Petition : *Update the Equality Act to make clear the characteristic “sex” is biological sex*

You know full well I am a teaching assistant and do not have any of those qualifications, you've asked me before. I also do not pretend to have the intelligence needed to understand every word of a study and don't pretend to.

I do however have enough intelligence to:

1. Ask people who are qualified to help my understanding

2. Recognise sly behaviour

I was not suggesting that you don't have the intelligence to understand anything, and didn't mention qualifications. You said something about people not bothering to read the academic articles that you read, and I wondered what they were, partly as Wikipedia is not an academic source, and partly because as I said, I have found reading peer reviewed articles about topics outside of my subject area to be difficult. I am interested to know which discipline academic research into trans issues comes under, as there are various possibilities. Also, they are tricky to access, so if you knew of an easily available source it would be good to know what it was, so that the people you are accusing of not being as up to date as you are could read them.

1. I was doing exactly what you suggest - asking you about the articles to help my own understanding of what they are and where to find them. Your suggestion of going to intersectional feminist meetings to read them doesn't really work for me though. Do people really read academic articles at meetings? I've never been to a feminist meeting where they even had a library, but they were old school 'exclusionist' feminists who met upstairs in a pub, so that might explain it. I'll pass on your suggestion of finding an IF meeting near me though - it doesn't sound like my idea of fun.

2. I have no doubt whatsoever that you recognise sly behaviour, but you didn't see any from me. Either you read something into my post that was not there, or you are twisting my words.

Meh

I've had enough context to know

The petition has over 25,000 signatures now.

VioletSky

Meh

I've had enough context to know

Yeah, self-reflection is a wonderful thing. You do you, eh?

See

I found one open source aericle on the topic here:
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244020927029

There’s a whole section on the sources arguing against trans inclusion. I’ve copied and pasted some of it below. Much of it isn’t coming from “traditional” academic papers, but social media.

Doing Philosophy and Debating Policy in the Age of Social Media and Digital Platforms

“The case against trans inclusion in the United Kingdom, as I indicated, has been presented primarily through social media and blog-type or journalistic online platforms 10 SAGE Open lacking the traditional prepublication checks of academic peer review. I think these media of presentation are also partly to blame for the shortcomings in gender-critical arguments. …”
“First, they enable new manipulative communication practices, such as flaming and trolling. The popular support base of gender-critical academics makes ample use of these, though gender-critical scholars are also at the receiving end. Rather than using the quasi-spoken features of social media and allied platforms with a view to genuinely advancing understanding, online activists may exploit these features for strategic aims. Common techniques include drowning a post or blog with irrelevant comments; exposing the blogger to ridicule; deflecting attention from the point she made; forcing her to address spurious objections; pretextually professing a failure to under stand, demanding endless further explanations; and so on. …”
“In traditional academic communicative practice, one’s recognition as an expert is supposed to follow from the credit that accrues to one as a result of the soundness of one’s research methods and arguments, judged through peer review processes. But “in the era of social media there are now many different ways that a scientist can build their pub lic profile; the publication of high-quality scientific papers being just one” (Hall, 2014). Veletsianos and Kimmons (2016) have found, by examining a large data set of education scholars’ participation on Twitter, that being widely followed on social media is impacted by many factors that may have little to do with the quality of scholarly work . . . and . . . that participation and popularity may be impacted by a number of additional factors unrelated to scholarly merit (e.g., wit, controversy, longevity; p. 6).”
“Blogs and social media also distort genuine communicative action by facilitating venting. This is partly because they distance interlocutors in a way that lowers benign face-to face inhibitions. This is a well-recognized online phenomenon (Suler, 2004). While the prospect and practice of peer-review processes tend to reduce (though they might not eliminate) ad-hominem attacks, unproductively antagonistic posturing, and the poor argumentation that comes with them, similar checks are not in place in the context of nonacademic digital fora. In the debate on trans inclusion, this has some times resulted in a kind of communication that is a far cry from the dialogic, respectful attitude that Habermasian communicative action, let alone empathy-centered feminist forms of communicative ethics, calls for …”
“In sum, the use of social media (and other digital plat forms, to the extent that they share some of the same attri butes) poses a number of concerns in respect of their ability to facilitate genuine communicative action, particularly when compared with traditional academic publication out lets. This being the case, the enthusiasm with which many gender-critical voices have embraced these media may well be implicated in the problems with their arguments against trans inclusion; likewise, it is unclear that engaging gender critical voices on that terrain has been the most productive move on the part of those of us who advocate for trans inclusion. …”

aeiricle? (Where did that come from?)

I meant "article".

To be fair, that could be applied to pretty much any topic, and can also be used to describe either 'side'. It describes SM communication pretty well, but is not peculiar to threads about trans issues.

A while ago, I started to pick up on this every time there was an attempt to use these techniques against me, but it got too onerous as it happened all the time. It drove people away from the threads, and didn't move the debate on at all. I was boring myself in the end, and now only pick up on the more egregious examples.

TBH, though, there is no longer any debate as it has all been said, and people are entrenched. Nothing that has been said on any of these threads has convinced me that self-id is anything other than detrimental to women's rights, and I can't imagine that it ever will. I'm sure the same applies in reverse, too.

