# J K Rowling and the trans furore **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 16, 2020, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795 "2020-06-16T18:05:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 144
**Author:** ![yarblek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/71e660/32.png) [@yarblek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yarblek)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/2864 "2020-08-23T04:38:01Z")
The reason why it’s hateful IMO is because you can dismiss someone for wanting to be called by their preferred pronouns as “clearly delusional” and would just feed into their delusions. We don’t or shouldn’t humor delusional people, which, they argue, having different preferred pronouns are a symptom of. This is a pretty common viewpoint, especially among conservatives. ---
**Author:** ![YWTF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/d07c76/32.png) [@YWTF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YWTF)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/2865 "2020-08-23T04:45:13Z")
> [@yarblek](#): > > Could someone like RickJay explain to me if the only thing that matters when calling a person a man or a women is biology, how are women who feel uncomfortable, fearful or angry at a supposed man using the women’s locker room going to have the ability to get such a man kicked out from there? For all they know, that person could (and and sometimes would HAVE to be, due to possible bathroom bills and such) a transman (or just a very masculine ciswoman). This has been explained repeatedly, so for the life of me I don’t understand why this question is being treated life the 9th mystery of the world. We’ve have single-sex facilities for centuries now. So you tell me. What do you imagine generations of women have been doing whenever rando dudes show up? Just shrug their shoulders apathetically? ---
**Author:** ![YWTF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/d07c76/32.png) [@YWTF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YWTF)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/2866 "2020-08-23T04:54:47Z")
> [@yarblek](#): > > The reason why it’s hateful IMO is because you can dismiss someone for wanting to be called by their preferred pronouns as “clearly delusional” and would just feed into their delusions. We don’t or shouldn’t humor delusional people, which, they argue, having different preferred pronouns are a symptom of. This is a pretty common viewpoint, especially among conservatives. Calling someone “she” does not mean you believe they are actually female, though. Most people will honor the request to use preferred pronouns because doing otherwise is jerkish if you know it will cause hurt feelings. ---
**Author:** ![yarblek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/71e660/32.png) [@yarblek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yarblek)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/2867 "2020-08-23T04:56:00Z")
They look like a man. But the problem then becomes on defining what a man looks like, which seems problematic to me. Who gets to decide what a man looks like? Isn’t defining people only on outward apparence pretty prejudicial? ---
**Author:** ![yarblek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/71e660/32.png) [@yarblek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yarblek)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/2868 "2020-08-23T04:59:15Z")
Not calling someone the King of England (when they are deluded to think they are) will probably also cause hurt feelings. Doesn’t mean it’s right to do so. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/2869 "2020-08-23T04:59:33Z")
I thought this was an interesting read. If you’re lurking and haven’t made your mind up on anything, I encourage you to take a look: [Detransitioners are living proof the practices surrounding ‘trans kids’ need be questioned](https://www.feministcurrent.com/2020/01/09/detransitioners-are-living-proof-the-practices-surrounding-trans-kids-need-be-questioned/) > Medical professionals feel stifled in their ability to to talk about these issues. O’Malley’s documentary, which aired in November 2018, was pivotal in exposing this reality, as therapists and a handful of other medical professionals voiced their concerns anonymously to escape being labelled “transphobic.” > > Ryan expressed empathy towards her fellow researchers. She said they are battling “immense pressure” to alleviate the suffering of patients struggling with dysphoria and affirm patients’ gender identity without question or intervention. Hutchinson, who worked in GIDS for five years, noted that clinicians can be accused of transphobia for merely “talking about evidence.” > > “But how can it be transphobic to ask for better standards of care for this client group? I want better standards of care for kids with gender dysphoria,” she said, to loud applause. > > > > > Another former GIDS employee in the audience claimed that medical experts face both external and internal pressures. Most feel prohibited from talking about the possibility of desistence and detransition entirely. Bell agreed: manoeuvrability to investigate and conduct research