Reversing the DARVO

[OhSister]

For years, and like many here, I've been frustrated with how debate on sex and gender is continually framed with the feelings, preferences, and perceived vulnerability of 'transwomen' always at the centre, no matter how much feminists point out that the issue they're concerned with is women's rights (and infringement upon same). Even on this board (and I'm as thankful as anyone to MNHQ for allowing it to exist), we had to plead for a name change from "Trans Rights" when the FWR topic was separated.

Observing the coverage of the SC ruling, on radio and podcasts and online, once again the onus seems to be on women / GC people to justify the "exclusion" of transwomen from women-only spaces. I have heard excellent speakers give clear, detailed explanations of why this is reasonable and necessary.

What I haven't heard (which isn't to say others haven't made the point) is GC women explaining our position this way:

Equality legislation exists to identify the grounds on which certain cohorts of society have been systematically oppressed or marginalised, and to explicitly protect people from discrimination on those grounds.

This case is being framed as being about whether transwomen are included in the word 'woman', but what it was really basically about is whether biological sex is included as a protected characteristic in the EA.

If "sex" were ruled to mean something other than biological sex, then there would be no protected characteristic that does mean biological sex, and no protection on that basis. Whereas gender reassignment is included among the protected characteristics, as it should be.

The only reasons I can think of why a person would object to biological sex being included among the protected characteristics, are (a) they believe that people [women] have not historically been, and are not now, oppressed or marginalised on the basis of their biological sex, or (b) they accept that people are indeed oppressed and marginalised and discriminated against on the basis of [female] biological sex, but they also think this oppressed group is the only one that shouldn't be protected by equality legislation.

Even if they take the blinkered view that sexism is largely based on gender presentation (it is not), what about intersectionality? Do we ignore sex-based oppression just because 'gender'-based oppression also exists?

Feminists are not the ones seeking to exclude anyone from the protections of the EA. Why is the onus not being placed on transactivists, to explain why they believe that those of us facing discrimination or requiring protections on the basis of biological sex should not be covered?

Why isn't this the question being asked?

I may have to steal this question to post on our entirely captured ‘women’s’ network at work where the terms of reference include those who identify as female…

Please do! I am desperate to hear this framing in common discourse.

I think my OP was a bit too long and wordy and people might not bother with it.

I should have just written, "When are we going to start making transactivists justify why biological sex shouldn't be a protected characteristic?"

We're on the back foot, not just because of misogyny, but because it's complicated to explain (hence the lengthy OP). The TRAs take advantage with their pithy soundbites. We need some of those (goes off for a think)

As @theilltemperedqueenofspacetime said - it's nuance that isn't easily grabbed in a headline.

I like your summary tho!

I agree with you, OP, but I think that the following assumptions of their motivation:

The only reasons I can think of why a person would object to biological sex being included among the protected characteristics, are (a) they believe that people [women] have not historically been, and are not now, oppressed or marginalised on the basis of their biological sex, or (b) they accept that people are indeed oppressed and marginalised and discriminated against on the basis of [female] biological sex, but they also think this oppressed group is the only one that shouldn't be protected by equality legislation.

miss a key piece of gender identity ideology dogma, which is that transwomen are actually part of the class known as women, and that they’re the most oppressed of all women as they were unfortunately born in the wrong body and look like men, despite the fact they have ‘female minds’.

I know that sounds like no-one would actually believe it, but people do. And many more don’t actually believe it literally but agree with the sentiment, and others don’t believe it but are too scared to question it.

I think the best tool we have is the SC judgment itself, as it was so clear and unequivocal as to the fact single-sex spaces are often needed, and it went into great detail about many of these practical scenarios and highlighted the absurdities that would arise if TW were treated as biological women for the purposes of the EA.

Furthermore, the SC judgment also pointed out that a transwoman with a fully-functioning penis can gain a GRC (as one did last year), and that there’s no legal requirement for someone to look any different from any other man to gain a GRC.

Trying to argue with people who believe that TWAW that sex matters will fall at the first hurdle if you try to exclude TW from the sex category as they will start talking about clownfish, women who’ve had hysterectomies or genital checks, etc. Their ideology will simply queer everything you throw at it, so that day is night and up is down, if it suits their argument.

IMO, quoting the SC judgment is the most effective way to get the logic of the situation across without getting stuck in the weeds of whether TWAW.

I am copying a post I made in another thread as it sits better here. The last thing I wanted to talk about is toilets. I think it is a much wider discussion about women’s oppression.

