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 think this is a great starting point. I agree with others that compelling people to use preferred pronouns and announce their own should stop. I would still choose to respect preferred pronouns in the workplace, unless and until being clear about sex was important. I respect that others may make a different choice.

I agree that third spaces have to be part of the solution.

Completely agree that we need to get back to dismantling the harmful aspects of gender, the toxic masculinity and femininity.

It has been interesting to watch the change of attitude about pronouns and other language filter through society.

All of a sudden, people have to start making judgement calls that we really shouldn't have to be making.

This became very clear with the awareness of Bryson. Suddenly it was ok to say that Bryson was a man and to use he/him. Because 'he' was a rapist. Yet, if a female sex offender is referred to, they are always referred to as she/her.

A CEO of a rape crisis centre became ok to call he/him because he was shown to have little respect for traumatised women and used his position of power to cause harm to them. Yet, if a female discredited CEO is referred to, they are always referred to as she/her.

Male athletes who have been through masculinising puberty became acceptable to use correct sex language about. Yet, if a female sports person is referred to, they are always referred to as she/her regardless of what she has done.

Abusive male people such as Willoughby have been judged ok to use correct sex language about. Yet, if a female abuser is referred to, they are always referred to as she/her regardless of what she has done.

All this shows is that this language demand is a layer of falsity and that none of us should be in the position of having to judge a person's worthiness of whether they deserve gendered pronouns or not. Isn't putting people in this situation harmful? It is just another burden that people are expected to take on. Is this considered acceptable?

When you think about this though Taytoface, if you start to use someone's preferred pronouns and have been for a long time, what happens when sex does become important in that workplace? Do you change and use someone's correct sex pronouns?

Would that person then be able to claim harassment or that you are now discriminating against them using your past behaviour as the base line? Is there a mechanism under policy or law to protect you if you change your mind on language use?

Do you see how the finer details are really important here?

Yes. We can consider how this 'gender'* stuff is impacting on current political parties, but I would advise considering how Reform is performing and what is likely to happen under a Reform government. That prospect is becoming ever more likely, and the more that makes you shudder, the more you should pay attention to and make efforts to understand the people who are NOT part of the chattering classes, the media bubble, or the ones running government local and/or national.

*'gender' is the Macguffin. This is really all about power, trust, truth, and control.

This is where the positioning of this group with the soundbite of ‘most vulnerable and marginalised’ has been significant. How often do we still hear that phrase or parts of it?

Obviously, left wing politics has a focus on protecting marginalised groups. This is where language has been important. This is why additional privileges have been called ‘rights’.

And this soundbite continues to play on the emotional appeal to others. After all, isn’t it an emotional response to wish to make such accommodations to others that we would even change our language to benefit them?

“This is really all about power, trust, truth, and control.”

Yes. It is.

Arguably, it's a sign of respect not to use language that isn't part of your personal set of beliefs.

I wouldn't say 'peace be upon him' after I say 'Mohammed', because I'm not a muslim, and to me it would seem a misrepresentation, disengenuous, and possible disrespectful to do so.

I wouldn't cross myself on entering a Catholic church for the same reason.

Those beliefs are deeply held and sincere in those that hold them, and I respect their right to hold them. I would find it trivialising and dishonest for me to copy them in some kind of pretence that it's a faux 'nicety' to pretend to share a belief which I don't share.

For similar reasons, I use sex based pronouns and don't chant the mantras that are required by gender adherents.

Me too. However I make an exception for the cynical men leading all these activist groups. We need to remove all of them from their access to influence. Just look at how Upton was so keen to write trans guidelines for Fife - which would have embedded in policy his right to punish any woman who left a changing room / shower / toilet when he entered.

These men have been pushing these policies for many years - back in 2019 a Mumsnetter was asking for help on being told that women civil servants must put on a smile to welcome random men entering toilets in the workplace.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3520371-civil-service-trans-policy-what-can-i-do

Now what we're seeing is the results of this coercion and intimidation with even women medics pretending that they can't sex a baby and so many of the young making self harming decisions about their futures.

