

You don't, sorry.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simu...

In reply to Gone:


Hmmm.. well could someone put mine on the setting where everything isn't soul crushingly mundane? Thanks.

In reply to captain paranoia:

I suppose it depends how much time children spend around other naked children.
I don't see many women getting their chests out in public to breastfeed.
Obviously different families will have different experiences.
However, the point I was trying to make was that I find it hard to understand how very young children can know that their unhappiness is a direct result of the gender that they were physically born with.

In reply to Gone:


That isn't nearly true, genuine intersex conditions exist in 1 in 4,500 cases, they are a very small outlier group that don't really affect the maths at all.

The Center for Gender-Based Biology at UCLA recently tried a much looser definition of sexual development disorders but could still only push the figure to 1 in 100 for all cases of DSD in human populations ( and not just ones that separate the sexes).

So again the maths is pretty sound.

In reply to Gone:


Indeed, although I'm not sure that the house-lite backing music on the link made the argument necessarily stronger. I thought you might be a better bet than a simple google search, so thanks.

Have you got any thoughts on why the Brietbart Wankers have got such a thing about trans people? Milo and Shapiro are both gay men, seems to me that they just want to shit on a smaller and frankly powerless minority who have a seriously rough time without their intervention, and out of sheer spite - to give themselves the pleasure of being the bully rather than the victim. Which is the absolute rock bottom of moral inadequacy. Quite an achievement guys!

In reply to winhill:

I'm not certain I get your point.

Among the vast majority of the population, sex, gender identity and chromosomes are aligned in the normal way (not sure this terminology is perfect but hopefully you get what I mean). In these cases, chromosomes are an excellent measure of sex. But then there are a bunch of outliers, fraction of 1% I guess. Among these outliers, some have chromosomal abnormalities, some don't.

So if you're in the outlier group in which your sex or gender identity is under question, are chromosomes a reliable or unreliable indicator of sex?

In reply to baron:


Kids separate into single sex groups around 2 years old, so they are well aware of which sex they are by then.

Girls tend to be more sexist and at an earlier age than boys.

So around 4 years girls are enforcing gender norms and prefer small groups (very small. only 1 or 2 close buddies).

Boys tend not to enforce gender norms til age 7 and before that enjoy larger groups and are much more tolerant of sex variation in the group and in roles. That's why, for example we get tom boys but there is no male equivalent for a boy who takes part with the girls - the girls don't tolerate it.

So a young boy could blame their exclusion on their sex, it might be obvious to them why they are excluded. Perhaps a form of PTSD means they don't recover from the shock and change sex later on to compensate.

In reply to winhill:


PTSD would probably be amenable to psychotherapy. Which, as syv_k has pointed out, is not effective for transgender individuals.

In reply to winhill:


How likely do you think it is? It would think it'd have to be a very deep form of trauma/PTSD indeed to make a youth feel depressed after masturbating and having sex, and to go to the lengths of changing their gender through surgery, something which goes right to the core who they are, and what about women who want to transition?

In reply to wintertree:



Because there's more to gender than the simple presence or absence on an appendage.

In reply to The Potato:

There's not much I can add to the first excellent answer but I'd like to say this.. knowing several people who've been through part or all of the transition process, thankyou for being so open minded and willing to challenge your upbringing and preconceptions. It's easy to be liberal if your parents brought you up that way. It seems you've challenged that before and are willing to do it again.. bravo!

In reply to Gone:

Your post is very good, but to quibble about one phrase:


Overall, chromosomes are a very good measure of sex; but it's a less than perfect measure, and in a small minority of cases (1%?) a simple assignment based on chromosomes is wrong.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

>Milo and Shapiro are both gay men,

I'm pretty sure Ben Shapiro is straight, and married (to a woman), with a child.

In reply to Gone:

Thanks for taking the time to write this!

In reply to captain paranoia:


I'm not sure that's what she said but if it's what she meant that would be wrong.

Most people with DSD don't transition, in the US 70% of boys with sexual dysphoria grow up to be be gay guys rather than transition.

But given the high social cost of transitioning is 30% a high figure or a low figure? Either way therapy is likely to be useful for both those who change and those who don't.

In reply to Gone:
Your posts have been very interesting and informative and I have definitely learnt something new today. However, your posts and your view seem to be very focused on the bio/ psychological/medical aspect of gender reassignment.

