Well done to the Nurses who stood up for Women’s Rights

Rosie51

My friend with a DSD (difference of sexual development) is insulted by the term intersex, as are many people with DSDs. These individuals are all either male or female and DSDs are specific to one sex or the other. There is no third sex. It is insulting to use people with a DSD as any sort of explanation or whatever for transgender people.

Sex is determined by the gametes a body is organised to produce and will at sexual maturity produce providing nothing went wrong during development. Females produce large immotile gametes, males produce small motile gametes. There are no third gametes.

Thanks Rosie, I didn’t mean to insult anyone. I simply quoted Google.

Just for comparison reference DSDs, humans are designed to be bipedal and binocular. As far as I'm aware we don't classify babies born with either missing legs or eyes as a different kind of human, we just accept that something went wrong during development and they should have had two legs, and two functioning eyes.

How does one "feel female one's head?"

Bridie22

We can debate this until we are all blue in the face, the Supreme Court of the land ruled that a biological man must use male onlyfacilities , a biological woman must use female only spaces we cannot change biology.

Yes indeed.

* It's easy enough to avoid using pronouns - in fact when someone is there in a meeting you wouldn't use them anyway. I will not bow to the nonsensical belief that using a 'wrong' pronoun is 'literal genocide', but I am in the fortunate position of not having my livelihood depend on a willingness to do so. I will therefore put my weight behind those who are still labouring under the cosh of 'being kind'.*

I agree, but I think there’s a difference between “kindness” and “tolerance”.

If I felt uncomfortable using the “correct” or “requested” pronouns I’d simply use their first name or not anything at all. Problem solved. Hoorah for being retired !

Doodledog I hadn't refreshed the page so missed your post. I must have been framing my post as you posted. 😊

My friend with a DSD (difference of sexual development) is insulted by the term intersex, as are many people with DSDs. These individuals are all either male or female and DSDs are specific to one sex or the other. There is no third sex. It is insulting to use people with a DSD as any sort of explanation or whatever for transgender people.

Sex is determined by the gametes a body is organised to produce and will at sexual maturity produce providing nothing went wrong during development. Females produce large immotile gametes, males produce small motile gametes. There are no third gametes.

Also, boringly, I’ve just consulted my elder daughter (lesbian), she’s just explained to me that although she and her wife and her sister (all lesbians, not bi) have no issue whatsoever with LGBT+, she is aware that a small proportion of lesbians do not wish “T” to be included, in addition (this shocked me and I’m not easily shocked) on gay dating websites some lesbians will state in their profiles,

“No T,F, or A”

I didn’t know what this meant and she tells me it means, “No Trans, Fatties or Asians!” So sorry if anyone is offended, this does not represent mine or my households views. Mine you, if I was a gay lesbian I too would avoid Trans people as potential partners, and I think if registering on dating websites people should have to state their biological sex.

She also believes those Trans who transition from male to female are not the root of any women’s fears, but MEN, men who present as straight men or pretend to be gay or pretend they are trans. She lived in Brighton for 4 years, 3 at University and a further year working. During this time she and her partner found more and more MEN gaining entry to gay bars and clubs in order to sexually harass women.

I’m not anti men, nor do I not support women’s rights, women’s only places or keeping women safe. I just think this whole fear of Trans Women (or men dressing as women) has been escalated due to some very tragic and unacceptable behaviour perpetrated by the minority of trans women.

Intersex people have nothing to do with this debate though. Rosie can explain far better than I, so I'll leave it at that.

Regarding pronouns - I used to be willing to use 'she' when referring to a transwoman, in the spirit of tolerance and so on; but these days I don't, because of the coercion and bullying of staff (and participants in online workshops etc) into displaying pronouns, and in so doing giving tacit support to the notion that one's ex is (a) relevant in a workplace email and/or (b) is not immediately obvious when on a Teams/Zoom screen.

It is all a political game, and I won't play any more. It's easy enough to avoid using pronouns - in fact when someone is there in a meeting you wouldn't use them anyway. I will not bow to the nonsensical belief that using a 'wrong' pronoun is 'literal genocide', but I am in the fortunate position of not having my livelihood depend on a willingness to do so. I will therefore put my weight behind those who are still labouring under the cosh of 'being kind'.

Rosie51

Cossy You are correct that trans women are, almost exclusively, biologically men, born as male, registered as male.

almost exclusively?? A female cannot be a transwoman as she is a woman. Who other than males can be transwomen? There is no third or more sex?

There are some very rare cases of babies being born as hermaphrodites, with both male and female sexual organs. I believe we now refer to these people as “intersex”

Quote from Google:

*In Humans (Intersex)
Outdated Term: "Hermaphrodite" was historically used for humans with ambiguous sex traits but is now considered inaccurate and often stigmatizing.
Modern Terminology: The preferred term is intersex, an umbrella term for people born with innate variations in sex characteristics (chromosomes, gonads, hormones, or genitals) that don't fit typical male/female bodies.
True Hermaphroditism (Intersex Variation): A very rare condition where an individual has both ovarian and testicular tissue (or ovotestis), sometimes with mixed chromosomes (XX/XY).*

Baggs

He, she and it cover everything, surely? In fact, as far as sexually reproducing life-forms are concerned he and she (plus his and hers) covers everything. Sex is what matters, not whatever 'gender' is supposed to mean.

One of the great developments in English was the dropping of masculine and feminine for objects that are neither.

