Gender? Sex? Help me out please.

I do remember the outrage from some about what would happen when gay sex was made legal. Some forecast the destruction of the family. Years later it turns out that what gay people want is pretty much the same as most others, a loving relationship, and for some, a family and children.

luckygirl and Dee thank you for adding your voices to this.

You both have a kind, common sense approach

The whole 'bleeders', 'breeders' or 'people with cervixes' etc - and indeed "chest feeding" is part of the swing of the pendulum that always happens at the beginning of a freedom movement - it will swing back and settle somewhere a bit more sane in the fullness of time.

I don't think it is transwomen or indeed transactivists who are using "people with cervixes" isn't it an effort to make sure young transmen continue to have smear tests?

Luckygirl3

My take on this is as the grandmother of a child who, at age 15, chose to live, dress and act as someone of the opposite sex and has done so for several years now.

All I know is that I love them just the same, respect them just the same and recognise them as a good and kind person. That is enough for me.

I do not always get the pronouns right when speaking to or about them - and they have the grace to laugh it off as "poor old grandma"! I do have huge concerns about the moment when they might choose more physical or surgical options - inevitable I guess - I saw this dear person born and held them in my arms within minutes - perfectly formed and dearly loved.

I do have fears for the path they have chosen and the difficulties that might arise along the way; but college and friends have been supportive in a low key and natural way and I am glad they live in a time when that can happen.

The jury is out for me on women-only spaces. As always it basically depends on the individual - if they are decent thoughtful people they will consider other's possible feelings. Sadly of course this cannot be relied upon from anyone, whether they are transgender or not; and movements for freedoms can begin somewhat stridently and lacking nuance.

I am glad that my DGC is growing up accepted for who they feel they are and sincerely hope that some of the more extreme factions will die down over time. Look how gay marriage has crept its way in as unworthy of comment now? I hope for the same for transgender in the future.

I am in the same situation with a very close family member who I love dearly.

They do not want to hurt or offend anybody, just live their lives in peace, looking as they choose to do.

I'm pretty sure that's all the majority of the trans people wish to do....

The trans women who are dressing the way that we expect a woman to dress and look just get on the bus and nobody notices.

Yes, and many of us have said over and over on these threads that (a) these people are not at issue, and (b) that they suffer as well as women from the antics of TRAs.

I will speak for myself here, but others have said similar - I am nothing but supportive of transwomen who just get on with life (regardless of how they dress). It is when TRAs start insisting that women are called 'bleeders', 'breeders' or 'people with cervixes' etc, and that lesbians are transphobic when they don't want to have sex with men in dresses and beards who say they are women and so on (see threads passim) that we get exercised.

Luckygirl3 you are in a difficult position.
I don't think I could use wrong-sex pronouns for anyone, even a close relative.

I have talked to my 16 year old GS and her friends about this. I can see that for this young generation there is acceptance of trans people and they see them as just people first and foremost.

Trans activists are doing more harm to trans people by trying to undermine women.
As this younger generation are more accepting of people and their right to live
as they wish then these contentious issues will hopefully be resolved.

Rhyannon Styles, in his book The New Girl, explains that he was working as a drag queen when he decided to transition.
To begin with, his look was too exaggerated because of his drag experience and he had to look properly at women to see how to dress and do makeup as they did.

It wouldn't, IMO. And I'm not defending the threads or the comments. But I will suggest (genuinely, not disingenuously) that for many people this is a learning curve, and there may be an assumption from some that a man who wants to transition must be doing so out of a desire to be as 'feminine' as possible.

I suppose my perspective Doodledog is that the implication is that trans women are drawing attention to themselves by dressing in a way which is not "acceptable" to other people. I don't really mean acceptable, but I can't think of another word.

The trans women who are dressing the way that we expect a woman to dress and look just get on the bus and nobody notices.

Most of the time, it is none of my business.

However, if I have been told that I am in a single-sex female-only place, eg hospital ward, DV refuge or prison, I want it to be genuinely single-sex.
I don't want to find that a man is masquerading as a woman there but I don't care how he presents himself elsewhere.

My take on this is as the grandmother of a child who, at age 15, chose to live, dress and act as someone of the opposite sex and has done so for several years now.

All I know is that I love them just the same, respect them just the same and recognise them as a good and kind person. That is enough for me.

