OP says they want to understand but instead of looking up the question and reading it, writes this post that undermines non-binary people suggesting they have mental health problems! You can't start a respectful conversation after calling your interlocutor potentially crazy. If you are truly interested in understanding, please read Judith Butler. You can start here https://www.jstor.org/stable/3207893?origin=JSTOR-pdf&seq=3
Bear in mind that women and gay people were all called crazy and attention-seeking when they questioned being treated as sub human or abnormal. Your second explanation is the one that fits. It may be tiring to understand and adapt but it is even more tiring to live among people don't recognise your personhood.
I'm not saying what you're going through isn't difficult. The problem with your thinking is that you are attributing behaviours you don't like to one characteristic of the individual, that they are non binary, and then you are suggested that all non binary people are like this.
Firstly, all the non binary people I know are extremely kind and gracious about mis gendering slip ups. They are not about people who persistently and deliberately misgender them after being corrected but that is understandable.
Secondly, your people are probably reacting to their environment. Everything you are saying now was said 20 years ago about gay and lesbian people. Being bullied and having to erase essential parts of who they are got to them. It was not their fault. Anyone would react to being treated that way. It is your institution's fault for not creating a better environment for them. It is also your institution's fault for not extending support to them as they struggle.
If you are too depleted to help, you can compassionately express your need for time and space. Letting resentment build and then engaging in what is effectively hate speech against a whole group isn't good for you and it definitely isn't good for the person you refer to.
And finally, no they don't all come from privilege. The ones who don't just suffer in silence because intersectionality makes everything worse. You probably have no idea who they are and may be saying these very hurtful, dehumanizing things to them.
Your (probably valid) desire not to bear their emotional load all the time does not negate their experience. They may have serious mental problems resulting from dysphoria or the world's reaction to it or coincidentally. But then what? Does that confluence mean that they are simply attention seeking and that they should "get over" their gender identity? Some people have near incurable depression (or even physical illnesses) and their friends and family and caregivers may feel a tremendous emotional burden as a result. Should they simply "cheer up" or "get better"? I think that you are mixing up cause and effect.
Op here, I actually have been called transphobic by a non-binary friend for exactly this. They asked me, "Would you date a trans man?" And I answered with a vague "I don't know... " and they immediately went "If you're a straight woman you have to date trans men, it's extremely transphobic to not be willing to date trans men."
Now, I acknowledge what other people have said, that letting resentment build and then saying hostile things anonymously is not helping anyone. It's possible that the non-binary people I know are just bad people, and not necessarily because of their gender. This thread has given me a lot to think about and read up on.
I don't fully know what my stance is on this issue. I still think that there's a large overlap between difficult mental illnesses like bpd (really hard for the people around them to handle!) and identifying as non-binary. Whether one causes the other, I have no idea. Not my place to comment on this, I understand.
I'm less angry now than when I first started this thread, time and space really helps. Anyway, thank you to everyone who gave me perspective! Some of the recommendations of material to read has been really illuminating. @LI I'm sorry this thread became an extremely angry and hostile space, I honestly wasn't trying to stir up some controversy. Surrounded by enough drama as it is, definitely don't want more.
"Where are all these hundreds and thousands of people? The only transpeople I read about involved in attacks are the ones attacked by people with the kind of prejudice and hatred that's all over this thread."
"I've never heard of anyone being called transphobic for exercising their autonomy over who they want to have sex with. So bizarre. These projections often are."
Are you not seeing the denial that transwomen commit crimes or are you wanting to see the denial? are you moving goalposts? It is obviously inaccurate to say no one ever said that these people dont commit crimes when there are these posts on this very thread? Ive only responded with reduxx links and terfisaslur.com links to these posts.
- i can provide more. Half of the males in prisons who claim they are trans have committed and been convicted of sexual crimes and that rate for non-trans males in prisons is 17%. That is a significant difference. That means these are not over-exaggerated. The propensity to commit sexual crimes for the trans identified males is literally statistically higher compared to regular "cis" men. And regardless- even one is too many. even one woman being assaulted by a transwoman- a male in a womens space is too many and its not just one. Its a significantly higher number than that and its more likely to happen with a transwoman than with a "cis" man.
California prisons are providing women prisoners with condoms because 40 males are at last count in womens prisons. why provide all women with condoms? because its not likely that he will just rape one and leave it be. And these women are in prison- they cannot leave. And many of the women are in prison after a long history of dealing with male violence and when they go to prison they get told they will still have to deal with male violence so they best carry around condoms so at least they dont get pregnant. This should turn your stomach.
