Yvette cooper on times radio

[Theeyeballsinthesky]

Apparently defining what a woman is “is going down a rabbit hole”

FFS and I thought Yvette cooper was one of the smart ones! How can they not see what an electoral own goal this? They will be asked this very simple basic question again & again and the more they flap their hands and refuse to say the bleeding obvious ie a woman is an adult human female, the worse they look. It’s a fucking gift for the Tories!!

Politicians need to be asked three questions

(1) Is it a scientific fact that males differ from females?

(2) is it a sociological fact that male patterns of violence are different from females?

(3) do you believe transwomens patterns of violence differ from other males?

The first two are rhetorical but in these mad times need to be asked

Note to our elected representatives: defining "woman" is not a minefield, complex, or going down a rabbit hole.

If you lack the courage to answer a basic question like this then you're not suited for a role in public office.

And we won't vote for you.

HTH.

Surely she's avoiding the question for the very reason that she doesn't want to get into hand-flapping.

The whole point is that there's no need for any hand-flapping, Palavah. A woman is an adult human female. It's not complex or difficult. As soon as you start pretending the word "woman" is hard to define, you've shown that you're toeing the trans line.

@thinkingaboutLangCleg

Surely she's avoiding the question for the very reason that she doesn't want to get into hand-flapping.

The whole point is that there's no need for any hand-flapping, Palavah. A woman is an adult human female. It's not complex or difficult. As soon as you start pretending the word "woman" is hard to define, you've shown that you're toeing the trans line.

It's not complex or difficult, but in the current climate if you say it your political career is over.

Here's the clip. In fact, she tried to avoid it completely by talking about some book of women's speeches. The presenter pulls her back on topic and suggests it's only politicians going down rabbit holes, and that the public know the answer:

twitter.com/TimesRadio/status/1501517062744817664

I think its a matter of fact that the definition of "woman" varies by context and who is speaking

Well, no. A woman is a woman. There is a movement to try to get the word and idea to include males, but it's daft.

I mean, I'm sorry, I've tried dancing round all the linguistics and theory and genderfluff and I've just had it.

There are women and there are men and that is that. There are arbitrary conventions about how we dress, speak and act, which really are the things that we could and should be challenging.

Biological reality is not something that needs to be challenged or is able to be challenged, and it's not helpful to anyone to suggest it's possible to change sex.

I'm done even trying to pretend. Just no.

Interview with Harriet Harman. To me she seems to be arguing blanket bans aren't legal i.e. case by case basis.
www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/the-harriet-harman-interview-there-are-some-things-only-women-mps-can-do

The current debate about trans rights was foreseen, she claims, when as women and equalities minister she co-authored the landmark Equalities Act back in 2010, alongside then-solicitor general, Vera Baird.

“All those discussions about discrimination against trans women and men and the interaction with single-sex services were all envisaged,” she said.

Equalities is about achieving a balance, she says, and this can be hugely challenging. “For example because of the idea of protection of freedom of religion, religions are allowed to discriminate on grounds of sex. You’re not forced to have a woman in all religions, with equal access [as] men.”

She regrets that the row around women and trans rights has taken a “toxic” turn. A current flash point is concern over discrimination against trans women on the grounds of sex in specific settings such as a domestic violence refuges or rape crisis centres.

Harman says the Equality Act ensures there is no blanket ban on trans women accessing services, but there are circumstances in which single sex-services may exclude some individuals, and she thinks this is right.

“The fundamentals of the Gender Recognition Act (2004), and the Equality Act (2010), remain sound – that you should protect trans people from discrimination, and transphobia, but you should also have exceptions, which are able to be used but on a narrow basis, not on a blanket basis.”

Harman says Scotland, which is moving faster than England over what the exact process for gender recognition should be, will provide helpful context to some of the debate, and she also anticipates court cases over access to single-sex services.

Kind of wondering why people don't answer the 'what is a woman' question with something like 'in most cases it's a female adult but can also include people who aren't biologically female but whose mental health depends on them being treated as if they are, and can exclude people who are biologically female but prefer not to be called a woman'.

That's woolly yet accurate enough isn't it, as a really broad definition to just have something to say that isn't hugely offensive? Or is that actually offensive to TWAW people (bringing mental health into it/ the fact they're not biological females)?

AFAICT - and happy to be corrected - it sort of reflects what people mean when they don't agree that it's 'adult human female'. Plus it also leaves the indefinable 'gender' out of it.

The important corollary here is - if "woman" isn't "adult human female", then what is the word for "adult human female"?

If you want to be that specific (and I agree sometimes there is a need to be) then perhaps you need a collection of words ie: “adult human female”.

Particularly as legally the word woman can include an adult human male with a GRC.

@Fieldofgreycorn

The important corollary here is - if "woman" isn't "adult human female", then what is the word for "adult human female"?

If you want to be that specific (and I agree sometimes there is a need to be) then perhaps you need a collection of words ie: “adult human female”.

Particularly as legally the word woman can include an adult human male with a GRC.

The Gender Recognition Act uses the words "male" and "female" to refer to genders.

