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?

And how is this relevant to the actual OP?

I've said several times that it's like somebody asking what I'd do if I won the lottery. The answer generally wouldn't involve a long discussion of the likelihood of me actually winning.

This seems to be a common tactic on here to derail discussions that posters want shut down. They'll pick a specific point and then try and go down a rabbit hole of requesting ever more data.

Then question was if the majority of women didn't agree with you. It presupposes that that's the situation as would a question about what I'd do if I won the lottery. It's not difficult.

And before somebody says it....no, I'm not a man.

Yes. Even a basic translation showed this is a really poor quality questionnaire.

If I wanted to show support for a concept, I would limit a questionnaire like this. It is ambiguous and will only get a general positive response. Because, the outcomes of this law is not a well understood.

The people commissioning the poll understood that by keeping it all very unclear, they would get the positive result they wanted.

I look forward to a native German speaker being able to give a deeper understanding to questions. But from basic google translation , it relied on people knowing nothing about the outcomes of the legislation

You are the one who made claims about the majority currently supporting it.

You personally drifted into making claims that you cannot support with reliable evidence.

Most posters have already answered your question within their posts, one way or another.

It is relevant to mention the poor quality of the information that you, personally, introduced into the thread.

Can you please explain what you mean by this. How could the 'choice be in your hands'?

It's a hypothetical question so no the choice will almost certainly never be in my hands.

And either you have principles or you don't. If you thought self-id was wrong, how could you (in this hypothetical 'having a choice' of which you speak) choose something you did not believe in?

I think it's a common human occurrence to sometimes support people in things we don't agree with. It could be that your daughter is set on joining the army and although you're ideologically opposed you support her because it's what she wants. Or maybe you're the one that picks the restaurant for the work meal and you opt for a steakhouse because that's what everybody else wants although you're a vegetarian.

Your point is also relevant because there is not just two answers to the question.

But the studies referenced are kinda irrelevant. I mentioned them in passing for the reason that they made me consider "what would be my feelings if I was actually in the minority?" Because if you thought you were fighting for women but then realised that most actually disagreed with you it would give you pause for thought.

What I was interested in knowing was whether anybody else ever thinks this and what their thoughts on it were. I didn't really want to have an endless discussion about data because it's not what I was asking and honestly because I'm not particularly interested in it.

If you didn't want a discussion about data you shouldn't have stated this, especially without a link:

Apparently YouGov polling shows that the majority of young women in the UK 'overwhelmingly support self ID'.

OK, I was wrong to suggest you were being disingenuous. You're just playing with semantics.

If a political party won 40% of votes and another two won 30% each, I wouldn't say the winning party had the majority because obv 60% of voters didn't vote for them. However, if more women than men support something I'll happily say it's mainly women supporting it because the majority of supporters are female.

But ultimately what I meant was that it's more popular with women than men.

If you have misread studies or not understood how poor quality they are and then used them to base your reason for questioning your own judgement, doesn’t that give you pause.

It is always great to evaluate your position. However, to evaluate your position because you believed poor quality studies showed something that is, in reality, not reliable in any way, yet you were influenced by that research in any way is a whole other discussion. Even if your reaction was to feel that your position was not reflective of the majority of the population, that seems likely to have influenced how you view your position.

You went from making hypothetical questions to then interpreting what you considered popular opinion and having to evaluate if you agreed or not.

Do you do that generally or has this topic taken a separate rout for you. It seems that the question should be better defined .

Don't you get it? Do you even know where you are? Cultists can't even entertain the thought of people disagreeing with them so its impossible to float hypotheticals & get rational responses. It short circuits their brains to try & imagine a world where their dogmas might be rejected so they immediately resort to sea lioning as a defence mechanism to wear you down.

But good job maintaining posture & not getting sucked in to the black hole of irrelevancies!

I'm not being disingenuous or playing with semantics. I'm trying to show you that the words you choose to describe data are important if you want to correctly convey meaning.

Yes, I should've known better than to think posters on here might pass up any opportunity to have an argument about stats. I honestly think this is why so many people see the GC lobby as aggressive nutters, because even agreeing with them isn't enough unless you're prepared to shoehorn the same old stuff into any thread at any opportunity.

