Church of England -why aren't you asking 'What is a Man?'

It is simple, a man is someone who has gone through male puberty, if they haven't then they must be a woman. Nothing else needs to be said.

It actually isn’t so “simple”.
I don’t understand why we can’t just accept each other for what we are. This issue seems to engender so much vitriol.

I don’t understand why we can’t just accept each other for what we are

I agree up to a point Farzanah but where you have vulnerable women - prisons, hospitals, care homes, rape crisis centres, domestic refuges - it has to be borne in mind that those women might not feel comfortable with a man in their spaces. Personally, I wouldn't want a man, no matter what his inner soul is telling him he is, to be washing, toileting or changing the sanitary wear for me, my daughter or my grandaughters. The right to dignity doesn't just apply to the trans community; women have that right too. And it's being eroded.

Most of the time we can accept each other as we are *Farzana" it is really just in the circumstances that Chewbacca talks about that it becomes a bit more tricky. I know that some, perhaps many women can accept personal care from someone who was not born a woman, but many women don't want to and their feelings should be treated as of equal value.

Farzanah

It actually isn’t so “simple”.
I don’t understand why we can’t just accept each other for what we are. This issue seems to engender so much vitriol.

Hi Farzanah.

I'm another who believes that most of the time we can all accept each other for what we are.

If someone wants to live as though they belong to the opposite sex, that is up to them and I wish them all the best. As is often reiterated on here, this has gone on for years and caused few problems.

When they want to remain intact as men and be in changing rooms with teenage girls, or share hospital wards with old ladies however, I think it's different.

Similarly, when they want to compete against women in sport, or to be sent to women's jails after offending as men, I take exception. When the language is changed so that there is no longer an unqualified word to describe an adult human female, or a mother, and instead we are called 'people with cervixes' and similar, I bristle. And when they take up spaces in things like women's poetry festivals, or on all-female shortlists for jobs, women cease to exist.

(and yes, I know there are transmen too, but they don't pose a threat to women)

I want to say Doodledog that you have perfectly described this whole matter for me and probably for others, so thank you.

OK

So we can work on that right? I mean, I already am doing what I can.

But are you willing to also stand up against misgendering?

How about stand up for every day trans women when the articles and comments about trans women being inherantly dangerous circulate?

What about expecting trans women to publicly denounce extremist behaviour when they may not even be "out" publicly for their own safety... and they aren't responsible and shouldn't apologise for that. Can we stand up against that?

Or is this an either or situation?

Well, plenty of us do repeatedly say that our comments are not aimed at 'genuine' transwomen, and that TRAs damage them as well as women.

As for not expecting people to 'out' themselves - maybe have a word with Stonewall about their email signature policy? That compels people to state a 'gender' whether they feel they have one or not, and whether they want the world to know if they have one that differs from their sex. Not everyone is 'out' at work, and nobody should be forced into situations that expect them to be.

OK then call it out on these threads.
Mustn't we practice as we preach?

I hadn't heard that Stonewall did this.

I would be happy with she and hers on my email but that wouldn't tell anyone if I were trans or not.

I will see if I can get hold of their policy on the subject and ask them about it

Baring in mind, Stonewall isn't any kind of forced membership and I don't actually pay much attention to them

I'm not sure what I'm being asked to do on the threads. I do keep saying that I am not transphobic, and that 'genuine' transpeople suffer from the actions of TRAs. I've said it over and over.

The email sig thing has also been mentioned several times. At one point I was looking at a Zoom screen with several pronouns on it, and mentioned it on here in a break, only to be told by trisher (as she was then) that I was lying as she hadn't heard of such a thing, It is very common. Large employers such as universities and councils who are aiming for Diversity Champion status are expected to 'encourage' staff to declare pronouns, and early career/younger people feel coerced into doing so.

This means that people who don't believe in gender are compelled to go along with a charade, and those who may (or may not) be living as the opposite sex at work are obliged to take a stance on their email sigs. It's invidious.

Oh, I've just realised that you think I mean that SW are asking people to say they are trans. No, they aren't, but it poses a dilemma for people who want to keep their lives private. This is particularly the case for 'non-binary' people. Some love telling people how 'different' they are by not conforming to one set of gender norms, but others are confused and don't need the world to share in their confusion.

I agree Doodledog with every word.
The CofE is jumping on the bandwagon. Of course they know what a woman is, just the same as Keir Starmer knows perfectly well what a woman is. They’re all game playing and trying to appear woke.

Non binary have their own pronouns

VioletSky

Baring in mind, Stonewall isn't any kind of forced membership and I don't actually pay much attention to them

It's not forced membership, but if you work in a workplace that is going for DC status you may well be pretty much forced into going along with things you don't believe in. People standing up to the coercion can find themselves in a world of pain, and it is only now that those who can afford to go to court are setting precedents that many of us are cheering from the sidelines.

