Giggle v Tickle Friday 15th May 2pm AEST

[impossibletoday]

Giggle v Tickle
Friday 15th May
2pm AEST
Live streamed

https://x.com/i/status/2053669311504642197

Great post!!

Sounds exactly like what happened here in Ireland. The people who wanted the legislation pushed through knew about it but the public didn’t, in fact it was deliberately tacked onto a far more popular Bill, and the legislature didn’t meaningfully interrogate the proposed legislation to prevent negative outcomes. It was all a bit Douglas Adams to be honest:

‘But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.’

Exactly!

Let's add that if you speak out against any of this you may risk your friendships, your relationship with your children, your job...

Isn’t Australia traditionally full of macho men? A lot of them will be secretly hankering to be hidden as women if they don’t fit the stereotype or are really gay.

Others, pretending not to be gay but very much macho men, will be going to transwomen for sex, pretending to themselves they are really women so they can’t be being gay. ( Look it up, this happens.)

At the same time they must want all actual women under their feet in the same old macho, misogynist way.

Imagine needing to claim asylum in England to get away from the misogynistic Australian anti-women, anti-lesbian laws?

Are gay men there allowed to meet without transmen present I wonder?

“Isn’t Australia traditionally full of macho men?”

No. Not noticeably more or less than the Uk

“A lot of them will be secretly hankering to be hidden as women if they don’t fit the stereotype or are really gay.” Not noticeably more or less than the UK

“At the same time they must want all actual women under their feet in the same old macho, misogynist way.” Not noticeably more or less than the UK

It is true that this change in 2013 has left an inherently misogynist legacy. But having spent a chunk of my life in both countries, I think there is a very lazy narrative that the men of Australia are more misogynist than the UK. This is not true In my opinion.

And I have experienced more negative sex discrimination in employment here than in Australia when you take this specific issue out of the equation.

Imagine needing to claim asylum in England to get away from the misogynistic Australian anti-women, anti-lesbian laws?

If she loses on the next round then I reckon Sal should give it a go

By the way, Gretel, we are still waiting for you to tell us which of Sall's "talking points" are false.

Well, I don't know Sal Grover, but even if she is Grifty McGriftface in person, males still don't belong in lesbian spaces.

Thank you for this! I've been trying SO hard not to post HUH?! in response to the suggestion I was comparing suffrage to "modernity". Yup, that really would be ludicrous. I found the post as a whole rather hard to follow, but that was favourite.

Still, I'm going to try... a bit (cos tired)...

Apples & oranges.

Has always irritated me. An easy get-out. You actually can compare apples and oranges: both are round and edible but have different textures, both are maddening to peel. It's possible to compare what I did, too. But you need to get into the honest detail to do it.

Comparing suffrage to modernity is ludicrous given the obvious cultural & structural differences that functioned as barriers.

Clarification needed. I think what's meant is, "Comparing women's past campaign to be recognised as a distinct political demographic through suffrage laws, to women's current campaign to be recognise as a distinct demographic in sexual discrimination laws," is ludicrous. How? Tell me more (again, detail needed!)

And Just because a similar styles of argument are made doesn't mean the substance of what is being argued is the same.

Depends how you define substance. Just to start, I'd say that both

1. Dismiss women as a distinct demographic ("You don't need the vote" ≈ "You don't need a word")

2. Position women as secondary to, and represented by, men ("Men will decide what you need (in voting for you)" ≈ "Men will decide what you need and are (in removing the spaces many of you want by redefining you)"

I could go on (and on, and on... but wouldn't want to be incessant, would I?)

I would say, though - bloody hell, don't 1) and 2) show how women's equality is regressing...

Hence the mass disinterest particularly from those who it's supposed to help.

The "hence" here is currently hanging there unexplained, without a bit more explanation of what you meant by the previous bolded bit.

For a movement to get traction it actually has to make a meaningful impact on people it's supposed to affect like the METOO movement did.

How are you defining "meaningful impact" here? I get the impression you're equating it to momentum or popularity? Because (regrettably) I honestly find it hard to see how Me Too had more concrete impact than a High Court case in Oz, a Supreme Court judgement in the UK and multiple other cases worldwide. And thousands of crowdfunders and job losses, and hundreds of grassroots campaigning groups, internationally - and (frankly, in comparison to MeToo) tens of thousands of media headlines. And to be more literal... how could it possibly have had more "concrete" impact than GC feminists argument for the (literally - sorry!) concrete walls around single sex spaces...

Trans people being infinitesimal in numbers don't have that kind of an impact.

