Women's Hour features interviews with Professor Alex Sharpe and Professor Rosa Freedman as part of 'Sex & Gender' series **Thread title edited at OP's request**

[kesstrel]

The topic is "The law on sex and gender".

Bit like something out of the Gruffalo, Anchor.

little snuffly creatures with bucky teeth, quite cute really but they don't half squeak a lot.

Beware their weaponised vaginas.

I'm not going to challenge anyone in a toilet. The fact is, I'm female. If someone male kicks off at me, I am weaker than they are. That's the point of sex segregated spaces and that's why 'oh thousands of us have been violating that boundary for ages love' isn't an argument, it's a provocation.

Rosa was great, as ever. One thing she raised that caught my attention was the April Ashley case of the 1970s and the judge ruling that sex is defined by chromosomes. And that remains, it seems. I'm surprised the TransTaliban haven't tried to get that overturned.

Yes I thought the gendercrits sound like nasty little creatures.
Now I've got Debbie Harry running around my head singing
Bubonic

I liked the way that Jane Garvey mentioned time and time and time again that the first interviewee avoided the debate. I liked that her first question to AS was "why won't you debate?" AS said that it was necessary to get key points across to listeners.

I really liked the way that Jane Garvey ended by referring to the number of twitter enquiries from people wanting to know what 'cis' meant. AS had been niggled when JG had pulled them up on 'cis' at the very start of the interview and wasn't best pleased at being made to repeat an explanation.

There was an inference that listeners had not heard the points that AS intended to put across, because they were hung up on the 'cis' nonsense at the very start. Fail!

Oh, comedy gold

I wish women would take back the toilets. The argument that 'men in wigs' have always been in women's bathrooms needs to be challenged, ALWAYS. Once you allow a man into your sexed bathroom, you're giving him leeway to get into your shelter, your rape crisis centre.

Totally agree. No males in female single sex spaces.

little snuffly creatures with bucky teeth, quite cute really but they don't half squeak a lot.

We also need someone to act as Plague Doctor - with one of these masks (didn't realise MN could add their tag into an Amazon link, it's not mine):

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07F913VJT?tag=mumsnetforum-21

Paging Sandy Draws Badly

We also need someone to act as Plague Doctor

That would be Dr. Harrop, I guess?

Once you allow a man into your sexed bathroom, you're giving him leeway to get into your shelter, your rape crisis centre.

Irischild's poem comes to mind:

what if I am in your space?
would you say it to my face?

what if all the legal courts
say I can be in your sports?

what if laws are made for me
stopping you from stopping me?

what if a panel all agreed
gave me the paper I said I need?

I do not like to make a fuss
but you do not belong with us
and when my sisters tell you no
the thing for you to do is go

The whole poem is worth reading.

Just got to listen to it today and haven't rtwt but three cheers to Jane Garvey. The best WH I've listened to for a while, including Joan Collins, I hated her in the Dynasty days but she is truly a national treasure. I assume most of this was prerecorded, so Alex didn't get to meet Joan. I really think there should be a sequel with Joan debating interviewing Alex.

Dropping in information from women in Norway about their experience post the introduction of Self-ID:

There was no debate before the law was implemented in Norway. Now we're seeing the consequences but women are afraid to speak up, many fear loosing jobs etc. Climate similar to the UK in terms of TRA threats and intimidation.
womenwhosayno.blogspot.com/2018/10/norway-woman-is-accused-of-harassment.html

twitter.com/kajsa_skog/status/1067226921963016192

That report form Norway is very interesting.

Must’ve missed that bit

That report from Norway is horrifying. The verdict was in favour of the woman, but the fact that some of the people ruling on the case thought that the woman was guilty of harrassment is appalling.

And I wonder if this is actually true in Norway:
Women who are trans experience harassment and violence from men at a much higher rate than women who are cis, and have the same need for a changing room where they can feel safe.

Nowhere in that report was any consideration shown for a woman who did not want to share a communal shower with a transwoman with a penis.

The remark that “she is provoked by seeing a penis in the changing room” can be interpreted as being directed at B and not the changing room set up. It’s a remark that could be considered offensive.

So a transwoman can be offended by someone being offended by her penis, but a woman is not supposed to be offended by the presence of said penis in the women's changing room.

Interesting that Norway's equalities legislation seems to be as much of a mess as the UK's.

