Gender again. Sorry!

[multitool]

My bad. I should have just read the entire thread, especially this bit from page 3, and saved myself the headache.

I've run out of patience with this kind of bad-faith misrepresentation and idiotic reductivism. Constantly attributing things to me which bear no relation to what I think or say, and commenting at length on the research without engaging with its most basic premises.

 

[icowden]

No, let's stick with your dullwitted thoughts on my username. It's far funnier.

How can you tell?

 

[mudsticks]

Look, I started off with high ambitions for this thread. Now I'll just be happy if we can get everyone who hasn't allowed their brain to dribble out of their ears to acknowledge that 'Posie Parker' is not only a massive grifter but, ironically, an obvious drag artist. I thought the latest was that these people are not safe to be around our children?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (With apologies to Keith Oates.)

It must have been a high fever...

I'm not liking the look at the 'extremists' at either end of this 'debate'
The woman running the rape crisis centre in Edinburgh appears to have the empathy, understanding, and awareness of a house brick too.

She may have been raped , processed it , gone through all the therapy, and come out the other side (eventually) as a survivor, a fighter, and gone on to experience a wonderful juicy creative life subsequently, as a survivor.

In which case well done her, it can be done, but it's not always possible and sounds very much like just another task (to potentially 'fail' at) given to a person who is already a victim of a terrible crime..

But even if she has achieved it herself, to start with that premise, and to tell rape victims that their primary concern should be how they conduct themselves properly around transwomen , or else they're failures is a tone deafness of epic proportions.

We don't refuse empathetic medical or pschychiatric care to racists, misogynists, or homophobes..
Or do we now??

OTOH her remarks may have been taken out of context.

So lets go back to the survey from equalityhumanrights. Does it really say what you think it says?
66% of women were comfortable with a trans woman using the women's toilets. Fair enough. I think we get overexcited about toilets.
Women's refuges? 51% said they were comfortable or very comfortable. So that's almost a 50/50 split between those who think it's a good idea and those who don't.

Does it matter? How do these findings back the removal of all legal protections from women's spaces? All that they say is that more women than not are reasonbly comfortable with the idea of Transwomen accessing spaces. I don't see where they were asked about the removal of legal protections, which is what the Scottish bill would achieve.

Don't forget that women have a very long and inglorious history of saying
"Oh well never mind, I'm sure it'll be OK"

Because if we do voice our feelings or concerns we are of course just being unreasonable, hysterical, shrewish meanies or something along those lines.
And will get shouted down by some guy, who is absolutely sure he knows best, yet at the same time has zero skin in the game.

Still thi 🙄

So we'll just give a resigned shrug, 'be nice' budge up and hope for the best.
Cos if we don't, and say that at least some of this stuff makes us quite uncomfortable - well how awful of us - Couldn't we just shut up, and be a bit nicer - stop making a big old inconvenient fuss.??

'Accomodation' is after all a key trait of being woman.
Free bed and board for 9 months..??
No problem at all in our 'Barbie Pouches'🙄

Why do women and children need refuges in the first place ?
It's overwhelmingly down to violence perpetrated by male bodied people - so how's about some people could actually acknowledge and address that with some energy .
(See also 'Who cares?' and 'Met thread' for further details on how the whole VAWAG issue gets deflected from that central issue).
.
Who is being violent to transwomen??
Is it male bodied people??

I'm not sure on the stats, but I'm guessing that's why transwomen want to be in women's refuges in the first place, right?

Its we're trying to get away from with our refuges, and single sex spaces??

The harassment, and violence of male bodied people, who think they're entitled to invade our spaces.
In many cases literally invade our bodies - let's face it that's what rape is.