God forbid we actually have a philosophical discussion about how the wider opinions of women would or wouldn't affect our stance when we could be getting defensive about it instead. I genuinely oppose self ID but the thought that some women might disagree with me doesn't keep me up at night.

It's all very well asking these hypothetical questions, but even hypothetical questions still need defined parameters in order to be answered properly.

Would you move to Mars?

What would you do if you won the lottery?

Would you support "self-id" if the majority of women voted for it?

The Mars question has lots of parameters I'd want defined before I could give a hypothetical answer. Mars right now as is? Fuck no, I like things like atmosphere, water, food etc. Anyway I'd be dead before I got there. Etc.

The lottery question is easier and I'd only ask for one defining parameter before answering. How much did I win? Because I'd do something entirely different depending on if I won £10, £100, £1,000, or £1,000,000.

The self-id question needs parameters too. What is self-id, does the question mean a meaningless social nicety, or do they just assume it means in terms of everyone should have the same rights to not be harassed or unfairly discriminated against, or does it have the real world effects we've seen such as men in female rape crisis centres, prisons, etc. Do the hypothetical women voting for self-id know it really means men in female single sex spaces, or do they just think it's a question of human rights and general social niceties?

Even if all those parameters were defined, my answer to would I support self-id if the majority of women voted for it would be no.

You might feel swayed by peer pressure, I am not.

That doesn't mean I don't question my own stance on things, because I do. I've yet to see anything that makes me think that I might be wrong.

It does mean that I'm not going to follow blindly where others lead, and especially not if I think they are wrong/leading me down a dangerous path.

I also think it's quite silly trying to compare the "hypothetical" questions of mars and support for the removal of women's rights by majority vote, even if you don't personally agree with it.

Actually I think the original "hypothetical" question is pretty silly on it's own when put like that, don't you?

OP would you support for the removal of women's rights by majority vote, even if you didn't personally agree with it?

You never answered my earlier question about what you mean by "impose your will" either. I'd still be interested to know what did you mean by that?

Brexit still wouldn't have happened if it was binding though, as the threshold would've been set higher than 52:48. So either way, it wouldn't have gone ahead. It probably would've met a turnout threshold though.

@MaIeficent I honestly think this is why so many people see the GC lobby as aggressive nutters,

Do you have stats for that?

Way too many disingenuous posters on here who claim to post in good faith but clearly are not, to give this an inch of taking at face value. It's worthwhile always questioning motives.

Bold claim, isn't it? (Especially taking into account the actual aggression and violence from the TRAs.)

How didn't I convey the meaning of my hypothetical question? I specifically stated that it wasn't necessarily based in reality (because honestly I don't know what the real consensus is and can't be arsed to spend my weekend picking through data).

You seem to have chosen to ignore the focus of the thread and instead derail it by focusing on an element I've repeatedly said isn't really what I'm asking about. It's a public forum and that's your choice but it's kinda disingenuous.

Once again, I'd seen reference to European women being more in favour of self ID and it made me question what my stance would be in pushing my own ideals if they were against what most women wanted. I don't care what the actual consensus is, what the studies say, and whether they are accurate. That's not what I was asking and why I mentioned them.

Nobody is forcing you to engage.

@MaIeficent You have to understand that this is a public forum, not a private whatsapp group. We are not going to let any statement referencing data, especially without links, go unquestioned. Likewise for links that don't actually show what is being claimed. Likewise for incorrect descriptions of data.

I really appreciate the posters here who bookmark links to things like that, I always forget to save them when they get posted.

I like to see the evidence, the stats, the facts. I think most of the regulars here do.

I don't have any stats to back that assertion up though! 😆

OK, you make some fair points.

I suppose I was talking about the situation whereby women understand what self ID means. I watch a lot of debates while I'm waiting about onsite and I think it's not just a case of either not understanding the situation or instead recognising that self ID means Karen Whites or Barbie Kardashians in our changing rooms.

