LGBT+ Discussion

[Fan The Flames]

28 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Earnt the right? I think that's maybe something we should allow women to decide shouldn't we? Given that they're the ones who are taking on the risk, potential embarrassment or other normal feelings they may have in the presence of a man. I wouldn't want a middle aged man changing next to my young teenage daughter, whether he's mutilated himself or not.

Regarding changing rooms, one example relevant to Southampton is Shirley swimming pool. I would certainly object if a man tried to get changed in there in close proximity to my daughter. Any normal father would do. 

What risk does a trans woman pose that a woman doesn’t.

Would you say that someone who's had half a leg cut off for medical reasons has mutilated themselves. Your language is hysterical, you enjoy being wound up by all this.

[hypochondriac]

6 minutes ago, Fan The Flames said:

What risk does a trans woman pose that a woman doesn’t.

Would you say that someone who's had half a leg cut off for medical reasons has mutilated themselves. Your language is hysterical, you enjoy being wound up by all this.

I'm not wound up in the slightest, I'm eating a sandwich and browsing on my phone as we speak. Voluntarily having your genitalia removed is quite clearly mutilation. It's the actions of someone who is unwell and they need support and assistance, not unnecessary operations thay turn them into lifelong medical patients with all manner of side effects and complications. Have you seen the specifics of some of these operations? The smell, the open wound that has to be dilated on a daily basis to prevent it from closing up? It's barbaric and doctors who participate in it should be prosecuted in my opinion. It's a relatively recent phenomena that will be looked back on in years to come the way we look at electric shock therapy. 

Regarding risk, have you ever seen studies on risk differences between men and women regarding sexual assault, violence etc? Is it any wonder that so many men are desperate to go to female jails once prosecuted? 

 

Edited 28 June, 2023 by hypochondriac

[Weston Super Saint]

2 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Regarding risk, have you ever seen studies on risk differences between men and women regarding sexual assault, violence etc? Is it any wonder that so many men are desperate to go to female jails once prosecuted? 

 

Imagine being sent to a female prison and still not having the biggest cock in the showers.  Demoralising.

[sadoldgit]

3 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Imagine being sent to a female prison and still not having the biggest cock in the showers.  Demoralising.

Where ever you go Weston, you will always be the biggest cock 😉

As for the comments about “mutilation”, dear God! What kind of person thinks that alone posts it?

[Lighthouse]

7 minutes ago, Fan The Flames said:

Your language is hysterical, you enjoy being wound up by all this

It’s a very cheap tactic to try and paint the opponent as hysterical, irrational and dramatic. There was zero emotive language in anything I posted; it’s genital mutilation by very clear definition. If you’re performing a surgical procedure on a body part, which is detrimental to the point that it is rendered completely unable to function as it should, that’s a mutilation. It may be voluntary but that’s what it is. You’re rendering yourself permanently unable to reproduce.

[Weston Super Saint]

3 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

Where ever you go Weston, you will always be the biggest cock 😉

 

Right up until I go to Kent  

[sadoldgit]

8 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

It’s a very cheap tactic to try and paint the opponent as hysterical, irrational and dramatic. There was zero emotive language in anything I posted; it’s genital mutilation by very clear definition. If you’re performing a surgical procedure on a body part, which is detrimental to the point that it is rendered completely unable to function as it should, that’s a mutilation. It may be voluntary but that’s what it is. You’re rendering yourself permanently unable to reproduce.

I had part of one of my kidneys removed several years ago. It was called an operation, not a mutilation. You could argue that it mutilated the kidney but many operations end up “mutilating” something. I am sure women who have mastectomies are delighted to hear that they have mutilated breasts. It is emotive language, pure and simple.

Edited 28 June, 2023 by sadoldgit

[hypochondriac]

8 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

Where ever you go Weston, you will always be the biggest cock 😉

As for the comments about “mutilation”, dear God! What kind of person thinks that alone posts it?

Mutilate- "to damage something severely, especially by violently removing a part" 

You could quibble about the use of violently but it absolutely fits that definition. These people are turned into lifelong patients with open wounds on their bodies and remaining skin that atrophies and starts to smell. It's appaling and many brave detransitioners have spoken out to make people aware of what's actually happening. 

[hypochondriac]

4 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

I had part of one of my kidneys removed several years ago. It was called an operation, not a mutilation. You could argue that it mutilated the kidney but many operations end up “mutilating” something. I am sure women who have mastectomies are delighted to hear that they have mutilated breasts. It is emotive language, pure and simple.

