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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/

OP posts:
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14
AliceNutterWasAWoman · 27/01/2025 19:39

AliceNutterWasAWoman · 27/01/2025 16:39

@Lostcat How about exposing their penis to an elderly woman with dementia, or a female survivor of male sexual abuse or a Muslim woman? Is that ok with you?

Still waiting for an answer

Lostcat · 27/01/2025 19:42

AliceNutterWasAWoman · 27/01/2025 19:39

Still waiting for an answer

Why? I provided an answer in full.

hihelenhi · 27/01/2025 19:46

Lostcat · 27/01/2025 19:33

if you read the thread then there’s no need to ask me this question:
And when do they become trans? Is it a decision? Is it after surgery? Have they always been trans?

You already know my answer because I already answered it.

You are perfectly entitled to disagree with my answer of course, but no reason to repeatedly demand I repeat myself, it’s just disingenuous. And not productive

Edited

That's nice.

AliceNutterWasAWoman · 27/01/2025 19:52

Lostcat · 27/01/2025 19:42

Why? I provided an answer in full.

You said:
However, I don’t think it’s acceptable for a trans person, or any other person, to expose their genitalia in front of another person in a manner that makes them uncomfortable.

And the best way to ensure that doesn't happen is if no men are allowed in. But you don't want that. You don't care about vulnerable women. You know it. We all know it

teentantrums · 27/01/2025 19:52

I have read the thread and as far as I can see your answers to the "what is trans?" question are more or less:

  • I have already told you
  • It is on another thread but I cannot link it
  • I have already told you rtft
  • It's too complicated to explain in a few words
  • Actually I managed to explain it brilliantly ..but just not here
  • I don't want to repeat myself as you know the answer
  • If you don't know the answer, it's not my fault as it is complicated but I already explained it somewhere else but I am not going to tell you where as you have already decided that you are anti-trans and even if you saw my brilliant explanation (that I can't remember) you would take it in bad faith.
Lostcat · 27/01/2025 19:54

teentantrums · 27/01/2025 19:52

I have read the thread and as far as I can see your answers to the "what is trans?" question are more or less:

  • I have already told you
  • It is on another thread but I cannot link it
  • I have already told you rtft
  • It's too complicated to explain in a few words
  • Actually I managed to explain it brilliantly ..but just not here
  • I don't want to repeat myself as you know the answer
  • If you don't know the answer, it's not my fault as it is complicated but I already explained it somewhere else but I am not going to tell you where as you have already decided that you are anti-trans and even if you saw my brilliant explanation (that I can't remember) you would take it in bad faith.

Then you haven’t RTFT. Despite my better judgement as I knew people weren’t really interested in an open minded, productive exchange, I first provided a detailed explanation of what being trans is on page 12? I think. And then at several points later on.

teentantrums · 27/01/2025 19:55

Lostcat · 27/01/2025 19:54

Then you haven’t RTFT. Despite my better judgement as I knew people weren’t really interested in an open minded, productive exchange, I first provided a detailed explanation of what being trans is on page 12? I think. And then at several points later on.

Edited

😂

IDareSay · 27/01/2025 20:00

teentantrums · 27/01/2025 19:52

I have read the thread and as far as I can see your answers to the "what is trans?" question are more or less:

  • I have already told you
  • It is on another thread but I cannot link it
  • I have already told you rtft
  • It's too complicated to explain in a few words
  • Actually I managed to explain it brilliantly ..but just not here
  • I don't want to repeat myself as you know the answer
  • If you don't know the answer, it's not my fault as it is complicated but I already explained it somewhere else but I am not going to tell you where as you have already decided that you are anti-trans and even if you saw my brilliant explanation (that I can't remember) you would take it in bad faith.

It goes to another school Grin

Lostcat · 27/01/2025 20:06

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 16:58

Ok I am going to take you at your word and give it a try.

The first thing that is difficult in offering a definition is the lack of consensus around terminology - people understand sex and gender in different ways. So I am going to avoid using these short hands and try to describe this in full.

First of all 'biological sex' has multiple components/ is a complex process of development. There are our chromosomes, there is our reproductive anatomy , there is our external genitalia, there are gametes, there are our hormones. All of these together make up biological sex.

