dutchess-t

[dutchess-t]

Check out Anna Smith Spark's books. Her writing voice is exquisite.

drop your women written fantasy and sci-fi recs. no YA pls 🙏

[dutchess-t]

It puts companies higher on lgbtq+ friendly rankings like Stonewall's. That's why they recruit Mulvaney. It's not about the ads themselves but the image and ranking of the company as a whole.

This is what I mean when I say I don’t even think he’s good publicity for these brands. These are the top comments on that tiktok with the most upvotes and they’re all against him.

[dutchess-t]

Update: because Sander Dekker, our (still under resignation, by the way) minister for Law Protection is a useless ass, this bill is still underway without any precautions taken to protect the safety and dignity of women and girls. 

All concerns about the potential for abuse have been hand waved away with “We Don’t Think That Will Happen”. Despite the fact that those exact things are already happening abroad. Cases from the UK, Canada and the USA are conveniently ignored. Instead, Dekker defers to an investigation into self-ID in Argentina, Norway, Ireland and Malta, which concluded that Nothing Ever Happened. If anyone does have examples about trans abuse in those countries, I would love to hear them. I am aware of the number of female rapists in Norway increasing with 300% between 2015 and 2017, with self-ID being introduced in 2016, and of Barbie Kardashian in Ireland. Is there anything else known?

Apparently there was another vote on whether to mark this bill as “controversial” and postpone it, because the Netherlands still do not have a new government after elections early this year. But of course legalizing voyeurism and exhibitionism in women’s changing rooms and making all sex-based statistics unreliable and meaningless is still not deemed controversial, so on we go. The bill is now scheduled to be discussed in the House of Representatives on the 24th of January.

@womenfrommars fyi.

The Netherlands about to introduce self-id into law

Well, it was only a matter of time. On May 4th our minister of Law introduced a bill on behalf of our minister of Emancipation (the irony is painful), proposing to simply the procedure to change the gender on your birth certificate. A declaration by a licensed doctor or psychologist will no longer be required. Instead, someone will be able to file in writing to have their legal sex changed. Four to twelve weeks later they will receive confirmation. 

Furthermore, the minimum age requirement of 16 years to have your gender legally changed will be dropped as well. Children younger than 16 will be able to change their gender if they get permission from a judge. 

The impact of this on women’s rights, safety and well-being has not been considered. At all. The Council of State reviewed the proposed bill and only requested clarification on the justification for dropping the age requirement, and whether the weight of the decision for the individual is properly safeguarded when a professional no longer has to be involved. 

Answer to 1: sometimes children under 16 are clear about their “gender” being “set”, so not being able to have their birth certificate changed yet is “difficult.  Answer to 2: this decision is up to the individual and the government should be involved as little as possible. Right of self-determination is the most important.

The Council of State agreed to these “justifications” and is now fine with this bill, which will now be debated in the House of Representatives. Again: no consideration at all for the impact on women. Maybe because women have already lost their legal protection to begin with. Unlike the U.K. and the U.S., the Netherlands do not list sex as a protected characteristic. Instead they’ve used gender (geslacht), and a few years ago they changed the law to add that gender identity and gender expression fall under the protected category of gender. So excluding a man with a womanly identity, or even expression, from female-only spaces is already forbidden.

@girlsfrommars @dutchradfem Sorry about the blunt @, but since you’re one of the few Dutch radfems on here, I thought you might want to know this. The proposed bill can be found here. I fear there is very little hope stopping this. So far the Netherlands ignore the more critical stances that have risen up in the UK and Sweden. And unlike the UK, we do not have any feminist organizations that haven’t been hijacked by liberal feminism and trans activism, except for Voorzij and they are very small.

#selfid #self identification #law #netherlands #politics #trans politics #terf friendly #terf safe #terfs please touch #terfs DO interact #radical feminism #radfems please touch #radfems do touch

[dutchess-t]

So I learned Chris Chan is getting booked into a women’s prison as a female after abusing and raping his elderly mother who has dementia and I want off this hell ride we call earth.

[dutchess-t]

i know you meant well when you said 30 isnt ancient, but im nb so my life expectancy is actually 30 :(

Hey anon, I’m so sorry that that’s a fear you’ve had to live with. I know that trans people are at greater risk of violence and suicide, and I’ve heard people say many times that the life expectancy of trans people (or trans women, or trans women of color, depending on who you ask) is anywhere from 23 to 35. Your ask troubled me, so I’ve dug deep looking for solid evidence of any of these, and I don’t believe that these statistics are true.

A trans woman, Helen, looked into the “23 years” claim and traced it back to someone’s notes on two workshops at a 2007 conference, which stated that trans people’s life expectancy is “believed to be around 23” (emphasis mine) but cites no actual source. This claim has been presented as fact in many news articles since then, but as far as I can tell, no one seems to know where this figure came from.

Another claim is often sourced to an Argentine psychologist quoted in this NPR article: 

Psychologist Graciela Balestra, who works closely with the transgender community, says it’s an especially vulnerable population.

“Transgender people have an average life expectancy of about 30 to 32 years,” Balestra says. “They don’t live any longer; I think that statistic alone says so much.”

But again, the article gives no source for this figure. 

I found an article claiming that a 2014 report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) “concludes the average life expectancy of trans people in the Western Hemisphere is between 30-35 years.” However, when I tracked down the report, An Overview of Violence Against LGBTI Persons (pdf), its only reference to this is (emphasis mine): “[T]he IACHR has received information that the life expectancy of trans women in the Americas is between 30 and 35 years of age.” Again, this is no source.

Someone said on my post that these statistics may have come from the NCTE/NGLTF report Injustice at Every Turn (pdf), but I can’t find any reference to any such claim in the report.

