Similarly black men shouldn't be allowed to use the same swimming pool as whites, because they will rape white women. Offensive tropes using "safety" to target disadvantaged groups are as old as humanity itself.
@Kwesi - can you unpick what you mean by politically correct here, please?
I know unisex changing rooms and toilets have lots of advantages for more than just transgender people; all those other "normal" people who have been struggling with single sex provision for years: men with babies - there are no changing facilities in men's toilets, men with their daughters, mothers with their sons, ... So if it is politically correct to try and benefit groups of people currently finding the current set up difficult, then why wouldn't we do it?
"Politically correct" is a term coined by abusive and rude people to cover their abuse and rudeness and deflect it back onto the people they're abusing/being rude to. As such it is unworthy of any shipmate.
I'm quickly getting used to the innuendos Kwesi....
I think that unisex facilities can be great. But I also think that there should be provision for those who don't want to use them.
I was just having a look at the House of Bishops statement, which included this:
The majority of trans women unreservedly endorse the protection of women’s
safety in single-sex spaces, such as refuges, toilets etc., that the law currently provides.
But it seems that so much of the arguments seem to be about accessing single-sex spaces. So which is it?
I must admit, I'm suspicious now of posts that just happen to mimic the (in)famous transphobic ones, such as cis men passing as women, or the contagion among teens. It seems odd that someone should happen to light on them, which are so well worn that there are holes in them.
If you want to take me to Hell quetzalcoatl then feel free. Otherwise can you lay off the insinuations thanks.
Similarly black men shouldn't be allowed to use the same swimming pool as whites, because they will rape white women. Offensive tropes using "safety" to target disadvantaged groups are as old as humanity itself.
Similarly black men shouldn't be allowed to use the same swimming pool as whites, because they will rape white women. Offensive tropes using "safety" to target disadvantaged groups are as old as humanity itself.
That's the problem @quantpole - transgender women are women, so if we are only providing single sex spaces they will need to use the female toilets. If we provide safe unisex toilets then the issue goes away.
When were discussing accommodation of transitioning school students, I looked at the legal position - here on p14
A school fails to provide appropriate changing facilities for a
transsexual pupil and insists that the pupil uses the boys’ changing room even though she is now living as a girl. This could be indirect gender reassignment discrimination unless it can be objectively justified. A suitable alternative might be to allow the pupil to use private changing facilities, such as the staff changing room or another suitable space.
Gender segregation is permitted for a few specifically defined
purposes. For example there is an exemption permitting gender segregation in certain situations where it is necessary to preserve privacy and decency. However, unless a specific exemption applies, segregation connected to gender will be unlawful.
So schools can provide suitable alternative spaces for sleeping and changing for transgender students.
Odd, isn't it, that a discussion on the recognition of an indeterminate number of sexes and the sensibilities of those transitioning between them ends up with a solution that ignores those differences?
The argument for urinals is that they can accommodate more users, more quickly, in a smaller over-all space, and at cheaper cost than facilities which exclude them. (Perhaps one could have a
binary public provision that consists of (a) urinals and (b) unisex cubicles).
Personally, I have no problem with public\ unisex provision, though I understand that there is significant opposition to them amongst cisgendered females, which I'm inclined to respect.
It does depend on what they are as well. If you have individual full height wall units, which include a sink, then I don't really see the issue with them being unisex.
It also equalises toilet provision because there's an ongoing issue of poor provision of toilets for women. Urinal design is one of those things in design and architecture that are convenient for men and disadvantages women. (There are a lot of these things: more and more are being recognised as women are becoming more involved in design. Stupid things like mobile phones being designed for men's hands. As a petite woman I really don't want the flashiest phones as I can't use them.)
The desire for single sex spaces comes back down to the fear of predatory men. But those predatory men are equally dangerous to transgender women who are particularly vulnerable, and insisting that there is no room for transgender women in women's toilets endangers them more. Especially as that small minority of predatory men cannot be relied upon not to abuse the single sex space anyway.
