AIBU to think women should not be banned from Social media for asking the question - Thread 2

[Thewithesarehere]

Many women have been suspended from sm for asking the question:
“Do you believe that male sexed people should be allowed access to changing rooms and showers for female sexed people and teenagers?”
Seems like a perfectly reasonable question which we should be allowed to ask.

Let’s vote with our AIBU.

Sorry!! Lisa Nandy. Dont know where I got Anne from.

Joody

This progression of being elected in Women's Officer roles is very popular. It leads to political roles in the future. It means that these males are in positions that influence policy making decisions about women's needs.

There is quite often a LGBT Officer role as well so it is not as though they have no representation of their specific needs (and if the T needs even more specificity they should campaign for that to be a position too).

If I remember correctly, there is at least one LGBT committee on a political party that is supposed to have equal number of males and females. It has more males at the moment than females though.....I think it is about 75% males?? I could be wrong or it could have changed recently.

You are definitely NOT being unreasonable op. I am so concerned to see silencing of women everywhere, not just on sm.

The latest example of something I am noticing more and more is that places on women’s committees or political positions reserved to try and redress the barriers to women in politics are being taken over by male born transgender people. These people often are quite open about their priorities (trans issues) which don’t tend to include issues that concern women.

I saw a thread on FWR started by the Women’s Equality Party asking for support. I think many women would have gladly given it except that the WEP are currently distracted by debating what exactly a woman is. I’m not sure how they will be placed to forward women’s concerns if they can’t work that out.

The example I mention I saw today. Maya Forstater was examining a rather unusual statement made in support of Stonewall’s application to intervene in the upcoming in the Keira Bell v Tavistock court case.

She was intrigued by the statement made the the Royal Gynaecological and Obstetrics society and looked a little deeper. She found that the RGOS have a Women's Network that discusses women’s experience in this medical area and helps inform policy. One of the lay members is a transwoman who has literally NO possibility of having any personal experience of gynaecological issues experienced by women. This person is also employed by Stonewall and has worked as business consultant- no apparent medical experience at all.

So this person who cannot possibly have any useful contribution to the conversation (and may even hamper it as women find it harder to discuss intimate details in front of non-women or are trying to avoid being ‘exclusionary’) has taken a place on an influential board that should have been occupied by a woman. I am just (for the millionth time already this year) gobsmacked.

If there are any members of the RGOS on here, you might want to ask why they are including voices of people who have absolutely no relevance to their work.

Also RCN members that weren’t consulted on the RCN submission to the GRA reform consultation supporting self id - even though most hospital policies throw front line nurses right in the firing line in this one - they are expected to deal with the obvious conflict in needs and safeguarding when a male bodied person (including part time female identifiers) wants to be placed on a female ward.

Joody that Spectator article is very interesting on the how

• 'This is an issue that is 'difficult to win public support for' and best hidden behind the 'veil of protection' provided by a popular issue such as gay rights'

I prefer that explanation for what's happened in the US to blaming the 'Clinton feminists ' i.e. blaming women themselves for reducing their rights.

It doesn't explain why though does it?

@Winesalot yes

I've just had another thought. Surely Twitter's policy is, in and of itself, singling out transgender people and therefore transphobic. By NOT removing certain people, no matter how abhorrent their views, while habitually moving to silence natal women, surely Twitter are outing people who are trans? Which is antithetical to the trans ideology. Their main argument against third spaces seems to be their fear of being outed (which falls down in its own logic anyway because anyone who is a vulnerable-seeming little dove isn't going to be spotted in the wrong loo, it's only people who really obviously look like men who are going to have to use different toilets). So it's a bit of a double standard. Sorry if I'm stating the bloody obvious.

Women finally get equal recognition in sport - TRAs start to barge in on women's sport

Women start to get proper recognition in business - a guy who dresses up a couple of days a week gets nominated for a women in business prize

A science team says how well its doing on equality - except that the Woman at the head of it fathered four kids while married to his ex wife

Woman of the Year is one by a guy who did not hand back his Olympic medals when he changed name

Every time women make real progress, the misogynists change tack to keep their dominance

@lifeturnsonadime no, not why. It explains how. It doesn't explain who either, except large corporate law firms acting on behalf of ?? James Kirkup has been one of the lone voices reporting on this.

Gosh I didn't know that about Lisa Nandy endof, that's so disappointing. I think she shows real promise as a politician and seems extremely intelligent.

@gardenbird48 - that is really shocking, really shocking.

Lisa Nandy is not good on this issue. She point blank refuses to discuss it.

It is hard to find a political home these days, once you have seen this, especially if you are a left leaning woman.

I think she shows real promise as a politician and seems extremely intelligent.

It is worth watching video footage of her answering questions like this. there are quite a few instances, Piers Morgan, the video posted of Julia Long asking about women prisons. I will leave you to make your own judgement about the above statement.