What youre arguing- is that for all the rapes and sexual crimes women have to endure- transwomen only commit a small percentage- so they should get a pass to be in sex segregated spaces. How many rapes do you think are acceptable risk? Do you know that for all the people who own guns very few actually end up using it on another person? do you think we shouldnt have gun control laws then? or do you think the small minority of mentally ill people who murder school children by the hundreds mean that we should actually have gun control?
Thats how safeguarding works- you recognise broad patterns in criminality and then exclude anyone from that group and you do background checks. So everyone who might have serious mental illnesses is excluded from owning guns, and everyone who has a history of domestic violence is excluded from owning guns. And everyone with a male body is excluded from sex segregated spaces.
This is why there are sex segregated spaces in the first place. Not all men harm women- most men do not- but we have sex segregated toilets and prisons and rape shelters and schools to protect from the statistically significant percentage of men who do harm women. If a statistically significant percentage of transwomen are in prison for sexual crimes- and that is proven by authenticated government backed studies- then thats enough justification for excluding transwomen from sex segregated spaces.
If you learn the history- we had unisex bathrooms and prisons and schools and sports and the like before- the reason we moved away from that was because women were being harmed and were being disadvantaged. I cannot believe we have to relitigate it because some males say they feel like theyre "a woman on the inside". Every predatory male has an incentive to say that because then he is put in the womens space- its a nothing statement that requires no surgeries or hormones or medical interventions at all- its purely an internal state that is unverifiable. You leave the door open to that when you decide to prioritise claims about identities and genderfeels over biological material facts like sex.
Of all the men who rape women- im willing to bet that disabled men and old men are a very small number- but we dont allow disabled men and elderly men into womens spaces and womens prisons and rape shelters and toilets do we?
Youre essentially arguing "not all transwomen" when no one has argued all transwomen- we've only argued that there are enough- that there are statistical material facts that warrant sex segregation and safeguarding. And that these studies and numbers and the reporting of all of these incidents is blacked out or it is attributed as "womens" crimes. It gets harder and harder to tell these truths. That is why reduxx exists, as distasteful and "phobic" as you might find it. A phobia or a sceptre- is fear or something thats not real- this is not a phobia or a sceptre- its fear of something that IS real.
Just because transwomen might be subject to male violence doesnt mean women have to sacrifice their hard won rights for sex segregated spaces and safeguarding and sex based rights to accomodate them. Gay men are subject to male violence, pedophiles in prisons are raped consistently- that doesnt mean we put them all in the womens prisons because gay men and pedophiles and transwomen (conceding that these are distinct groups) are still male- and they still can and do harm women, we should find another solution.
To argue that the solution then is for women to give up their protections and rights is to argue that women have to perform penance for the crimes still committed by men. I reject the idea that any woman anywhere is responsible for the criminal actions of every man.
My solution to this problem is to have single occupancy third spaces for any male that feels threatened in the male space. I agree with you- even one male bodied person getting raped because he wore a dress that day or because hes gay is too much- im not comparing harms- you are dismissing harms to women. Im suggesting that the solution isnt to erase womens sex based rights. Rights arent pie generally- until you want a piece of the pie I have specifically carved out for me. Everybody has a property right- but nobody has a right to come on to my property and claim it for themselves or demand that we share- to argue that that is legitimate- is to argue that there are no property rights except for the people who feel comfortable ignoring property rights.
But of course you will find that trans activists and trans people oppose this solution. They dont just "want to be safe" or "want to pee" they want to be validated as "women" by being in womens sex segregated spaces. its the validation theyre after- not just the safety. Safety is a concern easily addressed. All of this money that goes into stonewall and ACLU, and human rights watch and all of these organisations who spend hundreds of millions arguing that sex isnt real- take that money and build third places for gender non-conforming males.
Validation requires that women give up their language, their sex based rights, their sex segregated spaces, their safeguarding and even their bodies to please males. No one in a free society should have to validate the internal psychological states of anybody. Not at this cost and not at any cost.
