The trans debate

[Mick McQuaid]

CEB, i suppose fundamentally i just dont actually care whether someone is 'actually male'. I just don't presume i knw better than someone's own sense of self.

In an ideal word it'd be lovely if everyone was comfortable in the body they were born into, I make every effort to instil in my kid that there should be no roles or jobs or ways of behaving that are just for boys or just for girls. I think your view that this is at odds with respecting that some people identify as a different gender to the one they were born into is a false dichotomy.

Yes, I think there should be protection of the right to decide gender identity in law. Yes, I think transphobia is as reprehensible as any other form of discrimination.

My kid is mates with a girl in his class who likes her hair cut short and enjoys the rough and tumble games that boys are still more likely to enjoy. Sometimes she likes to pretend she is a boy, it is absolutely clear the enjoyment is from seeing if she can trick people rather than her wishing to identify as male, this I understandis quite normal for kids. She's not a boy, she doesn't have gender dysphoria.

The person I referred to who has identified as female from a young age, consistently and without deviation and was diagnosed after a long process with gender dysphoria. I got to know her well and never once did I feel it was something she was struggling with, confused about or trying to convince people of, it was just part of her identity. I don't know how to explain it better than that, there was no trying to act female, as far as I'm concerned it's what she is.

[CEB]

“CEB, i suppose fundamentally i just dont actually care whether someone is 'actually male'. I just don't presume i knw better than someone's own sense of self.”

Do you understand that people who are female have the right to organise on the basis of being female and to reject the claims of male people that because they feel female, actual female people have to accept that they are female?

Do you understand that many women believe that when a male person says “I feel female”, those women make the argument that a male who claims his internal feelings are shared with “female people” generally is actually the person making an assertion that he knows what other people experience?

This isn’t about what you care about. It’s about a clash of rights

Do you understand that “being convinced that you’re a girl” when you are male can *only* be in reference to traits, and that it’s entirely legitimate to reject the idea that a collection of traits is what makes someone male or female?

[CEB]

I mean, at basic level - the reason you’re mentioning this specific person who identifies as female is because you know that the person about whom you are talking is male.

[Long slender neck]

CEB, i suppose fundamentally i just dont actually care whether someone is 'actually male'. I just don't presume i knw better than someone's own sense of self.

But what about reality and truth?

[CEB]

I don’t understand how someone who says “I don’t presume to know better than someone about their sense of self” doesn’t understand that a male assertion that his own experience sets him apart from all men, but is something he has in common with women, is projecting his own beliefs about who he is and what women are, onto women

[CEB]

I feel pretty confident for example in saying that I know better than this prominent trans activist that he isn’t actually female, he is simply a porn addicted male misogynist.

[CEB]

That guy is saying the quiet bit out loud, but try actually reading some of the accounts that heterosexual males who say they’re women have written about women, and how they realised they’re women.

It’s misogyny all the way down.

And your acquaintance, the effeminate male who believes he’s a girl - he is male, will always be male, and may well, if not having his delusion affirmed in a way that would not have happened even a decade ago, have grown into a happy gay man. Puberty resolves dysphoria in the vast majority of cases.

[Mick McQuaid]

I understand that you feel very strongly about it.

[CEB]

Got anything else other than being patronising?

[Currywurst and Chips]

CEB, i suppose fundamentally i just dont actually care whether someone is 'actually male'. I just don't presume i knw better than someone's own sense of self

Don’t you see how this can be an issue, can be abused by bad faith actors or children easily influenced?

I hesitate to call you a f*cking dolt

[CEB]

I bet he has fundamentally cared whether someone is “actually male” when deciding who to have a relationship with.
I bet he’d care whether someone is actually male if an elderly female relative was receiving intimate care by a lone worker.

I bet he’d care whether someone was actually male if a loved one visited a rape crisis centre and was told that there were no men counselling her, she needs to recognise that trans women are women.


Again it’s very easy for men to completely disregard the actual impact of saying “who cares whether someone is male or not? Weird to think it matters!”

[CEB]

For anyone vaguely interested, let’s look at the example MM has discussed.

A male child who, according to MM isn’t at all confused about his identity, yet states that his identity is that of a female person, and displays traits considered feminine.

