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

Sunak did nothing to clarify the situation or to defend women who lost careers and were persecuted for speaking the truth.

When the SNP went too far he blocked their progress with the GRA, but that was as far as it went. There was no intervention to stop Stonewall from coercion or to stop employers from forcing people to declare pronouns against their will, nothing was done about women's sport, research issues (even the census had a question about so-called 'gender' rather than sex.

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.

Sunak may have blocked a reform of something that had gone well far enough:

Are you talking about Nicola Sturgeon's gender recognition certificates? Gone well enough??
He made it clear enough about men and women. It wasn't the Conservatives who could not tell the truth about penises and cervixes.

I think AWS is not necessary ATM but a useful tool should it be needed.
In other contexts it's still an issue. I listened to Front Row tonight (R4 Arts programme for those who don't know) and we are still busy bringing to light women from the past lost in History.

Oh no I don't mean in intimate care services I see that as a completely separate thing.
I suppose I was thinking about politics, I think over 50 % of Labour Mps are now women? Now you could argue that AWS has achieved that but you could then argue that they are no longer necessary. I would also then look over at the tory party, who whatever you may feel about the individual women concerned, have had much greater success with women in the ultimate position of power.

They are important in some areas, such as intimate care, and for entirely different reasons in the Arts, where women's voices often go unheard. We pass on our culture and norms through the Arts, so it is vital that all groups are represented. That includes all social classes, both sexes, and yes, the voices of transpeople too, but there is no way to do this without being sure that when someone says they are in one category it is the truth. If anyone can enter the women's category it is entirely meaningless, and often it only exists at all because the genre is massively dominated by men.

Yes I saw that. I have quite conflicting feelings about all women short list and their usefulness but if they exist they are for women not men.

Issues are being discussed already - this one on all women lists.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62g7007kxko

Sooner the Equalities Commission can clarify individual issues the better.

I don't care what they look like, how lovely they are, no men in women's spaces

Correct. My brother, brother in law and my son are all lovely, kind and gentle men. Still don't want to take my clothes off in front of them.

Just caught up, Doodledog... I say that KS as Labour leader, pre his election as prime minister did not stand up for biological womens right, along with lots of politicians who are now backtracking.

Galaxy

I don't care what they look like, how lovely they are, no men in women's spaces. We can't have a system based on whether men are kind, or whether their make up is good.

👏👏👏

Wyllow3

*But under previous law - ie the GRA - which may conservatives supported at the time - it was law that said transgender women could identify as women gender wise*

Why should Starmer have to apologise for following that law before the Supreme Court ruling? he didnt even have to do anything with brining that law into being in 2004?

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

Why don't people feel "vindictive" towards Conservatives who failed to attempt to change that law?

It's still the same law and still means the same thing now as it did then.
The supreme court simply spelled it out clearly.

I don't care what they look like, how lovely they are, no men in women's spaces. We can't have a system based on whether men are kind, or whether their make up is good.

Most I've seen don't look like women far from it
So different from the constant cries of you can’t tell the difference, or I wouldn’t know if I hadn’t been told

But some believe they do look like a woman or act like an woman or feel like an woman and take exception, sometimes violently to having that pointed out.

What was not obvious (to me, anyway) was that the issue would be used by anti-feminists to reverse so much of what women had fought for, or that it would become so divisive. How could it have been?

I wonder how obvious it was to those who campaigned for it eg transwoman Christine Burns and transman Stephen Whittle.
Those two people have certainly been supporting the recent state of affairs and there have been very few public statements from trans people saying this is not what they hoped for.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

But Wyllow some of them do say they’re trans. 🤷‍♀️
Vicious bullies.
Yes they give the (probably) a majority a bad name but when they dress and act as they do, women cannot differentiate and so become vulnerable surely?

Know them by their actions which have been outlined umpteen times. (and prosecute). Only option. Most I've seen don't look like women far from it - its deliberate - thats the whole point -and we will now have been given by law grounds for exclusion as self ID or even a GRC will not allow access.