The problem with surgeries at "too young an age " is not that the surgeries could go wrong. its that children are not capable of understanding the implications of these surgeries and are therefore unable to provide informed consent. All children. And then that the surgeries even when they go perfectly- do not do what they are claimed to do. You cannot actually change sex- every cell in your body is coded xx or xy. You will be a permanent patient by doing this. You can gain a superficial appearance to a sex organ by moulding your body through surgeries- but neo-phalluses dont function like regular penises and neo-vaginas have nothing in common with regular vaginas at all- real vaginas self clean, they expand and contract as necessary, they help shed the uterine lining, they dont close up on their own, they dont tear up to have fecal matter from intestines spill into them. neo vaginas do none of those things. Quoting andrea long chu- its a wound thats carved into your body that the body will forever try to heal from. The organic body parts are signs of a healthy body. Modification procedures almost always result in ill health. Even hormone therapies. Exogenous hormones produce cancer, they produce osteoporosis, they might even impair brain development. There is a reason that we decided to prevent adult athletes from taking exogenous hormones- because they were killing themselves by taking these drugs trying to win competitions. It is impossible for a child to understand what the loss of sexual function, the loss of orgasm, the loss of fertility can all mean. It is impossible for children to consent to this just as or even more than it is impossible for children to consent to alcohol or cigarettes or tattoos or sex.
"Gender fluidity" implies that male children should be allowed to wear dresses and girl tomboys should be allowed to climb trees without being punished. I agree with that- most gender critical terfs agree with that. Where we disagree is telling children that just because a boy likes pink and playing princess and a girl might like trucks and playing sports means that those kids actually belong to the opposite sex and should be validated as such, that their names and their bodies should be changed, that they should be put on a pathway to transition including puberty blockers, exogenous hormones, and harmful surgeries. I want those kids to completely be themselves , and I want those kids thought that there are no "male" behaviours and "female" behaviours- they can be as masculine or as feminine as they like- that doesnt change their sex or who they are. I want to abolish gender- you want to reify it to be so important it requires sex changes and body modification.
Medical professionals knew they were doing this- and they continued to do it until those evil bigoted terfs stopped them. The cass review found this and the World professional association for transgender health- the WPATH had its files and emails leaked where doctors were joking about how these kids cannot consent and how they were "transing the gay away".
You think that trans people in india may not buy into child transition- but they absolutely have. Hook line and sinker- there is no dissent in the community because one usually doesnt find dissent in religious groups- because their entire movement is aping what their counterparts in the west did. Do you remember when "Vqueeram" aditya sahai was outed as a fetishist by right wing groups because he was tapped to write a guidance on gender inclusion in schools? Im sure you felt outrage at that. Did you read what was in the guidance? I did. https://clpr.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Inclusion_of_Transgender_Children_in_School_Education.pdf Here is a copy. Look up "puberty blockers". The guidance literally says that school teachers- you should know how capable school teachers in india are of making medical diagnoses- should talk to gender non conforming kids about the availability of puberty blockers. that they should " Convey that these are available and accessible for adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria, who may later identify as transgender persons. ". 80% of children and adolescents experiencing dysphoria end up not transitioning- puberty actually solves the dysphoria and they realise they are just gay, regular old boring gay. He wanted to give the same drugs we give to castrate rapists and to cancer patients to those kids. Why? because they acted a little flamboyant?
Do you know what the original reason for puberty blockers and prescribing hormones to kids was? it was because trans identified males were upset they didnt "pass as women" - to the eye in their appearance- because puberty had given them obviously male characteristics- wouldnt it have been wonderful if they had never had those characteristics or were able to block those characteristics from forming so they could have different more feminine appearance. This is a cosmetic intervention. It has nothing to do with suicidality. Children by and large dont commit suicide and when they do the causes are very complex and knotted, and like i have shown elsewhere- not just for children but even for adults- transitioning doesnt lower the risk of suicide infact it may increase it. Because living in a mutilated body that makes you a permanent patient has got to be awful.
This is madness- and this suppresses gender nonconforming behavior through the worst ways- and it wont stop itself if we dont seriously and skeptically reconsider the idea of sexed souls and gendered identities.
