History in the making! Watch Parliament Live at 2.30pm!

[Sunkisses]

According to @SexMattersOrg on Twitter the Govt have backed down on the MOMA (Maternity) Bill and will now use the word 'mother' not 'person' in the legislation!

Women did this! We are winning!

Tune in live here at 2.30pm to see history in the making: www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/3ca1efa2-16a5-489d-a5a0-5d929bff81f6

@JiggeryWokery

I was mulling all of this over on my walk this morning and one thing really struck me - this idea that seems to be in danger of getting embedded in laws: that men can have get pregnant and give birth. Just like women. I can't quite articulate my problem with it (apart from the blimmin' obvious), just that if you divorce women's rights and maternity rights from any female-specific physical reality, then our protections lose their meaning. Sorry I can't put it any better!

It seems wrong to zero in on a specific trans person but since Freddy has sought publicity for their legal case I'm going to use their example. The only justification for Freddy getting to keep their GRC is if the law allows that actively seeking to get pregnant and then carrying a child and giving birth is a normal part of ' living as a man'. So legally living as a man and living as a woman are to all intents and purposes the same (since reproductive biology is the biggest difference between the two sexes).

So... there's no difference between men and women... men can have the rights and protections women have fought for... or even better why don't we abolish women's sex-specific rights entirely since they are irrelevant?

Apologies for the meandering logic; I think what it boils down to is that retaining the GRC is dangerous for women's rights, even though my social conditioning is telling me that abolishing it would be awfully unkind.

I know what you mean about not being able to articulate why it’s an issue coherently. Someone said on another thread (or maybe earlier on this one) that one example could be that if “people” get pregnant then employers can’t be accused of not employing women of child bearing age, and can equally claim that no “people” (in a fully male company) have been discriminated against for being pregnant.

Apologies for the meandering logic; I think what it boils down to is that retaining the GRC is dangerous for women's rights, even though my social conditioning is telling me that abolishing it would be awfully unkind.

It's because it creates a legal fiction that people can change sex. Which in plain terms could be called a polite lie. What follows from that is then a huge amount of scaffolding is needed in so many areas of life to uphold this lie.

It's quite insane when you break it down and back in 2004 there were a number of politicians who very wisely did foresee this although I expect even they couldn't have fully envisaged the huge mess it has become.

I don't really think that being kind is of the remotest justification for something so hugely damaging across the breadth of society.

Not brave enough to start a new thread, but spotted this on the BBC.

BBC News - Age not job prioritised in second phase of Covid jab rollout
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56208674

It seems to me both an example of the harm bad data collection can cause and also the double standards when it comes to women.

Robert Winston took huge amounts of flak for assisting lesbians with IVF back in the day.
He is one of the world's leading fertility doctors.
Whenever anybody tries to tell me that I need to be educated about how Biology has changed
I shall refer them to the Hansard of that debate.
Splendid stuff.

Wow, another 32 pages of anti-trans based triumphalism.

To state that 'Women did this!' is, in my opinion, overstating the case. A small number of women, aided and abetted by some newspapers and celebrities have succeeded in spreading fear across the land.

Fear triggers prejudice and sows the seeds of hatred.
Do any of you ever pause to think about the effect that your attitudes and posts have on the mental health and safety of trans men and women?

@Platinum78

Wow, another 32 pages of anti-trans based triumphalism. To state that 'Women did this!' is, in my opinion, overstating the case. A small number of women, aided and abetted by some newspapers and celebrities have succeeded in spreading fear across the land. Fear triggers prejudice and sows the seeds of hatred. Do any of you ever pause to think about the effect that your attitudes and posts have on the mental health and safety of trans men and women?

You are funny.

Booooorrrrrrrrring @Platinum78. Not antagonistic, not inflammatory, not even interesting. Just boring. Bored of being scolded for not playing mother to the world.

Wow, another 32 pages of anti-trans based triumphalism

There is nothing anti trans about a thread discussion a Matrnity Bill.

@Platinum78

Wow, another 32 pages of anti-trans based triumphalism. To state that 'Women did this!' is, in my opinion, overstating the case. A small number of women, aided and abetted by some newspapers and celebrities have succeeded in spreading fear across the land. Fear triggers prejudice and sows the seeds of hatred. Do any of you ever pause to think about the effect that your attitudes and posts have on the mental health and safety of trans men and women?

What are you on about?

Do you or do you not think the word 'mother' should be used in a legislative bill about maternity rights?

@Platinum78

Wow, another 32 pages of anti-trans based triumphalism. To state that 'Women did this!' is, in my opinion, overstating the case. A small number of women, aided and abetted by some newspapers and celebrities have succeeded in spreading fear across the land. Fear triggers prejudice and sows the seeds of hatred. Do any of you ever pause to think about the effect that your attitudes and posts have on the mental health and safety of trans men and women?

Pray tell me, how does a Maternity Bill affect Transwomen? Has there been some sudden leap in medical science that the rest of us are unaware of?

