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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions
AlisonDonut · 02/02/2025 13:24

If microplastic are turning kids delusional, should we still be operating on their genitals? Or should we take action against microplastics?

Honestly, the contortions that are made to justify this never ceases to amaze.

ellenback21 · 02/02/2025 14:24

Cattreesea · 02/02/2025 08:52

I really feel sorry for teachers though, they can't win:

  • if they refused to use pronouns and or to go with the wishes of a pupil who identifies as transgender, nonbinary and so on, they face negative consequences
  • now if they support transgender/nonbinary students they will also face negative consequences?

Frankly I really wonder why anyone would want to be a teacher these days...

I imagine a good number of teachers and school leaders will be very grateful to have an excuse to push back on gender ideology. They can blame Trump and thereby avoid the torrent of abuse that would previously have come their way.

HPFA · 02/02/2025 14:50

PriOn1 · 02/02/2025 08:19

I am becoming uneasy about the rate these changes are being attempted. Not sure why exactly, because I’ve felt for a while that all this could be resolved by reasserting reality, as in the emperor’s new clothes. I hope it does happen, but I had always imagined a slower collapse, led by the collapse of medical transitioning, following waves of negligence claims, and from there, the rest of society coming to understand the scale of the errors that have been introduced, backed by a medical establishment that’s gone way off course.

In short, I guess I would have preferred the truth to have unfolded by a process of events occurring over time, so that everyone sane would see it and accept that something has gone very wrong in medicine and socially. There are people on my Facebook page, and decent people, decrying everything Trump is doing and accusations here of this being like section 28.

For the whole thing to be properly reversed, the situation needs to evolve naturally and I think that was gradually happening. While I agree in principle with everything Trump is pushing through on gender, I would feel much happier if it had been taken at a slower pace.

This, and another danger is that "supporting trans people" becomes identified with being "anti Trump".

As Trump continues to attack neighbouring countries and dismantle democracy then "trans rights" could start to look like the patriotic option - most people think the Liberal Party in Canada will get a boost from Trump's attacks on Canada.

Once Trump starts attacking us in the UK easy to see the same thing happening here.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 02/02/2025 15:24

HPFA · 02/02/2025 14:50

This, and another danger is that "supporting trans people" becomes identified with being "anti Trump".

As Trump continues to attack neighbouring countries and dismantle democracy then "trans rights" could start to look like the patriotic option - most people think the Liberal Party in Canada will get a boost from Trump's attacks on Canada.

Once Trump starts attacking us in the UK easy to see the same thing happening here.

I'm not going to pass up the opportunity to stop children's lives being wrecked by the belief that their bodies are wrong but a sex change will "cure" them because I despise a politician.
Hopefully all those fretting about this are working tirelessly to persuade our politicians and the rest of society who have signed up to transactivism that the safety of children is more important than the demands of transctivists.
The rest of us have been dismissed as right wing bigots but hopefully if you're anti Trump enough they'll be listening to you? Won't they? 🙄

RayonSunrise · 02/02/2025 15:59

@MrsOvertonsWindow Oh give over. Plenty of us have been funding court cases over here, writing to our MPs, sending evidence to the Baroness, bought Time to Think to push it up the Amazon charts, talked tirelessly to friends and family to raise awareness, etc - you are not the only person who's ever lifted a finger on this topic. It would be nice if you bothered to remember this started off as a feminist pushback and we welcomed conservative women who wanted to join us. Pretending you're here to teach us everything isn't a good look.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 02/02/2025 16:14

RayonSunrise · 02/02/2025 15:59

@MrsOvertonsWindow Oh give over. Plenty of us have been funding court cases over here, writing to our MPs, sending evidence to the Baroness, bought Time to Think to push it up the Amazon charts, talked tirelessly to friends and family to raise awareness, etc - you are not the only person who's ever lifted a finger on this topic. It would be nice if you bothered to remember this started off as a feminist pushback and we welcomed conservative women who wanted to join us. Pretending you're here to teach us everything isn't a good look.

Not sure where you got "Pretending you're here to teach us everything" from my comments but you're entitled to your view.
I'm just pointing out that all the scolding of women pleased to see the leader of a country finally speaking out and stopping schools from transitioning children (sometimes in secret from parents) isn't having an impact on the political leaders in this country who still feel empowered to fund and enable transactivism happening in schools.

Edited to add: I'm genuinely sorry if my choice of words offended anyone who's been fighting this battle for years.That wasn't my intention.

