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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

The Times: Labour plans to simplify ‘dehumanising’ gender change process

254 replies

ResisterRex · 19/05/2024 21:56

Read it and weep, vipers

"Labour will make it easier to change gender and is considering allowing a single family doctor to sign off on the decision under plans to “simplify” the process.

The party is considering how to make the legally binding certificate easier to obtain while still having guardrails to prevent mirroring controversial ­proposals in Scotland that would have ­removed doctors from the process ­altogether.

The plans include ditching a panel of doctors and lawyers that approve ­gender recognition certificates, the document allowing transgender people to have their affirmed gender legally recognised, and only requiring one doctor to be involved in the process.

The Times understands that one option under consideration is that the doctor could be a GP. Labour would ­also ­remove the ability of a spouse to object to the change. A source said the party wanted to make the process “less medicalised” but added that the plans would retain the involvement of a doctor and would not allow people to self-identify in order to obtain legal changes.

They said it had not yet been decided whether the medical professional would be a GP or a gender specialist, with the issue likely to go to consultation if the party wins the next election.

The discussions centre on concerns that if the single doctor was a specialist, a GP would still need to make the ­referral, therefore retaining the two-step process that Labour wants to drop."

Labour plans to simplify ‘dehumanising’ gender change process

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/604c739c-70b7-4819-866f-370ae67da6ab?shareToken=2a1dede2a48c5ec7388167f16bdd6cbb

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southbiscay · 22/05/2024 21:08

Thing is, Labour's line for some time has been an easier GRC process whilst protecting single sex spaces. Which is as coherent a policy as saying there will be free sweets for everyone while bringing down obesity rates. Surely, at some point they are going to have to spell out in detail how they are going to reconcile de facto self ID with single sex spaces? And that will (hopefully) be the point at which electoral platitudes meet legislative reality.

Signalbox · 22/05/2024 21:14

southbiscay · 22/05/2024 21:08

Thing is, Labour's line for some time has been an easier GRC process whilst protecting single sex spaces. Which is as coherent a policy as saying there will be free sweets for everyone while bringing down obesity rates. Surely, at some point they are going to have to spell out in detail how they are going to reconcile de facto self ID with single sex spaces? And that will (hopefully) be the point at which electoral platitudes meet legislative reality.

I think they will take the exact same approach as the SNP. Keep things as vague as possible whilst simultaneously accusing everyone who asks questions of stoking a culture war or being a nasty bigot.

TempestTost · 22/05/2024 21:38

Snowypeaks · 22/05/2024 17:44

Obviously toilets, change rooms, and so on. Most men are not at all happy to have women in these spaces. Some men, in some religions, cannot use those spaces if they are mixed.

But then there are other kinds of single sexed spaces that both men and women might like. Social clubs, group therapy settings, sports clubs.Many women don't want to allow for groups like this to be men only, even though they want to legitimize women only versions.

Thanks for getting back to me.

I don't think women do oppose the second sort of men's single sex space - unless it's somewhere like the Garrick Club (before the vote to admit women), but even in that case, many women aren't that bothered. Obviously I can't prove any of this, but it's really not my experience and I think the discussion on this board backs me up. Remember that it was women who set up The Shed network, where men talk to each other about their feelings while doing a task.

I've got no problem with a men-only football club - it's the absence of a female-only club, or a club which has teams of both sexes, which is the problem. A club can be single-sex, but the sport of football/cricket/swimming etc isn't and shouldn't be. In a small town or village, there may not be enough interested girls/women to make a separate club viable. So the men-only club comes under pressure to let girls/women use its facilities now and again. That is just practicality. There is no suggestion in such a situation that the men/boys cannot be allowed their own team. It's just that there aren't enough resources - volunteers, buildings, pitches, coaches, etc - to sustain two entirely separate clubs or teams.

I think women's focus is on wanting to get away from men and the male gaze and the emphasis tends to be on safety because that's seen as the strongest argument. Some women feel strongly that women-only book clubs (as an example) shouldn't have to include men with GRCs (that's how I feel) - even though safety, dignity and privacy aren't really issues in that situation.

We understand wanting the companionship of others of your own sex. I do, certainly. Some of the reasons women need space away from men are different to the reasons men need space away from women. Additionally, the relationship is not symmetrical - you can't ignore the power dynamic in society, or the axis of oppression - whatever you want to call it. Nevertheless, I think most of us women are quite chilled about, or in favour of, men having their own groups. As long as we are able have our own, single-sex spaces, the majority of us don't care what they get up to.

