Ageism often lurks within the ideas and rhetoric of trans activists - Victoria Smith

[IwantToRetire]

... In a recent interview to celebrate 80 years of Woman’s Hour, programme editor Karen Dalziel was quizzed on its handling of the “what is a woman?” question. When asked why the programme didn’t simply reflect the law as clarified by the Supreme Court, she offered a rather convoluted response:

One thing we have to remember here is that you’re on Radio 4. Many of our audience are over sixty. They don’t understand the terminology and part of our role in the preceding years has been to help people understand the terms and what all the different terms mean.

A generous interpretation of this could be that this is about complex legal terminology (who wasn’t an expert in case law when they were in their teens and early twenties? Funny how you forget!). Except Dalziel goes on to say that the Supreme Court judgment has “helped listeners have some clarity about what is meant, but this is moving”. For many people, she argues, it’s “a beginning”:

People said that women couldn’t vote. Other people have different ideas and continue to campaign. We follow the story. ...

Full article https://thecritic.co.uk/you-dont-have-to-be-young-to-understand-gender-identity/

Also at https://archive.is/Ye7A0

It causes no confusion at all.

"There are three people on the shortlist for the job two women and a trans woman"

There is no need at all for the additional word CIS.

Clear as daylight, and that's the problem that you have with it, that it makes it as clear as daylight that trans women not women.

wow - there is so much wrong with this!

cis does not need to be used to distinguish natal women from 'trans women' - we have words already in place

• women (natal women)
• men ('trans women'

the only reason for using cis is to pretend that 'cis' women and 'trans women' are two sub categories of women - i.e. to try and validate that 'trans women' are actual women - they are not, they are men.

So cis - is deeply insulting.

'trans' in 'trans woman' is short for transition - the change from one to another - implying that a man has changed to a woman, it doesn't carry the meaning you imply.

Given a critique by the gender critical movement that the shared usage of 'woman' 'erases' the existence of natal women, you would think a prefix distinction would solve that grievance but given their real problem seems to be some bizarre territorial ownership of words, no.

NO is a simple word - and it means NO. woman has a simple and clear meaning, it means born a woman and always a woman - that is the only criteria needed to be a woman - all those who were born a man can never be a woman, so their use of the word is not shared, it is theft or inappropriate. It is not for men to redefine - men have no jurisdiction over the word woman - it is the core definition of someone born female, and no male gets a say / doesn't get to share it / doesn't get to prefix it... You could not get more male ego-centric and blinkered!

Trans women/men identifying with the typical behaviours of the opposite sex isn't saying that's what defines men & women for everyone, rather they as individuals identify with this categorical social distinction & want to centre that as part of their identity.

there are stereotypes of each sex - which morph over time, but they do not define the sexes - lots of women wear skirts, but wearing a skirt doesn't make you a woman, and a woman wearing trousers doesn't stop being a woman. You can not centre as a part of your identity something you don't have and can never be. A man can never be a woman and can not centre anything female as a part of their identity as they can never be female. All they become is a skirt wearing man - which is fine, but don't claim to be centering femaleness or being a woman - that is crass and makes being a woman superficial and brings down the identity of women to clothes they wear etc.

Right or wrong, the concepts of 'woman/man' carry both biological & sociological associations that distinguish men from women that has implications on how individuals understand themselves as an identity. Trans people didn't create these categories, the typical behaviours of cis men & women did.

It can - but a man adopting what might be seen as the societal norm for women doesn't become a woman - they simply start to extend the boundaries of what is norm for a man. There is no such thing as a 'trans woman' there is a man pretending to be a woman, but they are still a man.

You act as if individuals don't have a right to define themselves as an identity based on what associations they identify with because they violate the norm AND the norm is set in stone when in fact the norm is fluid according to cultural context.

they don't have a right to identify as something they are not - a white person can not claim to be black, a tall person can not claim to be short, a man can not claim to be a woman - it is fake, fraud, deceit.

I assume she will have been shocked to learn that people have been trying to remove the PC of sexual orientation from the equality act.

It’s ok, we’re happy to be ‘women’. Men who want to pretend they’re women can call themselves ‘non-men’.

CIS says nothing about gender. It means born biologically female and identifying as a woman however that woman presents her gender. She can be a CIS woman dressing and acting just like a man some of all of the time.

Gloria Steinem used to say that women grow more radical with age.

The trouble with terms like right-wing, left-wing, progressive, reactionary, etc is that they don't always mean what they claim to mean. We live in a society in which men have power over women. Men then get to choose what words mean - so in the male view, access to pornography, sexual promiscuity, access to prostitutes, access to surrogacy, the right of men to breach women's sexual boundaries are all "progressive" or "left-wing" ideas.

The fact that, in a society where men hold power, these so-called "rights" are all harmful to women doesn't count for anything: any woman who opposes a man's right to do what he wants with women's bodies can be sneered at as "right-wing".

Oh it's back! (8.58 for anyone who missed it).

I wonder what caused it to be hidden for an hour? Surely nobody was petty enough to report a post that proved a point that was made earlier?

(The point being that yes, the Green Party did use the term 'non men' to describe women and seemed rather pleased with themselves over it).

The blog linked is worth a read; over 10 years old and here we are still, playing linguistic chess with pigeons...

There were no pride events to March to on the 70s. And just because parents / Grandparents are accepting of their children / grandchildren when they claim to be the opposite sex doesn't mean they actually believe they’ve changed sex.

How do you dress or act ‘like a man’. Whatever I wear, however I act, I’m still a woman.

