US erasing Women - Janice Turner

[feelingquitehopeful]

It was totally shocking to me this week as a supporter of the Democrats to see Biden choosing his moment carefully on day one to wipe out women's and girl's rights in the states in one fail swoop. There was no discussion, no consultation. No warning. Just like that he removed centuries of our rights as women.

He will now go down in history as the first President that abolished womenhood and Motherhood and women's rights. I am astonished and horrified and reeling actually, even this morning. I have had a few days to process the shock, but no, I am still reeling.

It is now punishable to describe a woman as a mother for instance, or to stop a man/boy with a penis showering with your pre teen daughter at school.
Prisons can no longer keep women safe, they will now lock up male rapists (Identifying as women, which anyone can now do no questions asked) with trapped female prisoners in cells. Can you imagine being in that position? The horror of being trapped in that situation, as survivor this actually keeps me awake at night.

Men can use lavatories, locker rooms and showers with young girls. It is ILLEGAL to now stop them. It is also illegal to stop a man competing in women's sports, making women's and girls sports now obsolete. What girl is going to outrun a biological male?

We have literally, as a sex been erased completely from the legal framework and with it all of our protections thanks to Biden. Men can still be men, because that doesn't offend anyone apparently - they will not be called 'testicle havers' or 'ejaculators' it will only be women subjected to this. So that says a lot of modern equality and where we are with it today in the US.

Women have been reduced to 'Menstruators' and the highly offensive 'black birthing bodies' if you are describing a mother from the BAME community. That is what we must all be called now.

That is the new healing landscape Biden describes as he cuts out the rights of half the nation.

Janice Turner as always is an absolute legend, and her excellent article 'War of words risks wiping women from our Language' in the Times this morning is outstanding, and covers the grave situation we ALL now face. For anyone thinking it could never happen here, think again.

Read it for yourself:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/war-of-words-risks-wiping-women-from-our-language-djhp2mwjg

(For those unaware - my reference to the genitals being chopped off is to the recent drawing of a Doctor holding up bleeding breasts taken off a girl who suffered from ROGD. The girl drew the picture to thank her Doctor. I can only hope that she truly is always going to be at peace with the procedure and that she doesn’t find herself like Kiera Bell.
Gender identity and the language around it is so toxic - there are so many ramifications.
We should be fighting to dismantle stereotypes and not perpetuating them. You can be the sex you are and enjoy a range of different clothes, past times, pursuits, emotions! The differences in our sexes need to be recognised in order for sex based rights to exist.
Legislating based on a ‘feeling’ is literally insane. How do you quantify it?
Women are the losers in all this and people need to wake up and shout!
Big businesses like this- of course they do. If they don’t have to allow sex based protections like maternity leave or allow data to be recorded by sex then they don’t need to show a gap in who gets paid what. Happy to stand corrected but that’s why I believe trans rights activists are winning over corporations. Businesses don’t stand to gain anything by insisting on sex based rights for their employees.)

you I am waiting to hear from my MP too, I have asked for the government to clarify in public their position both and in the future. The activists will no doubt be lobbying for the UK to follow suit, I would be very very worried now if Corbyn had somehow won, thankfully it looks slightly less likely at the moment.

I hope this is the moment when really are able to think for ourselves, and not follow the US like sheep on steroids.

Does anyone know what the reaction/coverage has been like in the US? All broadsheets are now covering it in the UK at least.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4140479-Grateful-child-draws-a-picture-to-thank-surgeon-for-mastectomy-MNHQ-content-warning-for-upsetting-image

Any rape survivors should avoid that thread, btw. The warning does not encompass a very distressing story in the thread.

@feelingquitehopeful I’d be interested to know what your MP says if they respond. That sounds like a good starting point for the query - is it that you want them to clarify the government’s position on protecting/ maintaining existing sex based rights?

I still hold onto the hope that Starmer doesn't truly believe that a male rapist should be allowed to be house in a female prison if he identifies as a woman.

This is not happening and has already been fixed at national level since a well known case recently (Karen White). There has been a transgender wing made. Male rapists aren’t being put in with women trans or otherwise.

