Scarlet Blake

The BBC are determined to self sabotage.

It’s weird isn’t it

I haven’t read anything about it yet, but undoubtedly there will be cries for him to be sacked for telling the truth

Mollygo

I haven’t read anything about it yet, but undoubtedly there will be cries for him to be sacked for telling the truth

Exactly, how can anyone be sacked for being truthful.

There is a funny tweet going around at the moment saying David Attenborough has been warned for ssuggesting the earth is round.

eazybee

Justin Webb, Today presenter, has apparently broken the BBC's impartiality rules by referring to transwomen as males on air, in a discussion about International Chess foundation guidelines.
"Transwomen, in other words, males". This comment was reported by a listener who said Mr, Webb was giving his personal view in breach of impartiality requirements.
Apparently his comments 'could only be understood by listeners as meaning that transwomen remain male, without qualification as to gender or biological sex.'
Yes. They do. Fact.
There is more, in the article in today's DT.
I despair.

I despair.

I think very many of us do.

In context of the discussion at the time, the comment was entirely logical.

If we are to keep up this pretence - the pretence that a man can become a woman on the basis of his feelings - then there should have been a national debate on the decision to ignore the scientific designation of X and Y chromosomes in both human beings and other mammals.

The erasure of women has serious implications for public policies across the board. As we have seen with the question relating to where we incarcerate trans women who have committed violent sexual assaults, and how those crimes are statistically recorded.

This current situation is little more than misogyny dressed up as inclusivity and it is being driven by a minority of men - and society is bending itself out of shape in order to accommodate them.

So, yes - there is every reason for despair.

This current situation is little more than misogyny dressed up as inclusivity and it is being driven by a minority of men - and society is bending itself out of shape in order to accommodate them.

Yes. I have tried to think of a situation in which the feelings of a group of women have been taken into account to such an extent, and funnily enough, I can't come up with anything.

Is there any way in which women benefit from the notion that sex and chosen gender amount to the same thing? Yes, some women can opt to be treated as men, but they don't win races as a result, and it is usually other women who suffer, eg by having their status as mothers, breastfeeders etc removed and replaced to suit them. It's very much a one-way street, isn't it?

I don't think on an individual basis that the accepted language of motherhood is changed - the midwife or whoever will still talk about breast-feeding as opposed to "chest-feeding" for example. The majority of the "service-users" are women.

("service-users" <<<sigh>>> but that's for another day)

It's when the language is changed overall to accommodate a small minority that it irks. But I don't believe women are being compelled to talk about chest-feeding.

... but, if the miniscule minority of men who've managed to fill an A-cup and induce lactation feel excluded by the word 'breast-feeding' then I don't know what to say because, mechanically, that is exactly what they are doing... breast feeding. I do wonder though if it's the TW activists who are demanding the language be changed rather than the small minority of trans women who actually are breast-feeding.

With the overwhelming changes to your life once you become a parent, the sleepless nights, etc... I'd have thought they'd be more practically occupied in those few moments when you're not fulfilling all the needs of a new born baby.

Who knows?

First they want to give children and teens drugs like puberty blockers, now they want to enable males to feed babies chemicals to satisfy their fantasies of chest feeding.

Mollygo

First they want to give children and teens drugs like puberty blockers, now they want to enable males to feed babies chemicals to satisfy their fantasies of chest feeding.

Yes, and claim that male breast milk (???) is as good for babies as mothers' milk.

I'm not suggesting that calling transmen whatever they want to be called is forcing women to discuss things in their language, Dickens. More that the mangling of language is eroding the status of women in biological terms, as well as making meaningful discussion of anything to do with differentials between the sexes in sociological terms impossible.

Doodledog

Mollygo

First they want to give children and teens drugs like puberty blockers, now they want to enable males to feed babies chemicals to satisfy their fantasies of chest feeding.

Yes, and claim that male breast milk (???) is as good for babies as mothers' milk.

I'm not suggesting that calling transmen whatever they want to be called is forcing women to discuss things in their language, Dickens. More that the mangling of language is eroding the status of women in biological terms, as well as making meaningful discussion of anything to do with differentials between the sexes in sociological terms impossible.

