Is Jenni Murray right about transgender?

pennturner, is what you write medical fact, medical opinion, or your own opinion?

anya, is gender the same as sexuality?

Not sure of someone has said this already, but one of JM's points was, I believe, that in her opinion men who change into women are, along with all the other psychological stuff, changing into women as men see them, which could be another reason why JM doesn't regard them as "real" women.

I understand that because when I was in my teens and wearing some of my older brother's clothes for going on a bike ride, my father commented that my outfit was "not very feminine". I said: "I don't have to try to be feminine; I'm feminine by definition." It still holds: it doesn't matter what I look like. I think some people will disagree with that and argue that feminine is not the same as female and they do have a point. However, I'd have to try really hard not to look female whatever my outer garb.

It's complicated.

Of course she is right- if you lived your childhood as a boy then you have not had the experience of being a girl- no matter how much you felt you were in the wrong body. You have been treated by society as a boy & that is still very different from the way we treat girls.
I get a bit fed up of all this stuff. I was listening to the radio a few weeks ago to a programme about a woman who had had a sex change & was banging on about his human rights & now wants it reversed so he can have a baby & then go back to being a man again! All on NHS I hasten to add.
It is not an illness but a life style choice. I have sympathy but I think it has become a 'fashionable' thing to do these days. We all knew kids at school who were either tomboy girls or wimpy boys & they all grew up OK. Nowadays they would be offered counselling!

Really don't think a transgender woman could ever produce sperm!
I used to treat a man who eventually became a woman, he was having electrolysis (now it would be IPL).
He couldn't understand why his wife would let him dress up at home but wouldn't go out with him in his female attire. He also wouldn't wait until his 12 year old daughter was older before he made the transition. Maybe this is the mindset JM was talking about.

Lynneig
I agree.
Unless you were born with physical abnormalities that only further medical tests will reveal,ie a male /a female then how you dress has to be nothing more than a preference.
Quote: I never felt or thought as a man.
This does not automatically make you a woman. How do you think like a man or a woman unless you are biologically a man or woman.??
Preference for who you chose for intimacy does not
say who you are when it comes to gender.

Part of our gender is learned behaviour from the moment of birth. Girl babies are treated differently to boy babies from the word go. This different treatment is usually quite unconscious regardless of how you think they are being brought up.It would be quite difficult for a transgender person as they have lost years of learned behaviour. Still if that is what they want so be it. But it s not an easy road to tread.

Murray is correct to say that transgender people have not had the benefit if this learned behaviour, so I suppose you could argue that there are big gaps in their experience of being a girl baby/girl and woman, which "makes" them a woman.

But whether it's a kind or necessary thing to say is a different issue.

It will be a very sad day if JM is sacked for an opinion - the thin end of a very thick wedge .There are already instances of people being disciplined or made to apologise for ridiculously trivial matters and surely this will lead to suppressing free speech?

Ankers.
Science can perform many tasks /transplants where the human body is concerned that can make a man physically look like a woman.
It has YET to achieve that which makes a male think as a woman.
How many men have been heard to say 'Women? I will never understand them'

I used the word 'sexuality' as this is an issue much wider than gender bags

I'm with JM on this. There is a very extreme group of transgender people who are pushing the whole debate and crying transphobia. At the extreme, they want it all to be based on self identification - there are issues about so-called transgender women with penises wanting to share women only spaces - e.g. Prisons, changing rooms etc. No thank you and neither do I want someone who has not had the experiences of growing up as a women speaking for me

I think Jenni Murray is right. So many people conflate sex and gender. Sex is a biological fact, (apart from the rare cases of intersex people) while gender is a social construct.

What exactly does it mean when someone says they 'feel like a woman'? Or feel like a man? What does Eddie Izzard mean when he talks of his boy brain and his girl brain?

I feel sorry for anyone not happy in themselves, of course, but I think a big problem with this issue is the erasure of biological women. I know a few women who have left the Green Party after it was proposed their members be regarded as men and non-men. There is also the attempt to erase the term pregnant women in favour of pregnant people.

1. Sexuality is much more than body parts and sex (though it includes these things, too).

2. Sexuality includes our gender identity (the core sense that we are female or male).

3. Sexuality includes gender role (the idea of how we should behave because we are a female or male).

4. Sexuality includes our sexual orientation (heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual).

5. Sexuality includes how we feel about our bodies. We call that “body image,” and poor body image can have a profound effect on our ability to have healthy relationships. A person with poor body image may not think they deserve a good partner, and so they may be willing to settle for someone who will not respect them or who may even abuse them.

6. Sexuality includes our sexual experiences, thoughts, ideas, and fantasies.

7. Sexuality includes the way in which the media, family, friends, religion, age, life goals, and our self-esteem shape our sexual selves.

