Legal definition of woman is based on biological sex, UK supreme court rules

[Politesse]

You know, you say the most sexist shit when you're trying to speak in the words of "the opposition", and I think it says a lot more about you than it does about the LGBTQ alliance you're supposedly lampooning.

Never in my life have I ever said or considered saying "Pipe down ladies", or referred to the women in my life as "those females", or any of the other heinous stuff you say, supposedly through our lips. Not even as joke. Like, I wouldn't come up with that sort of scummy nonsense even if I was trying to imagine the interior life of a misogynist. But clearly there's some atrocious stuff knocking around in your head, that you are projecting onto your imaginary foes. Queer communities are not, in fact, known for being havens for sexist ideologies, slang, slurs, or habits of speech. I don't think you respect or understand women at all, deep down. Wanting to "protect" women, on your terms, does not make you an anti-chauvinist. In fact, that is always what the organized opposition to feminism claimed to be doing: protecting the "ladies" (usually by denying them rights).

 

[Toni]

“Pipe down ladies.

You just have to accept men who say they’re women in women’s prisons, refuges, changing rooms, rape counselling sessions, hospital wards, restrooms, intimate care settings, and sport.

Can’t you see there are more important things to worry about?”

AFAIK, you do not live in the US. While broadly, the issues are the same re: women’s privacy and security vs trans rights ( and I will re-iterate that I 100% believe that ALL women deserve to feel safe and secure —and further, that men do as well) Jahryn is correct: Trans phobia/trans rights ARE being used as a distraction from the very real, very significant and absolutely horrific things that the sitting POTUS and his administration and MAGA are doing to our country, and frankly, this shit —and it is very very shitty—unfortunately also has horrible consequences for the rest of the world.

FFS: Trump is basically threatening WWIII, with nuclear enhancement. He’s said he won’t decide fur two weeks, no doubt to see what the highest bid for not creating a nuclear holocaust will be before he decides. In this case, I very much hope that TACO Don does indeed chicken out.

 

[TomC]

You know, you say the most sexist shit when you're trying to speak in the words of "the opposition", and I think it says a lot more about you than it does about the LGBTQ alliance you're supposedly lampooning.

Never in my life have I ever said or considered saying "Pipe down ladies", or referred to the women in my life as "those females", or any of the other heinous stuff you say, supposedly through our lips. But clearly there's some atrocious stuff knocking around in your head, that you are projecting onto your so-called foes. Queer communities are not, in fact, known for being havens for sexist ideologies, slang, slurs, or habits of speech.

They don't use those words, but they say it a lot.

And are they uncomfortable for good reason, or out of conditioned fear

Like that.
Are women being reasonable or are they being too emotional? Too irrational? We dudes don't care about this, why are chicks so difficult?
Tom

 

[Politesse]

“Pipe down ladies.

You just have to accept men who say they’re women in women’s prisons, refuges, changing rooms, rape counselling sessions, hospital wards, restrooms, intimate care settings, and sport.

Can’t you see there are more important things to worry about?”

AFAIK, you do not live in the US. While broadly, the issues are the same re: women’s privacy and security vs trans rights ( and I will re-iterate that I 100% believe that ALL women deserve to feel safe and secure —and further, that men do as well) Jahryn is correct: Trans phobia/trans rights ARE being used as a distraction from the very real, very significant and absolutely horrific things that the sitting POTUS and his administration and MAGA are doing to our country, and frankly, this shit —and it is very very shitty—unfortunately also has horrible consequences for the rest of the world.

FFS: Trump is basically threatening WWIII, with nuclear enhancement. He’s said he won’t decide fur two weeks, no doubt to see what the highest bid for not creating a nuclear holocaust will be before he decides. In this case, I very much hope that TACO Don does indeed chicken out.

It's not just the US. For Women Scotland [1], the group that brought the suit, exists for only one purpose: hurting trans women on whatever avenue possible, whether consequential (denying gender-appropriate mental healthcare to rape victims) to the trivial (telling twelve year olds they can't play football). They advocate on no other issue, fund no other initiative. They raise remarkable sums of money, and spend every last tuppence on the encouragement of state violence. Not only do they not do anything else for women, they spend a lot of time and money directly attacking other groups that do assist women in need, like Rape Crisis Scotland and the EHRC.

Make no mistake. These anti-trans movements are using womens' bodies as a prop for political theater, nothing more. Ultimately they are funded by and work for the global radical right, even if many of their own members and supporters have been bamboozled into thinking otherwise.

