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 daedalus wrote:
I find it interesting that we treat it like a physical condition rather than attempting to correct the belief that you're not the gender you think you are. Not saying it's right or wrong, just interesting.

That's because a person's gender is an important part of their identity. Even setting aside the question of whether it's possible to make a transgender person happy with being their birth gender it would involve re-writing a core element of who they are. There's no reason to even consider getting into that kind of ethical question when correcting the physical problem is straightforward and effective. The only justification for the psychology approach is ideologically-motivated nonsense about being a "real" man/woman.

 daedalus wrote:
We do it to people with other conditions. Consider depression. I've never met someone with depression who, even when diligently taking meds and counseling and all of that, is really "right".

I include myself in that anecdote.

Two huge differences here:

1) Depression (usually) can't be fixed by physical changes. It has to be treated as a mental issue because that's the only way to do it.

2) "I have depression" is rarely a part of a person's identity, or at least a part of their identity that they want to keep. A person with depression thinks "this sucks, I want to get rid of it". A transgender person thinks "I am gender X and am happy with it, I want to make my body match it".

 Peregrine wrote:


Two huge differences here:

1) Depression (usually) can't be fixed by physical changes. It has to be treated as a mental issue because that's the only way to do it.

2) "I have depression" is rarely a part of a person's identity, or at least a part of their identity that they want to keep. A person with depression thinks "this sucks, I want to get rid of it". A transgender person thinks "I am gender X and am happy with it, I want to make my body match it".

You're wrong on both counts. What do you think drugs do? Do you really not think they induce a physical change?

 trexmeyer wrote:
You're wrong on both counts. What do you think drugs do? Do you really not think they induce a physical change?

Sigh. You know perfectly well what I mean by "physical change". The fact that you change brain function with drugs that have a physical effect doesn't mean it's the same thing as, say, curing depression by fixing a broken bone.

 Peregrine wrote:

 daedalus wrote:
I find it interesting that we treat it like a physical condition rather than attempting to correct the belief that you're not the gender you think you are. Not saying it's right or wrong, just interesting.

That's because a person's gender is an important part of their identity. Even setting aside the question of whether it's possible to make a transgender person happy with being their birth gender it would involve re-writing a core element of who they are. There's no reason to even consider getting into that kind of ethical question when correcting the physical problem is straightforward and effective. The only justification for the psychology approach is ideologically-motivated nonsense about being a "real" man/woman.

Colour me an idealist. *sigh* I would love it if I could just be made to be happy somehow with the body I was born with. I wouldn't choose to breed with it even then (it's not a great body. Short-sighted, photophobic, horrendous skin conditions... eh), but if someone could wave a magic wand and make me a 'real man', that would be almost as good as someone turning me into a cis-woman to me. Then again, I've been told I have self esteem issues.

Two huge differences here:
1) Depression (usually) can't be fixed by physical changes. It has to be treated as a mental issue because that's the only way to do it.

2) "I have depression" is rarely a part of a person's identity, or at least a part of their identity that they want to keep. A person with depression thinks "this sucks, I want to get rid of it". A transgender person thinks "I am gender X and am happy with it, I want to make my body match it".

Nice use of usually, depression is one of the biggest effects my transgenderism has on my life.

 Peregrine wrote:
2) "I have depression" is rarely a part of a person's identity, or at least a part of their identity that they want to keep. A person with depression thinks "this sucks, I want to get rid of it". A transgender person thinks "I am gender X and am happy with it, I want to make my body match it".

It can take a while to agree to counselling/medication if you're depressed, speaking from experience "this sucks I want to get rid of it" is far from the first response.

 Peregrine wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:
You're wrong on both counts. What do you think drugs do? Do you really not think they induce a physical change?

Sigh. You know perfectly well what I mean by "physical change". The fact that you change brain function with drugs that have a physical effect doesn't mean it's the same thing as, say, curing depression by fixing a broken bone.

How so?


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 Lesebyst wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
2) "I have depression" is rarely a part of a person's identity, or at least a part of their identity that they want to keep. A person with depression thinks "this sucks, I want to get rid of it". A transgender person thinks "I am gender X and am happy with it, I want to make my body match it".

It can take a while to agree to counselling/medication if you're depressed, speaking from experience "this sucks I want to get rid of it" is far from the first response.

And in many cases the person will self destruct and attempt suicide long before they agree to counselling or medication. All you want to do when depressed is sleep and never wake up.

