Why is the definition of a woman so confusing these days?

the potential problem isn't hugely likely.

I'm selfish in my interest really; I'm trying to maximise my chances of coming out of this on the right side of history.

O’Brien was looking down at him speculatively. More than ever he had the air of a teacher taking pains with a wayward but promising child.

‘There is a Party slogan dealing with the control of the past,’ he said. ‘Repeat it, if you please.’

‘“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past,”’ repeated Winston obediently.

‘“Who controls the present controls the past,”’ said O’Brien, nodding his head with slow approval. ‘Is it your opinion, Winston, that the past has real existence?’

Again the feeling of helplessness descended upon Winston. His eyes flitted towards the dial. He not only did not know whether ‘yes’ or ‘no’ was the answer that would save him from pain; he did not even know which answer he believed to be the true one.

O’Brien smiled faintly. ‘You are no metaphysician, Winston,’ he said. ‘Until this moment you had never considered what is meant by existence. I will put it more precisely. Does the past exist concretely, in space? Is there somewhere or other a place, a world of solid objects, where the past is still happening?’

‘No.’

‘Then where does the past exist, if at all?’

‘In records. It is written down.’

‘In records. And ——?’

‘In the mind. In human memories.’

‘In memory. Very well, then. We, the Party, control all records, and we control all memories. Then we control the past, do we not?’

‘But how can you stop people remembering things?’ cried Winston again momentarily forgetting the dial. ‘It is involuntary. It is outside oneself. How can you control memory? You have not controlled mine!’

O’Brien’s manner grew stern again. He laid his hand on the dial.

WTF are you doing on a feminist board?

Um, being a feminist, engaging in discussions, the usual stuff. I care very much about minimising harm to women and girls.

I notice my questions have been ignored again.Today 19.00.

It doesn't matter whether there are 'hordes'. The issue is the principle of removing of women's existing legal protections and leaving them at the mercy of biological males decision to behave well or not.

I don't think the floodgates are going to open and somehow the immoral or criminal behaviour of outliers is going to become commonplace, no.

And what if it is only a few men who take advantage of the situation? How many women and girls being hurt is acceptable in the name of "being on the right side of history"? Give us a number. How many would have to be harmed before it would be OK to take steps to protect them?

So although you accept women are being harmed, you're ok with that, because it's not every woman being (directly) harmed. Right. So women's safety, their right not to be raped and abused, comes quite a long way below men's feelings in your opinion?

I mean, if any particular individual wants really badly to remain naive then that's their choice, but it would be prudent to step out of the way and allow those who're a bit more street smart to prepare for what happens if their starry eyed "oh I just think people are nice really" view doesn't quite work out as hoped.

Meanwhile the rest of us are trying to minimize the harm to women and girls.

Yes. And if you can't get behind that, WTF are you doing on a feminist board?

I'll sleep on it Maryz.

Really easy question for RatRolyPoly

Should the definition of woman be adult human female: yes or no?

Seriously, think about it.

Your 13 year old dd wants to try on clothes in TopShop with her friends and meets Travis. She goes to the gp for period issues and asks for a female nurse for an internal examination and gets a "woman" with an Adam's apple and a beard. She spends years training for a sport, but is beaten to the gold medal (and her university scholarship) by a boy

She is raped and has to see a male-appearing policeman, she is examined by a man. Her rapist is included in the "female" crime stats and placed in a female prison.

All these things are happening. On a daily basis, if you look. Of course it's hard to see sometimes as they are all reported with women's names and usually no photographs [cynical]

I don't think the floodgates are going to open and somehow the immoral or criminal behaviour of outliers is going to become commonplace, no. I'm prepared to be convinced.

So wait, your position is that you know it's already happening and yet somehow you still think it won't happen?

sport

Criminals Marie Dean and Tara Hudson, to name just two.

Topshop Travis - who identifies as a 15 year old girl at the weekends [baffled]

hospitals and mental health units

US maternity guidelines now using "pregnant persons" to avoid accusations of transphobia.

Shall I go on?

Sorry I had to pop out to wee on all the lamp-posts in my street. On Tuesday evenings between 7-8pm I identify as a male dog. I'm thinking of entering Crufts next year.

Rat the "This Never Happens" facebook page lists the frequent occurence of people who say they are transwomen committing crimes against women. It's a public page so you don't need to be in facebook to view it. The worst case scenarios you blithely say are unlikely are already happening.

I really do Maryz. Perhaps I see to much the best in people, or perhaps it's because I'm not on Twitter.

I'm not willing to risk an unspecified number of women girls being harmed on the premise of "well, it probably won't happen". Especially when we already have plenty of evidence about the lengths men will go to in order to get access to women and girls.

If some of them are willing to hide in a septic tank then filling in a form is nothing. And if the cultural shift that TRAs are hoping for happens they won't even have to do that, because it will be socially unacceptable to question a man's presence in a woman's space because he might be trans and then you'd be a bigot.

I absolutely appreciate it is happening UpABitLate. I don't have an answer to that, or a way to resolve it, and this is one of the main things that keeps me wavering back to the fence when I think I've come down on one side of it.

Here's my challenge:
My definition (and the one which has precedence) is woman means adult human female.
(I can expand upon each of those terms but I'll assume good faith that readers and I have a mutually agreed understanding of them)
My definition helpfully
1.encompasses half of the adult human race, and even more helpfully, 2.objectively distinguishes them clearly from the other half.

Here's my challenge:
Who can offer an alternative, useful and meaningful definition that improves upon those features, and does not exclude the original members from their own word?

"The potential problem isn't hugely likely"

Do you really believe that?

That's nice. Meanwhile the rest of us are trying to minimize the harm to women and girls. Which makes sense, this being a feminist board and all.

Stop going on about toilets.

Prisons, sports. Sex based protections. Women's charities. Women's positions where there are quotas, women only prizes. 50/50 on boards can be achieved with 100% dicks.

I mean I get that you don't think any of this is "very likely" the thing is, it's already happening. TIM with working cocks have already been put in prisons with women. A TIM has already been given access to a womens refuge and sexually assaulted women that he was bunked with.

Just because you can't imagine it happening (much / at all?) doesn't mean it won't. Most women are well aware of the lengths pervy men will go to to get access to potential victims. The appeal of getting moved to a womens prison is completely obvious, even if you aren't a sex offender.

Okay, so let's count all the hundreds of threads I've ever been active on over the years. Looks like this trans thing is totally my cause doesn't it, what with those three I posted on lately. Not that it shouldn't be my cause, it just doesn't happen to be - and I'm clearly not lying about that.

I'm selfish in my interest really; I'm trying to maximise my chances of coming out of this on the right side of history.

What question? "Are you pretending to identify as female so that you can go into a women's prison and rape women?"

I'm sure that will go down well, eh? Given that even asking if a person has a penis leads to angry shrieking about transphobia.

I guess expecting people to drop things that happened a day or two ago down the memory hole is in keeping with the kind of thinking that leads a person to believe that it doesn't matter whether or not we have a word to refer to the group of people formerly known as women.