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).

AIUI, the number of eggs harvested varies wildly, and it doesn't mean the egg donor has to undergo a separate set of procedures to donate unused eggs. Similarly with donated embryos - they have been created and are in cold storage in any case. My daughter has four frozen embryos of less good quality than the two that were successively implanted. They paid for a couple of years to keep them frozen, but I believe will not do so any more as she is now in her forties and they don't want to have any more children. There is no chance of her having her own genetic children with her husband anyway.

After another argument with my relentlessly woke brother, I'm thinking very hard about how difficult it is for some men, who consider themselves to be good people, to see women as real. "Real" as in deserving of consideration. This is a repeated theme, I know, but it's infuriating to try to talk to someone who just cannot see that women are every bit as due consideration as trans women.

Just needed to say it somewhere. He has, with wonderful magnanimity, told me that he's not angry about our argument. Terrific.

How -unforgivably fucking patronising- kind of him.

I know. He's just very tolerant.

I pity the person who calls my sister a cis-woman to her face.

Good for her! I got "oh dear, this is a very emotional subject for you, isn't it? We'd better talk about something else...".

I know one of those. A few years ago, me and Mr T were out with him and the subject came up of where the current issues came from. 'I think I know where it comes from' he said, 'It's in your head, it's in your heart, it's what you wear'. My Dear One scoffed loudly and said ''It's what you wear'? Fuck off!' and things went quiet after that. To be honest, seeing this side in my old friend has put me off him, which is sad but I can't tolerate the bullshit.

FFS: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4787673-the-joan-of-arc-theatre-group-are-at-it-again

I look forward to their next production, which will presumably be explaining why Marilyn Monroe (who defied social expectations of women by having opinions and founding a company) was really a transman.

Radio programme recommendation: BBC4 Ladykillers with Lucy Worsley. Specifically the 17 April episode 'Women's rights, women’s bodies'.

The rest of the series is a true crime one abput female murderers. This episode is different - doesn't really touch on the crimes at all but uses the ones covered in the other episodes as a jumping off point for a discussion of women's rights in the 19th century and how they have (or haven't) changed.

Disappointed by Lucy Worsley. At the end of a segment on prostitution - in which the guest expert states she disagrees with the view of 'sex work' as being just like any other job, talks about how it is driven by poverty (and currently by the effects of austerity policies), and says she hates the commodification of women's bodies - Worsley responds with a hurried 'That's very interesting. I want to start arguing with you but we have to move on'.

Disappointing, but sadly not surprising.

I am inclined to forgive her because she's not an arsehole about 90% of the time. Currently.

I'll have to listen to it, but at the moment I still like Lucy Worsley, because she did a programme about the Scottish witch trials in which (I felt) she subtly pointed out many parallels to the present day.

I like her, and I really admire her passion for making history accessible, but I also find her INCREDIBLY annoying. All the dressing up really gets on my tits.

She used to have a v entertaining blog. Wonder if it's still there?

I find her incredible archness too annoying to listen to, even when I like some of her points.

In a different context, I wouldn't mind all the Joan of Arc is trans stuff. Reimagining stories and art for a production is a venerable artistic tradition which has a much longer history than the TQ+ focus and often brings insights at the same time as winding people up. It seems legitimate - in comparison with rewriting/'correcting' Dahl, which doesn't. It's just that in the current climate, it feels like part of a continual assault on the nature of womanhood and the idea that women might be intrinsically capable of difference and strength.

Teen DDs love the dressing up. She's like a more grown-up version of Horrible Histories.

Reimagining and reframing is fine as a general principle. It can bring out some very interesting points if done well - what if Richard the Lionheart had been a queen instead of a king, what if Florence Nightingale was a time traveller, what if Ada Lovelace had been born in late 20th century California? Changing the person can change the motivations, how their actions are viewed, and make people ask questions. (I can't remember who it was, but I saw an interview recently by someone who was going to do a sex-swapped production but realised that it suddenly made no sense at all and everything would have to be completely re-written to be plausible.)

But it's the context and the way it is done - which involves very little imagination: anyone who did anything for gay rights is trans, anyone who did anything for civil rights is trans, any woman who did anything at all is trans... That's indoctrination rather than art.

Kirstie Allsopp currently making an arse out of herself on Twitter

In terms of the reimagining and reframing - I've always found alternative history really interesting. It's the whole 'trouser leg of time' thing from the Discworld and it's fascinating to think how things could have been so different now if historical wars had gone a different way or people were not or hadn't died at a certain time.

But that doesn't seem to be the intent with quite a lot of these plays and articles. Instead of it being 'wouldn't it have been interesting if .... had been .....', it gets turned into 'they must have been this and if you disagree, then you're a pearl clutching bigot'

Kirstie Allsop is so charming, isn't she?

"Western governments are running an experiment to see what happens if we take protections away from women’s bodies and give them to women’s clothes."

Edie Wyatt on the twitters today

That's superb.

Haha, yes!

Hi all,

Don't want to create a whole thread about this... a friend of mine who works in a HC setting (genuinely not me!) has received a truly insane new trans patient maternity/pregnant person guidance document. Includes claim that misgendering someone could be illegal under the equality act and that other staff should report any colleague behaving in such a disgusing way, etc. etc.

She's scared that she's now at risk of losing her job, as someone who believes in biological sex. I know that there's some protection in law now, but still very worrying for her.

Bit out of the loop with GC stuff - is there anyone discrete who'd be interested in seeing this doc? I'd refer her to SEEN but I don't think they cover NHS workers.

Does it say where it came from on the doc? Is it official-official or a solo run by an overzealous person in one setting?

A non-malicious correct-sexing might result in a complaint letter from a service user and a subsequent lecture from management but ‘illegal’ is a bit of an overstatement!

Firstly EQ10 is civil law (employment and services) so no one is getting arrested and secondly both ‘gender reassignment’ and ‘gender critical beliefs’ are protected so as long as your friend isn’t wilfully being a dick to transgender person she should be fine (and I’m sure she is always professional at work).

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/employment-tribunal-rulings-on-gender-critical-beliefs-in-the-workplace/#:~:text=Gender%2Dcritical%20beliefs%20include%20the,is%20distinct%20from%20gender%2Didentity.

I expect your friend’s new work document has come from one of the trans lobby group orgs or is an American EDI (Equality Diversity Inclusion) import and isn’t actually compliant with UK equalities law.

Perhaps she could send a copy of the document to Sex Matters or Legal Feminist?

And get her to join the Free Speech Union - it’s not particularly expensive and I’ve heard they are very responsive!