@JoodyBlue

It is hard to find a political home these days, once you have seen this, especially if you are a left leaning woman.

yes, I am, it's depressing.

For the who behind the how, see this excellent synopsis by Jennifer Bilek:

www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-lgbt-nonprofits-and-their-billionaire-patrons-are-reshaping-the-world/

Please note: Like many of you, I wish this were not in The American Conservative. But the fact is that lifelong leftist women like Bilek CANNOT get published in left-leaning news outlets. I am certain she would love to get a piece in the New York Times or the Guardian, but those publications subscribe completely to gender ideology and refuse to publish even the gentlest dissent on the subject. (This extends to closing their comments sections when women there get too mouthy, also.)

The Greens and the Lib Dems are just the same.

well left leaning women are voters too - that is the good news - it has been apparent why these changes have crept in under the radar, rather than in plain sight - there are are some strong women speaking up against this. Mothers especially are awesome, there is nothing a mum will not do to support her kids. I am old, I don't care about this for myself. But I do care about it for the generations to come. Anytime I doubt myself I look at the courage of Keira Bell.

The Greens and the Lib Dems are just the same.

Jo Swinson also refused to answer the question with a definitive answer.

The Greens have recently called women 'non-men'.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/feminists-mock-green-party-young-women-s-invite-non-men-a6987061.html

@GrinitchSpinach - thanks for that. Big Pharma and rich individuals. Now there's a (non) surprise

'One is not born, but rather becomes a non man,' as Simone de Beauvoir didn't say

@GrinitchSpinach - Suzanne Moore now writing in The Telegraph. I feel, actually a lot of people can't see around the arguments because they are put forward by publications that have previously been trustworthy in promoting balance and fairness, but are no longer doing that. I really can't get over the Labour Party. It is a huge disappointment to me.

Agreed, Joody. I'm in the US where the media landscape is, if you can imagine, even worse. At least you all have Janice Turner and Suzanne Moore and James Kirkup and some of the Mail/Mail on Sunday reporters keeping on top of women's issues.

It's tumbleweeds in American national media (except, very occasionally, some accusations that the few feminists who've spoken up, like WoLF or the Spinster and Ovarit founders, are fringe extremist bigots comparable to white nationalists... )

One of the two questions that are never answered (the other being 'what does it mean to feel like a woman' which was discussed at length on the first thread) is: what rights are trans people fighting for that they don't already have?

This conflict is often framed as 'trans rights' v 'women's rights'. I think there's at least one post in this thread already that uses this phrase. But what rights - actual, defined, legal rights - are transpeople lacking in this country? I understand that in the US, there is scope for genuine discrimination still written in to some state and federal laws relating to housing, healthcare etc and that's unquestionably wrong.

But in the UK? We've established that the Equality Act prohibits discrimination on the grounds of gender reassignment, and in fact not only gives transwomen - to use the more vocal and high profile example - protection against being discriminated against in comparison to other members of their biological sex (male), but also gives them the right to access some services and spaces reserved for the opposite sex, except when it is proportionate and necessary to limit those services and spaces to women. They have the right to change their birth certificate, and to request that their previous 'deadname' does not appear on a DBS certificate. It can, in fact, be argued that they have more rights than the average person. (I feel a lot older than my actual age but I can't apply for a birth certificate that would enable me to access my state pension next month, for example.)

There is no inherent right to be allowed to enter a space legally reserved for one sex when you are a member of the other sex. What trans activists are fighting for are extra privileges, not rights.

@GrinitchSpinach and the slurs and pronouncements of bigotry stop people investigating what they say. Sometimes I think we all got too busy to pay attention. I listened to a WoLF spokesperson recently, she was very far from extreme in what she said. And yes Janice Turner, Suzanne Moore, and James Kirkup have been proper journalists on this issue. There have been many who lost work and credibility for speaking out on it. One of the particular heroes has been irish comedy writer Graham Linehan who I think has stood for women and kids with not much to gain and has lost a lot in terms of work. I think he took a heroic stance, some people are really really brave.

[quote JoodyBlue]@GrinitchSpinach - Suzanne Moore now writing in The Telegraph. I feel, actually a lot of people can't see around the arguments because they are put forward by publications that have previously been trustworthy in promoting balance and fairness, but are no longer doing that. I really can't get over the Labour Party. It is a huge disappointment to me.[/quote]
I agree - Labour's attitude is still so shocking to me, a life-long Labour voter (now with no-one to vote for). I can't get over the lack of care for Rosie Duffield, the attacks on her from trans activist groups inside the party - the party of Jo Cox, murdered on the street, has not got one word to say in defence of a Woman being constantly insulted and verbally abused!

And her crime? Daring to say that only Women have cervixes. It's grotesque.