A space for respectful dialogue about sex, gender and diversity

[Tandora]

This is a thread for posters who want to talk and share a diverse range of opinions about sex, gender, being gender non-conforming and/or trans, and public policy. It is to learn from each other; to engage in a productive exchange, and to hear different sides of the story.

It is not a space for bullying and insults. Please do not join if your intention is to control the conversation and undermine those who disagree with you.

I haven't read the full thread, so apologies for that. But in order to have a sensible and meaningful discussion, word definitions and biology have to be the basis of that.

1. It is a fact that within the human species, there are 2 sexes - male and female. Sex is not a spectrum, and the existence of 2 sexes is fundamental to our species.
2. As 'gender' is a construct, I think a discussion could be based on an acceptance that there could be anything from 0 genders, through a few genders, to as many genders as there are individuals on the planet.

There can be no valid discussion about sex I'm afraid because there are 2 sexes as a matter of accepted biological fact. I think if TRAs stated openly that they don't want women to have sex-based rights, that is a valid argument (note, not one I agree with, but valid!). In the same way that incels or the American religious right or the Taliban argue that women have a particular place. As a liberal, I can have a discussion about that. What is not valid, is confusing 'sex' and 'gender', not being able to explain in an intellectually rigorous manner what gender is, and using untrue and exaggerated statements.

Are you saying that women do not have rights too? Or do you mean that their rights are subordinate to the rights of another group? I'm reminded of Akua Reindorf saying in the Guardian that some groups need to accept that other groups have rights too and blame those who gave them incorrect information, not those who have had the law clarified.

Put another way, why should I give up my rights in order to stop someone else feeling uncomfortable when they do not care that they are making me feel uncomfortable? To me, this can only be because that someone else feels that my rights are less important than theirs. That's not equality.

PS I didn't mean to quote the reply I did above, but a different one - Tandora's absolutist message, set against her "there's no conflict of rights" claim. The two together are exquisitely ironic.

Now, though, I'm just being hypocritical myself in still posting. And it's not like I'm getting a reply! Talking to myself in a hall of mirrors. Kind of Kafkaesque again.😂

(Heck, FWR is addictive).

And one last post (really, honest, guv!)

Thank you for this at least.

Interesting.

This reminds me a lot of something I've seen before, when I used to design software.

It's a thing in software to get have what you think is a clever, neat idea for how the code should be designed, then get overattached to making it work even though it really doesn't fit as well as you thought it would.

One of the tell tale signs is finding you are having to build lots and lots of different variations to handle all the not-quite-fitting-properly scenarios.

Generally this points to a fundamental gap between your neat idea and the real world needs you are trying to model in the system.

I think that if a white woman wishes to go for dinner with her black boyfriend and his disabled brother, and the brother's Chinese-born wife she can.

If the hobby group in run in the private home of the white woman above then she can invite whatever "dumb combination" group of friends she wants. The lack of muslims and LGB people is not bigotry, she just happens not to have LGB or muslim friends who like that hobby.

If she wants to publicly advertize her hobby group and host it in the village hall then "all welcome, but not anyone from a muslim background and no LGB either" is simply not acceptable.

Mine wasn't a personal attack but as others have said you don't engage with people who make calm and substantiated points.

I agree with this statement.

The problem is, that is not something that can be achieved by allowing trans people to use spaces for members of the opposite sex.

Society is not inclusive or accommodating of women from certain religious minorities, such as Muslim women or Orthodox Jewish women for example, or women who have suffered male violence, if it deprives those women of the single sex spaces they need in favour of "inclusive" spaces. If a space which is by its very nature supposed to be exclusive, such as a single sex changing room, is made "inclusive" of some of the people it was supposed to exclude, it is then no longer inclusive of some of the people it was actually for.

As far as I can see, the only people who actually benefit from a society in which everyone can self ID as a member of the opposite sex, are those who are biologically male. This does not respect the rights and dignity of members of the female sex, whose needs are equally important.

Following on from your own post, it’s fair to say that there is equivalence between males who identify as women wanting to use female loos and changing facilities and males who like to push boundaries and who like to break rules wanting the same thing. If the latter 2 categories are prohibited by law and common decency from accessing female loos and changing facilities then the same logic and treatment should apply to the first category, no?

Tandora definition of woman is anyone who knows that they are.

There is no clothing or behavioural requirements, no diagnosis, no surgery, no medication, no requirement to actually be female.

The question is, why this definition of woman would need women only spaces and opportunities?

If Tandora was being logical and objective, Tandora would be questioning why single sex or single gender spaces exist, not creating the need for lots of different spaces.

Why would a man who is male, appears to be male to everyone he meets, be oppressed or at risk from male violence in a patriarchal society simply because he knows he is female. It makes no sense.

The only way to make Tandora view make sense is to understand that Tandora is aware that lots of men who want to be treated as women, dont look or behave like women and do not have a diagnosis. So has created a 'knowing ones sex' definition.

I'm guessing tandora bright idea is then to sell it as - if the patriarchy dont know who is a woman and who is a man, women will be safe.

I agree with this statement

I'm really glad that we can find points of agreement, even if we disagree in how to implement/ achieve things.

I think it's really important to recognise where we do share common values, because I'm sure there is a lot.

You can’t dismantle sex differences though.
And sex differences dictate certain segregations such as fairness in sport, dignity in disrobing/changing and safety such as enclosed areas where we undress.

Desegregating in these areas will cause women harm.

It’s like saying we should all unlock our doors and cars because people shouldn’t steal. Unlocking our doors doesn’t change the behaviour of theives.