Notice- through all of this- I havent denied or compared harms the way you want me to. Im not denying that trans identified males may face harms. Im denying that the solution to those harms is to follow blindly whatever trans people might want- regardless of what rigorous science says or what other groups might be affected. You have an all or nothing approach. I dont. You have decided that anyone who disagrees with you must hate gender nonconformity or hate trans people. You decided at the very outset that disbelief in gender souls was "hate speech". Hate speech used to mean threats, incitement to violence, and slurs. I havent done any of those things. But you have consistently admonished me to be kind while the other guy gets to say women are irrational because of their periods, that we're all bigots for disagreeing, that we're all hateful for daring to have a different opinion and that we're all too stupid and dumb and we dont read because we dont buy the bullcrap judith butler sells. You have done nothing to police his/her tone have you? its only my tone you find objectionable. Because appearing to care about trans people and going on about how beautiful and brave and stunning these people are is more important than actually caring about what happens to women in prisons or children who might be homosexual. That is your measure of kindness and I reject it entirely. Dissent by itself is not unkind unless you are in a religion where apostasy is criminal.
If the only claim of "transwomen" was that they needed protection from discrimination based on gender performance- nobody would disagree. But their claims dont stop there. Its not just- "hijras should be able to get a job" its not just " men who wear dresses should be able to go to universities like everyone else. They arent stopped from those things. Its " you must treat us as women because we say we are women", "why cant we change sex on government ID". The claim isnt " we want separate spaces for protection" or " we want open categories in sports" its "we want to go into the womens room and into womens rape crisis shelters and womens schools and we want to compete in the womens category". No body is protesting trans people competing in open categories- the problem is that male bodied people want to compete in female categories. The problem is that there are no sex segregated spaces anymore because "identity" which is unverifiable undetectable and unfalsifiable is supposed to be more important than sex - which is a material fact in every single mammal. There is only one oppressed community on this planet that you can identify your way into and none of us can say boo according to you- thats women. why is that?
No one is saying we must ignore the material oppression of trans people where this oppression is found- but arguing against discrimination or arguing against material oppression doesnt require i believe their shoddy philosophy or their religious beliefs or practice their rituals. I dont need to believe "trans women are women" to think they shouldnt be raped- I dont think men should be raped. I dont need to believe they are women to think they should be allowed to go to school and get a job like everyone else- they should and people who traffic kids and prevent them from going to school should be jailed and everyone regardless of sex who is trafficked should be offered ways to come out of that "profession" including adult education and skilling and vocational education and university education if theyre capable. You only need to believe that they are women to believe that sex doesnt matter. Male people have all rights every male person has ever had. No male has rights that are exclusive to women- adult human females. thats all im saying- that sex matters.
You need to stop thinking you know what the right answers are or youre on the right side of history because of vibes. All evidence would show that the gender critical terfy side are actually maybe the ones on the right side of history. You cannot be accusing me of hate and ignorance and policing my tone when you cannot honestly say youve considered and read any of the literature ive brought up in this exchange before forming an opinion. I have read judith butler and I proved, I am familiar with statistics on this stuff, I am familiar with the medical aspects of it- i have bothered to find out what hijras are and what intersex is, and ive read studies and papers on gender medicine. I have been in very lib-fem spaces that are all gaga over gender identity nonsense and now im an apostate because- one night- i said - im so sure about this stuff I bet I could listen to what evil terfs say and counter everything. And I couldnt. And I had the decency and honesty to change my mind when confronted by evidence and arguments I had not considered. You dont have that decency or honesty - which is why instead of saying "youre right and im wrong". Youve made it about tone. Instead of acknowledging when I have facts that dont bode well for your argument- you have shifted goal posts.
Transwomen dont harm women- not enough transwomen harm women- not all transwomen harm women- even if they do harm women women should put up with it- youre only concerned because you hate trans people (because its inconceivable someone would actually be concerned about women)- even if they do harm women- those women are probably bigoted anyway so it doesnt matter. This is the narcissists prayer redone. And it follows exactly the pattern your arguments have followed in this exchange. Go look in the mirror.
Where they are coming from is probably how any minority feels when they are sexually shunned. But they should not have said that to you. Personally, I had a wake up call when a friend pointed out that the people I seem to prefer are all upper caste, but they just observed it without calling me casteist. The observation made me reflect and over time change.
You'll do fine OP. It can be difficult to filter out emotions triggered by other people's lashing out and it is human to want to protect oneself. You are already getting there. Remember that you can work to understand why they are angry and where they are coming from without presenting yourself as a target for their anger. I think you are a kind person that hope that you run into more people who see and value your kindness.
If you are truly interested in understanding, please read Judith Butler. You can start here https://www.jstor.org/stable/3207893?origin=JSTOR-pdf&seq=3
Bear in mind that women and gay people were all called crazy and attention-seeking when they questioned being treated as sub human or abnormal. Your second explanation is the one that fits. It may be tiring to understand and adapt but it is even more tiring to live among people don't recognise your personhood.
