Sandi Toksvig "doesn't get it", poor love....

[HootyMcBooby]

Sandi Toksvig slams anti-trans bigots ‘claiming to be radical feminists’ (msn.com)

"I could weep. I don’t get it. It’s beyond me"

Yeah Sandi, I don't get it either.
How is it possible that men can say they are women and have unfettered access to females in their safe spaces?
How is it possible that we are medicating children against puberty?
How it is possible that a woman can be raped on a female hospital ward by a man claiming to be a woman and then gaslighted to be told a man was not on the ward?
How is it possible that men are claiming titles, sponsorships and medals in women's sports?
How is it possible women and females are being literally erased from so many spheres of life, including health/medicine and marketing campaigns? How come the same isn't happening to males?

As a lesbian do you like "lady penis"?
Or do you actually know that men remain men whatever surgeries they may have had, and are just on the "be kind" train?

Have you even THOUGHT about the issues this ideology ushers in?

Actually you don't need to answer that.
It's obvious.

Oh yes! I know that some lesbians who were interviewed publicly in the 60s & 70s (the first public lesbian interview didn’t happen until the mid 60s) were fired or kicked out of their houses. There was huge prejudice

Alison Hammond was the absolute saving of that show. It had become unbearable to watch with Toksvig and then Lucas.

Quite.

They were neither of them the faintest patch on the marvellous Sue Perkins.

I know this is a bit of a tangent but this argument

I’ve been to every service-station toilet in the country. Every one has a sign up saying male cleaners in attendance. I don’t recall anybody saying, ‘We need to group up against these male cleaners.’
Why would someone dress as a woman when they could just pick up a cleaning cloth? If it really bothers you there’s a toilet some place else. Go there. Shut up

As she points out, every female toilet puts up a sign to point out it may be cleaned (or fixed) by a man. Now I don’t really know why this is done, but I’ve always assumed it is so women are aware men may enter and can make a choice not to use it, or at least be able to ask him to leave whilst they are in there. Because some women will not be able to use it if a man with a cleaning cloth walks in. And if a toilet doesn’t put a sign like that up, yes, I would wonder if the man was actually employed to clean the toilet or had just picked up a cloth and gone in for other reasons.

I guess a sign saying “this toilet is used by anyone who identifies as a woman” ie potentially mixed sex would give women a head’s up but they don’t seem popular. A sign would certainly not say “please be aware men who identify as women use this toilet” because whoever thought it was appropriate to make the toilet unisex would not use that terminology.

And the suggestion of going elsewhere and shutting up, when it is a space FOR women is of no help if it’s the only public toilet in the vicinity 🤷‍♀️

Thanks. Americans, then? Not part of British feminism.

What a horrible phrase to use - "the Lavender Menace".

Agreed. Loved the early seasons (and I actually particularly liked the historical sections they used to have). Toksvig was clearly uninterested and Lucas too keen to be 'zany'. Hammond has brought back a much needed bit of fun/laughter to the whole thing.

Those trying to work out why Sandi is doing this, reminds me of this trans umbrella infographic I saw the other day. I screenshotted it to look at it later. The spectrum bit at the bottom is interesting. Which part of this spectrum is Sandi on? I think you may need to click on it to get all the info.
edit: the ‘holding the umbrella bit isn’t clear so I will crop and repost’

As she points out, every female toilet puts up a sign to point out it may be cleaned (or fixed) by a man.

Quite. It's about informed consent. It is with awareness of the needs and diversity of women as a sex class and knowledge that some women cannot and will not enter that space while that man is present.

The men wishing to identify into women's spaces do not care about women's consent, women's diversity, or in fact any aspect of women's voices, needs or their feelings at all, they just want the women's bodies around them in a state of undress for their own male needed experience. It couldn't be grimmer. And they absolutely do not want signs up stating that it's a mixed sex space because while that would help the women, it would totally mess with the man's vibes.

The sexism of it all, in fact no it's just plain male supremacism, is dire. If Sandy wishes to provide her own body for the validation of random men then she can crack on all she wants. Her issues are her own problem.

Holding the umbrella bit in poster:
(another edit to say I have not studied this or know who made the poster - so not endorsing it - just thought it was interesting in terms of spectrum debate)

Yes, it's vile.

Great post.

Just adding to your points, I would say that the plight of women in Afghanistan is one end of a spectrum of misogyny. We don't suffer from misogyny anything like as badly as they do, but it's the same phenomenon. So it makes no sense for ST to try whataboutery - it's the same battle.

I'd say that Sandi falls under 'self serving eejit' on that.