As has been stated many times on this thread, it has nothing to do with Trans Rights - it is about WOMEN’S RIGHTS. The world does not revolve around trans people. I have genuine sympathy for anyone with gender dysphoria, but I would go out on a limb to suggest that a transman who chooses to conceive (assisted or otherwise) and birth a child, is not that bothered by their female body.

anti-trans based triumphalism

We are not anti-trans. We are pro-women. That you still don't understand this, or perhaps think that to be pro-women is to be anti-trans, shows how little you understand the feminist position.

Why would women, or mothers, as a group not want a word to describe ourselves in law and in society?

It really does seem that some TRAs just cannot bear the idea that the world doesn't revolve around them.

This is a Maternity Rights Bill.

Maternity rights affect women and mothers.

Deal with it.

Of course women don't have mental health and you've never paused to consider the effect of women-erasing actions being taken by the transactivist lobby (misogynist and bullying I think the tactics were called in the HoL?) on women. The dehumanising of women in that statement is mindblowing.

If you honestly find the idea of women retaining rights and an identity to be this threatening then I sympathise with your problem, but I can't help you.

I guess what with all the other peers turning up, Baroness Barker was bound to pop up at some point.

Nobody seems to give a shit about the mental health and safety of women.

So we must accept erasure? No

It’s not about you Platinum78

And Platinum why do the TRAs not pause to think about the effect their ideology has on the mental health of women and girls?

Ah, a drive-by woke-scolding

It was a bill about maternity rights, hence about the rights of mothers and expectant mothers.

Why is the word mother offensive?

You know that darkest hour in films, where the plucky heroes have been battling away for hours, defeating a series of foes, only to look up and realise that they are surrounded by a host of enemies covering the entire area, as far as the eye can see?

That bit where you can see in their eyes that they've realised their position is hopeless, and they summon all their courage and decide to go down fighting, because they are doomed whatever they do? The darkest hour when you really don't want to watch any longer because it is so hopeless and sad. Then, after all hope is lost, someone hears a distant trumpet call, something is happening on the horizon, and all of a sudden unexpected reinforcements come pouring over the hills on all sides (or in attack helicopters/space ships depending on the film)? Arriving just in time to sweep the enemy hordes before them and grant a reprieve to the embattled warriors?

Well, that's how it felt listening to the HoL debate the Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Bill yesterday. No wonder so many of us were fighting back tears of relief.

@Platinum78

Wow, another 32 pages of anti-trans based triumphalism. To state that 'Women did this!' is, in my opinion, overstating the case. A small number of women, aided and abetted by some newspapers and celebrities have succeeded in spreading fear across the land. Fear triggers prejudice and sows the seeds of hatred. Do any of you ever pause to think about the effect that your attitudes and posts have on the mental health and safety of trans men and women?

Nice try, but no cigar.

1/10, could do better.

@Platinum78

Wow, another 32 pages of anti-trans based triumphalism. To state that 'Women did this!' is, in my opinion, overstating the case. A small number of women, aided and abetted by some newspapers and celebrities have succeeded in spreading fear across the land. Fear triggers prejudice and sows the seeds of hatred. Do any of you ever pause to think about the effect that your attitudes and posts have on the mental health and safety of trans men and women?

In the last week - an effigy of the Spanish Deputy PM was hanged, respected female academics were slurred by someone hiding behind Parliamentary privilege and a well known trans ally celebrated the fact that HoL members are old and will die with a picture of a funeral...

...and yet we are accused of sowing the seeds of hatred by campaign for a maternity bill to refer to mothers.

Interesting world view!

Stealhsquirrelnutkin You may have succeeded in holding back the tears - I didn't!

I've never sat into the wee hours absolutely enthralled by a parliament debate before. The eloquence and attention to detail, the intelligence and the clear messages were wonderful to hear.
I had not realised how vital the House of Lords is to our freedom and safety. The voice of calm and reason. I'm so very grateful.

@Stealhsquirrelnutkin

You know that darkest hour in films, where the plucky heroes have been battling away for hours, defeating a series of foes, only to look up and realise that they are surrounded by a host of enemies covering the entire area, as far as the eye can see?

That bit where you can see in their eyes that they've realised their position is hopeless, and they summon all their courage and decide to go down fighting, because they are doomed whatever they do? The darkest hour when you really don't want to watch any longer because it is so hopeless and sad. Then, after all hope is lost, someone hears a distant trumpet call, something is happening on the horizon, and all of a sudden unexpected reinforcements come pouring over the hills on all sides (or in attack helicopters/space ships depending on the film)? Arriving just in time to sweep the enemy hordes before them and grant a reprieve to the embattled warriors?

Well, that's how it felt listening to the HoL debate the Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Bill yesterday. No wonder so many of us were fighting back tears of relief.

Ooh! Like in Lord of the Rings?

it is about WOMEN’S RIGHTS. The world does not revolve around trans people. I have genuine sympathy for anyone with gender dysphoria, but I would go out on a limb to suggest that a transman who chooses to conceive (assisted or otherwise) and birth a child, is not that bothered by their female body.

Absobloodylutely.

If the purported mental health of someone rests upon legally preventing millions of mothers from being recognised as or called mothers then I've decided that on balance, I can live with the consequences.

I've never found "My mental health is dependant upon my enacting considerable unjustifiable harm to you" to be a terribly persuasive argument.