Firstly, all the non binary people I know are extremely kind and gracious about mis gendering slip ups. They are not about people who persistently and deliberately misgender them after being corrected but that is understandable.
Secondly, your people are probably reacting to their environment. Everything you are saying now was said 20 years ago about gay and lesbian people. Being bullied and having to erase essential parts of who they are got to them. It was not their fault. Anyone would react to being treated that way. It is your institution's fault for not creating a better environment for them. It is also your institution's fault for not extending support to them as they struggle.
If you are too depleted to help, you can compassionately express your need for time and space. Letting resentment build and then engaging in what is effectively hate speech against a whole group isn't good for you and it definitely isn't good for the person you refer to.
And finally, no they don't all come from privilege. The ones who don't just suffer in silence because intersectionality makes everything worse. You probably have no idea who they are and may be saying these very hurtful, dehumanizing things to them.
Now, I acknowledge what other people have said, that letting resentment build and then saying hostile things anonymously is not helping anyone. It's possible that the non-binary people I know are just bad people, and not necessarily because of their gender. This thread has given me a lot to think about and read up on.
I don't fully know what my stance is on this issue. I still think that there's a large overlap between difficult mental illnesses like bpd (really hard for the people around them to handle!) and identifying as non-binary. Whether one causes the other, I have no idea. Not my place to comment on this, I understand.
I'm less angry now than when I first started this thread, time and space really helps. Anyway, thank you to everyone who gave me perspective! Some of the recommendations of material to read has been really illuminating. @LI I'm sorry this thread became an extremely angry and hostile space, I honestly wasn't trying to stir up some controversy. Surrounded by enough drama as it is, definitely don't want more.
"I've never heard of anyone being called transphobic for exercising their autonomy over who they want to have sex with. So bizarre. These projections often are."
Are you not seeing the denial that transwomen commit crimes or are you wanting to see the denial? are you moving goalposts? It is obviously inaccurate to say no one ever said that these people dont commit crimes when there are these posts on this very thread? Ive only responded with reduxx links and terfisaslur.com links to these posts.
Where is the proof that its overexagerrated? Do you understand how numbers work? https://fairplayforwomen.com/transgender-male-criminality-sex-offences/ Here is one link
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/24/government-figures-70-per-cent-of-transgender-prisoners-are/#:~:text=figures%20have%20revealed.-,At%20least%20181%20of%20the%20244%20transgender%20inmates%2C%20more%20than,grievous%20bodily%20harm%20and%20robbery. Here is another
Here is a third: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/18973/pdf/
A fourth: https://torontosun.com/news/national/study-finds-nearly-45-of-trans-women-inmates-convicted-of-sex-crimes
- i can provide more. Half of the males in prisons who claim they are trans have committed and been convicted of sexual crimes and that rate for non-trans males in prisons is 17%. That is a significant difference. That means these are not over-exaggerated. The propensity to commit sexual crimes for the trans identified males is literally statistically higher compared to regular "cis" men. And regardless- even one is too many. even one woman being assaulted by a transwoman- a male in a womens space is too many and its not just one. Its a significantly higher number than that and its more likely to happen with a transwoman than with a "cis" man.
California prisons are providing women prisoners with condoms because 40 males are at last count in womens prisons. why provide all women with condoms? because its not likely that he will just rape one and leave it be. And these women are in prison- they cannot leave. And many of the women are in prison after a long history of dealing with male violence and when they go to prison they get told they will still have to deal with male violence so they best carry around condoms so at least they dont get pregnant. This should turn your stomach.
https://www.iwf.org/2024/03/19/why-are-womens-prisons-in-california-passing-out-condoms/
https://womensliberationfront.org/news/ca-womens-prisons-anticipate-pregnancy-sb123
What youre arguing- is that for all the rapes and sexual crimes women have to endure- transwomen only commit a small percentage- so they should get a pass to be in sex segregated spaces. How many rapes do you think are acceptable risk? Do you know that for all the people who own guns very few actually end up using it on another person? do you think we shouldnt have gun control laws then? or do you think the small minority of mentally ill people who murder school children by the hundreds mean that we should actually have gun control?
Thats how safeguarding works- you recognise broad patterns in criminality and then exclude anyone from that group and you do background checks. So everyone who might have serious mental illnesses is excluded from owning guns, and everyone who has a history of domestic violence is excluded from owning guns. And everyone with a male body is excluded from sex segregated spaces.
