Wtf is Alan Cummings blithering on about?

[IcakethereforeIam]

Just seems to be a stream of tripe and non sequiturs. Was he drunk? High?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-12948343/Alan-Cumming-says-public-arms-Rishi-Sunak-denying-existence-trans-people.html

Then the police will investigate it.

I imagine that they investigate potential crimes quite often. Including crimes such as trespassing, harassment, up-skirting and theft and such. What makes this such a difficult instance for you to believe will be treated seriously? Simply because it doesn't fit within the scope of your personal opinions?

trespassing, harassment, up-skirting and theft and such

Yes I’m not sure why enforcement draws a blank on this one

In the US 'culture wars' was earlier used to discuss the debates over 'social conservatism' (women's rights, gay and Lesbian rights, abortion rights) so as to distinguish this from 'financial conservatism' (about money. mostly).

Many male writers (perhaps unconsciously) deemed the latter the real kind of politics which matters and the former something to do with 'culture', perhaps cuisines or bad language or bad vs. good music for the young or something else not really important for most straight male writers on the issues.

I'm not certain if this would be the correct interpretation here, but worth keeping in mind, because it always angered me, to think that women's rights aren't entwined with money, for instance, as they are if women are paid less or have to take time off for childbearing without income etc.

I'd just be happy going back to the way it was, you could complain about random men or perverts in the ladies loo and you'd get support

The fact that posters on here are having to invent laws to stop all males is completely and utterly the fault of people saying 'it's too hard to police'

The inch was given and then some jokers took the mile and now some women want their inch back...and I don't blame them for that at all

I think part of what's happened is that "identity" used to more or less match reality, and if it didn't, it was recognised that something was amiss. People knew what sex they were (as they do know, pretty much everyone knows) and to claim to be the opposite sex generally had to mean that the person was either delusional/insane, or pretending, e.g. in disguise. A man's self-image/"identity" as a good, upstanding man would generally involve not going into women's spaces - whether because he cared about not upsetting women, or because he didn't want the stigma of being seen to be a dodgy perv or predator (even if he would be if he could get away with it).

What we have since trans became a thing - initially in the 20th century, then on steroids in the last decade - is this idea that a man can BE a woman in some sense. (and vice versa of course, but the reverse situation doesn't carry the same risks - except, of course, to the females involved, TM themselves). That "identity" can be the opposite of reality. That's what trans is - it's not your identity as a gay person, or a particular ethnicity, or your class or whatever, based on the real facts about you. It is by definition identifying as something you're not and cannot be, and then trying to change definitions of words to make that a "reality".

Once you do that and it takes hold, then it is really hard to "police" and to ask the question "are you really female" of everyone who approaches a female-only space. It never worked like that before. It worked because of a general agreement that going in the opposite sex's space wasn't something you'd want to do, because only someone very questionable or odd would do that.

Just as now, we have a big stigma about people who "identify" as a race they are not and basically treat them with derision. They may exist, but the reason there aren't loads of them is because it's not a concept that has become accepted and put into law and pushed at kids and rewarded with being treated as a sacred caste. if it was, it would attract all sorts of people overnight for a variety of reasons (attention-seeking, gaining opportunities, seeking a solution to MH problems, wanting to be seen as cool, etc etc), just as "trans" does now.

It would also be hard to police "is that person really black" or "is that person really under 18" or "is that person really disabled" if there was a huge explosion of people "identifying" as what they are not in these categories and it being seen as some kind of right that everyone had to agree with their "identity" instead of the reality. It's not always easy to police those things now - and yet we do - with a combination of laws, registration systems and social expectation/stigma.

And something I notice about a lot of aggressive TRA TW types who want to be in women's spaces, and post to that effect on social media, is that they see it as a challenge. The breaking of the social contract and a universal agreement about what a woman is, Is not really just about men really seeing themselves as woman. It's about men being told "you can upset and intimidate women by going in their spaces now - it's approved behaviour". Just like situations where lots of people start looting or rioting, and others are emboldened to join in, or situations in dictatorships where it becomes acceptable to persecute a minority - people will perceive that broken boundary and run with it - the people who always had that in them.

I've often seen these men say to camera "Look at me, I'm in your space" "We're going in your spaces and there's nothing you can do about it so suck it up terf bitches". Not "our apace". They know they are male and not women. Otherwise they'd genuinely see the women's toilet (and other spaces) as "ours". I know that's not all TW who behave like that, but these are the ones who have run with the breaking down of the boundary not because they "are" women, but because they are aggressive men.

I'm old enough to remember when the law to prevent a man raping his wife was brought in. I'm pretty sure the exact same arguments about what's the point of a law that is not enforceable were made then as well. This idea that laws are only enacted if they can be premptively enforced is just plain wrong, as any cursory thought about the laws we already have and how they work shows.

Quite apart from anything else, laws exist to encourage people to stop themselves doing things because we dont have mechanisms to impose the restriction upon them. We don't need laws to say you can't fly off cliffs because ... you can't fly off cliffs. We DO need laws to say you can't just take someone's wallet off them because you CAN just take someone's wallet off them. The law doesn't directly stop that, but it provides a deterrent (social and penal), legitimises someone saying "oi hands off my wallet", and allows the enaction of a legal process of punishment for the act.

I'm really not seeing why you think a law against males in female spaces - not needed before when the social contract was accepted, but needed NOW because the social contract has been hugely weakened by the TRA's antics, and needs the strong signal and justifucation a law would provide - is so much more unenforceable than a law against martital rape, or picking pockets, or pretty much any other crime we have. Can you explain your thinking here?

I'm old enough to remember when the law to prevent a man raping his wife was brought in.