Use of changing rooms for persons who have changed legal sex is a question which has not been given a legal clarification.

Interesting that Norway's equalities legislation seems to be as much of a mess as the UK's.

Yes. Same everywhere. Ill thought out mess.

some of the people ruling on the case thought that the woman was guilty of harrassment is appalling.

This is the mindset of the people responsible for the ill thought out mess.

How utterly sickening that women have rushed to assert that they're good girls who accept the label they've had coercively assigned to them, and embrace their inferiority and subjugation. In a gesture to appease and soothe the ruffled feathers of Alex in Alex's trampling of women and their rights.

I'll 'assert my cisness' over my cold dead body. If you need me to show solidarity and stroke your ego for your identity to comfortably exist, you have a very big problem that is nothing whatsoever to do with me.

There is a huge psychological payoff for women who acquiesce to the cult. It shouldn't be underestimated and may give an insight into why these women are doing it - which may help GC people develop compassion when these women eventually break free from it and find themselves backtracking.

There is a huge psychological payoff for women who acquiesce to the cult

You are right. This needs more thought and understanding. No one ever thinks they are a 'handmaid' and it backs them into a corner. A better way of helping them understand the implications of what they are doing and an escape route are needed.

We had a thread on 'Why it's important to talk to 'Handmaids'':

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3384429-Why-its-important-to-talk-to-Handmaids

Do you think that the worse the TRAs come across, the more these women will rush to defend them? Rosa clearly came across better than Alex, from whatever viewpoint you look at it. But it is now that all these women are coming out to assert their cisness. Just seems a bit odd.

How utterly sickening that women have rushed to assert that they're good girls who accept the label they've had coercively assigned to them, and embrace their inferiority and subjugation. In a gesture to appease and soothe the ruffled feathers of Alex in Alex's trampling of women and their rights.

Jane Garvey really didn't give that impression. It was during her interview with Rosa and she said Now, I'm a woman, cis female - well this is all - it's not - I wish it was funny, it's not, is it? and it sounded like there was some giggling going on.

To me it sounded less like rushing to accept the label, more like trying it on for size and going WTF?!

Compliant Individual Signalling

That wasn't about Jane, Pencils , that was in reply to the shared tweet by Sharpe thanking all the women who had asserted their cisness in solidarity with Sharpe since the programme.

Yes, I get it. Go to AIBU and Relationships boards any day of the week and you'll find women taking a kind of sadistic/masochistic pleasure in insisting other women must absorb the most awful treatment from partners and parents and mother in laws, always put them first, always think of excuses and reasons why they need to treat you so badly poor them, to always be the bigger person, to always be a kind doormat. Sometimes one of them digs down a bit and admits one core of the mindset, that they had no choice and no escape when they were the victim so they can't deal with seeing another woman being encouraged and supported to stand up and leave. It makes them feel too bad.

I understand it. But when it's this serious, and it's going to have this severe consequences to other women, I judge. I really do judge. I don't give a flying fuck if you're happy to pee next to someone with a penis, or if you're totally open minded about the risks and feel great about smear tests from male bodied people who are obviously male born. Some women don't. You do not get to consent for them. You do not get to tear other people's safety, privacy, dignity and needs away in some virtue seeking behaviours to meet your own needs. And call it being 'nice'. It's about as far from nice, inclusive and intersectional as you can get.

I appreciate your rage Knicknack

I'm just not convinced many women have 'asserted their cis-ness' as an 'ethical act' to Alex in response to the WH broadcast. I haven't seen many, although this could be because those accounts have blocked me. The example Alex held out was JG and she really didn't do that.

'Cis-sexual' is more alarming the more I think about it. Alex says cis-sexual means you are content with your sex and cis-gender means you are content with the gender expectations associated with your sex.

Alex says plague-riddled gendercrits gender critical feminists are not cis-gender but are cis-sexual.

There is another group of people who are content with their sex but not content with the gender roles expected of their sex and that is the group of TW who are perfectly happy with their penises and have no intention of getting rid of them. Crucially, this group also describe themselves as 'women'.

According to Alex's theory, both GC feminists and TW who like their penises are cis-sexual but not cis-gender and are women.

I can't imagine a group I'd least like to be mooshed into, and thus expected to share with, than TW who like their penis.

Who does this language benefit?