Why is Mumsnet so GC?

When we exist in public, we don't actually in practice categorise by (the massive oversimplification that comes under the heading of 'genetic') sex

This is absolute nonsense. Millennia of evolution has programmed us to spot who is a man and who is a woman instantly by sight or sound. None of us can get away from this.

Your argument is instantly destroyed by building it on the pretence that we don’t all do this.

Arguing to replace sex with sexist stereotypes, is not only harmful to men and women, but also ignores the massive database on men’s violence to women.

It is hard to imagine a more man centering proposition than your post,,without reading some Andrew Tate. You seem to think you are ignoring sex but all you are actually doing is propping up the interests of the male sex at the expense of the female sex.

Which, funnily enough, is what always happens when one ‘ignores sex’.

‘When we exist in public’.

The use of the word exist there is weird and indicative of how weirdly BH uses it in all the (many) statements BH makes about ‘existence’ and ‘existing’.

All this existential angst, while most of the world goes about just being male or female and getting on with life!

When we exist in public, we don't actually in practice categorise by (the massive oversimplification that comes under the heading of 'genetic') sex.

Ah but we do. And have finely honed survival skills developed that allow us to do this. We do it in person, and we do it online, without even needing to see visual clues. It's about biology, strength, aggression and male pattern behaviours of violence that are undimmed by any flavour of 'gender expression'. We see you because we need to see you because you represent a risk we need to assess and manage.

whilst radical feminism doesn't, not because of transphobia but because what it proposes is totally the opposite to the basis of radical feminism. Women as a sex class

I found your post really interesting @IwantToRetire

Can I make a plea though for not making statements like ‘not because of transphobia’. Every time we do this we link our ideas to the reader / listener with transphobia. The TRAs are doing this actively enough without us doing this too.
Your sentence stood without this ‘radical feminism doesn’t but because what is proposed is totally the opposite to the basis of radical feminism. Women as a sex class.’

There is no need for us to constantly repeat the slurs made against us. This just, even if subconsciously, links us to these slurs. Our case stands on its own terms, in its own language. as your sentence with the slur omitted illustrates.

My DB snagged himself an Irish passport after Brexit as we have an Irish grandmother. He is an EU citizen but he isn't actually Irish.

Now come on, you know this isn't true.

Men who wear women's clothes and make up do not get asked for smear tests, or if they want to go on the pill.

Do you really think we should put men in women's prisons because they've got a good plastic surgeon?

Or allow them to scoop every single female sports trophy going, because they've had their brow bone shaved an inch or two.

And should we tell women who take testosterone and grow beards that they need prostate exams?

No, of course not. When sex matters, it matters.

Perhaps you're talking about toilets?

Seven paragraphs and three years later, and the answer's still no.

Plus, any man who genuinely passes flawlessly won't have the slightest problem with toilets.

It's not necessary to keep whining on a feminist board for three years, when self serving deceit does the entire job for him.

Or not seen at all.

Women's needs/rights are not seen as legitimate.

the inclusion of the phrase 'proportional means of achieving a legitimate aim' was very carefully and wisely chosen.

But unfortunately appallingly badly executed - women's proportional and legitimate aims have been largely ignored. Even in the areas very specifically mentioned, rape support and sports - not merely open to males with a GRC but somehow thrown wide to anyone self identifying under the ludicrous stonewall 'trans umbrella'. Yeah, it turned out to be shit - needs sorting out to get rid of the replacement of clear, necessary sex categories by nebulous, pointless 'gender' ones.

Butterfly do you care how women feel? Genuine question. Do you care when women are hurt or frightened?

how we transition from one shit solution to a slightly less shit one?

I don't think turning female only spaces into mixed sex spaces is "less shit". I think it is considerably more shit. The vast majority of people don't have a gender presentation, just a sex. Making a large chunk of 51% of the population unhappy to appease >0.5% is not a less shit solution, it's just less shit for you.

How does being a man feel Bez? Was transitioning difficult?

I had a pink hoodie. I left it in WH Smith one day and never saw it again. I might get a pink one again but for now I am mainly wearing my blue one. That is My Fascinating Gender Journey, thanks for reading.

Help, I'm wearing joggers, a hoodie, trainers, and some make-up, my hair is longish. My next two social events are a football match and knit and natter. Help please categorise in a public toilet before I wet myself 😳

Oh, you know. A formless miasma of compliant submissiveness in fuck-me heels. As you do.

When we exist in public, we don't actually in practice categorise by (the massive oversimplification that comes under the heading of 'genetic') sex. We categorise by gender expression, which is a chaotic and vague mess of different factors and stereotypes. If a person looks 'male or female enough' to assign them a category one way or the other then, because we have been trained from birth to see humans as only one pole or another on a range of expressions, we do so.

We do do we?

I do no such thing. I categorise on sex. Always sex. The sex of a person is important to me, the gender expression I couldn't give a flying fuck about that. Gender expression isn't going to harm me! The above is all about how one male human sees things and does not reflect at all the way this woman, and the women I know, sees things.

I'm so pleased Ciara's powerful speech has been given publicity.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13108207/Grieving-mother-gripping-teddy-memory-late-daughter-slams-dehumanising-NHS-erasure-terms-like-mother.html

Sex matters. Words matter.

Tell the men who force their wives to have scans and then abort when the scan shows they don't have dangling bits growing that sex is contested and it's ok cos their child can just change their gender...

I utterly despair of the shite that some people believe.

Oh course there's fairies living at the bottom of my garden.

But important if true - we must tell women in Afghanistan!

I’ve lost track - logically if the sex binary doesn’t exist, what is a trans woman identifying as?

So much this. The utter self centred delusion required to think that the rest of the world operates the way you want it to, because you want it to, continues to blow my mind.

No one, from the toddlers in the local nursery to the leadership of the Taliban, is categorising humans based on whether they 'look female or male enough'. We correctly sex each other. That's it.

The problem was all too often hammering men and women into gendered masculine and feminine holes. The old 'gender binaries' are the fictions (different ones in different cultures and times which should be ditched.

The sex binary is real. There's no 'conceptual strain'.

😂😂

"If a person looks 'male or female enough' to assign them a category one way or the other then, because we have been trained from birth to see humans as only one pole or another on a range of expressions, we do so."

Nope. No training needed.

A baby can detect sex from observing a human. So can most people. It may be more difficult to detect in female people after testosterone, but even then it is not 'impossible.

Life must be really hard when you have been led to believe that people, particularly female people cannot perceive who is male after watching them move, and if needed hearing them speak. Certainly after some interaction it is quite likely. There is a range of cues. Even those who had their puberty stopped tend to also have cues. including height.

This happens with or without wearing 'feminine' clothes and makeup and whatever. This is probably the thing that infuriates so many people.