[Vicky.]

Originally Posted by Jamie89

I get that trans issues are different to gay issues in that sexuality isn't the issue for trans people, but in a social respect they're interlinked and I'd guess that's to do with them feeling more welcomed in and a part of the 'gay community', and I think that's because there are a lot of similarities in terms of experiences. Trans people face a lot of similar struggles to gay people such as coming out, rejection from family and friends, workplace issues etc, so since a lot of gay people also have experience of those things they can empathise in a way that straight people might not be able to. Or at least historically gay people faced those things a lot, it's obviously much better now. But yeah I've heard the "they shouldn't be included they're not like us" thing from gay people before too but in my opinion that attitude goes against the whole idea of what LGBT should be about which is just a group of people who find an affinity in each other because of similar things they've been through and are supportive of each other, not necessarily having to be limited to strict definitions of sex/gender/sexuality but like I mentioned, societal issues too. So I think comparisons are fine if there's a comparison to be made, it's not taking away from anything else or taking away from gay people, or using gay people or anything like that, and I don't think they're looking for rights to be taken away from anyone. There's a lot of things I don't really know a lot about or disagree with such as puberty blockers and transing children, but on the whole I think trans people just want to be accepted, yes there'll be groups and individuals who push for things that they probably shouldn't, but the majority are just normal people who want better lives and treatment from society. The examples you've given about lesbians' experiences and 'vagina fetishism' etc all sound awful but I'd still argue that those people aren't representative of ordinary trans people and I would be shocked if it was the mainstream thinking amongst trans people, they're just normal people and on the whole they don't think differently to you or me. It's the crazies and the perverts who attract the attention though, but they're in every walk of life and examples could be made against gay people, straight people, any group of people. I would imagine however that many trans people suffer from psychological issues and this is just me guessing but just from looking at the suicide rates there's obviously something wrong there, so maybe something like that could go some way to explaining the 'crazies', I don't know I'm just thinking out loud. Basically though I think that if we had a more trans accepting society there'd be less psychological issues amongst trans people and we'd see less examples like those not more.

It depends on your definition of trans. Do you go 'old school' and think trans means sex dysphoric folk who were born in the wrong body?

Or todays meaning that includes males who expect people to just accept their say so that they are 'women deep down' and those who say it is transphobic to think sex dysphoria is (obviously) a requirement for being trans and bleat on about how penises can be female and so on?

If the first group, I would agree and probably say that someone who is actually transsexual harassing a lesbian for sex would be very rare. The issues (as I said on the end of my ridiculously long post) are with those who claim to be trans but have no dysphoria, shout on to get their own way, make a huge fuss about entering female areas, and attempt to bully lesbian women into sleeping with males, and more specifically, males with a penis. These males are self entitled horrible little ****s and I do not think they should be lumped in with those who actually are sex dysphoric...and sadly, it seems that these people outnumber the 'transsexual' people.