Adding that my union talks about the trans liberation movement going well beyond equality and inclusion. Like others, I was very accommodating in past years. Up until I noticed the damaging impact for children and the erosion of women’s rights and even the loss of language (no more breastfeeding or women or mothers).

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.

This ^^ is huge. The utter harm to sensitive young men who don’t fit the Andrew Tate stereotype combined with online grooming/recruitment by older TW is staggering.

Yes, and I have done. When I was dealing with a dispute about access to single sex changing rooms, in a building with multiple tenants. I switched to using sex aligned pronouns because it was important that everyone was clear who was what sex. Once I did, the facilities manager understood the problem.

And the person who you were talking about knew you did this and accepted you doing changing the pronouns they expected to hear you, personally, use? Or did that person involved not know you have done this?

What about if someone didn't accept the change from your previous action? Have you wondered how that would be dealt with in the workplace? Do you think that there would be grounds for a complaint to HR about that change?

Is the change, when it is specific to a particular colleague, to be considered negative treatment when compared with past behaviour?

@Taytoface
What I would want is an open debate on how to reasonably accommodate trans people, with some give and take on all sides

This is where your thinking is flawed.
Your default position in situations of conflict is to search for a middle ground which everyone can accept.
But in some conflicts, there is no middle ground. There is no reasonable accommodations that can be made. There is no give and take that is possible.
There is only "victory" for one side and "defeat" for the other.

The conflict is that many trans-identified men want full and complete access to all women's spaces (physical, legal and metaphorical). They want society to see them as women, 100%, for all purposes.
Whilst women want their single-sex spaces protected from all male people, including trans-identified men, at all times.

Only one side can win here. Any compromise is not acceptable to either side.

You might be right. And that makes me sad not jubilant.

The individual people being referred to were not in the room. But the rep from their org was. The rep initially objected, but I was clear that this was not intended to offend, but to be sure that the facilities manager actually understood what the issue was, that women, in particular religious women did not have access to a single sex changing room.

Good for you for standing your ground.

But my points still remain. There will be situations where people will not be able to change their mind on using gender based pronouns to sex based in the workplace without the risk of it being to their detriment.

As you acknowledge, this is your personal choice to extend this courtesy. However, it also needs to be acknowledged that it has become policy in some workplaces and it is not harmless when choice is removed, or when the usage of language becomes coerced.

I asked up thread if there are any other groups where there philosophical belief that has not basis in material reality has been allowed by society, including workplaces, to make these language demands? Can you think of any other group?

Also, can you think of any other individual's identity (again not based on material reality) where this is allowed in the workplace?

And if not, why do you think that it is a sign of respect that people should extend to this group? Particularly in a work place?

The point also being that for a v long time transsexual men did not attempt to infiltrate women’s spaces so it was possible to live and let live. It’s been the shift to transgenderism including the expansion from adult men to children that has created and exacerbated our current situation.

for a v long time transsexual men did not attempt to infiltrate women’s spaces

I would bet that transsexual men who have tried very hard to 'pass' have quietly and discretely been using the women's toilets for a long time, i.e. many decades. They would often have been 'clocked' by women, but the women would have been too polite to say anything as long as the man kept his head down and made no attempt to engage. The man might even have believed he had successfully passed.

Of course the transsexual men made absolutely no attempt to enter women's sports, women-only shortlists, women-only jobs, etc.

That was the 'live-and-let-live' status quo ante.
Sadly I doubt there is any way of going back.

We gave an inch and they took several miles.

they would often have been 'clocked' by women, but the women would have been too polite to say anything as long as the man kept his head down and made no attempt to engage. The man might even have believed he had successfully passed.

Too polite or too scared?

Don't know how keen I'd be to tackle someone bigger than me in a confined space who had shown that they were happy to transgress social conventions around toilets and ignore the feelings and dignity of the women in it.

The whole 'reasonable trans' thing is another crock of shit. They were ignoring women's rights. They were just quiet about it.

