Giggle v Tickle Friday 15th May 2pm AEST

That trans people are an existential threat to women. That she represents all women. That she is being censored. That men can't be women to name a few.

Has always irritated me. An easy get-out. You actually can compare apples and oranges: both are round and edible but have different textures, both are maddening to peel. It's possible to compare what I did, too. But you need to get into the honest detail to do it.

Yup, but at the risk of you wilfully missing the point of a simple phrase again that even the most unsophisticated minds seem to understand is details matter. The women's right to vote however you wish to bastardise to preventing a sub category of women being recognised isn't going to fly in rational circles. And in case you missed the obvious other difference, the right to vote actually has consequences on women broadly. Excluding trans women? Not so much.

Clarification needed. I think what's meant is, "Comparing women's past campaign to be recognised as a distinct political demographic through suffrage laws, to women's current campaign to be recognise as a distinct demographic in sexual discrimination laws," is ludicrous. How? Tell me more (again, detail needed!)

The past campaign was essentially the right to vote. That you wish to twist this into recognition of a distinct demographic thru some mental gymnastics is on you.

Depends how you define substance. Just to start, I'd say that both

1. Dismiss women as a distinct demographic ("You don't need the vote" ≈ "You don't need a word")
2. Position women as secondary to, and represented by, men ("Men will decide what you need (in voting for you)" ≈ "Men will decide what you need and are (in removing the spaces many of you want by redefining you)"

I define it as it is: the right to vote v the right to limit what a woman is.

How are you defining "meaningful impact" here? I get the impression you're equating it to momentum or popularity? Because (regrettably) I honestly find it hard to see how Me Too had more concrete impact than a High Court case in Oz, a Supreme Court judgement in the UK and multiple other cases worldwide. And thousands of crowdfunders and job losses, and hundreds of grassroots campaigning groups, internationally - and (frankly, in comparison to MeToo) tens of thousands of media headlines. And to be more literal... how could it possibly have had more "concrete" impact than GC feminists argument for the (literally - sorry!) concrete walls around single sex spaces...

Meaningful impact as in the actual effects on everyday women's lives. As in women be sexually harassed at work was significantly more commonplace than them ever being harassed by a trans woman.

Metoo didn't have a meaningful impact on everyday women's lives? In terms of curbing un consensual 'enthusiasm' the culture has significantly moved on if education & behaviour is anything to go on. Is there work still to be done? Of course but to say the workplace is the same pre metoo just isn't true. You need to get out more in the real world.

As opposed to GC impact on women's lives broadly? Given the rarity of trans peoples presence, that would be a stretch.

As Helle points out, there's a fatal inconsistency in this argument, given that you're trying to convince us that this "infinitesimal" group should upend the language and social contracts of centuries...

On the very rare occasion one should sight a human unicorn being compelled to treat them as an equal isn't the grand existential upset you think it is.

Are Australians & Canadians abnormally misogynistic for some reason including their female populations? That would be a a very difficult comparable argument to make given their commitments to women's rights issues over the decade.
Also a bit hard to follow without rewording and a bit more detail.

Australia & Canada are global leaders regarding egalitarianism so to suggest they might be more misogynistic than others is nonsense.

More likely Gender critical ideology has a blind spot when it comes to accepting /understanding how typical associations drive word categorisations. They are so obsessed with gender stereotypes coopting behaviour they can't rationalise any other influences.

I unfollowed this thread a while back but, bloody hell, there's some cracking discussion from the past few days. I'd especially like to thank @Catiette for the crystal clarity of her post drawing comparisons with women's suffrage.

As to Gretel's feeble remark that it doesn't mean the substance of what is being argued is the same - well, Catiette couldn't have been any clearer about the parallel!

After every single point, she wrote: on women's fight for the right to distinguish themselves as a distinct political demographic, 1912 and 2026.

The substance is the same.

There is sometimes an assumption that if older women are more concerned about a feminist topic than young women that means support will 'die out' over time. This is incorrect if:
A - young women's views change with knowledge and experience as they become older or as they become parents
B - older women are aware of an issue and parenting children accordingly in a way the generation before didn't
C - societal attitudes change in ways that lead to overall popularity or increased individual awareness of the issue

I think the very small number of transwomen does lead many to forget it is an issue. For example I am 40 year old Australian woman and I have never seen a man in a women's only space nor played sport against a TIM. I used to work as a high school teacher and was never told to teach pronouns or gender ideology, nor saw such a thing in the curriculum. That's probably true for a lot of women. It is not something they have to deal with often, if ever, so you can easily forget the issue even exists. And not all women feel particularly aligned with feminism anyway, I certainly don't.

The media will be keen not to present it as an election issue, just like they did in the US despite research showing Trump's 'Kamala is for they/them' ads were pretty effective on swinging voters. Because the budget has just come down (coincidence?) they will (and are) painting any swing to Libs or One Nation as a reaction to tax changes. But this issue could easily be one of the causes.

