Transwomen - pseudumenopausal symptoms due to hrt - asked to approve work policy

Their symptoms are a side effect of the drugs, you are not missing anything.

Exactly @ProfessorBinturong

You might invite her to study the career of Isla Bumba.

Well, quite @MarieDeGournay The colleague in charge of these policies at my place of employ is about 25 and apparently came up through the ranks of student politics at her university when she was an undergrad. Nuff said.

this is an institution that wanted to include men in menopause groups, because otherwise they would be "exclusionary."

The meaning of inclusion and exclusion are a bit of a hobby-horse of mine at the moment. Both derive from ideas of enclosing, and that implies a fence, a barrier a separation between what is enclosed and what is not.

Otherwise what's the point? What's the point in having the gazelle enclosure at the zoo if the lions are let in so the gazelle enclosure is 'inclusive'.
Parrots in the penguin enclosure - why not? they're all birds, why can't they be included?
Like duh, that's missing the whole point of including and enclosing.🙄

There are lots of groups of humans which include some people and exclude others, quite logically and legitimately.

Drawing a line around the set of people who are biologically female, and not including people who are biologically male, is no more exclusionary than any for other group - political party members, left-handed people, citizens of Burkino Faso, primary school age children, welterweight boxers...

Otherwise all groups would have to be open to the the entire human race so as not to be 'exclusionary' of somebody!

Oh how unsurprising. My place is still saying that the trans-inclusion policy and the toilets and changing room policy are "under review."

Too right they are - before the SC decision, it was "oh anybody can use whatever facility they feel comfortable in."

Of course, no one thought about the fact that an obvious man, claiming he's a woman, might make women feel uncomfortable in a changing room. That would be too unkind. Mind you, this is an institution that wanted to include men in menopause groups, because otherwise they would be "exclusionary."

How unsurprising.

Yes @viques I was struck by that. As if actual women can just get on with it, and our "distress" or whatever is not worth noting or advising about.

Well done @GrimDamnFanjo !!

But the "legal advice" response is an excuse. The Supreme Court makes it quite clear: for the purposes of the 2010 Equality Act, "transwomen" are men.

If they want to run a mixed sex group for colleagues to discuss menopause, then that's OK. Don't know that any woman would go, mind you, if it meant talking about quite intimate physical & emotional stuff in front of male colleagues.

But a workplace policy under the mantle of the Equality Act needs to adhere to the law: transwomen are men.

Shame there isn’t suitable a sound effect you could have played to accompany the reverse ferreting! I imagine it as a backwards rendition of the Benny Hill theme tune played on a penny whistle.

Well done OP.

I think that is a pretty poor example to be honest. Menopause for women covered in six sentences. And the first people mentioned in the following five paragraph section dedicated to trans/ non binary people are men!

More sympathy and concern given to the dysphoria that might be caused to TIW by their female bodies going through menopause than the other symptoms all women are subject too during menopause.

Or checking the "Be Kind" advice policy document which is probably over 900 pages long
Be a while

Well done. OP. It's given them something to think about and legal advice may actually help rather than some other possible source of advice.

Well done, OP. Legal advice! They are obviously terrified that one of the Elect is going to kick off.

Well done, it looks like you said just enough to make them think, without dragging yourself into too much interaction.

I think keeping it brief and neutral and 'concerned about the organisation putting itself in a bad place by getting it wrong'.. is always good.

With a touch of the wide-eyed 'But surely....' where necessary

It's a sign of the somewhat-improving-times that they didn't haul you in for re-education, but got a bit worried and are looking for 'legal' advice - wrong profession, as borntobequiet said, they need medical not legal advice!

Well done, OP. I look forward to hearing more.

Legal advice.

What they really need is medical advice or a hefty dose of common sense.

Well bloody well done for making them sit up and think. Or prevaricate.

I can't believe women are having to go through this. Seriously. It's risible.

Just think how many posts would not have happened if this was the actual Mummy?

Obviously not actual sex.

For women it's even more outside their experience, and they have a harder time connecting it to an experience they can relate to.

It's also not something that many woman outside of professional involvement in forensic psychiatry or "sexology" actually want to think about or relate to.

The immediate, natural, reaction to being informed about AGP is disgust and a wish to escape asap from having details of the perversion implanted in their minds and memories.

Denial is also an easy way to shoo away and shut out awareness of a nightmare that risks polluting one's world view.

It used to be so much easier to think about these men.

Man steals knickers off washing lines = dirty pervert.

That was all there was to it. You didn't need to think about why he did it other than that he was a dirty pervert.

Just warn your kids not to go anywhere near the dirty pervert. Maybe report him to the police. Or someone's dad or husband might go round and frighten him off by threatening the dirty pervert with a bloody good hiding if the dirty pervert did it again.

I think this is a major aspect with AGP, and even some men have trouble with it - it just seems too weird to be true.

One thing I have realised as I've become older is a lot of people don't have a very good imagination, they can't easily imagine how someone would think or feel in a differernt way than they themselves would. It's only if they see something actually happen that it can click that it is real as it seems too far fetched.

For women it's even more outside their experience, and they have a harder time connecting it to an experience they can relate to.

Surely they shouldn’t put anything with pseudo in their policy. The very meaning of the word highlights that it is not the same as menopause.