Amnesty International say - 'no such thing as a ‘biologically female/male body’'

Must say I stopped supporting Amnesty years ago, when they supported a British soldier who was refusing to fight in one of the Gulf wars.
It was his choice to join the army - it’s not as if he was conscripted. If you choose to sign up, you can’t pick and choose what to do.

The biology thing is ludicrous, but IMO they’ve been getting more extreme for some time.

Galaxy

Do you understand how dangerous what you are saying is. All those women attacked murdered, raped by men they just werent strong enough to fight them off were they. If I had to pick in terms of being attacked by a man or a woman I would chose a woman every time because there is an outside chance I would survive. I would stand no chance against a man.

You might not Galaxy but your how ever many times great grandmother if you go back to nomadic peoples might have managed and perhaps your how ever many times great gradndaughter might as well. Why must women always be victims. The Amazons certainly weren't and it is a mistake to think fighting is all about strength, skill comes into it.
I recommend Natalie Haynes and Penthesilea her Amazonian warrior queen. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jfpc

I can't remember where I read it, but when I do I will post the link, but the author was concerned about the very high percentage of autistic teens who were seeking treatment from the Tavistock, many who had been apparently happy until puberty. The author felt that the Tavistock and other such clinics such as Mermaids, were not providing sufficient in depth counselling to find out, for example, why the teenager was so frightened of facing adulthood as a woman, what did they feel they would not be able to achieve as a woman that they thought they would as an adult man? Also, when any of us approach puberty, we do not know what life will be like 'on the other side' as an adult of our born gender, it is a leap into the dark for everyone. The autism was a cause for great concern which did not seem to be addressed by the clinic and as someone said, if there was a clinic which sterilised autistic adolescents there would be an uproar, but this is what the Tavistock are doing. Not my words, but controversial nonetheless.

Many years ago I was sexually assaulted; I am not tall and in those days even more petite than I am now. I could not fight him off despite trying very hard. The legal argument used to be, partly, that the woman must have wanted it because otherwise she would have 'fought him off'. I can assure you that he was much stronger than me. I didn't report the assault as I knew I would not be believed. Please don't make me feel that I could have fought him off. Men have more muscle naturally than I ever did, which is why I object so strongly to safe spaces for women being eradicated in the rush to appease those who are trans.

Loislovestewie can I say that it was not me but Galaxy who drew from my comments about past civilisations and hopes for women's futures the concept that I was somehow saying women should fight off men. I fully accept the superior strength of men today and the crimes they commit against women which devastate the lives of many and my sympathies are entirely with you and all the other victims.
It doesn't stop me thinking that the social constructs put by men onto women because of a property owning society are limiting and detrimental to them in other ways. Among those ways is the belief that women should not be tall, strong, good fighters or aggressive. By posting about past societies I hoped to counter the myth men have made that women have always been weak. If this has been misunderstood and misconstrued as castigating you I apologise. But I still believe that the possibility of women gaining strength and ablity is one we should explore and examine not the least because men probably don't want us to.

Men have more muscle naturally than I ever did, which is why I object so strongly to safe spaces for women being eradicated in the rush to appease those who are trans.

Exactly so; men/males are, in the majority, physically stronger than women/females/children so the balance of power will always be in their favour and women/females/children will always be at a disadvantage. It seems to me that those "woke" individuals who are shouting loudest for men to be recognised as women, and to be able to access their safe spaces, are willing to do so even if it means throwing the vulnerable under a bus.

But then logically (and I am in no way advocating this but it seems logical) wouldn't it be best to treat trans women as early as possible before they develop the male bodies that are such a threat?
I'm not by the way "throwing anyone under a bus." I happen to think that trans women can be victims as well as those born women and that they deserve protection. I mean logically if all men are potential rapists and all women are in danger then the obvious thng to do is to castrate men at puberty, storing their sperm so that women can get pregnant when they want. Then no one will be raped, although there will continue to be agressive people who inflict physical damage on others. (I know you are going to come back to me saying that's ridiculous, but I think it is no more ridiculous to punish all men because some men are rapists than it is to punish all trans women because some are agressive)

trisher. Thank you for that.

The MN 'NellieEllie' who wrote to AI has posted the response she received from them to her original letter and her thoughts about that response.

