That was an outlier. Usually DNA confirms previous study.
Some clear differences. naturalhistory.si.edu/sites/default/files/media/file/wibskeletonmaleorfemalefinal.pdf
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News & politics
Is the LP changing its stance on 'gender'?
(394 Posts)I've thought for a while that the worm was turning when it comes to 'trans' issues. It is finally getting through that support for self-id is misogynistic and that gender-criticism is not the same as transphobia. Slowly but surely, court cases and policy changes are moving towards (to my mind) a more sensible approach.
Ironically for many women I know who are broadly left-wing, it has been the Tories who have caught on to this first, and it's interesting that at least two of the leadership candidates have mentioned 'gender politics' or 'culture wars' in their campaigns. Meanwhile, the LP has been woefully behind the times, with idiotic comments about men having cervixes and how transpeople are the most marginalised group in society.
But now it appears that they realise that they are behind the curve, and that many feminists and female-supporting men will struggle to vote for them - or maybe it's that they realise that it's becoming more acceptable to speak against the tyranny, and they are now saying what they really think. Either way (and I speak as a member of the LP) it's not a good look, but it's a better look than the craven adherence to Stonewall's No Debate mantra that we've seen so far.
This is from James Kirkup in the Spectator and for those who don't like links the text is at the bottom of the post.
It's probably obvious that I would be delighted if the LP did a U -turn on this. I'm not delighted at the display of what I see as cowardice that has held sway for so long, but it will be such a relief to be able to vote for the party whose policies are closer to my heart than any of the others without fearing that by doing so I am betraying my daughter and future generations of women.
What do others think? Am I being naively optimistic? Will the Lib Dems, the Greens and SNP rethink their ideas ahead of the GE? Will any of it make a difference to how you vote, or do you think that it isn't important compared to other issues?
Here is the text of the Spectator article:
Amid the noise of the Tory leadership fight, some significant comments in the papers could be missed today. Here’s the quote, from a Sunday Times interview with an intelligent, ambitious female politician in her forties:
“Biology is important. A woman is somebody with a biology that is different from a man’s biology. We’re seeing in sport sensible decisions being made about who cannot compete in certain cases."
Could it reflect a new approach to trans issues from the Labour leadership?
She says she would ‘have a problem’ with someone with male genitals identifying as a woman and using a female changing space, and isn’t entirely sold on the use of gender pronouns. ‘You don’t have to say to someone, “Shall I call you he or she?” – it’s pretty obvious. But there are also difficult cases of somebody who is born as one sex and defines as another. I wouldn’t want to deny their right to define themselves in the way they want to be defined.’
Even by the standards of recent days, that’s pretty punchy. In particular that line on rejecting pronouns because ‘it’s pretty obvious’ strikes me as potentially controversial. I certainly know people and groups who would find that offensive. No candidate in the Tory race has thus been so outspoken on sex and gender. So are those quotes above yet another Conservative attempt to stoke a culture war?
That phrase has been used a lot recently, generally with disapproval and often by people keen to dismiss the concerns that some women raise about the impact of trans-rights policies on their rights and standing. And framing women’s concerns as the product of right-wing, social conservative politics makes them easier for lots of people in politics and the media to ignore and denigrate those concerns as marginal and ideological.
Of course, there’s nothing illegitimate about being either right-wing or socially conservative (I’m neither) but in much of our public discourse, those things are routinely denigrated, put beyond the pale of acceptability. So it’s significant that the author of those comments above cannot possibly be described as a right-winger or a social conservative. She is Rachel Reeves, Labour’s shadow chancellor.
The fact that Reeves, as smart and decent a politician as you’ll find in the Commons today, has said these things could have many implications. Could it strain Labour unity? It’s pretty hard to reconcile those comments with the position of some of her frontbench colleagues.
Could it reflect a new approach to trans issues from the Labour leadership? Reeves is today taking a much clearer line than Sir Keir Starmer, who has been more equivocal. I don’t know the answer to those questions, which can wait for another day.
