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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Sky news article - 'Women's rights hanging by a thread with changes to transgender law' by Dr Nicola Williams

126 replies

pookypup · 19/07/2018 06:29

Really pleased to see a large media publishing this Dr Nicola Williams article news.sky.com/story/womens-rights-hanging-by-a-thread-with-changes-to-transgender-law-11439448 which gives a very accessible introduction to some concerns around trans debate.

It’s the first one that I’ve noticed on Sky News, hopefully the discussion might be starting.

OP posts:
R0wantrees · 19/07/2018 11:46

Appropriating and hijacking LGB, then women, now intersex.

recent thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3305291-Trans-activsims-appropriation-of-intersex

Macareaux · 19/07/2018 11:48

Sky news poll on twitter

Sky news article - 'Women's rights hanging by a thread with changes to transgender law' by Dr Nicola Williams
OvaHere · 19/07/2018 11:50

We need to encourage them to follow @fairplaywomen and fill in the survey.

I doubt they will, most seem to be men who dislike feminists too but happen to recognise that female penis as a concept is a crock of shit.

Vickyyyy · 19/07/2018 11:55

Interesting result, given how many TRAs are on twitter too, and the claxxon will definitely have gone up to spam the poll. Given how many TARs have multis (boasted about, in many cases as they are used with the mass reporting tools) I would bet that the 77% no is actually closer to 85% when only real votes are counted. Even if not, 77% no is pretty damning, especially with how fucking anti-woman twitter tends to be to start with. And this WILL affect women more than anyone else..

pookypup · 19/07/2018 11:58

Agree, pleasantly surprised to see the vote results on there.

OP posts:
nauticant · 19/07/2018 12:17

On that twitter poll the number who don't believe that self-ID should be enough has just bumped up to 78%:

twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1019886091208478721

I might have had something to do with that.

littlbrowndog · 19/07/2018 12:23

Me to 😎

Wanderabout · 19/07/2018 12:39

I doubt they will, most seem to be men who dislike feminists too but happen to recognise that female penis as a concept is a crock of shit.

Lurkers or their wives might though, worth a try.

superbstarling · 19/07/2018 15:32

I wish gender critical women who get the chance to speak on TV would mention that the vast majority of transwomen still have fully functioning male genitalia! or maybe they do, and it is cut by TV companies.
Before I came across the trans discussions on MN I assumed most transwomen wanted and got the surgery. I don't think I was unusually ill informed.

R0wantrees · 19/07/2018 15:35

I wish gender critical women who get the chance to speak on TV would mention that the vast majority of transwomen still have fully functioning male genitalia! or maybe they do, and it is cut by TV companies.
Before I came across the trans discussions on MN I assumed most transwomen wanted and got the surgery. I don't think I was unusually ill informed.

superbstarling

see SwearyG's comment at the end of this parallel thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3311038-Sky-News-9-30am-today-re-GRA

superbstarling · 19/07/2018 15:55

Thanks for pointing that out RO, and well done SwearyG for getting that point out there. I either haven't seen the whole report (quite likely the case) or it was such a small snippet I just missed it.
I do think though that if this was more well known by the general public the debate would take a very different route.

R0wantrees · 19/07/2018 15:59

It is starting to be,

It was raised on the Radio 4 Today interview with Dr Nic Williams and Helen Belcher.

James Kirkup discussed the interview and this point in his Spectator article, 'Labour and Tories finally see the truth about the gender debate':

(extract)
"Quite a lot of them worry about a system that allows male-born people to take on the legal status of women (transwomen) and thus access spaces and services that the law reserves for women. Especially when some of those transwomen retain male genitalia.

For all that some people suggest it’s somehow prurient or distasteful to talk about penises in this debate, there is, as Nick Robinson put it in some excellent interviews on the Today Programme yesterday, no way to avoid this. The simple fact is that people with penises, whatever word we use to describe those people, are biologically different to people without penises, and that difference matters to many women in a way that cannot be dismissed as bigotry. It is, again, a simple fact that people with penises have the potential to commit certain acts of violence and abuse against others. That fact is the reason Parliament and society accept the concept of single-sex spaces: women have a right to keep someone with a penis out of those spaces.

