J K Rowling has nailed it - re Starmer and the trans issue

Fuck off. I’m a trans woman and it’s disgusting. My daughter loved Harry Potter. We’ve been to Universal Studios 5 times. It’s ironic she’s become the Voldemort in my story. Well done playing the villain who attacks those who are vulnerable, special, and yes…women !

J K was not only vocal on this subject, she also put her money where her mouth is by supporting financially women’s refuges. My real beef is with those men at the top of their sports and some women who did not come out in support of women’s sports for biological women only, the exception being Sharron Davies who has been very vocal. The trans lobby showed us exactly who they are with their tantrums in London last weekend.

Oreo

I thought he has always been cowardly on this issue.Others may say he was wise to keep in with the trans activists for their votes🤬
Looking back it was a sort of collective madness that gave support to these angry, entitled misogynists that call themselves activists and I am so glad they have now been put back in their box.

I think Stonewall were doing the training & saying how you should conduct yourself to be fair to the trans community, & being aware was a "good" thing (Awareness training is good, right?) & there was an emperor's new clothes moment when JKR (& others) suddenly heard about it & realised that to be "fair" to trans people along the lines that Stonewall was advocating, you had to seriously breach some hardwon legal rights that women, lesbian or straight, needed.
Then it all kicked off & Starmer's instinct was to be progressive not reactionary, & try to be supportive of the LGBT community.Maybe he was badly briefed.He seems happy enough with the Court's ruling.

Its where either you have to change for work outfits or gyms and swimming pools where there is a lot of socialising in the changing rooms.
A new build gym/swim pool where my family live has unisex facilities with lots of cubicles and separate lockers.

Galaxy

What? Do you think he actually believes privately that men can be women. That doesn't reassure me.

No, I dare say he was just desperate to be seen jumping on to the trans bandwagon.

As for loos in cafes, many small businesses just have the one, available to all and also adapted for the disabled. Cubicles with their own washbasins are ideal but probably too expensive. And why are so many changing rooms communal anyway?

You have a point Doodledog as referring to it being sorted out "ish"

The Supreme Court ruling has lad down the key principle, but there is a lot of confusion (and perhaps always has been) but it's far from "Settled" in some respects:

Specifically, what rights the GRA confers upon issue of a GRA certificate, will this have to be examined and possibly changed.

"While the GRA allows for changing the recorded sex to female or male, it doesn't explicitly mention pronouns or how someone chooses to be addressed. The act focuses on legal recognition and the right to live in one's acquired gender, not on dictating how individuals should be addressed".

So being able be addressed as "she" for example remained ambiguous as did, after you'd changed your name to "Anna".

For many, it was taken to mean you could be described as a woman when the GRA said "the right to live in one's acquired gender" and if not that, to be addressed as "she"

I think the lesbian thing is part of the whole sexism put forward by this ideology. Women with short hair look like women with short hair, they aren't men and whilst occasionally they are challenged ( I spent my entire twenties and thirties in pubs with butch lesbians) as soon as they speak/interact people tend to be very embarrassed at their mistake. This was a common refrain from men who identify as women, the abuse lesbians received about their looks from trans activists was horrific. They have conned people in to thinking we can't identify what sex people are. We can. Make up, swishy hair, etc don't hide the fact that they are men, and in the same way short hair etc doesn't hide someone's female sex.

Yes I have no idea why feminists are being asked to sort this problem, we didn't create it. Those who told men they could be women did that, it was a terrible thing to do.

I agree, and I am not arguing for TW to be allowed to access the Ladies or other female facilities, but until the men get their acts together and sort things out (which with the best will in the world could take some time) there needs to be a plan.

I don't know what that plan can be, as leaving aside the TRAs, there are TW who would be mortified if anyone found out their secret, as they value privacy, which is fair enough. It may well be the case that people do know, but people convince themselves of all sorts of things, and not everyone wants to talk about personal things all the time. I do think that now the court has ruled the way it has we need to keep our collective eyes on the ball, but I also think that now we have the principle sorted out (ish) we can afford to be considerate to those who mean us no harm.

The TRAs and 'allies' have really messed things up for the other TW, haven't they? Insisting that TW are actually women was a step too far, and their refusal to dial back from that and insist that 'gender' is optional showed itself for the folly it is when cases such as Isla Bryson came to light, and sport was so badly affected.

I wonder if the stardust will lose its sparkle amongst the young non-binary and 'gender-fluid'? I really hope so, but it is, of course, too late for the ones who had surgery or hormones. I hope the adults who encouraged the 'authentic selves' nonsense are suitably ashamed.

Cossy

I’m conflicted and I’ll happily admit it.

I do think women and men should have separate changing rooms and loos.

I also think that there should exist unisex changing rooms, loos etc, not instead of male and female, but in addition.

I think women deserve and should rightly have protection.

However, I know a transgender person, transitioned from female to male, has had surgery, hormone treatment and looks and sounds like a man and lives as a male married to a biological female.

Are transgender people not entitled to protection as well (not instead of women)

The majority of people who have committed serious heinous crime are biological males, who are completely straight and have “adopted” transgender status purely to commit crimes against woman. These are disgraceful, disgusting excuses of humans and should be rightly punished.

I do fear for genuine transgender people, whether one believes it’s right or wrong, and would hate to see them put in danger , some people, mainly men, have a very low tolerance level of “different” people and my fear is they will simply use this as an excuse for violence.

Also, how on earth can this be properly enforced, as it should be, to afford the protection ALL women deserve.

