Gender? Sex? Help me out please.

I do wish people would stop belittling transpeople by posting personal experiences of themselves or children who supposedly wanted to be a different gender when they were younger. You wouldn't do it to any other group of people. Could you imagine for example someone posting 'Oh my child was very sad when they were younger" if the subject was teenage suicide? It fails to recognise the real trauma that trans children and their parents experience.

Luckygirl3
My DD decided to be a boy when she was primary school age and even wanted to call herself Ben. We used to go along with it at home, but always with a smile and a wink - she would laugh too. She is a happily married mother to two children now.

I’m glad you let her try that out without needing to offer her, or even, as some parents are doing, compel her, to take more drastic and possibly irrevocable steps as is happening now.

One of my sisters, between 8 and 11, wanted to be a boy, and shortened her name so that it sounded like a boy’s name. There wasn’t the option to wear trousers for school, but she wore shorts all through the summer. She flatly refused however to have her long plaits cut off until she went to high school.

I wonder what your DD thought the benefits of being a dog might be.

My DD decided to be a boy when she was primary school age and even wanted to call herself Ben. We used to go along with it at home, but always with a smile and a wink - she would laugh too. She is a happily married mother to two children now.

She also spent about 6 months pretending to be a dog.

Thank you trisher all I can do is avoid those people who dishonestly don't allow me to be my authentic self.

I hope that for trans people in the future and I feel in time that will happen

What a lovely post VioletSky Thank you.
It's very poetic, but you could replace 'woman' with pretty much anything, and it would make as much sense, wouldn't it?

It doesn't get anyone very far with a definition of what being a woman means.

Difficult to reply to you Gagajo since I have not the remotest idea what an 'intersectional feminist' is. I wrote of doctors and psychologists who are so bound up in their views that they are incapable of seeing more than one view and reject any view that doesn't accord with their opinion - and then quoted the case of the Reimer twins.

This type of doctor exists in every field, but they are particularly attracted to psychiatry and psychology and I have had bitter experience of them in areas totally unrelated to the subject under discussion on this thread. It is a view of life DH defines as I've made up my mind do not confuse me with facts.

Violetsky essentially what I understand you to be saying, but in beautiful poetic langage, is that gender is a social construct and biology isn't. - and I am in total agreement.

VioletSky

Gagajo you are only allowed to answer "adult human female" but the truth is, there isn't one answer. It's different for everyone.

We are being reduced to sex categories, ignoring our vast and varied biology. The very biology that for years has allowed women to be stereotyped, seen as weaker, seen as so different to other women they were enslaved and sold.

Biology as diverse as a woman's has caused many non white women pain and fear yet biology is now somehow fixed?

Sojourner Truth "Ain't I a woman?"

Some people see women as a biological fact, men and women. Nothing else.

Some of us see it as a rainbow. A beautiful spectrum of difference and diversity.

I wasn't born a woman, I was born a baby, I became a child, on an equal footing with boys, running, jumping and getting dirty in the mud. What was there to tell us apart except for the hair and clothes chosen for us by adults?

I wasn't born a woman, society told me I was one when I reached physical maturity. Society told me what to wear, how to act.

Am I a woman? I choose my clothes my hair, my personality, I choose to express myself in the ways women do that I enjoy.

Can anyone look at me and declare my womanhood undoubtedly? Probably but only because that is what I choose and how I express myself.

You see, everything about who I am as a woman is inside me. Its in my thoughts, my opinions, my appreciation of beautiful things, the ways I would like to look, the clothes I would like to wear, in the things I appreciate about friends, family, the strength I have for my children, the love and the pure determination to be a good mother.

I am a woman on the inside, not the outside. I can change the outside, I can get fatter or thinner, I can wear more or less makeup, I can cut my hair or grow it out. I can have my body surgically altered but who I am on the inside is the same.

It's the same for trans women.

I am me, a woman and so is she.

What a lovely post VioletSky Thank you.

Gagajo you are only allowed to answer "adult human female" but the truth is, there isn't one answer. It's different for everyone.

We are being reduced to sex categories, ignoring our vast and varied biology. The very biology that for years has allowed women to be stereotyped, seen as weaker, seen as so different to other women they were enslaved and sold.

