It shouldn’t be said that “only women have a cervix”.

[Paddingtonsmarmaladesandwiches]

Watching Keir Stammer on Marr this morning scrambling to answer whether or not it is transphobic to say “only women have a cervix” was the final nail in the coffin for me this morning with Labour. In the aftermath of The Lancet calling women, “bodies with vaginas”, I think I’ve finally figured out that the current belief system is that transwomen are women, but women who were observed female at birth are “bodies with vaginas”. Clearly Labour aren’t in need of the votes of bodies with vaginas, brains and a spine.

@AnotherUser02

Exactly. The category of women doesn't need to be expanded. It's always done the job perfectly. And if it did need to be expanded, who should decide how far it should be expanded? It could include rocks, say, or tables - because these aren't currently women, either. If the category of women were to be expanded so far that it included the opposite of women, surely there's no conceptual reason to stop there.

@Whatwouldscullydo

If this isn't proof the only women anyone cares about are those born male, I don't know what is.

Exactly. The world had gone mad. Our politicians should be leading the fight against this BS not condoning it.

@Ninjawannabe

Just for arguments sake...

The Tories have been in power for the last 11 years. Is it really right to get all indignant at how you're never voting Labour given xyz when the entirety of this bullshit has come up under Tory rule? Why are Labour getting blamed?

OK fine, Keir isn't convincing anyone he'll make any beneficial changes, but Boris and his predecessors are the ones who have presided over all that has happened over the last decade +, and at least Labour won't be slash/burning UC, NHS, school budgets to the same extent? These all affect women too. And IMO these things affect natal women a lot more day to day especially poor women.

I'm donning my hard hat for this next comment but I think you're in a position of privilege if who shares the changing rooms at the local swimming pool is your most pressing concern rather than how to afford to pay for your children's shoes and food

I honestly think the tories don't give a toss about women, natal or otherwise, and are laughing all the way to the next poll that somehow Labour are being blamed for something which has happened on their watch. They've played a blinder

Hard hat unnecessary.

I'd have far rather had my daughters eating beans on toast and plain pasta with cheese for months on end than have one of them raped when going to the toilet during a swimming lesson because she didn't feel able to tell anybody there's somebody with an erection in the changing village.

Er, Has BJ been asked this question - and answered it?

@Zzzexhaustedzzz

Er, Has BJ been asked this question - and answered it?

He doesn't need to, he can just sit back and laugh at Labour

twitter.com/sajidjavid/status/1442082718402154498

Sajid has been explicit though

@deadleaves

I'm donning my hard hat for this next comment but I think you're in a position of privilege if who shares the changing rooms at the local swimming pool is your most pressing concern rather than how to afford to pay for your children's shoes and food

I actually think its the other way around. I think the gender ideologists advocating for the removal of sex segregation are in the privileged position of never imagining themselves in prison or a refuge. Those are the places that financially poor women go. They don't give a shit about the most disadvantaged women in our society, as they aren't one of those women. Labour should be the party advocating for those women and I will never forgive them for selling these women so comprehensively down the river.

👏

Well said.

The level spin and gaslighting around this topic is insane.

He'll will freezer over before I'll vote Labour again (former long-standing party member) whilst they are still captured on this issue.

They look like utter fools, incapable of providing an effective opposition party, never mind a govt and when you look at whose PM that's a bloody travesty.

@NeverDropYourMoonCup None of this is a choice anyone should even have to make in a sensible political system tbh. I am pretty sure I will vote Labour because I am disabled, have disabled friends and family and think the way the Tories treat disabled people is unconscionable (as well as the way they mismanage everything they get their hands on). But I also feel like Labour isn't "for" me in that people with perfectly mainstream views are now apparently beyond the pale and they seem to buy increasingly into the mindset where the worst crime possible is to be a white woman. I almost feel nervous typing this ffs. I don't want grooming gangs and sexual abuse shoved under the carpet. I don't want to be a body with a vagina.

@Ninjawannabe Agree to some extent especially that the Tories were happy to go along with this state of affairs until it became a useful culture wars cudgel - but some of the least privileged women there are are women in prisons for example. They have a right to safety from sexual abuse in there.

I wonder where the Women's Equality Party stand in all this

@DaphneDeloresMoorhead

I wonder where the Women's Equality Party stand in all this

They are a disaster

By all means, a note to say the patient identifies as male/female but the biological facts of their sex should be noted.

This is where it gets so silly but also so dangerous from a medical point of view. Medical records should be made of facts. FACTS. This is extremely important. Not only for the patient ie do they have allergies, what is their blood type, are they male or female.

It is also extremely important to monitor and decide population medical care. The cervical screening program needed to go through a rigorous process which depended on knowing accurately the rate of cancer on females, the treatment, ages. If it didn’t know these facts, a screening programme could not even be established. If we did not record medically who are female or male on cancer rates screening could not happen for prostate or cervical cancer. We wouldn’t have the data.