People are only just becoming aware of the issue as it gradually creeps into their everyday lives. When they realise their children are being taught at school to use preferred pronouns and that gender identity trumps biological sex, or that there are males in their daughter's sports and changerooms. When they are going about their usual work and are told to remove the word woman or mother from a report or website. Perhaps they see a news story and realise that the desire to place vulnerable trans women in a safer prison environment has led to women being locked up with paedophiles and rapists, and that there has been a payout for at least one incarcerated woman as a result. Or that the rules they thought might be in place for a small group of fully transitioned, psychologically assessed, passing trans women were actually open to any man who says some words. And aside from those firmly on the conservative side of politics who are used to being called names, people are tentative about speaking up, when the employers and institutions and media are promoting it as inclusion and acceptance to embrace it and bigotry to dissent. And yet there is disquiet, and more and more people quietly saying this doesn't seem quite right. Colleagues, other parents, family members. Who knows, perhaps this ruling will be what galvanises a lot more people to speak up.

Yes, and if you look at what they did and what was said at the time, it was presented simply as adding a few new groups with protected characteristics - gay or bi (sexual orientation), intersex/dsd (intersex status), & trans (gender identity). All seemed like good aims. Sex was left in there (albeit with the definition removed). There was no discussion that this would affect the way women would be defined (that self-id was apparently the new 'sex' even though it was still called sex and nowhere does it say this had happened) and our legal protections. Much the same way that changes to the births deaths and marriages acts to allow self id have been presented as a simple administrative change that lets people have paperwork they feel comfortable with. Even reading the SDA, it looks ok - there are lots of exemptions for sex, protections for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding etc. It didn't get pushback at the time because on the surface it looked ok and no-one said that it was going to affect other people beyond the people in the 3 new characteristics groups.

A women's forum "contact your MP" template for Australians, please consider completing and sharing:
https://www.womensforumaustralia.org/fixthesdacontactmps

Thank you for this! I've been trying SO hard not to post HUH?! in response to the suggestion I was comparing suffrage to "modernity". Yup, that really would be ludicrous. I found the post as a whole rather hard to follow, but that was favourite.

Still, I'm going to try... a bit (cos tired)...

Apples & oranges.

Has always irritated me. An easy get-out. You actually can compare apples and oranges: both are round and edible but have different textures, both are maddening to peel. It's possible to compare what I did, too. But you need to get into the honest detail to do it.

Comparing suffrage to modernity is ludicrous given the obvious cultural & structural differences that functioned as barriers.

Clarification needed. I think what's meant is, "Comparing women's past campaign to be recognised as a distinct political demographic through suffrage laws, to women's current campaign to be recognise as a distinct demographic in sexual discrimination laws," is ludicrous. How? Tell me more (again, detail needed!)

And Just because a similar styles of argument are made doesn't mean the substance of what is being argued is the same.

Depends how you define substance. Just to start, I'd say that both

1. Dismiss women as a distinct demographic ("You don't need the vote" ≈ "You don't need a word")

2. Position women as secondary to, and represented by, men ("Men will decide what you need (in voting for you)" ≈ "Men will decide what you need and are (in removing the spaces many of you want by redefining you)"

I could go on (and on, and on... but wouldn't want to be incessant, would I?)

I would say, though - bloody hell, don't 1) and 2) show how women's equality is regressing...

Hence the mass disinterest particularly from those who it's supposed to help.

The "hence" here is currently hanging there unexplained, without a bit more explanation of what you meant by the previous bolded bit.

For a movement to get traction it actually has to make a meaningful impact on people it's supposed to affect like the METOO movement did.

How are you defining "meaningful impact" here? I get the impression you're equating it to momentum or popularity? Because (regrettably) I honestly find it hard to see how Me Too had more concrete impact than a High Court case in Oz, a Supreme Court judgement in the UK and multiple other cases worldwide. And thousands of crowdfunders and job losses, and hundreds of grassroots campaigning groups, internationally - and (frankly, in comparison to MeToo) tens of thousands of media headlines. And to be more literal... how could it possibly have had more "concrete" impact than GC feminists argument for the (literally - sorry!) concrete walls around single sex spaces...

Trans people being infinitesimal in numbers don't have that kind of an impact.

As Helle points out, there's a fatal inconsistency in this argument, given that you're trying to convince us that this "infinitesimal" group should upend the language and social contracts of centuries...

Are Australians & Canadians abnormally misogynistic for some reason including their female populations? That would be a a very difficult comparable argument to make given their commitments to women's rights issues over the decade.

Also a bit hard to follow without rewording and a bit more detail.

Well, I don't know Sal Grover, but even if she is Grifty McGriftface in person, males still don't belong in lesbian spaces.

By the way, Gretel, we are still waiting for you to tell us which of Sall's "talking points" are false.

Imagine needing to claim asylum in England to get away from the misogynistic Australian anti-women, anti-lesbian laws?

