Sandi Toksvig "doesn't get it", poor love....

Toksvig isn’t a Newnhamite: she went to New Hall (now Murray-Edwards).

Murray-Edwards admits male students on a self-ID basis, despite continuing to claim it is a women’s College. Newnham at least requires applicants to provide ID that states their sex is female (AFAIK, this has worked to keep male students out thus far).

She may have invited Izzard on her 'women only' travel programme, but as soon as she's not paying attention to the performance she forgets she's not meant to know TWAM.

There was an episode of QI (last season, I think) that was very telling. Guest panelists were Sarah Pascoe, Jordan Penis-Piano, and A N Other chap. She made a bit of a show of she-hering Jordan at the start, but once she got into the questions there were several that were specifically about women - and each time she turned to Sarah with a 'You'll be interested in this'. Never to Jordan.

That's a good point.

Why would someone dress as a woman when they could just pick up a cleaning cloth? If it really bothers you there’s a toilet some place else. Go there. Shut up.

She thinks a "transwoman" is just a man who "dresses as a woman". That's not going to go down well with the TRAs.

Was the Times allowing comments on the recent article?

I wonder if any of her TW friends will be upset by her comparison. She’s obviously admitting she recognises both as male, which I imagine is a bit of a no-no in some quarters.

If it really bothers you there’s a toilet some place else. Go there. Shut up.

And what happens when the other loo has a man in it? And the next? Or you’ve suffered trauma and just don’t want the risk of opening the cubicle door to find a hulking great man dressed as a woman co-opting you into his fetish by demanding you accept him in that space?

No loos for you, then, bigot. Stay at home. You deserve not to be allowed to go out.

On the WEP front, I seem to remember quite a lot of begging a while back about “saving” WEP. How much of Sandi’s bile is aimed at the feminists who found her organisation wanting (and deserted it) after it admitted men who call themselves women?

To use Anne Shirley's worst insult, Sandi lacks imagination.

Quite. This is a woman who can’t understand why you’d bake a cake rather than buy one

Yes, it's a variant of Clark's law -any sufficiently deep ignorance is indistinguishable from malice. Beyond a certain point it has to be willful.

To use Anne Shirley's worst insult, Sandi lacks imagination. She can't fathom why anyone doesn't have the same perspective as she has and she can't imagine someone experiencing a situation any differently than she does. She lacks not just sympathy, which requires a bit of imagining what another person may be suffering in order to say, "I don't get it but I care about you." But most importantly, she lacks the ability to empathize. To walk in someone else's shoes you need the ability to first imagine what that may be like after listening closely to what they have to say. Sandi won't listen because then it'd be apparent how lacking in creativity and how dull she really is.

I think it is much easier for a woman who has had a baby in this way to see babies through the lens of being commodified than a woman who has given birth. Cos biology. Biology has less value and less relevance to Toskig's life generally as a result - because psychologically she needed to rationalise it.

In this sense yes it is not dissimilar to men, who have not given birth (cos they are men), and why we are seeing a push for surrogacy because men want babies and want to cut out women. Particularly in celebrity circles.

Toskvig's position makes her unusual - not only has she had children in this way, but also because she separated from the mother AND because of the circles in which she mixes which celebrate parentage without a biological connection and has comodified children.

However this does neglect the safeguarding aspect - and the psychological impact on children and there will eventually be a fall out from this in years to come.

I do think that children ultimately have a NEED to know where they come from biologically. Even if their parentage involves difficult circumstances and a bunch of dickheads you ultimately don't want to know (and conversely, a greater appreciation of the parents who raise you). This is particularly hard reality for homosexual couples but this also applies to heterosexual couples in various other situations.

Toskvig in being divorced from biology will ultimately find in easier to rationalise glitter families and overlook the implications to children. Perhaps because, frankly its too close to home to do differently. Thus she sides with the transwomen rather than the kids of late transitioning males - because in her mind, biology doesn't matter at all. She sides with those who view identity as more important.

And yes, I do think there is a general issue with sperm donation as much as there is an issue with surrogacy for this reason. And yes I apply this equally to heterosexual couples. Because its about putting the desires of adults first.

Toskvig, may well be the perfect parent with an arrangement with a third party, but it also leaves her with a blind spot in terms of thinking about the impact of biology on children too. And yes that is down to the comodification of babies.

Sorry, I know this might be an unpopular opinion, however, I don't think that the creation of the fertility industry is a wholly good thing despite the fact we are told it is and to say this is regarded as bigoted or uncaring (particularly if you have your own children). I think there are aspects to it, that are ultimately problematic in terms of how we understand ourselves and our identity. Identity formation is multifaceted and complex. For some people it does work out, but for others I think it also leaves a massive psychological scar and we shouldn't avoid this as a subject just because it askes uncomfortable questions. We should be bloody honest about it - because I think the unwillingness to talk about it creates a stigma for those who are damaged by it - and makes it harder for them to deal with it. The parents concerned need to be fully appreciative and honest about this too.

Toskvig's political position is that identity can ultimately shift regardless of biology. The reality is that it can only do this to a point. Biology doesn't stop because you want it to. As we have seen with adoptions. It would explain a certain amount of why she doesn't get the point and will continue to never see the point. Not everyone who is not biologically related to their child will respond in this manner (noting that safeguarding is a massive part of the process of adoption so is hammered into people going through it). But I DO think it may influence where Toskvig comes from on a personal level.

I don't think we should shy away from talking about how three parent arrangements. I actually think there legally should be a change in the law to allow three parents on documents - for the sake of children - and to potentially offer a limited level of rights to the third party again for the sake of the child in order to formalise such relationships and protect kids in case it does all go tits up at x point in the future. I don't think there is enough thought being given to this and I think its will come back to haunt us in the future that we've had this massive oversight because parental desires have driven this.

