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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
lifeturnsonadime · 25/01/2025 09:27

Lostcat · 25/01/2025 09:26

if you think it isn’t made up
Again, I value this honesty. I think it’s important to be clear what it is that people actually believe / are saying on these threads. Namely that: being trans is “made up”. It doesn’t mean anything at all.

Edited

This is just ridiculous.

Why won't you define it?

Honestly. You're not engaging in a reasonable way.

AlisonDonut · 25/01/2025 09:28

Lostcat · 25/01/2025 09:26

if you think it isn’t made up
Again, I value this honesty. I think it’s important to be clear what it is that people actually believe / are saying on these threads. Namely that: being trans is “made up”. It doesn’t mean anything at all.

Edited

I've never lied about knowing it is made up. I've been asking for years for a definition. So crack on. Show us how wrong we are.

The floor is yours.

Lostcat · 25/01/2025 09:31

Chersfrozenface · 25/01/2025 09:27

@Lostcat I agree with a PP.
"You have said that you have previously given a detailed description of what trans means on another thread, please can you therefore define it again..."

You could use Copy & Paste.

I would be willing to do that if I could easily find the threads.

But it wouldn’t matter either way- I could spend my time explaining again. I could spend my time linking to useful resources. I could spend my time searching for old posts on old threads and copy paste them here.

It wouldn’t change a thing.

you categorically believe that being trans is a made up identity that doesn’t really exist- and nothing that I say will ever persuade you otherwise. The next thread that comes up you will pretend you never saw any explanation.

lifeturnsonadime · 25/01/2025 09:32

@Lostcat if you had the courage of your convictions you would define the thing that you are asking us whether we believe is real or not.

In the absence of a definition you are on very shaky grounds. One might assume you know that 'trans' is undefinable it therefore is not reasonable to expect women to lose single sex spaces over.

If I am wrong, provide a definition and then we can have a proper discussion.

Lostcat · 25/01/2025 09:34

lifeturnsonadime · 25/01/2025 09:27

This is just ridiculous.

Why won't you define it?

Honestly. You're not engaging in a reasonable way.

I’m engaging by highlighting people’s opinions for what they really are.

I think it’s important to do that as at the same time we get a lot of posters trying to gasslight- “we respect the rights of trans people”, “we don’t have a problem with trans people”, “we’re not saying trans people don’t exist”, “we just care about women”.

I think it’s important to show/ recognise/ be honest -
What people believe is that there is no such thing as being trans- it’s made up- means nothing. They want to eliminate this thing called being trans. That’s what this EO does and why it is fascist, anti trans legislation. Nothing to do with women’s rights.

WandaSiri · 25/01/2025 09:43

@Lostcat

The EO defends women's rights from the excesses of gender identity ideology by asserting biological truth and reality.
Which parts of it are anti-trans?
Oh no, wait. You haven't defined "trans" yet, have you? How about you do that? Why don't YOU be honest? Why don't you stop trying to gaslight us?

hihelenhi · 25/01/2025 09:45

Lostcat · 25/01/2025 09:31

I would be willing to do that if I could easily find the threads.

But it wouldn’t matter either way- I could spend my time explaining again. I could spend my time linking to useful resources. I could spend my time searching for old posts on old threads and copy paste them here.

It wouldn’t change a thing.

you categorically believe that being trans is a made up identity that doesn’t really exist- and nothing that I say will ever persuade you otherwise. The next thread that comes up you will pretend you never saw any explanation.

So you're not going to give us a definition because it's mysteriously waaaay tooo complicated.

This really isn't complicated. that's the thing. And as above, if you had the courage of your convictions you'd be able to, and pretty easily.

The fact that you seem unwilling or unable to is a massive part of the problem and why we think it's "made up", yes. You can't make laws or have a discussion based on indefinable terms. That's unreasonable and ridiculous.

Lostcat · 25/01/2025 09:46

WandaSiri · 25/01/2025 09:43

@Lostcat

The EO defends women's rights from the excesses of gender identity ideology by asserting biological truth and reality.
Which parts of it are anti-trans?
Oh no, wait. You haven't defined "trans" yet, have you? How about you do that? Why don't YOU be honest? Why don't you stop trying to gaslight us?

Edited

It eliminates any recognition of trans experience.

That is what this legislation does- it is what it is for- that is why you support it, because you think :

  1. being trans is “made up”
  2. you think that this “made up” thing (being trans) is harmful to women (and children) and
  3. you want this made up thing (being trans) eliminated.
Lostcat · 25/01/2025 09:49

hihelenhi · 25/01/2025 09:45

So you're not going to give us a definition because it's mysteriously waaaay tooo complicated.