LastTrainsEast · 02/02/2025 16:25

Pinkissmart · 02/02/2025 09:13

The threats don’t stop there. Federal funding for schools and programs that teach lessons about gender or race is also in jeopardy

The article also says the above. This is terrifying.
Some of the responses on this thread are terrifying. I agree with @PriOn1 about the rate of implementation.
Stripping away rights. Cutting off channels to educate and support.

Can you name a right that a man will have that a transwoman will not.

Surely a math teacher doesn't have a human right to persuade girls to wear breast binders?

A gym teacher doesn't have a human right to say "I feel more affirmed if boys are allowed in the showers with other people's daughters"

This is not about their right to be what they are, but their right to push or impose their ideology on other people's children.

None of these penalties will ever be imposed if teachers do their job without introducing their personal or political needs. No decent teacher is in any danger.

I imagine all the good teachers will be breathing a sigh of relief as now they can't be punished for refusing to do what the activists demand.

PriOn1 · 02/02/2025 16:33

MrsOvertonsWindow · 02/02/2025 16:14

Not sure where you got "Pretending you're here to teach us everything" from my comments but you're entitled to your view.
I'm just pointing out that all the scolding of women pleased to see the leader of a country finally speaking out and stopping schools from transitioning children (sometimes in secret from parents) isn't having an impact on the political leaders in this country who still feel empowered to fund and enable transactivism happening in schools.

Edited to add: I'm genuinely sorry if my choice of words offended anyone who's been fighting this battle for years.That wasn't my intention.

Edited

I hope you didn’t think my comments were in any way scolding anyone here. That wasn’t in any way my intention. I’m just personally uneasy because until Trump got in, most of UK friends and colleagues were trending terfwards. Now a few people (also in the UK) are so convinced everything Trump is doing is bad, by definition, that it’s making me uneasy about potential backlash against everything he’s doing.

I commented on the BBC thread about it. When I see Trump doing good things and the BBC so biased that they are misleading anyone who relies on them, I feel I am in such a topsy turvy position that it’s disorienting. I mean, it’s been disorienting for a while. If you’d told me it was going to get worse, I wouldn’t have believed you.

Helleofabore · 02/02/2025 16:34

MrsOvertonsWindow · 02/02/2025 15:24

I'm not going to pass up the opportunity to stop children's lives being wrecked by the belief that their bodies are wrong but a sex change will "cure" them because I despise a politician.
Hopefully all those fretting about this are working tirelessly to persuade our politicians and the rest of society who have signed up to transactivism that the safety of children is more important than the demands of transctivists.
The rest of us have been dismissed as right wing bigots but hopefully if you're anti Trump enough they'll be listening to you? Won't they? 🙄

Indeed Mrs O!

What a convenient way to stop women campaigning for their and children’s needs? Categorise the needs of women and safeguarding protections as right wing. And reject any measures that reprioritise sex over gender identity and impartial safeguarding for children because any support of it would cause significant discomfort to those who have an identity revolving around their political beliefs.

Woman are saying ‘this is what we need’, and those who are concerned, even petrified, of being seen as supporting something that the party has decreed as not for them to address.

So instead of dealing with each EO and discussing relevant pros and cons, we get the ‘look over there’ tactics. There could be similarities with that document however, to declare that they are all part of a campaign of hate is a misrepresentation. It ignores that these are issues that concern ALL the electorate regardless of party membership.

The question remains, are the need of female people and children to be put on hold until the ‘good’ government comes into power and that ‘good’ government decides the issues should be addressed after all?

Or should the issues be addressed as and when campaigners have gained support?

When? When will it be convenient and politically acceptable for the needs of female people and children to be protected?

And if your (general you) answer looks anything like ‘but not Trump’, you have just assigned female people and children to another four years of known harm just for political purity. No wonder you need to align the EOs to being only hateful.

Helleofabore · 02/02/2025 16:42

Apparently it is far right to watch Portillo’s Great British Railways according to some on the internet.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 02/02/2025 16:43

PriOn1 · 02/02/2025 16:33

I hope you didn’t think my comments were in any way scolding anyone here. That wasn’t in any way my intention. I’m just personally uneasy because until Trump got in, most of UK friends and colleagues were trending terfwards. Now a few people (also in the UK) are so convinced everything Trump is doing is bad, by definition, that it’s making me uneasy about potential backlash against everything he’s doing.

I commented on the BBC thread about it. When I see Trump doing good things and the BBC so biased that they are misleading anyone who relies on them, I feel I am in such a topsy turvy position that it’s disorienting. I mean, it’s been disorienting for a while. If you’d told me it was going to get worse, I wouldn’t have believed you.

