Jess Phillips is FUCKING LOVELY.

[EmpressOfTheSpartacusOceans]

Despite the webchat.

I met her tonight along with GinevraFanshawe and Venusinscorpio. She was being interviewed by Helen Lewis to promote her new book.

I asked whether she had concerns about the proposals in the Private Members Bill to make gender equality a protected characteristic & the only criterion for changing gender self-declaration by downloading a form from the web. And she got it. She was clear that it couldn't be allowed to be that simple and that there are definite differences between women and transwomen.

We introduced ourselves afterwards as MNers who'd been on the webchat and explained that a lot of us are worried about this. Her message was, Don't stop fighting.

Incidentally it was fabulous to meet up with other Spartaci!

I'm just sad because we lost Sandi from the Newsquiz for the WEP - what a waste!

I read it the other way as well especially as she said about being on a spectrum which is the usual script

She's doing the old "intersex/infertile woman is a woman so it's possible to be a woman with xy chromosomes too if you "identify" as one" gotcha.

Oh, the irony of saying "A great, unresolved question is what women would be capable ofwhat we would beonce freed from reductive notions of womanhood created and imposed by men", given that reductive notions of womanhood are exactly what TRAs are trying to force on women...

I was irony overload the entire time. I was desperate to cut and paste what she had said and gone exactly!!! But either she just doesn't see it, or she is also mired in the business of gaining men's approval.

I'm so annoyed with WEP that they don't get it. I had such high hopes. Admittedly these were slightly dashed after I intervirwwd for a role with them and never heard back but even then I kept up my membership, but I eventually cancelled it because of this insistence in all the gender bollocks.

I've re-read what she said. And I agree, the meaning is ambiguous.

Or a complete fudge, as I like to call it.

I'm also tempted to buy the book so I can see.how she has managed to define the inequalities without defining the group they are happening too. Unless she seriously believes that sex inequalities happen to anybody who "identifies" as female.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine

If you do buy it you must report back.

Didn't she say that she devoted two chapters to it, but she could have filled two books?

I was very tempted to say

Gender is made up. Sex isn't.

The End.

Unless she seriously believes that sex inequalities happen to anybody who "identifies" as female.

I felt that was what she was implying.

Had a message from Empress - she is finding herself unable to post. She thinks she may be locked out.

What for?

MNHQ said no more sex/gender posts from this point on and she asked a question about what Sandi Toksvig thinks about the cotton ceiling. She thinks it may have been that. She doesn't know as she hasn't spoken to them yet.

Obviously I don't know, I'm just going on what she thinks may have happened. She wondered if it had happened to anyone else.

venusinscorpio

I think at least three people have been banned. I sincerely hope it's temporary.

We are told one question each, unless it is a direct follow-up to a response.

Very frustrating. But they've made it very clear.

Just testing to see if I pissed MNHQ off too...

God I just read that thread. How depressing. The WEP won't be getting my vote on the basis of that. Hardly anyone on the web chat too, once we were told to stop talking about 'it'.

Glad Jess Phillips was so nice though

On the biology dimension, an aquaintance on FB recently posted an article from Nature.com suggesting that biological sex is a more of a spectrum. The article is from 2015 and closing paragraph is as follows:

" So if the law requires that a person is male or female, should that sex be assigned by anatomy, hormones, cells or chromosomes, and what should be done if they clash? “My feeling is that since there is not one biological parameter that takes over every other parameter, at the end of the day, gender identity seems to be the most reasonable parameter,” says Vilain. [ Eric Vilain, a clinician and the director of the Center for Gender-Based Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles] In other words, if you want to know whether someone is male or female, it may be best just to ask."

Here's a link to the full article:
http://www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943

I've had a read of it and it seems to me the more complicated cases are very much in the minority but would be very interested in people's thoughts on this. Might warrant a separate thread, unless this discussion has already been had ( new to MN and just finding my way around)??

Hello!

I emailed last night holding my hands up to posting extra questions & just got a reply. It was an overnight suspension & I'm back now.

I really would have liked an answer to the question about how Catherine Mayer planned to improve WEP's relationship with MN though.

So it's absolutely official then, if you post a question on a web chat which HQ don't like, you get banned?

I don't know whether it was the nature of the question or the fact that I asked too many questions. All the email really said was that I'd been suspended due to my posts on the webchat and now I've been reinstated.

It's got to be the extra question. The guidelines state you are allowed one extra question if it is a follow-up to a response to your first question.

I asked a question on gender but didn't get banned (again).

I really would have liked an answer to the question about how Catherine Mayer planned to improve WEP's relationship with MN though.

Yes, it would be interesting to hear that!

I'm going to assume that, Datun, and I'll make sure I stick to the rules in future.