I think there is another important aspect to it that seems to be getting overlooked and shut down...the feminist issues surrounding male-to female gender reassignment, which a quick google search suggests is 3x as common as female to male (is there a biological/ in utero theory to explain that difference?).


As with many aspects of modern medicine, advances in medical technology have been allowed to progress at a faster rate than ethical and sociological consensus, and subsequently equality and discrimination laws are used to prevent important discussions.

Male to female gender reassignment has implications for (from birth) females, whether it be in competitive sport, crime statistics or prison.

The case of Lauren Jeska sums up several of those points, allowed to compete (and win) against XX females (one of my friends running career was blighted by have to compete against her), when things didn't go her way she took a very male approach to dealing with it, with violence (female violence is rarely committed outside of immediate relationships), and required two men to restrain her.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-39266777

Whilst it is fantastic that people with gender dysmorphia are able to choose a path in life which may finally bring them happiness, I think we need to be careful labeling a male with an XY chromosome and associated physique, upbringing and in some case temperament as a "female", just because they have had hormone injections +/- plastic surgery.

In reply to SAF:

And of course there's Fallon Fox, the MMA fighter who transitioned as an adult, having gone through puberty as a male, with all the physiological sporting benefits that brings, and kicked the crap out of some unfortunate women in the octagon.

In reply to The Potato:

Why do you need to understand it? I don't fully understand sex changes to be honest but I don't need to. I don't have any issues with people getting a sex change, seams incredibly brave if anything, but I've never met anyone who has. If I do, or I have kids that this is an issue for then I will try to understand it. But for now I just take the view that I don't really understand the issues but everyone is entitled to equality and not get persecuted for being different.

In reply to snoop6060:


Can't speak for The Potato, and not specifically relating to gender realignment, but I tend to find understanding something diminishes my tendency to knee-jerk judgements. I like to think I'd automatically treat everyone equally, but I am aware that I sometimes form private opinions on rather flimsy grounds, and though I hope I don't act on them I worry that I might and then regret it later

In reply to SAF:
It is fair to let trans women taking HRT to compete in women only comps after a short waiting period, because once they are having hormone treatment their testosterone levels will actually be lower than non-trans women - ovaries produce a little testosterone-, and it is the testosterone that gives men their strength advantage over women. Upbringing? They may have been more encouraged to do sports if they were raised male, but we don't have separate competitions for adults who didn't go to private school or whatever! They will have a height advantage on average, but there are plenty of tall non-trans women too.
Here is an article about a runner who transitioned and their run times slowed, but their percentage of world record pace for their sex stayed the same https://www.runnersworld.com/runners-stories/running-after-transition-janet... .

Socially, trans women belong in women's space because although they will not have experienced external sexism before transition, as soon as they transition they get all the crap that other women get, but more so. A newly transitioned trans woman is far, far less safe walking along a dark alley than I am (non trans female) and will get far more abuse from men. They get murdered far more and discriminated against in employment far more, and these are women's issues.

I would also caution against labelling this person as having "male temperament/ male approach to dealing with it". They sound like a horrible , violent and deeply disturbed person, but using their poor behaviour to deny their gender is a double whammy that someone wouldn't get if they weren't trans.

I have heard a theory that trans women are more common than trans men because female is the default option for development in the uterus. So for male development, lots of buttons get pushed at different times, and one can get missed.

I have also heard a counter theory that people find the strength to transition based on the probability of knowing someone trans in real life or in the media, and in countries where there were one or two high profile trans men, the trans male percentage is higher than the trans female. This argument was made some years ago though before the current media saturation.

Most trans women don't have plastic surgery. They will take oestrogen tablets (not injections), along with testosterone blockers, for a couple of years or so and then have genital surgery, which will remove the need to take the blockers.

In reply to snoop6060:

To be fair, he did write this ''I dont want to judge as it makes no difference to me or my life''.

In reply to winhill:


Fair enough, at a population level chromosomes are a very good test of sex, but I suppose what I was getting at was that if doubt has arisen and trans/intersex issues are on the table then testing XX vs XY is less effective than asking someone.

In reply to Gone:

I'm glad you posted this. I've often thought it seemed rather unfair for certain feminist groups to exclude trans women, due to them having been (as far as society is concerned) men up to a certain point in their lives. It isn't as if they've chosen their challenging life path. I don't know if they eventually did, but I used to know somebody in my teens who was talking about transitioning from male to female. Being new to the experience of living as a female could make the support of other females even more helpful, perhaps.