Thinking about these claims, they seem unlikely for some basic reasons. Consider that we simply don’t have a long enough span of data on trans people, and that what data we do have is extremely limited because we can’t always know who is trans and who isn’t. Consider also that, although obviously the murder rates for trans people are extremely high, the number of deaths of 20-something trans people would have to be ENORMOUS to offset the existence of older trans people and bring the average down to 30. Especially since, unlike with racial groups for example, the data on trans people would likely include almost no childhood deaths, simply because it would be much more difficult (and in many cases impossible) to identify these children as trans. And since we know that trans women of color are extremely disproportionately affected by violence, statistics that include white people and/or trans men would be especially unlikely to be so low.

And as to your specific situation anon, again given that trans women of color are most at risk, I don’t think we have reason to believe that being non-binary specifically puts a person at anywhere near this level of increased risk of dying young.

I don’t say any of this to question anyone’s experiences or to deny the state of emergency that trans women face with regard to violence. That is very real. But I think it can be harmful, even dangerous to trans people to spread claims like this around, especially without evidence. Expecting to die by 30 would take an extreme emotional toll on anyone, and trans people deserve better.

But don’t take my word for it: FORGE, a national transgender anti-violence organization that works with trans survivors of sexual assault, wrote the following in its 2016 publication “First Do No Harm: 8 Tips for AddressingViolence AgainstTransgender and GenderNon-Binary People” (pdf) (I have moved two footnotes into the main text and provided links to some endnote sources; italicized emphasis is theirs while bold is mine.): 

Promote Hopefor the Future

It certainly is not the same as a murder, but publicizing a low “life expectancy” rate for transwomen of color is another way to steal away their future, a “crime” that has been committed repeatedly by trans, LGBQ, and mainstream press. Think about the people you know or have heard of who have been diagnosed with a fatal illness and given a short time to live: how many of them have enrolled in college, undertaken lengthy training for a new occupation, had a new child, or tried to establish a new non-profit? A few do, certainly, but many more focus on their bucket list, arrange for their good-byes, or simply give up entirely, essentially relinquishing whatever time they have left to depression and regrets. When we tell transwomen of color they cannot expect to live very long, we rob them of hope. We rob them of any motivation to invest in themselves, their relationships, and their communities. We rob them, in short, of their lives even while they are still living. (This statement in no way negates the need to systemically work to improve and increase the life expectancy of trans people through working to end transphobia, racism, poverty, pervasive violence, and health and healthcare inequities, and more.)

One trans woman of color was trying to come to grips with an estimated lifespan figure more than ten years shorter than the one that has been published most often. (We are not repeating any of the (incorrect) estimated lifetime figures that are circulating, to avoid even inadvertent reinforcement.) Faced with the report of yet another attack on another trans woman, she wrote:

These days, I look at the latest reports of stabbed, shot, beaten trans women, search myself for tears, and I cannot find a thing. I want to mourn and rage. I want to honor all of our sisters — the hundreds each year who are ripped, namelessly and without fanfare, from this life — who are taken so young before their time. But the grief and anger — even empathy — do not come. I don’t feel anything but numbness and fatigue, and somewhere far below that, fear.

The terrible irony of the life expectancy “fact” is that it is based on an impossibility. The only ways to determine a given population’s life expectancy are to: examine decades or more of death certificates or census data containing the information being studied, or follow a specific set of individuals for around 100 years and record every single death. There is not and never has been a census of transgender people. Our death certificates do not mark us as transgender. There has been no 100-year-long study of a representative group of trans people. So where are the estimatedlifespan figures coming from?

FORGE tracked the most commonly-cited figure back to what was most likely the 2014 Philadelphia Transgender Health Conference, where a workshop presenter gave the figure and explained she had calculated it by averaging the age of death for all of those listed on the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) website. This means the figure is actually the average age of those trans people who were both murdered and came to the attention of someone who added them to the TDOR list. Interestingly, this average is very close to the average age of everyone who is murdered in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Justice statistics. [I’m not seeing an average age given in the cited source but you can see on page 5 of this Bureau of Justice Statistics report (pdf) that the average age of homicide victims in the U.S. was between 30 and 35 from 1980 to 2008.]

But not everyone is murdered.

Despite how many there may appear to be, only a tiny, tiny fraction of transpeople are killed by otherpeople. Most of us, transwomen of color included, live average lifespans and die of the most common U.S. killers — heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory disease, and unintentional injuries (accidents).

Please don’t add to fear and hopelessness by spreading inaccurate and profoundly disempowering data.

Since I can’t respond to everyone directly, I’m @ing some people who’ve brought this up on my post and may be interested: (urls removed after posting for their privacy). I appreciate your thoughtfulness in bringing this to my attention. If you or anyone else has a source on any of these figures that can provide specific methodology, I’d be very grateful to see that.

In closing, here are some resources that provide a more hopeful view of trans aging. They are well known but I hope they will be helpful to someone.

To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Older Adults

#RealLiveTransAdult and RealLifeTransAdult.com

Trans Elders’ Life Histories, an upcoming oral history project which will hopefully be available soon in the University of Victoria Transgender Archives

SAGE: Advocacy and Services for LGBT Elders, where you can potentially volunteer with trans and other LGBT seniors

GRIOT Circle, a Brooklyn organization supporting LGBTQ elders of color

[dutchess-t]

@radicallyaligned​

The testosteron restrictions apply only to athletes with a Disorder of Sexual Development and are genetically male:

1. Which athletes fall under the DSD regulations?

The DSD regulations only apply to individuals who are: - legally female (or intersex) and - who have one of a certain number of specified DSDs, which mean that they have: -male chromosomes (XY) not female chromosomes (XX) - testes not ovaries - circulating testosterone in the male range (7.7 to 29.4 nmol/L) not the (much lower) female range (0.06 to 1.68 nmol/L);and - the ability to make use of that testosterone circulating within their bodies (i.e., they are ‘androgen-sensitive’).

