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And I don't understand how anybody can say that they feel like a man, or a woman. How does anybody know how that feels? I don't know what it feels like to be a man, and I am one. All I know is what it feels like to be me. I have no idea how that compares to any other person's experience, and I can't conceive of any possible way to test that.

skirtyscot wrote:I can't get my head round this topic.

pelmut wrote:

Wonderful Electric wrote:Gender is a social construct. A decade from now we will see that there was a gender revolution.

Strictly speaking, gender is how the individual feels they fit into society, it is an innate property over which they have no control and which they cannot change.

I don't see how both halves of pelmut's statement can be true. What if society changes?...

Then the person might want to change their gender expression so that they fit where they want to be in the changed society, but they cannot change the underlying gender. Someone born and brought up in the U.S. or U.K. might see makeup and high heels as a way to express their femininity, but if they had been moved at an early age to a different society in another part of the World, they might choose neck rings or lip stretchers to express feminity. It would make no difference to their gender, but they would change how they expressed that gender when they needed to fit into the society in which they found themselves.

skirtyscot wrote:Equally, and slightly more probably, say it gradually becomes accepted that there are no masculine or feminine behaviours. There is still a range of personality types, preferred activities, etc. But they are all equally acceptable for men and women, albeit that some are still more common for men and others for women. How could anyone say that they had a gender at all, let alone one which did not match their sex?

That would be brilliant and would save an immense amount of pain and suffering of people who currently feel pressurised by society to spend their lives acting out a rôle that isn't natural to them. Gender would still be a convenient way of describing a particular characteristic, but in an accepting society it would have no more importance than left-handedness or skin colour.

pelmut wrote:

skirtyscot wrote:I don't see how both halves of pelmut's statement can be true. What if society changes?...

Then the person might want to change their gender expression so that they fit where they want to be in the changed society, but they cannot change the underlying gender.

That is close to one of the most reprehensible statements I've ever read. By forcing an individual to change their mode of expression is surely as difficult as getting them to change their gender just to make some external arbiter happy and is guaranteed to make the individual involved extremely unhappy or worse. This is precisely what's going on in modern society where the goal-posts that pretty much define "normal" are being shoved around willy-nilly by activists on a mission -- and it's the angst of having the rug ripped out from under on that's causing much of the grief and utter BS "reclassifications".

We can't look at this through the lens of Pop. Sci. or through the eyes of activists. We need to examine what's going on through the lens of what it means to be human, not just one subset of human who's being bent to something they don't necessarily agree with. The only behaviours that are "innate" to either men or women are the ones that are inextricably related to reproduction; everything else is a grab-bag and should be so treated. A decade ago I was merely an intelligent and caring man; now I find myself entirely misclassified as trans-* and I do not like that one bit. I did not move that frame of reference; somebody else did, and I suspect it was with an agenda.

crfriend wrote:A decade ago I was merely an intelligent and caring man; now I find myself entirely misclassified as trans-*

Really?

And if so, is it because you are such a man, or for some other reason, e.g. your skirts?

skirtyscot wrote:And I don't understand how anybody can say that they feel like a man, or a woman. How does anybody know how that feels? I don't know what it feels like to be a man, and I am one. All I know is what it feels like to be me. I have no idea how that compares to any other person's experience, and I can't conceive of any possible way to test that.

That is a good point and it probably applies to the majority of the population.

To understand what happens to the others, imagine you woke up tomorrow and found you had a female body, how would you feel about that? Would you just shrug your shoulders, buy some makeup and appropriate clothes and learn to accept being called "she" and "her" for the rest of your life, or would you say "Hey, this isn't me, I know I'm a man, why is everyone telling me I am a woman?" For the transgender person, this is what it feels like. There is something inside them that makes them know who they are - and it isn't what is on their birth certificate. As children they see others of the same age group doing what they would like to do and being treated how they would like to be treated and they can't understand when they are told it is wrong for them to feel like that because of their biological sex.

