The Grauniad on a damaging “reality” show

FFS.

Right. As I've said before. Who gets to take away my reality?

No one. And that's what it's about.

Wrong sex pronouns are all about power and control. They aren't about gender or sex. They are about trying to assert authority over someone else.

Reality doesn't cease to fucking exist. Men and women don't change gender as and when they stick on a bloody dress or trousers. We have individuals who in all seriousness think they should be addressed as she half the week and he the rest of the week. That's NOT about gender.

And someone who goes on about gender euphoria sure as hell isn't demanding pronouns because of anything innocent. Indeed attempts to 'correct' me over my brother are a clear power play.

It's being done here for the exact same reason. To try and belittle and control women.

To get off on it.

The magnitude of harms and the power balance of the social dynamics involved in this situation are asymmetrical.

When women correctly identify the sex of someone?

The dangers of creating a society where children are confused about sex pales into insignificance when considering the hurt a man feels when we see his sex? Really?

Come on, remember you are posting on a parenting site, and think about what you are saying.

Yep. Males are the oppressor class here, regardless of whether the male concerned happens to identify as a woman. The rest is noise.

You are invoking a false equivalence here and you are clearly canny enough to know precisely what you are doing, which places you firmly into 'bad faith argument' territory.

I utterly reject that assertion, and I find it offensive and in bad faith from you yourself.

abuse a member of a minority group by both dismissing their lived reality and knowingly weaponising language that they find harmful.

You are, either intentionally or because of your own bias, missing my point. I'm not placing one over the other. The answer I wanted was not "oh I guess we have to pick the female person then", it was the realisation that as long as we have the same word meaning two things this issue cannot be resolved. It is that, the claim on language itself, that need to be solved.

What you define it as "abuse" is in fact that a marginilised group, in this case women, does not agree to give up its own name, rights, language and autonomy, to accomdate another marginlised group.

When you define this as abuse you are creating a situation where the first group can never have a moral right to assert its own identity and needs as different, its own literal definition, self understanding and experiences as something that does not include the second.

How can this ever be considered reasonable, to literally overwrite people's own understanding of themselves and their own lives becausae you want their language for yourself?

It can't.

You cannot assert a group of people acknowledging real, meaningfully diference to you - not placing any value on that difference but simply acknowledging it exists - is "abuse".

oppression isn't a currency you pay to exempt your own harmful actions

And yet, in your reply, you are doing exactly this by prioritsing your need as a trans woman to be accepted a woman over female people's need to maintain their social, legal and political legitmacy as a single sex class.

The fact you assume your experience as a trans woman is "worse" than the lived reality of women in a sexist society speaks volumes.

If you honestly believe oppression isn't a currency you pay to exempt your own harmful actions, and I hope that you do, then please stop using your experience as a trans woman to justify the harm you do to female people when you redefine our womanhood and reframe lived experiences you have never had in support of your own projections on to us.

Women are not a metaphor for trans women's feelings of alienation from male society and their own male bodies.

My solution, different language for sex and gender, would allow both of us our existence, the truth of our lives and the language to speak of it, and our dignity. Yours does not. Please think about that.

by both dismissing their lived reality and knowingly weaponising language that they find harmful.

The sheer brass neck required to post this is quite something to behold.

The idea that this was more about daily affirmation and ‘euphoria’ was raised elsewhere

No one has to enable it. Women do not, children most certainly do not.

Men oppress women (as a class), not the other way round. That doesn't change because a man claims to be female. Quite the opposite, in fact: men who demand that women treat them as women are adding a whole extra level of oppression.

Regardless of the reaction from gender ideology believers you are right to ask this question

I recall an excellent quote by Sheila Jeffreys

‘As a feminist, I consider the female pronoun to be an honorific, a term that conveys respect. Respect is due to women as members of a sex caste that have survived subordination and deserve to be addressed with honour. Men who transgender cannot occupy such a position.’

@FlirtsWithRhinos We are chatting happily. The topic of Nadia comes up. Which language do you choose, knowing that either way one of us will be hurt?

You are invoking a false equivalence here and you are clearly canny enough to know precisely what you are doing, which places you firmly into 'bad faith argument' territory.

The magnitude of harms and the power balance of the social dynamics involved in this situation are asymmetrical. You are claiming that your membership of a large demographic consisting of half the population who are subject to one axis of oppression gives you carte blanche to abuse a member of a minority group by both dismissing their lived reality and knowingly weaponising language that they find harmful.

We do not legally or (generally) socially enshrine the right of one group to oppress minorities just because they themselves are oppressed. I'm sorry that the idea of not acting in a harmful way toward this minority group upsets you, but oppression isn't a currency you pay to exempt your own harmful actions and there is no mutually exclusive tension between 'not abusing trans people' and 'being a woman' despite your choice of framing.

your sex is not a matter of opinion. If you are of the opinion (!) that your gender doesn't match your sex, you acknowledge that your sex exists.

And no amount of legal threats, laws or otherwise (luckily you don't have self ID in UK) will persuade me EVER to call a man a woman or vice versa. Trans women (and i think I'm going to go back to transwoman) are men. Otherwise they wouldn't be trans. One thing i definitely can't be is a trans woman (or transwoman) becuase i am a woman. That isn't opinion it is fact.

And the sooner people who are trying to police factual speech stop trying to force it, the happier we'll all be.

That's really strange as I know that I would notice straight away that they were male. And I would be worried if I met them in the ladies and would probably leave.

I think if I met that person in the ladies I wouldn't even register they might be a TW. Or if I walked past them in the street.

I don't have to "justify my choices". I'm explaining my rationale. Don't give a monkeys if you think I'm justified or not to be honest.

