Feeling very proud of Terf Island and the strong women within it... internationally, are we the most successful in combatting TRAs? I know the bar is very low - but is anyone doing better?

Also very proud of Terf island, long may it reign!

I think it's to do with the British strong sense of fairness. It's why my parents were enamoured with this place (still are) when they immigrated 50 years ago.

Sorry, that was meant to be quoting this.

I agree mostly- I feel like England hits a sweet spot where it's progressive in the best sense for women, ethnic minorities, gay people...(record on working class people not good this century really but hopefully will improve) but not in the sense you outline of mindless 'progress' that ends up not being positively progressive but giving dangerous ideologies free rein : eg. Fascism, communism, eugenics...and this...

This moderation feeds into the press issue you mentioned: the more left leaning papers were shamefully cowardly w regard to top-down leadership but still had multiple journalists: Freeman, Moore, Bindel, Sodha etc who refused to knuckle under.

You can't travel the length of the UK in a day. That's from Land's End up to Sulum Voe in the Shetlands

Point taken, but...

Sullom Voe isn't even the Northernmost point of Mainland. Skaw, on Unst, is the most Northerly settlement in Britain.

INeedAPensieve · Yesterday 09:47

And yet the ordinary women of Scotland rallied round and with grit, determination and humour (humour is always needed in dark times) they took on a mammoth task and won. That three ordinary women in their middle years actually took on a powerful government (with international backing, money coming out of their ears and the strength of the patriarchy behind them) and WON is testament to the strength of character that Scottish women have.

I think that they were ordinary, yet proved themselves to be extraordinary. How many would have folded there arms, dug their heels in and refused so stubbornly to be pushed back?

I think the Canadian media has been really instrumental in making sure people don't really know what's going on with gender affirming care in hospitals and in research. It's actually quite sinister.

Agreed. Canadian healthcare is not for profit and it's absolutely captured.

However, the fact that the NHS is national may have helped. For all the criticism of the lack of data collection the NHS data seems much better than Canadian data. Healthcare in Canada is the responsibility of each Province or Territory so it's fragmented and hard to grasp what is actually happening (I'm thinking about gender affirming care for minors).

Also agree that the varied nature of the press in the UK has helped. I have very much appreciated the media like The Times that has actually done it's job instead of kowtowing to zealots (looking at you BBC and the Guardian).

I have to disagree with those who have said the not for profit health sector has been a factor. I am actually a bit surprised anyone would say that, as many of the worst affected countries also have not for profit health services. And they, rather like the NHS, are usually very captured on this issue.

Anyway, one thing that I believe has been a factor in the UK has been a fairly strong and varied press, much more so than some other English speaking countries, with quite a few widely read publications from differernt political views. The US also has many news outlets but they are much more polarized, and countries with smaller populations may only have a few major news outlets.

I also think there is a sense in which the English character is characterized by a kind of small c, grass roots conservatism. Even on the left. This is quite different than some of the colonies which seems to adopt a kind of progressive ideology which seems to believe change is the same as progress, which is very invested in seeing itself as kicking against the establishment, and which seems to have something to prove.

I also think that the UK has retained supremacy of Parliament more than some of the colonies and that has served them well. Here in Canada, or in the US, you will often see the courts taking a more legislative approach and that is considered to be progressive.

Thanks. Exactly.

You mean essentially he's using it to mock Orlando's unrealistic ideas about Rosalind by having him tell her them without knowing who she is? I'd agree.. it's not like he's implying irl these things would happen. Plenty of other unrealistic things happen in the plays : love at first sight & engagement the evening they meet for Romeo & Juliet for instance. . Or the God of marriage popping up at the end of As you like it

I feel exhausted driving from Leicester to Blackpool - 3 interminable hours including the bloody awful M6 (second only to the M25 in its Hellish nature)!😁

Fair enough, that's a slight exaggeration. I was think more in terms of cities - Glasgow/Edinburgh down to London, that sort of thing.

The problem with Trump is he's just leaving everyone to sink or swim. He is IMO right that there are only two sexes and you can't change sex, and no one should be made to pretend otherwise. But loads of vulnerable children and teens are caught up in it and still need help with the problems that have made them turn to GI, and the power structures and cultural forces that have led them towards it need to be replaced with sane ones. You can't just drop people in it - I can see how that could cause distress and harm and also plays into the "most oppressed" narrative.