I do not always get the pronouns right when speaking to or about them - and they have the grace to laugh it off as "poor old grandma"! I do have huge concerns about the moment when they might choose more physical or surgical options - inevitable I guess - I saw this dear person born and held them in my arms within minutes - perfectly formed and dearly loved.

I do have fears for the path they have chosen and the difficulties that might arise along the way; but college and friends have been supportive in a low key and natural way and I am glad they live in a time when that can happen.

The jury is out for me on women-only spaces. As always it basically depends on the individual - if they are decent thoughtful people they will consider other's possible feelings. Sadly of course this cannot be relied upon from anyone, whether they are transgender or not; and movements for freedoms can begin somewhat stridently and lacking nuance.

I am glad that my DGC is growing up accepted for who they feel they are and sincerely hope that some of the more extreme factions will die down over time. Look how gay marriage has crept its way in as unworthy of comment now? I hope for the same for transgender in the future.

If a woman had been described as looking like something from the Les Dawson show, lots of women on here would be rightly angry. But say it about a trans woman, and that's acceptable, apparently.

It wouldn't, IMO. And I'm not defending the threads or the comments. But I will suggest (genuinely, not disingenuously) that for many people this is a learning curve, and there may be an assumption from some that a man who wants to transition must be doing so out of a desire to be as 'feminine' as possible.

The first transwoman I met was many years ago (early 90s) was surgically transitioned, and she stood out in the workplace because she was dishevelled and came to work in leggings, tee shirts and trainers when most women wore dresses. Her hair was roughly tied back, and she wore no make-up. A lot of people (me included) wondered why she had bothered to transition, given her apparent reluctance to look like a woman. Now that I have met a lot more transpeople, I realise that this was a foolish way to think, and that they are as disparate as anyone else when it comes to attitudes to personal grooming. We live and learn.

I don't think that jumping on people, as opposed to pointing out that they might be looking at it the wrong way, is particularly helpful, or conducive to encouraging tolerance.

FarNorth

GagaJo gender fluid people are still female or male, however they choose to present themselves.
What is your difficulty with understanding that?

It's none of my (or your) business what is under a person's clothing.
What is your difficulty there?

volver

Keira? I'm going to assume that's a typo

Freudian slip methinks!

GagaJo gender fluid people are still female or male, however they choose to present themselves.
What is your difficulty with understanding that?

Keira? I'm going to assume that's a typo

Yes, some men manage to resemble women well enough that they are not noticed. So what? They are still men.

Yes, some women do look like a Les Dawson character. So what? They are still women.

GAGA
Which of Boris' multitude of lies would you like us to start with? A bit of an own goal there Mollygo. Not an own goal. I’ve never said BJ wasn’t a liar, but are you supporting Keira’s lies because they are fewer?

FarNorth, there have also been gender fluid people. They've just not been part of a political movement before. They had to hide and stay in the shadows.

They're the current threat to life as we know it, as feminists and gay activists once were.

Remember the anti-gay rhetoric? Or the anti-feminist propaganda?

trisher people should be able to present any way they like without claiming not to be the biological sex they are.

We have managed reasonably well, so far, with female and male facilities relying on people's honesty so that genital inspections have not been needed.
We could still do that if there is not a culture of believing that sex is malleable.
Otherwise, we need a different type of facility to protect everyone's privacy.

I think that is large part of why these discussions make me uncomfortable volver because those comments just don't get called out by people who do say they don't descriminate.

It's a bit of an, the enemy of nyenemy is my friend situation

Yet we are all feminists here and it should be us against the problem and not us against each other

The problems (and I do see and understand there are some) seem to me to be very solvable, there seems to be a lot of ways to make everyone comfortable yet, that is not happening and I struggle to understand why

FarNorth

Keir Starmer says that he agrees with the existence of women's safe spaces ---- and also transwomen (men) are women.
?

Wow Kier Starmer and I agree about something. Now there's a first!!!

I really don't understand exactly what gender critical feminists want done.
The idea of inspections to see who is a proper woman scares me. Would it mean in order to be certan of passing women will have to dress in a certain way. How on earth would that move us forward to a gender free society?

Exactly GagaJo.

volver, the thing is though, that gender critical people with those types of opinions just don't notice the slight, small, or average sized trans women. They fit the patriarchal standard of what a woman should be and therefore pass easily.