Alex Massie in the Times (Scotland)

[Igneococcus]

"Women are fall guys in self-identification fantasy":

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/8ac4aed6-0dad-11ec-8be5-c970b7541460?shareToken=4ed7d994fd6028c09a358c40144d2634

Thanks Alex for your continued coverage of this issue.

Thanks for the share token.

Thanks for share token. Very much appreciated.

good article

Male bodies are comparatively simple things and their story is, broadly speaking, linear. What goes up must come down, in so many ways. By contrast, womanhood is a biological matter. That is, women’s bodies are more intrinsic to womanhood than male bodies are to manhood

yep. sex: it's about biology. men can't be women

This Scottish government has no time for those who deny the reality of climate change but it is an administration busy enthusiastically denying the reality of biological sex. We must follow the science on one matter but abandon it on the other.

This is one of the things that has most astonished me about this - peoples ability to compartmentalise their thoughts so that they don't even join up their own thinking.

The waiting time for referrals to gender clinics is often measured in years, not months.

To be fair that is the same for a lot of areas of medicine. Everyone else has to lump it too.

What goes up must come down, in so many ways.

This made me smile!

Thanks for the link. Really good read!

“Gender, and its expression, may exist on a spectrum but sex is binary. (And, no, the existence of a handful of intersex people does not change this any more than the duck-billed platypus alters the reality mammals give birth to live young.”

Quite. Clownfish and duck billed platypi (pl??) do not change human biology.

Thank you, Alex, for getting it and for speaking out.

Good article and comments . However I don’t think the word “often “ is correct in referring to medical / d surgical intervention so. Should be “rarely”

It's good that Alex Massie has finally realised that that highlighting this issue, and not talking about independence, is the way to finally removing SNPs stranglehold on Scottish politics.

The Scottish public will wake up to the worrying authoritarian and crank tendencies of the SNP elite not by discussing their misuse of the Crown office or relative dangers of currency options, but by highlighting how SNP treat women. People don't want their mothers and sisters in hospital wards with males, or have them reduced to cervix havers.

But the SNP know it too, which is why they have pushed through the pact with the Greens and are scrambling to push through the GRA reform before the Scottish public realise WTF is going on. It's now a terrifying race to save women's rights in Scotland.

@MiladyBerserko Alex has Ben writing about this for years.

*been

PAQ
He has been covering it here and there, but as a side issue, not central to SNP policy. In recent months, his focus has changed. I'm extremely pleased to see this, as I have long believed that it is this issue that will reveal the SNPs totalitarist tendencies.

He has also been pushing for the UK media to STFU about talking about 'denying' a 2nd referendum as it's a) playing right into Sturgeon's hands and b) she has no intention of having a 2nd referendum

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine

This Scottish government has no time for those who deny the reality of climate change but it is an administration busy enthusiastically denying the reality of biological sex. We must follow the science on one matter but abandon it on the other.

This is one of the things that has most astonished me about this - peoples ability to compartmentalise their thoughts so that they don't even join up their own thinking.

I know, it's utterly mind blowing isn't it!

@ChoosandChipsandSealingWax

“Gender, and its expression, may exist on a spectrum but sex is binary. (And, no, the existence of a handful of intersex people does not change this any more than the duck-billed platypus alters the reality mammals give birth to live young.”

Quite. Clownfish and duck billed platypi (pl??) do not change human biology.

Thank you, Alex, for getting it and for speaking out.

Surely some gifted MNer can write a limerick or even a poem about the platypus that negates the whole of Helen Joyce's book.

Unless you're Charles Darwin or David Attenborough I'm fairly sure that a slip about the platypus is forgivable. Nice work by Massie on subtly getting it right.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4303725-Helen-Joyces-Book-is-Changing-the-Debate?msgid=109342414

There was an Australian creature
That had an unusual feature
Pregnancy eshewed
Eggs it extrudes
To the chagrin of Biology teachers

Thanks Ig AM is doing such a good job on this (although it still feels like the SNP have put us on the trolly car & it's just about to hurtle downhill )

I'd seen some suggestions that Karen Adams misunderstood which protestors at the Scots Parliament had behave in a way that was unsettling for any DV survivor.

twitter.com/KarenAdamMSP/status/1433456231314825216?s=20

In re: the demonstration outside Scots. Parliament, there's an interesting video in this thread:

twitter.com/murdo_fraser/status/1434445105461698562?s=20

NB: an intriguing photograph resurfaces in the same thread:

twitter.com/AllterNation/status/1434472946387533831?s=20

This event with (L to R) Sarah Boyack, Jo Swinson, Patrick Harvie and John Hein (co-founder of PIE) seems to be this:

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1199762771820367873.html

Discussed on MN: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3755189-PIE-again

Excellent piece from Alex Massie. I'm so glad that someone at least is standing up to these lunatics.

He's a great writer. Really good article.

Good piece. Thanks for sharing. He pinpoints one of the key contradictions of the left at the moment: on the one hand (vaccines, climate change), it’s all ‘believe the science!!’ But when it comes to trans rights, they want to deny the basic fundamental reality of biology, something none of us can escape, no matter how much we may want to. They construct entirely fictional concepts of biology built around seahorses and rare intersex disorders just to fit the narrative they want to be true. Yet they’re supposed to believe in science. None of it makes sense.

None of us want reproductive biology to be so binary and deterministic but unfortunately it is. Women bear the brunt of the reproductive burden. Unless we put that reality front and centre in all feminist activism, what even is the point of feminism? We can see with the recent Texas abortion ban, we still have a long way to go until women achieve basic reproductive freedom. Yet ‘intersectional’ feminists would rather we take the focus off that and instead reframe our experiences as some kind of cishet privilege. I wonder how privileged pregnant women in Texas feel right now.

It’s exasperating.

@MiladyBerserko

PAQ He has been covering it here and there, but as a side issue, not central to SNP policy. In recent months, his focus has changed. I'm extremely pleased to see this, as I have long believed that it is this issue that will reveal the SNPs totalitarist tendencies.

He has also been pushing for the UK media to STFU about talking about 'denying' a 2nd referendum as it's a) playing right into Sturgeon's hands and b) she has no intention of having a 2nd referendum

There isn't a single MS journalist covering this as their main issue.

I believe he's very good friends with JKR so that will inform his position.

Good piece. Thanks for sharing. He pinpoints one of the key contradictions of the left at the moment: on the one hand (vaccines, climate change), it’s all ‘believe the science!!’ But when it comes to trans rights, they want to deny the basic fundamental reality of biology, something none of us can escape, no matter how much we may want to. They construct entirely fictional concepts of biology built around seahorses and rare intersex disorders just to fit the narrative they want to be true. Yet they’re supposed to believe in science. None of it makes sense

I think a lot of supporters haven’t looked into the details or thought about it much. They don’t realise that they’re supposed to deny biology. For those that have I agree there’s a big disconnect.

The platypus highlights a sin
For, despite having warm furry skin,
It does not give birth
But lays eggs in the earth.
So, biology, get in the bin!

Thank you for the share token OP. Great article.