Germaine Greer on Transexuality

Aha! He finally answers the question. He's looking for a Y chromosome.

Unfortunately, Thompson, the individual you are testing is one of the roughly 1 in 20,000 males with XX chromosomes. You have incorrectly identified this individual as female.

Another individual enters the test.

This individual presents XXYY chromosomes. They have two copies of each. This individual has developed some male characteristics but does not have functioning testes and has female levels of testosterone.

Another individual enters the test.

This individual presents as XY. Ah, finally. A nice simple male. As you pat yourself on the back you notice that the test has kept running but is now showing as XX. What is happening here? It keeps switching between the two! This individual has a form of genetic mosaicism which means that some of their cells are XX and some of them are XY. What a quandary.

Another individual enters the test.

This individual presents as XX. You stamp their form as "FEMALE" in large red letters. However, the therapist comes in and informs you that they feel and act "masculine," and that they have a penis, no testes, two ovaries, a uterus, and fallopian tubes.

Not so clear cut, is it? There is no magic switch you can flick which makes you one sex binary or the other. There are countless genetic factors involved, and countless ways in which they can develop and interfere with each other to the point where it becomes, well, pointless trying to dictate someone's sex to them based on any one characteristic. And if you base it on multiple characteristics you then have to arbitrarily decide which are more important, how many on one side counterbalance this one on the other and so on. Sex is not binary.

Why are you confusing genetic abnormalities with gender dysphoria? Most trans people are completely normal XX, XY.
 
And which of those do you think apply to transexuality?

Is this real life?

A disorder of structure or function in a human


especially one that produces specific symptoms


The symptom being that said person feels as if they are in the wrong body for how they mentally see themselves.
 
Why are you confusing genetic abnormalities with gender dysphoria? Most trans people are completely normal XX, XY.

I wasn't, this was in response to a specific issue Thompson was having about the idea that sex is easily characterised and completely binary.

You're really not good at this are you?

Without even looking at the definition, break the word down.

Dis-ease, it says it all. Etymologically, it means a lack of ease.

Nobody actually WANTS to be transgendered or a transsexual, and they are certainly not going to be at ease with it.

Word in "means more than its etymology" shocker. "A disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury."

Is it a disorder? We went over this several pages ago. There is no clear medical consensus on the actual definition of the word, but medical professionals tend not to classify it as a disorder any more, no.

Is it related to structure? Yes, i suppose you could use the "born in the wrong body" argument here. But this just comes back to the futility of trying to dictate someone's gender based on sexual characteristics at birth.

Is it related to function? No, trans people are perfectly functional members of society, outside of any unrelated considerations.

Does it produce specific symptoms? Not consistently.

Does it affect a specific area? No.

This definition doesn't seem to apply... many trans people are perfectly comfortable with it.
 
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I wasn't, this was in response to a specific issue Thompson was having about the idea that sex is easily characterised and completely binary.

in most cases it is - there are some rare abnormalities though those are unrelated to and don't have much relevance to people who are often clearly one sex or the other but believe they should be the opposite.
 
in most cases it is - there are some rare abnormalities though those are unrelated to and don't have much relevance to people who are often clearly one sex or the other but believe they should be the opposite.

There aren't "some rare abnormalities", there's a huge range of ways in which sex characteristics can manifest, which affect millions of people. That does not make them totally irrelevant, it does not make them not worth considering and it does not detract from the value they have in demonstrating the complex nature of sex.

No, this doesn't hold much relevance to most cases of gender dysphoria but it dose create some important issues with the concept that you should be able to dictate someone's gender to them based on... what characteristics, exactly?

Anyway i'm off to bed, so i'll just leave you with this.

 
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Word in "means more than its etymology" shocker. "A disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury."

Yes, it's a disorder of mental function.

Is it a disorder? We went over this several pages ago. There is no clear medical consensus on the actual definition of the word, but medical professionals tend not to classify it as a disorder any more, no.

Yes it's a disorder. We didn't go over it, you just tried to tell people that "it's not a disorder, fact". Medical professionals NOT calling it a disorder isn't the same thing as them saying it isn't a disorder.

