Gender again. Sorry!

[qigong chimp]

I stopped my children going to the cinema altogether, so weary had I become of laundering the ejaculate of faux-cineaste pederast trans-women (...is this right? Ed.) from their clothes after every screening.

 

[theclaud]

Under the Equality Act as it currently stands, many things like intimate care and women only wards are a right. Men who identify as women can legally be excluded from such single sex spaces and such jobs. Trans activists wish to remove these exemptions. Unfortunately the influence of Stonewall and co means many organisations are under the impression that they have to allow trans identifying men access when that isn't the case.

It probably stands at the intersection of several pieces of legislation and guidelines, including the Health & Social Care Act. Is there anyone involved in this thread, or even on this forum, who you believe wishes to remove the exemptions allowed under the EA, or who you believe is an uncritical conduit of Stonewall lobbying points? Because I have said several times that I don't, and yet you broadcast the same wall of noise in my direction, regardless. I'm simply asking you to unpick actual conflicts of rights or interests from the obvious panic and fear being generated around the subject. Do you agree that one possible constructive response to bad law proposals could be to examine ways in which badly flawed existing law could be better (for women and girls)? That's where this thread started.

 

[theclaud]

Occasionally non-feminine women in single sex spaces are challenged by other women, but once they've said they are female it's rarely an issue. In fact non-feminine women in women's spaces were actually never much of an issue until men started using those spaces because it would be taken for granted that they were female regardless of appearance.

Bit of an aside, but I find this extraordinarily dismissive of the extent to which women's femininity (and sexuality) is policed by other women.

 

[AuroraSaab]

You do realise that is the argument used by the mullahs in Iran to justify segregation?

Nobody is suggesting separate cinemas though, are they? Because women don't need them. Do you think there are other times or circumstances when women do need single sex spaces or services?

Enforced segregation in order to oppress people is very different from exclusive spaces and services for reasons of safety, privacy, and dignity.

 

[theclaud]

Nobody is suggesting separate cinemas though, are they?

Why not? It's not as if men never commit sexual offences against women in them. Are they more or less risky spaces for women than toilets?

 

[AuroraSaab]

Is there anyone involved in this thread, or even on this forum, who you believe wishes to remove the exemptions allowed under the EA, or who you believe is an uncritical conduit of Stonewall lobbying points?

Do you agree that one possible constructive response to bad law proposals could be to examine ways in which badly flawed existing law could be better (for women and girls)? That's where this thread started.

Very few people on this thread seem keen to actually say what they think, including you, even when they are asked a direct question.

Do you think male bodied people, regardless of how they identify, should have access to spaces that the Equality Act currently excludes them from (when correctly applied)? That's women's changing rooms, refuges, hospital wards, prisons, certain jobs etc.

My answer is no. What's yours?

You started the thread with a report that suggested what is essentially self-id. It provided no evidence, nor did you, to explain why this would improve the lives of women and girls.

Why not? It's not as if men never commit sexual offences against women in them. Are they more or less risky spaces for women than toilets?

It's not really about toilets, as you well know. And if you think it's just about sexual offences you are setting the bar pretty high for what women should have to tolerate.

 

[Ian H]

Very few people on this thread seem keen to actually say what they think, including you, even when they are asked a direct question.

Do you think male bodied people, regardless of how they identify, should have access to spaces that the Equality Act currently excludes them from (when correctly applied)? That's women's changing rooms, refuges, hospital wards, prisons, certain jobs etc.

My answer is no. What's yours?

You started the thread with a report that suggested what is essentially self-id. It provided no evidence, nor did you, to explain why this would improve the lives of women and girls.



It's not really about toilets, as you well know. And if you think it's just about sexual offences you are setting the bar pretty high for what women should have to tolerate.

Well, they do appear to have thought about these things -
[brief quote]
Gender-specific provision,
activities, and membership criteria would remain
legally valid where this is done to address
social subordination, unfairness, violence,
or harassment (for instance, women’s domestic
violence shelters, women’s sports, community
provision for nonbinary and agender young
people etc).

 

[theclaud]

Very few people on this thread seem keen to actually say what they think, including you, even when they are asked a direct question.

Do you think male bodied people, regardless of how they identify, should have access to spaces that the Equality Act currently excludes them from (when correctly applied)? That's women's changing rooms, refuges, hospital wards, prisons, certain jobs etc.

My answer is no. What's yours?

You started the thread with a report that suggested what is essentially self-id. It provided no evidence, nor did you, to explain why this would improve the lives of women and girls.



It's not really about toilets, as you well know. And if you think it's just about sexual offences you are setting the bar pretty high for what women should have to tolerate.