Do you appreciate why LGB people are now distancing themselves from the TQ+ ?

”genuinely want to understand why you think as you do.”
Well maybe i can tell you @Tandora ?
Its to do with having actual female genes that force females/women to have actual womanly/feminine thoughts & feelings.
Also, the 2 sides of xx brain are much better inter-connected at birth than xy newborn brains: therefore always destined to think differently.
These are the facts, but the understanding can only come from having the correct genes.

Do you think transgender people who are stealth would use the correct spaces, or would they use the single sex spaces?

But many transwomen keep telling us they are just women, not a distinct category! In any case, if they are a distinct category why do they necessarily belong with women rather than men?

Transwomen may identify as a different gender but they can’t actually change sex. They are immutably male. Their sex is identifiable in every cell of their body. If an adult skeleton is well enough preserved, archaeologists can tell from the pelvis whether the person was male or female and nothing can change that. So a space that includes women and transwomen is by definition mixed sex.

I think it's perfectly possible I'd have gone down the trans route if I'd been born 40 years later. I felt so unhappy and excluded being gay. I was too young and inexperienced to feel otherwise. That really worries me for young people these days . Homophobia is still a thing.
And I think that's why I'm reluctant to reject all people who think they're trans - I had no physical characteristics proving I was a lesbian. It was a feeling. It's too easy to dismiss gay people as deviant and making the wrong choice re partners, ie not really intrinsically gay. And nowadays it seems like being trans is more acceptable than being gay.
Just my thoughts and opinions of course.

A man is an adult human male. Every single man meaninglessly claiming to be a trans'woman' is a man.

How can we debate respectfully when you play silly and childish lingusitic games constantly?

So basically ride roughshod over the rights and wants of actual women?

I don't want to dismantle sex differences - I think sex is important.

What I want to do is to recognise that sex is diverse. Yes there are patterns, there are generalisations, there is a binary underpinning to sex. But also, there is variation - there is diversity. I believe that this is true.

I don't think it serves women or feminism to be so obsessed/ invested in emphasising the fixed and binary nature of sex.

Quite the reverse - such perspectives produce a (false) hierarchy where women will always be seen as secondary and as inferior to men.
I believe feminism as a project was initiated to try and undo this type of objectification of women and of femaleness.
Of course there are sexual differences in bodies, and we need to recognise those, but those differences are complex, diverse and there's all kinds of ways of making meaning out of them.

This is such an important point, and one I often make myself.

We are constantly told that it is offensive to refer to trans people in any way which denies their gender identity.

I find it offensive when male people refer to themselves as women.

I am only just starting to seriously resist using the term "trans woman", because I've been so socially conditioned to believe that trans women are women, OK, well, no, they're not, but we should pretend that they are because it's offensive not to.

But I really do find it offensive that they call themselves any kind of women.

I find it offensive that they think a woman is something they can be just by changing their pronouns and dressing in a stereotypically feminine way. I find it offensive that they downplay or even flatly deny the significance of being biologically female, and all the lived experiences that go with that, because to acknowledge these things would mean also needing to acknowledge that they do not belong in this group. I find it offensive that they will not let us have even one word to refer to ourselves which does not include them.

Why is it societally unacceptable to offend them but perfectly fine to offend me?

What do you mean by "sex is diverse"?

Barring a small number of people with DSDs, which has nothing to do with gender, sex is completely binary.

Genuinely, why is it that trans women, who have male bodies and grew up using male spaces, lose their "dignity" undressing with other male people but gain it with female people?

And why is it accepted that female people have good reasons to avoid undressing with male people, unless those male people are transwomen in which case it doesn't matter any more?

What is the commonality of this "diversity of women"that makes them all women, and why is that specific commonality more relevant that the sex of the body in situations that arise because of the sex of the body?

And another example - intimate care. I don't identify as a woman. (Agender Person fo Female Body here!) However, I am aware I am physically female and that this has physical and social consequeces for me. If I need a same sex HCP, why should it be assumed that I would be ok with a trans women? What's the connectoin between my female body and her inner gender?

I realise you probably feel attacked by these questions.

I am not in any way attacking you.

I am however, in the spirit of respectful debate, attacking your thoughts. They appear to me to be wooly, imprecise and rely on many unspoken assumptions. Can you make your case better?

One of the things I find very difficult in this debate is the insistence by gender critical feminists that if women and trans women are in one space together then it is by definition a "mixed sex" space, that must be available to all (men).

Its the law.

If a space is single sex, it means sex, not your idea of 'knowing ones sex'.

A space can be single sex, or open to all. It cannot legally be open to only women and men who 'know they are women'.

I mean this sympathetically not in an attacking way, and I hope it doesn't cross the line.

But the ways the posts over months of threads have been worded so confusingly and avoidantly, pretending to answer questions but changing the wording of what was asked - yet she can articulately and clearly answer some specific, but more tangential, questions - suggests a person who is terrified that people will find out what she actually thinks.

Someone keen to communicate a genuinely held position would jump at the chance to set people straight when they ask the sorts of tricky (or straightforward!) questions that have been asked on here and past threads.

I honestly don't mean that as an attack or a gotcha, but something that occurs to me when reading Tandora-heavy threads. And I do know it can be stressful when hundreds of people are directing questions at you, so it's imo for the best that this person has this thread to express themselves and we can try and work out what it is she's attempting to say - and whether it has any affect on my belief that sex exists and sometimes it matters.

I'll understand if you report this post if it's too personal, OP.