In 'As You Like It' I think it's dramatic irony.

The UK has an incredibly strong tradition of organising and a solid feminist history - we owe the women who went before us so much for assuring the legal status our court and tribunal wins have been based on. Our wins are based on solid ground and not the whims of one person. The legal rights of LGBT people haven't been touched in this ruling either, only affirmed.

We also have the benefit of a relatively straightforward legal system and no written constitution (we have one, just not a written one).

In many ways it's not surprising that the unions and political parties etc turned their backs on us - we've had to fight every step of the way and they were never interested in women's rights, always trying to put us off until 'later'. Women have won everything for ourselves so it's not surprising we're putting up a fight. It's also not surprising that the rewriting of history and truth is a prerequisite to oppose us and get young people onside in one of the most openly anti-women and anti-gay movements I've seen in my life.

You can't travel the length of the UK in a day. That's from Land's End up to Sulum Voe in the Shetlands, which itself is a 12 hour ferry trip from Aberdeen (or a long flight ditto). I suppose you could fly, but that's the same for most countries.
I agree, though, that we seem to swim in sceptical water here.

Not sure why you exclude Trump US - his first EO was to ban transwomen from sex segregated space and from sport. This may have influenced people in the UK (though probably not the judges of the UK Supreme Court).

Yes – except that that era is clearly over now, for those paying attention*.

Of course if you’re not an early adopter—and I wouldn’t say Ireland has historically ever been one of the cool kids—then you can keep going for years yet without noticing that the wind has changed.

(* I should caveat that by saying that it’s not clear yet whether this is going to be an age of Retvrn, or whether it’s just more age of iconoclasm – only now it’s the progressives who are become the stuffy conservatives)

I think our strong sense of humour and dislike of pretension combined helped an emperor’s new clothes reaction. Remember that photo of the bloke in a wig and frock who called himself Melissa as the new green party candidate?

Brilliant @ @WhatterySquash

If you queer everything, it falls down.

I just urge women who have lacked confidence in this issue to get over on X or use some of the facts on here and show them to people to see what we are up against. That’s how I found out what was howling and how my friends and family have also seen the abuse women are getting, the threats, the risks, the misogyny, the cancelling, the recordings of men’s sexual offences as women’s, the invasion of sports, the arts… just PLEASE look at the facts and the stats and keep at it. I don’t believe people really understand they don’t understand the SC judgment and they do not know what has brought us here to this point.

Yes absolutely Ireland is similar, though as you said more of a reaction against past illiberalism and the power (and wrongs) of the church.

It's also all tied up with this recent concept that everything of long standing must be "disrupted", "queered", dismantled, changed even if for the worse, just for the sake of it. I'm not a conservative, at all, but some things are long-standing for a reason (like understanding that there are two sexes and they are not the same, and generally not just taking people's word for it about who/what they are, especially criminals). If you "queer" everything then basically it all falls down.

"With Scotland, I think so much of this has been about "we must be more liberal and lefty and "progressive" than stuffy old England/the UK"

That's the dynamic I meant when I said it's Ireland that worries me most. The devolved countries have the UK to do a tug on the leash when it all gets too stupid, and Canada ultimately can't ignore the US. But Ireland has the worst of both worlds – a ruling class that can't even see its own virtue signalling, while being an actual serious country with no real check on it if it does decide to go lunatic. Ultimately it's going to have to be the Irish people themselves who put an end to it, and given how febrile things can get there historically it ought to be a terrifying prospect for those in power there.

Australia seems to have the balance about right though, that seems like quite an impressive political culture looking from the outside.

With Scotland, I think so much of this has been about "we must be more liberal and lefty and "progressive" than stuffy old England/the UK government, in any way possible, never mind thinking about it if actually makes sense or helps people". And in some ways Scottish law and policy has been more left-wing in (IMO) a good way, but just leaping onto any "progressive" bandwagon without thinking it through or looking into the facts is not automatically a good idea.

(I think this might inform Canadian and Australian thinking too. "We'll show you we're more progressive and modern than stuffy old Brits")

The problem for people like Nicola Sturgeon is it's hard to climb down from such a ridiculous position as thinking males should go in female prisons because they say so, and the rest of it. What's she going to say? "I now realise the bleeding obvious was correct"? Hence all the "We have always supported biological same-sex spaces" type lies but NS and her flying monkeys cannot possibly get away with that.