AIBU to ask if you are aware of the petition on gender identity and women's rights?

Thanks - good to see you over here, signed.

Thank you, Iam. Tell your friends if you think they will also be interested to hear of it.

I am concerned that there is so little discussion around this subject that people either a) don't know about it at all or b) know but believe no one else is concerned so they'd look intolerant for speaking up and don't want to be outliers or c) are frightened off by the debate as it seems so extreme.

I am not anti-trans. I am fully supportive of people to live as they wish, and be addressed as they prefer. But I cannot agree that biological sex is unimportant as it is the basis of women's oppression and to deny biology is to go against science.

Thanks for putting it on this forum

Thank you NoSquirrels

I think many people are unaware of this and it needs to be brought to a wider audience.

Thanks NoSquirrels - I seem to remember some discussion on GN about this, but I didn’t know about the petition. I have signed and will put the word out about it to my friends and family. It is very worrying and I find the government’s stance on this astonishingly naive.

Thank you all.

There is a huge generational split on this issue.

I have young DDs. I am so concerned that the emphasis on "gender" is massively counter-productive. Gender norms oppress women. But the trans movement is steeped in gender as a "feeling".

Women feel like women because of the biological realities of our sex. We bleed, we bear children, we lactate, we suffer from "women's conditions" that are mostly underfunded by medical research. We suffer hormone-related issues throughout our lives, from PMT to the menopause and beyond.

It's not a feeling "in our heads", it's borne of biology.

I think the proposals are open to misuse.

Signed. Thanks, NoSquirrels. I have reservations about this proposal and believe that representations on minority interests are receiving disproportionate support by MPs, who do not seem to take account of mainstream views.

Signed

I have signed.
I have no issue with current regulations btw

I'm pleased you've posted this over here.
I am a gran, but I have never popped over here before.

This petition is for our DD's and GD's

Thank-you

The petition is very nearly and 5,000

I never knew you had

25 signatures needed to hit 5,000

Lots and lots of !

Actually, I wonder how many women's groups are aware of this petition? The WI and the TWG?

Perhaps it would be a good idea to alert their National Executives or National Federation?

yes, please everyone spread this to mainstream women's groups! But be aware to begin with many people will be where I was a few years ago, assuming that giving more rights to trans people was a natural progression of giving more rights to lesbians, gay men and bi sexual people. It's very far from that, in fact transactivism is positively homophobic- they think gay people should accept trans people as sexual partners (I know it's confusing! But they think a lesbian should be happy to have sex with a man who calls himself a woman, even if he still has a penis)
So if your first reaction is 'but surely we should be kind to these people' pop over to Mumsnet and read some of the threads there ....you will be amazed.

If any of you are a member and would alert the WI and the TWG it would be brilliant.

Their stance at present is that trans women are welcome members as they are women (which I actually agree with and have no issues with - I think as a social organisation they should be inclusive and represent all women) but I am not sure if they have expressed an opinion on self ID.

The WI and TWG won't face some of the issues that are so crucial in this debate e.g. single sex-segregated accommodation like Girl Guiding, which has just released guidance to leaders that male-to-female trans children/teens should be allowed to sleep in single-sex accommodation with the biological girls, and their parents have no right to know about this in order to consent ... hormonal teenagers, who may or may not have a penis, in a single-sex sleeping environment. This will lead to discrimination against e.g. Muslim girls, who will no longer be allowed to attend.

(I am a bit jealous of the )

5,000

Thank you for signing, everyone.

I am willing this petition to come alive in the minds of the general public.

In particular what I would like to see is intergenerational take-up, someone that the generation younger than me will listen to and take notice of, and the generation older than me too (hint, Gransnet ).

Signed

Thank you, M0nica

Mentioned over on MN was that it would only take each signatory to get one more person to sign and we would quickly have a grass-roots movement impossible to ignore. If you feel you can, tell a friend - there's a petition to ask for women's voices to be heard in a debate on how a woman is defined, are they interested in signing?

Signed.

This is very worrying indeed and the new legislation is insane. God knows where it will lead to in future generations.

Being women is in our DNA and whilst I have tremendous sympathy for a minority of men who feel they are in the wrong body, they can look, act and feel like women but they are not. They still have male DNA. That’s irrefutable, isn’t it? They do not menstruate, give birth, breast feed or go through the menopause . With the advance of science I guess it will become commonplace. What a strange future our grandchildren face..

Signed

whilst I have tremendous sympathy for a minority of men who feel they are in the wrong body, they can look, act and feel like women but they are not. They still have male DNA. That’s irrefutable, isn’t it?

Unfortunately, Fairy, not any more. Nothing is irrefutable.

Plaid Cymru MP Leanne Wood (one of the last political parties NOT to put women's rights below trans rights, until today - Labour has already elected a trans Women's Officer and allowed transwomen onto all-women shortlists and awards) has released a statement to say:

I want to see an inclusive feminism [...] that understands that gender is a complex and deeply personal thing, and is about so much more than outdated ideas of biology

www.leannerhondda.wales/inclusive_feminism

Biology is outdated now...

Erm, was it not Wales that did not do so well in the education statistics?

Just because someone says it does not make it true.