Sleeping is too much effort some days.

I have a negative stand on the idea of transgenders competing but that is because I want to see a fair and level playing field for women athletes.

Take an adult male who "transitions" fully to female and then decides to compete in sports. No matter how much estrogen he doses with, he'll always have the advantage of developing as a male throughout childhood and puberty. His muscles will be denser, skin tougher, and bones thicker than any woman he'd be competing with. He'll also have the uniquely male advantage of developing a more powerful physique at the upper end of strength training. You just can't take all that away by cutting off his sac and dosing him with girl-juice.

Women's sports were originally set up so that they could compete against one another without having an unfair playing field against male competitors. It's denigrating to expect women's athletics competition to be co-opted as a means to provide venues for eunuchs to "finally have a shot at winning something" or as a method of self-validation.

 Lesebyst wrote:
It can take a while to agree to counselling/medication if you're depressed, speaking from experience "this sucks I want to get rid of it" is far from the first response.

No, not right away, but the point is it's a pretty unambiguously bad thing. It's an especially bad thing that sabotages your ability to fix the problem, but even at your worst I doubt you're thinking "this is great, if only I could fix everything else getting in the way of enjoying my depression". Contrast this with a transgender person who can be perfectly happy with their gender identity and just want to make the rest of their world support it correctly. It's the same reason why we rejected the idea of considering homosexuality a mental illness to be treated.

 trexmeyer wrote:
How so?

How so? There's a very obvious difference between fixing physical problems/injuries and fixing mental problems, even if your brain is still a physical object with chemical balances and stuff. You can nitpick the philosophical question of "what is a brain" all you want, but I think we all know there's an important functional difference between giving someone drugs to treat a mental illness and fixing a broken bone.

Furyou Miko wrote:
Similarly, even transpeople who go all the way through with full gender reassignment are never quite 'right', as you put it. Sadly, there is no magic bullet. This is one of the reasons that transpeople object to being described as ill. Sickness can be cured, but there are no genies, no injections, no jusenkyo that can change body or mind to fit each other perfectly.

I'm taking fluoxetine to help manage my mental state and keep me from spiking suicidal. You?

(You don't really have to tell me, I'm mostly trying to foster a sense of comradeship).

Honestly, I haven't really found anything medical that helps. I spent a good 10 years or so of my life trying about everything doctors or I could come up with. Most things made me more erratic or more wrong than otherwise. The best solution I've found has been a cadre of friends that I see weekly that have known me for years, who know and understand the issue as best anyone can. They keep me pretty grounded.

Other than that, I try to keep myself so busy with hobbies, work, and literally any sort of distraction I can find that I don't worry about myself directly. I've literally read volumes of encyclopedias before. Idle thoughts are usually the most dangerous. It's under control for the most part, though there's always that lingering thought in the back of my head that I know I could just kill myself if I decide there was ever a reason to.

This is probably getting out of scope for this topic though.

Lesebyst wrote:
I don't follow, depression can be cured surely? They're not right during treatment, but after they can be. I know several people (myself included) who were diagnosed with depression who are now 'right'. In all cases the drugs didn't help (other than to replace unhappiness with uncaring) but counselling sure did.

If there's something to cure. I don't want to go into details, but my issues would require a time machine to fix. A lobotomy might work also, but that's not really cool anymore.

 Breotan wrote:
It's denigrating to expect women's athletics competition to be co-opted as a means to provide venues for eunuchs to "finally have a shot at winning something" or as a method of self-validation.

So do you actually have any credible evidence of people being so desperate for validation that they're willing to live full-time as the opposite gender, undergo surgery and hormones to change their appearance, etc? That seems to be a rather extreme level of effort when most athletes aren't getting very much fame or wealth from their victories.

 Peregrine wrote:

2) "I have depression" is rarely a part of a person's identity, or at least a part of their identity that they want to keep. A person with depression thinks "this sucks, I want to get rid of it". A transgender person thinks "I am gender X and am happy with it, I want to make my body match it".

Your other points are fair, but if your depression is part of your identity, rather, caused by your identity, then you're stuck.

 daedalus wrote:

If there's something to cure. I don't want to go into details, but my issues would require a time machine to fix. A lobotomy might work also, but that's not really cool anymore.

This sounds like a strange thing to say, but have you tried taking a philosophy course? It's been field tested in Sweden as an alternative to drugs and afaik was quite successful. Every case is different though, just throwing it out there as a suggestion.