Although for the overwhelming majority of people, these aspects all align into one of two cluster typologies, there are also a minority of people who develop differently, producing a range of complex variations so that different aspects of these sex axes/characteristics do not 'align' (in typical ways) with other 'axes'.

Most of these variations have only become visible with the development of contemporary medical technologies that have made previously hidden differences/ aspects of the body observable (when previously they weren't).

There is still so much we don't know/ are learning about biological sex development - for example, there is a lot of interesting research into neurobiological development/ differences. Scientific understanding of the physiology of the brain is still very much developing.

There is also an aspect to 'sex' which is cognitive. This is what some people call 'gender identity'. I am going to avoid that terminology as I understand it triggers people / is associated with being "woo" "ideology". Instead, I am going to call this cognitive aspect to sex "automatic cognitive sex". I am using the word "automatic" to signify that this is related to automatic processing in the brain (e.g. it is not "deliberate" "conscious" or "chosen").

We all have a cognitive sex. This is simply the awareness/ recognition/ understanding of self as being male/a man/ a woman/ female etc. For the vast majority of people, just as their different physical sex characteristics (chromosomes, gametes, genitals, hormones) align, their cognitive sex aligns with their physical sex characteristics. This is so common/ obvious that we take this alignment entirely for granted - indeed we presume that one simply leads to the other - i.e. "I know I am a woman because I was born female".

HOWEVER, just as there are some people who are born with variations in sex development, there are some people for whom their "automatic cognitive sex" does not align with their physical sex characteristics as observed at birth. We don't know why this is or what causes it, but it is very possible that it has a durable developmental biological underpinning - there is some interesting research into this looking at sex development, hormones and neurobiological differences, although the science is in its infancy.

This is what it is to be trans. Although we do not know what causes being trans, we do have a huge body of scientific evidence that being trans does in fact exist (it always has - everywhere) and is very much real. It can be extremely painful/ distressing - particularly when it is repressed/ denied by self and others. It is not something over which a person typically has control, and it is typically not able to be changed/ altered - therapy and other mental health interventions to "cure" transness do not help, but cause significant harm. Being trans often starts very early in life, even if people do not always have the conscious words, ideas, cultural references to identify/ understand/ express their experience until later in life.

This is what being trans is/ means. Nothing to do with gender stereotypes, clothes, behaviour, someone's voice, hating women, hating gay people, belief in "gender woo" or any of the other things people have so far suggested on this thread and many others.

Ok you can all commence getting angry and ridiculing me now. 3, 2,1....

OR... Maybe just read and think about it for a while, and who knows we could have a productive exchange.

Edited

@teentantrums here

dollybird · 27/01/2025 20:13

RufustheFactuaIReindeer · 27/01/2025 17:39

I’d be more than happy to advocate for “third spaces” for transphobic people with xx chromosomes . But this idea never seems to go down well on these threads. I wonder why?

it would be the nasty way you’ve decided that anyone who needs a single sex space is transphobic…that would be the ‘not going down well’ bit

plus i am not sure how easily that would translate to a sign on the door 🧐 I’m guessing you would like ‘transphobic bigots’

If the third space was for 'transphobic people' (i.e. women) and the women's was for transwomen, they'd all want to come into the the new third spaces, as it's all about validation. And what's validating about being in a loo/changing room etc with only other transwomen in them?

Lostcat · 27/01/2025 20:15

Lostcat · 27/01/2025 10:01

Hey, I can't spend all day on mumsnet again 😅but I just wanted to try and offer some kind of response here.

I am not an expert in the policy of sex segregation and I don't have fixed or definite opinions on this. And I think it's complex.

The answers in each case would surely depend on the space, what the needs of service users are and evaluation of various risks are etc.. These would be different in every context.

As I stated earlier, the vast majority of sex segregated spaces - toilets/ changing, etc., have always been and always will be based on self ID, whether a person is trans or not. There is no other practical way to manage this. I don't have to prove I am female to enter the female toilet. This will remain the case with or without Trump's EO. We cannot manage access to these spaces through biological tests, legal documents, or subjective judgements about gender presentation/ conformity. All of these measures are impractical and have harmful/ discriminatory consequences.

When it comes to prisons - the situation is entirely different. I am by no means an expert in prison security management, but there are security provisions for isolating prisoners who pose a risk.

