Amnesty - “no such thing as a biologically male/female body”

[NellieEllie]

A week ago I saw that Amnesty had responded to a complaint about the open letter signed in Ireland and in that response had said the above.
I wrote to Amnesty as a long time supporter and queried whether this was their official stance, and have today received a reply.
This is an extract - see esp para 3.

“We stand over the letter, which we signed to stand in solidarity with the trans community and against those spreading hate.

There are attempts to decontextualise certain phrases used in the letter in a way that misleads and confuses people, which is a common tactic used against many of our human rights campaigns. For example, the letter asks for media and politicians to not give legitimacy to those spreading vitriol or misinformation. This is being framed as a call to take away their political representation, which anyone reading the letter will clearly see is not what it means.

Another example is the letter’s referring to those ‘defending biology’. Allowing self-determination of our bodies is a basic principle of feminism and human rights. There is no such thing as a ‘biologically female/male body’ - a person’s genitalia doesn’t determine their gender. Those that seek to exclude and disenfranchise groups of people, or force people into one gender or their other on that basis, are working against basic human rights principles.

We feel much of the current media reporting and conversations on social media with regards to self-identification is misguided. Restricting the rights of transgender people, and omitting the use of inclusive language will not advance or protect women’s rights.“

I was hoping that it was a case of an earnest woke teen manning the social media account, but clearly not.
How can they promote such doublespeak? Their last magazine was full of references to women in developing countries - do they REALLY think that there is no such class? “A person’s genitalia does not determine gender” is a separate statement - but they are conflating the two and specifically denying biology.

I am so wearied by this nonsense.

Well, wow, just wow!

There is a huge issue with the TRA recently where they seem to be turning gender and sex upside down. I was told by someone this year or last year that it was sex that was the construct and not gender and in the end I had to walk away because I couldn't even.

Sex can only be a construct if we start to change science but the fact of the matter is that the majority of us are born either female or male. Intersex being the exception that proves the rule. Or something. Even if we start to see that there are differences that we weren't previously aware of in science so that maybe some people have more x chromosomes or more y chromosomes, we know that in this world that we have to live in genitalia mean something and if you're born with female genitalia, i.e. born a woman, then there is a whole load of shit that is assumed and dangers that are just waiting for you. So, basically, genitals, sex, whatever, not deciding what you are is a bollocks.

Gender is something that we know is a construct and malleable. because we know that being a woman in 1920 vs 2020 or whenever means something different. Constructs are constantly changing within and without eras. Bringing biology into that malleability makes precisely no sense and is not just infuriating, it is dangerous, not just to women but to those who transition and then think that they don't they can go forward in the gender they want to be and not take into account various factors that are relevant to their biological sex, illnesses, etc, that will be overlooked if they insist that they are male/female when that is not their biology.

I am so fucking tired with all of this.

I was talking to a friend earlier in the week and I was telling her about the Ellen/Elliot Page thread here. She told me that if hormone blockers had been around when she was growing up they would have made her life easier, but ... she didn't want to be a woman, she wanted to be a boy - n.b. not a man, a boy - and that she sees herself as a sort of boy. I told her that I saw her as part woman part boy too because I do, but first and foremost she is woman but she's a woman who doesn't ally with gender norms, like many of us. She's a lesbian who's been called a TERF because she doesn't want to get into relationships with transwomen.

Sorry, long and rambling. If this is the way Amnesty are going to go forward I won't be able to donate money to them any longer.

Did they do good things? Yes, I suppose so, but their fundraising methods/techniques were verging on the coercive, I'd say. Emotional blackmail, all the mailshots I got as an earnest activist teenager. Some of which were laid on with so much graphic detail they gave me nightmares.

Anyway, fuck them.

It is a big word, right enough. Even though they sound on the verge of actual breakdown.

I suspect use of po-mo word salad like "decontextualise" may be prima facie evidence of lack of brain-stem activity.

It is complete and utter insanity.

Sometimes I wonder what the tipping point is with this nonsense. Will everyone eventually be beaten (or at least brow-beaten) into submission, or will something happen to wake people up and make them decide enough is enough and that it's time to stop denying the obvious biological truth. Or will it just sort of whimper away gradually, when something else comes along to obsess over, and this is shoved out of the spotlight? Will people look back and ask, "What were they thinking?!"

@CaraDuneRedux

I suspect use of po-mo word salad like "decontextualise" may be prima facie evidence of lack of brain-stem activity.

Po-mo word salad may be my go to phrase from here on

'spreading hate' IME = making an argument I disagree with or saying something I don't like.

