This puts me off Girl Guides.

[NormaStanleyFletcher]

I always expected Girl Guides to be a fully female environment. And WTF about not telling parents if it isn't?

"Thanks for your email, and taking the time to read our updated equality and diversity policy. If an adult self-identifies as a woman then they are able to undertake all adult roles in guiding including becoming a Leader. This means that they may also, if they wish, make their Promise.

With regards to sleeping arrangements at residential events, it is important to work with the trans individual when organising accommodation rather than making assumptions or arrangements without consulting them. Some people may not feel comfortable sharing accommodation so in this case an alternative option should be provided. As membership of Girlguiding is decided based on gender identity (the way a person self-identifies their gender identity), there is no requirement to provide any documentation to evidence their transition. Please also be advised that it is not best practice to tell parents that a trans person will be attending a residential event.

You may find our Let’s Talk about Gender and Gender Identity resources helpful to support any conversations around this topic, should the need arise. At the back of each document, there are also some links to recommended external sources which will also provide some helpful advice on this.

I hope this is of help, but if you have any further queries, please don’t hesitate to get in touch."

This is why you can't have spaces based on gender or gender identity, Itsallgoingtobefine. Because gender & GI can change, or be fluid.

Whereas sex doesn't change.

"The feminists I have met would all want trans people to be safe, to have employment, to be protected by law etc etc.

That doesn't mean we want to roll over and allow 'female' to be defined by what a male says it is. That is the difference."

I think this sums up how I feel perfectly.

Yes, but I feel I need to point out that you are basing your arguement on 'sex' which from what I understand is purely biology. If I am understanding correctly, gender is a different thing.

How can you justify excluding a child because they don't identify with a random accident of the fusion of two gametes?

Me too.

That is why I'm called a TERF - because wanting transpeople to be safe from male violence, be protected from discrimination in housing, employment etc., have legal rights, access to therapy or medical procedures where that is the most appropriate path, be enabled to dress and present as they want without getting shit for it; all that is not enough. Only supine submission to a male version of femaleness, will stop you being called a bigot and a transphobe. And even that might not be enough, if they suspect your heart's not in it.

I don't identify with my gametes either, the concept is meaningless.

I wish i was richer, i wish I were taller, should people pretend with me that either is true?

Banty, could a white boy identify as black and enter a club because he feels black?

Or, are you saying that GG are an organisation that by your definition requires its members to not only identify as female (gender) but also be biologically female (sex)?

Banty, gender is a hierarchy where things which are deemed female are at the bottom and things which are deemed male are at the top.

It's all made up. It's all cultural. What's considered male and female attributes, changes according to century, culture etc., but it is all made up.

Sex is real. It doesn't change according to culture, century etc. And women and girls are systematically disadvantaged and allocated the lower gender role in the hierarchy, because of their sex.

'Only supine submission to a male version of femaleness...'

Could you expand on that, Basil?

I'm wanting to understand your position - I'm not trying to be adversarial.

Oh, cross posted, Basil. Your latest post - I couldn't agree more.

However, where does that leave individuals who do not fit into that social construct because their orientation doesn't fit their biology which leaves them vulnerable, and more importantly, for me anyway, as a woman who understands what it means to be seen as less purely because I'm not only biologically female but I also identify as female, where does that leave me inhaving compassion (and also being a mother of a 'girl') in, quite frankly, feeling empathy for being marginalised because of an accident of birth and, to boot, not identifying with that random 'accident'?

Banty - can a white person identify a s a black person, you know black up and enter a black only space?

Gender is like the caste system, unfair, insidious and entirely made up.

Banty, a male person who says he knows he is female inside, is by definition imposing a male version of what he believes female is, on women.

Because how can he know he is female, just because he feels like a female? How does he, a male, know what being female feels like?

It doesn't make any sense and the only reason people didn't say so more vociferously years ago when some men first started saying it, is because they were being kind. No-one wants to hurt anyone's feelings and that's right and proper and nice, but now that transactivists have shown that they don't give even a flying little fuck about women's feelings, and have mounted a project of destroying the sex-based protections our foremothers fought to get us in favour of pretending we have privilege because we look pretty sometimes, we need to go back to basics and really examine what we are being told about being a woman, so that we can defend the paltry rights that were so hard-won.