 

[Politesse]

They don't use those words, but they say it a lot.

No, we don't. And I don't think decent people do use those words.

 

[TomC]

They don't use those words, but they say it a lot.

No, we don't. And I don't think decent people do use those words.

No, they say it in other ways.
But they're still saying it.

'Why do women expect men to respect their concerns and wishes? They're just being irrational."
I quoted @Loren Pechtel .
Tom

 

[Emily Lake]

You see trans women as male. I do not see trans women as male in any way that matters outside of a doctor’s office.

Reality matters to me, and I'm not willing to lie about my perceptions. My eyeballs see transgender identified males as males almost all the time. I definitely see Eddie Izzard as a male. I'm not willing to lie about that in order to gain social points for progressive virtue.

Transwomen ARE male. Being male is a prerequisite of being a transwoman in the first place.

I thought I have been pretty clear that I believe that everyone should feel safe and secure and comfortable using whichever facilities they need to use-and to actually be safe and secure and comfortable in those facilities.

Yes, there is a conflict in some cases and no, I’m not certain how to resolve.

Ideally there would be no bad actors and doors on stalls should remove the privacy issues. Unfortunately there are a very few bad actors that make that difficult.

If there were no bad actors, we wouldn't need sex-specific intimate spaces at all, and there'd be a whole lot fewer people in jail. Staking policy on wishes about how humans should just stop being human is an odd take.

I mean, ideally there'd be no thieves, and we would never need to lock our doors. Ideally there'd be no pedophiles, and we'd be able to let kids take candy from strangers without qualms. Ideally there'd be no cheats and we wouldn't need any regulations or tax audits.

 

[Emily Lake]

We differ about what denotes sex. Of course, sometimes, an apparent female fails to menstruate and it turns out that she has tested instead of ovaries, for example. Very rare but this happens. Sometimes genitalia is ambiguous at birth and sex is assigned but may not actually match the person’s internal make up.

Yes, we do differ about what denotes sex. For one thing, I don't consider DSDs to have anything at all to do with transgender identity issues. Nor do I think that having extremely rare DSDs somehow results in human exceptionalism and throws the definition of sex out the window.

You seem to believe that perception is optional

No, I don't believe that perception is optional. I perceive Eddie Izzard to be male, and I'm not willing to lie and pretend I don't.

—that someone who feels fully female

How exactly can a male "feel fully female"? What do you mean by that? What female experiences and physical sensations do you think these males have? Do you think they have menstrual cramps? Do you think they have breast pain from their buds as young teens? Do you think they have the sensation of leakage during an unexpected period, and the self-consciousness of being stuck at school with a blood stain on their pants? Do you think they have the experience of having a 50-yo man stare at their chests when they're 13 and oggle their newly formed boobs? Do you think they feel anxiety and concern when they realize they're alone on a street with a strange male closing in on them? Do you think they worry about having to leave their drink unsupervised when they have to pee at a bar?

Do you think that any of their professed feelings have anything at all to do with ACTUALLY being female in any way whatsoever?

I think that when a male says they "feel like a woman", what they mean is that they feel the way that the imagine a woman ought to feel - and that's something entirely different. In the overwhelming majority of cases, I don't think what they think women feel like is anything that an actual woman feels. In a number of cases, they appear to think that women feel like pornified sex objects (see: Andrea Long Chu, Julia Serrano, Grace Lavery as a starting point).

and is distressed by their actual anatomy should just get over it.

I think they should get psychiatric help to come to terms with their physical reality.

I think that people should live their lives as they see fit, so long as it does not cause actual harm to others.

I agree. But I also recognize that giving men with self-declared gendery feels right of access to female single-sex intimate spaces does harm to women.

 

[Politesse]

I mean, ideally there'd be no thieves, and we would never need to lock our doors. Ideally there'd be no pedophiles, and we'd be able to let kids take candy from strangers without qualms. Ideally there'd be no cheats and we wouldn't need any regulations or tax audits.

In those cases, what would be the equivalent of what you and your allies are doing to trans people? To put it another way, what group should be scapegoated and forced into segregated spaces in order to prevent some crimes they are accused of being more prone to based on dodgy statistics? Barring racial minorities from the neighborhood so they can't steal anything? Not allowing priests into schools and church nurseries? Preventative tax audits of all white people?