A kidney is removed when it is required due to a physical health condition. Some people have phantom limb syndrome where they believe that one of their arms is not really part of their body. Should we be supporting these individuals to get their arms or legs removed? What's the difference? 

Edited 28 June, 2023 by hypochondriac

[Lighthouse]

2 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

I had part of one of my kidneys removed several years ago. It was called an operation, not a mutilation. You could argue that it mutilated the kidney but many operations end up “mutilating” something. I am sure women who have mastectomies are delighted to hear that they have mutilated breasts. It is emotive language, pure and simple.

I cannot believe that you can't see the difference there? Surely you aren't equating potentially life saving, necessary medical procedures with a cosmetic removal of a perfectly healthy and normally functioning bodily organ.

A mastectomy is a drastic last resort, which is only utilised after all other treatments have been exhausted. Most women who undergo it find the resultant asthetic side effects deeply upsetting and traumatic.

That's honnestly one of the most ignorant takes I've yet seen on this subject.

[whelk]

6 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

I cannot believe that you can't see the difference there? Surely you aren't equating potentially life saving, necessary medical procedures with a cosmetic removal of a perfectly healthy and normally functioning bodily organ.

A mastectomy is a drastic last resort, which is only utilised after all other treatments have been exhausted. Most women who undergo it find the resultant asthetic side effects deeply upsetting and traumatic.

That's honnestly one of the most ignorant takes I've yet seen on this subject.

Do we know it was life saving and not just for the cash?

[egg]

This thread has become bizarre. How any man feels able to express an opinion on what women should or should not be comfortable with is beyond me. 

[whelk]

1 minute ago, egg said:

This thread has become bizarre. How any man feels able to express an opinion on what women should or should not be comfortable with is beyond me. 

You think you have to be female to have an opinion? Obviously Saintsweb demographic of mostly 40-60 yo white males isnt probably going to give the most balanced discussion on the subject

[egg]

2 minutes ago, whelk said:

You think you have to be female to have an opinion? Obviously Saintsweb demographic of mostly 40-60 yo white males isnt probably going to give the most balanced discussion on the subject

Do you feel you're qualified to say how a woman may or may not feel in the situations this discussion relates to? I sure as hell don't. 

[sadoldgit]

20 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

I cannot believe that you can't see the difference there? Surely you aren't equating potentially life saving, necessary medical procedures with a cosmetic removal of a perfectly healthy and normally functioning bodily organ.

A mastectomy is a drastic last resort, which is only utilised after all other treatments have been exhausted. Most women who undergo it find the resultant asthetic side effects deeply upsetting and traumatic.

That's honnestly one of the most ignorant takes I've yet seen on this subject.

Think what you like, but the procedure is called reassignment surgery, not reassignment mutilation. I know two people who have been through the process and to suggest that they have mutilated themselves is deeply disrespectful and ignorant.

[Weston Super Saint]

5 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

Think what you like, but the procedure is called reassignment surgery, not reassignment mutilation. I know two people who have been through the process and to suggest that they have mutilated themselves is deeply disrespectful and ignorant.

Sure 

[revolution saint]

11 minutes ago, egg said:

Do you feel you're qualified to say how a woman may or may not feel in the situations this discussion relates to? I sure as hell don't. 

You're absolutely right, I don't feel qualified either but I've had a crap day at work and need a good argument so if you don't mind I'm going to insist that you really should have an opinion on this topic.  You're both transphobic and sexist if you don't.  And probably racist.  Scum like you make me sick.

[Lighthouse]

8 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

Think what you like, but the procedure is called reassignment surgery, not reassignment mutilation. I know two people who have been through the process and to suggest that they have mutilated themselves is deeply disrespectful and ignorant.

Names are for tombstones. Unlike WSS, I’ll take the second sentence at face value and simply say that I am genuinely sorry that society has failed them in this way. The fact that we don’t seem to have a better solution to serious mental health problems than cutting off perfectly healthy organs and pretending its true is, to put it mildly, unfortunate.

[whelk]

18 minutes ago, egg said:

Do you feel you're qualified to say how a woman may or may not feel in the situations this discussion relates to? I sure as hell don't. 

Not qualified no but that has never stopped me chipping in. Far too easy to be judgemental but I think I am a moderate like JK Rowling but for some she is the evil TERF. 