This is why there are sex segregated spaces in the first place. Not all men harm women- most men do not- but we have sex segregated toilets and prisons and rape shelters and schools to protect from the statistically significant percentage of men who do harm women. If a statistically significant percentage of transwomen are in prison for sexual crimes- and that is proven by authenticated government backed studies- then thats enough justification for excluding transwomen from sex segregated spaces.
If you learn the history- we had unisex bathrooms and prisons and schools and sports and the like before- the reason we moved away from that was because women were being harmed and were being disadvantaged. I cannot believe we have to relitigate it because some males say they feel like theyre "a woman on the inside". Every predatory male has an incentive to say that because then he is put in the womens space- its a nothing statement that requires no surgeries or hormones or medical interventions at all- its purely an internal state that is unverifiable. You leave the door open to that when you decide to prioritise claims about identities and genderfeels over biological material facts like sex.
Of all the men who rape women- im willing to bet that disabled men and old men are a very small number- but we dont allow disabled men and elderly men into womens spaces and womens prisons and rape shelters and toilets do we?
Youre essentially arguing "not all transwomen" when no one has argued all transwomen- we've only argued that there are enough- that there are statistical material facts that warrant sex segregation and safeguarding. And that these studies and numbers and the reporting of all of these incidents is blacked out or it is attributed as "womens" crimes. It gets harder and harder to tell these truths. That is why reduxx exists, as distasteful and "phobic" as you might find it. A phobia or a sceptre- is fear or something thats not real- this is not a phobia or a sceptre- its fear of something that IS real.
Just because transwomen might be subject to male violence doesnt mean women have to sacrifice their hard won rights for sex segregated spaces and safeguarding and sex based rights to accomodate them. Gay men are subject to male violence, pedophiles in prisons are raped consistently- that doesnt mean we put them all in the womens prisons because gay men and pedophiles and transwomen (conceding that these are distinct groups) are still male- and they still can and do harm women, we should find another solution.
To argue that the solution then is for women to give up their protections and rights is to argue that women have to perform penance for the crimes still committed by men. I reject the idea that any woman anywhere is responsible for the criminal actions of every man.
My solution to this problem is to have single occupancy third spaces for any male that feels threatened in the male space. I agree with you- even one male bodied person getting raped because he wore a dress that day or because hes gay is too much- im not comparing harms- you are dismissing harms to women. Im suggesting that the solution isnt to erase womens sex based rights. Rights arent pie generally- until you want a piece of the pie I have specifically carved out for me. Everybody has a property right- but nobody has a right to come on to my property and claim it for themselves or demand that we share- to argue that that is legitimate- is to argue that there are no property rights except for the people who feel comfortable ignoring property rights.
But of course you will find that trans activists and trans people oppose this solution. They dont just "want to be safe" or "want to pee" they want to be validated as "women" by being in womens sex segregated spaces. its the validation theyre after- not just the safety. Safety is a concern easily addressed. All of this money that goes into stonewall and ACLU, and human rights watch and all of these organisations who spend hundreds of millions arguing that sex isnt real- take that money and build third places for gender non-conforming males.
Validation requires that women give up their language, their sex based rights, their sex segregated spaces, their safeguarding and even their bodies to please males. No one in a free society should have to validate the internal psychological states of anybody. Not at this cost and not at any cost.
The problem with surgeries at "too young an age " is not that the surgeries could go wrong. its that children are not capable of understanding the implications of these surgeries and are therefore unable to provide informed consent. All children. And then that the surgeries even when they go perfectly- do not do what they are claimed to do. You cannot actually change sex- every cell in your body is coded xx or xy. You will be a permanent patient by doing this. You can gain a superficial appearance to a sex organ by moulding your body through surgeries- but neo-phalluses dont function like regular penises and neo-vaginas have nothing in common with regular vaginas at all- real vaginas self clean, they expand and contract as necessary, they help shed the uterine lining, they dont close up on their own, they dont tear up to have fecal matter from intestines spill into them. neo vaginas do none of those things. Quoting andrea long chu- its a wound thats carved into your body that the body will forever try to heal from. The organic body parts are signs of a healthy body. Modification procedures almost always result in ill health. Even hormone therapies. Exogenous hormones produce cancer, they produce osteoporosis, they might even impair brain development. There is a reason that we decided to prevent adult athletes from taking exogenous hormones- because they were killing themselves by taking these drugs trying to win competitions. It is impossible for a child to understand what the loss of sexual function, the loss of orgasm, the loss of fertility can all mean. It is impossible for children to consent to this just as or even more than it is impossible for children to consent to alcohol or cigarettes or tattoos or sex.
