Someone was just pointing out that Ireland has self-ID (and has had it for years since 2015) and that if the UK government revokes its recognition of all self-ID GRCs (as it's been saying it's going to) then it will be putting a gender border in the middle of Ireland, undermining rights guaranteed in the Good Friday agreement. Oddly they've not been mentioning that.
So unless there's something I'm missing the very thing they're arguing is bad in the UK, they think is fine for Ireland.
Self-ID GRCs are also issued in most of South America (including Argentina, the first nation to adopt self-ID in 2012), many provinces in Canada and states in the US (in both cases, gender information on passports can be changed by self-ID). In Europe, in addition to Ireland, the same self-id applies in Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, Luxembourg, Norway (for people aged at least 16, and between 6-16 with parental support going beyond the Scottish bill), Portugal and Switzerland; Germany and Spain are in the process of passing appropriate legislation for that, possibly some other nations I'm not aware of. New Zealand and some Australian States also have self-identification.
Put simply, the UK government is behind the wave in much of the world, and if the UK holds out on requiring medical assessments will be among the minority (especially in the western world) where gender recognition isn't on the basis of self-id.
Also, many of the nations listed have had self-id for several years, without any of the consequences of women being assaulted in toilets etc that the transphobes have predicted will happen in Scotland. If Scotland was the first place in the world to introduce such a right then maybe concerns about whether predatory men would apply to gain access to women would have a little bit of justification, but when there's so many nations which have already made that change in legislation without any of that sort of thing illustrates very clearly that these are specious concerns.
Someone was just pointing out that Ireland has self-ID (and has had it for years since 2015) and that if the UK government revokes its recognition of all self-ID GRCs (as it's been saying it's going to) then it will be putting a gender border in the middle of Ireland, undermining rights guaranteed in the Good Friday agreement.
Although the rights guaranteed are not really limited by the border as such, as anyone born in any part of Ireland is able to take up Irish citizenship should they so wish.
Is it not true there is a risk of folk ending with two legal genders at the same time ? (Because if not, then I think the legal challenge will have much more chance of succeeding.)
Why is this actually not viable? The person's body is only in one part of the country at any one time.
It's obviously a sucky state of affairs for a person to be recognized as, let's say, male, in Scotland, but treated as female in England, but is it really less viable than something like being able to buy tobacco in parts of the country but not other parts?
Does U.K. law engage in gender discrimination? I mean, how does U.K. law treat people differently based on their (legally recognized) gender?
Reservation, Disallowance, a Supreme Court Division of Powers case. Mom is acting just like her oldest daughter and the daughter couldn't be more proud.
Self-ID GRCs are also issued in most of South America (including Argentina, the first nation to adopt self-ID in 2012), many provinces in Canada and states in the US (in both cases, gender information on passports can be changed by self-ID). In Europe, in addition to Ireland, the same self-id applies in Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, Luxembourg, Norway (for people aged at least 16, and between 6-16 with parental support going beyond the Scottish bill), Portugal and Switzerland; Germany and Spain are in the process of passing appropriate legislation for that, possibly some other nations I'm not aware of. New Zealand and some Australian States also have self-identification.
Looking at the UK situation, the risk of making this all about self-ID is in perpetuating the misconception that trans and nonbinary people are all about defining our gender in some idiosyncratic way, which creates anxieties for some people and focuses the debate in an unhelpful way. It's not the hill I'd want to die on if there are alternatives that are more broadly palatable. That's less of risk in places where the issue is less politically fraught.
Ontario is not a self-ID jurisdiction and as far as I know it's not top of mind for anyone to try to make it one.
In April 2014, the OHRC released a new Policy on preventing discrimination because of gender identity and gender expression.[3] The Policy recognizes that everyone has the right to self-define their gender identity, including youth. This is in keeping with the Yogyakarta Principles on the application of international human rights law in relation to gender identity.[4]
The Policy says that trans people can have their name or sex designation changed on identity documents and other records. The criteria and process should not be intrusive or medically based.
Whether that human rights basis has been picked up as a political issue I can't really tell from over here. But, most countries where legislation to support self-ID has been passed that's happened without much political fuss, because the political fuss is linked so strongly with culture war - if you're in a nation that has (so far) managed to avoid the far right fighting on those grounds then legislation that protects minorities and supports their human rights will be simply seen by the majority as obvious steps to take, and that gets passed relatively quietly.
In the UK we've seen the Conservatives take increasingly irrational positions on issues that shouldn't be part of the political game - we should not be seeing gender, race, sexuality etc being used as political footballs, but we are and that leads to situations where the UK government uses the lives of transpeople as something to be trampled on in their campaign to roll back Scottish devolution. Without that context, the bill would be something that impacts the lives of a very small number of people, those seeking to have their gender correctly described on official documents and their friends and family supporting them, and largely ignored by the vast majority of people who won't be affected.
There's a concern that the use of this issue as a political football in the UK is going to be infectious, and in other nations where similar legislation is working through the system there will be local outbreaks of culture war making what should be a simple legislative process contentious. If Germany and Spain (just because those are the two nations I know have similar legislation going through their legislatures) manage to debate the legislation without all the fuss we've seen in the UK then I'd be delighted for them, but I fear that the UK government actions have encouraged the transphobic bigots in those countries to stand up and spread their vile poison.
From my perspective this seems to come down to a question of pragmatism - we have a system in Ontario that seems to work (in the sense of making it reasonably possible for people who want to change their legal gender to do so) while avoiding the anxieties and possible backlash that might have been created had this become a debate about self-ID.
From my perspective this seems to come down to a question of pragmatism - we have a system in Ontario that seems to work (in the sense of making it reasonably possible for people who want to change their legal gender to do so) while avoiding the anxieties and possible backlash that might have been created had this become a debate about self-ID.
I'm not convinced self-ID is the cause of the "backlash". Plenty of places that haven't even considered self-ID have a toxic anti-trans narrative in full swing.