This really isn't complicated. that's the thing. And as above, if you had the courage of your convictions you'd be able to, and pretty easily.

The fact that you seem unwilling or unable to is a massive part of the problem and why we think it's "made up", yes. You can't make laws or have a discussion based on indefinable terms. That's unreasonable and ridiculous.

Edited

It absolutely is very complicated. That’s the problem. You may want to believe things are simple. They aren’t.

AlisonDonut · 25/01/2025 09:49

I've got a robot mower to clean and pack up for a reuse, reduce, recycle centre so I'll pop back later for this infamous definition.

Can't wait.

lifeturnsonadime · 25/01/2025 09:49

Lostcat · 25/01/2025 09:34

I’m engaging by highlighting people’s opinions for what they really are.

I think it’s important to do that as at the same time we get a lot of posters trying to gasslight- “we respect the rights of trans people”, “we don’t have a problem with trans people”, “we’re not saying trans people don’t exist”, “we just care about women”.

I think it’s important to show/ recognise/ be honest -
What people believe is that there is no such thing as being trans- it’s made up- means nothing. They want to eliminate this thing called being trans. That’s what this EO does and why it is fascist, anti trans legislation. Nothing to do with women’s rights.

Edited

No, you're the one gaslighting.

You are asking me if I agree with a concept that YOU won't define.

That's unreasonable.

Women are losing single sex spaces and sports to trans people. In the light of that it is entirely reasonable for me to ask you for a working definition of trans.

You have a cheek to say that this is not an ideology when you won't even define terms.

Lostcat · 25/01/2025 09:52

lifeturnsonadime · 25/01/2025 09:49

No, you're the one gaslighting.

You are asking me if I agree with a concept that YOU won't define.

That's unreasonable.

Women are losing single sex spaces and sports to trans people. In the light of that it is entirely reasonable for me to ask you for a working definition of trans.

You have a cheek to say that this is not an ideology when you won't even define terms.

You are asking me if I agree with a concept that YOU won't define.

I’m simply asking us to be clear about what our respective positions are.

I think being trans is a real thing and it’s ok.

You think being trans is made up and it’s not ok.

This EO makes the latter the formal policy of the US government which is why it is anti trans legislation.

lifeturnsonadime · 25/01/2025 09:55

Lostcat · 25/01/2025 09:46

It eliminates any recognition of trans experience.

That is what this legislation does- it is what it is for- that is why you support it, because you think :

  1. being trans is “made up”
  2. you think that this “made up” thing (being trans) is harmful to women (and children) and
  3. you want this made up thing (being trans) eliminated.
Edited

What is the 'trans' experience?

How do I know what that is, when I don't even know what being 'trans' is?

I'm a solicitor by profession, I know no good laws are made without defined terms.

If you want laws to give trans people additional rights/ privileges you need to be able to define who these people are. In other words you need to be able to define trans. Otherwise any person can claim these additional rights which surely you see is undesirable.

So go right ahead and provide your definition please. I can't accept it is too complicated to define.

lifeturnsonadime · 25/01/2025 09:57

Lostcat · 25/01/2025 09:52

You are asking me if I agree with a concept that YOU won't define.

I’m simply asking us to be clear about what our respective positions are.

I think being trans is a real thing and it’s ok.

You think being trans is made up and it’s not ok.

This EO makes the latter the formal policy of the US government which is why it is anti trans legislation.

Edited

I don't know whether I think trans is made up or not. That's the whole point.

Having a definition of trans will help me determine what I think about it.

You failing to provide a definition is just odd. You don't have the courage of your convictions and think that males should should have additional privileges which harm women based on a concept that you, as a supporter of these rights, can't even define.

Lostcat · 25/01/2025 10:02

lifeturnsonadime · 25/01/2025 09:55

What is the 'trans' experience?

How do I know what that is, when I don't even know what being 'trans' is?

I'm a solicitor by profession, I know no good laws are made without defined terms.

If you want laws to give trans people additional rights/ privileges you need to be able to define who these people are. In other words you need to be able to define trans. Otherwise any person can claim these additional rights which surely you see is undesirable.

So go right ahead and provide your definition please. I can't accept it is too complicated to define.

So go right ahead and provide your definition please

As I said above, that would be an entirely futile exercise.

What is not futile is being clear about our respective positions. I think we should at least be able to agree about that. Being clear on that clarifies the purpose of this legislation - which is the debate on this thread.

You state yourself that you “don’t know what being trans is”.

You think that being trans is a “made up” “ideology” and that recognising this “ideology” (being trans) in law and policy is harmful to women and children. This EO codifies those beliefs in law.

Lostcat · 25/01/2025 10:05

lifeturnsonadime · 25/01/2025 09:57

I don't know whether I think trans is made up or not. That's the whole point.