on desistence seems almost impossible when the trans movement “has penetrated into clinical services,” and cannot be questioned, challenged, or exposed. Bell said the extent to which gender ideology has “the ears of politicians right up the highest level” as well as control over much of the media was remarkable. “It has sort of gone through unquestioned,” he said. O’Malley considered that this has only served the best interests of “non-experts” with a lot of social media followers, essentially allowing them to “lead the room” and act with impunity. > … > One detransitioner, who goes by the name [“Satan Herself”](https://twitter.com/sathananas) on Twitter, said that transitioning was a way to evade lesbophobia and her “reality as a homosexual woman.” Living as a “transman” for five years, she had never even considered the possibility she harboured internalized homophobia, as she was so supportive of LGBT rights. Yet she knew no lesbians and was starved of representation of masculine women. She said she couldn’t envision growing up into an adult lesbian woman, and immersed herself in transgender theory, which seemed the ideal way to “fix herself.” > Another detransitioner, Ellie, said that, at 15 years old, she too couldn’t picture herself as a homosexual adult female, so began her lengthy four-year transition journey one year later, with a mastectomy. > > Thomasin began identifying between “male and various non-binary identities” at 14 years old, only desisting from treatment in May. She said social media and the online world functioned as a kind of escape route, especially since she saw no lesbian positivity or representation online or in real life. > Nele, who identified as trans for two years, argued that people aren’t just “born transgender for a magical reason,” but that it is “put on you by society.” She claimed that the contemporary trans movement masquerades as progressive while “reinforcing gender stereotypes” — a position shared by Bell, who said accepting the concept of gender identity without criticism can legitimize “a form of caricatured gender stereotypes.” Bell feels the outcome of trans ideology is a “movement that actually acts against the support of lesbian and gay people.” It really does seem to be that gender ideology discourse isn’t just silencing ciswomen that have concerns (even though ciswomen have the most to lose by having their sociopolitical identity turned into a clown car.) It’s also silencing concerned medical professions, concerned gay and lesbians, and concerned detransitioners. If anyone pushes back on trans activists slogans, they are hateful. They are TERFs. They don’t care about human rights. They want to deny the existence of transgender people. They want to destroy trans people. We see these kind of melodramatic accusations being flung here too. And yet the concerns continue to be unaddressed. I guess they will stay unaddressed until the victims start spilling out of the woodworks, which is what always happens after a long period of self-delusion and silencing (see the Catholic church). And when this happens, everyone reciting the empty slogans now will have stupid pikachu faces. No one is going to silence me. I’m not going out with a stupid pikachu face. Fuck anyone who thinks pointing out the harm of a political ideology is ever a bad thing. ---
**Author:** ![Boudicca90](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boudicca90/32/16818_2.png) [@Boudicca90](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boudicca90)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/2870 "2020-08-23T05:13:24Z")
The usual subjects are making my case for me right now it seems… Using sites with a clear agenda to try to attack us and make us out to be some kind of cult who are brainwashing children now, because why not? I am a woman, period. I am not delusional, or some kind of threat to anyone, and that goes for transpeople in general, despite the few extreme examples they always like to bring up to paint all of us with the same brush. No one is going to silence me either, or call me a bully for defending myself. ---
**Author:** ![YWTF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/d07c76/32.png) [@YWTF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YWTF)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/2871 "2020-08-23T05:15:29Z")
> [@yarblek](#): > > They look like a man. But the problem then becomes on defining what a man looks like, which seems problematic to me. Who gets to decide what a man looks like? Isn’t defining people only on outword apparence pretty prejudicial? People are pretty skilled at guessing what sex the person standing in front of them is, so no this is not a problem. Our ability to find mates and reproduce efficiently hinges on how well we can do this sorting. The vast majority of women are also taught from a young age to be cautious around men. This makes us very sensitive to the physical differences that exist between men and women. [Here’s the story of a father accused of killing a man who followed his daughter into a public restroom and attempted to enter her stall.](https://www.foxnews.com/us/arizona-father-beats-kills-man-who-followed-his-daughter-into-bathroom-stall-police-say) Now you might be wringing your hands as you puzzle over how father and the daughter knew this person was a man just by sight. But it is only in the year 2020 that we’d find this navel gazing anything except absurd. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/2872 "2020-08-23T05:42:22Z")
