Women's rights general conversations - Thread 4

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of Thread 3.

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).

Anna Kasparian of the Young Turks put her head over the parapet!

I knew she’d been having secret terf-adjacent thoughts for ages as she said something similar on a live TYT broadcast YEARS ago (commenting on that bizarre DSA event with the dude begging the conference to use non-gendered language for everyone) but they must have got some immediate pushback from their audience because when I went to find the clip to share it over here, it was gone.

3 and a half years later, she’s tweeted and doesn’t seem to be backing down.

xxyzz · Today 01:43

Links to these racists, pretending to support women would be good. Or else, you'll prove that you're lying.

https://twitter.com/AnaKasparian/status/1638608868485005314

forgot the link 🤦‍♀️

(‘Eve6000’ is a former competitor on Ru Paul’s Drag Race Canada)

Yep, I think we know how that's going to go.

Another politics thread, another set of scoldings.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4769510-starmer-rowing-back-on-self-id-what-do-we-think?

Over 90 000 likes on her tweet. The silent majority is waking up.

I'm glad that Starmer has looked at the optics and realised that he can't go there but he's still a snake. He will go with the prevailing wind come what may which means that at any point he will turn again. And again. And again. He has no real convictions other than getting into power. His latest "We're going to cut crimes against women and children in half when we get into power." is ludicrous. How is he going to do that? It's another soundbite. Everything is a soundbite. So, yay, the current soundbite is a good one that will slow down the insanity but you can never trust a person who lacks all conviction.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4769994-aibu-to-think-this-man-who-has-undergone-no-transitioning-should-be-allow-play-on-womens-teams-sick-to-my-stomach-this-is-happening

AIBU thread man playing on women's sports team.

Thanks @Boiledbeetle Love when we can see a vote on these things. 99% think it's bollocks.

My understanding was that this had been stopped internationally by both rugby codes, and rightly so. But this is GAA, so may be different?

Irish (RTÉ) radio this morning:

Item 1 - the World Athletics decision. The interviewees invited on this were a born male TRA researcher who said fairness to women had to be balanced against inclusivity (not challenged) and a male endocrinologist who from his comments has many patients with Trans identities. No women athletes asked for their views.

Item 2 - a summary of the Kerry babies case with shocked comments about how misogynist Ireland was way back then.

Item 3 - a (male) medical doctor talking about IBS mentioning along the way the women's bodies and brains are physically different from men's and that that makes women particularly vulnerable to the condition and needing careful treatment.

Item 4 - a query to a politican about males in women's prison being given a fudge answer.

Not one after the other, over a few hours, but really, do any of the people setting up the talk shows ever think anything through? Slightly relieved that the Professor's comments (item 3) showed that there's a man who knows women exist.

Yesterday's episode of The News Agents examined (amongst other topics) the polling data for the various parties. Labour's apparent large lead might not be that large in reality, and there was also discussion of "culture war" issues particularly what they always gingerly term "The Trans Issue." Worth a listen, I'd say.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-news-agents/id1640878689?i=1000605598410

I do wish they'd stop using that lazy 'culture war' tag. Europe, even anglophone Europe, isn't the USA. I noted this morning that the panel (all female, I'd have hoped for a bit of critical thinking) on Oh God What Now? admitted that the debate around policing is not the same in the UK as it is in the USA and was so hoping that they'd extend that to all the other issues, but no, 'the trans issue' is culture war.

It is a culture war, though. What else would you call it? Woke authoritarians are trying to take over the culture and eliminate free thinking and creativity. It's practically a cultural revolution in certain areas of life.

Cultural revolution would be honest.

A thing happened - I already knew my friend A was a terf and we've talked about fwr a lot. She invited me round to her house to meet another woman friend of hers, B, who she thought I'd get along with. As we sat chatting over tea, A mentioned issues with fwr and B tentatively agreed but looked a bit nervous. I took the plunge, smiled and said 'Actually, I'm a massive terf' whereupon the flood gates opened and we were suddenly talking ten to the dozen and agreeing on everything. We've decided that if a likely looking women's rally comes up nearby we're all going. It was really good to sit and talk with other women with none of us holding back and I wish there was more of this, I hope for more of this.

I had a similar conversation with a newish friend this lunchtime.

Great, @Britinme, feels good doesn't it.

@Tricyrtis2022 - it did! You could feel the both of us relaxing into the conversation.

That's how it was with us too, the conversation became relaxed but fast, in the way that can happen with women. It was lovely, I haven't felt that way for a long time.

That was the feeling I had when I made two new friends at dog-training classes - one was Dutch so I kind of knew she’d be a Remainer, but the Remainy Devon-bred nurse came as a very pleasant surprise, as I’d just retired from a hospital entirely staffed by Leavers.

A couple of years ago I was in a car with a friend of a friend. She and I get on but we weren't particularly close at the time. The conversation started to head toward terfdom and we were both very tentative until I decided I had nothing left to lose and came out with it. Huge relief ensued and the rest of the journey was about how much we hated the whole GI bollocks. And drag acts.

IRL I mostly avoid the topic like the plague except amongst close friends whose reality-based views I already know about.

Great thread from glosswitch which really captures the dynamic of what is going on. I presume it’s prompted in part by events in Auckland but has wider applications:

https://twitter.com/glosswitch/status/1639534589684207617?s=61&t=vrfh73NvYySozkuIkLckQw

That's such an astute observation, that we want the crime to fit the punishment. She wouldn't have been punished so severely unless she deserved it.