I'd use Nadias name every time I referred to them, or gender neutral they/them where I could.

Which is pretty much what I do in real life too.

Also fwiw I share this view:
The other is me, who believes that women through history have been treated shittily because men took power and othered the female body, and that over time this has cumulatively built a society that, while it may pay lip service to female equality, through structural and social norms continues in practice to undervalue and disempower women, and that the idea that women's minds are "just different" is one of the core foundations of this.

But again I see it as akin to religion. I find a lot of religious ideas deeply offensive and have been called "prejudiced against Christians" on here. I wouldn't raise my personal views on why I think what some Christians believe is offensive in general conversation at work, socially etc. I would be courteous because it's largely irrelevant.

Yes men cannot tell in the same way that women can. I guess it makes sense that we need to be more vigilant as our lives can depend upon it.

You think the actor on Baby Reindeer looked like they were female? Bizarre. They are obviously male.

Some of the videos of TW that have been shared of transwomen are quite startling. They perhaps look like a woman in a still photo. Then you see the video, and they are standing talking and looking pretty much like a woman... and then you turn on the sound, and bam! Male voice.

I don't cross myself with holy water when entering a church as I am not a christian. I don't use opposite sex pronouns for people as I am not a genderist. All religions are utterly irrelevant including the church of gender and I don't worship when I find myself either in church (hatch, match, dispatch) or around pronoun people.

But on the other I'm not in the business of imposing my world view on others
The irony of using this to justify using other people's pronouns of choice 😬

I think the religion analogy works quite well. I am also not religious and am happy for others to hold beliefs so long as I do not feel obligated to engage in religious activity such as praying or signing hymns etc or pretending that I share any part of that faith.

And this is why I am not happy to use pronouns because it feels as if it is prioritising somebody else’s belief over my own. Increasingly pronouns have become an obligation and are symbolic of a person’s willingness to participate in what I view as ideological behaviour. You just have to look at the serious consequences for not “using pronouns” to understand that you are essentially engaging in the rituals of this particular ideology.

Trans ideology has evolved over time.

Yes. Very much like religion in fact. It starts from the conclusion ("God exists", "some men must be allowed to become women") and works backwards to find the arguments to justify it.

And when science, logic or social changes mean those arguments no longer work they abandon them and find new ones. The idea that science, logic or society don't support the arguments could mean the conclusion itself is wrong is unthinkable. The conclusion exists as a point of certainty regardless of how it is justified at any particular point in time.

No one should feel they must use incorrect sex pronouns.

Gender ideology is just that an ideology, and not everyone believes in it.

Deleting for accurate speech is an odd one, the use of the term ‘misgendering’ likewise

As the house of cards falls down perhaps we’ll see a move away from compelled speech attached to falsehood

Trans ideology has evolved over time.

• A man could be a woman if they performed feminity enough.
• TWAW even the ones who are expanding the bandwidth of what a woman is.
• now its heading towards sex and gender are different, and gender is what is in your head. Women are women because they have women gendered minds, regardless if the woman is male or female. And sex is broadly irrelevant "only their doctor needs to know".

In a way, its getting worse for women because it is deliberately confusing. Its no longer a subset of men wanting to fit in with women (whether we want it or not) to an idea that women can be female or, equally, woman can be an undefined gender identity, at the same time.

Yep. They knew exactly what they were doing. It wasn't accidental, it was a deliberate land grab. And it's forcing us to have the debate now on their terms.

That's why, now TRAs are grudgingly admitting that yes, sex exists, but gender is something different, it's important to make this point about language again and again.

TRAs framed the argument as "some men are really women" (and vice versa), so the nice, find-a-middle-ground types are running around trying to find a compromise based on just how much a man can reasonably be a woman. But take a step back and it's ridiculous, a nonsense. It's mixing up two completely different ideas just because they have the same words.

It's like trying to find a middle ground between a gravy boat and a sail boat - sure, intellectually you could do that but you've just ended up with something useless for either purpose.

My point is one doesn't have to negate trans people's view of themselves to recognise sex and gender are different things. Indeed, one has to recognise that sex and gender are different things to accept trans people's view of themselves.

So, being different things, it's entirely reasonable and ok to treat them as different things. The only thing that is obscuring this, the only thing that makes it hard for you and other well-meaning people to navigate, is the deliberate decision by trans activists to appropriate the language we use for sex as the language we must use for gender.

You say you don't want to impose on others, but by accepting the definition of sex terminology for gender you are doing exactly that. You are falling into the trap of only thinking about one group and imposing their "solution" onto people who do not want it and find it demeaning and marginalising.

Thought experiment for you.

You are chatting to two people.

One is a TW who believes deeply and genuinely "she" and "woman" are the appropriate terminology for TW because something in their minds makes them women regardless of their bodies.

The other is me, who believes that women through history have been treated shittily because men took power and othered the female body, and that over time this has cumulatively built a society that, while it may pay lip service to female equality, through structural and social norms continues in practice to undervalue and disempower women, and that the idea that women's minds are "just different" is one of the core foundations of this.

This is not just intellectual disagreement - I find the idea that a man can decide for himself he is actually a "woman" because his mind is somehow "womanly" deeply, deeply offensive. It distresses emotionally because facing the degree to which society historically and still is stacked against women triggers feelings of helplessness and disempowerment.

To refer to a TW with female language and thereby put both me and the TW in a group of "the womanly minded" denies my beliefs includng my beliefs about my own self just as much as using male language does for the TW.

We are chatting happily. The topic of Nadia comes up. Which language do you choose, knowing that either way one of us will be hurt?