Change.org says it's discriminatory to say that women are raped because they are female

[Dances]

mobile.twitter.com/jadakix/status/1282638826956115976

Gender identity is not a 'protected characteristic'

Sex is. Gender Reassignment is.

Women and transwomen do not share a protected characteristic. BUT sex is being ignored in favour of 'gender identity'

I think we are in serious trouble.

Thanks plan. Maybe you could let change know what they really meant...?

That would be plansplaining then, I guess...

@deepwatersolo

Thanks plan. Maybe you could let change know what they really meant...?

That would be plansplaining then, I guess...

And how do you explain Ted Bundy being gang raped in prison if being female is the only cause of rape?

Not a single person has said this. The distinction was made that rape under UK law can only be committed by males. The victims however are both female and male.

In addition, child rape happens just as often to boys as to girls, so a female body isn’t a cause of rape in juveniles.

This is incorrect. While 77% of victims of child sexual abuse are female, when it comes to child rape, assault by penetration (including the attempt), the percentage who are female is 87%.

So, no girls and boys are not being sexually abused in equal numbers. Girls are almost three and a half times more often the victim than boys for all child sexual abuse and almost seven times more often the victims of rape and attempted rape.

So the sex of the victim is demonstrably a factor even in juveniles.

(I have quoted the latest available figures for England and Wales, published in January 2020. You can see for yourself here)

@deepwatersolo

Thanks plan. Maybe you could let change know what they really meant...?

That would be plansplaining then, I guess...

🤣

The statement that women are raped because they are female is discriminatory.

Yep - keep the b* coming for all the newbies to see clear as day why they are here thanks to JK.

First, your sex doesn’t cause rape

Sexed bodies. Most men are bigger/stronger than most women.

Second, males are also raped.

Indeed awful. Men are far less likely to be raped.
Men are also many more times likely to be raped than be falsely accused of rape - but society is biased to false claims.

If everyone took ALL causes of rape seriously - it including the fact women have female bodies - it would protect men and women.

Saying women are raped because they are female is classic victim blaming.

So if I say, gay men are attacked because they are gay, is that victim blaming, then?

I thought both were describing factual reality, but if one is victim-blaming, then so must the other be.

And what about racism?

People feom ethnic minorities suffer discrimination, including violent attacks, because they aren't white.

Is that victim blaming?

Saying women are raped because they are female is classic victim blaming.

Could you nip over to Twitter and tell those that claim to be trans, to please stop saying they are ‘more likely to be murdered and attacked’ because they are trans, to stop that please, as it’s classic victim blaming? There’s a dear.

@LillianBland

Saying women are raped because they are female is classic victim blaming.

Could you nip over to Twitter and tell those that claim to be trans, to please stop saying they are ‘more likely to be murdered and attacked’ because they are trans, to stop that please, as it’s classic victim blaming? There’s a dear.

Ah, much better than mine.

Either way, can't see how pointing out that members of groups are targets for characteristics they cannot choose constitutes blaming them.

@PotholeParadise

And what about racism?

People feom ethnic minorities suffer discrimination, including violent attacks, because they aren't white.

Is that victim blaming?

I guess it must be. Gosh who knew.

I assume that saying children are the victims of paedophiles is also discriminatory plan?

I don’t really understand what the petition was about though, so it’s hard to put in context what change.org had a problem with? single sex spaces? Rape support services excluding trans women?

@Michelleoftheresistance

Male entitlement to female biology regardless of the feelings of the female in possession of that biology; male beliefs about female people having no right to gatekeep access to that biology, or to bodily autonomy; male beliefs about female consent not really being a thing; male beliefs about the way to really piss off another male is to penetrate a female those males see as owned by the male.....

The history of rape in a nutshell. Corrective rape: males raping females to punish or convert them. Rape as a war crime. Marital rape, where a female's right to say no only made it into law a few years ago. Date rape, with all the fun drugs. Rape when a female is drunk, incapable or asleep where the male (that lovely one at the American Uni) is then let off, even after abandoning the raped unconscious body in the street, because gosh wouldn't it be sad to damage his career over a silly thing that any man would understand.

Jeez.

Yes, there is male on male rape. But we're talking about a tiny percentage compared to the whacking great elephant cavorting about in the room, that the trans lobby really hate.

Females are female because of female biology.

Females in possession of female biology are constantly at risk all their lives from a male who feels like taking it, and many experience this. Including the poor transman who sobbed to their rapist in a taxi "but I'm a man!" How females feel about this or identify is utterly irrelevant to the rapist because this is about male entitlement to female biology.

And what you're seeing storming away on Twitter is male entitlement to women's language, realities, lived experiences, spaces, all based on that same underlying belief that females are not entitled to own anything or say no to males.

Oddly enough all those people know the exact sort of women they apply this entitlement to, and it's all the ones with female biology.

The tantrums in this case are about nothing more than female people refusing to lie nicely and prioritise male people's feelings, and saying female people are a thing, with specific issues to do with being female. Because quite obviously, the most important thing when female people talk about the huge, massive, whacking, worldwide very seriously problem with female rape, is not whether male born people feel included.

Amen to that

And how do you explain Ted Bundy being gang raped in prison if being female is the only cause of rape?

Prison, a place where women are markedly absent, is the only place that male on male rape is very common. Other places which have similar issues are boys' schools and care settings.

If women are present, they are the preferred victims. Because in the main, male rapists want to rape women.

@MrsTerryPratchett

And how do you explain Ted Bundy being gang raped in prison if being female is the only cause of rape?

Prison, a place where women are markedly absent, is the only place that male on male rape is very common. Other places which have similar issues are boys' schools and care settings.

If women are present, they are the preferred victims. Because in the main, male rapists want to rape women.

