I’m creating this thread so there is a place for the transcript of the following Youtube video, by one of my favourite Vloggers, Shaun. The video is over 35 minutes long and not everyone loves Shaun’s droning, slow-paced Northern murmuring. By reading the transcript you will miss some visual cues that exist in the video but nothing crucial. Apologies for any typos. Enjoy!

Shaun: Transphobia in the UK

Shaun: Transphobia in the UK
Video published 03 January 2019
Unauthorised transcript

Hello everyone. Today we’re going to be talking about transphobia, and particularly British transphobia, and even more particularly transphobia in the British press: that’s right, the UK press seems to have a problem with trans people. Now the tabloid press obviously does but since those papers are seemingly written by and for the absolute worst most vile people ever to have existed on planet earth that’s to be somewhat expected.

No, today I’d like to talk about that bastion of weather progressivism, The Guardian which for all the blessedly non British viewers out there is our leading center-left newspaper. Surely the Guardian can be counted on to stand up for minority rights, a wrong person might say.

And I’ll quote here from an article written on the second of November of last year entitled Why we take issue with the Guardian stance on trans rights in the UK.

“The Trump administration is trying to define transgender people out of existence. Last month, the New York Times reported that the US government is seeking to deny trans people the most basic recognition by claiming that gender is ‘determined by the genitals that a person is born with’. The leaked memo sparked outrage and fear about a policy that could cost lives and prevent millions of Americans from existing in public spaces. The Guardian in the U.S. is committed to covering this important civil rights fight but when the time came for us to report on Trump’s attacks we encountered problems some trans people wouldn’t talk to us. That’s because days early at the Guardian published in editorial that we believe promoted transphobic viewpoints including some of the same assertions about gender that US politicians are citing in their push to eliminate trans rights. Guardian journalists in the U.S. had no input in the editorial which we felt was misplaced and misguided and nearly all reporters and editors from our New York, Washington DC and California offices wrote to UK editors with our concerns.”

So then the UK Guardian has been very naughty and has had to be told off by the Americans. How shameful. Now the editorial that inspired this response is from the 17th of October and is titled The Guardian view on the Gender Rrecognition Act: Where Rights Collide and is actually only one in a recent series of fairly rubbish to put it lightly articles about trans people from The Guardian but we’ll get to those in a little while.

This particular article makes the case that “transphobia must be opposed but misogyny too must be challenged. Gender identity does not cancel out sex. Women’s oppression by men has a physical basis and to deny the relevance of biology when considering sexual inequality is a mistake. The struggle for women’s empowerment is ongoing. Reproductive freedoms are under threat and the Me-too campaign faces a backlash. Women’s concerns about sharing dormitories or changing rooms with ‘male bodied’ people must be taken seriously. These are not just questions of safety but of dignity and fairness”.

Now we’re going to talk more about this article later so I won’t dwell on it too much right now but with regards to the argument that cis women’s concerns about sharing spaces with trans women must be one possible line of response does immediately jump to mind and that’s historical comparison. Consider an article that discussing desegregation, say, made the case that white people’s concerns about sharing spaces with black people must be taken seriously or responding to a gay rights issue with straight people’s concerns about sharing spaces with gay people must be taken seriously. Now I realized that there are people around today still making those arguments. I don’t mean to make it seem like those issues are solely in the distant past because they aren’t. Anyone old enough to remember the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell debates in the United States might remember a fair bit of fear-mongering about gay people in showers and locker rooms for instance however it is hard to imagine our liberal pals over at the Guardian making those kinds of arguments today. They would in fact rightly condemn any politician that made those remarks so why do we see them making the same arguments with regards to trans people? Is there something unique about the current situation or is the comparison there a valid one and that’s what we’re going to be talking about today.

Before we get to that though I’d just like to make a few things clear. Firstly I’m a cis man and I am by no means an expert on trans issues or anything else actually and nor am I trying to present myself as such if I know anything at all it’s from listening to trans people, reading the things, they’ve written watching videos they’ve made and talking to my trans friends, some of whom helped me write this video. Actually what I’m providing here is a platform and a voice I’m not trying to speak for anyone or claim I’m some authority on anything because I’m not and I’ll include a list of videos by trans people in the description of this video that covers similar topics to what I’m gonna be discussing today but better than I can so go and check those out

My aim with this video is to reach out to some of my fellow cis folk who might have unconsciously even absorbed some transphobic rhetoric from the bigoted mess that is the British press or anyone who might have encountered some of these concerns about trans people out in the wild: you know the people who might watch me but who haven’t heard a trans person say these things before is I guess who I’m aiming video at.

Now to understand the conversation surrounding the Guardians concerns about gendered spaces however and to avoid getting lost somewhere later and having to double back we’re gonna have to start out with some basic concepts here and so we’ll begin by asking a simple question what makes someone a particular gender and there’s a lot of bad answers to this question so let’s take a look at some of those and first up is the most basic and crude of answers: what bits they’ve got. That’s right, if you’ve got a penis and testicles you’re a man, if you’ve got a vagina and ovaries you’re a woman. So that’s a direct one-to-one sex and gender correlation there nothing could be simpler than that right now my response to this genital based answer is twofold: firstly it isn’t particularly helpful speaking for myself here but genitals tend not to come into play in the majority of my interactions with other people day to day if you can believe such a thing. I don’t know what kind of lives you’re all leading of course but I’m personally not peeking down people’s trousers to confirm what they’ve got in there. It’s an inconsequential unknown quantity the vast majority at the time anyway and thus not much use to us.

The other problem with this answer in addition to it being unhelpful is that it isn’t actually true. Before we even talk about trans people or questions of self-identification, conflating gender with genitalia in an exclusively binary way simply doesn’t work and let’s do a though experiment here. Now I personally have a penis and you’re just gonna have to take my word for that I’m afraid. Okay so let’s assume I have a penis: say I’m out and about one day and get into some sort of unfortunate situation and it comes off. You know, a car accident say or some sort of misjudged boast. So now I’ve no longer got a penis, or testicles even, let’s say but that doesn’t change my gender does it? I’d still be a man you know we wouldn’t all start calling me she because of that would we? I’d still identify as and present as a man. I wouldn’t have grown ovaries or something, you know. You hopefully see my point here. Accidents, injuries, diseases, you know. There’s plenty of reasons why someone might have to for instance have something removed and if that’s the something we’re using to determine which binary gender they belong to we’re kind of screwed there.

Okay so we’ll leave that argument behind and we’ll go on to the next level so someone might say in response I acknowledge that what genitals someone has currently doesn’t actually determine their gender but what if we say it’s what genitals someone was born with that determines your gender is still tied to genitals, just not necessarily your current genitals. You see this is the worrisome definition that we saw the US Guardians staff be rightfully concerned about earlier. Now this argument shares a problem with the previous one: outside of the person in question, their parents and their doctors, not many other people day-to-day are gonna know what genitals someone was born with. So with regards to access to gendered spaces unless you’re planning to have people submit a full medical history in order to go into a public restroom, say, this way of defining things is similarly unhelpful.

Another problem with this arguments is that it completely ignores the experience of intersex people. Not everyone is born with sexual characteristics that neatly fall into one of two camps there are some people born with ambiguous genitalia there are people with both testicular and ovarian tissue and on a genetic level there are female people with chromosomes normally associated with being male and vice versa. Now obviously this is a video talking about trans people and not intersex people but I mention them here to show an example of another group of people who would be hurt by legislative attempts to define gender as a strictly biological binary thing. Now the response to mentioning intersex people is usually dismissive you know well there aren’t many of those people are there which is wrong for a start because there’s actually a lot more intersex people than you might expect. There’s that fun statistic that estimates intersex people are about as common as people with red hair. Regardless though it wouldn’t matter if there was just one intersex person on the planet it’d still be a valid way of being a person. Ignoring intersex people or trying to downplay their existence is in our case a way to enforce a binary system where one does not apply because here’s the thing about binary systems: there’s only two things. Not usually two things but also the occasional other thing. You know, binary code is called that because there’s just ones and zeroes. There isn’t like a five or an eight from time to time is there? I believe bimodal is a more accurate term when talking about sex you know there’s two general peaks but those fuzzy edges and outliers and so on.

This intentional ignorance with regards to intersex people you know thinking that humans are supposed to fall into one of two binary camps and that anyone who doesn’t is some sort of mistake who we can ignore for the sake of convenience actually reminds me of the old creationist misunderstanding of evolution, oddly, enough as if there’s some will that must be consciously designing humans to fit an ideal standard or something. Also even if there were a practical way to use what genitals someone was born with to determine which gendered restroom they should go into today, efforts to enforce this rule would quickly lead to situations like the following.

