Royal College of Psychiatrists Statement

That's just it really - confidence. I'm confident we're all smart enough and sensible enough to manage a little flexibility without finding ourselves completely incapable of protecting women.

I am not that confident. As others have pointed out, the exemptions are already being challenged. The boundary of what it means to be a women have been redefined and are being pushed back further by self-ID and that is a step too far. People appear to think they are legistlating to protect those with gender dysphoria, but a move to self-ID goes much further.

The exemptions aren't being invoked, and the current push is designed to remove them. If Labour were to win the election that's exactly what they would try to do.

I've said before, it's always enlightening to watch transactivists reaching for the exemptions to reassure women when you know they'd get rid of them immediately if they could.

Given how little confidence I have in your judgement (or honesty) the fact that you're confident that everything will be fine isn't very reassuring.

I don't believe a word that poster says. They have consistently proven themselves to be sly, goady and disingenuous. They grandstand across multiple threads and just waste everyone's time with nonsense.

The exemptions aren't being invoked, and the current push is designed to remove them. If Labour were to win the election that's exactly what they would try to do.

Not that the original law wasn't terrible, as Barracker said, but even if we were to accept that it was fine (it's not) it's not much use writing in exemptions if attempting to invoke them results in a torrent of abuse and then a quick backing off accompanied by apologies for attempting to apply the law as written.

A law where the rights of 33 million people exist in a badly written exemption clause that is never invoked is no law at all.

The safeties you think exist do not.
A right that cannot be exercised is not a right.

Every right granted to a male to become the legal fiction of a woman will remove the right of one or more women whose path he crosses to her own rights.

He literally gains the false right to BE her (female) whilst she loses the true right to be herself (different from him)

Unless trans people live in a vacuum they will be infringing the rights of women every time they tick a box, use a female space, take a position for females, represent females.

Rights should be inalienable. Not something you get so long as you aren't one of the unlucky ones to be affected by that minor legal fiction we created. It shouldn't be a lottery.

If a 30 year old says that they identify as a teenager, do we let them enroll in high school? How about if they want to date "other" teenagers?

(Not irrelevant in that a trans person just recently made this argument, that it was OK for him to have sex with children because he identified as a child.)

And I rejected it as nonsense, because women are female and male people are not women. Which, again, you already knew was going to happen, hence disingenuous.

Given how little confidence I have in your judgement (or honesty) the fact that you're confident that everything will be fine isn't very reassuring.

Surely terms such as "adult" are more akin to gender than sex - society-based descriptions. Someone's adulthood is dependent on the context, their biological age isn't. If a 60yo were asked how old they are & replied 21, people wouldn't believe them. Even if they could produce a passport that agreed, people would be sceptical. The only way someone who appears to be 60 could actually be a 21yo would be if they had a condition that accelerated the aging process. It would be deemed unacceptable for a 60yo to insist they be recognised as a 21yo because some other people have a medical condition which means they look different to their biology.

With a bit of waffle added to ensure that people who're not female could be squeezed into the definition

Um, the idea was to come up with a definition that would include me and you (female) and transwomen (not female). So, er, yeah. That's what I did.

Age remains verifiable, regardless of whether you feel like an adult or not. As does sex, regardless of whether you feel like a man or a woman. So you base your legislation around the verifiable concepts, rather than those that are more nebulous. That's the whole issue here, isn't it?

I don't think we disagree either, I see what you're saying. If we take the starting point of, "putting aside the GRA for one second, the way certain concepts are written in law right now is mostly fine", I guess the GRA then looks like it has the power to subvert those verifiable concepts and replace them with a subjective one - i.e. legal sex change in line with one's gender.

I can see why that looks like unverifiable concepts then being enshrined in law.

There are reasons why I think that isn't a huge problem; mostly because the impact of that change was considered when introducing the GRA, and exceptions written into it where knowing someone's biological sex would be critical. So essentially you can change for legal purposes EXCEPT for sport, medical treatment, residential care etc., because in those cases it would make a difference. Seems like it's been thought about to me.

Secondly there's the fact that this is very rare, and I don't think for a second self-ID would see half the population changing legal sex. The state and national law can cope just fine with a limited number of known exceptions IMO. I'm confident a digression from the purity of "measurable concepts" on rare occasions is totally manageable, especially when doing so brings big personal benefits to a community.

That's just it really - confidence. I'm confident we're all smart enough and sensible enough to manage a little flexibility without finding ourselves completely incapable of protecting women.

Yes rat that's why I think it's a problem. Trans people going about their business in contexts that don't affect other groups - all well and good. Trans people trying to rewrite the definition of woman is a problem. Letting your 12 year old eat off the adult menu - no problem. Legislate to change the definition of adult to include 12 year olds - problem. That's when you need to get firm about definitions.

In other words, keep the truth and challenge unhelpful societal mistakes

Let me take your argument one step further ratrolypoly and see where it finishes

Context = biological sex or age matters: we must distinguish accurately between the sexes
Context = biological sex or age doesn't matter (your shopping / menu example)

We remove the false categorisation requirement!