"Gender fluidity" implies that male children should be allowed to wear dresses and girl tomboys should be allowed to climb trees without being punished. I agree with that- most gender critical terfs agree with that. Where we disagree is telling children that just because a boy likes pink and playing princess and a girl might like trucks and playing sports means that those kids actually belong to the opposite sex and should be validated as such, that their names and their bodies should be changed, that they should be put on a pathway to transition including puberty blockers, exogenous hormones, and harmful surgeries. I want those kids to completely be themselves , and I want those kids thought that there are no "male" behaviours and "female" behaviours- they can be as masculine or as feminine as they like- that doesnt change their sex or who they are. I want to abolish gender- you want to reify it to be so important it requires sex changes and body modification.
This is exactly what the cass review found- they found that when children were found to be behaving in "gender nonconforming" ways, they would get primed and asked by their teachers and by care workers if they were sure of their "gender identity" and prompted to go on a "gender journey". Kids being kids would see that gay and trans kids were getting praise and attention for being brave. Social contagion is a real thing. Young girls would think " i dont look or feel like a kardashian- i must be a boy". Mermaids- the leader of ngos in youth gender stuff- literally told young boys and girls- that there are GI joes and barbies- and if they are male and think they arent like GI joes or theyre female and they dont feel like or relate to barbie- they should go on a gender journey. That prompts kids to think that the sex their born with is something they should change to match more closely their personality. https://www.transgendertrend.com/questions-school-mermaids-training-teachers/ This is harmful. This suppresses gender nonconforming behaviour in the worst possible way. considering this is mostly being done to kids who will grow up to be gay or are autistic- this is literally conversion therapy and conversion surgery. https://andrewdoyle.substack.com/p/the-new-gay-conversion-therapy https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/02/tavistock-trust-whistleblower-david-bell-transgender-children-gids https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/health/2024/03/inside-the-collapse-of-the-tavistock-centre https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/it-feels-like-conversion-therapy-for-gay-children-say-clinicians-pvsckdvq2
Medical professionals knew they were doing this- and they continued to do it until those evil bigoted terfs stopped them. The cass review found this and the World professional association for transgender health- the WPATH had its files and emails leaked where doctors were joking about how these kids cannot consent and how they were "transing the gay away".
You think that trans people in india may not buy into child transition- but they absolutely have. Hook line and sinker- there is no dissent in the community because one usually doesnt find dissent in religious groups- because their entire movement is aping what their counterparts in the west did. Do you remember when "Vqueeram" aditya sahai was outed as a fetishist by right wing groups because he was tapped to write a guidance on gender inclusion in schools? Im sure you felt outrage at that. Did you read what was in the guidance? I did. https://clpr.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Inclusion_of_Transgender_Children_in_School_Education.pdf Here is a copy. Look up "puberty blockers". The guidance literally says that school teachers- you should know how capable school teachers in india are of making medical diagnoses- should talk to gender non conforming kids about the availability of puberty blockers. that they should " Convey that these are available and accessible for adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria, who may later identify as transgender persons. ". 80% of children and adolescents experiencing dysphoria end up not transitioning- puberty actually solves the dysphoria and they realise they are just gay, regular old boring gay. He wanted to give the same drugs we give to castrate rapists and to cancer patients to those kids. Why? because they acted a little flamboyant?
Do you know what the original reason for puberty blockers and prescribing hormones to kids was? it was because trans identified males were upset they didnt "pass as women" - to the eye in their appearance- because puberty had given them obviously male characteristics- wouldnt it have been wonderful if they had never had those characteristics or were able to block those characteristics from forming so they could have different more feminine appearance. This is a cosmetic intervention. It has nothing to do with suicidality. Children by and large dont commit suicide and when they do the causes are very complex and knotted, and like i have shown elsewhere- not just for children but even for adults- transitioning doesnt lower the risk of suicide infact it may increase it. Because living in a mutilated body that makes you a permanent patient has got to be awful.
This is madness- and this suppresses gender nonconforming behavior through the worst ways- and it wont stop itself if we dont seriously and skeptically reconsider the idea of sexed souls and gendered identities.