As Helle points out, there's a fatal inconsistency in this argument, given that you're trying to convince us that this "infinitesimal" group should upend the language and social contracts of centuries...

Are Australians & Canadians abnormally misogynistic for some reason including their female populations? That would be a a very difficult comparable argument to make given their commitments to women's rights issues over the decade.

Also a bit hard to follow without rewording and a bit more detail.

A women's forum "contact your MP" template for Australians, please consider completing and sharing:
https://www.womensforumaustralia.org/fixthesdacontactmps

Yes, and if you look at what they did and what was said at the time, it was presented simply as adding a few new groups with protected characteristics - gay or bi (sexual orientation), intersex/dsd (intersex status), & trans (gender identity). All seemed like good aims. Sex was left in there (albeit with the definition removed). There was no discussion that this would affect the way women would be defined (that self-id was apparently the new 'sex' even though it was still called sex and nowhere does it say this had happened) and our legal protections. Much the same way that changes to the births deaths and marriages acts to allow self id have been presented as a simple administrative change that lets people have paperwork they feel comfortable with. Even reading the SDA, it looks ok - there are lots of exemptions for sex, protections for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding etc. It didn't get pushback at the time because on the surface it looked ok and no-one said that it was going to affect other people beyond the people in the 3 new characteristics groups.

People are only just becoming aware of the issue as it gradually creeps into their everyday lives. When they realise their children are being taught at school to use preferred pronouns and that gender identity trumps biological sex, or that there are males in their daughter's sports and changerooms. When they are going about their usual work and are told to remove the word woman or mother from a report or website. Perhaps they see a news story and realise that the desire to place vulnerable trans women in a safer prison environment has led to women being locked up with paedophiles and rapists, and that there has been a payout for at least one incarcerated woman as a result. Or that the rules they thought might be in place for a small group of fully transitioned, psychologically assessed, passing trans women were actually open to any man who says some words. And aside from those firmly on the conservative side of politics who are used to being called names, people are tentative about speaking up, when the employers and institutions and media are promoting it as inclusion and acceptance to embrace it and bigotry to dissent. And yet there is disquiet, and more and more people quietly saying this doesn't seem quite right. Colleagues, other parents, family members. Who knows, perhaps this ruling will be what galvanises a lot more people to speak up.

The media will be keen not to present it as an election issue, just like they did in the US despite research showing Trump's 'Kamala is for they/them' ads were pretty effective on swinging voters. Because the budget has just come down (coincidence?) they will (and are) painting any swing to Libs or One Nation as a reaction to tax changes. But this issue could easily be one of the causes.

I think the very small number of transwomen does lead many to forget it is an issue. For example I am 40 year old Australian woman and I have never seen a man in a women's only space nor played sport against a TIM. I used to work as a high school teacher and was never told to teach pronouns or gender ideology, nor saw such a thing in the curriculum. That's probably true for a lot of women. It is not something they have to deal with often, if ever, so you can easily forget the issue even exists. And not all women feel particularly aligned with feminism anyway, I certainly don't.

There is sometimes an assumption that if older women are more concerned about a feminist topic than young women that means support will 'die out' over time. This is incorrect if:
A - young women's views change with knowledge and experience as they become older or as they become parents
B - older women are aware of an issue and parenting children accordingly in a way the generation before didn't
C - societal attitudes change in ways that lead to overall popularity or increased individual awareness of the issue

I unfollowed this thread a while back but, bloody hell, there's some cracking discussion from the past few days. I'd especially like to thank @Catiette for the crystal clarity of her post drawing comparisons with women's suffrage.

As to Gretel's feeble remark that it doesn't mean the substance of what is being argued is the same - well, Catiette couldn't have been any clearer about the parallel!

After every single point, she wrote: on women's fight for the right to distinguish themselves as a distinct political demographic, 1912 and 2026.

The substance is the same.

Has always irritated me. An easy get-out. You actually can compare apples and oranges: both are round and edible but have different textures, both are maddening to peel. It's possible to compare what I did, too. But you need to get into the honest detail to do it.

Yup, but at the risk of you wilfully missing the point of a simple phrase again that even the most unsophisticated minds seem to understand is details matter. The women's right to vote however you wish to bastardise to preventing a sub category of women being recognised isn't going to fly in rational circles. And in case you missed the obvious other difference, the right to vote actually has consequences on women broadly. Excluding trans women? Not so much.

Clarification needed. I think what's meant is, "Comparing women's past campaign to be recognised as a distinct political demographic through suffrage laws, to women's current campaign to be recognise as a distinct demographic in sexual discrimination laws," is ludicrous. How? Tell me more (again, detail needed!)

