I was anxious to hear A Slightly Twisted Female announcing a few hours ago she was "softening" her position on CAIS due to feeling sympathetic to discussions on Mumsnet that the "hardline" biological position was unrealistic and unkind and could not be applied in the "real world"...
my fear is she is buying into being the kind and compassionate woman.
Men need to be held culpable for their violence towards people who appear feminine. The more we keep allowing ourselves to be used as shields the longer they will avoid taking responsibility.
It is actually quite insulting toward men that we always have to presume they cannot be kind and accepting toward one of their own. Women are always expected to keep wiping their asses even when they're fully grown.
Actually, my true assessment is that 70% of men would be very understanding, 20% potential opportunists and 10% a real danger. But the odds are no better for the rest of us females.
This is insightful writing. At last, I'm starting to "get" what the kerfuffle is about. So far, I was just bewildered about the widening schism in the movement. You managed to put everything in a way I could understand. This morning, I also read an article that was written in October 2020 (The four horsemen of the gc movement by Joey Brite), which pushed another puzzle piece into its slot. I guess when you have been at the heart of the movement for years its easier to understand what seems to be just "quarrels" and "fallouts". I forget that 8 months ago, I came home from work and started sewing or knitting. Now, these activities have a different priority on my list. I always had a vague notion of a very hard bottom line we cannot cross without complete capitulation. Now, I feel better equipped to actually argue for that line. Thank you so much.
I've mentioned before that the reason so many people insist that CAIS men are women *even when they know the man's DSD status* is because our culture is so sexist that we literally feel a need to treat men and women like completely different species. If we were truly fair and not sexist in the ways we treat men and women, then it wouldn't be so startling to learn that someone with natural-grown breasts and vulva was actually male, and it wouldn't require us to treat him any differently. That idea must have resonated because I saw someone on GETTR mention it, though she said she couldn't remember where she read it from -- hell, she could have seen you say it, too. And it's true. These people yelling at you think they're taking the compassionate view but the truth is they're so invested in treating female people like second-class citizens that when they find out someone who looks female is a man, it completely throws them off their feed. And that's their problem, and they need to deal with that on their own. We can't help them.
Yes poor male ego's, imagine how hard it must be for that poor straight man to fancy, that man in a dress, safer to call the man in a dress, a woman. Phew he's still straight, two happy men. What more could the world wish for.
Claire's validation of her sex isn't coming from Claire, she feels validation, when men show/tell her she is a woman. Her entire identity has been defined by men, in a much more direct way than non dsd women. It's why she's so irrational, her beliefs have been spoon fed to her, otherwise how would she know she is a woman. Shall I circle round again...... I do feel for her, well, until she posts.
Exulansic, I just want to thank you for holding the line against this "transgender" nonsense. There are two sexes and only two sexes, male and female, which are determined at the moment of conception and cannot be changed by drugs, cosmetics, or mutilating surgeries.
You may be interested to know that a hospital in the UK denied that a woman had been raped on a ward, because there were no me on the ward, but there was a transwoman- even tho there was CCTV evidence of the rape the hospital denied it for over a year, because 'transwomen ' are women - even if they still have all their make 'bits'
Yeah ,Baroness Nicholson gave a speech about it in the House of Lords. Well done to her.and.♥️ and support for the victim.!! High time nurses got together and rebelled against this nonesense instead of lying to patients !!
Well said ,even if I didn't fully understand all of it. Does Julia Serano in " Whipping girl " actually believe that hormone treatment some how magically changes your chromosomes ( present in every cell in your body ) into those of the opposite sex. Also ,not sure where the xist tsix is coming from or whose side she's on ,as she seems to be arguing on both sides. !! Anyway.,thank you for all you do. You are one of the few people who really investigate the physical harms this ideology is doing to people's bodies , especially children and young people . Keep it up 👏👏👏👍👍👍♥️♥️♥️
I would just add to your final paragraph that the idea that medical doctors have special authority to declare some males to be girls and women isn't just due to medical misogyny and paternalism, it also comes from the the fact that the men who have been the thought leaders in Western medicine and shaped orthodox views of DSDs all seem to have deep-seated castration anxieties and huge hangups about the size and looks of their own and other guys' penises.
As the US-based urologist Milton Diamond pointed out in the 1990s, the view of many DSDs like XY 5-ARD and AIS that came to be the orthodox view in Western medicine in the 20th century was that boys born with testes that were wholly or partially undescended tests and with penises that were minuscule, malformed or missing entirely were bound to go through life miserable, unfulfilled and with low or no self-esteem. So they decided better to deny that they are male and pretend and tell them they are some kind of special girls/women. As if that in itself would not lead to a whole host of other problems...