Edited

I don't have a problem with them either, and I agree that many women think it's fine too. But a lot really don't.

TempestTost · 22/05/2024 21:43

duc748 · 22/05/2024 18:18

I've got no problem with a men-only football club - it's the absence of a female-only club, or a club which has teams of both sexes, which is the problem. A club can be single-sex, but the sport of football/cricket/swimming etc isn't and shouldn't be. In a small town or village, there may not be enough interested girls/women to make a separate club viable. So the men-only club comes under pressure to let girls/women use its facilities now and again. That is just practicality. There is no suggestion in such a situation that the men/boys cannot be allowed their own team. It's just that there aren't enough resources - volunteers, buildings, pitches, coaches, etc - to sustain two entirely separate clubs or teams.

Are there really 'men-only football clubs'? Seems to me what actually happens is that football clubs (and rugby) start up women's and girl's teams if there is sufficient demand. then facilities can be shared. My rugby team are playing a double-header game next month, with the women on first, then the men, in competitive league matches.

There are sometimes single clubs for certain sports.

It's more complicated than people realize though. Sometimes there is limited interest in certain sports by either men or women. Which can make it tricky to maintain dual teams in every sport.

Where I live, hockey is very big. It used to be uncommon to have girls teams. Girls played a similar sport called ringette.

There has been a big push to get girls into hockey and on teams in the last 20 years and it's been very sucessful.

It's been terrible for ringette though. Most leagues can't make up enough teams and have folded. You still find a team here and there but they have no budget and no one to play.

Is this a win? A change, sure, but not really a win IMO.

illinivich · 22/05/2024 22:21

southbiscay · 22/05/2024 21:08

Thing is, Labour's line for some time has been an easier GRC process whilst protecting single sex spaces. Which is as coherent a policy as saying there will be free sweets for everyone while bringing down obesity rates. Surely, at some point they are going to have to spell out in detail how they are going to reconcile de facto self ID with single sex spaces? And that will (hopefully) be the point at which electoral platitudes meet legislative reality.

I think politicians will avoid stating that they give adult men female birth certificates. And I dont think the media understand it or think its as important as other political areas, so arent challenging them on it. So politicians are going to carry on saying that they are going to make the gender recognition process easier, and maintain 'safe spaces', and pretend its a win for gender and a win women and girls.

At least we know that the removal of single sex spaces and the introductio of 'safe spaces' was always intended, and not just politicians mixing up terms.

Wherewerewerewear · 22/05/2024 22:27

‘So [Labour] politicians are going to carry on saying that they are going to make the gender recognition process easier, and maintain 'safe spaces', and pretend its a win for gender and a win women and girls’

This. 🤬

EasternStandard · 22/05/2024 22:30

Wherewerewerewear · 22/05/2024 22:27

‘So [Labour] politicians are going to carry on saying that they are going to make the gender recognition process easier, and maintain 'safe spaces', and pretend its a win for gender and a win women and girls’

This. 🤬

People will realise. There will probably be a GP led Isla Bryson moment

They can’t pretend forever

Thelnebriati · 22/05/2024 22:34

Well we already had the Isla Bryson moment. Before that we had the Karen White moment. Before that we had all the other moments and here we are.

EasternStandard · 22/05/2024 22:37

Thelnebriati · 22/05/2024 22:34

Well we already had the Isla Bryson moment. Before that we had the Karen White moment. Before that we had all the other moments and here we are.

Yeh but people think Labour are creating ‘safe spaces’

So that idea will die

Idk if people will vote all this stuff out ever, eventually possibly

Kucinghitam · 23/05/2024 17:37

Thelnebriati · 22/05/2024 22:34

Well we already had the Isla Bryson moment. Before that we had the Karen White moment. Before that we had all the other moments and here we are.

Yeah, regrettably we've had so many fucking moments where I've thought "Surely this time they'll see how this is utterly ocean-going batshit crazy?" and it never happens.

You get a few people each time waking up and going "WTF!" but never enough people.

I think it's that marriage-made-in-hell of most people just not being interested in anything beyond their immediate nose (and who can blame them?), the mainstream media working really hard to bury any story that doesn't show the Righteous in a perfect soft-focus twinkly light, and the multi-level insidious capture by the Righteous of so many of the institutions and organisations that people trust to get stuff done.

lcakethereforeIam · 23/05/2024 18:24

I..I've just read this, I fell down an Internet rabbithole following links from an Eliza Mondegreen article in Unherd. It's written, mostly dispassionately, by Exulansic (late of YouTube), about gender affirming care and, dear God, it's grim

https://americanmind.org/salvo/genital-mutilation-for-the-masses/

Perhaps someone from the Labour Party will happen across this thread and read it. Perhaps it'll make them think again.

