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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth

1000 replies

IwantToRetire · 21/01/2025 18:51

Purpose.

Ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers. This is wrong. Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system. Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.

This unhealthy road is paved by an ongoing and purposeful attack against the ordinary and longstanding use and understanding of biological and scientific terms, replacing the immutable biological reality of sex with an internal, fluid, and subjective sense of self unmoored from biological facts. Invalidating the true and biological category of “woman” improperly transforms laws and policies designed to protect sex-based opportunities into laws and policies that undermine them, replacing longstanding, cherished legal rights and values with an identity-based, inchoate social concept.

This will defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.

Policy and Definitions.

The policy is to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality:

(a) “Sex” shall refer to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female. “Sex” is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of “gender identity.”

(b) “Women” or “woman” and “girls” or “girl” shall mean adult and juvenile human females, respectively.

(c) “Men” or “man” and “boys” or “boy” shall mean adult and juvenile human males, respectively.

(d) “Female” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.

(e) “Male” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.

(f) “Gender ideology” replaces the biological category of sex with an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity, permitting the false claim that males can identify as and thus become women and vice versa, and requiring all institutions of society to regard this false claim as true. Gender ideology includes the idea that there is a vast spectrum of genders that are disconnected from one’s sex. Gender ideology is internally inconsistent, in that it diminishes sex as an identifiable or useful category but nevertheless maintains that it is possible for a person to be born in the wrong sexed body.

(g) “Gender identity” reflects a fully internal and subjective sense of self, disconnected from biological reality and sex and existing on an infinite continuum, that does not provide a meaningful basis for identification and cannot be recognized as a replacement for sex.

Recognizing Women Are Biologically Distinct From Men.

Full statement text at https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/

Every news outlet is reporting this as anti trans legisliaton.

Not one has reported it is about women's rights.

That's why I started this thread, although there are others as hoping the search engines will pick it up.

Seems that women's rights are so unimportant to anyone, that even when there is a political statement about them, the media reports it is about something else.

Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government – The White House

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 7301 of title 5, United

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/

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BaronessEllarawrosaurus · 26/01/2025 18:54

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 18:52

These are really good questions and honestly I cannot answer them.

But this is what it is to be trans - it is an automatic cognitive understanding of self as female despite having male physical characteristics. It's not something a person typically has any control over/ something that can be changed, and it can be deeply disorienting and painful.

This is how I've sometimes had it described to me by children and young people:

"I just feel it in my body. My bones. my heart".

"It's like this complete disconnect between idea of self and physical embodiment of self".

"I knew I would have to be a boy in school in stuff, but in my head I just thought 'no I'm a girl', and when I imagined myself I always imagined a girl".

Edited

But they can't know that their feeling of being female is what it actually feels like to be female because they aren't and never can be so can only imagine.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 26/01/2025 18:55

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 18:42

To legally or medically change your gender you need diagnosis / assessment.

Regarding the rest its a moot point as above.

The vast majority of single sex provision (e.g. toilets) always has, and always will, rely on self ID.

This goes for people who are not trans as much as it does for people who are trans.

I do not have to prove I am female to enter the female toilet.

We do not have barriers on toilets scanning our chromosomes or relying on people showing documentation to enter. Nor is this practical/ feasible.

This will be the same with or without Trump's executive order.

What we have (or had until extreme transactivism tried to blow it apart) is the social contract. Where citizens recognised the needs of other groups and respected places like single sex spaces where women and girls undress / are vulnerable. Good men respected women's rights to undress in private from men with only "bad men" insisting on breaching those boundaries.

Currently a particular subgroup of men are determined to eradicate the criminal acts of indecent exposure and voyeurism by wedging men into every place where women and girls undress and deeming it "transphobic" to object.

hihelenhi · 26/01/2025 18:59

"Autonomic cognitions" refer to thoughts or mental processes that occur automatically without conscious control. It's simply a cognitive experience/ awareness of self as female/ a woman, despite being born with observably male physical characteristics.

No, sorry. ALL cognitions have their basis in a reference point even if we are not conscious or aware of them or they have eventually become automated. (I have a psychology degree by the way - which focused on cognitive psychology).

Sure, an anorexic person has an "automatic cognition" that they are too fat. It's why they view themselves as that in the mirror. And they are basing that on what they see or feel, but digging deeper , a lot of that is based on an external concept of what constitutes "too fat" and a marker or reference which drives why they imagine themselves to be so. This cognition is not logical, and is in fact harmful.

Simply having the cognition and it feeling 'natural' doesn't mean they ARE "too fat" or are obese. They are objectively not so. Regardless of their thoughts or mental processes without conscious control" which erroneously tell them they are fat, they are in fact dangerously underweight. The opposite of what their "automatic cognition" is telling them. Believing is not being, however strong the belief may be.

It is not good enough to claim "automatic cognitions" as an explanation without diving deeper. They will ALL arise as a result of some reference point. We know what the reference points for anorexia are likely to be.

