The gender ideology thread

Originally Posted by ianch99

This is an interesting read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history. This is also worth reading: https://www.petertatchellfoundation....ns-liberation/

As in many recent areas of disagreement, the lack of nuance is evident. There are many people who strongly believe that they are mis-gendered and go through tremendous personal trauma, counselling, medical treatments and invasive surgery to achieve the gender they fundamentally believe they belong to. These people are not "mental".

Society should be able to accommodate these people and, at the same time, ensure safeguarding for the small number of cases where security concerns are raised. You can argue that, in the past, homosexually was treated in the same way: homosexuality was considered an "unnatural" act, leading to punishments ranging from fines and imprisonment to public shaming and even death. Yet, today, it is part of mainstream society.

Tatchell’s piece is the usual mix of unevidenced assertions, contradictions and circular definitions.

To assert the ‘facts’ of sexual attraction and so-called gender identity side by side is ludicrous. You can observe sexual attraction, and therefore sexual orientation, in a laboratory. It has a powerful physiological component that is measurable. You can do no such thing vis a vis ‘gender identity’ which is an entirely internal, self-referencing psychological state riven with contradictions and circularity (ask a trans activist to define the word ‘woman’ without reference to the word ‘woman’ … it’s entertaining).

There is no credible evidence for the existence of the ‘trans brain’. No serious study has ever shown any such thing. It is not gender-critical commentators who are trying to impose regressive sexual stereotypes, it is the trans community. Anyone who has ever seen a trans-identifying male dress as a woman knows that regressive stereotypes of womanhood are very much a trans trait. And his so-called solutions to the problems of males in the female prison estate and other sensitive female-only spaces are just exercises in special pleading. It doesn’t matter how carefully you assess a man who wants to attend a women-only safe space, the process of assessment in and of itself embeds and normalises the idea that men should be allowed to identify themselves into those spaces by default, over-and above the objection of women who do not want them there simply because they are men.

I’m also curious what published evidence there is that Tatchell was campaigning on these issues 50 years ago. I’ve never seen any. I have on the other hand seen evidence in print of his past advocacy for pedophilia. So he’s not someone whose views on societal norms I’d instinctively trust.

I could go on, but I shall take a deep breath and refrain. For now.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by ianch99

This is an interesting read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history. This is also worth reading: https://www.petertatchellfoundation....ns-liberation/

As in many recent areas of disagreement, the lack of nuance is evident. There are many people who strongly believe that they are mis-gendered and go through tremendous personal trauma, counselling, medical treatments and invasive surgery to achieve the gender they fundamentally believe they belong to. These people are not "mental".

Society should be able to accommodate these people and, at the same time, ensure safeguarding for the small number of cases where security concerns are raised. You can argue that, in the past, homosexually was treated in the same way: homosexuality was considered an "unnatural" act, leading to punishments ranging from fines and imprisonment to public shaming and even death. Yet, today, it is part of mainstream society.

A man who thinks he shouldn’t have a penis is exactly the same amount of mentally ill as someone who wants to amputate their limbs due to distress.

Thinking he shouldn’t have a penis AND that should give him a right to women’s only spaces begs the question of why women should be inconvenienced rather than him by undressing around people they would prefer not to.

In among all this I do genuinely feel sorry for the people with disorders of sex development (DSD) who are having their interests overtaken by men with a fetish at best and misogynists at worst.

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Chris

Tatchell’s piece is the usual mix of unevidenced assertions, contradictions and circular definitions.

To assert the ‘facts’ of sexual attraction and so-called gender identity side by side is ludicrous. You can observe sexual attraction, and therefore sexual orientation, in a laboratory. It has a powerful physiological component that is measurable. You can do no such thing vis a vis ‘gender identity’ which is an entirely internal, self-referencing psychological state riven with contradictions and circularity (ask a trans activist to define the word ‘woman’ without reference to the word ‘woman’ … it’s entertaining).

There is no credible evidence for the existence of the ‘trans brain’. No serious study has ever shown any such thing. It is not gender-critical commentators who are trying to impose regressive sexual stereotypes, it is the trans community. Anyone who has ever seen a trans-identifying male dress as a woman knows that regressive stereotypes of womanhood are very much a trans trait. And his so-called solutions to the problems of males in the female prison estate and other sensitive female-only spaces are just exercises in special pleading. It doesn’t matter how carefully you assess a man who wants to attend a women-only safe space, the process of assessment in and of itself embeds and normalises the idea that men should be allowed to identify themselves into those spaces by default, over-and above the objection of women who do not want them there simply because they are men.

I’m also curious what published evidence there is that Tatchell was campaigning on these issues 50 years ago. I’ve never seen any. I have on the other hand seen evidence in print of his past advocacy for pedophilia. So he’s not someone whose views on societal norms I’d instinctively trust.

I could go on, but I shall take a deep breath and refrain. For now.

