Is JK Rowling pushing the boundaries too far?

But is it a hate crime to say that however gorgeous a transwoman looks and however gracefully they walk, you still don't really believe that a man can magically turn into a woman just by saying "I am now a woman" ?

Emperors New Clothes.
Never thought I would see it happening in real life.

I support JKR all the way. She puts into words the basic truths of biology which I am sure the vast majority of the population have no problem with.
Just because some people shout loudly and stamp their feet does not mean they are right and that the rest of us have to believe their delusions.

Varian, re the question of which loo transpeople should use - a friend of ours who worked in HR had exactly that problem with a staff member undergoing transition and it was agreed that the person should use the 'disabled' loo. It seemed to be a satisfactory solution.

varian

Trans people - men and women are a tiny percentage of the population. I have met a few. They seem no more threatening than any other group.

If the most contentious issue is the use of public toilets, then I suggest that trans-people should be given official permission to use loos designated for disabled people, which are generally underused.

Of course toilets are not the most contentious part of this! How many times do we have to list all the ways women and girls are affected by it all? Please read the thread? There is much more to it than that.

Toilets are important as we all use them more than changing rooms, hospitals, prisons, refuges and the like, but they represent the way in which the trans lobby flaunts the fact that there is now nowhere for women to call our own. It is dangerous to allow men in female loos, as we don’t know which ones are dangerous. If one man can be there unchallenged then any man can be there, and use that right to prey on vulnerable women.

But it is the colonisation of women’s spaces in general that we are concerned about - the pushing us out of sport and other women’s areas (such as the WI of all places), the eradication of words about women from the language*, the butchering of children’s bodies and messing with their mental health, and all the other ways in which women are being sidelined by this misogynist agenda.

*Look at how the word ‘misogyny’ was misused on this very thread. It means dislike/hatred of women based on their sex, and is entirely neutralised when applied to male people. Similarly, the word ‘rape’ means forcible penetration with a penis (ergo perpetrators are male), but it is now being suggested that women can commit rape, which again diminishes the severity of the crime.

Can I remind everyone that women's spaces are still protected by law. and that transwomen can be banned from any space quite legally. So if the WI was to take a vote and the majority of women attending were to say that they would not attend if transwomen were included they could be prevented for joining. If someone feels that the present ruling is wrong they should take it up with the executive of the WI and not blame transwomen.

As for the idea that banning transwomen would keep toilets safe. No it wouldn't because you couldn't ban transmen so people looking like men would still use those toilets. How is that safer?

As for misogyny it is an interesting question if someone is a transwoman and is mistreated because she is living as a woman is or isn't that misogyny? I would argue it is if the treatment is based around the fact that she is a woman, and that any man who mistreated her would also mistreat a natal woman. The biology might be male but the mistreatment is based on the gender she presents as.
It also leads to the interesting question of if you believe that it is not misogyny, then are there other groups of women it wouldn't apply to? If trans women are different how many other groups of women can be?

As ever Doodledog says it all. Arguing about the minutiae of terminology avoids considering the bigger picture.

Glorianny It also leads to the interesting question of if you believe that it is not misogyny, then are there other groups of women it wouldn't apply to? If trans women are different how many other groups of women can be?

woman: adult female human. That's all you need to know.

Who are these other groups of women apart from transwomen (males) who wouldn't qualify? I do hope you're not doing an India Willoughby ( a transwoman) who thinks if blackwomen (their insistance all one word) and lesbians qualify as real women so do transwomen. Racism and homophobia are not nice traits.

I think the details are important.
Rape for example has a far wider definition in US law where penetration by an object is also regarded as rape. It isn't in the UK. But the idea that someone using an object to penetrate anyone is somehow less traumatic or not as serious as using a penis is unacceptable in my opinion. And certainly what happens to some women in women's prisons is just as damaging. (and that is nothing to do with transwomen).

Am I the only one confused by all this? It has become so complicated. Men at present clean loos whilst we use them and I’m used to that. We are notified of course, but could any man looking for trouble get this job? (Not a trans).
I have to say the thought of being attacked in a public loo is always the last thing on my mind.
Trans competing in sport and some other situations are a different matter.

But the idea that someone using an object to penetrate anyone is somehow less traumatic or not as serious as using a penis is unacceptable in my opinion. you obviously are unaware that despite not classifying penetration by an object as rape, the severity of the crime is regarded as equal to rape and the sentencing guidelines are the same.

