Finally, a balanced overview article in the Guardian...

[MacaroonMama]

The Gender Recognition Act is controversial – can a path to common ground be found? - the guardian

Need to do breakfast! But this is mostly v balanced and optimistic

Agreed, men police gender boundaries strongly and sometimes violently. I do wish men were a bit more motivated to get their own house in order on this, and that all those men who think they're progressive and beyond it but are gleefully yelling at women for not being more 'inclusive' maybe did a bit of self-reflection. "We're so progressive, we're prepared to let anyone into your category of Non-Men! Obviously we can't accept them as men, that would be ridiculous. But you should all budge up!"

There was a great Glosswitch quote on that - something like "ordering women to be inclusive is not 'being inclusive', in the same way that ordering women to do the washing up is not 'doing the washing up'."

53rd, I thought of that yesterday when I saw misogynist-trainee-GP-bloke say "yeah its great to have tw on aws"...

bump

Yes! I've just read it and was pleased to see an article which neatly summarises most of the debate I thought, from my perspective.

And it's especially nice to be able to come on here and discuss it openly, and understand a bit more, and read important points that had passed me by, like the conflation of gender identity and sexuality.
Thanks Guardian and Mumsnet!

I was very pleased to read this article today, hopefully it will be shared widely.

This represents a massive shift in tone from this writer, she's been handwavingly dismissive of women's concerns about this in the past. If we're not quite at the tipping point yet we're getting close.

Yes definitely the best I've seen. And the article refutes much that Barker has said before, so this will hopefully acts as an education for the TRAs, as well as fence sitters.

Definitely some major points overlooked, the article equated the 'abuse' of women saying that someone with a penis is male to TRAs calls for and actual violence against women which feeds into the 'literal violence' nonsense, and no mention of sport.

Just because you had a shitty time as a boy and a man, and experienced homophobia, that doesn't mean all your male privilege is negated.

There are vulnerable individuals who are transwomen and vulnerable individuals who are women. There are some very different reasons for the vulnerabilities, as illustrated here.

It doesn't help either group to address and tackle these if we pretend both groups are exactly the same.

Transwomen are men who want to live their life as women. They are not actually women, and that's ok. We don't need to scream it in their face all the time but we do need to recognise, categorise and name this in law and policy.

I thought it was quite well balanced.I do although hate the notion that being gay is a gender identity.

I have never seen that before and can't see how that works. How is being gay a gender?

Is that just a journalist's misunderstanding?

I think Jordan Peterson describes himself as left wing?

Either way, he is a qualified psychologists, so he does understand that there is little difference between male and small brains.

The bulk of the psychology community is putting as much distance as possible between itself and Jordan Peterson. Because he's mental and dangerous

I heard Jordan Peters on ABC radio talking about his ecclesiastical lectures. He's very religious.

I really appreciated this article too and thought it was a fair representation of both my own views and those I see on the other side of the fence; so whilst not perfect (gay, a gender?) as CircleSquare says, well balanced.

Perhaps there is indeed some common ground just over the horizon.

Yeah, he’s thinking of converting to Orthodox apparently.

This is also the Jordan Peterson who warned women that if we try to ‘usurp’ men they would rebel and we would have to enslave them, which sounds like a hassle honestly but I’ve added it to the fridge To-Do list.

Gay as a gender really is baffling but at the same time maybe a clue as to how tied up gender identity and sex as in shagging rather than biology is in the eyes of a lot of people? You see it in the assumption that trans women are all attracted to men that a lot of people make too.

This represents a massive shift in tone from this writer, she's been handwavingly dismissive of women's concerns about this in the past. If we're not quite at the tipping point yet we're getting close.

Yes. It's a huge change from Gaby. Do you get the feeling there's stuff going on behind the scenes that nobody's prepared to fully say in public? I think A Woman's Place is having an effect.

Peterson is definitely MRA-adjacent even if he isn't quite one himself. He's got some awfully regressive ideas about how men and women should relate to each other.

Do you get the feeling there's stuff going on behind the scenes that nobody's prepared to fully say in public?

I suspect there are a lot of private conversations going on among people who're waiting to see how the public mood goes before sticking their head over the parapet. Which as vexing as that is in some cases, we've all seen what happens to women who do, so it's the men who won't who deserve the bulk of the criticism.

AngryAttackKittens

I do... nuanced conversations can't be had when the Twitter juggernaut is still so powerful and out of control!

"I don’t think quite on the fringes of feminism, but yes in that I’ve seen men like Jordan Peterson getting quoted and linked to before."

Jordan Peterson is not "extremely right wing" ffs

Twitter would be shit for nuanced conversations even if there weren't other social dynamics at work because the word limit lends itself to glibness and sloganeering.

As usual, Debbie H hit the nail on the head and named the issue.

"I heard Jordan Peters on ABC radio talking about his ecclesiastical lectures. He's very religious."

He is a cultural Christian. He likes Bible stories because he is an instinctive conservative and sees the past as worthy of preserving. He does not however believe in prayer, a supernatural, or anything like that. He likes to talk about say, hell, as real, but in earthly terms, e.g., 'a heroin addict is in hell'. This doesn't actually MEAN anything in religious terms, but he sees religion, its ritual, language and myth as preferable to straightforward nihilism (which he sees as the alternative).

He is definitely NOT 'very religious'.

Quite different from the tone of the AWS piece she wrote earlier this year; that in itself is encouraging. When people hear all sides with an open mind, their position can shift - it's good. Progress!

More undecided and curious people need to come to meetings so they can hear women's concerns. I hope Maria Miller has bought a ticket to join her constituents in Basingstoke...

I think Jordan Peterson describes himself as left wing?

Either way, he is a qualified psychologists, so he does understand that there is little difference between male and small brains.