19th of December, 2020

Hi all,
As you've probably noticed, I have been very hard to reach for a while now. I haven't answered my messages or emails, haven't updated my content... Nothing.
I'll try to clear up some things as well as I can in this thread.
1/

New study on transgender & performance. The paper’s title could've been “Significant endurance & strength-endurance advantages are retained for up to 2 years despite T reduction in TW: Implications for the assumptions of fairness in current policies”. Some thoughts to follow

First, remind ourselves of the principle and why the results matter. Sports policies have allowed inclusion of TW who lower T for 12 months on the assumption that this removes the male physiological advantages sufficiently to create fairness when women’s sport is “opened” up (2/)

The obvious (though amazingly unasked) question is “Is there evidence showing that this actually works? In other words, does T suppression remove the biological advantages that necessitate a separate women’s category in sport?" This is the question the study is trying to address:

The study includes 46 trans women (TW) and 29 trans men, all in the Airforce. It capitalises on the practice of physical fitness assessments every 12 months to track how performance in push-up, sit-ups and 1.5 mile run changes when T is either reduced (TW) or increased (TM) (4/)

The TW and TM results are, correctly, compared to ciswomen and cismen, respectively. They have data for over 2 million CM and 500,000 CW for these comparisons. So it’s about tracking the changes in performance with T alteration AND comparisons to the appropriate group (5/)

I'm reading Radcliffe Hall.

She has many feelings that modern transmen, female detransitioners, and butch lesbians would recognise.

But to call her a "transman" makes no sense, historically.

I'm reaching for something here, you might be able to help me clarify it.

The existence of the category "transman" depends on the possibility of medical transition.

You can't be a tramsman without it.

You might have all the same feelings, but not have access to drugs and surgeries, and it wouldn't make sense to say you ARE trans.

I want to go back to my Foucauldian academic roots and start talking about the way in which institutions create and forbid desires, identities, enable ways of being. But also, f*ck Foucault, child rape apologist, "bucolic pleasures," no thanks.

How do i say it in words i can believe? Am i back to "trans is not a thing you are, it's a thing you do and it's a very recent, modern solution?"

Ok,i think i have it. Is the desire to say about historical figures "they ARE trans" actually a move to solidify trans as a category?

To say that trans as a category has always existed and that it can exist outside of drugs and surgeries? To give it "depth and weight"?

If you say "x historical figure is trans" you are saying "trans is what you are, not what you do."

@Nancy_M_K 1/ Most of the people fighting gender ideology, like me, are left wing, pro LGB and also have trans friends. Very few of us are right wing. PLS see the thread below for the sexism and homophobia we are fighting that gender ideology pushes. Thread with examples
1. lesbian erasure

TERFs are TERDs

Trans-Exclusive Radical Feminists are clearly misnamed.

Trans-Excoriating Reproductive Determinists
is far more accurate.

Written by an amazing Aussie Trans woman High School teacher. She nails this👍
1-

They don’t merely exclude. They are obsessed with criticising trans people. They are not given true personhood status, they are to be belittled and mocked.
2-

Trans people don’t even get the respect of their lived reality from TERFs. Apparently it’s completely fine to say that trans people don’t know themselves - that their lived reality is fantasy.
3-

Despite the phenomenon arising in human beings across thousands of years and in all cultures - they’re ALL making it up.
4-

Despite the psychology profession recognising it as just a distinct way of being human. Not an illness or syndrome. A way of being. Medical and biological findings back it, but we are dealing with dogmatic thinking.
5-