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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Labour party invents new bollocks made-up non-existent definition for woman

800 replies

pisacake · 11/01/2018 14:29

labour.org.uk/members/get-involved/national-youth-elections-2018/

Sixteen uses of the word 'self-defining woman'. Zero uses of 'female', 'biology', or plain 'woman'.

'Woman' is now literally meaningless. A woman can be a bog-standard heterosexual teenage male (Lily Madigan), if he says so.

And obviously with half the places reserved for 'self-defining women' (not 'women', 'self-defining women'), then there's not really any reason why men wouldn't define themselves a women, is there?

If misogynistic shits like Lily Madigan can 'self-define as a woman', well ALL men are women, aren't they?

The whole bloody human race is 'self-defined women'.

Stupid Labour.

OP posts:
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UpABitLate · 13/01/2018 15:07

They are not asking for female candidates (sex).

They are asking for people who self-define as woman (gender).

I am female sex but do not "self define" as anything. I have things that I "identify with" - mainly around music and tastes in films - e.g. I "identify as" a bit of a trek geek - however gender is not something that I feel an "identity" around. If I were to have to, I'm not sure what it is I am supposed to identify with? As trek geek, I know what the criteria are. As woman, I do not.

Anyway point being that I would not be eligible to run in this apart from being too old (unless I can ID as 19?).

Transmen is a red herring as they would not want to run for a space reserved for females anyway I imagine. So clearly no transman is going to take this to court. It is women who do not believe in Gender ID that would need to take it to court, and this is what is happening. Maybe.

UpABitLate · 13/01/2018 15:08

Well I mean the woman bit used to be related to sex, as did girl, the "self identify as " part is where cunty women are excluded, potentially in large numbers if they actually think about what they are ticking / or do not have a gender ID of woman.

Interestingly a lot of TW even in their 50s seem to ID as "girls" so maybe they are not included either, as a girl is not a woman.

PencilsInSpace · 13/01/2018 15:14

HaruNoSakura we're not talking about a transman bringing a discrimination case though, we're discussing your idea that Labour could argue they are taking a 'dual approach' as their defence. They are clearly not doing this if transmen are excluded or if they are using the phrase 'all women shortlists'.

UpABitLate · 13/01/2018 15:21

Transmen can apply for the open positions, along with everyone else. So I don't think they are being discriminated against.

The idea that they count as men and will enjoy exactly the same privileges is [eyebrow] though.

They should have some separate trans posts in addition to the women's ones if they are that keen.

Although LGBT+ posts would be better.

However as women are 50% of the population and trans people are ? % depending on definition, to have a whole post each with no LGBT+ post would seem a bit off. Espeically if it's one of the women's ones that is removed.

Thegirlinthefireplace · 13/01/2018 15:21

Upabit

The only reason people mentioned Transmen is because another poster claimed Labour could argue this policy did not breach equality law as it was intentetd to be trans inclusive as well as female inclusive but posters have pointed out it can't be deemed trans inclusive as it excludes transmen.

UpABitLate · 13/01/2018 15:27

But transmen can apply to the open positions.

I think the idea of saying it falls foul of equality legislation because transmen are not explicitly catered to as well is a poor argument.

First, transmen are transpeople are so are unlikely to get angry about fellow transpeople getting these places.

Second, the party can make the issue go away by stating that the other places are open to all including anyone who self identifies as a man.

The real argument here is that they are allowed these women only places under legislation that talks about sex, and then they are opening them up to males, and in a way that excludes many people of female sex (other than transmen).

PocketCoffeeEspresso · 13/01/2018 15:45

Exactly Up.

I identify as a programmer (despite actually being rather higher up the pay grades than that these days), I identify as someone who likes coffee, who's a knitter, a good cook, a diyer.

I am a mother, I am a woman - these are fixed states, not choices.

ATeardropExplodes · 13/01/2018 15:50

But transmen can apply to the open positions.

No because they 'identify as men'. And only people that 'identify as women' can apply.

UpABitLate · 13/01/2018 15:51

No I mean the general positions, the ones that are not reserved for women. They are open to all including transmen.

PillowCate · 13/01/2018 15:52

Donated.
It's going well. Hope it will be share widely, if not on FB then by email through people's private networks.

Labour party invents new bollocks made-up non-existent definition for woman
UpABitLate · 13/01/2018 15:54

So women can apply for the general positions if they wish.

However there is a quota of women only places to try to get some balance of the sexes.

Which has now been replaced by a desire to have a balance between people who smoke marlboro cigarettes and speak in growly voices and never emote, and those who like to grow their hair long, wear frilly knickers and simper a lot.

This is the divide that men have always pushed for anyway, given the way in the past they have declared certain groups of cunty women "not real women", and the punishments meted out to GNC women. This is more of the same.

UpABitLate · 13/01/2018 15:58

You MUST either say yes I tick the box to say I am on board with and happy to adhere to sexist stereotypes about what a woman is

Or give up your place at the women's table.

