the law as it stands on sex

Fennel

I'm probably just a dozey old woman but I find these discusions almost incomprehensible
What I need is a new dictionary and language book on the subject.
Any of you experts ready to create one?
In any case, any new legislation will need something like this for definition of terms.

It really shouldn't, fennel.
Legislation should be written clearly using terms that people understand, explaining them if necessary.
E.g.
Man = adult human male
Female = adult human female
Transman = adult human female presenting as a man
Transwoman = adult human male presenting as a woman

I don't think single rooms are ideal for all FarNorth especially for elderly patients. When my mother was moved into a single room because of infection she deteriorated rapidly. Although we spent much more time with her than the allotted visiting hours she missed the interaction and social contact. Once returned to her bay she improved.

I'm sorry to hear that, trisher, and glad that your mother improved.
The (council-run) care homes in my area have single rooms for all, too.

trisher wrote :
I'm not sure about the law on counselling or how it would work in practice. I think it needs more thought. I'm not in counselling and not sure how people who are would feel about it. Many might object to providing details they regard as personal. I'll talk to a few people and see what they think

If a service, eg counselling, is single-sex then male people don't put themselves forward for it and would not be employed if they did.
It should also be the case that male people who are transwomen do not go into those situations.

Where there is a legitimate reason for a service to be female only, it should be an offence for a transwoman to claim to be female as Mridul Wadhwa did.

In my opinion, birth certificates should never be altered unless there has been a medical diagnosis of a DSD condition.
Then any confusion could be resolved by showing the birth certificate.
(Not at the door of public toilets, obviously, but in employment recruitment.)

No I wouldn't support a law that forced anyone to disclose their trans status

They wouldn't need to if when a patient requests a female to examine them a female is provided. If a transwoman decides their own feelings outweigh the informed consent of a patient then that is a deliberate disgusting act, and they should consider if they've made the correct career choice. You constantly tell us that most transwomen 'pass' so the patient will allow this transwoman to do the examination believing them to be female when in fact they're male and they have been violated. Such a deception is abominable to anyone with a decent moral compass. For women (females) who have certain religious or cultural beliefs this would result in great distress if it was discovered, but hey the transwoman feels validated so who cares?

Posted too soon.
trisher you are in effect saying you don't agree with any single sex provision, not even for the most intimate examinations after great trauma. At last that is clear.

Madgran77

*Someone told me once there's working class crime and middle class crime. Working class is stealing stuff, middle class is filling out the insurance claim and adding a few things!*

Well they made a daft comment then! Honestly why is class coming into a conversation about sex/gender/trans! Presumably anyone of any class might be a trans man or a trans woman!

Because some posters specialise in sidetracking to avoid answering questions they don’t want to answer. Usually it’s race, or history, including WWII. This time it’s class. Just read the post above to see what I mean.
The question is, should females be allowed to choose that an intimate examination is carried out by a female.
No one has asked that a person reveals their transwoman persona, only that they don’t fraudulently misrepresent themselves as female.
Trisher has turned that into a statement that no trans should have to reveal their trans status, thus avoiding answering the question asked. She’s then moved it on to talk about race or homosexuals. See her post above.

Madgran77,
You may have noticed that homosexuals retain the sex male or female that they were born with so is not the same as a TW pretending to be female by claiming to be a woman. Trisher hasn’t.
I don’t go with her class statements anyway.

Try my scenario
Dr A and Dr B are standing at the desk. Dr A, well educated (he’s a doctor, votes Labour) is a TW.
Dr B, well educated (she’s a doctor, votes LibDem) is a female.
A call comes for a female doctor to carry out an examination of a nervous female.
Which doctor would go?
The female doctor who was asked for or the male doctor in his persona as TW?
Just to add to the drama,
Someone in the area has observed/heard the request and immediately steps forward advising the doctors that this is a transphobic request and whichever doctor comes first alphabetically should attend to the patient as she feels that females have no right to make such a request.

Now I’m quite sure someone will twist the scenario, but unless being a TW also means you’re a pathological liar, I have faith that the female doctor would actually attend the patient with no demur from her colleague.

Unlikely story? Silly story? Not when you read someone’s posts.

FarNorth

^I don't think single rooms are ideal for all FarNorth especially for elderly patients. When my mother was moved into a single room because of infection she deteriorated rapidly. Although we spent much more time with her than the allotted visiting hours she missed the interaction and social contact. Once returned to her bay she improved.^

I'm sorry to hear that, trisher, and glad that your mother improved.
The (council-run) care homes in my area have single rooms for all, too.

