Is Jenni Murray right about transgender?

Like it grumppa always knew Walthamstow was where it's at.

Thank you for sharing that. But is it being used as a noun?
Perfectly acceptable adjective, like transalpine, transatlantic, transcontinental etc etc etc.

Just to correct some english, Transgenders isnt a word ;-) by the way...

Nice one grumppa

This controversy is getting to me. My eye was caught yesterday by the dealer's sticker in my car's rear window: Trans City Autos, based in Walthamstow. I found myself wondering: if they opened a branch across the River Lea in Clapton, would it be called Cis City Autos? Or is it just a weary car salesman's description of trendy London E17?

Well done Penstemmon. The research never had any particular relevance to anything I was doing; it just stayed in my mind.

No! think it was Val Walkerdine! All part of my dissertation research for my Diploma at Roehampton! Gosh that was a brain search!

Might have been Dale Spender's research. She did a lot of stuff about then absent

That's fascinating, I'm going to dig up some of this, I feel a new hobby coming on!

Perception versus reality, confirmation bias.

LSP Someone did some research in classrooms quite a while ago about how much time the teachers were perceived to interact with boys and with girls. The pupils' perceptions largely coincided with the figures you give for the Star Wars films. I can't remember exactly when this research was done but I was quite a young woman at the time and am now quite an old woman – so decades.

Penstemmon, nail on the head! It's the academic clique that talks about sex as a class and therefore cuts through all the "not all menisms." Thank god for the academic clique, they named the problem.

As for 50% representation, there is some research that shows that when people watch a film with 70/30 male to female actors they feel that women were equally represented, when a film shows 60/40 male to female actors people felt the film was biased towards women even though women were still under represented. Just look at all the grief the last two, rather excellent, Star Wars films had, just because they both had female leads.

We all live in a patriarchy and we all internalise that to some degree, can't be helped, it's the air we all breathe, but feminists recognise that the air is toxic.

ps meant to add ones personal experience may be positive on the equality front but that does not make it true for everyone!

Re Pinker
Of course there are very many men who are feminists and there should not be a them & us attitude that men can not speak wisely about feminism.

However whilst I agree with some of the statements in the poster piece it is when you dig down that it all becomes less black/white.

e.g. freedom of choice is important but making sure 50% of all professions are made up of women is not.

We know the stereotyping that goes on from the day a child is born and so we need to be clear what 'freedom of choice' means in this context.
It is the 'academic clique' feminists, that Pinker appears to dislike, who do this type of unpicking and discoursing. Without that academic clique I do not believe we would have moved as forward as we have in m/f equality. Easy to sneer but I think they did make a difference to thining.
Of course the best people for the job ought to be making up any workforce but if the potential to be the person who is best for the job & part of that workforce has been undermined because of prejudice/stereotying etc etc then there is still work to be done.
That counts for women/men/all racial groups etc etc.

Good point suzied - oh when will common sense be allowed back into the equation??

The worrying thing is that this is being pushed as the only answer, that really concerns me. I see a small amount of body disphoric individuals being thrown under the bus by some very loud cross dressers, the two are not the same, never were, never will be.

Activists do not want it labelled in any way a mental health issue, or now as body disphoria, that's all changed.

Talking about being trans age suzied, have you met StefOnKnee, transwoman and trans child.

Not a problem but he was taken very seriously in Canada regarding trans rights.

I heard a radio programme about someone , who, because of a childhood trauma, identified and acted as a 4 year old (when an adult.) Guess what, he wasn't allowed in nursery school or dressed in dungarees. He was treated for a psychological problem. Just made me think there is a similarity between that self identification , which went against the biological fact, and transgender.

Sparkly, yes, they don't have penis envy but, and this really gets my goat, they call lesbians who want female only partners Vagina Fetishists. That makes me sad and angry in equal measure.

A man can have an opinion on feminism, he can be an ally or describe himself as a feminist. When a man tells me what feminism is, and particularly what it isn't, then I reserve the right to scoff. His comments are, go for equality ladies, but not full equality, fight oppression but don't go mentioning male violence or being a meanie to the men.

The unpalatable truth is that women have been oppressed, because of their biology, by men. Not all men, heaven forbid I have to get my bingo card out again, but the system is set up and run by men and that hurts both sexes.

Most blokes are lovely but they are often silent when their mates are being sexist, when their given a job they know they aren't as good at as a female colleague at, and over this issue.

Maria Millar has said that the only people getting upset by this is "so called feminists" I would rephrase that as saying that most of the people getting upset about this are feminists, concerned parents plus anyone that thinks about it and it's implications for more than 5 minutes.

But it is feminists that flagged this, that have spotted the changes to the law, logged the abuse, changes in language etc. That's because we centre women and girls and are concerned when we see something harmful rearing on the horizon.

Lots of blokes are just catching up now because it isn't affecting them and it isn't really going to effect them.

So of course Steven is entitled to an opinion but I am entitled to ignore it too.

Exactly stillaliveandkicking....if a woman thinks she has a penis, its called ''penis envy'' by the Freudians and viewed by some as neurotic...

So maybe men with a penis who think they are a woman, maybe are neurotic?

LumpySpacedPrincess, exactly we always seem to cop the blame, end up with fewer rights.

I'm happy to be corrected, but I reckon, until I hear evidence otherwise, that Pinker and many other men care just as much about equality of opportunity between the sexes as any woman can. Note that I said of opportunity; that doesn't necessarily entail ewuality of outcome because men and women can and do make different choices in life based on their biological and other differences.

I expect that Pinker quote is from a longer essay on the subjects he mentions. Why does the fact that he's a man make a difference? Can't a man have as good an opinion about feminism as a woman can? It might seem facile but I'd challenge anyone who thinks so to express what that expresses as succinctly and lucidly. I think he has highlighted some of the main problems with what passes for feminism these days.

I thought Steven Pinker's observations were facile and superficial. They remind me of Tony Blair ardently defending himself against accusations that had never been made while studiously ignoring the subject he should have been addressing.

Im with Lumpy here, that paragraph from Steven stank of Male superiorty. The way I see it is, if a person still has a penis he is still a man. Why on earth should they demand to be treated as women when they still have a male organ dangling between their legs. Bloody ridiculous.

Indeed Sparkly and Iam, all these gender roles but who is getting told to put up with bullying, women, who is still getting told to sleep with men when they don't want to. I am coming to the conclusion that transactivism is misogyny in a dress.

Not sure I agree with old Steven thatbags, it's a bit "Behold, I, a man, will tell you wimmin what feminism is."

They always say that if your feminism is peeing men off then you must be doing it right!