So this is not about black women somehow having more than ten times the amount of testosteron in their bodies compared to white women. This is about genetically male individuals with an intersex disorder having much higher testosteron than women.

It’s also worth noting that these restrictions only apply to a specific range of distances, because this is where the higher testosteron produces a significant advantage:

3. Why do the regulations only cover events between 400m to the mile?

Based on the science, the IAAF considers that 46 XY DSD athletes would have an advantage in all events based on their levels of testosterone in the male range. However, the evidence to date indicates that track events run over distances between 400m to one mile are where the most performance-enhancing benefits can be obtained from elevated levels of circulating testosterone, i.e., both from the extra strength and power derived from the increases in muscle mass and strength, and from the extra oxygen transfer and uptake derived from the increased haemoglobin in the blood.

Therefore, taking a conservative approach, to allow DSD athletes to compete in the gender with which they identify as far as possible without restriction, the new Regulations only apply to track events between 400m and one mile (and only to international competitions). However, the revised Regulations expressly confirm that the IAAF Health & Science Department will keep this under review.  If future evidence or new scientific knowledge indicates that there is good justification to expand or narrow the number of events affected by the Regulations, it will propose such revisions to the IAAF Council.

Athletic scouts are purposely on the lookout for DSD athletes to compete in women’s competitions. They’re more likely to find individuals to exploit due to poverty and/or lack of knowledge about their condition in developing countries, and who are therefore more likely to be POC. There is exploitation and injustice here, but it’s not due to the testosteron rule itself (unlike with the bonkers restriction for TIMs to compete against women).

You’re underestimating the advantage high testosterone has on these specific performances. It is harsh to exclude athletes with these DSD conditions, but I think you have to if the goal is fair competition based on sex. Otherwise you’re effectively creating competitions for males to dominate, and competitions for individuals who are genetically also male but with DSD.

Also the Michael Phelps comparison is trite because sports isn’t segregated by production of lactate acid. It is, however, separated by sex. Which is why certain intersex individuals are excluded from competing against women: their actual sex is male and their advantage against athletes of the female sex becomes disproportionate because of it. 

hey vivian! just curious if you saw the news about the african female sprinters being barred from certain olympic events because they have "too high levels of testosterone" to compete. a lot of people are saying this proves transphobia will hurt cis women as well, but i'm not really sure what to think. i think this has more to do with racism. do you have any thoughts?

Testosterone variance across female bodies is naturally occurring, and female people who have higher levels and perhaps compete better in sports because of it shouldn't be punished. Variance in male athletes isn't punished, but celebrated.

In fact, the reason these rules are being put in place aren't based in transphobia, but exist because Trans Rights Activism pushes for male inclusion in female sports, and if committees can't exclude competitors based on sex, then they try to find other ways to "level" the playing field to attempt to not completely tilt it towards the male athletes in the female athletes competition - including testosterone levels.

In reality, no female person should be barred from her sport because her body has a natural advantage. Michael Phelps is double-jointed, produces less lactic acid than most males, and has a wide torso and short legs, all perfect for swimming, yet isn't barred for it.

So these reasons, plus racism, are why these rules are so unfair.

[dutchess-t]

The testosteron restrictions apply only to athletes with a Disorder of Sexual Development and are genetically male: 

 1. Which athletes fall under the DSD regulations?

The DSD regulations only apply to individuals who are: - legally female (or intersex) and - who have one of a certain number of specified DSDs, which mean that they have: -male chromosomes (XY) not female chromosomes (XX) - testes not ovaries - circulating testosterone in the male range (7.7 to 29.4 nmol/L) not the (much lower) female range (0.06 to 1.68 nmol/L);and - the ability to make use of that testosterone circulating within their bodies (i.e., they are ‘androgen-sensitive’).

So this is not about black women somehow having more than ten times the amount of testosteron in their bodies compared to white women. This is about genetically male individuals with an intersex disorder having much higher testosteron than women.

It’s also worth noting that these restrictions only apply to a specific range of distances, because this is where the higher testosteron produces a significant advantage:

3. Why do the regulations only cover events between 400m to the mile?

Based on the science, the IAAF considers that 46 XY DSD athletes would have an advantage in all events based on their levels of testosterone in the male range. However, the evidence to date indicates that track events run over distances between 400m to one mile are where the most performance-enhancing benefits can be obtained from elevated levels of circulating testosterone, i.e., both from the extra strength and power derived from the increases in muscle mass and strength, and from the extra oxygen transfer and uptake derived from the increased haemoglobin in the blood.

Therefore, taking a conservative approach, to allow DSD athletes to compete in the gender with which they identify as far as possible without restriction, the new Regulations only apply to track events between 400m and one mile (and only to international competitions). However, the revised Regulations expressly confirm that the IAAF Health & Science Department will keep this under review.  If future evidence or new scientific knowledge indicates that there is good justification to expand or narrow the number of events affected by the Regulations, it will propose such revisions to the IAAF Council.

Athletic scouts are purposely on the lookout for DSD athletes to compete in women’s competitions. They’re more likely to find individuals to exploit due to poverty and/or lack of knowledge about their condition in developing countries, and who are therefore more likely to be POC. There is exploitation and injustice here, but it’s not due to the testosteron rule itself (unlike with the bonkers restriction for TIMs to compete against women).

