the law as it stands on sex - part 3

I've been back to read the Allison Bailey page again, and she really does talk a lot of sense. I hope her case succeeds, as I'm sure she speaks for a lot of women who aren't in her position to object to the way Stonewall operates.

I noticed in that film that in spite of the determination not to influence the gender of the children, it was obvious that the (intersex) Mapa would prefer it if five-year-old Mika chose to be a girl. The clothes produced from which to choose what to wear today were all dresses, and the hair-stylist was steered towards a long style. Mika is clearly a very intelligent and sensitive child, and was very tactful in responses to Mapa, but I wonder what things will be like in ten years' time? Mika is a pretty child, and my lasting impression was of a girl, but I thought from grandmother's comments (when away from Mapa) that perhaps Mika is male. However maybe grandmother's concern is about the younger child, 3-year-old Nico, who does look more like a boy.

Watching that very interesting film about Swedish children without gender, I did wonder what was so reprehensible about allowing children to be, and be recognised as, whatever they were born as (not just "assigned" but observed to be from their genitalia) and just having a variety of clothes, duvet covers, toys, books, activities, outings, friends and so on. They will pick which of those they fancy at any particular time, and naturally gravitate to what suits them. For almost everyone the days are past when ALL girls wore frilly dresses and never got dirty, and ALL boys spent their time covered in mud and fighting one another.

It isn't a new thing, either. My three offspring are now in their fifties. They were all different as children, in spite of having the same upbringing, with the girls not treated as especially girly, nor the boy sent to take up boxing lessons. Toys were inherited from a (boy) cousin, so the girls enjoyed construction sets as well as dolls and dressing up clothes, and passed on to their brother, so he had his share of the same variety.

When they were all in secondary school, I came home one afternoon to find older daughter with her motor scooter in pieces, finding and repairing a fault. Indoors, I was accosted by her brother, who wanted to know how he could narrow the legs of some jeans he had just bought.

That didn't take high-falutin theorising about them being brought up genderless and choosing whether they wanted to be girls or boys so as to live their real lives - just the acceptance that girls can sort out engines and boys can alter clothes, if those are skills needed in their lives. Forty years later, they are all adults of the sex that they were born into, with no angst about it. They all cook, sew, and do DIY, gardening, and house and car maintenance. One used to be into sports when younger, one still cycles, one has a disabled spouse and does a lot of the things that would have been considered as the realm of the opposite sex, and they all have an equal input in the care of children, the earning and spending of money, and in all household decisions.

FarNorth
Yes, you read that correctly. A man who wishes to have breast surgery as part of his gender affirming care is now more eligible for funding to make his non medically necessary, dysphoria induced dreams come true over my, a natal woman’s, need to have a congenital issue resolved."

That’s unfortunately only too believable, but appalling nevertheless.

It doesn't matter how it's dressed up - it's what it appears to be.

A minority movement, basically led by biological men, supported by some women, trying to bully, coerce, and threaten all biological women into doing exactly as they want and say. To go where they like, do what they like, be a patient/prisoner where they like, or examine anyone, call themselves what they like, and insist everyone joins in, regardless of the effects on others.

No matter who gets caught up in the crossfire. And, also including some TW who just want to live quietly without all this over egged fuss and drama trans rights saga from activists..

Do what we say, or suffer the consequences is their mantra.

Yes, SparklyGrandma, unfortunately that is a real issue. It's a real shame for 'genuine' transwomen, who were 'living as' women before being imprisoned, and would suffer more than most in male prisons, but the bottom line has to be that in a facility designed for women, women are not put at risk in order to minimise the risk to a minority of men.

The below is a long-ish read, and is taken from an even longer set of comments from a Crowdfunding page by Allison Bailey, a barrister who is suing Stonewall as she believes their manifesto to be discriminatory and damaging to women, children and gay people. You can read more here - it makes more sense if you scroll to the bottom and read each piece in reverse order:

The new trans activism: all scrutiny and critical voices labelled ‘transphobic’

In early 2018, when I first heard that plans were underway to make the lives of trans people easier, my reaction was that this was a good thing and I did not give it a second thought. I kept coming across the term ‘TERF’ but ignored it. I thought that bigots were simply being called out.

Then one day I clicked on a link: terfisaslur.com where someone had collated the online abuse that was being directed at women who I realised had entirely valid concerns and questions about the wisdom of replacing sex with gender.

I learnt that the new trans activism wants to smash the distinctions between men and women; replacing sex with notions of gender identity; making sexual difference a matter of self identification; and demands that any and every man that wishes to identify as a woman must be allowed to do so.

