To tell you the Scottish Govt are targeting 18 year old girls for egg harvesting

[VestaTilley]

Yes, really.

Surrogacy Concern broke the news on Friday night. I can’t actually believe it.

Over a month to come, the Scottish Govt are asking for egg and sperm donors as young as 18 to come forward in a series of targeted ads on social media and the radio. They’ve expanded IVF provision and - in their own words - have a supply and demand issue.

I’d heard of fertility clinics advertising (bad enough in my view) but for a national Govt to do this to women is staggering. Women can die from complications arising from OHSS, which can be caused by egg donation. A British woman died in 2006 as a result.

The ads don’t mention these risks; it’s all “be kind” “do something amazing”. I cannot actually believe a Govt could be this stupid. They’ve only just apologised for forced adoption!

AIBU?

Regarding abortion. I was neither for or against until a relative who was a student midwife in the 80s shared this story. A woman was rushed into the labour suit sadly during the process of a spontaneous abortion at 26 weeks. It was in the days before the 'fetus' if dead was treated in the same respectful way as it is today.

The midwife in charge walked into the wet room where this 'baby' was dealt with. She handed the little boy wrapped in a bloodied towel to my relative then proceeded to produce a large brown padded envelope and said it goes in here, fill this form in & place it in the tray to be sent to cytology. I won't share the rest if the story, it's too distressing but needless to say my relative almost left midwifery & said she will never recover from this scene. I'm now for abortion only in very extreme circumstances and definitely not late stage.

Well I don't believe in any supernatural forces or higher powers. I just think people should be able to use whatever changing room they want, and if someone says they are a woman or a man, or non binary, should be treated as such regardless of biological sex, without being discriminated against or facing hostility. There is nothing religious about that.

You may think that certain parts of the trans rights movement present as culty. To me terfs, including many here, present as culty. But I just think that biological sex is unimportant except in terms of certain types of medical care, and treat people as they wish to be treated. There is nothing religious about that.

'people should be able to use whatever changing room they want'

What could possibly go wrong, eh?

You think adult males should be free to use the changing rooms of young girls if they want to.

@PP82 You don't see the massive safeguarding fail of allowing any man who say he's a woman to use women's single sex spaces? You'd allow a man who says he's a woman to 'identify' into female sports teams? Righty ho.

As for those who were born in a male body, if they've been living as a woman for a long time, been discriminated against as a woman, and have lived experiences of existing as a woman in society, that's what would bond me to them in sisterhood, regardless of their chromosomes or sexual organs.

They can't, by definition, have those things. A person cannot live as woman or exist as a woman in society if that person is born male. They can at worst be discriminated against on the basis of being perceived as a woman (not the same as being one) some of the time because they won't "pass" to all people all the time. It's more likely that they will be discriminated against for being noticably trans or perceived as gay.

I don't understand "bonded in sisterhood" to refer to other women at all. I have a sister and I don't feel about other women the way I feel about her.

What I do have is a respect for other women's bodies and boundaries. I respect other women's rights to untampered-with ovaries and female-only spaces. And I have taken time to understand how free will doesn't apply to many situations women end up in, especially when the woman is impoverished and money is involved such as in prostitution, surrogacy, and egg donation.

You may think that certain parts of the trans rights movement present as culty. To me terfs, including many here, present as culty.

Gender critical feminists, like most small single issue groups, like trans rights activists, are always going to be zealous about what they see as critical to their movement. But as a woman, most women agree with me more than they agree with you on this issue. That's just the reality of it. Not caring who sees you naked is not a common position, and I think you know that, otherwise there wouldn't be any issues from either side, would there? As pp said, maybe it's you who need to get a sense of perspective here. Many people don't share your quasi religious belief in woman souls in male bodies. And even where they do, women still don't want penises in their single sex female spaces.

And I'd appreciate if you'd do me the courtesy of not using misogynistic antifeminist slurs about me.

This I the first and last time I've ever argued with TERFs or ever will. I normally ignore them as a bunch of irritating but irrelevant extremists. I only came here to discuss egg donation, then got suckered in. However long I've spent today on this thread is the sum total of the time I've spent on the evils of TERFs, other than reading about something one or some of them have done occasionally, and feeling either momentarily enraged or irritated, depending on what it is.

I just think people should be able to use whatever changing room they want

That's how I ended up sexually assaulted at age eight.

Just no. End of.

Yes. I'm fine with that.

This I the first and last time I've ever argued with TERFs or ever will. I normally ignore them as a bunch of irritating but irrelevant extremists.

Yes, that's why you don't really understand any of the arguments, and have talked yourself into a corner that you can only get out of by throwing abuse at women for holding a more coherent and reality based position than your own.

Oh, what've we done then?

JFC.

I would assume that you were very young if you hadn't said you were in your 40s. I hope it's been good for you to step outside your echo chamber and consider the feelings of the boring uncool women you despise.

You admit to being part of a small group, yet claim to speak for most women. On what basis do you make this claim?

