I do not understand. I just do not...

[JellySlice]

Jes Phillips said:

I do believe transwomen are women and helped to write the report that suggested changes to the GRA because fundamentally, during that enquiry, I couldn't understand how asking someone to live in a role as one sex or another would actually happen. It seemed bound entirely in 1950s perceptions of men and women.

What does she mean? Surely that is exactly what being a trans person is? Isn't being trans (TW or TM, not NB or the rest of the umbrella) basically trying to live your life according to the stereotypes expected from the other sex?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7908273/Jess-Phillips-sparks-fury-Mumsnet-saying-trans-women-women.html

Every LOL ever LOLed. Fail journos lurking! Hello!

Ha! That's hilarious!

Is sex a role? As in a role play game we all join in with? Is sex a costume?

The whole POINT of trying to overturn the 1950s stereotypes was that you could have either sexed body and wear/do/like whatever you wanted. There is no right way to be female or male, there is nothing belonging specifically to a sex, and sex is nothing more than the biological reproductive type of body you were born into.

But is JP trying to say males turn into women just by identifying as such? That some males are women and kind of just metamorphose on saying the incantation? Because the bodies don't change, Jess. Regardless of hormones and cosmetic surgery to meet the person's preference on how they look, they're still whatever sex they were born.

The issue is where you put the line between personal choice of how to present/be treated/like/do/pronouns and resources and facilities specific to people belonging to a biological group.

The issue is, do we as a society let people choose to legally opt into a class of people and access resources reserved for those people according to their inbuilt, inescapable need (sex, age, disability etc) even when their presence negatively affects those who can't opt out of that need?

If you wouldn't let a 50 year old man legally opt to be three years old and attend his local preschool, or an able bodied person legally opt to have full time carers to change nappies and provide care intended for someone who is quadriplegic, why would you be fine with opting into any protected group/resource? Believe me, this is going to come, because once it's in law that personal choice must be respected over reality, putting down boundaries will be impossible. Protecting the genuinely vulnerable over the personal freedoms of identity will be impossible.

Why cannot it not be that additional resources are provided for additional choice and freedoms for those whom these are important alongside existing provisions for other classes of people? You'd think Labour would get this.

Or face that the reason why it is unacceptable to acknowledge female people's unchanged biological and reality based needs, provide for them, or show any recognition that this insanity excludes some females from female, or indeed ANY provision. 'Turned away'. I think was the phrase JP used.

Anyway, I thought ‘living your life as a women’ as far as the GRC is concerned is a paper exercise which revolves around supplying a couple of utility bills. Though I guess even that relies on stereotypes around names. After all why shouldn’t Bruce Robert John Smith be a girl’s name?

I've lost all respect for JP now. In that video of interview by Juno Dawson she quite clearly and unequivocally supports the Nordic Model and gets a lot of flack. So why not acknowledge the issues around gender identity. Is it that she wrote the paper and therefore won't back down or does she really truly believe sex is a mutable characteristic.

I see that at least one more post has been deleted between the DM screenshot and now.

Shall we count down to the others being Vanished?

Incidentally, I'd struggle with 'a paper exercise which revolves around supplying a couple of utility bills', as I have one of those very gender-neutral names. Maybe my parents were hedging their bets, given that most of my toddler photos look like a small squinting Michelin man in drag.

Hm. Strongly suspect that the DM readership will read JP's reply, then read the MN responses, and have no trouble at all seeing the situation as it is.

Her response that in 5 years and 5 thousand doorsteps, nobody mentioned it? If she thinks this has massive public support, she's deluded. I wonder what comments will say in DM?

Perhaps Jess believes that transwomen are women from the fifties?

Time-traveler women?

Strongly suspect that the DM readership will read JP's reply, then read the MN responses, and have no trouble at all seeing the situation as it is.

Strongly concur! You have to hand it to the Fail. They know how to do faux naif framing.

OMG

I'm shocked

Lang posting a DM column

I'm shocked that my username appears in the Fail.😂😂😂

Lang posting a DM column

I only saw it cos I was lurking Twatter for the webchat fallout! That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Needs must when the devil drives, darling. Needs must!

FAO: The Daily Mail Mole

Take your facist bograg and stuff it up your arse.

Hurrah for the Blackshirts.

Some excellent quotes from you lot in here @annasgirl @stealthpolarbear @stinkyeddie @wellerrr @Imstinkyeddie! Good work all.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7908273/Jess-Phillips-sparks-fury-Mumsnet-saying-trans-women-women.html

Does anyone know why comments haven't been allowed on the DM article? Is that a common occurrence where they just can't be bothered to moderate?

I couldn't understand how asking someone to live in a role as one sex or another would actually happen. It seemed bound entirely in 1950s perceptions of men and women.

"And I don't understand why she didn't conclude from that that the GRA should be scrapped. Because gender is based on stereotypes and sex can't be changed."

It's like she's put in the final piece of the puzzle, but not looked at it before she's got up and walked away.

She's basically said there is no way of living as the opposite sex, so just let them sign on the dotted line and cede all women's rights to men.

Dear Jess or Jess' team (if you're lurking)

I'm a labour party member as is my daughter, we will both be voting in the leadership contest.

BUT I 100% believe

Medical records should record biological sex

Medical research should be based on biological sex.

Sports should be divided by biological sex

Facilities for changing, showering and toileting should be built around biological sex.

Prisons should segregate on biological sex.

Why would we segregate any of these thing on gender stereotypes instead of sex? It makes NO sense! And makes the safeguarding of women and girls more difficult if not impossible

My most charitable interpretation is that JP thinks she's talking about fully transitioned post-op transsexuals (which is certainly a more serious commitment than 2 years of utility bills), and has somehow not noticed that 80-90% of the trans people who would also be covered by the legislation are genderists whose notion of man/woman is seemingly based on people's alignment with the exact same superficial stereotypes JP claims to reject.

I had been wavering on voting for you, Jess.

Not now. Not because I disagree with you (although I do, passionately) but because, as Sarah Ditum says, you've not bothered with the detail and have outsourced your thinking to a lobby group.

You cannot be trusted with the rights and protections of women and girls. Unless they're born with a dick.

Speak truth to power my arse.

as Sarah Ditum says, you've not bothered with the detail and have outsourced your thinking to a lobby group

I am actually shocked by JP's ignorance. She takes credit for her involvement in the transgender equality inquiry & report but doesn't seem to grasp any of the issues. Though it's no wonder considering what a complete sham that inquiry was.

medium.com/@kathleenstock/womens-place-talk-full-text-house-of-lords-oct-10th-2018-b1f3d70c4559

Yes, I think what she is trying to say is the living as a woman thing is meaningless, so just get rid of it.

She's taking it for granted though that "trans" people are a sort of category that has a meaning apart from the idea of "living as a women".

I think maybe I think the opposite, I don't thing trans is really a category in that way, but I think there is certain limited meaning to the phrase "live as a woman," which mainly revolves around social presentation.

Oh, I meant to add, FWIW, I think the reason many people take the view that there is a type of person called is a trans person is they think that's what the medical establishment claims. I suspect these people, and that includes Phillips, won't change their minds until it is made clear that is not the case.

I think she means being a woman is all about some ‘inner feeling’ and nothing to do with biology or how you dress, any surgery, or how you live your life.

Ooh fab. If I feel like 'a man' does that mean I get a pay rise?

Not sure which man I'll have to 'feel like' in the absence of any research that collates in any consistent sense what men say it is to 'feel like a man' but it seems that we don't need to bother with such trivial details nowadays.