Biden has completely obliterated woman’s sex based protections as he said he would do.

[yourfaceisaforeignfood]

www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-preventing-and-combating-discrimination-on-basis-of-gender-identity-or-sexual-orientation/

“Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports."

Biden just passed all the worst parts of the Equality Act by executive order (so without going through any legislation at all). It is limited in effect to agencies (I think) but those agencies include the Bureau of Prisons, Dept of Housing and Urban Development, Dept of Education, Dept of Labor etc

This will of course be unchallenged, even welcomed by the media. It will likely have a knock on effect around the world.

And I am so angry. So so angry. He was never the ‘least worst option’ he is the absolute worst option.

As Abigail Shriner says
twitter.com/abigailshrier/status/1352121732723666946?s=21

It’s frustrating on this board that so many posters expect the trans issue to outweigh the many other serious problems facing women in America

How do you address women's rights when you cannot establish what a woman is in the first place? Women's rights, by nature, are applicable to members of the female sex. Women's rights includes the rights to fairness and safety in sporting categories.

This issue is not somehow separate from all other women's rights issues. It is integral and central to them. If you cannot accurately establish what a woman or girl is - how do you begin to legislate for equalities, protections and rights in law?

Lipstick alley

www.lipstickalley.com/

Martina is on it #ThisIsNotTheEnd

[quote cinammonbuns]@ArabellaScott this is genuinely the first time I have seen a black British gender critical feminist and I am now seeing the issue is not simply an extension of white feminism which was my impression before.[/quote]
Thank you for saying this

Unfortunately the 'only white middle class Karens care about this issue' TRA narrative has been quite powerful as a way of shutting women up.

@ArabellaScott Well I can understand that I perhaps that I am neither on the side of gender critical feminists or of trans rights activist then.

Perhaps this issue all stems from the confusion of sex and gender. If it is ok to say a transwomen is a women but also that their sex is male does this not solve this issue.

Or perhaps I am being too simplistic.

I simply was highlighting that perhaps as many non white women would say their race is more limiting than there sex in their lives then it is harder for me to understand why issues such as these are such a big deal if that makes sense?

Whilst I can understand what your saying to a certain extent, isn't is along similar lines of race?
I as a white person do not face racism, it is not an issue for me personally, yet I recognize it, I understand why it's a huge problem and I fight against it, in any way I can because it's called empathy.
I fight on behalf of girls in mensuration huts in Nepal, women is South America that can't access legal abortion, women in Saudi who are imprisoned for riding a bike, or singing on tic tok and many more women who's plights don't affect me directly but I care about all these women and the struggles they are facing.

Who's the author please?

Hasty generalisation alert: it's a black women's forum based in the US. Like MN, they have lots of subforums, including a feminism one, and the prevailing perspective there is not that dissimilar to FWR.

I work for the MoJ, how would a gender neutral prison work? Would it not be discriminatory but its very nature to sentence a defendant to a gender neutral prison?

Would you mix the sexes for instance? Thereby still putting biologically female prisoners at risk even if they identify as men?

The way it works currently is mostly fine for everyone. Transwomen in prisons for men are currently placed in the segregation wing, they are not left with the masses generally speaking unless by choice. Biologically female prisoners identifying as male tends to be a non issue, as they mostly do not want to go to prisons for men, they are considered more violent and less receptive - and they are accepted in any event in most female prisons.

There isn't actually any need to change anything, as it works well already.

Our school has a gender neutral loo and changing room, along with girls and boys facilities.

The same could be set up in changing rooms in stores. One cubicle set aside.

Competitive sport needs to be based on sex at birth. There is no way around that.

A few tweaks here and there is all it needs. Not wholesale legislation that removes sex based protections and rights from women and girls!

I am always full of respect for posters who come to discuss and are open minded enough to alter their perspective. Hats off cinammonbuns

Allison Bailey is an incredible woman. Utterly indomitable and seriously impressive.

Clymene

Directing to LA?!

Blimey. I dont know who's more scary. The Lipstick gals over there, or the Style n Beauty gals over here.

Made the horrendous mistake of checking #Bideneraseswomen and feel utterly grubby now. If anything the die in a grease fire brigade are even more bloody minded and stupid than the last time I bothered looking. One person was irate their Tweet ending ‘die mad T*s’ got them suspended was apparently evidence of Twitter’s policy of ‘defending transphobia’ rather than their own threatening misogynistic behaviour, for one example.

When you think of how much damage it does to speak up on this, how it can wreck your career and prospects, I'm not surprised that only a few prominent black women have put their heads above the parapet.

Presumably (because of white privilege) there are more white women who are wealthy and successful enough to ride the internet-hatewave out?

(Not that this is a good thing mind you.)

Perhaps this issue all stems from the confusion of sex and gender. If it is ok to say a transwomen is a women but also that their sex is male does this not solve this issue.

No, this does not go far enough for trans activists. They have been campaigning for reform to the Gender Recognition Act (as have people in the Labour Party) which would allow any male to change their legal sex to 'female' including on the birth certificate with literally no gatekeeping at all, simply the filling in of a form, to obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate.

There are exemptions in the Equality Act to say that even those with a GRC cannot be recognised as female in certain circumstances. However, there has been campaigning, including from Stonewall for these exemptions to be removed. Which would mean that there would be literally no situation in which a female could guarantee a situation or space to be free of males.

@purpleboy ok I see this perspective but perhaps I was portraying a more overarching view.

I occasionally check on the feminism boards and I always see any issues relating to trans issues seeing a huge amount of engagement whereas whenever a thread on for example black womens poorer health outcomes are posted I see very small levels of engagement.

