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:

OK, I'll admit that wasn't put very well.

I shouldn't have mentioned gay people at all, as being gay is clearly defined and is a completely different issue. I thought it might make my point clearer as you were so keen to make a comparison, but it really doesn't work and it was a mistake on my part to mention it.

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.

First of all, I have never said, nor suggested that being gay is a result of fetishism or social contagion.

It is however true that transgenderism is sometimes a result of fetishism in the case of males, particularly late transitioning, heterosexual males like Debbie Hayton who has admitted this.

It is also clear that teenage girls often transition as a result of social contagion. You might like to consider for a moment that all the women posting here were once teenage girls ourselves. We have lived experience of either participating in a similar contagion ourselves in our youth or watching our peers be swept along by them. As a male you are a step removed from this, so you are less likely to recognise the signs of a phenomenon like this which affects girls.

If your argument is that it is normal for teenage girls to vastly outnumber teenage boys in being trans identified, shouldn't middle-aged women also vastly outnumber middle-aged men in trans identification? Where are all the late transitioning women who didn't have the opportunity to transition when young?

But having dismissed all my suggestions of what might make someone trans, you still haven't said what you think makes someone think they are the opposite sex, or to desire so strongly to be the opposite sex. What do you think is the cause of someone believing so strongly in something which is untrue or having such a strong desire to be something they are not and can never be?

I would like to know how it's misogynistic to campaign for men to have access to women's facilities? I understand that some women don't like it, but how is it actually misogynistic? FIFY

Isn't it more misogynistic to define women by their reproductive capabilities, as above?

The words 'woman' and 'man' apply to the two fixed, binary and immutable types that humans come in. All humans are either those whose development has centred around the production of small gametes or those whose development has centred around the production of large gametes. That is not defining women by their reproductive capabilities, it is merely describing the category of humans we call women.

Honestly, they're not even trying today.

It is an actual right under the EqA, and you are working to remove that right, just as trans rights activists suspected. The denial that you have always been about removing transgender rights is laid bare. It would be nice if gender critical people just admitted that.

It is not an actual right under the EA.

You seem to have missed my question upthread, I don't mind asking again.

What is a transwoman?

When I take my disabled niece swimming I expect the women's changing rooms to be for women. When the Muslim women in my community sign up to the "women and girls only session" at the pool they expect/need that to be single sex. When I look up menopause info on my workplace website I expect clear language related to women's healthcare, not to be described as a "person who experiences menopause" and the studious avoidance of the word "woman" throughout the text.

Just a few years ago, none of the above scenarios existed. So why has this tiny "marginalised" fraction of the population gained such power, and who benefits from it?

It is not centering the male person, it is centering the whole person over their biology, which is the opposite of misogyny. The purpose of feminism is to bring an end to people being defined by their sex, not to entrench divisions further.

We've gone to far with the whole 'lived experience" as a criteria for just about everything. It's important, but not the only factor.

What absolute wank.

The statutory guidance was produced by EHRC. A captured organisation until fairly recently and one in which TRA staff mounted an abusive bullying campaign against the Chair as she was perceived as too sympathetic to gender critical feminists.

Single sex spaces rely on exactly the same exceptions being used for all males, including so called "trans women".

Yes, but those categories need not define us.

The purpose of feminism is to bring an end to people being defined by their sex, not to entrench divisions further.

No it isn't. The purpose of feminism is to ensure that women can participate equally in society. Not to deny their common experiences as members of a biological sex class.

But they do define us in some ways @ForCoralFox

DadJoke: by your interpretation Eddie Izzard can use women's changing rooms on certain days, but is excluded on others. Could you explain precisely what makes it ok for Eddie on some days, but not others?

We don't have clear evidence as to the proportion of women opposed. But is any policy unpopular with some women inherently misogynistic?

We have as good enough evidence as people opposed to many policies. Polling tends to find that people of both sexes prefer single sex spaces.

OK, he's just annoyingly tedious without any skin in the game, then, How very teenage.

You're missing the point. Saying 'woman=adult human female' isn't defining a woman by her sex, it is merely describing which sex she belongs to. Because sometimes, that matters. You can have any type of interests and personality you like and be a woman. Ditto with men.

If you think 'we've gone too far with the with the whole 'lived experience" as a criteria for just about everything', what do you think transness is? It's wholly about an individuals lived experience, there's no evidence to any of it, just subjective feelings. Why should a man's subjective feeling that he is something he can never be, just his own imagined version of what being that would be like, trump provable reality?

Gender identity ideology is inherently misogynistic in and of itself, based as it is on regressive sex stereotypes.

For example (to be clear I'm not denying that some experiences are unique to biological females. What I'm asking is how those experiences define us in any way that is meaningful, and requires society to be organised around those differences.)

"... which match their gender identity ..."
As has often been pointed out, 'gender identity' is not mentioned in the UK Equality Act. So this isn't a statutory right, is it?

In fact, and further, there is no such thing as gender identity, as spelled out, for example, in some detail long ago on this very discussion board: no such thing as gender identity.

Looking back, you had no answer to the challenge posed on that thread ... as the OP's first quote had it,
'If there is some kind of “gender identity” that is universal in humans, and which causes dysphoria when mismatched with sex, it remains elusive. No one has yet found a way of detecting its presence, and verifying that it is causally responsible for dysphoria.'
--You couldn't find a way of detecting its presence back then, @DadJoke. Have you since found one? If so, what is it?

If there is no way of detecting it, it surely can't be a basis for a human right, can it? This applies a fortiori, of course, if - as indeed is the case - there just is no such thing as it.

Another challenge: where in UK statute law does the phrase 'gender identity' appear?

Because women are discriminated against, harassed, disadvantaged and sexually assaulted on the grounds of their SEX. Hope that's clear.

Whether or not someone's inner personal "identity" is also grounds for discrimination is quite another issue.

I've only known a few trans people but I wouldn't say that they conformed to gender stereotypes in the slightest.

I've only known a few trans people but I wouldn't say that they conformed to gender stereotypes in the slightest.

The whole ideology is based on sex stereotypes what else do you think there is?

Half the population can potentially get pregnant. The other half does the impregnating. That's why we keep them separate in certain specific situations. Our illiterate peasant ancestors knew this. Why do educated adults affect to find it startling news?