Is it really all that bad?

[Notevenmyrealname]

I was having a conversation today with a friend who works in HR and is very clued up on the law and equality issues and he was saying that most of the scare stories about transgender stuff are a storm in a teacup. Realistically nobody is going to allow a small group of militant trans activists to remove women’s rights. All the updated GRA will do will allow people who need it a slightly less hassle way to change their gender officially and as it affects such a small number of people (supposedly 1% of the population) it’s really not going to have a massive impact on the vast majority of people. There are no plans to change the Equality Act of 2010, so sex will still be a protected category.
I’ve been trying to read up on lots of stuff over the last month or so and, I have to be honest, really scared myself - particularly reading all the BS spouted by Mermaids. The thought that those people are let loose in schools peddling their pseudoscience to teachers is awful, but again my friend thinks the stuff that gets reported in newspapers is always the worst of the worst as they just want clicks on their pages and I shouldn’t get myself wound up.
I’m actually going to give myself a break from all this over the next few weeks as it’s really getting to me but I was wondering if anyone else thought maybe things won’t be as bad as all the worst case scenarios that are discussed on these boards?
I’m still very much of the belief that gender identity and biological sex are separate things and I think if something could be put in law that makes that distinction clear, surely everything would be fine. Stupid ideology like the crap pushed by Mermaids and the like will be found out eventually and it’s just because they’re riding the wave with the GRA consultation having happened so recently. Teachers are regularly updated on safeguarding and the secrecy aspect would only apply if they thought the child was in actual danger (he gave the example of an extremely religious family who might try taking their child abroad to marry them off or worse, they were from a culture that commit “honour” killings).
Please reassure me that these worst case scenarios are unlikely to happen, or is my friend actually oblivious to very real dangers if these changes go through?

Realistically nobody is going to allow a small group of militant trans activists to remove women’s rights

OP, I feel for you & wholeheartedly wish the above were true. Alas:

Overheard in British royal palaces circa 1776: realistically nobody is going to allow a small group of militant independence activists in the American colonies to defeat the Crown

Overheard circa 1789 at Versailles: realistically nobody is going to allow a small group of militant peasant activists to overthrow & execute the French monarchy

The word in St Petersburg & Moscow circa 1917: realistically nobody is going to allow a small group of militant Bolshevik communists to defeat the Tsar & kill him & his whole family

Heard a lot in Europe in the 1930s: realistically nobody is going to allow a small group of militant Nazi nutjobs to remove Jewish & minority rights, wage a world war & slaughter 6 million Jews

Often heard amongst Botha supporters in South Africa in the late 1980s & early 1990s: realistically nobody is going to allow a small group of black ANC activists to overturn apartheid & end white rule

Heard often in the UK & elsewhere from before 2016 through today: realistically nobody is going to allow a small group of militant Euro-skeptics to make the UK leave the EU

Heard often in the USA & elsewhere in 2016: realistically nobody is going to allow a small group of disgruntled Hillary Clinton-haters to elect Donald Trump to the US presidency

Unexpected, seemingly impossible events happen in history all the time. Sadly, we all have good reason to fear the erosion of/assault on women's rights that's going on as we speak today.

OP, please take care of yourself & your baby. You might feel alone right now, but you're not.

The "beard" reference is just that lots of young, trendy, "woke" dudes who are "feminists" also often have elaborate facial hair.

You realise what prejudice is right?

I was going to comment on how unimaginative the OP's friend sounded but got completely sidetracked by that...really wierd (in my opinion) question of "Did he have a beard".

This guy has a beard:
twitter.com/BenjaminABoyce/status/1075114991143927808

Great post Vegilante. I hated History as a child, but it becomes ever more compelling.

My friend and I were saying at the start of the year first it will be just a child in the news “transitioning”, then it’ll be a friend of a friend of a friend then, eventually, we will actually start to know individuals who have children who are “trans”, who are being referred etc. And lo she has reported back a trans 7 year old. It’s a creeping cult.
As for social media, I feel better for not being on FB and debating the meaning of woman with idiots. I talk about the subject in real life a lot more now and most real life people get it

Sadly I disagree.