Is it related to structure? Yes, i suppose you could use the "born in the wrong body" argument here. But this just comes back to the futility of trying to dictate someone's gender based on sexual characteristics at birth.



Is it related to function? No, trans people are perfectly functional members of society, outside of any unrelated considerations.
You're twisting words. Do people with diseases that harm their functions, are they now not functional members of society? Young people with Parkinson's disease, are you considering them non-functioning members of society because of their condition?

Does it produce specific symptoms? Not consistently.

Yes it does, stop twisting words. Feeling like you're in a body you shouldn't be is a specific symptom.

Does it affect a specific area? No.

Yes it does, stop twisting words. The mind is the specific area.;

This definition doesn't seem to apply... many trans people are perfectly comfortable with it.

If they were perfectly comfortable, they wouldn't be trans...
 
I've had to repeat this point many times and you just seem to be ignoring it. Transexuality is not a disease.

If you were in charge of medical research/research into mental disorders, would you allow research to find a cause of gender dysphoria to go ahead?

Or would you say, "There's nothing wrong with it, go research something else."

Would you actively seek to prevent research that might "cure" gender dysphoria, assuming you had the power to?
 
Transphobes gonna transphobe.

Who's scared of transpeople?

Are you sure you're not all radfems dresses up as internet alpha males, because the constant goalpost shifting is exactly their remit.

Stop being delusional. There is no shifting of goalposts going on. Permabanned is clutching at straws desperately trying to pretend transgenderism is something it isn't.
 
Stop being delusional. There is no shifting of goalposts going on. Permabanned is clutching at straws desperately trying to pretend transgenderism is something it isn't.

This thread is amazing, isn't it.

We've been told (repeatedly) how deeply distressed trans people are before, during, and sometimes after their sex change. Suicidal, even. Now correct me if I'm wrong but most people don't think being depressed and suicidal is a good thing. They'd rather not be.

And yet PB asserts that trans people would be against a cure for gender dysphoria.

His evidence for this is that there is a strong trans community, which helps them come to terms with their gender dysphoria issues.

It's like saying that if you put on a plaster you wanted to be cut in the first place. It's like no other reasoning I've ever heard in my life. Bonkers.

And then again PB tells us that being trans is fine and dandy, and nobody should have an issue with it.

Which is like saying, "Having a cold is fine, nobody should hate on people with colds." And then using that argument as a reason not to try to cure colds.

Why should we cure anything when we could just accept it instead? Hell, let's not cure AIDS. Let's just everybody accept AIDS as being fine and dandy. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just discrimination by people with AIDSPhobia.
 
So now we're comparing trans people to AIDS. We've already compared them to dogs, robots, sexual predators, users of bathrooms for sexual arousal and paedophiles. We've advocated their extermination and through repeated animalistic dehumanisaton, yes we get the idea, you think that that the world would be a better place if all these freaks just went and died quietly somewhere.

Apart from a few select posters, nowhere has the humanity, dignity or respect for a trans person been shown.

You can all go around herp derping oh let's all laugh at the man in the frock but that is a person made of exactly the same stuff as you. Nothing more, nothing less.
 
Do you feel that segregation by gender or sex is always wrong and just as silly as segregation by race?

Yes. Gender especially so as it's almost entirely make believe. You may as well segregate by shoe manufacturer. But sex too, because it's not important.

It might unfortunately be useful in a handful of scenarios because segregation by sex is still so normal. Like, for example, the ones you mentioned:

For example if someone set up a rape counselling group for women or a battered women's shelter? Or is it just say changing rooms and toilets?

How would you feel about a rape counselling group for "whites" or a battered "whites" shelter? The argument supporting them is exactly the same, in a society as segregated by "race" as ours is by sex they would be exactly as reasonable and even in our current society they would be beneficial to some people. My position regarding segregation is consistent. Is yours?
 
Bathrooms are not divided based on race or sexuality, they are divided based on sex. Why we have sex segregated bathrooms is indeed an issue of cultural norms, that is self evident. But not allowing transsexuals to use the women's bathroom is not really a question of norms alone, because biologically those men are still men.

It's entirely a matter of cultural norms.

You gave an example of someone being offended by someone who they considered to be in the wrong group using a segregated bathroom.