In reply to Gone:

"I like: science,computers, outdoor sports, straightforwardness, nerdy hobbies. Women are in the minority for all of them. Still not a bloke. "

Fascinated by your posts in this thread, very interesting..thx. Slightly off topic, but your comment referenced above made me wonder what you thought of James Damores' (ex google employee) memo on gender differences in tech? Did he have a point or not in your opinion?

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:
James Damores? Not getting into that one. Am already over my monthly quota of trying to produce reasoned arguments in areas where offence can be easily drawn, so will not contribute to that can of worms. Going to go and watch cat videos now

In reply to Gone:


No it is not.

A trans male-female who has been through puberty will have a different muscle distribution/% to an XX women. Men are on average 5 inches taller than women, so you are putting all put a small minority of taller than average women at a large disadvantage across a range of sports, not to mention in physical danger in a contact sports. I'm a taller than average women at 5"8, 3 1/2 inches taller than average in-fact, but still 1 1/2 inches below the average male height!

Testosterone and oestrogen are far from the only hormones effecting women. A trans would have a significant training/ competition advantage over a menstruating women, whose schedule and to varying degrees health gets disrupted approximately every 4 weeks (admittedly at the top of some sports females train so hard they stop menstruating, but that certainly isn't the norm in all sports/ all levels of sport)


Less safe, more abused, higher risk of being murdered, employment discrimination...Are these "women's issues" or minority issues?


So, when it does happen, as in the Lauren Jeska case whose behaviour fitted a very male pattern of violent/criminal behaviour, should we just pretend it didn't happen, is it a case that is simply not up for discussion, because she is trans?

In reply to SAF:


I don't think anyone is arguing that it should be ignored, but that we shouldn't characterise the behaviour as "male".

There is a significant difference between saying "These are traits which are more common in males" and "These are male traits".

In reply to Gone: "Going to go and watch cat videos now .."

All ginger cats are male BTW

In reply to SAF:



The muscle distribution will even out very fast once testosterone is stopped. Yes, trans women will be taller, but there is still a considerable overlap between male and female height. If you are going to say that it is unfair because she is taller, then why not have separate competitions for "women under six feet" and "women over six feet". Don't fighting sports have weight categories anyway, so that addresses the physical danger issue?



Please don't refer to a female trans athlete as 'a trans'. 'Trans person' in general, or 'trans women' in this case.

Some women have menstrual disruption. Others don't. Would a woman with a hysterectomy be barred?
I have already said that the testosterone given out by women with ovaries will give them an advantage over women without ovaries. Trans women also spend a lot of their lives feeling crappy because the amount of oestrogen that doctors prescribe is more suitable for an older post-hysterectomy woman than a young fit one. Trans women have far, far more in common with non-trans women than with men. Drawing the boundary to exclude an already marginalised group is plain mean, and perpetuates transphobia because it gives people an excuse to disrespect their pronouns etc.


When they are not clocked as trans, they suffer women's issues just the same as other women (possibly worse, because less likely to be conventionally attractive, so get more hassle, and they haven't had enough practice de escalating things like catcalls, so more likely to get assaulted). Getting hassle about what they wear is a women's issue, that trans people get more of because too feminine is perpetuating stereotypes and not feminine is not really a woman.
I can't see that being sexually assaulted in a back alley is less of a women's issue because the victim is a trans woman and the chance is high that once they have been sexually assaulted the attacker will then proceed to murder them in a fit of disgust. (I know men get sexually assaulted in back alleys too, but the situation is very different there).


No, treat her like a violent woman.

What I find is a harder problem is intersex athletes, because there are a good few who are female-identified, female-assigned-at-birth, and their sex organs pump out high testosterone levels and bodies that respond to testosterone (I am excluding complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, as that will be no performance advantage). I don't know what the answer is there.

In reply to Gone:


The average height of a women is 5ft 4 1/2, no where close to 6ft!

What you seem to be suggesting is that the whole of women's sport adapts and changes to accommodate the needs of a tiny minority of biologically male (XY) trans people. And that's equality?!


And whilst your adding this trans-person to female crime statistics, why not add her to female health statistics, bring down the rates of cervical and ovarian cancer...oh no wait...that would be silly, because she is not a women!

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:



thats not true. i used to tell people that 'fact' too, untill i met a couple with two female gingers

In reply to La benya:

I have a female ginger cat. She's called Eric.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

You just outed Shapiro. Married with kids AFAIK.