Biology as diverse as a woman's has caused many non white women pain and fear yet biology is now somehow fixed?

Sojourner Truth "Ain't I a woman?"

Some people see women as a biological fact, men and women. Nothing else.

Some of us see it as a rainbow. A beautiful spectrum of difference and diversity.

I wasn't born a woman, I was born a baby, I became a child, on an equal footing with boys, running, jumping and getting dirty in the mud. What was there to tell us apart except for the hair and clothes chosen for us by adults?

I wasn't born a woman, society told me I was one when I reached physical maturity. Society told me what to wear, how to act.

Am I a woman? I choose my clothes my hair, my personality, I choose to express myself in the ways women do that I enjoy.

Can anyone look at me and declare my womanhood undoubtedly? Probably but only because that is what I choose and how I express myself.

You see, everything about who I am as a woman is inside me. Its in my thoughts, my opinions, my appreciation of beautiful things, the ways I would like to look, the clothes I would like to wear, in the things I appreciate about friends, family, the strength I have for my children, the love and the pure determination to be a good mother.

I am a woman on the inside, not the outside. I can change the outside, I can get fatter or thinner, I can wear more or less makeup, I can cut my hair or grow it out. I can have my body surgically altered but who I am on the inside is the same.

It's the same for trans women.

I am me, a woman and so is she.

Brilliant news about Women's Aid, thanks Chewbacca. Their statement is so reasoned and sensible.

Because clearly we have differing opinions.

I am far from clear what you mean by 'woman' though. I know that you think that anyone who says they are a woman is a woman, but that only makes sense if we both know what you think a woman is (whether or not we agree is immaterial).

People on this thread are, on the whole, supportive of one of two broadly similar views, but we do not speak as members of teams. I am not saying that anyone is like Putin.

Chewbacca

Q: What is a woman?
A: Nope! I'm not answering trick questions!

You'd make a grand politician Gagajo!

Because clearly we have differing opinions.

No, DD. MOnica thinks intersectional feminists are mini Putins'. See my quote of her statement above.

Q: What is a woman?
A: Nope! I'm not answering trick questions!

You'd make a grand politician Gagajo!

How is 'what is a woman?' a trick question?

Really - how? And I have compared nobody to Putin.

Doodledog

Hi GagaJo. We cross posted.

You may have missed my earlier post, asking if you would please let us know your definition of a 'woman' and a 'man', so that we can understand what it is that you think people 'just know' that they are? It would definitely help understanding between the two 'sides' of the argument if we each knew those basics from the other.

Ah DD, I'm not getting sucked into 'trick questions'.

All that would happen would be a fusillade of aggressive comments. Which would be rich, given that I'm a mini Putin.

I am glad that women's aid are considering the feelings of traumatised children. Really, their feelings should come first.

VioletSky In your post of 07:36:35, you say that there are increasing attacks on trans people. Can you provide any factual evidence for saying that? The only violence that has been commented on in any of the GC/trans threads that I’ve read happened to women and was committed by trans activists.

Chewbacca re. the chat with my g’son, he is strongly against biologically intact transwomen entering any women’s safe single-sex spaces. He is not anti-trans, when he was at school, he was very close to and supported a girl who was really struggling with her identity, she thought she’d be happier as a boy, changed her name, wore boy’s clothes, etc. After not many appointments with child psychology services (fortunately she was seen amazingly quickly, unlike now) it became obvious that her upbringing/life at home was dysfunctional and abusive but this had been very well “covered up” and that she was reacting to life events. He’s still close to her, sadly she is still an unhappy young woman, is still under the auspices of psychology (hasn’t had a face to face appointment since well before the first lockdown) but has realised that claiming to be a boy is not the answer to her mental health problems.

Gender ideology can be boiled down to “I don’t know what a woman is but I know a transwoman is one”.

Hi GagaJo. We cross posted.

You may have missed my earlier post, asking if you would please let us know your definition of a 'woman' and a 'man', so that we can understand what it is that you think people 'just know' that they are? It would definitely help understanding between the two 'sides' of the argument if we each knew those basics from the other.

I hadn't heard of the Reimer twins, but agree that it is horrific.