Not at all. I thought your comments about the pace of change and the reaction to it were really interesting. I spent a while pondering whether (what I see as a glacial pace) of tackling schools is actually cover for allowing schools to steadily retreat from an unacceptable position they've got themselves into. Thus allowing them to reverse ferret without having to lose face or apologise.

As well as acknowledging that having been involved in this for so long, it's exhausting to see things continuing. Maybe it's better for those of us just exasperated by it all to take a step back if our irritation starts alienating people (iyswim) ?

Edited to add not sure I've explained that clearly 😐

HPFA · 02/02/2025 16:48

MrsOvertonsWindow · 02/02/2025 15:24

I'm not going to pass up the opportunity to stop children's lives being wrecked by the belief that their bodies are wrong but a sex change will "cure" them because I despise a politician.
Hopefully all those fretting about this are working tirelessly to persuade our politicians and the rest of society who have signed up to transactivism that the safety of children is more important than the demands of transctivists.
The rest of us have been dismissed as right wing bigots but hopefully if you're anti Trump enough they'll be listening to you? Won't they? 🙄

Just as Democrats were stupid to hand Republicans the weapon of males being in female sports it would be stupid to allow the reverse to happen.

Yes, everyone should make up their minds independently on every issue but realistically people rarely have time for that.

Cailleach1 · 02/02/2025 16:58

AlisonDonut · 02/02/2025 07:25

Yes it's the absolute same.

Section 28 stopped them taking gay and lesbian kids, plus autistic kids, and pushed them through a child mutilation and sterilisation programme. Gosh you are so clever noticing this.

Oh hang on, no. No it didn't.

Edited

Well, it is the other way up I think. I suppose if you realise that clinicians at the Tavistock said that some deeply homophobic parents brought their children along to the clinic. Their gender non conforming children or suspected same sex attracted children, in order to ‘trans the gay away’. The wry ‘joke’ among clinicians was that there wouldn’t be any gay children left, as they had all been put on a trans pathway in order to try to appear as the opposite sex. Maybe some parents would prefer the medicalisation of their formerly healthy non gender conforming youngsters, than for them to grown up gay.

It’s all very sad, how this misogynistic and homophobic ideology was not assessed very much before being given carte blanche in such a way. Thank goodness for the Cass Report. A rational approach, and ethical way of looking at how gender non conforming, and distressed children were being treated.

I read somewhere (LGB Alliance?) young girls (who may grow up to be lesbians) in particular will be very affected. Instead of being allowed to grow up healthy and confident in who they are, they are being led to believe that they are really born in the wrong bodies and are boys. Also girls who are trying to flee their sexualisation by society, or identify out of being abuses. It is double dose of misogyny on the homophobia. They are being lied to that they can actually change their sex, and led along to a life of possible sterility and ill health.

I suspect that past and current practices will be the abuse scandals and investigation of the future.

Greyskybluesky · 02/02/2025 16:59

Helleofabore · 02/02/2025 16:42

Apparently it is far right to watch Portillo’s Great British Railways according to some on the internet.

I generally can't stand the man but he saved the wonderful Settle to Carlisle railway line so I'm grateful to him for that. I guess my appreciation of railway heritage makes me far right!

Theeyeballsinthesky · 02/02/2025 17:16

PriOn1 · 02/02/2025 16:33

I hope you didn’t think my comments were in any way scolding anyone here. That wasn’t in any way my intention. I’m just personally uneasy because until Trump got in, most of UK friends and colleagues were trending terfwards. Now a few people (also in the UK) are so convinced everything Trump is doing is bad, by definition, that it’s making me uneasy about potential backlash against everything he’s doing.

I commented on the BBC thread about it. When I see Trump doing good things and the BBC so biased that they are misleading anyone who relies on them, I feel I am in such a topsy turvy position that it’s disorienting. I mean, it’s been disorienting for a while. If you’d told me it was going to get worse, I wouldn’t have believed you.

I do agree with this. From
What I’m seeing in my world (charity) emails are flying around filled with emotion affirming that what we need to do now more than ever is come out fighting for LGBTQ+ people because of Trump by which they really mean TQ because they always mean that. More training, more flags, more DQ story time, all of it

ellenback21 · 02/02/2025 17:24

The TRAs and their allies will double down. However, I am getting a different reaction from the middle ground. Trump himself being "mad, bad, orange, whatever" can be a point of agreement but then the conversation can be steered onto the EOs and I am getting an engagement I would not have got 6 months ago. People want to know what all the fuss is about.

