Starmer on what a woman is, and GRA reform

Why in the ever loving fuck do they keep pushing utterly ridiculous nonsense like 'males are females' when they must on some level know how unhinged and ludicrous it makes them look?

I have a lurking fear that what it reveals is more of a "whatevs" approach to protected characteristics more generally.

As in, with women's rights you might think "Well, I'm not a woman, and things look pretty good for them from my viewpoint - and actually it really was a nuisance that time I had to find maternity cover for that woman in the office - but everybody says you should support women's rights and I don't really know much about it so I'll just parrot back whatever I'm told without caring about anything except looking bad."

The other important question is about how someone 'lives as a woman' and how this differs from living as a man.

I don't know why the p-word isn't deployed more often.

Living as a woman = pretending to be a woman.

These Tories have been in charge since 2010 and done a fuck tonne of damage to women and girls. And boys.

I think we need to stop asking them what they think a woman is. Seeing them flounder at being unable to answer a simple question gets us nowhere.

This.

And the time really is over for the female half of the UK electorate to be running after damn silly politicians imploring them to say something that might imply they have some lingering shred of grip and respect for females.

We have the information. At this point women need to start acting on it with blunt questions such as "what do you plan to do with females of disability, faith, cultures, traumas, CSA, who have no access to rape crisis, refuges, toilets, leisure centres? why should those females be paying the same taxes? How is this 'inclusive'? Why are you in favour of women's single sex facilities that actively exclude many females? Isn't the job of women's facilities to be accessible to all nine characteristics? How is this not male supremacism where male access and inclusion is so crucial to you but you have no interest in equal consideration or inclusion of females? How do you feel about male supremacism as a value, do you think it's something the female half of the UK should vote for you to enforce on them? Should we be raising little girls in the UK in the belief that 'no' and personal privacy and boundaries must always be predicated on whether they make a male person sad? What exactly is your knowledge and training in safeguarding to be commenting on policy in this way?"

This needs shifting until we have politicians galloping after women trying to plead that yes, really, listen, female humans are actually somewhere on the radar. Ball back in their court.

I think we need to stop asking them what they think a woman is. Seeing them flounder at being unable to answer a simple question gets us nowhere.

The important question is what they think a 'transwoman' is, and how a 'transwoman' is different from a man.

Is Karen White a transwoman? If not, why not? Pips Bunce (on his 'woman' days)? If there is no gatekeeping, who decides who is a genuine transwoman?

The other important question is about how someone 'lives as a woman' and how this differs from living as a man.

If course they know what a woman is. Everyone knows which people are women!

The problem is that at the moment they are not prepared to stand up for women. They are currently trying to appease men. Appeasement doesn't work.

I think Dodds’ ‘I am obviously a woman’ remarks in parliament says it all really. She knows. She differentiates in her mind who is a woman and who is a transwoman. She might mouth the words, but her actions in the heat of the moment that tell the truth. Or … she only believes that ‘passing’ males can be considered women. Either way, she has the same dissonance that we have.

I actually feel a bit sorry for women like Yvette and Annaliese. I sense that they know what a woman is but have also seen what happened to Rosie Duffield. Spineless but then I, too, like to avoid confrontation. No sympathy whatsoever for Keir, actually can't bear him.

But, no. I'm with you. This totally has the feel of being a 'boys club' thing.

Bye labour

This person has a daughter - primary school aged i think. How can he look her in the eye and say that if any male days they are entitled to be on the same sports team, sleep in the same dorm in a residential trip, or change and shower in the same facilities became they ‘feel’ it?

But then I guess money is a great buffer - he can choose the facilities his daughter will use, he can choose to send her to a particular doctor, camp, school.

What Starmer is really saying here is that he knows women are adult human females but if men want something they must be given it and women must hand it over because to not do so is mean and selfish.

It means I get left with a definite impression whether or not Starmer and co intend it:

The impression I have, since this is sexist, exclusionary, unfair, unhelpful, disregarding of any issues or needs females have,

Is that what male people want, they get. And female people just stop mattering when male people want stuff.

Which really means its a waste of time insisting that these male people are truly being perceived as women. They are not. They are very definitely being perceived as something different to and much more important than an adult human female. And no, it's not context dependent, and it's not complicated.

We appear to be living in a time where there's a lot of shy but committed male supremacists.

What a trooper.

What I REALLY don't understand is how massively out of step the politicians are on this front. You'd think, given the rather obviously enormous importance of a female vote, that they'd want to at least pretend to give a fuck, no? Do they not read the papers, the comments, social media? Do they not have focus groups or some means of assessing how people feel on the issue?

Why in the ever loving fuck do they keep pushing utterly ridiculous nonsense like 'males are females' when they must on some level know how unhinged and ludicrous it makes them look? Even as we hear from some trans activists that 'nobody really believes transwomen are literally female' we have the leader of the opposition breenging in to say just that! It's wild. Absolutely wild.

Women (adult human females) will have single sex spaces.

Women (adult human men who choose to identify themselves as women) have free access to those spaces, which are the spaces they wish to be in with the adult human females for their own reasons.

The fact that this means that these are mixed sex spaces and not single sex spaces (because the minute a male person enters, it stops being a single sex space) and that this excludes some females from the women's space and therefore any space so that male people can take their preferred best life choice in the moment from all the spaces, and that this is as sexist as all hell as well as making a total mockery of calling it 'inclusive' appears to be something that neither Starmer nor any other politician is capable of getting their little heads around.

A bunch of silly mummies? Well we appear to be able to get that. Odd isn't it?

Buck Angel and Scot Newgent are telling their heads off. Not sure if any UK based ones though.

Greens, LibDems are on the bus as well. I would dislike voting for the Tories, some of whom are on the bus and on top of which are hugely incompetent.

Why are transmen not speaking about this issue? or gay men apart from Matthew Parris? The majority of my gay friends find it offensive they are not recognised in the argument but should speak up.

In my local paper today is a feature on a flasher that goes out in flip flops, no underwear and a miniskirt. Can they just pop into the women's changing room if they feel the need?

So I see the met police have a new initiative where you can report if you feel unsafe on the street. I want to have a look. Someone doesn’t will know the equality act (and they wonder why we don’t feel safe).

He said single sex spaces still protected but if he considers trans women to be actual women then is he saying they can access women only spaces?

Very disappointed and disillusioned.

Women’s rights are being eroded steadily.

Men who become women are more important than biological women. Men are always first.