Piers Morgan with Lisa Nandy on Good Morning Britain

Any man, however much anatomy he has changed, however benign he is, is still the focus and being deemed more important than all women, if he is given access to things designated for women.

I'm yet to hear a reason why men shouldn't be asked if they were happy to include males who have had certain surgeries and who present as feminine. That men's spaces & services should be inclusive & designed to accommodate the needs of all males.
Actually I think that is probably an approach many men would consider acceptable. Maybe most.

It's fairly obvious that there are an extraordinary number of people, not just men, who find it almost impossible to centre women.

Any man, however much anatomy he has changed, however benign he is, is still the focus and being deemed more important than all women, if he is given access to things designated for women.

Both because they think those things would lessen risk, and also keep the numbers quite low.

If a female single-sex space or service admits some males, it is no longer a single sex space or service.

How many women whose safety dignity and/or privacy being compromised is low enough to be acceptable?

As I said, I expect people would have different ideas about that. But I think it would effectively look like a third class, not easy to get included in, who could access some things designated for women but perhaps not others.

Such as what 'things designated for women'?

Who is doing the designating?

And actually I think that is probably an approach many women would consider acceptable. Maybe most.

What does 'treating them more like women' mean?

As I said, I expect people would have different ideas about that. But I think it would effectively look like a third class, not easy to get included in, who could access some things designated for women but perhaps not others.

What would be significant I think is that this would clearly not be from the prspective of TWAW or TMAM. So discussion about what it meant would proceed on a different basis.

Funnily enough Goose I was just re-watching a BBC documentary from the 1970s showing a panel of all males come to similar decision as you propose.

There are a number of male TS (some have had more surgery than others) a psychiatrist & a MP.

Its fascinating
Worth watching all the way to the end when as a postscript they realise they've failed to consider women. They laugh.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06c83f4/player

I think there are a fair number of people who would be willing to treat people who have actually completely transitioned surgically, and been carefully vetted by doctors and therapists, differently to some degree, in terms of treating them more like women.

What does 'treating them more like women' mean?

I think PM has got it right in terms of his audience, and that the majority of men and probably many women would draw similar distinctions.

I think there are a fair number of people who would be willing to treat people who have actually completely transitioned surgically, and been carefully vetted by doctors and therapists, differently to some degree, in terms of treating them more like women. I imagine that there would be some disagreement as to what that would include but I think many people would be ok with that discussion. Both because they think those things would lessen risk, and also keep the numbers quite low.

The reason PM does the penguin thing is because that's the bit of the ideology that has caught his attention - the ridiculous labels that gave no connection to material reality, and the attendant claim that everyone respect what is clearly arrant nonsense. He can see a fairness issue because he likes various sports. He's noticed the blokes in female prisons thing because he has an eye for a front page headline grabber, and Karen White's bald and bewigged pictures side by side are perfect red top fare.

But we do need to keep it in perspective - that's where he will support us. He is, however, very much true trans in perspective, and I would imagine holds the line that the good, committed, cock-off type trans who look like ladies should have access to most female provision despite any female objections.

I'm not blaming him for having this perspective, because there's no reason for him to get it from a feminist viewpoint, and I am happy he is being useful right now. I just don't want lots of crestfallen women when he reaches the limits of his interest here and rounds on the nasty unreasonable feminists, as he will do eventually.

I wish PM would stop going on about penguins and ask Lisa Nandy and her ridiculous ilk how they would feel about a white person Self-ID'ing as a person of colour. That would be a far more pertinent comparison.

Actress Frances Barber is no longer voting for LN...

twitter.com/francesbarber13/status/1237877402920865793

I agree.

No one is an ally to anyone else in my opinion.

Piers and many more can be useful, albeit surprising or uncomfortable, allies on the first.

IMO women should be more cautious about the 'ally' dynamic with regards recognising men's/males' agendas.

R0,

The short term or the long term?