So this chap here is Michael Hughes:

a trans man from Minnesota. Now in response to so-called bathroom bills designed to force people to only use facilities that match their assigned gender at birth, Michael Hughes posted a series of photographs of himself looking very out of place in the women’s toilets. Now this is ridiculous: clearly legislation designed to allay bigoted fears about quote men going into the ladies toilets would lead to this guy having to go into the ladies toilets because if he went into the men’s he could be arrested. Now this is a poorly thought out hypocrisy clearly, however there’s a fair bit more to be said about trans men’s restroom issues here: issues I didn’t really know about until I started writing this video actually. It is easy to point to pictures of a big bearded tattooed guy in a women’s restroom and say ha ha there you go, transphobes, your hysteria about trans women has led to this situation, how silly and hypocritical of you and that can be fun, you know, pointing out hypocrisy often is. But we can find ourselves playing into a harmful narrative here and it’s one of masculinity being inherently dangerous. How we do public restrooms is often rather rubbish: there can be facilities in women’s restrooms say places to dispose of menstrual products or an adequate number of doored stalls for people who can’t urinate standing up that often don’t exist in the men’s bathrooms. Women aren’t the only people to menstruate but their bathrooms are the places we as a society are expecting menstruation to be dealt with and that puts trans men here in a very awkward and unfortunate situation. Their needs aren’t being accommodated there so you know it’s still ok to highlight the hypocrisy I reckon but we should be careful to do it in a way that doesn’t present masculinity as being inherently harmful. There could be completely legitimate reasons that’s someone who looks masculine too you could need to use a particular restroom.

And this brings us to the next argument: genitals are out, I think we can all agree, so let’s consider what a particular person looks like to you. We can’t usually see genitals but we can see gendered clothing, makeup, fashion choices, jewelry, hairstyles, and so on. So someone might say okay well if I reckon someone looks enough like my idea of what a particular gender should look like then they’re cool to go into that gendered spaces so you might say Michael Hughes gets to use the man’s toilets because he looks like a man to me. I guess this is an example of what philosophy tube might call a “your dad opinion” right there. You know it’s an attempt at being reasonable that falls apart once you start to actually think about it. You see the big issue with this line of thinking is that it’s so subjective each person’s understanding of what a particular gender looks like is unique to them to some extent anyway and it also varies culture to culture and over time within those cultures. In certain places and times in history for instance a woman wearing trousers would be considered a ludicrous ridiculous thing whereas today in the West it’s a completely normal uninteresting thing. You know being objective is an impossible task here any imagined attempt to lock in a single society wide idea of what a particular gender looks like will quickly fall afoul of changing fashions and gender roles denying access to gendered spaces based on what amounts to fashion choices would in effect be by proxy legislating what clothes people of particular genders are allowed to wear which seems like kind of a step backwards there.

The inescapably subjective nature of this way of determining gender doesn’t just hurt trans people either. There’s all kinds of folks out there with all kinds of body shapes and haircuts and fashions who shouldn’t have to deal with the indignity of some random twerp deciding they don’t look right and kicking up a fuss, you know, when they’re just trying to use the bathroom or whatever else and there’s various news stories I could mention here a Connecticut cis woman was mistaken for a trans woman in a Walmart bathroom and was then verbally abused, in Texas a man followed a cis woman into the women’s bathroom because according to him she dresses like a man, you know, a man following a woman into the women’s toilets because he’s concerned about men going into the women’s toilets: that makes sense, doesn’t it? In Florida, of course, a cis grandmother was mistaken as trans and accidentally jailed in an all-male prison and I say mistaken there but it appears from reading that news story to be a case of someone being deliberately mistaken in order to hurt someone else: sort of weaponized misgendering there, which is something we need to be concerned about happening.

Clearly now I don’t want these chumps to be the ones deciding which gendered spaces all the people should be using because they’re clearly terrible at it, however if we say that judging people based on genitals comes with a ton of problems and judging people based on appearances comes with a ton of problems, how are we supposed to determine what gender someone is with regards to them accessing gendered spaces? all our answers thus far have been flawed. Well how about we consider going by what they tell you? They are, you know, consider respecting what you’re told when someone tells you what gender they are. Now this is my actual opinion of what is both the correct and most sensible thing to do for the record but let’s have a talk about it all the same.

So the question of self-identification has been discussed a fair bit in the UK of late that was recently a consultation on possible reforms that could be made to the Gender Recognition Act of 2004. Currently the UK legally recognized as trans people as their gender if they have a gender recognition certificates which requires a long and difficult bureaucratic process to acquire it involves living as the gender for two years, medical diagnoses for gender dysphoria, and amazingly for someone who’s married, a spousal approval. So it seems sensible to want to maybe streamline this process a little bit, make it like changing your name or something like that, you know, that’s something we should all have the right to determine ourselves. After all you pay a small fee, hopefully small anyway, you file a thing with a court, you wait a minute and there you go, you’ve got a new name, why shouldn’t changing your legal gender be at least as easy as that? You know, is there anything we need to be concerned about?

Here that’s the segue into the concerns section of my video folks and for examples of said concerns we’re going to take a look at those Guardian articles here. First off on the 14th of October of last year The Guardian published an article titled women’s groups claimed silencing on transgender concerns. So here we are then, let’s read some relevant sections of this article and get at those concerns. “Nearly 200 prominent figures have signed an open letter raising concerns that public and private bodies are helping close down discussion about government plans to make it easier for trans people to have their preferred gender legally recognized. A government consultation on reforming the 2004 Gender Recognition Act closes at the end of the week. When she launched it last month the Minister for Women and Equalities, Penny Mordaunt, said the government particularly wanted to hear from women’s groups who we know have expressed some concerns about the implications of our proposals but according to the letter signatories there have been a series of attempts to close down discussion among women about GRA reform. Those campaigning for greater transgender rights say that the reforms to the act are long overdue but Woman’s Place UK has a number of concerns including how they might affect women only spaces. The group calls for a respectful and evidence-based discussion about the impact of the proposed changes”.

So okay this article despite having transgender concerns in the title and mentioning them several times doesn’t actually contain any of those concerns. It just alludes to the fact that there are concerns that exist without saying exactly what they are and this should be a red flag but let’s leave that there for a moment to move on to the next article from the 17th of October, three days after the previous article, and this is “Transgender law reform has overlooked women’s rights say MPs”, so perhaps we’ll find our concerns in here. “Senior MPs have called on the government to reconsider plans to make it easier for trans people to have their preferred gender legally recognized to ensure the reforms are not detrimental to women’s rights”. Detrimental how, you might be wondering. Well this article doesn’t say. “The MP for Lewes who sat on the inquiry said she was writing to the Minister for Women and Equalities Penny Mardon to ask her to extend the consultation on the Gender Recognition Act to ensure that women’s voices were heard.” What were those women’s voices saying? Something presumably but we’re not gonna say here. “She said MPs should have more time to assess the concerns of women’s groups about the changes such as how they might affect women only spaces.” And how exactly are they going to affect the women only spaces? Again we’re not gonna say. “I think it’s a fair comment that women’s groups do not feel that they’ve had their voice heard.” And what are they saying though? We don’t know.

Do you see the pattern here? Nowhere in either of these articles, which are not news articles by the way, they’re proxy opinion pieces written by transphobes using the Guardian as a mouthpiece, nowhere in these articles are these supposedly very important concerns just, like, said. These are articles about the fact that concerns exist that don’t mention what they are and we have to wonder, why not? You know if I had a lot of very important concerns and also the ear of a national newspaper I’d be using that platform to get those concerns out there. You know, “nobody will let me express my concerns”, I said to the reporter who reported it in the national newspaper.

This doesn’t make sense on the surface. Now, spoilers, the truth is their concerns are a load of hateful shite and make them look like bigots so instead of arguing those concerns they just repeatedly state that there are concerns that exist which by virtue of being completely indistinct are therefore possibly valid. You know, you can’t get proven wrong if you never actually say what you think. Taps forehead.

This is a tactic used to slow down discussions and ensure there is drawn-out and unproductive as possible. You know, I’ve got concerns about desegregation. I’ve got concerns about marriage equality. I’ve got concerns about trans people. What are those concerns? Well it doesn’t really matter does it? And I’d rather not say, honestly. All that matters is that I have concerns and that you get told about that constantly and if you get sick of my bullshit time wasting tactics and tell me to shut up well you’re harassing me just for having possibly legitimate concerns and, you know, I was just about to say my concerns as well but then I got harassed and now the conversation is about how toxic the conversation has become. That should kill 15 minutes. Filibuster bigotry.

This is now the closest the Guardian comes the stating an actual concern comes in the When Rights Collide article that earned them a scolding from their US colleagues and it’s where they say “women’s concerns about sharing dormitories or changing rooms with “male bodied” people must be taken seriously these are not just questions of safety but of dignity and fairness”. Again what the actual concern is here is fairly indistinct but it seems to be that if women, and read cis women, they’re of course are forced to share spaces with what are described here as male bodied people then something unsafe or undignified or unfair will happen, and there’s a fair bit to talk about here. First off though the Guardian puts quotation marks around the term male-bodied: they’re not actually quoting a real person or organization here, they’re just trying to say it without saying it. You know, we wouldn’t say this of course but a hypothetical concerned woman we just made up might say it and she must be taken seriously. This concern has at its root the belief that men are naturally and intrinsically dangerous and also the belief that trans women aren’t really women and are in fact men and therefore are dangerous. These opinions are just being expressed here in language which is being gauged as more socially acceptable than just stating it outright: the rights of cis women arecbeing ranked as more important than the rights of trans women here because someone might be concerned that something unsafe may occur if trans women share spaces with cis women. That’s apparently enough justification to engage in collective punishment of all trans women by denying them access to the spaces and services they need and not just trans women but other trans people too, who exist, you know. Now the Guardian dodges around discussing the rights of trans men in particular with the following sentence in brackets: “the rights of trans men are far less controversial because they do not while transitioning gained access to spaces designed to protect a disadvantaged group”, and trans men are not mentioned again in the article. Now this is a terrible oversight because trans men’s rights and trans women’s rights are not entirely separate entities. It doesn’t matter how controversial or not the Guardian has decided that the rights of trans men are: they will be equally affected by any proposed changes to laws relating to gender identity. Also there’s something else to be mentioned here: the Guardian article mainly talks about trans women and only mentions trans men in that rather dismissive aside but it doesn’t consider other trans people. It’s enforcing a binary system there. a transbinary system to reflect a cis binary system. However for example there are non-binary people, some of whom consider themselves trans and some who don’t, I understand, but all of whom would also be hurt by any new law designed to hurt trans women specifically. No change to a law is going to say trans women aren’t allowed in women’s spaces but other trans and non gender conforming people, you can do whatever you want, is it?

