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

The goalposts are right where Alan Cummings stated in his own words on his own interview. That is the point under discussion. And it is entirely relevant to EITHER the government's discussions and debates AS YOU have tried to make his statement refer to. Or it is relevant to what women have been discussing, you know, the ones that are the very real issues that they face and discuss.

You trying to make out that we have somehow sifted goalposts is just you trying again to deflect the discussion. One that you have framed as women should be ashamed for discussing toilets when they should be discussing other issues. The one where I have pointed out that toilets are part of many of the very issues that you declared were appropriate to discuss.

Which is it? Can we discuss toilets as it is part of the basis of many of the laws and policy changes that we seek? Or can we not discuss toilets because we should be discussing all the other issues that you, personally, feel are more important and you believe that toilets are nothing to do with many of the changes in laws and policies that you personally are interested in.

In which case, front up with the specific laws and policies that you feel we are discussing that relate only to toilets. You are the one here trying to tell women and MPs what they should be discussing or not. If you feel that women and MPs are discussing laws and policies that relate solely to toilet usage, tell us where we are going wrong.

There's a lot of it about.

One of Oliver Sacks' books has a bit about a roomful of people with different language disorders watching a Regan speech. The woman who had lost the ability to process the emotional content of language complained that it was disjointed, illogical, made no grammatical sense. The ones with aphasia who had lost the ability to understand the meaning of words, so relied on body language and tone, thought he was a hilarious clown.

From the article:

[Cummings] believes the debate over trans rights is part of a larger culture war...."I think that, you know, the sort of culture wars are so awful. We don't really talk about policies, we don't really talk about real issues, or things that are really important.What we do is we grab on to things like trans kids and bathrooms, and we make that the culture war.

I agree. Framing the debate around "bathrooms" aka toilets is unhelpful. It is more helpful to discuss complexities, root causes and impacts to come up with a policy.

When I said that you said women should be allowed to talk about toilets and I was "shutting them down".

Now you are saying I want to discuss specific policies around toilets. I don't know where you are getting any of this from but it's impossible to say anything to someone who's flopping around creating strawmen of my point to argue with

Sorry, are you calling Alan Cummings a narcissist? Seems a bit harsh....

The Government don't appear to be having any positive impacts on anything, so that could well be accurate 😂

Can't prove a negative
Have you come up with any evidence that shows he is including trans women with a GRC when he talks about spaces based on biological sex?

Otherwise you are basically saying you don't trust the language he uses. Which is fair enough, but what isn't fair enough is to say Labour are going to erode womens sex based rights with no evidence at all.

They will need to list where is ‘reasonable’

It could just be prisons or it could include toilets and an entire range which effectively excludes males with female GRCs from a long list

If Alan Cummings is a supporter of trans rights activists, which he appears to be, then nobody should be assuming that when he says male and female he means man and woman.

Quite the opposite. If he’s a supporter of trans rights activists, then he thinks “man” means both male and female, and he thinks “woman” means both female and male.

He is as entitled to his view as anyone else. He didn't say anything factually incorrect. He just has a different point of view to you. That is allowed.

I could hold the point of view that I am a 6 year-old child. That wouldn't make it true, even if I really really wanted to be a 6 year-old, dressed like one, talked like one etc.

If there were a very vocal group of adults who said that actually the definition of '6 year-old child' is 'anyone who thinks/says they are a 6 year-old child', would that make them 'factually correct' in your opinion?

I mean it’s an incredibly easy fudge to hide behind ‘reasonable’ and some will say oh yes they’ve changed

It could just mean status quo wrt where males can have access and fulfil statement

“Toilets are behind those things on my list of priorities, and also very far behind a long list of other things I'd like our government to be doing for women.
^^
To be honest, when I see people talking about toilets I just think they haven't been paying much attention 🤷‍♀️“

To be honest, when I see a person describing toilets as low priority, I just think they don’t care about teenage girls’ right to the dignity and privacy of single-sex female-only facilities when in a state of undress.

No. I am saying very clearly that you, personally, agree with Cumming. You have declared that the statement you have posted should be interpreted as a comment around the government's discussions after I, and others, pointed out that Cumming was misogynistically telling women what our discussions amounted to little more than toilets and 'trans kids'. I don't agree with you but I ran with it for the sake of pointing out that you are also ignoring and minimising the issues based on what you, personally, believe that women should be discussing.

I am pointing out that just because you believe that discussing toilets is a waste of time, I believe that making the changes for toilets will also address much of what you, personally, posted as being your own priorities. Perhaps the strawmen you see are your own?

Am I to take it that you cannot post the discussions that women and MPs are having that solely relate to toilets that does not include the provision over all for single sex spaces? I mean, I did do the toilet consultation myself and that consultation at least netted some immediate results for government building. But it also included a wider discussion on all female single sex spaces too.