If she loses on the next round then I reckon Sal should give it a go

“Isn’t Australia traditionally full of macho men?”

No. Not noticeably more or less than the Uk

“A lot of them will be secretly hankering to be hidden as women if they don’t fit the stereotype or are really gay.” Not noticeably more or less than the UK

“At the same time they must want all actual women under their feet in the same old macho, misogynist way.” Not noticeably more or less than the UK

It is true that this change in 2013 has left an inherently misogynist legacy. But having spent a chunk of my life in both countries, I think there is a very lazy narrative that the men of Australia are more misogynist than the UK. This is not true In my opinion.

And I have experienced more negative sex discrimination in employment here than in Australia when you take this specific issue out of the equation.

Isn’t Australia traditionally full of macho men? A lot of them will be secretly hankering to be hidden as women if they don’t fit the stereotype or are really gay.

Others, pretending not to be gay but very much macho men, will be going to transwomen for sex, pretending to themselves they are really women so they can’t be being gay. ( Look it up, this happens.)

At the same time they must want all actual women under their feet in the same old macho, misogynist way.

Imagine needing to claim asylum in England to get away from the misogynistic Australian anti-women, anti-lesbian laws?

Are gay men there allowed to meet without transmen present I wonder?

Let's add that if you speak out against any of this you may risk your friendships, your relationship with your children, your job...

Exactly!

Sounds exactly like what happened here in Ireland. The people who wanted the legislation pushed through knew about it but the public didn’t, in fact it was deliberately tacked onto a far more popular Bill, and the legislature didn’t meaningfully interrogate the proposed legislation to prevent negative outcomes. It was all a bit Douglas Adams to be honest:

‘But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.’

Great post!!

Perhaps someone can explain why modernity apparently means:-

1. Female prisoners to be incarcerated with intact male sex offenders
2. Disabled females not being able to request same sex intimate care
3. Same sex attracted people being told they are bigots for not choosing opposite sex partners
4. Rape victims not being able to request same sex counselling
5. Females who are victims of sexual violence not being allowed any spaces that are free from males
6. Children being told they are in the wrong body and subjected to irreversible medical intervention

Do I need to continue?

This is one of the most regressive periods for women’s rights in decades and the fact that people try to wrap their sheer misogyny in virtue is offensive. It’s like some people still think one half of the world’s population are lesser to the other half. Women’s safety, privacy and dignity rank lower than the hurt feelings of males. How is that modern?

You know Mr Tickle appealed as well, I assume? He’s no shrinking violet when it comes to harassing women.

And I'll also add: dismissing a woman as a "grifter" because she set up a business to meet a need for female safety after having her first career route destroyed by sexism is frankly disgusting. Jason brought the case against her; she had no choice but to fight it, and as ever, she's the one having to crowdfund and be utterly consumed by it, during the pregnancy and early motherhood years that no trans identifying male will ever experience. He's the one with a fully captured institution behind him paying all his costs and knocking at the highest levels so she and other women can't ever get away from him, men like him and men worse than him. And she's the grifter? The villain?

Absolutely fucking shameful. Misogynistic and disingenuous in the extreme. Bullshit.

There is a certain type of left wing person who very lazily and complacently assumes that being left wing means they are automatically correct (hence "right wing" being used as a conversation stopper; all I have to do is say it's right wing, and it's wrong). Quite apart from being incredibly intellectually and ideologically lazy and tribalistic, it's also total shite. Women existing as a distinct sex class with sex based rights is not a right wing tenet, and it's rather a sign of how little Gretel knows about the issue that he is not aware of the Communist Party's stance on the matter.

Added to that is a certain type of left wing man who is hugely supportive of women's rights only as far as they also benefit men. So they are massively in favour of things like abortion and sex work, but things like single sex spaces are somewhat less pressing, in fact of no importance at all; and of course, if you can tell yourself they're right wing, you don't need to think any further. Convenient.

These men truly think that because they identify as left wing, they must automatically be progressive and morally superior. They will gaslight women, force Newspeak on them, reduce them to stereotypes, deny them the right to assemble without men, assume moral and intellectual superiority, blame them for not righting every worldly wrong before they start on their rights, trivialise their rights as "culture wars" (but talk at length about it themselves) and castigate them for not willingly self sacrificing, and they honestly think this isn't the same old regressive sexist chauvinism known since year dot. There's even woman beating in there, just as long as it's a man pounding a woman in a boxing ring or rugby match.

Exactly! Actual women don't fight with eachother about being called a woman because we are just women.

@Helleofabore More likely is that, like 6-7 years ago in the UK, women hadn't worked out just how many aspects of their lives were / would be impacted and hadn't realised what they could do to change it.

Perhaps it shows how many people either are not engaged in politics, or have a lack of critical thinking. But then, the same lack of critical thinking applies to our actual politicians!

There is nothing that has happened (sports, changing rooms, prisons, toilets, refuges, rapes...) that women on here did not predict long ago.