Gender again. Sorry!

[classic33]

But if 'You are who you say you are' and gender identity is innate (I'm assuming you believe this. If not perhaps you can explain what you do believe), then no-one can be more 'woman' than anyone else, surely?

When they are in womens personal spaces how do we tell the difference?

Somehow I don't think they would.
Do you think being housed in a women's domestic violence refuge or turning up to do a disabled girl's intimate care would be a circumstance where it might be useful for women to know? But again, how would we know they are telling the truth?

You offered to do the policing, so I think we're all waiting on hearing about you being arrested for doing your "Mick Dundee Test".

 

[Deleted member 121]

@HMS_Dave I'm thinking maybe some of those different job titles amount to the same job. "Working in/for" means very little in an organisation the size of the NHS, but the aim seems to be to try and lend some sort of credibility or expression of knowledge and expertise in icow's posts.

The impression I get is that he is an IT project manager for the NHS which, AIUI, doesn't necessarily involve much working knowledge of IT, healthcare, or indeed data.

He certainly knows FA about statistics, so I'm going to guess he is an arts or humanities graduate who has found a niche in project management, because engineering or science would require a decent understanding of numbers.

You're probably right. It's more feasible than my best theory that he started working in the NHS at 5 years old in kids corner in the waiting room as a stickle brick expert and has now worked his way up to a clown impressionist on the children's wards.

 

[monkers]

But again, how would we know they are telling the truth?

Truth has suddenly appeared as an important commodity. Who knew?

 

[AuroraSaab]

It's always been my view that truth is important. Sex is binary, all men are equally men etc. It's you who seem to now be of the view that some people aren't to be believed when they tell us they are living as their authentic selves.

 

[Bromptonaut]

But if 'You are who you say you are' and gender identity is innate (I'm assuming you believe this. If not perhaps you can explain what you do believe), then no-one can be more 'woman' than anyone else, surely?

When they are in womens personal spaces how do we tell the difference?



Somehow I don't think they would.
Do you think being housed in a women's domestic violence refuge or turning up to do a disabled girl's intimate care would be a circumstance where it might be useful for women to know? But again, how would we know they are telling the truth?

You're a bit off beam.

I'm not, wholly and without reservation/exception, in the 'you are who say you are camp'. I've a presumption in that direction for sure but if the behaviour and, to pinch a birdwatcher's term jizz, of a person - how they look, move and behave, - doesn't match then my antennae are bristling.

It seems to me that @monkers applies a similar test and that Wood's story (starting with birth ID) doesn't pass muster. It wouldn't feel right to Prison Staff either which would, in turn, affect how they're treated in any prison.

In other words they'd ring alarm bells long before they were anywhere near being in the buff with cis women prisoners.

 

[icowden]

Sorry for the brief interlude in the thread, but when claims are made to justify ones position or argument, i think clarification should be made.

I'm 49 (I said "about 30" not actually "30". Thanks for the birthday wishes. As you have requested a biography, I started out as a temp medical secretary and worked for several years in many different hospitals. I then became a permanent medical secretary, firstly working in Community Paeds and then in Continence, also a spell in Clinical Governance and Physiotherapy. Whilst working in Comm Paeds I developed and wrote a patient management system which was later replaced with a commercial offering that initially wasn't quite as good. From there I moved into Service Development, and from there in to Data Migration and Data Warehousing including developing reporting, dataset extraction and OLAP. I have also been on several procurement boards for the NHS amongst other things as I know quite a lot about Electronic Patient Records software.

So yes a varied career in which some of those things happened at the same time. Medical Secretaries work extensively with medical records and need to understand records policy and archiving, not all of which is managed centrally - especially not for Community Trusts

@multitool needs to work harder on his guesses. I know quite a lot about statistics but am not a statistician. That said, I feel at this point the need to remind you that we should disregard anything he says because he is a bullying cvnt busy smearing his own shite up the walls as usual.

Will you be asking everyone else for a biography as well? Should we collate hobbies also?

 

[icowden]

@HMS_Dave IThe impression I get is that he is an IT project manager for the NHS which, AIUI, doesn't necessarily involve much working knowledge of IT, healthcare, or indeed data.

Yes, because you are neither perceptive nor particularly bright.

He certainly knows FA about statistics, so I'm going to guess he is an arts or humanities graduate who has found a niche in project management, because engineering or science would require a decent understanding of numbers.

As usual complete crap from you. Go back to learning to read. Bully.

 

[AuroraSaab]

You're a bit off beam. I'm not, wholly and without reservation/exception, in the 'you are who say you are camp'. I've a presumption in that direction for sure but if the behaviour and, to pinch a birdwatcher's term jizz, of a person - how they look, move and behave, - doesn't match then my antennae are bristling.

