Question Time right now!

[Seeingadistance]

Prof Robert Winston has just stated very clearly that it is not possible to change sex.

In relation to freedom of speech and Kathleen Stock.

@KittenKong

Maybe they should have had an interpretive dance off. That would have been on tik tok and everything.

brilliant !!!

@Franca123

Robert is an absolute hero. Alison what's her name is a dim as fuck. The Economist lady and Penny gave excellent statements. And the lady in the audience with the fringe was also a hero. The two students were complete drips who really shouldn't be going to university. You don't go to uni if you're not prepared to be challenged and exposed to other ideas.

Just caught up with qt on iplayer. Came on to pretty much post this but you put it perfectly!

[quote Motorina]@Georgist why can't someone who is trans compete with their biological sex?[/quote]
I think this depends on the sport. In some sports men and women compete together (e.g. road races) so the only question would be eligibility for prizes. I don't think they should be eligible for prizes and there should be no problem with them competing.

I think a transitioning male who is taking puberty blockers or hormones may be too weak to compete with males and too strong to compete with females. So this would probably rule out contact sports.
I agree they should probably compete with their own biological sex wherever it was safe.

@NiceGerbil

'Georgist

@Runningupthecurtains
"Of course women from religions that forbid women from certain interactions with men are suffering."

Don't you think forbidding women to interact with men is misogynistic? Shouldn't that be tackled as well (probably first)?'

Oh good plan! Gosh. I don't think women/ feminists have thought of that! Ever!!!

First you say? Hmmm.

Ok can you help?

The things off the top of my head. And this is no way even near a definitive list...

Taliban impact on the freedom (understatement) of women and girls in Afghanistan.

Also in Afghanistan, Taliban v Isis. Isis even worse. Women and girls bought and sold. For sex. Sure you know. Horrific.

Saudi. Imprisonment of women who joined in protest driving a car. Feminists in general. Due procedure around court etc nah.

Countries where the laws around intercourse are. Bad for gay men etc. For women? If raped other than by spouse. Penalised for adultery. Beating, prison. Think stoning / other methods of execution still in law? Can check if you want.

And well. Even the things I know would take a long time and I only know little bits.

Sort that FIRST. You say.

How would you start?

I responding to the claim that women can't go swimming if their religion forbids interactions with men. You give the example of Afghanistan!

This would only be relevant if Afghanistan allows women to swim and is allowing men to identify as women!

@334bu

My apologies for misreading your post.

However,

On the question of sport, do you think there is any harm to preventing trans participation? Consider someone who comes out as trans and can't use changing rooms, and can't compete, with either sex. I think the question is how many people are harmed and how much. I don't think the conclusion is obvious.

I most certainly do think this will harm women. The female category is set up to allow female athletes to have meaningful competition, so to include even one male participant, totally skews this. Including even only one male participant excludes one female athlete and this could only be justified if you accept that women athletes are not as important as a male athletes.

I agree there is harm to women. I am only saying I'm not sure it's obvious which policy would minimise harm.

My default position is transwomen shouldn't compete, but I can see arguments for why they should be allowed in some cases.

I was getting really brassed off with all this feeling unsafe nonsense. So the students at Sussex feel unsafe because Prof Stock has views on the trans issue they don't agree with.

If they really want to know what feeling unsafe is like, perhaps they should have tried being in prison with Karen White?

They are pathetic, as are the mealy-mouthed politicians like the Labour panelist.

Alison McGovern - shadow minister for sport - well I just hope Labour never get into government as she will throw women’s sports under the bus. She just waffles on and on and it’s all basically “be kind to men”. Useless idiot.
Well done to everyone else on the panel for speaking some sense and well done most of all to the woman in the audience who spoke so eloquently about single sex spaces.

I'm just not sure that we can know that they don't know.

We can't, we just know that they can't know that they do.

Georgist, it's not up to women to make everyone in the world feel comfortable. We have needs and rights of our own and are not support humans for men.

But, but... how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? If you can't answer that, you haven't justified being allowed rights!

Is it possible that the benefit transgender people derive from this exceeds the harm to women?*

No. Next.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Georgist, it's not up to women to make everyone in the world feel comfortable. We have needs and rights of our own and are not support humans for men.

But, but... how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? If you can't answer that, you haven't justified being allowed rights!

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Is it possible that the benefit transgender people derive from this exceeds the harm to women?*

No. Next.

You win mumsnet today for this! Comedy gold.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Is it possible that the benefit transgender people derive from this exceeds the harm to women?*

No. Next.

OK! The next question do you think all transwomen have been using male spaces until recently?

Not all. Most.

No. But they should have been.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Not all. Most.

Let me guess: You have no evidence for this, but you will accuse anyone who disagrees of arguing about the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin.

Quite rightly, I think. You have no evidence to the contrary.

I have the evidence of my own eyes and ears as a woman, knowing that very few of them pass as female.

[quote Georgist]@howard97A
"as trans people believe they are already the sex they claim to be, they are not changing anything."

