Jon Sopel's new book

But apparently some young children understand it and some adults including medical professionals, teachers, mental health practitioners and other people who come into contact with children go along with what these children say they are 🤷‍♀️

I think we need to give people more of understanding of safeguarding. Sex, as well as age are vitally important, as is always said here - no sacred castes.

I think the vulnerability of girls and young women transitioning may have an effect, but probably not for a few years.

Coming back to Sopel, and how you explain stuff to people who wilfully refuse to understand them, I wonder if the best answer to this question about "why does it matter when it involves so few people?" is to point out that it's just like allowing people to change their date of birth on their birth certificate.

If you allow people to legally change their sex, why not their age? After all, maybe only a few people would choose to do it, therefore it's fine, isn't it?

The point is the principle that you should not be able to enshrine a lie in law. It doesn't matter if only one person decided to change the date on their birth certificate, it would still be a fucking insane thing to do.

"I always wonder how a child knows he or she is “transgender” if it’s so complicated that a very smart person can’t explain it to another similarly smart adult".

Has anyone been able to provide a workable defintion of "gender" and "transgender" yet so we know what these concepts mean outside of any give individuals brain?

Don;t get me started on "transition" - what the fi=uck does "transition mean? Transition from what? From a "man who thinks he is male" to a "man who thinks he is female"?

none of it makes sense

Secondly, he repeatedly says that he can't understand why, when trans identified people make up such a tiny percentage of the population, it is seemingly such a big issue, completely missing the fact that allowing men to be considered women has the potential to affect 51 percent of the population.

I find it very frustrating when people don't get this. There are two answers to this. One is that, under self-ID, any man who says he's a woman is treated as a woman for all purposes. That means, not just a handful of men, but any man at all. Potentially all 30 million men (or however many there are) could choose to identify as women if they wanted. Chances are, most won't, but in giving the opportunity to each and every man, you no longer have a meaningful legal category called "women" with their own rights, spaces, activities etc.

Second, just one man can have a massive impact on a single-sex activity or space. Take Lia Thomas: when Thomas used the female changing rooms and paraded around with his dick out, that affected every single woman in those rooms. And when Thomas won women's swimming races, that affected all the women taking part in those races who no longer had a chance of first place.

If Sopel doesn't understand that, then I'm afraid he's a bit thick.

Me too. I always wonder how a child knows he or she is “transgender” if it’s so complicated that a very smart person can’t explain it to another similarly smart adult.

Its not what i believe, im talking about the logic that allows people to conclude that men with gender should enter women only spaces - that the risk of rape is so rare that, on balance, it shouldnt have the attention it has.

Its all rubbish. For the most part, women dont see toilets and changing rooms as places they arent raped in, they are places where we can be in a state of undress without too much embarrassment. A mother can keep the door ajar and pee at the same time as keeping an eye on her children.

The reason why people are saying its a difficult balance is that TRA are using the idea that minorities are by definition more vulnerable than the majority, and women only spaces are being redefined as safe spaces.

Therefore TW, being vulnerable, need access to those safe spaces.

Their maths doesn't quite reach the fact, that even if single sex spaces only exist to avoid physical attacks, the absolute number of vulnerable women and girls is far, far greater than the number of vulnerable men with gender. And those vulnerable men can still be a danger to women and girls.

I suppose what im trying to say is that often male inclusion isnt a postion people support without thinking, its that their assumption are off.

I experience this too.

I tried to watch the Will Farrell thing on Netflix but the discomfort caused by Will saying SHE for a bloke constantly was palpable & physical. Plus it hurt my head.

Clearly the man is lying. And he knows he is lying and yet he piously continues to lie & act like he's confused why people are so hateful & won't join in with all the lying.

I switched off very quickly.

On the News Agents he's generally nodding politely along to whatever Lewis TRA Goodall rants about

Sick of the “oh it’s so complicated’ comment from intelligent people!
No it’s not- it’s very simple
Unless he’s looking for woke points
I despair sometimes and feel like giving up
It’s draining

Additionally, the answer to some men being at risk is not to move them into the women’s facilities, but to work out why they are at risk and how that can be reduced, without affecting women’s rights.

Instead of instructing women to be their human shield and allies, they could ask men to accompany them to the male facilities and fulfil this function. That would make a far greater social impact and truly 'broaden the bandwidth of what it means to be a man'.

Agree. It sounds as if he wants to sit on the fence while remaining seemingly nice towards his former colleague.

That makes some sense if "being trans" is a measurable thing (ie it's based on some "genuine" test of gender dysphoria, or it's someone who genuinely wants to be the opposite sex, however you 'test' that).

But with self-id "being trans" means saying a thing or acting in a certain way (eg using opposite sex toilets). How can that be measured as a small number?

It's also the principal. What are you (not actually you! ) actually saying? That we should pretend people are physically the opposite sex? That we should actually change the definition of woman to accommodate all sexes - if so, to what? Don't just handwave it away as "for a few hundred people it doesn't matter about being clear on this".

This fails to take into account the fact that cross-dressing men are more likely to be predatory or commit higher levels of sexual offences, due to the fact that fetishistic behaviours and paraphilias cluster.

And that’s before we take into account the fact that men with criminal tendencies will also be likely to tell any lie that suits them to gain access to their chosen victims.

