A Question of Some Considerable Delicacy

[theilltemperedmaggotintheheartofthelaw]

Ever since FWS, we've been told by TRAs that the country is awash with transwomen who are heartbroken and terrified because they've been told to stop using women's facilities, and this has outed them to their colleagues.

I'm finding this hard to believe, because I have virtually never mistaken a transwoman for a woman. There have been previous threads about this, from which I gather that the scientific consensus is that humans are very good at sexing other humans from an early age.

Maybe I am just wrong, though, and have been fooled many times. And maybe some people aren't very perceptive. According to a recent thread, Morgane Oger thinks he could only accurately sex about 70% of a mixed crowd; a PP on the same thread thinks Maya Forstater looks like a man.

So I would like to hear other people's experiences of this (please try not to insult or offend!). Were you ever surprised, when a woman turned out to be a man?

This piece about Kelly v Leonardo reveals the mindset:

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/10/terf-employee-admits-to-secret-cis-only-bathroom-at-work-i-wont-sacrifice-my-privacy-my-dignity/

Kelly also admitted to speculating over her colleagues’ gender identities and tracking their bathroom usage, telling the tribunal that over a period of six to nine months, she identified three people she believed to be trans who were using the women’s restrooms.

This seems to misrepresent what was happening. MK was not speculating: she knew that they were men, surely?

I'm interested primarily in what this means for the law, in particular in relation to Article 8 ECHR (right to private life). TRAs interpret this as an unlimited right to conceal one's sex in every situation. But how can even a limited such right exist, if there is no way in reality that such concealment can reliably be achieved, from everyone, all of the time?

Are they actually demanding the right to force everyone to pretend to be fooled? That's not a privacy right.

Uh huh, I'm sure they will all be purely objective…

Yep, exactly. I'd say it goes beyond age, although age is clearly part of it. It's quite common in incel circles too, where any women who doesn't fit a very narrowly defined and prescriptive 'look' (think tradwife Barbie), is a man.

You need to scroll down to the end to see the picture of Calder.

They just don't. Do you have prosopagnosia?

The other issue is that one only has to perceive someone's sex correctly once, after which the gaff is permanently blown. To pass, they have to go unrecognised again and again and again, until perhaps their luck runs out. Now I've seen that picture of McFadyen with his wife, I'm never going to believe he's a woman.

We don’t have to, because the majority of us know what she looks like, and she doesn’t look like a man.

Also as pp have pointed out, photos can lie or be deliberately made to lie in a way that IRL doesn’t work.

Only because of the height difference.

Away with this offensive, teenage bullshit.

You keep telling yourself that, @Howseitgoin if it makes you feel better.

Sorry, I really can't tell whether you're joking.

Are you genuinely holding up the pictures in the first article as an example of transwomen passing or are you making a funny...?

The line between earnest madness and satire is so very thin these days!

Men aren't women. Why the hell is anyone trying to argue this absolutely absurd whang fuckery.

No, the face. Why didn't you pick out Anja Ravine? He's much more convincing.

(I'm genuinely intrigued now by your apparent face blindness. )

Yes. Grey hair. That is the extent of it. It is a great demonstration, and reminder, that some people really have trouble with discerning facial differences.

Of course, this is quite normal for a small % of the population. The issue is when those with that issue believe that they are the universal experience.

It is really something though that someone thinks they can mock others who don’t lack that ability.

I doubt there's anyone that could satisfy this lot.

Marion Calder’s face has not masculinised , nor has Maya Forstater’s.

That there is your ageism showing through as well as your misogyny.

Well done. Please giving these live demonstrations. It is very educational for those reading along.

Great job!

I already told you I couldn't spot Patti Harrison! At least, not on TV.

The flailing, offensive and misogynistic though it is, is pretty hilarious.

Ah. Another one who thinks feminism is about genderfeelz. 🙄

Is it hilarious? Maybe I've just had too many similar discussions with four year olds. Women are not poopyheads just because they won't let you do whatever you want all the time, and no amount of tantrumming will change the fact humans cannot fly, gravity persists, and it's past bedtime.

That just looks like 'be nice to everyone all the time'. Which is not feminism.

Indeed!

So lemme get this straight, it's misogyny if people correctly identify cis women as having physical characteristics more common in men but not psychological ones? Wasn't the whole point of GC ideology that trans people don't have change sex just because they are 'like' the opposite sex?

Keep digging…

With thanks to DustyWindowsills...

Height isn’t irrelevant as you’d not find many women the size of McFadyen (and were not talking just height)

McFadyen looks like an older male and doesn’t look anything like Marion Calder. They have similar ish colouring is all.

Oh look, Mr. Howse has woken up.

Entirely unrelatedly, I have been thinking of Mrs. Bunbury.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3321127-public-service-announcement

errr. No digging from me, that is you projecting yet again. You are simply posting falsity.

indeed it is enough projection at this point to power not only Hoyt’s and Events cinemas but all remaining drive ins as well.