 Lesebyst wrote:

This sounds like a strange thing to say, but have you tried taking a philosophy course? It's been field tested in Sweden as an alternative to drugs and afaik was quite successful. Every case is different though, just throwing it out there as a suggestion.

Not sure if philosophy means the same things over there (I assume so), but I have. I have a philosophy minor in fact. It helps cope, but that's about it.

 Breotan wrote:
I have a negative stand on the idea of transgenders competing but that is because I want to see a fair and level playing field for women athletes.

Take an adult male who "transitions" fully to female and then decides to compete in sports. No matter how much estrogen he doses with, he'll always have the advantage of developing as a male throughout childhood and puberty. His muscles will be denser, skin tougher, and bones thicker than any woman he'd be competing with. He'll also have the uniquely male advantage of developing a more powerful physique at the upper end of strength training. You just can't take all that away by cutting off his sac and dosing him with girl-juice.

Women's sports were originally set up so that they could compete against one another without having an unfair playing field against male competitors. It's denigrating to expect women's athletics competition to be co-opted as a means to provide venues for eunuchs to "finally have a shot at winning something" or as a method of self-validation.

I'd say your negative stance goes beyond athletic regulations, calling transgendered women 'he' and 'eunuch' implying such.

We're not talking about a man in a dress, we're talking about people who have undergone major procedures, often both chemical and physical to 'correct' their body.

That said I'm no authority on the issue and I have less sympathy for the lady in question for her huge financial settlement goal, as I always do in 'moral' legal cases though really it was no doubt her lawyer who brought up the idea.

How would a coroner label the skeleton of a trans women? Would they be able to know its a trans woman if all they found was the skeleton?

I think people have a right to call themselves whatever they want, but I don't think people should get angry when the public doesn't necessarily recognize them as such. You want to be a man or a women, cat, bat, vampire, alien.....fine. Just don't expect everyone to go along with it.

"In a thousand years there will be no men and women, just spankers"

 Andrew1975 wrote:
How would a coroner label the skeleton of a trans women? Would they be able to know its a trans woman if all they found was the skeleton?

This is not relevant to a transgendered woman or man, only that they can make the transition and live as the people they wish to be recognized as, I see no harm in that, other people should mind their own and tend to their own business and allow people who aren't hurting other people to just get on with living as they wish to live.

This is an interesting dilemma - do you definitely disadvantage trans folk by not allowing them to compete, or do you potentially disadvantage cis athletes by allowing them to compete?

It doesn't look like the science is settled on whether transitioning gives a physical advantage, unless I'm not googling hard enough. Some are saying it doesn't if transitioning before puberty, some say it might if after puberty, etc.

So I’d go with the potential disadvantage over the definite one, but I am oversimplifying the issue

 Smacks wrote:
I wonder if they could restrict her on doping grounds. She claims to be woman, but it would be easy to show that she had been on high levels of testosterone for years (when she was a man). If you could show that for any other woman that would clearly be grounds for disqualification.

Generally anti-doping rules only apply to drug use within a fairly small period of time relative to competition. Additionally, medical necessity is generally considered to be an exemption, in most cases this applies steroids and the like that are proscribed to treat an illness but it could be considered to encompass having previously been male.

 Smacks wrote:

She certainly doesn't look like she's short on muscle. Look at her stomach and thighs. I think she look very bulky and powerful for a girl. Are you really going to say 'that's all just hard work in the gym', and nothing whatsoever to do with 'used to be a man'?

Look up pictures of female bodybuilders. There are quite a few images which depict women significantly more muscular than the one in question.

Andrew1975 wrote:How would a coroner label the skeleton of a trans women? Would they be able to know its a trans woman if all they found was the skeleton?

I would assume the coroner would attempt to identify the skeleton by use of their dental records

VorpalBunny74 wrote:This is an interesting dilemma - do you definitely disadvantage trans folk by not allowing them to compete, or do you potentially disadvantage cis athletes by allowing them to compete?

It doesn't look like the science is settled on whether transitioning gives a physical advantage, unless I'm not googling hard enough. Some are saying it doesn't if transitioning before puberty, some say it might if after puberty, etc.

So I’d go with the potential disadvantage over the definite one, but I am oversimplifying the issue

There's no way to definitively know unless you do controlled tests which would require you to monitor then from pre-op to several years post op while trying to control variables such as environment, diet, exercise etc

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:
How would a coroner label the skeleton of a trans women? Would they be able to know its a trans woman if all they found was the skeleton?