 

[Emily Lake]

The common derogatory term for these notorious stool pigeons is "obstetricians".

So you are getting on board with the argument that one's birth certificate is the proof of your "biological sex", and that one should have to either provide it, or submit to further medical testing if your biological sex is challenged in a legal context?

What would it take to convince you that an individual person is trans?

Part of the problem I have with this issue is the lack of any standards concerning trans. If a cis-het male who wants access to the women's changing room simply declares himself trans, does that work for you? It doesn't work for me.
Tom

Except that's not what's happening.

"Self ID" is about going down to DMV and changing your ID without a psychiatrist's sign-off.

No, it isn't. That's what you think it ought to be about, but that's not what it's actually about.

In reality, self-id is about
1) removing any and all gatekeeping to being recognized as transgender, so that no medical condition or distress is required legally or socially
2) removing any requirement or expectation of transition of any sort, so that a male doesn't have to have surgery or take hormones or even wear female-typical clothing in order to be considered transgender both legally and socially
3) removing any expectation of a person who does not pass from having to provide documentation of their sex in order to access single-sex spaces
4) making it socially unacceptable to challenge a person's dedication when they verbally declare themselves transgender
5) not requiring any change to legal documents of any sort in order to be treated as if they're the opposite sex

Male prisoners in california being moved to female prisons generally haven't changed their marker on their ID at all - they've simply declared that they're "women" and that their gender identity entitles them to be housed with women.

 

[Emily Lake]

Do you also write on the internet about the crotches you've looked at in the bathroom lately? If not, why not, if there's nothing weird about doing so?

What's weird is you either being unable to answer those questions or pretending to be unable.
Those are both kinda weird, but the pretending makes sense since your ideological views are kinda weird.
Tom

What do you mean? My answer to those questions is no. Unequivocally. I do not spy on people in the bathroom, or use their bodies as props in an ideological crusade. I do not do those things. No normal, decent person does those things.

You were asking B20 about those things.
And lemme help you a bit with basic English.
"See", "notice", and "spy on" are generally different things for most of us.
Tom

So you also think that what Emily is doing to these other women is perfectly fine and normal? Even though you know they would not consent to it if they knew?

What I did was to NOTICE that there was a MALE in the restroom, and then I SAW that MALE reach down, grab his crotch, and adjust his balls. I've SEEN MALES do this out in public countless times, it's something that MALES do fairly regularly, and understandably. So far as I can tell, MALES don't seem to give a fuck if other people SEE them adjust their balls.

You know what I've never seen? I've never seen a WOMAN adjust her balls.

 

[Emily Lake]

Why would I be terrified of TERFs?

Because their political lobby has the ultimate goal of ending many freedoms that you value.

Bullshit. Women's political interest in this topic has the goal of retaining SEX-specific intimate spaces and sports, and retaining the right to tell MALES who want to be there to get the fuck out.

 

[Emily Lake]

By that logic I don't want certain men in the locker room with me either.

I understand. I do not wish to be insensitive or to make assumptions but it is less likely that you have been sexually assaulted by a male than it is that any female posting on this forum has been sexually assaulted by a male. I would guess that very few women posting here have not been sexually assaulted by a male, simply based upon the number who have stated that they have been. Overall, it’s about 1 in 3 women who have been sexually assaulted. I have been. It is traumatic, even if it does not include actual rape.

2 attempted rapes, and I've lost track of sexual assaults. When you actually include things like being groped by a stranger in a crowded venue, virtually all women have been sexually assaulted.

 

[seanie]

Which is a very reasonable demand.

 

[Bomb#20]

we can protect women from predators

As though that were their real goal! None of these anti-trans folks do anything whatsoever to otherwise help battered, missing, and murdered women, or their families.

Why do you keep making assertions you have no reason to believe are true?

"I’ve spent the best part of three decades funding initiatives and donating to charities serving vulnerable women, including domestic violence shelters. The charitable trust I set up in 2000 focuses on alleviating social deprivation, with a focus on women and children, including female refugees. I’ve funded an initiative to help female ex-prisoners secure jobs, I helped fly professional women out of Afghanistan because they were in danger from the Taliban, I’ve publicly voiced my support for women’s reproductive rights, I founded and fund a women-only rape crisis centre and I’ve campaigned for and funded projects to help single mothers."​

Three guesses who wrote that.