I don't believe in souls. I just believe in treating people as they wish to be treated. If someone wishes to be treated as a woman I respect that. Has nothing to do with religious or supernatural concepts of souls.

Referring to then got suckered in ?

First rule of misogyny, innit? Women are responsible for what a man, or in this case another woman, does.

You admit to being part of a small group, yet claim to speak for most women. On what basis do you make this claim?

All polling done on this subject where the question has been asked about pre op trans "women". Women across all walks of life have consistently rejected the idea of having those males in female spaces. You are in an echo chamber if you think most women share your views.

Ok. Well I think my general advice to you would be not to get involved in this argument if if doesn't mean that much to you, as it means a lot to the people involved in it.

Just for reference, I wrote a whole masters dissertation from the trans rights perspective about 15 years ago (I can DM it to you if you don't believe me). I thought that second wave feminism was being abusive and reductive and regressive and etc etc etc to be so exclusionary, to think sexed bodies matter, to think there was anything inherent in traditionally gendered behaviour that couldn't be ironed out by better social environments. I thought that women and trans people were natural allies against the patriarchy. I researched this, weighed it up, and really believed it. I didn't start from a fixed position either, it was a genuine exploration.

Since then, a few things have happened to me. I have got pregnant and given birth, twice, to girls. This is NOT intended as some sort of cruel gotcha re your fertility struggles, I'm just telling you that the experience of that has given me a whole new understanding of the ways in which my sex has shaped me and my experience of the world, and a whole new appreciation of the struggles my daughters will face as female people.

And I have watched a movement that 15 years ago was very much on the fringes gain in voice and strength, initially with approval and encouragement, then with growing confusion, and now finally with outright concern as to the direction of travel and the tactics of the main players. I still believe being trans is a "real thing", and living in a culture prejudiced against trans people, where rigid gender roles are still enforced, causes trans people huge psychological and practical harm and distress. I still think trans people deserve equal human rights and to be treated in a manner which respects their human dignity. But I am also far more alert to the concerns about where rights conflict, and where changes to make things better for trans people may make things worse for women, who are not whichever way you slice it the powerful ones in this equation. I am very concerned by a general tone in the discourse which treats any attempt to balance these questions as unsayable, as hate crimes. Where someone can write an open letter as careful and compassionate and nuanced and vulnerable as the one JK Rowling wrote, and be vilified as the Wicked Witch of the West by thousands. Where #nodebate is considered an acceptable position full stop, whether countering a three-page argument from a professor of gender studies or an abusive "man in a dress" slur from an anonymous twitter poster, with no distinction.

I have literally never found myself on the "wrong side" of the left, liberal, radical frontier before. I am deeply uncomfortable here, and I do frequently interrogate myself to make sure I am not just becoming conservative in my old age (nearly 40). But then there are issues like the shaming of lesbians fof imposing s "cotton ceiling" on trans women, or the safety of women prisoners where it is just so utterly, brain meltingly obvious to me that mixed sex provision is not appropriate that I can't put away my reservations, I have to keep thinking about it, I have to keep questioning the direction of travel, and most of all question the validity of an ideology/position that reserves an exclusive right to be unquestioned, a right no other movement has ever claimed in the entire history of civil rights movements.

Phew. Longer than I intended (as you can probably see I still struggle with this stuff and tie myself in knots with it trying to be even handed. It's so much easier to just pick a side and stick to it come what may).

I don't live in an echo chamber. I live in a small town in a rural area where most people are depressingly racist. I used to live in big cities, and be involved in activism there. I have many family and friends that are in no way politically involved. Most of them are quietly supportive of trans rights while spending very little time thinking about such issues.

It is the gender critical, if that's what you prefer to be called, who are in the minority. Most people simply don't care.

I do feel sorry for women who hate being a woman. It's sad. Both those women who mistakenly believe they can identify out of their sex, and the others ones who go around pandering to men who hate us all. And those women come in many varieties. They might be religious zealots who think women should be seen and not heard, or they might be faux progressive activist types.

No, that was on me. I wanted a distraction. I'm was just responding to the charge that I was 'obsessed with TERFs.' I literally never usually think about them, except momentarily. People on here think I'm a trans rights activist. I'm not, though I do support them.

It is the gender critical, if that's what you prefer to be called, who are in the minority. Most people simply don't care.

Women care when men invade their spaces. You are very out of touch. Your view is the minority one.

People on here think I'm a trans rights activist. I'm not, though I do support them.

I consider anyone wanging on about your "gender" ideology as much as you have done a trans rights activist, in the context of this discussion.

I don't know if they do or don't, but I hope society will change so that more women are comfortable with trans women in their spaces, and so that less segregated spaces are wanted or needed.

I don't think that women being uncomfortable means that trans women should be excluded though, any more than I think that immigration should be restricted because lots of people are uncomfortable with that.

Fair enough. I've done bugger all actual activism though. I don't object to the label but I certainly haven't earned it.