I think they come at from very different angles, Milo basically a provacateur and wishes to ingratiate himself with his right wing bro audience and rich bigot benefactors, Shapiro, I imagine from his orthodox Jewish religious upbringing, he is pretty squeamish about termination also - to a ridiculous degree. Also there's the language/ law on gendered pronouns / trans issue with Jordan Peterson which seems somehow to have become aligned to the alt right circus of social liberalism ( a f*cking kaleidoscope if you ask me ) - when we're conservatives, especially tea party types concerned with protecting anyone's rights but the rich?

As much as understand trans issues to be important, I can't help but think the whole thing seems to be being blown massively out of proportion ( it affects such a tiny number of people ) social commentary on the right and the left. Maybe it's the clicks, eh?

D

In reply to Gone:
Might part of the difference between male to female trans and female to male trans numbers be due to the genital surgery. I don't really know anything about the details (and I'm not sure I want to), but to me it seems obvious that creating a functional vagina is going to be easier than creating a functional penis.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I can see a bloke thinking "I can see how I'll get a vagina" but will women be thinking "how the f*ck (sic) do I get an ok penis" and this might affect the number that go all the way with the transition.

In reply to Michael Hood:

Yes, good point, many trans women can live in 'deep stealth' and not disclose their trans history, but a trans man would have to be celibate, as the genitals won't look like most men's. As well as that, it is socially much easier to be a masculine woman than a feminine man. Traditionally, the only places feminine men were accepted were amongst the gay community, which doesn't help, as most were straight pre-transition. . For some reason, probably due to testosterone and its lack, many trans men used to present as butch dykes but trans women presented as straight men,

In reply to SAF:

You are complaining about height, and using that as an excuse to discriminate based on trans status. Surely it would be better to discriminate on height status, and the "normal height for a woman league" would then be even safer and fairer still as it would be able to exclude the odd six-foot non-trans woman, who as I have repeatedly explained will be just as strong or stronger than the trans women.

However, I believe you are not really concerned about height, because in the very next paragraph you say that trans women are not women. I think this is the crux of the matter. The trans women I know have put themselves through hell to be treated as women, and they are just as much women as I am. If you have informed yourself on the scientific issues and still want to group women in such a way that excludes trans women, I believe this is just as suspect as a club for straight people only or non-disabled people only. It is an underprivileged group being kicked down, yet again.

I turned up on this thread to give some information to people, but I am not interested in further debate with anyone who has read about this stuff and yet believes that trans women are men and trans men are women. Sorry.

In reply to ChrisBrooke and Dauphin:


Haha. OK - no idea where I got that idea then. I thought that along with Milo and Murray, everyone with right-wing views that I despise must obviously be gay! Do you think Spencer is a bender?

In reply to Dauphin:



Yes totally. I think it's just the nature of the internet that brings out all these ambitious, articulate people to try to out-dickhead each other on whatever topic they fancy having a terribly strong opinion on. That is what they're trying to do, isn't it, or have I misunderstood?

In reply to Gone:

I think most of the problem here is that society is very set up with gender as a binary thing, either male or female. For 99% (or whatever the figure is) that's totally ok. For the other 1%, that doesn't work very well, both for those people themselves, and for how the rest of society treats and views them.

No easy answers to that but we should at least try to treat everyone with respect and without discrimination.

I remember working somewhere where there was an MSc student that was in the process of becoming a trans woman. There were some issues, like which toilets should he/she use, especially when shaving in the morning (which some other women found unsettling as it was - I think - as hormone treatment was starting but pre surgery), but the main thing I remember thinking was that trans people must really, really want to change and that it must take a lot of guts because they really put themselves in the firing line when it comes to socially awkward situations.

In reply to Gone:

We accept that sex is not fully binary and that there are people who can't be so neatly classified. There are inter-sex conditions and there are trans people whose bodies don't reflect the way they feel. But then:


Why do we then throw out the notion of a continuum, and insist that we have to go back to absolute binary in how we regard people? Thus trans people are either "just as much women as I am" or they are "men". Isn't there space in between those descriptions?

When it comes to eligibility for sporting events, I do think that accepting trans or inter-sex people into women-only events can sometimes (not always) be unfair to the other competitors.