You say you don't know what it is to feel like a man and that's because, as far as you are concerned, it is a non-problem; your body is aligned with your gender and you comfortably occupy the place in society which suits these characteristics. Why should you even need to consider what you feel like if everything fits into place and you are content with that? Transgender people experience discomfort and discontent, not really because of their gender/sex mismatch, but because of society's response to it. A few may be able to shrug it off, many more experience some degree of dysphoria and quite a lot find it so unbearable that they are prepared to risk everything and 'transition' so that society now sees them as they feel - and treats them accordingly.

A bit of a rummage around the Internet unearths women saying similar things, Carl: "I got my hair cut short and started wearing baggy clothes and people started asking me if (or telling me that) I'm a transman" is a paraphrase of some I've seen. Maybe the statement often repeated here, that women can wear whatever they like, is wrong after all.

It's mind-boggling regressive though, isn't it? Women: frocks and pink for you. Men: you get the boxing and fast cars. The fifties are calling, they want their stereotypes back.

skirtyscot wrote:Really?

And if so, is it because you are such a man, or for some other reason, e.g. your skirts?

If one looks at the Pop. Sci. view, then clearly I cannot possibly be a "normal" man; I'm something else now that I wasn't originally -- and I'm not what changed. It's the latter bit that torques me off the most; I know who and what I am, so don't bother trying to tell me otherwise -- and don't expect that you'll get a good reaction by telling me to become something, or feign something, that I'm not.

I've got the guts, wit, and intellect to push back on the issue -- and in this I am rather off the "normal" scale; it must suck really badly for folks who can't push back on it and who just have to "suck it up" and change their behaviours to suit the arbiter du jour. And the big problem with the arbiter du jour is that you don't know what's going to be mandated of you at any given time.

skirtyscot wrote:A bit of a rummage around the Internet unearths women saying similar things, Carl: "I got my hair cut short and started wearing baggy clothes and people started asking me if I'm a transman" is a paraphrase of some I've seen. Maybe the statement often repeated here, that women can wear whatever they like, is wrong after all.

I can't say that anything like that has been a part of my experience; women around here sport all sorts of traditionally masculine traits and nobody bats an eyelash. This includes boxing, fast cars, huge trucks, and tattoos. And, once again, I'm starting to see some push-back on guys with long hair.

It's mind-boggling regressive though, isn't it? Women: frocks and pink for you. Men: you get the boxing and fast cars. The fifties are calling, they want their stereotypes back.

It's worth recalling the society we live in at the moment -- and it's been getting more hard-nosed by the year for quite a while. So, it's not all that surprising that the reactionaries are trying to reinstate the 1950s -- and, for the most part -- are likely winning (for a few more years, at least until they die off). One part of the 1950s that nobody even contemplates, though, in the way that things are going now, is that at the time men were expected to be loving partners, spouses, and parents; it's interesting now that many women seek out men who will be crap partners, beat them up, and cause all sorts of trouble. Is this the result of the changing frames of reference that now forbid those tender facets of being a man?

pelmut wrote:

skirtyscot wrote:And I don't understand how anybody can say that they feel like a man, or a woman. How does anybody know how that feels? I don't know what it feels like to be a man, and I am one. All I know is what it feels like to be me. I have no idea how that compares to any other person's experience, and I can't conceive of any possible way to test that.

That is a good point and it probably applies to the majority of the population.

To understand what happens to the others, imagine you woke up tomorrow and found you had a female body, how would you feel about that? Would you just shrug your shoulders, buy some makeup and appropriate clothes and learn to accept being called "she" and "her" for the rest of your life, or would you say "Hey, this isn't me, I know I'm a man, why is everyone telling me I am a woman?"

The answer to the last question is trivially easy: "because I am one now". I imagine that it would take quite some getting used to, beyond that the honest answer is that I don't know. I suppose the line of least resistance would be to do exactly what you suggest and learn to apply the lippy.

It's a poor analogy anyway. That sort of thing does not happen to transgender people. They've had all their lives to learn to cope with whatever it is.

pelmut wrote:For the transgender person, this is what it feels like. There is something inside them that makes them know who they are - and it isn't what is on their birth certificate.