On this thread on a subject which inevitably and obviously will give rise to lively discussion, please can I request all shipmates to pay special attention to Commandment 5, and to Purgatory Guidelines 1, 2 and 5
Makes me wonder, how is it possible that gender is a sexual construct, and at the same time you have people who identify with the gender opposite to their sex of birth and there's nothing they can do about how they feel because they were born that way - so they have to reassign the body to the other gender. Seems like madness that someone would have to go through surgery and hormonal treatment in a perfectly functional and healthy body, just to fit into something that is merely a social construct. If transgender people have something biological and inner that makes them identify with the opposite gender to which they were assigned at birth, and that has nothing to do with the environment and how they were raised, then that contradicts the consensus that gender is a social construct. There must be identity differences between men and women that go beyond culture. There are big inconsistencies inside this ideology.
Some trans people argue for that reason that trans identities may have a biological origin, in part. I am not getting commission from Julia Serano, but she argues this in various publications, and she is a biologist. I think her most well-known book is Whipping Girl.
Makes me wonder, how is it possible that gender is a sexual construct, and at the same time you have people who identify with the gender opposite to their sex of birth and there's nothing they can do about how they feel because they were born that way - so they have to reassign the body to the other gender. Seems like madness that someone would have to go through surgery and hormonal treatment in a perfectly functional and healthy body, just to fit into something that is merely a social construct. If transgender people have something biological and inner that makes them identify with the opposite gender to which they were assigned at birth, and that has nothing to do with the environment and how they were raised, then that contradicts the consensus that gender is a social construct. There must be identity differences between men and women that go beyond culture. There are big inconsistencies inside this ideology.
I think part of the problem is the blurring between gender and sex, and/or the need for a new set of categories that fits what we currently know about both.
Some people consider themselves and/or have been professionally identified as ‘primary transsexual’ and prefer that term because of the ways ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are used. Others don’t like the term ‘transsexual’ at all. It can be a bit of a minefield.
I know the parents of a person who was thus identified. They’d be in their fifties now, and had considered they were in the wrong body from about the age of 5.
It's terminological chaos. As BroJames says, the term transsexual is strongly disliked by some but not all. The term "gender" itself has had a chequered career, and seems to overlap with sex. Serano uses the term "subconscious sex", to indicate a biological tendency behind trans, but I dislike the term "subconscious". Maybe new terms will emerge. On we go.
Cuiosity, I think it would be great to include unisex/gender neutral facilities as a matter of course, alongside single sex facilities.
The problem with this idea is that you are then asking for three sets of toilets, possibly four if the disabled toilets are separate again, wherever toilets should be provided. I don't think that's going to be economic, either financially or spatially, when single sets of accessible unisex toilets could meet the needs of everyone.
Again, we come up against a possible significant difference between transgender people and homosexual people. I too have known a substantial number of gay men; many "knew" from an early age they were gay. How? Several told me they knew they liked boys and not girls. So this is a relational kind of knowledge; "I observe I respond differently to x than to y." (Though it should be pointed out that such reactions are common in latency, and that, AFAICT and in my NSH opinion, much of the Anglophone world is deficient generally in its regard for persons of the female persuasion.)
Knowing that one is female while living in a male body or vice-versa may be a different kind of knowing altogether. It's not necessarily relational (except insofar as any of us can be said to have a relationship to one's own self). It's beyond me to categorize this kind of awareness, or to understand how it arises. That's not meant as any sort of attack; it's a simple acknowledgement of my own ignorance and, perhaps, a failure of my empathy or imagination.
Its connection to this discussion is simply another example of how fraught unrestful discussion of such personal issues can be. Maybe what we need is a "Fraught Discussion: Tread Carefully" board (I''m only 52% serious).
I don't think urinals as such disadvantage women. What disadvantages women is when it is assumed that men should have the same amount of space as women despite the presence of urinals that take up less space.
Men who need to use the actual toilets benefit from urinals, because the men who only need the urinals aren't using the toilets. Women could benefit in exactly the same way. The problem is that under the present set-up the benefit isn't passed on.
(The situation is similar with the argument that funding for public transport penalises people need to use cars: in fact, getting the people who don't need to use cars onto public transport clears the road for people who need to use cars.)
Sorry, what I should have said is the existence of urinals in men's toilets means that there is always far more toilet capacity for men rather than women, and having spent much of my life queuing for toilet queues, there is never enough capacity for women.
