AIBU to think Maya scored a victory for common sense today?

[DancesWithTortoises]

twitter.com/MForstater/status/1402922169559044096?s=20

news.sky.com/story/maya-forstater-woman-who-lost-job-over-transgender-views-wins-appeal-against-employment-tribunal-12329249

The law just cannot be allowed to tell people what to think.

Hurrah for Maya!

Standing on the shoulders of giants today

Thank you Maya for being braver than I will ever be. You are another woman I will tell my DD about when she's old enough to understand.

@LadyFidgetAndHerHandbag so what is a woman by your definition?

Absolutely right and I support this. Unfortunately it is what white working class men have had to put up for years being told their beliefs views don't matter. I would go further and include Mumsnet censoring people's views on race and policing including BLM, I would include critisms of religions that don enshrine female rights and I would also defend to the hilt the ability to critisms feminism and general misandry too. Everyone has freedom of speech including to disagree or offend others and hate laws are increasingly stopping this.

But trans women aren't acting at being women they are women.

Well, you're going to have to come up with a definition in that case. And in five years, I haven't heard one

@Datun

The concept only works if you stop seeing “woman” as a description of someone’s sex, and start seeing it as an “identity”. Trans women are male in terms of sex but identify as women in terms of gender.

The ideology is redefining the word woman to ensure it includes trans women.

I hope that helps - it doesn’t totally make sense to me so I maybe haven’t explained it very well.

It doesn't make sense to anyone SlipperyDippery.

If woman is a gender identity, it needs a description, or a means of identifying it. Which, to my mind, has never been forthcoming.

And you still need a word for an adult human female. How do you differentiate between an adult human female, and a minor human female. We have the word girl, what's the word for the adult?

None of it makes sense.

I agree - sorry, I was trying to articulate how the argument goes as opposed to saying what I personally think!

No, transwomen are transwomen. People like you that shout "transphobic!!" to silence women aren't being tolerated anymore and that's a really really good thing for women.

@LadyFidgetAndHerHandbag

Transphobia is arseholery therefore I have said nothing incorrect.

Well, yeah. That's the thing though - often people use the transphobia label to silence people who want to state facts, like sex is real, or women have vaginas, for example.

That's actually not transphobia though, is it.

I can respect someone's right to hold a belief without having to pretend I believe it too.

I have friends who are Muslim - they don't think I'm Islamophobic just because I'm an atheist.

Similarly I have friends who are trans - they don't think I'm transphobic just because I think sex is real. There are plenty of trans people who don't believe you can actually change sex.

It's brilliant that this has now been given legal recognition.

Can you explain to me why saying "trans women aren't women" isn't transphobic?

Saying 'transwomen are transwomen, but not women' is a valid distinction to make. Women around the world experience misogyny and sexism not because of an 'internal, personal sense' that they are a woman, but because of their biological reality.

Can you not understand why they might think their identity is being colonised - with very bad grace - by the extreme trans rights activists who abuse women and threaten them with sexual violence? That they are usually male-bodied people, who refer in their threats to the male parts of their bodies, makes it particularly threatening. Rather than behaving as gracious guests in their acquired gender, the activists too often behave as entitled masters.

I agree - sorry, I was trying to articulate how the argument goes as opposed to saying what I personally think!

Sorry SlipperyDippery, yes, I know. I was more thrashing it out, with you, if you see what I mean!

YANBU.
So proud of Maya's courage and integrity.
Same for JKR, Glinner and all those who remain prinicpled and calm in the face of such vitriol.

And actually it's little to do with what women think. Much of this has been about what happens to women: some of us, for example, have been forced to have intimate medical procedures carried out by men who say they are woman, despite asking for a female HCP due to past sexual abuse.

What we think isn't really the key. It's what others try to do to those who think it.

@LadyFidgetAndHerHandbag

Transphobia is arseholery therefore I have said nothing incorrect.

No-one is being transphobic.

Stating a biological truth is not transphobic.

But trans women aren't acting at being women they are women.

Well, what are they transing from and to then?
If they're part of the same group already, why the need for the "trans" descriptor?
Does that mean we can drop the T from LGBT now?

@LadyFidgetAndHerHandbag

I doubt many of us would want anything but peace and love for trans men/women but we want it for actual biological women too.

What makes you think trans men/women don't want peace and love for women?

No idea about all trans men/women as I don't know them all but the ones I know think TWAW is a load of bollocks. Sadly some of their supporters have made it very publicly clear that they dont tolerate a biological definition of women.

[quote BarbarianMum]@LadyFidgetAndHerHandbag so what is a woman by your definition?[/quote]
I’m going to wait patiently for the answer to this. I’m sure, this time, there will definitely be a well reasoned answer………

@Bunshaped

But trans women aren't acting at being women they are women.

Well, what are they transing from and to then?
If they're part of the same group already, why the need for the "trans" descriptor?
Does that mean we can drop the T from LGBT now?

She shoots, she scores!

Yes and no.

Of course it's a victory for common sense, to protect the right of sane people to know that mammals cannot change sex and that there is no scientific evidence for the proposition that a human being can be born in the "wrong" body for their personality, personal tastes, worldview, outlook etc.

OTOH it's not a belief. It's actual material reality that sex is immutable, fixed, real and important.

I feel as though one day, we'll have to go to court for the right to believe that the Earth isn't flat and that it goes round the sun.

This is obviously a brilliant outcome in the real world but in terms of what it means philosophically, I find it a bit disturbing. We shouldn't have to fight for the legal right to express fundamental material truths. That we have to in the early twenty-first century, is actually very worrying and shows the sheer power of the trans lobby.

Sex matters in life and law and it shouldn’t take courage to say so. Maya Forstater.

Well done Maya.

One thing that I've been thinking all along (well, since about 2018) is that the TRA activists would ultimately bring about their own undoing with their refusal to listen to concerns. They knew that they had to keep spinning ever more elaborate fantasies and all they had were insults, cancellation and aggression. Whereas all GC people had to keep doing was standing our ground, telling the truth and sticking to facts. Indeed, the very fact that TRAs were (for the most part, at least) unwilling to debate civilly is evidence that they knew that their arguments wouldn't stand up against facts - that's why they had to cancel us. Not only could they not cancel and silence us forever, their behaviour is also not a good way to bring someone on the fence around to your way of thinking.

There is a long way to go, but the first of the tides are turning.

I think it’s a great result and will probably be referenced quite a lot in future cases of say, people not wanting to use cis at work or put pronouns in email signatures. I’m glad she was successful, although I don’t agree with tweeting things you know will cause offence.

Given that Maya's stated belief is that "trans women aren't women"

In a sex specific context.

You have a right to disagree.

See also God.

"Can you explain to me why saying "trans women aren't women" isn't transphobic?"

You are reading this phrase as shorthand for "transwomen's inner gender identity is not woman", whereas we aren't talking about their inner gender identity at all. If we were then maybe you'd have a point, but as we don't believe in gender identity, there's be no point in us expressing an opinion on it (it'd be like an atheist arguing which type of soul a Christian has).

We are talking about sex, we're saying transwomen's biological sex is not woman. Which it isn't. If it was then they wouldn't be trans.

'But trans women aren't acting at being women they are women.'

It's a circular argument because the only response to that is 'What is a woman.' and so on and on and on.

So relieved, for Maya mostly, but for all the women who've worked so hard to bring the issues into the light.

Fabulous, wonderful news. Well done Maya, from my daughter and I. Transwomen are transwomen and I am not transphobic.