A woman is a woman

[EmotionSickness]

For those who have been following the Tory conference and general themes of their speeches…

How do you feel about Sunak’s speech?

I know there has been a lot of discussion on here from those who didn’t want to vote for a party that didn’t know the definition of a woman.

Rishi has stated clearly that “a woman is a woman and a man is a man.” While I’d argue that still isn’t a definition, per se, he is appeasing this way of thinking.

So I’m just wondering. Is this enough for you to vote Tory at the next election?

unsurprisingly I don’t have all the answers. It’s complicated and I’m trying to see it from everyone’s point of view which clearly you aren’t interested in. This is why this who issue is so toxic.

Cornflakes, it’s not a question of ‘transwomen’ and ‘other women’. Once you start talking like that you’ve been defeated before you even start to fight for your rights.

If’s about men and women. Some men want to be seen as women, and that’s fine as far as wearing frocks and high heels and make-up.

But no one should collude with the delusion that they are women. Because then they claim the right to enter women’s spaces, such as changing rooms, hospital wards and prisons, which are segregated by sex for women’s safety. They take women’s sports medals and jobs that need to be done by women, such as in rape crisis centres and domestic violence shelters, or providing intimate care to disabled women.

All of this stems from allowing the pretence that they are women, just a different kind of woman. That’s not true, and you’re not being kind to anyone pretending it is.

You seem to be ignoring the many transwomen who don't agree with you. They know that they are both male AND that they are not women. So, you seem to be speaking for some trans people and not others. Do you ever listen to trans people who don't agree with you?

No. This is not accurate at all. It is a false analogy. Because you are claiming that a male can be a female and this is simply not material reality. You have positioned this as being two belief systems comparatively.

Please can you tell us how a human can change sex? Because to date not one single human has ever done so.

doesn’t say anything meaningful about how trans people can live without causing unfairness to other women

Male trans people are not "other women". Accommodating their wishes requires consideration of what rights women need. If they actually were women, these problems wouldn't arise.

I believe out of all parties, they ARE working on solving this complicated problem. They have sponsored the Cass report, they have made statements about sports though the UK sports body, they have actually allowed women's groups to participate in committee hearings and consultations (unlike the SNP or Labour - because Labour didn't allow Women's Labour Declaration to even have a stall at conference).

They ARE looking into the guidance for schools. The hold up is the wording of the Equality Act 2010 which I believe was passed by a Labour government, please correct me if I am mistaken. There is little point making legal guidance on an issue if that guidance is illegal. Or do you think that they are just holding out after delaying it for months because they just don't care?

Would you like to tell us what you think Labour would have done up to now please? I really would like to hear people's opinions, considering that Keir Starmer, Jess Philips and Lisa Nanny have simply used ambiguous language at conference to leave everyone guessing what they mean. But up to mid this year, Starmer was very clear that legally male people could be female and should access everything that was female single sex provisions. Oh... except for prisons after the massively huge public pushback on that in January.

Please do be specific in what other parties would have done, in your mind, regarding female single sex spaces and sports for a start. And regarding the guidance to schools.

"But I do think we should figure out a way for them to still be an able to comfortably live as the gender they want."

Again, do you realise the hypocrisy in what you are posting here.

You are supporting single sex spaces, safeguarding and sports, while YOU are denying some trans people exist by your very own discussion points. Extreme trans activists do not want to listen to your points because it denies them the very thing that they demand. That the only way to 'live comfortably as the gender they want', is to deny that sex cannot change, to deny their sex and demand to be treated as if they were natal females in every aspect of their lives. Check out some of the most prominent trans spokespeople if you don't believe me.

You say you don't know the answers, yet, you don't seem to see the hypocrisy in your posts.

Also are you really claiming that the Tories have just said this because they want votes from 'GC people' and are those people you referred to on this page as the people with this statement -"they want to dog whistle their homophobia base enough to get more votes without actually doing anything".

"It’s complicated and I’m trying to see it from everyone’s point of view which clearly you aren’t interested in".

Who is not interested? Or is it that many of the people replying to your posts have deeply thought about it and are pointing out the flaws and the issues in your own thinking that you frame it as 'people not listening to everyone's point of view'?

Yes although I’m not sure I’m even going to vote because neither party will make anything better.

Why is that up to women to solve? Women are not HUMAN SHIELDS for men in a dress. Transwomen are men. This is a fact. The majority of them - 92% to 97%, depending on what medical data you go by, retain their penis and testicles. Sorry to be vulgar, but if you have a cock and balls, you're not a woman, you're male, and you have no right being in female on safe single sex spaces. It's not up to women to figure out the problems of men. I really don't have the emotionally energy like most women, or care, what men think. Let them sort it out. They are men. And we don't want them in our spaces. I don't give a shit what TW think. Women don't have the headspace to sort out mens emotional problems.