Do you only accept that people mean what they say if it is mind-numbingly simplistic? I'll reiterate a few fairly straightforward things I think if it helps, as you clearly struggle to remember what's been said this far. I think that Equality Law based on Protected Characteristics is weak and shot through with contradictions, but given it's what we have, I think that it's important until we replace it with something better [see whole subject of thread] that 'sex' remains a PC, that 'gender identity' would make a bad PC, and that there remains a need for a category such as the one currently called 'gender reassignment'. I also acknowledge that the people protected by 'gender reassignment' find the category problematic and have what seem to me to be reasonable criticisms of the nature of the gatekeeping of access to the category and to healthcare and basic equality protections related to it. I think it's blindingly obvious that medical gatekeeping is a feminist issue as well as a transgender concern. I think that specialist frontline services and grassroots organisations are better at negotiating all this stuff than you give them credit for and that most of us are not slaves to corporate guidelines. I think that LGBT rights matter, that the LGBT movement is not going to drop the T, and that the ultimate winners in a Women v Trans culture war are the reactionary right, who love gender segregation in public life because it produces the very differences between men and women that it pretends to address. I think a lot of other things, but a) I don't want to use up the whole internet, and b) whatever I tell you I think, you'll carry on as if I think something entirely different.

 

[AuroraSaab]

But they also say that you can opt into a different gender category.

P 37: "Decertification introduces a presumption of self-identification in determining ‘gender’ category membership.."

They are suggesting replacing, in law, the protected category of biological 'sex' with the self-identifyng category of 'gender'. So, yes, you can have a women's rape crisis centre that excludes men - but it only excludes men who self identify as men. It can't legally exclude men who self identify as women.

Ditto sports etc.

Is this something you would agree with, Ian?

 

[AuroraSaab]

Do you only accept that people mean what they say if it is mind-numbingly simplistic? I'll reiterate a few fairly straightforward things I think if it helps, as you clearly struggle to remember what's been said this far. I think that Equality Law based on Protected Characteristics is weak and shot through with contradictions, but given it's what we have, I think that it's important until we replace it with something better [see whole subject of thread] that 'sex' remains a PC, that 'gender identity' would make a bad PC, and that there remains a need for a category such as the one currently called 'gender reassignment'. I also acknowledge that the people protected by 'gender reassignment' find the category problematic and have what seem to me to be reasonable criticisms of the nature of the gatekeeping of access to the category and to healthcare and basic equality protections related to it. I think it's blindingly obvious that medical gatekeeping is a feminist issue as well as a transgender concern. I think that specialist frontline services and grassroots organisations are better at negotiating all this stuff than you give them credit for and that most of us are not slaves to corporate guidelines. I think that LGBT rights matter, that the LGBT movement is not going to drop the T, and that the ultimate winners in a Women v Trans culture war are the reactionary right, who love gender segregation in public life because it produces the very differences between men and women that it pretends to address. I think a lot of other things, but a) I don't want to use up the whole internet, and b) whatever I tell you I think, you'll carry on as if I think something entirely different.

This is the first time I've seen you directly state your view in one post, so thanks for that. I could do without the snarkiness.

You frame this perhaps as a trans issue whilst I see it as women's rights issue. I don't think the suggestions in the report represent 'something better'.

I think there are ways of letting people live as they wish without impinging on women's current rights under the Equality Act. My concern is that there is a concerted drive to remove all the EA exemptions.

I think there is a need for a protected characteristic of 'gender reassignment' but I think there should be some gatekeeping. I am very much against any form of self-id that would over ride existing EA single sex exemptions.

There are ways to resolve most of the issues, but as I've said previously they don't meet with the approval of most transactivists.

 

[newfhouse]

There are ways to resolve most of the issues, but as I've said previously they don't meet with the approval of most transactivists.

If the interested parties fail to agree it’s not truly a resolution, whichever angle you approach it from.

 

[Deleted member 28]

Sperm is cheap, eggs are expensive.

Essentially the same reason you perceive men as a threat, basically.

You have young daughters, I understand, would you rather send them into a Men's loo unaccompanied or a Ladies (I know it wouldn't happen in reality) but you get the gist.

 

[theclaud]

Hello @swansonj! Happy New Year.

 

[winjim]

You have young daughters, I understand, would you rather send them into a Men's loo unaccompanied or a Ladies (I know it wouldn't happen in reality) but you get the gist.

What? If she needs help she's in the gents with me, if she can manage on her own she's in the ladies and I'm waiting outside.

And it's not always the child who needs the toilet. Sometimes it's me and if they're too young to be left on their own, the kid's coming in with me.

 

[winjim]

Any father who's taken kids into a busy gents toilet will surely realise that the problem isn't that you worry they might get molested, it's that they're inquisitive so they stare at people and point and laugh. The urinals are also at about chest height so they think they're sinks or whatever and get a bit too curious and start putting their hands all over them.