The ideal outcome is one in which the GRA is repealed, and no-one is allowed to conceal their sex in situations where sex matters, or claim cross-sex sex-based rights, or discriminate against gnc people and believers in gender ideology. It should be possible then to accommodate trans people with (real) kindness and dignity - I think that Miranda Yardley or Debbie Hayton could cope with such a world, for instance - but for the rest it will demand a massive Gestalt shift.

We've got a very long way to go. Picking apart the law is a major task, and, although true believers probably make up fewer than one in five in the UK, key institutions have been thoroughly captured.

Pronouns are the least part of the problem. I'm more worried about institutional inertia, misogyny, magical thinking, and the other side's sneaky tactics.

PS I thought this would be a gardening thread🐌

I don’t support the pronoun trend, there's no purpose or justification for it. There are two sexes, each with a pronoun, and that’s enough. Man and Woman serve a distinct purpose, adding more only creates confusion. Forcing society to adopt meaningless terms is an unreasonable expectation without a solid reason, and I’ve yet to hear one good reason for it.

This ideology is to harmful to go unchallenged, and all those who support it must be made to face up to the consequences of their decisions, and they only way to do that is by challenging them in court about the damage they've done.

They're to many vulnerable people, especially children, who are being sucked into this cult for a conversation to being about how to accommodate 'trans' into society.

Maybe not transexuals. Cross dressing fetishists have been exposing themselves to women since the year dot.

Yes, it's a bad situation and nobody really 'wins'. We've noticed this over the years. Rolling back towards a more sensible position has only revealed the damage that's been done.

Plus the realisation of how deeply embedded sexism is in society and individuals can be depressing.

The only silver lining is the women you get to meet along the way. The very best people, ime.

I too, think the only viable solution is an end to all this. I’d go further than ending the GRA though.

Medical transition is what set the rot in motion and started the normalization of the ludicrous notion that people could change sex in some way. It needs to stop. This is not a healthy response to people who hate their bodies or are delusional.

Obviously there are people who have already gone down that line and society will have to work out what it is going to do with those people, but this whole discussion is tinged with falsehood as soon as the term “trans people” is used.

There are transitioned/transitioning people I.e. those going through or gone through a medical procedure that attempts to make them appear more like the opposite sex. Nobody else is “trans”. It’s a meaningless term that has been weaponised as a stick for cross dressers to beat women with.

I can’t say whether, faced with a reasonable and friendly person in my workplace or elsewhere, that I would absolutely refuse to use the pronouns they wanted. I strongly suspect I would struggle with it and have a suspicion that anyone demanding it is unlikely to be reasonable, but until it happens, it’s difficult to say.

But the bottom line for me is that the whole thing needs to stop and we need a return to reality. Once that’s happening, then we can discuss what to do with those who have already taken irreversible medical steps. Until then, it’s more important to me to ensure women do not lose any of the rights they have gained.

I certainly think that there needs to be clear and robust discussion about the GRA. At this point, I cannot see the usefulness of that Act.

Apologies, haven't RTFT.
But it's not necessary to make any accommodations for trans people.They already have equality. "Compromising" means compromising women's rights and child safeguarding, freedom of expression and belief.
People with identities are not a special case or class of human being. They're not even a stable, definable cohort of the population. At best they are participants in a subculture - they have no particular right to be "recognised" or treated differently. The people who need psychological help should get it and everyone else should wind their necks in and stop imposing on the rest of society.
And we are not nearly at the end of the lawfare phase so it's a bit early to be looking beyond that.

Unfortunately we are a long way off the other side of this. When we finally get there I hope there will be more tolerance of people dressing as they prefer, have sex with anyone willing to have them but not expecting to be in women's sports, on women's shortlists or pretending they are actually women.

I am concerned that we may be moving towards a period where trans people face discrimination in housing or employment because they are seen as difficult to manage and troublemakers. Some are, some are not but anyone openly trans may be tarred with the same brush.

No-one has much trust in politicians but the class bias in this may encourage the rise of people like Farage and the tory party to be become more right wing in response. We dont need more extremism. I'm also concerned about a loss of trust in the NHS.