VioletSky

Non binary have their own pronouns

Yes, but using them declares the NB status to everyone, doesn't it? Not everyone is 'out' at home/work/everywhere, an IMO they deserve to be able to compartmentalise their lives if they want to.

Stonewall were heavily into 'outing' gay people at one time, too. It's bullying of the worst order.

I dont think stonewall were into outing people. That was outrage.
I never use she to describe people of the Male sex. I just avoid using a pronoun or use they. I dont believe that men can be women and my belief is protected by law. For me it's like me as an atheist having to say I believe in God.

I dont think stonewall were into outing people. That was outrage.

Was it? I thought it was Stonewall but I may be mixing things up. I'll happily retract that if I'm wrong, but regardless, asking people to state a pronoun when they don't want to have their choices known is bullying. In fact asking/coercing people into doing so is bullying in any circumstances.

Sorry, not wanting to ignore or vanish but somethings come up and I am trying not to think about it and distract myself but my brain isn't playing ball.

Catch up another time

I think so. Way back when there was outrage and stonewall. Stonewall were way back then a good organisation, Wes Streeting was involved, he is very interesting on the subject and what they are getting wrong now.

Stonewall, in its original form, did a huge amount of good for the gay/lesbian communities but, as Galaxy said, when Wes Streeting left all that changed and they became a far more aggressive lobby group. This link is to the LegalFeminist and neatly explains why companies who become captured to the Stonewall ideology run the risk of legal action for discrimination against their natal workforce. And the Maya Forstater ruling has successfully legally enshrined the right to hold the belief that a man cannot be a woman and no employer can penalise, discipline or fire an employee for holding that belief.

www.legalfeminist.org.uk/2021/02/01/submission-and-compliance/

Extract: Companies who strive to be on the Stonewall Top 100 Diversity Champions list run the risk of:

.....depending on the nature of your functions, it may cause you to infringe liberties, mis-state the law, commit or condone criminal offences, and put children and vulnerable adults at risk of serious harm.

I may well have misremembered who did the 'outing', but I do remember Stonewall doing a lot of good for lesbians and gay people. It is since the T has been added to LGB that things have gone awry, which is anomalous as being trans is not about sexuality. A transwoman claiming to be a lesbian is a straight man. Homosexuality is about same sex attraction, and 'gender' has nothing to do with it. To try to reframe that as 'same gender attraction' is a slap in the face to many gay people, but particularly lesbians, who have had the worst of the insults and threats from the transwomen who want to have straight sex with a gay woman.

VioletSky

Sorry, not wanting to ignore or vanish but somethings come up and I am trying not to think about it and distract myself but my brain isn't playing ball.

Catch up another time

Hope you're ok, VS.

For me it's like me as an atheist having to say I believe in God.

A good analogy Galaxy; Should anybody who does not believe in a God be sacked, threatened, called names and be harassed for not having that belief? Should we compel everyone go to church, synagogue or mosque every week? If not why not? Why should we be compelled to believe in gender if we can’t compel everyone to accept a religion?

It is since the T has been added to LGB that things have gone awry your theory is backed up by the number of lesbians who complain that they've been harassed to have sex with trans, called bigots and transphobes for not wanting to have sex with a "lady penis" and suffered actual physical violence for simply stating who they're attracted to i.e. not a person with a penis.

When a few of my lesbian friends and I decided to march uninvited in front of the Pride march in London last year to promote lesbian visibility within an increasingly misogynistic and anti-lesbian gay, bisexual and transgender (GBT) movement, we had no idea this would cause such a huge backlash from the GBT community itself. Our crime? We simply dared to reclaim the right to define what a lesbian is.

The definition is – and should remain – “a woman – in the biological sense of the word – exclusively emotionally and sexually attracted to women”.

We had no idea that we would be attacked by officials of GBT organisations as well as by most of the British press.

From being called “transphobic bigots”, “hateful” and “Nazis” who should be “dragged out by our saggy tits”, to having our personal details published on social media and receiving rape and death threats, the supposedly progressive mainstream seemed to have slightly overreacted to the fact that a small group of lesbians were simply marching at Pride in London.
Our crime? We simply dared to reclaim the right to define what a lesbian is.

The definition is – and should remain – “a woman – in the biological sense of the word – exclusively emotionally and sexually attracted to women”.

If we're being asked to stand up for every day trans women I'd like to know when the trans women are going to stand up for the rights of the every day woman and lesbian and allow her to live her life as she wants too, without demanding that they accept a subset to our sex.

We shouldn't.

And now we are legally allowed not to?. The trouble is that peer pressure can be powerful for younger people who can't afford to be pushed out of a job.