It seems to me that @monkers applies a similar test and that Wood's story (starting with birth ID) doesn't pass muster. It wouldn't feel right to Prison Staff either which would, in turn, affect how they're treated in any prison.

In other words they'd ring alarm bells long before they were anywhere near being in the buff with cis women prisoners.

This is a rather impractical test though, isn't it? Judging whether someone is dodgy by how they look and move, or whether they make you feel uncomfortable. It's very subjective and couldn't really be applied in most practical situations.

When we know that it's males who make women feel vulnerable and who are statistically a risk to women and girls, a fairer system is to exclude them all (in the limited circumstances where this is necessary and legal), regardless of how they look.

Wouldn't your test unfairly disadvantage those transwomen who very much do not look like women? Isn't it rewarding/punishing them on the basis of how well they perform femininity?

Especially when a) femininity doesn't equal 'woman' and b) the risk comes from being male not from how you look, move, and so on.

It's funny how most men don't feel offended at not being allowed in women's spaces, even the lovely, harmless ones.

 

[Deleted member 121]

I'm 49 (I said "about 30" not actually "30". Thanks for the birthday wishes. As you have requested a biography, I started out as a temp medical secretary and worked for several years in many different hospitals. I then became a permanent medical secretary, firstly working in Community Paeds and then in Continence, also a spell in Clinical Governance and Physiotherapy. Whilst working in Comm Paeds I developed and wrote a patient management system which was later replaced with a commercial offering that initially wasn't quite as good. From there I moved into Service Development, and from there in to Data Migration and Data Warehousing including developing reporting, dataset extraction and OLAP. I have also been on several procurement boards for the NHS amongst other things as I know quite a lot about Electronic Patient Records software.

So yes a varied career in which some of those things happened at the same time. Medical Secretaries work extensively with medical records and need to understand records policy and archiving, not all of which is managed centrally - especially not for Community Trusts

@multitool needs to work harder on his guesses. I know quite a lot about statistics but am not a statistician. That said, I feel at this point the need to remind you that we should disregard anything he says because he is a bullying cvnt busy smearing his own shite up the walls as usual.

Will you be asking everyone else for a biography as well? Should we collate hobbies also?

Thanks but I never asked for your biography I said "when claims are made to justify ones position or argument, i think clarification should be made."

For example, I'm not sure how "working in Community Children's Services for 12 years, so am reasonably familiar with the process" translates into being able able to understand how difficult it is to get a autism diagnosis. In relation to what you said above, working as a medical secretary in community paeds and writing software.

That would be more useful to me than your C.V.

 

[monkers]

You're a bit off beam.

I'm not, wholly and without reservation/exception, in the 'you are who say you are camp'. I've a presumption in that direction for sure but if the behaviour and, to pinch a birdwatcher's term jizz, of a person - how they look, move and behave, - doesn't match then my antennae are bristling.

It seems to me that @monkers applies a similar test and that Wood's story (starting with birth ID) doesn't pass muster. It wouldn't feel right to Prison Staff either which would, in turn, affect how they're treated in any prison.

In other words they'd ring alarm bells long before they were anywhere near being in the buff with cis women prisoners.

You are right. Many a trans person has been in my house over the years. None have ever found their journey easy. Not one person I have met has just woke up one morning and thought 'I know, as it's so trendy, I think I'll switch gender identity camps today'. It's always at least months or even years of agonising. And yes, the confusion has so often started out as confusion as whether they might just be gay.

The biggest part of my career has been in education, so I feel I know young people. Likewise I've always been someone they consider 'safe', a word they used in a kind of vernacular, 'safe, Miss'. Many a youngster has outed themselves to me before telling anyone else and asked for advice. My advice has always been, 'give yourself the time and space to figure things out until you can tell people that what you are telling them is your self-knowledge, and remember the right time is the time it's right for you and not for them. You can't untell people after the fact if the don't take it the way you would hope. This is the only advice I can give you, but I can give you something more important, and that's the tools to understand yourself, and those tools are words.'

The last part was always the most important. Young people don't always have the words, and without meaningful words, they don't have the means to process. One problem has always been that the language has been very confusing, and the places that they will read it and hear it are so often loaded with stigma.

There is all this talk of 'social contagion' which is the language of disease. There's a number of reasons that young people have been increasingly presenting as gay or trans, and it's not a fad, a trend, or a craze - it's communication. The internet has helped so many people in finding that they are far from alone, and provide them with words and language that has made them realise that they are not alone and given them the ability to process their thoughts to know who they are.

What is apparent is that there are cis het people who are resistant to change and feel they must fight it - but vanilla isn't the only flavour.

 

[AuroraSaab]

If it's much easier to come out as transgender where are all the middle aged transmen? Why are there (in the public eye at least) a disproportionate number of middle aged transwomen, yet very few older transmen? And when there are transmen it's usually in the news because they are pregnant. And if social contagion or society factors play no part, why are so many of the kids referred to the Tavistock same sex attracted? Gay boys who wish they were girls. Gay girls who wish they were boys. Nothing to do with internalised or parental homophobia?