This is not relevant to a transgendered woman or man, only that they can make the transition and live as the people they wish to be recognized as, I see no harm in that, other people should mind their own and tend to their own business and allow people who aren't hurting other people to just get on with living as they wish to live.

Well there seams to be a lot of issues that are not relevant to transgendered people. Its awful strange, because they want their arguments to be relevant, but many don't want to see the relevance of others arguments.

For the most part you are born a male or female, and while there are some exceptions, that is pretty much it. If you long to be man or a women, I have no problem with that, to each his own, but in the end you are pretending to be something you are not. I have no issue with a man dressing as a woman and taking hormones and getting his junk cut off. At the same time, they should never be able to claim public status as and protection as a women. They are not!

I have trans friends that are "Women trapped in a mans body", we hang out sometimes and go drinking, its fine. One I've known since highschool, some I've met as a bar owner. They will still always be men though. From what I get from them, they just want to be accepted for what they are, and be left to live life without discrimination. They however are not trying to prove to anyone that they are actually women, they are trans, hear them roar and all that.

Its a very confusing world sometimes and hard for people to keep it all together. I have gay male clients that want to be called he, and some that want to be called she. There is no real strict guidelines to this and it can get quite confusing and sometimes rather irritating and uncomfortable. Remember, this is all about personal choice and not about science. Calling all gay men or even transgender men she will get you in as much trouble as calling them he.

We have the Gay games coming here in Cleveland, both of my bars are supporting this event, as we have the right for gay people to marry. I believe people should be able to live as they wish, and what happens in your home is private. However, lets not confuse the issue. A person born a male, can never be a real woman, and while it is polite to treat them as such, it should not be legally mandatory. I believe in being polite, and try to remember who wants to be called what, its a hassle though, but for the most part the gay/transgenders seam to be understanding because even they know how confusing it can be.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

Look up pictures of female bodybuilders. There are quite a few images which depict women significantly more muscular than the one in question.

And how many of them are taking steroids or testosterone? How many of them would count as pre op transmales? I mean if all that matters is hormones right? Have you seen the clitoris on some of these female body builders, they take so many hormones that it looks like a little penis. So what is their status?

If you are a trans female athlete and take estrogen to fulfill your "female" status, yet take steroids to increase your athletic ability, where does that leave you?

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:
There's no way to definitively know unless you do controlled tests which would require you to monitor then from pre-op to several years post op while trying to control variables such as environment, diet, exercise etc

Yeah, I don't think setting up such a study would be easy, but it would be fascinating

 Andrew1975 wrote:
At the same time, they should never be able to claim public status as and protection as a women. They are not!

Your bigotry and ignorance is noted.

There is no real strict guidelines to this and it can get quite confusing and sometimes rather irritating and uncomfortable.

Here's a simple solution: let the person tell you what pronouns they want, then respect that choice.

Calling all gay men or even transgender men she will get you in as much trouble as calling them he.

WTF does being gay have to do with being transgender? You do realize that they are two entirely separate things, right?

 Andrew1975 wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:
How would a coroner label the skeleton of a trans women? Would they be able to know its a trans woman if all they found was the skeleton?

This is not relevant to a transgendered woman or man, only that they can make the transition and live as the people they wish to be recognized as, I see no harm in that, other people should mind their own and tend to their own business and allow people who aren't hurting other people to just get on with living as they wish to live.

Well there seams to be a lot of issues that are not relevant to transgendered people. Its awful strange, because they want their arguments to be relevant, but many don't want to see the relevance of others arguments.

For the most part you are born a male or female, and while there are some exceptions, that is pretty much it. If you long to be man or a women, I have no problem with that, to each his own, but in the end you are pretending to be something you are not. I have no issue with a man dressing as a woman and taking hormones and getting his junk cut off. At the same time, they should never be able to claim public status as and protection as a women. They are not!

I have trans friends that are "Women trapped in a mans body", we hang out sometimes and go drinking, its fine. One I've known since highschool, some I've met as a bar owner. They will still always be men though. From what I get from them, they just want to be accepted for what they are, and be left to live life without discrimination. They however are not trying to prove to anyone that they are actually women, they are trans, hear them roar and all that.