We don't argue that to eat from the adult menu makes you an adult - we point out that it was unnecessary to categorise it thus
We don't argue that to buy men's clothes makes you a man - we point out it is unnecessary to categorise clothes thus.

In other words, we retain a very clear concept of adult and sex
What we challenge are all the false associations that should not be confused with sex.

With a bit of waffle added to ensure that people who're not female could be squeezed into the definition. But hey, you tried.

It is impossible to have feelings about being a man or a woman without a concept in your head of what a man or a woman is.

To identify with something you have to understand what it is. If you are identifying with a group of people those people have the right to correct your perception of what they are when you are mistaken about them.

If I observe that Chinese people eat a lot of rice, and I also eat rice therefore I strongly feel I am Chinese, I need to be corrected.
It becomes important to
A. Provide a clear definition of Chinese (which will exclude me)
B. Illustrate how the specific characteristic I am associating with Chinese is not definitive nor unique to that group.
C. Insist that clear delineation be reasserted to the group Chinese

What we DON'T do is waffle on about how there are lots of potential different definitions of Chinese, and rice eating is as valid as any other, as are feelings, and we don't dismantle the original definition of that group because it's exclusionary.

We need to grow up about this whole thing. We are tolerating toddler tantrums of I want it, gimme.

Female and male are about as distinct from each other as any two categories can be.
We will not dismantle reality to humour the ego of individuals who dislike it.

Angry. I used the word "female". HTH.

Barracker absolutely, I'm actually not making a comparison between age and sex though - not at all - because as you say they have some crucial differences.

What I'm saying is that we already have in law, in society and in our understanding things which do not have "one true meaning". So things whose meaning is guided by the context. I'm using "adult" as an example of that - something whose meaning is defined by the context.

flowers you said about self-ID'ing as an adult to vote. You're quite right, you couldn't self-id to vote because as we both know the context of voting is a legal one, thus so is the definition.

...but you can eat off the adults' menu in a restaurant by self-identifying as an adult, because the meaning of "adult" in that context doesn't require you being over 18, or sexually mature, or mature in any way - it simply requires you to have an adult appetite!

So if you want to make the parallel with gender (although it's obviously imperfect), sometimes it's entirely inappropriate to self-ID as a man - for example for male cancer screening. In other contexts where biology is unimportant it might be perfectly appropriate, so if i ask a shop assistant where I can find clothes, oh but I'm not a woman I'm a man, that gets the job done and everyone goes about their life just fine.

barraker exactly. (Still haven't clicked on that video )

A vomiting smiley would come in handy sometimes!

angry ugh no. I don't think I can bear to click on it (not envy)

Are you aware of the Canadian grandfather who "identifies" as a 6 year old girl, flowers? His "adopted parents" (kink thing) allow him to age play with their granddaughter.

Hmm maybe. ..I get the different contexts argument. I don't think we disagree. But age remains verifiable, so long as you have evidence of when you were born. The problem really then is the strong relationship between the binary biological characteristic of sex and the unverifiable feelings some people have of whether they are men or women. Age remains verifiable, regardless of whether you feel like an adult or not. As does sex, regardless of whether you feel like a man or a woman. So you base your legislation around the verifiable concepts, rather than those that are more nebulous. That's the whole issue here, isn't it?

Thanks for that, Barracker. I considered trying to point that out, but decided that I couldn't be bothered. If engaging with a person who seemed honestly confused I might have tried, but in this case...

Rat thinks other people are shifting goalposts?

www.everydayhealth.com/emotional-health/psychological-projection-dealing-with-undesirable-emotions/

Any definition of "woman" that doesn't involve the word "female" is unscientific nonsense. But you already knew that many people here think that, thus rendering the wide-eyed "but I gave you a definition!" act disingenuous. And honestly rather funny.

I hate to point out the obvious but age is a continuum (which goes in only one direction) and sex is a binary.
I'll say that twice because of all the guff that claims otherwise.

Sex is binary.

No analogy about age is going to work here.
There might be a grey area socially when a child is on the verge of adulthood, but legally there isn't. And no one struggles with whether to classify a 45 year old as possibly a child because they still have their parents.

If any confusion exists around sex then the objective should be to clarify, not further obfuscate.

There are 3.7 billion human females.
They are not male.
They are female.
They need a word and they have one.
If males want to be feminine they can invent themselves a new word.

Language exists to help us communicate clearly.

Angry I really can't be arsed. I give you an answer to a question - a question you're at pains to say can't be answered - and it meets your expressed criteria of "not circular" and is perfectly serviceable as a basic dictionary definition; so then you shift the goalposts and assert that it has to be **not "disingenuous nonsense" as well. Which is tough really because you've set yourself up as the sole arbiter of "disingenuous nonsense", and will undoubtedly claim it to be a completely objective thing on the basis that other people who would benefit from agreeing with you no doubt agree with it.

I mean if that isn't in the dictionary under disingenuous....