It would be accurate if transsexualism wasnt demedicalised and continued to be treated as a psychological disorder. However the floodgates have opened to let every fetishist and predator co-opt a label for nefarious ends all in the name of transgenderism.

The Equality Act is being manipulated and twisted by all and sundry. The protected characteristics within it are sex and gender reassignment, specifically stating transssexual. The EA NEVER actually mentions transgender at all; only the medicalised people who are transitioning.

However because the EA states that a person need not have started any treatment (hormones or surgery) it has allowed anyone to make a claim to that protected characteristic.

In my view ONE WORD would have prevented much of where we are now and that is if the EA had said "diagnosed transsexual" rather than just "transsexual".

The dictionary definition of transsexual has changed so much that it is unclear as to what a transsexual actually is.
Ive just looked it up in 3 different dictionaries....
#1 says "a person who emotionally and psychologically feels that they belong to the opposite sex."
#2 says "A transsexual is a person who has decided that they want to live as a person of the opposite sex, and so has changed their name and appearance in order to do this. "
#3 says "a person who has undergone medical and surgical procedures to alter external sexual characteristics to those of the opposite sex"

All the updated GRA will do will allow people who need it a slightly less hassle way to change their gender officially and as it affects such a small number of people (supposedly 1% of the population) it’s really not going to have a massive impact on the vast majority of people. There are no plans to change the Equality Act of 2010, so sex will still be a protected category.

This keeps being bandied around. But if the GRA changes, then anyone will be able to change their legal sex so any sex based protections will essentially become meaningless anyway. If any man can change their legal sex to 'female' at the stroke of a pen, then that is the end of sex based protections surely?

Also, the 'beard' thing was obviously a joke.

Over 300 new GRC granted a year will almost double the number in 15/20 years

Stonewall I beleive it was gave a number of 500,000 people they want to see get GRCs. Thats not doubling that a factor of 100 !

I don’t think we should be scared OP. I think we should be incensed and organised

I think I can see where you're coming from Notevenmyrealname. You're talking about this bloke who is normally a fair-minded individual, and wondering why he isn't able to see what should become apparent after a bit of reading about this issue. I expect you're thinking that it would be good to get people like this bloke onside to gender critical thinking and wondering why it's not so easy.

In other news I was also very amused by the lecture about our pogonophobia.

The trouble is that, for whatever reason, your friend is effectively doing what the guy in this photo is doing, and a lot of people still are. It's useful to ask yourself if someone ignoring a problem and minimizing your concerns is actually a reason to change your mind about the facts in front of you.

Yuck - he looks like JOB.

NABMALT

To some extent, this is a fight over who is most oppressed. The fundamental issue is that if you acknowledge that transwomen are women, then they are oppressed for being women, as well as oppressed for being trans.

If you don't, then it's a bunch of men pretending to be women shoe-horning themselves into women's spaces. If you follow this line of reasoning, then it's these women who are being oppressed.

I can't think of any historical analogy at all.

The idea that a redistribution of rights is OK because it only affects a small number of people is very dangerous, and the GRA was vague on gender and sex - a wedge. So I agree with you when you say:

I’m still very much of the belief that gender identity and biological sex are separate things and I think if something could be put in law that makes that distinction clear, surely everything would be fine.

I'm not sure "fine" is quite the right word, but there needs to be a clear delineation in law between the two, with sex-based rights ring fenced. Most of people here want to fight the losing battle that "trans women are men," whereas fighting for sex-based rights does not require this.

The most dangerous (and wrong) TRA arguments, used as a wedge, are that sex is a spectrum, sex is as much a social construct as gender, and from that it follows that a transwoman should have the exactly the same access to protected areas and resources devoted to biologically female persons. This does a side-run around the Equality Act.

If you are a radfem, this is identical to saying "men are demanding access to women's areas."

It seems that most organisations are taking the view that transwomen are women to the extent that they are overruling or dismissing the right to sex segregation, and while the EA2010 allows necessary and proportion sex segretation, that's open to interpretation, and I think I know which way it will go in a court case.

My views are deeply unpopular here, so I'm not sure how much help this it.