Yes me too. Another thing that law does, as well as its effect on the men, is what it tells women and what it means we as a society believe about women. You don't have to have sex with a man if you don't want to, even if you are married - he doesn't own you. As a woman you're a person with choices and freedoms, just like he is. That's important for progress for women's rights in general.

And it's part of how gender ideology is working, to break down women's beliefs that they have a right to say no to men - both in their spaces, and in situations like the pressure being put on lesbians to accept straight male "lesbians" as partners, or in their dating apps or groups.

I couldn't agree more with what you saying here, @MrsTwatInAHat , and as a bloke (obviously), it seems to me, notwithstanding the manifold failures of men documented on MN on a daily basis, this gender rubbish risks breeding another generation of boys even less likely to respect women's spaces and hard fought for rights. As you say, just like, formerly, 99% of blokes didn't barge into women's loos, well, the last time I was in a London pub, there are no women's loos any more!

That's literally insane as well as wrong. Every week there's another nostalgia drenched article about the disappearance of the traditional pub.
Making half your customers feel unsafe is economic suicide , I would have thought.

Personally, I am much less likely to challenge such men now that any of them could turn around and say they're actually a lady and then harrass me for being a bigot. Laws matter.

I don't mind so much if i'm called a bigot, because someone who is clearly a man being challenged for being in a female toilet, will be recognised as such by sensible people. I know I'm not a bigot, and my family know I'm not a bigot as do my friends.

I would be less likely to challange a huge hulking guy if there is nobody else about and I would be worried about my own safety. I'm feisty, not stupid.

Most women know women. If it's a man in the Ladies then you need to judge whether it's safe to challenge the man or not.

If I think about the things some identify as culture war issues, they tend to be things many people feel quite strongly about, or think are serious.

I can't see why many people in politics wouldn't think the same?

And even if they don't, personally, is it not legitimate for them to talk about things the public feels strongly about? It kind of seems like it's their job?

I really disagree with this. And it's still considered to be an important principle in lawmaking that it needs to be possible to actually detect breaches and enforce the law.

People may well have argued that this would be difficult to police in the case of marital rape - and to some extent that is true - but not much more true than it is with rape in general, which is a significant part of why rape convictions are so difficult to secure - very often, there is simply no physical evidence that differentiates it from consensual sex. (And there have been people, including some feminists, who have suggested that because of this, perhaps the law may not be the most effective way to deal with the existence of rape and it would be better to try a different approach.)

The reliance on the law as the only cultural social indicator that something is wrong or immoral tends to create a lot of bad laws, and is responsible for some of the stupid, wasteful, and often dangerous virtue signalling we see in legislative bodies these days.

I don't know if it reflects a kind of cultural decline, or is a problem of social pluralism where there aren't enough shared values or institutions, or some kind of failure of liberalism, but healthy societies have other ways besides the law of signaling that some things are not moral, or that we don't accept them as social behaviours.

Maybe it's that we are too invested in "being kind" and non-judgmental, and if it doesn't hurt you personally, you should be quiet about it. But if everything we think is unethical or socially destructive needs to be encoded in the law we are very soon going to find that the law becomes very intrusive indeed.

I don't think the women who were raped in marriage but had no access to support because it was legal would agree. No men in women's spaces could be policed to a degree. e.g. if a man is a repeat offender or lying on documentation to try and get into women's spaces. Do you think all laws are inherently wrong and if not, where do you draw the line?

I don't think the women who were raped in marriage but had no access to support because it was legal would agree. No men in women's spaces could be policed to a degree. e.g. if a man is a repeat offender or lying on documentation to try and get into women's spaces. Do you think all laws are inherently wrong and if not, where do you draw the line?

Would agree that it's difficult to prosecute rape, or marital rape specifically? Or that it shouldn't have been made illegal?

I am not arguing particularly for one approach or the other. I am saying in fact that I think marital rape is similar to any other rape, it is more difficult than some types of crimes to prosecute, but it does get successfully prosecuted.

As for those who think a different approach might be more effective, I can't say they are wrong, the proof would be very much in the pudding. At least if goal isn't to make it illegal, but is actually to prevent or otherwise create social controls around rape and marital rape. I am assuming we are interested in being effective rather than just the optics.

The point however was really to say that the possibility of actually policing the law is still considered a very important principle in lawmaking. Laws are not just there to signal to us what is virtuous. There are serious downsides to laws that can't be effectively monitored or prosecuted - they waste the time of the authorities, or transgressions are not punished which gives the impression that the law isn't important.

It's a problem when laws are considered the only valid way to indicate socially acceptable behaviour.

Yes it is. But no men in women's spaces could be policed.

Yes it is. But no men in women's spaces could be policed.

Yes, I think so. The best way to formulate such a law could be tricky, but I think it could be done. You wouldn't be looking at stopping men at the door, of course, it would be a matter of prosecuting people who get caught doing it, like Peeping Toms.

Exactly. That's a very good comparison. Men forcing me to see their cock and men forcing themselves into women's spaces feel very similar to me.

Yes we have equivalent in law so just use similar

it enables TRAs to deploy their various lines: “you’re claiming we are all perverts” “we need to be in opposite sex spaces for our safety”

They can never see the other side, can they?

That women have separate toilets not because ALL men are perverts, but because some are, and we can't take the risk.

That by saying they (TW) aren't "safe" in men's toilets they are saying that ALL men are violent transphobes who will rape or beat them.

It angers me immensely that when small, vulnerable women say "We don't want to share toilets with men because we feel unsafe", they are mocked and abused, but when large, often aggressive men say "We don't want to share toilets with men because we feel unsafe" then the whole world puts a comforting arm around their shoulders and tells them not to worry - they can use the ladies'.