Gender again. Sorry!

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icowden

Legendary Member
Feminism relates to equality between the sexes. My friend is a feminist because my friend believes in equality between the sexes. The new rules discriminate against my friend on the basis of not wishing to use the word 'woman'.
It might relate to it but the dictionary definition is:-

noun
  1. the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.
    "the inclusion of all these women in modern art history textbooks shows the impact feminism has had on the field"
If she isn't a woman then women's rights don't apply.
 
Lol. The argument is that sexed bodies count in sport, not gender identity, personality, or pronouns. Your friend can ride in the Women's class as a non binary person - just as they did before. Or, if they wish, they can ride in the Open category as an nb person.

What damages feminism is the demand that it includes blokes. You can't address the specific needs of a particular class of people if that class can include literally everybody.
 

monkers

Legendary Member
That's not what it says. It says that if she insists on asserting that she is not a woman than she cannot race in the woman's category. If she can get over the idea of competing with women because she will be a woman in the woman's category then she can. They have made two possible places for her to race, it is entirely her choice which she feels comfortable with.
The have made two classes 'female' and 'open'. My friend is biologically female, and identifies as female. The new rules say she must compete in the open category, or otherwise be subject to the same scrutiny as a trans woman.

The logic flows thus in their minds; 'men have a biological advantage over women, so we'll make it fair. We'll follow the science of biology, there are males and females, therefore males must not compete with females. We'll introduce two categories, female and open. To compete in the female category the person must be assigned female at birth, go through female puberty, and not be taking hormone therapy.'

My friend is female from birth, went through a female puberty, is not and does not intend to use hormone therapy since they do not identify as a man or a trans man.

So my female friend, at least according to CTT compete in the open category.

My friend is furious, not through concern of the competitive element so much, but because to paraphrase their words, 'a bunch of old farkwitted males without a farking clue about the way the world works have decided the range and value of female identities for them.'

The CTT are not policing biological sex, they are policing people's pronouns.
 

monkers

Legendary Member
If she isn't a woman then women's rights don't apply.

The Equality Act is silent on 'women's rights'. The protected characteristic is of sex.

And you are doing the same as the CTT. One MUST call oneself either a man or a woman, even when the category for competition is female.

It begs the question why?

If the objection to trans women is sport is biological sex, where is the objection to females competing in the female category?
 
The criteria for the Women's class is: born female, not gone through male puberty, testosterone below a certain limit. Your friend would meet those criteria. NB folk born female are 'invited' to ride in the Open category if they wish - this will accommodate people like your friend if they wish to disassociate from the word woman. They have a choice. There's no ban.
 

monkers

Legendary Member
Lol. The argument is that sexed bodies count in sport, not gender identity, personality, or pronouns. Your friend can ride in the Women's class as a non binary person - just as they did before. Or, if they wish, they can ride in the Open category as an nb person.

What damages feminism is the demand that it includes blokes. You can't address the specific needs of a particular class of people if that class can include literally everybody.

You are incorrect. There's no longer is a 'women's class; it's gone'. Not 'can' but 'must'. It was not problematic before. This is a consequence of the argument of the anti-trans brigade.

My friend is not a 'bloke' ... your argument is nonsensical; not that I find that unusual.

My friend is biologically female, they now have three choices rather than one right;

1 change their pronouns to suit the male purview
2 compete in the open category
3 be monitored for testosterone as if they are a trans man athlete - even though they do not intend transition and do not use testosterone.
 

icowden

Legendary Member
You are incorrect. There's no longer is a 'women's class; it's gone'. Not 'can' but 'must'. It was not problematic before. This is a consequence of the argument of the anti-trans brigade.
No, it's a consequence of you arguing semantics. For "women's" class read "female" class. It isn't called "women's" any more because of the morons attacking people like JK Rowling for asserting that woman is a perfectly good word to use for people who menstruate. If you use the word "woman" you will upset transwomen, so women can't be called women any more they have to be called females as the category is based on biology and not gender.