But of course if we express any concern for the loss of these safe spaces in anything less than very quiet and measured

'Everso sorry for having an opinion, and please don't be offended, but this is concerning me somewhat" tones then we'll be accused of being 'shrill' or 'unreasonable' or even 'bigoted' 'antitrans' or whatever antiwoman trope that comes to hand - and let's face it there are abundant putdowns to hand to shuss up 'vocal woman'

Or there's the 'Youre not doing the 'debate' properly' from the hotshot guy who thinks he's Mr Hotshot Debater'

As if feelings of female bodied people are of a great deal less import than that of male bodied persons.
Which of course they are - we're still inhabiting a patriachal society - centred on the wants and needs of men.

So of course this whole debate, and decisions made will be framed and conducted with.

BIG MALE voices, and their way of expressing themselves have primacy -
That's.Just.The.Way.Of .The .World.

"Get Over It"

Sorry 🙄 for the long post, but
editing takes time.

 

[multitool]

And with that you've just erased a whole bunch of women. Ooooh the irony.

This is exactly where the rancour started. AS dishonestly appropriated the views of the "majority of women", and immediately went on the attack when challenged. The gender of the person challenging seems to be a bigger deal for you two than why the challenge happened in the first place, and your not-so-subtle elision of male violence with male debate did not go unnoticed. Of course, the finer point that this particular male was standing up for the female voice will be lost on you.

You are quite wrong to assume that men have "no skin in the game". We do. We have women in our lives who we care about and love. I don't know whether you or AS have children, but if you don't then you will have never known what it is like to try and negotiate your child's path through life while choking down your fears for them which are infinitely greater than your fears for yourself. I don't doubt, for one second, that that will be met with anything other than howls of derision from yourself. Where most men have "no skin in the game" is in regard to trans women. I'm confident enough to predict that men keen to see trans people have rights are not doing it out of a sense of solidarity with men, as implied by yourself and AS, but out of a desire to live in an inclusive society.

 

[mudsticks]

Making feelings the arbiter of truth is a major problem today, whether religious of secular.

"Not understanding how feelings arise, how to process them, recognise and name them is a big problem for many people, and by extension, the societies those people inhabit.

Feelings are not the ultimate arbiter of truth, but neither should they be discounted as unimportant, they are very real to the people having them.
.
That's why we make space for things like religion, and faith, despite their being no 'evidence' to support these feelings based beliefs.

In our (still) patriachal society the feelings, passions aspirations and desires of men are still given primacy, of course.

Hence guys getting annoyed by the likes of Greta - and to a lesser extent - people like me.

He who shouts loudest, and longest and angriest - and has the biggest muscles, guns, political clout, loudest voice, and or biggest bank account, to impose his will on others shall ultimately prevail in the right wing 'conservative' world .. "

The expression self-love is the problem in a nutshell. Having ditched religion - you shall love your neighbour as yourself - the replacement has been self-love, expressed as building your self-esteem, self-fullfillment or actualisation, personal autonomy, say yes to yourself, you are valuable etc. Centered on the world self.

"I think you misunderstand the principles of self actualisation, and self fulfilment.
See Buddhism, the Yoga Sutras and so forth for how these things done properly with understanding and awareness make one more cognisant of how one is very much part of an interdependent integrated whole, rather than separate from and of greater importance than others .

Not to say there can't be selfishness found in people who claim to espouse these philosophies, just as in any other human constructed philosophy or system of 'ethics'

That's the problem right there - humans and their 'nature' 🙄

Just as there are very 'unChristian' Christians"

An increasingly narcissistic generation in the West believes what they feel in their head must determine reality. A man thinks he is a woman, that settles it and everyone else must comply.

As you like a bit of fundamentalism: But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of stress (or at a pinch oppression). For men will be lovers of self, ...

This is why you have the 'toilets problem' (quite apart from a lot of Victorian British prudery!). Loving your neighbour would mean a trans-women would ask if it is OK to use the ladies' loo, and if they were uncomfortable and said no respect that and desist. Self-love insists on getting its own way.

"And most women would say
Sure that's fine
Either because it totally is.
Or else because we are just in the habit of saying
"Of course that's fine" to just about anything..
Wow betide us, if we don't.."

Sports as well. Ask the female team if they mind what is effectively a male body competing against them, and if they do then drop out.

