Best Of

Why PB feels the need to publish TERF bilge is byeond me.

Maybe you should get better educated and listen to Cyclefree then?

I assure you that marrying a trans woman was a better education - and a great deal more fun - than you will ever experience, my middle-of-nowhere-dwelling, suburbanite, car-obsessed, bootlicking chum. Don't you have a retail park to be driving to, or an illegal war to be justifying?

I would just say @Cyclefree is well respected and entitiled to publish on a subject she has views on, no matter how controversial

You make a fair and interesting response, and so much better than trying to close down debate

And I am sure we wish @Cyclefree all the best in her serious health battle

It's just an extraordinary yawn, isn't it? "The law says this, therefore we must obey it..."

For most of British history, homosexuality was illegal but slavery was legal - what is *the law* is not the same as what is right or in keeping with societal norms. And an argument that fails to engage with that - repeatedly - is just the boring Sunday afternoon repeat we've heard over and over on this site over and over. For heaven's sake, there are other TERF adjacent sites to publish such (let's say the line) vapid bilge on.

If someone wants to make the case for stripping a bunch of people's rights from them which they have held since the 2004 GRA then make the case for it, morally. Don't just say "it's the law". That is not the locus of political debate.

The law needs to be obeyed but the law can also be an ass, as the Supreme Court came close to conceding when it said, to the effect, our job is to interpret the law - if you don't like it, change the law.

The government clearly has no intention of changing the law - a hornet's nest - but can't provide sensible guidance without changing the law, precisely because it is an ass

On Government definition of islamophobia, I don't see a problem given it has the same for anti-Semitism. But maybe we don't need either?

It seems that antisemitism and islamophobia have a sort of seesaw dynamic. Whenever one of them is in the spotlight the people who are particularly concerned about the other one become irritated and upset.

I would hope we agree anti-Semitism and islamophobia are both bad and need challenging. I'm curious whether official definitions are useful in reducing hate, but if they are, why would you have one, not the other?

Curiously relevant to the header a friend is both trans and Jewish, so they get double doses of discrimination.

In large parts of the UK hidden but thriving are ties between moderate synagogues and mosques supporting each other, talking and understanding.

It gets hidden, it's not news, as it's not what news wants to report. The media, mostly right leaning wants to demonise collaborative ideas like this.

Likewise in the West Midlands in particular where I originate from the Sikhs are wonderfully active especially in charity and care sectors.

Old tensions between the afro Caribbean and Muslim groups have eased too.

It is the white right that are the main aggressors now.

Hasn't the original Afro-Caribbean demographic largely integrated into wider British society while not being renewed for at least two generations.

With increasing numbers of Black people in this country being largely of African origin, with a significant number of Muslims among them.

I have nothing to add to the debate. Except to say that anybody who refers to "men in dresses" should be roundly ignored.

It's a complex debate, but utilising that phrase in it is a pretty good indicator someone is not entering into that debate in a reasonable manner by oversimplifying it.

Fair if people object to the phrase men in dresses. I’d suggest looking upthread to where the insults began - Cyclefree called a terf.
My substantive point remains.What rights have trans men or women lost?

TERF is an abbreviation of trans exclusionary radical feminist. Are you suggesting that the terms "trans exclusionary" don't apply to Cyclcefree's (second wave, i.e. radical feminism). Huge if true.

TERF isn't an insult, it's a descriptor. That you ascribe shame to the word says a great deal about the beliefs commonly associated with it.

A descriptor can be an insult too.

And again no answer to the question. Huge.

To answer your question, according to the latest high court ruling (GLP v EHRC) my partner (deceased) would no longer be allowed to use the female toilets at work, despite being in possession of a cracking pair of double D's and a fabulous C-word (do dm me if you'd like to see a photo of it, though if you really want to see one, just look in the mirror).

She would be forced to out herself as trans to all her co-workers by using gender neutral toilets, dismissed as "office gossip" by the judge in said case, potentially placing her life at risk (I have witnessed violence against trans women). Those are the rights she has lost. Rights she was guaranteed as a woman with a GRC under the GRA (2004) but have been taken away on a technicality.

Your partner never had those rights. The GRA never gave those rights. There is - and never has been - any right, either under domestic law or under the ECHR, to access the loos or changing rooms of the opposite sex. That your partner was misled into believing this is the fault of those who deliberately lied - and continue to lie - about what the law says.

I have some sympathy with those who have undergone full surgical transition (though the vast majority do not and, as the EctHR has made clear - some 17 years go - such surgery cannot be a requirement of recognition or legal rights) and who do not wish to use the places reserved for their sex. But the solution is - and always has been - to make unisex spaces available. Not to deny women their safety, dignity and privacy.

Whatever you choose to believe about your partner - and I fully appreciate your love and concern - the fact is that sex cannot be changed. The strength of your belief, however sincere, does not change reality. And the other reality is that women can tell at a glance who is a a man, even one who has done whatever he can to make himself look like a woman. Why? Because our lives depend on this.

Women's rights to safety, dignity and privacy are not conditional on whether men agree to this. Our rights are not what is left over after men get what they want. We do not have to justify why we say "No" to a man or men in general.

If transidentified men want safe loos, changing rooms, rape shelters, refuges etc then they can do what women did, create them for themselves instead of demanding we give up ours. Or men can learn to be - ah yes - inclusive and kind, so that people like @kyf_100's partner are not put at risk.

Oh - and TERF is another of those words used to insult women to try and get them to shut up. "Witch", "hag", "bitch", "slut", "aggressive" etc etc. It's a very very old story and a very tiresome one. And not one any woman with any sense or self-respect pays the slightest attention to.

Just so depressing...


Robin Brooks
@robin_j_brooks
·
5h
We already know the winner in the war with Iran and that's Russia. The closure of the Straits of Hormuz has swung Russian crude from pariah to prized commodity. Urals oil price is the highest since right after the Ukraine invasion. Putin is loving this...

https://x.com/robin_j_brooks/status/2030619408486334479

Exactly so. It increasingly looks that if you could design an act that would maximise the help for Russia, short of directly supplying them with money and weapons, it would be this war on Iran.

The scale of the catastrophe it represents for Ukraine is immense.

Already we hear the call for financial support to be provided by European governments in a futile attempt to defy the tide of inflation, and this will further reduce the support Ukraine can expect to receive.

There is no reason for Starmer to offer any more support to Trump in Iran than Trump has offered Starmer and others in Ukraine.