To think that society would not be immensely simpler were women denied the right to vote and own property

So in the writers scenario.. are you saying women are the oppressors and transpeople are an oppressed class?

It’s a shame you haven’t also read the full thread, otherwise you might actually understand the point that has currently escaped you.

Ugh. We get that. It's been addressed many times. You are misunderstanding what the issue is. Please see my previous post.

Sigh. This has been explained many times already.

Yes, we understand it's a figure of speech.

This thread is not about the merits or not of the actual suggestion. It's about what that figure of speech revealed about the way the speaker sees the world.

His baseline assumption is that removing women's rights would make society simpler but we don't do it because it's morally wrong.

That is his worldview.

But that baseline assumption iitself is wrong isn't it? It might make society simpler for men, but men aren't the only people in society are they?

Well apparently they are in RMW's eyes.

Can you imagine the same “argument” used as a glib talking point for any other oppressed class than women? The point is that society is half women. It wouldn’t be “simpler” for everyone it would only benefit half the population, unless you have some sort of tradwife fantasy. Misogynistic men only see the benefit to men, that’s why they consider this a) a good analogy for telling a group of entitled men they can’t use women’s spaces and b) a “simpler” society, as a thought experiment.

I have read the whole article and OP has taken the quote out of its context.
This is the full quote and its argument is that simplification does not work, and is plain wrong:
With respect to the Supreme Court, if you try to make it ‘simple,’ it just will not work. We could simplify society immensely by removing women from voting, property ownership, and working in the professions, but that would not be right.
Similarly, excluding trans people or placing them in the Goodwin ‘intermediate zone’ (Judgment para 65) is unacceptable.

The argument that the writer makes is not advocating for the removal of women's right to vote. In fact, it is used to illustrate what they consider to be a ludicrous scenario and argues that the SC ruling excludes trans people and that would be just as ludicrous. Basically they're saying that brute oppression may simplify things -only one group lords it over others, eminently 'simple' - but simple does not equate right.
Of course, this particular argument and its phrasing will not sit well with many - but I thought I would point out the full context.

The whole idea of trans and identifying as the other sex (or not a sex) is based on everyone first knowing exactly what those sexes are, who is of those sexes, and therefore having something to transition to and perform.

It's an act of profound disingenuity to claim a belief that there's no such things as a 'woman' in biological sex terms when it's the entire basis of what to hang the assigned stereotypes and performance/cosmetic appearance on.

The first is what being trans is.

What is it? If it's not about biology, and it's not about stereotypes, what is being trans?

Discussions don't get anywhere if there is no common understanding of what the words being used mean. Maybe a lot of this could be cleared up if we all know what the definition of being trans is

What is being trans?

Did we ever work out any of the other ways of being a woman if it’s not human female and doesn’t rely on outdated sexist stereotypes @Tandora

If you can only 'exist' in society by trampling other people's rights and equalities then the 'experience' being sought is questionable to say the least.

Also, who is “we”? 85% of readers who voted agree with the OP. So I guess you mean the 15%.

No, it isn’t. This person has shown how misogynistic they are many times.

what is not acceptable is to refuse to recognise transness as a real/ legitimate form of human diversity, and to insist that trans people must always be treated according to their sex assignment at birth rather than as their 'lived sex'. The latter effectively erases trans experience and makes it impossible for trans people to exist in society.

I don’t think anyone objects to men dressing as women and getting together with like-minded people. What I object to is their being treated by society and officialdom as women, in ways that sabotage women’s rights as explained (by me and other PPs) above.

Treating men as men cannot erase trans experience. It simply means they have to respect women’s rights, as everyone should. And it’s just ridiculous to claim that respecting normal social courtesies (which were unchallenged until recently), such as not entering other-sex changing rooms, stops anyone “existing in society”.

Not all women are the same.
Can I just say, you don't need to repeat this all the time. That's a given. It's my whole argument - being a woman (as in female) means you have one thing in common with other women - being female - and nothing else is assumed. The fact that we are all different, and still female, is the total point of my argument

I agree to some extent. But my question was, when you said nothing has changed, did you believe it hadn't changed because you believe a) or b)?

Or, I guess, c) based on your post, do you acknowledge that in this situation, things have changed and single-sex spaces are now mixed-sex (the merits/cons of this notwithstanding)?

We will not fall for your evil attempt at defamation, OP . It is blatantly obvious that this person is trying to making a point by using a figure of speech.

I think there's a legitimate question to be asked about how we organise society to balance the needs of all people. I don't think it's unreasonable at all to say that some services might need to be exclusively for women, assigned female at birth, in the same way we might have services exclusively for black women, or disabled women, or lesbian women. Not all women are the same. But what is not acceptable is to refuse to recognise transness as a real/ legitimate form of human diversity, and to insist that trans people must always be treated according to their sex assignment at birth rather than as their 'lived sex'. The latter effectively erases trans experience and makes it impossible for trans people to exist in society.

Tandora, when you say 'nothing has changed re your rights' are you saying that

a) people never had the right to single-sex (mixed-genderID) spaces in the first place, so not having them would not change anything
or
b) it is still the case that people are permitted single-sex spaces - even though trans activists are asking for all spaces to be single-genderID, mixed-sex?

Yes trans women want you to accept and include them for being (trans) women - , in the same way that gay people want you to accept them for being gay. These are completely ordinary requests and in no way demands you to redefine yourself. It simply requires you to open your mind to accept the fact that some people are different to you - that there isn't only one way to be a woman or to be female.