It also fails to address the fact that women have the right to dignity and privacy from the opposite sex, regardless of actual risk of being assaulted.

It’s also unproven that 99% of the 1% are at risk in male facilities. Perhaps if they engage in risky behaviour patterns, then they may increase their risk, but realistically this doesn’t hold true for most situations, such as using a male toilet in the workplace. They might receive some verbal pushback, but the chances of actual physical risk are small.

Additionally, the answer to some men being at risk is not to move them into the women’s facilities, but to work out why they are at risk and how that can be reduced, without affecting women’s rights.

It’s noteable that only women’s RISK is mentioned in your argument, but being TRAUMATIZED is somehow only a problem when it’s happening to men.

The logic is that if 1% of men are trans, and 1% of those are predators, and a small number of those will have the opportunity to attack women at any given time, the risk is very small.

Whereas 99% of the 1% of the population are in danger or traumatised in the male facilities.

So its a numbers game, basically.

I think that for those trying to see both sides, who don’t want this to be such a toxic culture war, the only possible rational reason for arguing that “trans people” should have the “rights” that are being demanded on their behalf is that their numbers are so few that it’s not going to have a massive effect.

I suspect this will be the next argument used by rational transavtivists. These arguments and discussions go in waves, which change over time as each is rebutted by women arguing rationally. Returning to the “numbers” argument conveniently moves the discussion away from the currently pervasive “what is a woman” question that has been leveraged to good effect by those arguing for women’s rights recently.

I understand this argument and it’s the one that won the discussion when the original GRA was introduced. It’s a tempting argument and I can see how easy it would be to fall into. If I look at my own life, on the surface nothing has changed and neither GRA, nor the march of Stonewall-led, “getting ahead of the law” self-ID has had a significant effect.

If you can bring yourself to believe that the majority of “trans people” are sad victims and very vulnerable, then you can make the argument that societally, we ought to try to find a balance between women’s right and “trans rights”.

However, anyone who’s been watching this for a while, can see that the point where there was a reasonable argument for that balancing act was passed a long time ago. In the UK, with the GRA and the EA, people who are going through a real medical transition are already well protected and have some “rights” or “privileges” (depending on your position) such as being able to change legal sex, which many already regard as dodgy. Most people don’t know and are shocked if you tell them birth certificates can be changed, for example.

It’s also becoming anecdotally obvious that even the current system is beginning to cause problems, particularly when it comes to sports, prisons and rape crisis. That is because it only takes a small number of men taking advantage to negatively impact a huge number of women.

As soon as self-ID is on the table, there is no possibility of balance, which is why there is such an uprising of women on Terf Island. It occurred when self-ID was about to be imposed and women spotted it in time as the usual below the radar tactics failed.

I can see how beguiling that argument is though. If I can cling to the low numbers argument, then I don’t have to be seen as being mean to anyone. It’s back to being a straightforward “balancing of rights” exercise.

What those arguing this fail to take into account is that we are already past the point where any kind of balance is fair and reasonable to women.

Unfortunately, persuading people that any or all current “rights” should be rescinded (for example making a GRA more difficult to obtain, stopping falsification of birth certificates or ensuring the EA only protects actual transitioning patients, as it was intended to do) goes against the expected march of “progress” which many would assume to be the gradual rolling out of all the “rights” currently being demanded by the trans lobby. That assumption is one one of the huge mountains we are having to work to overcome before we can persuade people to our cause.

I wonder if this is a result of the BBC disease of "balance". In their reportage they feel it's important to express both sides of an issue, rather than defer to the older principle that "it isn't the journalist's job to ask two people if it's raining, it's to look out the window".

I’m 100% sure he understands the reality of the situation better than he’s letting on.

He wants to give the impression of having thought seriously about it and developed a nuanced take, but doesn’t want to risk being too clear about his conclusions. He would have something to lose whatever they were.

Pretending it’s complicated is the well-trodden path through that minefield, right? It’s just so predictable and tedious, though. It’s a shame.

When I have spoken to the people who ask this question about the tiny number, I don't think, in general, it's because they don't understand women are half the population,

IME it's because they are really thinking in terms of a tiny number of people, where many of us will never even meet such a person and the most sensible thing is probably to manage them on a case by case basis.

They haven't really seen the extent to which it is affecting people in their jobs, or especially, kids at school who have nothing to do with any of it.

But we're suffering. Not him. Not men. We "have to" allow penises in female spaces and we should not "have to".

Anyone who believes TWAW generally don't say "its complicated". If men can become women, then its simple - single sex spaces remain single sex even when men with gender use womens facilities.

It only gets complicated when we know no one can change sex, men want to be treated as women, and we want to maintain single sex services. The complication is avoiding having to tell either men or women that what they want cannot happen.

he repeatedly says that he can't understand why, when trans identified people make up such a tiny percentage of the population, it is seemingly such a big issue

Its possible to see the comment above in two ways - how does such a small percentage of people have so much cultural power, or why are women concerns about a few men following girls into the changing rooms.

I think the view of many (most?) men, if you confront them with gender ideology, is, yeah, it's bollocks, isn't it? But, not my circus, not my monkeys.

I expect it’s complicated in the same way as his listening to John Humphries’ sexist rant about pay for women in the media was ‘complicated’, leaving Sopel no alternative but to simper “Oh John,,,,” 🙄