Makes me wonder, how is it possible that gender is a sexual construct, and at the same time you have people who identify with the gender opposite to their sex of birth and there's nothing they can do about how they feel because they were born that way - so they have to reassign the body to the other gender. Seems like madness that someone would have to go through surgery and hormonal treatment in a perfectly functional and healthy body, just to fit into something that is merely a social construct. If transgender people have something biological and inner that makes them identify with the opposite gender to which they were assigned at birth, and that has nothing to do with the environment and how they were raised, then that contradicts the consensus that gender is a social construct. There must be identity differences between men and women that go beyond culture. There are big inconsistencies inside this ideology.
I think the problem is that there are at least three things, two of which are nestled under the word 'gender'.
There are gender roles, as in the idea that women tend to be more empathetic and collaborative, and men more systematic and competitive, and these may well be to a greater or lesser degree social constructs (although I think there is only 'consensus' if you define consensus as 'vicious and acrimonious disagreement').
But I don't think that's what transgender people are describing. I don't think people transition because they want to, say, get into the caring professions. And men who take on typically female roles don't generally identify as transgender. It is a separate phenomenon.
Back on page 18 I posted links to some teaching materials which show various spectra and how they work. I reposted them again recently, because they describe different scales, those below and also sexual attraction (or asexuality, although that's in the notes, not on the chart):
Yes, following on from Curiosity killed, gender identity is the key term here. It causes a lot of confusion and disagreement, because it's subjective. It's an internal experience, whereas sex is something we describe in the third person. I know John is a man, because he has a penis. But hang on, John says, I don't feel male.
Those who are hostile to the idea of gender identity say that it's just about feelings (bad), whereas with genitals and chromosomes, I am on firm ground, because I get to define you, and your feelings can fuck off.
So there are some fascinating implications here about being human, from the inside and from the outside. It's one of the reasons for the fierce disagreements over transgender, as those who are externalists reject those who are internalists. And some people want to define others, what a surprise.
Yes, following on from Curiosity killed, gender identity is the key term here. It causes a lot of confusion and disagreement, because it's subjective. It's an internal experience, whereas sex is something we describe in the third person. I know John is a man, because he has a penis. But hang on, John says, I don't feel male.
Those who are hostile to the idea of gender identity say that it's just about feelings (bad), whereas with genitals and chromosomes, I am on firm ground, because I get to define you, and your feelings can fuck off.
So there are some fascinating implications here about being human, from the inside and from the outside. It's one of the reasons for the fierce disagreements over transgender, as those who are externalists reject those who are internalists. And some people want to define others, what a surprise.
Well, I think also, if someone says gender is a social construct, that implies that society defines what it means to be a particular gender, not the individual. But I think this confusion arises from ambiguity over the word 'gender'.
Gender is best understood when broken up into three parts: gender identity (which is how you, in your head, define and understand your gender based on the options for gender you know to exist), gender expression (the ways you demonstrate gender through your dress, actions, and demeanor), and biological sex (the physical parts of your body that we think of as either male or female). Let’s talk about these one-by-one.
Reading the notes, the author says that gender identity is usually recognised by the age of 3 and the transgender issues arise when gender identity does not match sex assigned at birth (SAAB)
From these materials, gender expression is the social construct and fluid:
Gender expression is all about how you demonstrate your gender through the ways you act, dress, behave, and interact–whether that is intentional or unintended. Gender expression is interpreted by others perceiving your gender based on traditional gender roles (e.g., men wear pants, women wear dresses). Gender expression is something that often changes from day to day, outfit to outfit, event or setting to event or setting. It’s about how the way you express yourself aligns or doesn’t with traditional ways of gendered expression.
Also in those materials, there are some statistics which demonstrate that the
Total number of people whose bodies differ from standard male or female - 1 in 100
Total number of people receiving surgery to “normalize” genital appearance - 1 or 2 per 1000 births
And the other link there, which I found interesting was to a list of cis-gender privileges, which includes:
You can use public restrooms without fear of verbal abuse, physical intimidation, or arrest.