Spot on article or aeiricle lol

To be fair, that could be applied to pretty much any topic

No, it couldn't. Most serious subjects have academic, peer-reviewed articles written about them. That article claims that there aren't that many about trans issues.

Yes it could be applied to any topic and any side, each side producing “articles” that support their POV.
It doesn’t change anything or move anything forward, but it looks sufficiently wordy to seem impressive.
And it still leaves females at the mercy of those ill-intentioned TIM, together with those who dismiss any harm by the “only a few” argument,
They are simultaneously making life difficult for transpeople who want none of that.

Honestly I came into theses discussions very respectful and its taken far more than most would put up with to lose that respect

Some of the things said to me are beyond vile, especially when its followed me to other topics..

I would still give back respect if it were recieved I'm a very patient person

growstuff

*To be fair, that could be applied to pretty much any topic*

No, it couldn't. Most serious subjects have academic, peer-reviewed articles written about them. That article claims that there aren't that many about trans issues.

According to VS, there are academic articles on trans issues, too. In any event, whether that is the case or not, their absence or otherwise doesn't mean that the principles being discussed are not equally applicable to other subjects that boil down to differences of opinion. You could find as many articles on economics, history and human behaviour as you like, but people will still hold differing views on politics. Similarly with climate change - there are countless peer reviewed articles out there, but no real consensus.

Also, what 'that article claims' is neither here nor there, really.

According to me what?

VioletSky

According to me what?

According to VS, there are academic articles on trans issues, too.

Again what?

Again what was written!

VS 13.06 today I've read many of the actual studies
All we're asking is for you to point us to the actual studies you've read, so we can see if we read them the same as you.

Am baffled

Goodness I didn't think I could be clearer.

VioletSky

Honestly I came into theses discussions very respectful and its taken far more than most would put up with to lose that respect

Some of the things said to me are beyond vile, especially when its followed me to other topics..

I would still give back respect if it were recieved I'm a very patient person

VS I could say the same. Look at Glorianny's post to me on this very thread. And that follows years of being told that I am a bigot, that my views are akin to those of the KKK, that my professional abilities are in doubt, that I am lying, and many many more.

One of my first posts on here was on a trans thread, and I was naive enough to ask why it wouldn't make sense to allow children of both sexes to do what they wanted without telling them that 'that's for girls' or whatever, and that similar approaches in adulthood would remove at least some of the requests to transition, and protect children from unnecessary intervention. The response was rude, patronising and totally unnecessary. Had it not been, I may have taken a different view, but we'll never know. As it was, I was basically told to F Off and Find Out - the FIFO approach of a bad teacher - so I did. And what I found convinced me that self-ID and constant capitulation to the demands of the trans lobby would result in the very things that it has done - men in women's jails, more and more instances of men attacking women in 'safe' spaces, the language being ever more restricted, and people being attacked physically and mentally for speaking out.

I do have respect for the views of others, and I do support the right of transpeople to live their best lives without agreeing that they can change sex. But after so long having everything I say twisted, any tiny slip met with a GOTCHA!, posts ignored, questions unanswered, and insults like the ones above, I will sometimes fight back.

Rosie51

Goodness I didn't think I could be clearer.

No, we have all been very clear. Ironic, given that the discussion has turned to tactical communication, isn't it?

Doodledog

growstuff

To be fair, that could be applied to pretty much any topic

No, it couldn't. Most serious subjects have academic, peer-reviewed articles written about them. That article claims that there aren't that many about trans issues.

According to VS, there are academic articles on trans issues, too. In any event, whether that is the case or not, their absence or otherwise doesn't mean that the principles being discussed are not equally applicable to other subjects that boil down to differences of opinion. You could find as many articles on economics, history and human behaviour as you like, but people will still hold differing views on politics. Similarly with climate change - there are countless peer reviewed articles out there, but no real consensus.

Also, what 'that article claims' is neither here nor there, really.

But not as many as you might expect on a serious issue.

Even academics are using social media more than is usual for other academics.

I do have access to some subscription sites for academic articles and searched for articles about "transexuality", "gender critical", etc. It's noticeable that there aren't many, compared with such fascinating (?) topics such as glycoprotein analysis or modelling of tumour-oncolytic viruses interactions.

No, not as many as you would expect, which is probably because they would be massively interdisciplinary, and also because people in universities are afraid to get involved. This is why I was asking which discipline VS's articles came under.

FarNorth

A situation where a baby died, in part because a female person was designated 'male' in her medical notes.

metro.co.uk/2019/05/20/pregnant-transgender-mans-baby-died-because-nurse-didnt-realize-he-was-in-labor-9613972/

How awful, but totally unavoidable. I don't understand though. I would have thought if a female person was designated male in their medical notes they would first have had to have had a hysterectomy and mastectomy with bottom surgery too?

I would also have thought that in many cases it must be necessary to take hormones to live as a gender you weren't biologically born as? If so, I would have thought they would also carry risks and should be obvious on the patients medical notes.

It's so sad when it could have been avoided with honesty and transparency. Also, anyone living as a man but procreating with a man needs to have the facts of life explaining to them, so they understand what happens in labour. They could then advocate for themselves in a transparent way.

No one is saying they can't live as they choose, but there needs to be some honesty and transparency in the medical notes and some education .