My friend is biologically female, they now have three choices rather than one right;
No they don't
1 change their pronouns to suit the male purview
No change of pronoun is needed to enter the female category. They do not have to call themselves women, she / her, wear a dress or anything else. They just have to be biologically female and willing to fill in the form to race in the female category.
2 compete in the open category
Yes. If they are so idealistic that they cannot conscience the idea of being female even though they are female, they will not be forced to race in the female category. They can race in open
3 be monitored for testosterone as if they are a trans man athlete - even though they do not intend transition and do not use testosterone.
Why would they need to be monitored for testosterone?
  • they must have been assigned the sex female at birth,
  • they must never have gone through any part of male puberty
  • and they must not have had a testosterone result in serum above 2.5 nmol/L level before competing even if they satisfy the other two requirements
If they are competing at a level where a testosterone check is required then they have to comply with the check. Otherwise they just have to declare that they haven't had a testosterone check.
 

monkers

Legendary Member
The criteria for the Women's class is: born female, not gone through male puberty, testosterone below a certain limit. Your friend would meet those criteria. NB folk born female are 'invited' to ride in the Open category if they wish - this will accommodate people like your friend if they wish to disassociate from the word woman. They have a choice. There's no ban.

Not quite ...

The following table applies to transgender persons, that means all persons who wish to compete in a gender other than was assigned to them at birth.

You always say that gender is not assigned at birth, not gender. Why do you agree with this now? You also asset that everybody is either male or female, why are you suddenly agreeing that people can assert they are neither 'male nor female'?

Does ignoring convention in pronouns give a person an unfair biological advantage in sport?


Affirmed GenderPolicy applies toPolicy
MaleA transgender male (female to male)May compete in the Open Category
FemaleA transgender female (male to female)Must compete in the Open Category.
Non-BinaryA person who asserts they are neither male nor female.Must compete in the Open Category.
 
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monkers

Legendary Member
No, it's a consequence of you arguing semantics. For "women's" class read "female" class. It isn't called "women's" any more because of the morons attacking people like JK Rowling for asserting that woman is a perfectly good word to use for people who menstruate. If you use the word "woman" you will upset transwomen, so women can't be called women any more they have to be called females as the category is based on biology and not gender.

Oh what a confused individual you are. Of course being a man gives you the perfect right to tell all women what and how women must be, how they must behave. If they refuse they are a moron.

Woman is not a perfectly good word for people who menstruate. What are you even beginning to think? The term 'people who menstruate' is an NHS form of words. For their purposes they wanted the attention of women who menstruate, and not somebody like me who doesn't, and not somebody like my niece who doesn't. This has nothing to do with JK Rowling, me or trans women. The only people who are offended are not trans women, just the bigots determined to blame them.

Trans women do not say that women can not call themselves women any more. This is utter tosh, get a grip man.
 

monkers

Legendary Member
My friend is biologically female, they now have three choices rather than one right;
No they don't
1 change their pronouns to suit the male purview
No change of pronoun is needed to enter the female category. They do not have to call themselves women, she / her, wear a dress or anything else. They just have to be biologically female and willing to fill in the form to race in the female category.
2 compete in the open category
Yes. If they are so idealistic that they cannot conscience the idea of being female even though they are female, they will not be forced to race in the female category. They can race in open
3 be monitored for testosterone as if they are a trans man athlete - even though they do not intend transition and do not use testosterone.
Why would they need to be monitored for testosterone?
  • they must have been assigned the sex female at birth,
  • they must never have gone through any part of male puberty
  • and they must not have had a testosterone result in serum above 2.5 nmol/L level before competing even if they satisfy the other two requirements
If they are competing at a level where a testosterone check is required then they have to comply with the check. Otherwise they just have to declare that they haven't had a testosterone check.


Admit it, you haven't bothered to read the document have you??? You can't have done.
 

multitool

Guest
No, it's a consequence of you arguing semantics.

'What is a woman?' is literally about 99% of this entire debate.

download.jpeg.jpg
 

monkers

Legendary Member
Can we please have a bit of perspective here.

At the centre of the argument, and the demand of gender critical people is what parliament intended when they debated and finally approved the text of the Equality Act 2010 especially with regard to the protected characteristic of sex.

I see this as straightforward. Hansard provides the text of those debates in both houses.

The claim is that it has become that 'gender identity trumps sex'.

There are a number of things that need to be clearly understood. So let's first deal with the numbers. Numbers change day-to-day, but if we round the numbers for simplicity, then it looks like this; the population of the UK if we include all registered citizens, and visitors is in the order of magnitude of 70 000 000. The number of GRC agreed and issued is in the order of 7000.