She expresses herself brilliantly so it's well worth taking a look. As she says how can AI on the one hand promote the rights of women in developing countries, while on the other hand in a separate statement, say that a persons genitalia does not determine gender.

Another MN has raised a very good question; if there's no such thing as biological sex, what are people transing too/from?

trisher, I don't know if you are aware of the latest research into "male and female" brains. Basically it is saying that a lot of the differences are actually the way we are raised and expectations of society influence. Which would suggest to me that everyone can be raised as more empathetic and less aggressive by expectations placed apon them.

There is evidence in some countries that instances of sexual violence and rape are falling dramatically.

That would mean that parents who are doing the real fighting for equality and not raising their children to fit ridiculous restrictive gender norms are creating a better world.

Astral That would mean that parents who are doing the real fighting for equality and not raising their children to fit ridiculous restrictive gender norms are creating a better world.
Oh I would hope so and the young people I meet who choose not to be defined by their birth gentitalia or assigned gender, who do not place on others any constraints, but simply accept a person's chosen pronoun and gender, give me great hope for the future. Unfortunately there are people who don't realise what is happening, and imagine all sorts of things will be normalised by trans-gender rights and activists, when actually such people have been living amongst us for years with few problems for the majority of the population. The future hopefully will not be the combative and discriminatory society some want it to be, but will be more inclusive and understanding.
Thanks for such a positive post.

That would mean that parents who are doing the real fighting for equality and not raising their children to fit ridiculous restrictive gender norms are creating a better world.

And until that utopian world is achieved, we have a situation where any man can declare himself to be female and gain access to areas where women's safety will be compromised.

wouldn't it be best to treat trans women as early as possible before they develop the male bodies that are such a threat? It might trisher but I know, from my relative who works for the GMC, that many transitioners have come to regret taking such a huge step so early in the life and, despite a huge amount of counselling before the transition began, they later regret their decision and seek to get it reversed.

"such people have been living amongst us for years with few problems or the majority of the population" no doubt due to the fact that up until recently it has never been suggested that a fully intact man, identifying as a woman, could access women's spaces, and as Chewbacca has posted, compromise women's safety.

I still believe that the possibility of women gaining strength and ablity is one we should explore and examine not the least because men probably don't want us to.

That's absolutely fine.
What does it have to do with men claiming to be women?

parents who are doing the real fighting for equality and not raising their children to fit ridiculous restrictive gender norms are creating a better world.

Of course they are.
What does that have to do with anyone claiming to be the other sex?

I think it is no more ridiculous to punish all men because some men are rapists than it is to punish all trans women because some are agressive)

Recognising that transwomen are still male and some may not have good intentions towards women is not punishing them - just as there is no punishment of all males, at the moment, because of some men being a danger to women.

Society should be thinking of ways to improve rights for all if we are to abandon single-sex services.

Prisons and hospital wards are two situations where women are at a huge disadvantage if males are allowed to 'identify in' - prisons, in particular, because there is no shred of choice for the women there.

We are often told that countries which have accepted self-id of sex into law have no problems.
This is untrue.

Ireland currently has two very violent 'transwomen' in women's prison.
This link details problems they are having.

www.independent.ie/irish-news/prison-officers-demand-guidelines-on-transgender-inmates-39637102.html

wouldn't it be best to treat trans women as early as possible before they develop the male bodies that are such a threat?

It might but even if it was ethical to insist that pre-pubescent children commit themselves to this, it wouldn't solve the problem of adult males deciding to 'come out as women'.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

That's not even the right maths is it.

I'm going to ask for it to be deleted.

I'm afraid, trisher I'm finding your story of women having the strength bred out of them because of male cultural expectations to be a trifle fanciful and historically inaccurate.

While it 'may' have been true of women who could afford servants to perform all the physically taxing work of a household (many of whom would have been women themselves and so doing the physically taxing work) there wasn't much featherbedding for most women. Women cultivated fields alongside men, they carried water, they cleaned and fetched and carried; in addition to being frequently pregnant or having a baby to carry around.

Gauging women's historical 'strength' by their ability to fight in battle feels like a a curiously masculine viewpoint to me. There are more ways to become strong than training as an Amazon.

