50:50 Parliament Campaign to Encourage Women in Politics now have TWO Transwomen on the Panel

[gardenbird48]

I saw 50:50 women tweet to Sue Pascoe Chair of the Conservative Women’s Organisation some time ago on their #askhertostand, but then I couldn’t find the tweet and thought maybe they’d realised their mistake (can you guess?) and deleted it.

However, how wrong I was! There are now two people that have extremely limited ‘lived experience’ as a female (Sue was a married father and successful businessman and Master to Foxhounds until a few years ago). The other person has said hi on here recently.

I don’t mean to be rude but surely the whole point of encouraging women to stand for Parliament is to help overcome the barriers women face in entering politics. Any barriers that trans people face are rather different. It is also interesting that on a panel of three for their ‘Encouraging LGBT+ Women to Stand’ campaign, there us only one person with actual lived experience of being a woman (I am hoping that Mandu Reid of the WEP was born female at least...??)

I am me, and who I am happens to include the fact that I am a woman. There is no debate to be had of that. You may not be happy that I am a woman, but that is your issue to deal with, not mine. You may not be able to wrap your head around such a simple concept that trans and non-binary people are who they say they are, or even that non-binary people are non-binary, but that is your issue to deal with, not ours.

But when a male-born person asserts that they are a woman, it is an attempt to redefine what 'woman' means, and therefore it affects those of us who are women, that is, adult female humans.

You cannot change the meaning of a word describing another group of people in order to include yourself without affecting that other group of people.

A woman is an adult female human. People born male cannot be women, no matter how much they declare they want to be, how much surgery they have, how many female hormones they take.

Why do you believe that everyone should just accept as fact that a male person is a woman if he says he is?

Even though if you agree that a gendered identity can be born into the wrong sexed body, that person still has a different lived experience to someone born into a differently sexed body.

Either valuing lived experience and naming self/own words is a thing or it isn't. It can't be for some but not others.

Fucking hell, this makes me livid. I wish it were a joke.

Thank you for highlighting this.

I've been following this thread and kept quiet, as everything I'd like to have said has been expressed much better by PPs. It's been very illuminating.

Oh, and I've been taking magnesium supplements since my migraines made an unwelcome return with peri-menopause. Still feel them, but no aura or vomiting, so a definite improvement.

Needs saying again.

Its never about identity. Its always about power.

Power that women don't have.

Who are the people on this thread who are or have been offered the chance to participate in the 50:50 Parliament?

There are some spaces still single sex yet we are constantly told it is a big no to ask a trans person their sex
We can ask for a female HCP yet we know transwomen have taken that role. Going forwards it surely needs to be written into law that in certain circumstances you must be compelled to disclose your sex
Like female jobs, all womens shirt list for rape crisis service, GP- London GP who came back as a woman and wrote about how validating it is to perform intimate examinations on women who had refused them as a man
Relationships. It is fair to expect a person to disclose their sex if you are going to embark on a relationship with them

Short lost not shirt. I was thinking about Scotland there

Bloody hell
Short list

London GP who came back as a woman and wrote about how validating it is to perform intimate examinations on women who had refused them as a man

Yes I remember that one.

I would very much like the people who think this is okay to explain why they believe that female bodied people should not be allowed equal representation in Parliament, especially considering that this is a group of people who have been historically banned or under represented.
(And I'm using female-bodied simply because I know they'd just dispute 'woman' if I used that).

I can't see why Jaz would be deleted at all, tbh. Someone would have to report their post, & I think mostly we found it enlightening & helpful.

I'm happy to third the suggestion that Jaz posts their thoughts more widely.

Xpost winesalot

If a woman is merely a feeling why cant i decide that my feelings are more important on the subject then everyone else on the thread? Who decides which person decides? Why is it seemingly only the ones who transitioned who get to make that decision?

If gender is not sexist then why are clothes important? Why is stereotyped conformity so significant?

If woman is a collective feeling then why is the collective response that sex is a hugely important thing to the concept of being one on this thread irrelevant?

If sex isnt relevant to woman why is it only the ones who are 'assigned female' who give birth to everyone?

Yes, it's frightening.

It's frightening to be forced to deny reality, to be threatened with sanctions and punishments, frightening to be told that science doesn't matter, that ordinary biological binary essentialism is some odious cruelty we must rid ourselves of to progress as a civilisation, that understanding basic human reproduction is somehow flawed and political and fascistic.

Chromosomes determine sex. That's it. It's not clothes, lipstick, feelings, or ideology. We are humans, and humans are a binary mammalian species. We are divided into sperm-havers (males) and ovum-havers (females). Sperm and ovum meet, and offspring arise from that. This is not a debatable concept but a scientific fact.

It doesn't matter how anybody 'feels' about it. Feelings here are redundant. Sex isn't an 'option'. It's a biological reality. No person can change sex. There is no drug, operation, or magic spell to change one set of chromosomes into another. You're either XX, or XY, and that's it. There are variations of XX/XY, referred to as 'disorders of sexual development', and yet even these still rely on the same XX/XY coding.

I can, in fact, tell you what sex you are, using genetic screening.

Sex and gender are not the same thing. You can legally change gender, but you cannot biologically change sex.

Hope that helps.

Dodo that made me chuckle.

Yes, it's hard to perform empathy and nurturing and putting other people first when you have never been conditioned to do that.

Conversely, the older I become and the longer I spend on these boards the easier I'm find those things to give up.

Because some things are tosh, RedToothBrush?

'Woman' means outward appearance, as in a 'drawing of a woman' or 'a statue of a woman' to some people, as far as I can see. Actual biology not an obstacle. Hey ho.