I wouldn’t EVER refer to a human as it though. I’m not fussed by pro-nouns and that’s probably because I’m a straight woman, who’s pretty laid back, I don’t care really what people call me (within reason of course), and I’m happy with he/she/them or whatever else it is someone wishes to be called.

Cossy

Lathyrus3

Another thing we have to challenge is the conflation of trans with gay.

And the using of examples of gay experiences in discussing trans issues. They are not valid.

The LGBT+ was always a conflation.

No figures re crimes, particularly crimes of a sexual or violent nature are valid so there is no point referring to them.
Not until the misrecording of male crimes as female is rectified.

They are completely valid when talking about “discrimination” which always rears its head whenever trans are discussed.

Given that they form under 1% of our current population it’s quite likely that it is not them committing sexual and violent crimes against women.

It is not valid to compare discrimination of one group with a completely different group because the root causes of discrimination will be different, the nature of the discrimination will be different and the impact c the discrimination will be different.

To group two completely different groups under the same umbrella was always nonsensical, but was politically and financially expedient for the declining Stonewall, whose aims in the country had largely been achieved.

It was always a cynical ploy and one that has caused a great deal of distress and persecution within the Lesbian and Gay communities they still purport to represent.

Calling on Gay experience to validate trans experience simply reveals that the trans lobby lack their own validation.

AGAA4

Transwoman have been around for a very long time. How did they manage to exist without upsetting women.

It's a recent development for some transwoman to become a nuisance to biological women demanding women make way for them. A very male trait in my view.
It must also be irritating to those transwoman who do not want to cause problems for women and live their lives mindful of not distressing others.

Well said.

Transwoman have been around for a very long time. How did they manage to exist without upsetting women.

It's a recent development for some transwoman to become a nuisance to biological women demanding women make way for them. A very male trait in my view.
It must also be irritating to those transwoman who do not want to cause problems for women and live their lives mindful of not distressing others.

Allira

Mollygo

Living as a female and trying to get your partner pregnant?

That really endorses the lie that Rose wanted to be female!

And some men, I'm sure, don't even realise that they may be making a woman feel uncomfortable by the way they look at them.

The fact remains, he has no right to be in there at all. Whether he stared, turned his back or whatever he did, women would feel uncomfortable changing in front of a man who was not their partner.

Well, presumably Rose felt uncomfortable changing in the "Mens" & asked the Trust what alternative provision there was. They had said that the appropriate thing to do was to use the "Womens". So its a bit unfair to say Rose had no right to be there when that was where her managers had told her to change.

The Trust was at fault here, and no wonder given some of the nonsense that was current at the time. But they should have used more commonsense when dealing with staff who were genuinely stressed about sharing the changing room, rather than disciplining them for sharing their concerns.

The situation was in no way Rose's fault. I believe that some people are inherently transgender & that must be a lonely path to tread, I would not want them to have to hide their gender from society becasue it doesn't match their biological sex. Allowing trans women in single sex spaces is all very well in an ideal world, but it does compromise womens' rights in the real world, where a manipulative minority could use the trans label to get access to those spaces and endanger women.

TerriBull

The only common defining factors I can think of as living as a female would be menstruation and at a later stage the menopause and how those phases affect individual women as to the symptoms. Everything else is variable.

Well said.

woman
No. Autocorrect again.

Womb.

TerriBull

The only common defining factors I can think of as living as a female would be menstruation and at a later stage the menopause and how those phases affect individual women as to the symptoms. Everything else is variable.

I remember a young woman on TV who said she had been born without a woman.
She was most definitely female.

It is chromosomes which define male and female and a very, very few people may have a mix of sex chromosomes. Most of those would not realise anyway.

Rose was doing something wrong simply be being in a female spaces, I view any man who does that as dangerous, they don't believe in women's consent. I also view those who enable men like Rose as cruel and partly to blame.

The only common defining factors I can think of as living as a female would be menstruation and at a later stage the menopause and how those phases affect individual women as to the symptoms. Everything else is variable.

Mollygo

Living as a female and trying to get your partner pregnant?

That really endorses the lie that Rose wanted to be female!

... choosing the aspects of "living as a female" that suits.

Perhaps not so much 'living as a female' then, rather the patriarchy doing what it's always done - being the arbiter of what is and what isn't 'allowable' and overriding women in the process.

Mollygo

Living as a female and trying to get your partner pregnant?

That really endorses the lie that Rose wanted to be female!

And some men, I'm sure, don't even realise that they may be making a woman feel uncomfortable by the way they look at them.

The fact remains, he has no right to be in there at all. Whether he stared, turned his back or whatever he did, women would feel uncomfortable changing in front of a man who was not their partner.

Living as a female and trying to get your partner pregnant?

That really endorses the lie that Rose wanted to be female!

However it's sad that some on here are spreading aspersions against Rose's behaviour, the tribunal was at pains to state that she had done nothing wrong & hadn't looked at anyone in a creepy way. She probably did all she could to violate their privacy as little as possible.

A case of 'he said, she said'.

We weren't there and nor were members of the tribunal.

Dickens

Galaxy

Again even the explanations are mired in sexism.

"sex assigned at birth"... (sigh)

Other than the atypical rare occasions where the ambiguity requires specialist evaluation, isn't sex noted at birth?

Maybe it's just a word-choice and means the same thing, however it can give the impression that biological sex is fluid - and can be 'assigned'.

Yes, exactly Dickens.

In fact, the criteria for deciding that a person is inter-sex has been proved to be fluid too. Some claim the number worldwide is 1.7% of the population, some even higher but most clinicians and medical experts dispute this and say that the figure is far lower, probably 0.017%
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/