Also,

Interviewed on the anniversary of the service's opening, Kerr said that its phone service had helped almost 2,000 people seeking support, and over 250 survivors of violence had used its safe space.​

Beira's Place - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Emily Lake]

I'm aware. Not my point to minimize that. Just responding to what seems in this thread to be a pervasive insinuation that trans women are a bunch of pervs looking for an excuse to leer at women in private spaces: that and the accusation that people that want transgender people to be protected are by default wanting women to get violated. I'm relatively certain that we can protect women from predators without further marginalization of trans people. We won't because we never have but that's no reason to shit on trans people.

And no, I'm not threatened by anyone in a locker room. Yes, there have been creepers in the gym locker room but they pose no risk to me and they are certainly less of a problem for me than the hetero male creeps are for the women upstairs in the weight room.

Sorry for the cheap shot. I'm fed up with these circle jerk mega threads.

So let's clarify, since you seem to have skipped the long-written posts that went into a bunch of detail before we all got tired and started shortcutting it.

It doesn't actually matter whether transgender-identified males (aka transwomen) are pervs. What matters is that they're MALE. And when you pair that with the current ideological push that 1) anyone who says they're a women MUST be accepted as a woman no matter what and 2) it's unfair and wrong to require that a transgender-identified male have surgery or take hormones and 3) it's bigotry to note that a MALE is a male, no matter how male they appear to anyone with a functioning brain, then you end up in a situation where literally any man who says they feel like a women is entitled to go into women's intimate spaces, and there's nothing we can do about it.

I give zero shits whether the male in my changing room has internal gendery feels or not - I only care that they're male. In fact, there's no way for me to tell whether said male is 1) a genuine transwoman who means no harm or 2) a genuine transwoman who is also a sex pest or 3) a skeezy creep wearing a dress so they can see naked chicks without consent.

Giving transgender identified males right of access to female single-sex intimate spaces has the consequence of making those spaces accessible to any man who wants to enter them, for any reason.

So... if you have come up with a way for women to be able to quickly and easily identify which males are harmless genuine transwomen and which aren't... I'd really, really love to know.

 

[seanie]

You know, you say the most sexist shit when you're trying to speak in the words of "the opposition", and I think it says a lot more about you than it does about the LGBTQ alliance you're supposedly lampooning.

Never in my life have I ever said or considered saying "Pipe down ladies", or referred to the women in my life as "those females", or any of the other heinous stuff you say, supposedly through our lips. Not even as joke. Like, I wouldn't come up with that sort of scummy nonsense even if I was trying to imagine the interior life of a misogynist. But clearly there's some atrocious stuff knocking around in your head, that you are projecting onto your imaginary foes. Queer communities are not, in fact, known for being havens for sexist ideologies, slang, slurs, or habits of speech. I don't think you respect or understand women at all, deep down. Wanting to "protect" women, on your terms, does not make you an anti-chauvinist. In fact, that is always what the organized opposition to feminism claimed to be doing: protecting the "ladies" (usually by denying them rights).

I was mocking male indifference to an issue that primarily has an adverse effect on the rights of females.

 

[seanie]

“Pipe down ladies.

You just have to accept men who say they’re women in women’s prisons, refuges, changing rooms, rape counselling sessions, hospital wards, restrooms, intimate care settings, and sport.

Can’t you see there are more important things to worry about?”

AFAIK, you do not live in the US. While broadly, the issues are the same re: women’s privacy and security vs trans rights ( and I will re-iterate that I 100% believe that ALL women deserve to feel safe and secure —and further, that men do as well) Jahryn is correct: Trans phobia/trans rights ARE being used as a distraction from the very real, very significant and absolutely horrific things that the sitting POTUS and his administration and MAGA are doing to our country, and frankly, this shit —and it is very very shitty—unfortunately also has horrible consequences for the rest of the world.

FFS: Trump is basically threatening WWIII, with nuclear enhancement. He’s said he won’t decide fur two weeks, no doubt to see what the highest bid for not creating a nuclear holocaust will be before he decides. In this case, I very much hope that TACO Don does indeed chicken out.

I absolutely see that the issue is being exploited by the American right, but it’s not an issue manufactured by the right.

There are very real questions about competing rights, the appropriate treatment for children with gender incongruence etc.

If that’s just dismissed, as it has been, the issue will continue to hurt the Democrats.

