The Gender Debate

[Trogdor]

1 minute ago, carpetmonster said:

No, more because it invalidates them and others them. I have an F2M friend whose country won’t let him change his documents until he’s had a phalloplasty (privately and at huge cost) and he hates having to use the gender neutral facilities. 

Sounds horrible for your friend.

I think you misunderstood my proposal. Only have gender neutral facilities. Not male, female, gender neutral, just have gender neutral toilets (no urinals at all!). It makes it a moot point. Modifications will need made but that's what I would do tbh. Rather than introduce a fourth toilet. 

[f_c_dundee]

6 minutes ago, carpetmonster said:

No, more because it invalidates them and others them. I have an F2M friend whose country won’t let him change his documents until he’s had a phalloplasty (privately and at huge cost) and he hates having to use the gender neutral facilities. 

But what about the men in there, do they not get the choice?

 

It's ok to not want to feel othered or invalidated, but it's also ok for others to have their own feelings about it.

[f_c_dundee]

2 minutes ago, Trogdor said:

Sounds horrible for your friend.

I think you misunderstood my proposal. Only have gender neutral facilities. Not male, female, gender neutral, just have gender neutral toilets (no urinals at all!). It makes it a moot point. Modifications will need made but that's what I would do tbh. Rather than introduce a fourth toilet. 

Some women (I'd wager a majority) wouldn't be happy with 100% unisex facilities though. They want to keep the option of single sex provision. 

[carpetmonster]

14 minutes ago, f_c_dundee said:

Feel free to tell me what bit is BS. 

The reason it's become so polarised is the way it was to be done without debate. So the "GC mob" have had to get louder as well.

Aight. 

 

Men with certain self directed fetishes do exist. And women quite rightly don't want to share *anywhere* with them. I can never unsee some if the things I've scrolled past which were filmed in women's toilets.  That aspect of it can't be ignored, as no one should have to accept being used in public for someone else's gratification.

 

I feel like you really want to say 'autogynephilia' here but know that doing so would instantly mark you out as Graham Linehan and are skirting round it with personal anecdote that nobody can either prove or disprove. 

Yes it's always happened that people would go in, but it's been made massively easier and reduced both the social stigma for men entering women's facilities and the confidence of women to complain about their presence. It can't just be hand waved away.

If people are unhappy with men's spaces/sports/hospital wards/refuges, they can't just have women's. They can campaign for their own things, like women already had to. 

Nobody is putting up the capital for services for such a tiny minority of the populace that they'll spend most of the time completely inactive. In the event they did, said facilities would immediately become the targets of violence by lunatics - see Boston Children's Hospital. 

No one at all is against supporting dysphoric people having a hard time, but it canny just be a case of 'budge up women' and/or make everything unisex.   (PS no debate or discussion allowed about this.)

Don't even get me started on my main worry - the harm that's been done to children and young people, who have had some really poor care and irreversible medical treatment, with no evidence to back it up as being helpful. 

The regret rate for gender affirming care runs about 2% - about a tenth of that of knee replacement surgery. I'm on the way out the door but I have posted links to the stats here earlier - page 14 or 15 IIRC. 

No proper discussion was wanted and preferably no questions to be asked about the proposed changes to law. The SG paid interest groups massive amounts of money to lobby them to change this and tried to ignore and dismiss any dissenters. So here we are, with this mess and no one is happy. 

Now we've moved from a gishgallop of fearmongering and fantasy to just tin-foil hat stuff. The GC lobby were invited to voice their concerns, and the SG decided none of them held much water. Over the course of 6 years. 

[carpetmonster]

4 minutes ago, f_c_dundee said:

But what about the men in there, do they not get the choice?

 

It's ok to not want to feel othered or invalidated, but it's also ok for others to have their own feelings about it.

He likely can't use the men's; it's a strict enough regime that he'd likely get in bother. He's volunteered and been turned down for his country's (compulsory) military service for men even tho he absolutely 'passes' IMO.  

[f_c_dundee]

Oh yes the widely shared comments from the many people who participated in the consultation, but weren't released with the results as promised.

 

Women's groups were not invited to participate in the committee stage of the bill until Sturgeon was shamed into offering a token one hour meeting.

 

There's no gish gallop here, it's not that easy to dismiss it all. 

 

You may not like it, but there are valid concerns. 

 

What's more likely - that a bunch of women, predominantly left leaning and often gender non conforming and/or lesbians themselves just suddenly morphed into right wing bigots? Or maybe that their concerns have merit and should be listened to?

 

[parsforlife]

9 minutes ago, f_c_dundee said:

Some women (I'd wager a majority) wouldn't be happy with 100% unisex facilities though. They want to keep the option of single sex provision. 

