Where does this slug fest leave us? What is at the other side of this?

[Taytoface]

I have followed all the tribunals closely. This one has been the one that more than any other has gotten right to the core of the issue, that it is not fair or lawful or reasonable to expect everyone to accept that it is possible to change sex, and that it is entirely reasonable for a woman in encountering a male in what she could reasonably expect as a SS space to object to his presence regardless of his professed gender identity.

It has also exposed the industrial machinery that has been deployed to silence women and exert maximum punishment on those who speak up. It is fucking horrifying.

I keep wondering where this leaves is in moving forward. There has to be some non negotiables. Single sex spaces, where women are vulnerable and/ or in a state of undress has to be one of them. There has to be an acceptance that TW will be excluded from some spaces, because they are male.

On the other foot, I do think that despite me not believing that men can be women, I would respect preferred pronouns unless and until being clear about sex is important. In my office based professional life, sex is largely irrelevant. I will address people as they request. This is a courtesy I am happy to grant, and goes some way to helping trans and non binary colleagues feel comfortable in the workplace, something I think everyone is entitled to.

I am also very wary of some of the rhetoric I have seen in these threads. Ascribing really sinister pseudo psychological motivations of some of the people involved (e.g. is KS in love with BU???), digging into family backgrounds, scrabbling around to acsribe the worst possible motivations for people on Dr Us side. Granted, this has been evident in spades on the other side, but fuck me it is grim. All of it.

Scorched Earth leaves little room for regrowth. I am really struggling to see how yet another inevitable and well deserved legal victory will actually get us to a place where we can figure this shit out. What is the mechanism for that? It certainly won't be the courts.

The courts are useful for bringing this stuff to people's attention, making it OK to discuss it, helping everyone to understand what's going on - & for making & clarifying the law.

Back in the day, people predicted that it would take court cases before anything started to change. This is just a part of the process. It's put an end to 'no debate'. So now (or after a few more cases) we can have the necessary discussion - if all parties are willing to have it.

The hogwash was never going to stand up in court, it amazes me they even try.

Scorched Earth leaves little room for regrowth.

How would this regrowth work? NHS Fife (and in particular the personnel who created the witchhunt) do not appear to feel that they have done anything wrong. They feel that they are righteous. Even if Sandie wins, there will be a narrative that they did it 'all for the best'. Any attempt at a golden bridge would be scorned.

It essentially has to go scorched earth to ensure that women can't be bullied into silence anymore. They have to obey the law. That's it.

And regarding pronouns, once upon a time I would have been 'kind'. But there's been too much demanded of women, too many boundaries pushed. To quote NC 'no thank you'.

I might have agreed with you a few years ago, OP, but it is clear now that this is a strategic attack on women's rights, 'woman' as a sex-class, safeguarding of children and the democratic process. The #bekind weapon was specifically developed to target women and turn them into accomplices in their own defeat.
You are asking for some version of #bekind, but I am done with that. Trans-identified people should have the same employment, housing etc rights as everyone else, but no more. No compelled speech, no forced teaming, no 'gender affirming care' on the NHS and no sacred caste.
You are wrong about scorched earth; regrowth always happens. However, next time we will all be far less 'kind' and far more informed, cautious and battle-hardened.

I disagree. The courts have been the only way to get a fair hearing at all.

Remember that Stonewall Law has been brought in without any debate and there is a pattern of Labour sneaking in the trans supportive legislation rather than having the debate out in the open. In 2004 the GRA was not mentioned in the Queen's Speech, but the very next day the Bill started to be debated (ETA I don't object to the Bill but I don't like the cloak and dagger). In 2009 the DfH published guidance on single sex spaces in the NHS with an appendix which allowed self ID - but it isn't at all clear how this document was approved for publication...

The Guardian has written nothing about the Peggie case since 16th July
The BBC are running headlines which bear no resemblance to what is happening in the Tribunal room.

One side has had a good run since about 2002 but their streak is over and the readjustment is happening. And it will probably take many more court cases to get the basic rules of play agreed.

