Ooh step back, India Willoughby is going to penetrate the Mumsnet debate

[ALittleBitOfButter]

Just saw on twitter that IW says will do radio interview about Mumsnet. Sorry can't link as on phone.

Karen IS uses the term male for people who identify as trans and were born male.
mobile.twitter.com/K_IngalaSmith/status/984804550963015683

So does Maria MacLachlan, and a judge attempting to compel her to use 'preferred pronouns' has been of much feminist discussion this past week.

Most of the feminist women I look up to use male for PWIATAWBM. Gallus Mag, Germaine Greer, Sheila Jeffreys, for example. Would they be unwelcome here?

I feel like having started this particular conversation rather than simply saying "I'm sorry and I won't do it again" may not exactly earn me any brownie points with MNHQ so in case I do end up being banned, it was great getting to know so many wonderful women here and hopefully I'll see you all at a different set of barricades at some point.

Interestingly, Conchita Wurst is being called ‘she’ by the BBC, whilst the same article calls CW a ‘drag queen portrayed by Thomas Neuwirth’.

Sky news calls CW her and the says CW is the ‘alter ego’ of Thomas Neuwirth.

It’s a minefield.

(I’m not bringing up CW to be horrible, the coverage is just interesting in this context.)

MNHQ - please don't ban Angry!

It's a disgrace that Maria McLachlan was repeatedly instructed to use the female pronouns for Tara Wood, by a JUDGE in a COURTROOM.

Where she had taken an oath to Tell The Truth.

Beggars belief and tbh I have not idea why more has not been made of it.

Again, this is the hill I will die on. I'm not going to be compelled to tell lies. I will avoid using pronouns in certain circumstances, only to avoid my post being deleted.

But men cannot become women. Sex is immutable.

But However anyone can wear a dress, lipstick and frilly pants if they want to. Good luck to them.

Based on my experience from today I think possibly not, if we're linking the fact that they're male with their behavior

Perhaps something like "male socialisation in formative years" would be acceptable?

woman Juno Dawson referred to CW as Tom/Conchita on Twitter today.

I would agree it's very confusing.

Why are women being expected to use all these long complicated 'courteous' descriptions to validate people who are not of the female sex but would like to be thought of that way, when meanwhile they can just dismiss us all as TERFs??

Its a stupid question, I know.

Why are my religion, philosophy, preferences and mental well-being not thought of as equal to others?

Yep and yep.
I have former colleagues have their medical careers called into question for not treating pts as they sex they now consider themselves to live as rather as the sex they are. Those differences which mean they present conditions and symptoms very differently.

JBH calls out IW

twitter.com/JuliaHB1/status/985905197904998400

AAK - I responded to MNHQ that I would try to follow their request but I could really do with advice on how to discuss this issue without mentioning sex.

Pages later it seems like noone has a workable answer?

Oh that is magnificent! Cheers JHB! 😀

You can't ban Angry! We need to drink tea and martini!

Plus, if I had a hair sample from IW in the lab, and I extracted the DNA, and tested it whether it was from a male or female, the results would tell me it was from a male. Would it be offensive for me to report that result? If so, we're heading to a very dangerous place.

Oh, I think I like Julia.

Rosenberg, I also asked for clarification.

AAK

If we cant use male & female now (!!) do we just get down to dna & refer to people as having xy chromosomes? But then of course we cant check that at an individual level...

The long & short of it is you cant be a transwoman unless you are a male human.

Is there somewhere official where MNHQ has made this new position public?

I think it is important to continue to tell the truth. It is a biological impossibility to change sex, and it is an erasure of what it means to be a woman to call TIM's by female pronouns. It is not being polite to use their preferred pronouns - it is pandering. They are not MY preferred pronouns, and these people are not being polite and respectful towards me.

India Willoughby is profoundly disrespectful of women and dismissive of our experiences. Why should I refer to this person as female?

Perhaps something like "male socialisation in formative years" would be acceptable?

But male =/= 'male socialisation in formative years'. Male means of the sex that can produce small, motile gametes. It's biological reality.

Why should women have to gaslight ourselves by coming up with ever vaguer euphemisms in order to gesture towards (not describe, as that is forbidden to us) the sexual politics of the 'gender identity' movement? Why do men get to dictate the language it is acceptable for women to use on a forum for women? The degree of submission being enforced on women in this debate is sickening.

JBH is fabulous

In fact, let me try a little experiment...

Tara Wood, an individual who was born male but wishes to be identified as a woman, was convicted of violently assaulting a woman in her sixties. Statistically, the bulk of violent offending is committed by male individuals (as can be verified from official government statistics on offending), and it is interesting to note that while some of Wood's female companions were verbally aggressive during their protest, none of them resorted to physical violence.

Going to save this and see what happens - will some busy little TRA report, I wonder, and if so, will MNHQ take it down? I hope you don't MNHQ, because while it is important to keep the debate civil, not being able to report facts and in particular the facts surrounding sex-based differences in offending behaviour is tantamount to not being able to debate at all.

I noticed that in the Conchita Wurst article too. Is it using 'she' as in stage name? In that, that's how many know of the person? So sad to hear about their illness.

Rosen I can't help wondering if it's all context. You can not rewrite science and biology. And I recently saw footage of a transman undergoing a mastectomy, the surgeon operating referred to them as a transgendered female. (This is part of a new major exhibition about body image and plastic surgery by Johnathon Yeo and is on his website, especially the series on breast augmentation and reduction. It was food for thought I must say.)

TIM contains the word 'male' inside it doesn't it? So would not be allowed either?
Besides trans activists hate TIM and already describe using it as transphobic.

If you use chromosomes that is also considered transphobic by the same group as you are assuming their chromosomal type without actually knowing it because who really has it tested?

I have a lot of respect for JHB atm.

Then the surgeon I refer to was transphobic. Despite specialising in transition surgery.

I too was puzzled by the use of "she" in connection with Conchita Wurst - I thought Wurst had always been quite clear that he was a gay man who performed drag, not someone who thought of themself as trans.