So to be absolutely clear, you would have to say "adult human of the female biological sex".

Kind of wondering why people don't answer the 'what is a woman' question with something like 'in most cases it's a female adult but can also include people who aren't biologically female but whose mental health depends on them being treated as if they are, and can exclude people who are biologically female but prefer not to be called a woman'.

Because "female people, minus the ones who believe they are not female, plus male people who believe they are female" is not a category of people which actually exists or needs its own word, sporting categories and toilets.

@Fieldofgreycorn

The important corollary here is - if "woman" isn't "adult human female", then what is the word for "adult human female"?

If you want to be that specific (and I agree sometimes there is a need to be) then perhaps you need a collection of words ie: “adult human female”.

Particularly as legally the word woman can include an adult human male with a GRC.

But the GRA creates a legal fiction, that a male with a GRC should be treated as female for (most) legal purposes. It says nothing about redefining the word woman to include men, just that when that word is used in law created subsequent to that act, you have to take it (in most cases) to be read as refering to both women and men with a GRC.

A corollary would be legislation that said for (most) legal purposes a motorbike should be treated as a car. No one would be saying that they are the same thing, or that the word car suddenly means motorbike as well as car, rather that when interpreting laws that mention cars, you take that provision as also refering to motorbikes.

Oh FFS Yvette. You were my big hope for the future! It’s not going down a rabbit hole. It’s very bloody simple. You can’t change sex. Ever. Sex matters, for lots of reasons. People who can’t see sex can’t see sexism either. So that’s a massive red flag of a politics that is strongly not in the interests of women and girls.

Comments switched off:

Yvette Cooper shies away from transgender ‘rabbit hole’

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/4d216d74-9fae-11ec-b38e-10b333e9179b?shareToken=e674c6c92a2f5425b10957f5682b8cf7

Side note - what is a transgender rabbit hole? A hole containing transgender rabbits??

It is also the case that we can't and shouldn't restrict the word only to mean "adult human female" in all contexts and for everyone (because that is facism, compelled speech and does not permit individual agency)

It's not fascism, which has a specific meaning, as someone pointed out upthread. It's not compelled speech, either. No one's being compelled to say anything, or forbidden to call themselves women. But they're just not. And as for not permitting agency - I regularly deny agency to my local burglars by locking the window, and I find I can live with that quite happily. All boundaries deny something to someone, and for reasons.

For the most disadvantaged and vulnerable group, trans ideologists sure do have a lot of power. I cannot believe how successful the capture has been that even while the issues of VAWG, consent, and well, VAWG basically has such a high profile, at the same time so many high-profile women feel forced to lie about what a woman is. Complete takeover. Still fighting it, but feeling quite despondent.

I am no fan of Labour but Cooper was one of the better ones. She has I suspect completely isolated many waiving voters.

Well done Yvette.

It’s very depressing and feels totally undemocratic to have nobody to vote for.

She was the one last hope for me in Labour. Jess Phillips had such a car crash on here I dismissed her as an option long ago.

@ditilani

I wasn't being serious - definitely not buying into the cis batshittery.

This issue turns politicians into drivelling idiots. Fancy having to admit that you don't know what a woman is - when the whole world knows what one is.
They're just too scared of the most oppressed and vulnerable and powerless group in the world who have so little influence that they can enforce delusions and fantasy on the rest of society.

It occurred to me that seeing adult human females (women) in positions of power, dancing around this question and in so doing, possibly coming off like they're ashamed of being a woman, must be depressing and bewildering for a young teenage girl.

Young teenage girls who as we know are being bombarded with porn and requests for naked selfies, might well be looking at the news and wondering why grown women are denying who they are.

It does seem that these kinds of issues are what has been fuelling the massive rise in girls wanting to transition. Though that remains to be seen, I suppose.

But anyway, none of this is good. It's enraging and bad enough for grown women to have to hear this crap, but logically much worse for young girls to have to process as well. Shameful.

@MNadactyl

Comments switched off:

Yvette Cooper shies away from transgender ‘rabbit hole’

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/4d216d74-9fae-11ec-b38e-10b333e9179b?shareToken=e674c6c92a2f5425b10957f5682b8cf7

Side note - what is a transgender rabbit hole? A hole containing transgender rabbits??

Maybe it is identifying as a rabbit hole?

When it's actually a solid wall of misogyny.

@Theeyeballsinthesky

I don’t see in what context women doesn’t mean “adult human female”

If that means that in some contexts TWAW then no thank you!

TWATW - they are not women because only adult human females are women

Well it could be it in any context where the people speaking understood it to mean something different. Maybe in a drag club, for example. In the old days, no one thought they were literally women in the biological sense, they meant something different. Lots of words can be used that way, with layers of meaning that are dictated by the situation and speakers.

A more common one might be something like man, which can be used to mean male people or, especially in older texts, human beings, or sometimes colloquially as a kind of generalized disembodied entity "aw man, my boot is wet inside!"

The point being that definitions are not always as strict in everyday speech as they are when making legal statements, and we all should be able to understand that. When you stop to think about it the fact that many people seem to struggle with this now (and not just about this issue) is quite weird.