Having a definition of trans will help me determine what I think about it.

You failing to provide a definition is just odd. You don't have the courage of your convictions and think that males should should have additional privileges which harm women based on a concept that you, as a supporter of these rights, can't even define.

I don't know whether I think trans is made up or not. That's the whole point. Having a definition of trans will help me determine what I think about it.*

Are you seriously trying to claim you are genuinely open minded and curious on this subject?

lifeturnsonadime · 25/01/2025 10:09

Lostcat · 25/01/2025 10:02

So go right ahead and provide your definition please

As I said above, that would be an entirely futile exercise.

What is not futile is being clear about our respective positions. I think we should at least be able to agree about that. Being clear on that clarifies the purpose of this legislation - which is the debate on this thread.

You state yourself that you “don’t know what being trans is”.

You think that being trans is a “made up” “ideology” and that recognising this “ideology” (being trans) in law and policy is harmful to women and children. This EO codifies those beliefs in law.

Edited

This is really pathetic.

You don't know it would be a futile exercise. You might define it and I might understand what you are trying to protect.

Your failure to engage reasonably is noted.

lifeturnsonadime · 25/01/2025 10:10

Lostcat · 25/01/2025 10:05

I don't know whether I think trans is made up or not. That's the whole point. Having a definition of trans will help me determine what I think about it.*

Are you seriously trying to claim you are genuinely open minded and curious on this subject?

Edited

Yes, I want to know what you are trying to achieve.

I have no idea why you won't engage reasonably.

I may or may not agree with your definition, how can I know when I don't know what it is.

AlisonDonut · 25/01/2025 10:10

Do you know what things are 'made up'?

Things without definitions.

WandaSiri · 25/01/2025 10:10

Lostcat · 25/01/2025 09:46

It eliminates any recognition of trans experience.

That is what this legislation does- it is what it is for- that is why you support it, because you think :

  1. being trans is “made up”
  2. you think that this “made up” thing (being trans) is harmful to women (and children) and
  3. you want this made up thing (being trans) eliminated.
Edited

All of that is meaningless while you refuse to/cannot define your main term.

nutmeg7 · 25/01/2025 10:12

We’ve been here before, sigh. And it is nuanced, and needs to be because “do you believe in trans people?” can mean a lot of things.

If “being trans” means literally having the wrong brain in your body (female brain in male body or vice versa) or you are “born in the wrong body” and “being trans” means the condition is lifelong and unchangeable then there is no scientific evidence for this, and I do not believe that this is a physical medical phenomenon.

If “being trans” means believing you are really a woman despite having a male body (or vice versa) then this is clearly a thing, and of course I believe it is possible to feel this way, I know several people who do.

But I do not believe that people arrive at a trans identity for the same reason, there is huge evidence that people arrive here for different reasons, being ND, or traumatised, or gender-non conforming in a very gender conforming society (USA Christian culture for example).

I also think that believing you are literally the opposite sex to your body is so obviously a psychological condition that could have arisen for many complex reasons, but doesn’t make it materially and actually true.

So answering “ do you believe trans people exist?” really does depend on what you mean by trans people.

And there is no point mucking about with the question until you can say what you mean by “trans people”.

DuesToTheDirt · 25/01/2025 10:13

Lostcat · 25/01/2025 08:52

Cis is just a descriptor of a person who is not trans. Like straight is a descriptor of a person who is not gay. Etc.

In terms of sports- this is one specific policy question that can be addressed without all this rage about trans people. But if we must address it - the idea that women’s sports are being overrun by trans people is just bollox- look at the actual data on the number of trans women participating in elite sports . It’s tiny.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/4/16/editorial-obstacles-trans-womens-sports/

Edited

Well I'll give you a different sports article, https://www.shewon.org/

And don't forget, if one transwoman gets the top prize or other award, it affects all the women below in the rankings. So one transwoman can affect many women, either by lowering their rankings or by pushing them out of a team altogether. On being banned from women's competitions, the transwoman golfer Hailey Davidson said, "I was not involved nor asked to be involved in any of the "studies" that any golf organization has just used to ban me, the only active golfer who is actually effected by these policy changes,' completely dismissing the many female golfers who are "actually affected" by the polcy change. (Got my quote from the Daily Mail, I don't know if "effected" is Hailey's error or theirs).

