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:

I think that politically progressive people, who are more likely to take an active interest in trans rights, are also more likely to work in public sector jobs. The fact that we may not agree with the takes on here does not invalidate our experiences.

Flounces are never permanent on FWR. Another truism @MrsOvertonsWindow

Believing that it is grounds to discriminate in terms of service provision is prejudice.

No it is not. It's about sex. Sex is a protected characteristic.

So are you advocating for entirely mix sexed provisions then?

OK. But my personal experience is of prejudice against me as an old person, who is expected by much younger people to upend my worldview, not because they have explained their worldview to me (they haven’t), but because they think their worldview is self-evidently correct, so mine must be bigoted.

I have tried to explain how I see sex and gender, including providing the definitions of relevant words and terms. They can’t be bothered to explain how they see sex and gender, and have not provided definitions so that I have a chance of understanding. And yet I am the one who is “bigoted” and am now ostracised and excluded. Maybe you could help, by explaining to me what is meant by “gender identity”, and “man”, and “woman”, and how it is that gender sometimes means sex and sometimes doesn’t?

That is simply not going to happen.

It's supremely callous and arrogant behaviour @RapidOnsetGenderCritic

We all have to move with the times.

Oh my god no one is this ill informed about the nature of these surgeries, are they?

https://statsforgender.org/medical-transition/

Incontinence, loss of sexual function, loss of fertility, permanent pain, repeated 'revisions', the reality of SRS is absolutely barbaric. These surgeries absolutely do leave people with permanent disabilities. And unlike leg amputations, are done for no medical reasons, on functioning tissue. How can you not know what you're defending?

@ForCoralFox

You can tell me it's not worth it, I'll still keep campaigning towards it however long it takes, even just to shift the Overton window more towards women's rights rather than the whims of males who appropriate our lived experience. I'm not much interested in your view on this or anything else, really.

You will notice that I consistently use the words 'female people'. I am fully aware of female trans people. They also need sex based rights to be prioritised over gender at times. I take it that you figured this was some kind of 'gotcha'. But no. Female trans people need protections that are in the sex based rights for female people too. Even if they don't believe they do.

Again, you have built a straw man. No one is wishing harm onto trans people. I would suggest that this is an entrenched prejudice that you hold. It has certainly become apparent on this thread.

To answer your question, I am keen that no female person is harmed by ideological thinking. I am keen that no female person is subject to additional harm by the inclusion of male people in female single sex spaces. There are solutions. However, you have not seemed interested in that discussion. You have been on this thread in full denial mode. You have denied that there is an issue. You don't understand discrimination and you don't seem to understand equality or equity.

Do I believe that feminists are responsible for protecting male trans people? No. I don't. Do I wish for them to be harmed? No, I don't.

I believe that trans women who have not been convicted of sexual offences should be in women's prisons, and that those who have been convicted of sexual offences should probably be in some kind of third space. But that's the only time I believe third spaces are necessary. Trans women who have not committed sexual offences should not be treated as potential predators.

Also, trans women who are violent sexual offenders could constitute a risk in men's prisons too. It's not those are places free from sexual assault.

The EA is build to have legitimate discrimination based on the sex of a person.

You framing this as 'prejudice' does not make it legitimately a prejudice. It just makes it your opinion that someone who disagrees with you (as per the law regarding legitimate discrimination) is prejudiced.

Also, trans women who are violent sexual offenders could constitute a risk in men's prisons too. It's not those are places free from sexual assault.

Men who are a risk to other men can be dealt with using existing procedures. Men are much more likely than women to be a risk to other men or women alike.

Blimey, you really are ageist. And you think that we are on a one way path to more and more enlightenment? Sometimes societies head in very unhelpful directions, and then it is those who do not just “move with the times” who help to correct the missteps. The genderist movement has never been shown to be based on reality, rather it is based on the idea that someone who is uncomfortable with their “gender” (meaning societal expectations of them) should switch their sex (an impossibility) to fit in better! This is regression, not progression. I learned in the ‘70s and ‘80s that I did not have to behave in a stereotypically masculine way.

What is the difference between a trans woman and a man?

It's not ageist to believe in progress. And I'm not exactly young myself.

If you cannot provide the evidence that a male at any point of their transition has a lower level of risk in committing a sex offence, you cannot logically make that argument.

Do you not understand that logic of that question at all?

If you cannot provide evidence to the contrary, all male people should be treated equally. Therefore, where there is a single sex provision, ALL male people are to be excluded.

The logic is also based on history. Historically, sub groups of male people were excluded from the risk model needed for robust safeguarding. That allowed a loop hold which caused others harm. Now, no sub groups of male people should be treated differently for these decisions.

Therefore, unless it is a completely mixed sex prison, no male person should be included in the female prison estate.

Progress isn't irreversible. Women's rights were progressive. Sex stereotype based zealotry is not.

Blimey you want to talk to my teenage son and his friends. They all think that gender is a load of navel gazing bollocks.

They're sick to the teeth of it being rammed down their throats in PSHE or whatever it's called nowadays.

There is a trans boy (teenage female) using the boys toilets in college, it makes them so uncomfortable to have a female walk past them using the urinal.

I don't think any of them think what you believe in is 'progress'.

So let's say we have two males who have been convicted of animal cruelty each for torturing and killing a cat, and have both received custodial sentences. One of these males calls himself a man, the other male calls himself a woman. That's the only significant difference between them.

You want the latter male to be incarcerated in a women's prison, but not the former male. Why? Justify this please. Also imagine you are having to explain this view of yours to the women in the prison you want to send one of these males to. How do you think they might feel about it?

'Also, trans women who are violent sexual offenders could constitute a risk in men's prisons too. It's not those are places free from sexual assault.'

Any male prisoner that is categorised as at risk of harm should be protected as all other vulnerable male prisoners.

Have to agree with you there - the GRR bill being rejected because it was poor legislation and 'Stonewall law' being challenged has been an encouraging step forward.

Oh God I came here to read about Helen Joyce, not to re read the same tired old logic-less TRA arguments again. It's so tedious. I wish some of these people would just read what has already been discussed multiple times on this board, not come steaming in with the same tatty old straw men and think they have a gotcha.

Well done to those who can still be bothered to make the same well reasoned arguments in response, stirling work.