> [@Boudicca90](#): > > Using sites with a clear agenda to try to attack us and make us out to be some kind of cult who are brainwashing children now, because why not? I Are you the entire trans movement? Or are you an individual that is a transwoman? You do know it is possible to attack a political ideology without attacking individuals, right? As a black woman, I don’t cry in my cornflakes everytime someone criticizes BLM. Because I’m not BLM. I don’t think @RickJay, @iiandyiii, or @Dr.Strangelove are threats to me as a woman. But I do think men are a threat to women given their long sordid track record. So I’m not eager to have a bunch of men in my locker rooom. Can you understand why this might be? If you can, then you should be able to understand why a woman wouldn’t want to open the door to the locker room to _all_ males. A woman can be OK with transwomen and still have a serious problem with letting in all males. Gender theory doesn’t equip us with ways to stop all males from coming in. Gender theory says that stopping all males from coming in is oppressive. So it seems to me the obvious solution is to let in all the fucking males in. But I say let’s drop with the “women’s room” pretense. If women are not entitled to penis-free spaces, then it doesn’t make sense to foster the expectation that a space is penis-free. And since gender is a social construct and there’s nothing stopping us from having 100 gender categories one day, it just seems to me that moving towards unisex facilities is the way we should be going. After all, it isn’t fair that men and women get their own spots, but not all the other 56 flavors of the human rainbow. If this isn’t what we should do, then maybe we need to stop with the “gender affirmation is a fundamental right” bullshit. It isn’t a right unless we are prepared to do it for everyone. I’d appreciate you giving me your opinion about this position of mine without accusing me of 1) denying your existence, 2) accusing you of being dangerous and deceitful, 3) making you out to be a cult that brainwashes children, or 4) being a TERF. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/2873 "2020-08-23T07:04:59Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Are you the entire trans movement? Or are you an individual that is a transwoman? You do know it is possible to attack a political ideology without attacking individuals, right? As a black woman, I don’t cry in my cornflakes everytime someone criticizes BLM. Because I’m not BLM. …you are talking to a real-life person. A real-life person asking you to do something that really shouldn’t be that hard. You aren’t addressing a movement. Not when that person is here **in this thread talking to you**. You aren’t criticising “BLM”. You are criticising the “black woman”. ---
**Author:** ![Boudicca90](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boudicca90/32/16818_2.png) [@Boudicca90](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boudicca90)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/2874 "2020-08-23T08:02:34Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …you are talking to a real-life person. A real-life person asking you to do something that really shouldn’t be that hard. You aren’t addressing a movement. Not when that person is here **in this thread talking to you**. You aren’t criticising “BLM”. You are criticising the “black woman”. Yep, being transgender is not an “ideology” any more than being Black, or Latinx, or gay. In fact, that “ideology” crap is once again similar to the arguments used against gay people. The “gay agenda”, anyone? We seem to be accused of some kind of “trans agenda” where we brainwash children into becoming transgender and want to do away with gender entirely. It’s propaganda I’ve heard before. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/2875 "2020-08-23T10:08:10Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > They are not harming children. Don’t be ridiculous. The “treatments” aren’t “experimental.” And everything is guided by the science. Using [off label](https://www.chp.edu/-/media/chp/departments-and-services/adolescent-and-young-adult-medicine/documents/gender-and-sexual-development/puberty-blocking-medication-for-early-puberty.pdf?la=en) puberty blockers and sometimes cross sex hormones on kids is experimental. Even for childhood social transition, no one has tested the effects on desistence rates - always high under previous treatment protocols, even in recent studies with more stringent diagnostic criteria. Here’s a good review of desistence including links and details of studies: > **[A REVIEW OF DESISTANCE STATS & THE ASSOCIATION WITH CHILDHOOD GENDER...](https://www.genderhq.org/trans-children-gender-dysphoria-desistance-gay)** > > Desistance statistics & research for children with gender dysphoria relating to transgender people & homosexuals & bisexuals. And what are the