You’re underestimating the advantage high testosterone has on these specific performances. It is harsh to exclude athletes with these DSD conditions, but I think you have to if the goal is fair competition based on sex. Otherwise you’re effectively creating competitions for males to dominate, and competitions for individuals who are genetically also male but with DSD.

what's your opinion on caster semeneya not being able to compete in the Olympics? since she has higher (male) level of testosterone

The fact that Caster Semeneya has XY chromosomes and testosterone at higher levels than most women (including women with conditions like PCOS who have naturally higher testosterone levels) should prevent her from competing in female sports. That said, I know the issues are much more complicated than they’re made out to be and so I’d be more than happy to change my mind should information on her intersex condition and how it affects her comes to light.

Moreover, I recognise that she’s been specifically and unfairly target by the IFAA (?) as they put restrictions only on the events she competed in and are only changing the rules now when she’s been competing for years.

[dutchess-t]

The testosteron restrictions apply only to athletes with a Disorder of Sexual Development and are genetically male: 1. Which athletes fall under the DSD regulations?

The DSD regulations only apply to individuals who are: - legally female (or intersex) and - who have one of a certain number of specified DSDs, which mean that they have: -male chromosomes (XY) not female chromosomes (XX) - testes not ovaries - circulating testosterone in the male range (7.7 to 29.4 nmol/L) not the (much lower) female range (0.06 to 1.68 nmol/L);and - the ability to make use of that testosterone circulating within their bodies (i.e., they are ‘androgen-sensitive’).

So this is not about black women somehow having more than ten times the amount of testosteron in their bodies compared to white women. This is about genetically male individuals with an intersex disorder having much higher testosteron than women. 

It’s also worth noting that these restrictions only apply to a specific range of distances, because this is where the higher testosteron produces a significant advantage: 

3. Why do the regulations only cover events between 400m to the mile?

Based on the science, the IAAF considers that 46 XY DSD athletes would have an advantage in all events based on their levels of testosterone in the male range. However, the evidence to date indicates that track events run over distances between 400m to one mile are where the most performance-enhancing benefits can be obtained from elevated levels of circulating testosterone, i.e., both from the extra strength and power derived from the increases in muscle mass and strength, and from the extra oxygen transfer and uptake derived from the increased haemoglobin in the blood.

Therefore, taking a conservative approach, to allow DSD athletes to compete in the gender with which they identify as far as possible without restriction, the new Regulations only apply to track events between 400m and one mile (and only to international competitions). However, the revised Regulations expressly confirm that the IAAF Health & Science Department will keep this under review.  If future evidence or new scientific knowledge indicates that there is good justification to expand or narrow the number of events affected by the Regulations, it will propose such revisions to the IAAF Council.

Athletic scouts are purposely on the lookout for DSD athletes to compete in women’s competitions. They’re more likely to find individuals to exploit due to poverty and/or lack of knowledge about their condition in developing countries, and who are therefore more likely to be POC. There is exploitation and injustice here, but it’s not due to the testosteron rule itself (unlike with the bonkers restriction for TIMs to compete against women).

See what we've been saying is the truth all along! That under white supremacist patriarchy black women aren't considered women, look at what happened to those 2 Olympic runners that got kicked out for their high testosterone levels. See, these standards exclude different forms of women hood, and it's not fair. So why is it ok that these same standards are used against trans women? Trans women and black women both have high testosterone, does that stop them from being women? No. Both black and trans women have been deemed too masculine, does that stop them from being women? No. That's why I don't understand you Terfs, your feminism can't see the intersectionality.

TW: rape, racism.

Oh my god this point again! I'm so tired of it.

It doesn't matter if black women are "considered" women or not. They are female. They produce large gametes called ova. They gestate. They have XX chromosomes like women of any other race.

Besides, black women are considered women when white slave owners raped black women but not black men,when white slave owners made black slave women bear their children, when white slave owners made black slave women nurse their white children. Black women are considered women when they are sex trafficked and prostituted at disproportionately higher rates. Black women's womanhood is never called into question because they are unequivocally female, and that's the only qualification required for being a woman. What is called into question is black women's humanity. Our culture is MISOGYNOIR; it treats black women in comparison to white women and deems them inferior. It's the intersection of racism and misogyny. That is the concept of intersectionality that Kimberly Kenshaw coined.

Transwomen are MALES. They produce sperm. They can impregnate women. They have XY chromosomes.

How can you claim that radical feminists are responsible for the exclusion of black women in sports? Laurel Hubbard, a whole ass man, is going to the Olympics but black women with higher than normal testosterone are not allowed. The Olympics isn't transphobic. It is misogynistic and racist for targetting black women. Transwomen have been treated with more respect and dignity than actual women, esp black women. Transwomen's testosterone levels are allowed to be 10x higher than women's at the Olympics. But black women have been policed for their higher-than-normal T levels.

Your ideology is racist. Radical feminist is anti-racist.

#sports #olympics

[dutchess-t]

Update on the decision on June 9th: they’ve declared the issue “not controversial”, so they will go ahead and discuss the matter soon, regardless of progress (or lack thereof) in government formation.

@girlsfrommars Looks like you have till 8th of July to send input.

The Netherlands about to introduce self-id into law

Well, it was only a matter of time. On May 4th our minister of Law introduced a bill on behalf of our minister of Emancipation (the irony is painful), proposing to simply the procedure to change the gender on your birth certificate. A declaration by a licensed doctor or psychologist will no longer be required. Instead, someone will be able to file in writing to have their legal sex changed. Four to twelve weeks later they will receive confirmation. 

Furthermore, the minimum age requirement of 16 years to have your gender legally changed will be dropped as well. Children younger than 16 will be able to change their gender if they get permission from a judge. 

