Asked my Lib Dem candidate what a woman is

[Botheredbabybrain]

Not sure who to vote for. Lib Dem man posted some sensible stuff about an issue on the local fb group then tried to request me as a friend, I thought I’d gauge his response on this issue. Would be funny if it weren’t so fucking tragic.

I've never understood the cognitive dissonance whereby somebody will wholeheartedly accept one of these but will angrily reject the other.

It reminds me of the Victoria Derbyshire interview with Emile Ratelband and Jane Fae.

Surely, whatever brand of 'logic' you subscribe to, the only rational conclusion that you could reach is that either both of these can be true or that neither of them can be.

The world in which we live is one where anyone is free to decide what or who they are. So you can decide you are another race, an animal, you need to live in a treehouse because you’re a monkey. It’s utterly ridiculous. There is no such thing an objective reality anymore. I feel really sorry for kids growing up these days. It really is the Emperor’s New Clothes.

Unless you decide that what you are is an adult human of the female biological sex who does not share any kind of gender identity with people like India Willoughby.

You're not even allowed a word for that, much less any spaces or sports on the basis of it.

'Many people are born in the wrong body'

What a blonker. Tell him you are voting Tory, but not to worry as he can identify as being someone you have voted for.

Stupid fucker.

I'm certainly no fan of the Lib Dems but just to point out that Aimee Challenor joined the Lib Dems after leaving the Greens, when Daddy Dearest had already been sent to prison for his horrific crime. It was the Green Party which allowed AC to make David Challenor election agent, for AC's campaign to be deputy leader.

You'd be getting paid more?

HA!

I have also wondered about this as its the closest thing to a convincing argument for trans there is but;
is it just brains that can be 'out of sinc'? I mean can you have an arm or leg or hand that is 'wrong' also?
brains are very plastic, their internal make up and functioning being highly changeable depending on life circumstances and environment, given this how can anyone determine what is natal structure, if anything, and what is subject to environment
given there is no hard evidence male and female brains are significantly different, what does it mean to say you have a female brain?

The real decider for me is behavior, TW exhibit EXTREAMLY male behavior. If they really did have female brains wouldn't their behavior be less aggressive and self serving?

I mean, by this logic Isla Bryson's brain is far more male than any "cis man" who has never raped anyone, and given that most men have never raped anyone this would put Isla Bryson towards the "far male" end of the spectrum of males.

And yet men who haven't committed rape are still not allowed in women's toilets and changing rooms.

Tbf I do that all the time. 😂

No it isn't! This might possibly be true of people with gender dysphoria - the original trans cohort if you like. But we know, we KNOW that these days the vast majority of trans are made up of fetishistic middle aged men who know good and well that they aren't women and terrified teenage girls who are trying to opt out of womanhood because they've been told they can.

And kids who've been brainwashed to believe their preferred hobbies and dress sense means they must be the opposite sex.
None of this is "genuine belief" NONE OF IT.

I always think back to when one of my Nephews was little and dressed in a Thomas The Tank Engine play costume. I engaged with him about how great he looked dressed as Thomas, and he got frustrated and insisted that he was not dressed as Thomas; but he was Thomas.

Perfectly normal young children's imaginative play, but if, instead of a fictional train, he'd been as insistent that he was a girl (say if he'd been really into Dora The Explorer), and the wrong people had heard this and taken him away from his 'non-affirming' parents, I shudder to think how that could have ended up.

Of course, he could just as easily have pretended to be Dora, Elsa or whoever, instead of Thomas - all well and good - but the key word is pretend.

Safe to say, he is now an adult man and very sure that he is not a train or anything else other than an ordinary adult man. I hope he goes on to achieve whatever greatness and has all the opportunities in life that he desires - but whatever he does, it will be as an adult man.

Sex and gender used to just be synonyms. Now gender is supposed to be a personality trait or a feeling.

They were used as synonyms by non-feminists, but there's actually a long tradition of drawing a distinction between sex and gender in feminist theory, and I find it a very useful distinction to make.

Sex is biological, immutable, does not change across time and place. We, along with many other species of animals and plants, will always be either male or female.