Even Susie Green, former boss of Mermaids, is on record as saying her husband didn't like the idea of feminine son who liked girly things. So off they were taken to Thailand at 16 to have their penis and testicles removed.

How odd that so many men have the gender identity of a woman, and relatively few women have the gender identity of a man though.

 

[monkers]

This is a rather impractical test though, isn't it? Judging whether someone is dodgy by how they look and move, or whether they make you feel uncomfortable. It's very subjective and couldn't really be applied in most practical situations.

That's not how risk assessment works though is it. Criminality is not determined by how shifty they look - or by measuring the distance between the eyes with vernier calipers. Risk assessment seeks out truth.

I've read more about Wood / White today than before. There has been more revealed about their past. I now think that Wood / White must have previously told their GP that they are trans after all. Ordinarily I'd argue that this is evidence of intent to go on a journey. However three appointment were made for Wood at their nearest GIC, and Wood failed to attend any of the appointments.

I've seen other reports that Wood was seen living in a flat always presenting as male with an unshaven unkept appearance, but always cross-dressed for appointment with housing officers and other officials, lying that he lived permanently in female role.

But, citing Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the policy states: 'The primary focus of this policy are offenders who identify as transgender and who have expressed a consistent desire to live permanently in the gender they identify with, which is opposite to the biological sex assigned to them at birth.'

It adds: 'Whilst a GRC is proof of legal gender, the absence of it does not automatically prevent that prisoner being located in the part of the estate consistent with the gender they identify with.'

My opinion is that Wood failed this critical test by not attending any of the appointment made at the GIC. The Local Transgender Case Board were not obliged to accept Wood for placement in a women's prison either by policy or law. The pattern of offending history was more than sufficient to show that Wood is not somebody safe to be around women.

I had expected this to be an area of agreement between us, but you simply have to play mind games.

 

[monkers]

If it's much easier to come out as transgender where are all the middle aged transmen? Why are there (in the public eye at least) a disproportionate number of middle aged transwomen, yet very few older transmen? And when there are transmen it's usually in the news because they are pregnant. And if social contagion or society factors play no part, why are so many of the kids referred to the Tavistock same sex attracted? Gay boys who wish they were girls. Gay girls who wish they were boys. Nothing to do with internalised or parental homophobia?

Even Susie Green, former boss of Mermaids, is on record as saying her husband didn't like the idea of feminine son who liked girly things. So off they were taken to Thailand at 16 to have their penis and testicles removed.

How odd that so many men have the gender identity of a woman, and relatively few women have the gender identity of a man though.

Yeh well if only families / communities / society presented young people with a warm welcoming atmosphere where they were encouraged to figure out who they are rather than parents trying so hard to create kids in their own image.

This Be The Verse​

BY PHILIP LARKIN

They fark you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were farked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

 

[classic33]

If it's much easier to come out as transgender where are all the middle aged transmen? Why are there (in the public eye at least) a disproportionate number of middle aged transwomen, yet very few older transmen? And when there are transmen it's usually in the news because they are pregnant. And if social contagion or society factors play no part, why are so many of the kids referred to the Tavistock same sex attracted? Gay boys who wish they were girls. Gay girls who wish they were boys. Nothing to do with internalised or parental homophobia?

Even Susie Green, former boss of Mermaids, is on record as saying her husband didn't like the idea of feminine son who liked girly things. So off they were taken to Thailand at 16 to have their penis and testicles removed.

How odd that so many men have the gender identity of a woman, and relatively few women have the gender identity of a man though.

And you agree with their son being taken to a country to have life changing surgery?

Ireland has issued more trans men gender recognition certificates than they have trans women gender recognition certificates, since 2015. And it's remained higher since they were introduced.

I'll point out at this stage you were the one that brought Ireland in on this.

 

[icowden]

For example, I'm not sure how "working in Community Children's Services for 12 years, so am reasonably familiar with the process" translates into being able able to understand how difficult it is to get a autism diagnosis.

I typed up the referrals to CAHMS. I organised, attended and minuted the multi-disciplinary meetings and booked follow-ups. I typed the letters to the parents explaining about the long wait. I typed up the developmental assessments where autism was suspected, prior to those referral letters being written as the Consultant Paed was not then able to give a formal diagnosis (at that time it was the province of CAHMS - As I said - I think this has now changed.

I feel that "being reasonably familiar with the process" isn't that much of a long shot.

I could add that my father was quite severly autistic (high functioning) as is my nephew. I would probably have been diagnosed with autism if I were a child today. Instead, I was considered odd and generally ostracised (to a degree self imposed as my social skills were not great and I hadn't learned to mask as much).

Is that enough for you?