the law as it stands on sex - part 3

I know its been endless and has exposed a misogyny and homophobia that I naively thought no longer existed but to look on the bright side without this nonsense we wouldnt have realised that JKR is really funny .

Doodledog

*So what has happpened in the years between to lead to these problems?*

Maybe women and gay people have gained more rights and legal protections, and men have found a way to bat them back by imposing 1950s stereotypes of what it means to be a woman or a man?

If you are a woman and don't conform to those stereotypes, it must be because you are 'really' a man, and if you are a boy who seems to be a bit 'feminine', you must 'really' be a girl.

There is no such thing as homosexuality, as same-sex attraction can only exist where there is sex. If sex is replaced with 'gender', same-gender attraction is absolutely open to interpretation - so if you are a lesbian, and attracted to women, you are deemed to be open to the idea of sex with transwomen (TWAW, remember) and must be transphobic if you don't like the idea on account of their being men. So straight men can have sex with straight women, as always, but also with transwomen, if they have suppressed gay urges and lesbians, who probably just needed a good seeing to anyway.

Transmen are likely to be lighter, weaker and smaller than men, so unlikely to pose a threat, particularly if they have been socialised as female. So we end up with men able to dominate transmen, women and transwomen. What's not to love?

As if all that is not enough, men can gain access to places where women are powerless, such as jails and hospitals, intimidate them in changing rooms, 'compete' against them in sport, and intimately examine/assault them in situations where the women don't realise that it is a man who is touching them. All they need to do is say the magic words 'I am a woman' and access is granted, with anyone who disagrees intimidated, threatened with violence or written off as 'phobic'.

Women are written out of research projects, as where once women meant 'adult human female', now we are told it means anyone who 'presents as' a woman, and who shares political views with 'allies', so figures on things like pension deficits, educational attainment, pay differentials and crime become meaningless.

Who is behind all this? I don't suppose it is one evil genius cackling and rubbing his hands in glee; but the patriarchy failed to suppress women as much as it would like to, and the far right would love to see women back in the kitchen, preferably in a pretty dress and high heels.

Excellent post.

I admire JKR a little bit more every day! Some of the comments below the article expree exactly what we've been saying here

Baffled by the hypocrisy trans lobby The trans want to fit women to little boxes and use their words. I m not calling my mother cis-female, or gender assigned at birth. My mother, she is a woman. I will not submit to trans lobby just because they are mean.

Mollygo

Thanks for these links.
Don’t apologise for the DM. We need a newspaper that will be read by many to raise awareness of what’s going on.

Yes, well I know the DM get endless flak, online, over their views and politics, (often rightly), but they have got on board with this, and pick up on some of the current lunacy.

And, of course, they are the biggest selling UK newspaper.?

yes, excellent post Doodle.
I should add, 'Trans'has also become more common because it's more possible medically. Either better procedures and drugs, or willingness on the part of GPs etc
And a changed social atmosphere to caring more about people's feelings.
Though that seems to be changing back to "just put up with it!"

That's true, Fennel (and thanks ? )

If it were down to medical advances, though, there would have been a lot of children in times gone by who were desperately unhappy, and I don't remember that being the case. Unhappy gay people, for sure, but I really don't think that there were legions of people 'just knowing' that they were 'born in the wrong body'. I know that a lot of people always (whatever the cause of their unhappiness) suffer in silence, but the way 'some people' talk, this has been an issue since time began, and there would have been clues in Art, literature, drama, something by now, if that were true. Also, it would have impacted on at least some powerful people, who would have been able to do whatever they liked (and did, in many ways), but AFAIK there is no suggestion that the occasional lord, duke or king 'lived as' a woman.

I think the social atmosphere just now is toxic, the, and agree with you that there is a lot of 'just put up with it' from certain quarters. There is a veneer of 'be kind', but it is used to make passive aggressive digs at people who don't conform, and to squash questioning. I think the term was coined in response to tweets about the late Caroline Flack, and whilst I'm not at all advocating malice on social media, I think 'be kind' has now morphed into something that means 'don't criticise anything that a self-appointed set of people have decided is right'.

It tends to be used to silence women - maybe men are less likely to be concerned about having a 'kindly' reputation? Also, it has always been the case that women are called 'bitchy', if they say things that would be considered witty or incisive if a man said them - 'be kind' is yet another tool of the patriarchy, and yet another way to stop debate in its tracks.

Yes Doodledog - ‘ be kind’ has become a nonsense, a tool of the patriarchy or a demand made by individuals or groups whose own behaviour lacks kindness

I agree Iam64; it's invariably used by the least kind as verbal shorthand for shut up, be quiet, know your place. I will not shut up. Nor will I be quiet. And my place is right here, promoting, defending and fighting against the erasure of women.