My point here today is simpler. Rachel Reeves, the Labour shadow chancellor, has backed banning transwomen from women’s sport and excluding them from women’s spaces. And she’s rejected using gendered pronouns. By doing so, Reeves has provided yet more evidence to prove that concerns about trans rights policies and their impact on women’s rights are not right-wing or conservative. Nor are they marginal or ideological.
James Kirkup
but archeologists can sex a skeleton even when it's 1000 years old.
But only accurately through DNA Doodledog appearances led to a female skeleton being labelled male for years nypost.com/2019/02/22/researchers-confirm-viking-warrior-found-in-grave-was-actually-a-woman/
There is a movie called "Scent of a woman" Men have a distinctive smell, too, not so pervasive in this age of hot water and soap being available 24/7, but still detectable to the female nose. Apparently women can detect it better around the time when they are ovulating. It is all part of Mother Nature's plan to use every means to make sure we continue the species.
Glorianny
These threads get funnier. Now besides holding a tape measure to check height and shoulder width my "How to ID a man" kit will have tissues for blowing the nose before sniffing several times.
Do you take a tape measure with you on dates, Glorianna ? That must cause some comments!
I wasted some time searching Google for comparative silhouettes of male and female outlines for you, but they all seemed to be either copyright or on dodgy sites, or both.
So happy you get my sense of humour Glorianny
Sorry Elegran - cross-posted.
You've always insisted that transwomen are undetectable though. I realise that you believe this to be true, but most people are able to tell. The idea that men and women are interchangeable is incomprehensible - they really aren't.
Of course there are variations - humans are not identikit, and there are tall women and short men as well as other individual differences; but archeologists can sex a skeleton even when it's 1000 years old. It's not that people do a mental checklist, or use a 'kit' (or need to check genitals, which is your other 'go to' idea) - it's an instinctive thing.
It doesn't matter anyway, except to the people kidding themselves that they are 'passing'. Whether or not it is immediately obvious that someone is a transwoman, if they are in a female space with vulnerable women there is an issue. It's not the aesthetics that people are concerned about - it's a safety issue as well as the right of women to have agency over their bodies and who touches them.
DaisyAnne
If you put this highest on your list of what you need from a political party Rosie, you won't vote for them unless they chant the right mantra.
However, for many people, it is not at the top of their list; it cannot be. Being able to eat, have a roof over their head and have their houses properly insulated, etc., will mean they are looking for those things first. On the day we all watched people's houses burn because of climate change, I cannot think of anything that comes further down in my priorities.
I do hope you all count yourself extremely lucky to be able to see this as the most important thing a government can do.
Do you put people claiming to change from one sex to another above those necessities, then? (sex, not gender, because gender is how people of either sex are perceived , not their physical reality)
I described that physical reality for you in my posts at Tue 19-Jul-22 17:01:42 and Tue 19-Jul-22 17:11:12 but you were not interested.
These threads get funnier. Now besides holding a tape measure to check height and shoulder width my "How to ID a man" kit will have tissues for blowing the nose before sniffing several times. 
That strikes me as eminently sensible, Stormystar.
Just to clarify my position. Beliefs are not truths. I do not believe in the sexual difference between men and women I totally accept it as biological fact a self evident truth. My beliefs as my views of course can and do alter but biological truth cannot. Just as an aside men smell very different from women, if I cannot see or hear a man nearby I can always smell male pheromones - Androstenol is very potent and no amount of perfume can disguise, it’s a hidden signal a communication of male presence.
DA do you have an opinion on what Rose of Dawn says in the video linked?
I thought we did not pick such things up on GN?
Yes, we do pick up if someone misquotes what has been said.
We don't, if we are polite, pick up on simple errors of spelling or grammar.
Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.
FarNorth
Neither am I, just wanted to be accurate.
I thought we did not pick such things up on GN?
Doodledog
Oh, FFS.
Nobody has descended on you. You have made some basic errors and people have pointed them out, but that is not descending or lecturing.
