No debate is over at the Guardian

[InvisibleDragon]

Simultaneous release of pieces by Susanna Rustin and Zoe Williams:

Rustin:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/06/labour-policies-trans-women-rights-gender-recognition-act

Williams:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/06/labour-policy-gender-back-trans-rights-boris-johnson

@turbonerd

I will admit to not knowing what a cervix was, and not knowing I had one. English is not my first language. I can also confirm that men swim over you, even when it is not a competition.

I taught refugees for a while; both language and swimming, actually.
The swimming lessons were segregated by sex both because of religious reasons AND because of widespread experiences of rape and sexual abuse. I will never forget when a guard had forgotten something in the office and accidently came in (very briefly and with a haste retreat) during one of the women’s lessons.
Already they were swimming fully dressed, but just spotting this man out of the corner of the eye many of them threw themselves onto the floor or behind walls. The panic was palpable.

It is so shocking to read that people think this is of no consequence because someone ‘feels’ like a woman. What a luxury for them, and what a completely imbesilic worldview.

Such an important post.

@ControversialOpening

Zoe’s arguments seem to be:

It’s not a problem (for me)
It’s not a problem (for me)
It’s not a problem (for me)
It’s not a problem (for me)

… so why should any other woman complain?

100%

I doubt La Williams has ever been involved in any sporting competition in her life or has any understanding of what sport means to those women who are.

@tabbycatstripy

‘I can’t even wrap my head around the person who doesn’t want anybody trans in their aerobics class...’

This is because she can’t wrap her head round the existence of religiously conservative people who might be abused by male people for exercising in front of a male person.

This is because she can’t wrap her head round the existence of women who have been objectified and abused by males when they have tried to exercise in a public space (for being ‘too fat’ or ‘too attractive’) and want privacy.

Zoe Williams is the very definition of the leftist elite, falling over herself to prove her cool girl credentials and fucking over the rest of us while sneering at the same time.

She can do one.

@borntobequiet

I doubt La Williams has ever been involved in any sporting competition in her life or has any understanding of what sport means to those women who are.

She only started increasing her physical activity a couple of years back when she started moving into peri-menopause and recognised this as a new source of lifestyle articles. Fit in my 40s series:

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/series/fit-in-my-40s

She has no understanding of what it is like to have been consistently engaged in sports for the love of it, nor of competition.

@LizzieSiddal

I can’t even wrap my head around the person who doesn’t want anybody trans in their aerobics class...’

Anyone who can’t wrap their head around that shouldn’t be a journalist.

This. ZW can’t wrap her head around much it seems. One of her regular slots in the guardian for the last few years was an exercise column where she tried her hand at all kinds of bizarre exercises and extreme sports, accompanied by a photo of her looking cheerfully ridiculous in Lycra. Kind of endearing…. but definitely at the very extreme end of not being bothered about privacy, dignity or safety whilst exercising. And clearly unable to imagine anyone may not share this position.

I think more people will agree with Rustin's piece, because it's so reasonable. I know I'm biased, but really, what is there to disagree with?Even ignoring the debate about single-sex spaces, the fact that politicians are shrieking about expelling people with particular views from the party makes them look unhinged.

Williams's article is nuts. Difficult to believe she lives in one of the world's great multicultural cities and has never come across minority women who need single-sex spaces.

And either Zoe a) has not read the guidance properly; b) not understood it; or c) has deliberately misrepresented it to make her point.

Given she was educated at one of the best private girls schools in the country and then Oxford, I think it's unlikely to be b). And she's a journalist, so one would hope that a) applies.

In which case, we're left with the sorry c).

Zoe says in her article: "Legitimate justifications” now include female-only fitness classes and the toilets of places of worship where it may offend people, on religious grounds, to have inclusive spaces. I can’t even wrap my head around the person who doesn’t want anybody trans in their aerobics class

In the guidance, the leisure centre example is: A leisure centre introduces some female only fitness classes. It decides to exclude trans women because of the degree of physical contact involved in such classes.

So, not aerobics but a class where there is a high degree of physical contact between participants, meaning women could get hurt.

But obviously that doesn't fit Zoe's narrative so she's reduced to making up shit lies.

It's unfortunate that she thinks her readership is stupid and ill-informed. But I think that's all she's got because her main argument seems to be 'however crap Keir and Co are, please vote for them because otherwise we're stuck with Boris'.

I'm not sure why they continue to pay her but I'm glad I've not given any money to the guardian for many years.

@terryleather I was thinking exactly the same about Zoe Williams. I used to love her writing when I was in my early twenties and trying to be a cool girl. Now I am in my early forties and she must be nearly 50, and she's still trying to be the cool girl. It's pretty tiring. I'd love her to write something she actually believed in, but please no more of this trying to spin an argument out of thin air (and no more about Mr Z either!)

There is a women-only session at my pool, and a men-only one. I haven't seen the men's, but the women's is a busy session and seems to particularly attract women from minority ethnic groups. I liked going too, but I mainly go swimming with my DC one of whom is male. Luckily, the only two sessions in the week we can't go to together are the women-only and men-only ones.

So ZW, as a fitness writer, thinks that concern about Trans athletes in women’s events is ‘confected’ ?

Amidst the sound and fury I do feel for the ‘ordinary’ trans person just trying to get on with their life amidst doubtless frequent prejudice.