Another concern possibly alluded to in the Guardian with the phrase questions of safety there is the idea that if we allow people to legally self identify their gender certain cis men will start deceptively declaring themselves trans in order to go into women’s spaces and then go on to sexually harass or assault someone or something.

(political advertisement voiceover excerpt) “It means any man who says he is a woman can enter a woman’s locker room, dressing room or bathroom at any time, even convicted sex offenders”

And I’ve seen this brought up a few times in conversations about bathroom bills in the States and it’s never made much sense to me. Firstly there are already laws against harassing or assaulting someone and I doubt that any criminal who is willing to risk breaking those is going to be all that put off by the comparatively minor crime of using the wrong bathroom. It doesn’t seem very realistic, does it? Secondly even if there was a creepy guy planning to use gender identity deceptively in order to access women’s spaces he could do so no matter what the laws relating to gender identity actually were. Consider a gendered spaces by genitals for instance: a creepy cis guy there could simply go into the women’s bathroom and say hey I’m a trans man, I don’t want to be in here, but the law says I have to be in here because I was born with a vagina. Again unless you’re planning to have a doctor checking medical records posted outside the door of every toilet there will be no way to know. Also we don’t even have to consider trans people at all here we can simply imagine a cis man who declares himself to not be a trans woman but a cis woman and then going into a woman’s restroom and doing whatever creepy thing: that is a possibility regardless of what the laws are. Not that anyone who is sneaking into toilets to do creepy things is concerned about breaking laws either way of course. You know, any extra “used the wrong bathroom” charge is going to appear inconsequential next to the charge for whatever creepy thing they were doing that got them arrested in the first place so considering all that I don’t think this concern makes much sense.

Personally the theoretical possibility of someone being harmed is being used here as a tactic to halt action even though the way in which they would be harmed is already illegal and entirely possible regardless of any proposed changes to the law and we can counter it by hypothesizing the opposite. Consider a trans woman who is prevented from entering a gendered space like a woman’s shelter or something and then suffers abuse or harm because of that that’s entirely possible isn’t it and it seems a lot more likely than our imagined creepy trickster to be honest.

I’d like to consider a variant of the trolley problem here. We all know that, right: there’s a runaway trolley moving towards some people tied up on the tracks you’re standing next to a lever that can divert the train onto a track with one person on it do you pull the lever and then follows a philosophical conversation about one’s responsibilities to reduce harm and so on. So here’s my variant: consider a trolley that’s moving towards some people tied up on the tracks you’re standing next to a lever that can divert the train onto an empty track with no one on it. Now pulling the lever seems like the sensible option, obviously. However before you can pull the lever someone comes up to you and says hold up there a second I’ve got some concerns about your course of action. What if we divert the train onto the empty track but then afterwards down the line murderer pushes someone in front of it. Now that is a possibility, there that’s a theoretical possibility of harm as an indirect result of your actions to some extent, no matter how well intentioned your actions were. Now, this concerned citizen would say I have nothing against those people tied up on the tracks, I don’t want them hurt, I just want to have a conversation, I want to make sure we fully consider all options here, I want to ensure all voices are listened to, every concern must be heard, you know, at which point the trolley has long run over the people on the other track because of their delaying tactics. You can’t stop the trolley of reality. Delaying or even rolling back trans rights ensures people are definitely going to get hurt and they’re real, not theoretical, people who will definitely, not maybe, be hurt by the direct, not indirect, results of your actions because of you, not an imagined ill-intentioned criminal we had to cynically invent in order to make the logical and sensible cause of action seem more dangerous than it actually is.

So it’s about time for me to wrap up here, but I’d like to mention a few things before I go. Firstly what we’ve done today is not, I feel I should mention, prove trans people are valid by some sort of logical process. The purpose of going through these arguments was to prove that the arguments were flawed, not to pass some sort of moral judgment. You should respect trans people even if you disagree with everything I’ve said today. So there’s that. A next topic I’ve avoided talking about what lies behind all of the delaying tactics, concern trolling and vague euphemisms and that’s outright hateful bigotry which exists and is happening beyond the day-to-day individual level harassment that trans people have to deal with. There are organized groups working on campaigns aimed at making their lives harder on a larger scale. In Liverpool where I live there was a campaign to put up a bunch of penis stickers, for some reason images were also shared on Twitter of these stickers being put on the sign for a Scottish feminist organisation Topshop for some reason and also above the sign for Stonewall which is an LGBT charity with the slogan acceptance without exception and that’s a revealing contrast of slogans there.

The transphobe community in the UK has recently found something of a champion in TV comedy writer Graham Linehan who I won’t dwell on personally here because he frankly isn’t worth the time. I mention him only because he provides a good example of how organized transphobic hatred in the UK can have real damaging effects. There’s a UK charity called Mermaids that among other things provides support for young trans people and their families. It does important work and was recognised for that recently by being awarded a grant from the UK’s Big Lottery Fund. Now Graham Linehan wasn’t too happy about that apparently because he took to Mumsnet to complain about it and encouraged that community to write to the Big Lottery Fund in an effort to have their grant rescinded in response to this the Big Lottery Fund decided to undertake a review of the grant, and it’s unclear at this time whether the Mermaid’s grants will still be awarded, though I of course hope it will be. Now this sort of terrible thing, you know, campaigning to defund a children’s charity is what lies behind all of the bullshit concern trolling, and speaking just as a UK resident I guess I am disgusted that this sort of thing is going on in my country. It’s shameful. Completely with that in mind and also because I’m uncomfortable with the idea of sole-benefiting financially from talking about trans issues as a cis man I’m gonna be donating half of the proceeds from this video to Mermaids. I’ll be making that donation in around four weeks time in early February once everything’s been processed and I can get an exact amount for how much this video made. I’ll also put a link to their website below if you feel like donating yourself to spite all of those horrible people trying to get their funding pulled and also to help the kids, I guess, so best case scenario is Mermaids hopefully still get the grant and they also get a little extra on top up from us, let’s show all the transphobes out there that we are capable of caring more than they do.

Thanks a lot for watching folks and thank you in particular today to the kind people who proofread this script for me and provided very useful notes. If I said anything clever in here at all you can probably safely assume it was a suggestion from one of them. Thanks as always to all of my supporters over on Patreon. Now then there’s a bit of an issue with the credits of the first version of this video I usually release an early version of a video for patrons, you see, anyway the credits were messed up on that one and we left some people out, now hopefully that issue has been fixed for this version and everyone who should be in the credits there should now be in the credits so crisis averted hopefully and if you’d like to check out my patreon and possibly be witness to future errors I make I’ll put a link below there’s also links to my Twitter and curious cat accounts if you’d like to give me a follow or ask me a question.

Righty-o folks I’ll see you next time.

Alright, I lost interest about halfway through. But is this really all about which public toilets you can use?

Really?

How about people mind their own goddamn business.

I was lurking yesterday during the transphobia bullshit. Appalling. You’re perpetuating intolerance towards people who are already marginalised, bullied, and made to feel less-than-human. I thought everyone here was above that sort of behaviour.

buffy said:

Alright, I lost interest about halfway through. But is this really all about which public toilets you can use?

Really?

Transphobia = fear of change?

Which public toilets you can use is a big issue for mother’s with sons and fathers with daughters. That’s why some nice places have family toilets.

mollwollfumble said:

buffy said:

Alright, I lost interest about halfway through. But is this really all about which public toilets you can use?

Really?

Transphobia = fear of change?

Which public toilets you can use is a big issue for mother’s with sons and fathers with daughters. That’s why some nice places have family toilets.

If you think you have special issues, ask for an M-Key.

Divine Angel said:

How about people mind their own goddamn business.

I was lurking yesterday during the transphobia bullshit. Appalling. You’re perpetuating intolerance towards people who are already marginalised, bullied, and made to feel less-than-human. I thought everyone here was above that sort of behaviour.

I read a lot of it, but not until this morning. It seems there is a radical group (not on here, in the meeja and online) who are not doing the general run of the mill variations in preferences a lot of good. Have I misunderstood the situation?

buffy said:

Divine Angel said:

How about people mind their own goddamn business.

I was lurking yesterday during the transphobia bullshit. Appalling. You’re perpetuating intolerance towards people who are already marginalised, bullied, and made to feel less-than-human. I thought everyone here was above that sort of behaviour.

