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.

@SmallPug

It really is beyond belief. I’m at that point where I just don’t know how much more I/ we can take. How can we function when we’re being gaslighted (gaslit?!) on a global scale? Someone upthread asked what it will take for this to stop. I don’t know but every hopeful moment - like Keira Bell - is tempered by another dark one. I hoped we’d see reflection after that ruling, but all I can see is people doubling down.

Authoritarians always double down if their power is under threat.

Their solution to threats is to try to control people.

They never concede defeat graciously.

"There is no such thing as a ‘biologically female/male body"

So why must puberty be stopped if you can be your gender regardless of your body?

@Datun

Am I misremembering, or did the paedophile information exchange (PIE), become Liberty?

It was the NCCL that became Liberty

PIE was affiliated to the NCCL

@Datun

Am I misremembering, or did the paedophile information exchange (PIE), become Liberty?

Liberty, or NCCL as it was called in the 70s, did have connections with PIE and supported their campaign to lower the age of consent. But PIE was a separate group which took advantage of the 'progressive' left's inability to make a distinction between a reasonable campaign for an equal age of consent for gay relationships and an unreasonable one for the rights of adults to have sex with children.

It sort of makes sense if what they mean is that male and female are, in humans, words that ONLY refer to gender, and not the sex of a person. If they are defining male and female to mean gender then yes by their definition “there is no such Thing as biologically male or female”.

But this is just dumb and missing the point entirely

The best argument I ever had on this issue was this.
Let's put only people who have no womb on an island, and 100 years latter go and give the descendants a party....

OldCrone

"Datun
Am I misremembering, or did the paedophile information exchange (PIE), become Liberty?"

Liberty, or NCCL as it was called in the 70s, did have connections with PIE and supported their campaign to lower the age of consent. But PIE was a separate group which took advantage of the 'progressive' left's inability to make a distinction between a reasonable campaign for an equal age of consent for gay relationships and an unreasonable one for the rights of adults to have sex with children.

Ah, that's right, I knew it was something. It seems extraordinary now that anyone could affiliate themselves with a pedophile group, even tangentially, and not expect wholesale vilification.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26352378

Well well well. How the links all tie together.

Not quite the same - but didn’t an autism charity endorse the fishy ones at one point?

@IloveJKRowling

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

RIGHT!

@VetiverAndLavender

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?!"

Yes to all of this.

McCarthyism declined when it lost public popularity and there were rulings from the US Supreme Court. So it will come down to further court cases and young people's lives being destroyed and the public realisation of this before it ends. Then the rewriting of history will begin and yes, the supporters will melt away, 'of course I never really thought you could change sex'.

It seems extraordinary now that anyone could affiliate themselves with a pedophile group, even tangentially, and not expect wholesale vilification.

It seems a whole lot less extraordinary given all the craziness going on now.

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

A) How the hell do they think sexual reproduction occurs?

B) Genitalia determines of which sex class one is assumed to be.

C) Genitalia determines the gender class into which one will be socialised.

D) Pack it in with the wilful conflation of terms!

@persistentwoman

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

Not RTFT but this is so so true. When you have organisations blatantly lying to your face and none of the supposed respected institutions are calling them out, no wonder people start questioning what they're hearing.

• B) Genitalia determines of which sex class one is assumed to be.

C) Genitalia determines the gender class into which one will be socialised.*

I'd add, genitalia determine which forms of gendered oppression you may be subjected to. (Fgm, rape, menstrual and pregnancy discrimination etc etc).

Amnesty Ireland lost the plot some time ago, this is par for the course for them. They seem to operate purely as a mouthpiece for their executive director Colm O'Gorman who never saw a woke bandwagon he didn't want to jump on. He is never out of the media here in Ireland and only the smallest proportion of what he talks about has got anything to do with what I would have thought of as Amnesty core values and purpose. Even if I agreed with everything he said, I don't believe that the personal agenda of the CEO should ever drive the organisation and Amnesty Ireland gives every impression that that is the case

The situation is starting to remind me of the run-up to 2008 financial crash.