It's published by the Claremont Institute, an organisation promoting American conservatives. They're probably evil. I think that the likes of the Guardian wouldn't print anything like this, would rather advocate for more and younger makes them evil.

Genital Mutilation for the Masses

As if the horrors of the surgeries themselves were not enough, these interventions are expensive, entirely cosmetic, and medically unnecessary.

https://americanmind.org/salvo/genital-mutilation-for-the-masses

duc748 · 23/05/2024 18:35

Jesus, what a horror show it is. 😠

Boiledbeetle · 23/05/2024 19:07

lcakethereforeIam · 23/05/2024 18:24

I..I've just read this, I fell down an Internet rabbithole following links from an Eliza Mondegreen article in Unherd. It's written, mostly dispassionately, by Exulansic (late of YouTube), about gender affirming care and, dear God, it's grim

https://americanmind.org/salvo/genital-mutilation-for-the-masses/

Perhaps someone from the Labour Party will happen across this thread and read it. Perhaps it'll make them think again.

It's published by the Claremont Institute, an organisation promoting American conservatives. They're probably evil. I think that the likes of the Guardian wouldn't print anything like this, would rather advocate for more and younger makes them evil.

In both phalloplasty and metoidioplasty, patients are increasingly asking that their vaginas be left open and accessible, known as a “vagina-sparing” procedures. One metoidioplasty patient had her vagina “spared,” and subsequently, she became pregnant from having heterosexual intercourse with her male husband. She expressed in a , “we did not think it was possible and were very shocked,” because in her mind, she was a gay man having sex with another man. Her baby was exposed prenatally to her cosmetic testosterone use, which she resumed against medical advice shortly after her infant had to be born prematurely. Her daughter has had developmental issues, including apparent motor and speech delays, as well as plagiocephaly (misshapen head), which required a prescription helmet.

No words! I have no words!

PaterPower · 23/05/2024 22:14

The poor baby. Fucked over in uterus and no doubt more shit to come, given her mother is both stupid enough not to realise she could get pregnant, and so self-centred that she’d continue with testosterone treatment even after being told she shouldn’t.

I truly believe that child should be removed from her ‘care’ and placed with someone that might actually give a shit about their responsibilities toward it.

lcakethereforeIam · 23/05/2024 22:27

It's not the only way that pregnant women can damage their child in utero, but it's the only way I can think of when the mother will be cheered on by so called progressives.

How could she and her husband think that piv sex was gay sex! 😳

Snowypeaks · 23/05/2024 23:10

This is where messing with language and prioritising identities over reality gets us.
Why is this woman astonished that she got pregnant? Because she thinks she is a man. And she knows that only women can get pregnant.

Icake
I think the woman thought she and her husband were having "queer" sex, which is often conflated with homosexual sex.
So also a reason why, in her mind, she couldn't possibly get pregnant - as any fule kno, you need a man and a woman to make a baby.

However much they flip and flap, on some level they all know that sex is real and that it is binary.

duc748 · 24/05/2024 00:05

This is where messing with language and prioritising identities over reality gets us.
Why is this woman astonished that she got pregnant? Because she thinks she is a man. And she knows that only women can get pregnant.

Doesn't it just? To get so fucked up, that you'd seriously damage the health of your child? It seems easy to say, this woman is awful and self-centred, but what brings people to this? You come back to that word: 'cult'.

Helleofabore · 24/05/2024 07:04

Boiledbeetle · 23/05/2024 19:07

In both phalloplasty and metoidioplasty, patients are increasingly asking that their vaginas be left open and accessible, known as a “vagina-sparing” procedures. One metoidioplasty patient had her vagina “spared,” and subsequently, she became pregnant from having heterosexual intercourse with her male husband. She expressed in a , “we did not think it was possible and were very shocked,” because in her mind, she was a gay man having sex with another man. Her baby was exposed prenatally to her cosmetic testosterone use, which she resumed against medical advice shortly after her infant had to be born prematurely. Her daughter has had developmental issues, including apparent motor and speech delays, as well as plagiocephaly (misshapen head), which required a prescription helmet.

No words! I have no words!

That is fucking grim reading. If either of those parents had a reasonable brain cell between them they would have understood that the mother’s ovaries were still in place. Just because that mother’s clitoris was extended to resemble a mini penis did not make the mother a male.