"It's not even 'sport' really when so much money and even college places are tied up in it.

If I was a transwomen who had won in a woman's category, but who clearly had a frame and muscular developed through a puberty suffused with normal levels of male bodied testosterone, I wouldnt really think I'd 'won' through my own efforts at training, and acquisitions of skill on a level(ish) playing field.
But commercialised sport seems long to have left behind any notions of actually being 'sporting' so... "

Ooops the chopping it up bit didn't work,
So I'll put my bits in quotes..

Yikes look at the time..

 

[AuroraSaab]

This is exactly where the rancour started. AS dishonestly appropriated the views of the "majority of women", and immediately went on the attack when challenged. The gender of the person challenging seems to be a bigger deal for you two than why the challenge happened in the first place, and your not-so-subtle elision of male violence with male debate did not go unnoticed.

You've given 2 surveys that talk about toilets and ignored anything else. It's hardly the slam dunk of women wholesale agreeing to male bodied people in their single sex spaces that you seem to imagine it is. It's toilets. It's not prisons, refuges, or self-ID.

Once again though: women who consent to having transwomen in their single sex spaces (whether it's toilets, changing rooms, prisons, refuges) cannot consent on behalf of the ones who don't. And men can't consent on behalf of those women either.

Some of the pro self-ID folk don't seem very inclusive. This was yesterday. That's 2 SNP MP's standing in front btw.

If men want to be inclusive, why can't they include transwomen in their spaces? In their sports? In their prisons? Women seem happy to accommodate transmen. Maybe if you guys were actually more inclusive we wouldn't be where we are.

 

[multitool]

You've given 2 surveys that talk about toilets and ignored anything else. It's hardly the slam dunk of women wholesale agreeing to male bodied people in their single sex spaces that you seem to imagine it is. It's toilets. It's not prisons, refuges, or self-ID.

Sure, buts it's harder data than anything you have produced. You've produced nothing to substantiate your claim to speak for "the majority of women".

Here's the thing, I'm not rampantly pro-self ID. I'm pro people being able to live their lives peacefully and with dignity, women, trans, me. Your argument that an uptick in violence is inevitable is theoretical, and it flies in the face of experience in self ID countries. If trans people can be offered a dignified life that is not at the cost of women then I'm all for it. You think it can't, I want to see evidence that self ID offers predatory men more opportunities to predate than they already possess.

Once again though: women who consent to having transwomen in their single sex spaces (whether it's toilets, changing rooms, prisons, refuges) cannot consent on behalf of the ones who don't. And men can't consent on behalf of those women either.

The truth is you don't want trans women in women's spaces. You can't produce evidence of harm, but you don't want them. You don't even want them to use the word 'woman'. You want them 'othered'.

Which brings me on to this...

Some of the pro self-ID folk don't seem very inclusive. This was yesterday. That's 2 SNP MP's standing in front btw.

View attachment 2903

The person with the sign is an idiot. Idiots congregate at the extremes. At the extreme of your side you'll find actual fascists. Were it me sitting with them, I'd pause for thought about my contribution to the 'othering' of minority groups and the presentation of them as the greatest moral and physical threat in our society.

You can be sure that these people are out to attack anything heterodox, and that will, eventually, include you.

If men want to be inclusive, why can't they include transwomen in their spaces? In their sports? In their prisons? Women seem happy to accommodate transmen. Maybe if you guys were actually more inclusive we wouldn't be where we are.
self-ID.

We can and do, for the most part, but for the climate of othering that leads to a few men abusing/beating up trans women. But this isn't really about self ID, it's about your view of trans women and their position in society. You refuse to accept that they feel unable to live within constrained gender roles, highly redolent of those who criminalised gay men for living outside of heteronormative expectations.

Besides, prisons don't have to accept trans women, nor do women's refuges (even if many of them do not find it problematic) and sports have their own rules about trans participation in sport, although I recognise that those rules may need to be revisited.

