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:

Gender ideologists since the fall of no debate

Makes sense.

Women must not exclude any men. Not one of them.

Any man, whatever his background, must be provided with women to validate his sense of, well, superiority really, if we're honest.

Does it ever occur to, Fox, that this would be a greenlight to every single predator in the country? Every paedophile?

Or do you just think it's worth it so, according to you, a handful of men can feel validated by being provided with women, (whether they consent or not)?

No, there aren't any limits.

The only women allowed to speak are the ones they can't hear.

I apologise for misreading that post.

Most major religious faiths have developed over time; Judaism and Christianity certainly have. Not in a linear way, and there are subgroups of both which fit your description fairly closely, but Christianity does not treat women in the same way as the early parts of the Bible. I fully understand that many women find a few New Testament passages problematic, but there differing understandings of those passages, and there are other parts of, for example, Paul’s writings which put forward a different perspective.

Some of the religious rules, even the most primitive of them, were absolutely about protecting women - for example, rules on the treatment of widows, who were very vulnerable indeed in prehistoric or early historic societies. The rules were imperfect (as our legal system is imperfect, though arguably better, or at least more sophisticated) but they provided some measure of protection for vulnerable people. At the same time, history, including religious history, has a long thread running through it of developing understanding of power dynamics, and the domination of society by men has been challenged. It is a shame that we now are having to challenge men who think that they can push their way into the few spaces reserved for women.

This. Beautifully done.

This debate is bad for my blood pressure

It's bad for mine too. Nevertheless, I persist.

Are you suggesting transwomen are ‘mixed sex’? That’s a new one.

Yes. This is clear.

This is the same script we see over and over again.

It is based purely on emotional manipulation. That women should allow a sub group of male people into single sex spaces based on that male person's demand. There is no logic to it except for validation of that male person's feelings.

Because there are also no statistics or evidence that show that male person is in any increased danger than any other vulnerable male person that continue to use the male single sex spaces.

And yet, some posters believe the increase in risk to female people is worth the inclusion of these male people.

I can imagine that there would have been no answer to the question of 'how many more female people are acceptable to be harmed to include these male people?' Considering we now have so many cases of documented harm to female people just in the UK alone, anyone who cannot answer zero is showing that they really do prioritise male people over female people.

Some are. Like Suzy Eddie Izzard.

No, Eddie Izzard definitely has just the one sex.

If harm is measured not on the basis of being the victim of an actual abusive act, but on the basis of feelings, how much harm are you prepared to allow to happen to trans people? (Trans men too, who also exist.)

It's a shame some women's feminism has become so twisted that they are now defending the Abrahamic religions as good old common sense!

If harm is measured not on the basis of being the victim of an actual abusive act, but on the basis of feeling

Why were you "mortified" that you used the "wrong pronouns" when you didn't realise your male friend identified as a woman, if feelings don't matter? Why would it be important?

how much harm are you prepared to allow to happen to trans people?

There are more women than male trans people, so in a utilitarian "happiness v harm" number calculation re whose feelings being ignored/offended causes most harm, they're not going to be top.

These "debates" always follow the same pattern. Increasing hyperbole when women refuse to capitulate to male demands. Claims to have experience in childcare, education, medicine, parenting, the law etc - while posts suggest the opposite. And ending throwing around the "you transphobes ' "anti trans" allegations.

Every. single. time.

Looks like you didn't understand that post?

I think that it is biologically impossible for Izzard to have changed sex or to be 'mixed sex'. Izzard is male and will always be a male person.

Readers note:

Saying that Izzard is a male person is not misgendering Izzard and it is not transphobic. If you see someone framing correctly sexing a person when it is important to do so, eg. the discussion of the sexed based rights of all female people, this is emotional manipulation.

Extreme trans rights activists** use this tactic very often to attempt to shame others, or to vilify the person who correctly sexes someone when it is important to do so. They do this because they have nothing else because theirs is a philosophical belief and there is no science or evidence that supports a gender identity being anything but a belief.

** Extreme trans rights activists are those who demand that society prioritises gender over sex when the sex of a person matters. Most of the time, sex does not matter. However, an extremist will tell you sex never matters when the UK law recognises that it does matter.

Yes. Feelings matter. But feelings based on prejudice should not be privileged above those based on the experience of being ostracised and excluded.

Yes, but if we organised society purely on that basis, the results would be horrific.

Bad laws must be challenged and ultimately rewritten.

Believing in biological reality isn't prejudice. My feeling of being ignored, bullied and dismissed by misogynists is every bit as valid as their disappointment that not everyone will play along with them.

Agreed.

The GRA being one of them.

What a load of nonsense that law is.

Bad laws must be challenged and ultimately rewritten.

Yes, like the GRA. It needs to be repealed, not rewritten.

Yes, but if we organised society purely on that basis, the results would be horrific.

Then why did you ask a question on that basis?