Gender identity ideology

LadySusweca​(dom trans woman) • Nov 27, 2021

Shahh, you are right, unless you have been there then what we have experienced won't be understood. There is also the emotions that go along with it and the nightmares you wish would end.

The laws are there supposedly to protect us, but enforcing them is another matter altogether.

shahh • Nov 27, 2021

Nothing should ever be about being 'right'... I don't need to be right. I need to be true and honest... that's a fine line distinction. I'm sorry you've gone through this. I do think if people try to be empathetic enough, they can get to the pain feelings... But most won't sadly.

Enforcing laws is an entirely different matter... agreed. I live in Canada... Supposedly one of the most progressive, free, tolerant (terrible word) and inclusive places in the world...and we still have miles (kilometers actually 😉) to go. I think one of the major obstacles remains the definition of 'visible minority". I will always emphatically argue that queerness (general term to encompass anything non gender and sexual binary) is absolutely a visible minority. This is not intended to take anything away from BIPOC
people. As a weird relational analogy....BIPOC can be seen from 500yards away... Imho...queer folk can be seen from 480yrds. Agree or disagree, I've lost jobs and advancement opportunities and family because of my identifiable "queerness".

Can't wait to hear from jash and MMK on this topic. It's a great and difficult convo jash. Thanks for bringing it up.

Jashine • Nov 28, 2021

At this juncture I want to summarise what has happened in this thread and provide some observations of my own arising from the summary. This has been a difficult thread for me to follow as it has thrown up some strong feelings that have masked a lot of argument. We have had, I think:

1) a ‘slippery slope’ claim that gender identity ideology might result in the species’ losing its will to procreate
2) the transgender activist argument that rejects biological sex in favour of a male/female brain or ‘soul’ or ‘essence’ in contradistinction to body parts
3) the claim that cis-gender people’s views don’t matter on the subject of gender identity ideology
4) the claim that the original post could be construed as transphobic
5) the very real pain that trans people feel (sometimes physically) when their dignity and personhood are not honoured by society
6) the very real pain that intersex people feel (sometimes physically) when trying to fit into the binary gender code of society
7) the over-simplication of gender identity and expression in (Western) society to the detriment of all
the claim that taking offence causes personal harm
9) the idea that we must, globally, move on from base fears of ‘otherness’
10) the suggestion that laws are needed to protect those who are ‘other’

This is just a summary and there were, of course, other important points made. I don’t think that anyone could disagree with points 5), 6), 7) and 9), which are all ‘bottom up’ points: it seems to me vital that we welcome diversity of gender expression into our societies in order to be able to live together well. The issue, it seems to me, is the way in which this should be done (a ‘top down’ point). Any disagreement on this is an indication of the complexity of the issue, and not a sign of transphobia.

I wonder whether ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’ here. To illustrate, yesterday in Dublin there was a ‘Save Our Spaces’ protest calling for the rights of women and girls to ‘female-only, single sex spaces and services’. In the speakers’ estimate, gender identity ideology has done a lot of harm to women’s rights. For them, female-identifying people with a penis don’t have a place in these spaces, for the protection of women and girls. Feminists and trans people used to be sympathetic to each other until the introduction of self-ID. Now they are at war with each other, and the term TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) has entered the lexicon. This, to me, is highly unfortunate, and shows how the attempt to legislate for gender identity has had negative, and perhaps unexpected, consequences.

My original post was not about trans people as such, but mainly about the way in which gender identity ideology affects us in law. Since the self-ID floodgates opened, they have raised questions about what it means even to identify as transgender: traditionally you were transgender if you had ‘gender dysphoria’, a condition diagnosed by psychologists and psychiatrists which usually led to gender reassignment. In the self-ID climate, which was meant to emancipate trans people from a clinical diagnosis, it was only a matter of time before some men claimed they were women in order to gain access to female spaces for nefarious purposes (e.g. rape). I wonder whether gender identity ideology, insofar as it has played out in law in the relevant countries, actually militates against the interests of genuinely transgender people. In Ireland there was no consultation before self-ID became enshrined in law, and none of the subtleties or contradictions contained within it were therefore discussed.

Coming from an intersex perspective, I find it amusing that gender identity ideology theoretically embraces a multitude of gender expressions and yet has been taken up with such zeal by those who wish to reinforce the prevalent gender binary.

This has been a hard post to write, and I hope it makes sense. I look forward to further considered discussion on what is a very, very difficult, complex and challenging topic.

LadySusweca​(dom trans woman) • Nov 28, 2021

I remember the days of the Harry Benjamin Foundation. It still had a heavy hand on the transgender community when I came out (at least in the US). They let us know that they get to decide when we were eligible to get hormone replacement therapy and eventually sex reassignment surgery. We had to play by the rules and if we got out of line they would remind us that their signature is needed for HRT and SRS. It was pretty degrading what they could get away with.

