If the majority of women voted in favour of self ID?

[MaIeficent]

What would you do?

Completely hypothetical question. I'm not so interested in hearing about the stats/reality or that 'it would never happen'. Just hypothetically what people's stance would be if it did.

I'm conflicted as I don't think I could ever be in favour but I simultaneously support the right of women to make their own choices even if I disagree with them.

Would you defer to them in recognition that this is the decision that makes women as a whole happiest or would you soldier on and try and impose the wishes of a minority group onto a majority of dissenting women?

I'm confused. You are non-binary yet you claim to be a woman. Non-binary means you see yourself as neither a man nor a woman, so how can you be a woman? Similarly, how can you be straight if you are non-binary and hence neither a woman nor a man? Straight means attracted to the opposite sex, but you claim to have no sex, so there is no such thing as straight or gay in this context.

What? You mean imagine there was a Brexit-like referendum and people voted in favour of removing all single-sex spaces, OP? Seriously? I’d hope that I would be channelling my inner Elizabeth Fry.

You post some statements about views on self-id in other European countries but post no links or data for them. I'm a bit sceptical as to these claims of widespread support amongst women for self-id in these countries. There used to be similar polls that showed women in favour of "trans rights", self-id or men in women's loos in the UK, but we know how those were always framed in a certain way or didn't specify the actual issues, so people weren't sure what they were expressing an opinion on other than "rights". Context played a big role in how these "majority opinions" in favour of "trans rights" were achieved, and I'm sure the same is similar for the unspecified foreign opinion polls you found.

In any case, you are non-binary so you are not a woman so your own question doesn't even pertain to yourself. In this "majority of women" are you including biological men who claim to identify as women?

Exactly. The difference between 'do you think people should be allowed to self identify into the gender they feel most comfortable in' and 'should these same people be allowed to access single sex rape crisis services on the basis of self id'

https://wingsoverscotland.com/transforming-the-question/

Edited to add - the link above is from 2020. Other polls since then have shown less support for self id generally, not more.

Thanks for the link, even in 2020 most people said NO, and yet people like the OP are still peddling the tripe that 'most women' support this.
Fortunately there are people on MN that have memories like elephants, and like the internet, they never forget. 😂
It would appear that the majority of women will not be voting for self ID OP, so your question is moot.

It was the Denton's playbook in action -

https://spectator.com/article/the-document-that-reveals-the-remarkable-tactics-of-trans-lobbyists/

In particular -

‘In Ireland, Denmark and Norway, changes to the law on legal gender recognition were put through at the same time as other more popular reforms such as marriage equality legislation. This provided a veil of protection, particularly in Ireland, where marriage equality was strongly supported, but gender identity remained a more difficult issue to win public support for.’ (Kirkup's bolds)

I was confused about this too!

We can never mention the Denton's document too many times. Great article

Odd that the OP does not provide any data or citations to support the hypothesis that German/Nordic/Irish women are pro-self-ID as a majority. Given the hypothesis is a very measurable one this surprises me.

Also 'self-ID' is not defined as a term. What do you mean by self-id? That Eddie Izzard can call himself Suzie and we can all nod along. Or that men can compete in women's sports and rapists can serve their sentence in female prisons? Define it

Anyway the entire history of feminism can be summarised as a small group of agitating women being extremely unpopular with the rest of society including their fellow women, until they were proven right (abortion, voting, sexual harassment, equal pay) and most pretended they agreed with the agitators all along.

I don't think 'feminists must concede to the popular view' has ever had much take up round here.

It cannot be a lasting scenario where a government dictates that other people in the population act as if a group of people’s subjective belief about their gender identity should be treated as if it is based on material reality when it is not.

That is authoritarian.

It is also not legally sustainable for a group of people to be treated in law as something they are materially not. The contradictions are mounting quickly.

So, in a country which fully supports self ID, how does that country then accommodate its athletes when the international sporting bodies reject those athletes claim to be female when they are male?

If a person’s sex is not based on material reality and provable, it is subjective and then prone to inconsistencies in application.

Self ID was never going to work because it was never based on material reality. And how someone wishes to identify should have nothing the fuck to do with whether they access provisions protected by sex category. Let the person identify how ever they want, but that cannot change the material reality of their sex, no matter what medical treatment they which to undergo. It is abiding and will always be materially real.

It really doesn’t matter what a majority of the population want if it is a matter of someone’s subjective belief about their identity, it cannot replace material reality.

I don’t doubt that a majority of young women are pro self id tbh. The polls show that. In the UK with more single sex schools and friendship groups young women will have encountered more difficult women than dangerous men as a rule. If they’ve been bullied at school it is quite likely they’ve been bullied by other girls, including physical bullying. They won’t necessarily associate safety with women. They are much much less likely to still be participating in competitive sport than young men, so will see less of physical reality.

I don’t want to dismiss their views. What I do want is for laws to be made that regulate on the basis of reality.

In law we protect minorities and vulnerable groups.
In law we recognise that multiple groups may have conflicting rights which all need to be considered equally and not with exceptions.

So I wouldn't give a fuck about the 'tyranny of the majority' as it's called. Because this isn't in line with liberal democracy and human rights values and there is a place for minority protections.

