What do we want, do we really, really want??

[theilltemperedclavecinist]

Habitués of this board will know that, from time to time, a proxy war breaks out between classically liberal sex-realists (gender ideology is a belief, believers should not be discriminated against, and non-believers should not be forced to participate), and authoritarian sex-realists (sex-realism should be enforced by law and by custom, in some way).

(I am not talking about the few states that have outlawed 'transitioning', or religions that believe it is against God's will, or populists who whip up the mob against visible minorities, representing them as pandered to by a woke elite. I'm talking about activists who object to gender ideology but differ as to whether it can be eradicated altogether or must be accommodated in some way.)

(Also, my question does not depend on whether activists on either side are gender critical in the sense of being sceptical about imposed cultural sex norms.)

So, here is my question: not 'who is right?', but 'what do the two factions want?'

Here are some things which the authoritarian faction appear to want but which I don't:

'We should be allowed to discriminate against trans people.' (Just, no.)

'A sex-realist who publishes a photograph of herself sitting with a transwoman is a traitor.' (Not really in the ecumenical spirit, is it?)

'Men should not be allowed to wear, even sober and respectable, women's garb, because it mocks women.' (I agree, but don't think it's the state's job to protect me from mockery.) 'And, in up to 73% of cases, they're getting a sexual thrill from it.' (I agree, but don't think what's inside people's heads is the state's concern.)

'No-one should use cross-sex pronouns, ever.' (Freedom of speech means I can if I want to.)

'The NHS should not pay for drugs or surgery.' (On the fence: should depend on therapeutic utility. )

Here are some things, very briefly, that I do want:

Data that's both correct and useful.

Freedom of speech.

Children kept out of it.

Women to keep all concessions based on their physical differences from men.

If I could have all of my wishes, then I could tolerate working with my soberly garbed male transexual colleague 'Susan' and I'm even going to use 'her' pronouns if I want to. I will expect to be able to challenge her beliefs politely and not get disciplined for it. Her beliefs will now be in the same category as those of my (real!) colleague (who, despite having a science degree, thinks the earth is six thousand years old), rather than being state-sanctioned and prioritised over other beliefs.

So, dear Mumsnetters, I know you will tell me I'm wrong, and why. But first, please tell me what you want. What is on your wishlist?

There's a lot to respond to, but I'll pick one thing.

'We should be allowed to discriminate against trans people.'

In some jurisdictions, there is a mechanism such as a GRC which means that a trans person's legal sex changes. And therefore the comparator for discrimination purposes for a transwoman (bio male) is a woman. and therefore excluding transwomen from female single-sex spaces is discriminating against trans people. This is legal in the UK if there's a good justification, and it should continue to be.

Helen Joyce said something which I 100% agree with in a recent interview. (And I am paraphrasing so it might not be exactly right!) She said that adults who want to transition should not be told that it will solve all their problems and that everyone will see them and treat them as the opposite sex - because (surprise, surprise!) you cannot control everyone else. This sounds reasonable to me.

I agree with all of that, with the caveat that not everyone is going to agree on what constitutes 'discriminating against trans people'. Given that many people would define not letting transwomen into women's single-sex places as discrimination, I'm not sure I can actually say 'just no' to it.

I'll have a quick stab.

i) All ideas must be open to criticism.

ii) No belief should be enforced in law. Including the beliefs that one can change sex, or legal fictions surrounding this, or status as a protected characteristic in its own right separate to belief.

iii) Unevidenced beliefs should have the same status as other unevidenced beliefs: flat earth, fairies, religion, gender identity. Where taught, they should be given equal credibility.

iv) Parents are responsible for their children's welfare. There needs to be a reset in the relationship between the various arms of the state and parents, sho should intervene only in the case of genuine abuse.

v) Healthcare should be evidence-based and phychology fads treated with the skepticism they deserve given their history of malpractice.

There's more, I'm sure, but a good starter for 10.

I haven’t a clue what half of that meant but I want women’s services, privacy, dignity and award categories etc retained and protected for those with female biology only. And nobody punished, judged or discriminated against for not colluding or affirming fantasists.

It's true that excluding transwomen from women-only spaces has been treated, in practice, as illegal discrimination based on the protected characteristic of either legal sex or gender reassignment (whether there is a GRC or not).

For the avoidance of doubt, I think that this form of discrimination should be legal, to serve the legitimate and proportionate aim of retaining single-sex spaces for women. Because most users of those spaces believe that transwomen are men, and the state has no power to force them to believe otherwise.

Yes, this goes to education and therefore, ultimately, free speech.

I have only been using MN regularly for about 22 months so not enough of an habitué to have seen any of these proxy wars, and find your post rather hard to follow.

My view is that any discrimination regarding access to single sex spaces should be based on sex, and trans people will be treated on the same basis as others of their sex. So: transwomen subject to the same rules as men; transmen subject to the same rules as women.

Is that what the question was about?