This already gave me the impression that on thsi board trans issues are seen as much more important than any other issues surrounding feminism.

Additionally I feel like ignorance on my own part made me feel that trans issues were simply about trans people being allowed to use women’s bathrooms for example. For me I guess as I have never been sexually assaulted and do not have experiences of this did not feel like it was a huge issue in my life. But I know understand that somebody with a different life experience may feel differently.

Sorry, I don't quite follow. White women on the whole know we are limited by sex not race.
But we also know that black women are just as likely to need protections which are threatened by tra. Refuges, sports, prisons, medical care. These are things black women need access to as well as white women agreed?

I think your confusing possibly comes from the fact that the language and visibility of these issues are deliberately obscured. Perhaps you were unaware that thirds spaces are rejected by tra? That black women are being dehumanised by being referred to as "black birthing bodies". Many people for example mean that twaw means female people wanting to be male- when I fact it's male people wanting to be female.

Like you I am lucky enough* not to have endured rape- I know this is partly because of my protected middle class world. It doesn't stop me fighting for those less fortunate.

@turnitonagain

For me, the trans issue outweighs every other issue.

Said no black Muslim or Hispanic American ever.

How can you possibly make this assumption?

It’s frustrating on this board that so many posters expect the trans issue to outweigh the many other serious problems facing women in America

It's frustrating that there are still posters that have not realised that if 'woman' just means anyone of either sex, there's no such thing as women or women's problems, serious or otherwise.

Frankly once you've ceased to exist in law what else can possibly matter?

WoLF's analysis is worth a read:

www.womensliberationfront.org/news/president-biden-executive-orders-day-1?

So inclusive, eh? And this pattern of behaviour is part of what has made me GC. I don't hate trans people, but I am accustomed to studying and working alongside observant Muslim women, and I grew up in that period when not being Islamophobic was more fashionable than advettising trans allyship. Consequently, I am aware that if there are no single-sex spaces, e.g. toilets, it excludes girls and women who choose (or who are pressured) to wear hijab, because they have nowhere they may remove or adjust it. Or as we used to call it, religious discrimination. Whatever you may think of any individual religion and its precepts, putting barriers in place for Muslim teenage girls doesn't help them.

Toilets, changing rooms etc have been trans inclusive in the UK for decades, as they are in many other parts of the world with large and diverse religious communities.

I know a Muslim trans women who is from quite a religious family. They found it difficult at first but she is now accepted as a woman in her community and by her family and uses spaces in accordance with that. So perhaps making assumptions that people from some religions will be unable to cope with the existence of trans people is a bit presumptious, especially since there have been no voices from those communities involved in the current anti-trans crusade.

[quote cinammonbuns]@ArabellaScott Well I can understand that I perhaps that I am neither on the side of gender critical feminists or of trans rights activist then.

Perhaps this issue all stems from the confusion of sex and gender. If it is ok to say a transwomen is a women but also that their sex is male does this not solve this issue.

Or perhaps I am being too simplistic.[/quote]
A few years ago perhaps but now it's transphobic to describe someone who identifies as a transwoman as male. Even though everyone knows you have to be male to id as a TW in the first place.

I get the sense you are being genuine here asking questions (we get a lot of trolls) because you probably haven't paid a lot of attention but the current 'progressive' position is that we must believe TW are both women and female in exactly the same way as women. Even if they have taken no hormones and had no surgery.

[quote cinammonbuns]@ArabellaScott Well I can understand that I perhaps that I am neither on the side of gender critical feminists or of trans rights activist then.

Perhaps this issue all stems from the confusion of sex and gender. If it is ok to say a transwomen is a women but also that their sex is male does this not solve this issue.

Or perhaps I am being too simplistic.[/quote]
Of course there are many varied positions to take on the various issues involved and there's definitely not one set of beliefs/ideas/rules that gc feminists follow, as far as I can tell. There are even occasionally slight disagreements between feminists every now and again.

I'd say it's very sensible, wherever possible, to avoid getting into an either/or state and taking sides.

Yes, agree that the distinction between sex and gender is pretty key. I daresay some people find it benefits their cause to blur the definitions and add to the confusion.

Genderists will, largely, argue that sex = gender, that sex is not immutable, that sex is on a spectrum, and in some cases that biological sex doesn't exist at all. I know this sounds a bit far fetched, and some might say I am misrepresenting, but there is every chance one of our regular TRA visitors will be along shortly to explain their side of things.

@PurpleHoodie

Clymene

Directing to LA?!

Blimey. I dont know who's more scary. The Lipstick gals over there, or the Style n Beauty gals over here.

I love their robustness. They've got some very incisive posters over there. I see they have a thread publicising Raquel Rosario Sánchez's crowdfunder going. Nice to see she's getting global publicity. Her university has treated her appallingly.

Dysphoria isn't easily satiated. It often isn't resolved by transition. So there are always more and more demands.

We've moved from "please be kind, call me a man/woman because it helps me" to "you have to believe I am a man/woman, because I am one and I'm no different in any way".

Getting people to sincerely believe in real life isn't that easy (although online its easier to play along).

But even if you do "pass" (as many detrans FTMs felt they did for example), it doesn't always resolve that internal doubt of, "so, I am a man/woman, I know I am, everyone agrees, so why don't I really believe it? What's missing?"

Trying not to panic but I'm feeling very discouraged and worried right now.

We've had to fight so bloody hard to make such small gains and regains in the UK... Are we going to be steamrollered in the name of keeping the Biden USA sweet?

@cinammonbuns I'm very interested in what can be done for black rights via education if you were keen to start a thread?
I'm afraid that I wouldn't take part in a midwifery one though, I know it's an important issue but I find birth talk triggering due to personal reasons.