Rosie51

Glorianny It also leads to the interesting question of if you believe that it is not misogyny, then are there other groups of women it wouldn't apply to? If trans women are different how many other groups of women can be?

woman: adult female human. That's all you need to know.

Who are these other groups of women apart from transwomen (males) who wouldn't qualify? I do hope you're not doing an India Willoughby ( a transwoman) who thinks if blackwomen (their insistance all one word) and lesbians qualify as real women so do transwomen. Racism and homophobia are not nice traits.

You know I'm an intersectional feminist Rosie51 But yes if you consider transwomen are a group misogyny doesn't apply to there is nothing to stop a white supremacist claiming exactly the same for black women. Then you get into an argument that should never take place.
Anyone who mistreats someone because they present as a woman is guilty of misogyny.

Glorianny

Rosie51

Glorianny It also leads to the interesting question of if you believe that it is not misogyny, then are there other groups of women it wouldn't apply to? If trans women are different how many other groups of women can be?

woman: adult female human. That's all you need to know.

Who are these other groups of women apart from transwomen (males) who wouldn't qualify? I do hope you're not doing an India Willoughby ( a transwoman) who thinks if blackwomen (their insistance all one word) and lesbians qualify as real women so do transwomen. Racism and homophobia are not nice traits.

You know I'm an intersectional feminist Rosie51 But yes if you consider transwomen are a group misogyny doesn't apply to there is nothing to stop a white supremacist claiming exactly the same for black women. Then you get into an argument that should never take place.
Anyone who mistreats someone because they present as a woman is guilty of misogyny.

What part of black women, or lesbians, or bisexual women, or red-haired women denies their female biology? Nutters can claim whatever they like it doesn't change the immutability of sex.
So if mistreatment of a transwoman is misogyny according to you, then it can't possibly be transphobia can it? Or do you propose to have it both ways?

Yes I have seen lots of proponents of gender nonsense argue that black women are not women. Its racism and one of the reasons I dont subscribe to the gender belief system. Racism and homophobia often lurk there. Transwomen are men, they are not in the category of women. And if they are the category is utterly meaningless. There is no difference between Eddie Izzard and Keir Starmer in terms of sex, neither belong in the category of women.

Glorianny

I think the details are important.
Rape for example has a far wider definition in US law where penetration by an object is also regarded as rape. It isn't in the UK. But the idea that someone using an object to penetrate anyone is somehow less traumatic or not as serious as using a penis is unacceptable in my opinion. And certainly what happens to some women in women's prisons is just as damaging. (and that is nothing to do with transwomen).

Not the point. As you know.

I am not arguing about which hideous crime is more or less serious - that would be as disrespectful to the victims as saying that rape can be a female crime. I am saying that tinkering with the language shifts meanings. A birth-giver is not the same as a mother. Calling women 'cervix havers' downgrades the concept of womanhood. Rape is used as a weapon of war, because of everything that is bound up in the sexual violation of women - it is about more than the degradation and humiliation of assault.

You know all this, as do the people pushing for the changes. Why would thy bother changing the words if they don't matter? Words matter.

Rosie51

Glorianny

Rosie51

Glorianny It also leads to the interesting question of if you believe that it is not misogyny, then are there other groups of women it wouldn't apply to? If trans women are different how many other groups of women can be?

woman: adult female human. That's all you need to know.

Who are these other groups of women apart from transwomen (males) who wouldn't qualify? I do hope you're not doing an India Willoughby ( a transwoman) who thinks if blackwomen (their insistance all one word) and lesbians qualify as real women so do transwomen. Racism and homophobia are not nice traits.

You know I'm an intersectional feminist Rosie51 But yes if you consider transwomen are a group misogyny doesn't apply to there is nothing to stop a white supremacist claiming exactly the same for black women. Then you get into an argument that should never take place.
Anyone who mistreats someone because they present as a woman is guilty of misogyny.

What part of black women, or lesbians, or bisexual women, or red-haired women denies their female biology? Nutters can claim whatever they like it doesn't change the immutability of sex.
So if mistreatment of a transwoman is misogyny according to you, then it can't possibly be transphobia can it? Or do you propose to have it both ways?

I wouldn't draw lines anyway so why ask me? I don't think it is necessary to examine anyone's biology if someone is being discriminated against because they present as a woman it is misogyny. You think it isn't. So you have one group of women who are different. So other people think other groups of women are different. Justify your thinking. Are you going to examine all women?

Glorianny it was you not a white supremacist who raised other groups of women not qualifying, so what groups did you have in mind? If we stick to women being adult female humans there is absolutely no confusion at all.