The DSM classification of gender dysphoria came up earlier on this or one of the related threads and as there was some mention in these materials, I've followed on down that rabbit hole to clarify the DSM classification. This comes from an article discussing changes in perception in transgender in 2017:
An earlier change occurred in 2013, when “gender identity disorder” was dropped from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), U.S. psychiatry’s bible for diagnosing mental illness. A new condition called “gender dysphoria” was added to diagnose and treat those transgender individuals who felt distress at the mismatch between their identities and their bodies. The new diagnosis recognized that a mismatch between one’s birth gender and identity was not necessarily pathological, ... It shifted the emphasis in treatment from fixing a disorder to resolving distress over the mismatch.* source - Scientific American
* Although this version has been superseded by version 4
Makes me wonder, how is it possible that gender is a sexual construct, and at the same time you have people who identify with the gender opposite to their sex of birth and there's nothing they can do about how they feel because they were born that way - so they have to reassign the body to the other gender. Seems like madness that someone would have to go through surgery and hormonal treatment in a perfectly functional and healthy body, just to fit into something that is merely a social construct. If transgender people have something biological and inner that makes them identify with the opposite gender to which they were assigned at birth, and that has nothing to do with the environment and how they were raised, then that contradicts the consensus that gender is a social construct. There must be identity differences between men and women that go beyond culture. There are big inconsistencies inside this ideology.
I think the problem is that there are at least three things, two of which are nestled under the word 'gender'.
There are gender roles, as in the idea that women tend to be more empathetic and collaborative, and men more systematic and competitive, and these may well be to a greater or lesser degree social constructs (although I think there is only 'consensus' if you define consensus as 'vicious and acrimonious disagreement').
But I don't think that's what transgender people are describing. I don't think people transition because they want to, say, get into the caring professions. And men who take on typically female roles don't generally identify as transgender. It is a separate phenomenon.
This.
I have no interest in sports or fast cars, stereotypically male interests. At school I was bullied partly because of that and because I had no interest in rough play, playground fights or any of the (to my mind toxic) physicality of how boys stereotypically socialise.
But in no way do I feel I'm not "really" a man. It's something apart from those socially constructed roles and expectations.
The argument that there are inconsistencies in the theoretical underpinning of trans identity seems to be saying "this doesn't quite make sense how you currently express it so I'm going to say you're wrong about your own experience" - which is the heart of this and I'm sure we've said this before - the starting point should be the perfectly reasonable assumption that people know their own experience, feelings and identity better than outside observers do.
Cisgendered people don't actually need to have a view on this; they could just mind their own business. It's only their refusal to do so that makes there be an issue.
KarlBH: the starting point should be the perfectly reasonable assumption that people know their own experience, feelings and identity better than outside observers do.
This is a highly contentious assumption, as attested to by the Hell Board, which accuses shipmates of all sorts of bigotry they deny, not to mention the question; "What do they know of England that only England know?" Many of us spend a life-time trying to respond to the command "Know thyself". Some of us, perhaps, go to psychiatrists to find out who we are. Socrates set the ball rolling ages ago.
According to everything I've found, gender identity is established or well on the way to being established at age 3. So someone who says that their gender identity is not the same as their sex assigned at birth is pointing to a mismatches between things established very early on, contra Freud, who posited a later understanding of gender.
It's fascinating. I got involved in this thread because I've encountered a number of young people with gender dysphoria, including my daughter's best friend at school, and was aware of the distress involved. The more I research the information to answer questions the more I find how young people are when they form their gender identity and how deep rooted gender dysphoria is.
KarlBH: the starting point should be the perfectly reasonable assumption that people know their own experience, feelings and identity better than outside observers do.
This is a highly contentious assumption, as attested to by the Hell Board, which accuses shipmates of all sorts of bigotry they deny, not to mention the question; "What do they know of England that only England know?" Many of us spend a life-time trying to respond to the command "Know thyself". Some of us, perhaps, go to psychiatrists to find out who we are. Socrates set the ball rolling ages ago.
But I doubt if your psychiatrist will tell you who you are. I think Karl's point stands, those who critique gender identity are often saying that your experience doesn't count, and what counts is my perception of you.
Again, we come up against a possible significant difference between transgender people and homosexual people. I too have known a substantial number of gay men; many "knew" from an early age they were gay. How? Several told me they knew they liked boys and not girls. So this is a relational kind of knowledge; "I observe I respond differently to x than to y." (Though it should be pointed out that such reactions are common in latency, and that, AFAICT and in my NSH opinion, much of the Anglophone world is deficient generally in its regard for persons of the female persuasion.)
Knowing that one is female while living in a male body or vice-versa may be a different kind of knowing altogether. It's not necessarily relational (except insofar as any of us can be said to have a relationship to one's own self). It's beyond me to categorize this kind of awareness, or to understand how it arises. That's not meant as any sort of attack; it's a simple acknowledgement of my own ignorance and, perhaps, a failure of my empathy or imagination.