From my perspective this seems to come down to a question of pragmatism - we have a system in Ontario that seems to work (in the sense of making it reasonably possible for people who want to change their legal gender to do so) while avoiding the anxieties and possible backlash that might have been created had this become a debate about self-ID.
I'm not convinced self-ID is the cause of the "backlash". Plenty of places that haven't even considered self-ID have a toxic anti-trans narrative in full swing.
And plenty of places that have self-ID haven't had any 'backlash' (the term itself is highly problematic).
backlash that might have been created had this become a debate about self-ID
I think this misses a bit how moral panics work. Moral panics come about when powerful groups with control or clout in the media decide to attack and demonise harmless minorities who don't have their power by falsely representing them as threats to society - especially by painting them as threats to women and children or sexually deviant. They can pick any innocent feature for these attacks - even a telly-tubby having a hand-bag can become grist to a moral panic.
The big moral panic here in the UK was started by Rupert Murdoch's Times group newspapers who printed hundreds (probably into the thousands now) of attack pieces against a harmless group comprising about 0.5% of the population. It was then taken up by other newspapers, magazines and media.
If you don't have a powerful Murdoch press/media, then that's likely your answer as to why things like this aren't issues so much where you are. Trans people are not responsible for hate-mongers deciding to make them their preferred target.
Self-ID was originally an uncontroversial ask from UK trans people picking the most inoffensive minor reform that would help them - it was so uncontroversial that even the socially conservative Conservative party was bringing it forward. It was something that seemed a shoo-in for all party support. Then the Murdoch press et al. decided to attack, others jumped on the hate bandwagon, and here we are.
I notice that the attack in the last few days has moved onto the subject of transgender prison inmates.
I am inclined to ask two questions:
1. How is this handled in other countries?
2. How is the situation of a prisoner who is a danger to women inmates and staff but is herself cisgender handled?
The Scottish Prison Service has made it clear that all these cases are handled on an individual basis - balancing risks a prisoner may pose to other prisoners and staff, and the risks other prisoners pose to them, with the available resources. I'm sure there are plenty of examples of women who have sexually abused other women and girls, or men who have sexually assaulted other men and boys, where placing them in the general prison population with other prisoners with the same gender would be a bad idea for them and/or other prisoners. There's probably never a perfect solution to the conundrum prison services are posed by such prisoners - at least not without significantly more investment in prisons to provide small units where a few prisoners can be housed under greater supervision.
Sex offenders of any gender are usually separated from the general prison population - to avoid them getting assaulted and murdered by other prisoners. This does create a set of ancillary problems though. It also prompts the question as to why a supposedly secure environment staffed with trained professionals, is unable to stop the people they are responsible for from hurting each other.
Sex offenders of any gender are usually separated from the general prison population - to avoid them getting assaulted and murdered by other prisoners. This does create a set of ancillary problems though. It also prompts the question as to why a supposedly secure environment staffed with trained professionals, is unable to stop the people they are responsible for from hurting each other.
There was a good Ferret fact check on the subject of prison placement in general (The Ferret is a Scottish digital news service with really good journalists known for its excellent environmental reporting but with some really great social coverage too)
Yes the cisgender female on female offender thing struck me too - that it's just not been thought through as they are indeed female cis sexual offenders against women and they surely shouldn't be going in prisons for men and if you say no sexual offenders against women go to a women's jail - where do they go? They're probably very under-reported though reporting is going up. I know a record from the 17th century of a woman seriously sexually assaulting another woman so it's not new.
I should also say that none of this is anything to do with the Gender Recognition Act as it doesn't affect any of it. It's just a sad reflection on the current moral panic that the press is pumping out the old tropes they used to use against gay people - any time gay equality or rights was on the radar you'd suddenly see any case with a non- straight sex offender on the front page. All the better to cast gay folk as predators who didnt deserve rights.
I haven't seen a piece on this from the various trans folk run news sources I follow yet - just tweets but I'll keep an eye out for comment.
It is our view that anyone who has committed sexually violent crimes, and who poses a risk to women, should not be housed with women on the female estate
It is our view that anyone who has committed sexually violent crimes, and who poses a risk to women, should not be housed with women on the female estate
So is this a statement that Scottish Trans thinks that cis women who are sexually violent towards women should be housed in a men's prison?
I'm a bit confused by this. Much of the public comment on Isla Bryson seems to centre on the suggestion that she is not "really trans", but is claiming to be trans in order to get a cushier accommodation in prison.
This sort of suggests that Scottish Trans might be hinting in that direction, without actually coming out and saying it, because if other people get to judge whether someone is "really trans" or not, then self-id doesn't make any sense. So it seems to me that they're trying to walk a delicate line here.
I have no data with which to express an opinion on whether I think Isla Bryson's transition is genuine. I also have no standing with which to express an opinion - and tend to the opinion that nobody apart from Isla Bryson has such standing. So I tend to take these things at face value. Isla Bryson is a woman, therefore she should be housed in a women's prison. Isla Bryson is a convicted rapist who has raped women, therefore she should not be placed in a situation where she is able to attack women. Conclusion? Isla Bryson should be kept in solitary confinement in a women's prison, with limited ability to interact with other women. Rather the same rules that I'd apply to a male rapist who had raped men, in a men's prison.
I think it is highly unlikely any one would fake a gender transition in a male prison (Isla Bryson would have been on remand) - as it would make them extremely vulnerable to assault, because transphobia is not magically excluded from prisons.
It is our view that anyone who has committed sexually violent crimes, and who poses a risk to women, should not be housed with women on the female estate
So is this a statement that Scottish Trans thinks that cis women who are sexually violent towards women should be housed in a men's prison?
I don’t think so - they are supportive of individualised risk assessment. Vulnerable prisoners who are kept separate from the general prison population are not necessarily in solitary confinement, they maybe kept in a segregation wing: https://prisonreformtrust.org.uk/adviceguide/segregation/
.I'm a bit confused by this. Much of the public comment on Isla Bryson seems to centre on the suggestion that she is not "really trans", but is claiming to be trans in order to get a cushier accommodation in prison
That kind of public comment is repeating transphobic talking points though.