The infuriating thing about that Times article today is the shit journalism. Her retort to Toksvig was “they fear trans women will occupy safe spaces meant for women.”

Aaaargggghhhhh

No mate. It’s about MEN. We fear men.

OK, read it, and it really is as upsetting as the quotes above implied.

I honestly don't know where to start, as the comments are so hypocritical / ignorant / arrogant / naive (I can't work out which).

For example, the argument that, precisely because there are sometimes signs indicating when male cleaners are in the loos, women's concerns about the increasing normalisation of males using the loos without such warning signs are invalid. Mon dieu, that's the point - that there used to be a consensus, reflected in such signs, that a male in an enclosed space may be sufficiently intimidating to women for them to need to be warned of this and empowered to go elsewhere; that your arguments are degrading this consensus.

"Go there. Shut up. Let’s join together..." epitomises it for me. Dismissive, aggressive, and painfully ironic. How can she bear to tell concerned women to "shut up"? I've never used that even in an informal chat about an opposing political viewpoint - I'd feel ashamed saying such a thing - and yet she's prepared for it to be printed in a daily broadsheet?!

I'd previously assumed cynical self-promotion / defensive denial / naivety. But this? It's quite remarkable in its lack of awareness, empathy and logical reasoning. It's honestly quite hard to fathom.

"I believe radical feminists are wrong because... [reasoned argument]" I would respect, and find interesting. But to demand that women "go elsewhere", stop voicing their views and instead "join" her self-evidently superior movement are something else entirely. It's Twitter-quality diatribe, and unspeakably disappointing. Disorientating, in fact.

Agreed!

Yes that’s probably right on averages. I am not sure the spectrum works that neatly because the statements she makes can be interpreted in different categories.

Thanks for this, I found that a good clear and concise presentation.

Yesterday we watched Terminator 2 (Special Edition) with our kids. Sarah Connor is in a secure mental hospital, with predominantly male nurses. In one new scene, 2 male nurses give her a beating. In another, literally seconds after I said "male nurses caring for vulnerable female patients is a massive safeguarding fail", a male nurse licked her face as she pretended to be comatose. (She gets out and deals with him.)

Sandi is supposedly intelligent. So where does she draw the line? If you accept that men who identify as women ARE women and toilets are OK, then what is ok:
Changing rooms?
Sports teams?
Hospital wards?
Secure/locked hospital wards?
Prisons?

Feminists aren't trying to hurt trans people. But this a major social shift in the way society is being organised and people deserve to be able to discuss and evaluate it. Sandi is being a bit overblown- she needs to put that education to use.

All good points. Women's consent and boundaries do not hurt men. They just inconvenience the ones who have questionable agendas.

There was definitely the feeling around parts of the the women's movement in the past that lesbians were 'letting the side down' by being 'strident'. And 'man-hating'. And 'deliberately making ourselves ugly'.
And of course the idea that we weren't really women if we didn't want to be mothers, and if a lesbian couple had children they were only a 'pretend family'.

Unfortunately there was a regurgitation of that on this thread when a PP wrote:

This to me says a lot. She has never had a lot of the biological connections and issues over sex because of the life she's lead. Even as a lesbian, it was her partner who did the biological related things.
She is ultimately exceptionally privileged because she's had no use for biology and she doesn't see any issues over biology.

So biology is only having babies, therefore lesbians who don't choose motherhood 'have no use for biology'?

There are so many ways to critique what Sandi Toksvig says about genderism and feminism, but suggesting she has a lack of understanding about sex and biology because she is a lesbian is way out of order.

But a useful illustration of attitudes to lesbians, even today, even here.

"Go there. Shut up. Let’s join together..."

Parsing it out, she's saying to women who disagree to fuck off and shut up.

I assume she doesn't want wrongthinkers 'joining together', I assume that's aimed at women who will meekly do as Sandi says.

The arrogance and self satisfaction shines through.

Bumping my master thread about the Woeful Women's Equality Party as it's relevant to how Sandy sees women's rights issues.

Sandi, not Sandy!

she needs to put that education to use

Private and Oxbridge education tends to be very good at teaching debating skills and exam answering skills. Like most eduxation it's not actually all that good at teaching thinking - but it's better than most at teaching the appearance of thinking. And it helps them get into positions where everyone assumes they must be clever because otherwise they wouldn’t have become a billionaire tycoon/prime minister/host of QI. They aren't necessarily stupid, but they're often not nearly as brilliant as either their public or their self image. And there tend to be vast swathes of loge experience that they've never encountered or had to think about.

Thank you @MarieDeGournay for your post. I hadn’t thought of it I like that and you’ve made me see it completely differently