The impact of this on women’s rights, safety and well-being has not been considered. At all. The Council of State reviewed the proposed bill and only requested clarification on the justification for dropping the age requirement, and whether the weight of the decision for the individual is properly safeguarded when a professional no longer has to be involved. 

Answer to 1: sometimes children under 16 are clear about their “gender” being “set”, so not being able to have their birth certificate changed yet is “difficult.  Answer to 2: this decision is up to the individual and the government should be involved as little as possible. Right of self-determination is the most important.

The Council of State agreed to these “justifications” and is now fine with this bill, which will now be debated in the House of Representatives. Again: no consideration at all for the impact on women. Maybe because women have already lost their legal protection to begin with. Unlike the U.K. and the U.S., the Netherlands do not list sex as a protected characteristic. Instead they’ve used gender (geslacht), and a few years ago they changed the law to add that gender identity and gender expression fall under the protected category of gender. So excluding a man with a womanly identity, or even expression, from female-only spaces is already forbidden.

@girlsfrommars @dutchradfem Sorry about the blunt @, but since you’re one of the few Dutch radfems on here, I thought you might want to know this. The proposed bill can be found here. I fear there is very little hope stopping this. So far the Netherlands ignore the more critical stances that have risen up in the UK and Sweden. And unlike the UK, we do not have any feminist organizations that haven’t been hijacked by liberal feminism and trans activism, except for Voorzij and they are very small.

#RadFem #radical feminism #radfems please touch #radfems do touch #terfs please touch #selfid #netherlands #trans activism

[dutchess-t]

Gender reassignment: What science tells us about treatment of children and adolescents

There is no scientific evidence that gender reassigment has a positive health effect.   click for more

There are large unknowns on the number of regretters. (Long-term follow-up is missing, but early “euphoria” that over time (average 10 years) turns into regret is well  documented.) more

Co-morbidity of psychiatric problems is very high; major studies conclude 75 - 88%. more

Gender reassignment treatment (hormones and/ or surgery) does not reduce psychiatric problems. more

Suicide risk does not decrease after gender reassignment treatment. more

One must begin by investigating psychiatric issues. Affirmative treatment must not start before evaluation. more

Only teams of experts with long clinical experience of making psychiatric diagnoses should investigate children/ adolescents. more

Children/ adolescents grow out of gender incongruence (80 - 90%) during puberty while on the other hand … more

…. treatment with puberty blockers consolidates the gender dysphoria in 100% of treated children/ adolescents. more

Treatment with puberty blockers increases mental health problems in girls. Gender dysphoria does not decrease. more

There are serious medical risks and side effects of puberty blockers and hormone treatment. more

It is a myth that specific brain regions of trans persons are more like those of the self-identified gender. more

There has been no long-term follow-up of the effects of gender correcting treatment (surgery or hormones) on quality of life.

Children and adolescents with gender incongruence and possible psychiatric problems cannot be considered to provide informed consent.

Psychosocial circumstances and history must be investigated and confirmed. Information from parents, relatives, friends must be considered.

Investigation should be culturally neutral without bias of gender research ideology, political influence or religious dogma.

originally posted here

[dutchess-t]

I didn’t think medically necessary operations for intersex people will be outlawed either. My point was that lumping them in with LGB (and T) and then saying “LGBTI conversion should be banned because they’re fine the way they are” may be doing intersex people disservice because their situation and concerns are so different from the rest. Same-sex attraction should not require any kind of intervention ever, whereas some intersex conditions definitely do, because it’s not just “genitals that look slightly different than the norm’. I hope that makes my point a little more clear. You do raise a good point about where to draw the line as to whether an intervention is medically necessary or not. There’s definitely potential for gray areas there.

The Canadian father has even been sentenced to jail. Although the sentencing was because he discussed his daughter’s case in the media, so not directly due to misgendering or opposing transition. I did a google search and here’s a case of a 17-year-old girl from Ohio whose custody went to her grandparents because they support her gender transition while her parents do not.

I’m not sure how critical a curator will be of a child’s desire to have their legal gender changed. It’s not their area of expertise to diagnose whether the child in question is truly transgender. It seems more likely that the judge will call upon a medical professional to give their input about that. But I don’t know what form these proceedings will take.

You could write to as many of the political parties as you like. Contact information can be found on their respective websites. It’s worth noting that nearly all of them have signed an agreement with COC and thereby promised support for several LGBTI issues. The agreement does not explicitly mention self-id though. Instead, it lists getting rid of as many of the unnecessary gender registrations by the government as possible, and allowing anyone to have their legal gender replaced by an ‘X’. 

You can write to individual members of the House of Representatives too. I’m not really sure who to focus on, however. D66, GroenLinks and Partij van de Arbeid are probably the most vehemently pro-trans and therefore extremely unlikely to be receptive of criticism. The first is very much a trans party and the latter two have outright refused to debate the issue because they deem a critical stance unacceptable. I think the VVD could be the best target? Both because of their size and because they’re probably not that ideologically invested as the parties that market themselves as progressive. They might just become slightly troubled by the idea that some dangerous criminals could start identifying as women and would then have to be transferred to one of the (less heavily guarded) female prisons.

Lastly, you could consider joining up with Voorzij and help with input there. :) We intend to send several more letters to all members of the House of Representatives. Just to note that as a possibility. Individual actions are valuable too!

The Netherlands about to introduce self-id into law

Well, it was only a matter of time. On May 4th our minister of Law introduced a bill on behalf of our minister of Emancipation (the irony is painful), proposing to simply the procedure to change the gender on your birth certificate. A declaration by a licensed doctor or psychologist will no longer be required. Instead, someone will be able to file in writing to have their legal sex changed. Four to twelve weeks later they will receive confirmation. 