[Turkish]

30 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

Think what you like, but the procedure is called reassignment surgery, not reassignment mutilation. I know two people who have been through the process and to suggest that they have mutilated themselves is deeply disrespectful and ignorant.

thought you might have and that they'd agree with you.

[Turkish]

24 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Sure 

and surprise surprise, they both agree with him. Romney Marsh is the most exciting place on earth 

[CB Fry]

I know three people who have been through the process and they have some pretty strident views about Israel as well, I can tell you. Also they are collectors of wartime belt buckles.

[CB Fry]

Also they are Muslim as well probably and nurses or teachers or train drivers on strike and stuff.

[hypochondriac]

59 minutes ago, egg said:

This thread has become bizarre. How any man feels able to express an opinion on what women should or should not be comfortable with is beyond me. 

My opinion is based on talking to women. 

[hypochondriac]

34 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

Names are for tombstones. Unlike WSS, I’ll take the second sentence at face value and simply say that I am genuinely sorry that society has failed them in this way. The fact that we don’t seem to have a better solution to serious mental health problems than cutting off perfectly healthy organs and pretending its true is, to put it mildly, unfortunate.

Yep. People will look back at the way this was normalised by some with horror. There's thankfully been a little pushback in the last couple of years but sadly it's too late for the two unfortunates that soggy knows. 

[badgerx16]

4 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

My opinion is based on talking to women. 

Radical.

[aintforever]

2 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

Yesterday at the gym. It’s a communal changing room with no individual cubicles, only benches 

In the ladies?

[egg]

7 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

My opinion is based on talking to women. 

Nothing wrong with that mate 👍

[hypochondriac]

6 minutes ago, badgerx16 said:

Radical.

It's a novel concept. 

[hypochondriac]

4 minutes ago, aintforever said:

In the ladies?

That's the case in loads of gyms and swimming pools. Admittedly I don't know if the ladies is the same as the blokes as I've never identified as one and been in there. 

[Fan The Flames]

3 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

It’s a very cheap tactic to try and paint the opponent as hysterical, irrational and dramatic. There was zero emotive language in anything I posted; it’s genital mutilation by very clear definition. If you’re performing a surgical procedure on a body part, which is detrimental to the point that it is rendered completely unable to function as it should, that’s a mutilation. It may be voluntary but that’s what it is. You’re rendering yourself permanently unable to reproduce.

It is hysterical, talking about mutilation, saving women and children. 

You can't dictate what someone can't do with their body.

The issue here seems that you talk in obsolute terms, about gender and mutilation etc, whereas others are more nuanced. We are never going to agree.

[aintforever]

2 hours ago, hypochondriac said:

That's the case in loads of gyms and swimming pools. Admittedly I don't know if the ladies is the same as the blokes as I've never identified as one and been in there. 

Which pools in Southampton don’t have cubicles or mixed changing then? The Quays, Rapids, Holly Hill, Wilderness and I think Bitterne do.

[hypochondriac]

12 minutes ago, aintforever said:

Which pools in Southampton don’t have cubicles or mixed changing then? The Quays, Rapids, Holly Hill, Wilderness and I think Bitterne do.

Red Lodge swimming pool, the de vere hotel and Shirley swimming pool to name three. From memory David Lloyd has an open area.  Plenty of gyms around Southampton have open changing rooms. 

[aintforever]

4 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Red Lodge swimming pool, the de vere hotel and Shirley swimming pool to name three. From memory David Lloyd has an open area.  Plenty of gyms around Southampton have open changing rooms. 

They don’t have cubicles in the ladies?

[Lighthouse]

1 hour ago, Fan The Flames said:

It is hysterical, talking about mutilation, saving women and children. 

You can't dictate what someone can't do with their body.

The issue here seems that you talk in obsolute terms, about gender and mutilation etc, whereas others are more nuanced. We are never going to agree.

Hysteria implies an excessive amount of irrational emotion, I've given nothing but an accurate definition of mutilation. You can come up with your own definition if you like but there was zero emotive language in anything I've said. As for saving women and children, earlier you claimed you could, "earn the right," to see women naked, based on whatever you chose to call permanently inhibiting reproductive organs. You can do nothing of the sort, even if you literally save a womans life it does not give you her consent to do anything whatsoever.

I'm not talking in absolutes and you aren't dealing in nuance. You're simply insisting upon nuance because a small group of very vocal people want it to be true.

[hypochondriac]

7 minutes ago, aintforever said:

They don’t have cubicles in the ladies?

