Women's rights general conversations - Thread 3

Twitter has just introduced me to this story, which I hadn’t seen before:

opentable.lgbt/our-blog/2021/2/1/lgbt-history-month-meet-meet-world-champion-athlete-mark-weston-who-gave-up-titles-won-in-good-faith

What struck me was that it was a TRA using it to show how much more accepting people were of transition in the past. Completely missing the fact that the demands were different too. Mark gave up his titles won as a woman, because he didn’t consider it fair.

That's not too bad - perhaps it's improving. Although I suspect a lot depends on exactly what question you ask. A lot I've seen are very waffly and TWAW.

What response did you get? I got this

"A woman is an adult female human being. Women have specific biological characteristics that distinguish them from men, such as the ability to bear children, typically having a lower center of gravity, and generally having a higher percentage of body fat. However, it's important to remember that gender is a complex concept that encompasses more than just biological sex. Gender is also shaped by cultural and societal factors, as well as personal identity and expression. Women are an integral part of society and contribute in a wide variety of ways to families, communities, and the world at large. It's important to recognize and celebrate the diversity and unique qualities of all women."

I met the daughter of my son's best friend yesterday. She's almost 12. She has her hair cut short and boyish and wore a sweatshirt and jeans and a wool hat pulled down over her hair. But - and I enjoyed this because she's a great kid - there was no name change or discussion of her choices. She just is who she is and presents as she likes and that's fine.

Oh shit!

😆

ChatGPT has been tested, and found thoroughly Stonewalled.

Has anyone had a go with ChatGPT yet? I wonder what the answer to "What is a woman?" comes out as.

A strong preference for the toys, games, or activities stereotypically used or engaged in by the other gender.

My favorite toys were action figures, dinosaur figurines, sports equipment, and fake weapons

This was a girl I knew at school, in spades. Ditto a preference for short hair and trousers. Her parents just let her get on with it and she turned out to be gay.

Interesting little article from the USA by someone who sounds very like my niece-who-is-now-my-nephew, only who didn't do anything to her body:

quillette.com/2022/01/23/i-wanted-transition-to-solve-my-problems/

There’s an explanation here. Here you go:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/4747622-update-from-mnhq-name-changes

Think someone mentioned that there is new feature to avoid sock puppetry so your name reverts to the first one you use in any given thread. Let me look.

My name changed back to my old one?! How bizarre. It's back again now.

So wrong and so hilarious.

I guess she doesn't have to worry about lesbian bars, she seems far more invested in socialising with her gay male friends.

😆

It's no wonder she needs everything explaining to her.

Bully for her growing up in San Francisco*. I know lots of gay men and lesbians, well fewer gay men these days and I can say that very much like the population in general some are great, some are meh and some are totally toxic. The fact that she wants to paint it like fucking Oz or something makes her look like she's trying far too hard or deciding to forget all the arseholes she's met along the way.

I'm so tired of the notion that DSDs are a big part of the population. It's very, very rare and also has nothing to do with being trans. One is an actual physical thing, and the other isn't but because the world has gone mad we treat it with the sort of medical interventions that are all about harm.

I think what's most frustrating and disappointing about the article/letter is that she misrepresents the debate. We, women who haven't drunk the Kool-aid, are painted as being silly and not understanding what's going on at all when her argument is based on wishful thinking and unicorn fantasies.

*Of course, San Francisco, the home of the free-spirited, the rebels and the nonconformers was also the city where in the last hundred years - given that's the timescale she wants to go with - was happy to send loads of their citizens of Japanese descent to prison camps.

I'm hugely disappointed with her. I thought she was better than that.

That comment piece from August 2020 seems so dated. She really throws the kitchen sink at it. Exporting the culture of one small, self selected part of San Francisco to the rest of the world, what could go wrong?

As an aside, does anyone know why all the lesbian bars had closed by 2015?

That's all very 'Tales Of The City', and sounds great, but it doesn't alter the fact that it you give rights to one group of people that impinge on other people's rights, you've got a problem.

Transphobes are always warning us that if trans people live in peace and legal recognition and even have rights, there will be terrible consequences

Mkay, I suppose that would be transphobic. Luckily that’s not what most of the debate is about.

and also that quite a significant number of people are born intersex, and some are misgendered at birth, and male and female never were airtight categories anyway

Solnit has dragged in people with DSD's despite their requests to be kept out of this issue.

Such a wilful blind spot. Bizarre.

I had a feeling that would be the case. Cognitive dissonance seems baked in.

Reading that article makes it so clear that what she doesn't see is that self-ID is the opening of the doors to any man who says he "identifies " as a woman into women's single sex spaces

Think Rebecca Solnit is a genderist. I agree you’d think the writer of that article would get it, but apparently not.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/10/trans-rights-feminist-letter-rebecca-solnit

Her book/essay “Men explain things to me” inspired the term “mansplaining” IIRC.