Gender based domestic abuse...

[ThirdVerseSameAsTheFirst]

www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/224e4328-ca76-4b14-a122-a5c57e91358d

This is an article about an artist who makes sculptures of the horrific scars left on women by awful domestic abuse.

It is described in the article as "gender based" domestic violence.

Yet, none of these women (and, yes, they are all women) will have been asked how they identified by their abusers. Their abusers won't have cared.

They weren't abused because they wore dresses or because their favourite colour is pink. They weren't abused because they like to straighten their long hair or wear make up or any of the other trappings of 'gender'

They were abused because they are women.

They didn't have the option of 'identifying' their way out of the abuse.

This is why it's so important not to conflate sex and gender.

They are not the same thing.

[QueenLaBeefah]

Complete agree.

As an aside I think the use of gender is rather infantile, almost like people are too embarrassed to use the word sex.

[LastGirlOnTheLeft]

Reading the article I see one of the victims is described as a trans woman.

I can't believe there is a little girl there, terribly scarred. Men can be so evil.

[ThirdVerseSameAsTheFirst]

Ah I missed that, LastGirl, not easy to read on my phone

But yes, I thought the same on seeing the little girl.

[Kneedeepinunicorns]

Very much agree OP. I can't think of any woman living with domestic abuse who wouldn't gladly identify out of it in a second if they thought it would make the abuse stop.

The fact is that the inner feelings and self identity of a victim during a crime of violence is of no relevance whatsoever. This just makes it difficult to talk about male violence (a huge issue for the trans community as well as women) and skips neatly over the associated issues deeply ingrained into society that women don't really have a right to ownership of their bodies.

[Ellenripleysalienbaby]

NUM was formed in 2015 following the murder of Chiara Paez, a pregnant 14-year-old who was killed by her 16-year-old boyfriend

I read this bit and thought about Leanne Wood and her dismissal of 'outdated ideas about biology'. I wonder how Chiara knew she was a girl?