@DaphneDeloresMoorhead

I wonder where the Women's Equality Party stand in all this

TWAW is their stance. They expelled their spokeswoman, Dr Heather Brunskell- Evans, for believing in biological reality:

www.heather-brunskell-evans.co.uk/body-politics/open-letter/

I would love all these who spout this nonsense to tell me what the difference is between this and someone saying they identify as black.

I'm sure everyone would agree that is not okay and is extremely offensive (and ridiculous). So what is the difference?

Why is identifying as one thing okay but not another?

I've decided I've had enough of being an adult so I'm just going to identify as a child and start school again. How exclusionary of anyone to tell me I cannot!

Time stamp - Andrew Marr show broadcast BBC Sunday 26th - 45 minutes into show

@KippersHangover

I would love all these who spout this nonsense to tell me what the difference is between this and someone saying they identify as black.

I'm sure everyone would agree that is not okay and is extremely offensive (and ridiculous). So what is the difference?

Why is identifying as one thing okay but not another?

I've decided I've had enough of being an adult so I'm just going to identify as a child and start school again. How exclusionary of anyone to tell me I cannot!

Well quite! it's ridiculous and offensive. But somehow the category of woman is up for grabs to whoever wants it.

Also, if a person has gender dysphoria (i.e.extreme discomfort with their sexed body), surely part of the treatment should be to challenge this disconnect between their perception and their physical reality?

Isn't it a bit like body dysmorphia, where someone thinks they are much fatter than they really are so starve themselves. Can you imagine the outrage if medical professionals had an 'affirmation only' policy for anorexia....yes yes yes, you're so fat, keep starving yourself .

Why is this the one issue where normal safeguarding and logic are thrown out the window, and reasonable questions and concerns are shouted down as hatred? What are they deflecting from?

@Ninjawannabe

Just for arguments sake...

The Tories have been in power for the last 11 years. Is it really right to get all indignant at how you're never voting Labour given xyz when the entirety of this bullshit has come up under Tory rule? Why are Labour getting blamed?

OK fine, Keir isn't convincing anyone he'll make any beneficial changes, but Boris and his predecessors are the ones who have presided over all that has happened over the last decade +, and at least Labour won't be slash/burning UC, NHS, school budgets to the same extent? These all affect women too. And IMO these things affect natal women a lot more day to day especially poor women.

I'm donning my hard hat for this next comment but I think you're in a position of privilege if who shares the changing rooms at the local swimming pool is your most pressing concern rather than how to afford to pay for your children's shoes and food

I honestly think the tories don't give a toss about women, natal or otherwise, and are laughing all the way to the next poll that somehow Labour are being blamed for something which has happened on their watch. They've played a blinder

A position of privilege?

How about my mother, her sisters, my mother-in-law, their friends, all elderly women, who may in the near future require care.

Is it a privilege that they should be allowed to request a female carer to provide that care?

A woman in her 80s, living by herself, in her own home, quite vulnerable, needing a carer to wash them. Is that a position of privilege? Really?

@Pumperthepumper

I long for the day he replies ‘what sort of fucking question is that when the country’s on its knees Andrew? Ask me what I’m doing to stop the Tories fucking everything over’

As if! That would require him to actually say something meaningful.

This is bloody funny - Starmer trying to show how he's down with the working classes.

dead as disco

Useful comparison.

TWAW is their stance. They expelled their spokeswoman, Dr Heather Brunskell- Evans, for believing in biological reality:

www.heather-brunskell-evans.co.uk/body-politics/open-letter/

This is crazy, so even the Women's Equality Party believe that men can become women? I despair.

@KippersHangover because women are an easy target? Same with autism. Self identifying is apparently the way to go there also - with many protesting against any therapy, research or service for autistic people that dares to ask if they actually have a diagnosis.

But I’ve not seen anyone self identify as black, as Down’s syndrome, as deaf, as having dementia or as having learning difficulties.

Why not?

I have no problem with a man or woman wanting to be known as either sex. Just don’t mix facts!

Time stamp - Andrew Marr show BBC Sunday 26th 45 minutes into programme.

I've decided I've had enough of being an adult so I'm just going to identify as a child and start school again. How exclusionary of anyone to tell me I cannot!

In crazy Canada, anything can happen. Google Stefonknee Wolscht.

Canada, by the way, is where we are headed.

"Self identifying is apparently the way to go there also - with many protesting against any therapy, research or service for autistic people that dares to ask if they actually have a diagnosis." Tbf with autism the waiting list is so long for diagnosis that most high functioning people I know who were diagnosed as autistic later on ended up self identifying for a time. But then that opens up the massive can of worms which is whether or not it is acceptable to distinguish between high and low functioning autistic people's needs etc.