I also agree that the Women's Aid story gives hope. With any luck it will be the first of many such stories, as the scales fall from more and more eyes.

M0nica:
Doodledog I am absolutely in agreement, but would add it also rises from a fixed mind set that brooks no opposition and no ability to understand any other view point (Vladimir Putin is an example of that kind of mind set).

So now anyone that doesn't share the GC point of view is being compared to Vladimir Putin?

Can you even hear yourself?

Dear God the Reimer twins story is almost gothic in its horror. Child mutilation, psychological and mental abuse ending in suicide; just horrific.

Chewbacca-great news from Women’s aid.

MOnica thank you. I’d never heard of the Reiner twins. What a tragic story about this gender experiment on the whole family,

Chewbacca / good news from Women’s Aid

Hallelujah! Progress and some good news. Women's Aid have issued their Single Sex Services Statement today and it's confirmed that what we've all known is needed, is now formally recognised as appropriate. Salient points are:

Today, it is still widely acknowledged by expert service providers that single sex, trauma informed spaces are crucial in providing safe spaces for recovery from abuse and violence for women and their children. However, there is a trend towards gender neutral commissioning of services and its abandonment of commissioning the specialist domestic abuse services which are needed for all parts of the population. A consequence of this is that woman-led, single sex services are losing funding, which results in local communities losing the deep expertise and decades of experience these services provided. This is part of a worrying move by commissioners to disregard the sex-specific nature of domestic abuse.

Additionally, there is an ongoing exchange of different views on the inclusion of trans women in single sex spaces including with commissioners, within feminist movements and organisations, and across society at large.

Our members are a diverse group of organisations providing a range of high-quality support and services. Some members offer support to women and children only, while others support all victims of domestic abuse. Most member organisations deliver at least some women only (single sex) services, most commonly through refuge accommodation and groups.
Many members provide responsive and effective community support and emergency accommodation to trans and non-binary survivors. A relatively small number of trans women need to access emergency accommodation. Where they do, some member organisations provide this within their accommodation on a case-by-case basis while others provide alternative dispersed accommodation or signpost to other organisations.

Our priority is to meet the needs of all survivors to have spaces where they can heal and be provided with trauma informed support.
We know from our members that many women and children who have been subject to male violence and abuse need access to support and accommodation which is provided in single sex spaces as this reduces their distress and trauma. We therefore support the principle of providing single sex domestic abuse services which is lawful under the Equality Act.

Some members conclude that it is not appropriate to include trans women (including those with a Gender Recognition Certificate) in women-only shared spaces. We support their right to make this assessment, as long as they do so lawfully.

We will continue to support trans women to approach Women’s Aid for help directly. When they do, we will support where we can as ever, and signpost to specialist services that best respond to their specific needs and circumstances as appropriate.

Full report here: www.womensaid.org.uk/womens-aid-single-sex-services-statement/

trisher

M0nica I wonder did you ever consider self harm when you were a "tomboy" because that is the recourse of some who are uncomfortable with their body and their assigned gender. That's one of the reasons puberty blockers are given Luckygirl3 because if the alternative is a child who attempts to change his or her body by doing potentially damaging things which leaves scars it is much better to delay the development which bothers them and allow them a space to explore. The effects of puberty blockers are for the most part reversible

Doctors take an oath to do no harm, which means that yes, sometimes puberty blockers prevent harm.

This is also why you can sometimes get breast reductions, breast enhancement or nose jobs or other alterations on the NHS because not doing those things can be harmful to the person.

Doodledog I am absolutely in agreement, but would add it also rises from a fixed mind set that brooks no opposition and no ability to understand any other view point (Vladimir Putin is an example of that kind of mind set).

Earlier on this thread someone referred to the Reimer twins and a psychologist called. I think, Jack Money. Look him up and everything talks about an eminent psychologist, his research, the esteem he is held in. Then follow the link to the twins and the story from them and their family and friends and the picture you get is very very different. It is one of sexual and psychological abuse by someone with a fixed mindset that would admit no opposite view. Both of the twins committed suicide when they were quite young.

I cannot find the original link quoted here - the thread runs to 21 pages but read this one. allthatsinteresting.com/david-reimer