How the erosion of LGBT rights effects female sex based rights.

[needatalk]

I've been reading various discussions and articles on this topic for some time and the conclusion that keeps popping up in my mind is the worry that my female rights will be as much eroded as LGBT rights in law.

I've seen a push in America especially Florida from activists and lawmakers, combining female and LGBT rights in the same grouping. In the UK, politicians are taking American policies. They are calling for diversity and equality to be dismantled in law. It's like time is going backwards in just on LGBT rights but on female sex based rights. Where less rights will exist for us females in the future to do subjects such as STEM or be Astronaut because of the stereotyping happening from suppose feminists who's concepts are the old typical stay at home leave the male to do the dangerous or go to work mentally.

My daughter is 8 years old and and I worry for her, to not able to have the right to do express herself as bisexual or lesbian because of erosion of LGBT rights. We all know homosexuality a long time ago was illegal and that can happen again for all LGBT rights. I worry that my daughter who loves space won't able to follow Rosemary Coogan become an astronaut which is something she dreams of because in the future people will say the radiation of space is too dangerous for females as they will get deformities in that area to prevent them for having babies or healthy babies. Science has disprove this but people are dismissing science now.

As much as I care and support about sex based rights, I can't forget the thought in my mind that my and my daughter's female rights are in as much danger of being taken away not by activists but by lawmakers who enforce sex based past stereotyping and us females lose equality which has been hard to fight for in the first place.

I'm so worried for the future for us females.

So what are you arguing for then if you agree that trans people are entitled to be treated the same as other people? 🥴 I also very clearly didn't support it, I said it's a discussion between a patient and their doctor to decide on the risks and benefits, not people's political opinions. There's lots of drugs that ideally should be stopped in pregnancy. There are cases where Doctors advise against stopping and will do additional monitoring. It's none of our business.

What exactly is it that we can't do?

I would hope that the women who do not agree with abortion would believe in the right of others to access it. If they don't, that's their choice but they shouldn't call themselves an advocate for women's rights.

I'm arguing because you have said that Trans people are treated differently.
So far all you have done is post that they are not treated differently at all.
That medically they are held to the same restrictions as everyone else and that where a child is concerned they should also be held to the accountability.

Yea because interestingly enough although I was thinking of Helen Joyce, posters already had others in their head that it applied to. So clearly not all GC people are ignorant to these campaigners links to right wing groups if they can think of examples by themselves.

So JK Rowling believed Johnny Depp was innocent and did not believe the woman who accused him of abuse despite the evidence provided. Is it just biological men she gives the benefit of the doubt to? She seems very concerned about women being abused by trans people. Do you think she would publicly support any trans person accused of abuse?

I stopped at reading when you referred to us as females rather than women . I’m a woman. Thanks.

I'm saying that there are people arguing for that NOT to be the case though which they are. I think that endangers women and girls if we start pushing for the state to interfere with people's rights when we haven't protected women's particularly when it comes to healthcare.

So were should the line be drawn?
No-one says that trans people shouldn't be allowed to play sports. Yet many trans people say that this is the case because people say that they should play with those of the same sex (or mixed where available and consented to).
No-one says that trans people shouldn't be allowed medical treatment, just that they should be of a legal age and competent to make the choice given all of the relevant factors.
At what point should the rights of trans people be allowed to impinge on the sex based rights of others?

Well it's my view that men shouldn't call themselves women but you seem to be arguing that there is no problem with that.

Perhaps the anti choice activists identify as women's rights advocates.

What rights? Trans people already have all the same rights as everyone else.

Using single sex spaces or competing in sports for members of the opposite sex is not a right anyone else has.

I'd say being anti women's bodily autonomy is the antithesis of women's rights.

Do you think Miriam Cates is anti women's bodily autonomy?

Where less rights will exist for us females in the future to do subjects such as STEM or be Astronaut because of the stereotyping happening from suppose feminists who's concepts are the old typical stay at home leave the male to do the dangerous or go to work mentally

As a fellow female and Suppose Feminist, I can confirm that us feminine female feminists are all working very hard to ensure all fellow females stay at home and leave the manly male work to the mentally manly men.

Jumping to the extreme of every argument is silly and childish.

In the real world we pragmatically balance conflicting wants, needs and harms to get the best overall outcome. Therefore, while we can have principles a decision made in one context often does not translate automatically to others. Each one needs to be informed by principle but also considered in its own right.

So, dealing with your questions individually:

biological women who are adoptive parents shouldn't be allowed to breastfeed

Before I answer, can you clarify whether you mean women who are already lactating or have induced naturally, or do you mean women taking drugs to induce lactation?

What about women who smoke?

Is smoking and breastfeeding better or worse for the baby than not breastfeeding at all?

should these children be taken into care?

Again this will depend on the context and the degree of harm to the child. Education and support is always preferred. But if a child is considered at severe risk they can and sometimes are taken into care. I doubt smoking would ever be considered bad enough that the harm to the child justifies the harm of removing the child from its mother altogether, although of course that is partly because smoking is still somewhat normalised. (It would be interesting to know how it would be treated if it were a new thing just arising now, but that's a whole other thread)

How do we stop it?