In reply to The Potato:

I have a friend who transitioned from male to female. At first she just did cross dressing, then she began hormones and finally had the operation. I didn't really get it until after she'd had the op and I saw how comfortable she now was with herself. It was like everything from before was not really them, and now I was with the real them.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

There are people who have a non-binary gender identity -don't particularly feel very male or very female.
But I wouldn't conflate that with all trans people - if you go to the effort of transitioning your gender identity is probably stronger than most.

I am saying that the space in between those descriptions needs to be one which socially puts the trans people on the side of the boundary which they choose. Otherwise we end up with women-born-women only clubs and trans people being unable to go to the toilet. For a few special cases like sports and prisons, the physical safety and fairness of everyone needs to be considered, but the Olympic committee has a science based policy that says that trans women are fine once their hormones have been settled for a period.

Ideally I believe someone's gender identity. If they truthfully say they are female, then they are as female as me, even if they look a bit masculine and haven't completed their transition . They just are a woman who can't compete in sports right now due to hormonal issues.


As I said above, there is a temporary waiting period for newly transitioned athletes. Unfortunately trans women athletes don't get welcomed with open arms even when they have been long transitioned.
For intersex athletes, we don't have the answer yet and I don't know what we should do.

In reply to The Potato:

One thing I can't make up my mind about is providing treatment, like surgery or hormones to kids , sometimes even before puberty. I'd like to hear some informed opinions on that please.

In reply to Jimbocz:

Nobody provides hormones or surgery to kids before puberty. If they are going through puberty and getting distressed by it, they are given safe hormone blockers to delay puberty until they are 16 and can make their minds up about hormones. Surgery comes after hormones.

In reply to Jimbocz:

I have never heard of surgery being provided to kids before puberty.

Children with a very strong aversion to going through puberty because of gender dysphoria can be given hormonal blockers. These simply prevent that person's own hormonal changes from having any physical effects - essentially the person taking them remains pre-pubescent until they stop. This gives children who start going through puberty several years to experiment and mature before making a decision. If someone decides that actually they don't want to transition they can stop taking the blockers at any time and will go through puberty as normal if a little later than usual. People who have decided to transition can start taking hormones from 16 (I think) onwards. This results in a much more natural transition because the person will not have been through puberty as the other gender first - to take the example of a male to female transition, someone who has taken blockers and never gone through a male puberty is likely to remain shorter and their voice will not have dropped so they will be much less physically masculine as a female.

In reply to Gone:


Thanks for clearing that up, I thought I knew something but I didn't. Can you tell me why puberty is intentionally delayed? And do you think 16 is old enough to make a decision like that? I would have thought 18.

In reply to Jimbocz:


I am assuming you are male and you are happy with your male identity? Cast your mind back to your own puberty. How would you have felt if instead of growing taller and more muscular and your voice deepening, you had grown breasts and hips and started menstruating? Now imagine that you have been dreading this happening to you and powerless to stop it since you became aware of puberty and what it means. I cannot even begin to imagine how traumatic that would be. That is what people with strong gender dysphoria going through puberty experience. Why would you not prevent someone from going through that trauma if you could? Especially given that the effects of blockers are completely reversible.


>And do you think 16 is old enough to make a decision like that? I would have thought 18.

I don't think these decisions are ever made without the input of a specialist councillor and I from what I understand for someone to transition that young they will have to have been under the care of a gender specialist for several years already. Some 16 year olds are mature enough to make that decision, some aren't. that is why these teams are in place.

18 is the minimum age for surgery on the NHS, and two or more years between hormone prescription and surgery is also common on the NHS amongst adults.

KathrynC has explained why puberty is delayed for trans teenagers going through male puberty. On the other side of the fence the child may have been binding their breasts for many years to prevent starting to appear female. This can cause lasting chest and back damage so puberty delay may actually increase the options for the kid when they become an adult.

Come to think of it there are one or two private practitioners who operate slightly earlier limits. There are a stack of international guidelines about this and generally with more experience and research the guidelines have been softening up over the years.

In reply to kathrync:

A story of someone I know. An American trans woman grew up in the 80s and 90s in a time where you didn't talk about these things, and even if you did, hormone blockers didn't exist and no gender clinic would do anything until well into adulthood. Puberty distressed her and made her suicidal. She was also a Type 1 diabetic. She was a bright teen, and figured out that if she habitually under/overdosed with her diabetes medicine she would get skinny looking and prevent the distressing male features from getting worse. She kept doing this until she was old enough to drive a car over the border to Mexico and buy female hormones over the counter.