 

[Politesse]

I know what you were doing. But your choice of language was utlimately your own. You didn't find it in the lips of your real interlocutors. Rather, you found it in your mind, and placed it on the lips of your imagined interlocutors. It says a lot about how you really think about women, that you are comfortable talking about them like that, even to make a point. I get into plenty of arguments with people on the internet, but you will not find me describing women the way that you do, not for any rhetorical purpose. You should be ashamed, I think. Does your mother know you "joke" about other people calling women things like that?

 

[Toni]

We differ about what denotes sex. Of course, sometimes, an apparent female fails to menstruate and it turns out that she has tested instead of ovaries, for example. Very rare but this happens. Sometimes genitalia is ambiguous at birth and sex is assigned but may not actually match the person’s internal make up.

Yes, we do differ about what denotes sex. For one thing, I don't consider DSDs to have anything at all to do with transgender identity issues. Nor do I think that having extremely rare DSDs somehow results in human exceptionalism and throws the definition of sex out the window.

You seem to believe that perception is optional

No, I don't believe that perception is optional. I perceive Eddie Izzard to be male, and I'm not willing to lie and pretend I don't.

—that someone who feels fully female

How exactly can a male "feel fully female"? What do you mean by that? What female experiences and physical sensations do you think these males have? Do you think they have menstrual cramps? Do you think they have breast pain from their buds as young teens? Do you think they have the sensation of leakage during an unexpected period, and the self-consciousness of being stuck at school with a blood stain on their pants? Do you think they have the experience of having a 50-yo man stare at their chests when they're 13 and oggle their newly formed boobs? Do you think they feel anxiety and concern when they realize they're alone on a street with a strange male closing in on them? Do you think they worry about having to leave their drink unsupervised when they have to pee at a bar?

Do you think that any of their professed feelings have anything at all to do with ACTUALLY being female in any way whatsoever?

I think that when a male says they "feel like a woman", what they mean is that they feel the way that the imagine a woman ought to feel - and that's something entirely different. In the overwhelming majority of cases, I don't think what they think women feel like is anything that an actual woman feels. In a number of cases, they appear to think that women feel like pornified sex objects (see: Andrea Long Chu, Julia Serrano, Grace Lavery as a starting point).

and is distressed by their actual anatomy should just get over it.

I think they should get psychiatric help to come to terms with their physical reality.

I think that people should live their lives as they see fit, so long as it does not cause actual harm to others.

I agree. But I also recognize that giving men with self-declared gendery feels right of access to female single-sex intimate spaces does harm to women.

From what I can tell, and forgive me if I am mistaken, you seem willing to accept that sometimes there are some anomalies that cause individuals who are apparently one sex to actually be a different sex. The outside doesn’t match the inside. You seem fine with that EXCEPT when it comes to individuals who—again, due to a biological anomaly, feel to be male when their body appears female or who feel to be female even if they have a penis and testes. Such trans individuals feel such a level of discomfort with their bodies that they seek out surgical and hormonal interventions so that they can feel like themselves, whole and complete. Do you think they are pretending? 35 years ago, I pretty much discounted the possibility that such a phenomenon existed because I had never encountered it and because it just seemed weird.

And then I met pre surgical trans individuals. And other trans folks. I recognized that this was their truth and as valid as my truth that indeed, I could do math and science and play football ( tackle) and basketball despite being a girl —and a pretty small one at that. Indeed, my size was the biggest impediment. There was a world of difference between me resenting restrictions placed on girls, my dislike of the fact that I would menstruate and that I found bras uncomfortable ( and largely unnecessary except to my mother) and the expectation that whatever my achievements, I would be expected to set those aside to take care of children and husband I would surely have. I despised the sexism I grew up surrounded by—and my parents actually encouraged us to achieve whatever we could, not just in ‘girl areas.’

But never for a moment did I doubt my sex or my gender. Lucky me: they matched. As they do for almost everyone.

Almost. What is it you want trans women to do? Continue to go to the men’s room and locker room? Is it better that they risk rape than that cis women do?

Yes, there are absolutely bad actors who exploit laws and rules and some do so explicitly to gain access to victims. That is something that I also worry about. I DO worry about girls and women facing fear and trauma in supposedly safe spaces from bad actors. Unfortunately, that is not a zero risk. Fortunately, it is a much smaller risk than the risk girls and women ( cis or trans) face every single day, usually from someone they should be able to trust.

I think that sexual assault is a different issue than trans vs cis rights. And much much more prevalent and insidious.