effects of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones? Even ignoring the known and sometimes serious side effects of these drugs in their intended applications, a person who never undergoes natural puberty will be sterile and is likely to have seriously impaired sexual function. How can a child of 11 properly weigh these effects in making a decision? Especially knowing that a clear majority of adult transgender people choose not to get genital surgery, despite the fact they have a much better chance of retaining sensation and of getting good results than these kids will, and that plenty of transgender people have chosen to have children, how can anyone push a treatment protocol for teenagers that will deny them these choices when they are old enough to appreciate what they are losing? And then we come to the drastic and unexplained rise in natal females presenting with sudden GD in adolescence. Dysphoria is a symptom, but instead of investigating if the causes in this new demographic group are the same, these teens are immediately affirmed as transgender and funnelled into a medical pathway - even when there are co-morbid conditions that could have an obvious impact on identity and comfort with one’s body. Giving testosterone and performing a mastectomy on someone who isn’t actually trans is obviously harming them. > **[WHY ARE SO MANY FEMALES COMING OUT AS TRANS/NON-BINARY? — Gender Health Query](https://www.genderhq.org/increase-trans-females-nonbinary-dysphoria)** > > Gender clinics show large increases of female teens & young adults with gender dysphoria. Social contagion is a likely factor. Females are prone to body dysmorphia & body harming fads. And how do charities factor into this? > **[Politicised trans groups put children at risk, says expert](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jul/27/trans-lobby-pressure-pushing-young-people-to-transition)** > > Counsellors and other mental health providers fear being labelled transphobic > **[Trans ideologists are spreading cod science](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-ideologists-are-spreading-cod-science-m8n0pdbq3)** > > Are you a Princess Barbie jelly-baby who likes frilly dresses, high heels and takes ages to get ready? Or a GI Joe jelly-baby who wears boots and functional clothing? Did you know that your preference for pink sparkles or muddy sports isn’t down to... > **[NHS transgender clinic warns of 'damage' to young patients](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6713887/NHS-transgender-clinic-warns-damage-young-patients.html)** > > The Tavistock Gender Identity Development Clinic in north London has an 'inability to stand up to pressure' from campaigners and parents demanding fast-track transitions, doctors said. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/2876 "2020-08-23T10:39:48Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Here’s a good review of desistence including links and details of studies: …okay, lets be crystal fucking clear about your cites. Your first cite does not say that the use of puberty blockers was “experimental.” It was an information sheet, typical of every information sheet I’ve ever seen (and sometimes signed), outlying he potential risks of using a drug or a medication. As for your second link: > [@](#): > > [_Gender Health Query_](https://www.genderhq.org/)_(GHQ) is a new organization started by Justine Kreher_[_(@thehomoarchy_](https://twitter.com/thehomoarchy)_on Twitter). Its focus will be research and political action from the perspective of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans-identified people **who question the current LGBT zeitgeist around youth medical transition.** GHQ is also on Twitter_[_@genderhq_](https://twitter.com/genderhq) _.See the last section of this article for how to join and/or support this important new effort. Your support can be as simple as signing [this statement](https://www.genderhq.org/letter-signatures)._ > **[Gender Health Query: New LGBT organization will address the “child/teen...](https://4thwavenow.com/2019/07/28/gender-health-query-new-lgbt-organization-will-address-the-child-teen-medical-transition-movement/)** > > Gender Health Query (GHQ) is a new organization started by Justine Deterling (@thehomoarchy on Twitter). Its focus will be research and political action from the perspective of gay, lesbian, bisexu… Its getting tiring to have to wade through propaganda time and time again. The very least you can do is declare the obvious bias of the cites you provide. I clicked through all seven pages of that link to see who the author of that report was but I couldn’t find it. A plethora or references doesn’t guarantee the analysis is any good. The qualifications of the board of directors are largely “concerned citizen” with 1 physics teacher and 1 “academic.” They have a health professions advisory of two people, but I have no idea how much influence they have on the science on the site. Where are the peer reviewed studies? As for the other cites: one was paywalled. The other two don’t actually quantify any actual “damage” done. So no, you haven’t provided any evidence that “they are harming children”, that decisions aren’t “guided by science”, or that the treatments are “experimental”. ---
**Author:** ![Danny\_Hammer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Danny\_Hammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danny_Hammer)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/2877 "2020-08-23T12:46:36Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …that works for me!!! Way to make your case, man… Anyway, on the off-chance you get bored of messing me about, maybe you’d like to take a crack at my question about women’s prisons from earlier? If a man is convicted of a violent crime and tells the judge that he’s a woman so he can serve his sentence in a safer prison, should the judge send him to a women’s prison? If not, why not? ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/2878 "2020-08-23T12:56:54Z")
You’re like a religious person asking for evidence god doesn’t exist and then complaining because I directed you to an atheist site. Try actually reading it and looking at the evidence for once. Oh, and why don’t you answer Danny\_Hammer while you’re at it? ---
**Author:** ![YWTF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/d07c76/32.png) [@YWTF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YWTF)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/2879 "2020-08-23T13:15:05Z")
@Banquet_Bear, you know how we can tell you are just shooting down messengers for not saying things you like? Because we’ve seen this behavior in the early days of the Catholic priest scandal. I’m sure of lot of the victims that came out were found to be insufficiently Catholic and thus dismissed out of hand too. Accusations of propaganda only works on people who are in denial. Not people interested in looking at the facts. The GHQ source cited several peer-reviewed papers. If you read it, you should’ve found this eye-opening paper which found [homophobic name calling in teens is associated with early adolescent gender identity. Teens appear to internalize the messages they receive from peers and incorporate these messages into their personal views of their own gender identity](https://www.docdroid.net/kWO8DNY/the-influence-of-peers-during-adolescence-does-homophobic-name-calling-by-peers-change-gender-identity-pdf). Which is totally not surprising at at all. It is consistent with why a homophobic culture like Iran would coerce gay people to transition. If being a homosexual is seen as more offensive than being a transwoman or transman (because the Koran/Bible is against the former but not the latter), then the risk is very high it will be used as a form of conversion therapy. This should worry everyone. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/2880 "2020-08-23T14:04:51Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > > [@monstro](#): > > > > And you keep repeating a mindless, nonsensical, bullshit, harmful slogan. > > …the dictionary apparently agrees with me. As per @filmore > > [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trans%20woman](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trans%20woman) > > So not mindless, nonsensical, bullshit, and definitely not harmful at all. Even that definition has problems: trans woman: a woman who was identified as male at birth. woman: an adult female female: being the sex that typically has the capacity to bear young So then: trans woman: an (adult (member of the sex that has the capacity to bear young)) who was identified as male as birth If you’re going to accept Webster’s use of the word woman in the definition of trans woman, then the above expansion is what it means according to them. I don’t agree with that definition, but at least it’s a concrete definition that can be clearly understood. It doesn’t define “trans woman”, but it does clearly define something. It’s more the definition of someone who is genetically XX but was born with genitalia which presented as male and they were misidentified as male. But as stated in the thread, a trans woman is a male person who identifies as a woman, which I think more accurately describes what a trans woman is. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/2881 "2020-08-23T15:55:04Z")
I’m having a very hard time wrapping my brain around the idea that we must accept the idea of one swapping genders without medically or physically transitioning. Is that what trans people really want? If so why?. If not why not? And if the gender dysporia is so great as to make one hate the sexual organs they were born it, why the reluctance to go all the way with the surgery? Can true happiness be really found in HRT and a D cup or with HRT and a masectomy? But that’s for passing as your preferred gender, but if one remains biologically the same so where’s the dysphoria now? Lessened, eliminated, still an issue? Do cis men accept any of this as a men’s problem or is it all on women? I’m not a guy but I don’t beleive most cis straight or gay guys really accept the notion that anyone can label themselves a man. Trans women aren’t real men, women aren’t real men, trans men can’t be real men in the eyes & brains of most cis guys. How soon are menstrual products and a fainting couches going to show up in the mens room for the trans guys? Not any time soon I’m thinking. Then there are the other 55 gender identities, that **Monstro** mentioned, not cis, not trans, but other, how do we accomodate those people and their dysphoria without triggering, or alienating them all by sticking with male and female spaces? ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/2882 "2020-08-23T17:25:44Z")
