Royal Astronomical Society calls out TERFs

[FemaleAndLearning]

The diversity arm of the RAS is proudly saying it will not have TERFs giving opinions on its Twitter account.
I am truly shocked and upset that a scientific institution bloke this thinks this is acceptable.

From their statement:

"We reiterate that the RAS welcomes all delegates to NAM 2019, regardless of sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital or parental status, age, disability, race, religion or physical appearance".

They've decided that sex does exist.

Even though their diversity policy says that it doesn't.

They've left out pregnancy and maternity.

But they've added gender identity and erm, physical appearance? Not come across that before.

Does that mean furries or adult babies are welcome in full garb? Wouldn't surprise me.

Not a great apology though is it?! describing it as "unprofessional language" - like its some sort of typo

They should be ashamed

I assume physical appearance is to cover tw who 'present' as male.

Yeah, the 'physical appearance' thing suggests that they have someone specific in mind at the RAS.

Probably the same person who did the tweeting.

So it is an acknowledgement from the RAS that it is a man who claims to be a woman, but whose appearance even the RAS concedes is indistinguishable from other men.

And this person is dictating policy to them.

Has the tweet gone? I can't find it

Incorrect protected characteristics repeated here:

twitter.com/rasnam2019/status/1145718806238699522?s=19

Missed out gender reassignment too.

Thats not a legal thing though they can add to the list as they please, probably not a good idea to miss anything out though.

Funny how sex, pregnancy and maternity are the ones that are regularly omitted.

And that gender and gender identity are the ones that are regularly added.

What are we to deduce from this?

Although they did mention sex!

Cheers ChattyLion.

AlwaysComingHome - What testable hypotheses does gender ‘theory’ produce?

That TWAW, I suppose. Proponents will never define what they mean by woman so as far as that goes it's not a testable hypothesis but as they ascribe any concerns to bigotry, it's fair to assume they claim that:

1. There is a thing that everyone has called a gender identity. We don't have a definition for this BUT...
2. Various things we used to think were caused by or correlated with biological sex are actually caused by or correlated with this 'gender identity'. So for example we used to think that people were sexually orientated but actually we're gender-orientated. (GC lesbians must be bigots for saying otherwise, it cannot be because they simply view TW as male). We used to think that women were discriminated against because of our sex but actually it's because of our gender identity (GC feminists who say that TW should not take places reserved for addressing sex imbalances in politics etc must be saying this because of bigotry, not because they see these people as simply not female). This means that not only has everyone got a 'gender identity' (definition pending) but that everyone else can somehow 'sense' someone's 'gender identity' (for purposes of discrimination, sexual orientation etc) regardless of presentation.

I guess you could test this by getting a load of people of various gender identities, hide their hair, get them to remove make-up and wear grey smocks, and then get other people to guess their gender identity.

Well done to everyone who complained. I know we aren't always in a safe position to do so, but it makes a difference.

If you're concerned about privacy - mail.com is an easy online mail service to help retain your anonymity.

I sometimes have to refer to the protected characteristics in my line of work. Google currently lists them correctly, so I tend to google them to check whether I have missed any out. It is about a 5 minute job.

I would think that someone working for the RAS would also have use of a search engine.

Therefore, if the protected characteristics are listed incorrectly it is due to extreme laziness, disinterest, a sense of "knowing better" or perhaps as part of an effort to rewrite who should and should not be protected by law.

"We reiterate that the RAS welcomes all delegates to NAM 2019, regardless of sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital or parental status, age, disability, race, religion or physical appearance".

They've decided that sex does exist.

If sex doesn’t exist what does sexual orientation orient to?

Have they specifically apologised for the use of the word ‘terf’?

An admission that it is a slur exclusively targeted at women would be more useful than an apology on behalf of some unnamed individual.

Talk given by one of people from the twitter feed to group of autistic young people. Is it just me but is it appropriate to suggest that autistic people are more likely to be LBGT.

Sorry screen shot didn't work

Give it a few years and we will be seeing crawling apologies* from groups like this.

*Or complete denial they ever said such things - but we will have the screenshots

I guess you could test this by getting a load of people of various gender identities, hide their hair, get them to remove make-up and wear grey smocks, and then get other people to guess their gender identity.

I would pay good money to see this.*

Meaning donate to any of the amazing organisations that actually support the rights of women and girls against this vile ideology.

Immobody that reminds me of a survey I saw asking autistic people if they identified as ‘cis’. Unsurprisingly a large proportion didn’t; this was interpreted to mean they were all trans, despite comments from people objecting to transideology. However, the author of the survey may have been a bit more accurate in his observation that all the ‘transwomen’ he had met were autistic. That might also explain why many seem to struggle with any other perspective than their own.

twitter.com/drashleynova/status/1145658657184669698?s=21

Charming Twitter thread here from one of the speakers at rasnam2019 - a transwoman who doesn't seem to care much for the rights of women. Being encouraged to apply for women's grants and awards, to which they reply -

"First, women aren't reduced to women's only awards, anyone can apply to the majority of awards. Women's only awards exist because we as a community recognise the deficit in women on the sciences. That deficit is equally valid for trans women. I can attest to that."

I think we can all attest to the deficit of science in transideology.

Astrophysicist - noun

A scientist who can spot a pulsar star from millions of light-years away but can't tell the difference between a male and a female human standing right in front of them.

I am just so sad about this. RAS Women were great, and now with RAS "Diversity", we see brilliant women scientists abasing themselves in front of the usual male scientist assholes that women in science have had to put up with for centuries.

scientist who can spot a pulsar star from millions of light-years away but can't tell the difference between a male and a female human standing right in front of them.

They can tell the difference; the male is the one they can see, and the female is the one they can't see.