That's before we get started on the physical danger to women who are competing with men in boxing, ice hockey and other contact sports. Here's an example for you. "Women’s team with five transgender players ‘broke opponent’s leg’ and had parents fearing for girls’ safety."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/03/28/womens-team-five-transgender-players-broke-opponent-leg/

She Won banner: Selina Soule and Alanna Miller; picture attributed to Alliance Defending Freedom

List of Female Athletes by Sport | She Won

This website is dedicated to archiving the achievements of female athletes who were displaced by males in women’s sporting events.

https://www.shewon.org

nutmeg7 · 25/01/2025 10:22

Basically @Lostcat is your definition of a trans person:

Someone who believes they are the opposite sex to their body

Or

Someone who actually is the opposite sex to their body (in some unspecified way, such as perhaps having the wrong sexed brain, I don’t know, you tell me)

WildBoys · 25/01/2025 10:23

Jesus wept.
For YEARS the gender critical posters on here have continually repeated their well reasoned points of view on this issue. Over and over again.
Never have I heard a GC poster say anything along the lines of: "I'm not repeating myself" or suggest that continuing to assert their opinions would be "futile".

Weird that.

hihelenhi · 25/01/2025 10:24

Good grief. Hyperbole, gaslighting, false accusations of what seems to be some implication of, what, genocide? Because unbelievers are all apparently "Nazis" you know.

Well, thanks for the demo, LostCat. It's why "Let them speak" is so very revealing about TRAs. And you are demonstrating very well that why we think that "trans" is an ideology akin to a pretty fundamentalist religion, where all heretics or questioners must be deemed evil, accused of witchcraft and metaphorically (although I'm sure many of you would love it to be literal) burned at the stake.

Let's repeat. If you can't define your terms and instead resort to this absurd level of hyperbole, gaslighting and false accusations, you are not to be taken seriously. People are not stupid - they will question the motives of those who behave like you are doing here. Transactivists really are their own worst enemies.

For the record:

  • I believe that people believe they are "trans" yes. I don't believe such people "shouldn't exist", I believe everyone has the right to self expression as they wish, living their life freely and safely, as long as they are not affecting others' rights to do the same.
  • I don't, however, agree with them that they are in the wrong bodies and I don't agree with them they are really not the biological sex they are Male and female are biological categories, not personality types. That's what conservatively minded sexists think. You do not need your body "correcting" to "fit" a stereotype of the opposite sex if you don't fit. And even if you change your body to a simulcrum of what you imagine the opposite sex is, that does not literally make you a member of that sex.
  • I don't believe in inner "gender souls" - I think gender identity is made up nonsense. You have a body of one sex or another (yes, even if you were to have a DSD) and a human personality and your own personal preferences and experiences, which do not fit neatly into pink and blue boxes called "gender". Human beings are far more diverse and interesting than that,. Once again, man and woman are not personality types - it is SO reductive.
  • So no, I don't believe that men can "really" be women or that women can "really be men "inside, and therefore I don't believe that "trans" is a truthful ideological framework . Because I think that's entirely based on limited, old fashioned stereotypes of what it is to be a man or a woman in terms of behaviour, and I don't believe in those stereotypes, which, as a feminist, I have fought against all my life.
  • I also do not believe that it's reasonable or a "human right" to impose your beliefs that you are the opposite sex on others, particularly not others who actually ARE that sex, nor that your inner identity makes you the same as someone from the demographic you claim to "know" you belong to when objectively you don't. To me, this is the equivalent of a white person blacking up and demanding to be centred in black rights. It is deeply offensive and a form of cultural appropriation and colonisation. It is not a right.
  • I'd love it if the sexed bodies we have didn't matter. But they do. Because we live in a sexist world that continues to treat women (the actual females) as adjunct to and inferior to, often the property of male people, regardless of our personalities or how well we feel we fit "gender stereotypes" I know, and all the evidence and stats back this up, that actual biological sex continues to be socially as well as politically salient. For example in material terms, we know that female people are disproportionately the victims of sexual violence (over 80%) and male people are disproportionately the perpetrators (98-99%). That is why across the globe many women fought to have single sex spaces and services in certain circumstances. We also know from the stats that trans women have similar criminal behaviour patterns to other males, not females. Therefore their inner identity is irrelevant when it comes to things like being housed in prisons.
  • Most of the legislation that came into being over the last century which improved women's rights was based on "sex" - because the discrimination against us was entirely based on our sex. It had nothing to do with "gender identity" and most of it is largely irrelevant to men who claim to be women as it is not experienced by them, at all in many cases.
  • I therefore believe that attempting to replace "sex" in law with "gender identity"as demanded by "trans rights advocates" to give "trans women" the same rights as actual women is fundamentally detrimental to women's legal rights, and we have seen this in action on a number of areas in recent years.

I hope that clarifies for those who are busy claiming that we believe things we do not, and making ridiculous accusations. But I doubt it because I believe that such people are highly invested in not allowing us to discuss this in any way and not allowing anyone to hear what we actually think.

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