Look, we are going round and round on this and we aren't going to convince each other of anything. It's pointless and boring, and we are now both responsible for this. Happy to discuss other aspects, and indeed the OP, but let's move on from this.

 

[AuroraSaab]

We can and do, for the most part, but for the climate of othering that leads to a few men abusing/beating up trans women. But this isn't really about self ID, it's about your view of trans women and their position in society. You refuse to accept that they feel unable to live within constrained gender roles, highly redolent of those who criminalised gay men for living outside of heteronormative expectations.

Besides, prisons don't have to accept trans women, nor do women's refuges (even if many of them do not find it problematic) and sports have their own rules about trans participation in sport.

So it's men that are the problem? And male violence? Women aren't human shields for the men that other men don't like. There's no evidence that magically saying you are a woman suddenly makes you less of a risk than any other man. Transwomen feel uncomfortable in male spaces so that entitles them to go into female spaces even though that makes women uncomfortable? Their discomfort counts, but women's discomfort doesn't? Utterly illogical.

If it's about being uncomfortable around men, why aren't you and transactivists campaigning for a 3rd unisex space? Separate refuges for trans people? An Open category in sport? Why not 3rd space provision rather than women giving up their spaces?

People are free to role play whatever gender role they like, regardless of their sex, because gender roles are made up. It doesn't then entitle them to enter the single sex spaces that were explicitly set up to provide safety and privacy to those who were oppressed on the basis of the material reality of their sex.

There's nothing more homophobic than 'You look feminine.. you're a woman'. It's been the basis of homophobic bullying for centuries. The difference is gay men have never sought access to women's single sex spaces. It's a disingenuous comparison.

It is about self ID. Scottish self ID will overrule the exemptions of the Equality Act. That's the whole point of the UK government intervention.

If a transwoman is a woman in law in Scotland, on what grounds would they be excluded from being placed in a Scottish women's prison?

 

[multitool]

This could go round and round with me pointing out that self IDing, untreated, undiagnosed, uncertificated trans women currently use women's spaces and have done for years. So I won't.



And that's it from me on this aspect. Will comment on OP, or any other aspect.

 

[AuroraSaab]

And many women object to it. Bragging that some men already transgress women's boundaries is hardly a convincing argument.

It doesn't make it ok, anymore than the fact people have driven without licenses or insurance makes it ok to drive uninsured.

And it is about transgressing boundaries because when 3rd/unisex spaces are offered they are rejected. It's about validation. Women's single sex spaces should not be opened up just to provide validation to people who wish they hadn't been born male.

 

[fozy tornip]

 

[multitool]

Good. At last. Somebody taking us back to the OP 😆

 

[multitool]

Here are the two SNP MSPs clarifying what they think of the placard behind them.

I would have thought it goes without saying that people attending a rally are not responsible for the actions of everyone else at the rally. But apparently not.

 

[matticus]

We can and do, for the most part, but for the climate of othering that leads to a few men abusing/beating up trans women. But this isn't really about self ID, it's about your view of trans women and their position in society. You refuse to accept that they feel unable to live within constrained gender roles, highly redolent of those who criminalised gay men for living outside of heteronormative expectations.

This is the 21stC - it's not acceptable to abuse gay men who are living outside of heteronormative expectations.
It's not acceptable to abuse or persecute ANY men who want to live outside those expectations; so why do you see a need for some of them to run and hide within female spaces and groups?
Labelling some men as "gay" doesn't other them; it's the subsequent abuse by homophobes that others them.

 

[AuroraSaab]

The protesters, posters, and placards were there before the SNP MP's arrived to stand at the front for their photo op. They were there from start to finish.

Apparently there were at least 3 SNP MPs, 1 SNP MSP, 2 Green MSPs and 1 LD MSP there. Some will have been accompanied by staff and friends - none of them saw these placards? Not one? Not a single person thought these sentiments might be inappropriate?

The fact is these kind of sentiments aren't new or unusual. It's par for the course at any demo involving transactivists. They aren't 'outliers'.