I'm not suggesting that calling transmen whatever they want to be called is forcing women to discuss things in their language, Dickens. More that the mangling of language is eroding the status of women in biological terms, as well as making meaningful discussion of anything to do with differentials between the sexes in sociological terms impossible.

Yes, I get that. And agree.

I'm simply trying to be scrupulously honest in the fightback against this concept that men can become women, and don't want to fall into the trap of saying anything that isn't factually true, which then gives the trans community activists ammunition when they want to rail against our "transphobia".

The language and terminology that trans individuals use among themselves is one thing; it's inevitable and shouldn't be a problem - we all I suppose in our 'groupings' do exactly the same, it's a way of communicating that makes it easier to understand certain thoughts and emotions - but to use such language to undermine the majority is not acceptable. So yes, I get what you are saying.

Why chest feeding? men have breasts and nipples and can be diagnosed (and are) quite correctly with breast cancer.

I assume that if they were given drugs to lactate, it would be their breasts that filled with milk and the baby would suck a nipple - and they would breast feed.

Or have i got it all wrong and will another part of their chest fill with milk and will the baby suckle somewhere around the man's navel.

MOnica, I think the issue is changing the language. Breast feeding is to become chest feeding to ensure the transactivists are happy

Iam64

MOnica, I think the issue is changing the language. Breast feeding is to become chest feeding to ensure the transactivists are happy

Breast feeding is to become chest feeding to ensure the transactivists are happy

This is the issue, isn't it. It's the activists. I've seen some in action, read what they say, looked at the legends on their t shirts and placards - some are vulgar, they've chosen vulgarity to drive home their point about their "lady-dick" being a female sex organ.

Just how representative are they of the trans community as a whole? I know not all - because some have spoken out, and said so.

I believe they are a minority of men who basically have a problem with women, and it's not a problem of identifying with them rather that they need to assert their authority over them in the only manner now left to them - to erase the accepted concept of what we understand of womanhood and replace it with their abstraction - thus gaining control over women.

And they are winning. Because of the attacks and abuse meted out on the trans community, 'society' has decided that such abuse and assaults on them should be treated as a hate-crime (which it is) and come to the conclusion that - instead of treating it like all other hate-crimes, this one will be avenged by going beyond the normal moral code of punishing the perpetrators and redact women for good measure. So that even asking the question of whether a man can become a woman is seen as transphobic and, therefore, a hate-crime in the making. Which has led to the ludicrous situation where a man with full genitalia, beard, etc, can stand up and say that not only does he 'identify' as a woman - but that he is one. He has changed more than the language.

IMO the deeds are more important than the words; but the words matter too - they always do.

The word ‘woman’ can no longer be assumed to mean ‘adult human female’ as I’d did for hundreds of years. Crimes are recorded as having been committed by females, when the perpetrators are male, and this makes statistics meaningless. Research into areas such as pay differentials between men and women, or access to education, pensions or all sorts of things are also skewed, so women lose out. There can be no discussion of sex or gender issues as the words that have stood us in good stead are now ambiguous. It matters.

It matters.

Well, the transactivists have a very limited knowledge of anatomy if they do not realise that men have breasts and nipples!

Since everyone, all sexes, all genders, all ages from birth onwards have both breasts and nipples those words those organs those those parts of the body and the names for them cannot be gender, sex or age specific.

Yes, but none of this is about biology. In a very basic level transactivism parts company with biological reality. It’s about erasing women, both practically and linguistically.

M0nica

Well, the transactivists have a very limited knowledge of anatomy if they do not realise that men have breasts and nipples!

Since everyone, all sexes, all genders, all ages from birth onwards have both breasts and nipples those words those organs those those parts of the body and the names for them cannot be gender, sex or age specific.

In 19th century literature, a man's chest is not infrequently referred to as a breast. Especially when talking about emotions which men appeared to feel in that anatomical area.

Of course, language evolves and we now talk about 'manly-chests' but, women have also been described in the media as going "bare chested" - on a beach.

So the words can be applied to both male and female. However, feeding babies has always been breast-feeding and as you say, men have them and if they are feeding a baby, they are breast-feeding (the mechanics of which is another topic) so replacing that with chest-feeding is entirely unnecessary, just another attempt at diminishing women.

Have you heard about the alternative names for a vagina?

Though it's no laughing matter.