Realistically, do you think this is as much progress as we’re going to make?

[ARoombaOfOnesOwn]

In terms of women’s rights. I know it seems bleak when we are making progress in the sex v gender stuff, but really we’re just trying to protect what we already have. Having seen the lengths men (and some women) are prepared to go to to rid us of our rights it just feels like even if we defend everything, so much energy is going to be spent on defence and fighting off other attacks that we won’t have time for anything else. And now men have seen how little it took to get what they want, why are they going to stop there? They’ll either continue or find another loophole. Sorry this is so despondent. I’d be interested in others thoughts! Am I being too negative?

Change is always slow

Always one step forward two steps back

Think instead how far we have come over the centuries - not just in feminism but in all sorts of human rights / it's taken a few thousand years to get here

Think gender woo will collapse like all other bullshit religions, slowly at first then very quickly.

I think self ID is almost guaranteed to happen at some point. The Tories won’t be in power forever and Labour have promised to update the GRA to include self ID. Hopefully by the time that happens the many legal challenges will have established that women are entitled to separate spaces / services and sports AND are allowed to talk about their sex-based rights without being fearful of a visit from the local constabulary or of losing their job. It’ll still be a blow though when it happens.

As regards self ID, I think that if in England we can hold it off for just a couple more years, then there will have been enough law suits to make whichever government is in power about-turn and run as fast as they can. That's when I'm in a positive mood, as I am today.

I'm not going to try and predict what might happen in countries where the the legislation has already been passed, but I think it'll be a lot harder to disentangle the mess.

But as regards protecting women's rights in general, I don't think that fight ever ends and that if self, ID is defeated, something else - possibly something even more fiendish - will pop up its place. Hopefully one lesson we'll have learned from this shit show is the need for vigilance. I think far too many of us took our eye off the ball and we've paid a very high price.

No. I think the more women who are directly affected by trans activism, the more the tide will turn.

I think we have to keep holding the line on self-ID. And we need another government who won't bring it in because during that time, the unravelling abroad will become much more apparent and it'll be politically expedient to distance yourself from it, which would put all the parties on a more even keel and make us - the voting, general public - safer.

But overall this has been a total disaster for women and children. We've spent a good 7 years so far fighting to stay stagnant. So, fighting to make zero progress. And the GRA goes back much further and is where all the problems stem from. That and the poor drafting of GR in the EQA.

Keep positive. My daughter who has been the strongest supporter of TWAW you could ever imagine has changed her mind. Several of her friends have also.
The tide is definitely turning.

Well, none of this will last forever. Within a decade or two we are likely to have other things on our minds.

I'm going to stop there because I am probably far more pessimistic than most of you and I don't want to depress anyone.

All I'll say is remember that we are not 'progressing' towards an imagined utopia - that kind of thinking is often what has got us into this kind of mess. We're just doing our best to make our current situation as good as it can be, given the many pressures and variables around us.

Of course, lots of us are hoping to help our daughters (and sons) a fairer world. It's always working against the stream of 'might is right', though. It's okay.

I disagree. This is a democracy and the overwhelming majority of voters in this country do not want self-id. It doesn’t just affect women. Men don’t want their wives and daughters having to look at some bloke’s bits getting changed in communal swim facilities either. Also as more and more cases of women and girls being sexually assaulted by ‘transwomen’ come to light, the more clear it becomes to the general public that maybe it isn’t a good idea to let men into women’s vulnerable spaces.

Labour will never be elected until they give up this policy. And they’re beginning to realise that.

I disagree. This is a democracy and the overwhelming majority of voters in this country do not want self-id.

This applies to Scotland too. Being in a democracy and not wanting self ID hasn’t helped them. If Labour get into power in 2024 and they have it in their manifesto what’s to stop them?

We've spent a good 7 years so far fighting to stay stagnant. So, fighting to make zero progress.

I think we’ve made some progress. Sports bodies are slowly doing the right thing; some hopeful news in relation to prisons this week; debate is actually taken place now; it is established that people have protection in law for believing in reality; politicians (including some Labour) are listening (remember when it was only David Davis)!

I don't think many voters vote on this issue. MN FWR is not a microcosm of the country (though neither is Twatter, thankfully). There are voters for each party who might float off to another party for a particular election, but this issue makes them stick to their usual party. But the number who actually change what they vote because of this is tiny IMO.

There's a lot of disquiet on the left at the way the right are using this issue. A lot who had some reservations on self id have retreated because they don't agree with this 'government' on a single other thing, and despise the way that Truss and Sunak are using it.

I hope we will move through the current phase and come to a new perspective. Id agree with the poster above who thinks that in our future state we will have other things to think about. I can't however see that we can ever genuinely not need the concept of 'women' as a sex class. The misogyny of it still makes me gasp at times, despite all these years.

Yes, this is what I was thinking reading the OP.

Society is a continual negotiation to set up conditions that allow people as individuals, and also as a group, to function. It's never really finished because conditions change, and whatever the old way of managing the objective realities of human life - like reproductive role - were, they don't work under the new conditions.

And there are always trade offs in how society manages itself, and people who think a different trade-off would be better.

I think a lot of gender ideology may become so obviously destructive that it won't be able to function. Possibly it will change the political landscape more generally as id pol becomes less accepted overall. But if not, I don't know that my sense is that western liberal democracy will survive overall, even if gender ideology falls out of favour. What the place of women would be in what replaces it I do not know.