Upholding that legal right is possibly the founding principle of several women’s groups that have sprung up since the Government first announced its intent to make it easier for people to change their legal gender. Unlike the charities that lobby for transgender rights, the women’s groups — Woman’s Place UK, Fair Play for Women and ManFriday — have no corporate or public sector funding, and not much money at all. They are genuine grassroots political organisations that have sprung up from a concerned public. Those groups have made a difference. Back in the autumn, that point about female-only spaces was either often ignored or dismissed in political debate. Women talking about penises were ridiculed as bigoted cranks, accused of transphobic misinformation. Their meetings were subjected to violent protests (one person has been convicted of assault) and a bomb threat, threats that went shamefully unremarked on by most politicians. Nevertheless, the women persisted: the meetings continued; the campaigns went on; and it made a difference." (continues)

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/07/labour-and-tories-finally-see-the-truth-about-the-gender-debate/

superbstarling · 19/07/2018 16:03

Just found the first part of the sky report (I hadn't seen it before) they couldn't have cut it any smaller could they! Such an important fact made is inconspicuous as possible! WTF

superbstarling · 19/07/2018 16:08

Tried to look at the rest of the spectator report but it's behind a pay wall. The bit you posted though was great, well done James Kirkup!

R0wantrees · 19/07/2018 16:18

superbstarling
I think if you sign up, you can get a few articles for free without paying.

Also, James Kirkup often 'chunks' his articles on Twitter.

twitter.com/jameskirkup/status/1014510439055659008

superbstarling · 19/07/2018 16:26

RO I'm a bit of a Luddite and don't do twitter or facebook etc. (i like my privacy) but will look into free short subscription, thankyou.

R0wantrees · 19/07/2018 16:35

That's ok superb, I think its very wise to have steered clear of social media!

You can just click the link to James Kirkup's Twitter and see it without signing up though (if you want). You can also twitter search him without signing in.

I prefer full text to tweets! Smile

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 19/07/2018 17:22

From Sue Pascoe's article:

Trans children are not a "contagion" on the world. They are just children who need our love and understanding.

I can't imagine any gender critical feminist describing trans children as a contagion on the world. It would be a horrible thing to say and it's entirely untrue.

What Sue Pascoe's says is a deliberate distortion of the use of the word to describe the very real social contagion that's leading maybe half a dozen girls in some school years to identify as trans of some description.

If Sue has fathered children the suggestion in the article that Sue is intersex is a lie.

TransplantsArePlants · 19/07/2018 17:28

Thanks for pointing that out RO, and well done SwearyG for getting that point out there. I either haven't seen the whole report (quite likely the case) or it was such a small snippet I just missed it.
I do think though that if this was more well known by the general public the debate would take a very different route

superbstarling

Completely agree.People not knowing this, is where a lot of the lack of support for GC feminists comes from.

In fact, I think that if one piece of campaign material were to have an effect, then a sticker with "75% (or whatever the accurate figure is) of transwoman have a penis" would be it.

TransplantsArePlants · 19/07/2018 17:29

I wish gender critical women who get the chance to speak on TV would mention that the vast majority of transwomen still have fully functioning male genitalia! or maybe they do, and it is cut by TV companies.Before I came across the trans discussions on MN I assumed most transwomen wanted and got the surgery. I don't think I was unusually ill informed

Posted that again, as bold failed

R0wantrees · 19/07/2018 18:45

I heard Sue Pascoe's interview on Sky.

She is hoping to becomea Conservative MP. She is 'a woman with a trans past'

She drew equivilance with gay conversion therapy and gay rights from 20 years ago (is that the section 28 ref?)

Said that things had been fine but became toxic and this was driven by a marginal fringe group.

Said Uk had now imported from the US bathroom bill bigoty and hate.

Referenced the negative press and said this made her afraid.

Said 'many of these critical people are lesbians... very loud, very critical' and that they characterise this as a war between women and transgender people.

Her women friends think they are 'fringe people with strange views'

R0wantrees · 19/07/2018 18:47

What Sue Pascoe's says is a deliberate distortion

Its either deliberate distortion or Sue Pascoe is very ill-informed.

Writersblock2 · 19/07/2018 19:57

Nic is fabulous. You can hear here speak in Plymouth in August. Quick, before tickets sell out!

Sky news article - 'Women's rights hanging by a thread with changes to transgender law' by Dr Nicola Williams
MorbidMuch · 20/07/2018 06:35

The poll has changed overnight.

Sky news article - 'Women's rights hanging by a thread with changes to transgender law' by Dr Nicola Williams
Pratchet · 20/07/2018 06:47

Wow. It's hardly surprising. They are insanely obsessed with destroying women's spaces.