Well, it’s happened... the trans activists have waded into the 8th amendment issue in Ireland

[AngeloMysterioso]

And are apparently pushing for the language in the repeal legislation to be “gender neutral”.

Quote from the article-

“Despite what some may believe, men can become pregnant too. There are tens of thousands of transgender men and non-binary people in Ireland who can conceive, and when speaking about reproductive healthcare, we must always be mindful of that.

“It’s imperative that newly written legislation uses inclusive language. By including this, trans men and non binary people will not hit legal barriers should they need to receive an abortion. By using the term pregnant people in new legislation, as well as protecting women, we are also protecting and respecting all gender identities should a crisis pregnancy occur.”

So. That’s nice. Thousands upon thousands of women have suffered, many have died, because of bullshit like the 8th amendment. And after fighting so hard for so fucking long and finally winning the right to bodily autonomy and reproductive rights, if the TAs get their way, we get to be referred to as pregnant people

I’m a bit of a TERF at the best of times but this is beyond fucking insulting. Savita Halappanavar wasn’t a pregnant person. Michelle Harte wasn’t a pregnant person. Sheila Hodges wasn’t a pregnant person.

If the TDs capitulate and let this happen I will be really pissed off.

Every time someone says "women are being erased" on here I just see Nick Griffin's sweaty face shouting "Britishness is being erased

Why?

It is truly remarkable how long it has taken to get women's health and lives taken seriously - and how quickly in comparison the transactivist ideology has taken hold.

Social media has been the friend of these dangerous and delusional individuals. They just set up a Twitter account or create a blog or go on Facebook, and they have an instant free platform from which to bang on about their rights, their feelings, what they want.

Women have spent generations fighting for what they've been able to achieve through the oxygen of publicity in a matter of months. Also it helps to be a man, so another instant advantage handed to them on a plate. And the more outrageous their demands, the more it fans the flames.

Every time someone says "women are being erased" on here I just see Nick Griffin's sweaty face shouting "Britishness is being erased".

If that's your frame of reference, then you have a bigger problem than the repeal of the 8th amendment.

They're tweeting about this, anyone articulate care to wade in/explain?

twitter.com/chip_daley/status/1002126736463671296?s=19

@math and there are 1000s of women and girls AND FEMINISTS that are not so fearful. You sound like conspiracy theorists you really do. As if the sole purpose of a trans woman’s existence is to sneak into a women’s toilet and whip out their dick!!! It’s ludicrius it really is

Classic DARVO, @strongmummy. When you can't argue from evidence, you launch personal attacks.

@mikado, thank you for that tweet. It's the second time a tweet on this thread has made me laugh out loud.

Sorry, the mtf trans had to vote under their “deadname” and that was a huge sacrifice. Really? Far worse than say the women, who fought and died for their rights or for women, who have had their basic rights denied for millennia.

The term "bleat" (as used on that Tweet) was just made for them. They bleat on about everything. Tedious. Not sure whether to pity them, I feel I ought to, they have a truly miserable existence.

It's either that or "cry me an ocean" ...

Are there many Irish on this thread? When I was a teenager in the 80s our local GP wouldn't prescribe the Pill and he wasn't the only one. Condoms were only available in chemists from 1985. Obviously this had the greatest effect on the women who risked pregnancy.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraception_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland
You'll know the awful stories from the 80s like Sheila Hodgers, refused cancer treatment because of pregnancy, Ann Lovett dying in childbirth aged 15 with a whole town pretending they didn't know what happened to her, Joanne Hayes falsely accused of murdering a baby with no evidence and that witch trial of a tribunal in Kerry

You'll remember Miss X a 14 year old rape victim refused the right to travel for an abortion in 1992, and the realisation we women had that it could happen to us. Or the students and healthcare providers threatened with prison for even providing such information.

You'll remember the fact that NONE of these things happened to men or non binary people or whatever stupid narcissistic fucking bullshit label was dreamed up five years ago. And you'll remember the joy and relief of women last Saturday, with our memories and our stories and our sisterhood.

