JK Rowling laying it out clearly

[CrossPurposes]

https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1776616861888655835

"I believe a woman is a human being who belongs to the sex class that produces large gametes. It’s irrelevant whether or not her gametes have ever been fertilised, whether or not she’s carried a baby to term, irrelevant if she was born with a rare difference of sexual development that makes neither of the above possible, or if she’s aged beyond being able to produce viable eggs. She is a woman and just as much a woman as the others."
Etc

From the Suzanne Moore article: “She says a safe space for women is one where they can profess a belief in biology.” This means there as still too few space spaces in the world. I cannot, for example, safely profess a belief in biology at work without the risk of being pulled in for a disciplinary process.

as a childless woman I don’t know why TRA think weaponising my infertility and that of women like me and implying that ppl think women who haven’t had children are like men is some kind of vote winning gotcha 🤪

A tw and a woman go to the doctor and explain they're having trouble getting pregnant. Obviously the doctor will treat each exactly the same 🙄

I'm so sorry eyeballs

Sorry for the derail, but I hoard words the way dinosaurs hoard rights, and 'gamete' was new to me. Thank you for the explanation,On.., I realise it's just a collective term for things I did know about.
I was just settling down to feeling secure my increased wordhoard when I came across "Ova and sperm are haploid cells..". 'Haploid'??
Well as Montaigne pointed out, ignorance is only ignorance if you're not aware that there are things you are ignorant of☺

Haploid means each sex cell contains only a single set of 23 chromosomes so that when they fuse together the new entity created has the full 23 pairs. From that point on, every cell in the new individual's body will have 23 pairs of chromosomes, except their own sex cells - which a female embryo will have from quite early in her time in the womb (ova) but a male embryo won't have, as males don't start making sex cells until puberty.

We've evolved to have two sets so that even if there's damage to chromosomes or individual genes on the chromosomes, there's a back up that can be used instead. I think it's a lot more complicated than that in practice, but this is what I hazily remember from O level Biology.

JKR's response to me on this means that after 7 years of campaigning my most popular tweet is a lame joke about beetroot

I vaguely remember someone trying to describe polyploidy to me once. All I took away was a scrabble word I've never had a chance to use.

this is what I hazily remember from O level Biology.
Flipping heck, Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g, you've just explained 'haploid' in some detail based on O level biology, and unless you're actually currently studying for O level biology, that's an impressive feat of memory ☺
Thank you.
Being a techie, I am familiar with 'haptic' and thought haploid would be related. They're not, one is from the Greek for single, the other for touch.
Now is there a philologist specialising in ancient Greek out there that can tie both words to a 'hap-' root?
Only kidding (though knowing MNers,there probably is!) and I'll stop derailing now.
None of this is intended to detract from the main theme, ie the wonderfulness of JKR. She'd probably forgive this derail because it's about words☺

😂🙈 As if they haven’t already embarrassed themselves enough. When in deep dig deeper, we might find the other side 😂

The lengths some men will go to (try) to shut up *that woman.

Speaking to her Bishop??? (Who apparently had no problem sharing confidential information regarding her Church attendance rather than telling said man this was not an appropriate conversation).

x.com/mollscroll/status/1776698089685782529?s=46

What a lovely piece of writing from Suzanne

Biologically, women are babymaking machines. We aren't just babymaking machines though, we are more than just babymaking machines.

It's absolutely shit to infertile women and it's pretty shit for the intentionally childfree too.

The commonality between childfree and infertile women is that we both spend our lives battling our reproductive anatomy: you to try to get it to work as it should, and me to stop it from working as it should. Men don't face this at all and they don't and can't understand it.

Men don't face this at all and they don't and can't understand it.

As illustrated beautifully by this thread: www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/4807134-found-a-pregnancy-test

The problem with "No Debate" was that the other side never had the need to put together a coherent argument.

There are a few arguments you could use to claim that transwomen should be treated as female (not saying there are GOOD arguments) but all of them would be rejected by some trans people as being "trans-med", transphobic, or something else. So they're now in a terrible muddle trying to use bits and bobs of different arguments that aren't even vaguely coherent, let alone convincing.

Thought they said 'No Debate' BECAUSE there is no coherent argument.

I'd be surprised if her Bishop even knows how often she goes to church. Mine certainly wouldn't. Mind you, I'm a touch less famous so my Bishop probably doesn't know who I am.

I do think there are coherent arguments.

"Transpeople are people whose specific medical condition requires them to be treated as if they were of the opposite sex and society should accommodate that just as it accommodates the needs of diabetics" is a coherent argument - again, I didn't say it was a GOOD one.

But of course many (most) trans people don't accept it is a medical condition so it's not one Stonewall et al can put forward. And it's the same with any other potentially coherent argument you might put forward.

Again they willfully miss the flip side. The fact that men also have a biological function. Having it doesn't mean you have to use it, or that you only magically spark in to life when you use it or that functions correctly. It just means that the categories of male and female exist to enable reproduction and that those differences are immutable.

Unfortunately, there’s one word wrong with her quote - ‘ believe’. It’s not a belief, it’s a fact. Should say, ‘’I Know’.

Apart from that, marvelous!

Knowledge isn't a protected characteristic.

Belief is.

Strange world.

They said 'No Debate' because the chaps in Malaga airport are a great argument for the opposition position.

Thanks @VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia for the XX/XY chimera explanation. It's like the (vanishingly rare) exception that proves the rule I think.

Also thanks to posters who recognised the film I referred to as Predestination. I thought it must have been some pish we watched on the Sci-fi channel but seems to have been a bigger release than that. I just looked it up on IMDB to remind myself just how bonkers it is and it gets 7.4 out of ten with rave reviews. That's even more bonkers.

Edited to correct typo.

JKR - is you are on here, know that you are loved a million times over for continuing to stand up and be counted.