To think that this week, as court decides what the legal definition of a woman is, that the Scottish Government (and others) aren't fit for purpose?

I don't think telling women to 'calm down' and using the sexist word 'hysteria' helps things, @OhNotNow . They are misogynist buzzwords/attacks to silence.

I understand what OhNotNow is saying. We need to actively physically protest more. But, many of us can't afford to lose our jobs. The Mens Rights Activists will abuse women and hound us until our employers sack us. Its not as easy as OhNotNow thinks.

While I live the idea of women mobilising and taking to the streets in huge numbers on a regular basis to make their voices heard, can you imagine the chaos that would ensue? You forget that women bear the lions share of caring responsibilities and make up a huge part of the part time work force. Do you really think employers and other authorities would be in the least sympathetic? Do you not think peaceful protest would suddenly be further curtailed?

The economy will always come first and will be protected at all costs.

Women's feelings and fears won't matter.

Oh, and hysterical? Low blow. Unbecoming of your sex if you're a woman.

It's like some lunacy from the Dark Ages debating how to tell if a woman was a witch or had a soul. it's a magnificent excuse for the hard of thinking to be utterly baffled once more by the state of womanhood, which they have had to pretend to understand and accept since the late 1990s... .

@OhNotNow What’s the ‘nope’ in aid of? So you aren’t telling women what they can say and when they can say it… ultimately you are because in your opinion unless you are physically walking the streets shoulder to shoulder with fellow woman… no other opinion or action matters?
At best, it’s highly reductive of the issue and at worst just trying to antagonize people online. Clearly it’s all below you anyway, so why are you on the thread? 😑

This is such a primeval fight, isn't it? And bewildering given we live in the 21st century with all it's accrued knowledge and scientific progress.

If at this point we are having to legally debate what constitutes "woman", then why not man? Or even human? It's the very definition of "the lunatics taking over the asylum" (and I say that with no disrespect to people with mental health issues, of whom I have been one, but of all the madness circulating in my brain at that time, biological nuance was not on the damn list).

I honestcannot quite grasp that the world I was a teenager in, and then a young woman, while not perfect in many ways, was more progressive and hopeful than the one we now live in. The regression I see across the board at 55 is far beyond my understanding apparently, far beyond my "lady brain".

I wonder if the collective subconscious will always be intent on punishing all women because a man wrote that Eve bit an apple and committed the worst transgression ever - seeking knowledge and progress despite being told No by a patriarchal entity (allegedly). Along with freedom from reproductive oppression and legal autonomy down the line.

The current manifestation of this is evolutionary psychology, quackery of the highest order espoused by psychologists at one end and misogynists at the other. The irony of course is that those championing these stupid ideas claim to be on our side and invite us to sup with devil.

When we refuse to capitulate, out come the cattle prods on both sides. It's uncomfortable being crushed between a rock and a hard place, being pitted against each other on a human level and feeling that there are no winners other than those rubbing their hands as they create the "rainbow pound".

Do I sound unhinged? Possibly I am. Once I might be snidely accused of being at the mercy of menstrual vagaries, but I'm past that now, so am I a withered bitter crone?

I'm securing my place in the handbasket, ready to go down fighting for women's rights, which are simply human rights, or should be. I just hope hell is warmer than this.

The case is thoroughly mad and I hope the SC acknowledge biological reality as the meaning.

However, I would be quite worried if they decided to drop the ball and effectively say it was a political decision for Parliament. That is a possible outcome.

The women who raised the alarm were deplatformed, lost jobs and were threatened with violence from TRA's.

Mainstream media refused to cover it because they feared backlash from TRA's and loss of advertising revenue.

Ordinary women were banned from social media for attempting to discuss the issue or found themselves in court for stating facts about biology.

A politician claimed men could grow a cervix with the right combination of hormones, another suggested it wasn't right to say only women have a cervix, yet another claimed babies were born without a sex. They said they would expel anyone who didn't agree with them from the party.

On Mumsnet language was policed and any thread on a high traffic board was swiftly shunted of to the feminist section but not before anyone expressing concern about women's rights and safeguarding had been told they were a bigot by quite a number of other posters. TRA's would target and report posts by specific posters, they even bragged on twitter about getting a poster who happened to be very knowledgeable about safeguarding banned.

I could write a much longer list but these are just a few examples of how women have been silenced for trying to raise awareness about this issue over the last decade or more.

But this has been tried, its now incredibly difficult for women to get together IRL, look at the physical violence at Posy Parker meetings, bomb threats at Womens Place meetings. I have attended both and many of us had to secretly meet up.

YANBU.

The thing that makes me very angry is the assumption that a man, or men,. think they can decide for themselves and change the fundamental definition of a woman is.

No man can ever be a woman, whether or not he likes to present himself as one (in usually an extremely superficial way).

Imagine if I told an indigenous Australian that I was identifying as Koori or Wadigal (or wherever), and that because I had this inner sense of being Koori, I really was ?

It would be seen as racist and rightly so.

Yet men can tell women what we are.

This is what really makes me angry - not all the lavatories, sports etc. This very very fundamental thing : the existence of biological girls and women.

@OhNotNow so….be quiet, don’t have an opinion online or in any forum that you wish, unless it’s an ‘approved’ one? Who makes this defined list so we know which ones are allowed??

The tribunal tweets are well worth a read. The lawyer for for women Scotland making a really good case that if GRCs legally change sex then in a single sex say gynae ward, a bio female with a GRC would not be allowed in, but a bio male with a GRC would, despite not having ovaries and a vagina. He is doing a fab job of bringing the nonsense creates by this legal fiction to life.

Look at all those who said they would boycott marks and Spencer when they started allowing men into female changing rooms....only to continue shopping there, especially the ones on here.

You can't know that. I'm boycotting M&S (even though I'm not in UK often)
But women are in danger of losing their jobs etc - it's not as easy as "just speaking up"

We need men's voices. Lots of them

@OhNotNow I donated a small sum to the crowd funder. Trivial, in the grand scheme of things, I know.
I do hope the SC apply common sense.

@Taytoface There's also the disturbing case of the male nurse who insists he's a woman, and insists on changing in the women's locker room. Apparently he has a girlfriend, he has had no surgery, nor does he plan any, he does not take hormones, nor does he plan to take any, he has no GRC, and does not plan to get one. But he does claim to be a woman, and the real women have to put up with him in their locker room. The law is an absolute ass right now.

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/prison-officer-was-terrified-after-alleged-threats-by-barbie-kardashian-court-hears-1686636.html

This is what happens when you put males into female prisons.

How the jury found him not guilty amazes me.

If these judges decree that a piece of paper actually changes someone's sex in the all for all intents and purposes, any man who professes to be a woman and shells out for the legal fiction of a gender recognition certificate can

Share any and all spaces with you and your daughters such as;
Changing rooms
Rape crisis support groups and centres
Prison cells
Bathrooms
Womens only events and trips
Provide intimate care if a health care worker

Apply for jobs ring fenced for women

Be on women only short lists

Demand they be referred to as women at all times

Take part in grass roots women's sports.

If in the police, strip search women.

It is mental.

Just read this on the BBC news.