Suella Braverman is wrong to tell the police to describe transgender rapists as men.

[theilltemperedclavecinist]

First, calling a trans woman a man is misgendering, which is transphobic even if unintentionally.

Secondly, it is not accurate and precise enough. A trans woman is not a man, but she is not just any woman, either. Accuracy and precision are important for good record keeping, for research purposes, and for correctly informing the public.

Thus, a transgender rapist should be recorded as such in police and cps records, and should be referred to in press releases as per Stonewall guidelines (transgender woman, then trans woman for subsequent mentions).

If there is any doubt, I suggest a default of assuming a suspect is trans, to avoid giving offence. Stonewall guidelines make it clear that trans is an umbrella covering many things, including men who only very occasionally cross-dress, for whatever purpose.

It would help if all press releases included an explainer box about what a trans woman is, given the surprising number of people who don't seem to know.

This approach may make the use of 'cisgender' (eg for other suspects) unavoidable, which I know some will dislike. But avoiding ambiguity about what is really happening seems more of a priority at the moment.

Why do you care if they’re post or pre-op?

They’re still biologically male either way. 🤷🏻‍♀️

The BBC only called Andrew Miller / Amy George "he" because that's what he asked to be called.

If he had insisted on being called "she", that's what the BBC would have called him.

Because we need to keep reminding people that literally the only difference between a TW and another man is that the TW is wearing a little hat saying 'woman'. And that is still true even if the TW is in a suit and tie and the other man is (sadly) a Eunuch and happens to like dresses. Take every opportunity to expose the craziness.

Well that’s depressing, @Chersfrozenface I didn’t realise this. Shame on them ☹️

Categorising them by biological sex is enough.

Being clear that the reality is that TW are biological men. And not allowing anyone to pretend that is ‘bigotry’.

No need to over complicate anything.

I'm the OP

Most posters are arguing against TWAW. I don't believe TWAW, so no need to convince me.

Many are arguing for using commonsense language to tell the truth. I agree we should be able to, but we currently can't without being silenced for blasphemy and/or giving bad faith actors the chance to use creative ambiguity against us.

I'm suggesting we at least consider, as a tactic, rigorously and aggressively using their language against them.

For example, consider the interviewer question 'is it fair for TW to compete in women's sports?' It contains the unspoken (because blasphemous) words 'because you're a man', thus leaving wriggle room for the interviewee to reply in terms of inclusion of the TW with the 'other' women. The whole thing glides over the listener without triggering cognitive dissonance.

Consider instead 'shouldn't the cis men and the TW compete in a different class from the TM and the cis women, because they have superior weight strength and speed so safety and fairness etc' Horrible. Clunky. But difficult to answer.

That does then move the point to being 'but the male person wants the emotional validation of being with 'other' women'.

Which begs the obvious question: a) so not a woman, and b) if emotional validation for a man matters more than sporting activities for women, this is just boring old ugly male supremacism.

Maybe we need to get more men-who-like-sport involved, as they have a lot of social salience? I suspect some are taking no notice because they think women's sport is inferior or that we only do it for some girly bonding reason. But not all of them.

If that was the point of your OP it was too subtle. And you will keep having to repeat yourself, because many newcomers to rid threads will not read beyond your OP and perhaps a few of the first replies.

I see your point, but I still disagree. The trans ideologists demand that they have the right to label themselves, even if that distorts commonly understood language. I demand that same right to label myself. I also demand the right to protect commonly understood language in order to protect vulnerable people. It is no different to the need to teach children correct language for their body parts, in order to help safeguard them from abuse.

Rather than 'cis men and transwomen' let the word 'male' always be included when referring to transwmen.

"Blah blah blah...men and transwomen, who are all male...blah blah blah."

"Blah blah blah...male transwomen...blah blah blah."

PTSDBarbiegirl - no arguments from me there! 🙌

You need to practice more. Ideally not on here.

You are totally over complicating this. Thats what creates the ambiguity and gaps.

large numbers of people don’t actually understand that trans women are male. They think it’s biological women who say they’re men. Adopting every more convoluted language only increases the confusion and ambiguity.

’we are talking about biological men’ is clear and straightforward. The issues with sport are because it’s allowing men to compete against women. The biological differences between the sexes matter.

Whittering on about cis and trans makes it really hard to figure out what you’re talking about.

I fear it's too late to fix now, which is my failure. Lesson learnt.

I don't think we disagree in principle, only as to method. My alternative to 'men and TW, who are all male blah blah', is the inclusion of explainer boxes in all press articles, which - carefully drafted - should have the effect of shouting 'TW are men' at readers again and again, in a form difficult to deliberately take offence at or misconstrue.

How does the BBC reconcile its mandate to inform, educate etc. with electing to use "she", "woman" & "transwoman" for males, in the light of the recent survey showing that a significant proportion of the population are misunderstanding these terms in news articles to mean the opposite of what they do? It leads directly to a fundamental misunderstanding of issues of vital significance relating to eg. voting & personal decisions on privacy, dignity (eg. a woman electing to use a trans-inclusive space confident in her understanding that transwomen are female like her) etc.