This is a challenging topic. It probably will be for a long time. There are people who still believe it is acceptable to use terms like shemale. There will be people who believe it's morally wrong and goes against nature.

I just know that coming out made a big difference in my life. The depression has never completely left, but I have been happy to be who I am.

dollMaker​(dom male) • Nov 28, 2021

What doesnt help is those in the porn, adult industry, and elsewhere who exploit, and use terms that confuse knowledge and fetishise trans people.

I think with more context given by the op on the first post some of what followed might not have, but I feel simply laura’s responses were not about gatekeeping, or trying to mod, but more as a result of definite, and I agree with them, things said that were insensitive, and trans hate based.

I am not trans, I am binary and identify as the sex and gender I was born with, but in my early twenties and a little before my mind was going to those places that might have led down that path, for me ultimately though they didn’t, though I have had many other struggles regarding my sexuality.

I enter these threads with the same uncertainty and caution, though some may think I don’t, that I do others that I have no first hand experience other than knowing people that do. I wish to be supportive, encouraging, affirming, accepting and not let nasty stuff said by others go unchallenged, basically try and be a good ally. I don’t always get that right, but I try.

Sadly on the Cage these types of threads often attract ignorant nasty people, some who already have history of being nasty, and they go down hill rapidly. I wish those who really have nothing valid to say, kept off, and allowed those who do, mainly trans people a safe space to talk about this and other issues, so those of us who want to learn can, but is the Cage a safe space to do so?

redpoll​(dom male) • Nov 28, 2021

I really shouldn't, but I can't help myself. There are a lot of terrible and utterly nonsensical transphobic arguments out there, but this has to be about one of the most stupid things I've ever read.

When is the last time you all looked at a cisgender couple decide not to have children on this planet of 7.9 billion people and go - "Oh my, I hope this doesn't start a chain reaction that will lead to a mass-extinction event!"

Never. You've never done that. Never is the answer. You wouldn't be blinded by your biases with a straight couple and instead you'd use your brain for a total of one second and realize how absolutely little sense that gigantic somersault of logic makes.

Let folx be true to who they are. Diversity makes us stronger, not weaker.

Jashine • Jan 8, 2022

Update: I've been reading 'Trans' by Helen Joyce. It's illuminating and sobering in equal measure.

One interesting thing I've learnt from the book is that you cannot be a feminist/pro-feminist and trans-activist at the same time, as the terms contradict each other. I recommend the book if you want to delve a little more deeply into the issues, and understand them more fully.

dollMaker​(dom male) • Jan 8, 2022

One can't be a TERF, and trans affirming thats for sure, but I personally don't see any issue or clash with being a feminist, and doing so. I haven't read the book, so I don't know what angle its coming from, or what agenda it has, so I can't comment much further.

MelMell​(dom female) • Jan 9, 2022

Have you asserted your gender identity over and above your biology?
Nope and I won’t. I feel no need to assert it and who would I be asserting it to? Society? Myself? If it’s society I could care less.


If so, with what ramifications?
I don’t care about ramifications.

I would like to ask whether in general this seems like a good or bad step for humanity.
Why would it be bad? Everyone is allowed to do whatever they want with their life as long as they aren’t hurting someone.

Knightsundere​(sub male) • Jan 9, 2022

Assuming progression continues as it does, which is that Western society becomes more progressive towards gender identity, and then presumably the rest of the world follows and we reach an end-state, I think that -

1. Sex at birth would be approached more akin to a blood type, in that it has medical ramifications but otherwise no bearing on life.
2. As the amount of genders and acceptance of gender identity spreads, the novelty of it breaks down. To me, gender is only interpersonally important from a romantic standpoint - if everyone is pansexual, no one cares what gender anyone else is, and thus, their own gender. Eventually labels such as man, woman, cisgender, transgender, etc. all become obsolete in lieu of *myself*.
3. Gender roles completely vaporize as, assuming we're at a far-future end-state, technology should have nullified human strength as a defining feature of the sexes.

Eventually though, once the option becomes available, I think we'll become an androgynous species with reproductive roles as a voluntary service. I really can't think of many times in human history that a willing step-back was ever made in a society, and that the new almost always become the normal after a few decades of generational exposure. True of slavery, women's suffrage, civil rights, homosexuality, so on so forth. Democracy, drugs, rock music, atheism, welfare, anti-war, the list goes on. If there is a non-negative (!), fresh, new opportunity for personal expression, it seems historically guaranteed that even if its met with harsh blowback, it becomes the normal eventually. And with that said, easily accessible androgyny either at birth (which will likely be offered once gender identity's spectrum is completely ideologically comfortable) or at puberty or at adulthood will 100% be "a new way of living".