Its connection to this discussion is simply another example of how fraught unrestful discussion of such personal issues can be. Maybe what we need is a "Fraught Discussion: Tread Carefully" board (I''m only 52% serious).
Sorry -- forgot where I was. I meant for this to go to the Syx thread.
But you bring up an interesting point, Ohher, which has always puzzled me. People often say, how does a trans woman know she is a woman? But how does a cis woman know she is a woman? Or if we talk about children, how does a 3 year old boy know he's a boy? No doubt, we are reinforced in our gender identity, so that the boy is often treated as a boy. But does he have boyish feelings? I have always found this puzzling, as I don't feel particularly male or female, or masculine or feminine. The obvious solution is to go back to biology, boys know they're boys because they have willies. Gender identity disappears, but then it doesn't. .
The problem with this idea is that you are then asking for three sets of toilets, possibly four if the disabled toilets are separate again, wherever toilets should be provided. I don't think that's going to be economic, either financially or spatially, when single sets of accessible unisex toilets could meet the needs of everyone.
I wasn't meaning specifically toilets, more on the changing room side. I think there has been a change in the way toilet facilities are designed in new buildings, with far more separate toilets, rather than a big room with cubicles. This is a good thing for everyone, I certainly remember a lot of bullying that happened in the toilets at school.
There are a lot of these things: more and more are being recognised as women are becoming more involved in design. Stupid things like mobile phones being designed for men's hands. As a petite woman I really don't want the flashiest phones as I can't use them.
Yes. Caroline Criado Perez has just released a book about how many things are designed with men in mind and women are disadvantaged as a result. I noticed that she is currently being hounded on twitter (I follow her) for being a 'terf' when I've not noticed her say anything about trans issues. Someone else I follow showed a horrific message they'd received, talking about how they are 'mutilating' themselves. I really should stay off twitter, far too much heat, though there is the occasional ray of light.
But as I very quickly found out, anything that is remotely questioning of the current trans rights orthodoxy is dismissed as being transphobic.
I didn't say that you were transphobic.
My point is that there is no way to question someone else's identity without the risk of causing deep offence. If I say that I'm an English, Christian, bisexual, married man, and you propose a definition of Englishness, or Christianity, or bisexuality, or marriage, or maleness, that excludes me, you inevitably take the risk of offending me. Your definition of whatever identity term you are questioning might be an entirely sensible one, and you might express it with great tact and sensitivity, but the risk is still going to be there.
Therefore I think you're wasting your time complaining that you can't question self-identity without being thought transphobic by someone. I'm saying nothing at all about the merits of your arguments - even if you are 100% correct, it's almost inevitable that someone will find a critique of their identity offensive.
That's an interesting juxtaposition of posts. It appears that CCP was arguing against the label "cis" and in particular "cis privilege". Is it someone's right to refuse to accept labels that someone else designates? Or can such a refusal be deemed offensive?
I searched and found this article after digging back down the recent references. This is a commentary on an article that has been taken down from CCP's site, dating back to 2014. As I can't find the original article, just someone else's critique of it, I'm not sure how realistic any comment can be five years later.
No doubt, we are reinforced in our gender identity, so that the boy is often treated as a boy. But does he have boyish feelings? I have always found this puzzling, as I don't feel particularly male or female, or masculine or feminine.
But can you accept that some people -- indeed most probably most people -- do? This is the problem that Vi Hart had -- they (their preferred pronoun) had no feelings of being either male/masculine or female/feminine, and assumed this was true of everybody, and thought anybody who said they did must be lying or deluded. Eventually they came to see that this was dismissive and presumptuous, and set out to learn more about how other people feel about it. They could have stewed in their ignorance and self-superiority forever, but chose not to.
quetzalcoatl:... if we talk about children, how does a 3 year old boy know he's a boy? No doubt, we are reinforced in our gender identity, so that the boy is often treated as a boy. But does he have boyish feelings?
I wonder what you understand by "boyish feelings" ? ISTM it might be regarded as a disposition to identify with behaviour associated with, rather than a list of, socially constructed attitudes and actions associated with prepubescent masculinity. That disposition may well be genetic in origin.
Comments
I know unisex changing rooms and toilets have lots of advantages for more than just transgender people; all those other "normal" people who have been struggling with single sex provision for years: men with babies - there are no changing facilities in men's toilets, men with their daughters, mothers with their sons, ... So if it is politically correct to try and benefit groups of people currently finding the current set up difficult, then why wouldn't we do it?