And yet a trans women who is, from a physical and presentational perspective, conformant to a broad definition of a women is only a threat because men who object to trans gender identities say so.

Some recent polling suggest you are at odds with wider society:

Landmark study shows Britons’ support for trans equality

A landmark study has found that the British public are not opposed to trans equality, with a quarter of those polled knowing someone who is trans, rising to one in two among Gen Z respondents.

The new research published Thursday, which is thought to be the most detailed UK study of public attitudes towards trans people to date, surveyed more than 5,000 people to ascertain opinion on what is often portrayed as a deeply divisive and contentious subject.

More in Common, an international research organisation, found that nearly half of those polled (46 per cent) agreed with the statement that “a trans man is a man and a trans woman is a woman”, compared with 32 per cent who disagreed and 22 per cent who said they didn’t know, with agreement highest among younger generations.

You have to start to examine what the underlying reasons are that fuel such a hatred of trans identity. They will be starting on homosexuality next ...

[jfman]

We will see what future generations say when the social contagion has passed, and younger minds are no longer are habitually infected by the Stonewall virus. The medical harm done to those unable to provide adult consent will be a future scandal on the scale of thalidomide.

A homosexual isn't trying to force others to deny objective reality, or change the law to demand it to be so. A friend of mine - a gay man - sees no common cause with trans activists. He's just a bloke who likes other blokes. That's not the same as a bloke demanding the right to undress in front of women because of mental illness, or that large swathes of organisations break the law by allowing it.

Unfortunately - and I wish I could remember who said this online to credit them with it - we have parents who have committed serious abuses of their children by indulging this fad and those will be like the Japanese soldiers on Pacific islands in the 1970s still fighting the war. The alternative is to face up to it and that won't happen.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by ianch99

And yet a trans women who is, from a physical and presentational perspective, conformant to a broad definition of a women is only a threat because men who object to trans gender identities say so.

Some recent polling suggest you are at odds with wider society:

Landmark study shows Britons’ support for trans equality


You have to start to examine what the underlying reasons are that fuel such a hatred of trans identity. They will be starting on homosexuality next ...

I had to read the highlighted paragraph twice. By "trans woman" I've deduced that you mean a biological man. But then you go on to say "... is only a threat because men who object to trans-gender ideology say so".

Unless I've misunderstood you, surely it's the women in changing rooms who are terrified of fakes with penises pretending to be women?

"are not opposed to trans equality" is not quite the same as supporting it.

I wonder how many of those asked even know what a "Trans Man" or "Trans Woman" is - did they clearly define them first ?

Originally Posted by ianch99

And yet a trans women who is, from a physical and presentational perspective, conformant to a broad definition of a women is only a threat because men who object to trans gender identities say so.

Untrue. Plenty of women say so - notably, those women whose employers have been insisting they disrobe in front of them. You can’t have failed to notice the ongoing court cases of the Darlington nurses, Sandie Peggie v NHS Fife and Dr “Beth” Upton, or the whopping great fine issued against Sussex University for failing to uphold Prof. Kathleen Stock’s academic freedom to be gender critical? All women, all going to court to protect their rights, and in the cases of the nurses, all of them doing so because on principle it is a violation of the safety and dignity of women to have to share changing facilities with men, regardless of the nature of the men concerned.

There is no such thing as a trans woman. It is impossible for a man to become a woman, unless you’re suggesting that dressing like a woman makes you one, which would be highly mysoginistic and regressive of you. What there are, are trans-identifying males. And they are not women.

Let’s not forget that in the 1970s the Black and White Minstrel Show was considered to be fine family entertainment. Now, white people dressing up and performing in blackface is considered to be racist and thoroughly unacceptable. I confidently predict that a generation from now, society will look on this era when we tolerated men in womanface with equal dismay.

Some recent polling suggest you are at odds with wider society:

Landmark study shows Britons’ support for trans equality

You have to start to examine what the underlying reasons are that fuel such a hatred of trans identity. They will be starting on homosexuality next ...

You might want to have a quick gander at the LGB Alliance - https://lgballiance.org.uk/ - a campaign group which stands on the principle that same sex attraction, being biological in nature, is fundamentally different than trans issues and argues they ought to be treated separately. Indeed, they argue that those parts of the trans lobby that insist a gay man or a lesbian woman should be happy to date a trans-identifying individual are being homophobic in doing so.

This last point illustrates your problem quite neatly. Of course the survey suggests people are happy with the idea of trans equality. If you go out and ask people “do you think we should try to be kind to everyone” of course people are going to say yes.

It is only when you tease out the implications of what trans activists want, in terms of kindness, that opinion turns against them. Kindness does not extend to violation of single-sex safe spaces. It does not extend to telling a lesbian woman that she is a bad person for not wanting to date a man in a dress.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by ianch99

And yet a trans women who is, from a physical and presentational perspective, conformant to a broad definition of a women

Define woman?