It was clear that things had been bonkers for some time, but the crazy engine just kept going and going, until pretty much everyone believed it was the new normal.

Then BANG!

The whole thing collapsed and wiped out trillions, a number of banks and triggered a global economic crisis.

This situation is pretty identical -- except, this time, the phenomenon has occurred in the socio-cultural realm. But when it collapses, it will take down some big names with it.

The only problem is I think we've still got some way to go yet. The protocol is now too baked into the establishment for them to reverse course successfully.

I have the same feeling packing

I think the tipping point is fast approaching. The UK government has started acting on the emperors lack of clothes. I believe that very soon lawyers in the UK and US will be taking even more serious action in relation to the medical interventions. Then it will come crumbling down at great speed.

It will be interesting to see how Canada and Ireland react when it happens.

The UK government has started acting on the emperors lack of clothes.

It was always going to have to be faced sooner or later. Can you have a group of the population who have disapplied themselves from the law and things like safeguarding? Can law be sustained at all if reality is what some people say it is, with facts and evidence being disappointing and mean and should be disregarded if those people don't like it? And with some people entitled to define reality based on feelings and thoughts and personal needs and other people supposed to be policed and forced to comply with this against their own thoughts and feelings?

There was always going to have to be a boundary put down at some point. The problem is that the longer they have put off and been afraid of that 'no', the harder it will be to untangle this mess and deal with the fall out. Like Brexit, all this confusion under law and what has happened to children as a result is a total mess that should never have been allowed to happen, and wouldn't have happened under anyone basically competent with a bit of foresight.

Well I saw the 2008 crash a mile off...

One of the things about society is that the truth can only be hidden and suppressed by authoritarian means. It doesn't stop existing. People can know it but be distanced from it by fear of the authoritarianism.

The truth always stands and can not ever be suppressed indefinitely.

Liberty, or NCCL as it was called in the 70s, did have connections with PIE and supported their campaign to lower the age of consent. But PIE was a separate group which took advantage of the 'progressive' left's inability to make a distinction between a reasonable campaign for an equal age of consent for gay relationships and an unreasonable one for the rights of adults to have sex with children.

this was when Harriet Harman, Patricia Hewitt and Jack Dromey were involved with the NCCL and apparently didn't do anything about the affiliation with PIE. Patricia later admitted she was wrong and apologised, I think Harriet may not have done.

www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/pie-controversy-harriet-harman-has-got-one-wrong-9162728.html

Not read the full thread but when are they going to start arresting biology teachers and academics on the grounds of 'hate speech? When is the school curriculum going to change to reflect that there is no biological sex? Surely all the textbooks will have to be burned and rewritten?
What a fucking pile of utter bollocks. That is all.

The hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance is mind blowing.
No one is allowed to say what a woman is, or they are guilty of hate.
But EVERY DAY practically there are reports about binary sex differences - in relation to disease, injuries, immunity, identifying sex of dead bodies. People STILL routinely ask “is it a girl or a boy?” re newborns. TW and TM KNOW what sex is needed if they want a child. And Amnesty report on “women” in developing countries needing education, access to work, reproductive rights. Do they REALLY not mean biological women? Every time anyone announces the sex of a newborn, or refers to differing Covid susceptibility, the gender ideologues inc amnesty should be shouting “transphobe”.
But they don’t.

@ErrolTheDragon

* B) Genitalia determines of which sex class one is assumed to be.

C) Genitalia determines the gender class into which one will be socialised.*

I'd add, genitalia determine which forms of gendered oppression you may be subjected to. (Fgm, rape, menstrual and pregnancy discrimination etc etc).

THIS ^

When incomes to rape, bullying, lower wages etc, men (society) don't have any problem in determining who are women.

Tell that to these poor women.
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/baby-making-factory-nigeria-ogun-b1766419.htmlutm_content=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1607108114