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?

Not everyone sees trans women as men though. I Don know what polling shows about attitudes to segregated facilities. I suspect they are so much a fact of life that most people don't question them, but that doesn't mean they are necessarily attached to the idea.

I don't see women boycotting Pret en masse.

I don't know if they do or don't

Thank you, no you don't, you don't really appear particularly well informed about any of this.

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.

Maybe if you manage to "smash the patriarchy". But I think most women who aren't you and your bubble value the privacy and dignity of not having strange men in their spaces.

I think you are both naive about what type of male many of these males calling themselves women are, and also privileged so that you're not going to end up in a refuge or a prison cell with one of them.

I don't see how you got from this appalling tale of medical mistreatment and malpractice to opposing abortion, but this thread is not about abortion and I've no wish to derail it further.

Not everyone sees trans women as men though.

Most people do. Because a "trans woman" is literally any male person who declares himself to be a woman. It's magical thinking. Unfortunately that declaration doesn't magic away male socialisation, an often misogynistic contempt for women and girls or propensity to male pattern violence.

I came here to talk about egg donation, used some inclusive language as I always do, got leapt upon and so responded.

I appreciate your thoughtful and careful response. I do not, however, share your take on everything you have just mentioned. I do not, for example, think JK Rowling is nuanced and compassionate.

'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.'

So as I'm neither a dedicated trans rights activist, nor a gender critical feminist, I shouldn't comment at all in case I hurt the latter group's feelings? Isn't that the epitome of no debate?

If you read my post you will see I do not oppose abortion in extreme circumstances. I do oppose abortion at the maximum stages permitted at the moment, end of. My thoughts turn to what happens to the live aborted fetus (fully formed baby with a beating heart) Does it like the 80s spontaneous abortions as was common practice to end up in a brown padded bag & sent to cytology. Yes, I agree, absolutely appalling.

I've been in a prison cell.

I also don't think that majority views should infringe on minority rights. Most people want immigration controls. I fully accept that, but have spent my life fighting against them.

Saying "are you that desperate" to a poster who has detailed her miscarriage and fertility struggles on the thread is beyond crass.

I also don't think that majority views should infringe on minority rights.

Men don't have the "right" to violate women's boundaries and invade our spaces just because they say so. That's why we have single sex exemptions so that we can have single sex spaces and services. I guess time will tell whether women's feelings and needs will ever be considered as much as those of the men. But I won't stop campaigning for it.

Why, why exactly do you want less of those spaces? What's your skin in this game? Are you a trans person? Are you the parent or sibling of a trans person? Is your spouse a trans person?

Being male and being an immigrant are not the same thing. Being Mexican or Polish doesn't make you capable of forcibly impregnating someone else. Being male does. Again, you make a false analogy.

It's advice, not a prohibition and perjoratively labelling you a bigot if you don't comply. Also it's not a debate if every time anyone raises a critique of what you've stated you refuse to defend or substantiate it, just throw slurs at people and say it isn't important to you. That isn't a debate, that's sounding off, which again you are more than welcome to do in a free society, I just doesn't add much and can cause upset and some of the heat you've drawn on here which you seem to think excessive.

All I meant was that I'll accept an egg from anyone who willingly donates one, after going through the appropriate counselling and being approved to donate, regardless of how they define their gender identity.

I'm not going to go to the clinic and say, 'does this donor identify as a woman? If not it's a no from me!' That's literally all I meant.

And as a neurodiverse person myself I would certainly not reject a donor on that basis, and find it disturbing that you would suggest I should.

I do not, for example, think JK Rowling is nuanced and compassionate.

You didn't read her essay, did you? The one where she spoke about knowing and loving transpeople and wanting them to be safe?

You read that entire detailed nuanced and careful post that touches on, for example the link between gender dysphoria and autism, and all you took home was that one line?

Also it's not a debate if every time anyone raises a critique of what you've stated you refuse to defend or substantiate it, just throw slurs at people and say it isn't important to you. That isn't a debate, that's sounding off, which again you are more than welcome to do in a free society,

I agree. That's why genderists don't debate, because they don't have any arguments other than "men can be women if they say so, trans people should get what they want and fuck everyone else". There's no rationale because it's not a rational position.

But it's fine for minority views to infringe on majority rights?

Also, an actual prison, or a police cell? Police cells are usually single-occupant.

Spurious assertions about rape are frequently used to argue against both immigration and trans rights.

This doesn't mean I deny that trans women or immigrants ever commit sexual assault. Just that the fact that some of them do shouldn't infringe on the rights of all trans people or all immigrants.

I was just wondering what the evil TERFs have done because of this

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'm genuinely curious.

The Mexicans who rape are male. The transwomen who rape are male.

It's about biology.

You are advocating granting transwomen, who are male, a right to female spaces that no other male has. This isn't the same as advocating for immigrant rights at all.

There's a common factor between all trans "women" and immigrants who commit rape, and it's the same one that is the reason women need and value single sex spaces.

Cross post with @VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia

That one line was the entire point of that "nuanced" post. Deriding a poster struggling with fertility for saying she'd be happy to use an egg donated by a trans man, calling her desperate and a "BE KIND" merchant.

It doesn't occur to you how "be kind" would encourage vulnerable people who are desperate for someone else's approval to do something rash?

You don't comprehend how the feeling of being praised can get a vulnerable person to walk through fire just to hear "well done" again? When we are made to feel a burden our whole fucking lives?