To ask about JK Rowling - can someone tell me what happened?

[christmaspigeon]

Just that really. I like her. I like how she gives so much for charity and how she put Trump in his place, but I know people's views on her have changed. Something to do with trans comments?? Can someone explain (in really simple language!) what happened? Thank you!

She likes to put out goady anti/trans tweets and dresses it up as ‘standing up’ for women

Actually, TRAs tend to see any 'standing up' for women as fundamentally transphobic. Which says something about the TRAs, not feminists.

Women are actually legally allowed to organise as a sex-class to defend their legal rights.

It's interesting that TRAs see any defence f women's legal rights as 'transphobic.' and they try to get us sacked or silenced (I've was targeted in this way about 4 years ago).

[quote Biffbaff]I meant to provide this link www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the-idea-of-2-sexes-is-overly-simplistic1/[/quote]
Here is the author of that article clarifying what she meant:

twitter.com/ClaireAinsworth/status/888365994577735680

"Two sexes, with a continuum of variation in anatomy/physiology."

[quote Biffbaff]I meant to provide this link www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the-idea-of-2-sexes-is-overly-simplistic1/[/quote]
"@ClaireAinsworth
In your piece 'Sex Redefined' are you making the claim there are more than 2 sexes?"

"No, not at all. Two sexes, with a continuum of variation in anatomy/physiology."

"Thank you for reply. ppl who don't understand that keep linking me your piece as some kind of 'proof' there are more than two sexes."

twitter.com/martian_munk/status/884395832962936832?s=20

Oh snap, Crone

I suspect it's the fact that jkr is female

Yes @midgebabe, and also she's

• rich (although gives away a lot of her wealth)
• successful
• hard-working
• has opinions

Unlike a lot of the Twitter trolls who have achieved little in their lives.

TRAs tend to see any 'standing up' for women as fundamentally transphobic.

If women's rights are transphobic, that means that 'trans rights' are in conflict with women's rights. Which means we need to discuss this in order to find a way to ensure that both women and trans people have full human rights without either group taking any rights from the other.

@oldcrone

That's interesting! So then I guess the question is which of the 2 sexes everyone on the spectrum fits into, depending on their anatomy/physiology. Which seems to be exactly what we're all talking about!

Appreciate the responses to my posts, thanks all.

Additionally, there is no statistically significant overlap between people with variations in sexual development (intersex conditions) and people who identify as trans.

Thanks. So it is as obvious as the old word for fairy.

But fairies aren't real. So there's that.

@PotholeParadies The how to use it guide you likened is a masterclass in normalising compelled speech. I've never come across a "fae" in real life. A bit like I have never come across fairies.

Thanks Old Crone.

I love the fact that Claire Ainsworth clarified her thoughts.

biff please read my post. Sex is adequately defined enough by using a collection of the body’s processes and parts. Anyone using people’s differences of opinion to define sex as a spectrum is politicizing people’s medical conditions. Not to get a better understanding of their needs to improve their health care, but to attempt to disrupt the stability of sex as a binary for reproductive purposes.

It is this disruption that allows males to believe they should be called women because they say they are.

Good example of whataboutery with the chromosomes thing right there.
I mean, we're all grown adults. Why are we pretending it's not easy to know what sex is. As if your internal monologue doesn't go: man, lady, man, lady, man in a dress, better call them ma'am.

Thought this might be interesting.

'Everyone in 1990 knew what a woman was without resorting to body parts.'

Well tbf everyone knows what a woman is today, even if we all have to pretend not to.

*Anyone using people’s differences of opinion to define sex as a spectrum is politicizing people’s medical conditions.

I am not having a good day.

Development not opinion!!!!

You may say that. I couldn't possibly comment.

But I do ponder, as someone who has been known to vote Green, to what extent Kathryn could represent me. Can fae empathise with my concerns about caring for middle-aged parents? What about women's experiences with medical misogyny? What are faer experiences of being passed over for promotion after maternity leave? Has Kathryn thought about how fae might meet faer career objectives after parenthood faerself?

It’s just that her pointing out of women’s rights and some of the ways in which women can be oppressed, makes it a bit plainer for everybody to see that to function as a belief, genderism requires a lot of people to believe in and adopt rigid sex stereotypes for themselves and to require that from other people (ie for a lot of people to have to promote sexism) in order to function

Yes, @ChattyLion And also for gender ideology to function as a belief, it requires people to completely ignore the real and material oppression of women globally.

In this country (UK), just for starters:

• the sex pay gap,

• the average of 2 women per week murdered in domestic violence (up to 3.5 during lockdown), the risible rate of conviction for rape ...

Globally,
the femicide* of millions of female foetuses and infants because they were female

• The use of rape as a weapon of war.
• The sexual exploitation, abuse (and rape) by aid workers of local women
• dowry murders
• Rape as a "corrective" for lesbianism
• Murder & abduction of young girls & women just about everywhere as an ideological weapon
• Use of women in the global South as 'incubators' for western surrogacy

And so on.