Countries that have implemented self ID have not faced any of the issues you are foreseeing

Nothing has change for you, your identity isn't under threat.

That’s the opposite of true, and that is the whole point, Tandora. Men being treated as women changes everything for women.

It’s not about our feelings of identity. A man calling himself a woman does not change how I perceive myself.

Women have been robbed of our single-sex spaces, our freedom to associate in single-sex groups, and our right to have services (eg intimate healthcare) supplied by members of our own sex.

In many cases men have also taken our sports prizes, our jobs and other official roles.

Transactivists have even mangled our language to erase evidence of women —I doubt if even the Taliban have achieved this.

The state has allowed and colluded in this abuse. The NHS allows men to take beds in vulnerable women’s wards. Police record male criminals as female, if the criminal wishes this. Women have been forced to call their rapists ‘she’ in court, very literally adding insult to injury.

All of these wrongs are an integral part of the pretence that men can be women. They are not accidental side effects.

The crux of it is that while gender critical feminism deconstructs 'gender' - recognising that harmful stereotypes/ ideas about what it is to be a woman have held woman back, they hold on to a simplistic, binary (/hierarchical), essentialist understanding of 'sex'.

I would say, yes, it's fairly binary, because sex generally is. Let's leave aside people with DSDs because I don't think that has anything to do with gender identity, and we could argue til the cows come home about how many people might fall outside the binary. For the sake of discussion, let's agree that the vast majority of people are physically male or physically female - is that ok? biological sex only.

I don't think that implies a hierarchy, except as touched on earlier in the thread, that females tend to be less physically strong compared to males. It sucks, and I wish it was different, and yes women can show immense strength, but as a sex class, if you were to measure muscle mass, there would literally be a numerical hierarchy in the numbers you measure, for example. Just like if you were to measure breast size, females would have the larger number and you could argue there is the reverse numerical hierarchy. But GC feminists don't put people into a 'who's better' ranking like this, it would be nonsensical. They recognise where power currently lies, and it's usually with the men. Recognising this is the first step to changing it, which is the aim of feminism.

(and again, it's NOT essentialist - it's the opposite! We are saying that your sex does not say anything about you - the essentialist position says that it does! I'm still unclear what you mean by the word, so maybe I'll ignore it unless you can find another word?)

There is actually no way to meaningfully separate gender from sex - as gender is ultimately just the knowledge that gives meaning to bodily differences. So holding on to a fixed sex binary reproduces a gender binary.

I sort of agree here - in that gender - as a set of assumptions about people based solely on their sex (and not the same as 'gender identity') - is SO ingrained I don't think we, as a society, can separate it. We are doomed to have people think 'women are like this, men are like that' forever, to some degree. I'm optimistic that recent societal changes over the past 60 years or so mean we can chip away at these. I personally try as hard as I can to separate the assumptions from the person. I think that's a thing to strive for, don't you?

I disagree that saying there are two sexes automatically means saying there are only two ways to be. No-one is saying that. (If that is what you mean by 'reproducing a gender binary').

as gender is ultimately just the knowledge that gives meaning to bodily differences

I don't really know what this means, I'm afraid. The bodily differences are there. Saying 'you're female therefore you're feminine' isn't knowledge, it's an interpretation based on generalisations.

Exactly. Despite all the waffling, RMW’s comment really is that simple.

We see (different) others as a threat where they threaten our own understanding of self/ identity.

I don't see anyone as a 'threat' unless they are doing something actually threatening, so it's not that. I am not 'scared' or 'hateful' of trans people - in fact, I don't know if I am trans myself or not, because I have no idea how to find out what my 'gender identity' is. And say I find out my gender identity is 'man' - does that 'match' or 'align' with female, or not? Is it only 'woman' that matches with female? Why? Isn't that a transphobic assumption?

I don't want to have surgery to change my body, but that's not trans. There are times in my life where it would absolutely benefit me to be the opposite sex - is that wanting to live as a man/male/whatever, however briefly? I don't know if I identify as a woman because no-one ever explains what that is! the nearest is 'it's complicated' - so I don't know if not understanding it means I am a woman or I'm not.

I'm perfectly happy in who I am - but I admit to getting incredibly frustrated at unthinking inferences gleaned from the fact that someone is male or female which is probably what underlies my need to unpack all of this.

You are a woman. You have a female body, you understand yourself to be female/ a woman and (presumably?) always have. Presumably you are recognised by others as being female/ a woman, etc. Nothing has change for you, your identity isn't under threat.

That's absolutely true that my identity isn't under threat - that's not the issue. I am concerned with, if I say I'm a woman, someone thinks I'm telling them I have a 'woman gender identity', and I'm unsure if that's true or not.

You've put 'female/a woman' as though they are interchangeable terms here, but you've made it clear you don't think they are, so it's partially true - I understand myself to be female, but 'a woman' - no, I've no idea, because you're telling me that a woman is a different thing from that.

But recognising trans people is to recognise diversity in sex/ gender. there are experiences of sex/gender that look different to yours. That doesn't make you any less you, it just means that some people are different to you.

I recognise trans people. I obviously understand there are experiences of sex/gender that look different from mine - that's why I'm so keen for people not to generalise. My desire for people to recognise the variance in sex - that your sex means nothing about you as a person, that you can be female and anything just as you can be male and anything - is what underlies my whole outlook!

There isn't only one way to be female/ a woman.
Can you describe a way to be a woman, then, that isn't to be female? If there are many of them, what is 'a way' and how would that manifest?

BTW Thanks for this, it's making a bit more sense than yesterday!