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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

The two questions they all need to be asked

26 replies

OhSister · Yesterday 17:44

In the midst of the backlash over the Supreme Court decision and EHRC guidance, self-proclaimed 'progressives' who support gender ideology at the expense of sex-based protections need to be asked two simple questions. The 'what is a woman?' question was used to very good effect and in my view, it's time to move on to these:

  1.  Do you accept that being born with female reproductive anatomy is a characteristic on the basis of which people have been marginalised, disadvantaged and abused?
    
  2.  If the answer to question 1 is yes, can you explain why you take the view that this particular marginalised group is one that is not deserving of explicit protection (by 'sex' meaning 'sex') in the Equality Act?
    

I have been involved in these discussion since before 2015 and I know that these points have been made many times over by people more articulate than I am. But like many here, it is particularly frustrating to me when the likes of Amnesty International or the ACLU in the USA position themselves as the defenders of Human Rights while championing such a regressive, misogynist, homophobic movement.

I have rarely if ever heard the question put to anyone in that way, or heard them challenged on why their enthusiasm for intersectionality doesn't at the very least include female reproductive anatomy as a valid intersection with their new definition of 'woman' (but rather re-casts being part of that uniquely marginalised group as possessing 'cis privilege'). I don't subscribe to the idea that there is such thing as a 'woman' gender, but even if I did, logic would suggest that, just as it's reasonable for there to be specific groups or programmes for those who are both women and disabled, or both women and black, or both women and Muslim, it is also reasonable for some things to be for 'women' as genderists would like to broadly understand the term, and others to be for those who are both 'women' and also of the group born with female reproductive biology. But no, oppression on the basis of biological sex has to be completely disregarded as a valid axis of oppression. If JKR had set up a service specifically for women who also had a disability, or were also immigrants, would that service be branded 'anti-rights' by Amnesty?

Sorry for the rant. What do you think of the questions, how would you improved them, and how do we get them asked of the right people?

OP posts:
Pingponghavoc · Today 15:59

What TW want is, if single sex spaces exist, they are admitted by default.

What that means in practice is for women to campaign for or build the services based around sex differences, and then use switched to gender. Where gender can mean sex, or whatever TW want it to mean.

TRA response to the SC ruling is never that we need to build up services based around gender. Its always sex but with TW inclusion after its been built, or burn it all down and have unisex.

The questions to ask is why the switch from sex to gender. And if we were to design spaces and opportunities based around gender, what is the need and what will these spaces look like?

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