No idea about all of them but the gents don't. Red Lodge and Shirley don't have cubicles in the ladies no. The point is it's a lot more common than you're making out. 

Edited 28 June, 2023 by hypochondriac

[aintforever]

3 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

No idea about all of them but the gents don't. Red Lodge and Shirley don't have cubicles in the ladies no. 

My point is that if a trans woman wants to go swimming or to the gym in Southampton there are plenty of places where she can go, get changed and cause no one any hassle whatsoever. Which is what the vast majority want to do, and have done for years.

[hypochondriac]

1 hour ago, aintforever said:

My point is that if a trans woman wants to go swimming or to the gym in Southampton there are plenty of places where she can go, get changed and cause no one any hassle whatsoever. Which is what the vast majority want to do, and have done for years.

And my point is that by having ambiguity about who is or is not allowed in women's changing rooms, you end up in unfortunate situations that have been widely reported in the media where bad actors posing as women have upset and distressed women by invading female only spaces. If third or segregated spaces exist for autogynaphiles to change in isolation then I'm fully supportive of that. In the many places where these separate spaces do not exist, they should be barred and left in no doubt that they should not be there. 

[hypochondriac]

1 hour ago, aintforever said:

My point is that if a trans woman wants to go swimming or to the gym in Southampton there are plenty of places where she can go, get changed and cause no one any hassle whatsoever. Which is what the vast majority want to do, and have done for years.

This also seems like a very relevant piece of news that just came out today. Women have the right to single sex spaces. 

[Fan The Flames]

7 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

Hysteria implies an excessive amount of irrational emotion, I've given nothing but an accurate definition of mutilation. You can come up with your own definition if you like but there was zero emotive language in anything I've said. As for saving women and children, earlier you claimed you could, "earn the right," to see women naked, based on whatever you chose to call permanently inhibiting reproductive organs. You can do nothing of the sort, even if you literally save a womans life it does not give you her consent to do anything whatsoever.

I'm not talking in absolutes and you aren't dealing in nuance. You're simply insisting upon nuance because a small group of very vocal people want it to be true.

I never said they earnt the right to see women naked, no one has that right. If someone has been through reconstructive surgery then I think they should be allowed to use womens spaces. No one is going to go through all that to just be able to get into womens spaces for the wrong reasons.  You haven't answered what greater threat a post operative trans woman poses over any women.

[hypochondriac]

2 hours ago, Fan The Flames said:

I never said they earnt the right to see women naked, no one has that right. If someone has been through reconstructive surgery then I think they should be allowed to use womens spaces. No one is going to go through all that to just be able to get into womens spaces for the wrong reasons.  You haven't answered what greater threat a post operative trans woman poses over any women.

I answered it. They pose a greater threat because statistically men pose a greater threat than women on a whole host of metrics. Even if that weren't the case, many women feel deeply uncomfortable in an intimate setting in the presence of a man for many reasons. 

Edited 29 June, 2023 by hypochondriac

[aintforever]

9 hours ago, hypochondriac said:

And my point is that by having ambiguity about who is or is not allowed in women's changing rooms, you end up in unfortunate situations that have been widely reported in the media where bad actors posing as women have upset and distressed women by invading female only spaces. If third or segregated spaces exist for autogynaphiles to change in isolation then I'm fully supportive of that. In the many places where these separate spaces do not exist, they should be barred and left in no doubt that they should not be there. 

I totally agree that women should feel comfortable and safe, the same applies for trans women. Communal changing rooms obvious present an issue but there must be a solution through planning and legislation. Jumping up and down screaming ‘women don’t have cocks’ is not helping solve anything and just makes things worse. We all know the biology.
 
It’s an issue but I don’t think as anywhere as serious as the Daily Mail and the like make out. I expect most trans people avoid communal changing like the plague. They go through great time and effort to be like they are - operations, hormones, putting on make up, finding the right clothes, shaving their ass or whatever they need to do just to appear as feminine as possible. Why would they then want to go into a female changing room and start waving their cock around?

Looks to me many people are transphobic and just trying to find issues. Since when did the average Daily Mail reader give a shit about the wellbeing of murderers and thieves in prison? All the hype about the trans rapist in Scotland and the whole time he/she/it was in solitary confinement so it didn’t matter in the slightest what gender prison they were in. Sport - seriously? Every sporting governing body is free to make up they rules if trans people have an advantage. There is just a continual narrative that trans people are perverts or dirty freaks which just alienates them and make women more uncomfortable about them.