I read a lot of it, but not until this morning. It seems there is a radical group (not on here, in the meeja and online) who are not doing the general run of the mill variations in preferences a lot of good. Have I misunderstood the situation?

sounds a reasonable assessment.

“I am by no means an expert on trans issues or anything else actually “

Yeah, that much is clear. Doesn’t stop you uploading half-hour+ monologues on subjects of which you are largely ignorant to Youtube, in the expectation that any sane person is going to dutifully sit down and listen to all that shit. Oh wait, dv does….

But throughout all the droning waffle presented here, this is the closest that “Shaun” comes to presenting his real concerns:

“This concern has at its root the belief that men are naturally and intrinsically dangerous…”

This is his real bitch about all the women’s concerns. Why shouldn’t men be able to barge into women’s toilets, women’s shelters, women’s prisons etc? Why are the Shauns of this world – right-on leftoids with all the correct poses – and their wig-wearing mates treated with such suspicion that there are women who don’t want them in women’s only spaces? Bah.

>You’re perpetuating intolerance towards people who are already marginalised, bullied, and made to feel less-than-human.

Except the trans activists happily attack women they see as critics, both verbally online and physically, and embrace slogans like “I punch TERFs.”

This article is by a transsexual (not “transgender”) woman who makes an effort to understand where the criticism is coming from:

>I’m not arguing that trans women per se are any particular danger to women. There is little evidence to suggest that. However, I am horrified by the number of trans women threatening extreme, misogynistic violence. I see, almost daily, violent threats on social media aimed at women demonised as TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists). Last September a 60-year-old woman in London was punched by a six-foot-tall trans woman (pictured above) more than three decades younger. The woman, Maria MacLachlan, was there simply to attend a meeting to discuss the self-identification proposals. An art exhibition in April in San Francisco featured T-shirts printed with “I punch TERFs” and smeared with fake blood, and baseball bats, axes and sledgehammers painted in the colours of the trans flag. (These exhibits were removed after protests.) By contrast, I’ve yet to see one instance of women threatening to physically attack trans people. It raises a question: is the biological and socialised sex of trans women relevant and more predictive of some individuals’ behaviour than gender identity? It certainly seems to be for some people. Is it entirely unreasonable for women to pause and question whether they want to share vulnerable spaces with what looks like a significant number of trans women who threaten them with violence?<

Trans rights will be durable only if campaigners respect women’s concerns

Here’s the open letter to the Guardian she and other transsexual women have signed:

We are transsexual people deeply concerned about the proposed removal of safeguards from the Gender Recognition Act. Replacing the evidenced-based process for obtaining a gender recognition certificate with an over-the-counter style self-declaration blurs the distinction between us and transgender people who remain physically intact. This is problematic when such male-bodied people, including sexual fetishists, demand the rights afforded to women as a protected sex, including access to their private spaces.

Transsexual people undergo a meaningful transition, including hormone therapy and surgery. We fear that these proposals will not only put women’s rights at risk but also damage our credibility in society. We are already seeing our right to define as “transsexual” being challenged by transgender activists who seek to remove this distinction. We call on politicians to show courage and facilitate dialogue valuing all affected groups. We absolutely condemn all attempts to suppress this debate.

Standing up for transsexual rights

How about four toilets:

Male, female, non-binary and “don’t want to say”.

“Women aren’t the only people to menstruate but their bathrooms are the places we as a society are expecting …” ?

And I wasn’t sure what sort of point he was trying to make with the Michael Hughes bloke.

AwesomeO said:

“Women aren’t the only people to menstruate but their bathrooms are the places we as a society are expecting …” ?

And I wasn’t sure what sort of point he was trying to make with the Michael Hughes bloke.

Oops Michael Hughes woman?

AwesomeO said:

“Women aren’t the only people to menstruate but their bathrooms are the places we as a society are expecting …” ?

And I wasn’t sure what sort of point he was trying to make with the Michael Hughes bloke.

It’s all a very tawdry trashing of any meaningful status of women as an actual human category.

All these men in shitty wigs demand that their dicks are female? Done! The women whinging about this can shut their whining female faces.

I thought the menstruating comment was extremely odd.

buffy said:

I thought the menstruating comment was extremely odd.

Having thought about it, in the context it might mean women who identify as men? AFAIK Intersex reproductive machinery is so compromised they don’t generally menstruate and in a rare case that they did, it’s not actually talking about Intersex but blokes.

buffy said:

I thought the menstruating comment was extremely odd.

and unnecessary.

AwesomeO said:

AwesomeO said:

“Women aren’t the only people to menstruate but their bathrooms are the places we as a society are expecting …” ?

And I wasn’t sure what sort of point he was trying to make with the Michael Hughes bloke.

Oops Michael Hughes woman?

Michael Hughes was born female and has transitioned to male. The point that is being made as that denying Michael’s Identity as a man, insisting that he be identified as female because of his birth genitalia, and legally requiring him to use the female toilets, results in someone who is very overtly male using the women’s toilets…

Make individual toilets unisex and be done with it.

dv said:

AwesomeO said:

AwesomeO said:

“Women aren’t the only people to menstruate but their bathrooms are the places we as a society are expecting …” ?

And I wasn’t sure what sort of point he was trying to make with the Michael Hughes bloke.

Oops Michael Hughes woman?

Michael Hughes was born female and has transitioned to male. The point that is being made as that denying Michael’s Identity as a man, insisting that he be identified as female because of his birth genitalia, and legally requiring him to use the female toilets, results in someone who is very overtly male using the women’s toilets…

Yes, and you are somehow completely blind to the differences here.

The last fifty years of discussion of women’s rights issues has apparently passed you by.

Why are straight men using lesbian dating sites?

Lesbian online dating apps are increasingly on ‘penis duty’, according to website developers, who claim more straight men than ever are posing as gay women – in some cases just for fun. Joshua Hooper-Kay talks to those developers fighting back.

more…

A lot of straight men love lesbian porn, so that behavior is some extension of that.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Why are straight men using lesbian dating sites?

Lesbian online dating apps are increasingly on ‘penis duty’, according to website developers, who claim more straight men than ever are posing as gay women – in some cases just for fun. Joshua Hooper-Kay talks to those developers fighting back.

more…

A lot of straight men love lesbian porn, so that behavior is some extension of that.

Isn’t false identity already a crime?

Tau.Neutrino said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Why are straight men using lesbian dating sites?

Lesbian online dating apps are increasingly on ‘penis duty’, according to website developers, who claim more straight men than ever are posing as gay women – in some cases just for fun. Joshua Hooper-Kay talks to those developers fighting back.

more…

A lot of straight men love lesbian porn, so that behavior is some extension of that.

Isn’t false identity already a crime?

from the same article

Men posing as lesbians

The theories about why men would pose as lesbians are many and varied. They range from male delusions about their sex appeal, prowess and ability to ‘convert’ the lesbians they meet online, to an interest in women who might be bi-sexual.

One 24-year-old man from Stockwell, London, who used to infiltrate online lesbian apps posing as a lesbian, said he did it simply to amuse himself. “It sounds stupid now,” he says. “But when I was bored I used to go on these chat sites for kicks.”

Ruth Hunt, deputy chief executive at Stonewall, a gay, lesbian and bi-sexual charity, says this is no laughing matter. “This issue of men lying to meet lesbians is as old as time, they’ve just found a new way to do it,” she says. “While we can’t say for certain what is motivating this behaviour, we would advise caution when using the internet to meet partners and recommend that people always try to meet in a public place.”

Tau.Neutrino said:

A lot of straight men love lesbian porn, so that behavior is some extension of that.

Never quite understood that one. A fantasy about going where you’re not wanted.

Woodie said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

A lot of straight men love lesbian porn, so that behavior is some extension of that.

Never quite understood that one. A fantasy about going where you’re not wanted.

Sexual conquest / feeling superior is the short answer with some males admitting doing it just for fun.

Men being men, nothing new to see here.

Can we turn off the light now?

PermeateFree said:

Can we turn off the light now?

If you turn off the cupboard light a lot more will come out.

PermeateFree said:

Can we turn off the light now?

Ask Aziz.

Okay I have been following the convo and have read all the links. I think the main bone of contention could be solved if supposedly lesbian transgender women brushed up on their basic understanding of what a cisgender lesbian is sexually atttracted to. Unfortunately for the former it’s not penises. That is all.

Raspberries looking very pretty out there with the setting sunlight on them. Those ones are not actually ripe, despite the lovely red colour. They go purple when ripe.

Oh, sorry….

Here’s an introduction to gender-critical feminism, for those unsure of why some feminists are critical of transgender politics.

http://thenewbacklash.blogspot.com/

Bubblecar said:

Here’s an introduction to gender-critical feminism, for those unsure of why some feminists are critical of transgender politics.

http://thenewbacklash.blogspot.com/

One central weakness in the gender-critical feminist position: their denial of significant differences in male and female brain structure.

If anything, recognising sex-based brain differences might strengthen their case that many m-f transgender people are actually motivated by autogynephilia, “a male propensity to be attracted to the thought or image of himself as a woman.”

Since that’s a psychological condition (a fetish or “paraphilia”, and as the introduction notes, paraphilias are much more common amongst males than females) it obviously reflects what’s going on in the person’s brain.

Thus if a person exhibits autogynephilia one can say that person clearly has the brain and associated psychology of a man, not a woman, however atypical or rare that psychology may be amongst men in general.