So what are the reference points of cognitions that you may be "male" or "female"?

Ereshkigalangcleg · 26/01/2025 19:01

This is how I've sometimes had it described to me by children and young people:

"I just feel it in my body. My bones. my heart".

"It's like this complete disconnect between idea of self and physical embodiment of self".

"I knew I would have to be a boy in school in stuff, but in my head I just thought 'no I'm a girl', and when I imagined myself I always imagined a girl".

I find that as convincing as I do when people claim to have a personal connection to god.

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 19:02

BaronessEllarawrosaurus · 26/01/2025 18:54

But they can't know that their feeling of being female is what it actually feels like to be female because they aren't and never can be so can only imagine.

Again, there is no assessment or evaluation or interpretation of female involved - it's an automatic/ direct experience/ understanding of self.

NecessaryScene · 26/01/2025 19:03

Again, there is no assessment or evaluation or interpretation of female involved - it's an automatic/ direct experience/ understanding of self.

So why are you calling it "female"?

Ereshkigalangcleg · 26/01/2025 19:04

Again, there is no assessment or evaluation or interpretation of female involved - it's an automatic/ direct experience/ understanding of self.

Then it has zero to do with being a woman or a girl, doesn't it?

Ereshkigalangcleg · 26/01/2025 19:05

X posted with Necessary

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 19:06

Ereshkigalangcleg · 26/01/2025 19:01

This is how I've sometimes had it described to me by children and young people:

"I just feel it in my body. My bones. my heart".

"It's like this complete disconnect between idea of self and physical embodiment of self".

"I knew I would have to be a boy in school in stuff, but in my head I just thought 'no I'm a girl', and when I imagined myself I always imagined a girl".

I find that as convincing as I do when people claim to have a personal connection to god.

You are totally missing the point.

You don't have to be "convinced" of the "truth" of anything, you simply have to recognise the reality of this experience. It is the experience of a person's whose automatic cognitive sex does not align with one's observable physical sex characteristics.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 26/01/2025 19:08

Ereshkigalangcleg · 26/01/2025 19:01

This is how I've sometimes had it described to me by children and young people:

"I just feel it in my body. My bones. my heart".

"It's like this complete disconnect between idea of self and physical embodiment of self".

"I knew I would have to be a boy in school in stuff, but in my head I just thought 'no I'm a girl', and when I imagined myself I always imagined a girl".

I find that as convincing as I do when people claim to have a personal connection to god.

Hmm - hopefully these vulnerable children are being directed to qualified mental health professionals where they're able to explore their worrying disconnect between the mind and body. Although we know from parents and certain transactivists who post on here, that there are too many unqualified adults eagerly engaging in this psychological experiment on children and young people. All while they're too young to fully comprehend the dangers that the extreme aspects of this ideology pose to them.

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 19:08

NecessaryScene · 26/01/2025 19:03

Again, there is no assessment or evaluation or interpretation of female involved - it's an automatic/ direct experience/ understanding of self.

So why are you calling it "female"?

I don't believe I have once on this thread called this "female".
Female is just a word - I don't care what words you , or I , or anyone else wants to use.
All that matters is that we understand the various different component to sex, including that sex has a cognitive component, and what it is to be trans.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 26/01/2025 19:09

You don't have to be "convinced" of the "truth" of anything, you simply have to recognise the reality of this experience. It is the experience of a person's whose automatic cognitive sex does not align with one's observable physical sex characteristics.

No. A person who thinks they talk to god does not mean the existence of god is "reality". They might really really believe it. But it's an ideological claim to explain a vague feeling or a trick of the mind.

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 19:10

Ereshkigalangcleg · 26/01/2025 19:09

You don't have to be "convinced" of the "truth" of anything, you simply have to recognise the reality of this experience. It is the experience of a person's whose automatic cognitive sex does not align with one's observable physical sex characteristics.

No. A person who thinks they talk to god does not mean the existence of god is "reality". They might really really believe it. But it's an ideological claim to explain a vague feeling or a trick of the mind.

you are still missing the point. I've done my best.

hihelenhi · 26/01/2025 19:11

Again, there is no assessment or evaluation or interpretation of female involved - it's an automatic/ direct experience/ understanding of self.

Except there must be, as that is how categories work. As I say, you literally cannot have an "understanding of self" as "female" without a reference of what female is.

You may not be conscious of it. but that doesn't mean that it is not there. Female is a category. Your "automatic understanding" is based on a belief that you are not in fact the category of male, as your body clearly is, but that you are something different that you define as "not male" therefore "female".

You literally cannot have an "automatic understanding of being female" unless you have an understanding of what you believe "female" to be. And "male" for that matter, as you have decided you are not whatever you believe that to be.

I am a female because I have a female body. I know that this makes me female because my reference point, that I was told since I was small, is "you are female because your body shows you are the half of the human race that is female". Female is simply a body type, after all. That males categorically do not have.

There is no mystery "inner cognition". There is a clear reference point.