I v interested to know how saying that biological sex is real spreads hate. Tell the average livestock farmer or dog breeder that biological sex is just a construct and see what becomes of your dignity.

No amount of po-mo word salad will save it for you.

It's hugely problematic when once respected organisations like Amnesty peddle lies. Society and justice depend on truths and facts. It's no wonder we have Trump, anti vaxxers, QAnon and the rest if populations are being gaslit in this way.

How to stop them I have no idea but these lies cannot prevail

It's a load of rubbish and I've cancelled my monthly support of Amnesty. They are confuting sexing gender, and as usual, it is to the detriment of women.

If you are happier flaunting gender stereotypes and living/ dressing as a member of the opposite SEX, do it. However people can't change sex, and women need safe spaces - even if it is the kindest, gentlest and most respectful man in the world, he has no place in women's changing rooms/ toilets/ rape crisis centres and refuges.

Those spaces are there for a reason - the reason being that many men can't be trusted.

Women are being reduced to collections of anonymous organs - uterus-havers, vagina owners etc, and biological functions - testators, birthers - their humanity is being erased.

This doesn't happen to men for some reason - you never see them described as penis-owners or prostate-havers, or ejaculators.

Amnesty International should be protecting women from this pernicious trend - not throwing them to the wolves.

*conflating, not confuting

I'm enjoying the prospect of couples being unable to reject transwomen as "gestational carriers" since it biological sex no longer exists.

If there's no such thing as real biological sex, a biological sex binary, then there is no such thing as transpeople.

There is nothing to trans from or to.

The transphobia!

But you know what, all mammals are sexually dimorphic. We might not be confined by our biology (although sometimes we are - e.g. when we die from a disease which you'd think people would at least understand at the moment even if young and feeling immortal) but it still exists.

She's a lesbian who's been called a TERF because she doesn't want to get into relationships with transwomen

Strangely, almost all of the adult men who suddenly send-ID as trans are lesbians But they never seem to want to sh*g each other.

I wonder why.

[quote CaraDuneRedux]The brain-dead muppets now have it as their pinned tweet:
twitter.com/AmnestyIreland[/quote]
Look three posts down! They have this:
"Everyone has the right to speak out! End the crackdown on dissent"

Talk about a lack of self awareness!

Who are these strange “women” being jailed for fighting for women’s rights. How do they know they are women

I make a direct debit to Amnesty. It makes me weep to read the "gender "section. When they are doing such good work against other terrible human rights abuses. And then for them to say how sad they are about the puberty blockers judgement.
The biological sex denial is nonsense.

How do countries know what women are to jail when fighting for women’s rights.

Jeez amnesty

It's so outrageously ridiculous and so dangerous and offensive for them to do that on the same week of the Tavistock ruling. It makes me so angry, I agree with other this needs as much daylight as possible. It needs to be shared far and wide and shown up for what it is.

The sooner ordinary people see how ridiculous and dangerous this idelogy is the better.

It strikes me more and more that I just can't grasp these ideas. This is nothing to do with being pro or anti anything, just having a basic handle on the concepts under discussion. Also, the ideas either seem to continually evolve or other people don't get them either so how they talk about them changes. At a fundamental level I don't understand what the categories of woman and man are if they don't at least relate in some way to a concept that has been known as biological sex.

I like to think I can get my head around fairly complex ideas. I'm educated. I read and engage with ideas. But I'm not bright enough to 'get' this.

Yet the message is that it's so obvious and right that all decent people agree and accept.

@OldCrone

There is no such thing as a ‘biologically female/male body’ - a person’s genitalia doesn’t determine their gender.

And yet 'trans' children desperately need access to puberty blockers.

Amnesty and Liberty Joint statement following High Court ruling that children under 16 are unlikely to be able to give informed consent to undergo treatment with puberty-blocking drug

I'd missed this that they have made a statement on the judicial review.

Yeah weird if there is no such thing as a male or female body then what is being blocked

Can’t people just grow into blobby bodies with no one knowin* if they are male or female as there is no such things

We are just amorphous blobs

From the joint statement:

We are concerned not only for what this means for the health and well-being of trans young people, but the wider implications this will have on the rights of children and young people of all genders, particularly on consent and bodily autonomy.

The right to consent against ideologically driven/fixated/out of their depth adults determined to get you on experimental drugs that send you on a pathway to altering your body irrevocably for life? Too bloody right. This is statement does not achieve what they hope it will achieve.

Good point littl - if there's no such thing as male or female sex then we don't need puberty blockers, right?