It's a basic sort of filtering mechanism.

GNC women including lesbians who are by definition GNC (heterosexuality being a cornerstone of gender role) would have used to be into smashing gender roles and being live and let live. Young women of this group these days are far more likely to instead identify out of female sex roles - by saying they are agender or bigender etc. These women are therefore excluded from the positions reserved for women.

Which makes sense - society (male society) has always been suspicious of and hateful towards GNC and especially lesbian women.

PillowCate · 13/01/2018 16:01

"I am a mother, I am a woman - these are fixed states, not choices."

Exactly.

My eldest dsis struggles with infertility. She has always wanted to be a mother and comes across as 'maternal', much more so than me or my other dsis.

Should she be entitled to maternity leave and child benefit if she self identifies as a mother just because she so longs to be one?

UpABitLate · 13/01/2018 16:10

Men have always defined woman and girl. Women and girls have always struggled against it.

This is just the latest attack on us, to try and force us to conform, and simultaneously to erode the progress we have made.

When you get people saying that talking about any issues related to our reproductive systems is verboten then you know what is up. Men have always been squicked out by the workings of the female body, and tried to get us to shut up about it. The recent teen vogue artical which omitted the clitoris from the female (sorry "non prostate haver") diagram and focussed on anal sex was 100% from a male perspective. Sexual pleasure for the female is irrelevant, it's all about the bloke, or penis owner, or whatever they called them. Reminds me of Freud and the immature orgasm / penis envy bollocks. Same old same old.

Glitterypinksoap · 13/01/2018 16:18

Jennifer James twitter feed..... there are actually men now tweeting to say that having AWS at all is sexist, wrong and excludes 50% of the 'talent'.

It's the same ruddy argument all the time. Women: 'Having men randomly self ID into women only spaces is a really stupid thing to legalise because x'. Men: Women only spaces are sexist and paranoid. If women dare argue over getting their already minimal slice of the pie further intruded on by men, mens response is that women shouldn't be entitled to any slice at all.

How the fuck have I got to middle age without realising how much some men truly hate women, and how ingrained and normalised this stuff is in society? How have we reached a position where so many women are ok with it and see it as their lot in life?

DeleteOrDecay · 13/01/2018 16:20

Just had a thought.

My Male cat has been neutered. Does that mean he now, in (trans)theory, identifies as a she? Should I change his name?

This whole thing is so ridiculous, what is happening to the world.

UpABitLate · 13/01/2018 16:21

I don't think they realise they hate, I think they think they are being perfectly logical.

And it's not really about hate I suppose but about a total ambivalence about women and how we experience the world, all over the world.

It's much easier for men if we keep to our place.

UpABitLate · 13/01/2018 16:22

At a women's thing at work the other day, a woman put her hand up and said she was worried about straight white men being marginalised. Our company is about 85% straight white men!

So it's not just men.

UpABitLate · 13/01/2018 16:24

Genitals have nothing to do with it, delete.

You need to observe your cat and see if they behave like a typical male or female cat, and then treat them accordingly. Given that you can't ask.

Or maybe you could offer a meal of pink salmon and a meal of chunky steak and see which it goes for? Steak is definitely for men.

Glitterypinksoap · 13/01/2018 16:27

At a women's thing at work the other day, a woman put her hand up and said she was worried about straight white men being marginalised. Our company is about 85% straight white men!

What did you read that as Up ? Was it virtue signalling to the men in the room or guilt at holding a women's thing at all?

Linguini · 13/01/2018 16:29

It's the typical male position
"It doesn't effect me. I cannot therefore see how it is of any importance to anyone"
"Women being hysterical about nothing"

The eternal bliss of the ignorant mind.

DonkeySkin · 13/01/2018 16:30

Thanks Haru for those observations on the legal arguments that are likely to be made. I agree that that any challenge will not be easy to win. Even very practised legal minds seem to have trouble parsing the difference between sex and sex roles (gender).

I am no lawyer, but I think that arguments that are predicated on arguing the technicalities and various iterations of 'gender identity' are destined to fail, and you provide good examples of how easy it would be to counter such claims (e.g., this discriminates against non-binary people, or arguments against the term 'self-identify'). I agree that none of that is going to fly and IMO it even lends strength to genderist ideology by implicitly endorsing its precepts while arguing over the detail.

IMO what gender-critical feminists need to do to force everyone (lawyers, politicians, policy makers) to define terms. Demand coherent, non-circular definitions of the following: woman, man, girl, boy, sex, gender. Trans ideology depends on nobody doing this. We need to stick to exposing the central contradiction at the heart of gender identity doctrine: namely, that you cannot 'identify' as something that is ontologically meaningless, let alone make law and policy based on categories that have been emptied of any coherent definition.

