£10,000 prize for arguing both sides of trans debate

My first reaction was "argue both sides? hold my beer!"

But...undergraduates only.

If I start a new degree course would that make me an undergrad again? Maybe it's time to do that open university degree 😁

Great idea. It's basically a bribe to students to get them to engage with the other side of a debate that they might normally block, shout down, or parrot slogans at. They might even read what JK Rowling wrote.

Apparently, this essay is going to 'settle the debate'.

Of course it is, dear. We're all definitely going to roll over and do what an undergraduate tells us to do.

I'm enjoying the fact that the well-meaning organisers have got a core tenet of online gender ideology wrong straight out of the gate, and clearly have no idea. Will essay-writers correct them I wonder, or will they blindly carry on with it?

Oh yes an undergraduate essay competition will definitely sort everything out with no further issues.

On the other hand it's not a bad idea for students to have to actually work on paper and learn to develop their arguments. Like universities are supposed to help them do.

Kapil Summan, 35, a journalist in Scotland, is one of the competition organisers. He said that trans activists used transwomen as one word because it implies that men who transition become women. He acknowledged that radical feminists were more likely to put a space between the words.

As Circumferences points out,this isn’t even true, it’s the opposite. TRAs are more likely to insist/demand there is a space between the two, because they’re always claiming that the trans is just another adjective to describe a type of woman:

Tall woman
Black woman
Asian woman
Trans woman

etc.

I have to override my phone autocorrecting transwoman to trans woman and I have a vague memory of there even being a furore on here once about someone being deleted for using transwomen instead of trans women.

What an idiotic competition 😵‍💫

I think it’s more likely the journalist got the quote mixed up than the competition organisers got it wrong. I know men gonna men, and they do blunder into this debate half-cocked. But still, the organisers must have put some thought and research into this before launching it

If the organiser is ignorant about which side is demanding the gap in “transwomen” I don’t hold out much hope that the prize will be awarded to someone who actually understands the arguments.

And he missed the fact that many of us refuse to use that word at all, because men are not women, whether they claim to be or otherwise.

Eh??
I really don't get the "transwomen Vs trans woman" quote above at all.... It's the opposite surely!

Gender critical feminists are more likely to use "transwomen" because it's a noun by itself and completely distinct from "women". Two separate things.

Using "Trans woman" on the other hand makes "trans" the adjective, with "woman" being the noun, so the language blurs the boundaries between transwomen and women by implying that trans women are just another type of woman like "tall women" or "black women" or "skinny women"....

No thank you. Transwomen are not a type of woman, like a seahorse is not a type of horse.

Kapil Summan, 35, a journalist in Scotland, is one of the competition organisers. He said that trans activists used transwomen as one word because it implies that men who transition become women. He acknowledged that radical feminists were more likely to put a space between the words.
“It makes no sense for us to use ‘trans women’ since it affirms the point we’re asking entrants to argue against,” he said. “It is true that ‘transwomen’ affirms the opposite,” he conceded, “but we have to choose one.”

Even-handed, then. Or, not.

What's the difference between transwomen and trans women please?

Unfortunately my phone won't load the archive link so I can't read it

Just what we need.

When women are desperately fighting to hang onto their rights and services, students (ie young people with no real life experience) are being given money to pontificate about who or what a woman is.

If this is the consequence of "enlightenment" it implies it doesn't really shed a light on anything.