Furthermore, the minimum age requirement of 16 years to have your gender legally changed will be dropped as well. Children younger than 16 will be able to change their gender if they get permission from a judge. 

The impact of this on women’s rights, safety and well-being has not been considered. At all. The Council of State reviewed the proposed bill and only requested clarification on the justification for dropping the age requirement, and whether the weight of the decision for the individual is properly safeguarded when a professional no longer has to be involved. 

Answer to 1: sometimes children under 16 are clear about their “gender” being “set”, so not being able to have their birth certificate changed yet is “difficult.  Answer to 2: this decision is up to the individual and the government should be involved as little as possible. Right of self-determination is the most important.

The Council of State agreed to these “justifications” and is now fine with this bill, which will now be debated in the House of Representatives. Again: no consideration at all for the impact on women. Maybe because women have already lost their legal protection to begin with. Unlike the U.K. and the U.S., the Netherlands do not list sex as a protected characteristic. Instead they’ve used gender (geslacht), and a few years ago they changed the law to add that gender identity and gender expression fall under the protected category of gender. So excluding a man with a womanly identity, or even expression, from female-only spaces is already forbidden.

@girlsfrommars @dutchradfem Sorry about the blunt @, but since you’re one of the few Dutch radfems on here, I thought you might want to know this. The proposed bill can be found here. I fear there is very little hope stopping this. So far the Netherlands ignore the more critical stances that have risen up in the UK and Sweden. And unlike the UK, we do not have any feminist organizations that haven’t been hijacked by liberal feminism and trans activism, except for Voorzij and they are very small.

[dutchess-t]

Update on the current status of the proposed bill: on June 9th the House of Representatives will decide whether the topic is deemed “controversial” and will be discussed at a later date. This is because we don’t have an official new government after elections yet. The numbers of seats each party has earned in the House of Representatives is already known, but they have yet to come to an agreement between parties to reach a coalition that forms a majority and will make it easier/feasible for them to rule and pass laws. A proposed bill on banning LGBTI (yes, all those letters) conversion therapy has already been classified as controversial and postponed. However, because that bill already has a majority of support, some parties are trying to go ahead and still get it pushed through soon. As for the self-id bill, seems like they’ve sneaked even more into that one. There is now mention of assigning a curator if a child under the age of 16 wants to change their legal gender registration but their parents/guardians do not agree. The curator can then decide “in the best interests of the child”. So parents who try to prevent their child from transitioning could soon be overruled by the State. This was a suggestion made by a trans lobby group, Transgender Netwerk Nederland, and apparently one our government intends to adopt. They’ve also noted that they received a lot of responses from citizens about this proposed bill, and that those were split pretty evenly between supportive and critical. The justification for ignoring the critical half? “The step to make the inner conviction of the transgender person leading in the choice to change the gender registration has already been made in previous legislation. This proposed bill does not bring about any change in that regard.” So because they had already opened the door to a crack before, might now as well remove the bolts and swing it wide open. Makes no difference, surely. They still refuse to take concerns about the spike of referrals in young girls to gender clinics seriously either and will not start an investigation into that phenomenon.

@girlsfrommars Tagging you for the update. If you don’t want me to do that anymore, just let me know. The agenda for June 9th can be found here. It’s item 5 on the list. The attachments contain what looks like the more formal proposal of the bill and an addition (Memorie van toelichting) with clarifications. In the addition they mention the reactions they received and why they see no problem whatsoever in dismissing concerns. Interestingly, the curator thing is only mentioned in this addition too and not the actual bill proposal. I don’t know how normal that is though? It does feel very sneaky.

The Netherlands about to introduce self-id into law

Well, it was only a matter of time. On May 4th our minister of Law introduced a bill on behalf of our minister of Emancipation (the irony is painful), proposing to simply the procedure to change the gender on your birth certificate. A declaration by a licensed doctor or psychologist will no longer be required. Instead, someone will be able to file in writing to have their legal sex changed. Four to twelve weeks later they will receive confirmation. 

Furthermore, the minimum age requirement of 16 years to have your gender legally changed will be dropped as well. Children younger than 16 will be able to change their gender if they get permission from a judge. 

The impact of this on women’s rights, safety and well-being has not been considered. At all. The Council of State reviewed the proposed bill and only requested clarification on the justification for dropping the age requirement, and whether the weight of the decision for the individual is properly safeguarded when a professional no longer has to be involved. 

Answer to 1: sometimes children under 16 are clear about their “gender” being “set”, so not being able to have their birth certificate changed yet is “difficult.  Answer to 2: this decision is up to the individual and the government should be involved as little as possible. Right of self-determination is the most important.

The Council of State agreed to these “justifications” and is now fine with this bill, which will now be debated in the House of Representatives. Again: no consideration at all for the impact on women. Maybe because women have already lost their legal protection to begin with. Unlike the U.K. and the U.S., the Netherlands do not list sex as a protected characteristic. Instead they’ve used gender (geslacht), and a few years ago they changed the law to add that gender identity and gender expression fall under the protected category of gender. So excluding a man with a womanly identity, or even expression, from female-only spaces is already forbidden.

@girlsfrommars @dutchradfem Sorry about the blunt @, but since you’re one of the few Dutch radfems on here, I thought you might want to know this. The proposed bill can be found here. I fear there is very little hope stopping this. So far the Netherlands ignore the more critical stances that have risen up in the UK and Sweden. And unlike the UK, we do not have any feminist organizations that haven’t been hijacked by liberal feminism and trans activism, except for Voorzij and they are very small.