It is a legal absurdity to equate an objective physical characteristic (sex) with a subjective mental state (gender identity). Furthermore, and even more absurdly, 'gender identity' only has meaning with reference to sex - the very concept that it negates. The word 'woman' only exists in order to distinguish adult human females from adult human males, therefore to argue that 'woman' can also encompass males means that you need a new definition of the term severed from the concept of sex - the only possible one of which will rest on sex-role stereotypes (which themselves depend on sex as a stable category to give them meaning!).

Not that this seems to trouble many legal minds. The Obama Administration decreed that 'gender identity' was equivalent to 'sex' for the purposes of Title IX, even though such an interpretation rendered Title IX meaningless. This was upheld by a US district court in the Gavin Grimm case (teenage girl who wanted to use male bathrooms at school), and was set to go to the Supreme Court before the Trump Administration overturned the original directive. Bizarrely, it might well have even been upheld by the Supreme Court, even though it is completely legally incoherent.

Here is an excellent article dissecting the legal and philosophical contradictions in trans ideology, with reference to the Grimm case. It's from a conservative Christian site but is devastatingly clear and well argued. I think it provides very useful model for how the precepts of 'gender identity' could be challenged in court:

www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2017/03/supreme-incoherence-transgender-ideology-and-the-end-of-law

DonutChamp · 13/01/2018 16:42

It's the typical male position
"It doesn't effect me. I cannot therefore see how it is of any importance to anyone"
"Women being hysterical about nothing"

This is Owen Jones's line of thinking.

DeleteOrDecay · 13/01/2018 16:54

*You need to observe your cat and see if they behave like a typical male or female cat, and then treat them accordingly. Given that you can't ask.

Or maybe you could offer a meal of pink salmon and a meal of chunky steak and see which it goes for? Steak is definitely for men.*

Great advice, thanks!Grin

DonkeySkin · 13/01/2018 17:02

Here are some extracts from the above piece on the Grimm case:

"The plaintiff in the case (“G.G.”) is Gavin Grimm, a female student at Gloucester High School in Virginia. She wishes to use the restrooms reserved for the male student population, as she identifies as a transgender male. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals last year ruled in her favor, offering that “the individual’s sex as male or female is to be generally determined by reference to the student’s gender identity.”

"Among the demerits in that assertion is the court’s conflating categories that are distinct and incompatible. Indeed, their conflict is the basis of Gavin’s claim in her lawsuit. She is, to her chagrin, of the female sex. (“I was born in the wrong sex,” she testified.) Her female body is precisely what she wishes to erase from legal visibility, to be replaced by the mental state that she announces: a male “gender identity.” If Gavin, who has a female body, has a male gender identity, it is not clear what “male” means in this context, or why her male gender identity should determine which bathroom she uses. What is clear is that “male” with reference to gender identity does not have (in her case, certainly) the same meaning as “male” when the school district employs it to demarcate admittance to restrooms.

"And by declaring herself a boy, Gavin dissolves the category she claims to occupy. By denying the identity significance of her body, she has also dispensed with an anchoring referent for her claim to maleness. What, then, is that “male” identity referring to? Nothing. It is a self-referential condition of mind. As such, to apply the word “male” to a body-denying gender identity is an act of both defiance and deceit. But at this stage of its deconstruction project, transgender ideology must equivocate. It trades on the resonance of concepts it wishes to destroy...

"Transgenderism—at least in its current advocacy posture—refuses to commit itself fully to slaying the categories of reality it denounces, because it needs them alive if its destabilizing demands are to be met. This makes things tricky. If transgender theory were to enjoy complete success in replacing the legal relevance of male and female bodies with reports of gender-states-of-mind, the means to reveal those states of mind would disappear. Consider: names (Gavin changed hers), wardrobe selection (she changed this, too), single-sex restroom access (which she demands in her lawsuit)—these are all dependencies of the publicly meaningful sex-binary. While aiming to replace sex with gender identity, Gavin insists on access to the male facilities that exist only because the public acknowledges the meaningfulness of bodies that she denies have meaning. Her novel theory of identity and her claim for restroom access are mutually refuting...

"A summary of the obvious: Bathrooms are not specified in terms of mental states; there’s no reason for respective bathroom access to depend on one’s mental state; and there’s no viable way to regulate admission to separate bathrooms on the grounds of mental states...

"Transgenderism public policy advocates are not proposing a compromise at the margins, and indeed they cannot. Their program is totalistic, as its ambition is to redefine humanity writ large. If the law governing us all says Gavin is a boy and not a girl, then “boy” and “girl” no longer mean for anyone what they always meant before. We’ve then all been redefined.

The article concludes:

"There is therefore a vital difference between our charitable concern and compassion for the exceptional individual who suffers from dysphoria, and the revolution of making that person’s confusion a reason to overthrow the universe in order that dysphoria itself cannot endure as a sensible category. While individuals suffering from transgender confusion desire a different body, the gender ideologues exploiting the condition of those individuals desire a different cosmos. The dysphoric student, then, should be treated quite differently than her handlers. Transgenderism is not a matter for policy compromise or compatible addition to our sex discrimination laws. It is a form of total negation. And law, already besieged, cannot survive its triumph."