ICYMI women(and men) have been happily using unisex facilities for generations.    I haven't yet to meet anyone who refuses to use such facilities.   

[carpetmonster]

1 minute ago, f_c_dundee said:

Oh yes the widely shared comments from the many people who participated in the consultation, but weren't released with the results as promised.

 

Women's groups were not invited to participate in the committee stage of the bill until Sturgeon was shamed into offering a token one hour meeting.

 

There's no gish gallop here, it's not that easy to dismiss it all. 

 

You may not like it, but there are valid concerns. 

 

What's more likely - that a bunch of women, predominantly left leaning and often gender non conforming and/or lesbians themselves just suddenly morphed into right wing bigots? Or maybe that their concerns have merit and should be listened to?

 

It’s more likely a spillover from radfem - see Julie Bindel - combined with a realization that you can claim to be left wing but you just don’t like *these* folks in the UK - which is specific to the UK - your average transphobe stateside hates brown folks and Jews and homosexuals as well. Not only that, it’s extremely lucrative. Allison Bailey’s just announced she’s retiring at 53 and f**k knows where Marion Millar’s wheeshted all her crowdfunded moolah off to. 

[vikingTON]

20 minutes ago, Trogdor said:

 Predatory men are the real issue here. 

^^^ Nicola Sturgeon found

Predatory individuals are the problem that requires protection from. Neither birth sex nor identified gender is essential to that type of socially harmful behaviour taking place.  

The problem however is that when you try to limit the risk of harm to more vulnerable categories (women - identified by birth sex), that creates a risk of predatory behaviour by those who, according to the self-ID doctrine, cannot possibly be viewed as anything other than a woman. The SG wanted to have it both ways in defining this but that defence fell apart very quickly. 

1 minute ago, carpetmonster said:

The GC lobby were invited to voice their concerns, and the SG decided none of them held much water. Over the course of 6 years. 

While I disagree with a lot of the post you're responding to as well - the deliberation of the SG and all political parties was clearly not sufficient. Their policy choice fell apart in real world conditions about 0.3 seconds after the Act being passed and all sorts of mental gymnastics being performed in the aftermath. There might have been a lot of time spent in consultation but the quality of it was clearly insufficient. 

It shouldn't be a sign of weakness for politicians and other leaders to recognise that this is a very complex issue, in which trade offs of rights have to be recognised and clearly established. Just sticking on a new law on top of old laws creates contradictions that cannot be accepted; the Equality Act has to be clarified alongside gender recognition reform to provide a better outcome. 

[f_c_dundee]

I'm not stateside, it's batshit over there. This is about Scotland, so keep that wee red herring to yourself.

 

It's not about disliking any individual or even group of people. It's about asking for consideration to be taken to the effects of changing laws.

 

The UK gender recognition law was largely meant to allow a tiny minority of people to marry, without them having to go to the trouble of legislation for same sex marriage.

It was anticipated to be used by maybe 5000 people in the first 15 or 20 years I believe. Which turned out to be fairly accurate.

 

But opening this provision out with self ID is completely different.

[f_c_dundee]

8 minutes ago, carpetmonster said:

It’s more likely a spillover from radfem - see Julie Bindel - combined with a realization that you can claim to be left wing but you just don’t like *these* folks in the UK - which is specific to the UK - your average transphobe stateside hates brown folks and Jews and homosexuals as well. Not only that, it’s extremely lucrative. Allison Bailey’s just announced she’s retiring at 53 and f**k knows where Marion Millar’s wheeshted all her crowdfunded moolah off to. 

In addition from what I can gather, protection against discrimination is almost non existent in the US for many people including trans people.

 

That's not the case in the UK, where they have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment by doing nothing other than intending to "change gender".

The individuals you mentioned did nothing much more than be troublesome women standing up and saying no... We're no really meant to do that eh.

 

[carpetmonster]

4 minutes ago, f_c_dundee said:

In addition from what I can gather, protection against discrimination is almost non existent in the US for many people including trans people.

 

That's not the case in the UK, where they have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment by doing nothing other than intending to "change gender".

The individuals you mentioned did nothing much more than be troublesome women standing up and saying no... We're no really meant to do that eh.

 

Well no, Bindel was writing pieces 20 years ago telling gay men they needed to ‘out pedophiles in their community’ and is fairly obviously an absolute cuntress. Keep being grifted if that kind of thing does it for you tho. 

[f_c_dundee]

11 minutes ago, virginton said:

^^^ Nicola Sturgeon found

Predatory individuals are the problem that requires protection from. Neither birth sex nor identified gender is essential to that type of socially harmful behaviour taking place.  

