To think that "wokeism" is for the privileged few?

[Mooscow]

Wokeism and identity politics seems rife at the moment in the UK. But Canada and the US seem even worse. There is this massive push to avoid the possibility of ever offending anyone, ever. For example, I work for a North American company and we've just been given a long list of words never to use. This includes "female", "blind", "deaf", "blacklist", "homeless", "rule of thumb" and it goes on and on and on. So you can't say things like "turn a blind eye" or "tone deaf" etc. any more in case it offends a blind or deaf person. Really?!

I've just read an article in the FT (sorry can't share) that says the US has only sent 111million out of its pledge to send 1 billion vaccines to poorer countries. The US has 2 and a half times the amount of vaccines it needs for itself and Canada has ordered 8 times what it needs.

I know that vaccines and wokeism has little in common but it just struck me how so much effort is put into this new purity culture whilst at the same time demonstrating utter selfishness and lack of compassion for anyone else.

It's also like the push to remove the word women from healthcare such as cervical screening in case a transman, as a "cervix haver" 🤮 is offended at being grouped with women, while 40% of women (especially those without English as a first language and those in lower socio-economic groups) don't even know what a cervix is. But screw them, let's let them get cervical cancer while we pat ourselves on the back and virtue signal at making sure we don't offend by telling the truth the tiny, tiny proportion of trans people.

I wonder if the whole work/identity politics stuff is based in the fact that privileged people can effortlessly virtue signal to feel better about themselves whilst remaining selfish, uncaring and apathetic towards people who are actually in need or vulnerable. AIBU?

I see that my post, although protected by law, has been deleted. And that @DameFanny has made a personal attack against me.

@DameFanny

And transwomen don't have 'male bodies', they have their own bodies, whatever they look like. This is denial of trans existence which is hate speech.

You are aware the humans are a species that has two sexes, yes? And only two? A body is either male or female. By definition a transwoman has a male body, that is what the 'trans' bit signifies in that context.

The only transwomen do not have prostates is if they have been surgically removed for reasons like prostate cancer. Transwomen are born with prostates, the way that women are born with Fallopian tubes.

Nobody is denying that trans people exist and have done so for millennia.
However, saying that someone stating a biological reality when discussing health care is indulging in hate speech is not acceptable.

Yes, this. Way to prove the OP's point though!

@MNHQ, why was my post, which is protected in law, deleted?

Not that I was ever fussed, sport is mostly an overrated way to put some people off physical activity for life, encourage others to wreck their bodies and still others to gamble. Meh.

So you personally aren't fussed, therefore nobody else is allowed to care about women's sport? Hot take.

You are aware the humans are a species that has two sexes, yes? And only two? A body is either male or female. By definition a transwoman has a male body, that is what the 'trans' bit signifies in that context.

Yes. And humans cannot change sex, which in humans is immutable.

The World has gone mad. Bring back the 80's.

Nope, there's also intersex people making up between 1 and 0.05% of the population. Plus an amazingly wide variety of hormonal differences, genital presentation etc.

What's your definition of a 'male body' @arabellascott? How will you make it fit every single instance of assigned male at birth human?

Indeed. This is all quite basic and straightforward knowledge.

I did laugh when the Endocrine Society had to put out a statement reminding people that humans are a dimorphic species, though. You could hear the gritted teeth reading the abstract.

I don't like woke and I don't like cancel culture either. there are too many people with minority views trying to tell the rest of us we are sexist, transphobic, ablist, agist, racist, triggering or needing to check out privilege. Mumsnet is full of it and indeed what is in trend and therefore likely to get posts deleted or banned changes over time. Indeed the forums rules are deliberately loose to allow this. Someone's woke is someone else's hill to die on so whilst I wouldn't ban woke I also wouldn't want to see woke driving laws or freedom of speech.

@BlondeDogLady

The World has gone mad. Bring back the 80's.

I first read about sex-change (as it was called then) at the end of the 70s/early 80s in the Reader's Digest. It made sense to me then and I've not had cause to change that opinion since.

@DameFanny

Nope, there's also intersex people making up between 1 and 0.05% of the population. Plus an amazingly wide variety of hormonal differences, genital presentation etc.

What's your definition of a 'male body' @arabellascott? How will you make it fit every single instance of assigned male at birth human?

People with disorders of sexual development are either male or female. There are only two sexes in humans. Humans cannot change sex.

@AlfonsoTheUnrepentant

The only transwomen do not have prostates is if they have been surgically removed for reasons like prostate cancer. Transwomen are born with prostates, the way that women are born with Fallopian tubes.

Yes, and? How is that supposed to change what I wrote?

It made sense to me then

What made sense?

A male body is a body that has developed more towards producing small gametes than large ones. In a nutshell. All being well there will be a penis, prostate and testicles. They are male gonads. Didn't you do this in GCSE biology? Or O level, I guess if you were reading Readers Digest in the 70s.

@DameFanny

Nope, there's also intersex people making up between 1 and 0.05% of the population. Plus an amazingly wide variety of hormonal differences, genital presentation etc.

What's your definition of a 'male body' @arabellascott? How will you make it fit every single instance of assigned male at birth human?

You're trying to bring disorders of sexual development or variations of sexual characteristics into a discussion about transwomen?

Nope. A person with a DSD or an intersex person is NOT a transwoman, by definition.

It's very simple - to be a 'transwoman' one is a male who 'presents' as a woman, dressing according to sex stereotyping, perhaps by taking hormones and/or perhaps by various plastic surgery treatments. That's it. That is the very straightforward definition of a transwoman.

It's not even slightly contentious to say this, you understand, it's just the definition of a transwoman.

The idea that some people feel they're born in the wrong body and take steps to live the way that feels right to them. It made sense to me as a child, it makes sense to me as an adult.

And intersex people are by definition not one or the other @arabellascott. Don't erase them!

'Sex is dichotomous, with sex determination in the fertilized zygote stemming from unequal expression of sex chromosomal genes'

'all mammals have 2 distinct sexes'

'The classical biological definition of the 2 sexes is that females have ovaries and make larger female gametes (eggs), whereas males have testes and make smaller male gametes (sperm)'

From the Endocrine Society's paper:

academic.oup.com/edrv/article/42/3/219/6159361

Sorry for the derail but as this was directed to me and I don't understand it, could I ask for some clarification?
I suspect if you didn't recognise Megan Rapinoe you'd be wanting to exclude her from the John Lewis ladies without a knicker inspection

Do you mean the Megan Rapinhoe who with the World Champion women's football team lost a match to an under 15 boys team?
What does she have to do with John Lewis?

It doesn't make sense to me. I think it's absurd. I do think there is a psychological dysphoria for a tiny number of people as there exists other types of body dysmorphia, but the idea of "being born in the wrong body" isn't even pushed by Stonewall any more. I am unconvinced that to ease these people's personal dysphoria the rest of the world needs to participate in a false reality.

And intersex people are by definition not one or the other

What definition are you using? "Intersex" isn't actually the scientific term. They have a disorder/difference of sex development. Male people XXY (Klinefelters) for instance, still very much male.