How can you protect something that no longer exists? That is what I want to know?

This is scaremongering, hyperbole and a false analogy.

Recognising trans women as women within the current legal framework does not mean women no longer exist.

It might mean you occasionally see a trans woman in the toilet, or even more rarely in a female hospital ward (because as a society we treat some trans women ‘as if they are’ women). But that doesn’t mean women don’t exist. Grown ups can cope with this.

Feeling I think I might have just replied to you on the other thread instead of this one.... sorry.... my head is fuzzy with pain meds this morning.

It is a lie to say transwomen are not being allowed into women's prisons. This is still happening. Just the presence of males in that environment is highly toxic - most women in prison have experienced male violence, and prison staff have expressed concerns about the very negative effect of males being allowed into women's prisons. There is a total lack of equality here - the prison service in the UK has a blanket policy of not placing Transmen in the men's prison estate as they can't keep them staff, but allows Transwomen to chose whether they go into the men's or women's prison estate. There was no equality assessment done considering the impact on female prisoners before introducing this. It is clear cut sexual discrimination.

Matron that’s exactly what it means.

We have 50/50 campaigns here and have done for years to get equal representation for women in Parliament. We can now have that as any man who wants to identify as a woman can sign a piece of paper if self id is brought in. We don’t actually need to get representation for the women with women’s bodies, just the ones who feel like they are women every second Tuesday.

Change representation in Parliament to any other women’s issue - women are disproportionately disadvantaged by dv and need specific services and those need funded. Only now they don’t, because actually all the male women aren’t any more likely to be victims, or to need financial and physical help to flea with children than the women with women’s bodies. So no need for any government funding or campaigns on where to know or to destigmatise the women with women’s bodies who suffer with this victimisation from men with men’s bodies.

Work places don’t need to address sex pay gap, because the male women don’t experience this. They don’t need to find maternity leave or flexible working or paid time for maternity appointments or time and place for nursing mums to express milk, because actually this isn’t a women’s issue as the male women don’t experience it.

Every single sex based legal protection is based on biological reality. If laws change that biological reality then we have no legal rights protection. Those of us whose biological reality doesn’t change now no longer can access any recognition of that or protection based on that. And we can’t fight to reinstate it because every women’s group we’d form would contain male voices. We’d have to let them in or face hate crime prosecution.

@Matronmarzipan excellent sweeping patronising statement there.

Transwomen identify as women. Biologically speaking they cannot be. I am a middle aged, confident female who has fortunately never been assaulted and I don’t have strong religious views. And I yet feel uncomfortable with a male in spaces I assume are for women.

I assume that for elderly women, young girls, survivors of sexual assault and women with religious views that require privacy from the opposite sex that they may also feel uncomfortable. This is their right. Teaching women to override those feelings does them no favours. Allowing men into those spaces may be physically dangerous. That’s why my husband (a nice kind gentle man) isn’t allowed into bathrooms. He may be a ‘safe’ man but he knows that there is a blanket ban for a reason.

@feelingquitehopeful

If you read the whole thread it goes into great detail of what is wrong with the Executive Order Zara I think you will find your answers are already here.

OK - sorry if I missed it, but did you say exactly where the use of the word 'mother' is now punishable?

I know it's a (very)minority view on here but I think it's wonderful news. I'm also highly aware it's an emotive and difficult subject and am not commenting to be goady or provocative, just that I want anyone reading to know that not everyone on Mumsnet feels the same about the subject.

@everybodysang

I know it's a (very)minority view on here but I think it's wonderful news. I'm also highly aware it's an emotive and difficult subject and am not commenting to be goady or provocative, just that I want anyone reading to know that not everyone on Mumsnet feels the same about the subject.

What's wonderful about it? Genuine question.

Grown ups can cope with this.

"Cope". Why the fuck should women have to?! Why can we never again be allowed to gather or be alone with others of our sex without knowing that always a man can now come into that space, event, sport no matter what and that we will be punished by law if we try to prevent.