The problem however is that when you try to limit the risk of harm to more vulnerable categories (women - identified by birth sex), that creates a risk of predatory behaviour by those who, according to the self-ID doctrine, cannot possibly be viewed as anything other than a woman. The SG wanted to have it both ways in defining this but that defence fell apart very quickly. 

Yeah it is men though isn't it.

 

Who are overwhelmingly more likely to be both the perpetrators and victims of violent crime.

 

And men who commit >98% of sexual offences.

 

These might be carried out by a minority of men, but we segregate by sex to protect women from that minority, not because we think all men are likely to cause harm.

 

There's no point pretending it's just as likely to be a women, cos it's patent nonsense.

[f_c_dundee]

1 minute ago, carpetmonster said:

Well no, Bindel was writing pieces 20 years ago telling gay men they needed to ‘out pedophiles in their community’ and is fairly obviously an absolute cuntress. Keep being grifted if that kind of thing does it for you tho. 

What a lovely turn of phrase you have.

 

I think possibly she suggested not being associated with PIE types and cringy "age doesn't matter" mofos like Tatchell. Maybe blame them for latching on to the gay rights movement and encouraging shady associations?

 

I've spoken to loads of people in the "GC movement" and not one has been a homophobe, funny that.  It's not a correct assumption that it's all uninformed bigots. 

[Thorongil]

7 minutes ago, f_c_dundee said:

Yeah it is men though isn't it.

 

Who are overwhelmingly more likely to be both the perpetrators and victims of violent crime.

 

And men who commit >98% of sexual offences.

 

These might be carried out by a minority of men, but we segregate by sex to protect women from that minority, not because we think all men are likely to cause harm.

 

There's no point pretending it's just as likely to be a women, cos it's patent nonsense.

Men are statistically more likely to commit violent crime and more likely to be the victims of violent crime. 

This fact tends to lead to the demonisation of men as a sex class. This shouldn’t be the case though as sex is a protected characteristic and pejorative judgements and discrimination on that basis fall foul of the equality act. 

if someone used crime statistics to demonise a group of people based on their race, religion or anything else they would justifiably face criticism. 

Statistical data which didn’t reflect well on the “trans community” is verboten. Why are “men” fair game for demonisation and nobody else?

[carpetmonster]

10 minutes ago, f_c_dundee said:

What a lovely turn of phrase you have.

 

I think possibly she suggested not being associated with PIE types and cringy "age doesn't matter" mofos like Tatchell. Maybe blame them for latching on to the gay rights movement and encouraging shady associations?

 

I've spoken to loads of people in the "GC movement" and not one has been a homophobe, funny that.  It's not a correct assumption that it's all uninformed bigots. 

I didn’t say it was all uninformed bigots at all. I correctly pointed out it can be very lucrative for crowdfunded grifting. 

[f_c_dundee]

2 minutes ago, Thorongil said:

Men are statistically more likely to commit violent crime and more likely to be the victims of violent crime. 

This fact tends to lead to the demonisation of men as a sex class. This shouldn’t be the case though as sex is a protected characteristic and pejorative judgements and discrimination on that basis fall foul of the equality act. 

if someone used crime statistics to demonise a group of people based on their race, religion or anything else they would justifiably face criticism. 

Statistical data which didn’t reflect well on the “trans community” is verboten. Why are “men” fair game for demonisation and nobody else?

It's absolutely not demonising men or pejorative to simply state the facts, which are partly behind the reasons for sex segregated facilities (it's not just toilets, hospital wards etc). I literally said what you just said - men are likely to be the victims of violent crime as well. But not so much the sexual offences, which despite the publicity for any unusual case are almost all carried out by men.

 

I fail to see why we should pretend this isn't the case.

Another reason for the sex segregation being simple privacy and dignity for women.

If you don't happen to believe that people can change sex, you're not going to want to be in a vulnerable state around the opposite sex. 

[f_c_dundee]

1 minute ago, carpetmonster said:

I didn’t say it was all uninformed bigots at all. I correctly pointed out it can be very lucrative for crowdfunded grifting. 

Neatly sidestepping answering anything I said

[carpetmonster]

2 minutes ago, f_c_dundee said:

Neatly sidestepping answering anything I said

You didn’t ‘say’ anything. You criticised me using a fairly common word on this forum, theorized that Binjuice may have had a go at Peter Tatchell, and then I answered the only actual point you claimed. 

[Iain]

If we're excluding trans women from female spaces are we allowing trans men who present as male in? If not how does that not undermine the entire argument? If we're worried that legislative changes will allow predatory men to pose as trans women are we not overlooking the fact they can already pose as trans men far more easily?