In 2023 Rishi Sunak blocked Nicola Sturgeon's controversial gender reforms from becoming law.

Only after a huge public outcry mainly from women in Scotland who sent heartfelt emails to Alastair Jack, then Secretary of State for Scotland.

eazybee

^Why don't people feel "vindictive" towards Conservatives who failed to attempt to change that law.^

In 2023 Rishi Sunak blocked Nicola Sturgeon's controversial gender reforms from becoming law. Last year when asked about sex/gender change he said: a man is a man and a woman is a woman; that is just common sense.
Keir Starmer said 99.9% of women haven't got penises; he also tried to wriggle out of answering : what is a woman?
He did not admit what he had said was wrong; his answer was pure waffle, saying the judgement had clarified the situation, when it was his inaccurate and foolish statements which had made the situation more dangerous.

Sunak may have blocked a reform of something that had gone well far enough:

But he didn't have any plans whatsoever to actually do anything about the situation we found ourselves in.

Fortunately we now have a situation where actions will have to follow.

Doodledog

*I think most of us don't blame the majority of transwomen who want to live their lives peacefully and without trouble.*

Absolutely. And I really hope that now that this ruling has been made, the sort of unfounded allegations of 'hatred' and Nazism etc that have been levied against some of us on here will stop, and the HQ will act if they don't.

Yes please.

That doesn’t make trans crimes any less dangerous or less reprehensible

Absolutely not Rosie51 but what I personally find reprehensible is that many of the crimes included on that website actually occurred in women's safe spaces; toilets, changing rooms and refuges; the very places that we're being told should be freely available to both sexes. I was sickened to see that so many paedophiles, rapists and sex offenders have sought to further their acquisition of victims by claiming to be transgender to access those spaces, or have claimed to be transgender once convicted in order to be housed in female prisons and have access to women there. And it's the fact that their perversions were accommodated by the establishments at all that has fed the distrust and apprehension that women feel about the whole "men in women's safe spaces" furore. Genuine transgender people, just wanting to live a quiet life, are sufferers of the consequences too.

Why don't people feel "vindictive" towards Conservatives who failed to attempt to change that law.

In 2023 Rishi Sunak blocked Nicola Sturgeon's controversial gender reforms from becoming law. Last year when asked about sex/gender change he said: a man is a man and a woman is a woman; that is just common sense.
Keir Starmer said 99.9% of women haven't got penises; he also tried to wriggle out of answering : what is a woman?
He did not admit what he had said was wrong; his answer was pure waffle, saying the judgement had clarified the situation, when it was his inaccurate and foolish statements which had made the situation more dangerous.

Thanks Carlotta.
I know trans aren’t the only ones committing these crimes.
I will be told again that more non-trans commit these crimes.

That doesn’t make trans crimes any less dangerous or less reprehensible.

KS was wrong and he's making himself look even more inept by not saying so. FGS if the fact that we needed a ruling from the Supreme Court to clarify 'what is a woman' wasn't so ridiculous, it would be funny.

In this case, Mollygo, I don't see it as being about 'truth', because the decision was a judgement as to what a definition encompassed.
It means that henceforth the definition is clear, but it doesn't make those who opposed that definition 'liars'.

This website gives a comprehensive overview as to how many crimes their have been, by transgender criminals (both males and females), against women and children, between 2014 and the present day. Harrowing how many times the same people are jailed, released, commit more crimes, re jailed, commit the same crimes against the same demographic..... some, upon release from prison apply for "sanctuary" in women's hostels. And got it!

transcrimeuk.com/

winterwhite

If an issue has long been controversial, and then there is a formal ruling, that doesn't make people who had previously thought the other way 'wrong'.

At PMQs today I thought that KS should just have said that there had been disagreement over these definitions for years and he welcomed decision and clarity at last.

But if an issue is about a lie or the truth, it makes those who supported the lie, wrong.

Surely it doesn't make those right, who have issued death threats to women, or caused trauma by being a male in a female space simply by saying “I’m a woman,” or caused people to lose their jobs, just because some people were peddling the lie that you can change sex by saying it, and demanding that others accept it.