Women's rights general conversations - Thread 10

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of Thread 9.

There is so much excellent information and so many active discussions on FWR that I wondered if it would be useful to have a thread to sort of "cross-fertilise" between them - airing little thoughts or vignettes that wouldn't themselves merit their own thread, to highlight other posts/threads of particular interest or to point to notable developments on fast-moving threads so that casual observers know where to look.

(For example, "the X thread has meandered onto a fascinating discussion of Y" or "Poster P's amazing analysis on thread Z might have relevance to the scenario in thread W" or "Has anybody noticed this recurring theme that keeps coming up??" or even "Random bloke asked me to smile while I was choosing onions in the supermarket, grr"- that sort of thing).

Just for anyone bit of levity, I've just discovered the 'we do not care club' on Instagram. Very funny woman talking about what peri/menopausal women just do not care about anymore.

I'm not peri yet but it's sort of universal for women who no longer give a fuck.

This one? https://www.instagram.com/justbeingmelani/?hl=en

I like her!

I dont do Instagram, anyone care to summarise?

It's a menopausal woman reading out, and crossing off a list, what she doesn't care about today, which turns out to be pretty much everything. She says it all dead pan which adds a certain something.

She's on YT as well: https://www.youtube.com/@JustBeingMelani/shorts

I think she is great. There was definitely a stage in my life around menopause when I woke up and thought, I no longer care what anyone thinks - I'll just do me from this point on.

I remember that moment too, @FarriersGirl and it was liberating realising that I just didn't have to care about so many things any more.

It's obviously easier - but less fun - to stay what you do still care about when you reach the invisible age. 😀

I have the impression that in the course of today: Sandy Peggie has been cleared of four charges laid by Fife; the police have been advised that they should not be involved in promoting Pride; Beth Upton has been repeatedly publicly described as 'he' and also as looking male; that it has been suggested that a DEI representative should represent everyone equally, not ally with any one group; and that the wrongness of attempting to police thought-crimes has been brought into the open.

Anything else?

oh, a woman who works in a senior (non medical) role in a hospital has claimed that 'No one knows what their chromosomes are.'

And that she can't tell what sex people are.

If the police have to stop promoting Pride because it is political and indicates bias, does that ruling apply to other publicly funded institutions? Schools? Universities? Hospitals? Broadcasters?

Someone tell her about amniocentesis 😂

Or genitalia.

a door was cracked open on the question of TW having male-pattern criminality, and on which sex can commit rape. I will be surprised if that isn't revisited.

It's been a helluva day.

I'm sorry Linzi Smith and Sandy Peggie have been dragged through stress and turmoil, but so grateful to them and all their supporters.

Honestly, I've had a few unrelated glasses of wine but I'm feeling pretty cheery about things right now even if the ridiculous Hampstead Ponds are still trying to let men into the women's pond.

Not forgetting the WI trying to convince people of the rightness of their arguments that are very (suspiciously) similar to the Hampstead Pond arguments. But it does seem the ice is cracking. Plus didn’t Labour say women are women (and therefore TW are not women)?

They didn't exactly bellow it from the rooftops.

Snopes. I always thought this a decent, accurate fact-finding site. Maybe I was naive. But pretty disappointed to see this today (coincidentally, whilst looking for something else):

www.snopes.com/news/2024/08/05/imane-khelif-not-trans/

Disappointing, I’ve not read it all but it seems very biased. I would agree Khelif isn’t really ‘trans’ - but he is male, albeit one of the rare people with DSDs who was misidentified at birth.

To be very charitable, it's out of date. It's what people were saying around the time of the Carani fight. Headlines saying "Khelif isn't trans" always seemed to me to be massively missing the point: he never claimed to be trans, and neither did his critics say he was. But right now, the only honest response is that Khelif has refused to give proof of his sex.

Today at the tribunal, a woman declining to strip off in front of a man or to watch him stripping off is a hate incident. Noticing that he is male is confrontational.

Even if she scrupulously refers to him by his chosen name and uses his preferred pronouns. Mentioning that he is male, behind a closed door, to another woman who knows he is male, after he has harassed her, is a crime deserving maximum punitive response.

all good

Interesting (well, to me anyway) snippet: Ben Cooper KC (he of Maya F's ET and EAT) appears to work out of the same Chambers (Old Square) as the legendary RMW. I can't imagine they are going out for coffee buddies, but who knows? The Inns of Court are very strange places.

This thread is worth reading as is the full decision that was published yesterday

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5299380-scientists-at-porton-down-dont-believe-in-biological-sex?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

I went to my first Let Women Speak event yesterday in Hyde Park. Not a large gathering but some good speakers and KJK was on form. Got to say hello to her and she was very nice. At one point we went to Speakers Corner where she got on a stool and had a good shout. That part I didn't enjoy as the place seemed to be crammed with religious extremists and the crowd was almost all angry men, but the police stayed close to us and they were friendly. All in all a good day.

That's really good to hear, thanks for the report and for going along and representing!