Why biological sex was silenced

[BovaryX]

Sex cannot be changed. It is no good the Minister shaking his head. Sex is decided by the chromosomes of a human being. So far as I know, there is no law nor any known medical procedure that can change the sex of a human being. The Bill purports to do so. It is therefore an objectionable farce

TimeLady linked to an article which gives a fascinating insight into the history of the GRA and the lobby’s ideology written by one of its proponents. The deliberate manipulation of language in the GRA was a key aim. The intention was to displace biological sex and relegate it to a subordinate role below gender. To render it irrelevant. It was successful.

The sex/gender distinction is demobilized both literally and legally...Gender now determines sex

Fifteen years later, the implications of this radical policy are explicit. In 2004, denying the existence of biological sex would have been met with derision. This morning, the leader of the Lib Dems disputes its existence a couple of days before she expects people to vote her into power. This lobby believes if it can rigidly control language, it can remodel external reality according to whim. If you can confine biological sex to a dusty attic, performative gender can take centre stage. This demolishes the foundation of women’s rights. It has serious implications for gay rights. There are few politicians with the integrity or gravitas to challenge this agenda. In retrospect, those who objected at the time deserve respect for their critical analysis.

Can you link to the article on here please? I’d be interested to know who the actors are in this.

www.socresonline.org.uk/12/1/whittle.html

twitter.com/HairyLeggdHarpy/status/1049289194370002945?s=19

And those with the wit to see what was happening were shut down by the government.

It’s interesting to read Lord Tebbit’s analysis now. It is quite striking that fifteen years later, this ideology is being promoted by politicians from three major parties...,

Place marking for further reading

This is a long read but I have got as far as the introduction and I am already feeling faint!

The argument is that the concept of gender now enshrined in British law in the 2004 GRA means that we now have a legal category in which 'sex transformations can now be literally disembodied.' They argue that science has failed to establish that two biologically distinct sexes exist with two distinct experiences of being human tied to those biological differences.

People should now be able to identify as whatever sex they feel like at any particular time and this individual feeling must be catered for in social policy.

This means that power relations will be shifted to those people who will be able to most forcefully impose their own inner feelings on others. Neither will there be any objective/scientific way of checking the authenticity or validity of these feelings.

According to Whittle this radically anti-scientific ideology has already made its way into the legal system of England (and many other countries).

This is extreme liberalism of the John Stuart Mill variety in which laws should be kept to a minimum and society must order itself according to the outcomes of competing individuals. In this way, even 'natural law' is suspended and a thriving society must arise out of the broiling bear pit of individual pitted against individual.

This is obviously why Swinson is going to such lengths to support this ideology.

What is terrifying is that most voters and most candidates in the election appear not to realise that the 2004 Act has potentially changed the legal definition of a human being. Any man may now claim that he feels like a woman and this disembodied feeling cannot be challenged - and this is just the beginning. I am not sure how to explain this to people.

The point is surely that trans people are not necessarily born with all the obvious gender characteristics, and this becomes increasingly clear as they mature. If people read what those often unhappy people in that position are saying, it is far from simple. So many of the comments in these columns seem to be both judgemental and simplistic.

define obvious gender characteristics

So many of the comments in these columns seem to be both judgemental and simplistic

Can you cite which comment in this thread is ‘judgemental and simplistic?’ If you’re going to make accusations, substantiate them. Or withdraw them.

The article linked discusses that the language used in the GRA was deliberately deployed to upend the relationship between biological sex and gender and render the former irrelevant. The implications of that radical policy have created the environment in which people are sacked for expressing a belief in biological sex and freedom of speech is facing an existential threat. It is way past time this ideology was subject to critical scrutiny.

define obvious gender characteristics

Ah, bless you clitherow, ever the optimist, eh?

this radically anti-scientific ideology has already made its way into the legal system of England

Clitherow
Precisely. From the article:
In the words of the act, gender precedes sex... moreover, there is no recourse to the sexed body

I think commentary on here is far from judgemental or simplistic. We are one of the few places to examine trans ideology. If you are looking for simplistic or #nodebate try the TRAs.

Quite often, late transitioning TW were, prior to transition, heterosexual, often married men, who seem to have managed to use their phenotypically and genotypically bog standard male biology to father children. Not a lot of complicated "somewhere on the nonbinary sex spectrum with smergs and speggs" going on there.

