a man’s internal feeling that he is a woman has no basis in material reality?

Oh dear, Notanan! Back to the drawing board for me then.

Male to female transpeople say they are female for a variety of reasons.

Liking things they associate with femininity
- i.e. the steriotypes
A "feeling" (what is this feeling that makes you a woman, and how can they know what it FEELS like to be a woman, also how come so many natal women cannot relate to this feeling if it is apparently what makes a woman a woman).
A desire to see themselves as the woman in sexual situations. A wish to role play at being a lesbian etc..

Have I missed any?
Not ONE of the above defines women for most natal women!

Oestrogen has nothing to do with liking frocks n pink......

Its a social contruct to associate those things with females. A new one at that.

if more people are identifying as female. I doubt it is chemicals in our water, more that in the past there was no way of expressing this feeling and certainly no route to living it, so nothing was said and in the end most people adapted to the dichotomy.

03:10
Notanan2, thank you for clarifying the difference between gender and sex. I agree that children should be allowed to select their own ' gender'. I'd guess that gendered preferences are not permanent until the child or adult has matured.

^ that's not agreeing with me I pretty much said the opposite

FarNorth I'm not sure that there is a huge increase in that area. There have throughout history been women who chose to live as men and I suspect that there may have been more who would have liked to do so. So perhaps the increase isn't that huge. I don't know.

In Britain, one well-known gender clinic reports that the majority of its adolescent population, once 50-50, is now overwhelmingly trans-male (female-to-male).

www.google.com/amp/s/www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/opinion/article-why-the-surge-in-gender-dysphoria-among-teenage-girls/

Trisher sets the nature cat among the nurture pigeons

trisher, how do you see that relating to the increase in girls and young women claiming to be boys and men?

I do wonder if the number of men and boys now believing they are women is in fact to do with the increasing amounts of oestrogen now found in water. Fish have been shown to be changing sex because of chemicals in rivers and it seems to me to be highly likely that even a small level of increase in oestrogen could first affect the brain. It must be very difficult when your brain tells you that you are one thing but your body presents something different.

Maybe she should try saying that to my ex husband!
At the age of 54 he admitted he had always wished he had been a woman and had those feeling from when he was a child.
It was a big shock, considering he has been married twice and fathered 6 children!

"Instead of claiming to factually be women, why don't they campaign for their right to present & behave as they wish?"

Excellent suggestion!

Are you being prevented from saying what you want, quizqueen?

Free speech no longer exists in this country and certainly not on this site.

"material reality" means the person's biological sex, regardless of changes to their physical body.

At least 80% of transwomen (men) have no treatment at all, not even counseling.
Whether they do or not, tho, their bodies are still male.

Instead of claiming to factually be women, why don't they campaign for their right to present & behave as they wish?

I've copied a bit of Far North's original post because the sacked employees' claim is ambiguous.

"Her employer, the London office of the Centre for Global Development, said -
“You stated that a man’s internal feeling that he is a woman has no basis in material reality. A lot of people would find that offensive and exclusionary.”"

"material reality" probably means biological sexual attributes. However biological sexual attributes are less important, obviously, to trans people than are their preferred genders.

It is a great pity that children are not allowed to express themselves without gender stereotyping.
Alexa, you say you know nothing about trans issues but you have hit the nail on the head concerning children.

There are numerous youtube videos of happy 'trans' kids and their happy parents. All the ones that I have seen are based on stereotypes. Parents say, in the videos, that they shouted at their children and/or made them wear certain clothes, have their hair short or long, play with certain toys.
Then the child's statement of being the opposite sex was accepted, and all was wonderful!

The recent TV play 'Butterfly', which claimed to show a trans child, in fact showed a dysfunctional family & society who couldn't simply accept a boy as he wanted to be.

Notanan2, thank you for clarifying the difference between gender and sex. I agree that children should be allowed to select their own ' gender'. I'd guess that gendered preferences are not permanent until the child or adult has matured.

Do you think that sexualisation of children(and adults) is at least part of the cause of body dysmorphia and dysmorphia is at least part of the cause of dissatisfaction with one's biological sex?

There is more to gestation than just incubating. Womens bodies are designed to tune into the baby in so many complex ways. Just because something can be done doesnt mean it should.

Alexa I think someone wrote earlier that trans treatment hadn't gone as far as surgery to genitals. I could be wrong.
But I remember reading this:
mtonews.com/happened-doctors-complete-first-ever-uterus-transplant-man-now-men-can-bet-pregnant
I suppose the birth would have to be by cesarian.

You can get a 100 year old bunch of shattered old bones out of the earth and tell what sex the skeleton was quite easily and quickly.

Its vitally important in medicine and in research that SEX is recorded accurately and not replaced by wishy washy gender identity options.

Certain diseases have different symptoms depending on SEX and different responses to treatments etc.

You can put a sheep's skin on a wolf but it's still a wolf. Your genes dictate your natal sex and that can never be changed no matter how many times you look at your altered outward appearance.

Also your comments Notanan2

Good post Monica. Well put.

"Chosing CLOTHES and toys...."