Cambridge University ignoring the Supreme Court ruling?

[yoursweetpotatoesarebland]

Dd is going to the Cambridge open day coming up, I got an email through about the colleges and was having a read through. There’s a section about “gender identity” and how it impacts on what colleges you can apply to. There are two women’s colleges but both accept anyone who identifies as a woman!

This is from Murray Edwards:
“At the admissions level, we will consider any student who, at the point of application, identifies as a woman“

How can this still be allowed? It’s self ID too so has NEVER been legal for the purposes of the eqA.

Yes I did upthread:

"Yes, the premise of feminism is differences exist but so do commonalities that justify measures to enable gender equality. And it's the commonalities where the disconnect happens for GC feminists in my view.
Highlighting the biological differences justifies measures like reproductive freedom, child care, flexible working hours/parental leave etc that enable access to gender parity. Highlighting the commonalities as in cognitive skills & psychological traits justified anti discrimination laws that enabled access to the same work places. How else would you justify women not being the 'weaker sex'? The same way people of colour were justified not being discriminated against. We are all humans & as such cognitively & psychologically interchangeable.

And once the door to interchangeability opens, so does gender identification. Whilst males & females share psychological traits there are typical behaviours more common to one sex than the other due to genetic, hormonal distribution & environmental settings that create behavioural categories distinguishing males from females. Sex after all is in essence the traits that distinguish males from females which isn't just limited to reproductive traits. I'm not saying behaviour defines sex. I'm saying there are behaviours & inclinations more common to each sex that create categorical gendered differences at population scale.
A trans person is in essence simply saying 'I have more in common & as such identify with the opposite gender category I was born as.'

Of course the schism here is the GC presumption that alluding to typical behaviours is in conflict with psychological interchangeability. But it doesn't because interchangeability & typical behaviours are not mutually exclusive. One does not cancel out the other because individuals aren't necessarily reflective of the norm."

What, in your opinion, are the behaviours, inclinations & experiences of women?

As I mentioned, the sexes share personality traits so behaviours aren't necessarily exclusive to one sex but can be more common to each one.

What are those more common behaviours? That's a whole thread on its own not relevant to this one that you can start & I will gladly participate in.

I’m really interested to know how the ‘behaviours, inclinations & experiences of women’ can be defined without resorting to stereotypes.

And how TW can possibly have any ‘association’ with the experience of living as a woman with a female body, because they don’t. They physically can’t.

Yes I did upthread:

No you didn’t - you’ve rambled on with a word salad about commonalities.

As I mentioned, the sexes share personality traits so behaviours aren't necessarily exclusive to one sex but can be more common to each one.

So which personality traits are more common to men and which are more common to women?

What are those more common behaviours? That's a whole thread on its own not relevant to this one that you can start & I will gladly participate in.

You brought up this up as your reason for claiming that transwomen are women, so yes it’s relevant.

So please do explain.

Without resorting to stereotypes.

I’m really interested to know how the ‘behaviours, inclinations & experiences of women’ can be defined without resorting to stereotypes.

Are you suggesting there aren't more common behaviours to women than men that are reflected in consumerist, employment, special interest & life choices?

And how TW can possibly have any ‘association’ with the experience of living as a woman with a female body, because they don’t. They physically can’t.

They can & they can't. The can't in that they don't experience menstruation, pregnancy, menopause & the associated issues that go along with that. But they can in that they present as women & are treated/discriminated/oppressed in similar ways & are inclined towards their common interests.

As I mentioned, the sexes share personality traits so behaviours aren't necessarily exclusive to one sex but can be more common to each one.

So if they're not exclusive to one sex, how can you use them to decide who is a man and who is a woman?

You've said that transwomen are included as women because they share these behaviours with women, but since they're not exclusively female traits, some men will also share these personality traits and some women won't. And some transwomen also won't show them.

So in the "woman" category you're left with a group of people who are probably mainly women, plus some men (some of whom think they're women), and in the "non-women" category you have, alongside the men who didn't end up in the woman category (including some who really, really want to be women), some women who you don't consider womanly enough to be real women.

What's the point of this grouping? Why not just group people by sex?

‘So if they're not exclusive to one sex, how can you use them to decide who is a man and who is a woman?’

Oh mum loving your thinking 👏👏

So if they're not exclusive to one sex, how can you use them to decide who is a man and who is a woman?

Self identification.

What's the point of this grouping?

They exist. That's how categories work.

Why not just group people by sex?

They still are. Gender & sex categories aren't mutually exclusive. You seem to be confusing the competing rights that flow from this with validity but competing rights don't invalidate categorical differences.