Ok so we have had a week flying our broomsticks around the Salem fire and dancing with our pitchforks. What is next for us old skool feminist hags?
As I suspect, this is going to grumble on as all the messages of support to the transcommunity continue (deafening crickets about women getting their spaces back but ho hum)
As much as I love a good roll in the mama bearpit as MN forums have been a blast, I am aware that the more delicately souled and the fence-sitters will still worry that be kind has not worked. Our forthrightness may be off-putting and I wouldn’t mind winning a few over.
I recall my peaking being a slow drip drip drip. I think many allies of the transcommunity may have had their loyal adherence to the cause eroded. There is something to be said about tempering our public interactions with the fence sitters and former stalwart allies to get them to consider the unthinkable heretical thoughts about the validity of sex classes.
Since I move in relatively woke circles. I have been told that most lesbians do support their trans sisters (news to me) but they do know my views. Nevertheless, I think there is mileage in trying to find some common ground.
I am thinking of framing my discussions on these contentions around the difference of liberal feminism compared to old school second wave feminism and gently drawing them into the world of material reality.
I would want to broaden out the discussion into one of life experience. As middle-aged women, we are ignored our opinions are dismissed and yet like canaries in the coal mine we have still spoken out. Some of us in light of the ruling are glad a proper debate can be had. The win is for transparency, light debate and proper honest conversation not making questioning someone’s position or belief a taboo. It is a starting point.
A lot of the younger generation know their fellow trans friends as the waif like non masc guys and the girls whose self-image and loathing is so fragile that they would self combust on the tiny mistake of a mixed pronoun. Of course, it is easier to endorse them and chime along with the outrage. To step outside the group-think is social death.
I can even understand that within a university setting these young ones have decided their world will be a true utopian ideal and that if the legislation had allowed for transpeople in all spaces we would all be in the sunny uplands of rainbowville. In their fervour they assumed once we met lots of trans peeps we would all join hands (never considering that actually us boring olds have plenty of experience of transfolk).
Sadly, they have been misled. Not everyone is as optimistic as them of their new progressive utopia. Much of another person’s outlook on life has been affected by life experience. Outwith of wealthy media land, luvvy think and the ivory towers, women and men have had to contend with the grubby the truly ugly and meaness of an ordinary life.
An ordinary life that allows with their naive outlook in utopia land for a rape victim to be forced to call say “her penis” in court. An ordinary life where women who really are the most deprived and vulnerable have to share a cell with Isla Bryson.
An ordinary life where a victim of domestic abuse has a panic attack in a shelter because a man walks into it. That ordinary woman cannot stop her body shaking, her mind tripping from fight or flight, and does not need to be further re traumatised by telling her to “reframe her trauma”.
An ordinary teenage girl who in the changing rooms of a local swimming pool has an older person in a wig leering and showing his “euphoria” while she tries to tell herself not to run out, even though it is her strongest instinct, because she doesn’t want to be seen as phobic.
But I think I would start with misogyny, How has their approach solved the intractable issues of men subjecting women to physical and sexual abuse since the new utopia? How is calling men women and women men helping on that? All I can see with my eyes is a blurring that has allowed boundaries to be crossed and it is for ordinary women that I am old school.
Fix misogyny first, stop assuming you have already done so, then we can discuss your progressive values seriously. I am more than willing to help with that mission.

This is a good explainer but not pithy:

https://sex-matters.org/posts/publications/supreme-court-judgment-summary-and-practical-advice/?mc_cid=6b1af0fc57&mc_eid=4aba2a59fe

As Longinesprime says above, unfortunately, many trans people and many others actually do believe that trans women are biological women and trans men are biological men, most due to the "female brain" thing (a modern version of phrenology, used to justify discrimination and oppression), some due to believing hormones etc. change your sex.

Thanks for engaging with the post. I have been immersed in this subject, as many of you have, for years and years so I do know and understand the dogma and deflection that props up the TWAW narrative.

But 1., I still think that it's important to frame the discussion in terms that centre the question of whether biological sex should be a protected characteristic, especially now when the SC case is creating an audience for the discussion that goes beyond those of us who have talked it all out for the last decade and more. I think it would be valuable to hear a presenter or a GC guest put the question across : " what is the argument against biological sex being a protected characteristic?" .. Even if the answer is going to be some misappropriation of intersex or PCOS or "ladybrain" or whatever, let them be out there telling Joe and Jodi Average that biological sex doesn't exist.

And 2., If we say "biological women" and they start talking about clownfish so that we have to clarify by saying "people born with vaginas rather than penises" when asking TRAs whether there is a group whose physiology / biology puts them at risk of discrimination, so be it. It's not a reason to not challenge them on the fact that it's their position that would exclude a vulnerable group from the protections of the EA, not ours. If they need the characteristics of the vulnerable group explained to them like they were toddlers, fine. I still want to hear them have to defend why the born-with-vagina people don't deserve protection under the EA.

I think it would be valuable to hear a presenter or a GC guest put the question across : " what is the argument against biological sex being a protected characteristic?"

I absolutely agree with this.

As you suggest, it would really need to be in a TV interview situation to have the most impact, as it’s the question itself that might change other people’s minds, whereas it’s unlikely to change the mind of the individual arguing against the SC ruling.

Very much agree OP.

When people claim that the definition of sex is unclear they always seem to have forgotten why we bother to define sex in the first place.

It's not so we can define sexuality, or create rules about what we can wear - it's because sex relates to sexual reproduction and sex roles have an impact on any living species, whether you are a snail or a cat. Humans are mammals so human females bear a disproportionate part of the reproductive burden.

If you are a woman and you want to control the impact of your reproductive role - whether that is access to contraception, time off for miscarriage, time off for IVF, maternity leave, analysis of the way current pension laws impact women who have had a career gap, impact of being expected to take time off for any of these reasons whether you want to or not etc. etc. you need rights that men don't need. These are sex based rights.

And that's before you get on to other things that are, based on evidence, sex affected like sport and MVAW or start thinking about different medical needs.