Hopefully in about 2-3 years we will get to a place where we can discuss it openly -and the left leaning Press are prepared to write in reasonably open terms - and come to a decent consensus. But while we aren't allowed to discuss, there won't be any solutions will there?

I am really struggling to see how yet another inevitable and well deserved legal victory will actually get us to a place where we can figure this shit out. What is the mechanism for that?

Having such a high-profile tribunal where employees are being publicly grilled on their failures makes an excellent deterrent for other organisations thinking of doing the same. With the FWS decision and now the Sandie Peggie tribunal, there will be a lot of orgs hastily rewriting their policies.

Reading more, seeing these cases and truly seeing now how dangerous this all is; bekind is absolutely out the window for me now too. By that, I won't use any preferred pronouns and will face the consequences.

I have done a complete 180 thanks to MN. Most people I know, I believe, won't fully appreciate the scale of all this, even with these cases being brought to the fore. I'd still have to be cautious in conversation, knowing this.

Lots of good points made however another element needs to be mentioned the political and class dimensions.

The left and liberal side by deciding that mentioning the existence of sex was wrong damaged its own reputation badly. As a lot of people have mentioned this stuff in the UK has a strong class element very heavily seen in Sandie's tribunal - working class women forced to follow the rules set up by their "betters" which don't help them at all.

As the dust settles the implications of this are going to be huge. Right now the Green parties in Scotland and England/Wales are obsessed with gender stuff and it is causing chaos in their internal politics. See the threads on them. I suspect the new Corbyn party might have similar issues. The right can easily weaponise this confusion. Obviously the way Trump did it is a prime example, but as various health/criminal scandals emerge it is going to look worse and worse. Being able to say my opponents are so daft they don't know what a women is being able to play politics on easy mode for the right. Working class people, always more blunt, are going to bear that in mind. Especially as it ties into lots of other identity politics.

The Democrats in the States are very reluctant to back down and their example will have impact everywhere else.

The reality - in the UK a bunch of mostly lefty women and men - managed to wreck the imposition of gender nonsense is of significant political importance. It already badly damaged the SNP. It is likely to be a significant element in the ongoing rise of Reform. It is going to hamper any party that focuses on it too much. The thing is everyone is reluctant to admit they got it wrong. Look at Labour they have seized on the Supreme Court ruling as a way to escape gender stuff, but besides Wes Streeting none most of them are refusing to say sorry even though clearly they have decided it is all nonsense.

Like in Scotland if Scottish Labour was sensible they would be using the tribunal as a weapon against the SNP. Yet though individual MPs are doing this the party as a whole is silent. Article on it:

Why won’t Anas Sarwar champion Sandie Peggie?

https://archive.is/cdWPS#selection-1807.110-1807.227

When Farage gains power which looks very likely gender stuff will have played a significant role. Of course this will lead some people to blame women for it. The truth is sooner or later it was always going to collapse - because it was so dumb. It is better politically to do move on as quickly as possible. I mean look at Jamie Wallis for an example of the chaos one "trans" politician can be. Imagine if he was still a Tory MP what he would be doing to their brand.

The fallout from this is going to last decades. The "nasty" people who pointed out how stupid this was will be blamed, but it is better to go hard now than lie about this.

I sincerely hope that the consequences of these court wins for sanity will be that people re-examine how EDI is applied to daily life, ensuring that EDI policies and personnel are well-informed and neutral, rather than the Trumpian backlash of getting rid of EDI entirely. That would be as retrograde as imposing Trans ideology.

You hope "people" will "re-examine how EDI is applied to daily life".

Which people are these?

They're going to have to be people with power and influence, aren't they? Politicians, civil servants, business leaders.

Especially politicians, if you want large parts of the electorate to go "EDI is a good thing, if fairly and properly implemented" rather than "EDI is a load of harmful bollocks".

Yup.

I totally agree these cases have been completely necessary and indeed the only effective defense. I am proud to live on Terf Island. I am angry it has taken the immense sacrifice of a few brave women to get us here, but very grateful to them for where we are now.

But the joy of seeing this insanity exposed under the steely glare of NC is tainted by the sense that I am not sure that what happens next will be where I would want us to go.