Now she is happy, well adjusted, has an extremely successful career, and has had a female ID most of her life. However she worries that despite the best healthcare money can buy she will go blind or lose her feet from the diabetic damage she sustained as a kid.

In reply to Timmd:


How likely (a figure) is difficult, but to say it is much more likely than simplistic wrong brain/ wrong body explanations is much easier.

But you possibly don't understand PTSD so well, so it seems more unlikely? It's interesting that in the US the number of service people with PTSD is higher among those who haven't served in combat roles, which isn't to say that combat cures or protects against PTSD but that people think PTSD must involve some life changing huge trauma (like combat) rather than lower level but persistent stress. Some people who have a chronic but low level illness, tinnitus is one example, also show symptoms of PTSD. If tinnitus could cause PTSD then constant gender dysphoria must easily do so.

Girls may be less prone because, as I said, boys are more tolerant of difference, although apparently prepubescent girls are catching up with boys in numbers identifying as the opposite sex. But again only a small percentage transition, they usually mature into lesbians.

It's interesting that gay children are hugely more likely to indulge in sex role reversal play, so pretending to be the other sex might be an important part of gay child play.

So there seems to be an element of projection here, that non-transitioning gay children who play at being the opposite sex are used as a validation for wrong brain theories of transgenderism. When syv_k says that children say 'I am a girl' kids also say things like 'Look at me, I'm a tree' without meaning it literally. If only 10-20% of children transition it raises some serious ethical questions about how to treat kids who claim to be the opposite gender. Also means that people who remember feeling like they wanted to be the opposite sex from a young age are much more common but not 'wrong-brained'.

An interesting article here on 'prehomosexualism' that covers a lot of this:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/is-your-child-a-prehomo...

"Numerous studies have since replicated this general pattern of findings, all revealing a strong link between childhood deviations from gender role norms and adult sexual orientation. There is also evidence of a “dosage effect”: the more gender nonconforming characteristics there are in childhood, the more likely it is that a homosexual/bisexual orientation will be present in adulthood."

In reply to winhill:

In any situation where many factors are involved, it's always difficult to isolate the effect of each factor.

In this area, the influence of politics, political correctness and "outrage" are also huge, making it very difficult even for experts (let alone bystanders like us) to see exactly what's going on.

In reply to winhill:

>

You may be taking that out of context slightly. For them to be saying it at a gender clinic and taken seriously it would have to be said repeatedly, causing them long standing distress, accompanied by other things, I was just contrasting it with the way adults say. "I should be a woman" etc. I am sure it doesn't take seven years of studying to be a child psychiatrist to figure out the difference between that and imaginative play.

>If only 10-20% of children transition it raises some serious ethical questions about how to treat kids who claim to be the opposite gender. Also means that people who remember feeling like they wanted to be the opposite sex from a young age are much more common but not 'wrong-brained'.



From my experience this is likely to be true. Back in the olden days - Prof Green of Charing Cross did a lot of work on what he called "sissy boys" - people didn't distinguish between gender roles and gender dysphoria . So a kid could be referred to his clinic either for expressing wishes/claims to be the other sex or for being gender nonconforming. The former would end up usually being trans, the latter end up usually being gay. It seems strange now, but the professionals weren't able to separate the two out (because Money's failed experiment with reassigning the non-trans baby David Reimer was covered up, and it was reported as a success). Also, social gender roles were stronger then so disobeying them was seen as more transgressive.

Trans kids will naturally show some signs of gender nonconformity in hobbies and such, because they will want to group themselves with kids of their identified rather than birth sex, but that may well be an artifact of gender dysphoria and that they will allow themselves their true hobbies when they are comfortable after transition. So now we can distinguish, we are hopefully are well over the bad old days when gatekeepers insisted that their trans female patients had to dress ultra-feminine and stop going to football matches to be taken seriously as trans, and non-trans women like myself who aren't straight and don't conform to typical gender roles aren't seen as having a problem that needs fixing.

In reply to winhill:

It strikes me that, if the likelihood of one thing can't be guessed at, any claims on it's likelihood compared to something else are always going to be little bit sketchy.


Having had PTSD, and having tinnitus, I hopefully know a little about both.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Richard 'Tom of Finland' Spencer?

Perhaps.

Hypermasculinity often seems to create right wing idealogues.


D