Scottish survey on gender recognition bill update

Only having to live in their acquired gender for three months rather than two years, and no requirement for a medical diagnosis? That would be a rapist’s passport to women’s spaces.

Exactly what a lot of people were saying in their survey replies!

I hope this result is taken seriously, not swept under the carpet in the fashionable rush to allow trans "women" to legally become their inner fantasies without also adapting their outer and all too real bodies. Humans are solid flesh and endocrinology as well as psychological inner identities.

It is not surprising that that the Anti GRA respondents out numbered those in favour as this was not an opinion poll with a carefully balanced panel, but rather an opportunity for those with serious concerns to express their reservations. There were many posts on my facebook groups urging people to respond negatively, very few posts urging support. The Unionist press (always, of course, opposed to anything proposed by the SNP or Greens) was full of scare stories, whilst my own straw poll amongst relatives and friends indicated that they were mostly not interested, one way or the other, because the issue had never affected their lives.

I note that 30% of respondents were from outside Scotland. GRA activists?

Perhaps they should become interested because this may well affect the lives of those who are women.

Crikey were women organising on Facebook. How shocking.

I would just like to comment that for the first time in GN history, I will not be commenting on a thread about Scotland.

Aveline

I note that 30% of respondents were from outside Scotland. GRA activists?

Some of them were Gransnet posters - so probably reflected the majority GN opinion.

Don’t want to derail the thread but I do worry about Trisher. This is the sort of thing about which she would have strong views but she’s been absent for quite a while.

Agree Germanshepherdsmum we often disagreed, but I do hope she is OK.

Yes I’ve been on the wrong side of her a few times too, but her absence worries me.

In my career I met several people who had rushed into transition and bitterly regretted it. Very sad situation. One had even had the surgery and was distraught that they couldn't transit back. Tragic.

. . . my own straw poll amongst relatives and friends indicated that they were mostly not interested, one way or the other, because the issue had never affected their lives.
That doesn't surprise me, Granny23. There has been a sudden outbreak of people wanting to 'change sex' (although this is impossible) after millennia when this never happened. The fact that most of the 'transpeople' don't have medical intervention shows that this is not because science hadn't developed to the point where this became possible until recently - it is because the TRAs (trans rights activists) have pushed the agenda in such a way that men can gain access to women's spaces, compete against us in sport, skew research statistics and nullify sex-based concessions for women, and accuse anyone who pushes back against this of transphobia and discrimination.

The whole basis of their claim is that 'gender norms' - the behaviours that are deemed to be typically 'male' or 'female' - are, in fact, determined by people's biology, rather than by society. That if a child prefers playing with dumper trucks and playing football they must 'be' a boy, and if they play with Barbies they must be a girl. Anyone who likes both football and ballet can't just accept that, but has to be 'non-binary'. Who actually lives life only doing things that someone else has decided are 'male' or 'female' actions? Virtually nobody, IME, but TRAs are so obsessed with 'gender norms' that they can't accept this, and instead claim that men can 'just know' that they are women, or women men, and those who aren't extreme stereotypes must be non-binary.

Most older people won't have experience of this, unless their grandchildren have been caught up in it, or they work in a 'captured' environment, such as a university or local government, where Stonewall rules are rigidly applied.

How terrible for them. I have no experience on which to draw but feel that for some young people it’s a phase - ‘everyone else is doing it’ - that may pass in time, when they have the maturity to know who they really are.

That was in reply to Aveline. I agree Doodledog.

“ ... In particular, a rallying cry has emerged: “Women won’t wheesht” – which means women won’t be silenced. Before 2018, “wheesht” was a little known word, but one mother, concerned about her disabled daughter who needs sex-based care and it is feared will be unable to request a female nurse or doctor, turned the phrase into a hashtag that is now used by the feminist movement in Spain, France and Germany, too.

The woman, a SNP supporter, who tweets using the name @dis_critic and has asked to remain anonymous for the sake of her daughter, says she was “surprised by the response” but believes it is testament to the strength of feeling about the issues. “We feel robbed of something and we feel that we haven’t been listened to,” she says.

“I am now female first and Scottish after that. If people are fighting for female sex-based rights and single sex services then I am happy to join their discussion, no matter what party they are from.”

Germanshepherdsmum

How terrible for them. I have no experience on which to draw but feel that for some young people it’s a phase - ‘everyone else is doing it’ - that may pass in time, when they have the maturity to know who they really are.

I feel the same, and I suspect that for some younger people at least, it may well be a case of enjoying expressing opinions that they know will be at odds with whatever their parents and much of an older generation, think or believe.

Not uncommon IMO - as a teen of the 60s I can remember doing similar.

How can this legislation be passed while so many intelligent arguments against have been put forward? .

I feel so sorry for women who live in Scotland and am thankful that I don't.

Oh, OK, I've changed my mind.

"Wheesht" wasn't a little known word before 2018, whatever the Telegraph tells you.

And can posters please remember that saying they are sorry for women in Scotland and that you're glad you don't live there is patronising in the extreme?

Doodledog

*. . . my own straw poll amongst relatives and friends indicated that they were mostly not interested, one way or the other, because the issue had never affected their lives.*
That doesn't surprise me, Granny23. There has been a sudden outbreak of people wanting to 'change sex' (although this is impossible) after millennia when this never happened. The fact that most of the 'transpeople' don't have medical intervention shows that this is not because science hadn't developed to the point where this became possible until recently - it is because the TRAs (trans rights activists) have pushed the agenda in such a way that men can gain access to women's spaces, compete against us in sport, skew research statistics and nullify sex-based concessions for women, and accuse anyone who pushes back against this of transphobia and discrimination.

The whole basis of their claim is that 'gender norms' - the behaviours that are deemed to be typically 'male' or 'female' - are, in fact, determined by people's biology, rather than by society. That if a child prefers playing with dumper trucks and playing football they must 'be' a boy, and if they play with Barbies they must be a girl. Anyone who likes both football and ballet can't just accept that, but has to be 'non-binary'. Who actually lives life only doing things that someone else has decided are 'male' or 'female' actions? Virtually nobody, IME, but TRAs are so obsessed with 'gender norms' that they can't accept this, and instead claim that men can 'just know' that they are women, or women men, and those who aren't extreme stereotypes must be non-binary.

Most older people won't have experience of this, unless their grandchildren have been caught up in it, or they work in a 'captured' environment, such as a university or local government, where Stonewall rules are rigidly applied.

Thank you - this has helped me think more clearly. I agree.

I do feel sorry for women who live in Scotland if this legislation goes through volver and because of that, I am glad that I don't live there. This is how I feel and there's nothing patronising about it.

My maternal GM was Irish and would tell us to 'wheesht' when she wanted us to be quiet.

Smileless2012

I do feel sorry for women who live in Scotland if this legislation goes through volver and because of that, I am glad that I don't live there. This is how I feel and there's nothing patronising about it.

My maternal GM was Irish and would tell us to 'wheesht' when she wanted us to be quiet.

Yes there is.

Feel sorry for us? Who do you think you are? We'll fight our own battles thanks.

Go ahead volver. The women I know appreciate the support that they receive from their 'sisters' rather than resent it and accuse those who show their support as patronising.

Another here feeling very sorry for women in Scotland, especially the rape and domestic violence victims who are bearing the brunt of this nonsense. Problem is; Scotland's apparently urgent desperation to throw their women's safety, rights and very existence under a bus, is travelling south and is coming to a changing room, hospital bed, prison, toilet cubicle and domestic violence refuge near you.