Gender dysphoria exists and until there is a magical cure we should treat trans people with kindness and respect.

[Weston Super Saint]

16 minutes ago, aintforever said:

I totally agree that women should feel comfortable and safe, the same applies for trans women. Communal changing rooms obvious present an issue 
 
It’s an issue 

Looks to me many people are transphobic and just trying to find issues. 

Looks like you agree that it's an issue - you mention it a number of times in your post - but then claim people finding the issues (and presumably agree that they exist) are transphobic.

AlL OvER tHe PlAcE.

[Lighthouse]

24 minutes ago, aintforever said:

Jumping up and down screaming ‘women don’t have cocks’ is not helping solve anything and just makes things worse. We all know the biology

Nobody is jumping around and screaming, that’s just sinister hyperbole to try and make this seem like a problem for angry, gammon bigots, or whatever you want to call them. Whatever word you want to use for biological men, they don’t belong in women’s changing rooms, sports or other designated separate spaces.

Your rights, beliefs and freedoms end where another persons begin. If you believe you’re a woman trapped in the wrong body, that’s up to you but it’s nothing other than a feeling, women aren’t obliged to change they way they are treated by society because of it.

[Turkish]

58 minutes ago, aintforever said:

I totally agree that women should feel comfortable and safe, the same applies for trans women. Communal changing rooms obvious present an issue but there must be a solution through planning and legislation. Jumping up and down screaming ‘women don’t have cocks’ is not helping solve anything and just makes things worse. We all know the biology.
 
It’s an issue but I don’t think as anywhere as serious as the Daily Mail and the like make out. I expect most trans people avoid communal changing like the plague. They go through great time and effort to be like they are - operations, hormones, putting on make up, finding the right clothes, shaving their ass or whatever they need to do just to appear as feminine as possible. Why would they then want to go into a female changing room and start waving their cock around?

Looks to me many people are transphobic and just trying to find issues. Since when did the average Daily Mail reader give a shit about the wellbeing of murderers and thieves in prison? All the hype about the trans rapist in Scotland and the whole time he/she/it was in solitary confinement so it didn’t matter in the slightest what gender prison they were in. Sport - seriously? Every sporting governing body is free to make up they rules if trans people have an advantage. There is just a continual narrative that trans people are perverts or dirty freaks which just alienates them and make women more uncomfortable about them.

Gender dysphoria exists and until there is a magical cure we should treat trans people with kindness and respect.

Why do you keep mentioning the Daily Mail? Again just pathetic, lazy reasoning to make out that people who raise these issues are daily mail reading, brexiteers who hate anyone who isn't white and male.

[whelk]

20 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Why do you keep mentioning the Daily Mail? Again just pathetic, lazy reasoning to make out that people who raise these issues are daily mail reading, brexiteers who hate anyone who isn't white and male.

Yes often the ‘progressive’ side of the argument want to close down any debate or concerns by referring to anyone differing in opinion as ‘……phobic’. Doesn’t help and makes opinions more entrenched.

And I am not a fucking Daily Mail reader!

[hypochondriac]

1 hour ago, aintforever said:

I totally agree that women should feel comfortable and safe, the same applies for trans women. Communal changing rooms obvious present an issue but there must be a solution through planning and legislation. Jumping up and down screaming ‘women don’t have cocks’ is not helping solve anything and just makes things worse. We all know the biology.
 
It’s an issue but I don’t think as anywhere as serious as the Daily Mail and the like make out. I expect most trans people avoid communal changing like the plague. They go through great time and effort to be like they are - operations, hormones, putting on make up, finding the right clothes, shaving their ass or whatever they need to do just to appear as feminine as possible. Why would they then want to go into a female changing room and start waving their cock around?

Looks to me many people are transphobic and just trying to find issues. Since when did the average Daily Mail reader give a shit about the wellbeing of murderers and thieves in prison? All the hype about the trans rapist in Scotland and the whole time he/she/it was in solitary confinement so it didn’t matter in the slightest what gender prison they were in. Sport - seriously? Every sporting governing body is free to make up they rules if trans people have an advantage. There is just a continual narrative that trans people are perverts or dirty freaks which just alienates them and make women more uncomfortable about them.

Gender dysphoria exists and until there is a magical cure we should treat trans people with kindness and respect.

Women have a right to their own spaces. This should not be violated just because it may make a trans person feel more comfortable or safe. I could make the same argument and say that it makes me feel safer and more comfortable using the ladies changing room and by your logic my right to feel comfortable and safe would trump women's rights to their own spaces. 

