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.

You are absolutely right it would be impractical to have all these categories for every space in society.

For each type of space we need to think separately about the proper balancing of things, taking into account diverse needs.

@potpourree If it's hard to have lots of people levelling questions @Tandora has one simple solution. Don't start a thread inviting people to ask questions.

As one point for discussion, it's interesting that OP believes that the acceptance that sex is binary leads to the risk that females will always be seen as 'secondary and inferior'.
I think a discussion can be had about that.
In my view, Tan's view is wrong and based on misogyny. The fact that, at population level, males are bigger, stronger, faster etc than females at population level, doesn't mean, at all, that females are secondary or inferior. That could only be argued if it were believed that strength/speed etc are somehow value judgments that make males better than females. They are not. They are simply biological facts. In fact, it could be argued that females are 'better' because for the population to reproduce, it needs far more females than males. We could keep a few males for sperm donation. But with only a few females (eg birthing once a year) it would be extremely difficult to keep a viable human population.
Accepting sex differences, or saying that females require sex-based legal protections - because males are more dangerous, more violent and more criminal - isnt offensive to women. In the same way as it's not offensive to males to say that women are at a very fundamental level perhaps ecologically more important for species procreation. Males and females both have their place - 'different but of equal value' as feminists used to say.

Do you believe that the definition of sex for the purposes of the Equality Act should mean, for all purposes, biological sex plus anybody else who identifies as being that sex?

It is, you just don't like the meaning so you claim not to know what the words commonly mean.

I do get it you know. I had an academic background and had fun playing the post modern deconstruction and semiotics game. I get the intoxicating power of avoiding a hard question about your theories in the real world pretending you don't know what words of the real world mean or by giving them new meanings and imaging society will fall in line with your new constructions.

It even works sometimes. Feminism was pretty succesful in degendering words like Chairman.

But only because the new words described a more useful, more meaningful way to look at reality.

Your project to make sex irrelevent in the world by making it unsayable in language isn't going to work out the same, because in reality sex still has recognisable material consequences for us.

Some consequences are physical and unavoidable. Some are just pure sexism and I hope will evetually die away. Some sit between the two - sexist social structures that mean our built in physical and reproductive differences turn into social and power differences.

All of them are real today, and all of them will continue to be noticed and we will continue to notice who has to deal with what and who is doing what to who.

Please explain this as I really want to understand. In my mind, 'sex' is generally what you are physically at birth and 'gender' is whether you feel like a woman or a man. So one is a physical reality and the other is about what you think or believe you are. (Please excuse any clumsy wording. It's a bit of a minefield!) How are they not separate concepts?

What do you think it is called?

Well this is why I'm curious to know exactly where you imagine "women + trans" and "men + trans" spaces existing.

Surely:

1. Everything is mixed sex unless there is a reason for it not to be; and
2. Where there is a reason for it not to be, the options are "male", "female" and "single user/unisex",

covers all bases?

I don’t think it is just gender critical feminists who think this. I think it is most of the world’s population who think this and most of the world’s population are definitely not feminists.

Great!

So in the interests of questioning, debate, critical thinking and understanding alternative evidence or interpretations, of openness to complexities, nuances, and differing perspectives, and to avoid assuming infallibility where curiosity, humility, openness, and recognition of complexity are much more appropriate,

How well do you think you understand the GC position? Are you able to explain the GC arguments and outline the main areas of difference? What would you like GC people to explain to you?

What worries you about your own perspective? What do you think Genderists (meaning not an orangsied group but simply anyone who believes that gender identity is more than just sexist stereotypes and often more meaningful than physical body sex) typically misunderstand or over-simplify? Are there groups or perspectives within Genderism that you think are mistaken or unhelpful? With hindsight, are there things the TQ+ side of LGBTQ+ activism should have done better?

trans people are all gender non-conforming'
Trans people are all gender non-conforming in the sense that to be trans is (definitionally) to defy conventional assumptions about sex/gender.

That was only part of the question. I genuinely don't know why you don't want to tell me the full answer!

It's clearly a choice you are making to withhold information about what you believe... but why?

You gave examples before of genderNC being wearing clothes or exhibiting certain behaviours. Which clothes or behaviours, or any other actual act, is an example of a trans person being gender non-conforming?