Neither of my lesbian daughters, now adults, look “masculine”, but my late SIL looked very masculine. How will these women prove they are women if stopped or should they carry their birth cert around with them?

I agree Cossy.

Bridie22

I totally agree Cossy, but the transactivists will not accept this compromise, they want biological womens spaces...
This!

I totally agree Cossy, but the transactivists will not accept this compromise, they want biological womens spaces... here in lies the problem.
It really is up to the male population to solve this problem,

I’m conflicted and I’ll happily admit it.

I do think women and men should have separate changing rooms and loos.

I also think that there should exist unisex changing rooms, loos etc, not instead of male and female, but in addition.

I think women deserve and should rightly have protection.

However, I know a transgender person, transitioned from female to male, has had surgery, hormone treatment and looks and sounds like a man and lives as a male married to a biological female.

Are transgender people not entitled to protection as well (not instead of women)

The majority of people who have committed serious heinous crime are biological males, who are completely straight and have “adopted” transgender status purely to commit crimes against woman. These are disgraceful, disgusting excuses of humans and should be rightly punished.

I do fear for genuine transgender people, whether one believes it’s right or wrong, and would hate to see them put in danger , some people, mainly men, have a very low tolerance level of “different” people and my fear is they will simply use this as an excuse for violence.

Also, how on earth can this be properly enforced, as it should be, to afford the protection ALL women deserve.

Neither of my lesbian daughters, now adults, look “masculine”, but my late SIL looked very masculine. How will these women prove they are women if stopped or should they carry their birth cert around with them?

Whitewavemark2

Starmer is first and last a lawyer.

He follows the rule of law.

What he actually thinks - is his private opinion.

My opinion is that the Judge was right when he advised that this should not be looked at as a victory for anyone, and I am concerned that whilst there has been a settlement of a definition of a woman, it has not addressed the issue of a minority, who identify entirely with the opposite sex into which they were born.

In fact I think this judgement is only part of the answer to the entire issue.

I completely agree

Carlotta

I'd like to add my vote of thanks to JKR for her unwavering dedication to women's rights. Several other people who I believe deserve a mention are Sharon Davies, Julie Bindell, Maya Forstater, Kathleen Stock, Gil House, Justine Roberts, Graham Lineham, Roz Adams...... so many people who lost their jobs, had their their income, careers, families, personal safety impacted by threats of harm and death by men who cannot tolerate being told NO.

Totally agree Carlotta.

Rosie51

Wyllow Now he has made clear he will follow what has now come into law

It hasn't 'come into law'. As many KCs have stated the Supreme Court don't have the power to change or make laws they can only adjudicate and interpret the law. The Supreme Court has confirmed in the EA it has always been that sex means biological sex otherwise none of the protections made sense. Nothing has changed except we now all know this for a fact. Many organisations and businesses have been breaking the law because they, like too many politicians, let Stonewall indoctrinate them with Stonewall's preferred version. This goes across all parties.

Thank you Rosie for pointing this out. I cannot believe the amount of discussions on TV or radio where they miss this crucial point.
No law has been changed no rights have been taken away.
They clarified existing law confirming that sex means biological sex male or female nothing else.

I know what you mean about those who want to be seen as kind and tolerant etc, and how they frame those who disagree as unkind and intolerant (we’ve seen that in action often enough 🙄) but NS will have had advisors, scriptwriters and so on. Fighting for something that you don’t understand - like an article of faith - is just idiotic for a politician at that level.

It was like watching a Shakespearean tragedy - the protagonist can’t overcome the tragic flaw and there are bodies all over the stage at the end.

Water under the bridge now, though.

She thought she was the 'good guy' so she didn't have to justify her views. That certainty is the undoing of a lot of people. Alastair Campbell is demonstrating it beautifully at the moment. His explanation seems to be I talked to my wife and daughter so now I know what to think. It's bizarre.

Yes, it was all Starmer’s fault 😂

Sunak made it so perfectly clear that there was a need for a Supreme Court ruling to clarify it years later.

I don’t know what got into Nicola Sturgeon. During Covid she was riding high, and seemed sensible and pragmatic (at least compared to Johnson, which is admittedly a low bar), but then she seemed to throw it all away over a principle she couldn’t even defend. The interview about Isla Bryson would have been the nail in the coffin of any politician - it wasn’t just that I didn’t agree with the notion that men could become women, it was that NS couldn’t explain why she felt they could. For someone usually so articulate she just fell apart when asked a simple question. To be fair, nobody ever answered the simple questions on this topic, but if someone is making controversial policies based on a principle surely they would at least be able to defend that principle coherently. Politicians are coached in what to say about such things but she still couldn’t do it.

It was as though she had had a rationality bypass when it came to the subject. Very odd.

I really don't agree that he made it clear enough about men and women. If he had, we wouldn't be here now, as there would have been no need for last week's ruling.

It was perfectly clear, and should not have needed spelling out, but a great many people chose to ignore it, particularly those who followed the shining light of Starmer.

Rosie51

This seems rather relevant Mollygo

Amazingly accurate!

This seems rather relevant Mollygo

Carlotta

IMO the politician who did the most irrevocable harm to women was Nicola Sturgeon. Her catastrophic meddling in the transgender prisons, rape crisis centres and gender ID is still causing headline news in Scotland today. Dreadful woman.

And more shameful because she is (presumably) a woman.
If we can’t rely on women to protect women
. . .

IMO the politician who did the most irrevocable harm to women was Nicola Sturgeon. Her catastrophic meddling in the transgender prisons, rape crisis centres and gender ID is still causing headline news in Scotland today. Dreadful woman.