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:

What percentage don't have mental problems or aren't fetishes or aren't autistic?

Cos this is fairly important given the WPATH leaks and the Cass Review. And other stats.

Could you explain your first paragraph for those of us without a PhD in gender studies? Thanks!

It seems I misunderstood your post.

I have put forward a list of possible root causes of people adopting a transgender identity. I thought you were agreeing about some of them, but not others.

I note that the only one you didn’t comment on was the "literally born in the wrong body" one, but you seem to have rejected all my other suggestions of a possible root cause of the adoption of a transgender identity (trauma, sexual abuse, poor mental health or internalised homophobia, social contagion, fetishism).

So what do you think is the root cause of people identifying as transgender? For comparison, since you like to compare it to being gay, the root cause of people being gay is being sexually attracted to people of the same sex. Can you give a similar description for the root cause of identifying as transgender? Is it being born in the wrong body, or something else? If something else, what exactly?

I actually sighed when i read this.

If Women's rights and transgender rights weren't in conflict, we wouldn't have so many violent TRAs with signs about decapitating terfs, invading women's spaces and not getting out etc etc. Of COURSE they are in conflict. Women's rights are human rights. Transgender people are human and have rights. But their rights should not be allowed to trump women's rights. For many and various reasons.

And while i am here: the same applies to men and transgender men. Who are so often ignored in this by the TRAs.

Could you explain your first paragraph for those of us without a PhD in gender studies? Thanks!

No PhD in gender studies necessary. Joyce, Sidelsky, and Havel have nothing to do with the area (neither do I). I can't see how I can assist you as you think otherwise.

I'll give you the most prominent example of existing rights transgender people have which you want to remove.

Currently, transgender people have the right to use facilties which match their gender identity, subject to exceptions in the EqA. They have the right to change their documentation to match their gender identity. You might not like those existing rights, and you might well have a justification to take them away, but they are rights transgender people have, and you want to remove them.

You seem to have confused sex and gender there. Easily done, some people do use the words interchangeably, though they mean different things. It's almost as if some people don't want to be clear about what they mean.

“Currently, transgender people have the right to use facilties which match their gender identity, subject to exceptions in the EqA.”

Ok. So they have ‘rights’ but only those not subject to the exceptions?

Please be very clear here, what are feminists campaigning for that are NOT those exceptions?

You are, again, conflating women with gender critical people. Especially in the LGBT community, the majority of trans allies are women. Trans rights are in conflict with gender critical beliefs, not women in general.

Many gender critical people and groups have problems with LGBT rights in general. The people who are introducing bathroom laws and clamping down on abortion in the States are not left-wing feminists. The Tories who oppose trans rights are not left-wing feminists. The only thing left-wing gender critical feminists have in common with these groups is attacking trans rights, and that seems to trump every other feminist goal.

Removing trans women from bathrooms and changing rooms which match their gender identity, for example.

And not "feminists" per se, but gender critical people.

To be absolutely clear, trans women have the right to be in single-sex spaces for women, and trans men have the right to be in single sex spaces for men, subject to the limited exceptions in the EqA. And yes "sex" in the EqA does not equate in all cases to sex assigned at birth, or the gender reassignment definition would be meaningless.

And these are exceptions under the Act.

So, again. What 'rights' that are not exceptions under the Act that you are referring to.

I've tended to assume DadJoke was an evangelical transman.

No, he's stated before that he's just an ordinary middle aged man, not a person with first hand experience either of being a woman or being "trans".

"the root cause of people being gay is being sexually attracted to people of the same sex."

This doesn't make the remotest bit of sense. People aren't gay because they are gay. There is a lot of research in the area as to the "root cause" of being gay, which I am sure you can access yourself. It's a very complex issue.

I've given you my definition, and stated that being gay or being transgender is not a result of fetishism, social contagion, or any of the other degrading and unevidenced nonsense you've projected.

Demands by men claiming to be women, to access women's single sex spaces where women undress etc conflicts with women's rights to privacy, dignity and safety from unknown males.
Demands by trans activists for uncritical access to children in schools in order to sell the notion that children's bodies can be flawed and be fixed with a sex change, conflicts with children's rights to be safeguarded from age inappropriate beliefs.

That's just the start in terms of conflicts between some trans people's demands and the rights of others to privacy and safeguarding.

Invented by you in order to diminish the actual requirements under the EA2010.

YY. Tiresome pretendy legalese. He even made his own acronym for it on some threads: PAL.

Currently, transgender people have the right to use facilties which match their gender identity, subject to exceptions in the EqA.

They don't have those rights. The exceptions for male people include all males. They aren't "trans" based.

To be absolutely clear, trans women have the right to be in single-sex spaces for women, and trans men have the right to be in single sex spaces for men, subject to the limited exceptions in the EqA.

Again the "limited exceptions" are the ones that apply to all men, including "trans women". To be absolutely clear.

'Sex assigned at birth'

Are we back to the whole sorting hat nonsense?

Men should not be entering a female only space, and they never should have been encouraged to believe it was ok.

I also believe that we are in a situation where those 'exceptions' may need to be tested in court. What is happening is one lobby group has decided to misinform corporations and organisations as to the meaning of the EA thus creating a misunderstanding as to what can and cannot be considered an exception.

Kind of hard to argue that a right to a single sex space that was clearly understood, but then was socially changed and misrepresented as being legally changed, and now women are demanding to have those provisions put back to where they were is women 'removing' a right rather than correcting a misrepresentation in the first place.

But I guess if you are misogynistic in your thought process on this topic, some posters will continue to double down that some male people had a 'right' to access single sex spaces.

Exactly @Helleofabore

I've literally just stated them. An important note is that providers CAN but DO NOT HAVE to exclude transgender people. The reasons must be exceptional.

Almost every single supermarket, public body and company does not exclude transgender people from toilets which match their gender identity. You want them to do so.

As the statutory guidance says:

If a service provider provides single- or separate sex services for women
and men, or provides services differently to women and men, they should
treat transsexual people according to the gender role in which they present.
However, the Act does permit the service provider to provide a different
service or exclude a person from the service who is proposing to undergo, is
undergoing or who has undergone gender reassignment. This will only be
lawful where the exclusion is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate end.

"any exception to the prohibition of discrimination must be applied as restrictively as possible and the denial of a service to a transsexual person should only occur in exceptional circumstances. A service provider can have a policy on provision of the service to transsexual users but should apply this policy on a case-by-case basis in order to determine whether the exclusion of a transsexual person is proportionate in the individual circumstances.

How can you know that 'the majority of trans allies are women' if you believe anyone who says they're a woman is a woman? How many of those woman trans allies are women and how many identify as women?

The rest of your post is just lazy mud throwing - implying that women who don't agree to be in single sex spaces with males must be homophobic, anti abortion and right wing has been done to death, you've no receipts just smears.

Almost every single supermarket, public body and company does not exclude transgender people from toilets which match their gender identity. You want them to do so.

I want them to be clear that their toilets are mixed sex.