The Scottish women's prison system is actually really bad (I think there was a big report on how bad a few years ago) and has been sharply criticised for its conditions, so it's possible that there's just a lack of confidence in them handling sex offenders of any sort but it's also possible that the cis female sexual offender situation just hasn't been fully thought through because they're not the focus of a massive moral panic.
I cross-posted with Doublethink who I think knows more than me it's possibly just the wording as Rape Crisis Scotland say 'It is not appropriate for someone convicted of any serious sexual offence to be placed within the general female population' and this may be what they mean too.
Content warning, explicit commentary on sexual violence
It also comes down to a lack of recognition that sexual violence is sexual violence regardless of whether perpetrator has a penis, and regardless of whether the survivor of the assault has a penis,
Therefore beliefs about risk centre on whether perpetrator has a penis - though in fact cis gender women and others can perpetrate serious sexual assault without a penis - these are not seen as equally harmful, in addition the risk of men being raped is somehow seen as a less of a problem.
I don’t think so - they are supportive of individualised risk assessment. Vulnerable prisoners who are kept separate from the general prison population are not necessarily in solitary confinement, they maybe kept in a segregation wing: https://prisonreformtrust.org.uk/adviceguide/segregation/
But in this case, we're not talking about a vulnerable prisoner, but about rather the opposite - a prisoner who has been convicted of sexual assault of people like the general prison population.
Isla Bryson, in a women's prison, would need to be separated from the rest of the women for the protection of those women. Isla Bryson, in a men's prison, would need to be separated from the general population for her own protection.
It would not surprise me that there was an element of your hidden suggestion present in this discussion, as well.
Indeed, rape in men's prisons is often seen in the public discourse as somewhere between a source of humour, and as a justifiable punishment for criminals.
Thanks Doublethink - there's an interesting essay by Julia Serano which really struck me on this - I'll repeat her content warning
Content Warning: while I will not be describing any actual instances of sexual violence, this issue (and false accusations thereof) will be mentioned throughout this piece.
right-wing fears of “degeneracy” and “miscegenation” seem to be driven by an unconscious fear that the minority groups they despise are sexually “contagious” and “corrupting.” This is why they frequently smear those groups en masse as “sexual predators” who must be “preying” on the “pure” and “innocent” women and children of the dominant/majority group (examples of this charge levied against Black, Jewish, gay, and trans people can be found in this online essay
[I haven't put in the link to that essay as it has a content warning too but if you follow my link above you'll find it]
And now here's the kicker which really made me pay attention -
Content warning- mentions sexual bits and sweary words so probably not safe for work
Penises, Stigma, and (Real or Imagined) Sexual Violence
As I’ve remarked elsewhere: “penises are made of flesh and blood, nothing more.” That is the truth of it. But in our hetero-male-centric culture, we are taught to attribute “magical properties” to penises...
Numerous surveys asking college students what “counts” as sex have found virtually unanimous agreement that penile-vaginal intercourse constitutes sex, with about 80 percent saying the same about penile-anal intercourse, and roughly 40 percent about oral sex; all other intimate acts lag far behind. So while people may differ in their definitions of sex, most seem to believe that it involves a penis penetrating another person and that a vagina need not be involved. To put this in the context of our previous discussions about the Predator/Prey mindset, if women (or whoever is cast in the “sexual object” role) *have* or *are* “sex,” then it seems as though the penis is the thing that *takes* that “sex” from them. Consistent with this, it’s always the person who accepts or accommodates the penis (rather than the person who possesses it) who is viewed as having been degraded by the act, as is evident in the sentiment that women (but not men) are “used” or “dirtied” by heterosexual sex, and the widespread use of the slur “cocksucker” (whereas no analogous universally demeaning term exists for those who receive fellatio or engage in cunnilingus). And if a person intentionally hurts or humiliates another person, we often call them a “dick.” While penises, and those who are attached to them, are not stigmatized themselves, they do seem to possess the ability to impart sexual stigma upon others. [Sexed Up, p. 164]
It also helps to explain our culture’s unidirectional conceptualization of sexual violence. While a significant number of women commit acts of sexual violence, people tend to view these incidents as less serious and less harmful than similar acts committed by men — this is likely due to the imagined “lack of penis” required to initiate sex and to bestow sexual stigma upon the victim. (bold mine)
Serano also discusses how trans women like herself are treated and viewed by those who commonly call themselves Gender Critical but under the older descriptor of 'cultural feminism'
Cultural feminists’ sex-essentialism doesn’t merely lead them to misgender us. Rather, because they view us as “men,” they imagine that male sexual “contamination” and “corruption” practically oozes out of us. This is why “gender critical” activists are so obsessed about our (real or imagined) “penises” and their unsubstantiated fears that we will go around “flaunting” them (it’s always the word “flaunt” for some reason). It’s why they constantly portray us as “sexual predators” who “prey” on women and children in sex-segregated spaces, or who “pressure” lesbians into having sex. It’s why they go on and on about “autogynephilia (AGP),” and extrapolate from that thirty-year-old disproven theory that trans women who simply exist in public spaces must be nonconsensually involving other people in their “sexual fetishes.” Cultural feminism’s literalization of the Predator/Prey mindset is what led Janice Raymond to write: “All transsexuals rape women’s bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves.”
We are the embodiment of sexual stigma in their minds. We are a contamination event that must be stopped at all costs.
This essay and its thoughts on contamination, purity and stigma really struck me because I have older friends who went over to the anti-trans side and even when I had long careful email exchanges or hours long respectful conversations with them so much seemed to come down to warning discussion of sexual assault
fears and ick-factor about women or people appearing female having penises and Serano's essay really made me think about that. I agree with what you say about sexual violence and I'd also say there's not nearly enough recognition of how serious sexual assault can be without a penis being involved at all.
But in this case, we're not talking about a vulnerable prisoner, but about rather the opposite - a prisoner who has been convicted of sexual assault of people like the general prison population.