Sports is a whole other matter again - and both the ethical and scientific considerations are much more complex than the public discourse cares to recognise.

What I do think is that the discourse on "sex-segregation" (one group of people "trumping" another group of people, etc) is based on a number of really problematic assumptions/ stereotypes/ prejudices. These include:

  • The naturalisation of sexual violence (the idea that sexual violence in rooted in biology - not patriarchy)
  • The bizarre idea that sexual predatory men who want to assault women would choose do so by pretending to be trans and entering a sex segregated space - (men have plenty of access to women without pretending to be trans!)
  • The total dismissal of trans people's experience - the idea that trans people are fakers/ pretenders. The idea that being trans is an "ideology" "philosophy", "about menz feels", a type of sexual perversion, a deliberate choice made out of a desire to erode women's boundaries etc etc, and all the other awful and flagrantly transphobic things people say on these forums about trans people.

Where I feel able to intervene and usefully contribute to this debate is regarding the last bullet point, as I have expertise in this area. Furthermore, I think this is the first and most fundamental issue to be addressed. We will never be able to organise society fairly and reasonably while people continue to view trans people in this way.

That's why I have (once again) taken the time to try to explain on this thread what being trans is. Being trans is simply something that some people are - another axis of diversity like any other. It has nothing to do with ideology or philosophy; it has nothing to do with gender stereotypes; it has nothing to do with being a pervert; it has nothing to do with "claiming that a person can change sex".

Sex has multiple components - one of these components is cognitive. In the overwhelming majority of cases the different components of sex align, in some minority cases they don't. Just as a person's chromosomes may not align with their sexual phenotype, a person's cognitive sex may not align with their other (observable, physical) sex characteristics This is not "wrong"; it's just different. Therapy to try to change someone's cognitive sex to align with their physical sex characteristics is rarely effective and usually profoundly harmful. Someone's cognitive sex is not something over which a person typically has any control. Cognitive sex typically develops very early in life and is highly resistant to change. It very possibly has a biological underpinning. It can be deeply painful when it is denied/ repressed by self and others. This is why many trans people seek social, legal and medical transition, because doing so is fundamental to their dignity and wellbeing. This is not an attack on (non-trans) women, or a movement to redefine their persons, any more than medical, social, legal interventions for people with DSDs is an attack on women without DSDs, or a movement to re-define their persons.

I hope that makes sense to at least someone - anyone - reading this thread.

Thank you for your respectful engagement @lifeturnsonadime and willingness to consider different points. That is so appreciated.

Edited

And here @teentantrums

Lostcat · 27/01/2025 20:16

dollybird · 27/01/2025 20:13

If the third space was for 'transphobic people' (i.e. women) and the women's was for transwomen, they'd all want to come into the the new third spaces, as it's all about validation. And what's validating about being in a loo/changing room etc with only other transwomen in them?

Women’s is for women (who don’t mind sharing with trans women) and trans women

lifeturnsonadime · 27/01/2025 20:17

Lostcat · 26/01/2025 16:58

Ok I am going to take you at your word and give it a try.

The first thing that is difficult in offering a definition is the lack of consensus around terminology - people understand sex and gender in different ways. So I am going to avoid using these short hands and try to describe this in full.

First of all 'biological sex' has multiple components/ is a complex process of development. There are our chromosomes, there is our reproductive anatomy , there is our external genitalia, there are gametes, there are our hormones. All of these together make up biological sex.

Although for the overwhelming majority of people, these aspects all align into one of two cluster typologies, there are also a minority of people who develop differently, producing a range of complex variations so that different aspects of these sex axes/characteristics do not 'align' (in typical ways) with other 'axes'.

Most of these variations have only become visible with the development of contemporary medical technologies that have made previously hidden differences/ aspects of the body observable (when previously they weren't).

There is still so much we don't know/ are learning about biological sex development - for example, there is a lot of interesting research into neurobiological development/ differences. Scientific understanding of the physiology of the brain is still very much developing.

There is also an aspect to 'sex' which is cognitive. This is what some people call 'gender identity'. I am going to avoid that terminology as I understand it triggers people / is associated with being "woo" "ideology". Instead, I am going to call this cognitive aspect to sex "automatic cognitive sex". I am using the word "automatic" to signify that this is related to automatic processing in the brain (e.g. it is not "deliberate" "conscious" or "chosen").