A man who looks, usually marginally, like a woman, is not a definition of woman, that's laughable.

[Jaymoss]

Natural born women are the ones threatened by pretend women with penises invading their private places. A natural born man is a lot less likely to bothered by a pretend man with a vagina. At least if a pretend man with a she wee stands next to me at a urinal I will be bigger than them that hardly ever happens lmao

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by Jaymoss

Natural born women are the ones threatened by pretend women with penises invading their private places. A natural born man is a lot less likely to bothered by a pretend man with a vagina. At least if a pretend man with a she wee stands next to me at a urinal I will be bigger than them that hardly ever happens lmao

Perfectly put.

[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Perfectly put.

Is it though ? The implication as I read it is that ‘all pretend females with a penis’ represent a threat to all ‘natural women’

If my understanding is correct that can only mean one of two things

‘All trans women represent a threat to women’
‘All men represent a threat to women’

I’ve got a good friend who is trans male to female and I’d love to put her in a room with you whilst some of you talk the way you do on the issue, you would be picking your teeth up from the floor in seconds

Originally Posted by mrmistoffelees

Is it though ? The implication as I read it is that ‘all pretend females with a penis’ represent a threat to all ‘natural women’

If my understanding is correct that can only mean one of two things

‘All trans women represent a threat to women’
‘All men represent a threat to women’

I’ve got a good friend who is trans male to female and I’d love to put her in a room with you whilst some of you talk the way you do on the issue, you would be picking your teeth up from the floor in seconds

Men, as a class, are stronger and more prone to violence than women, as a class. Men, as a class, pose a risk to women. It is for the dignity and the safety of, and fairness towards, women that we provide segregated spaces for them: toilets, trauma care, prisons, sports. As someone who says they are trans and claims to be a woman is actually still a man, all the above applies.

All trans-identifying males are a risk to women on the same basis as all non-trans-identifying males, except with the aggravating factor that non-trans-identifying males are not routinely arguing for the default right to access female safe spaces.

And your friend is not a woman of any kind, nor is it correct to refer to them in the third person as “she”. He is a man, regardless of how he sees himself and regardless of what he has told you. He was born male, he is male, he will die male. He is male, therefore he is a man, and he cannot be an woman, because a woman is an adult human female. And if he is liable to punch people’s teeth out for saying so - well that’s very male behaviour isn’t it.

I have, and will continue to, to discuss these issues, face to face, politely but insistently, with trans identifying individuals of my acquaintance, of which there are several.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by mrmistoffelees

Is it though ? The implication as I read it is that ‘all pretend females with a penis’ represent a threat to all ‘natural women’

If my understanding is correct that can only mean one of two things

‘All trans women represent a threat to women’
‘All men represent a threat to women’

I’ve got a good friend who is trans male to female and I’d love to put her in a room with you whilst some of you talk the way you do on the issue, you would be picking your teeth up from the floor in seconds

That's stretching it beyond safe bounds.

I accept that the conversation, by not acknowledging genuine trans cases (Male-->Female), seems to deprecate said genuine cases. But we are not that harsh nor unreasonable. The real issue here is about men with appendages that are either perverts or make women uncomfortable when the biological man undresses.

There is surgery available for genuine M-F cases.

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by mrmistoffelees

Is it though ? The implication as I read it is that ‘all pretend females with a penis’ represent a threat to all ‘natural women’

If my understanding is correct that can only mean one of two things

‘All trans women represent a threat to women’
‘All men represent a threat to women’

I’ve got a good friend who is trans male to female and I’d love to put her in a room with you whilst some of you talk the way you do on the issue, you would be picking your teeth up from the floor in seconds

presumably when your false teeth fall out through laughing

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

That's stretching it beyond safe bounds.

I accept that the conversation, by not acknowledging genuine trans cases (Male-->Female), seems to deprecate said genuine cases. But we are not that harsh nor unreasonable. The real issue here is about men with appendages that are either perverts or make women uncomfortable when the biological man undresses.

There is surgery available for genuine M-F cases.

There are no genuine male - female cases, or vice versa. Male and female are biological categories. Biology is immutable. This is the same point I was making the other day vis a vis your use of the phrase “biological gender.” Activist language has made it deliberately difficult to discuss these issues clearly and we must be exceptionally precise in what we mean in order to combat it.

Someone who genuinely believes that they are in the ‘wrong body’ has a psychological illness exactly the same as people who self harm, or people with anorexia. It is a disordered belief. It *might* - though I am far from convinced - be appropriate treatment to surgically alter someone so they resemble the opposite sex, but years ago, even when we used to erroneously call such operations a “sex change”, those undergoing them had to sign a form declaring that they understood they would not actually change sex. Today, surgically altering someone who has a psychological disorder that tells them they are in the ‘wrong body’ does not cure anything because surgery cannot, fundamentally, give them the ‘right body’.