A wee example from those high Victorian days of 'helpless women. The little town I live in had a postwoman who walked the 10 miles to Durham city every morning to collect the post, walked back, walked her round to deliver it, then did it all over again in the afternoon so as to take local letters to the main post office and come back with the second post of the day to be delivered. By my reckoning that was somewhere in the region of 50+ miles a day, plus carrying the post bag (which may, or may not, have been heavy ). While it's a bit extreme it would be equally common for women to walk distances for marketing.

Or perhaps we could look at the lives of women servants in great and small houses who did the scrubbing, the laundry, the carrying buckets of coals upstairs for fires, or hot water for their mistresses' ablutions. Perhaps you know of the rather creepy 19th C guy, Munby, who married his maid of all work and wrote admiringly of her strength and brawny arms. He was rather keen on photographing fisher girls, another breed of brawny women; he especially like them to carry him across wet sand...

Please don't tell me that women were weak and feeble creatures for a couple of thousand years, because, on the whole, they weren't.

wouldn't it be best to treat trans women as early as possible before they develop the male bodies that are such a threat?

That cannot be a serious suggestion? At what age? 11, 12?

www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/local-news/keira-bell-court-puberty-cambridge-19380062
In a judgment on Tuesday, Dame Victoria Sharp, sitting with Lord Justice Lewis and Mrs Justice Lieven, said that children under 16 need to understand “the immediate and long-term consequences of the treatment” to be able to consent to the use of puberty blockers.
However, transgender rights campaigners called the court's ruling “devastating”.

Of course they would call the ruling devastating as it does not fit with their agenda.

I often think that if my elder dd had been born 30 years later, she’d have been under pressure from uber-woke individuals to think she was in the wrong body. She was never in the least girly, no interest in typical girls’ toys, hated ever having to wear a dress (we were abroad and she wore shorts and T shirt to school), enjoyed all physical activities, rough and tumble, etc.

Yet she turned into a very female woman, happily married with 3 little dcs. She still has no interest in make-though, and not much in clothes.

Sorry just catching up. Loislovesstewie, I am so sorry that happened to you.

The question I would like answered that I cannot find an answer to is... What percentage of transgender woman are dangerous to other women.

Whilst searching for the data on that Astral, I stumbled across this:

The vast majority of reported sexual assaults at public swimming pools in the UK take place in unisex changing rooms, new statistics reveal.
The data, obtained through a Freedom of Information request by the Sunday Times, suggests that unisex changing rooms are more dangerous for women and girls than single-sex facilities.
Just under 90 per cent of complaints regarding changing room sexual assaults, voyeurism and harassment are about incidents in unisex facilities. What’s more, two thirds of all sexual attacks at leisure centres and public swimming pools take place in unisex changing rooms.
Of 134 complaints over 2017-2018, 120 reported incidents took place in gender-neutral changing rooms and just 14 were in single-sex changing areas.

In a further 46 cases, sexual assault allegations were made about attacks in other areas such as in the pool, in a sports hall or corridors.
Unisex facilities account for less than half the changing areas across the UK, but the number is on the rise - doing away with separate male and female changing rooms and toilets is seen as a way to cut staff costs and better cater for transgender people.

I absolutely agree that not raising children to fit restrictive gender norms would be progressive. Unfortunately that's not what is happening is it. This is enforcing gender norms. If you wear dresses or have long hair as a man then you must be a woman. Because if a woman is not about biology then what is it about? Hair, clothes, activities you enjoy. Trisher has enforced gender norms already on this thread by saying non binary people look like neither male or female. What does that mean, is there a correct way to look male or female? We need to be really clear that the way we dress etc is absolutely nothing at all to do with being male or female.

Smileless2012

"such people have been living amongst us for years with few problems or the majority of the population" no doubt due to the fact that up until recently it has never been suggested that a fully intact man, identifying as a woman, could access women's spaces, and as Chewbacca has posted, compromise women's safety.

Smileless2012 you have no idea how many "fully intact" men have been living amongst us. One of the requirements of changing gender was that someone should live as a woman for 2 year. Jan Morris one of the first transgender women began transition in 1964- almost 60 years ago. How many people have since then changed gender you don't know but what is certain is that many of them have been using women's loos and changing roms wthout anyone being aware of them. The idea that it's a recent phenomena is just wrong.