I think that unisex facilities can be great. But I also think that there should be provision for those who don't want to use them.
I was just having a look at the House of Bishops statement, which included this:
But it seems that so much of the arguments seem to be about accessing single-sex spaces. So which is it?
If you want to take me to Hell quetzalcoatl then feel free. Otherwise can you lay off the insinuations thanks.
Right. Men pose no risk to women. Gotcha.
Twist much?
That's the problem @quantpole - transgender women are women, so if we are only providing single sex spaces they will need to use the female toilets. If we provide safe unisex toilets then the issue goes away.
When were discussing accommodation of transitioning school students, I looked at the legal position - here on p14
For brevity I haven't included all of that post
You have no sense of irony do you?
The argument for urinals is that they can accommodate more users, more quickly, in a smaller over-all space, and at cheaper cost than facilities which exclude them. (Perhaps one could have a
binary public provision that consists of (a) urinals and (b) unisex cubicles).
Personally, I have no problem with public\ unisex provision, though I understand that there is significant opposition to them amongst cisgendered females, which I'm inclined to respect.
The desire for single sex spaces comes back down to the fear of predatory men. But those predatory men are equally dangerous to transgender women who are particularly vulnerable, and insisting that there is no room for transgender women in women's toilets endangers them more. Especially as that small minority of predatory men cannot be relied upon not to abuse the single sex space anyway.
O for urinal design that doesn't disadvantage women! Perhaps there could be a competition to resolve the problem.
On this thread on a subject which inevitably and obviously will give rise to lively discussion, please can I request all shipmates to pay special attention to Commandment 5, and to Purgatory Guidelines 1, 2 and 5
Let’s try and keep a good light/heat ratio.
Thank you
Host hat off
BroJames
Purg Host
You didn't use that font. This is a verbal only medium. Sorry, I do not accept your pin-on shame.
I think part of the problem is the blurring between gender and sex, and/or the need for a new set of categories that fits what we currently know about both.
@mousethief. Noted. Thank you.
BroJames
Purg Host
I know the parents of a person who was thus identified. They’d be in their fifties now, and had considered they were in the wrong body from about the age of 5.
Knowing that one is female while living in a male body or vice-versa may be a different kind of knowing altogether. It's not necessarily relational (except insofar as any of us can be said to have a relationship to one's own self). It's beyond me to categorize this kind of awareness, or to understand how it arises. That's not meant as any sort of attack; it's a simple acknowledgement of my own ignorance and, perhaps, a failure of my empathy or imagination.
Its connection to this discussion is simply another example of how fraught unrestful discussion of such personal issues can be. Maybe what we need is a "Fraught Discussion: Tread Carefully" board (I''m only 52% serious).
Men who need to use the actual toilets benefit from urinals, because the men who only need the urinals aren't using the toilets. Women could benefit in exactly the same way. The problem is that under the present set-up the benefit isn't passed on.
(The situation is similar with the argument that funding for public transport penalises people need to use cars: in fact, getting the people who don't need to use cars onto public transport clears the road for people who need to use cars.)
I think the problem is that there are at least three things, two of which are nestled under the word 'gender'.
There are gender roles, as in the idea that women tend to be more empathetic and collaborative, and men more systematic and competitive, and these may well be to a greater or lesser degree social constructs (although I think there is only 'consensus' if you define consensus as 'vicious and acrimonious disagreement').
But I don't think that's what transgender people are describing. I don't think people transition because they want to, say, get into the caring professions. And men who take on typically female roles don't generally identify as transgender. It is a separate phenomenon.
This discussion started here and continued looking at the other materials involved.
I believe in this terminology gender identity and anatomical sex are out of alignment in transgenderism.
Those who are hostile to the idea of gender identity say that it's just about feelings (bad), whereas with genitals and chromosomes, I am on firm ground, because I get to define you, and your feelings can fuck off.
So there are some fascinating implications here about being human, from the inside and from the outside. It's one of the reasons for the fierce disagreements over transgender, as those who are externalists reject those who are internalists. And some people want to define others, what a surprise.
Well, I think also, if someone says gender is a social construct, that implies that society defines what it means to be a particular gender, not the individual. But I think this confusion arises from ambiguity over the word 'gender'.