Floisme · 02/02/2025 17:36

I don't doubt that the Trump Factor is going to be a problem and I'd have much preferred to see the Democrats come to their senses over this, but having seen their reaction to losing the popular vote and all the swing states, does anyone really believe that was ever going to happen?

I'm not sure either what women in Federal prisons and parents of gender distressed children are supposed to do in the meantime - say no to any change until it comes from the 'right people'?

I've been reading Kara Dansky, a Democrat who, (unlike me and I imagine a lot of posters on here) has actually spent the last few years battling with her party, trying to get them to change course. I have a lot of time for her and, if you've not read her books or don't follow her on Twix, the article below is a taster. Her conclusion?:
'Sadly, things are not changing in the US Democratic Party, and it appears that the Democrats are indeed prepared to die on the hill that ‘some men are women’.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/01/24/will-democrats-ever-drop-the-transgender-lunacy/

Porridgewithoats · 02/02/2025 17:38

Shortshriftandlethal · 02/02/2025 13:11

You sound confused to be honest.

Exploring the sociallly constructed dimensions of gender means experimenting, exploring and either accepting or rejecting certain norms and or stereotypes associated with one's sex. It does not mean believeing that you can actually change sex. Sex is fixed. it is an immutable biological reality.

Nobody was using pronouns (in the way that people are now) in the 1980s, and that includes in schools - for the reason nobody had heard of transgenderism. It wasn't really a thing then. People were aware of a few men who were called 'transsexuals' - who had radical surgeries.....but that was pretty much it.

Edited

I'm not at all confused. I'm pointing out that this law also affects children experimenting with and subverting gender constructs.

If Trump had wanted to allow children to explore and understand that gender is an oppressive, sexist construct, he could have put feminism on the curriculum and ensured schools had to teach critical thinking around gender: a very positive approach to the problem of (scarily undereducated) children thinking they could change sex to escape gender constructs.

Trump doesn't want people to think critically about gender, nor to subvert stereotypes, and this law obstructs both.

GailBlancheViola · 02/02/2025 17:39

It would be nice if you bothered to remember this started off as a feminist pushback and we welcomed conservative women who wanted to join us.

Who does this we refer to? Is it akin to the Royal we?

How very big of the we group to welcome conservative women. How very condescending you sound as if conservative women are just not quite the right sort of women and here's me thinking feminism is for all women.

WandaSiri · 02/02/2025 18:13

HPFA · 02/02/2025 16:48

Just as Democrats were stupid to hand Republicans the weapon of males being in female sports it would be stupid to allow the reverse to happen.

Yes, everyone should make up their minds independently on every issue but realistically people rarely have time for that.

What weapon would we handing genderists?

HPFA · 02/02/2025 18:40

WandaSiri · 02/02/2025 18:13

What weapon would we handing genderists?

I don't think we should be cheering Trump's EOs. The vast majority in this country will not separate what Trump is doing on the trans issue from every other harmful thing he is doing.

Focus on this country.

ellenback21 · 02/02/2025 18:53

HPFA · 02/02/2025 18:40

I don't think we should be cheering Trump's EOs. The vast majority in this country will not separate what Trump is doing on the trans issue from every other harmful thing he is doing.

Focus on this country.

The majority in this country actually agree with the gender critical view, certainly when it comes to sports, prisons, changing rooms, sex meaning biological sex in the Equality Act. Know your audience. If you think talking about the EOs will help - do it. If you think it will make the situation worse - avoid it.

Floisme · 02/02/2025 19:01

No, I'm not going to pretend I'm not happy for women in federal prisons, or for US female athletes, or for girls trying to play sport, or for children who've been told the lie that they can change sex, or for parents of children asking for puberty blockers. If I start down that path then, as far as I'm concerned, Trump will have won.

TheKeatingFive · 02/02/2025 19:09

I'm not sure either what women in Federal prisons and parents of gender distressed children are supposed to do in the meantime - say no to any change until it comes from the 'right people'?

Well exactly

And conveniently the 'right people' are all completely captured so they'd be waiting a long, long time.

What the Democrats are doing are gifting Trump more and more issues that he can sound completely reasonable on.

WandaSiri · 02/02/2025 19:17

HPFA · 02/02/2025 18:40

I don't think we should be cheering Trump's EOs. The vast majority in this country will not separate what Trump is doing on the trans issue from every other harmful thing he is doing.

Focus on this country.

Sorry, disagree completely - Floisme · Today 19:01 expresses it perfectly.