You've admitted it's an issue and whilst not that important to you, it's clearly a really important one to a lot of women. I'd rather listen to them rather than thinking I know better than they do. The issue isn't necessarily the tiny handful of genuine trans people, it's that by blurring the lines and allowing it, you then have men who dress as women as a sexual fetish being allowed to get their kicks by self identifying as women and literally waving their cocks around. Pretending it doesn't happen is a denial of reality. We can't possibly know which men are the ones genuinely suffering from gender disphoria and which are autogynephiles so the safest and easiest thing to do is to remove the risk by preventing them from entering a female space.

Not all trans people are perverts and dirty freaks, but by relaxing the rules, you allow perverts and dirty freaks to call themselves trans and then gain a sporting advantage, gain access to women's spaces and potentially put women in danger.  

 

[aintforever]

1 hour ago, hypochondriac said:

 You've admitted it's an issue and whilst not that important to you, it's clearly a really important one to a lot of women. I'd rather listen to them rather than thinking I know better than they do.

 

Not according to this YouGov survey, but I guess you know best.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/articles-reports/2022/07/20/where-does-british-public-stand-transgender-rights

By gender: Women are more likely than men to support greater transgender rights across all questions

Across the board, women are more likely than men to support greater transgender rights.

In fact, the only transgender issue on which men tend to be supportive is that people should be able to socially identify as a different gender to the one they had recorded at birth, by 47% to 33% (a net score of +14). While this may be the most pro-trans stance men take, it is also the one on which they are farthest behind women. More than six in ten women (63%) say people should be able to identify as another gender socially, compared to only 18% who disagree, giving a net score of +45.

When it comes whether someone can change their legal gender status, men tend to be opposed, by 42% to 36%. Women remain in favour, although only a plurality of 44% say so, with 32% opposed.

Much of the contention around trans rights has focused on transgender women and their access to women’s spaces. It is pertinent to note, therefore, that in all cases women are notably more relaxed about the prospect of a trans woman in a woman’s space than men are.

The degree to which women are comfortable sharing their space with trans women does differ, however, depending on the venue.

While women tend to think that trans women should be allowed to use women’s refuges for victims of rape or assault by 45% to 30%, and women’s toilets by 45% to 34%, allowing trans women in women’s changing rooms is more divisive, with 40% in favour but 37% opposed.

 

Whether a trans person has had gender reassignment surgery also matters, with women tending to say trans women who have not undergone such surgery should not be allowed to use women’s toilets (40% vs 34%) or changing rooms (42% vs 29%).

In all cases, men tend to oppose trans women’s access to women’s facilities, and by notable margins.

[hypochondriac]

Ignoring the issues with yougov polls and the bias involved in the type of people who complete them, in what world are those percentages not a lot of women? 

[sadoldgit]

23 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

Names are for tombstones. Unlike WSS, I’ll take the second sentence at face value and simply say that I am genuinely sorry that society has failed them in this way. The fact that we don’t seem to have a better solution to serious mental health problems than cutting off perfectly healthy organs and pretending its true is, to put it mildly, unfortunate.

You are in danger of conflating gender reassignment surgery with Female Genital Mutilation.

This is the definition of mutilation from Wikipedia -

“Mutilation is severe damage to the body that has a ruinous effect on an individual’s quality of life. It can also refer to alterations that render something inferior, ugly, dysfunctional or imperfect. In modern times the term has an  overwhelmingly negative connotation.”

And

”Sex reassignment surgery has been called “mutilation” by critics; use of this term to describe sex reassignment surgery is often considered heavily provocative and insulting by those who are transgender.”

I expect someone like hypochondriac to make that comment about serious mental health issues, but not you.

Both of the people have a much better quality of life now that they have bodies that they are comfortable with and gender issues are obviously not down to “mental health issues.”

I have known one of these people for 20 years now. We meet in The Priory and she was a lesbian suffering from deep depression. She never mentioned not being comfortable in her body but was a boxer, played football,went fishing and was quite blokish. Some time later I received a message to say she had some news. She was now a he. Since then he has grown a beard, got married to a lovely lady and has two young children. He is so much happier and fulfilled than the miserable female that I met 20 years ago. I think both people would tell you that this was their best solution. Who are you or I to tell them otherwise? Neither of them would say that they have been “let down by society”, quite the opposite. They would feel more let down by people with attitudes like yours and hypochondriac who would deny them a better quality of life.