To agree with JK Rowling?

[StraightenUpAndFryRight]

mobile.twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1207646162813100033

‘Dress however you please.
Call yourself whatever you like.
Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you.
Live your best life in peace and security.
But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?
#IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill’

No, I don't personally believe it's literally possible to change sex. But I will defend others' right to believe that, and to be treated with appropriate respect and courtesy

Will you defend women's rights to a reality based world outlook, that they can express politely on their own social media, and insist that they be treated with appropriate respect and courtesty ?

For example, I think anyone who is tutting at Maya for not calling Gregor Murray 'they' once, and for not holding the belief that he is no longer a man, should be spending just as much time on Murray's social media telling him that it's very bad form to run around calling women 'cunts'.

Respect is not demanded; it's earned. Men who call women cunts ? Do not have my respect. I think it's gross women spend one single moment of their time admonishing Maya for 'hurting his feelings and dignity'.

*have to be reasonable and proportionate. Sorry I should learn to proof read!

So you would defend another's right to believe that one race is superior to another? And would back peoples right to assert that in public and make policy based on that belief?

1. I would defend anyone's right to believe what they chose, because I am not the thought police.
2. No, I wouldn't back people's right to assert that in public because it would cause distress to members of the race that was deemed inferior.

*Stealth - I said "No, I don't personally believe it's literally possible to change sex. But I will defend others' right to believe that, and to be treated with appropriate respect and courtesy."

Why the need for the word 'literally'?

No, the point you're making is equivalent to arguing that atheists shouldn't be allowed to say that God doesn't exist because doing so might hurt or offend religious people. Which every country that isn't a theocracy has long since rejected.

Surely a better comparison peterrouse would be with people who believe - not that one race is superior to another - but that they have changed race from one to another. Would we respect someone's belief in this? Would we humour them?

Basically what you're arguing for is that we institute a new, theoretically secular version of blasphemy laws. That demand is being roundly rejected by most other posters.

2. No, I wouldn't back people's right to assert that in public because it would cause distress to members of the race that was deemed inferior

But you aren't bothered about the distress that it causes females when men claim they are women and invade their spaces? The distress that it causes women when they continue to be oppressed on the basis of their biology, whilst simultaneously being told that biology isn't real?

Don't give a fuck about that, do you?

Can someone claim to have changed race? Sure, there's a German woman doing so right now. Should others be allowed to say that what she's claiming is impossible and that the things she's citing to support her belief that she's black are regressive, offensive stereotypes? Again, yes. Free speech is for everyone, even the people whose beliefs we think are stupid or wrong.

No, the point you're making is equivalent to arguing that atheists shouldn't be allowed to say that God doesn't exist because doing so might hurt or offend religious people

^^spot on

Science = fact.

Opinion/belief = Santa Claus is real/the earth is flat/aromatherapy oils cure cancer/ blah blah blah and so on.

Being pedantic is what people cling to when they don’t have a valid argument. We can look to existentialism to argue that the sun may in fact not rise tomorrow (the pig gets fed every morning by the farmer. One day the pig is killed by the farmer) or we can in fact deal with reality, where science tells us it will. It can’t tell us beyond all possible doubt it will forever and ever and so on, but for practical reality it proves it does, same way it proves the earth is round and that medicine is our best bet against cancer. The same way science tells us that adult human male=man. If in ten weeks, ten years, ten thousand years there is some amazing new scientific discovery that disproves that then fine, but for now we deal with the scientific reality we have, which is males are men and females are women, and in no way can we change from one to another.

Again, saying that is not misgendering. Misgendering would be calling me a man, and if anyone does it wouldn’t effect me not a single fuck. Misgendering is not a fucking thing, it’s a stupid made up nonsense word.

The point I'm making is that that piece of homework would look different in 1950s Britain, or 1930s Germany, or the 1960s Chinese Republic, or present day North Korea.

And you think that in each of those examples they'd have a different idea of who was male and who female?
I doubt that.

So what term should we use to differentiate between xx and xy people if we can't rely on the Male/female terminology as a clear indicator of a scientific fact. Do we start calling ourselves 'XXs' ?

Basically what you're arguing for is that we institute a new, theoretically secular version of blasphemy laws

I knew this was coming years ago, after the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Everyone I knew on the left responded with 'Yes, it's terrible. I stand with CH...but...' the but being that they shouldn't have been so rude to Islam, and that people who don't respect sacred cows (whatever they are, not picking on any particular world view here) get what's coming to them.

I'm from the left, and have been for thirty years, and I know that the left has major issues with authoritatian behaviour; de facto blasphemy laws are a manifestation of that.

These laws will flip target at some point in the future, and the people arguing for these type of laws will find themselves on the pointy end of them. It's so short-sighted, in any society that values democratic expression, to back this ruling, and to stand with book burners.

And you think that in each of those examples they'd have a different idea of who was male and who female?

Let's face it, all those societies knew exactly who were the males and who were the females.

But you aren't bothered about the distress that it causes females when men claim they are women and invade their spaces?

And you clearly aren't bothered about the distress it might cause a trans person to be misgendered.

And please don't bracket all 'females' together. I am female - I was born female and identify as female - and I don't feel the distress you are describing. I accept that some females do, but lumping the feelings of an entire sex into one bracket doesn't do anything to support your argument.

It's the old "first they came for the..." poem, isn't it? People never learn.

And you think that in each of those examples they'd have a different idea of who was male and who female?

The ideas in present day UK would certainly differ from those other societies.

Do we start calling ourselves 'XXs' ?

Fuck that. There's a perfectly good set of descriptors for 51% of the population - females, girls, women.

There's a perfectly good descriptor for males who prefer to present as if they were women. Transwomen. That's enough ground ceded to the polite fiction that males can be female.

No, I don't personally believe it's literally possible to change sex. But I will defend others' right to believe that, and to be treated with appropriate respect and courtesy

If people are compelled to lie about other people’s sex, what sort of punishment should befall those who refuse to, or just forget to?

What does being misgendered actually mean in that sense? I might distress the American woman who thinks she is black by discussing her as white. But am I mis-racing her?

So proud of JK Rowling's statement. She knew she would get nasty replies and did the right thing anyway.

We all know that men and women have different biology and that surgery and hormones can not alter our chromosomes.

What surprises me is that despite the tiny number of people who actually believe that changing sex is possible, why have policies in schools, jails, hospitals, womens sports been altered to benefit this tiny group of people ?

Yet 95% of the general public know that sex changes are impossible. Ask anyone offline in the real world who is older than 25 !

I agree. I applaud her! She is very brave for speaking out.

The point I'm making is that that piece of homework would look different in 1950s Britain, or 1930s Germany, or the 1960s Chinese Republic, or present day North Korea.

Perhaps, but I can say with 100% certainty that the person who gave birth to every child doing homework in 1950's Britain, 1930's Germany 1960s China and North Korea was female, because only females have a body that can bear offspring.

To pretend that that fact doesn't impact on women's lives is to deliberately refuse to protect women's right to participate equally in society.

The ideas in present day UK would certainly differ from those other societies

No. The vast majority of people in present day UK understand that sex is immutable, that there are only two sexes, and that sometimes we are polite to people who want to live as if they were the other sex, but aren't.

There's a tiny bubble of sex-denialism in the UK; don't mistake the fact that this bubble is influential for the the fact that this bubble is large.