Has anyone taken this approach to challenging their bias? Could we? Eg. by asking them for evidence that they've considered the implications of these editorial decisions & are confident in readers' understanding? Or would they dismiss the survey as irrelevant/unprepresentative/flawed? Or refer any complainant back to the IPSO guidelines?

I agree. Still less helpful is to treat such fictions as fact.

OP I get where you're coming from, but I think Joe Bloggs' ear isn't attuned enough to register the internal contradictions of trans-language in the way you hope.

I think rude reality needs to be protected in law so that it can continue to be described accurately. TWANW; they are, were and will always be men, irrespective of their dress, surgical plans, physical modifications.

Cognitive dissonance is a key part of all this.

And this is a faith system, where you are required to:

• state the mantras without reflecting on them (many are intended to avoid/terminate thought
• maintain the beliefs unquestioningly
• believe that the righteous believers know better and their knowledge is higher than reality, facts, law, supercedes everything;
• that the priests of the movement are the only ones who can truly understand it, and it is not for you to know (it's complicated)
• toe the line or fear shaming, struggle sessions, exclusion, actual abuse and harassment, and you may lose your job or be prosecuted.
• listening to or speaking to a sinner risks your purity and your faith and must be feared
• sinners are not real people, should not be considered as such, and it is not wrong to ignore, abuse, exclude or do other taboo things when it's directed towards a sinner - in fact it is the sign of virtue and to be praised
• good people do all of this and cast out and shame the unbelievers

Its religion. It's worked for centuries. The BBC have a lot of those very high on all this in their ranks. They're using tax payer money to enforce all of this.

And in essence, if you are talking to someone who has been able to be convinced into saying that that binary sex is not a thing, that people change sex, and a man is a woman and a lesbian if he says so, and that facts that don't fit are should be vanished, it's going to be very easy to convince them to say anything else. Truth and reality and integrity aren't really an issue at this point.

That fits fairly well with the dismissive replies I've had from my complaints to the Beeb. I've made a real effort in my emails to be clear & tactful &, above all, to pre-empt the usual fob-offs in a tactical attempt to force meaningful engagement... And I just get what are, effectively, mantras re: inclusion that fail to address the substance of concerns on any level at all. A generous interpretation would be that they're overwhelmed and can't engage fully with every complaint. But the tone of the responses is, at best, indicative of stoical avoidance of the issues to me ("We are inclusive... We respect... Our remit..." kind of thing) and, given that they've a mandated responsibility to engage with these things impartially, in conjunction with their reporting, this does beging to feel indicative of deep-seated, unquestioning bias, yes.

BBC, if you're going to call males women and "she", including convicted criminals and entries to previously female-only top-hundreds or whatever, at the expense of clarity and readers' understanding, and to the active distress of a significant proportion of your readers, then, please, at least have the courage of your convictions by drafting a standardised reply to letters like mine that actually rationalises your decision to take this line (as opposed to denying there is a line).

What's most challenging about all of this, to me, is how utterly insidious it is: someone said to me just yesterday, "Oh, well, we've got equality now, haven't we?" & so many appear to believe this. That naivety, to me, is the true marker of the extent of the extent of societal misogyny we face - and the complicity of national institutions in actively denying its more "problematic" manifestations is the epitome of this.

#personalbugbear

Reading this thread as I watch a documentary, listening to a group of adults who were forced in their family to pretend for their father that their mother's spirit had entered their body, enact being his wife, and all other children in the family to then pretend that their sibling (brothers included) was now their mother.

And thinking.... I'm not really sure how this is different. I am fully with Braverman: plain, factual language is necessary.

Consider instead 'shouldn't the cis men and the TW compete in a different class from the TM and the cis women, because they have superior weight strength and speed so safety and fairness etc' Horrible. Clunky. But difficult to answer

I understand your thinking but I don’t agree. Apart from being clunky, I think your example will just wash over most people (too subtle, maybe too) due to the convoluted language. Also, some might assume the convoluted language is supporting trans inclusion because many Gender things have already mangled our language.

I suggested we should change back trans woman to the instinctive understanding: a TW is a woman who has a trans identity. But if you want to continue to use TW to mean male people, then the simplest and most comprehensible way to do that is to use a phrase like “Men, including trans women”. So, “this sporting category is for men, including TW”, “men, including TW should not use these toilets”, etc etc.

If you’re thinking that that’s too blunt, then it’s irrelevant. Being subtle won’t win. Tiny concessions to Gender Ideology won’t appease the beast. TRAs demand total capitulation. So nothing we do will be good enough or be accepted as a compromise. Their aim is to erase sex and replace it with gender. Our answer should be a simple No, and clear, factual language.

@theilltemperedclavecinist Is your OP suggestion that journalists assume all rapists are transwomen until confirmed either way, to avoid any possibility of misgendering one who actually is a transwoman, sly, deadpan and hilarious? And blown over all our heads in our earnestness?

I don't remember anyone being confused before transexual and transvestite were changed to 'trans'. Maybe we should start using the older language again and use male and female as well, if needed, to be extra clear. It also blows the bleddy doors off the 'trans child' thing. Of course 'ROGD' will be useful to use now, as that wasn't around back then.

I think we need to aim for absolute clarity. No pissing about, no obfuscation and just be precise.

Plus no LYING!

We all know that mammals cannot change sex.