Sturgeon getting an absolute grilling on Channel 4 News

underneath it all is such a dismissive and negative view of all the trans women in our society and how they feel - which is often I would imagine desperately unseen, marginalised and discriminated against

I read that wrong to start with and thought you were actually acknowledging that women feel desperately unseen, marginalised and discriminated against when their biology is appropriated, and their spaces invaded by men. But no, apparently you're not bothered about that 50% of the population.

Every now and then our understanding of mental health takes a huge leap forward. That is something to be celebrated.

Unfortunately, there’s this pesky thing called “reality” where some things are possible and some things are not. I cannot flap my arms and fly. No matter how much I want to. Men cannot become women. Even if they really, really want to. However, it is (and always has been) possible to be attracted to members of the same sex.

It is really fine to say that people who refuse to accept actual reality need help. Whether that be learning to live with their current bodies or learning to accept the limitation of physical transition. For any individual, the right mental health support should be found. But not by expecting everyone else to go along with a delusion.

I genuinely can't decide if she is a true believer who is now being faced with holes, a soft believer (a "be kind") who has now realised she's in the shit, or if she never believed it at all.

I don't like Nicola Sturgeon but I do believe she was a soft believer.

I have a friend the same. She doesn't see the awful stuff that's been happening but the idea of being kind and welcoming to men who have lived lives believing they are women and who finally have the courage to live as women is a very strong one for her. When you mention the likes of Graham then she truly believes they are the extreme exception and that TRA abuse etc. doesn't really happen and is excaggerated.

How can she not see it? because she's a high flier who works 80 hours a week and spends her free time with her family. She's not online, no twitter, no forums, and because it's been so poorly reported on over the years for fear of upsetting transwomen, she just has a limited view of what has been happening.

@MrsOvertonsWindow
Beautifully put! Please may I use this?

My god, she's awful. I suggest that it's not capable of being denied in any real sense that she's not thought this through and is in fact supporting a homophobic anti-woman movement and therefore is much likely to be racist and otherwise bigoted than the people she was mindlessly slinging mud at.

Frankly, you might as well transition from yellow to purple for all the relevance it has to your sex and material reality, or all the effect it should be allowed to have on anyone else through law or policy.

But don't you think an alarmingly short number of years ago it was acceptable in general society to hold a view that "being attracted so someone of the same sex shows disordered thinking, they need help with mental illness / conversion therapy, not to be allowed to continue with this"....

Trans people should be free to live and dress and think as they please. Perhaps they even need their rights protected, but they can't change sex and men can't be in women's spaces.

@LikeAnOldFriend

I respect trans people. I just don't think that their change of gender makes them the opposite sex. Sometimes sex matters, sometimes it doesn't.

Trans women are not generally dangerous, in the same way as men are not generally rapists, or volunteers at schools are not generally predatory paedophiles, but that's not enough to dispense with safeguarding. (Trans women offend at the same rate as men according to the statistics we have, so there is no reason to treat them differently as regards women, though they deserve protection from men). Lots of us are cross, because until now no one has been remotely interested in what female people want, just male people. That's one reason why lots of us don't see TW as women - if they were women, their needs would be ignored!!

Trans women are also not female for sporting purposes. Again, the discussion that they require inclusion is male centred and not science based.

TW are not female. Sometimes this matters. If TW and TRA campaigners could reflect on this, rather than insisting they are indistinguishable for all purposes and that being female (we were not allowed woman, now TRAs are tying to keep us from using female as a biological category) is a feeling rather than a (sometimes extremely difficult) biological reality then everyone would be able to thrash out a compromise.

Norma

I know I'm derailing in joining this conversation, so please feel free not to answer but in seeing some of you deny completely that a trans women is a woman, I wonder if you can tell me if you can accept a woman who has transitioned to a man as a man, or if it's only this way around that it's not acceptable? Do you accept when a person is fully transitioned their chosen gender identity, or never at all?

Never at all. 'Gender identity' is nothing choosing which particular bunch of outdated, sex-based stereotypes you fancy. But you are born either male or female. No amount of clothing, make-up, copied mannerisms, appropriation of characteristics, hormones or surgery can do even the tiniest thing to change that. And that goes for transmen just as much as transwomen. It's pretty bloody obvious why women are more concerned by TWAW than TMAM though, wouldn't you say?

I’m giving up! 🤣🤣

I think we buried all the remaining fucks last Friday night?

“the female prisoners in our society and how they feel… desperately unseen, marginalised and discriminated against”

There you go @LikeAnOldFriend - I edited your quote so you can understand the situation from the other side of the debate.

Our concern is for women and children, if you want to prioritise adult males… well, you do you, Boo 😘

But don't you think an alarmingly short number of years ago it was acceptable in general society to hold a view that "being attracted so someone of the same sex shows disordered thinking, they need help with mental illness / conversion therapy, not to be allowed to continue with this"....

Irrelevant. Gay men and women have never demanded that their sexuality encroaches on anyone else or required anyone to have to violate their own dignity in order to accept their sexuality. TW demand exactly that. And we say no.

No idea why it quoted the wrong quote! Sorry Rex x

@LikeAnOldFriend
Women have had enough of being kind.

So I really couldn't care if trans identified males are upset.

Unfortunately the laughing isn't a nervous tic. She uses it a lot in the Scottish parliament. She did look uncharacteristically nervous though.

I care more about women

It is like Brass Eye Thomas

I presume the laughing is some kind of nervous tic. I hope to god it's not that Sturgeon thinks the subject matter is actually amusing. That would add insult to injury.

Oh and @LikeAnOldFriend : a woman is always a woman, a man is always a man. Trans women are always men. Transmen are always women. Because nobody can change the sex they were born as. Biology 101. And no man should be in women's spaces.

A politician not apologising for a male rapist in a female prison is like something from Brass Eye. It’s just mad.

But don't you think an alarmingly short number of years ago it was acceptable in general society to hold a view that "being attracted so someone of the same sex shows disordered thinking, they need help with mental illness / conversion therapy, not to be allowed to continue with this".... And now we've thankfully moved on from this.

I agree with you, I don't think gay or trans people have a mental illness or need converting.

However I still don't think any males belong in women's prisons. I do accept that males who are gay, or trans, or various other groups, are probably more vulnerable in prison, and I'd happily support any initiatives to make prisons safer. But I still don't think males should be allowed in women's prisons.

LikeAnOldFriend

If you want to identify as a woman, ok.

But respect biological women and don't demand to go into their single sex spaces. Anywhere. Ever.

We don't want you there, for a reason. Men commit 99% of sex assaults.

We want our safety and privacy. Our rights trump yours.

People can wear any clothes/lipstick they like.

I'm sure most if us don't care.

But they can't change sex. It is impossible. Hard luck.

This

"It's an abusive, incoherent, male dominated set of fantasies that have been allowed to gaslight the population, oppress women and groom numerous children into believing their bodies are somehow wrong and need fixing."

Calling a group the "trans women are women brigade" is so unkind to trans women everywhere who deserve to be recognised.

You’ll be pleased to hear that the ‘TWAW Brigade’ is not actually a group of transwomen, it is a mere loose affiliation made up of all sorts of folx who happen to share the same neo religion.

It includes men who say they are women and some men who don’t say they are women, and women who say they are men and also some women who say they are feminists, like Nicola Sturgeon.
Plus some people who pretend they don’t have a sex, even though it’s obvious they do, because humans are mammals and that’s how mammals make baby mammals 🤷‍♀️