I gave an example of someone being offended by someone who they considered to be in the wrong group using a segregated bathroom.

It is solely a cultural norm that one of them is currently considered culturally acceptable and the other isn't (but has been in some times and places).

It's also quite arbitrary to declare that sex change procedures don't exist, but that's irrelevant.

My point is that all segregation is solely a matter of cultural norms. That's why it changes. If someone in the USA today feels uncomfortable about someone of the "wrong" "race" being in the same bathroom (and I'd bet some people do), they don't have the power to have that person excluded. People did have that power in the past, but they don't now because cultural norms have changed in the USA. Segregation is always entirely about cultural norms.
 
but they are, people are arguing they would use Him, he, and mr tothier faces rather than thier correct pronouns.

I think it's important to strongly keep sex defined as solely biological because to do otherwise is a recipe for sexist stereotyping. If a person's sex is considered to be determined by what they do, say, think and/or feel or how they do those things, strongly sexed roles and strong sexist stereotyping is inevitable.

As a result, I regard the sex of a transexual person like this:

From birth: Whatever sex their biology is.

Before biological changes in the sex change process: Still that sex.

During biological changes in the sex change process: Between sexes, in transition.

After the sex change is completed: Whatever sex they've changed to.

So if a male person is changing to a female person, I regard "he" as the correct pronoun up until the point that they start changing biologically.

But by default I use "they" anyway, since it's sex-neutral and I think language should be sex-neutral by default. Some people think it's offensive to use a sex-neutral pronoun to refer to a person who is in the process of changing sex (but not anyone else). I think those people are wrong and I'm offended by them partly because they're talking rubbish that's not even internally consistent, partly because they're trying to make their offence my problem and partly because I think they're promoting sexism (see above).

Despite those people, I'm considering a counter-argument to my current position based on the idea that language is gendered rather than sexed.
 
Those two examples are exceptions, there are some hideous examples of TS around who are obviously male by birth and can be easily presumed to be guys out on a stag night or one of the many other reasonable explanations.

Are they exceptions? How would you know? It's an inherently biased sampling.

For example:

You see 20 people who are transexuals but you don't know that. With 18 of them, you don't notice that they've changed sex at some point in the past because their appearance shows no sign of it. With 2 of them, the change wasn't so convincing and you see them as "some hideous examples of TS [..] who are obviously male by birth. So you count 2 transexuals and assume that almost all transexuals are like that.

It's like assuming that almost every homosexual man is camper than a row of tents and gayer than a field of daisies because the minority who are stand out and the majority who aren't don't.

It's a major sampling error, one on a par with looking along the level of a 6 foot wall, seeing only people taller than 6 feet and assuming that everyone is taller than 6 feet and there aren't many people around.
 
Shocker in straight men fancy a woman.

Whatever next?

Straight men don't fancy sex with someone who has a penis, which Bailey Jay most certainly does. I've just had a look at their porno website, so the evidence is very clear indeed.

You might define "straight" differently to other people, but that's not useful if you're interested in communicating with other people.
 
Why are you confusing genetic abnormalities with gender dysphoria? Most trans people are completely normal XX, XY.

They aren't confusing anything. You're confusing what they've written with something else, possibly because you didn't read their original question.

They asked someone how that person defined a person's sex. At least part of the answer that person gave was the presence or absence of a Y chromosome. Genetic abnormalities are of course relevant to that answer.

The question of how a person's sex is defined is relevant to people changing sex. It's particularly relevant when replying to someone who argues that changing sex is impossible, that a person's sex is inherently fixed by biology. That conclusion relies on two premises: that a clear definition of sex in terms of biology exists which applies to all people and that the thing that defines sex is unchangeable. If that person can't support both those premises, they can't support the conclusion they draw from those premises.
 
Hold on, so according to the loony toons here, sex is nothing to do with if you have a winky or a foof because that's "too simple and akin to thinking the world is flat" you bunch of neanderthals....


So why are said transsexuals so fixed on chopping their genitalia off, turning into the opposite and having boobs in place? They must be stupid too, right? I think permalol and femme-fresh need to educate these morons accordingly as they're clearly doing it wrong.
 
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