I would dispute that, sex offenders tend to be targeted by other prisoners - regardless of gender. One can be both a perpetrator and vulnerable.
Thanks Doublethink - there's an interesting essay by Julia Serano which really struck me on this - I'll repeat her content warning
Content Warning: while I will not be describing any actual instances of sexual violence, this issue (and false accusations thereof) will be mentioned throughout this piece.
right-wing fears of “degeneracy” and “miscegenation” seem to be driven by an unconscious fear that the minority groups they despise are sexually “contagious” and “corrupting.” This is why they frequently smear those groups en masse as “sexual predators” who must be “preying” on the “pure” and “innocent” women and children of the dominant/majority group (examples of this charge levied against Black, Jewish, gay, and trans people can be found in this online essay
[I haven't put in the link to that essay as it has a content warning too but if you follow my link above you'll find it]
And now here's the kicker which really made me pay attention -
Content warning- mentions sexual bits and sweary words so probably not safe for work
Penises, Stigma, and (Real or Imagined) Sexual Violence
As I’ve remarked elsewhere: “penises are made of flesh and blood, nothing more.” That is the truth of it. But in our hetero-male-centric culture, we are taught to attribute “magical properties” to penises...
Numerous surveys asking college students what “counts” as sex have found virtually unanimous agreement that penile-vaginal intercourse constitutes sex, with about 80 percent saying the same about penile-anal intercourse, and roughly 40 percent about oral sex; all other intimate acts lag far behind. So while people may differ in their definitions of sex, most seem to believe that it involves a penis penetrating another person and that a vagina need not be involved. To put this in the context of our previous discussions about the Predator/Prey mindset, if women (or whoever is cast in the “sexual object” role) *have* or *are* “sex,” then it seems as though the penis is the thing that *takes* that “sex” from them. Consistent with this, it’s always the person who accepts or accommodates the penis (rather than the person who possesses it) who is viewed as having been degraded by the act, as is evident in the sentiment that women (but not men) are “used” or “dirtied” by heterosexual sex, and the widespread use of the slur “cocksucker” (whereas no analogous universally demeaning term exists for those who receive fellatio or engage in cunnilingus). And if a person intentionally hurts or humiliates another person, we often call them a “dick.” While penises, and those who are attached to them, are not stigmatized themselves, they do seem to possess the ability to impart sexual stigma upon others. [Sexed Up, p. 164]
It also helps to explain our culture’s unidirectional conceptualization of sexual violence. While a significant number of women commit acts of sexual violence, people tend to view these incidents as less serious and less harmful than similar acts committed by men — this is likely due to the imagined “lack of penis” required to initiate sex and to bestow sexual stigma upon the victim. (bold mine)
Serano also discusses how trans women like herself are treated and viewed by those who commonly call themselves Gender Critical but under the older descriptor of 'cultural feminism'
Cultural feminists’ sex-essentialism doesn’t merely lead them to misgender us. Rather, because they view us as “men,” they imagine that male sexual “contamination” and “corruption” practically oozes out of us. This is why “gender critical” activists are so obsessed about our (real or imagined) “penises” and their unsubstantiated fears that we will go around “flaunting” them (it’s always the word “flaunt” for some reason). It’s why they constantly portray us as “sexual predators” who “prey” on women and children in sex-segregated spaces, or who “pressure” lesbians into having sex. It’s why they go on and on about “autogynephilia (AGP),” and extrapolate from that thirty-year-old disproven theory that trans women who simply exist in public spaces must be nonconsensually involving other people in their “sexual fetishes.” Cultural feminism’s literalization of the Predator/Prey mindset is what led Janice Raymond to write: “All transsexuals rape women’s bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves.”
We are the embodiment of sexual stigma in their minds. We are a contamination event that must be stopped at all costs.
This essay and its thoughts on contamination, purity and stigma really struck me because I have older friends who went over to the anti-trans side and even when I had long careful email exchanges or hours long respectful conversations with them so much seemed to come down to warning discussion of sexual assault
fears and ick-factor about women or people appearing female having penises and Serano's essay really made me think about that. I agree with what you say about sexual violence and I'd also say there's not nearly enough recognition of how serious sexual assault can be without a penis being involved at all.
While not detracting from the point being made I'm kind of surprised the author of the piece hasn't heard the terms
"muff diver" or "carpet muncher" in relation to cunnilingus. They don't have quite the homophobic and generally pejorative connotations of "cocksucker" but they're not exactly neutral either.
@Louise Julia Serano is the Whipping Girl author, right? The point about the link to anti-miscegenation fears is a brilliant one that I hadn't thought of, but makes total sense in context. To expand on that (text hidden for discussion of racist sexual fetishism and NSFW sexual terminology):
In a psychosexual context there are strong links between racist fetishes about Black men dominating white women and cuckolding white men ('cuck' is a prominent alt-right insult for a reason), and transphobic fetishes about cis men being feminised into trans women, because the latter is often portrayed as being about said trans women now preferring sex with Black men - very much feeding into Blanchardian ideas about trans women and sexual orientation. The concept of trans women who are attracted to women seems to be the most terrifying thing.
.I'm a bit confused by this. Much of the public comment on Isla Bryson seems to centre on the suggestion that she is not "really trans", but is claiming to be trans in order to get a cushier accommodation in prison
That kind of public comment is repeating transphobic talking points though.
It would seem that Nicola Sturgeon has now said that Bryson is ”almost certainly not really trans”, which seems somewhat at odds with her apparent desire to make it easier for people to transition based purely on self ID.
Surely if Sturgeon wants self ID to be the only criterion that counts when determining someone’s sex/gender then she should stand by that and accept Bryson’s self identification, as - to their credit - some of her SNP colleagues have done.
She should indeed. That was a bad mis-step on her part.
I think the huge aggressive moral panic that's been going on up here is having an effect. The newspaper which famously drove the anti-gay 'Keep The Clause' campaign is all over this and has been printing the kind of outright scaremongering propaganda we used to see then. It's amazing how bad our press is and they really haven't improved - just shifted target.