#terfs do interact #terfs do touch #radfem #radfems do touch #selfid #netherlands #trans activism

[dutchess-t]

TERFs really want you to believe they're protecting cis gay people and meanwhile the biggest push right now for organizations like LGB Alliance is to *checks notes* keep conversion therapy legal

[dutchess-t]

I don’t understand how you can be a grown ass person and not realize how narcissistic, misogynistic, and honestly homophobic it is to identify as “non-binary”

[dutchess-t]

To the radical feminists who are tired of seeing posts about trans issues:

On a certain level, I agree with you. It can be irritating to see this similar content all the time and there are other subjects regarding women to discuss…

Except we have to focus on transgenderism because it is ruining and redirecting our movement. How can we have conversations about women's healthcare when other so called "feminists" and "allies" challenge us constantly about the definition of women's healthcare? When we talk about FGM and the conversation takes a 180 towards male circumcision? When we fight male violence against women and we keep having to explain who is raping and killing whom? When we have to scrape and grovel on our knees when forget to use dehumanizing language to describe the people who need access to abortion? When we try to create and maintain women's only spaces and they force their way in? When Title IX is being gutted? When this ideology is used to abuse children and physically harm (mostly) gays and lesbians? When we try to have a conversation about women in "feminist spaces" and we keep getting interrupted "what about transwomen and enbies and genderfluids and..."

All of this in the name of OUR movement‽ The movement we built to end regressive sex stereotypes is being used instead to espouse them! And when we say no, we are villainized, threatened, ostracized, and even assaulted.

The urgency of pushing back against trans-ideology is very real. In many countries, gender is replacing sex based protections. Gender identity is currently being chiseled into our laws and we risk the definitions of "girl" and "woman" becoming so incomprehensible that we have no one left to fight for.

So please try not to get too frustrated when that is what we want to talk about and fight for. Radical feminism depends on it.

[dutchess-t]

I think that “seksuele geaardheid” implies a more innate sexuality rather than whatever paraphilia might turn you on, but I suppose that’s just splitting hairs at this point. With the current, very broad interpretation of sexuality both terms will probably be interpreted as encompassing way more than hetero-, homo- and bisexuality. I do agree that heterosexual orientation never needed to be explicitly mentioned as protected under the Constitution. Obviously you won’t be discriminated against for being heterosexual in the Netherlands, or anywhere else. There are some prejudices and biases against bi people in particular but I can’t really think of a scenario where they’d be grounds for a discrimination case. Bi women experience higher rates of domestic violence for instance, but it’s hard to argue that this is discrimination. Like you said, it’s the same-sex attraction part that’s far more likely to face discrimination. I do believe homosexual orientation should remain an explicitly mentioned protected category. We already have people calling lesbians scary vagina fetishists for excluding TIMs from their dating pool here as well. With a vague, muddled interpretation of sexual orientation I fear that protection of gay and lesbian people might be further eroded.

Yeah, SGP really is a case where the trans-critical stance is connected to anti-gay. They’re against outlawing actual conversion therapy for gay people as well. And of course they’re fiercely anti-abortion. It’s really ironic that what used to be the most anti-women party is the only one left who still knows what a woman is. On some other issues they even align more with radfem stances than other parties who claim to be pro-emancipation: they want to introduce the Nordic Model for prostitution and are against surrogacy (side-track: a lot of parties mentioned intent to introduce more lenient rules for surrogacy in their election program, VVD even wants to allow commercial surrogacy). They and the ChristenUnie are also the only ones asking for more research into the sharp rise among teen girls who want to transition, and the only one pleading for more support for detransitioners. But saying you’ve got the SGP and Baudet on your side is more likely to repel people who aren’t in either of those corners, so it’s hardly a ringing endorsement indeed... That also makes it easier for the other parties to dismiss them. Which is why things are looking bleak.

I did not know that about the European Council. The EU is getting more involved as well though. They’ve expressed plans to criminalize hate speech (including criticizing gender ideology) and again consider therapy for trans-identifying people conversion therapy that should be phased out of existence. Psh, women and gay people can be thrown under the bus. COC, which used to be the most prominent Dutch organization for LGB emancipation, is dipping their toes in with classic conversion therapy themselves. They advised a gay man who struggled with his homosexuality to transition to a woman (mentioned in this report). That way he could have heterosexual relationships. Problem solved! Taking inspiration from Iran much?

Bonus: you haven’t missed that we’ve got our own first TIM in the House of Representatives now, have you (courtesy to D66)? He’s also the chair of trans lobby organization Transvisie. Turns out he kept a blog between 2012 and 2017 about his “trans journey”. He has since deleted it, but the internet doesn’t forget. You don’t need to delve deep into it for the autogynephilia to become obvious. February 2012 already has a post in which he wrote about masturbating in the bathroom when visiting friends in women’s clothes for the first time... 

The Netherlands about to introduce self-id into law

Well, it was only a matter of time. On May 4th our minister of Law introduced a bill on behalf of our minister of Emancipation (the irony is painful), proposing to simply the procedure to change the gender on your birth certificate. A declaration by a licensed doctor or psychologist will no longer be required. Instead, someone will be able to file in writing to have their legal sex changed. Four to twelve weeks later they will receive confirmation. 

Furthermore, the minimum age requirement of 16 years to have your gender legally changed will be dropped as well. Children younger than 16 will be able to change their gender if they get permission from a judge. 

The impact of this on women’s rights, safety and well-being has not been considered. At all. The Council of State reviewed the proposed bill and only requested clarification on the justification for dropping the age requirement, and whether the weight of the decision for the individual is properly safeguarded when a professional no longer has to be involved. 