The past campaign was essentially the right to vote. That you wish to twist this into recognition of a distinct demographic thru some mental gymnastics is on you.

Depends how you define substance. Just to start, I'd say that both

1. Dismiss women as a distinct demographic ("You don't need the vote" ≈ "You don't need a word")
2. Position women as secondary to, and represented by, men ("Men will decide what you need (in voting for you)" ≈ "Men will decide what you need and are (in removing the spaces many of you want by redefining you)"

I define it as it is: the right to vote v the right to limit what a woman is.

How are you defining "meaningful impact" here? I get the impression you're equating it to momentum or popularity? Because (regrettably) I honestly find it hard to see how Me Too had more concrete impact than a High Court case in Oz, a Supreme Court judgement in the UK and multiple other cases worldwide. And thousands of crowdfunders and job losses, and hundreds of grassroots campaigning groups, internationally - and (frankly, in comparison to MeToo) tens of thousands of media headlines. And to be more literal... how could it possibly have had more "concrete" impact than GC feminists argument for the (literally - sorry!) concrete walls around single sex spaces...

Meaningful impact as in the actual effects on everyday women's lives. As in women be sexually harassed at work was significantly more commonplace than them ever being harassed by a trans woman.

Metoo didn't have a meaningful impact on everyday women's lives? In terms of curbing un consensual 'enthusiasm' the culture has significantly moved on if education & behaviour is anything to go on. Is there work still to be done? Of course but to say the workplace is the same pre metoo just isn't true. You need to get out more in the real world.

As opposed to GC impact on women's lives broadly? Given the rarity of trans peoples presence, that would be a stretch.

As Helle points out, there's a fatal inconsistency in this argument, given that you're trying to convince us that this "infinitesimal" group should upend the language and social contracts of centuries...

On the very rare occasion one should sight a human unicorn being compelled to treat them as an equal isn't the grand existential upset you think it is.

Are Australians & Canadians abnormally misogynistic for some reason including their female populations? That would be a a very difficult comparable argument to make given their commitments to women's rights issues over the decade.
Also a bit hard to follow without rewording and a bit more detail.

Australia & Canada are global leaders regarding egalitarianism so to suggest they might be more misogynistic than others is nonsense.

More likely Gender critical ideology has a blind spot when it comes to accepting /understanding how typical associations drive word categorisations. They are so obsessed with gender stereotypes coopting behaviour they can't rationalise any other influences.

That trans people are an existential threat to women. That she represents all women. That she is being censored. That men can't be women to name a few.

What are you talking about? Of course men can't be women, they're men for goodness sake 😂

Who are you including under the category of trans woman? Do you support a self-identification model where the only 2 criteria for being a trans woman are:

1. to be born male
2. to say you are a woman or trans woman? Or do you prefer different legal criteria for people to be included as trans women and thus women in your preferred model?

Why do I get the feeling that Gretel has been hanging around these pages biding their time to get their own back? The following are all common phrases that the GC posters tend to use in response to genderists.

Make it make sense.
**
What part of xxx don't you understand?

You seem confused.

Must be so exciting for them to throw those phrases back at the GC posts bless them.

the right to limit what a woman is.

Hmm, what shall we add to what a woman is? Appears to be no limits. In addition to a female being a woman, a women is also a tree. No one can tell me what to limit what a woman is. So I’m adding that sub category. A tree woman.

I'm not trans but I understand/support self identification of being trans because individual trans people understand their identification in varied ways whether it be physical, psychological, behavioural & or cultural associations.

Personally I take no issue with a person identifying themselves as trans either. It’s a personal choice.

But the “trans” tells you they have adjusted their presentation. It’s impossible to change sex. If they want to present themselves in some way, wearing the clothes and hairstyles typically associated with the opposite sex, then go for it.

But you cannot change sex. And if you are a man who wishes to try and present as female, then you are still a man. You have no place imposing yourself on women. Women have been subjugated, demeaned, denigrated, and abused by men for generations. Thousands of years of men pushing women back and down. If you cannot see just how offensive it is to even imply that a man can actually be a woman in that context then you are intentionally missing the point.

If these men accepted what they are, and self identified into their own new category, and built their own new spaces that would be one thing. The fact they chose the demolition of what women have built for themselves tells me all I need to know about the type of man that they are.

Yes, as an identity concept gender identity can be uniquely and individually characterised, so a broad conceptualisation can be justified.

Unfortunately, from a legal perspective, which requires fixed and written definitions, that means that under your method, a woman is simply "anyone who says they are a woman". That sort of definition doesn't tend to work very well if there are any potential benefits of claiming to belong to a particular group.