We all have a cognitive sex. This is simply the awareness/ recognition/ understanding of self as being male/a man/ a woman/ female etc. For the vast majority of people, just as their different physical sex characteristics (chromosomes, gametes, genitals, hormones) align, their cognitive sex aligns with their physical sex characteristics. This is so common/ obvious that we take this alignment entirely for granted - indeed we presume that one simply leads to the other - i.e. "I know I am a woman because I was born female".

HOWEVER, just as there are some people who are born with variations in sex development, there are some people for whom their "automatic cognitive sex" does not align with their physical sex characteristics as observed at birth. We don't know why this is or what causes it, but it is very possible that it has a durable developmental biological underpinning - there is some interesting research into this looking at sex development, hormones and neurobiological differences, although the science is in its infancy.

This is what it is to be trans. Although we do not know what causes being trans, we do have a huge body of scientific evidence that being trans does in fact exist (it always has - everywhere) and is very much real. It can be extremely painful/ distressing - particularly when it is repressed/ denied by self and others. It is not something over which a person typically has control, and it is typically not able to be changed/ altered - therapy and other mental health interventions to "cure" transness do not help, but cause significant harm. Being trans often starts very early in life, even if people do not always have the conscious words, ideas, cultural references to identify/ understand/ express their experience until later in life.

This is what being trans is/ means. Nothing to do with gender stereotypes, clothes, behaviour, someone's voice, hating women, hating gay people, belief in "gender woo" or any of the other things people have so far suggested on this thread and many others.

Ok you can all commence getting angry and ridiculing me now. 3, 2,1....

OR... Maybe just read and think about it for a while, and who knows we could have a productive exchange.

Edited

I don't dispute the existence of trans people but I do KNOW that the oppression faced by trans women is not the same as the oppression faced by women based on our sex bodies and assumptions about our reproductive capabilities.

I therefore do not see any reason, based on your definition of what trans is, to remove the protections that women have been historically granted through sex based spaces and sports.

In fact trans women form part of the oppressor class because they have the sexed bodies of the oppressor class.

To the extent that women and trans people face harassment or other forms of discrimination those forms of harm are already protected by other laws without the need for trans women to infringe on women's sex based rights.

Therefore I do not agree that Trumps EO is transphobic because it restores the status quo for women in terms of sex based spaces and sports. I do think that trans people are more likely to face issues in the USA because their laws do not provide the other protections that are afforded to people in the UK under the provision of gender reassignment under the Equality Act.

I would suggest that the UK could revert to the original status quo and make it clear that sex based women's provisions only apply to people with female bodies.

Of course some males may continue to attempt to enter those spaces but women will have the means to argue that they should not be there and the social contract which originally worked to protect women reasonably well can be restored.

Lostcat · 27/01/2025 20:17

Lostcat · 27/01/2025 14:07

Please expand on what you mean by these statements

Cognitions are distinct from "feelings". You keep conflating the two.

Secondly it is widely recognised these days that the distinction between mental and physical process is far too simplistic- cognition has a physical basis in the brain, which itself of course is part of the entire system of the human body: https://cambridgecognition.com/what-is-cognition/. As I have repeatedly tried to say on this thread, it is very possible that transness has a biological basis/ underpinning.

And why this means that the needs of female bodied people who have faced oppression based on our female bodies (which will not include anyone with a male body no matter how they feel about themselves) shouldn't be recognised in law?
Straw man which bears no relation to anything I have contributed on this thread.

And here @teentantrums

DuesToTheDirt · 27/01/2025 20:18

Lostcat · 27/01/2025 20:16

Women’s is for women (who don’t mind sharing with trans women) and trans women

That would be "mixed sex" then.

DeanElderberry · 27/01/2025 20:19

So, as far as I understand it,

In the late 1970s some sociologists started to apply the grammatical term 'gender' to humans.

A little earlier the term 'transvestite', which had been around for a half century had a new term 'transsexual' added to it.

At the start of the 21st century 'transsexuals' started to be referred to as 'transgenger' (which was still viewed as something that required medical if not surgical intervention)

About a decade ago we got 'self Id' and began to get an insistence that everyone had a gender identity even though most people don't. I think that's when 'trans' as a stand alone word, not a prefix, showed up. It's also when the ludicrous back-construction 'cis' started being used by genderists

And now the theorists are going to try to apply something very vague and woolly called 'cognitive sex' to all of us.