The definition of 'sex' in the Equality Act is being contested, but according to Hansard, parliament intended this to mean 'legal sex'.

This means that for 9 999 people in every 10 000, biological sex and legal sex are the same. For one in every ten thousand people, the legally protected sex comes as the result of a long, arduous, emotionally intensive and financially expensive process. There's nothing willy-nilly about it.

Of those 7 000 people there is a mix of trans men and trans women. I am having to resort to an estimation of the number of trans women in the UK with a GRC and amended birth certificate as about 5 000 - that's one in fourteen thousand people that represent this supposed huge threat to others in the UK.

Against this the number of trans women committing crimes against women after transitioning is tiny.

On the one hand you have this tiny proportion of people supposedly posing this threat, and on the other you the significant number of 7000 or so people who are in peril of losing their human rights.

There was an evening debate in parliament this week considering two petitions simultaneously. One petition was called for sex in the EqA to mean only biological sex. The rival petition called for leaving things as they are; ie that legal sex already means legal sex for the vast majority of people, and recognises the status of the 7 000 or so with the legal status of acquired sex protection.

What is becoming increasingly clear is that trans people are not causing problems in toilets for women, but gender critical women are causing problems for women by hanging around challenging women by what they perceive to be a characteristic.

There is no problem in prisons with regard assault because none have been reported in four years. And anyway, prisons have long been filtered by risk assessment, with prisons designated as 'maximum security' etc. HM Prison Kingston in Portsmouth for example was long designated a maximum security prison for murderers.

Sport is dealt with by the sporting bodies who might or might not be tempted to follow the least line of resistance especially given the toxicity of 'the debate'.

Women's refuges have made clear that while they know that they can exclude trans women from their services, they often choose not to as they do not see competing interests. So a change in law is not required for this purpose either.

That leaves personal care. Now I agree this is a more contentious issue. However as member of the LGBTiQ community, my niece who has a trans woman friend working in the NHS, and a cousin who is a manager of an old folks home, I have the benefit of some insights. The friend has since transition been promoted to a 'modern matron' and my niece is a barrister with one specialism being human rights.

The modern matron friend and my cousin tell us the following; that there a good number of patients who raise objections against intimate contact with staff. Some have objected to the opposite sex, others to those they perceive as gay especially as both the NHS and the LGBTiQ use rainbows in their identity. (I'll just add that the Children's Commission uses the rainbow too). Some patients have objected to staff with a different skin colour, others to English being their second language, others because of a perception of a neuro diversity, and the list grows.

This brings the protected characteristics of the staff members and the wishes of patients into contest.

For practical purposes how do organisations as employers and as care givers resolve this? Are they to be required to provide each patient with a carer with a specification that matches what makes them feel most comfortable? Imagine the logistics! Imagine the number of people needed to be employed to give intimate care so that each patient could choose one on the basis of their sex, gender identity, sexuality, skin colour, age etc etc.

What we are talking about is facilitating bigotry at huge cost against a background of huge staff shortages. Imagine the legal challenges!

How many trans carers must there be? Well the best guess needs to be 0.00001% of them. And that is what we are arguing over.

In the case of my own mother, she had care from a home help; a woman but mum didn't get on with her. Then they sent a young man; she wasn't happy, and not much appeased when he outed himself as gay to her. Bless him, he thought it would help. The service was unable to provide anyone else, so she accepted him. Later, they replaced him with a woman as mum had requested. That only lasted a week until mum wanted her young gay guy back because he was so much more gentle with her.

I'm reminded of Alf Garnet in his older years, when they sent him a young, black, gay, male carer named 'Marigold'. 🤣
 
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monkers

Legendary Member
I've been watching the debate from earlier this week that I mentioned above.

There was an obvious political game being played.

One group of people were saying that the EqA requires 'clarification' of the meaning of sex in the act. The other group of people were saying that what they are proposing is 'not clarification but change'.

This is politically significant, whether which it is, clarification or change. Reading Hansard it is change, and listening to gender critical people,they often say 'it needs changing'.

This is why it matters. In order to effect a change in the legislation, it requires a Bill to be put before parliament. In order to clarify requires only the relevant minister to do so using secondary legislation, and therefore by passes the need for parliamentary debate and approval of a Bill.
 
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