You're talking about this bloke who is normally a fair-minded individual, and wondering why he isn't able to see what should become apparent after a bit of reading about this issue.
This is it. He has dismissed activists as just another fringe group of crazies in the same way he would any other. I was concerned that my lack of exposure to the real world of late had made me attach a greater level of importance to them than was warranted. I think though having been reassured by posters on here that it’s more the other way round. The activists are reliant on people being wrapped up in their own lives in order to get a lot of this stuff under the radar. That, and the fact that the only publications complaining about it seem to be papers such as the DM and people like the famous liberal feminist, Piers Morgan. I’ve seen a few tweets along the lines of “Aligning yourself with that person? Doesn’t that tell you something?” or “Criticising a charity that helps vulnerable young people and their families? I bet you’d have been in favour of section 28. Bigot.” They’re reliant on the polarisation of every news topic at the moment to get people on their side. Most of their supporters probably aren’t “woke” SJWs, they’re just people like my friend who haven’t thought about it enough. Working in HR, it is a fairly female dominated area so he works with a lot of women but seemingly, they haven’t really thought about it much either as he didn’t mention any of his colleagues getting upset about it. Maybe there’s a tendency to become blasé about these things when you’re dealing with them every day.

Meanwhile, during the past 48 hours one of the greatest female athletes ever - Martina Navratilova - has been bullied on Twitter by a TRA who competes against women and argues that transwomen shouldn't even need to reduce their T levels to do so. This for the crime of expressing the opinion that such cmpetition was unfair to women.

Amongst the comments on a thread discussin this were: one accusing Martina of a "hate" tweet and one asking "What effect does the presence or absence of a penis have on one's tennis serve?"

Just let that sink in: "What effect does the presence or absence of a penis have on one's tennis serve?"

These people are serious about this. Brushing this off as 'not a problem' is somewhat naive...

What effect does the presence or absence of a penis have on one's tennis serve?"

In fairness the presence of a penis makes no difference its your testosterone producing testicles that area the problem :-) So by all means keep the penis but kiss your balls goodbye !

The EA doesn’t need to be changed because the provisions to protect sex as a class are being ignored and people like your friend either haven’t noticed or don’t care.

n fairness the presence of a penis makes no difference its your testosterone producing testicles that area the problem :-) So by all means keep the penis but kiss your balls goodbye !

There's still no "fairness" about it - being born male means your body develops in ways that give you a massive advantage over women even if you have your bits removed.

Do you seriously reckon that if Novak Djokovic had his bits off he wouldn't still smash Sererna Williams?

There's still no "fairness" about it - being born male means your body develops in ways that give you a massive advantage over women even if you have your bits removed.

I wasnt arguing otherwise, merely commonting on the laughable inaccuracy of the original statement that was biologically incorrect!

The point is penis = male and all that entails surely? Nit picking over a pair of bollocks seems a bit silly to me.

The EA doesn’t need to be changed because the provisions to protect sex as a class are being ignored and people like your friend either haven’t noticed or don’t care.

I respectfully disagree.

There is insufficient clarification within the EA which as a result creates a discrepancy between the protected characteristic of sex and the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. As I said earlier the best thing in my opinion would be to add one word in to section 7 to clarify that the transsexual people being referred to were medically diagnosed and not self identified. Lets make it "DIAGNOSED transsexual".

I know many will still disagree but at least 99% of the TG umbrella is out (the non medicalised self identifiers).

The point is penis = male and all that entails surely? Nit picking over a pair of bollocks seems a bit silly to me.

The point is that most of not all of these idiots are using the argument that a penis makes no difference whilst missing the key point thats its the influence of the male hormones since puberty that are the problem and the impact these hormones have had ie build, strength, aggression etc..

The argument is not about genitals themselves and thats what they dont seem to get. Even removing the testosterone whilst it will reduce strength and aggression it wont change the overall build.

What is of course neglected from these arguments is that if a biological male in professional sport was found to have elevated testosterone she would be required medically to have that reduce before being allowed to compete.

sorry - previous post should have read

What is of course neglected from these arguments is that if a biological FEMALE in professional sport was found to have elevated testosterone she would be required medically to have that reduce before being allowed to compete.

That’s an interesting idea Givenup and has given me something to think about.