But the gender-critical feminists can’t commit themselves to that view because they maintain that male and female brains are essentially identical.

Bubblecar said:

Bubblecar said:

Here’s an introduction to gender-critical feminism, for those unsure of why some feminists are critical of transgender politics.

http://thenewbacklash.blogspot.com/

One central weakness in the gender-critical feminist position: their denial of significant differences in male and female brain structure.

If anything, recognising sex-based brain differences might strengthen their case that many m-f transgender people are actually motivated by autogynephilia, “a male propensity to be attracted to the thought or image of himself as a woman.”

Since that’s a psychological condition (a fetish or “paraphilia”, and as the introduction notes, paraphilias are much more common amongst males than females) it obviously reflects what’s going on in the person’s brain.

Thus if a person exhibits autogynephilia one can say that person clearly has the brain and associated psychology of a man, not a woman, however atypical or rare that psychology may be amongst men in general.

But the gender-critical feminists can’t commit themselves to that view because they maintain that male and female brains are essentially identical.

Although broadly those are reasonable posts, I believe that the last sentence misrepresents the position. I don’t think that anyone denies the statistical physical and operativel differences between male and female brains. Bear in mind of course that these are statistical differences between populations. There are overlaps, there are outliers.

Bubblecar said:

Bubblecar said:

Here’s an introduction to gender-critical feminism, for those unsure of why some feminists are critical of transgender politics.

http://thenewbacklash.blogspot.com/

One central weakness in the gender-critical feminist position: their denial of significant differences in male and female brain structure.

If anything, recognising sex-based brain differences might strengthen their case that many m-f transgender people are actually motivated by autogynephilia, “a male propensity to be attracted to the thought or image of himself as a woman.”

Since that’s a psychological condition (a fetish or “paraphilia”, and as the introduction notes, paraphilias are much more common amongst males than females) it obviously reflects what’s going on in the person’s brain.

Thus if a person exhibits autogynephilia one can say that person clearly has the brain and associated psychology of a man, not a woman, however atypical or rare that psychology may be amongst men in general.

But the gender-critical feminists can’t commit themselves to that view because they maintain that male and female brains are essentially identical.

Hmmm.

There is no doubt that there is a significant difference between many aspects of average brain function between male and female.

There is also no doubt that there is a huge overlap in every aspect of brain function.

It therefore makes no sense to introduce the differences in the averages when we are talking about interactions between individuals.

dv said:

Bubblecar said:

Bubblecar said:

Here’s an introduction to gender-critical feminism, for those unsure of why some feminists are critical of transgender politics.

http://thenewbacklash.blogspot.com/

One central weakness in the gender-critical feminist position: their denial of significant differences in male and female brain structure.

If anything, recognising sex-based brain differences might strengthen their case that many m-f transgender people are actually motivated by autogynephilia, “a male propensity to be attracted to the thought or image of himself as a woman.”

Since that’s a psychological condition (a fetish or “paraphilia”, and as the introduction notes, paraphilias are much more common amongst males than females) it obviously reflects what’s going on in the person’s brain.

Thus if a person exhibits autogynephilia one can say that person clearly has the brain and associated psychology of a man, not a woman, however atypical or rare that psychology may be amongst men in general.

But the gender-critical feminists can’t commit themselves to that view because they maintain that male and female brains are essentially identical.

Although broadly those are reasonable posts, I believe that the last sentence misrepresents the position. I don’t think that anyone denies the statistical physical and operativel differences between male and female brains. Bear in mind of course that these are statistical differences between populations. There are overlaps, there are outliers.

I appear to have repeated what you just said :).

Although I wouldn’t call the people in the overlap zone ‘outliers’.

dv said:

Bubblecar said:

Bubblecar said:

Here’s an introduction to gender-critical feminism, for those unsure of why some feminists are critical of transgender politics.

http://thenewbacklash.blogspot.com/

One central weakness in the gender-critical feminist position: their denial of significant differences in male and female brain structure.

If anything, recognising sex-based brain differences might strengthen their case that many m-f transgender people are actually motivated by autogynephilia, “a male propensity to be attracted to the thought or image of himself as a woman.”

Since that’s a psychological condition (a fetish or “paraphilia”, and as the introduction notes, paraphilias are much more common amongst males than females) it obviously reflects what’s going on in the person’s brain.

Thus if a person exhibits autogynephilia one can say that person clearly has the brain and associated psychology of a man, not a woman, however atypical or rare that psychology may be amongst men in general.

But the gender-critical feminists can’t commit themselves to that view because they maintain that male and female brains are essentially identical.

Although broadly those are reasonable posts, I believe that the last sentence misrepresents the position. I don’t think that anyone denies the statistical physical and operativel differences between male and female brains. Bear in mind of course that these are statistical differences between populations. There are overlaps, there are outliers.

Actually radical feminism of the kind associated usually with gender-critical views does tend to deny or very much downplay essential brain differences between males and females, especially in regard to rejecting the transgender claim that MtF transgender people have “female brains”.

As the site I linked argues:

>The idea of ladybrain, of course, kept women out of education and public life for centuries, and continues to be used to justify sexism worldwide. The modern-day fight is against “neuro-sexism,” see: Cordelia Fine’s Delusions of Gender and Rebecca Gordon-Young’s Brainstorm. Brainsex is bigoted pseudoscience, just as brainrace is bigoted pseudoscience.<

But this doesn’t seem terribly compatible with their acceptance of Blanchard’s idea of autogynephilia as a prime motivating factor for non-homosexual MtF. Possibly they would argue that autogynephilia reflects brain structures or processes that are exclusive to males but not “innate”, i.e., they are dependent on changes occurring during development due to socialisation or suchlike.

Bubblecar said:

As the site I linked argues:

>The idea of ladybrain, of course, kept women out of education and public life for centuries, and continues to be used to justify sexism worldwide. The modern-day fight is against “neuro-sexism,” see: Cordelia Fine’s Delusions of Gender and Rebecca Gordon-Young’s Brainstorm. Brainsex is bigoted pseudoscience, just as brainrace is bigoted pseudoscience.<

That seems to me to be totally reasonable.

Bubblecar said:

But this doesn’t seem terribly compatible with their acceptance of Blanchard’s idea of autogynephilia as a prime motivating factor for non-homosexual MtF. Possibly they would argue that autogynephilia reflects brain structures or processes that are exclusive to males but not “innate”, i.e., they are dependent on changes occurring during development due to socialisation or suchlike.

I don’t know what that means.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Bubblecar said:

As the site I linked argues:

>The idea of ladybrain, of course, kept women out of education and public life for centuries, and continues to be used to justify sexism worldwide. The modern-day fight is against “neuro-sexism,” see: Cordelia Fine’s Delusions of Gender and Rebecca Gordon-Young’s Brainstorm. Brainsex is bigoted pseudoscience, just as brainrace is bigoted pseudoscience.<

That seems to me to be totally reasonable.

Bubblecar said:

But this doesn’t seem terribly compatible with their acceptance of Blanchard’s idea of autogynephilia as a prime motivating factor for non-homosexual MtF. Possibly they would argue that autogynephilia reflects brain structures or processes that are exclusive to males but not “innate”, i.e., they are dependent on changes occurring during development due to socialisation or suchlike.

I don’t know what that means.

If their position is that male and female brains are not significantly different, then it seems contradictory to explain male-to-female transgenderism by reference to uniquely male psychology, presumably reflecting uniquely male brain characteristics.

Bubblecar said:

dv said:

Bubblecar said:

One central weakness in the gender-critical feminist position: their denial of significant differences in male and female brain structure.

If anything, recognising sex-based brain differences might strengthen their case that many m-f transgender people are actually motivated by autogynephilia, “a male propensity to be attracted to the thought or image of himself as a woman.”

Since that’s a psychological condition (a fetish or “paraphilia”, and as the introduction notes, paraphilias are much more common amongst males than females) it obviously reflects what’s going on in the person’s brain.

Thus if a person exhibits autogynephilia one can say that person clearly has the brain and associated psychology of a man, not a woman, however atypical or rare that psychology may be amongst men in general.

But the gender-critical feminists can’t commit themselves to that view because they maintain that male and female brains are essentially identical.

Although broadly those are reasonable posts, I believe that the last sentence misrepresents the position. I don’t think that anyone denies the statistical physical and operativel differences between male and female brains. Bear in mind of course that these are statistical differences between populations. There are overlaps, there are outliers.

Actually radical feminism of the kind associated usually with gender-critical views does tend to deny or very much downplay essential brain differences between males and females, especially in regard to rejecting the transgender claim that MtF transgender people have “female brains”.

As the site I linked argues:

>The idea of ladybrain, of course, kept women out of education and public life for centuries, and continues to be used to justify sexism worldwide. The modern-day fight is against “neuro-sexism,” see: Cordelia Fine’s Delusions of Gender and Rebecca Gordon-Young’s Brainstorm. Brainsex is bigoted pseudoscience, just as brainrace is bigoted pseudoscience.<

But this doesn’t seem terribly compatible with their acceptance of Blanchard’s idea of autogynephilia as a prime motivating factor for non-homosexual MtF. Possibly they would argue that autogynephilia reflects brain structures or processes that are exclusive to males but not “innate”, i.e., they are dependent on changes occurring during development due to socialisation or suchlike.