Reading the notes, the author says that gender identity is usually recognised by the age of 3 and the transgender issues arise when gender identity does not match sex assigned at birth (SAAB)
From these materials, gender expression is the social construct and fluid:
Also in those materials, there are some statistics which demonstrate that the
Total number of people whose bodies differ from standard male or female - 1 in 100
Total number of people receiving surgery to “normalize” genital appearance - 1 or 2 per 1000 births
And the other link there, which I found interesting was to a list of cis-gender privileges, which includes:
The DSM classification of gender dysphoria came up earlier on this or one of the related threads and as there was some mention in these materials, I've followed on down that rabbit hole to clarify the DSM classification. This comes from an article discussing changes in perception in transgender in 2017:
* Although this version has been superseded by version 4
This.
I have no interest in sports or fast cars, stereotypically male interests. At school I was bullied partly because of that and because I had no interest in rough play, playground fights or any of the (to my mind toxic) physicality of how boys stereotypically socialise.
But in no way do I feel I'm not "really" a man. It's something apart from those socially constructed roles and expectations.
The argument that there are inconsistencies in the theoretical underpinning of trans identity seems to be saying "this doesn't quite make sense how you currently express it so I'm going to say you're wrong about your own experience" - which is the heart of this and I'm sure we've said this before - the starting point should be the perfectly reasonable assumption that people know their own experience, feelings and identity better than outside observers do.
Cisgendered people don't actually need to have a view on this; they could just mind their own business. It's only their refusal to do so that makes there be an issue.
This is a highly contentious assumption, as attested to by the Hell Board, which accuses shipmates of all sorts of bigotry they deny, not to mention the question; "What do they know of England that only England know?" Many of us spend a life-time trying to respond to the command "Know thyself". Some of us, perhaps, go to psychiatrists to find out who we are. Socrates set the ball rolling ages ago.
It's fascinating. I got involved in this thread because I've encountered a number of young people with gender dysphoria, including my daughter's best friend at school, and was aware of the distress involved. The more I research the information to answer questions the more I find how young people are when they form their gender identity and how deep rooted gender dysphoria is.
But I doubt if your psychiatrist will tell you who you are. I think Karl's point stands, those who critique gender identity are often saying that your experience doesn't count, and what counts is my perception of you.
Sorry -- forgot where I was. I meant for this to go to the Syx thread.
I wasn't meaning specifically toilets, more on the changing room side. I think there has been a change in the way toilet facilities are designed in new buildings, with far more separate toilets, rather than a big room with cubicles. This is a good thing for everyone, I certainly remember a lot of bullying that happened in the toilets at school.
Yes. Caroline Criado Perez has just released a book about how many things are designed with men in mind and women are disadvantaged as a result. I noticed that she is currently being hounded on twitter (I follow her) for being a 'terf' when I've not noticed her say anything about trans issues. Someone else I follow showed a horrific message they'd received, talking about how they are 'mutilating' themselves. I really should stay off twitter, far too much heat, though there is the occasional ray of light.
I didn't say that you were transphobic.
My point is that there is no way to question someone else's identity without the risk of causing deep offence. If I say that I'm an English, Christian, bisexual, married man, and you propose a definition of Englishness, or Christianity, or bisexuality, or marriage, or maleness, that excludes me, you inevitably take the risk of offending me. Your definition of whatever identity term you are questioning might be an entirely sensible one, and you might express it with great tact and sensitivity, but the risk is still going to be there.
Therefore I think you're wasting your time complaining that you can't question self-identity without being thought transphobic by someone. I'm saying nothing at all about the merits of your arguments - even if you are 100% correct, it's almost inevitable that someone will find a critique of their identity offensive.
But can you accept that some people -- indeed most probably most people -- do? This is the problem that Vi Hart had -- they (their preferred pronoun) had no feelings of being either male/masculine or female/feminine, and assumed this was true of everybody, and thought anybody who said they did must be lying or deluded. Eventually they came to see that this was dismissive and presumptuous, and set out to learn more about how other people feel about it. They could have stewed in their ignorance and self-superiority forever, but chose not to.
I hope that does not describe you.
I wonder what you understand by "boyish feelings" ? ISTM it might be regarded as a disposition to identify with behaviour associated with, rather than a list of, socially constructed attitudes and actions associated with prepubescent masculinity. That disposition may well be genetic in origin.