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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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Lostcat · 26/01/2025 20:17

hihelenhi · 26/01/2025 20:11

You haven't answered the questions put to you.

How do you know that what your "inner cognition" is is "female"?

And how do you know that it bears any relation whatsoever to what actual females experience?

And how do you know that it bears any relation whatsoever to what actual females experience?

they don’t. This has nothing whatsoever to do with it. It’s not about anyone else’s experiences.

hihelenhi · 26/01/2025 20:17

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 20:10

Right. As I said:

This is so common/ obvious that we take this alignment entirely for granted - we presume that one directly/ simply leads to the other - i.e. "I know I am a woman because I was born female".

I only "know" I am female because I have a female body and therefore was told from the off that being of the half of the population that has a female body makes you a girl and then a woman.

There is no additional "inner essence" or "knowledge" that says "female". It has always been an objective, externally verifiable piece of knowledge. It's no different to "knowing" the sky is blue or what my name or birthday is.

So what is this inner "female" essence or "cognition" we are supposed to have in common exactly?

Ereshkigalangcleg · 26/01/2025 20:19

they don’t. This has nothing whatsoever to do with it. It’s not about anyone else’s experiences.

Yes it is, because they're positing that their entirely, uniquely male experience is somehow aligned with women's. And claiming they should have all sorts of special treatment that trumps the rights of actual women off the back of it.

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 20:20

NecessaryScene · 26/01/2025 20:12

Cognitive sex is simply the awareness/ recognition/ understanding of ourselves as female/ male/ man / woman. We all have it.

Hang on...

Again, there is no assessment or evaluation or interpretation of female involved - it's an automatic/ direct experience/ understanding of self. [...] I don't believe I have once on this thread called this "female".

Assessment, evaluation, interpretation are conscious, deliberate cognitive process. Cognitive sex is part of automatic cognitive processing.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 26/01/2025 20:21

Men aren't qualified to decide for themselves that they are having a "female" experience. They aren't female.

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 20:21

Ereshkigalangcleg · 26/01/2025 20:19

they don’t. This has nothing whatsoever to do with it. It’s not about anyone else’s experiences.

Yes it is, because they're positing that their entirely, uniquely male experience is somehow aligned with women's. And claiming they should have all sorts of special treatment that trumps the rights of actual women off the back of it.

Yes it is, because they're positing that their entirely, uniquely male experience is somehow aligned with women's

no they aren’t. You are projecting this and with no good reason. Just put it down.
Someone else’s cognitive sex has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with you or your experience.

hihelenhi · 26/01/2025 20:22

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 20:17

And how do you know that it bears any relation whatsoever to what actual females experience?

they don’t. This has nothing whatsoever to do with it. It’s not about anyone else’s experiences.

Well, you did claim that what we have in common is this "cognition" that we are both female, so i'd have expected some kind of commonality that you imagined we had.

More importantly, can you explain how the "automatic cognition" of femaleness from a male who identifies as a trans woman bears any relation to the legislation that had to be fought for women historically, given that literally of it is based entirely on discrimination against women which happened to them on the SOLE basis that they are the ones with the female bodies and had nothing to do with any inner ideas or "automatic cognitions that they were female"?

Ereshkigalangcleg · 26/01/2025 20:22

no they aren’t. You are projecting this and with no good reason. Just put it down.
Someone else’s cognitive sex has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with you or your experience.

There is no such thing as "cognitive sex" it's completely invented nonsense you pulled out of the air.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 26/01/2025 20:23

Their "cognitive sex" is male. Because they are male.

NecessaryScene · 26/01/2025 20:23

- How do you know that what your "inner cognition" is is "female"? And how do you know that it bears any relation whatsoever to what actual females experience? - they don’t.

Hang on....

Trans women and (non trans) women have their cognitive sex in common. [...] Cognitive sex is simply the awareness/ recognition/ understanding of ourselves as female/ male/ man / woman.

Could you at least make some effort to be consistent within a couple of pages?

Heggettypeg · 26/01/2025 20:24

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 20:17

And how do you know that it bears any relation whatsoever to what actual females experience?

they don’t. This has nothing whatsoever to do with it. It’s not about anyone else’s experiences.

But this doesn't quite work, does it, because if it is a unique thing with no reference to other people's experiences, what does it have in common with them? Why are we using the same word for both?

NecessaryScene · 26/01/2025 20:25

Or is this a word game where you decide that you're going to interpret "experience" in a different meaning to "awareness/recognition/understanding", despite that being what was discussed?

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 20:25

hihelenhi · 26/01/2025 20:22

Well, you did claim that what we have in common is this "cognition" that we are both female, so i'd have expected some kind of commonality that you imagined we had.

More importantly, can you explain how the "automatic cognition" of femaleness from a male who identifies as a trans woman bears any relation to the legislation that had to be fought for women historically, given that literally of it is based entirely on discrimination against women which happened to them on the SOLE basis that they are the ones with the female bodies and had nothing to do with any inner ideas or "automatic cognitions that they were female"?