ThanksFarNorth I think the three months mum spent in hospital has influenced my views on what's best. I would have previously thought single rooms were best for everyone but she was so much happier sharing her bay. The nurse who cared for her best, who she said was the gentlest and who was closest to her was a man. He was wonderful. It made me realise that good care is nothing to do with sex or gender.

Rosie51

^No I wouldn't support a law that forced anyone to disclose their trans status^

They wouldn't need to if when a patient requests a female to examine them a female is provided. If a transwoman decides their own feelings outweigh the informed consent of a patient then that is a deliberate disgusting act, and they should consider if they've made the correct career choice. You constantly tell us that most transwomen 'pass' so the patient will allow this transwoman to do the examination believing them to be female when in fact they're male and they have been violated. Such a deception is abominable to anyone with a decent moral compass. For women (females) who have certain religious or cultural beliefs this would result in great distress if it was discovered, but hey the transwoman feels validated so who cares?

I wholeheartedly agree with this, and with your edit, Rosie. It is this sort of thinking that causes mistrust of many harmless transpeople, and it does no one any favours.

Thanks for your post upthread Doodledog and good clear posts from Rosie, Mollygo, Madgran, Farnorth.

Clarity shouldn't be too difficult to attain on opinion threads even if the views expressed are diametrically opposed but on trans threads and related issues is easier to knit fog.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

It made me realise that good care is nothing to do with sex or gender.
Quite right it's everything to do with putting the patient's needs and consents above your own wants, in order to make them feel as comfortable as possible both physically and mentally.

trisher

I always worry about people who want to introduce legislation to discriminate against others on any feature of someone's life. If you don't like the look of someone say "No" to them examining you. But once you bring in legislation where does it stop? Is the next step to stop homosexuals examining people of the same sex because some people are homophobic? I know you'll all insist that would never happen but societies that start with one lot of discrimination tend to move onto others.

And I always worry about people who refuse to answer the questions put to them, drag in diversions and attempt to direct the conversation away from the case in hand.

Why not just say in the first place what we all know already - that you will never put the rights of women before those of men or transpeople? That's what it comes down to in the end.

By your reckoning, people could say no to being examined by a black or gay person anyway, so the legislation would make no difference. As far as I am aware, there is no religion that says that a woman should not be touched by a gay person or a black person - is there? But there are definitely religions that preclude women from being touched intimately by a man who is not her husband. Your refusal to legislate to make it clear if someone is a transwoman could prevent such women from accessing medical care, as happens under the Taliban. But hey - if the men and the trans are ok, what do women matter?

It made me realise that good care has nothing to do with sex or gender yes and no IMO. It has everything to do with sex or gender for example, if a female patient being cared for does not know that the staff member giving them care of an intimate nature isn't female because they're male presenting as female.

The same would of course apply to a male patient where the care being given was in fact by a female presenting as male.

The nurse who cared for her best, who she said was the gentlest and who was closest to her was a man. He was wonderful. It made me realise that good care is nothing to do with sex or gender.

Of course it isn't, but it is to do with not deceiving the patient / service user.
Even if it is immediately obvious that a transwoman has turned up, after a female has been promised, is not so simple as 'just ask for someone else'.
The patient's/service user's trust has been broken.

In most cases the sex of the carer is irrelevant- of course it is. There is no need to know the sex of anyone doing the majority of caring tasks.

But there are times when it is relevant, and it is not acceptable to decide on a woman’s behalf that she will be examined by a male - she has to be able to make that choice for herself.

If an overtly male doctor were about to examine a woman intimately she would be asked if she would like a chaperone present (often they are just there, whether requested or not). Why should a transwoman be any different? It is in her head that her ‘gender’ has changed - physically she is male, just like the male doctor who is chaperoned.

The vast majority of doctors don’t assault their patients (and all of this applies equally to chiropractors, hypnotists, massage therapists and so on), but in some situations the patient is more vulnerable than in others, both physically and emotionally, and in those situations she has every right to know the sex of the person touching her, and the onus should not be on her to notice that a practitioner who ‘presents as’ female is a man, or to ask for someone else. Doing that may take a confidence that (for whatever reason) she doesn’t have, and she may be too distressed to even think that there might be an issue.

Can’t you see that, trisher? Do you have so little empathy with women that you brush aside their right to make their own decisions and impose your own views onto them?

trisher

I always worry about people who want to introduce legislation to discriminate against others on any feature of someone's life.