The majority of women can not give consent for individuals.
The majority of women can not sell other women's rights.
The majority of women can not change the fact that you can't change sex and this is highly relevant to multiple situations.

So no I wouldn't change my opinion or think differently just because I'm in a minority BECAUSE IT SHOULD BE FUCKING IRRELEVANT.

You may self ID as disabled and some men may self ID as women, but there will be times when just self IDing isn’t enough, criteria will need to be met. Eg you won’t just get a Blue Badge because you self ID as disabled, just as I could call my partner my husband, he can call himself my husband, you could believe he is my husband but since we didn’t actually get married and therefore don’t have the relevant paperwork, we can’t claim spousal inheritance tax exemption.
There aren’t that many things, in the scheme of things things, where sex matters but these are the things I’d say we are talking about rather than a general everyday thing.

Its very hard to cater for all groups when one group refuses to be catered for.

My personal boundaries, privacy and dignity are not subject to a democratic vote. I am the only person who gets to choose who I share space with when physically or emotionally vulnerable.

If a public or commercially operated service is only open to me if I abandon my dignity and self respect and allow other people to make those decisions for me then that is discrimination, deliberately creating a hostile environment which excludes me.

No I won't defer to a majority view. If society wants to have a lot more mixed-sex things so that women who are happy to get changed with male people can do so, that's fine. I still have the right to a single-sex space. If providers observe that the unisex areas are most popular and hardly anyone uses the single-sex options they can adjust the space allocated accordingly but I don't think that will happen.

I doubt it is a majority even in that age group.

That age group in the UK still consistently answer in the majority that they don’t want male people in female single sex provisions and that they want female single sex provisions.

I doubt it is a majority even in that age group.

That age group in the UK still consistently answer in the majority that they don’t want male people in female single sex provisions and that they want female single sex provisions.

Fortunately we don't work out what the majority want by assessing who is shouting loudest on social media.

You could equally pose the question "If the majority of drivers voted in favour of having no speed limits?

The reason for speed limits is safety, both for drivers and other people. Having a majority of drivers voting against speed limits wouldn't change the fact that speed limits prevent harm, sometimes dreadful harm.
It is the same with this question - there is a reason why men are not allowed in women's places and one of the reasons is safety. (There are others, such as dignity, privacy etc). So regardless of any hypothetical decision made by a majority of women to accept self ID, which would mean men being able to deny that they are men and therefore come into women's places, this wouldn't change the fact that not having self id prevents harm, and again, sometimes dreadful harm.
So neither the question of a majority of women voting for self id, nor a majority of drivers voting for no speed limits, change the reality that we need speed limits and we need men not being allowed to self identify as women.

You just said you were not interested in statistics.

I meant in the sense of wanting to have a hypothetical discussion without getting too bogged down by specifics. Like, if I asked whether people would hypothetically be happy to live on Mars it'd quickly derail the discussion if people became overly focused on exactly how we'd get there/pointing out that there are currently no transport services/would the cost be prohibitive etc etc.

You are mistaken, in the countries where self ID has been imposed on the population women weren't asked if they supported it and they haven't been asked if they support it since it's been introduced. You can't claim women seem to be mostly in favour if nobody's bothered to ask them if they are or not.

There appear to have been quite a lot of large scale population surveys as per my second post. Also, we're talking hypothetically as I keep stating. That's why I said "if the majority of women were in favour".

Let me ask you a question in return OP. Should the death penalty be reintroduced if sufficient majorities of citizens were in favour of it? And should such majorities keep us from advocating against it?

Depends on your view of what democracy constitutes I guess.

That's actually an interesting point. I believe there are instances where the law overrides personal consent where harm is likely to be caused. Like in cases of extreme body modification.

Apparently YouGov polling shows that the majority of young women in the UK 'overwhelmingly support self ID'. And certainly many seem to hate JK Rowling. I'm still not convinced though that it's not just people taking what they perceive to be the woke choice. I doubt they are talking about Karen White types.

But certainly it seems to be mainly women supporting self-ID rather than men, which flies in the face of what we usually hear on here. Granted, many might not realise the reality but it seems men are much more likely to just outright reject it.

You didn’t link the polls.

Perhaps you could link the polls to see exactly what was asked and of who.

“But certainly it seems to be mainly women supporting self-ID rather than men”

This is a misrepresentation. Unless you can provide evidence to support the claim.

The majority of women do not support Self ID when it comes to use of female single sex provisions. If you are saying that more women than men support Self ID, that is a rather different statement to what you have made.

Across other counties you cant take their cultural norms out of this. Ireland might have self ID, but I never see a trans person in real life (outside of Pride tv coverage) apart from the occasional alternative teenager. In contrast when in the UK I see more "men in dresses" out doing their thing.
Ireland is a deeply conservative and conformist place, and the law and policy often bares little resemblance to reality. But we like to be seen as progressive and tolerant so will tell the fictional reality to poll takers. Id imagine many traditionally Catholic places are similar.
America is a whole different kettle of fish, with LGB rights being relatively new, sports being a religion and hard line Christians all over the pace.