Notice- through all of this- I havent denied or compared harms the way you want me to. Im not denying that trans identified males may face harms. Im denying that the solution to those harms is to follow blindly whatever trans people might want- regardless of what rigorous science says or what other groups might be affected. You have an all or nothing approach. I dont. You have decided that anyone who disagrees with you must hate gender nonconformity or hate trans people. You decided at the very outset that disbelief in gender souls was "hate speech". Hate speech used to mean threats, incitement to violence, and slurs. I havent done any of those things. But you have consistently admonished me to be kind while the other guy gets to say women are irrational because of their periods, that we're all bigots for disagreeing, that we're all hateful for daring to have a different opinion and that we're all too stupid and dumb and we dont read because we dont buy the bullcrap judith butler sells. You have done nothing to police his/her tone have you? its only my tone you find objectionable. Because appearing to care about trans people and going on about how beautiful and brave and stunning these people are is more important than actually caring about what happens to women in prisons or children who might be homosexual. That is your measure of kindness and I reject it entirely. Dissent by itself is not unkind unless you are in a religion where apostasy is criminal.
If the only claim of "transwomen" was that they needed protection from discrimination based on gender performance- nobody would disagree. But their claims dont stop there. Its not just- "hijras should be able to get a job" its not just " men who wear dresses should be able to go to universities like everyone else. They arent stopped from those things. Its " you must treat us as women because we say we are women", "why cant we change sex on government ID". The claim isnt " we want separate spaces for protection" or " we want open categories in sports" its "we want to go into the womens room and into womens rape crisis shelters and womens schools and we want to compete in the womens category". No body is protesting trans people competing in open categories- the problem is that male bodied people want to compete in female categories. The problem is that there are no sex segregated spaces anymore because "identity" which is unverifiable undetectable and unfalsifiable is supposed to be more important than sex - which is a material fact in every single mammal. There is only one oppressed community on this planet that you can identify your way into and none of us can say boo according to you- thats women. why is that?
No one is saying we must ignore the material oppression of trans people where this oppression is found- but arguing against discrimination or arguing against material oppression doesnt require i believe their shoddy philosophy or their religious beliefs or practice their rituals. I dont need to believe "trans women are women" to think they shouldnt be raped- I dont think men should be raped. I dont need to believe they are women to think they should be allowed to go to school and get a job like everyone else- they should and people who traffic kids and prevent them from going to school should be jailed and everyone regardless of sex who is trafficked should be offered ways to come out of that "profession" including adult education and skilling and vocational education and university education if theyre capable. You only need to believe that they are women to believe that sex doesnt matter. Male people have all rights every male person has ever had. No male has rights that are exclusive to women- adult human females. thats all im saying- that sex matters.
You need to stop thinking you know what the right answers are or youre on the right side of history because of vibes. All evidence would show that the gender critical terfy side are actually maybe the ones on the right side of history. You cannot be accusing me of hate and ignorance and policing my tone when you cannot honestly say youve considered and read any of the literature ive brought up in this exchange before forming an opinion. I have read judith butler and I proved, I am familiar with statistics on this stuff, I am familiar with the medical aspects of it- i have bothered to find out what hijras are and what intersex is, and ive read studies and papers on gender medicine. I have been in very lib-fem spaces that are all gaga over gender identity nonsense and now im an apostate because- one night- i said - im so sure about this stuff I bet I could listen to what evil terfs say and counter everything. And I couldnt. And I had the decency and honesty to change my mind when confronted by evidence and arguments I had not considered. You dont have that decency or honesty - which is why instead of saying "youre right and im wrong". Youve made it about tone. Instead of acknowledging when I have facts that dont bode well for your argument- you have shifted goal posts.
Transwomen dont harm women- not enough transwomen harm women- not all transwomen harm women- even if they do harm women women should put up with it- youre only concerned because you hate trans people (because its inconceivable someone would actually be concerned about women)- even if they do harm women- those women are probably bigoted anyway so it doesnt matter. This is the narcissists prayer redone. And it follows exactly the pattern your arguments have followed in this exchange. Go look in the mirror.
You'll do fine OP. It can be difficult to filter out emotions triggered by other people's lashing out and it is human to want to protect oneself. You are already getting there. Remember that you can work to understand why they are angry and where they are coming from without presenting yourself as a target for their anger. I think you are a kind person that hope that you run into more people who see and value your kindness.