Women's rights general conversations - Thread 2

[Kucingsparkles]

Continuation of Thread 1

There is so much excellent information and so many active discussions on FWR that I wondered if it would be useful to have a thread to sort of "cross-fertilise" between them - airing little thoughts or vignettes that wouldn't themselves merit their own thread, to highlight other posts/threads of particular interest or to point to notable developments on fast-moving threads so that casual observers know where to look.

(For example, "the X thread has meandered onto a fascinating discussion of Y" or "Poster P's amazing analysis on thread Z might have relevance to the scenario in thread W" or even "Random bloke asked me to smile while I was choosing onions, grr"- that sort of thing).

It's almost as though fanatical religious belief can lead people to some fucking weird places.

Has anyone been following the Real Choices, Real Lives project? They seem to have gone quiet on reports since Covid, but the last lot in 2019 were particularly thread relevant. plan-uk.org/policy/real-choices-real-lives/reports

When they say "Our analysis shows that all the Cohort girls are noticing, questioning or rejecting expectations around their behaviour and roles in at least one area of their lives, from views about household work to what is considered acceptable female behaviour and future aspirations." I send up a cheer. Questioning or rejecting expectations around gender roles is perfectly fine by me. Claiming to be the sex you aren't and using that claim to force your way into spaces where the other sex expect to have dignity, safety and privacy isn't.

Just generally, it does strike me that these TRAs don't talk much about transmen, do they? It's almost like they're not really interested in them. Can't imagine why...

I might print Terfy Damsel on a t-shirt. I'm sure the cult member/damsel female human would approve.

I am unhappy about a piece by PolitiFact, which I find extraordinarily naive - what do you all think? www.politifact.com/factchecks/2023/jan/17/instagram-posts/is-all-gender-affirming-care-for-children-experime/

I rate that piece mostly disingenuous.

The quoted "studies" showing beneficial mental health results were deliberately biased. Been debunked (and discussed on MN) several times. One of them that I clicked through on followed up one individual, who had come out of the original Dutch protocol - IIRC this original protocol involved a great deal of counselling and specifically excluded patients with other mental health issues; this is not the same as the unquestioning affirmation that is now TRSOH gold standard. Elsewhere in the piece they say that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are "safe" because they're used elsewhere, and add the weasely "when medically monitored" - in TRSOH real world, what monitoring is actually taking place and how many TRSOH healthcare professionals would actually dare to say "Um, this isn't going well for your long-term health, you'd better stop taking these."?

I could probably click through to more of their sources, maybe later...

Meanwhile, the topic has escaped into AIBU again:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4724015-to-object-to-having-to-call-a-man-accused-of-rape-she-in-a-criminal-court-trial?

I rate the original post as mildly hulyperbolic, and the fact check as pathetic. Quoting WPATH - famously neutral experts, and calling a single-person case study 'research' (it's not research, its a formalised anecdote) means I feel no need to check the rest of their points in case there is a stunning revelation hiding in there that many more rigorous investigators have missed.

Hyperbolic.

@duc748 I randomly had a thought about you (sorry) in that IIRC you first came to the Thread of Bad in the Old Place when you were in the foothills, there was a bit of argy-bargy about terminology, kindness, tone etc. These days you sound just like the rest of us who have basically scaled the Alps

Excellent article:

unherd.com/2023/01/the-labour-party-has-a-woman-problem/

"...Emily Thornberry, shadow Attorney General, did come out and say that the debate wasn’t “Labour’s finest hour”, before clarifying that this was because it distracted from “the most vulnerable in society, who are trans people”.

Where do apparently intelligent people get this shit? The most vulnerable people in society, both in terms of the volume of suffering inflicted on them and its nature, are women. Women - and Thornberry choose to ...what? Signal her virtue, her alignment with Starmer, the graceles twerp, what?

I don't get it. But if I were a women, I would never, ever, vote for someone who can say that seriously.

Having read that pronouns in court thread, and a couple of newspaper articles I was led to by it (Tara Wolf assaulting a woman who was then admonished in court for pronoun hurty feels, and a natal male pushing a policeman onto the tracks in a tube station after necking four bottles of prosecco but getting away without a prison sentence because vulnerable) I'm more or less here, in my current thinking on this subject:

twitter.com/dazbrady/status/1613928822474428417?s=20&t=WIZctjysNYiFttUQxB1qfQ

Snortle. Bad man, bnbn.

@Kucinghitam

Im getting there! 😀Fair to say, I came to the old Thread Of Hate on a learning brief.

And the more you read, the less you like it. The pusillanimous attitude of politicians, the Labour Party, etc (with a few honorable exceptions) is a particular disappointment. Obv, I wouldn't be here if I didn't take it seriously.

I would agree trans people can be vulnerable - vulnerable to abuse, self harm, poor mental health, rejection from family.

But the MOST vulnerable in society? What about homeless addicts, very elderly people, people with severe disabilities, babies?

And reading the link, I see Rosie Duffield makes the point for me. They will not get my vote unless things change.

This one that escaped into AIBU is interesting (there's a thread about this in FWR too). But interesting because, like the IKEA fetish thread from a few days ago, there's a large minority of (often very prolific) posters who work really hard to minimise and obfuscate, and to urge readers to ignore instinctive concerns and erode their own boundaries - and crucially those of children. In other words, I believe this is now clearly a pattern - threads about non-consenting public involvement in male sexual thrills attracting large numbers of these sorts of posts.

I'm reminded of "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" (but with a bit of rephrasing with words like "not a woman" "not a parent" "a fetishist" "a nonce")

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4724126-to-think-that-a-man-standing-outside-a-school-in-girls-uniform-is-not-ok?

Yep. I notice they're making lavish use of the report function too.

The thing is, it's probably "worth it" for these Cool posters because (a) literal live-action knob-polishing (b) if it softens up even a few gullible parents to erode their boundaries IRL...

(Wonder if I'll get deleted...)

That Politifact piece:

Some things about gender-affirming care, such as how it affects fertility, are still being researched. But experts said this is the nature of medicine and pediatrics.

Oh well, that's all right, then! Pretty blasé, it seems to me. 'Care' is hardly the word.

But experts said this is the nature of medicine and pediatrics.

The nature of medicine and pediatrics is to crack on with administering drugs on kids without knowing their effect? What a time to be alive.

IKR?

Well, where better than paediatrics to just have a go and see how it all turns out.

Emily Thornberry, shadow Attorney General, did come out and say that the debate wasn’t “Labour’s finest hour”, before clarifying that this was because it distracted from “the most vulnerable in society, who are trans people”.

The most vulnerable don't get their flag hung along London's streets, like a certain Rally. And people don't get arrested for taking the piss out of it on soc med.

The truly vulnerable get nowhere near this level of slavish state and corporate obedience.