But we make our laws, rules and social understandings based on the small chances. Very few men are rapists, but we build our protections around the minority who are. Otherwise why have women’s prisons at all? The eye rolling accusation that GC feminists believe that all, most or even significant numbers of Transwomen are perverts and rapists is unfair and designed to undermine the point that women’s safe spaces are there to protect the small minority of offenders.

And tbf, offending (incl sexual) amongst Transwomen is at the same rate as men. Not the same rate as women.

But we know very well that ‘some Transwomen offend” is not the same as “Transwomen are a threat because they are Transwomen” or “Transwomen are criminals”.

The TRAs have done by far the most damaging ‘confecting’

@PermanentTemporary

Sorry to ask Mangy but are the Canadian gyms sex specific or gender specific?

Ha, good question.

I think most people imagine they are sex specific, but it would be legally very difficult to enforce that.

But in the general consciousness there are lots of women who are keen on women only gyms. I think out largest chain is GoodLife and their gyms always have a women only section.

Lots of women just seem to prefer that to the very masculine body building sort of place. It's not that they aren't allowed to or even would always be against sharing space with men in a fitness setting.

I just can't imagine that it would be possible to be so unaware that there are lots of single sex gyms or classes, I guess - and a journalist might do 5 minutes of googling to check before writing that it is so.

Men swim over the top of women they wish to overtake?

Bloody hell.

[quote ColouringPencils]@terryleather I was thinking exactly the same about Zoe Williams. I used to love her writing when I was in my early twenties and trying to be a cool girl. Now I am in my early forties and she must be nearly 50, and she's still trying to be the cool girl. It's pretty tiring. I'd love her to write something she actually believed in, but please no more of this trying to spin an argument out of thin air (and no more about Mr Z either!)[/quote]
Yes, this.

Loved her Anti-natal series, which appeared as I was having babies. That felt honest, and funny.

This is try-hard and tiresome. Laurie Penny, 20 years on.

I can’t even wrap my head around the person who doesn’t want anybody trans in their aerobics class...
How can anybody be so monumentally STUPID?

And get paid for it?

@HotPenguin

I did a women only triathlon, because I was told that men swim over the top of you and push you under rather than overtake. Whereas women go round each other (and are less likely to need to overtake due to being more equally matched).

Is that true? Jesus, that would be terrifying, and infuriating in equal measure. They really can be entitled bastards, can't they? (I am not naive to male self entitlement, honestly, but this does surprise me strangely).

because I was told that men swim over the top of you and push you under rather than overtake.

I now want to do a triathlon simple to grab the feet of any man who does this. I'm a strong swimmer and I give no shits.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/swimming-pool-west-london-attack-b1875453.html

I found the swimming article.

Zoe Williams is an intelligent woman, so I can't believe she doesn't understand how spectacularly point-missing the following sentence in her article is: "‘I can’t even wrap my head around the person who doesn’t want anybody trans in their aerobics class."

It is the presence of men in women's spaces that is being objected to by the people Williams claims to find to mysterious . Not the presence of trans people.

NOBODY CARES about whether or not someone is trans. Especially now that the term has been so widened that it includes anyone who says they are trans and/or subverts gender stereotypes.

She must know that her sentence is a misrepresentation. So I can't help but think she has deliberately mispoken in order to smuggle in the idea that single-sex spaces are transphobic.

This was always going to happen to the no debaters

Debate would happen and they would exposed as idiot s with no arguments

Zoe Williams is a liar.

@NotBadConsidering

Zoe Williams is a liar.

And to quote the great Magdalen Berns - 'I'd rather be rude than a fucking liar'.

Well, if Williams has achieved one thing with that article it's a reminder that Labour has, since 2019, been consistent in its stance.

Good enough for me as a vote-loser in the next election and beyond. But this was a very interesting point:

When faced with the question of what defines a man or a woman, Labour is not only being implicitly asked to row back on its own policy, but also to backtrack on current legislation which says that trans men are men and trans women are women, regardless of whether they have undergone medical treatments.

Current legislation says that, does it? Or is this another case of inventing scenarios on the basis of the law as Stonewall et al would like it to be, not as it actually is?

It's certainly nowhere in the 2010 Equality Act.

@Clymene

And either Zoe a) has not read the guidance properly; b) not understood it; or c) has deliberately misrepresented it to make her point.

Given she was educated at one of the best private girls schools in the country and then Oxford, I think it's unlikely to be b). And she's a journalist, so one would hope that a) applies.

In which case, we're left with the sorry c).

Zoe says in her article: "Legitimate justifications” now include female-only fitness classes and the toilets of places of worship where it may offend people, on religious grounds, to have inclusive spaces. I can’t even wrap my head around the person who doesn’t want anybody trans in their aerobics class

In the guidance, the leisure centre example is: A leisure centre introduces some female only fitness classes. It decides to exclude trans women because of the degree of physical contact involved in such classes.

So, not aerobics but a class where there is a high degree of physical contact between participants, meaning women could get hurt.

But obviously that doesn't fit Zoe's narrative so she's reduced to making up shit lies.

It's unfortunate that she thinks her readership is stupid and ill-informed. But I think that's all she's got because her main argument seems to be 'however crap Keir and Co are, please vote for them because otherwise we're stuck with Boris'.

I'm not sure why they continue to pay her but I'm glad I've not given any money to the guardian for many years.

Thank you for this. Yup, completely twisted the example given.

Although being able to hold a women-only aerobics class would still be perfectly reasonable (and no-males very different from no-trans as pps have pointed out - more misinformation)