Gender is all the expectations we place upon people because of their sex - masculinity and femininity. Gender is the system by which male supremacy is legitimised and enforced. Gender changes across time and place and is indeed fluid. This is how you can tell that it is bullshit and we can change it - hence gender critical feminism. All feminism is actually gender critical since what would be the point of feminism if you were going to agree that your culture's version of femininity was an essential part of being female.

Gender identity theory is a load of regressive rubbish that reifies gender.

I’m a bit bothered about the direction this discussion is going. I do not accept that it is more male, or more masculine, to rape someone. Rape is not normal male behaviour - though I do think that there are biological urges in men which need to be constrained by societal expectations.

My own morality, instilled in me through my upbringing and modified a little through much reading and discussion, is that monogamy is an ideal (in practice serial monogamy) and that commitment to the other partner helps to maintain respect for them. Sex should never be violent, always consensual, and preferably an act of love. Being non-violent, respecting boundaries, self controlled, and loving are characteristics of healthy masculinity. The opposites are evidence of unhealthy masculinity, not of being more masculine.

This is an EXCELLENT point.

If the wrong brain to body argument was true wouldn't transmen be the ones we see constantly asserting themselves into men's spaces and being vocal about it?

As men in general are much more pushy and known to exert their dominance.

But it's not. Transmen seem to be alot quieter and respectful of reality.

I wonder why that is 😏

Your reply is a bit #namalt though, isn't it?

In UK law, rape is an exclusively male crime. It can only be committed using a penis.

Even if we recognise that the definition of rape in UK law, which is not the same as the definition of rape in other countries, precludes women from committing it, we can still look at sexual offences as a whole and see that over 98% of them are committed by a male perpetrator and about 88% of the victims are female.

Rape is a male crime. It is a crime committed by males, most often against females.

Now, I don't believe that male is a spectrum. Sex is binary. There is just male, and female. Karen White, Tom Daley, Steve Redgrave, Daniel Radcliffe and Rishi Sunak are all equally male.

But if we look at gender, in the feminist theory sense, i.e. as a set of norms and behaviours typically associated with one sex or the other, we have to conclude that rape is a male/masculine gendered activity. Being male does not mean you commit rape. You might be a man and also the gentlest, most harmless person who ever lived. But committing rape does mean you are male.

Let's look at other, less controversial, "gendered activities".

Take watching the English Premier League on the TV, for example. Data suggests that around 70% of viewers are male. This means we can consider it to be a male/masculine gendered activity. But 30% of viewers are female, so it is not a wholly male/masculine activity, it just skews that way.

Or how about playing with dolls? We all know that little girls are encouraged to play with dolls much more than little boys are. This is almost certainly rooted in society's expectation that they will one day become mothers and so they should start practising as early as possible. So it is linked to their sex, but it is a gendered activity because it comes from their environment rather than their biology. A female toddler has no idea that she has a uterus or that she may one day have a baby but the boys at nursery school will not. We also know that some little boys like to play with dolls. So let's say for the sake of argument that 70% of children who like to play with dolls are female and 30% of children who like to play with dolls are male. It is a predominantly female/feminine gendered activity, but not wholly so.

Now, sex is not a spectrum but gender probably is.

So if we were to draw a diagram of gendered activities, we would probably need a separate diagram for males and females. Watching the Premier League would be a middle of the road activity for males, but skew towards the male/masculine end of the spectrum for females. Playing with dolls would be a middle of the road activity for females but skew towards the female/feminine end of the spectrum for males.

What about rape?

Well, women can't commit rape under UK law, and even if you use other countries' definitions which might include penetration with fingers or other objects, you will still find that nearly 100% of perpetrators are male.

So I would say that rape would be the "gendered activity" at the extreme end of the male/masculine end of the spectrum for males, and not on the spectrum at all for females. That would make people like Isla Bryson and Karen White quite literally as far away as it is possible to be from the female/feminine end of the spectrum for males. Wearing a dress and a wig doesn't cancel out the fact that you are a rapist and put you on the female/feminine end of the spectrum alongside effeminate little boys who like to play with dolls, and it most certainly does not make you move over into the female category.

It's a bit simplistic but here, I did a diagram to try and explain what I mean.

And yes, I absolutely acknowledge that these are in the main dated stereotypes which we should be seeking to destroy - which is why I am gender critical - but I still maintain that rape is always going to be a 99-100% male/masculine gendered activity, whereas just about any other activity may be performed by people of either sex even if there is a heavy skew in one direction.