8. Sexuality includes how we experience intimacy, touch, love, compassion, joy, and sorrow.

9. We like this quote: “Sexuality is expressed in the way we speak, smile, stand, sit, dress, dance, laugh, and cry.”

Sex is a biological fact, (apart from the rare cases of intersex people)

Does that make it a biological fact or not then, in that case?

Which is why I am querying what pennturner wrote.

Anya. Point 2 That is what I am pondering[not me specifically!] but about transgender people.

Inheritance of XX or XY chromosomes is indeed biologically set as male or females Ankers BUT the influences of hormones (especially the mother's hormones) on the developing foetus can have an influence on sexuality, in its broadest sense; as indeed can environmental factors after birth. Add to that the influence of other genes whose purpose is still undecided and who knows?

My interpretation of what Pennturner says is that one can change one's gender but not one's sex. If you're born with XX or XY chromosomes, no amount of operations or hormones will change those chromosomes to anything else.

I agree with you suzied. Some people are born with two sets of organs and I see no problem with these people if they choose to have an operation because they feel more one sex than the other.

But most trans people aren't like that. They are free to choose how to live their lives, but I get stropped up when they want to have their birth certificates altered and so on.

As with most things nowadays, nobody wants to give up something for the sake of maintaining the good and healthy structure of society.

"I don't think a man who has had an sex change operation = a woman."
I am not a man who has had a sex change operation, I am a woman who has had a physical abnormality corrected.

"The dictators are some members of the transgender lobby who seem to be quite vociferous when faced with anyone who begs to differ - nothing liberal about them."
The dictators are the rulers who decree that women like me can use men's washrooms and be beaten up or raped, or use women's washrooms and be arrested. I don't think they even call themselves 'liberal'.

I have experienced the "not a proper woman" argument in the church I used to belong to. It wasn't applied to me, but to ciswomen who were unable to have babies and were therefore not useful for increasing the size of the church.

BRedhead59:
Fascinating subject - I've just listened to a discussion on Women's Hour about the book "Men are from Mars women are from Venus" and if we have moved forward in the last few decades. It would have been very interesting to have had transgender people as part of the discussion.
Sorry - can't happen as we are routinely "no-platformed".

This is a highly emotive topic for those of us to whom it is relevant - I have the names of seven members of our community who have been murdered this year just for being transwomen. The use of the "freedom of speech" argument to justify hate speech is already increasing the level of violence.

A transgender person and a cross dresser are two completely different cases.

Imo if you are born with a womb and feminine genitals then you are a woman. If you are born with a penis then you are a man. I know that is not the PC view, it is my view.

I do feel sorry for children who are confused by over PC parents who encourage them to think of themselves as the opposite sex. I think this is a kind of child abuse.

So on the whole I would agree with Jenni Murray.

I don't know of anyone who would deny facilities to genuine transgender women - what I would object to are those who are just 'self-identifying' as women whilst retaining their penis.

As for this ridiculous term Cis-women .... a woman is a woman, no prefix required.

All of these can change sex:

all-that-is-interesting.com/sequential-hermaphrodotism-sex-changing-animals

www.linkedin.com/pulse/animals-who-change-sex-reverse-roles-cogent-wingman

Strange but true. Not the norm though for humans although I remember an African tribe who did, but I cannot remember the name of them. This is close:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34290981

Is it ok to ask you a few questions MaryXYX?

The church - which denomination was it?

The seven members who have been murdered. So so so so sorry.

That is why I think broadcasters like Jenni Murray should be oh so careful about what they say and how they say it.
They should couch what they say very carefully indeed.

I dont know why or who said she might be sacked. And which rules she is supposed to have broken.
But the subject is a real one with real people at the end of it.

I agree with Jenni Murray. Recently I was in a store trying to choose a shampoo. Someone came up behind me and said "you really must get that one" pointing to a shampoo, it is absolutely fabulous. It was a transgender women. What made them think they could walk up to a women and tell them what shampoo to use.

I really think they get "made up" over the top. That is really what it is all about.

So maybe the jury is out? At least it explains what affects a child in the womb. As for the rest I am not sure that it is correct because why would you get a child that was normal and another that was transgender in the same family with the same parents,living in the same environment? I wonder if there has been any scientific research done in Britain about this.

Make sure you read the story about the two boys who turned in to girls by clicking on the link.

Riverwalk:
"I don't know of anyone who would deny facilities to genuine transgender women - what I would object to are those who are just 'self-identifying' as women whilst retaining their penis."
You clearly don't follow international news. Either that or your definition of "genuine transgender women" contains no people.

"As for this ridiculous term Cis-women .... a woman is a woman, no prefix required."
Ciswoman is the accepted term for "woman who is not a transwoman", and easier to say. We have been through this "don't need to use proper terminology" idea before, as in "We don't need the term 'White Person' - there are real people and there are blacks".