Well look, the causes of the differences are still a matter of investigation: how much is genetic and how much is developmental. We are now at a point where most science graduates are female and there was a time when that would have been thought a ridiculous idea. It will be interesting to track whether the statistics on the structural differences change over the coming decades.

Most people born without a dick don’t want to identify as male. The subset of people born biologically female who wish, as adults, to identify as male is already atypical: it would be unsurprising if there were statistical brain differences between this set and the set of people born without dicks who identify as female, and vice versa.

Bear in mind that gender-critical feminists are regarded as Public Enemy No.1 by transgender activists (and they have been really the only vocal opponents of transgender activism on the Left until fairly recently, and are still pretty much a lone voice).

I support many aspects of the gender-critical feminist view but not the whole picture as usually presented.

Can I just say….I hadn’t, until I read this thread, thought far enough to differentiate trans-sexual from trans-gender. They aren’t the same, are they?

dv said:

Most people born without a dick don’t want to identify as male. The subset of people born biologically female who wish, as adults, to identify as male is already atypical: it would be unsurprising if there were statistical brain differences between this set and the set of people born without dicks who identify as female, and vice versa.

The gender-critical feminists tend to be more concerned with the people born with dicks who claim to be women, especially if they insist that they still love their dicks, which the rest of society are then expected to accept as “lady’s dicks”.

buffy said:

Can I just say….I hadn’t, until I read this thread, thought far enough to differentiate trans-sexual from trans-gender. They aren’t the same, are they?

It depends on who you read :)

Generally speaking though, “transsexual” is the older term, still used by many, for people who experience bodily dysphoria (feel as though they’re in the wrong sex body) and “transition” from their birth sex via hormones and surgery.

“Transgender” people don’t necessarily experience sex dysphoria use any hormones or surgery (in fact most don’t have surgery these days).

But transgender activists will tell you the term “transgender” covers all these people and tend to be hostile towards trans people who describe themselves as transsexual.

>experience sex dysphoria OR use any hormones or surgery

This might assist the discussion.

Brain Differences Between Genders

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/hope-relationships/201402/brain-differences-between-genders

Bubblecar said:

buffy said:

Can I just say….I hadn’t, until I read this thread, thought far enough to differentiate trans-sexual from trans-gender. They aren’t the same, are they?

It depends on who you read :)

Generally speaking though, “transsexual” is the older term, still used by many, for people who experience bodily dysphoria (feel as though they’re in the wrong sex body) and “transition” from their birth sex via hormones and surgery.

“Transgender” people don’t necessarily experience sex dysphoria use any hormones or surgery (in fact most don’t have surgery these days).

But transgender activists will tell you the term “transgender” covers all these people and tend to be hostile towards trans people who describe themselves as transsexual.

That’s sort of what I’m getting. I’m familiar with the trannies. It’s the new trans gender category I’m having some difficulty with.

buffy said:

Bubblecar said:

buffy said:

Can I just say….I hadn’t, until I read this thread, thought far enough to differentiate trans-sexual from trans-gender. They aren’t the same, are they?

It depends on who you read :)

Generally speaking though, “transsexual” is the older term, still used by many, for people who experience bodily dysphoria (feel as though they’re in the wrong sex body) and “transition” from their birth sex via hormones and surgery.

“Transgender” people don’t necessarily experience sex dysphoria use any hormones or surgery (in fact most don’t have surgery these days).

But transgender activists will tell you the term “transgender” covers all these people and tend to be hostile towards trans people who describe themselves as transsexual.

That’s sort of what I’m getting. I’m familiar with the trannies. It’s the new trans gender category I’m having some difficulty with.

Today’s transgender ideology, at its most extreme (which is becoming the normal form) basically says: there is no such thing as sex, only gender, and you are whatever gender you feel you are.

Thus if you’re a man with a man’s body and you feel female, then you should be free to redefine yourself as a woman and your man’s body as a woman’s body, without changing it in any way.

Your dick & balls etc simply become a woman’s dick and balls, and anyone who challenges that is a bigot.

Bubblecar said:

buffy said:

Bubblecar said:

It depends on who you read :)

Generally speaking though, “transsexual” is the older term, still used by many, for people who experience bodily dysphoria (feel as though they’re in the wrong sex body) and “transition” from their birth sex via hormones and surgery.

“Transgender” people don’t necessarily experience sex dysphoria use any hormones or surgery (in fact most don’t have surgery these days).

But transgender activists will tell you the term “transgender” covers all these people and tend to be hostile towards trans people who describe themselves as transsexual.

That’s sort of what I’m getting. I’m familiar with the trannies. It’s the new trans gender category I’m having some difficulty with.

Today’s transgender ideology, at its most extreme (which is becoming the normal form) basically says: there is no such thing as sex, only gender, and you are whatever gender you feel you are.

Thus if you’re a man with a man’s body and you feel female, then you should be free to redefine yourself as a woman and your man’s body as a woman’s body, without changing it in any way.

Your dick & balls etc simply become a woman’s dick and balls, and anyone who challenges that is a bigot.

Well, that’s just silly, deconstructive nonsense.

I’m inclined to think this belittles and is unfair to those who fit the “old model” where they really were psychologically trapped.

I believe my nephew in America is trans. I believe he’s had a few things contributing to his state of mind, but he really is living as female, doing the period of time required prior to surgery. To me that indicates he needs to do this.

I do not believe my niece in Melbourne is trans. I feel she is doing “look at me”. No-one looking at her would think she was male. She’s not even butch dyke material. (I know, stereotypes and all that)

Seems to be the acme of identity politics, if you belong to a club of blokes who like to think they are women and you are motivated and organised enough, anyone who disagrees is castigated as intolerant and bigoted.

buffy said:

I’m inclined to think this belittles and is unfair to those who fit the “old model” where they really were psychologically trapped.

I believe my nephew in America is trans. I believe he’s had a few things contributing to his state of mind, but he really is living as female, doing the period of time required prior to surgery. To me that indicates he needs to do this.

I do not believe my niece in Melbourne is trans. I feel she is doing “look at me”. No-one looking at her would think she was male. She’s not even butch dyke material. (I know, stereotypes and all that)

There are of course transsexuals who genuinely have a serious dysphoria condition. But gender activists “can be quite hostile to transsexual people who want a label for themselves that excludes transvestites who love their penises. Those transsexual people are dismissed as “truscum”…

http://thenewbacklash.blogspot.com/p/4-transgender-identity-politics.html

AwesomeO said:

Seems to be the acme of identity politics, if you belong to a club of blokes who like to think they are women and you are motivated and organised enough, anyone who disagrees is castigated as intolerant and bigoted.

And following acceptance, or at least politically correct silence, is positive discrimination…

AwesomeO said:

Seems to be the acme of identity politics, if you belong to a club of blokes who like to think they are women and you are motivated and organised enough, anyone who disagrees is castigated as intolerant and bigoted.

And of course “transwomen” (actually men) claim to be oppressed by “ciswomen” (actual women):

>To add injury to insult, once labeled “cis,” women must confess to a laundry list of imagined privileges that only reveal how little AFTAs know about women’s lives. In AFTAs’ fantasy worlds, women never encounter sexism in our medical treatment, we aren’t belittled for failing to meet arbitrary beauty standards, we don’t face violence in the family and on the street. Being a girl is like playing Life on easy mode. Being a woman means relaxing into the bliss of non-personhood. There is no female oppression.

And once labeled “cis,” women become, by Orwellian linguistic magic, oppressors of any male person who claims transness. (Funnily enough, in this topsy-turvy worldview, female people who do identify as men – trans men – are men period, and thus also privileged over transwomen. There are no female people who are not privileged in relation to any male who claims the label “trans.”) It doesn’t matter if a woman is visually gender-conforming but experiences femininity as a compulsory expression of preemptive surrender to male dominance, and it doesn’t matter if a woman is visibly gender non-conforming and is constantly punished for it. If a person 1) was born into a female body and 2) accepts the dictionary definition of the word “woman” – she is now the cis oppressor.<

http://thenewbacklash.blogspot.com/p/6-woman-is-privilege-cis.html

Bubblecar said:

AwesomeO said:

Seems to be the acme of identity politics, if you belong to a club of blokes who like to think they are women and you are motivated and organised enough, anyone who disagrees is castigated as intolerant and bigoted.

And of course “transwomen” (actually men) claim to be oppressed by “ciswomen” (actual women):

>To add injury to insult, once labeled “cis,” women must confess to a laundry list of imagined privileges that only reveal how little AFTAs know about women’s lives. In AFTAs’ fantasy worlds, women never encounter sexism in our medical treatment, we aren’t belittled for failing to meet arbitrary beauty standards, we don’t face violence in the family and on the street. Being a girl is like playing Life on easy mode. Being a woman means relaxing into the bliss of non-personhood. There is no female oppression.

And once labeled “cis,” women become, by Orwellian linguistic magic, oppressors of any male person who claims transness. (Funnily enough, in this topsy-turvy worldview, female people who do identify as men – trans men – are men period, and thus also privileged over transwomen. There are no female people who are not privileged in relation to any male who claims the label “trans.”) It doesn’t matter if a woman is visually gender-conforming but experiences femininity as a compulsory expression of preemptive surrender to male dominance, and it doesn’t matter if a woman is visibly gender non-conforming and is constantly punished for it. If a person 1) was born into a female body and 2) accepts the dictionary definition of the word “woman” – she is now the cis oppressor.<

http://thenewbacklash.blogspot.com/p/6-woman-is-privilege-cis.html

Goodness me!