I'm afraid you have failed to tell me what it is, which is a problem, given that I've already said I can't conceive of a way to test for feelings of a gender. What is it that transgender people have, that enables them to perceive in themselves a gender as against a sex? The fact that mine align does not mean that I should not be able to perceive both of them separately.

pelmut wrote: As children they see others of the same age group doing what they would like to do and being treated how they would like to be treated and they can't understand when they are told it is wrong for them to feel like that because of their biological sex.

Now you're back to gender being a social construct. If the adults laid off the "dolls and for girls, trucks are for boys" all the kids would be happy. Are you saying that if they got total acceptance of their choices and personality, the problem would go away?

pelmut wrote: You say you don't know what it is to feel like a man and that's because, as far as you are concerned, it is a non-problem; your body is aligned with your gender and you comfortably occupy the place in society which suits these characteristics.

I'm not convinced. As far as I can tell, it is nothing to do with my body, it is because I have nothing to compare my feelings to. There is no frame of reference.

pelmut wrote: Transgender people experience discomfort and discontent, not really because of their gender/sex mismatch, but because of society's response to it.

Social construct again.

pelmut wrote: quite a lot find it so unbearable that they are prepared to risk everything and 'transition' so that society now sees them as they feel - and treats them accordingly.

This seems the place to comment that I'm not trying to be awkward with all this. I'm genuinely curious. No guy gets his genitals chopped off for a laugh, so transgenderism clearly is a real phenomenon. But I can't understand what it is, and there are some glaring inconsistencies in the things that the activists say, so I'm not persuaded by their arguments. I've no doubt that if I suggested it was a mental illness, half of the Internet would want to come round and lynch me. But I have no better explanation.

crfriend wrote:

pelmut wrote:

skirtyscot wrote:I don't see how both halves of pelmut's statement can be true. What if society changes?...

Then the person might want to change their gender expression so that they fit where they want to be in the changed society, but they cannot change the underlying gender.

That is close to one of the most reprehensible statements I've ever read. By forcing an individual to change their mode of expression is surely as difficult as getting them to change their gender just to make some external arbiter happy and is guaranteed to make the individual involved extremely unhappy or worse.

Here ... hang on! I didn't say 'forcing' the individual to change, I said they might want to change - that is, if they want to be accepted by society as what they really are. The statement isn't reprehensible, but the attitudes it exposes are. [Please don't shoot the messenger]

You have just put your finger on one of the key points of this whole business: it is indeed reprehensible that people should feel they have to change to make some external arbiter happy, but that is exactly the situation transgender people have found themselves in for decades. Many of them would be happy to be accepted into the place in society where they feel they belong but society won't let them in until they conform with society's prejudices. That is why they feel obliged to change their appearance and voices and mutilate their genitals. They are, of course, part of society themselves and subscibe to its norms, so they also feel better about themselves when they have transitioned.

crfriend wrote:This is precisely what's going on in modern society where the goal-posts that pretty much define "normal" are being shoved around willy-nilly by activists on a mission -- and it's the angst of having the rug ripped out from under on that's causing much of the grief and utter BS "reclassifications".

Most of this is the result of the gutter press climbing on the anti-trans bandwaggon*. Transgender people are apalled at the reputation this is giving them; they are being represented as activist groups when, in reality, they are a disparate lot of frightened individuals wanting to be allowed to live their lives the same way everyone else does, without the constant fear of being attacked for something they didn't choose to be. There are strong parallels with the way the homosexual community was represented by the 'haters' 20 years ago.

What is happening to 'normal' is that it is being widened to include people and behaviours that, until recently, would have been condemned as 'abnormal'. I would have thought that that was greatly to our advantage. Until recently (in Western countries) a man who wore a skirt other than for religious purposes was regarded as 'abnormal' (i.e. in need of psychatric treatment), homosexual (why?!) and/or some sort of dangerous pervert. At least we've moved away from that.

crfriend wrote: A decade ago I was merely an intelligent and caring man; now I find myself entirely misclassified as trans-* and I do not like that one bit. I did not move that frame of reference; somebody else did, and I suspect it was with an agenda.

