""" In December 2020, three judges in the High Court ruled that it is doubtful that children under the age of 16 years are able to consent to treatment with hormone blockers.
In March 2021, the Family Division of the High Court ruled that parental consent may form a legal basis to prescribe hormone blockers to children under-16 and suggested it may be appropriate to consider additional safeguards in the clinical decision-making process.
In September 2021, the December ruling was overturned by the Court of Appeal."""
- NIH: https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/spec-services/npc-crg/gender-dysphoria-clinical-programme/update-following-recent-court-rulings-on-hormone-blockers/#:~:text=In%20March%202021%2C%20the%20Family,the%20clinical%20decision%2Dmaking%20process.
As I even described in detail in the article, hormone-blockers and hormone replacement medication are not the same thing. This is the same misunderstanding that I touched on in the article. I don't know what is going on in the U.K., at least what I know is policy and media I come into contact with -- not actually being there or experiencing the country's state.
People SHOULD be allowed to self identify, as people SHOULD have liberty. Liberty means true liberty, the ability to be yourself without superimposed restrictions... Whether that be on a personal gender identity or otherwise.
I've talked about the bathroom issue as well. The argument just does not make any sense to me. The concern is that men are going to take advantage of such a policy and feign being a transgender woman, right? What is to stop someone who is a rapist, a felony, from walking into the women's changing room anyway? Does that not sound like a strange thing to imagine? Some weirdo walking up to a woman's bathroom to try and rape somebody, but then they see a sign that says the bathroom is for women, so they turn around? Mind you, there is no law (at least here in the U.S., I would presume there too) against going into the other gender's bathroom. There might be societal rules, but there are no laws.
So you mean to tell me a criminal, a rapist, about to commit a rape; with a potentiial sentencing of up to 15 years in prison (once again, U.S. is my frame of reference) is going to stop at a bathroom or changing room sign because of a rule that is not even a law? They are already committing a felony.
This is not to mention that a transgender woman's body is not a man's body., or a traditional male's body equivalent either. Though the chromosomes might be Male, the cardiovascular system shrinks, the muscles weaken. There is no testosterone to drive the sort of violent madness that we typically expect from men. Without testosterone, it could definitely be hard to rape someone given you might not be able to get an erection in the first place. Really, a woman who is post-HRT of around 6 months' body cannot be compared to that of a traditional males. The only other differences would be bone structure, particularly in the hips and likely jaw, and of course the adams apple and the genitalia.
Ah yes, the old `What is a woman?` argument. Let's start by talking a bit about sex. Although recently the lines between sex and gender have been drawn, this line is definitely still pretty blurry outside of academia, so it is understandable that people do not realize these are two different things.
While gender describes how you present, behave, and express yourself, sex is meant to describe your biological annatomy. The two are completely separate, mankind has just come up with the idea to align the two historically. If all females were feminine and all males are masculine, such as this traditional gender perspective would suggest, then there wouldn't be any transgender people. There wouldn't be masculine females, some straight some gay and some bi, and there wouldn't be feminine males of the same varieties. The mere existence of this disproves that this two-gender system aligned with sex is realistic.
Things get even more daunting if we consider intersex people. This is actually a lot more common than most people realize, and many people might not even realize that they have partial or full structures, or genetic traits from opposite sexes. What the existence of intersex proves is that not only is gender a spectrum, but sex itself is also naturally a spectrum.
A ` Woman` is just a role in society. What does a woman do, speaking purely traditionally? Women have certain expectations that come with the births of themselves and so do men. If you are born a male, you are expected to fill a providing role, to a submissive partner, and are stigmitized for just about anything that encroaches on your masculinity. Women traditionally were home-makers and child barers.
Despite the differences between these roles and the former versions of themselves, there are still ideas that are carried with a man versus a woman.