Interestingly, in many parts of Asia such as Japan, China and India, there does not seem to be such a focus on - and horror about - small penis size and undescended testes. In those countries, it's simply accepted that some males - not just ones with DSDs, but amongst the general population - will be born with genital features that make them somewhat atypical such as micro-penis and/or hypospadias and/or cryptorchidism. (The last condition is incredibly common in all populations globally, occurring in 30% of of the world's premature male births, and 3% of male births at full term.)
BTW, I understand why your views on CAIS have caused such ire, but still the irrationality and vituperativeness of the response to you seems very out of whack. I don't think it's just what you said, it's that you have dared to say anything at all.
Many people with DSDs and advocates for them nowadays seem to have the mistaken impression that people with DSDs are the only group that historically has been abused and mistreated by medical practitioners and misunderstood and portrayed in a negative, stigmatizing light by society. Many of them also seem to have embraced the attitude of secrecy and shame about their own medical conditions and DSDs generally that many of them were raised with. I don't know of any other group with a rare medical condition, or set of conditions, so distressed by the idea that people outside their community would seek to understand their conditions and would dare to have opinions and ideas about them.
I happen to come from a family with a history of some extremely rare, life-limiting indeed fatal genetic diseases - cystic fibrosis and primary immune deficiency - and other serious inherited conditions including hereditary hemochromatosis, pernicious anemia and the DSD Turner syndrome. And some of the males in my family were born with cryptorchidism and one had testicular cancer as a child and lost a testicle. There's a lot of shaming, stigmatization and medical malpractice that people with these conditions and who carry the genes for them commonly experience, just as there was with AIDS in the 1980s. But just as there was never any push by AIDS activists and patients to get the world NOT to talk about AIDs, there's never been a hue and cry amongst people or families with CF, PI, HH, PA - or even with Turner syndrome as far as I can tell - that aims to stop other people "outside the community" from looking into these conditions and seeking to understand them. On the contrary, most people who've experienced rare diseases and conditions personally or in their families want the world to learn more and they welcome the interest.
Also, trying to control what other people say and force them to kowtow to one particular orthodox POV dictated from on high by a caste deemed to have special knowledge smacks of religious authoritarianism. Reminds me of the Vatican issuing Papal Bulls and Shia imams like the Ayatollah Khomeni issuing fatwas.
With you 100% Sierra.
Hold the line.
I was anxious to hear A Slightly Twisted Female announcing a few hours ago she was "softening" her position on CAIS due to feeling sympathetic to discussions on Mumsnet that the "hardline" biological position was unrealistic and unkind and could not be applied in the "real world"...
....oh sheeeesh....
Yep worried me too.
Me too. Got me feeling a bit down ,tbh
my fear is she is buying into being the kind and compassionate woman.
Men need to be held culpable for their violence towards people who appear feminine. The more we keep allowing ourselves to be used as shields the longer they will avoid taking responsibility.
It is actually quite insulting toward men that we always have to presume they cannot be kind and accepting toward one of their own. Women are always expected to keep wiping their asses even when they're fully grown.
Actually, my true assessment is that 70% of men would be very understanding, 20% potential opportunists and 10% a real danger. But the odds are no better for the rest of us females.
This is insightful writing. At last, I'm starting to "get" what the kerfuffle is about. So far, I was just bewildered about the widening schism in the movement. You managed to put everything in a way I could understand. This morning, I also read an article that was written in October 2020 (The four horsemen of the gc movement by Joey Brite), which pushed another puzzle piece into its slot. I guess when you have been at the heart of the movement for years its easier to understand what seems to be just "quarrels" and "fallouts". I forget that 8 months ago, I came home from work and started sewing or knitting. Now, these activities have a different priority on my list. I always had a vague notion of a very hard bottom line we cannot cross without complete capitulation. Now, I feel better equipped to actually argue for that line. Thank you so much.
I've mentioned before that the reason so many people insist that CAIS men are women *even when they know the man's DSD status* is because our culture is so sexist that we literally feel a need to treat men and women like completely different species. If we were truly fair and not sexist in the ways we treat men and women, then it wouldn't be so startling to learn that someone with natural-grown breasts and vulva was actually male, and it wouldn't require us to treat him any differently. That idea must have resonated because I saw someone on GETTR mention it, though she said she couldn't remember where she read it from -- hell, she could have seen you say it, too. And it's true. These people yelling at you think they're taking the compassionate view but the truth is they're so invested in treating female people like second-class citizens that when they find out someone who looks female is a man, it completely throws them off their feed. And that's their problem, and they need to deal with that on their own. We can't help them.
A religious fundamentalist may treat them differently. The question is do they have a right to or does the disability accommodation negate it.
neither
Yes poor male ego's, imagine how hard it must be for that poor straight man to fancy, that man in a dress, safer to call the man in a dress, a woman. Phew he's still straight, two happy men. What more could the world wish for.