How does one identify as a woman? How does one know whether one is agender or non-binary or identifying as a woman?

I can see one reported here taking place in 1972 but not if they were regular events. Article says marches started regularly in 2010.

https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/london-stories/how-london-pride-began/

This reminded me of this document from 2018.

https://www.bacp.co.uk/media/2334/bacp-gender-sexual-relationship-diversity-gpacp001.pdf

(You'll need to put this link into the search box here: Wayback Machine )

This part was discussed extensively on here:

Being a woman in a British cultural context often means adhering to social norms of femininity, such as being nurturing, caring, social, emotional, vulnerable, and concerned with appearance. However, of course, not all women adhere to all these things. ... In some northern working-class contexts femininity is associated with strength and aggression.

BACP Gender,Sexual, and Relationship Diversity by Dr Meg-John Barker | Mumsnet

You have to go to the archive to see the document because it was quickly withdrawn (presumably because of the nonsense which was in it like the bit quoted above).

@Choppingwoodcarryingwater, like the author, thinks we should all be defined by regressive stereotyping and doesn't even realise how regressive this is.

You can avoid the clunky neologism 'cis' as in 'cis woman' [I mean 'cis' in its recent usage, yes I know all about 'Cisalpine' etc thank you] by retaining the established words 'man' and 'woman' and adding 'trans-identifying' if they are men who ID as women, or women who ID as men.

"There are three people on the shortlist for the job, two women and a trans-identifying man"
is a clear, neutral, factual, informative and easily understood statement without recourse to potentially confusing neologisms like 'cis' or 'transwoman'.

Powered by collective action and activism, Pride was one expression of a growing movement for the liberation of LGBTQ+ people in the 1970s in the UK.

Although the main trans support group at the time, the Beaumont society, specifically excluded homosexual men, so who knows what they mean by this...

Can you explain this a bit more clearly?

What does a woman have to do to be 'identifying as a woman'? Surely she just is a woman.

And how does a woman 'dress and act like a man'? Is there a list of clothing and behaviours which indicate that she is 'dressing and acting like a man'?

I know that I am a woman because I am an adult, human female.
I do not identify as a woman.
I am still a woman due to the physical reality of my body.
I completely reject the word 'cis' as activist language that aims to unteather the words woman and man from physical reality for ideological reasons.

@MarieDeGournay I don't think we need to add anything to the words man and woman.

I think doing so is demonstrating that you believe in the ideology.

So in terms of the shortlist example - 2 women and a man or my preferred '3 candidates' - why do we need to describe their sex when we should be describing their skills/suitability for the role.

Is their sex or adherence to the gendered expectations of their sex important?

Thank you, that's useful - it's also an example of taking lesbian and gay history and re-writing it to anachronistically include trans people, eg. referring to the 'LGBTQ+' community long long before the TQ+ was added on.

It even claims that trans people were at the Stonewall Bar in NYC in 1969!🙄.

It's informative about the history of Gay Pride, but it's also useful as an illustration of the shameful/shameless appropriation of lesbian and gay history by the trans movement.
That's the kind of thing that drives LGB✂T.

To be fair, the "woman" in transwoman is also deeply insulting, carrying with it as it does the assumption that womanhood is a matter of dress, interests and character rather than an immutable fact of the body with physical and social consequences for those of us so embodied whether we choose to embrace them or not.

Agree - and I guess that is why some people use the terminology trans-identifying man - i.e. a man who pretends to be a woman...

however I think we are in a weird place currently where the small boy has observed that the emperor is not wearing any clothes, and reality is surging back - while some still hang onto the last remaining vestiges of pretending that you can change sex...

during that period, I try and use the terminology being used in the post I respond to - but put quotes around it to signify that it is their terminology, not mine...

I am very simple at heart and like the core concept of man and woman - not sure we need anything more...

and if a man likes to dress up in what they see as 'women's' clothing - great, they are a man dressed in a skirt...

fundamentally biology rules and there is no other option, these discussions can go around and around in circles and there will still only ever be two sexes and no ability to change... it is a bit like King Canute trying to stop the sea - biological sex just IS and is IMMUTABLE - so it doesn't matter long term what people are called, we will return to that understanding because it underpins reality - it is just about the process now of how we get there... and the more that we are blunt, open and honest, the sooner we return to reality

I would put money on TPA's mother being a figment of TPA's imagination.

I remember a poster describing her Nan's reaction to the headline "Man Has Baby", referring to Freddie McConnell's antics. When it was explained who McConnell was she replied "so not a man, then.".

We could do with more Nan analysis of the news.

Hmmm good points, I see what you mean....

Yes I suppose I was going along with the current reality that there are some people who 'present' as being in some way of the opposite gender/sex - I can't make it make any more sense than that!

I suppose I was thinking from the point of view of the interview panel, they could know in advance that one of the candidates is a man, but 'presents' as, and wants to be believed to be, a woman.

That fact may or may not be relevant - for instance, the interview may be for a job where it is accepted that the sex of the candidate is important and exemptions to the EA2010 apply,, and the fact that one of the three candidates says he is a woman, has applied stating that his sex/gender is Female, but is in fact a man, may be very relevant.

it's also an example of taking lesbian and gay history and re-writing it to anachronistically include trans people, eg. referring to the 'LGBTQ+' community long long before the TQ+ was added on.

Absolutely. It seems you're no longer allowed to say LGB, or Gay Rights, or anything that actually describes the issues at the time - you have to include the full alphabet.

A deliberate re-writing of history to fit an agenda that's current now but wasn't at the time.