No this is the more appropriate analogy: claiming foxes are hens -

No, it is not complicated. At all. You're either male, or female. Very simple. You're making something that is not complicated, complicated. It's very straight forward. Male vs female. It's that simple.

I'm going to be honest with you, it doesn't sound like you have any of the answers.

I hate to break it to you, but if you don't think trans women should have access to women's single sex spaces, you clearly don't actually believe they are women. You just think it's unkind to say so.

This kind of pussyfooting around isn't helpful to anyone.

1. Some (not all) trans women want the definition of "women" to be expanded to include them. This is because they find the prospect of being called a man intensely distressing.

According to some posters, the correct response is: "To say trans women aren’t women, which is what GC people want to hear, does deny trans people's right to exist."

(Exist, in this sense, must logically refer to trans women's perception of themselves).

2. Some (not all) biological women want the definition of "women" to be retained as "biological" only. This is because they find the prospect of losing the only word they have to describe themselves & advocate for their rights intensely disturbing.

According to some posters, the correct response is: "To say trans women are women, which is what trans people what to hear, doesn't deny women's right to exist."

(Exist, in this sense, must logically refer to biological women's perception of themselves, as well as their existence as a distinct political class).

QUESTION 1: Why is 1) correct & 2) incorrect? (10 marks)
QUESTION 2: How can anyone be sure of this? (50 marks)

Answer to Question 1: Because some people are more equal than others.

Answer to Question 2: Based on how the people who are more equal have treated the people who are less equal throughout human history.

100%. Gold Star.

(But shhh - you've given it away for the students who are struggling. I was interested to see what they came up with.

Still am).

Sorry! 😅

That's OK, I prepared an extension activity to keep the more confident kids busy... 😁

Extension question:

Is it not in trans people's interests to be respected as a distinct political class, too?

https://unherd.com/2023/04/how-the-trans-census-fooled-britain/

https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/08/07/nhs-wait-times-trans-healthcare-porterbrook/

(The point being that the current mangling of language makes it hard to assess and cater for their needs, too...)

Exactly. It's a similar logic to the pro life activists who want save unborn babies but don't care about them once they're born

It is, and they know this. But the same rules do not apply to both groups. This is why trans women can identify as women but women cannot identify as trans women.

But if you ask why biological women cannot identify as trans women, they will resort to circular explanations such as "because you're not trans, you're cis", rather than the truth, which is that you cannot be a trans woman unless you were born male. I think this has less to do with not wanting to acknowledge that trans women are biologically male and more to do with not wanting to acknowledge that there are groups you cannot simply identify into and can only be included in if you are the correct biological sex. Because then we would ask why that principle can't apply to "women".

FWIW, I've no interest in the voting aspect of this discussion - not at all certain what to do myself, or if I'll spoil my ballot. Hence an interest in the reasoning behind seemingly simple answers to difficult issues in a complex world. Honestly, Margot's answer's genuinely the only one I've been able to come up with myself after a heck of a lot of thought, but I keep searching for another explanation... Mad busy couple of days ahead, but will return to thread if poss.

And yes, agree with that, too, Margot. I think this is where the current fashion of hierarchizing (?!) oppression can lead - a reductive "law" that someone can identify down into a "lower" group on the ladder (trans women into women), but not upwards (vice versa).

And I do find this growing tendency on the Left towards rather more extreme forms of social engineering concerning. To be a bit reductive, I see it as an attempt to force unpleasant realities into alternative, preferable shapes through language, law & the chilling effect (not more meaningful social change) - whereas the Tories are more about quite straightforwardly exploiting those unpleasant realities through unashamedly cynical self-interest (eg. capitalist forces). Devastatingly - and ironically - the latter can feel a bit more honest(!) and less sinister at times...

Both have huge potential to devastate women's lives. Both are having just that impact, right now. But one more more visibly & tangibly, & the other in a more abstract, existential, long-term sense: how do we address the concerns cited above in defence of Labour - "employment rights", health provision incl. medical research etc. - if we lose the ability to name, & measure, the 51% of the population they affect? I want to know that a survey on women in the top tiers of business is about women in the biological sense, but the proportions here mean that distorting the stats by including males will make women's progress less visible; ditto a desperately-needed recent study on the neglected issue of head injuries(? read about a while ago, can't recall specifics) in the female prison population whose data was corrupted by the inclusion of males.

It's easy to assume the more immediate issues - social infrastructure, tangible suffering - must come first, but is this short-sighted dismissal of even more significant issues - the loss of the measures (both in the counting sense, & in the sense of systems) that have enabled women to get as far as they have in the last hundred years, further down the line?

OK, so I guess the politics does interest me! 😂

No easy answers, as far as I'm concerned.

That's where the WEP looks interesting and I couldn't find anything specific about including TW in things like medical research as they wouldn't need to be factored in. I'm just not sure how TW fit into their manifesto except for the 'equality' bit which covers all humans.