Am I naive in thinking that in a couple of years, if not sooner, this will all be behind us? A few court cases, people clear about the law, women's rights protected again??

[loveyouradvice]

And yes the noisy TRA far fewer in number and sidelined as the sad fringe that are left as others move on.....

Or do others think it will pan out differently??

Remember that people are also arguing that "female" is in the mind.

I think the dishonesty is slowly coming to light.

I agree with a pp that a complete separation between sex and gender identity is where we might end up (and obviously, these need to be separate for trans people to exist, so why this is resisted by the second half of the gender argument seems odd to me).

If you have a gender identity, that's to be accepted, but it isn't your sex.
Just as your sex isn't your gender identity.

I wonder if the default assumption that there are gender identities that match the two sexes will eventually be questioned or even dismantled? That would require a long hard look at the constant background sexism that permeates everything, though so I'm not too optimistic.

As MN always says, remember that not everyone is who they say they are online!

Aimtodobetter makes an interesting point about 'bathrooms' though.

Says they are a completely standard biological woman (so the assumption is they would be perceived as a woman by others)
Admits to have nipped into the men’s on occasion when the queue for the ladies was long
Says that no one has ever expressed 1 percent of the loathing at them being in the wrong toilet

So a female-presenting person nips into the men's for a wee and the men in there couldn't care less? But the accepted narrative is that female-presenting people risk life and limb taking a leak in the men's? Hmmm, something's not adding up here...

I'm sure that they didn't hear it at all as conversion therapy is an illegal practice.

Depends what they class as conversion therapy. If they include talking therapies to try to get to the root cause of why they think they are transgender and to find a way to accept those feelings while accepting biological reality then they probably have heard it but it has as much of the same grasp on reality as believing you can actually change sex.

Are there specific facilities or services that you think trans people need more of in order for the SC ruling to not be damaging? The main concern on social media seems to be toilets - is that correct in your opinion, and if so would it help to have more people assisting in lobbying for additional gender neutral toilets? I fully agree everyone needs a place to go to the bathroom. And understand why trans women might not feel comfortable using the mens. So is increasing the availability of gender neutral toilets and change facilities a worthwhile option?

I do think that quite a lot has been revealed, in many countries, about the fragility of our government structures, the media, and other institutions.

The problems of lobby groups being given too much attention and access to political power, for example. That means the fact that these organizations are seen as the "experts" who can stand for certain groups, when they may not actually be expert and they may well not represent the whole of that group.

In fact I think representative groups, be they about women, a particular race, or sexuality, are going to have to understand that they cannot claim to speak for all people who have that characteristic, but only the actual group members. I also think there needs to be a hard line between groups that lobby and those that function as charities, and groups that lobby should have no access to government funds.

I think we've also learned some things about various types of do-good legislation, like hate crime legislation, even equalities types of initiatives, and how they can easily go wrong or be used as a way to gain power for bad actors.

I read this in good faith and legitimately trying to see a point to what you're saying but there is none!

I’m really curious here - I am not a lesbian but I grew up surrounded by old school lesbians who are utterly horrified by the redefining of their sexuality especially after years of such massive bigotry against them.

Can I ask if you consider women who sleep with both lesbians and men who identify as lesbians as lesbians themselves? Most of the gay women of my acquaintance find the idea abhorrent, but also just a complete nonsense. Nothing wrong with being bisexual, they just don’t understand what makes any male a lesbian, ever?

As we know the trans lobby have a fetish for changing the meaning of words, so yes they are probably including no conversion therapy in their definitions.

'I'd march with you" platitudes long forgotten

That tends to happen when the people we'd have marched with have signs saying they want to behead us and screech about punching us in the mouth, want us to choke on their dick etc. Women really are seen as support animals who should suck up all the violence and abuse and still nlbe little self-sacrificing cheerleaders.

I and the vast majority of my friends in various lesbian groups are really not interested in or motivated by policing them. We're too busy enjoying our friendships, nights out and events to develop a obsessive fixation about trying to exclude one or two.

We do have a small handful of transwomen in them - I would say possibly 2% of total membership - this has remained pretty stable for the last 15 years, no particular increase or decrease (people come and go from the groups all the time)

They are polite and respectful and some have been great at organising events themselves, so their contribution is valued. We haven't had any issues, what can I say? We've had 1 or 2 birth sex female lesbians who have caused issues with being inappropriate after too many drinks on a night out, they have had to be spoken to. Not had any such issues with any transwomen (of course I'm not saying this could never happen, of course it could, and then we would have to speak with them. Just saying there have been no issues so far.)

So no, perfectly happy with that setup, why would we go out of our way to exclude an already much excluded minority of individuals, who contribute so much to our group and have built good friendships within it?

My friends and I really couldn't care less about policing the labels people choose for themselves. To be honest conversations about labels don't ever really come up 🤷‍♀️

But surely as a lesbian you can see the need for Lesbian only spaces.
Things like lesbian only dating sites/apps and hook up bars, support groups etc.