Its a very confusing world sometimes and hard for people to keep it all together. I have gay male clients that want to be called he, and some that want to be called she. There is no real strict guidelines to this and it can get quite confusing and sometimes rather irritating and uncomfortable. Remember, this is all about personal choice and not about science. Calling all gay men or even transgender men she will get you in as much trouble as calling them he.

We have the Gay games coming here in Cleveland, both of my bars are supporting this event, as we have the right for gay people to marry. I believe people should be able to live as they wish, and what happens in your home is private. However, lets not confuse the issue. A person born a male, can never be a real woman, and while it is polite to treat them as such, it should not be legally mandatory. I believe in being polite, and try to remember who wants to be called what, its a hassle though, but for the most part the gay/transgenders seam to be understanding because even they know how confusing it can be.

There is no confusion, a man undergoes gender reassignment, is then a woman. She is then referred to as such. Treated as such and entitled to the legal protection and recognition as such.

Undergoing years of painful transition isn't 'pretending' to me, it's showing a dedication and commitment to becoming the person they feel they must be. I won't begrudge nor denigrate that. 'They will always be men'? To you, if you wish to maintain that illusion, to me, if a trans gendered person presents as a woman I will treat her as such.

I think his point was a little more nuanced than just that, MGS... he obviously knows and interacts with transgender folks frequently due to his work (not that this makes him an expert, just saying) and was saying that the ones he encounters consider themselves "trans". There are some notable differences between a transgender woman and a naturally born woman, for instance...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_pregnancy

But that's all kind of off the original topic... somehow, this thread got into talking about transgender people in general, but no one (I believe) is disputing the right of a person to be transgender in our society.

People have every right to be transgender, and that's absolutely not in question. The question is, does a man who has had procedures described above to become a transgender woman, qualify to compete in female sporting events?

That question has many layers and those seem to be being brushed over for the sake of sensationalist arguments on both sides, unfortunately... again, a clearer argument is the reverse- does a woman who has had these procedures to become a transgender man qualify to compete in male sporting events? The answer is almost undoubtedly no in most sports leagues, due to the testosterone the person would be taking on a regular basis to maintain their status... as taking extra testosterone is banned in most sporting leagues.

That's what this was all about at the start (and the huge lawsuit the person is seeking, of course!). No one is, or at least should be, calling into question the right of a person to be transgender if they wish... but that does not mean they have the right to compete in a sporting league if their therapy doesn't qualify them to do so.

 Andrew1975 wrote:

And how many of them are taking steroids or testosterone? How many of them would count as pre op transmales? I mean if all that matters is hormones right? Have you seen the clitoris on some of these female body builders, they take so many hormones that it looks like a little penis. So what is their status?

A lot, because lots of bodybuilders take steroids, but not all of them do. It is possible for women to build lots of muscle mass if they have the right diet and non-steroidal supplements. They won't be as muscular as the most muscular man, but they can be more muscular than most men.

 Andrew1975 wrote:

If you are a trans female athlete and take estrogen to fulfill your "female" status, yet take steroids to increase your athletic ability, where does that leave you?

Interesting question, though in the context of competition the answer is clear: it makes you a doper.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:
How would a coroner label the skeleton of a trans women? Would they be able to know its a trans woman if all they found was the skeleton?

This is not relevant to a transgendered woman or man, only that they can make the transition and live as the people they wish to be recognized as, I see no harm in that, other people should mind their own and tend to their own business and allow people who aren't hurting other people to just get on with living as they wish to live.

Well there seams to be a lot of issues that are not relevant to transgendered people. Its awful strange, because they want their arguments to be relevant, but many don't want to see the relevance of others arguments.

For the most part you are born a male or female, and while there are some exceptions, that is pretty much it. If you long to be man or a women, I have no problem with that, to each his own, but in the end you are pretending to be something you are not. I have no issue with a man dressing as a woman and taking hormones and getting his junk cut off. At the same time, they should never be able to claim public status as and protection as a women. They are not!

I have trans friends that are "Women trapped in a mans body", we hang out sometimes and go drinking, its fine. One I've known since highschool, some I've met as a bar owner. They will still always be men though. From what I get from them, they just want to be accepted for what they are, and be left to live life without discrimination. They however are not trying to prove to anyone that they are actually women, they are trans, hear them roar and all that.