I can't speak for everyone in the trans community (if such a community exists) but, from my experience of the ones I know well, there isn't the slightest chance that they would misclassify you as trans. Who, with any knowledge of the subject, would do such a thing? I don't doubt that someone could be trying to move the frame of reference, but it is far more likely to be the haters and spreaders of misinformation who do have an agenda, than trans individuals who don't.


[*Example: Headline in The Sun (UK) yesterday:
"Fury as men who identify as women allowed to take a dip in ladies’-only Hampstead Heath lake "

Actual statement by the organisers:
“The KLPA is committed to helping to create at the Ladies’ Pond an inclusive environment for all women, including transgender women, which is free from discrimination, harassment or victimisation."

Unfortunately there is no come-back to these sorts of lies, it would take months of work to tackle just one incident and these are appearing in the press several times a week.]

pelmut wrote:Here ... hang on! I didn't say 'forcing' the individual to change, I said they might want to change - that is, if they want to be accepted by society as what they really are. The statement isn't reprehensible, but the attitudes it exposes are. [Please don't shoot the messenger]

It wasn't my intent to "shoot the messenger" (any more than the piano player), but the mere words: "[You] might want to change [your behaviour]" are absolute weasel-words and are the sort of things that the very worst of manipulators use with bland aplomb -- and get away with it. We would do well to distance ourselves from that sort of rhetoric as far as humanly possible.

You have just put your finger on one of the key points of this whole business: it is indeed reprehensible that people should feel they have to change to make some external arbiter happy, but that is exactly the situation transgender people have found themselves in for decades.

Indeed, and it's noteworthy that I have never rubbished the notion or those who feel trapped in its embrace. What I've been trying to point up is that variances from a rigid "norm" are inevitable, and the tighter we demand conformance to that norm the more damage gets done to a growing number. It's not time for more granular classifications, it's time to relax the constricting rigidity that's taking hold.

crfriend wrote:This is precisely what's going on in modern society where the goal-posts that pretty much define "normal" are being shoved around willy-nilly by activists on a mission -- and it's the angst of having the rug ripped out from under on that's causing much of the grief and utter BS "reclassifications".

Most of this is the result of the gutter press climbing on the anti-trans bandwaggon*. Transgender people are apalled at the reputation this is giving them; they are being represented as activist groups when, in reality, they are a disparate lot of frightened individuals wanting to be allowed to live their lives the same way everyone else does, without the constant fear of being attacked for something they didn't choose to be. There are strong parallels with the way the homosexual community was represented by the 'haters' 20 years ago.

Indeed, and the "gutter press", Pop. Sci., and PC have one Hell of a lot to answer for, including, sadly, blood on their hands.

What is happening to 'normal' is that it is being widened to include people and behaviours that, until recently, would have been condemned as 'abnormal'.

I actually sense something entirely different. What I see is the artificial creation of dozens of tiny little "trans-* boxes", each correlating to a "diagnosis" and the tightening of the "normal" box into something that's starting to resemble a singularity. It's time for the singularity to expand again, in a glorious "Big Bang" and return to it's normal, inclusive, state.

I can't speak for everyone in the trans community (if such a community exists) but, from my experience of the ones I know well, there isn't the slightest chance that they would misclassify you as trans. Who, with any knowledge of the subject, would do such a thing?

Ah, but you have "insider information" in that regard -- you know me through my writing (and occasional rants). Random society doesn't, and therein lies the problem; they're trying to use "modern" "more sensitive" classification systems where the new-think systems are rubbish and need to be scrapped outright.

I don't doubt that someone could be trying to move the frame of reference, but it is far more likely to be the haters and spreaders of misinformation who do have an agenda, than trans individuals who don't.

I largely concur, but whomever is doing it I am not amused by it. I sincerely think that by increasing the number of little tiny boxes we're multiplying intolerance instead of dividing it.

By the by, no piano-players were injured during this discourse, and if I managed to wing my correspondent I am entirely sorry.

pelmut wrote: Most of this is the result of the gutter press climbing on the anti-trans bandwaggon*.

