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).

2.2% of people with poor English (or Welsh) are trans. The power of confusing questions.

A few people at my work put "he/him" in their email signatures. Turns out quite a few colleagues have absolutely no idea why this is done. It's a job where good English is essential. Most people are still only vaguely aware of trans ideology if it doesn't directly affect them.

I'm rubbish at linking to articles on my phone, but Sonia Sodah has a good one in the Observer today. It's about protecting women's spaces and the effects of the poorly thought out EA 2010 and GRA 2004.

She writes of Kemi Badenoch and her attempt to get the EHRC to back her in clarifying biological sex in the Equality Act.

That's so poor on the census. If you can't trust your data... and clearly we can't. Surely someone at the ONS should be raised their hand and pointed all this out? My beef with the census at the time was, there was no "I think this genderwoo is a load of old bollocks" option.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/09/at-last-consensus-emerging-on-protecting-women-only-spaces

Thanks, Womble Cook!

duc748 · Today 12:08

That's so poor on the census. If you can't trust your data... and clearly we can't. Surely someone at the ONS should be raised their hand and pointed all this out?

I seem to remember this being discussed two years ago. The man in charge of the census lost a legal case, as he wanted to use gender, instead of sex.

Surprisingly enough, he turned out to be a Stonewall cheerleader, much to everyone's great shock.

I just made these and posted them on the current SNP thread (under my more recent username) but that thread is 90% chat about sweets at this point so I doubt many will see them…

SNP have a sale on Nicola Says Yes T shirts, T shirts that have a very convenient gap under the original text

(the police have confiscated a £110 grand motorhome from Nic’s MIL’s drive)

This is a really weird piece: https://www.them.us/story/cis-trans-dating

It presents what looks to me like a perfectly reasonable piece of research into what proportion of people would contemplate a relationship with a transperson, and reports numbers that aren't really very surprising, but frames the entire story as discrimination, rather than preference.

The note of outrage in these two paragraphs raised my eyebrows far more than the conclusions of the researchers:

"Surprisingly, among the 127 participants open to dating a trans person, almost half selected a trans person of a gender incongruent with their stated sexual orientation. For example, 50% of the trans-inclusive straight women and 28% of the trans-inclusive gay men were willing to date a trans woman, even though one wouldn’t expect either straight women or gay men to be attracted to women. Similarly, 50% of trans-inclusive straight men and 69% of trans-inclusive lesbians said they’d date a trans man, even though both groups are presumably only attracted to women. And 33% of the trans-inclusive bisexual/queer participants said they would only date a trans person of one gender but not the other, even though one may expect this group to be attracted to multiple genders.
Digging even deeper into the choices of cis folks willing to date trans people, an interesting pattern of discrimination against trans women in particular emerged among those who would be expected to be attracted to women: 28% of trans-inclusive bisexual/queer/nonbinary folks and 38% of trans-inclusive lesbians said they wouldn’t date a trans woman — only a trans man. There was no similar discrimination against trans men among those expected to be attracted to men: 0% of trans-inclusive gay men and only 5% of trans-inclusive bisexual/queer/nonbinary folks excluded trans men from their dating pool."

@SqueakyDinosaur - That whole paragraph reminds me very much of a scene in the very first episode of Reggie Perrin, which featured a market research woman who spouted a load of incomprehensible statistics about preferences in exotic ice-creams without drawing breath.

It's almost as if sex is an important factor in sexual orientation. Astounding.

From that article:

Romantic relationships are one of the most important sources of social support for adults. The fact that most cis people would not consider trans people as potential dating partners is yet another serious risk factor for increased psychological and physical health problems among the trans population.

IT’S ALL OUR FAULT, AGAIN.

I thought the days of judging people on who they choose to have sex with were long gone, but they seem to be back big-time now.

And what bint and Mavis said.

Idiots.

Not you lot, obvs.

But definitely someone here, https://twitter.com/moira_robin/status/1645827499329191942

This does nothing to reduce my crush on Prof KS (see also: Naomi Cunningham).

Ooh, nice one from KS. Bet that stung!

Oh my! They really don't get it do they! Idiots

I see Robin has now locked down R's Twitter (or whatever one does when only Approved People can tweet at one).

Worth preserving with a screenshot!

Not before I commented! I remained rather restrained.

Robin makes an embarrassing typo.

Also, Twitter is 100% funnier since Elon took over.

@CryptoFascistMadameCholet "Also, Twitter is 100% funnier since Elon took over."

Off-topic (so shoot me) but the interview with Elon on the BBC's Americast today probably didn't turn out as the hapless interviewer intended. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fg4w44

This paragraph amused the fuck out of me:

Surprisingly, among the 127 participants open to dating a trans person, almost half selected a trans person of a gender incongruent with their stated sexual orientation.

It's almost as though they have no fucking idea what actual sex is! Oh, sorry, that's right they don't.

The 'surprisingly' is the best bit! 😀

You'll all be unsurprised to hear that I broadly agree with this article.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4783844-gender-gentrifiers-the-starbucks-theory-of-sexual-identity