> [@chela](#): > > Then there are the other 55 gender identities, that **Monstro** mentioned, not cis, not trans, but other, how do we accomodate those people and their dysphoria without triggering, or alienating them all by sticking with male and female spaces? By adding single-occupancy restrooms/changing areas etc, for non-binary, gender non-conforming, and any other people who don’t fit the gender binary. Trans men and women can also use them when appropriate (eg changing rooms for those who haven’t had ‘bottom surgery’). ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/2883 "2020-08-23T17:37:57Z")
This website will probably give BB an apoplexy, but it does have a non-paywalled copy of a _Times_ article I wanted to link: > **[Meet Alex Bertie, the transgender poster boy by Janice Turner in The Times...](https://www.peaktrans.org/article-by-janis-turner-in-the-times-11-11-2017/)** It has some interesting points on homophobia, at home and at school. > [@](#): > > In September, starting at a huge new secondary school, Alex and her girlfriend found themselves surrounded by a jeering gang. News had spread. Alex felt panicked, anxious. She hadn’t even told her parents. “I was known as the ‘weird lesbian girl’ and nobody would speak to me, and suddenly it was just really hard, because I’d never found it difficult to make friends really.” She’d go over to her old mates, the video-game boys, but they’d walk away. “My sexuality tainted their perception of me entirely.” Among the post-pubescent “masculine” boys and “feminine” girls she was an oddity: a masculine girl. “I was the misshapen cookie, the one made at the end with the leftover dough that gets burnt and no one wants to eat.” > > Lonely, dumped by her girlfriend, Alex was catcalled and harassed relentlessly by a gang of boys: “I was a bully’s dream: weedy, geeky and gay.” For three years, she endured shouts of “lezzer” or “you’re a boy” without reporting it, growing ever more troubled. She self-harmed by cutting her legs where her mother wouldn’t notice. She hated her now developing body, although cropping her long hair into a cool boyish cut felt great. > > At this time, Alex assuaged loneliness by setting up a YouTube channel, making little videos in her bedroom about her sexuality in which she vented her misery but also created a perky online persona who quickly won followers. Then, around 15, Alex told a teacher about the bullying, self-harm and gender dysphoria – a discomfort with your body’s sex. A school counsellor made an appointment with an LGBT group, Over the Rainbow, which gave Alex a folder about transgender issues, including pictures of trans celebrities and how to begin the NHS pathway to transition. It was a lightbulb moment. > > “At 15, I fully understood I’m supposed to be male,” Alex says. On YouTube he discovered many other female-to-male video bloggers, changed his girl birth name to Alex and started to strap down his breasts with too-tight swimsuits, before ordering a special breast binder online. “Suddenly,” he says, “my teachers looked out for me in class.” > > At 16, he moved to sixth-form college where no one knew him, assuming his new male identity. As a man, his confidence soared. He learnt to act like a boy, to manspread and banter: “At first I was like the bro-iest bro.” On his YouTube channel he declared his intent to medically transition, and what he calls his “quest to a beard” began. > [@](#): > > A woman I will call Dr K expresses years of frustration dealing with an unacknowledged epidemic of dysphoric teenage girls. “They are all the same, dozens and dozens of them. Short hair, boys’ clothes, probably liked rough and tumble play as small children. Now they like comic books or skateboarding or video gaming. Geeky, gauche, not many friends. They came out as lesbians, but then they went on Reddit and Tumblr and saw these transitioning videos. They decide they are trans. Suddenly they get lots of attention with everyone calling them by a new name, they get to chide anyone who uses the wrong pronoun while everyone tells them they are brave. They might get a special assembly at school.” > > What we can’t underestimate, says Dr K, is the sheer homophobia outside middle-class liberal bubbles. “Lesbian” is at worst a grave insult, at best uncool. “The gay hierarchy is this,” she says. “At the top are gay men who can pass as straight, then camp gay men, then pretty, straight-passing lesbians. And right at the very bottom are butch lesbians. Masculine women have no cachet. But if you transition, you zoom right over the gay hierarchy to become a straight man. You can hold your girlfriend’s hand in public. As a butch woman you were unattractive, but lots of them become these cute little guys.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795.md?page=143) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795.md?page=145)