Restoring Sanity Takes Time - Helen Joyce

[RethinkingLife]

A bracing read. I am still in a state of some despair about how long this will take. As several people have observed, in the last 10 days, the BBC (in common with other media) disseminated unscientific propaganda that male galactorrhea is better than mother’s milk, repeatedly called a deeply disturbed killer a woman while disdaining to acknowledge the alternate reality as a cat, and has publicly reprimanded Justin Webb for plain speaking that was probably helpful to many listeners.

What will it take to bring bigoted employers to heel? Part of the answer is time. During the past decade, the trans lobby has been stunningly successful in selling false analogies to HR departments: that separate toilets for men and women are like racial segregation; and that insisting people can change sex is “gay rights 2.0”.
Lazy, power-hungry HR managers and staff working in “EDI” (equality, diversity and inclusion) pronounce that the arc of the moral universe is bending towards denying sexual dimorphism, and relish imposing their will on others.
…
Imagine you’re an HR professional belatedly wondering if you’ve got the wrong end of the stick on the whole sex-gender thing. You might turn to A Practical Guide to Transgender Law by two barristers, Nicola Newbegin and transwoman Robin Moira White.
But that might not save you from serious missteps. The first edition, published before the binding Forstater judgment, enthusiastically endorsed the faulty lower court ruling. The second grudgingly acknowledged that yes, gender-critical beliefs were protected, but claimed that “manifesting” them — letting others know you held them — wasn’t.
Even before the recent string of judgments to the contrary, that was obvious nonsense. The law about freedom of belief expressly includes “manifestation”. And anyway, it takes but a moment’s thought to realise that the law can’t possibly concern beliefs that are never manifested, since it can’t reach inside the privacy of our heads.
…
At bottom, the mindset of the narcissistic identitarians joining in workplace witch-hunts is that of the Crusaders, who made converts at the point of a sword. They do not respect other people’s sovereign consciences, nor accept that their belief system is just one among many. And like the Crusaders, they need to be consigned to history.

https://thecritic.co.uk/restoring-sanity-takes-time/

Adding in a good read about the Meade and Phoenix rulings:

The question is not whether the sex binary is real (I'm not a scientist so won't comment) but whether it actually matters. Many feminists, myself included, believe that gender roles, not biology, are the basis of women's oppression.

Many feminists, myself included, believe that gender roles, not biology, are the basis of women's oppression.

Where did the "gender roles" come from, do you think?

As the statutory guidance says

No. The EHRC has provided guidance on this specific issue.

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/equality/equality-act-2010/separate-and-single-sex-service-providers-guide-equality-act-sex-and

This is the example they give of lawful provision:

That is not why there have been separate spaces for men and women historically in some societies. That was due to religion, not biology.

That's complex and varies hugely according to geographical and historical context.

That's complex and varies hugely according to geographical and historical context.

LOL. "Complex" though it is, what are "gender roles" based on?

You're quite sure that menstruation and childbirth (specific to the female sex) play no part in some society's religious practices?

If "gender roles" are the basis of "women's oppression" what is a woman, and what is "woman gender"?

A trans woman I know is a butch lesbian into many traditionally male pursuits, who dresses in androgynous clothing. But she is a woman, socially and legally. You can choose to deny that she is a woman, but her identity has nothing to do with stereotypes.

In some. Not all.

Your friend is a biological male. If your friend has a GRC then the current position is that your friend is "legally" female. If your friend does not, your friend is legally a man.

Right, forget anthropology and theology.

Should 13 year old girls at Guide Camp be sharing tents with boys, and should their parents know?

I think that you are conflating, or at least failing to separate, types of discrimination that leads to oppression.

Sex is absolutely real and it is proven.

There is the negative discrimination based on sex that feminists have long fought against such as female people being excluded from employment, education, activities etc based on their sexed body.

There is also the necessary form of discrimination that is used for calculating safeguarding risks which is also based on sexed bodies but the only 'negative' impact it has is to exclude one sex from a space designated as single sex for safety purposes. This discrimination has been the basis of sex segregated spaces since those spaces became available to public life.

What do you mean by 'gender roles' ? Weren't they premised in the past on sexed bodies?

You don't need to be a scientist to know that sex is binary, that's just silly. There is no third gamete in humans, that's observable to anyone.

How do the Taliban know which people need to be shut in the house and denied agency over their lives, and which are allowed to participate in society? If I wear trousers and like football and work in IT, and have breasts and a vagina, will they let me go about my day freely or beat me for not covering my hair?

A trans woman I know is a butch lesbian into many traditionally male pursuits, who dresses in androgynous clothing.

How would anyone know this person purports to be a woman? If they walk into a female space, why would women know they claim to be a "woman"? They just sound like the average man, with special pronouns. How is this person a woman?

I'm no expert. I was born a woman and have always felt like a woman, despite that being an often unpleasant experience. People have a sense of self in all sorts of ways that aren't rooted in tangible, biological facts. The current battle, surely, is between people like yourself who feel that biology is the overriding consideration, and people like myself who feel that people's subjective sense of self is more important.

How is a male who looks like a male and does traditionally male coded things "socially a woman"? It's all so ridiculous.

Your friend's identity is based purely on philosophical belief and that philosophical belief has been protected by law as being protected to have. It does not mean that your friend is to be treated as if they are materially female for occasions where they should be treated as male.

And your friend is only 'socially' treated as a female by people who choose to allow your friend to socially be treated as a female.

Your friend's identity does not mean that they are female. Regardless of how many people treat them as a female.

Sex is the basis on which women are historically oppressed.

Gender is the mechanism of that oppression.

I'm no expert.

Yes, that's clear. You waffle some evasive stuff about "gender roles" evolving in complex ways but you can't define them. Why is that? It doesn't seem like you are engaging with people's arguments.

All these "gender roles" are based on biological sex.

We are talking about this society.

Please do not use other culture's to leverage male people into female single sex spaces.

Sex is the basis on which women are historically oppressed.

Gender is the mechanism of that oppression.

Quite.

To my mortification I didn't know when I first met her, and used the wrong pronouns. She is legally a woman though, and it's not for me to question that. I would be furious if anyone challenged her in a toilet. As long as she's not committing a crime, her gender is no one else's business. (I'm not suggesting it would have been OK to do so before she gained her GRC, by the way.)

No. Gender had been instrumentalised against women, along with many other things.

I would be furious if anyone challenged her in a toilet. As long as she's not committing a crime, her gender is no one else's business.

I don't believe in "gender" as distinct from sex, and in a single sex space, males being there is absolutely my business.