Doodledog

Glorianny

I think the details are important.
Rape for example has a far wider definition in US law where penetration by an object is also regarded as rape. It isn't in the UK. But the idea that someone using an object to penetrate anyone is somehow less traumatic or not as serious as using a penis is unacceptable in my opinion. And certainly what happens to some women in women's prisons is just as damaging. (and that is nothing to do with transwomen).

Not the point. As you know.

I am not arguing about which hideous crime is more or less serious - that would be as disrespectful to the victims as saying that rape can be a female crime. I am saying that tinkering with the language shifts meanings. A birth-giver is not the same as a mother. Calling women 'cervix havers' downgrades the concept of womanhood. Rape is used as a weapon of war, because of everything that is bound up in the sexual violation of women - it is about more than the degradation and humiliation of assault.

You know all this, as do the people pushing for the changes. Why would thy bother changing the words if they don't matter? Words matter.

In the US rape can be a female crime. Is it less traumatic for someone to have an object violently pushed into an orifice than to have a penis pushed in? I would say it is equally as damaging. Female rape is recognised in the US. In the UK it is designated as assault. The definition of rape is neither as simple nor as restricted as you seem to imagine www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/rape-and-gender-can-a-woman-rape-a-man.html

Barking orders again? Transwomen are not one group of women who are different. They are men who say they are women, which they are not.

In some circumstances that is harmless and up to them. When they are removing female spaces, changing the language, skewing statistics and data, telling children that there is such a thing as a 'wrong body', it is not harmless.

Misogyny is dislike or hatred of women. The clue is in the etymology. Male-born people are not women. They cannot, therefore, be subject to misogyny, unless the concept of being a woman has been changed - which is, of course, what you are trying to do.

Rosie51

Glorianny it was you not a white supremacist who raised other groups of women not qualifying, so what groups did you have in mind? If we stick to women being adult female humans there is absolutely no confusion at all.

But what if a transwomen is subjected to misogyny? Do you not imagine that the same circumstances might apply to a natal woman. If misogyny was a crime would you then only agree to a prosecution if the victim was a natal woman?

Glorianny

Doodledog

Glorianny

I think the details are important.
Rape for example has a far wider definition in US law where penetration by an object is also regarded as rape. It isn't in the UK. But the idea that someone using an object to penetrate anyone is somehow less traumatic or not as serious as using a penis is unacceptable in my opinion. And certainly what happens to some women in women's prisons is just as damaging. (and that is nothing to do with transwomen).

Not the point. As you know.

I am not arguing about which hideous crime is more or less serious - that would be as disrespectful to the victims as saying that rape can be a female crime. I am saying that tinkering with the language shifts meanings. A birth-giver is not the same as a mother. Calling women 'cervix havers' downgrades the concept of womanhood. Rape is used as a weapon of war, because of everything that is bound up in the sexual violation of women - it is about more than the degradation and humiliation of assault.

You know all this, as do the people pushing for the changes. Why would thy bother changing the words if they don't matter? Words matter.

In the US rape can be a female crime. Is it less traumatic for someone to have an object violently pushed into an orifice than to have a penis pushed in? I would say it is equally as damaging. Female rape is recognised in the US. In the UK it is designated as assault. The definition of rape is neither as simple nor as restricted as you seem to imagine www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/rape-and-gender-can-a-woman-rape-a-man.html

Why bring the US into this? You may as well say that in some countries women are punished if they are raped because they have had sex with a man who is not their husband. You are wriggling again.

Trans women aren't one group of women, they are not women/an adult female, they are male.

When you open up the category of women, adult female humans, to just anybody who wants to be a part of that then you make the classification of woman a useless one. It means nothing because it can mean absolutely anything any individual wants.

Glorianny

Rosie51

Glorianny it was you not a white supremacist who raised other groups of women not qualifying, so what groups did you have in mind? If we stick to women being adult female humans there is absolutely no confusion at all.

But what if a transwomen is subjected to misogyny? Do you not imagine that the same circumstances might apply to a natal woman. If misogyny was a crime would you then only agree to a prosecution if the victim was a natal woman?

How many times? Misogyny can only apply to women. Men, however they 'present' cannot suffer from it.

What do you not understand?

Rosie51

When you open up the category of women, adult female humans, to just anybody who wants to be a part of that then you make the classification of woman a useless one. It means nothing because it can mean absolutely anything any individual wants.

Which is, of course, the whole point.

This is such hard work.