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.

I guess taytoface what I am trying to point out is relevant to your paragraph here:

'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.'

You are assuming that making one group 'comfortable' has no negative impact on the people who are expected to make that group comfortable. This is where I question your thinking. Because being expected to act (through changes to language) as if someone is not the sex that they are does negatively impact other people. Not only that, but if that is written into policy, it then becomes a coercive force being used against others and punishing them for not complying to another person's philosophical belief.

I say this because it is then not merely not observing but respecting that person's right to have that belief, but it is policy that everyone acts as if they share that philosophical belief that doesn't reflect material reality.

So, where does ignoring the conventions for using English language to suit one group leave the group who is then uncomfortable with these changes?

How are other philosophical beliefs handled within the workplace and society?

Maybe that is the place to start?

The issue is that at the moment, we still have a great many activists attempting to make being 'transgender' based on biological or neurological markers. That it is somehow not mental health related. That it is something objectively real and that it is a shared trait amongst a hugely diverse group.

And you want to say, ooo don’t let’s talk about it, it’s getting better, no need to keep fighting.

I don't think anyone has said that, @Allthegoodnamesarechosen .

You illustrate part of what I mean when I mentioned social media dynamics in a previous post. There is such a tendency (I know because I have done it myself and most of us do it sometimes- I'm not having a dig at you) to create straw-man versions of people/posts that we disagree with. We do it to satisfy our own sense of being right and our need to make a telling point. But it tends to pull people apart, create growing anger and drown out real discussion and nuance. I am very far from believing that this is a primary cause of the trans conflicts, but it does invest the whole issue with an additional level of despair and horror

This is exactly what I am talking about. I can see why people object to using preferred pronouns. I know it is not a cost free accommodation. But it is one that I personally am willing to make. As long as there is acceptance that there are red lines, such as respecting single sex spaces.

But like single sex spaces, it is not in your power to consent for anyone else.

There are valid reasons that others choose not to use the language that you feel comfortable and support using. How can this be managed in society and in workplaces?

I was in primark in Newcastle recently.

They had a sign up saying that the women’s fitting room was for biological women only and that they had an all gender fitting room on a different floor.

i don’t think I would have seen that a few years ago.

it’ll be like Brexit. At first nobody can even discuss it. Then you start getting the news stories about how it’s harmed people (on their way, esp detransitioners).

then you get acceptance that closer ties with Europe are good. At no point will there be newspaper articles about what a crap idea it was because the electorate don’t like being reminded that they are stupid.

the drip has already started - Sandie peggie, the Algerian boxer, American athletes. It’ll continue.
and in a couple of years, without anyone explicitly saying it the delusion and sheer stupidity will be taken as read.

I don't know the answers here. I think finding a way forward will require compromise on all sides and agreeing to things we may not be entirely comfortable with. What is the alternative?

The thing is, contrary to popular belief, there aren’t always two sides to an argument, and GI confirms that. The only people who benefit from this are men, and very often predatory men. The harm to women and children are many and well documented, but I have yet to see any benefit, and whilst I am happy to listen to those who say there are, none of them have as yet managed to convince me.

Women’s suffrage fought and died for us to have the vote, and many rocks were thrown 😉 because sometimes, when the consequences for women are so great if we don’t fight, rocks do indeed come in to it. But there are also the vast majority of women, including the many wonderful posters on this site, who calmly but firmly dismantle this ridiculous, insidious ideology, brick by brick, using facts and not feelings, logic and not dogma, and then impressive women like Naomi Cunningham who represent us in court. That, in my view, is the way forward.

I think that these court cases and the medical studies and papers that are now coming through will start to freer discussions that were previously shut down with accusations of bigotry and hate.

If in the future some biological marker can be found for a particular subgroup under the current transgender umbrella, then new discussions will certainly need to be had. That discussion will then be explosive because all of a sudden, the definition of being transgender significantly changes and many people will be falling outside of a definition they claimed fit them.

But for now, just getting back to a position where people understand the negative impacts of prioritising a philosophical belief that has not grounding in material reality, is a start.

I think that the court cases and the medical reviews are resetting some people out of immediately assuming what they have told previously is 'kind', may not be kind to others. That a balance has to found and it might be a very pragmatic balance that does not mean others affirm another's philosophical belief about themselves where there is no basis of material reality.

Is there a negotiated accommodation of trans people

This question has been answered many times on MN ie many posters voiced their support the creation of third spaces alongside male and female spaces where privacy matters. Third toilets that can be used by anyone uncomfortable with using sex based toilets. Ditto changing rooms.

I am not comfortable with using preferred pronouns because words matter and because compelled speech forces everyone to an implied agreement with one group’s perspective. However, I’m happy to reference the person by their name to avoid using pronouns. That feels like it ought to be sufficient accommodation.

However, in my institution we are encouraged to all put pronouns in our email signature regardless of individual personal beliefs, we are expected to start meetings by announcing our names and our preferred pronouns, pronoun badges were handed around to thousands of employees at considerable cost. I attended HR briefings that misrepresented the law. I attended a talk for pride month that had 12 out 14 slides focused on the T instead of the LGB. Our institution aims to be ‘queered’. New toilet facilities are gender neutral. Yet, young female adults have been excoriated for wanting female only meetings and researchers criticised for distinguishing the impacts of medication between males and females. This has gone on for years.

Seems to me that trans people have many accommodations and significant institutional focus not enjoyed by others with protected characteristics. Is this not enough? What other accommodations @Taytoface do you feel are missing?