I can only think that you think they don't conform to their own gender is because they're not really it.

What is a respectful opinion on here about a human with a body born with a dick coming to change in front of me? How can I respect this when this already is 1000s times not only disrespectful but dangerous to me also. Your post does not make any sense. What are you , a body with what genitalia please

This is a really thoughtful question and I want to take time to respond. I am going to book mark and come back.

Exactly - I asked this and it was handwaved away with a generality.

The only way you would see a woman (in a dress, or doing anything stereotypically woman-gender-based) and think 'that person is gender non-conforming' would be if you believed that woman was a man.

Yes, I'd agree with that.

I also think all services provided by the government, e.g. NHS wards or support groups etc, should be single sex if they are divided.

How do you square that with "No debate" and "Affirmation first" though?

The poster you quoted said she was convinced she was born in the wrong body. If she voiced that to her parents / teachers / doctors today and they were aligned with the no debate and affirmation first philosophies, she absolutely would have been steered towards identifying as male and potentially towards hormone therapy.

This is the problem with the outcry over counselling - the idea that people who claim to be trans should have to go through counselling before being able to have hormone treatment and surgery has been labelled as conversion therapy - when in reality, what it means is that children like @Icreatedausernameyippee - who have been pushed down that route, may actually have discovered that they weren't trans - that it was PCOS or autism or something else that was making them feel different and like they didn't fit in.

We know that it happens, because that is exactly what many of the people who have since detransitioned have also said.

Let's go back to the very very basics: through what tube - genitalia you are urinating, what is is called in biological medical terms?????? Because then you won't have a leg to stand on mate

Do you think trans people who are going stealth will stay out of single sex spaces? Or do you think they would use an incorrect space to avoid outing themselves?

Thanks for responding. I'm afraid I don't understand your points here.

'It doesn't describe anything'. Do you mean I should have described what I meant by the words woman and man? Or that the statement doesn't describe anything? I wasn't trying to describe something - I was trying to unpick exactly what characteristics a transwoman has in the hope of defining a transwoman. And, as I understand the words, all transwomen are (or at least started off, in your thinking), a man/male child/male baby.

'It obscures rather than clarified what it is to be a trans woman'. How does it obscure? What is the statement trying to hide? And in what way?

Thank you.

When providing a service, a provider cannot discriminate, except in certain situations. They can provide single sex services if they can demonstrate there is a ligitimate need. Obvious example is open plan changing rooms.

Once they have demonstrated that a female space is lawful, they cant include some men. That would be contradictory- if including men is ultimately ok, then the single sex requirement isnt met.

Your idea for some spaces that are for women and some men couldnt get off the ground without a change in the law.

Gender has nothing to do with feelings, it's only about social and cultural stereotypes. It's not possible to talk about gender without talking in terms of stereotypes. Gender is about females having long hair and wearing make up and dresses and males being strong and liking fast cars.

We should be desperately trying to move away from gender and stereotypes. Women can be very masculine, men can be very feminine. Nobody can change sex.

Great comment!

On the face of it it seems so very reasonable. Who could disagre with this?

But it hides a sting. Who gets to decide what is "respectful"? What is "bullying"?

Is it bullying to point out when someone repeatedly dodges or deflects a question, or is disrespectful to repeatedly dodge or deflect a genuinely asked question in the first place?

If one uses the passive voice or general statements to dismiss the arguments of others rather than honestly engage with them, is that respectful or not?

If one invites debate then engages with dissenting opinions by claiming they demonstrate lack of understanding or prejudice yet without showing why the aarguents themselves do not work, is that controlling the terms of the engagement?

@Tandora I'm really interested in why this topic has such importance to you? Your replies seem to be more about TW than TM so I was wondering if you have a male child/relative that is trans? If not what makes this so important to you?

@Tandora can apparently achieve the impossible, something that has evaded the human race since its inception, he isn’t going to actually tell us how he will achieve this, he’s just going to keep starting endless threads stating that he ‘believes it’. It’s a bit like those political parties who know they will never get into to power, but continue to make grandiose promises about what they WOULD do.

he isn’t going to actually tell us how he will achieve this, he’s just going to keep starting endless threads stating that he ‘believes it’.

This is not the thread for bullying. Please take yourself elsewhere.