I have literally NEVER come across a description of what "feeling like a woman" means, without encountering sexist stereotypes which are all part of the gender hierarchy imposed on women by men.

Sorry I cross posted too.

If I understand your question correctly, you're asking where it leaves men and women who don't feel they fit the gender box.

Well, I don't know any man or woman who fits the gender box. Where it should leave people, is on the side of feminists who want to smash gender to liberate women and men from patriarchy.

But unfortunately, a tiny but vocal group of transactivists have decided that upholding patriarchy is much better for them and guess what, mainstream culture is delighted by that and seizes eagerly upon it because at gut level, they know it's another weapon to use against uppity women.

Totally Basil.

Folk don't realise that transactivists are campaiging for transrights - many which are at odds with women's rights as we have known them. I pisted this tweet on the women's march thread. See the support it has.

Even in that recent documentary about transgender kids, the emphasis on lipstick, frilly frocks and glitter was extraordinary.

Two things occur to me. One is a point somebody made in that documentary that I havn't seen discussed anywhere else - that religious and right wing parents are happier with their children being transgender than gay because they end up having relationships with the "right" gender. So your gender non conforming child can be tidied away. I presume this is a particularly attractive proposition now you're not allowed to try to "cure" gay people any more.

And the other is to wonder what would happen to a woman who self identified as a man and, for example, tried to insist on being a Mason. Or a Catholic priest. Or a girl who wanted to go to Eton. I bet that wouldn't be allowed.

Bamba - the transactivists were horrified by the women's march weren't they. Any mention of female biology is now seen as transphobic, yet women are oppressed because of their biology.

It's insane isn't it?

Even 10 years ago, everyone in public life would have agreed that saying that penises can be female, is fucking insane.

Now you're a bigot if you don't believe that. If you don't believe that my favourite transwomen Danielle Muscato is a woman, then you are a horrible transphobe.

Yet Danielle's logic is absolutely sound: if you believe that men can be women because they say so, then why the hell should they take hormone treatment or have an operation to make them look like all the other women out there? Since woman is just a feeling, it stands to reason that the body they are born with, is a woman's body. So no need to transition and you are a bigot if you believe a woman should look like a... er... woman and have the same genital markers or at least an approximation of those markers, that women have.

I actually agree with that logic. Where I disagree, is that woman is just a feeling. It's not. It's a biological reality.

I assume we've all seen the little boy with five sisters who is now a trans girl?

Oh joy his mother is soon to get her breasts cut off.....and become Dad.

No one thinks this is sinister.

I'm hoping they will inspire more people to reach peak trans.

And the other is to wonder what would happen to a woman who self identified as a man and, for example, tried to insist on being a Mason. Or a Catholic priest. Or a girl who wanted to go to Eton. I bet that wouldn't be allowed.

They wouldn't even try Bert - females, however they identify, don't generally assume they are entitled to access the space of others at their expense.

I am actually tempted to make enquiries at Eton on behalf of my non existent trans boy child and see what they say......

italiangreyhound

I really like your posts. I am sure we'll disagree, but I think your civility and engagement is really admirable in a debate which creates a LOT more heat than light for the most part (which is why I'm reluctant to wade into it again).

To respond far more briefly than your great post deserves (for which apologies):

I am a woman, pregnant with my first child, a daughter. I don't dispute in any way that biological sex is a fact (although it is not a binary fact, as intersex conditions are a lot more common than is given any scope by the biological essentialist position). I am also a serious feminist, anti racist ally, socialist - fundamentally wherever I see oppression and exclusion (sadly everywhere!) I wish to support the oppressed class (be they a minority or not) and seek to include them. I am also intersectional in my approach - I acknowledge that while membership of the class 'woman' oppresses me in many ways, it privileges me in others (e.g. far less likely to die by violence than a man, far less likely to commit suicide, far less likely to end up homeless), and my membership of other classes (white, educated, middle class, heterosexual) means that I will also have some privileges over men in other of those categories. This doesn't mean 'its all the same, men are as oppressed as women nowadays, feminism is obsolete' rubbish. It just means it is not a zero sum game.

I truly believe inclusion and dialogue are the paths out of oppression and division, and so I am resistant to the idea the way to solve our problems is to ghettoise ourselves. While I appreciate not everyone feels as I do on the subject, I have always struggled far more with being excluded from spaces than with being unable to find spaces 'just for me' (depending on my relevant attribute). I feel like men-only institutions discriminate against me. I don't think the most constructive response to this is to demand women-only spaces, as it seems to reinforce and replicate the idea there are fundamental differences between us that require separation. I appreciate not everyone feels this way. I wish there was a way everyone's feelings on this could be respected.