Just to respond to @MarieDeGournay. I'm not questioning the suitability of women to raise children of either sex. I'm asking about the considerations that anyone gives to deliberately having children outside the mother/father dyad.

Not casting aspersions on other types of families at all. But where there is a reasonable argument to be made against men using women as surrogates, for the sake of the women, but from my point of view more importantly for the sake of kids denied their mother. A related consideration is there for kids denied their father. I mean this as a choice and not a consequence of other unfortunate circumstance.

It is relevant in the context of the conversation we were having about ST I think. I am voicing this, as a sense of general discomfort I feel. Nothing more. I won't start a thread on it. And I can understand sensitivities on the topic. But when has that been a reason to not ask difficult questions on Mumsnet!

My thoughts are that this isn't something I expected to encounter again in 2024, TBH, JoodyBlueToo.

I don't really have anything to say about it here in this discussion, I just reacted to the suggestion that lesbian mothers 'commodified' their babies.

You might want to start a new thread on it and have the discussion about the suitability of women to bring up boys, bring up girls, or just bring up little human beings, regardless of their sex or gender stereotypes?

Hope that doesn't come across as anything other than me saying I personally don't want to have a discussion about lesbian mothers in the middle of this thread, but if other people want to start a new thread about it, that's what MN is for

“Punching down” only computes if you assume that transwomen are more disadvantaged than women.

If you take the line that on transitioning a man who is attracted to women becomes a woman (disadvantage count 1) who is a lesbian (count 2) and has the characteristic of gender reassignment (count 3), then you could make that add up.

If, like me, you are a sex realist, a transwoman is a man with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment (count 1).

So there’s no punching down unless you believe some protected characteristics count for more than others.

@MarieDeGournay in these scenarios a choice is made to have a baby who won't live with its father. I wonder if that consideration is taken into account as part of the decision making. I am sure for some lesbian couples it is. And I know that there are many successful families parented solely by women for different reasons. But my perception is that father figures are important to children and especially male children. I wonder what your thoughts are?

Surely the man in question is the baby's father. It is a different scenario.

Yep. Just as one can look at 'Just Stop Oil' protests and see how they are making environmental activism look like a farce, the WEP are so risibly wet and pointless they are actively damaging the cause of feminism and feminists.

She is especially angry by how many “radical feminists” attack trans people. “How could you be so white and privileged and heterosexual and never marginalised in your life yet you decide to punch down on people?”

Do “radical feminists” attack "trans people"?

I suppose there is a certain amount of derision towards a particular variety of "trans people": the ones of the Malaga Airport tendency. But those "trans people" are generally white and privileged and heterosexual and have never been marginalised in their lives. They are also male. So does she think that women are now so powerful that criticising white, privileged, heterosexual males is "punching down"? Even when some of the women criticising those males are not white and privileged and heterosexual?

“How could you be so white and privileged and heterosexual and never marginalised in your life yet you decide to punch down on people?”'

As others have said, breathtaking ignorance and hypocrisy. Who is doing the punching down on whom when the uber privileged wealthy woman tells traumatised and poor and vulnerable women in rape centres, prisons, and hospitals to actually shut up. To actually. Shut. Up. Inconceivable.

The WEP made women in politics look like chumps and tarnished modern political feminism.

Do you apply this to all lesbian couples where only one gives birth? Or just Sandi Toksvig? I know several lesbian mothers who would be deeply upset at the idea that they 'commodified' their dear children by not being the parent who physically gave birth. They didn't rent a womb from some random woman overseas, they made a commitment to have a child with a woman they loved and hoped to spend their lives with.

Presumably if the lesbian couple have one each, that's OK? I know cases like that too.

You can throw insults as much as you like
Is that directed at me? Just because I objected to the suggestion that not having given birth means that a woman does not understand sex and biology ? That's an insult??

Or was intentionally from the start an exceptionally arrogant and politically motivated person who intended to commandeer 'feminism' to benefit themselves and their mates.

No other kind of 'woman' is anywhere on this person's radar, she speaks with open derision and anger towards them for being not her sort.

There is unfortunately a point where the good will of assuming someone is really that limited, that unaware, that wholly blind to other people, becomes overly generous. Too many times women have granted this kind interpretation to people who have later proven to know perfectly well what the issues were for women but didn't quite have the nerve to own their prejudices and dodgier views in public.

Honestly, "I could weep" that one of the people who founded the Women's Equality Party turned out not to be a feminist or to understand what one is.

The "Women's" Equality Party is a toral waste of space, and its priorities are reflected in the fact that the founders think that.

She says she didn’t like working on Bake Off because you can buy cakes in shops so the whole process of baking was not enjoyable for her

as she didn’t arrive from Mars yesterday, I think it’s fair to assume she knew what baking involved. How odd she didn’t discover this antipathy until she’d accepted the large payment from channel 4 to present a baking show 🤔

She seems to have a lot of difficulty in understanding other people in general. She says she didn’t like working on Bake Off because you can buy cakes in shops so the whole process of baking was not enjoyable for her.

I get that some people just don’t have much interest in food and a cake is a cake to them, but surely it’s not difficult to see that a handcrafted product can’t compare to something from Sainsbury’s.

Honestly, "I could weep" that one of the people who founded the Women's Equality Party turned out not to be a feminist or to understand what one is.

Believing that we don't need a word for female people or any single sex spaces or sports for female people, and that if female people want a word for themselves and some single sex spaces and sports it means they're hateful bigots because they should be prioritising the wants of male people instead is very much not feminism, Sandi.

Humans can't change sex, and gender is what feminism was supposed to be fighting against.