The women I've seen arguing in favour often express the belief that 'genuine' trans people shouldn't suffer because of the bad men who would jump on the bandwagon to abuse loopholes. They think that the GC lobby pick the worst examples as a tactic to undermine self ID. I still don't think there is any justification for men in women's spaces but I do think some women genuinely support it. I'm not going to say that they 'just don't understand it'.

That's like when feminists claim that other women are feminists but just don't realise it, because anybody that supports women's rights is a feminist. In reality, it seems that most women who call themselves 'egalitarian' and reject the feminist label don't do it because they reject the written ideals of feminism. They do it because they reject the real world behavior/attitudes of women that call themselves feminists.

I did answer your question about imposing my will.

Fair enough. I did reference studies without linking them. Usually I would reference anything I was using to back up my argument but in this case I wasn't making any particularly important point that relied on the studies.

It was more a case of "I saw xyz mentioned and it made me think how would I react if that was actually true". It was more of a passing thought and I wasn't really interested in spending ages reading studies. I've spent way more of my Saturday night on this than I intended already.

Once again, I'd seen reference to European women being more in favour of self ID and it made me question what my stance would be in pushing my own ideals if they were against what most women wanted. I don't care what the actual consensus is, what the studies say, and whether they are accurate. That's not what I was asking and why I mentioned them.

It doesn't matter to me what most women want. Men cannot change sex and women need single sex facilities and opportunities, meaning self id is never going to work. Im not going to sit back and watch girls be put in danger just to be proved correct eventually.

I think you are suggesting that feminism is a sort of democracy, where if the majority of women agree, a policy is implemented, no matter how crazy?

Even if that were the case, the question could never be as basic as 'do you support self id' it would have to far deeper and not shy away from the fact that a rapist could have the right to be alone with women and girls when they are vulnerable.

And that's the point. This isnt really a feminist issue, or it certainly shouldn't be thought of in terms of feminism only. Its a safeguarding one.

Safeguarding isn't a popularity contest.

"I did answer your question about imposing my will."

Apologies, I must have missed it, would you mind reposting what you said in your answer please?

"I suppose I was talking about the situation whereby women understand what self ID means."

Ok fair enough. My answer is still no.

"... I still don't think there is any justification for men in women's spaces but I do think some women genuinely support it. I'm not going to say that they 'just don't understand it'."

Ok, I don't think anyone here is saying that all of the women who would vote for self-id "just don't understand it". I think (again, no stats, sorry!) most of us are aware that generalised sweeping statements like that are silly.

We are aware that there are a lot of women who do seem to understand what's going on, and would vote for male self-id for various reasons, not just because of compassion for what you called the '"genuine" trans people' in your post.
(As an aside. People, not men? We've been talking in reference to trans identified men so far right? So I assume we aren't suddenly discussing trans identified women too now?)

"That's like when feminists claim that other women are feminists but just don't realise it, because anybody that supports women's rights is a feminist. In reality, it seems that most women who call themselves 'egalitarian' and reject the feminist label don't do it because they reject the written ideals of feminism. They do it because they reject the real world behavior/attitudes of women that call themselves feminists."

There's a lot of sweeping statements in there I'm having a little issue working around.

All feminists "claim that other women are feminists but just don't realise it, because anybody that supports women's rights is a feminist"?

I mean isn't this really just a shorthand term for something that means we're all fighting for the same thing even if we might call it different names? I know that not every woman who I would consider a feminist would consider herself a "feminist", that's fine. I know there are some women who think of themselves as feminists who I wouldn't consider feminist because (for example) I think feminism is for the protection of the rights of female people, not male people.

Really at the end of the day, I don't think it matters much what people call themselves. For me it's not about what people say, it's about what people do. It's not about internal belief, it's about material reality.

All women who reject the label of "feminist" do so because "they reject the real world behavior/attitudes of women that call themselves feminists"?

What exactly is this apparently objectional behaviour/attitudes of the women that call themselves feminists that makes other women reject the "feminist" label?

To me it seems like you're saying there is a general feeling of objection towards assertive women who know their rights and have evidence to back up what they are saying, who will correct mis/dis-information when encountered, and who refuse to sit down silently in a corner smiling benignly while direct harms are done to children and female people's rights.