I don't feel the need to insist trans women ARE women, as some trans activists and allies do. However, as a definite certified woman, I don't feel the need to insist they are not, never can be, and to police the borders of my sex category. I want my sex category not to matter for any practical purpose (what I can wear, do, be, who I can associate with and have fun with). I don't want to shed it at all; nor do I want it to define me. If someone with a penis or born with a penis feels a real need to call themselves a woman, it doesn't hurt me, because my fundamental identity is not tied up with my womanhood - I feel no need to defend the category from 'outsiders'. I feel a little sorry for both the trans women and the women assigned female at birth to whom it is such a big deal they need to b e validated in that category or to police it. But wherever possible I will be courteous and respectful their need to identify a certain way. It doesn't hurt me to call a penis-bearer 'she', or to let them play/camp with my daughter. If I catch anyone telling my daughter she can't be a girl if she doesn't behave in a 'feminine' way, they'll feel the back of my hand, however. Where I disagree with a lot of those shocked at the GGs policy change is that the inclusion of penis-bearers is a direct invitation to sexual assault. The vast majority of sexual abuse goes on inside the home and within the family. Should I not trust my father or my partner with my daughter because of their penises? With herr teachers or cousins? Instead of paranoically profiling half the population as dangerous, I will get to know my child's carers and playmates, make my judgements about risk, and most importantly encourage her to know her boundaries and to trust me and come to me if she ever feels they were not respected.

Finally, I feel great pity for trans children (or even those who are just confused) trying V to make it through our gender-saturated society. I don't want to enact feminism's battles on their innocent young psyches. Tell a child with a penis who calls themselves a 'girls' name and wears a skirt they should go to a boys' group, or sleep in the boys' dorm in a mixed group? I haven't the heart for that frankly.

Convoluted way of saying wouldn't it be nice if everyone was nice I supoose. I just want all of us to trea

I agree with BibbleWanda. I am horrified at the way there will soon be no places anywhere solely for women or girls. No one assumes that all trans-women are sexual predators, that would be ridiculous, but as transwomen are male, and as sexual predators are overwhelmingly male, sexual violence being largely a male crime, then there will be , and are, transwomen who are also sexual predators. Women and girls need spaces segregated as they always have been, by sex. Segregation by feelings is completely ridiculous as feelings aren't quantfiable. No-one can tell what is really going on inside someone's head. We can however, tell whether someone is male or female. I want my daughters to have spaces that are safe from males, and the erosion of that is something I would never have imagined even five years ago. I am not transphobic, I have no fear and hatred for males who want to live their lives in feminine clothing, but I have good reason for wanting women to have female-only spaces. I don't have a single female friend who hasn't experienced some level of sexual assault , groping, rape, street harrassment ,work harrassment, coercion into sexual experience, flashing. Not one single friend of around my age (early 50s) has escaped this. And there are women on this thread who think we don't need protecting? We don't need female spaces? MAD.

Lela

Way to go acknowledging women's privilege. Makes you a serious feminist.

I often think about men as a class killing other men and feel privilege.

Do I?

No. That would be bonkers.

Lela

You sound very very young. By not telling the transgirl to sleep with the boys you're saying the girls should allow him carte Blanche access to girlhood with them in their space....

Throwing girls under the bus because you don't want to be mean to a transgirl is far far away from any feminism I've encountered.

Lela

I'd say many here were complete trans inclusive not that long ago. I was, i'd have been arguing that TW were real women, should be included amongst women, were females just trapped in the wrong body - tbh - i had never given it much thought at all. Would have argued for TW, thinking and calling folk who said otherwise nasty narrow minded bigots.

I changed my mind a year or so ago and became much more gender critical - the more i became aware of what being "trans" entailed and what trans activists goal, demands and ideology was - and how it was damaging to women and girls.

Males are dictating to women and girls and getting laws changed to back up their wants and demands. They hate women and girls who don't agree with them 100%. I find it disturbing - and downright frustrating and infuriating.

Banty Earl Grey coming up, with milk? Or perhaps Lady Gray.