Trisher was worried about the legislation that took away females rights to have the word woman apply solely to females.

I hadn’t noticed.

did anyone listen to Grace Lavery, a transwoman, on Women's Hour yesterday? I hear it was a traincrash or should that be a transcrash. I heard a bit but when I heard her explain to the unquestioning Emma Barnett that some people think women are a biological class when in fact they are a political class I had to lie down . Extraordinary how little she was questioned when you remember the grilling Maya Forstater got from EmmaB

I didn't hear it grannygranby but I have been questioning why I - a liberal, do what the eff you want as long as your not hurting anyone kind of person - get so exercised by the trans movement and why, as a woman, I have a visceral, instinctive reaction of seeing much hypocrisy and piss taking in this area.

Why do I instinctively feel that all the dick swinging taking place, in reality in changing rooms or, metaphorically, in athletic tournaments, is aggressive albeit passive aggressive, and tough if we find it so, get over it there's rights involved here.

My thoughts then led me to question the basics of as to when or if, during the hormone therapy part of transitioning, does the urge to stick a penis inside an orifice, or replacement orifice such as a hand in masturbation, for sexual gratification transmute into the penis not being required for sex.

Is it only when it's removed from it's host body? Or is there some point when the transmutation happens chemically that it becomes a useless and superfluous piece of flesh? If so, when?

I've tried to find a definitive answer as to a likely time frame but there are very few academic papers on this subject and not a sniff of a meta analysis to confirm any research but I will welcome any info stating otherwise.

So, in the absence of definition as to when the penis is no longer necessary for sexual gratification I think we're left with the matter of trust.

Women are being asked to trust that possessors of an attached penis mean no harm, they are going through the process of demasculisation and are no threat. But as there is no definitive point at which sexual arousal and satisfaction by an engorged attached penis actually stops, how do we know?

We don't, so it's back to trust.

It's too big an ask for me to trust that an attached penis possessor is as benign as they say they are.

Coincidentally, on Tuesday I read an horrific article by Robert Crampton in The Times, who was reflecting, in the light of the current atrocities in Ukraine, on his reportage of the use of rape by attached penis in the Bosnian conflict where he saw first hand the appalling suffering of girls and women raped by attached penises of neighbours, of friends, of classmates, people they absolutely thought they could trust.

Trust without proof is too much to ask. Thats where I'm at, at the moment. I welcome any stance which can make me rethink it.

Trust without proof what an excellent post. And trust wrongly given can end in tragedy.
In a restaurant you would trust the person next to you with a knife. It’s an appropriate place with an appropriate use and you would not expect to look for proof.
In a place where having a knife is not appropriate, usually means intention to do wrong. There is no trust without proof, so carrying knives in the street is against the law.
Demonstrating you are likely to have a penis in an inappropriate place usually means intention to do wrong, and should be against the law, because the penis possession demonstrator cannot be trusted.

" Someone told me once there's working class crime and middle class crime. Working class is stealing stuff, middle class is filling out the insurance claim and adding a few things!"
That must have been someone without personal experience of the ethos of both the working-class and the middle class, someone who thinks that a working-class person doesn't have the imagination to make inflated claims on insurance, and that the middle-class never steal anything or beat anyone up. That is, someone who knows nothing about class.

FarNorth your definitions -
The word 'Man ' is often used in such phrases as 'All problems known to Man' = a different concept.
I'm not being deliberately obtuse BTW.
I t just seems to me that it's only an inner circle who understand what's going on.

I've just listened to the Grace Lavery interview on Sounds and find out that she got banned from Twitter for hoping the Queen died when she had covid. This finally started to irritate Emma. This transwoman has a husband who is a transman. So basically they are a heterosexual couple both imagining they are the opposite sex. you can listen here www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00162y8

Fennel

FarNorth your definitions -
The word 'Man ' is often used in such phrases as 'All problems known to Man' = a different concept.
I'm not being deliberately obtuse BTW.
I t just seems to me that it's only an inner circle who understand what's going on.

You know that in that case the word 'Man' is used to mean 'Humans'.
It's not a use I like but it is commonplace.
If anyone wants to apply it to the trans question - it suggests that 'Man' can be any human. It does not suggest the same for 'Woman'.

I too heard Grace Lavery GrannyG and I think she did nothing for her cause. She definitely had a man’s voice still. She was also bloomin rude about the Royal family. All in all a rather nasty person IMO.

Thank you, grannygranby.
For anyone interested, G Lavery starts at 17.25 in the programme.