These things (like sports) are exclusionary by their very nature but they are not transphobic (to use the trans lobbies word)

Then why not just let the ones who want to express their sexual orientation via lesbian events that are single sex based on the SC definition of single sex go ahead and do it?

If they were just allowed to do their thing without obstacles (laws, refusals to allow spaces to be used, harassment etc) then they could do their thing in peace, you could do your thing in peace, everyone's happy.

OP, I think it will take far more than a few years and a case or 2. We're very much in the 'end of the beginning stage'. And many countries haven't even reached that yet.

Sports are increasingly recognising reality. The UK has made some progress on prisons, and that should now accelerate after the SC judgement. Lesbians and single sex services have the law clearly behind them. The 'trend cohort' is starting to age out of schools, and some of the university-ish ones will mature out of it as they finish growing up. The medical aspects are finally getting some proper research.

But.

A lot of people have huge amount invested in this. The 'Japanese soldier' parents. The many who have built their careers and organisations around it - the lawyers, academics, some politicians without the mental flexibility to quietly pivot, the rape crisis and NHS leads who reshaped entire services, the medics and therapists, the ones training schools and workplaces - they won't just let go of the cash, and they have another few decades in the workforce. Plus admiting fault could see some of them hit with expensive/career-ending lawsuits.

There are children from the peak wave who have gone - or been pushed - too far down the medical rabbit hole to retreat. Some will sue the pushers but others will dig in, and in a couple of decades will be of an age to be in positions of power and influence.

And those other countries? Ones that have brought in full self-ID, ones that have changed constitutions to remove 'sex' in favour of 'gender' will find it far, far harder to change course. There is too much to unpick, too much risk to the state of admitting fault, the words to challenge the problems are lost.

And misogyny and homophobia seem likely to be permanently with us. The forms will vary, and their power will wax and wane. But every step forward against those comes with pushback, and we're not going to win in just a few more years what's taken centuries to get as far as we have.

So, not the end. Not the beginning of the end. But progress. The growing desire for proper medical research will help, too, but that's a slooow business.

I wouldn't count on it OP. One look at my Facebook page, tik tok, youtube, the sheer amount of women especially screeching trans women ARE biological women unfriend me if you don't agree and desperate to give away our rights would say otherwise. I think it will take a long time.

Oh yeah, I felt so loved, accepted and tolerated when I had the temerity to express my sadness that I would never become a father the same way I'm a mother. That was one hell of a major faux pas, and I was put right back onto the proper thought track. I learned my lesson that day, and nothing I've seen since has ever changed my mind that the trans community is intolerant, unloving and unaccepting of anyone who doesn't strictly toe the line.

That's a really good analysis. You could think about it as a long process of stress-testing the Blair settlement and institutions, and the cracks starting to show – most significantly there's an underlying assumption that everyone is a 1997-type actor and fit for being refereed by a 1997-type system, when they're not. Instead these are set-ups, campaigns and even groups created to game that system, which is now beginning to look very naive.

What's worrying is that this is all exposed by one niche issue – we still haven't seen that system be exposed to a big stress test, like could come out of a proper recession.

That feels rather dismissive of the women who fought for their right to have lesbian spaces. Whether you believe it’s just a label, do you feel my friend Catherine, for example, who was forced to marry a man in the 60’s, treated like a deviant when she finally broke free and worked extremely hard to found a women only lesbian friendly work space has the right to define those spaces as lesbian only if males are excluded? To define herself and her peers as different to women who sleep with men who we they may identify? Or are you saying you truly don’t have an opinion?

Well sure in a way, believe me I'm not wasting any of my time trying to thwart any of that.

If people want to devote their precious time to policing groups rather than enjoying the groups, friendships and events that's up to them! Most of us find that attitude and disposition really unattractive, so I guess like gravitates to like in a way? People who place importance on that will find each other - the rest of us will happily stay away 😊

Agree - there are very sensible approaches that would protect everyone's rights and be accepting of diversity. It baffles me how many people think rigid traditional gender roles or insisting sex needs to be replaced with gender identity are the only options. Likewise those who think the only way trans people could ever be accepted by society is by pretending they are exactly the same as biological women and that being clocked or outed is the worst thing that could happen. It makes far more sense to accept people for who and what they are rather than shoving everyone who isn't "cis-het" in a closet .

But it’s not really about “policing groups” in terms of how you make it sound - like everyone wants to be standing at the door of the women’s institute trying to stop the poor vulnerable trans women from coming in to enjoy the flower arranging.

We’re talking about, for example, traumatised women in rape crisis groups being able to depend on the fact that no men cosplaying female suffering are in the therapy room. Or conducting intimate exams in hospital. Or threatening to take lesbian women to court if they are politely turned down for a date. Or insisting they qualify for scholarships, awards, sporting chances and programmes designed for women.

But people don't leave them alone to do their thing if they set up their own groups, unfortunately. If they did, there wouldn't be all these court cases.

Men who claim to be lesbians / women aren't interested in women's autonomy, safety or wellbeing. They want what they can't have - to appropriate everything women / lesbian related, destroying it as they go.

Also worth remembering as someone pointed out upthread, that someone online can claim to be anything they choose. Doesn't make it true.