Yet we are supposed to ignore this massive inequity and inequality visited upon 50% of humankind, to centre 0.01% of the population, usually in the most privileged societies, as "the most oppressed."

@winesalot I did read your post and found your points about the definition of sex really interesting, thanks (genuinely)

What if the "stability of sex" is a false construct though? To keep men in one place and women in another? What if women's spaces aren't about safeguarding but about segregation? What if they are about safeguarding AND segregation? Depending on how you're looking at them?

@thebuffster perhaps it's easier to know where you fit, if your only experience is being comfortable with the label you were given at birth. My intellectual experience isn't at odds with my own body, but I wonder what it would be like if it was? That's why I find this interesting.

Meanwhile, over at the Green Party, this is one of the candidates who stood for chairperson of Green Party Women.

@Glinner is very funny about the way the 'head tilt' magically turns natal men into women apparently ... Just sayin'

Let’s not forget that Norway, who records crimes by gender, has had a 400% increase in sex offenses by women since self id. That just a few years. All of a sudden women appear more dangerous and become the focus of campaigns and policy that has been in effect fueled by ‘self identified’ women.

Look at this person. They took a political position reserved for women.

and @PotholeParadies as the pictures show, it's so obvious that this person is not a natal woman. Someone needs to give them some fashion advice, I would think ...

What if the "stability of sex" is a false construct though? To keep men in one place and women in another? What if women's spaces aren't about safeguarding but about segregation? What if they are about safeguarding AND segregation? Depending on how you're looking at them?

I don’t know biff, I look at the male propensity to commit violent and sex crimes and how this doesn’t change with transwomen and I wonder why people like to ignore the need to segregate by sex. For safeguarding. And For privacy and dignity.

@PotholeParadies

Additionally, there is no statistically significant overlap between people with variations in sexual development (intersex conditions) and people who identify as trans.

Yes this makes a large difference to me. Because I have loads of sympathy for those with DSDs and for me it is a bit more of a difficult question (though in sport, its an easy one), maybe not for others, but I do think its a different thing to 'Paul puts on a dress, can he use the womens refuge?!'

BUT, the majority of transpeople, and definitely the majority of older transitioners (who appear to cause many more issues than the younger ones presently) are not suffering from DSDs. Its generally pretty obvious as many of them have fathered children before deciding they are actually women. Also I understand studies and such done on the topic found no significant overlay either.

People with DSDs have long been asked to be kept out of this debate though, as DSDs and gender ideology have nowt in common. Doesn't stop TRAs shoehorning DSDs into everything though, which in turn filters down to 'normal' conversations where its brought up as a 'aha, not all female people have X, they might be intersex!' by people who do not know the history with TRAs and intersex advocates, or that many intersex people find it hugely offensive to be written off as some kind of third sex, in order to abolish single sex spaces and/or womens rights as we know them.

There are few DSDs that actually may cause people to think they are the opposite sex though. The 1/20 or whatever figure transactivists like to throw around, you can only reach if you include conditions such as hypospadias.

Won't post on the DSD thing anymore though as I am not as knowledgable on such topics as many women here, and also I feel I may accidentally upset someone with a DSD when I post on the topic, given I know how many want the whole trans stuff to go away as its making life harder and more upsetting for them, being brought up all the time on a tpic that has nowt to do with them or their struggles.

What if the "stability of sex" is a false construct though? To keep men in one place and women in another? What if women's spaces aren't about safeguarding but about segregation? What if they are about safeguarding AND segregation? Depending on how you're looking at them?

Cats are clearly male or female. We know exactly which ones are most likely to have kittens if we don't separate or neuter them. It's not about how you look at it. Biological sex exists independently of people's ability to intellectually conceptualise it.

@thebuffsterperhaps it's easier to know where you fit, if your only experience is being comfortable with the label you were given at birth. My intellectual experience isn't at odds with my own body, but I wonder what it would be like if it was? That's why I find this interesting.

My lifelong experience is of being at odds with the expectations that were put on me from the moment I was born and observed to be female. I have been at odds with the idea that women are graceful, tactful, caring, good multi-taskers, like pink but not playing football, like caring for children. That I should enjoy make-up and shoes, and be delighted by men 'complimenting' my body in the street and find wolf-whistles encouraging.

I'm still a woman.

And biff what about our posts regarding males now representing women in roles set aside for females. So that females actually have a say in policies about their needs?

Are you comfortable with that? Or do you think this is ok? That these activists (and be sure, they are activists taking these roles) shape policies effecting women?

@Winesalot

Let’s not forget that Norway, who records crimes by gender, has had a 400% increase in sex offenses by women since self id. That just a few years. All of a sudden women appear more dangerous and become the focus of campaigns and policy that has been in effect fueled by ‘self identified’ women.

Nah, women just became exceptionally violent that year. We know this as, self ID being abused does not happen. No. It never would. Too much effort to say 'I am a woman'. Nevermind abusive men go through years of teacher training, or hide in septic tanks. Sayingf that sentence is way too much work so noone would do it. Honest.

(this is not me saying transwomen are more dangerous, though that should be obvious)