I should also point out that article doesn't make it clear that we're not talking about a sex offender getting into the general prison population in a women's jail. Because you're there to be assessed doesn't mean you're not in solitary if you're a sex offender. It would be easy to get an mpression from that article that sex offenders were being let into the general population at Cornton Vale which isn't so.
I can also speak from lived experience that being someone's partner even for a long time doesn't tell you anything about their gender - except what gender they present as to you. It doesn't necessarily give you any privileged knowledge. It can take years or never before someone trusts their partner with their gender if it's not cis.
I'm reminded a bit of what Elizabeth I said about not making windows into folk's souls...
I should also point out that article doesn't make it clear that we're not talking about a sex offender getting into the general prison population in a women's jail. Because you're there to be assessed doesn't mean you're not in solitary if you're a sex offender. It would be easy to get an mpression from that article that sex offenders were being let into the general population at Cornton Vale which isn't so.
I can also speak from lived experience that being someone's partner even for a long time doesn't tell you anything about their gender - except what gender they present as to you. It doesn't necessarily give you any privileged knowledge. It can take years or never before someone trusts their partner with their gender if it's not cis.
I'm reminded a bit of what Elizabeth I said about not making windows into folk's souls...
I think that final sentence is something that underlies reactions to trans people generally - the strong belief people have that they can make such windows. I think it's connected to a lack of appreciation of how diverse people's inner lives are.
Yes, and also a strong bias towards external signs of identity. I know you're a man because I perceive your body that way. The external/internal divide haunts many topics in human identity, and Western society is fixated on externals.
I know you're a man because I perceive your body that way.
Not just that. For me it's also "I know I'm a man because that's the body I have"; that is to say that my biology defines my identity rather than the other way around. I find some of current gender/sex theory difficult to accept because it denies the validity of using biological reality as a means of gender identification, and therefore by extension denies the underlying validity of my own gender self-identification.
I find some of current gender/sex theory difficult to accept because it denies the validity of using biological reality as a means of gender identification, and therefore by extension denies the underlying validity of my own gender self-identification.
I don't see that it does that by extension. It seems to be generally accepted that for the vast majority of it, our biological sex and our self-identified gender will be one and the same. I am (as I saw someone say on Twitter recently) a factory-settings female, and have always felt and perceived and understood myself to be a woman. I don't think anything has changed in the fact that that's how it is for most people. All that's changed is recognizing that there's a small but significant segment of the population who don't experience that alignment, so the rest of us shouldn't assume that our experience of biological sex and gender aligning is the only way for anyone to understand gender.
I know you're a man because I perceive your body that way.
Not just that. For me it's also "I know I'm a man because that's the body I have"; that is to say that my biology defines my identity rather than the other way around. I find some of current gender/sex theory difficult to accept because it denies the validity of using biological reality as a means of gender identification, and therefore by extension denies the underlying validity of my own gender self-identification.
No it doesn't, because how you decide your gender doesn't have to be how anyone else defines theirs. It's perfectly valid to use what you call "biological reality" but that doesn't make it the only valid way.
'biological reality' is as I found out, is a lot more complex than I'd been taught in school. I didn't encounter how complex biological sex was (before you even get to gender) before I was pushing fifty. When I looked at the history of how sex was defined and how that had changed over medical history I was gobsmacked. The first suggestion that an x chromosome was anything to do with sex determination was in 1901 and sex hormones were first intensively studied in the 1920s.
One of the things that became plain when these things were studied was that it was hard to make a nice neat male/female division from biology and that was alarming for societies which had very strict notions of what men should be and what women should be and consequently what they should be allowed to do.
And indeed one of the things that became plain from looking at the history was that when people tried to make those nice neat clear divisions for others and shove people into the resulting boxes, you got very cruel situations. In the earlier period I study when this wasn't understood by church and state, intersex people sometimes got burned at the stake because they were assigned by those who looked at them to one gender because they'd looked at their genitals and then when they didn't match that assigned gender in their sexual relationships they were executed. A mix of homophobia and rigid gender roles and expectations came into play, there's still a fair bit of that about today sadly.
Here are a couple of links on the complexity of sex.
I think Marvin's point hits on one source of hostility to transgender, that a weakening of the link between anatomy and identity, is threatening for some. I'm not trans, but I found this weakening a liberation. I hate being identified as anything, especially to do with anatomy. And of course, Louise has it right, that sex itself is not black and white.
It's worth remembering, whatever Descartes might have thought, the mind is at least partly biological too. If your brain says you're male or female then that is just as valid, if not more so, than your chromosomes or the contents of your underwear.
It's worth remembering, whatever Descartes might have thought, the mind is at least partly biological too. If your brain says you're male or female then that is just as valid, if not more so, than your chromosomes or the contents of your underwear.
The same argument can be used by thosewho insistthey are Napoleon forthesole reason that they have a deep and inviolable conviction about it.
Thin ice.
I find some of current gender/sex theory difficult to accept because it denies the validity of using biological reality as a means of gender identification, and therefore by extension denies the underlying validity of my own gender self-identification.
I don't see that it does that by extension. It seems to be generally accepted that for the vast majority of it, our biological sex and our self-identified gender will be one and the same.
The thing is, for me that link between biology and gender is the only one that can be relied on. Without that link to externally-verifiable ontology I don't see any reliable basis on which to make a self-identification, or indeed to define the concepts of "male" and "female" in the first place. I'm not being glib here, this is a genuine issue for me. How can I know I'm a man if there's no independent, ontological definition of what "a man" is?
No it doesn't, because how you decide your gender doesn't have to be how anyone else defines theirs.
But without a universally-applicable definition it becomes meaningless. A humpty-dumpty word that can mean whatever the person using it wants it to mean. It may just be the way my mind works, but I can't build a self-identity on that basis. I can't just rely on my own thoughts and opinions, because I know (probably better than anyone else) just how capable of error those thoughts and opinions are. Simply put, I don't trust myself to be the sole definer of my own socio-ontological reality.