Short term - roll back self-id, Stonewall capture, medicalisation of children, men in women's sport, prisons and shelters, queer theory education in schools, recognition of the importance of safeguarding, etc

Long term. Overturn the patriarchy.

Piers and many more can be useful, albeit surprising or uncomfortable, allies on the first.

He has very good political/populist instincts. I have a FB feed that is full of people moaning about Trump. No one ever asks why people vote for Trump. Or Brexit, where it was easier to denounce leavers as racist, rather than drill down and ask why over half the electorate did not vote the way they were supposed to.

Yes PM is a self important prat. But on this one I think he sits fair and square in line with public opinion. This causes others to say "he should be sacked" etc. To me, it is essential that we turn the tide, limit some of the damage, and achieve the important short term goals, and then we can keep pushing.

The big issue is that many are not aware of the distinction of transexual and transgender. They do not realise that 80% of MtF transgender people undertake no medical treatment at all. (I think that is the right figure.) If PM can draw people's attention to some of the craziness of self-ID, and if he can call out our unthinking politicians and get the debate going, he will have made a useful contribution.

The 'big issue/s' are the sexism/misogyny & undermining of Women's sex based rights, Safeguarding & male violence against women.

It underlies this. Morgan isnt simply expressing sympathy for males who have had surgical interventions, he states that he regards Willoughby & Jenner as women. Morgan promotes & supports both Jenner & Wiloughby.
Why is Jenny Murray publically sanctioned by the BBC & her comments mostly ignored whilst Piers Morgan not sanctioned
& celebrated?

GMB interview with Karen Ingala Smith & India Willoughby
Feminist Current "India Willoughby may identify as a women, but does not identify with women."

FEBRUARY 13, 2018 by PRIS CORBETT

(extract)
"It’s not uncommon for feminists to point out the parallels between men’s rights activism and trans rights activism. But rarely are those parallels laid out quite so plainly as they were last week when India Willoughby, a UK trans rights advocate, appeared on Good Morning Britain alongside women’s activist and lifetime domestic abuse worker Karen Ingala Smith." (continues)

At several points [Willoughby] appears to suggest that violent crimes committed by women are just as much of an issue as those of men. In challenging Ingala Smith as to why a woman who has suffered abuse in a lesbian relationship should be welcomed into a women’s refuge while a transgender woman may not, Willoughby not only ignores the nature of domestic abuse but promotes an unfair stereotype of homosexual women as more likely to be violent than heterosexual women. By pointing out that women can be perpetrators as well as victims, [Willoughby's] intention is to deny that domestic abuse is gendered. Shelters are therefore “discriminating” in being run by and for women. This is nothing short of a mirror image of MRA arguments.

Not content with denying the reality and nature of male violence towards women, around half way through the debate Willoughby turns again to the question of transgender women in shelters, directly challenging Ingala Smith on whether [they] would personally be welcome in one of her refuges. In making the question personal, Willoughby attempts to undermine Ingala Smith by implying that she is participating in unreasonable discrimination. Before Ingala Smith is able to properly respond, Willoughby moves on to attack Counting Dead Women, a project that records women killed every year in the UK by men, of which there were 138 in 2017 in England and Wales alone. “With the greatest respect,” Willoughby says, “I visited your website, and you have a list of crimes committed by men, and there is a great demonization. I feel really sorry for guys this year — I think they’ve had it really tough.” (continues)
www.feministcurrent.com/2018/02/13/india-willoughbys-not-men-response-feminist-activist-demonstrates-misogyny/

**extract edited for FWR guidelines

MN recent webchat with Karen Ingala Smith:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_live_events/3838243-Webchat-with-Femicide-Census-co-founder-Karen-Ingala-Smith-Wednesday-March-4-at-1pm

We haven't even got to that first step yet, even though 90% of the public agree with it.

The thing is, right now the most basic step is that men with penis's shouldn't be in woman's spaces
That's the very first step to get out into the public consciousness.
Once that is accepted, which it isn't yet, but will be it's the main line of thought most men speaking out are following....