Answer to 1: sometimes children under 16 are clear about their “gender” being “set”, so not being able to have their birth certificate changed yet is “difficult.  Answer to 2: this decision is up to the individual and the government should be involved as little as possible. Right of self-determination is the most important.

The Council of State agreed to these “justifications” and is now fine with this bill, which will now be debated in the House of Representatives. Again: no consideration at all for the impact on women. Maybe because women have already lost their legal protection to begin with. Unlike the U.K. and the U.S., the Netherlands do not list sex as a protected characteristic. Instead they’ve used gender (geslacht), and a few years ago they changed the law to add that gender identity and gender expression fall under the protected category of gender. So excluding a man with a womanly identity, or even expression, from female-only spaces is already forbidden.

@girlsfrommars @dutchradfem Sorry about the blunt @, but since you’re one of the few Dutch radfems on here, I thought you might want to know this. The proposed bill can be found here. I fear there is very little hope stopping this. So far the Netherlands ignore the more critical stances that have risen up in the UK and Sweden. And unlike the UK, we do not have any feminist organizations that haven’t been hijacked by liberal feminism and trans activism, except for Voorzij and they are very small.

[dutchess-t]

Exactly, and with the explicit inclusion of gender identity and expression as aspects of “geslacht” in the Constitution, the odds don’t seem too great of a real court ruling in women’s favor to exclude men. A woman contacted the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science about the ruling on the women’s toilets in school and asked whether female students still had a right to single-sex facilities in schools. The answer was no, because excluding “trans women” from women’s facilities is now discrimination. The representative even went so far as to say that maybe it would “take some getting used to to encountering women with “manly” characteristics” in these spaces. And dragged up claims about trans people’s increased risk of suffering violence as justification. Again: safety was not a concern for this trans student, as he was offered the use of a single stall, but that was not good enough for him. It were the female students who felt uncomfortable and unsafe, but they will just have to suck it up and get used to it.

They’re hardly defining those terms. The proposed hate speech has the same issue with the terms not being properly defined. Plus in that one they want to use “seksuele gerichtheid” as protected characteristic instead of heterosexual and homosexual orientation. They claim that that Dutch term is a more accurate translation of the more commonly used “sexual orientation” in other languages, but somehow this Dutch phrasing seems much more open to include all manners of fetishes and kinks. They’re aware of some of the danger in that, because they did add the restriction that the sexual orientation in question should not be illegal, so they don’t inadvertently end up making pedophilia and bestiality protected. But no definition beyond that, probably so they won’t exclude any of the ever-growing number of sexual orientations. I also wonder whether gender expression can be used to say that a man wearing makeup or something has a “womanly” gender expression and should have access to women’s facilities on those grounds. I surely hope that kind of reasoning is still a bridge too far.

We might not be quite up to Canada’s level yet but we’re sure following its shiny example. Plans to ban conversion therapy, under which they include therapy for trans people to help them come to terms with their biological sex, are in the works as well, so it looks like it won’t be long until we have the full set. Almost every political party supports all of this. Only the SGP takes a firm stance against it, and occasionally ChristenUnie and Forum voor Democratie raise more critical questions too. Obviously those first two parties repel non-religious/non-christian voters and the latter repels for... different reasons. :’) Everything more on the Left and everything more progressive is on board and refuses to even engage in conversation about this. 

Yup, you got that right. Not only did the government apologize for this “forced sterilisation”, I believe they also suggested people who underwent these surgeries might receive financial compensation. It’s wild. Being able to legally change your gender used to be a sort of accommodation for people who underwent these surgeries. Now things have gotten switched around and changing legal gender has become a goal in itself, and the surgeries a “mandatory” barrier to that goal.

The Netherlands about to introduce self-id into law

Well, it was only a matter of time. On May 4th our minister of Law introduced a bill on behalf of our minister of Emancipation (the irony is painful), proposing to simply the procedure to change the gender on your birth certificate. A declaration by a licensed doctor or psychologist will no longer be required. Instead, someone will be able to file in writing to have their legal sex changed. Four to twelve weeks later they will receive confirmation. 

Furthermore, the minimum age requirement of 16 years to have your gender legally changed will be dropped as well. Children younger than 16 will be able to change their gender if they get permission from a judge. 

The impact of this on women’s rights, safety and well-being has not been considered. At all. The Council of State reviewed the proposed bill and only requested clarification on the justification for dropping the age requirement, and whether the weight of the decision for the individual is properly safeguarded when a professional no longer has to be involved. 

Answer to 1: sometimes children under 16 are clear about their “gender” being “set”, so not being able to have their birth certificate changed yet is “difficult.  Answer to 2: this decision is up to the individual and the government should be involved as little as possible. Right of self-determination is the most important.

The Council of State agreed to these “justifications” and is now fine with this bill, which will now be debated in the House of Representatives. Again: no consideration at all for the impact on women. Maybe because women have already lost their legal protection to begin with. Unlike the U.K. and the U.S., the Netherlands do not list sex as a protected characteristic. Instead they’ve used gender (geslacht), and a few years ago they changed the law to add that gender identity and gender expression fall under the protected category of gender. So excluding a man with a womanly identity, or even expression, from female-only spaces is already forbidden.

@girlsfrommars @dutchradfem Sorry about the blunt @, but since you’re one of the few Dutch radfems on here, I thought you might want to know this. The proposed bill can be found here. I fear there is very little hope stopping this. So far the Netherlands ignore the more critical stances that have risen up in the UK and Sweden. And unlike the UK, we do not have any feminist organizations that haven’t been hijacked by liberal feminism and trans activism, except for Voorzij and they are very small.