All the “cognition” is is an awareness: understanding of self as a woman/ female. Nothing more , nothing less.

You recognise/ understand yourself to be a woman.

A trans woman understands / recognises themself to be a woman.

Thats it.

There is no assumption of any commonality in social experience or physiology .

Ereshkigalangcleg · 26/01/2025 20:25

Exactly. If they were claiming to be snoogles that's great, all power to them. But they aren't. They are claiming to be the opposite sex.

Chersfrozenface · 26/01/2025 20:26

Cognitive - definition - of, relating to, being, or involving conscious intellectual activity (such as thinking, reasoning, or remembering).

Conscious. Thinking.

Cognitive sex - a conscious thought in someone's mind.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 26/01/2025 20:26

A trans woman understands / recognises themself to be a woman.

How does a man understand himself to be a woman?

spannasaurus · 26/01/2025 20:27

If a man thinks he has "inner female feelings" why does that mean believing that it shows he's really female rather than believing that he might be misinterpreting normal "inner male feelings" as female ones.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 26/01/2025 20:28

Exactly. Which is exactly what he is doing, IMO.

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 20:28

Chersfrozenface · 26/01/2025 20:26

Cognitive - definition - of, relating to, being, or involving conscious intellectual activity (such as thinking, reasoning, or remembering).

Conscious. Thinking.

Cognitive sex - a conscious thought in someone's mind.

I think you need to read my posts.
not all cognitive processes are “conscious thoughts”.
Automatic cognitive processes are those which are unintentional, involuntary, and occurring largely outside of awareness.

hihelenhi · 26/01/2025 20:29

Just to remind you, LostCat. Can you explain how a man who identifies as a trans woman is in the same demographic as the half of the population who experience or experienced the following, globally, SOLELY as a result of them being the humans who had female bodies:

  • treated as the legal property of males (husbands, fathers)
  • treated as second class citizens, whose "natural job" was seen as looking after the home, men and children
  • refused education
  • refused property
  • refused inheritances
  • refused voting rights
  • prevented from having a life outside the home
  • prevented from having reproductive autonomy,
  • prevented from having financial autonomy (eg bank accounts, credit cards, jobs)
  • prevented from having sexual autonomy ie the right to say no
  • made to marry men old enough to be their fathers as a child
  • made to undergo FGM with the sole purpose of removing their sexual pleasure and thus supposedly making them more controllable and "pure" in their reproductive function
  • refused the right to spaces of their own to be physically safe from violent or sexually abusive men
  • refused the right to say no to sex with their husbands, expected to "obey" him in the marriage vows and could be beaten ("reasonable chastisement") if she defied him
  • refused their own sports where they could compete on an equal and fair footing rather than with males who are much stronger physically...
hihelenhi · 26/01/2025 20:31

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 20:25

All the “cognition” is is an awareness: understanding of self as a woman/ female. Nothing more , nothing less.

You recognise/ understand yourself to be a woman.

A trans woman understands / recognises themself to be a woman.

Thats it.

There is no assumption of any commonality in social experience or physiology .

Except there is when you are claiming "trans women are women".

Because by any objective method, they are not.

GailBlancheViola · 26/01/2025 20:31

All the “cognition” is is an awareness: understanding of self as a woman/ female. Nothing more , nothing less.

You recognise/ understand yourself to be a woman.

A trans woman understands / recognises themself to be a woman.
Thats it.

There is no assumption of any commonality in social experience or physiology .

That is just contradictory nonsense - how can someone recognise themself to be a woman with no commonality or experience of what a woman is?

AlisonDonut · 26/01/2025 20:32

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 19:25

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?

Trans women and (non trans) women have their cognitive sex in common. They differ in their physical/ observable sex characteristics.

Sweet baby Jesus. A man cannot cognitively change his penis to a vagina/clitorus/vulva combo by thinking thoughts.

hihelenhi · 26/01/2025 20:35

And to get back to the EO, this is entirely about women's rights and defining woman for the purpose of legislation and the reasons why that legislation exists.

LostCat claims it is "fascist" to define women in this way.

I would argue it is "fascist" to claim that sex-based definitions of women, when ALL our rights have had to be based on what physical sex we are, is somehow a negative thing because it doesn't include "men who identify as women on the basis of a mystery "inner cognition". It is irrelevant to their needs.

WildBoys · 26/01/2025 20:37

"automatic cognitive sex" is just another word for "gender identity" or "gendered soul" or whatever else. Using this term hasn't explained anything at all.
Let's just say that trans people (yes, yes, we all know they exist) specifically trans women, do have automatic cognition of being female or being a woman - put simply, they are mistaken. They simply aren't. So extensive therapy is needed. If as @Lostcat says the current therapy is not good enough, then the medical community need to help develop it so that it is. I would imagine being this mistaken about material reality must be extremely uncomfortable and upsetting. So I would be all for helping people with this particular view of themselves to be comfortable with the reality of the biological sex they were born with.

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