How do we currently deal with someone's philosophical belief in society? When it doesn't reflect material reality about themselves?

I would say that we respect that they are allowed to have that belief about themselves, and others can support them with that belief, but that no one else needs to act in a way that shows that they comply with the belief. I would expect that a person with that belief is not illegitimately discriminated against (including then not being harassed using a reasonable definition of harassment) and that there is protections for them in policy and law. But that not one person is to be coerced to act as if that belief that they have is materially real.

Isn't that the way we treat others with philosophical beliefs?

Such as?

I think maybe 10 years ago that may, may, have been possible but it's not now

they already have the right not to be discriminated against and they also have the right to dress and present as they want.

but men are not women and the things they want - to use our spaces, sports, refuges, programmes to improve female representation in politics or STEM to compel people to call them women and user she/her - are things that damage women so they can't have them. Individual women can chose to go along with things like pronouns but that's their choice but it can't be something compelled or enforced on all women.

I think trans people, young ones in particular, will need a lot of support as they have been lied to about being able to change sex and that others should accept them fully as the other sex. That will be a readjustment that all ‘sides’ can help with.

I think we should celebrate the fact that people are free to be gender non-conforming.

And I think more work needs to be done to push the idea of what masculine means so that young men who do not feel they fit male stereotypes feel safe to express themselves without believing that they are trans.

Not well phrased as typed hurriedly but there is always a way forward, I am sure.

I am burning with rage at all that has happened to women’s rights, but I do not hold anything at all against those who have been caught up in it.

Society can’t and doesn’t work on some people being prepared to make some accommodations for some people. If you don’t mind me saying, that’s a bit of a luxury belief. Not everyone is able to stand up for themselves and ask for what they need in the workplace, and they shouldn’t have to, if there are set rules across the board for everyone then hopefully, there is less room for people like Sandie Peggie being put in such an horrendous situation for simply believing in basic biology.

If you were in a senior position in the workplace and were prepared to make these accommodations, what impact would that have on those people junior to you who didn’t want to? You know as well as I do that that would create a situation where they would feel that they would have to go along with it, which means you would be coercing them even if you don’t recognise that. GI creates a power imbalance and that cannot be fixed by being kind.

Unfortunately orgs like stonewall brought us to this point because they lied and misrepresented the. They won't of course be held responsible, who would ever criticise stonewall.
Legally cases like these can be very important, like Forstater, in setting a precedence so cases down the line can cite them.
It's a very sad situation, I'm sure SP didn't actively want to be in this situation. And what's also sad is that because she's stood her ground in some outlets she's presented as aggressive. Society can't cope with assertive women. We're either aggressive, emotional or hysterical.

compare the situation to veganism-

vegans believing it’s the only ethical way to live, better for health, perfectly easy to accomplish, and really everyone should adopt it

others feel that meat is an essential part of the diet, to do without is unhealthy and unpleasant.

Many are perfectly happy to eat vegan food, but choose to eat other things as well.

We can learn from how that is managed.

No one has to eat anything they don’t want to. No one is allowed to bang on at great length about other people’s choices.
When food is supplied, everyone’s needs are covered.

You can’t have a compromise when the other side is committed to Permanent Revolution. It has to be fought out and there has to be a winner, and then you move on from there wherever it may be.

But what is the compromise regarding sss?

A male in a female sss makes it mixed sex. And therefore not a sss.

The obvious solution is an additional space, often referred to as a third space. This has been rejected many times by TRA's as transphobic and othering. A poster on the Sandie Peggie case said that the staff who are trans at the University she works at refuse outright to use the available gender neutral spaces.

So any so called 'compromise' would be women being subjected to wheedling that some instances are ok for sss space not to be so and undoubtedly being told that they are being unreasonable for not working to find a solution.

I also think there is great danger in people believing that they personally can arbitrate when a belief should be accommodated and when it should not.

Who becomes the arbiter of when it is appropriate to use conventional pronouns and when it is not in the work place? For instance, going back to a medical scenario.

Someone who makes the deliberate choice of supporting someone's belief about themselves and uses gender pronouns may say to a patient, the doctor will be along soon 'she' is on 'her' way. This is not appropriate if the doctor is male and the patient is expecting a female doctor.

So then we need to start parsing which workplaces and which specific situations are allowed to use gender pronouns, and when is it appropriate not to. Even in an office situation where there might seem to be no relevance to know a person's sex, there will be situations where this might be necessary. Who arbitrates when it is ok and when it is not ok and that sex based pronouns are then able to be used?

This is the reality, I'm afraid.

If someone has a belief about themselves that they are not the sex they are, this is not based on material reality. When we start adopting language based on gender for that person, when is it ok to say 'no, sorry, I no longer support your demand on my language'?

Can anyone think of another group of people who have a philosophical belief about themselves that is not based on material reality that gets a accommodations where others have to use language that acts as if that belief is materially real?

What would TRAs' "negotiated accommodation" of the extant rights and safety of girls and women be, do you think?
How would they be prepared to compromise?

That's a big oversimplification of the different positions of vegans.

@Taytoface scorched earth isn't necessarily a bad thing: in ecosystems, it clears out dead matter, rejuvenates the soil and allows new things to grow.

I think it's quite a useful metaphor for trans ideological capture. Burn it all down and meets start again.

Of course it is! There’s every different underlying motive and practice. For this purpose we needed the extreme that wants everyone else to
live similarly.

Most vegans are live and let live… some make comments about the unethical lives of everyone else.