Okay, so a male is born, and then assigned to the man's role in society at birth. This male, however, likes to dress up pretty, is emotionally connected, has less testosterone than the other boys developing around him, and overall really does not fit into the role of man that society has placed him into. Therefore, he, or she, seeks to transition into their true self as a woman.
It is not a male saying I want to be female, it is a man saying they want to be a woman. The implications of forcing these people to align with their assigned gender are incredibly harmful, this sort of thing can break up families pretty easily -- especially if someone has married a woman due to just trying to fill the role.
See, it would be a lot easier if they did just fill that role. It would be incredibly easy, compared to walking the path of a transgender person where they face discrimination and hatred, potential murder, and a loss of rights. Some even lose their job. If all of those things are true, and it is in fact a lot easier to align with your assigned societal gender (obviously,) then I ask you WHY would anyone choose that? If it is not real, then why would they choose to put themselves through that.
Society has convinced you that two pairs of different genitals in the same room are problematic. How do you think humans ever survived tribally? How were the Native American and African tribes able to walk around naked annd coexist? In the wilderness, where we are from, we all pee in the same place. All of the semantics and things are just meant to divide us. We are the same.
Though fertilization does determine sex, all fetuses start out as the same sex, and it isn't until late second trimester into the third trimester of a pregnancy. In other words, we are the exact same for most of our development -- the reason males have vestigal matter, like nipples.
More than likely, people are just individuals. Everyone is different. People anticipate that personalities are determined by one chromosome when our DNA is made up of over 20,000. DNA is also extremely data dense, less than the DNA in your body could store the entire internet on it. How could you possibly believe one gene determines everything about you.
Do you not consider it appropriate that their might be some males that are better aligned to the role of a woman, and could be in danger around other males?
Last point; you are indentifying a tiny percentage of the population as a danger to the public. Saying you cannot use x or y restroom that you want to use because there is some danger to it. We have seen this play out so many times before, over and over, with marginilized groups. If you want to be on the right side of history and civil rights, I would consider that the same was done with segregation -- claiming blacks are criminals and a danger to the public. The same was done with the Armenians, the Jewish people, the Christian martyrs in Rome. No entire group of people is a danger to the public, regardless of whether they are in the white, black, mexican, women's, men's, or family restroom. While there can certainly be some cirminals in any group, the highest percentage of crime is also associated with the largest group of the entire population; white men. So to say that transgender people are a danger to the public, and advocating for the removal of civil rights, you have to also consider that every other group is bigger; and therefore every other group commits more crimes by number. By percentage even, men outweigh transgender anything by a longshot, if we want to call any group a danger to society, then we would have to start with the group that commits the most crimes, right?
Feminism is meant to be an equality movement. The movement was created here in the United States, and became the much broader civil rights movement for all minorities, that is -- except for gay and transgender people of course because they are not equal to your eyes. There are so many different sects to feminism now, perhaps one that I can imagine you might be -- the legendary TERF -- but the original definition of feminism is meant to be an equality movement, for specifically gender equality. There are plenty of transgender feminists, there are plenty of feminists who are cisgender men.
I don't understand why you would want to exclude anyone from your equality movement, honestly. Do you really think that other people are less than you and deserve less rights because they don't align with society's genders? You have this " us vs them" mentality, but nobody is against you, the group even has trouble speaking for themselves due to just how bad the public perception is.
I just don't get it, I don't understand people who don't want to try their best to create an equal harmony with all beings. Is < 1% of the population occassionally going to a public restroom while they're out really doing anything to anybody? Most people have never even met a transgender person.
I think you might be surprised just how deflated some statistics about this actually really are. There are millions of closeted transgender people, hop on Grindr you will see thousands of " closet t-" and other words. Actually, scratch that, definitely don't download that app but you get my point, being transgender is hard so many people just suppress themselves and hide themselves from everyone.
I wish I could change your mind, but I understand people have their own beliefs -- it would be really nice if you could at least consider my points in your head. A response would be great too, thank you for your reply and contributing to such an important conversation!