This. ^

The statement that women are raped because they are female is discriminatory. First, your sex doesn’t cause rape. Second, males are also raped

The vast majority of female rape victims were raped because they were female. A male in the same circumstance as them would not have been raped. This doesn't ignore why their rapists felt they could rape them.
Male rape victims are not raped because they are female because they aren't female.
So the statement 'females are raped because they are female' is not discriminatory against men or anyone else who is not female.
It is also not victim blaming in any way, shape or form. It would be doing a disservice to rape victims to not acknowledge the role their sex and the sex of the perpetrator played.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

If my memory is correct, wasn’t a women once told by a male bodied person who identifies as trans, that they had ‘cis’ privilege because they had an abortion?

Wasn't there a woman with cervical cancer whose transgender friend told her that that was a sign of her privilege and was asked to apologise for talking about it?

Yes to both plus miscarriages and endometriosis, as examples I've seen.

On this board a TW told me that my infertility wasn't as sad as theirs because at least I had a womb.

He'd fathered children.

I was talking to a female colleague about PMS. A transwoman colleague came in to the room part way through the discussion and after a bit of pouting said "oh you're so lucky...I wish I got PMS"

This was a few years ago, before 'cis privilege' was a phrase, but yeah. Same thing.

It is.

@PlanDeRaccordement because rape is not about sexual gratification, it is about violence and control. You wouldn’t beat someone with a spade and call it gardening. It is also not an opportunistic crime, like punching a car window through to steal a wallet, but a violent one with a psychology of control and subjugation, the remit of toxic masculinity, boundary violation and predation. Which is why it is, overwhelmingly, a crime committed by men against women. It’s very difficult to rape someone if you aren’t in possession of a penis. The fact that male on male rape is a phenomenon largely peculiar to a prison environment bolsters this fact rather than decrying it. Male violence against women whether sexual or otherwise is a real and lived reality for many. Gaslighting rape victims into pretending their biological sex had nothing to do with a crime overwhelmingly committed by men against women is disgraceful. I’ve also just heard of a rape victim being asked by her rape counsellor, as the opening question, whether she identifies as a woman or not. Apparently this is a question which is now has to be asked for the sake of inclusivity. How insulting and traumatising, to be the victim of a horrendous male crime, violent sexual assault with a penis, and be asked the nature of your nebulous gender identity, when the reality of biological womanhood, which you cannot identify out of or deny, was the reason you were the victim of this violatory crime. The implication that her complicity in being a woman, the basis for victimhood of a sex based crime, is a choice, is something that should deeply worry all women. Do you think it would’ve washed with her rapist if she’d told him she was a man? It’s almost as if biology is immutable and often weaponised as a tool for oppression, when convenient. When biology is inconvenient to male bodied people, we’re told it’s insignificant, and this is once again used as a tool of oppression, the outcome is the same. Denial of the reality and significance of biological sex in a sexist world is dangerous. Maybe that lady should identify as a male when her case goes to trial, she might have a better chance of securing a conviction.

It's not "victim-blaming" to say that women are more likely to be raped because they are female. I am not to blame for being female. I just am female.

Women are more likely to be raped because they are women. Men rape women. Men also rape men but mainly they rape women and they rape women because they are women. We have known this since time began.

Shame on change.org

@PlanDeRaccordement basically, people don’t tend to rape people they consider to be their equals. It is at its most fundamental, a warped, aggressive assertion of a dynamic of dominance and submission. Steamrollering of women’s boundaries is as old as time, the misogyny is alive and well today, only the latest incarnation is wearing lipstick and a dress. The world knows exactly which sex to abort, rape, pay less, financially control, keep as brood mares, genitally mutilate, withhold basic human rights from, and discard at birth. There is no doubt when it comes to those things. Baby girls aren’t devalued and discarded because they like pink or some other nebulous gender stereotypical trope.

The statement that women are raped because they are female is discriminatory. First, your sex doesn’t cause rape. Second, males are also raped

Nobody is suggesting that males aren't raped.

Ted Bundy's victims were all female. This isn't a coincidence.

Jeffrey Dahmer's victims were all male. This isn't a coincidence.

They chose their victims based on their sex. Bundy's victims were raped and killed by him because they were women. Dahmer's were raped (sexually assaulted?) and killed by him because they were male.

They chose their victims based on their sex, how can you argue it's discrimination to say otherwise?

*^^didn't mean to put otherwise, should have put 'how can you argue it's discrimination to say this'.

PlanDeRaccordement Why are you lying? Of course women are raped because of their female sexed bodies. If they weren’t then why was I targeted by my mothers husband but my brothers weren’t? For ten whole years..

The statement that women are raped because they are female is discriminatory.

The fact is it overwhelmingly women who are raped, which means almost all rapists can discriminate very easily. Is this supposed to be discriminatory towards men who are not raped?

Discrimination is illegal if it means treating someone unfairly on the basis of a protected characteristic.

Most rape victims are women, so they are being treated differently to men, which (if we follow this line of logic), discriminates against them on the basis of sex. Do we now have to ask all rapists whether or not they would have raped a man just as much as a woman, and if he says no, you can sue him for sex discrimination?

Are they actually saying it is the men who are not raped, who are being discriminated against?

Honest to God. A few years ago when we were talking about the implications of GRA reform, and were suggesting how eg women's sport might be compromised, lots of people were sceptical, saying oh come on, it's not going to go that far, you're just scaremongering.

But many women were quite sure that it would go that far. And spent a great deal of mental effort speculating about exactly how far it could go.

Did anyone, in a million fucking years think that it would go as far as rape and the subjugation and oppression of women being used against them twice, on the basis that they're lucky to have it??