Which still doesn't explain what 'trans' actually is.

While denying the reality of sex.

hooray for the USA

Lostcat · 27/01/2025 20:22

DuesToTheDirt · 27/01/2025 20:18

That would be "mixed sex" then.

No it wouldn’t because it would not include men.
it would simply be the status quo that we have now.

RufustheFactuaIReindeer · 27/01/2025 20:25

You think my understanding is nasty, and I unfortunately think the same of yours

you just called any woman who needs a single sex toilet transphobic,

and you have literally no idea of what my understanding is

lifeturnsonadime · 27/01/2025 20:26

Lostcat · 27/01/2025 20:22

No it wouldn’t because it would not include men.
it would simply be the status quo that we have now.

The status quo that we have now is based on Stonewall interpretation of sex based spaces which denies the lived experience of the oppression that women have faced since the beginning of time on account of our sexed bodies.

The fact that the current situation means that trans women who are, by definition, male bodied think they are entitled to enter means that the spaces does not work to protect women from the oppressor class.

The law needs to be amended to protect women from the oppressor class which includes trans women as part of the oppressor class on the basis of body type.

Myalternate · 27/01/2025 20:26

Lostcat · 27/01/2025 19:02

again with the choice of language - “pandering to people”. Regardless of your (lack of) understanding of the scientific issues at hand- What does this convey about your attitudes towards trans people do you think?

Edited

I lack nothing.

I’m a woman. An Adult Human Female.
I’m a Mother. I was very much present when my little people were born out of my female parts having been kept safe from harm for 9 months in my very female uterus.

My attitude towards trans people is one of sympathy. I sympathise with people that suffer from any mental disorders that they have to live with.

Until someone proves unequivocally that a sense of self (‘feelings’ in other words) of being Trans can be scientifically proven, I’ll stick with the definition found on the Transequality site. I’m trying so hard to be fair 🙂

Lostcat · 27/01/2025 20:27

RufustheFactuaIReindeer · 27/01/2025 20:25

You think my understanding is nasty, and I unfortunately think the same of yours

you just called any woman who needs a single sex toilet transphobic,

and you have literally no idea of what my understanding is

No ,I called your understanding of single “sex” transphobic.
Your understanding is clear because of what you write here.

Lostcat · 27/01/2025 20:30

lifeturnsonadime · 27/01/2025 20:26

The status quo that we have now is based on Stonewall interpretation of sex based spaces which denies the lived experience of the oppression that women have faced since the beginning of time on account of our sexed bodies.

The fact that the current situation means that trans women who are, by definition, male bodied think they are entitled to enter means that the spaces does not work to protect women from the oppressor class.

The law needs to be amended to protect women from the oppressor class which includes trans women as part of the oppressor class on the basis of body type.

Edited

Trans women were always able to enter women’s toilets. Women’s toilets were never guarded against this. This hasn’t changed.

lifeturnsonadime · 27/01/2025 20:32

Lostcat · 27/01/2025 20:30

Trans women were always able to enter women’s toilets. Women’s toilets were never guarded against this. This hasn’t changed.

Edited

Then they have always broken the social contract. They were never designed for trans women.

Women may have been more willing to turn a blind eye in the past not so much now that this has been extended to us being told that we are bigots for wanting single sex prisons and rape crisis centres and fairness in sport for people born with female bodies.

Blame the transactivists not the women for the pushback. It's their fault.

Lostcat · 27/01/2025 20:34

lifeturnsonadime · 27/01/2025 20:32

Then they have always broken the social contract. They were never designed for trans women.

Women may have been more willing to turn a blind eye in the past not so much now that this has been extended to us being told that we are bigots for wanting single sex prisons and rape crisis centres and fairness in sport for people born with female bodies.

Blame the transactivists not the women for the pushback. It's their fault.

The social contract never excluded trans women . Trans women have been using female toilets for decades.

lifeturnsonadime · 27/01/2025 20:34

And you've added 'never guarded' in your edit.

We shouldn't have to guard against our oppressor class. That you can't see that says a hell of a lot about your opinion of people with female sexed bodies (otherwise known as women).

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