I learnt that the new trans activism is focusing, inexplicably, on young children and declaring them ‘trans’; treating puberty as a disease to be blocked with powerful drugs; delivering our young people into the arms of a multi-million pound industry of big pharmaceutical companies and plastic surgeons.

I saw that the same males who would have society regard them as women, were quick to brandish knives, axes, baseball bats and nooses, as they threatened with rape women who questioned the wisdom of replacing sex with gender —TERFs.

I realised that the new trans activism operated a crude but effective system of punishment and reward: agree with every demand of the trans lobby and be safe; object and face vilification, abuse, boycott, character assassination and cancellation.

I was horrified (and terrified).

I wanted to look away, to pretend that I had not seen it; that it did not reveal the worst woman-hating, lesbian hating, misogyny that I have ever come across in my lifetime.

I did not look away and I urge others not to either. Thanks to brave women who have come before me, such as the late, great, Magdalen Berns, whose courage and no nonsense approach to calling out the new trans activism as the men’s rights movement it so clearly is, gave me courage.

I realised that I did not have to accept that any man can claim to be legally a woman, without having to undergo any hormone or surgical intervention, psychological evaluation or risk assessment.

I realised that it was okay and necessary to say that it is reckless and irresponsible to think that men will only identify as women if they are stunning and brave and harmless: that the wicked, abusive, predatory, unwell and downright cantankerous will, by some miracle, refuse to take advantage of free and easy access to women, to their politics, safe spaces, sports, legal protections and identities.

I was shocked to discover that significant numbers of male sex offenders are permitted to identify as women and nothing is being done to stop them. In England and Wales, some 40 per cent or more of trans identified males in the prison population are men with convictions for sex offences, including rape and possession of the most serious indecent images of children. I witnessed a steady stream of news reports from around the world of males convicted of serious sex offences who identify as women.

It is repugnant to me and wholly unacceptable, and frankly unbelievable, that the new trans activism demands that these sex crimes are recorded as having been committed by women; and that these males can demand to be referred to by female pronouns.

I discovered that women incarcerated in prison are left vulnerable to serious sexual assault and mental anguish, as males, including sex offenders, are locked up with them. The new trans activism demands that a man’s desire to identify as a woman is more important than the right of imprisoned women to safety and dignity. These women have no way to escape, no choice; they are locked up. I do not see how this is anything other than state facilitated abuse and mental torture.

Where there should have been discussion, investigation and inquiry, there has been the silencing of concerned and critical voices; not voices from the rabid right wing, but from women like me, who are of and from the progressive left.

Mantras have been chanted because the new trans activism is a movement that cannot bear scrutiny: TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN; TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS; TRANS PEOPLE ARE WHO THEY SAY THEY ARE; PROTECT OUR TRANS SIBLINGS, and so on, does nothing to engage with and address the serious concerns that exist about replacing sex with gender.

The new trans activists are joined by politicians, journalists, lawyers, writers, entire organisations, and assorted celebrities, in the chanting of these mantras to shut down debate, while others who are appalled at what they see happening are too afraid to speak out. It is cult like behaviour, it is Orwellian, and it has disgraced and shamed a generation.

Labelling all critical voices ‘transphobic’ is a cynical political ploy of the new trans activism. It must be resisted.

I read in the Daily Record (Scotland) two weeks ago that two trans women had been accommodated in a women’s prison. They had to be separated after many complaints by staff and prisoners about their behaviour - openly having sex, dangling their exposed bits and being intimidating with it.

Doodledog

The idea of a Changing Village fills me with dread .

Wasn't there some research that linked girls' dropping out of sport with communal showers at school? This would be that with bells on! People of both sexes, of all ages and all shapes and sizes, those with no body-confidence alongside the exhibitionists, the anorexics alongside the body-shamers, the voyeurs and the introverts - the list goes on. And what about the dysphorics? The ones for whom this nonsense has supposedly been devised? Are they seriously going to use a facility like that?

Communal showers, when I was at a girls senior school, back in the 60's, were bad enough.?

I cannot imagine too many children/teenagers, full of insecurities etc, being happy to share with anyone of the opposite sex (whatever they are calling themselves).

And I certainly wouldn't.

As for allowing children to be anything they like, without stereotypical clothes etc., my daughter was horse mad from when she could toddle. She spent most of her childhood and young adult life in jeans or jodhpurs.

But, it didn't mean she wanted to be a boy...?

A Changing Village for goodness sake whatever next.

Sorry, my formatting and photo link didn’t go too well, but I’m sure you understand the gist.

https://signal-corridor.live/uploads/talk/202204/medium-822230-4f956ed0-60c0-4df0-a25a-963ce2f60dfd.jpeg%3C/span%3E https://signal-corridor.live/uploads/talk/202204/medium-494248-0a27ee61-a0e8-4e6a-9a33-0b0f08b0d80b.jpeg%3C/span%3E

Chewbacca

This makes interesting, and rather disturbing reading, about Jamie Wallis MP, who has recently discovered his true self. Make sure you read right to the end.