There's a very good article in the Telegraph today, by Suzanne Moore, 're Alison Bailey vs Stonewall & Garden Court:

It cannot have been easy to be a black woman of Jamaican heritage in the late 1980s, living in Oxford and realising you were a lesbian. It must have been desperately lonely. Section 28, which was implemented in 1988, left gay teenagers with little support.
It cannot be easy, after a lifetime of supporting radical causes and becoming a criminal barrister, to find that at your workplace there are complaints about you orchestrated by a group set up originally to protect gay rights: Stonewall.
It cannot be easy to disclose as an adult the sexual abuse that happened to you as a nine-year old. That you were seen as easy prey, the daughter of a single parent, and were drugged and sexually assaulted many times or that the man who was convicted for these crimes has now been released from prison.
All of these are just episodes in the life of Allison Bailey, a formidable barrister who is suing both Stonewall and her chambers, Garden Court ...We watch agog. Bailey, like any other woman, gay or straight, can think what the hell she likes. Is she really your enemy, Stonewall?
Seriously, who do you represent now?

Good question. Stonewall appears to be no longer concerned for gay and lesbian people and is willing to throw them, along with women, under the nearest bus.

There is no reason that Stonewall, set up to promote and defend the rights of gays and lesbians, should ever have got involved in the trans debate.

Trans people are not homosexuals. Their situation needs to be championed by a group which understands and promotes their very different situation.

Agreed. I can't help thinking that they were so successful at getting acceptance for gay people that they did themselves out of a job and had to find a new 'cause'.

It's interesting that so much of the Stonewall ideology is homophobic, but I suppose the personnel will have changed since it started out - a new generation will have taken over since the focus shifted to trans issues.

Oh I'm sure you're right Doodledog they seized on trans as their new raison d'etre, because while homophobia still existed on a personal level the battle was largely won. There's far too much money at stake to give up that gravy train, the salaries for the many advertised job vacancies they have are good, unlike many other charity salaries.

It is so sad that an organisation that was founded on accepting same sex attraction as a perfectly normal sexuality, now calls that sexuality transphobic since it's 'gender identity' that counts and not physical bodies. Nancy Kelley is a lesbian married to another female lesbian, but thinks other lesbians shouldn't exclude the whole group of transwomen from their dating pool because that is prejudiced.

https://signal-corridor.live/uploads/talk/202204/medium-426229-57032845-10751871-image-a-1-1650906058673.jpg%3C/span%3E https://signal-corridor.live/uploads/talk/202204/medium-126529-57032847-10751871-image-a-2-1650906062569.jpg%3C/span%3E https://signal-corridor.live/uploads/talk/202204/medium-176578-57032849-10751871-image-a-3-1650906065881.jpg%3C/span%3E

.

Here's the link to the interview, from 2015. I think Alex is still an advisor to Stonewall.

bzfd.it/3kb7TC9

That's exactly the sort of thing I meant on one of the episodes of this thread when I talked about transwomen in beards (clearly flaunting their maleness) but trisher accused me of being unfair to women with facial hair, who might be mistaken for a transwoman.

It's blindingly obvious that there is a difference, isn't it?

Alex, a 'lesbian', said that he got a lot more attention from women when in his grrl (!) mode.
I'm pretty sure that those women saw him as a gender-non-conforming man, not a woman.

The person on the left here is a 'woman' who is known personally to a family member of mine.
I don't know if the others are'women' or not.
?

FarNorth

Here's the link to the interview, from 2015. I think Alex is still an advisor to Stonewall.

bzfd.it/3kb7TC9

Kathleen Stock refers to that interview as something that really opened her eyes. What does Alex do, puts on traditional women's clothing, no hormones, no surgery, but claims to be widening the bandwidth of how to be a woman. Utter patronising rubbish.

If you can don't mind a lot of swearing Magdalen Berns did a short take down of a bit of it.

It's rubbing women's noses in the fact that men just have to say the magic words, isn't it?

I genuinely didn't go looking for this. It appeared serendipitously before me.

Magdalen Berns' take on Alex Drummond.

youtu.be/JkK7zisjoDk

I realised I hadn't posted the link, came back to do it and you'd done it

Alex Drummond is a Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist with research and clinical interests in ADHD, and accredited as a specialist in Gender and Sexual Diversity. She also works as a photographer at Stonewall.

Magdalen Berns and, her ability to cut right through the trans ideology bulls***, is much missed. I'd like to think that she'd be relieved to see how much the tide has turned in the past few months and know that she was instrumental in that.

The LegalFeminist on why pronouns do matter. You'll recognise some of the comments from those made on these threads by TRAs and their allies, and she perfectly articulates why they are wrong. Enjoy!

www.legalfeminist.org.uk/2022/04/26/grammar-and-grievance/

Here's another of those incredibly rare occurrences - a 60yr old who identifies as a 5yr old child and says 'she' is terrified of going to jail for assaulting young children.

metro.co.uk/2022/04/26/dummy-sucking-paedophile-in-a-santa-elf-outfit-is-spared-prison-16534222/amp/