It is a cognitive impossibility to define yourself as "knowing you are something" without having some reference to why you are that thing and not another.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 26/01/2025 19:11

I should say, I'm agnostic. So the other possibility is that god exists and talks to them, of course. Like the possibility that gendered souls exist. I'm an agnostic atheist about those too.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 26/01/2025 19:12

you are still missing the point. I've done my best.

I'm not missing anything. You can't answer.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 26/01/2025 19:13

Some people believe they have an innate "cognitive sex" that is the opposite sex. People have a lot of implausible beliefs, yes.

NecessaryScene · 26/01/2025 19:16

I don't believe I have once on this thread called this "female". Female is just a word - I don't care what words you , or I , or anyone else wants to use.

Then why are you complaining about an executive order that makes clear that "female" refers to sex, not this thing you're talking about?

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 19:16

hihelenhi · 26/01/2025 19:11

Again, there is no assessment or evaluation or interpretation of female involved - it's an automatic/ direct experience/ understanding of self.

Except there must be, as that is how categories work. As I say, you literally cannot have an "understanding of self" as "female" without a reference of what female is.

You may not be conscious of it. but that doesn't mean that it is not there. Female is a category. Your "automatic understanding" is based on a belief that you are not in fact the category of male, as your body clearly is, but that you are something different that you define as "not male" therefore "female".

You literally cannot have an "automatic understanding of being female" unless you have an understanding of what you believe "female" to be. And "male" for that matter, as you have decided you are not whatever you believe that to be.

I am a female because I have a female body. I know that this makes me female because my reference point, that I was told since I was small, is "you are female because your body shows you are the half of the human race that is female". Female is simply a body type, after all. That males categorically do not have.

There is no mystery "inner cognition". There is a clear reference point.

It is a cognitive impossibility to define yourself as "knowing you are something" without having some reference to why you are that thing and not another.

You keep declaring things to be "impossible", and yet they are.

I imagine there was a time when it was thought "impossible" that the world could be round.

This is the history of the progress of science.

hihelenhi · 26/01/2025 19:16

And what does this "automatic/ direct experience/ understanding of self" as female, which appears to be solely a perception or "essence", have to do with the physical reality of being the half of the human race that is biologically female and all that this entails in reality?

Including, as I said many pages ago, the legal rights that women had to fight for, given that our physical femaleness is the sole reason for the discrimination against us.

Our "automatic understanding of self" had very little bearing on this, I'm afraid. It's kind of the point of all women's rights legislation over the last century and more.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 26/01/2025 19:17

All that matters is that we understand the various different component to sex, including that sex has a cognitive component, and what it is to be trans.

Nobody is going to "understand" just because it's simply your pet theory to explain why some men should be considered women.

What specific scientific data are you basing it on?

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 19:18

NecessaryScene · 26/01/2025 19:16

I don't believe I have once on this thread called this "female". Female is just a word - I don't care what words you , or I , or anyone else wants to use.

Then why are you complaining about an executive order that makes clear that "female" refers to sex, not this thing you're talking about?

Because that executive order isn't just about the word "female" - it's so much more than semantics.
That EO makes entirely false statements that completely denies the reality/ complexity of sex, and is designed to refuse / eliminate the existence of trans and intersex people.

hihelenhi · 26/01/2025 19:21

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 19:16

You keep declaring things to be "impossible", and yet they are.

I imagine there was a time when it was thought "impossible" that the world could be round.

This is the history of the progress of science.

Except this isn't "progress" is it? It is dismantling important, relatively recent rights that women had to fight for and managed to gain for ourselves against men

Nor is it some "new" scientific understanding. It's false. It has no bearing in reality.

Please answer my question about what this "automatic/ direct experience/ understanding of self" as female, which appears to be solely a perception or "essence", have to do with the physical reality of being the half of the human race that is biologically female and all that this has entailed for women in across the globe in reality?

Because I see no correlation whatsoever. Can you show us where there is any or how your "automatic understanding of self as female" bears any relation to what happens or has happened to actual females globally on the basis of their belonging to the biological sex class of female?

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 19:21

Ereshkigalangcleg · 26/01/2025 19:17

All that matters is that we understand the various different component to sex, including that sex has a cognitive component, and what it is to be trans.

Nobody is going to "understand" just because it's simply your pet theory to explain why some men should be considered women.

What specific scientific data are you basing it on?

Nobody is going to "understand" just because it's simply your pet theory

You begged me to explain/ define what being trans is, so I did. If you want to dismiss it as my "pet theory" there is not much more I can offer.

hihelenhi · 26/01/2025 19:23

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 19:21

Nobody is going to "understand" just because it's simply your pet theory

You begged me to explain/ define what being trans is, so I did. If you want to dismiss it as my "pet theory" there is not much more I can offer.

We asked you for your definition and are interrogating it further on finding that it is both flawed and vague.

That's what happens in robust discussions, I'm afraid. Especially where claims of "being scientific" are being made. All of us are subject to the same standards here.

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