I cannot imagine the feeling of knowing your decisions to take testosterone severely impaired your child. I cannot imagine the child’s reaction to understanding this either. Another life harmed by extreme ideological thinking.

FrancescaContini · 24/05/2024 07:24

Dear God. Queer sex??

The poor child. A victim of its mother’s idiocy, vanity and selfishness.

Signalbox · 24/05/2024 07:30

PaterPower · 23/05/2024 22:14

The poor baby. Fucked over in uterus and no doubt more shit to come, given her mother is both stupid enough not to realise she could get pregnant, and so self-centred that she’d continue with testosterone treatment even after being told she shouldn’t.

I truly believe that child should be removed from her ‘care’ and placed with someone that might actually give a shit about their responsibilities toward it.

I think the latest out of TRA land is the idea that doing everything you can to ensure that your baby is healthy is cis normative and ableist so healthcare providers shouldn’t be suggesting that women who take testosterone should avoid doing so during pregnancy and whilst breastfeeding.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12314559/amp/Pregnant-trans-men-able-testosterone-despite-defect-risk-babies-living-right-gender-important-having-normal-kid-claim-woke-researchers.html

Helleofabore · 24/05/2024 07:58

Signalbox · 24/05/2024 07:30

I think the latest out of TRA land is the idea that doing everything you can to ensure that your baby is healthy is cis normative and ableist so healthcare providers shouldn’t be suggesting that women who take testosterone should avoid doing so during pregnancy and whilst breastfeeding.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12314559/amp/Pregnant-trans-men-able-testosterone-despite-defect-risk-babies-living-right-gender-important-having-normal-kid-claim-woke-researchers.html

Edited

That paper from Sally Hines is deplorable.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667321523000811

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4837105-yet-more-insanity-from-academia

Framing having the healthiest possible child from the start as being only something ‘normative’ people aspire to, while telling others who deliberately choose to take paths that will harm that child’s health and well being that they should be somehow celebrated for ‘living their true self’ says a great deal about this ideologically driven group. I was horrified when this paper came out.

Yet more insanity from Academia | Mumsnet

Sally Hines has a hand in this. Why should pregnant transmen have to stop testosterone? [[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S26673215...

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4837105-yet-more-insanity-from-academia

LilyBartsHatShop · 24/05/2024 08:09

TempestTost · 21/05/2024 10:42

I think there is an underlying problem with the whole idea of rights around gender.

The most central one being, what is gender really supposed to mean here? The right to dress in clothes or use names or grammatical constructions culturally associated with the other sex? It's not clear at all to me why any of those things fall under human rights legislation.

Tbh, I think there has been an error with the more general cultural claim that it's really important for people to be allowed to wear whatever they want in all settings, including the workplace, and particularly if that means crossing customarily sexed styles. It's a questionable premise that has led to these claims that it's really important that people be able to do this kind of thing, to be their authentic selves.

Once we've made the claim that there are some kinds of inherent rights around gender, whatever that is, people feel those need to be balanced against other competing rights.

I think you might be right, that both liberal and radical feminists have knee-capped themselves in the arguments they feel able to make because they don't want them to be available to be repurposed for conservative arguments that, for example, no, you can't take your whole self to work.
Kellie Jay Keen doesn't worry about any of that and I often feel uncomfortable watching her arguments - "Couldn't this be re-applied by racists?" "Couldn't this be repurposed by people who want to enforce strict sex roles?"
(I'm not saying my discomfort is evidence that Keen is doing something wrong, it's evidence that probably some arguments become unthinkable to me).

FrancescaContini · 24/05/2024 08:24

@Helleofabore I remember skim reading that article and feeling sick.

Helleofabore · 24/05/2024 08:30

Surely though, when you understand that gender identity is a matter of philosophical belief, it becomes just like managing other philosophical beliefs. The comparators are religions, so bringing your whole self to work as a person of a specific religion has limitations on expectations.

BackToLurk · 24/05/2024 08:45

Nobody really wants anyone else to bring their whole self to work. They want them to bring a curated version that could be a tiny bit edgy as long as it isn’t offensive. With offensive here meaning not directly contradicting the company's ‘brand’. So Virgin Atlantic’s whole self might be a nice looking young bloke in sparkly eyeshadow, less likely to be an unkempt overweight woman approaching retirement.

The racist comparison is good (and not just because I’ve used it). Do you want a racist to bring their whole self to work? No of course you don’t.

How about we all go back to rediscovering the difference between public and private spheres.