And that puts the likes of Karen White and Isla Bryson at the very end of the male/masculine spectrum for biological males, because they are both biologically male and performing a gendered activity which most biological males do not perform, but only biological males can perform.

Well, even in countries that define rape differently men are responsible for all or most of the cases.

Louise Perry addresses this in her book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Case-Against-Sexual-Revolution/dp/1509549994

Her view is that rape is a natural (albeit unacceptable) behaviour that has evolved in a subset of men as a viable reproductive strategy. In support she points to the fact that the majority of rape victims are of optimum reproductive age and healthy and attractive. cf the conventional view that it's about hate/power.

Rapists are repeat offenders and I would like to see longer custodial sentences to keep women safe.

Forgot to say! Therefore not an extreme, but an alternative, form of masculinity.

@MissScarletInTheBallroom (I didn’t want to quote such a long reply!)

I agree with a lot of what you have said, and I respect your views. Where I differ (from my rather rapid reading and possibly inaccurate understanding of what you actually said) is that I do not actually see gender as a spectrum. It is a lot more complicated than that. I can be “feminine” in enjoying romcoms and at the same time “masculine” in enjoying football or cricket. I can talk over women and also cry when watching Bambi (these are just hypothetical examples, of course …).

I do not accept the idea that it is “feminine” to like sewing or "masculine" to enjoy metalwork. I also do not accept that it is “masculine” to rape. Rape is considered appalling by all men I have met who have expressed an opinion. It would not prove that a man was masculine if he committed rape; he could be effeminate and a rapist. But I do recognise that it is men who rape, and it is overwhelmingly men who sexually abuse and are violent to women.

You are right, it is far too simplistic a portrayal.

I guess what I was trying to achieve by listing those things along a spectrum is the idea that in theory it could be possible - if we had reliable enough data - to identify a certain activity and classify it as somewhere on the masculine to feminine spectrum depending on what percentage of the people who perform it are male and what percentage of the people who perform it are female.

Of course where the idea falls down is that, as you say, you might perform lots of different activities along the spectrum, such as being a keen weightlifter and also enjoying rom coms. If you try and average these things out you'd end up with a man who performs activities both at the far masculine and far feminine end of the spectrum coming out with the same overall score as a very middle of the road bloke who likes playing football, drinking beer and watching Top Gear, even though they might have absolutely nothing in common.

But what I do maintain is that if you rank these activities as being more or less feminine or masculine depending on how many people who perform them are male or female, rape would have to be a 100% male/masculine activity because it is not something any women do. Neither do most men, thankfully, but it is still 100% male/masculine, because 100% of the people who unfortunately do commit rape are male.

If you look at someone like Karen White, who wears dresses and makeup and long wigs, which could be estimated to be 95% female/feminine, but also has committed rape, which is 100% male/masculine, those two things obviously can't cancel each other out because that would make Karen White like an average bloke, which clearly he isn't.

The point is that if you look at these activities as gendered, and then you look at someone who is male but argues that they should be treated as though they are female because they have a female brain/gender identity, the fact that they have committed rape which is a 100% male/masculine activity should be all the evidence you need to say, "No, you absolutely do not have a female brain."

Ah well, a female brain is a brain that is part of a female body, and a male brain is a brain that is part of a male body. I know from my own experience that a male brain can have preferences and characteristics that are generally considered feminine at the same time as preferences and characteristics that are generally considered masculine. Maybe my brain (or perhaps I’m talking about personality) is more “masculine” than “feminine”; I don’t think that’s for me to judge, and I really don’t care.

I wish more people felt free to “be themselves” in terms of personality, within the bounds of legal and reasonably ethical behaviour. I’m not convinced it’s healthy to try to make our bodies what we would like them to be, beyond the effects on the body of a healthy lifestyle. So I personally have no problem with fitness regimes, some problems with bodybuilding, and considerable problems with many surgical body modifications.

Unfortunately the LibDems have taken down their response to the Cass Review.

Fortunately (not for them) it's preserved here which just underlines their confusion and hypocrisy.

On both sides of the wrong side, as usual...

Does that mean there's a reverse ferret on the way?

Exactly this