Well, I can't say I'm thrilled at the prospects of what AI, climate change and shifting global power structures and allegiances are going to do for women & women's rights.

Sorry, I said I wasn't going to be pessimistic, didn't I.

Stonewall probably haven't got many more years left in them, anyway.

I predict that when the global population begins to drop c 2060 women's rights will be hit very hard. Countries will want women to have babies. So abortion and contraception bans, married women being sacked etc. Female education will be frowned on as this reduces fertility rates.

Women will return to being powerless baby making machines.

I also see a massive surge in global surrogacy as rich people pay to rent a womb.

The move towards euthanising the elderly is anti women as most very elderly people are women.

Future women will look back on today as a golden age for women.

I don't think many voters vote on this issue.

Voters vote on issues like whether a leader looks like an idiot at any point. This could include making a mess of eating a bacon sandwich. In the same vein, a politician having a car-crash interview on any given subject (such as "how much will your new police officers coast?") will promptly flop. "What is a woman?" is a simple question that some politicians will tie themselves in knots over and look completely incompetent to voters.

I agree that scarcity of resources + male dominance = women get shafted, again.

It's up to us to try to hold the line (cos men are not going to do it for us, however they may identify).

And we women are doing so, we are holding the line. We women are doing this All those individual £20 donations to all the various recent crowdfunders. It adds up to quite a lot! And genuine grassroots up!

All the "#nodebate" from a few years ago - well, there is now most definitely a debate!

And it's wonderful to have a place where we can discuss this.

Nope. We are winning. It is a painfully slow turnaround but it will speed up as the wheels fall off the gender woo wagon. Anything based on this much flim flam will eventually implode under remorseless scrutiny and we will continue to provide the scrutiny. We will NEVER go away.

That is so great. I really needed to read this today.

Hmmm. I'm less optimistic than some.

My intelligent, pragmatic scientist daughter has now taken it a step further and started to fight back at my GC views whereas before she just rolled her eyes. She's a lesbian, and #bekind and appears to be doubling down despite being aware of the issues that lesbian women face. Our relationship has changed and become more uncomfortable as a result. She's more prepared to be outspoken and active on behalf of the T than she has before, likely in response to the sunlight we've been seeing.

Interestingly, she's never had to fight to be gay, that's all been so easy for her as there's been wide acceptance since she was a young teen and she has fully embraced the out and proud gay lifestyle in our vibrant young city. So perhaps centring the T is her and her friends way of making a difference, because they're not fighting for gay rights. She and her group of friends are very anti LGB alliance and pro Stonewall. I'm totally perplexed about how she can hear but not listen and see, but slide her eyes away towards the stereotypes and misogyny that she's always claimed to despise.

I feel that the #bekind approach in young women, and LGB women in particular, will continue to keep the T issue and its unicorn pink glittery rainbows front and centre, and continue to win the hearts and minds of my daughter's generation. The slog of winning back ground inch by inch legally, politically and in the media must continue, and mumsnet FWR is one of the best avenues available to women like me to try to do my small bit.

I'm very grateful to mumsnet and Justine and fellow posters for the fellowship and the huge amounts of information and suggestions which give me a way to fight back. And ultimately we need to keep this issue front and centre at general elections, in manifestos, in statutory and other consultations, in service using and monitoring and deciding where to spend our money.

@SerotinaPickeler
I think because of the increased daylight certain groups do seem to be doubling down - in desperation maybe- but news in yesterday's papers about the directions to schools and their obligations must be seen as a great positive.
Suella Braverman has got a handle on this.

There will be different challenges, and women and children will likely be most adversely affected, as always.

The fight will go on, just in different forms.

It's such a difficult one, OP. I see progress being made in some areas (notably the government taking a firmer stance, though I think this is mainly for vote-winning reasons) while other institutions press on oblivious. In the week that the announcement was made to close the Tavistock GIDS, it was extraordinary to see RCOG, of all organisations, publish a lengthy consultation document about inclusivity towards trans men, using all the TRA-approved language such as chestfeeding.

As we all know, there are two elements to our concerns about the trans activist agenda. One is self-id, which allows adult men to "identify" as women and enter women's sports, women's changing rooms etc.

The other is the social contagion of young people, mostly female, identifying as the opposite sex and being sent on a medical pathway of hormones and surgery.

I think the second phenomenon is likely to grind to a halt soon. Once the Cass Review is out, once the legal actions get underway, doctors will stop blithely performing double mastectomies on 19-year old girls. Once adults and peers stop celebrating trans identities and surgical transition as something exciting and admirable, and schools adopt a "watchful waiting" approach, trans identification amongst teenage girls will go the way of other adolescent crazes.

When that happens, it will be interesting to see the impact on the first element. I think that if the pipeline of young people identifying as trans grinds to a halt, people will start to be much more sceptical about the spate of adult males suddenly finding their inner female identity. Those men will stand out as anomalous rather than being able to claim that the experience of being "born in the wrong body" is widespread and commonplace.

Reading about 650 children strip searched by the met, the majority of them black boys, makes me rage.
We're in a hugely regressive time, it seems to me, and I don't know how to challenge it.

I listened to a podcast that discussed the impact of demographics globally on the economy. It got me thinking about similar themes to your first paragraph. I said to DH last night that I wondered if repealing Roe v Wade was a first move to reduce women’s options to control their fertility.

I know of young women/ teens who totally get it. They will take no bs as they get older.