Please don't open a war on another front, to please some vicious misogynists who want to take away everything we have, even our name. And ask yourselves why this drive to gender-neutralise never, ever happens to men's health.

OMG I had to use my legal name to carry out a legal process.
Some people really need to grow the fuck up. I'd be ashamed if one of my kids tweeted something like that.

pachyderm

There seem to be some deeply delusional people out there who are truly convinced that just by thinking themselves female, they suddenly and miraculously transform into fully functioning women who have periods and babies.

I'm truly baffled by comments like this.
This is not what "pregnant people" is about. It's about biological females who identify as men, but could still get pregnant pre-op.

It is entirely different from men intruding in female spaces or taking over female quotas.

I can see how it can be seen as part of the same overall problem, but I do think different issues require different approaches. Because they are different.
And because the main issue is or should be protecting the vulnerable. Remember that trans are also very vulnerable.
Although I agree that biological males shouldn't share female safe spaces (and although we may have different ideas of what they are), this issue of "pregnant people" is to protect vulnerable women. Women who identify as men. And are, thus, doubly vulnerable.

I'm reading some comments on this thread and it's like rationality has flown out the window.

pachyderm, that was a brilliant post. Thank you.

It sounds like the words of someone who doesn't think things through very thoroughly.

This.

it's like rationality has flown out the window.

Well done Lweji you've just successfully summed up the whole transgender movement and why it's been so successful.

It's about biological females who identify as men, but could still get pregnant pre-op

This is a truly weird space, Lweji - to be honest I can't get my head around a scenario where a woman wants to be a man, but still has sex with a man in the meantime, and gets pregnant in the meantime. But they don't want to be a woman any more. I mean give me strength. It's totally bonkers. They need to understand how to use contraceptives for a start, that might help.

And laws have to be created to pander to all this nonsense ? It's ludicrous.

but I do think different issues require different approaches. Because they are different

The difficulty is when these special snowflakes feel they have to have speshul laws created just for them. Because they're so speshul. Diddums.

Daisychain. You can’t get your head around 2 men having sex? And you can’t get your head around an unwanted pregnancy? Would you suggest to another women who finds herself in this situation that she should have sorted contraception? really? Perhaps you could be recruited by the the far right, religious extremists anti abortion lobby, your views seem in line with theirs.

Don't be disingenuous Grandma. She means PIV sex. They're not actually two men in anything but name.

“I can't get my head around a scenario where a woman wants to be a man, but still has sex with a man in the meantime, and gets pregnant in the meantime. But they don't want to be a woman any more.”

I can - Rape.

In the same way that some men want to rape lesbians to “show them what they’re missing”. I can quite believe there are men that would rape a transman and consider it a good lesson.

I’m not. In today’s world where changing your gender is legally acceptable and having a gay relationship is also acceptable it’s not that hard to imagine someone wanting to identify as a man or having decided that they want to in future, or maybe just trialling it if they are unsure, ending up with an unwanted wanted pregnancy is it? Telling them they should have used contraception is no different to telling any
Other woman that. It’s despicable and sounds like anti abortion arguments.

*unwanted pregnancy

What Ereshkigal said. There was nothing in @Daisychain's post about two men having sex. She wrote about women wanting to be men and having sex with men.

I can understand that someone feels that they are a different gender and wants to sleep with someone of the opposite sex. It's separating gender from sexual orientation.

@noeffingidea the person who tweeted that about his deadname is in his late 40s and the reason he had to do that is he decided he was a woman in late 2016. Which is obviously on a par with the efforts of Vicky Phelan and Emma Mhic Mhathuna, women who threw their energy into the Repeal the 8th campaign despite suffering from terminal cervical cancer thanks to the Cervicalcheck national screening fuck-up.

I'm getting a bit tired of this "UK terfs influencing things" nonsense too. As though we aren't perfectly capable of thinking for ourselves and engaging critically. It doesn't seem to apply to the Americans at the centre of their gang though, funnily enough.