One poster highlighted how this will be weaponised by various parties. It will damage the left, where I would normally most comfortably sit, and embolden the right. It will get more polarized and I suspect trans people, many of whom just want to get on with their lives, will be caught in the middle.

What I would want is an open debate on how to reasonably accommodate trans people, with some give and take on all sides, and some acknowledgement that #nodebate was toxic, manipulative and incredibly dismissive of women.

I just don't see this happening. The gender loons will dig in and more people will be emboldened to give trans people a hard time. Employers might take note, or they might just get less inept at discriminating against GC women. I suspect the latter

I think a comment during the tribunal yesterday was quite telling. The comment from Naomi Cunningham, KC for SP went along the lines of the fact that the HR department at Fife was more concerned about their reputation than the facts/concerns brought up of a long standing employee. The other aspect was that a Dr had more perceived status than a nurse.

Trans ideaology - if this had been a new religion introduced and promoted in schools/colleges/universities - we would be doing much more to challenge it as it has and continues to damage so many people.

Where does it leave us @Taytoface . Great question. When all of this started in earnest around 2012-2014 I worked in education and we were seeing posters and wall displays promoting various genders etc. Within weeks we had our first of several gender questioning students. Interestingly looking back they were all biological girls who became known as boys - name change pronouns etc and all went on to have diagnoses of autism. We have done so much damage to our children - in many cases because of the ‘be kind’ mantra. Tolerance of difference is absolutely important but tolerance under the banner of ‘how far can I push the boundaries’ is not acceptable. I hope we see something good come out of this and I hope and do think there are trans women out there who see Dr Upton and their case as unacceptable.

When you put the question like that, my first instinct is that the ‘other side’ of this is going to be the ‘other side’ of everything – that the whole train that Blair put in motion is speeding towards the buffers, something awful’s going to happen, and nobody knows what comes afterwards but it’s going to have to involve revisiting all the things nobody currently feels they can touch, from what bathrooms we use at work, all the way up to how we fund our government and even what having a country actually means. I don’t even quite know what I’m picking up on but it feels horrible, like nothing works and nobody believes that anything will work. I haven’t felt a mood like this of things falling to bits since the late eighties, when for a time there were actual proper disasters every other month. And nothing much has happened yet!

But until that thread snaps, all I can see is more of this.

I fully accept and acknowledge that trans people exist, to do otherwise would be foolish. However, I believe at the heart of this ideology are, certainly the public face of it, men with MH issues at best, and at worst with AGP. They have always wanted to push the boundaries of women’s rights because it is women on the whole who are much more aware of safeguarding, and if they can remove our ability to safeguard, especially for children, it gives them free reign.

My biggest concern about this whole situation is the medicalisation of children with puberty blockers and the butchery of ‘gender affirming’ surgery. How any sane person can accept or advocate for that is completely beyond me, it is absolutely inhumane and barbaric. It particularly resonates with me as the mother of an autistic son, and it makes me weep when I read about confused, vulnerable, autistic girls having healthy breasts removed, it is positively dystopian. It’s a social media contagion that needs to be stopped.

As to pronouns, it’s a no from me, I will not participate in an outright lie in an attempt to ‘be kind’, because the person asking that of me is in no way attempting kindness, they are trying to assert a level of coercive control that only benefits them. Men have been telling women things that aren’t true since time began, in order to control us, and this is just another example of that. People can’t change sex, it is immutable and binary.

From a recent new thread …..

https://janhavinilekani.substack.com/p/inclusivity-in-healthcare-should?r=487ax&triedRedirect=true

One thing I would love to see happen, but I suspect won't happen, is some self reflection from the trans side.

Let's assume the majority of TW are just men who think they are women and want to get on with their lives. I would want to see them ask the difficult questions. How do they deal with the predators and fetishists in their midst, who have been delighted by the legitimacy the trans umbrella has given them? How do they protect vulnerable children? How do they recognize the damage their tactics to date have done? If I saw this kind of introspection it would give me some hope. But I suspect it will be more demands to see women die in horrific ways.