Many people don’t realise how surreal the transgender ideology has become. This is why I warned people to research the subject before trying to debate it :)

Bubblecar said:

buffy said:

Bubblecar said:

It depends on who you read :)

Generally speaking though, “transsexual” is the older term, still used by many, for people who experience bodily dysphoria (feel as though they’re in the wrong sex body) and “transition” from their birth sex via hormones and surgery.

“Transgender” people don’t necessarily experience sex dysphoria use any hormones or surgery (in fact most don’t have surgery these days).

But transgender activists will tell you the term “transgender” covers all these people and tend to be hostile towards trans people who describe themselves as transsexual.

That’s sort of what I’m getting. I’m familiar with the trannies. It’s the new trans gender category I’m having some difficulty with.

Today’s transgender ideology, at its most extreme (which is becoming the normal form) basically says: there is no such thing as sex, only gender, and you are whatever gender you feel you are.

Thus if you’re a man with a man’s body and you feel female, then you should be free to redefine yourself as a woman and your man’s body as a woman’s body, without changing it in any way.

Your dick & balls etc simply become a woman’s dick and balls, and anyone who challenges that is a bigot.

I know a trans, some have an op to remove their penis, some dont.

The one I know has had an op.

i think we should plough about 500 billion into trans education and all kinds of activities to support them

Transgender rights
Who decides your gender?
Gender self-identification is often cited as a matter of civil rights. It is more problematic than many advocates realise

Print edition | Leaders Oct 27th 2018

This newspaper is a proud champion of gay rights. We first ran an editorial in favour of same-sex marriage in 1996. We hew to the liberal principle that people are the best judges of their own interests and should be able to act as they wish, as long as no one else is harmed. That some people regard homosexuality as sinful is irrelevant. Everyone is entitled to their beliefs, but not to stop others from exercising their own freedoms.

Some see gender self-identification for trans people as the next frontier (see Briefing). This starts with the idea that what makes someone a man or woman is not biological sex but an inner knowledge of who they are. Trans people have gender dysphoria, an overwhelming sense of belonging to the other sex. They suffer grievously when they cannot act on this. Even when they can, they fall victim to discrimination.

The self-id campaign argues that members of an oppressed minority should be free to choose their gender identity. Indeed, how can there be any justification for the state to stand in their way?

Yet this week it emerged that President Donald Trump plans to do just that. Under his predecessor, Barack Obama, “sex” was interpreted in federal rules to mean gender self-id. Under Mr Trump, it is likely to revert to mean “immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth”. This definition means that trans people would be denied recognition in federal law. They would have no path to changing their legal status.

That is wrong. However, the state should also resist the impulse to make trans people’s legal status a matter of personal definition, as Britain is considering. The state needs to be involved for the liberal reason that the welfare gains of self-id for trans people should be balanced against the potential harm to others.

Such harm is hard to quantify, but should not be dismissed lightly. Men commit almost all sexual crimes, so society sets aside spaces in order to help keep women and children safe. Were just 1% of the men in prison in Britain for sexual crimes to identify as women, it would double the number of women in prison for such offences. If “man” and “woman” are determined by self-id, spaces and institutions for women and children will become accessible to anyone. There is no reason to think that identifying as a woman makes a male any less dangerous (or any more).

By contrast, there is every reason to think that predatory males will claim to be trans in order to commit crimes more easily. Statistics about crimes by trans women as such are lacking (they are increasingly being recorded and reported simply as crimes by women). If females stay out of women’s spaces because privacy or their faith dictates it, their loss of freedom and comfort will not show up in any statistics either.

The welfare of children should weigh in the balance, too. Those who choose a trans identity are being started on irreversible treatment ever younger, despite evidence that without it most would change their mind. Some schools have started to teach children to understand their gender identity by introspection, not anatomy. They are told that if they are leaders and rational they are boys, and if they are nurturing and gossipy they are girls. Thus outdated gender stereotypes have come roaring back under self-id. Children who may have turned out gay are being channelled instead into a trans identity.

The impetus for action is often noble: trans people have historically been subject to terrible discrimination. But the theory of gender identity is relatively new. And how someone forms their gender identity is still poorly understood. Deciding how to balance competing rights and how to weigh risks will demand careful debate. Yet in many places discussion of trans issues has fallen prey to the illiberalism of identity politics. Anyone who questions the new orthodoxy is branded “transphobic”. Research into the harms to children from early transitioning is suppressed. Academics exploring the consequences of redefining sex categories face campaigns to get them sacked.

This is a dangerous path. A rush to gender self-id may end up causing harm and opening the door to the extreme backlash epitomised by the Trump administration’s plan. There is a better approach. First, create a procedure that allows people to change their legal sex. Britain’s current law, which lets those diagnosed with gender dysphoria gain approval to do so after two years of living as the opposite sex, may be too slow and bureaucratic. But the broad outline is right. Second, step up legal protections against harassment and discrimination for everyone, regardless of how they present themselves. Third, introduce more “third spaces” (gender-neutral facilities) to complement single-sex ones. These measures will not satisfy the staunchest advocates of gender self-id. But they are the right way forward.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/10/27/who-decides-your-gender

Witty Rejoinder said:

Transgender rights
Who decides your gender?
Gender self-identification is often cited as a matter of civil rights. It is more problematic than many advocates realise

Print edition | Leaders Oct 27th 2018

This newspaper is a proud champion of gay rights. We first ran an editorial in favour of same-sex marriage in 1996. We hew to the liberal principle that people are the best judges of their own interests and should be able to act as they wish, as long as no one else is harmed. That some people regard homosexuality as sinful is irrelevant. Everyone is entitled to their beliefs, but not to stop others from exercising their own freedoms.

Some see gender self-identification for trans people as the next frontier (see Briefing). This starts with the idea that what makes someone a man or woman is not biological sex but an inner knowledge of who they are. Trans people have gender dysphoria, an overwhelming sense of belonging to the other sex. They suffer grievously when they cannot act on this. Even when they can, they fall victim to discrimination.

The self-id campaign argues that members of an oppressed minority should be free to choose their gender identity. Indeed, how can there be any justification for the state to stand in their way?

Yet this week it emerged that President Donald Trump plans to do just that. Under his predecessor, Barack Obama, “sex” was interpreted in federal rules to mean gender self-id. Under Mr Trump, it is likely to revert to mean “immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth”. This definition means that trans people would be denied recognition in federal law. They would have no path to changing their legal status.

That is wrong. However, the state should also resist the impulse to make trans people’s legal status a matter of personal definition, as Britain is considering. The state needs to be involved for the liberal reason that the welfare gains of self-id for trans people should be balanced against the potential harm to others.

Such harm is hard to quantify, but should not be dismissed lightly. Men commit almost all sexual crimes, so society sets aside spaces in order to help keep women and children safe. Were just 1% of the men in prison in Britain for sexual crimes to identify as women, it would double the number of women in prison for such offences. If “man” and “woman” are determined by self-id, spaces and institutions for women and children will become accessible to anyone. There is no reason to think that identifying as a woman makes a male any less dangerous (or any more).

By contrast, there is every reason to think that predatory males will claim to be trans in order to commit crimes more easily. Statistics about crimes by trans women as such are lacking (they are increasingly being recorded and reported simply as crimes by women). If females stay out of women’s spaces because privacy or their faith dictates it, their loss of freedom and comfort will not show up in any statistics either.

The welfare of children should weigh in the balance, too. Those who choose a trans identity are being started on irreversible treatment ever younger, despite evidence that without it most would change their mind. Some schools have started to teach children to understand their gender identity by introspection, not anatomy. They are told that if they are leaders and rational they are boys, and if they are nurturing and gossipy they are girls. Thus outdated gender stereotypes have come roaring back under self-id. Children who may have turned out gay are being channelled instead into a trans identity.

The impetus for action is often noble: trans people have historically been subject to terrible discrimination. But the theory of gender identity is relatively new. And how someone forms their gender identity is still poorly understood. Deciding how to balance competing rights and how to weigh risks will demand careful debate. Yet in many places discussion of trans issues has fallen prey to the illiberalism of identity politics. Anyone who questions the new orthodoxy is branded “transphobic”. Research into the harms to children from early transitioning is suppressed. Academics exploring the consequences of redefining sex categories face campaigns to get them sacked.

This is a dangerous path. A rush to gender self-id may end up causing harm and opening the door to the extreme backlash epitomised by the Trump administration’s plan. There is a better approach. First, create a procedure that allows people to change their legal sex. Britain’s current law, which lets those diagnosed with gender dysphoria gain approval to do so after two years of living as the opposite sex, may be too slow and bureaucratic. But the broad outline is right. Second, step up legal protections against harassment and discrimination for everyone, regardless of how they present themselves. Third, introduce more “third spaces” (gender-neutral facilities) to complement single-sex ones. These measures will not satisfy the staunchest advocates of gender self-id. But they are the right way forward.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/10/27/who-decides-your-gender

Sensible piece.