A significant proportion of trans people have some sort of medical intervention or at least request it (puberty blockers, gender reassignment). Doesn't that demonstrate they are not the sex they want to be? Maybe they are often guilty of doublethink: "I took some steps to become a woman and I was always a woman. I didn't have to do anything to become a woman, but if you denied me gender reassignment, that would make you transphobic."
I got the impression that these people would be a very small minority.

I do recall someone (maybe Douglas Murray) observing that young children playing with toys intended for the other gender might be a sign that they were trans, but also that gender was a construct (so which toys were masculine and which were feminine was socially constructed). But is that only a contradiction if everything is 100% socially constructed?

"Perhaps there is a tiny number of cases in which Georgist might be right?"

It's not clear to me what this is in response to! Please could you clarify?[/quote]
i mistakenly attributed that quote to . Sorry

@NiceGerbil

Apologies running. Hadn't caught up on thread. Tonight feeling VERY pissed off about this constant insistence.. not just on this thread but in general....

That women and girls globally and through history. Female people. Have NOTHING to bind them. Just so arrogant, insulting. Outrageous.

Anyone who does this stuff. And here? On one corner of the internet. A chat board with mainly women. On one board. Called feminism. On one thread. I mean a handful of women talking out of all the internet and all the world. That constantly have posters who see the content in such a way that they MUST comment.

Most noticeable in threads which are anything to do with MVAWG or about the whole situation with our words etc being... Redefined.

It's so... FFS. Even in this tiny corner we aren't 'allowed' to talk about a certain group of issues without being... Interrupted. Diverted. Expected to 'debate' the very fundamentals.

The dynamic is... Reflects real life.

Women talking to women about women's stuff.

Conversation joined by someone who feels, usually. Irate at women talking with women about whatever. Posts nonsense. And then (including me) we all engage with this drivel.

@NiceGerbil I'm not suggesting that women have nothing that binds them. They have the fact that they are female and have female bodies and the oppression that results from that. If they don't share a language, a culture, religion, the place and time in which they live, they share being a woman. Which is not about lipstick and heels and handbags because women existed for millennia before those things came into being. What makes a woman is biology what makes you wary of men is biology and as biology can't be changed men can't be women. I'm not saying being a woman is nothing - I'm saying the very opposite - it is everything and that it why it is worth fighting for the word and for single sex spaces.

Yes sorry not clear.

I misunderstood and apologise.

In that post everything past the apology is not directed to you at all. I see we are saying the same thing

So sorry again for reading wrong in first place and then not being clear that that post wasn't aimed at you!

Hold on a sec. Georgist.

'I responding to the claim that women can't go swimming if their religion forbids interactions with men. You give the example of Afghanistan!

This would only be relevant if Afghanistan allows women to swim and is allowing men to identify as women!'

Can you clarify something on that please?

When it comes to women and girls / people with vaginas.

The categorisation of male/ female. As with all mammals. Is to do with reproductive role. As everyone knows. At a general level that has kept loads of species surviving. Penis sperm > Vagina. Egg fertilised, womb. Offspring.

And that's not trivial. At all. Obviously.

But the BIG thing is that women and girls have been enormously oppressed globally for... Thousands of years at least. And around the world still a litany of terrible actions etc towards us. That is also shared. Understood.

The Taliban, like loads of other countries, religious groups etc. See any diversion from prescribed sex role including sexuality as a crime punishable by.. beating torture long imprisonment death.

I have no doubt that there are people in Afghanistan who would prefer to express etc gender in a variety of ways.

Your post felt.. strange? A bit. Dismissive? Whether people are free to express it or not, is unrelated to whether they are desperate to express themselves.

Just a bit... Surprised, really.

You don't go to uni if you're not prepared to be challenged and exposed to other ideas.

Quite.

Being challenged and exposed to other ideas is the entire point of going to university.

How have we managed to raise these utter melts who act like overgrown toddlers, tantrumming when they don’t get their way because others don’t agree with them? Who risk a complete ego collapse because others have a different point of view? So incredibly insecure in their own self-concept that they risk being unable to go on with their own lives if someone challenges their worldview? Not resilient enough to cope with a difference of opinion, but strong enough to be part of the mob eager to burn the witch?

The whole thing is just excruciatingly embarrassing for them, on so many levels.

It's a minority even then. Certain disciplines probably?

Subjects like I did - thinking tech, certain sciences, engineering etc.

It is about learning and good luck to an undergraduate who isn't a genius with a solid theory plus experimental work to back it up. Who bounces into a lecture on say solid state physics and says nope don't agree

This is very niche. In the end. IMO.

And in the end I believe that it's a bunch of orgs individuals pushing shouting persuading.

And happily using/ manipulating anyone/ anything that might help push their agenda. And just appropriating arguments etc from anywhere. Often turning them against those who came up with them, often over years of thinking etc.

Can give stacks of examples if wanted :)

This whole thing is a top down, incoherent mess of stolen justifications from all sorts of groups who have fought for a better deal. Being used by a mishmash of (white male) people. To reassert power over the groups who have ' gone too far'.