Paris Lees article re: Ldn underground

[Ekphrasis]

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/14/tfl-scrapping-ladies-and-gentlemen-gender-public-toilets?CMP=fb_gu

I'm exhausted and read half asleep - can't make head nor tale if this article.

Confused sex with gender?

Some of it I agree with, other parts really don't make sense in terms of how I see the real world working.

I don't this is coherent - choosing a gender isn't 'doing away' with gender.

I really hate this idea that gender is a spectrum. A spectrum would have the extremes of feminine and masculine at either end - where do we place stuff on this spectrum? Is lipstick more feminine than sewing? Are we going to separate kilts worn by men and kilts worn by women to different ends? Where is gardening?

Is it a points based system? Does shifting furniture in a dress even things out to the same as owning a Labrador?

I know that the Guardian comments are normally vile but some of the ones under this article are really funny

Thankfully, the transgender movement and rise of intersectional feminism is making real progress in moving towards a more gender-neutral society. It’s headline news every day.

Well Lees has got that wrong for a start. Transgenderism underpins sex role stereotypes like there's no tomorrow.

What else is a woman's brain in a man's body?

I have no idea what that article was about?

Is Lees saying that there's no such thing as gender now?

I think the most that can be said in its favour is some people don't feel included by ladies and gentlemen, so wh

... so why not just say hello everybody?

It's barely a tweet, let alone an article. If it was funny, then fine, but it's just a bit waffling.

Paris Lee is a massive bellend. I think that may clear things up.

He's a fucking idiot.

I was called transphobic for saying this tonight..............by a boy

Love the comments, heartening to see gender critical views allowed to stand.

Lees is surely taking the piss. 44% recognise that gender is a spectrum? My arse they do. I'd love to see the questions and interviewees that provided that stat.

Absolute nonsense. If you're a woman you're a woman. If you're a boy you're a boy. Biology is biology.

The commenters aren't having any of it.

Idly wondering whether a non binary person can get pregnant and making dirty remarks about each other's gender fluid.

Then praising Lees for their accurate reporting of "While it’s easy to automatically dismiss this sort of thing as frivolous nonsense..."

Brilliant.

I suspect Lees was automatically asked to write an article about gender neutrality, despite not understanding that Lees is probably vehemently opposed to it, as it does not fit the trans-narrative.

Hence a load of unintelligible bollocks.

Not just me then

I could pick the whole thing apart but have better things to do!

I do think the comment that going non binary helps violence against women is naive and damaging - and an oxymoron.

Course it is. This is all about how other people treat you, based on your own feelings.

I admit, if you actually can't tell if someone is male or female, then you might have a point. But only up to a point. Women will still need to access reproductive health and all the rights that go with that.

Unless people everywhere are able to completely disguise their sex, having an inner feeling that they are neither male or female won't make the smallest difference to their lives if they're basing it on how others treat them.

Appearing androgynous is simply not achieveable for me. I have had very short hair, and dressed in jeans and t shirts for a manual job, but being 5'1" with large breasts I will never be mistaken for a man.

This was also the time I experienced the most street harassment, as I often travelled home from work late at night. Being alone and out while men are drunk are much more important risk factors for harassment and violence than appearance in my experience.

What a muddled load of horseshit.

First "Gender is dead, kaput" then its "on a spectrum" that in the first few lines. Make up your mind, dear.

That "newspaper" cant really be serious publishing incoherent, rambling nonsense articles like this.

Luckily the comments are overwhelming calling BS on it.

I used to think that PL could at least write, even if I disagreed with what was being written. But this is just unintelligible bollocks!

Fortunately most of the commentators agree

I saw this on fb; interestingly the comments are less intelligent initially and clearly caught up in the non binary movement.

I'm impressed with the guardian comments. Thank god.

*correcting my OP to head nor tail.

But it's a tall tale really.

(Well, most of the guardian comments.)

I suspect there are, aside from the obvious, some innate differences between men and women, but society exaggerates these differences through strict roles and rules to the point of caricature – to the detriment of women and sexual minorities in particular but, ultimately, oppressing everyone.

Sneaky, sneaky. Tch.

Society does not exaggerate biological differences. It assigns a role to those differences. Gender.

What is this article is trying to do is to eliminate biological differences, by agreeing that gender is superficial.

We see you.

The comments are hilarious. No one buys this crap.

As an aside, why did the article need to be illustrated with a picture where you can clearly see through the top of the woman at the front of the carriage? I'm pretty certain it's only see through because of the flash on the camera, not because she chose to dress that way.

"Perhaps TfL could compromise and start their announcements with Ladies , Gentlemen and Narcissists?"

I think they've nailed it there.