It's worth remembering, whatever Descartes might have thought, the mind is at least partly biological too. If your brain says you're male or female then that is just as valid, if not more so, than your chromosomes or the contents of your underwear.
The same argument can be used by thosewho insistthey are Napoleon forthesole reason that they have a deep and inviolable conviction about it.
Thin ice.
Indeed. There is ample evidence throughout history that the human mind is perfectly capable of error. In the absence of external verification, I don't see how we can assert with confidence that anything it says is correct.
The other option, of course, is to say that it doesn't matter if what the mind says is objectively correct or not - we should treat it as if it is regardless. But the implications of that line of thought literally terrify me.
It's worth remembering, whatever Descartes might have thought, the mind is at least partly biological too. If your brain says you're male or female then that is just as valid, if not more so, than your chromosomes or the contents of your underwear.
The same argument can be used by thosewho insistthey are Napoleon forthesole reason that they have a deep and inviolable conviction about it.
Thin ice.
If they want to rule France as emperor that's a problem. If they just want to be called Napoleon Bonaparte then that's a matter for deed poll, job done.
It's worth remembering, whatever Descartes might have thought, the mind is at least partly biological too. If your brain says you're male or female then that is just as valid, if not more so, than your chromosomes or the contents of your underwear.
The same argument can be used by thosewho insistthey are Napoleon forthesole reason that they have a deep and inviolable conviction about it.
Thin ice.
If they want to rule France as emperor that's a problem. If they just want to be called Napoleon Bonaparte then that's a matter for deed poll, job done.
But if they want evetyone around them to treat them as though they were Napoleon .....
I know you're a man because I perceive your body that way.
Not just that. For me it's also "I know I'm a man because that's the body I have"; that is to say that my biology defines my identity rather than the other way around.
Which is, of course, how most of us experience gender - though personally I'm not sure biology defines gender as, for me, they're so strongly linked that I'm not sure I could separate a cause from effect there.
But, the main point is that my experience, even if shared by the majority of people, isn't normative. The experience of others is very different, and as equally valid.
I find some of current gender/sex theory difficult to accept because it denies the validity of using biological reality as a means of gender identification, and therefore by extension denies the underlying validity of my own gender self-identification.
Which is the point at which we need to be listening to people who don't share our experience, to hear whether or not they're seeing that same extension - in which case is it a problem for you to sort out if you're seeing a denial of the underlying validity of your own identity which no one else is denying?
Self-identification works in many directions. If we doubt the self-identification of some people, doesn't that also cast doubt on our own self-identification? Are we allowing our identity to be something that is defined for us by something else (which could include our biology, but for many people is someone else saying that biology defines), or is it something we are at liberty to work out for ourselves?
Comments
So unless there's something I'm missing the very thing they're arguing is bad in the UK, they think is fine for Ireland.
Put simply, the UK government is behind the wave in much of the world, and if the UK holds out on requiring medical assessments will be among the minority (especially in the western world) where gender recognition isn't on the basis of self-id.
Also, many of the nations listed have had self-id for several years, without any of the consequences of women being assaulted in toilets etc that the transphobes have predicted will happen in Scotland. If Scotland was the first place in the world to introduce such a right then maybe concerns about whether predatory men would apply to gain access to women would have a little bit of justification, but when there's so many nations which have already made that change in legislation without any of that sort of thing illustrates very clearly that these are specious concerns.
Although the rights guaranteed are not really limited by the border as such, as anyone born in any part of Ireland is able to take up Irish citizenship should they so wish.
Does U.K. law engage in gender discrimination? I mean, how does U.K. law treat people differently based on their (legally recognized) gender?
Looking at the UK situation, the risk of making this all about self-ID is in perpetuating the misconception that trans and nonbinary people are all about defining our gender in some idiosyncratic way, which creates anxieties for some people and focuses the debate in an unhelpful way. It's not the hill I'd want to die on if there are alternatives that are more broadly palatable. That's less of risk in places where the issue is less politically fraught.
Ontario is not a self-ID jurisdiction and as far as I know it's not top of mind for anyone to try to make it one.
In the UK we've seen the Conservatives take increasingly irrational positions on issues that shouldn't be part of the political game - we should not be seeing gender, race, sexuality etc being used as political footballs, but we are and that leads to situations where the UK government uses the lives of transpeople as something to be trampled on in their campaign to roll back Scottish devolution. Without that context, the bill would be something that impacts the lives of a very small number of people, those seeking to have their gender correctly described on official documents and their friends and family supporting them, and largely ignored by the vast majority of people who won't be affected.
There's a concern that the use of this issue as a political football in the UK is going to be infectious, and in other nations where similar legislation is working through the system there will be local outbreaks of culture war making what should be a simple legislative process contentious. If Germany and Spain (just because those are the two nations I know have similar legislation going through their legislatures) manage to debate the legislation without all the fuss we've seen in the UK then I'd be delighted for them, but I fear that the UK government actions have encouraged the transphobic bigots in those countries to stand up and spread their vile poison.
I'm not convinced self-ID is the cause of the "backlash". Plenty of places that haven't even considered self-ID have a toxic anti-trans narrative in full swing.
And plenty of places that have self-ID haven't had any 'backlash' (the term itself is highly problematic).
I think this misses a bit how moral panics work. Moral panics come about when powerful groups with control or clout in the media decide to attack and demonise harmless minorities who don't have their power by falsely representing them as threats to society - especially by painting them as threats to women and children or sexually deviant. They can pick any innocent feature for these attacks - even a telly-tubby having a hand-bag can become grist to a moral panic.
The big moral panic here in the UK was started by Rupert Murdoch's Times group newspapers who printed hundreds (probably into the thousands now) of attack pieces against a harmless group comprising about 0.5% of the population. It was then taken up by other newspapers, magazines and media.
If you don't have a powerful Murdoch press/media, then that's likely your answer as to why things like this aren't issues so much where you are. Trans people are not responsible for hate-mongers deciding to make them their preferred target.