Can you find discussions with MPs and women where discussing toilets doesn't cover off the ambiguity of the EA in relation to male usage of female toilets and other single sex spaces as a whole? Can you find the discussions where there is absolute clarity that has been tested under law cases that males with a GRC should not be allowed to access female toilets?

But getting back to what he said. Either it relates to the government as you insist it does, and you are still unable to provide MPs focusing on 'just the toilet issue' without the wider single sex space context, meaning that Alan Cumming is not correct and nor are you. Or Alan Cumming is minimising women's campaign efforts and is a misogynist and you are reluctant to allow women to discuss this.

Which is it?

Yep.

Toilets are a fucking huge issue for our children in schools who have removed single sex toilets.

Ah well. Like with Labour, despite me repeatedly saying I'm GC and think gender is nonsense, you clearly know better than I do what I mean by that.

For clarity, I agree with Cumming that trans issues are being oversimplified and used in a culture war.

I disagree with him that there is a spectrum of genders.

Your false dichotomy doesn't cover my actual views. And as an "actual woman on FWR" I don't appreciate being shut down from talking about my views.

As has been pointed out on other threads, UK Labour under Starmer have only committed to opposing Conservative attempts to undermine the Equality Act 2010 (as per the wording of the statement you quoted). Labour actively supported the SNP’s attempt to undermine EA2010 by voting for the GRA bill in the Scottish Parliament.

UK Labour under Starmer haven’t committed to confirming that single-sex spaces means biological sex. They’ve committed to clarifying the legal position. That would appear to be because Labour believes the legal position is that men who pay £5 for a GR certificate are legally entitled to access opposite sex spaces.

He stated it in the past. I go by what he has stated in the past as being legal.

No, I have been very clear that I don't trust the language that he uses. He has always been ambiguous. He has used 'safe' spaces instead of 'single sex spaces' and he has stated categorically that male people with a GRC are to be treated as 'female'.

I listen to the women in the Labour Party women's groups that I talk to regularly and I am guided by them. One group even had Richards come and discuss women's issues and women's groups with them from Translucent. How wonderful is that! Such a wonderful advocate for women's needs. And this was just a couple of months ago.

I think if you are attempting to convince any reader that Labour will protect female people's sex based rights, you might need to start with making sure that Labour has consistency. Because right at this moment, there is more evidence that Labour believes that male people with a GRC are female than there is that they will not erode female sex based rights. You can deny it, but it really seems like wishful thinking on your part at this time.

If you go back and read the Second Reading debate on the GR bill 2004, the Tories gave their MPs a free vote on the GR bill, rather than having a Tory party position on it, iirc.

So despite them explicitly saying "there will always be places where it is reasonable for biological women only to have access" and despite them making it very clear they can view woman as a legal construct and a biological reality that aren't always the same, you think when they say "biological women" they mean males with a GRC?

How can they communicate in a way you would trust?

Which spaces fit under Labour’s idea of ‘reasonable’?

Can anyone say?

I am not trying to convince people of anything. Just correcting people when they post absolute bollocks about the Labour position.

No you were wrong anyway.

They will defend the act and oppose changing the definition to biological sex.

The statement you’ve posted doesn’t change that.

You might want to consider why I had changing rooms on the list....but don't let what I actually wrote get in the way of your projection

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/labour-welcomes-government-review-equality-act-over-defining-sex-biological

LABOUR said today it welcomes government plans to review the Equality Act, potentially defining sex explicitly as “biological sex.”

Reported everywhere. Stop making shit up.

I am not shutting you down from discussing your views. I am disagreeing with the way you are interpreting Alan Cummings statement. I was then pointing out the flaws in your argument even if your interpretation was correct.

And what the fuck does it matter if you are 'GC' or not? I have not made any assumptions about your 'GC' status. And what relevance is it?

Let me repeat:

"But getting back to what he said. Either it relates to the government as you insist it does, and you are still unable to provide MPs focusing on 'just the toilet issue' without the wider single sex space context, meaning that Alan Cumming is not correct and nor are you. Or Alan Cumming is minimising women's campaign efforts and is a misogynist and you are reluctant to allow women to discuss this."

I am very happy to have it clarified what exactly you have meant with all your posts. Please do so, but either:

Alan Cumming was talking about the government and has made that judgement. Which is factually incorrect because MPs discuss the policies and issues and toilets are very much part of the single sex space discussion.

OR

Alan Cumming was dismissing women's campaigns and reducing them to 'toilets' and 'trans kids' and dismissing the realities of many women's lives in his statement. Which makes him a fucking misogynist.

Is that better? Which is it that you believe he was doing?

And.... there is that sticky issue of Starmer saying that male people with a GRC are to be treated as female people.

You really cannot escape that.