Shout out to the Gloucester GC dinosaur

[FancyAFlapjack]

(NC for obvious reasons)

To whoever decorated the bench near the court with suffragette colours and a GC leaflet - you brought a huge smile to my face - thank you. Solidarity, sister dinosaur 💪🦖

Some animals do have a system in which subordinate males pretend to be females (adopting their colouring and demeanor) to avoid being attacked by the dominant males, and/or nip in there and fertilize the females. Cephalopods do, and some fish, IIRC.

I suppose you could call that gendered behaviour, but I’m not sure I’d hold it up as a model for human society.

Mammals though?

Mammals change gender? We bought 3 new rams last week. Perhaps the poster who stated this 'fact' can tell me how they do it and what I should be looking out for. The last time a poster claimed that sheep had a gender identity,I asked how I'd know this, but didn't get a reply.Its been a real worry ever since,as we've got over 1000 of them and I've evidently been misgendering on an industrial scale.

🦖🐸 ?

🦤!

🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

It must be quite difficult to tell with sheep TheFnoz... but perhaps this does explain their tendency towards finding inventive ways to die? All the misgendering.

It must be quite difficult to tell with sheep
All I can say is bollocks....

I guess the main thing is to avoid talking to rams using the second person pronoun, to avoid them thinking you're calling them 'ewe'.

oh TheFnoz , have you been cruelly getting the ewes to gestate lambs when you should have been asking the rams if they wanted a turn?

shame on you

I’m surrounded by fields that are full of ewes and lambs in the spring and early summer. As the lambs grow, it’s fascinating to see the aggressive play developing in the males. They tear around in groups, head butting and playing king of the castle on fallen trees, hummocks and so on. (I don’t see females doing this, at least not once the sex is clearly visible, but happy to be contradicted by sheep owners if I’m wrong.)
Anyway, the idea that because does/is X, Y, Z, means that humans do/are similar, is bollocks. Like the lambs have.

I have noticed on twitter that it seems that there are many people who claim to be ‘biologists’ who do rather like to ignore the fact that people are not clownfish, or asparagus, or crocodiles. I am sure that our visiting biologist will be along any moment with peer reviewed and robust research that has been successfully repeated and adopted on the gender roles in mammals that also don’t involve stereotypes.

I have colleagues who run animal trials. I wonder why they never talk about all those dairy cows that randomly change sex throughout the trials. Imagine the error bars on those graphs.

@ErrolTheDragon

It must be quite difficult to tell with sheep All I can say is bollocks....

I guess the main thing is to avoid talking to rams using the second person pronoun, to avoid them thinking you're calling them 'ewe'.

Yes sex is remarkably easy to spot in sheep... but gender? Phew. That's got to be tricky. I wonder if the one I tipped right way back up for the farmer next door the other week was just trying to end the suffering. Maybe she identified as a ram and none of the other rams wanted to headbutt her. Sorry him.

@FlowerTwaw21

There are lots of animals that change sex, and plenty of mammals that change gender too. Obviously it's fiction, but famously even the dinosaurs change gender in Jurassic Park

Oh my god, dinosaurs changed gender [you mean sex honey, I don't think dinosaurs had a gender identity] in Jurassic Park?!

Well that's it then - that totally destroys the entire gender critical argument and perfectly explains why males should be allowed in female only spaces.....

Oh, my thinking is all wrong because I didn't realise Jurassic Park was a documentary!

I’m with alkanet, do we really have to point out that Jurassic Park wasn’t real?

More importantly, I saw stickers on the back of the doors in the Ladies khazi on Paddington Station. Absolutely warmed my cockles to see them in real life.

Claims of qualification on the internet from unproven sources require some scepticism.

She/ep

HTH

@FlowerTwaw21

Nope very aware of the difference between sex and gender (I have a biology degree). The reality is, is that if people feel they are a different gender they should have the right to live how they please. I don't disagree that sex is a biological phenomenon, I do disagree that gender is biological.

Gender is a social construct and people should have the rights to live according to what fits best for them, be it as the gender assigned at birth, a different gender, or no gender at all if that suits. That's not misogyny, that's just being a decent human being.

Like I said, if you believe otherwise you have rather prehistoric views, so by all means, please do continue to use dinosaur iconography- it does give me a chuckle.

I'm sorry to break it to you but much of what you've said here makes you a bit of a "TERF" .

You've some views that are a bit more misogynist than most "TERF"s as you seem to believe in the importance of sex stereotypes. Most of us would like them abolished, with people free to like and dress how they please.

I will believe in the significance of "animals changing gender" the day you try bull's milk on your cereal.