I've never heard of that before. Pro-trans bandwagon, yes. It's hard to open a paper these days without finding yet another story about a trans person. And the activists do seem to to have railroaded the authorities in many areas of life into unquestioning acceptance of all their demands. Pronouns; redefining words; entry to female-only spaces; silencing of opposition by being "triggered" by anything that disagrees with their view. (Triggered = cry-baby, IMO. Grow up and learn to deal with life!)

pelmut wrote: [*Example: Headline in The Sun (UK) yesterday:
"Fury as men who identify as women allowed to take a dip in ladies’-only Hampstead Heath lake "

Actual statement by the organisers:
“The KLPA is committed to helping to create at the Ladies’ Pond an inclusive environment for all women, including transgender women, which is free from discrimination, harassment or victimisation."

Unfortunately there is no come-back to these sorts of lies, it would take months of work to tackle just one incident and these are appearing in the press several times a week.]

Sadly, here I have to side with the Sun. There does indeed seem to be fury, as reported in the article. Many women are angry about this sort of thing. I've had a bit of a dig about for the opposite view to yours in Reddit and found this: https://www.reddit.com/r/GenderCritical ... g_exactly/
Now you may not like them, but they are as entitled to an opinion as you are. And I can see why they are unhappy about hairy-arsed males being able to jump in merely by identifying as women. This seems to me to be an example of one of the things I mentioned above, and it's no surprise that there is a backlash against the transgender agenda. Surely it is doing more harm than good to the quiet folk who just want to get on with their lives in peace.

pelmut wrote:To understand what happens to the others, imagine you woke up tomorrow and found you had a female body, how would you feel about that? Would you just shrug your shoulders, buy some makeup and appropriate clothes and learn to accept being called "she" and "her" for the rest of your life, or would you say "Hey, this isn't me, I know I'm a man, why is everyone telling me I am a woman?"

If we woke up with an actual female body, nobody would give a crap what he wore or called himself. (or herself)

I know of several "trans-men/boys" in this area if you can believe it. They receive FULL support from family, friends, and the community in general.

Trans-women on the other hand.... not so much. In fact, I've never actually seen one, I'd say nobody is brave enough to try around here. That's a fast track to a very hard life. I know if I ever went all the way to being a trans-woman. I wouldn't even bother trying to make it work here where I live. I'd just pack my things and leave for friendlier territories.

On another note, since we're on the topic of transgender again. I have a burning question for the experts.

As gender has been explained to me as a "sliding scale", and I think it's pretty clear nobody is one hundred percent one way or the other (masculine/feminine), at what point on the scale does one cease being "cis" and start being "trans"?

skirtyscot wrote:Sadly, here I have to side with the Sun. There does indeed seem to be fury, as reported in the article. Many women are angry about this sort of thing. I've had a bit of a dig about for the opposite view to yours in Reddit and found this: https://www.reddit.com/r/GenderCritical ... g_exactly/
Now you may not like them, but they are as entitled to an opinion as you are. And I can see why they are unhappy about hairy-arsed males being able to jump in merely by identifying as women. This seems to me to be an example of one of the things I mentioned above, and it's no surprise that there is a backlash against the transgender agenda. Surely it is doing more harm than good to the quiet folk who just want to get on with their lives in peace.

A warning on that. I suspect that when these type of stunts are pulled (obvious men portraying "trans-women"), it's likely the result of a far-right traditionalist who's out to make a point. From my understanding, it seems most genuine trans* people at least make an attempt to appear in accordance with their preferred gender.

Once again, if I were a trans-woman, even if I "passed" or came closing to "passing", I'd still wait to be invited, or at least seek the blessing of the facility's management prior to my use of the facilities. It just keeps the drama down, and I wouldn't want to be where I'm not welcomed, regardless of the prejudice that may cause such sentiment.

Even as a non-trans man in a skirt, I still avoid places where I can tell I'm not wanted, even if I wasn't asked to leave. You just get a sense of the "vibe" of a room. It's an unpleasant feeling and I prefer the company of kind people. To which are not in plentiful supply around here, thus I seldom go about where people generally gather and prefer my skirting time to be in national chain businesses or public right of ways, or just... alone. I do a little research on all "mom and pop" places before I visit. If it seems like a nice welcoming place I'll give them a go. If it looks like a place the klan might gather.... nah.... I don't think so.