Again context specific depending on the immediate risk, but expectation, education and support would be the preference. In my life I've seen both breastfeeding rates go up and smoking go down not through draconian interventions but through education and support.

Do you see? The black and white mindset says "if we think it's wrong we have to ban if. If we can't ban it it has to be ok for people to choose it". It's a false dichotomy. We can say "this isn't ok, we don't support it or condone it, these are the reasons why, how can we help.you stop it?"

But that's for things already happening. If something harmful isn't yet popularised and normalised and society has the chance to stop it, why would we not do that?

Regarding sports, personally I think we are more intelligent than we're acting. We're too busy engaging in the culture war perpetuated by right wing political parties when we could be having creative and intelligent discussions about how everyone can compete in sports fairly particularly women considering we have been excluded from some sports historically. I don't think a blanket "trans people can't play professional sports" is fair mostly because I think it's lazy. We have people smart enough to figure it out but we can't get there when people supporting women to be protected in sport can be interpreted as bigoted because the same people calling for it are courting bigots.

Regarding healthcare, I agree however there are feminists arguing this should be a later age for trans healthcare than is already the age of competency for other healthcare. I think that's dangerous.

It depends on how you feel sex based rights are infringing tbh? What I have seen mostly is people mentioning safety issues and desperate spaces which I think are being perpetuated by a lack of funding to the justice system, probation services and obviously a lack of funding the the healthcare system which simply cannot afford to accommodate everyone fairly when the right wing government isn't funding them.

She doesn't support decriminalising abortion so yes, I'd say she is.

Well obviously women taking drugs to induce lactation or I wouldn't have used it as a comparison.

I'm not the one jumping to extremes considering I was responding to someone asking if I supported women taking Crystal meth.

You've written a very long post but I'm not really sure what your point is or if it's even in disagreement with mine. Do you believe a patient should have bodily autonomy or not? Do you believe their care should be guided by medical advice and that they should make their own informed decisions? Do you believe the state should intervene at the same threshold that they would with non trans parents? If you disagree, then you believe trans people shouldn't be entitled to the same rights as everyone else and then they aren't rights at all.

@Lampy123678
I don't think a blanket "trans people can't play professional sports" is fair mostly because I think it's lazy

And speaking of lazy. That's the laziest straw man argument I've read for a while.
You say we need to be more intelligent than this, yet you steadfastly refuse to even attempt to understand your opponents' argument.

No-one is stopping trans people from playing professional sports, people just want them to play against their own sex where applicable. And adhere to the doping rules, (FYI you can get certified for certain trans drugs that allow trans people to keep using them).
Most male sports are actually open category sports.
And the attempt at a trans category failed as no trans people signed up to it.

The medical issue it seems to me is about checks and measures. So those transitioning fully understand what they are getting themselves in to. It is a lifetime of being dependant on drugs. With many other health issues thrown in on the side. But that is of course if they choose to transition beyond wearing the opposite sex's clothes and living the life (whatever that means).

What sex rights are being impinged upon? any where there should be a single sex space, rape centres, hospitals, changing rooms, toilets, support groups etc. the list goes on. Just because you give consent for a transwoman to be there doesn't mean that all women give consent for transwomen to be there.
In many cases having a transwoman there will prevent a woman from getting the help that they need.

And just to point out about women in STEM not happening because of stereotypes, the biggest promoter of stereotypes seems to be IMHO the new breed of transwomen themselves.

Huh?

I don't even know what you're saying now. Don't take one sentence of my post out of context. I didn't say that was their argument 🥴 And what opponent? I thought I was having a discussion with the poster so I'm not sure why you are butting I'm in some kind of fight and that I said that was their argument?

You didn't wanna respond to my response to you so I'm not sure why you're inserting yourself to add nothing here.

@Lampy123678 you're right I skim read your post and responded to a sentence in the middle that wasn't your actual argument. I apologise.

Except some people want them to compete based on sex. Some don't. There needs to be a better discussion than just arguing those two points back and forth. We have had to adapt sports categorisation many times over the years to keep establishing fairness. I choose to believe we can do this with trans sportspeople.

I agreed with you there should be single sex spaces of all of those things for those that want them. For crisis centres in particular I think we should have a multitude of options available for victims. That we don't is a funding issue, not a trans people existing issue. Voting for example for the Tories who don't want to fund public services, isn't going to help make these things happen.

I'm not sure what you are referencing with the STEM thing as I haven't mentioned STEM.

Sorry, it was the OP that mentioned STEM and stereotypes.

@Lampy123678 but as for your response to me...

The fact that no one guessed the baseless accusations in your head were centered around Helen Joyce, and not JKR, Keen, or any other GC figure, is evidence of nothing but your vagueness. Many of us are aware of these accusations, you're hardly the first person to go online and try to link people arguing for women's rights with nazis.

I don't know much about the Depp situation, I know he protested his innocence and JKR initially believed him, but this was before all the details emerged in the court case. I think not believing a friend or colleague was guilty of abuse is a very different thing to "supporting abusers". And I think that's a gross mischaracteriation to aim at someone who has done so much work for women's charities.

My understanding is that she supports the legal limit for abortion for non medical reasons being 22 weeks, which is later than every other country in Europe except the Netherlands. I think you're being rather disingenuous.