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:

"Irritating and repetitive though it is, these people who come on repeating you're all wrong, and men should be allowed to do what they want, are quite a useful demonstration of what trans ideology is."

Tell you what's useful. It's seeing the way transphobes don't acknowledge 'transness' AT ALL when engaging in arguments about women's spaces. It's a great rhetorical strategy because it allows you to frame issues around the rights of a very tiny and very marginalised group of people as being an oppressive campaign by men against women. Of course it's not.

@izimbra do you deny that transwomen, even with a GRC, remain male sexed?

lol, we've got TRAs on here who can't even define what trans IS. Much less transNESS! What is that? I can't even imagine 😁

And It's not a 'rhetorical strategy', when any bloke can be transgender. It's a fact.

Tell you what's useful. It's seeing the way transphobes don't acknowledge 'transness' AT ALL when engaging in arguments about women's spaces.

I don't actually regard "transness" as in any way meaningful when it comes to the sex of people. It's not a rhetorical strategy I just regard your ideology in much the same way I regard Scientology.

Alright so, for example, a lesbian speed dating event held in the function room of a pub, that was designated by the organisers as being strictly female-only, would be perfectly acceptable in your view? As it's on private property.

I worked with at risk children a long time ago now, but it was primary aged children and I, as a female, assisted children of both sexes/genders to wash and use the toilet, as did male team members. No one, of either gender, was allowed to be alone in a room with a child with the door shut. Doors ajar, for everyone, at all times. This was in local authority integrated services.

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/paedophile-secretly-filmed-women-public-28737673

Men's prison or women's prison for Mawson who identified as female?

"A religion comes to many of its conclusions by observing the reality of the world around, including the very obvious distinction between male and female, and it tends to come up with legal and ceremonial frameworks intended to regulate society."

All the main religious faiths are profoundly misogynistic in their power structures and their ideology around gender. Keeping women in separate spaces has always been about controlling women's fertility, sexuality and 'purity', which is a fundamental measure of their human worth, or lack of it in these traditions. It's never been about protecting women. If it had been rape in marriage wouldn't have been more or less sanctioned for a millennia. There's something very ironic about radical feminism wanting to mimic the sexual segregation that has always been a feature of religious cultures who use it to control women.

And then this comes back to the discussion about discrimination. This time legitimate and illegitimate. And safeguarding.

While you, personally, deny it, safeguarding uses the statistics and behaviours of the past to predict risk for future actions. Therefore, male people, who commit 98% of all sex crime in the UK (and this is pretty consistent across the world by the way) have been legitimately excluded from female single sex places. The EA2010 even discusses this exclusion as being legitimate.

Therefore, in the establishment of a hierarchy of needs, the needs of female people have been legally recognised by law to have priority so that exceptions to the EA2010 can apply. In basic terms, a set of occasions when the sex of a person can be used to discriminate against them has been recognised. ie. a set of occasions when a person of a particular sex can be subject legal and legitimate negative sex discrimination. They can be excluded.

This is not based on any thing but SEX.

Therefore, yes, People can be denied access to anything based on their SEX legally and legimately. And at those times 'gender' do not, and should not, be given equal priority. It doesn't mean that those people where gender is important are left to be harmed, but it means that equitable arrangements need to be made to ensure that female people's needs are met without dilution.

Trans women should not be allowed to be excluded from the event. No-one is obliged to go on a date with or sleep with them if they don't wish to. I wouldn't sleep with a trans man who had no penis, to be brutally honest. Doesn't mean I'd object to his presence at a speed dating event I went to. I'd chat politely for a few minutes and move on.

What about sex segregation in prisons? That has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with safeguarding women from predatory males. Nineteenth century prisons reformer Elizabeth Fry extensively documented this abuse of women in mixed-sex prisons.

Are we to ignore this now because some men say that they are women?

There's something very ironic about radical feminism wanting to mimic the sexual segregation that has always been a feature of religious cultures who use it to control women.

So you believe all spaces should be fully mixed sex?

This! A million times this! That's why gender critical ideology is not feminism.

I know the thread has probably moved on and I haven't read the last few pages, but .....

I just don't understand how @ForCoralFox's friend got that piece of paper.

How can you have gender dysphoria diagnosed by medics if you present as male and are a man?

The whole thing is a shambles.

The vast majority of women in prison shouldn't be there at all. Why not focus on that?

Trans women should not be allowed to be excluded from the event.

It's not about them in any way. Should other males be allowed to attend too, and should lesbians have to indulge them too by "chatting politely"?

In your view, should the organisers be allowed to exclude any males at all from the event then? As the female lesbian attendees can of course just politely chat to whichever men might turn up and then move on.

oh... so you are not in that position now? Do you think that today that a male person could enter a toilet or shower space alone with a female child?

Why not address my point instead of deflecting?

She presents as female. As a butch female, which is no less of a legitimate way to present as female.

The vast majority of women in prison shouldn't be there at all. Why not focus on that?

It's possible to campaign for most women to be kept out of prison and also for the ones who are going to be there to be treated with dignity and kept safer than in a mixed sex space. Why not stop telling women what to focus on, you do you.

Because we are focused, as feminists, on protecting the female people who ARE there. It doesn't stop us campaigning to have less female people in prison. But why on earth should any feminist be asked why they are not focused on keeping male people out of prison in general?

Blimey.

She presents as female. As a butch female, which is no less of a legitimate way to present as female

So much so that on first meeting, by your own admission, even you didn't know you were supposed to think your friend was a "woman".

@izimbra - so if your child said they were an apotemnophile, you'd be ok with them wanting to have a leg amputated and support them all the way? You wouldn't consider therapy to address this need if a 17year old expressed it? But if they want to have their penis amputated that's a different issue?

I'd assume anyone who wanted major body modification should undergo expert counselling first, and possible prolonged therapy.

But a bit of a difference between losing a leg and having your genitalia modified, no? One would leave you permanently disabled. The other tends not to.

Mind you - feel the same way about gastric band surgery, teeth implants or a full body lift. Any major elective surgery can have a lifelong impact, sometimes terrible.

I will just repeat these questions because we seem to be on a deflection cycle here. It is always good for readers to see what questions are not answered.

Safeguarding is based on assessing the risk associated with the sex of the person in question. There is a valid reason for this. It is based on the risk of male people committing sexual offences.

Because of the actions of some male people, ALL male people should be treated at the same level of risk for robust safeguarding.

Can you please link us to the evidence where a male at any stage of transition has less risk of committing a sexual offence than any other male person in the UK?

Then, can you please link us to the evidence where a male at any stage of transition has less or the same risk of committing a sexual offence as any female person in the UK?

If you cannot, why can't you?