The first thing that should be apparent is that the child *is* male, and the female identity is, demonstrably, based on comparing his sense of self with what he considers “female” aesthetics and traits. He isn’t a female child, he is a child who believes for some reason that a female body would suit him better (with his presentation suggesting that this is due to a predisposition towards feminity)

That brings us to the first question. What should society do when such a thing occurs?

A neutral fact is that humans can’t actually change sex; sex describes whether we have male or female bodies, and whether we are male or female is about whether our bodies are designed to produce eggs or sperm.

So the question is - should such a child be told

A: you ARE female! And if you consistently say you’re female, we will alter your body with hormones and surgery to make you look female!

B: you are male. But being male tells us nothing about what you should look like or dress like. It doesn’t even tell us you should have a boy’s name. But we only have one body, and we can’t change sex. If you want to be *female*, you can’t, you will never actually be a member of the female sex. If you want to be *feminine*, that’s absolutely fine, but you can be feminine with a male body.


Which of those interventions is reality based, and likely to cause the least harm to a child?

The next question:

Hormonal and surgical interventions are potential actions that trans organisations inform children are possible.

A good question to reflect on is this:

Why are there some personalities that a male child can have that would make a reasonable adult say ‘this child should probably grow a pair of tits in adolescence and have a vagina fashioned; his personality makes that crystal clear’?

Asking MM in particular - have you ever actually scrutinised what it says about you that you’re so comfortable with the idea that a feminine male child “knows” that he should grow up and have a pair of tits?

I’m being deliberately blunt with my phrasing here for the simple reason that “gender affirmation surgery” dresses this up, but the reality is that this ideology says “wow, that kids personality warrants a pair of tits” to feminine boys, and (more regularly) says to teenage girls “well your personality certainly is NOT consistent with having a pair of tits. We’ll get rid of THOSE for you”

[CEB]

The other question I’d invite MM to ponder is this:

Is it understandable that the “no surgical intervention” approach I mention above, is, even if it were wrong, a legitimate avenue for robust discussion and is not self evidently an abhorrent position that can only be based on hatred of transness?

[Max B Gold]

For anyone vaguely interested, let’s look at the example MM has discussed.

A male child who, according to MM isn’t at all confused about his identity, yet states that his identity is that of a female person, and displays traits considered feminine.

The first thing that should be apparent is that the child *is* male, and the female identity is, demonstrably, based on comparing his sense of self with what he considers “female” aesthetics and traits. He isn’t a female child, he is a child who believes for some reason that a female body would suit him better.

That brings us to the first question. What should society do when such a thing occurs?

A neutral fact is that humans can’t actually change sex; sex describes whether we have male or female bodies, and whether we are male or female is about whether our bodies are designed to produce eggs or sperm.

So the question is - should such a child be told

A: you ARE female! And if you consistently say you’re female, we will alter your body with hormones and surgery to make you look female!

B: you are male. But being male tells us nothing about what you should look like or dress like. It doesn’t even tell us you should have a boy’s name. But we only have one body, and we can’t change sex. If you want to be *female*, you can’t, you will never actually be a member of the female sex. If you want to be *feminine*, that’s absolutely fine, but you can be feminine with a male body.


Which of those interventions is reality based, and likely to cause the least harm to a child?

The next question:

Hormonal and surgical interventions are potential actions that trans organisations inform children are possible.

A good question to reflect on is this:

Why are there some personalities that a male child can have that would make a reasonable adult say ‘this child should probably grow a pair of tits in adolescence and have a vagina fashioned; his personality makes that crystal clear’?

Asking MM in particular - have you ever actually scrutinised what it says about you that you’re so comfortable with the idea that a feminine male child “knows” that he should grow up and have a pair of tits?

I’m being deliberately blunt with my phrasing here for the simple reason that “gender affirmation surgery” dresses this up, but the reality is that this ideology says “wow, that kids personality warrants a pair of tits” to feminine boys, and (more regularly) says to teenage girls “well your personality certainly is NOT consistent with having a pair of tits. We’ll get rid of THOSE for you”

I don't see the child being the centre of your advice. I just see your views and there are more options than A or B.

Mrs Gold is a social worker who had an 11 year old as a client who was adamant "he" was a girl and wouldn't go to school unless dressed as a girl (brave move with more potential negative consequences than positive ones)

What would you do in that situation? Tell him to grow a pair and that he was merely being influenced by his perception of female traits and behaviours, put him in trousers and pack him off to school.