LET MEN IN NO MATTER WHAT YOU FEEL OR HOW DANGEROUS OR UNFAIR THE OUTCOME.

That is what you're saying. How can you not see it?

I haven’t read the whole 12 pages as it seems to just repeat the same disbelief. You were told and told what was going to happen but you were so blinded by your hatred for the nasty orange man you just wouldn’t listen. I don’t understand why you are all so shocked. Also, he’s just getting started. If you think this is bad, just wait.

Oh and @ShesMadeATwatOfMePam

Mental that people would rather abstain from voting at all even if it means the tories stay in power because of this niche issue.

I really hope you find out why this niche issue is so important.

Why can we never again be allowed to gather or be alone with others of our sex without knowing that always a man

We’re talking about public places. Of course we can gather or be alone with who we like. People can still have private gatherings and groups,

Then for things like support groups for women who have been abused there are exceptions as I’m sure you know. The equality act states that trans people can be excluded on the basis of biological sex in certain situations and there is specific examples.

"Repeat after me- Supporting trans rights does not equal erasing women. Until you understand."

You don't sound like a psycho at all ...

Repeat .... Until you understand.

But that wouldn't be understanding, would it; that would be brain washing.

Self id will negate the equalities act. That’s the reality seen in other countries. Men in women’s only shelters men in dv shelters men in women’s sports. Go read the ‘it will never happen’ threads on fwr and then try arguing the equalities act will provide excemptions. Because we don’t yet have self id and we already have had men in women’s prisions for a decade. The kind with working penises, the kind who are in those prisions for using said penis to rape women and children. The kind who are accused of sexually harassing and assaulting the women prisioners while in our prisions. That’s before our laws welcome in self id, after we will be done for.

@Matronmarzipan

Why can we never again be allowed to gather or be alone with others of our sex without knowing that always a man

We’re talking about public places. Of course we can gather or be alone with who we like. People can still have private gatherings and groups,

Then for things like support groups for women who have been abused there are exceptions as I’m sure you know. The equality act states that trans people can be excluded on the basis of biological sex in certain situations and there is specific examples.

Women are shamed, threatened and intimidated into allowing men to violate their boundaries all the time. Only this week, the owner of an app solely for women, had hundreds and hundreds of threatening and sickening messages accusing her of exclusion.

Furthermore, if a man has a GRC stating he was born female, and a birth certificate to prove it, how would you exclude him?

You would think oh, this is a man. But if he said indeed I am not. What do you actually say? How would you prove it?

We’re talking about public places. Of course we can gather or be alone with who we like. People can still have private gatherings and groups,

Can we have "private" Olympics? "Private" prisons? "Private" sports events thats result in educational scholarships that will mean girls who could never otherwise afford it will get the education they have earned? Will lesbians be allowed to have "private" social groups and dating experiences when then came specify that the person they seek is a natal woman? Can girls handling their periods at schools have "private" period areas just for that?

People like you supporting this have robbed other women. You have ridden over their needs and comfort so that you can establish your beliefs onto them.

Can we have "private" Olympics? "Private" prisons? "Private" sports events thats result in educational scholarships that will mean girls who could never otherwise afford it will get the education they have earned? Will lesbians be allowed to have "private" social groups and dating experiences when then came specify that the person they seek is a natal woman? Can girls handling their periods at schools have "private" period areas just for that?

Quite.

Even when we opt out of all those public things, even when we hide away at home and just hang out with women friends and neighbours (I’m see life becoming like bold girls- the play about Northern Ireland not the tv show) it won’t be long before that’s not possible because all our daughters are brain washed at schools to think boys can be girls, so in a generation even that tiny protection hiding away with other women out of sight would be gone.

Not that we should hide. But that’s where I think many women would be at with this. This isn’t a hypothetical philosophical arguement about women in too careers or sports or anything else. This massively, overwhelming, impacts all women everywhere. Including all of us who are already massively suffering from a life time of ‘normal’ misogyny and male violence against us, who are already just trying to get by each day. Add in self id to our reality .......

Grown ups can cope with this.

You mean the way lesbians are expected to "cope" with the unexpected presence of a penis?