Claire's validation of her sex isn't coming from Claire, she feels validation, when men show/tell her she is a woman. Her entire identity has been defined by men, in a much more direct way than non dsd women. It's why she's so irrational, her beliefs have been spoon fed to her, otherwise how would she know she is a woman. Shall I circle round again...... I do feel for her, well, until she posts.
Exulansic, I just want to thank you for holding the line against this "transgender" nonsense. There are two sexes and only two sexes, male and female, which are determined at the moment of conception and cannot be changed by drugs, cosmetics, or mutilating surgeries.
You may be interested to know that a hospital in the UK denied that a woman had been raped on a ward, because there were no me on the ward, but there was a transwoman- even tho there was CCTV evidence of the rape the hospital denied it for over a year, because 'transwomen ' are women - even if they still have all their make 'bits'
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/17/hospital-told-police-patient-not-raped-alleged-attacker-transgender/
Yeah ,Baroness Nicholson gave a speech about it in the House of Lords. Well done to her.and.♥️ and support for the victim.!! High time nurses got together and rebelled against this nonesense instead of lying to patients !!
Wow. No more content from men about pregnancy, childbirth, menstruation, gynaecology and the list goes on!
Well said ,even if I didn't fully understand all of it. Does Julia Serano in " Whipping girl " actually believe that hormone treatment some how magically changes your chromosomes ( present in every cell in your body ) into those of the opposite sex. Also ,not sure where the xist tsix is coming from or whose side she's on ,as she seems to be arguing on both sides. !! Anyway.,thank you for all you do. You are one of the few people who really investigate the physical harms this ideology is doing to people's bodies , especially children and young people . Keep it up 👏👏👏👍👍👍♥️♥️♥️
Great piece!
I would just add to your final paragraph that the idea that medical doctors have special authority to declare some males to be girls and women isn't just due to medical misogyny and paternalism, it also comes from the the fact that the men who have been the thought leaders in Western medicine and shaped orthodox views of DSDs all seem to have deep-seated castration anxieties and huge hangups about the size and looks of their own and other guys' penises.
As the US-based urologist Milton Diamond pointed out in the 1990s, the view of many DSDs like XY 5-ARD and AIS that came to be the orthodox view in Western medicine in the 20th century was that boys born with testes that were wholly or partially undescended tests and with penises that were minuscule, malformed or missing entirely were bound to go through life miserable, unfulfilled and with low or no self-esteem. So they decided better to deny that they are male and pretend and tell them they are some kind of special girls/women. As if that in itself would not lead to a whole host of other problems...
Interestingly, in many parts of Asia such as Japan, China and India, there does not seem to be such a focus on - and horror about - small penis size and undescended testes. In those countries, it's simply accepted that some males - not just ones with DSDs, but amongst the general population - will be born with genital features that make them somewhat atypical such as micro-penis and/or hypospadias and/or cryptorchidism. (The last condition is incredibly common in all populations globally, occurring in 30% of of the world's premature male births, and 3% of male births at full term.)
BTW, I understand why your views on CAIS have caused such ire, but still the irrationality and vituperativeness of the response to you seems very out of whack. I don't think it's just what you said, it's that you have dared to say anything at all.
Many people with DSDs and advocates for them nowadays seem to have the mistaken impression that people with DSDs are the only group that historically has been abused and mistreated by medical practitioners and misunderstood and portrayed in a negative, stigmatizing light by society. Many of them also seem to have embraced the attitude of secrecy and shame about their own medical conditions and DSDs generally that many of them were raised with. I don't know of any other group with a rare medical condition, or set of conditions, so distressed by the idea that people outside their community would seek to understand their conditions and would dare to have opinions and ideas about them.
I happen to come from a family with a history of some extremely rare, life-limiting indeed fatal genetic diseases - cystic fibrosis and primary immune deficiency - and other serious inherited conditions including hereditary hemochromatosis, pernicious anemia and the DSD Turner syndrome. And some of the males in my family were born with cryptorchidism and one had testicular cancer as a child and lost a testicle. There's a lot of shaming, stigmatization and medical malpractice that people with these conditions and who carry the genes for them commonly experience, just as there was with AIDS in the 1980s. But just as there was never any push by AIDS activists and patients to get the world NOT to talk about AIDs, there's never been a hue and cry amongst people or families with CF, PI, HH, PA - or even with Turner syndrome as far as I can tell - that aims to stop other people "outside the community" from looking into these conditions and seeking to understand them. On the contrary, most people who've experienced rare diseases and conditions personally or in their families want the world to learn more and they welcome the interest.
Also, trying to control what other people say and force them to kowtow to one particular orthodox POV dictated from on high by a caste deemed to have special knowledge smacks of religious authoritarianism. Reminds me of the Vatican issuing Papal Bulls and Shia imams like the Ayatollah Khomeni issuing fatwas.
Again, great piece.