The biology of human reproduction is indeed complex and fascinating, scientifically, but it's still binary in almost all people, and the people who suffer from differences of sexual development are still (barring almost vanishingly rare cases of genetic mosaicism) either male or female. They're just male or female with sexual reproductive systems which don't work in quite the statistically normal way.

Whittle again. He was one of the signatories of the Yogyakarta Principles too.

Sex is preceded and exceeded by gender by the terms of the GRA. Sex is determined by gender identity... for the GRA the body is irrelevant

This is from the linked article. Gender supplants biological sex which is rendered obsolete. This is a radical policy which completely reconfigures the meaning of biological sex as it has been understood for millennia. It explains why so many of the battles are linguistic. It also explains why silencing debate is a recurrent theme. Maya and Harry’s cases will make explicit how successful the attempt to criminalize dissent has been.

It really is a totalitarian ideology isn't it.

The point is surely that trans people are not necessarily born with all the obvious gender characteristics, and this becomes increasingly clear as they mature

That is true for everyone......and will depend on personality, culture and other personal circumstances. Lots of people suffer some from some form of dysphoria around their bodies and 'allotted' gender roles. the vast majority turn out to be gay, lesbian or just generally non-conforming. 'Trans' is a modern invention by and large. And one which propels many onto damaging medical and surgical paths.

And Whittle and Turner couldn't resist gloating right at the start, could they?

..sex can not be changed by medical procedure nor by law. The Gender Recognition Act passed in 2004 (achieved by relentless campaigning by Press for Change, the UK transsexual lobby group) does exactly that: it changes the legal sex of trans people in the UK and gives them full legal recognition. Moreover, the Act does not require any medical procedure (mentioned by Lord Tebbitt above), to change legal sex, as reassignment surgery is not mandatory.

I can't begin to voice the contempt I have for the pair of them.

Time to revoke the GRA

This means that power relations will be shifted to those people who will be able to most forcefully impose their own inner feelings on others. Neither will there be any objective/scientific way of checking the authenticity or validity of these feelings

Absolutely. Feelings trump biological sex which has been confined to a dusty attic while performative gender takes centre stage. It’s quite incredible

TimeLady, I can’t believe it was passed in the first place

Ah, bless you clitherow, ever the optimist, eh?

I know, but what can you do?

But that poster really exhibits what I am getting very tired of. In fact I'm furious. Whittle is right, we have allowed a fiction into law. Self-defined disembodied sex transformation or gender identity cannot be objectively defined whilst keeping the common good in mind. Law depends on the objective definition of terms. Thus a fictional identity that cannot be defined is going to undermine hundreds of years of development of a legal system and why? Because some people are 'unhappy'.

I've been bloody unhappy and I'm sure most of the women on here have been unhappy, but I don't demand that we destroy the objective basis of law to make me happy.

Once law is no longer true and just then it can be used to persecute people and inflict untold suffering on countless numbers of people. But do they care about that? No.

The 'but we only want to get married' was just a Trojan horse, wasn't it?

Is that why it was called the Gender Recognition Act, when in fact it was an attempt to redefine sex?

Yes. I imagine so. Supplanting biological sex and rendering it obsolete was the key aim. If you control language, you can remodel external reality according to whim. This is the ideology. It’s Orwellian

So, I am trying to read through this and see that they are trying to say that the biological split between male and female sexes is a relatively modern phenomenon. They are quoting sources I don't know so it is difficult to comment without having access to the reference material, but we have the Torah that goes back to at least 1,500 BC that says that God made human beings physically male and female so this was clearly established in the ancient mind. I do not know where the idea originates that male and female were in one body. Is anyone more knowledgeable than me? We need to challenge every assertion they make if possible.

QUOTE In the last 45 years, �gender� has been understood as different to �sex� by reference to a difference between the body, biology and being male or female (�sex�) and social and cultural roles inscribed on bodies; masculinity and femininity (�gender�). But originally the categories �male� and �female� were understood as residing in one body and sex was a sociological category rather than a biological one (Laquer 1990). The idea that there was a male and female �sex� in one body, was superseded by the concept of two �sexes� based on bodily difference� the reproductive organs, which became the foundation of sexed difference in the eighteenth century (Laquer 1990). It is worth noting that Laquer claims that the two sex model was �independent of biological facts�QUOTE