I am also very wary of some of the rhetoric I have seen in these threads. Ascribing really sinister pseudo psychological motivations of some of the people involved (e.g. is KS in love with BU???), digging into family backgrounds, scrabbling around to acsribe the worst possible motivations for people on Dr Us side.

I agree very much with this. But I see it as being at least as much to do with social media dynamics as with the particular character of the trans issue. We see it in so many other areas. Like those cases where people are murdered or go missing and the police investigation has to operate alongside a huge amount of speculation and sleuthing online, which even spills into real-world interference, like contacting relatives.

We see the mind-vice of polarisation in the way other issues are discussed online - cf. the MN threads on the Israeli attacks on Gaza, which feel like an import of attitudes generated by the algorithms of X and similar platforms.

It is grim. And I don't know what the way forward is. But I think that, on some issues more than others, real-world politics and society function better than their online avatars. I'm hoping (though admittedly without much confidence) that the court cases will fracture the online discourse enough for reality to grow a bit more freely in the cracks.

I'll use wrong sex pronouns when TIMs stop trying to steal women's rights. Until they acknowledge that they are not actually women in all senses of the word then, sorry, I'll be calling a spade a spade.

I’d like to see that too, taytoface.

Some things that shocked me during this court case-

the stories other women shared of similar infractions in their workplaces, that they have been powerless to address.
the corruption at the heart of the employer- ‘you can’t afford to take us to tribunal, tough shit’
the corruption at the heart of the NHS- collusion, and anti science bollocks, they should know better
the waste, especially in the nhs which is on its knees
the distraction from what matters- working against actual inequity.

The above has been distressing however to be optimistic-

It’s more obvious than ever for the wider world that it won’t wash.
Those who thought it was an allowable pretence for a few poor people who need it have been disabused as to the toxicity.
Rational employers (private sector ones) and insurance companies will be watching beading for best way to proceed.

As for the speculation- that’s a human drive, an attempt to understand more than is evidenced, and it often leads to progress. Science speculates, imagines, then attempts to prove.

It’s always going to happen, and we should focus more on MN being a place where people like you can say ‘steady on, that’s too much!’, and be backed up by other posters- or at least not hounded off for being a spoil sport.
I think that’s really healthy and I value it. MN is a rare place where people can challenge each other, discuss where the line is, and move along. There won’t be full agreement but people will have a better understanding of the dangers and implications.

I totally agree with your OP. Any fair minded person would. Unfortunately Thays not a skill that any of the other side have. If they did “there would be no need for this” as KS told the Tribunal while asserting how “kind” she was. Until those everyday people have a paradigm shift, I can’t see much shifting - at the moment theyre so kind they won’t even agree to follow the law…

What is a 'reasonable' accommodation though?

You have said that you would use preferred pronouns. That is your choice.

When you consider that there is no biological or neurological marker for being 'transgender', that leaves us with the only commonality between all people with transgender identities as being a philosophical belief that doesn't reflect material reality. What other group's philosophical belief is allowed to make demands within society that others act as if they share that belief? What other group's philosophical belief is supported throughout society with language changes that suit only that belief?

The English language has pronouns that were established based on sex not on someone's identity belief about themselves. When did it become acceptable that people are expected to change language to suit a philosophical belief that doesn't reflect material reality that the person having to make the change does not share?

I couldn’t disagree more strongly. The Peggie case, for many people whose lives have not been personally impacted by the gender craziness, is their first encounter with the harm being done to society, its institutions and professions - harm suffered disproportionately by women and girls. Even so, the so called progressive legacy media are doing their best to conceal or distort the truth of what is happening, day after day, week after week.

And you want to say, ooo don’t let’s talk about it, it’s getting better, no need to keep fighting. I say, we have made a very small breach in the wall of oppression, obfuscation and exploitation. Now we have to widen that into a proper breach and storm the citadel.

I didn't say anything about stopping fighting and not talking. We have a ways ahead of us. The question I am asking is what is at the other side of that. Is there a negotiated accommodation of trans people, or do we end up in two camps throwing rocks at each other?