The Tories aren't serious about protecting biological sex - Spectator article.

This is unrealistic. Men's and women's clothing, even when quite similar, looks different because we have different bodies.

You also can't get away from the fact that we have culture, and a cultural history, and that "gendered" clothing is essentially a material culture reflection of a) the fact that we have different bodies, and b) the fact that we are pretty interested in people with different bodies.

Even if you could hit some Utopia button and wipe out all of our present material culture, you can bet that in 100 years, or probably a lot less, there would be a new one.

Here is the thing about the "some men just really want to wear dresses to express themselves" idea. They aren't wearing men's dresses. They could - there are dress like garments conventionally worn by men around the world. There is a man in my church congregation from west Africa who quite often wears a sort of dress-like robe which is very clearly meant for a man. No one thinks he is dressing as a woman, or gives him any trouble. Even though it's unusual where I live, he is clearly a rather fashionable and professional looking elderly male.

That is not what you see with men who wear women's dresses. They don't really care about the dress. They care about dressing like women.

I think he was enjoying seeing what he could get away with.

I thought the Canadian guy with massive fake breasts was doing it to prove a point? That " dressing like a woman" is unquantifiable and problematic.

Yes, absolutely!

Maybe, in the past e.g. the Hollywood Golden Age, people watched celebrity lives as though they were characters in a soap opera and saw them as entertainment. Nowadays, Sleb Culture promotes famous people as role models, and their lifestyle as being something to aspire to, and that is not good for society as a whole because the type of people who become famous and rich are not always worthy of emulation.

I don't disagree at all, @UtopiaPlanitia . We shouldn't set so much store by them, but in the current social climate, more people will be encouraged. People used to think, oh, it's just 'Planet Hollywood', they live by different rules there. Nowadays, not so much.

It’s clever that she is taking aim at the Tories. I didn’t see that coming.

Celebs, in our society, set a cultural standard in some ways and have the cultural capital to influence society in lots of other ways, otherwise they wouldn’t be constantly asked to promote products and charities or to give their opinions on matters of the day.

What Perry, Beckham and Izzard get away with in their rarified milieu will be encouraging for those who want to copy or promote such behaviour in wider society. It becomes something to point to in terms of 'If he’s allowed to do it without anyone complaining, then why can’t I do it too?'

it looks like we're going to have to revert to some sort of 'gendered' dress code in order to keep out the men who want to make us unwilling participants in their kink.

Or make clothing so un-gendered that no clothes are sufficiently coded Woman to support it.

I don't mean everyone wears a grey overall BTW, I mean everyone can wear grey overalls today and sequins tomorrow if they fancy it.

TBH given how many blokes seem to want to wear them, it won't be long before suspenders and stockings is read as menswear anyway 😂

I'm in the "dress however you want" camp with an added dose of "and damn well wear it fabulously!" - but I want to see the GRA repealed because it accepts without question that something in a man's mind or in how he lives makes him more like a woman than he is a man (or vice versa) which is a sexist and regressive understanding of men and woman based on the belief we naturally just have different minds and social preferences, not someting we should enshrine in law.

Surely it's best not to set too much store by the actions of 'celebs'? Perry, Izzard, even Beckham, don't have much to do with ordinary people's lives. Even 'ordinary' transsexuals/transvestites. They live in a charmed world where they not subject to the kind of social restrictions ordinary folk are.

It's really amazing how transvestism has disappeared as a concept. Ten years ago it would not have been controversial to say some men cross-dress for erotic thrills. It's one of the more common male fetishes. Now the very idea seems to be seen as Hitler level bigotry.

I'm not sure that repealing the GRA is within the sphere of what's politically possible - right now, I'd say it isn't. But it's a bad law with lots of unforeseen consequences, and it's helpful to have a few people out there making the argument.

The GRA needs to be repealed because it is a bad law. It mandates that society accepts a lie as truth, a fallacy as fact.

Agreed, but surely the truth is, that's not even on the horizon? Nobody is going to commit to repealing the GRA anytime soon, least of all the next Labour government.

If you don’t support removal, do you consider the definition of the protected characteristic in EA 2010 as overly broad and that it could bear re-drafting to reduce it’s usefulness to men with less than admirable intentions/behaviour? I would prefer it to be more of a shield than a sword.

the removal of gender reassignment as a protected characteristic

I disagree strongly with this. However much I disagree with their belief system, discrimination against trans people in housing, employment and the provision of goods and services is totally wrong.

Equality and non-discrimination for trans people can still specifically define that being transgender does not give access to single-sex facilities for the opposite sex because sex and gender are different characteristics.

It seems FWR has had an influx of 'observers' of late as there seems to be an increase in deletions on topics that have usually been discussed robustly but amicably enough in the past 🤷‍♀️

messed up my asterisks/bolding there

Yeah, we know.

What are labour doing about it?

The GRA definitely needs to be repealed. It's nothing to do with whether a man should or should not be allowed to wear a dress.

The GRA needs to be repealed because it is a bad law. It mandates that society accepts a lie as truth, a fallacy as fact.

A man who is discriminated against for wearing a dress could surely make a claim on the basis of sex discrimination if a woman would not have faced discrimination for wearing the same dress

Exactly. Trying to make such a claim on the basis of "gender reassignment" is regressive.

Here's one of my favourite Magdalen Berns videos responding to a woman trying to make the argument for wearing "men's" clothes on the basis of "trans". Same thing would apply with the sexes reversed.

And it works better because the rule based on sex discrimination is "would you let a woman dress like that"?

A test which quite a few men would fail, such as the Canadian woodwork teacher. The "trans" justification blocks such a sensible approach.

If the GRA was abolished or the Equality Act amended so that sex means bio sex then I think a law requiring single sex spaces to be provided may not be required . (There's already legislation requiring single sex toilets in workplaces and schools I believe ). A shop would either have to have single sex changing rooms or unisex. Changing rooms based on "gender" would be discrimatory as the single sex exemptions of EA cannot be used. I can't believe that most customers would be happy with unisex changing rooms so the shops would have to bring back single sex facilities.

The Tories are using women to try and desperately gain any shred of credibility. It's bullshit. Their policies have historically been appalling for women. They care not about women, children, the poor, sick, elderly, non white population. The only people they support are rich tax dodging middle aged men.

A man who is discriminated against for wearing a dress could surely make a claim on the basis of sex discrimination if a woman would not have faced discrimination for wearing the same dress

Then make a different law that 'allows' men to wear a dress.

Back to grayson, he has definitely not been discriminated against for wearing a dress even with his arousal on full show under said dress.

Beckham wore a sarong eons ago, much was made of this in the press, but he certainly hasn't been discriminated against.

Izzard is now wearing a dress part time, also not discriminated against.

Forgot to add for those who actually want to read the article and seems to be behind a paywall it can for found at https://archive.ph/dAqzs