Its a very confusing world sometimes and hard for people to keep it all together. I have gay male clients that want to be called he, and some that want to be called she. There is no real strict guidelines to this and it can get quite confusing and sometimes rather irritating and uncomfortable. Remember, this is all about personal choice and not about science. Calling all gay men or even transgender men she will get you in as much trouble as calling them he.

We have the Gay games coming here in Cleveland, both of my bars are supporting this event, as we have the right for gay people to marry. I believe people should be able to live as they wish, and what happens in your home is private. However, lets not confuse the issue. A person born a male, can never be a real woman, and while it is polite to treat them as such, it should not be legally mandatory. I believe in being polite, and try to remember who wants to be called what, its a hassle though, but for the most part the gay/transgenders seam to be understanding because even they know how confusing it can be.

There is no confusion, a man undergoes gender reassignment, is then a woman. She is then referred to as such. Treated as such and entitled to the legal protection and recognition as such.

Undergoing years of painful transition isn't 'pretending' to me, it's showing a dedication and commitment to becoming the person they feel they must be. I won't begrudge nor denigrate that. 'They will always be men'? To you, if you wish to maintain that illusion, to me, if a trans gendered person presents as a woman I will treat her as such.

If you think there is no confusion I don't think you hang out with lgbt people enough.

Yeah its cool to say just refer to them as they want to be refereed to. In practice, its less easy. Especially when you are expected to remember who wants to be refereed to as what when you have very limited interactions with them. Its never been a big issue, but thats more because for the most part, the people I interact with understand it can be a confusing issue.

Its not bigotry to say unless you were born a woman you will never be a real woman. Its just fact. It may hurt your feelings, but I find that most trans people have pretty thick skins when it comes to that. Most would think that a trans trying to get legal status to compete as a women is really trying to inject themselves into a controversy that reflects poorly on them as a community.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 dogma wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:

And how many of them are taking steroids or testosterone? How many of them would count as pre op transmales? I mean if all that matters is hormones right? Have you seen the clitoris on some of these female body builders, they take so many hormones that it looks like a little penis. So what is their status?

A lot, because lots of bodybuilders take steroids, but not all of them do. It is possible for women to build lots of muscle mass if they have the right diet and non-steroidal supplements. They won't be as muscular as the most muscular man, but they can be more muscular than most men.

 Andrew1975 wrote:

If you are a trans female athlete and take estrogen to fulfill your "female" status, yet take steroids to increase your athletic ability, where does that leave you?

Interesting question, though in the context of competition the answer is clear: it makes you a doper.

But are you a doper male or female at that point. I say you are a doper transgender. People can and do, and I think should identify as transgender, and if you are upset as being referred to as the neutral "it" then you have to get to know me, which isn't hard, you just have to come up to the bar enough that I know what you like being called. I have a client, that come in all the time "princess vinnie" is how he likes to be called, he is not trans just gay as the day is long, he likes to be called she, which I do, he calls me and everybody "Mary". I can tell you sometimes in my conversations its hard to follow what he is saying because the pronouns are confusing and everyone is "Mary". Confusing, but fun and interesting.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
Its not bigotry to say unless you were born a woman you will never be a real woman.

Oh, it certainly is. The entire concept of being a "real" woman by your personal standards is incredibly offensive.

It may hurt your feelings, but I find that most trans people have pretty thick skins when it comes to that.

Yeah, I guess you do kind of have to learn how to put up with abuse if you're considered an "acceptable target". I don't really see why this should be taken as permission to add more abuse.

People can and do, and I think should identify as transgender, and if you are upset as being referred to as the neutral "it" then you have to get to know me, which isn't hard, you just have to come up to the bar enough that I know what you like being called.

Wow. You really do want to see how offensive you can be. How about instead of treating people like objects and calling them "it" until they jump through all of your hoops you could use the gender-neutral "they" instead.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:
It may hurt your feelings, but I find that most trans people have pretty thick skins when it comes to that.

Yeah, I guess you do kind of have to learn how to put up with abuse if you're considered an "acceptable target". I don't really see why this should be taken as permission to add more abuse.

http://www.yspp.org/about_suicide/statistics.htm

More than 50% of Transgender youth will have had at least one suicide attempt by their 20th birthday.

It'd be preferable to have a word that worked that didn't imply plural as "they" does, but I agree that Andrew's other choice was poor.

However, you didn't respond to the other points about athletic competition, which is what this thread is about, so I'm going to assume you're in agreement and move on since that's all I really care about... the civil rights issue is not even in question in my mind.