I think that a big part of the 'current issues' is that people use and misuse language for their own purposes...

e.g. you talk about whether someone should be allowed to 'discriminate' against a trans person and say you are anti that - I would agree that discrimination is never right, however - arguing that a man claiming to be a woman shouldn't be allowed to compete against women in the olympics / be in female spaces etc. is not discrimination - it is undoubtedly common sense - however, the misuse of language will argue the definition of woman / argue the definition of discrimination...

A man should be allowed to wear women's clothing - what is women's clothing - is a skirt for women only - not in many cultures around the world (including the Scots) - high heels, they were originally for men if you look at their history - pink v. blue? well we know that changed in the early 20thC. Why would a woman be allowed to wear a man's jumper but not vice versa?

cross-sex pronouns - whatever they are! There are only two sets of pronouns - those for males and those for females, the rest are only relevant for imagined categories which don't physically exist.

Arguably the whole 'fight' is a fight for truth v. a fight to be allowed to do what you want even to the detriment of others...

Ultimately, it doesn't matter what legislation exists / how much censorship there is online etc. the pure biological facts can't be changed - male / woman - born that way and can't change - everything else is a construct of imagination piled on top - it might be that some want to believe it, but it will never change the underlying reality...

So, in one sense nothing else matters - that is at the heart of the discussion - and everything flows from it. Once you accept that all legislation and societal habits must flow from truth, you have no choice but to separate men and women in changing rooms / not allow men to pretend to be women and compete against them in sports / not allow children to enter into pathways of destruction... etc.

So, it is really that simple:
Born male or female
Remain how you were born.

The latest example was this thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5158818-what-am-i-missing

which related to an article whose author self-declares as a sex-realist liberal, but goes on to disagree with those he characterises as 'ultras'. It occurred to me that the liberals and the ultras have different objectives as well as different views, and I would like to know more about that.

A man should be allowed to wear women's clothing
I don't think men should be allowed to wear women's clothing. A skirt is a woman's garment - I've been forced to wear skirts.
Men in skirts make me and all females less safe. So no, not anymore.

Crikey, I don’t think men in skirts make women less safe

if the state starts trying to enforce clothing rules we’re all in trouble. See the French police forcing women to remove their clothing on a Nice beach and other batshittery

www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/24/french-police-make-woman-remove-burkini-on-nice-beach

In the street, as long as someone isn’t committing indecent exposure I don’t really think there’s much that can or should be done about what people wear. Work is obviously different

In my town there’s an old fella who likes to totter around in daisy dukes and stiletto sandals. I don’t love it, he’s clearly acting out a fetish, but I don’t think he should be arrested. In fact for the most part people ignore him (which makes me strangely happy). I’d like to be free to think he’s clearly a bit of a perv without people judging me, and point that out if it became necessary, but mostly it’s not necessary and we all just go about our business.

Oh

I never persist with threads that woffle on about theory using made-up terms for made-up positions. They're as bad as the ones about people I've never heard of.

There is no reason why we should not have women’s spaces for women only, no men however they identify. Why should we participate in these men’s fantasies or worse?The legal certificates etc should be stopped if they are used to say these men have changed sex, and the legislation should be repealed.

That's very interesting because you're the first to come up with something not on my wishlist. I feel it would be difficult to police and hard to justify as being too authoritarian. Is there any other way to address it? Maybe to foster a culture where men in dresses are seen not as women but as a particular sort of man. There are already transwomen who would agree with this characterisation.

a proxy war breaks out between classically liberal sex-realists (gender ideology is a belief, believers should not be discriminated against, and non-believers should not be forced to participate), and authoritarian sex-realists (sex-realism should be enforced by law and by custom, in some way).

I absolutely don't understand this distinction. It seems severely to mis-state the position of the people whom it unfairly calls "authoritarian sex-realists". I (in the UK) have not come across a single person who wants to enforce a belief system of "sex realism". All gender critical/sex realist people whose voices I have heard are more than happy to live in a world where gender ideologists believe what they want about their gender identity and related matters.

And the particular examples the OP gives? None of them seem to capture a meaningful distinction between "liberal" and "authoritarian" sex realists:

'We should be allowed to discriminate against trans people.'

As an alleged belief of "authoritarian" sex realists, this gains what rhetorical power it has by relying on an ambiguity in the way that the term "discrimination" is used. On the one hand the term is used as synonymous with behaving or speaking in a prejudiced way and subjecting a group of people to unjust disadvantage on the grounds of their shared characteristic. No gender critical/sex realist voice that I have heard supports that. (And if I did hear such a voice, I wouldn't attribute it to any sort of coherent stance - it would simply be an expression of unreasoning bigotry)
On the other hand the term "discrimination" simply means seeing a difference and treating people differently in virtue of that difference - much as, say, we "discriminate" between male bodies and female bodies by only attempting to carry out cervical smears on female bodies. Is it "sex-realist authoritarianism" to permit these commonsense consequences of perceiving and acknowledging the reality of sex? Is "sex-realist authoritarianism" "discriminatory" just on the grounds of acknowledging objective differences? Of course not.