Yes, there are real problems for the LP to solve. Nobody is denying that. It so happens that I feel that so-called 'gender' issues are a real problem, and it is up to me how I cast my vote, and how I prioritise my reasons for voting, as we still live in a democracy.
I have not said that I will not vote for them - I have said that I will struggle to do so, as IMO voting Labour now would be selling out women, and feminism is a priority for me. You can decide on your own priorities and I won't be lecturing you ab out those. I am not going to be guilt-tripped into feeling bad because I currently have food on the table and a roof over my head. I don't know your circumstances any more than you know mine, but I do know that you have the luxury of being able to post on the Internet from a device of some description, which doesn't put you amongst the disadvantaged either. We are back to the false consciousness again, and it was tedious the first time round.
I'm not too happy at being sworn at Doodledog, nor do I think I "made some basic errors". I'm not at all sure what that means in the context of this forum. Of course, you will, yet again, believe you are right.
All was jogging along fairly reasonably, I felt, until someone decided to lie and misrepresent what I said. Is that what this little group thinks is okay? A touch of the Johnsonian morals if so. Perhaps you have found your political home.
Neither am I, just wanted to be accurate.
FarNorth
^someone posted about "the women in the street"^
I commnted about the woman in the street, not women, because someone else mentioned the man in the street - a standard phrase.
Apologies, it was a mistake not an attempt to change what was said - although I'm not sure what difference it makes.
Here is a video of transwoman Rose of Dawn considering What is a Woman & What is a Transwoman.
(12 mins long)
youtu.be/P3mTZ9c82T8
As you will have guessed I couldn't find any fog to knit, it's blooming hot, or maybe that's just my belief, although the scientific thermometer appears to agree ..........29C
But then, it was probably more fun to descend on me or to lecture me on men, women and other humans. oh do tell, what are these 'other humans' that are not male/men or female/women? Do your climate change scientists, who you obviously believe, have any insights on these 'other humans'
DA you said I don't feel quite as strongly if those starting these threads make it completely apparent what it is about, then I can avoid it.
Since this thread does have 'gender' in its title, and you have told us that women's rights are your very lowest priority, I can't imagine why you looked at the thread at all.
On the day we all watched people's houses burn because of climate change At last! You've expressed a 'belief'. I assume you are accepting climate change as a fact to be recognised, accepted and acted upon. Yet you think the fact there are only two immutable sexes may be discounted in the future so it's not worthy of respect at the moment. Bit of bias showing there.
I'd rather you not patronise me thank you.
I cannot think of anything that comes further down in my priorities. so women being impregnated or sexually abused in female prisons, on female hospital wards is your lowest priority? Women of various faiths being unable to participate in communal life because they can't accept certain mixed sex spaces is your lowest priority. Women being denied rape victim counselling because these groups are now mixed sex is your lowest priority.......right you are.
I care about a multitude of issues but if a political party says they care less than nothing for the dignity or safety of 51% of the population then I think that's a party that doesn't want my vote.
Oh, FFS.
Nobody has descended on you. You have made some basic errors and people have pointed them out, but that is not descending or lecturing.
Yes, there are real problems for the LP to solve. Nobody is denying that. It so happens that I feel that so-called 'gender' issues are a real problem, and it is up to me how I cast my vote, and how I prioritise my reasons for voting, as we still live in a democracy.
I have not said that I will not vote for them - I have said that I will struggle to do so, as IMO voting Labour now would be selling out women, and feminism is a priority for me. You can decide on your own priorities and I won't be lecturing you ab out those. I am not going to be guilt-tripped into feeling bad because I currently have food on the table and a roof over my head. I don't know your circumstances any more than you know mine, but I do know that you have the luxury of being able to post on the Internet from a device of some description, which doesn't put you amongst the disadvantaged either. We are back to the false consciousness again, and it was tedious the first time round.
someone posted about "the women in the street"
I commnted about the woman in the street, not women, because someone else mentioned the man in the street - a standard phrase.
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