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/the-jamie-wallis-story-gets-darker

I felt quite ill after reading that, Chewbacca.

As for ‘Changing Village’ - does that mean you could go in as one sex and emerge as another? Maybe we need to take the Australian approach. This sign was at a caravan site we used.

The idea of a Changing Village fills me with dread .

Wasn't there some research that linked girls' dropping out of sport with communal showers at school? This would be that with bells on! People of both sexes, of all ages and all shapes and sizes, those with no body-confidence alongside the exhibitionists, the anorexics alongside the body-shamers, the voyeurs and the introverts - the list goes on. And what about the dysphorics? The ones for whom this nonsense has supposedly been devised? Are they seriously going to use a facility like that?

Chewbacca

You're lucky you got "Male" and "Femail" MollyGo; our leisure centre now has a "A Changing Village where people of all sexes can change for their swimming session". There's always a queue now for the disabled cubicles because no one wants to be stripping themselves, or their children, in front of others.

I m trying not to think about how delighted “some posters” would be. If there was always a queue at the gym, it would mean people would be late for or miss classes. Hopefully, if sufficient complaints are made about the queueing. mire cubicles will be set up.
Too much to expect the Woke lot to back down.

Things get more ridiculous all the time.

lascapigliata.com/institutional-capture/female-patient-denied-nhs-funding-for-treatment-of-painful-breast-condition/

"The greatest insult to me as a woman during these last few bitter years is the policy rationale as to why this service to women has been withdrawn, and to whom the recommendations for funding still applies. These are as follows:

1. Female Patients undergoing breast reconstruction as part of treatment for breast cancer.

2. Female Patients with PIP implants for whom national guidance applies.

3. Male Patients undergoing Gender Reassignment Surgery.

Yes, you read that correctly. A man who wishes to have breast surgery as part of his gender affirming care is now more eligible for funding to make his non medically necessary, dysphoria induced dreams come true over my, a natal woman’s, need to have a congenital issue resolved."

You're lucky you got "Male" and "Femail" MollyGo; our leisure centre now has a "A Changing Village where people of all sexes can change for their swimming session". There's always a queue now for the disabled cubicles because no one wants to be stripping themselves, or their children, in front of others.

Very much agree Doodledog. I got the strong impression that, whilst "mada" was insisting that everything was completely gender neutral for the children, he was actively presenting more feminine choices in the way of clothing, hairstyles etc and his obvious pleasure when those items were picked, reinforced that the children had made "the right choices". Nika, and all those like him, have a difficult and confusing future ahead of them: continue to ignore what their body is telling them and fulfil your parents ideology, or go against a lifetimes lifestyle and be their biological sex. And that confusion has been deliberately caused by those who claim to be so caring, so non judgemental and oh-so-kind. No wonder young male suicide figures are so high.

Just as an aside here, I went to the gym today for the first time since Covid. It’s been refurbished in quite a few areas but the thing that struck me first was the signage.
Changing areas that were labelled Men and Women are now labelled Male and Female changing areas. ???

Chewbacca

^Children who have no gender.^

The grandmother in the film admitted, once away from "mapa", that he/she/them/they, far from allowing the child to be gender neutral as they claimed, kept foisting dresses and feminine things upon Nika who knew they were really male, preferred to play with cars and wanted to be a builder when they grew up. Nika was clearly uncomfortable discussing whether he was a boy or a girl in front of "mapa", but confirmed that he was a boy when he was away from them. Is it any wonder that Swedish boys are failing in school and have twice the rate of suicides? Wtf are they doing; messing up children's heads with this mind f**kery? Are the TRAs and their allies really ok with f**king up their children's mental health on the alter of living their authentic selves? I hope every single one of the kids that gets embroiled in this manufactured dystopian nightmare, sues the arses off their parents when they get to adulthood and realise that they were guinea pigs in a social experiment.

I'm not a psychologist, so bear with me, but I'd like to see a proper definition of an 'authentic self'.

It's unlikely to be anything fundamental, as clothing, toys and leisure activities (I can't think of much else that so-called 'gender' would influence in the life of a small child) aren't going to the root of what it is to be human (if that is what is mean by 'the self').

If children are allowed to play with what they like, and are dressed in trackies and t-shirts/jumpers they can still be a boy or a girl, based on sex, without making them feel 'inauthentic'. It's not until later (I think - I'm not an anatomist either :grin: ) that their bodies develop in ways that differentiate male children from female ones to the point that it would be unfair to the girls to make them compete against the boys.