'A sex-realist who publishes a photograph of herself sitting with a transwoman is a traitor.' (Not really in the ecumenical spirit, is it?)

This claim strikes me as a full-on irrelevance. It sounds like it has something to do with some Twitter spat or other between different gender critical/ sex realist women. Entirely to do with the dynamics of social media and nothing whatsoever to do with identifying some alleged difference between two alleged aggregations of ideas around sex realism

'Men should not be allowed to wear, even sober and respectable, women's garb, because it mocks women.' (I agree, but don't think it's the state's job to protect me from mockery.) 'And, in up to 73% of cases, they're getting a sexual thrill from it.' (I agree, but don't think what's inside people's heads is the state's concern.)

I have never, ever heard anyone say that men should not be allowed to wear "womens garb" (whatever that is). I have only heard voices that say (for example) that wearing "womens garb" doesn't make you a woman and should not entitle men to additional rights and protections (for example the additional rights and protections that, as I recall, the Scottish government wanted to afford to male cross dressers by extending to them the protections against misogyny that were to be afforded in Scottish hate crime legislation). Or voices that say men dressed in (non-sober, non-respectable) drag aren't really appropriate people to be reading stories to children in libraries.

'No-one should use cross-sex pronouns, ever.' (Freedom of speech means I can if I want to.)

Never heard anyone say that, either. I've only ever heard people expressing horror at the compelling or institutionally encouraged use of cross-sex pronouns

'The NHS should not pay for drugs or surgery.' (On the fence: should depend on therapeutic utility. )

I do believe that there is a difference of opinion about this. And so there should be. It is a difficult question that could only be approached on the basis of detailed evidence about both gender dysphoria and the whole way in which scarce NHS resources are allocated. So I certainly don't agree that believing this claim or disbelieving it amounts to, or reveals, any coherent distinction between "authoritarian" and "liberal" sex realists.

'No-one should use cross-sex pronouns, ever.' (Freedom of speech means I can if I want to.)

I think that most feminists who have understood how pronouns have been leveraged to harm the collective rights for female people, ie: women and girls whether they have a gender identity or not, have the view that continuing to do that will perpetuate harm to us collectively.

But the reality is, if you (general) wish to use preferred pronouns then do so.

What nobody gets to do is to erase or the harm that this has done already though. Of course, people will deny and dismiss it. However, you only have to listen to McKinnon / Ivy to see how it has been used.

... the particular examples the OP gives ... (don't) .... seem to capture a meaningful distinction between "liberal" and "authoritarian" sex realists...

Fair enough, it was a struggle, but I did not create these categories, and threads about them typically run to many posts. Mostly attacking/defending these supposed ultras, and leaving me wondering whether they really exist and, if so, what their objectives are.

I take your point, and currently avoid cross-sex pronouns if I can. But I dream of a world in which all the other problems of transgenderism have been fixed, and it will be as harmless to refer to my male transexual friend as 'she' as it would be in relation to, say, a boat, or Lily Savage. Maybe it's just impossible, though.

No. When it comes to whether a transwman - a male with the PC of gender reassignment - can be discriminated against by refusing them permission to access women's spaces, the comparator is another male without the PC of gender reassignment.

I want no more unnecessary medical interventions, no more cross-sex hormones, no more gender reassignment surgeries and no more "gender affirming" care for under 25s, which causes such damage and also reinforces incorrect beliefs especially amongst autistic people. I look forward to the time that medical establishments are sued by detransitioners for the mental and physical damage caused to them. I want the churches to stand up and say that what is being done to our young people is wrong, and to start to safeguard them against the social contagion of trans ideology, instead of bending over backwards to be "inclusive" instead as they are currently doing.

Can I ask why you would wish to though? I am not saying you shouldn’t but I am asking what motivates you to want to.

Because we have now been told often enough that few of these male people suffer gender dysphoria. Even that BMA committee member stated it was not a ‘medical problem’.

And even if your friend did suffer from gender dysphoria, is it really healthy that that male lives in a safe bubble where they don’t have to acknowledge their material reality. What about if they lied about not being AGP and you were feeding their AGP mode? How does that work for you?

Plus lily savage is nothing like a collective label for boats. Isn’t Savage a character. Those references don’t make sense. It feels like you are confused about why you would use those preferred pronouns. Would it just to be to make a male person happy?

I would like to say that clothes are clothes and you can wear whatever fits and is appropriate for the situation, whatever your sex. However, many men who wear clothing conventionally considered women's clothing do so for sexual gratification. If a man wants to go out in a dress so that he can feel the breeze around his knees, fine, go ahead, break gender norms, just as women did with trousers. But if a man wants to go out in a dress so that he can get a sexual thrill from it, or from our reactions to it, then it's no different to him going out naked. I do not consent to being forced to participate in his sexual fantasy.

How can you tell which man is which?

Hmm. Maybe I just feel contrary about being told not to do it! I do think that visible transsexuals (like members of other religions) are here to stay, so there'll have to be a modus vivendi. Hayton has said he doesn't mind about pronouns, so if I worked with him I'd take him up on that and he/him him.