Self-ID was originally an uncontroversial ask from UK trans people picking the most inoffensive minor reform that would help them - it was so uncontroversial that even the socially conservative Conservative party was bringing it forward. It was something that seemed a shoo-in for all party support. Then the Murdoch press et al. decided to attack, others jumped on the hate bandwagon, and here we are.
I am inclined to ask two questions:
1. How is this handled in other countries?
2. How is the situation of a prisoner who is a danger to women inmates and staff but is herself cisgender handled?
Does anyone know?
That thought crossed my mind too.
https://theferret.scot/policy-trans-people-prisons-uk/
But it doesn't say what the case is elsewhere.
Yes the cisgender female on female offender thing struck me too - that it's just not been thought through as they are indeed female cis sexual offenders against women and they surely shouldn't be going in prisons for men and if you say no sexual offenders against women go to a women's jail - where do they go? They're probably very under-reported though reporting is going up. I know a record from the 17th century of a woman seriously sexually assaulting another woman so it's not new.
I should also say that none of this is anything to do with the Gender Recognition Act as it doesn't affect any of it. It's just a sad reflection on the current moral panic that the press is pumping out the old tropes they used to use against gay people - any time gay equality or rights was on the radar you'd suddenly see any case with a non- straight sex offender on the front page. All the better to cast gay folk as predators who didnt deserve rights.
I haven't seen a piece on this from the various trans folk run news sources I follow yet - just tweets but I'll keep an eye out for comment.
https://www.scottishtrans.org/scottish-trans-statement-on-isla-bryson-case-27-01-23/
They say
So is this a statement that Scottish Trans thinks that cis women who are sexually violent towards women should be housed in a men's prison?
I'm a bit confused by this. Much of the public comment on Isla Bryson seems to centre on the suggestion that she is not "really trans", but is claiming to be trans in order to get a cushier accommodation in prison.
This sort of suggests that Scottish Trans might be hinting in that direction, without actually coming out and saying it, because if other people get to judge whether someone is "really trans" or not, then self-id doesn't make any sense. So it seems to me that they're trying to walk a delicate line here.
I have no data with which to express an opinion on whether I think Isla Bryson's transition is genuine. I also have no standing with which to express an opinion - and tend to the opinion that nobody apart from Isla Bryson has such standing. So I tend to take these things at face value. Isla Bryson is a woman, therefore she should be housed in a women's prison. Isla Bryson is a convicted rapist who has raped women, therefore she should not be placed in a situation where she is able to attack women. Conclusion? Isla Bryson should be kept in solitary confinement in a women's prison, with limited ability to interact with other women. Rather the same rules that I'd apply to a male rapist who had raped men, in a men's prison.
I don’t think so - they are supportive of individualised risk assessment. Vulnerable prisoners who are kept separate from the general prison population are not necessarily in solitary confinement, they maybe kept in a segregation wing: https://prisonreformtrust.org.uk/adviceguide/segregation/
That kind of public comment is repeating transphobic talking points though.
The Scottish women's prison system is actually really bad (I think there was a big report on how bad a few years ago) and has been sharply criticised for its conditions, so it's possible that there's just a lack of confidence in them handling sex offenders of any sort but it's also possible that the cis female sexual offender situation just hasn't been fully thought through because they're not the focus of a massive moral panic.
Therefore beliefs about risk centre on whether perpetrator has a penis - though in fact cis gender women and others can perpetrate serious sexual assault without a penis - these are not seen as equally harmful, in addition the risk of men being raped is somehow seen as a less of a problem.
But in this case, we're not talking about a vulnerable prisoner, but about rather the opposite - a prisoner who has been convicted of sexual assault of people like the general prison population.
Isla Bryson, in a women's prison, would need to be separated from the rest of the women for the protection of those women. Isla Bryson, in a men's prison, would need to be separated from the general population for her own protection.
It would not surprise me that there was an element of your hidden suggestion present in this discussion, as well.
Link behind spoiler tags -
She wrote about how
[I haven't put in the link to that essay as it has a content warning too but if you follow my link above you'll find it]
And now here's the kicker which really made me pay attention -
Content warning- mentions sexual bits and sweary words so probably not safe for work
As I’ve remarked elsewhere: “penises are made of flesh and blood, nothing more.” That is the truth of it. But in our hetero-male-centric culture, we are taught to attribute “magical properties” to penises...
Numerous surveys asking college students what “counts” as sex have found virtually unanimous agreement that penile-vaginal intercourse constitutes sex, with about 80 percent saying the same about penile-anal intercourse, and roughly 40 percent about oral sex; all other intimate acts lag far behind. So while people may differ in their definitions of sex, most seem to believe that it involves a penis penetrating another person and that a vagina need not be involved. To put this in the context of our previous discussions about the Predator/Prey mindset, if women (or whoever is cast in the “sexual object” role) *have* or *are* “sex,” then it seems as though the penis is the thing that *takes* that “sex” from them. Consistent with this, it’s always the person who accepts or accommodates the penis (rather than the person who possesses it) who is viewed as having been degraded by the act, as is evident in the sentiment that women (but not men) are “used” or “dirtied” by heterosexual sex, and the widespread use of the slur “cocksucker” (whereas no analogous universally demeaning term exists for those who receive fellatio or engage in cunnilingus). And if a person intentionally hurts or humiliates another person, we often call them a “dick.” While penises, and those who are attached to them, are not stigmatized themselves, they do seem to possess the ability to impart sexual stigma upon others. [Sexed Up, p. 164]
It also helps to explain our culture’s unidirectional conceptualization of sexual violence. While a significant number of women commit acts of sexual violence, people tend to view these incidents as less serious and less harmful than similar acts committed by men — this is likely due to the imagined “lack of penis” required to initiate sex and to bestow sexual stigma upon the victim. (bold mine)
Serano also discusses how trans women like herself are treated and viewed by those who commonly call themselves Gender Critical but under the older descriptor of 'cultural feminism'
This essay and its thoughts on contamination, purity and stigma really struck me because I have older friends who went over to the anti-trans side and even when I had long careful email exchanges or hours long respectful conversations with them so much seemed to come down to
warning discussion of sexual assault
I would dispute that, sex offenders tend to be targeted by other prisoners - regardless of gender. One can be both a perpetrator and vulnerable.