Witty Rejoinder said:

Print edition | Leaders Oct 27th 2018

…

The welfare of children should weigh in the balance, too. Those who choose a trans identity are being started on irreversible treatment ever younger, despite evidence that without it most would change their mind. Some schools have started to teach children to understand their gender identity by introspection, not anatomy. They are told that if they are leaders and rational they are boys, and if they are nurturing and gossipy they are girls. Thus outdated gender stereotypes have come roaring back under self-id
…

Is that true?

Or is it some gross distortion of what is happening, designed to make it look evil, when it isn’t.

I certainly hope the latter.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

Print edition | Leaders Oct 27th 2018

…

The welfare of children should weigh in the balance, too. Those who choose a trans identity are being started on irreversible treatment ever younger, despite evidence that without it most would change their mind. Some schools have started to teach children to understand their gender identity by introspection, not anatomy. They are told that if they are leaders and rational they are boys, and if they are nurturing and gossipy they are girls. Thus outdated gender stereotypes have come roaring back under self-id
…

Is that true?

Or is it some gross distortion of what is happening, designed to make it look evil, when it isn’t.

I certainly hope the latter.

There are certainly advocates out there that promote the idea that gender is ‘how you feel’ and not ‘how you are’ and this may be being being taught to vulnerable minors: as usual there are extremists in all debates. IMO a policy to teach young people who may be homosexual and/or transgender that that this is perfectly okay is a must so unfortunately we run the risk of helping kids who may come to decide that they are neither. FWIW i think we should err on the side of caution in helping kids considering how difficult it can be for youngsters who may be questioning their idendity to fit in in the torrid atmosphere of high-school.

Witty Rejoinder said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

Print edition | Leaders Oct 27th 2018

…

The welfare of children should weigh in the balance, too. Those who choose a trans identity are being started on irreversible treatment ever younger, despite evidence that without it most would change their mind. Some schools have started to teach children to understand their gender identity by introspection, not anatomy. They are told that if they are leaders and rational they are boys, and if they are nurturing and gossipy they are girls. Thus outdated gender stereotypes have come roaring back under self-id
…

Is that true?

Or is it some gross distortion of what is happening, designed to make it look evil, when it isn’t.

I certainly hope the latter.

There are certainly advocates out there that promote the idea that gender is ‘how you feel’ and not ‘how you are’ and this may be being being taught to vulnerable minors: as usual there are extremists in all debates. IMO a policy to teach young people who may be homosexual and/or transgender that that this is perfectly okay is a must so unfortunately we run the risk of helping kids who may come to decide that they are neither. FWIW i think we should err on the side of caution in helping kids considering how difficult it can be for youngsters who may be questioning their idendity to fit in in the torrid atmosphere of high-school.

Well ‘how you feel’ is part of ‘how you are’, so I don’t see those as being binary different approaches at all, at all.

But equating leadership and rationality with maleness and nurturing and gossiping with femaleness is another matter entirely.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Is that true?

Or is it some gross distortion of what is happening, designed to make it look evil, when it isn’t.

I certainly hope the latter.

There are certainly advocates out there that promote the idea that gender is ‘how you feel’ and not ‘how you are’ and this may be being being taught to vulnerable minors: as usual there are extremists in all debates. IMO a policy to teach young people who may be homosexual and/or transgender that that this is perfectly okay is a must so unfortunately we run the risk of helping kids who may come to decide that they are neither. FWIW i think we should err on the side of caution in helping kids considering how difficult it can be for youngsters who may be questioning their idendity to fit in in the torrid atmosphere of high-school.

Well ‘how you feel’ is part of ‘how you are’, so I don’t see those as being binary different approaches at all, at all.

But equating leadership and rationality with maleness and nurturing and gossiping with femaleness is another matter entirely.

But your FWIW bit, I agree.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Well ‘how you feel’ is part of ‘how you are’, so I don’t see those as being binary different approaches at all, at all.

It’s a fairly nuanced debate (one I was also unaware of until it surfaced on the forum) but the main problem is where do you draw the line. The extreme ‘how you feel’ brigade promote the idea that if a man ‘feels like a woman’, even if he suffers no sexual dysmorphia and is perfectly happy to have sex with their penis with women he is ‘still a woman’ because he feels that way. Also the caveats by others that he is actually a ‘transsexual woman’ and not a ‘real woman’ are condemned as bigotry.

This blog posted by Car is good at explaining the debate which involves transgender males who claim they are real women, transexuals who feel that that detracts from their struggles in transitioning and feminists who claim allowing men to self identify as real women unfairly pits cisgender women against cisgender men who like a dress and wig but like their penis as well.

the issues are complex, but you can call a mule a donkey, but it don’t make it so..

Has this thread addressed the issue of “which trans” yet?

mollwollfumble said:

Has this thread addressed the issue of “which trans” yet?

There’s more than one. It runs the gamut from lopping off your penis to just sporting a new pair of high heels.

The Rev Dodgson said:

But equating leadership and rationality with maleness and nurturing and gossiping with femaleness is another matter entirely.

I refuse to accept that. No. No. No. It’s not gossip. It’s a healthy interest in your fellow human being.

Witty Rejoinder said:

mollwollfumble said:

Has this thread addressed the issue of “which trans” yet?

There’s more than one. It runs the gamut from lopping off your penis to just sporting a new pair of high heels.

Lipstick and a wig, you let out the lipstick and a wig.

But I think we should genetically re-engineer our genome to be unisex, I’ve had it with sexual tension, it causes too many problems.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

mollwollfumble said:

Has this thread addressed the issue of “which trans” yet?

There’s more than one. It runs the gamut from lopping off your penis to just sporting a new pair of high heels.

Lipstick and a wig, you let out the lipstick and a wig.

But I think we should genetically re-engineer our genome to be unisex, I’ve had it with sexual tension, it causes too many problems.

Without sexual tension you relationship with the neighbour would be stale and empty of feeling.

Witty Rejoinder said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

There’s more than one. It runs the gamut from lopping off your penis to just sporting a new pair of high heels.

Lipstick and a wig, you let out the lipstick and a wig.

But I think we should genetically re-engineer our genome to be unisex, I’ve had it with sexual tension, it causes too many problems.

Without sexual tension you relationship with the neighbour would be stale and empty of feeling.

No it wouldn’t, it would be peaceful and quiet, meditative and relaxing.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

mollwollfumble said:

Has this thread addressed the issue of “which trans” yet?

There’s more than one. It runs the gamut from lopping off your penis to just sporting a new pair of high heels.

Lipstick and a wig, you let out the lipstick and a wig.

But I think we should genetically re-engineer our genome to be unisex, I’ve had it with sexual tension, it causes too many problems.

It could be easier than that. Ban the use of all gender-specific pronouns. No more he, she, his her, hers, mr, mrs, ms, etc. Insist that every person is referred to as “it”. I find it annoying that the most widely used gender-neutral pronoun for humans is “Dr”.

Genders are multiplying so fast these days that I’ve thought of setting up a company that earns income by inventing unique new genders for people.

mollwollfumble said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

There’s more than one. It runs the gamut from lopping off your penis to just sporting a new pair of high heels.

Lipstick and a wig, you let out the lipstick and a wig.

But I think we should genetically re-engineer our genome to be unisex, I’ve had it with sexual tension, it causes too many problems.

It could be easier than that. Ban the use of all gender-specific pronouns. No more he, she, his her, hers, mr, mrs, ms, etc. Insist that every person is referred to as “it”. I find it annoying that the most widely used gender-neutral pronoun for humans is “Dr”.

Genders are multiplying so fast these days that I’ve thought of setting up a company that earns income by inventing unique new genders for people.

Some is attention seeking I think, you have the two biological sexes, people who wish to change from one to the other (that would have degrees of commitment to it I imagine), interchangeable male or female with the aid of technology and perhaps a neutral sex were you could be born male or female but don’t feel like either.

mollwollfumble said:

Genders are multiplying so fast these days that I’ve thought of setting up a company that earns income by inventing unique new genders for people.

Sounds good Mr Fumble. If they can do it to what used to be called simply “a cup of coffee” then they can do it to genders too.

Double Ristretto Venti Half-Soy Nonfat Decaf Organic Chocolate Brownie Iced Vanilla Double-Shot Gingerbread Frappuccino Extra Hot With Foam Whipped Cream Upside Down Double Blended, One Sweet’N Low and One Nutrasweet,

It appears understanding of this issue is under transition (hehe, pun intended).

At one end of the spectrum, sex and gender are certainly an uneven spectrum rather than binary, and this needs to be accomodated socially and legally.

On the other hand, identity shouldn’t be left entirely up to the individual and open to abuse from candals to change their identity disingenuously back and forth every day for a laugh or some insidious purpose.

I’m sure a middle ground can be reached given enough discussion, which appears to he happening.

Any at-first-glance binary disruption of a human being usually isn’t, yet we mostly don’t have priblems defining someone as an Australian, or a medical doctor, or a plumber, or tall or short or any other number of things are are philosophically more subtle than the way they are generally used.

Thanks y’all for your input and perspectives on this, especially Car.

Though I don’t know what candals are.

*vandals

*description

*I’m writing all this on my phone

dv said:

Though I don’t know what candals are.

Things that, when in the wind, some people seem to live their life like?