Amnesty - “no such thing as a biologically male/female body”

Did they do good things? Yes, I suppose so, but their fundraising methods/techniques were verging on the coercive, I'd say. Emotional blackmail, all the mailshots I got as an earnest activist teenager. Some of which were laid on with so much graphic detail they gave me nightmares.

Anyway, fuck them.

Well, wow, just wow!

There is a huge issue with the TRA recently where they seem to be turning gender and sex upside down. I was told by someone this year or last year that it was sex that was the construct and not gender and in the end I had to walk away because I couldn't even.

Sex can only be a construct if we start to change science but the fact of the matter is that the majority of us are born either female or male. Intersex being the exception that proves the rule. Or something. Even if we start to see that there are differences that we weren't previously aware of in science so that maybe some people have more x chromosomes or more y chromosomes, we know that in this world that we have to live in genitalia mean something and if you're born with female genitalia, i.e. born a woman, then there is a whole load of shit that is assumed and dangers that are just waiting for you. So, basically, genitals, sex, whatever, not deciding what you are is a bollocks.

Gender is something that we know is a construct and malleable. because we know that being a woman in 1920 vs 2020 or whenever means something different. Constructs are constantly changing within and without eras. Bringing biology into that malleability makes precisely no sense and is not just infuriating, it is dangerous, not just to women but to those who transition and then think that they don't they can go forward in the gender they want to be and not take into account various factors that are relevant to their biological sex, illnesses, etc, that will be overlooked if they insist that they are male/female when that is not their biology.

I am so fucking tired with all of this.

I was talking to a friend earlier in the week and I was telling her about the Ellen/Elliot Page thread here. She told me that if hormone blockers had been around when she was growing up they would have made her life easier, but ... she didn't want to be a woman, she wanted to be a boy - n.b. not a man, a boy - and that she sees herself as a sort of boy. I told her that I saw her as part woman part boy too because I do, but first and foremost she is woman but she's a woman who doesn't ally with gender norms, like many of us. She's a lesbian who's been called a TERF because she doesn't want to get into relationships with transwomen.

Sorry, long and rambling. If this is the way Amnesty are going to go forward I won't be able to donate money to them any longer.

When I was a student they did Good Things. This was 30 years ago. Not sure when it all went wrong.

Oh Amnesty. What went wrong? When did you shove your heads so far up your own arse?

Of course women exist and suffer disproportionately because of their sex in countries across the globe. You've known this for decades.

They may think they are great on human rights, but they are shit at biology.

I was a member of Amnesty for years but haven't donated since it became apparent that they'd lost the plot - I've neither the money nor the will to keep them in green ink

For a very long letter it managed not to address any of the arguments, facts or data supplied by the GC feminists they decry, but simply made unevidenced assertion after assertion.

I think it's good to 'normalise' chromosomal variations so that people with unusual chromosomal conditions feel accepted, as with any kind of health condition, but to say that XXYY syndrome is as normal a chromosomal occurrence as XY or XX is just disingenuous. XXYY syndrome a condition that is quite debilitating and disrupts male sexual development and causes infertility. That's not 'normal' - that's an illness.

Quite - friends of mine have a lovely son with multiple copies of the X chromosome. Their big worry for him is the fact that he suffers from global developmental delay and looks unlikely ever to be able to live independently. I don't imagine they give a second thought to where he is on the unicorn sparkles gendah spectrum. He (bless him) is incapable of giving a first thought to where he is on the unicorn sparkles gendah spectrum. (Though I'm glad to say he's now a dab hand on his balance bike, and has quite a few signs at his disposal!)

The only way forward to me is to redefine gender. Gender was once synonymous with biological sex. The problem is that in recent years gender has come to mean what 'sex' one presents themselves as. Since gender is entirely a social construct it's pretty meaningless and the only real truth is one's biological sex. So Amnesty is probably right when they say gender isn't defined by biological sex. I wish we could just do away with the word gender altogether and stick to biological facts.

What a load of auld shite. Christ.

Or for not accepting a penis owner as their surrogate.

It really is time somebody called out all the straight men who wouldn't entertain the thought of a transwomen for relationship purposes. Because that is basic exclusion.

This idea is absolutely orthodox in lefty circles now. I saw a thread on Twitter the other day from a scientist that claimed to be 'decolonizing' biology and sex by saying that all kinds of chromosomal variations are quote 'normal'. XX, XY, XXX (yes, those are indeed common variations) but also XXYY, XYYYY, XXXX and a whole bunch of other combinations that are apparently 'normal'.

I think it's good to 'normalise' chromosomal variations so that people with unusual chromosomal conditions feel accepted, as with any kind of health condition, but to say that XXYY syndrome is as normal a chromosomal occurrence as XY or XX is just disingenuous. XXYY syndrome a condition that is quite debilitating and disrupts male sexual development and causes infertility. That's not 'normal' - that's an illness.

All of this is about manipulating scientific information in the service of a social / political ideal and that kind of scientific endeavour has never ended well.

Or prostitution, when penis owners miraculously know exactly what sort of genitalia they want to pay for in order to override consent. (As is their human right, according to Amnesty.)

If it's discrimination in the workplace if I won't let a male do my smear, then surely it is discrimination (against the protected characteristic of gender reassignment) in the workplace if a punter rejects a transwoman?

It’s a bit mystifying, this biological sex that winks in and out of existence depending on whether it’s useful for shitting on women or not, eh? Positively metaphysical.

We stand over this letter? What the fuck, are they peeing on it?

No such thing as biological sex unless we are talking surrogacy then suddenly we know exactly who is which biological sex.

Blimey flip they’ve gone totally off the reservation 😳

From: your genitalia do not determine your gender
Seamlessly to: trans identified children will kill themselves if they are not enabled to take medication preventing the development of their secondary sex characteristics.

How do they not disappear in a puff of verbose contradiction?

I don’t get this

How can they say there is no such thing as a biological male or female body

It’s beyond any rational thought that someone would write that

Unfucking unbelievable.

I think it is very interesting watching this play out with Iseult White. I believe she campaigned for the bill for self id that was past.

That she find this a step too far towards silencing freedom of speech is telling.