While not detracting from the point being made I'm kind of surprised the author of the piece hasn't heard the terms
It would seem that Nicola Sturgeon has now said that Bryson is ”almost certainly not really trans”, which seems somewhat at odds with her apparent desire to make it easier for people to transition based purely on self ID.
I can’t do links properly on my phone, but here’s one: https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/nicola-sturgeon-says-double-rapist-135600414.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvLnVrLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMJr79uCfos8MgV33exyKAq4dA1gtGeneZyRykv7AmwP_EsGlANglOqJoGOk2ZCeRjoxJ0DK5uLZcilGifFOlwIlKmb0AeBnhTheS9wNnopoRMshalaYH_g92OEn7nYMae2nuAG_THOP4Xq35rpvkobqKoYY2VcdQj0tBxCfBfts
Surely if Sturgeon wants self ID to be the only criterion that counts when determining someone’s sex/gender then she should stand by that and accept Bryson’s self identification, as - to their credit - some of her SNP colleagues have done.
I think the huge aggressive moral panic that's been going on up here is having an effect. The newspaper which famously drove the anti-gay 'Keep The Clause' campaign is all over this and has been printing the kind of outright scaremongering propaganda we used to see then. It's amazing how bad our press is and they really haven't improved - just shifted target.
I can also speak from lived experience that being someone's partner even for a long time doesn't tell you anything about their gender - except what gender they present as to you. It doesn't necessarily give you any privileged knowledge. It can take years or never before someone trusts their partner with their gender if it's not cis.
I'm reminded a bit of what Elizabeth I said about not making windows into folk's souls...
I think that final sentence is something that underlies reactions to trans people generally - the strong belief people have that they can make such windows. I think it's connected to a lack of appreciation of how diverse people's inner lives are.
Not just that. For me it's also "I know I'm a man because that's the body I have"; that is to say that my biology defines my identity rather than the other way around. I find some of current gender/sex theory difficult to accept because it denies the validity of using biological reality as a means of gender identification, and therefore by extension denies the underlying validity of my own gender self-identification.
I don't see that it does that by extension. It seems to be generally accepted that for the vast majority of it, our biological sex and our self-identified gender will be one and the same. I am (as I saw someone say on Twitter recently) a factory-settings female, and have always felt and perceived and understood myself to be a woman. I don't think anything has changed in the fact that that's how it is for most people. All that's changed is recognizing that there's a small but significant segment of the population who don't experience that alignment, so the rest of us shouldn't assume that our experience of biological sex and gender aligning is the only way for anyone to understand gender.
No it doesn't, because how you decide your gender doesn't have to be how anyone else defines theirs. It's perfectly valid to use what you call "biological reality" but that doesn't make it the only valid way.
One of the things that became plain when these things were studied was that it was hard to make a nice neat male/female division from biology and that was alarming for societies which had very strict notions of what men should be and what women should be and consequently what they should be allowed to do.
And indeed one of the things that became plain from looking at the history was that when people tried to make those nice neat clear divisions for others and shove people into the resulting boxes, you got very cruel situations. In the earlier period I study when this wasn't understood by church and state, intersex people sometimes got burned at the stake because they were assigned by those who looked at them to one gender because they'd looked at their genitals and then when they didn't match that assigned gender in their sexual relationships they were executed. A mix of homophobia and rigid gender roles and expectations came into play, there's still a fair bit of that about today sadly.
Here are a couple of links on the complexity of sex.
https://www.uow.edu.au/media/2021/anatomy-texts-should-show-sex-as-a-spectrum-to-include-intersex-people.php
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/sa-visual/visualizing-sex-as-a-spectrum/
I've got a direct link to the big complex chart here
Beyond XX and XY
The same argument can be used by thosewho insistthey are Napoleon forthesole reason that they have a deep and inviolable conviction about it.
Thin ice.
The thing is, for me that link between biology and gender is the only one that can be relied on. Without that link to externally-verifiable ontology I don't see any reliable basis on which to make a self-identification, or indeed to define the concepts of "male" and "female" in the first place. I'm not being glib here, this is a genuine issue for me. How can I know I'm a man if there's no independent, ontological definition of what "a man" is?
But without a universally-applicable definition it becomes meaningless. A humpty-dumpty word that can mean whatever the person using it wants it to mean. It may just be the way my mind works, but I can't build a self-identity on that basis. I can't just rely on my own thoughts and opinions, because I know (probably better than anyone else) just how capable of error those thoughts and opinions are. Simply put, I don't trust myself to be the sole definer of my own socio-ontological reality.
Indeed. There is ample evidence throughout history that the human mind is perfectly capable of error. In the absence of external verification, I don't see how we can assert with confidence that anything it says is correct.
The other option, of course, is to say that it doesn't matter if what the mind says is objectively correct or not - we should treat it as if it is regardless. But the implications of that line of thought literally terrify me.
If they want to rule France as emperor that's a problem. If they just want to be called Napoleon Bonaparte then that's a matter for deed poll, job done.
But if they want evetyone around them to treat them as though they were Napoleon .....
But, the main point is that my experience, even if shared by the majority of people, isn't normative. The experience of others is very different, and as equally valid.
Which is the point at which we need to be listening to people who don't share our experience, to hear whether or not they're seeing that same extension - in which case is it a problem for you to sort out if you're seeing a denial of the underlying validity of your own identity which no one else is denying?
Self-identification works in many directions. If we doubt the self-identification of some people, doesn't that also cast doubt on our own self-identification? Are we allowing our identity to be something that is defined for us by something else (which could include our biology, but for many people is someone else saying that biology defines), or is it something we are at liberty to work out for ourselves?