Are you suggesting there aren't more common behaviours to women than men that are reflected in consumerist, employment, special interest & life choices?

Could you give some examples of these?

They can & they can't. The can't in that they don't experience menstruation, pregnancy, menopause & the associated issues that go along with that.

So you admit that they can't experience the biological reality of living in a female body.

But they can in that they present as women & are treated/discriminated/oppressed in similar ways

You believe that these man are treated like women. If that were true, then they would be ignored, not pandered to.

& are inclined towards their common interests.

Go on, just one example of those common interests.

Are you suggesting there aren't more common behaviours to women than men that are reflected in consumerist, employment, special interest & life choices?

Thats a word salad again, and I’ve no idea what you actually mean. Men and women have personalities that mean they have individual likes and dislikes which will be reflected in how they live their lives.

As for employment, women will always be at a disadvantage because of being the child bearers.

And it wasn’t so long ago that girls at school were directed to becoming nurses and teachers and not truck drivers or engineers.

You seem to be confusing the competing rights that flow from this with validity but competing rights don't invalidate categorical differences.

This is meaningless word salad. Could you rewrite this sentence in coherent, grammatical English?

As I already mentioned that is whole thread on its own & I don't want to disrupt this one from Cambridge with bad faith denials of indisputable evidence with pink & blue crank rants. As I said you are free to start one or use google or even your own eyes & ears.

Apologies, the conversation has moved on while I was elsewhere.

@Realfastfoodie wrote
Just to be clear, I had some supervisors based in other colleges. Some of them ran mixed supervisions.

True, and within my experience also.
(My point was that Newnham students, in their first year, doing a subject which several other first year students in college did, might expect to be supervised with other Newnham students. It does not apply to Newnham students who are not first years, or those with few other Newnham students taking the same papers. It might well not apply to anyone without a Newnham-based supervisor.)

We agree to agree.

It's bonkers isn't it?

"Women" are, apparently, all female people other than those who explcitly declare themselves not to be women regardless of whether they display "commonalities" or not, plus men who display "commonalities" that some, but not all, female women also display, even though some, but not all, male people also display these "commonalities" but are not women, because unlike the male women, these male people do not declare themselves to be women and so or not women, depsite being in all other ways the same as the male people who are women.

This is very easy and clear and makes total sense as a way to classify humans, and is especially super important and obviously right when it comes to toilets for trans women, can't forget that bit! Unlike physical sex, which is so unknowable and private and confusing that it's impossible we could ever base anything on it at all and we must all laugh pityingly at anyone who suggests it even though it all worked totally fine in practice for most of human history and in many circumstances today, as female people certainly know to their detriment.

Yep, this all totally makes sense.

You already have taken the discussion away from single sex Cambridge colleges.

As we’ve been polite and engaged with you, you could stop deflecting and back up
your assertions.

Of course it 'makes sense' if you understand that human categorisations are based on associations. For those who don't it will remain a struggle.

Actually my comments were in direct relevance to a commenter who claimed Cambridge wasn't aligning with its feminist project by admitting trans women. Complex issues aren't easily addressed by oversimplifications as much is the trend today to avoid uncomfortable facts.

You know they're just men acting out some male fantasy idea of womanhood, right?

Luckily the Supreme Court ruling have cut through any complexities or misunderstandings that some may have had on what a women is

We always knew of course
Some needed a little more explaining

Thankfully MPs don’t need to pretend women have penises anymore because those times were hilarious

Job done

So we have a college established to facilitate women’s education at a time when women were oppressed because of their biological sex, and claims to be a single sex institution ‘run by women, for women’.

And yet it still admits men.

You seem to think that it’s a terribly complex issue.

It really isn’t.

Yup I get it. Complexity/nuance can push people out of their comfort zones sometimes triggering a "fight-or-flight" response. 'Psychological threat' can manifest as defensiveness, denial, or simply dismissing a topic as "stupid" particularly when it conflicts with their existing worldview.

that is whole thread on its own & I don't want to disrupt this one

Wait what???

Really? Are you really going to play the cod psychology card now?

How about things set up by women, for women and claiming to be exactly that should be truthful and should be able to be relied upon to be so?

Apparently BON is going to make up with cold condescension what their argument lacks in rigour or logic.

Fortunately, having worked in male dominated industries for a large part of my working life, I can spot a bloviator a mile off.

'But but but that's what used to happen in the olden days…'

Your'e not listening or can't listen. What the category of 'woman' entails is contestable now. Now of course you can disagree with modern day interpretations but it doesn't change that it is contestable.

You seem to under the misconception that meaning is fixed when it's actually contingent on social usage. And btw social usage is not a popularity contest but includes common usage.