[CEB]

1: you haven’t answered my question

2: advocating less medical interventions is based entirely on centering the child. Centering a child does not mean blindly adhering to any assertions a child makes

3: I would suggest that a school should not gender their uniforms, and that if a mixed sex school has skirts as part of its uniform, they should be available to male children and female children alike. I would tell the child that I would do everything I could to make sure he could wear skirts if that’s what he felt comfortable in, but that it was very silly to believe that skirts are only for girls

[Story of O]

Can anyone one define what feeling like a male/female is? No man/woman is the same, so what is it that makes someone feel they are a different sex

[CEB]

So the ideologues won out over the medical practitioners, who were brow beaten into submission and had no real part to play in developing the treatment.

That's pretty much what has happened in many areas, including some instances of public policy, isn't it?

Although, I wouldn't say it's necessarily being brow beaten. More like institutions, which should know better, outsourcing their critical thinking, diligence and decision making to organisations that have positioned themselves through "progressive credentials" as credible arbitrators of policy. And as a means of avoiding the risk of doing anything that could fall foul of the mob, and result in reputational harm or a credit downgrade due to a poor ESG score.

Relevant

[CEB]

Also relevant

[Max B Gold]

1: you haven’t answered my question

2: advocating less medical interventions is based entirely on centering the child. Centering a child does not mean blindly adhering to any assertions a child makes

3: I would suggest that a school should not gender their uniforms, and that if a mixed sex school has skirts as part of its uniform, they should be available to male children and female children alike. I would tell the child that I would do everything I could to make sure he could wear skirts if that’s what he felt comfortable in, but that it was very silly to believe that skirts are only for girls

1. I challenged the binary nature of your questions.

2. I still can't hear the child's voice in your answer. You even devalue their input by labelling them " assertions"

3. Aye right.

[CEB]

1: without actually substantially explaining the issue

2: they are assertions.

3: your failure to accept that my position is based on the idea that it is cultural gender expectations that are the issue here, is your failure. As a result, I have no interest in discussing further as you are not engaging with what I believe, but with a projection of what it’s convenient for you for me to believe. The conversation has, to repeat myself, moved on. Have a good day.

[Mick McQuaid]

Do you understand that people who are female have the right to organise on the basis of being female and to reject the claims of male people that because they feel female, actual female people have to accept that they are female?

Straw man

Do you understand that many women believe that when a male person says “I feel female”, those women make the argument that a male who claims his internal feelings are shared with “female people” generally is actually the person making an assertion that he knows what other people experience?

Psychologist's fallacy

Do you understand that “being convinced that you’re a girl” when you are male can *only* be in reference to traits, and that it’s entirely legitimate to reject the idea that a collection of traits is what makes someone male or female?

False premise

I don’t understand how someone who says “I don’t presume to know better than someone about their sense of self” doesn’t understand that a male assertion that his own experience sets him apart from all men, but is something he has in common with women, is projecting his own beliefs about who he is and what women are, onto women

straw man

[/b]have you ever actually scrutinised what it says about you that you’re so comfortable with the idea that a feminine male child “knows” that he should grow up and have a pair of tits[/b]

straw man, oversimplification.

Sorry if I've missed any of your other excellent points.

[CEB]

I don’t think you know what any of those terms actually mean (you’ve certainly used them wrongly) but it’s good to see you going straight back into a sulk after grudgingly, finally being “happy to admit” that you were wrong.


It is genuinely hilarious comparing your sulky evasive bullshitting with your previous strident certainty though.

[Mick McQuaid]

I suppose it is possible that you're not deliberately misrepresenting my views.

[CEB]

I don’t think there’s anyone reading this now who thinks that you’re the one here engaging honestly and thoughtfully. I guess that’s probably your cue to remind me that you don’t care.

Ah well, I continue to think that, as the person who most stridently and confidently expressed a position aligned broadly with trans rights activism, you might one day actually be up for a good faith honest discussion where there’s no assumption of bad faith. Let me know if you ever want to have that chat.

Until then, take care.

[Long slender neck]

The person I referred to who has identified as female from a young age, consistently and without deviation and was diagnosed after a long process with gender dysphoria. I got to know her well and never once did I feel it was something she was struggling with, confused about or trying to convince people of, it was just part of her identity. I don't know how to explain it better than that, there was no trying to act female, as far as I'm concerned it's what she is.

Is this child going to be getting treatment?