The next step will be intruding to the public the concept that a man without a penis isn't a woman, which again will be done, but over time.

It's all talking time.

R0,

I suspect that PM does not think about things too deeply. From his macho perspective, any male prepared to undergo SRS has earned the right to be considered the opposite sex, following in a long traditional of Jan Morris, April Ashley etc. It's the starting point for the 2004 Gender Recognition Act, which was passed with relatively little protest, and was correctly expected to cover around 5,000 people.

In his eyes though, anyone who has not gone to such extreme lengths, and simply wants to self-identify into women's sports, is cheating.

I think PM has got it right in terms of his audience, and that the majority of men and probably many women would draw similar distinctions. People are sympathetic to the concept of dysphoria and will probably decide that if someone is prepared to mutilate themselves they deserve sympathy, and indeed will then pose less of a threat.

The big issue is that many are not aware of the distinction of transexual and transgender. They do not realise that 80% of MtF transgender people undertake no medical treatment at all. (I think that is the right figure.) If PM can draw people's attention to some of the craziness of self-ID, and if he can call out our unthinking politicians and get the debate going, he will have made a useful contribution.

I don't think it is worth expecting a lot more from him. I suspect what you see with PM is what you get.

‘it seems to be right wing men who are the only ones questioning this’.

2017 Dame Jenni Murray was publicily sanctioned by the BBC for 'questioning' in her Sunday Times article which followed India Willoughby's sexist comments on R4 Woman's Hour:

'Jenni Murray: Be trans, be proud — but don’t call yourself a “real woman”
Can someone who has lived as a man, with all the privilege that entails, really lay claim to womanhood? It takes more than a sex change and make-up'
(extract)
The fury that a male-to-female transsexual could be so ignorant of the politics that have preoccupied women for centuries hit me again last year — 16 years after I had met Carol. This time I was speaking to another trans woman, India Willoughby, who had hit the headlines after appearing on the ITV programme Loose Women.

India held firmly to her belief that she was a “real woman”, ignoring the fact that she had spent all of her life before her transition enjoying the privileged position in our society generally accorded to a man. In a discussion about the Dorchester hotel’s demands that its female staff should always wear make-up, have a manicure and wear stockings over shaved legs, she was perfectly happy to go along with such requirements. There wasn’t a hint of understanding that she was simply playing into the stereotype — a man’s idea of what a woman should be.

She described hairy legs on a woman as “dirty”. But hairy legs are not considered dirty in a man. Did she not know that the question of whether a woman should shave her legs or her armpits had been a topic of debate among women for an awfully long time? And that to describe a woman who chose not to shave as dirty was insulting and again suggested an ignorance of sexual politics?

Unsurprisingly, my polite and informed line of questioning exposed me to a barrage of criticism on social media. I was a Terf and didn’t understand what Simone de Beauvoir, the author of one of the great feminist tracts, The Second Sex, meant when she wrote: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”

As a matter of fact, I have understood perfectly what de Beauvoir meant ever since I read her as a teenage girl. Her subject was that “second sex”. She used the word sex advisedly.

Your sex, male or female, is what you’re born with and determines whether you’ll provide the sperm or the eggs in the reproductive process. What de Beauvoir was analysing was gendered socialisation." (continues)
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/be-trans-be-proud-but-dont-call-yourself-a-real-woman-frtld7q5c

Piers Morgan regularly defends & asserts that Willoughby (his friend & colleague) has become a woman.

You need to book an appointment with the Assigner General who will bring the sorting hat.

I also showed the clip to DH, who totally gets it and finds the illogical arguments baffling, and his wishes more interviewers would take this approach and commented ‘it’s a weird feeling to be cheering Piers Morgan on’ and ‘it seems to be right wing men who are the only ones questioning this’.

I had a homebirth and my baby didn't come out with a wristband - what sex is my 5 year old, Lisa?

You need to book an appointment with the Assigner General who will bring the sorting hat.