What would not being an 'authentic self' mean in that context? IME it is the norm, not the exception, for children to be taught this way at school and in most homes - mine certainly were, and it is 25 years since the youngest started school. It wasn't like 'our day', when there were very clear demarkations between the lives of boys and girls, with different subjects taught, different playground games, different registers and so on. At home, children are not like Just William and Violet Elizabeth either. The days are long gone when girls wore frilly dresses they couldn't get dirty, unlike the boys who had grazed knees and muddy faces, and the people who go on about climbing trees are usually the same ones who complain that children of both sexes spend too much time indoors.

The whole thing really does seem like some sort of statement from the parents/teachers, and I can't help thinking that a lot of this is exactly that. Where are the qualified people in this? Why aren't they speaking out, one way or the other? Have they been silenced?

It comes across to me (who is entirely unqualified in this area) as a lot of half-baked 'theories' being spouted by people who know no more than I do, but are more concerned about appearing to be 'tolerant', or 'forward thinking', or what used to be called 'cool'.

Chewbacca
Active in the BackgroundWrites Spoke in the Wheels of the Tran… ·Apr 5
“Jamie Wallis MP, you are charged with a number of serious offences.

How do you wish to plead, guilty or not guilty?”

“I’m Trans your honour

What’s different about this, from claiming to be a TW on sentencing and demanding to be in a female prison?
How did he pass the vetting process for any party?

Re the children who have no gender, it truly smacks of Münchausens by proxy, where a parent or in this case a whole school forces things on a child to gain attention.

Are the TRAs and their allies really ok with f**king up their children's mental health on the alter of living their authentic selves? I hope every single one of the kids that gets embroiled in this manufactured dystopian nightmare, sues the arses off their parents when they get to adulthood and realise that they were guinea pigs in a social experiment

And have to fight being called transphobic too?

I guess children are always part of a social experiment. I don't like the one where they are expected to fit into rigid gender roles.

Having all sorts of toys & clothes available to them is great, imo, but all this stuff about choosing a gender is ridiculous.
They should know if they are girl or boy and that they can have whatever interests & preferences they want.

Children who have no gender.

The grandmother in the film admitted, once away from "mapa", that he/she/them/they, far from allowing the child to be gender neutral as they claimed, kept foisting dresses and feminine things upon Nika who knew they were really male, preferred to play with cars and wanted to be a builder when they grew up. Nika was clearly uncomfortable discussing whether he was a boy or a girl in front of "mapa", but confirmed that he was a boy when he was away from them. Is it any wonder that Swedish boys are failing in school and have twice the rate of suicides? Wtf are they doing; messing up children's heads with this mind f**kery? Are the TRAs and their allies really ok with f**king up their children's mental health on the alter of living their authentic selves? I hope every single one of the kids that gets embroiled in this manufactured dystopian nightmare, sues the arses off their parents when they get to adulthood and realise that they were guinea pigs in a social experiment.

Children who have no gender.
The adults are the ones who are confusing sex with gender.

www.google.com/url?q=https://www.vice.com/en/article/j5q3kb/watch-our-new-documentary-raised-without-gender&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiXjazs0q33AhWbgVwKHdtVB7MQFnoECAsQAg&usg=AOvVaw26a931b_ep8qZQXX5sEazE

This makes interesting, and rather disturbing reading, about Jamie Wallis MP, who has recently discovered his true self. Make sure you read right to the end.

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/the-jamie-wallis-story-gets-darker

*DD
Listening to children has always been important, but doing something about what they say doesn’t always mean giving them what they ask for straight away. If a child said they wanted matches? A knife?*
Oh, I'm not at all saying that we should give children what they ask for. What I'm saying is that we shouldn't take everything they say at face value. Listen to them, yes. But they don't necessarily understand their own feelings, and can't always articulate them if they do - I would want much more than 'I just know that I'm a girl' before I'd even think about guiding a child towards transitioning.

As Chewbacca's post pointed out, assuming that a girl who likes climbing trees should have been a boy, or a boy who enjoys playing with dolls should be a girl is the ultimate in gender stereotyping, and is really dangerous, particularly for women.

I also think that 'it's a feeling' is nothing like detailed enough to mean anything, particularly when said by a child - there are too many possibilities of things the phrase could be about. I'm not a psychologist though.

Neat-but appalling FarNorth.

DD
Listening to children has always been important, but doing something about what they say doesn’t always mean giving them what they ask for straight away. If a child said they wanted matches? A knife?

I think we also need to get rid of the 'report' culture that has people running to authority to silence anyone who expresses an opinion that conflicts with the self-appointed arbiters of what is 'allowed' to be said.
Absolutely!