Women's rights general conversations - Thread 3

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of Thread 2.

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 "Has anybody noticed this recurring theme that keeps coming up??" or even "Random bloke asked me to smile while I was choosing onions, grr"- that sort of thing).

The awful Guido Fawkes seems to have recently dusted down an old quote of Lisa Nandy's, but, to be fair, I don't think she's changed her position since.

www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=order-order.com/2023/01/27/lisa-nandy-backed-male-rapists-in-womens-prisons/&ved=2ahUKEwi2l8KHzO_8AhXHQkEAHYwKCooQxfQBKAB6BAgFEAI&usg=AOvVaw0rhbFwjwGNr5zjUzRY_vds

I start to lose the will to live every time I hear another pronouncement from here.

• Male rapists in female prisons

• 13 year olds who want to transition "should be taken seriously"

• Reversing Brexit would be a fantasy.

The hits just keep on coming. .. 🙄

Wasn't sure where to put this so thought I'd pop it here...

twitter.com/laetiky/status/1620087541595766784

There's also this, which I found in the replies to the twitter thread I linked above on the Gender Diverse in Canadian prisons. I don't know the source, it could be completely made up.

It's clear that this whole thing is the product of silly children egged on by silly misogynist men. In an age that worships youth and men, of course they managed to captivate the world. Until ye olde scolds came along to ruin it.

I've seen that woman and her amazing hair before, but this is really something special. She's even made a good likeness of JKR, with her hair.

The things she does with her hair are amazing aren't they - true art, and so inventive.

Will be interesting to hear the outcome of this case.
www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/29/nhs-england-waiting-times-gender-dysphoria-patients-unlawful-court-hears-trans-claimants-nhse

They lost, I believe. Unsurprisingly - if you could sue the NHS for long waiting times everyone would be doing it.

I wondered why somebody's chosen gender expression ought to take priority over somebody else's knee/hip/shoulder replacement surgery.

They lost -

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64288386.amp

Particularly interesting is the push for unspecified 'treatment' for two children, under the age of 16.

The first thing I thought was, hip replacements! 😀

Mental health support for young people is in crisis. I don’t think the GLP is helping matters at all, but the state is often failing these children, and we should care about these children and seek to reduce their pain.

How do we get better at reconciling children to their bodies and the changes they go through? Refusing treatment through rationing and underfunding services relative to demand is very cruel. We need to reduce demand too and that means equipping children with much better understanding of their bodies, supporting their mental health and physical activity levels as well as giving them the tools to analyse and reject oppressive gender norms. All of which takes time and money. I hope the new clinics lead to better outcomes and support and less transition.

@Winterborne74 - I couldn't agree more on the issue of rejecting oppressive gender norms. That strikes me as much healthier for children's minds and bodies than the idea of forcing unequipped bodies to fit with those norms.

Shamelessly snaffled from another thread: 4w.pub/a-message-to-those-recently-opining/

That JKR hair is amazing. My arms are tired just looking at it, I can barely manage a ponytail.

Brilliant.

I was thinking earlier this evening that the push of the whole TRA thing has become stronger as women have started to have more and more autonomy and spaces, safe or otherwise that are theirs alone. I remember, gosh at least a decade ago, men arguing that women having women-only swimming sessions was sexist and discriminatory. Women's only conferences, women's networking - I acknowledge that a lot of this stuff is quite middle class but essential nonetheless - and lesbians having their own spaces too (that must boil Owen Jones's piss) and now there is cock in all of these places. Problem solved.

I'm not suggesting that there is an exact correlation but the more women get - despite the fact that we are still so far behind on what we should have - the more men, not all men, natch, fight against it. I'm not suggesting that everyone who is coming out as trans is doing it for these reasons, probably very few but goodness isn't it interesting that they want into all our spaces and they've found a way to do it? I will always have great empathy for those with genuine dysphoria and for young lesbians, gay men, and children of both sexes with many issues that get put into the (you must be transgender!) box, but enough of the cosplay, the gaslighting, the utter fucking idiots who are buying into this bullshit.

In totally unrelated news I'm watching Phantom Thread - which isn't a Star Wars film despite the title - and good grief, Daniel Day Lewis's character is the sort of arsehole that I often imagine he is in real life.

I think you're spot on MmeDlikescrows. It is a way of keeping women in our place, and throwing us off-balance.

That Vanessa McCulloch piece Kuc linked to is splendid. Not a word wasted.

Men wanting to keep us in our place isn't new, sadly, nor is women doing the policing. Yesterday I listened to a blocked and reported podcast from last summer (the Heterodox Academy one) and was very sruck by something their guest Erec Smith said - his inerests are mainly around race issues, but what he was saying was relevant to online cultural bully tactics generally. His take, which I found convincing, is that people who go in for identity stuff are people without individuality. So lacking in a sense of self that they have to join a goup, and then go all 'my country right or wrong'. That made so much sense - and explained by children and young teenagers, not yet formed as individuals and suddenly being hijacked by their bodies, are so vulnerable.

Makes me wonder what weaknesses makes all those nice 'kind' people so desperate to insist rapists and voyeurs are women and that no-one must question it. The many tiny traps of the British class system maybe, no-one daring to step out of line. Or the determination, in Ireland, to prove they aren't religious, now that that's the mark of the enemy.

Brilliant.

This is wonderful.

I’ve been ignorant, avoided the subject because no matter how careful and tactful and neutral I tried to be - and words are a thing I’m usually good with - someone would get enraged. It was like Israel/Palestine, “debate” best avoided. Although I blocked someone on Twitter who “unfollowed” me for the crime of following JKR - not liking, retweeting or commenting on her tweets, just following her - I did then unfollow JKR just to avoid unnecessary inflammation. FFS.

But this week I feel as though my eyes have been opened.

Welcome to the dark side, @MavisMcMinty !

This is a Parliamentary petition to update the Equality Act to make clear that the characteristic ‘sex ‘ is biological sex

It would be a help to get back to the basic meaning of ‘sex ‘ - that there are biologically male and biologically females humans, either of whom may be more or less masculine, or more or less feminine, in dress, tastes or personality - without being transported into a mystical gendered state that means a man has become a woman and can enter all women’s spaces.

To sign and share
⬇️
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/623243