The BBC's Health Correspondent seems to think Omicron will find it harder to spread in the UK because "there is plenty of Delta circulating". In South Africa it " did not have to work hard to compete" because infection levels were low when it took hold.
God help us if this is the level of science journalism at the BBC now.
It's a view I have heard elsewhere. Why is it wrong?
Well, how is the fact that 1% or so of the population already has Delta supposed to inhibit the spread of Omicron?
Even if you could be infected by only one at a time (which would be news to me), it would reduce it by only 1%.
Of course, previous infections will have produced immunity that could hinder the spread of Omicron, but as the same report pointed out, South Africa is believed to have had a higher percentage of infections than the UK.
I would have thought considerably more than 1% of the British population will have Delta. My sister-in-law, vaccinated got a positive LFT and self isolated, but never got a PCR; ditto my best friend and his girlfriend.
My gut is that the PCR numbers undercount the number of mildly symptomatic vaccinated cases out there.
I said 1% or so. The ONS estimate is between 1% and 2%. Either way, even if you couldn't have both at once, the effect on Omicron would obviously be minimal.
I've just found out that Wiltshire is in the West Country. News to me. Always thought that was just Devon and Cornwall, or - at a stretch - Somerset and Dorset. Isn't Wiltshire in the Midlands?
Wiltshire accents can still be quite Dorset-ty.
It's certainly not the Midlands!
The Midlands remarks was a gratuitous jibe. But honestly surprised Wiltshire is 'West Country'
I think D & C are west country, wilts is the south west.
Wilts is deffo Wessex though - Wilton has been both the capital of Wessex and the county town of Wiltshire.
The BBC's Health Correspondent seems to think Omicron will find it harder to spread in the UK because "there is plenty of Delta circulating". In South Africa it " did not have to work hard to compete" because infection levels were low when it took hold.
God help us if this is the level of science journalism at the BBC now.
It's a view I have heard elsewhere. Why is it wrong?
Well, how is the fact that 1% or so of the population already has Delta supposed to inhibit the spread of Omicron?
Even if you could be infected by only one at a time (which would be news to me), it would reduce it by only 1%.
Of course, previous infections will have produced immunity that could hinder the spread of Omicron, but as the same report pointed out, South Africa is believed to have had a higher percentage of infections than the UK.
I would have thought considerably more than 1% of the British population will have Delta. My sister-in-law, vaccinated got a positive LFT and self isolated, but never got a PCR; ditto my best friend and his girlfriend.
My gut is that the PCR numbers undercount the number of mildly symptomatic vaccinated cases out there.
If 1 million got Delta per month from June to November, then about 10% of the population have had it, and about 1% would have active or very recent infections. Back of a fag packet, caveats apply.
I've just found out that Wiltshire is in the West Country. News to me. Always thought that was just Devon and Cornwall, or - at a stretch - Somerset and Dorset. Isn't Wiltshire in the Midlands?
Wiltshire accents can still be quite Dorset-ty.
It's certainly not the Midlands!
The Midlands remarks was a gratuitous jibe. But honestly surprised Wiltshire is 'West Country'
I think D & C are west country, wilts is the south west.
Also - @AndyJS, many thanks for that really great piece from Unherd on Zemmour. It should be compulsory reading for anyone commenting on the French election. (And was also extremely well written.)
Yes, it's very good. I think Macron would be quite happy to face Zemmour in the run-off.
Zemmour strikes me as French version of a sort of intellectual cross between Oswald Mosley, Enoch Powell and Tommy Robinson. Nothing like Trump at all.
Social distancing in pubs/restaurants +44 2m rule +28 Close clubs +21 Rule of 6 indoors +8 No large events +1 Rule of 6 outdoors -23 No household mixing indoors -35 Full lockdown -36 Close pubs/restaurants -45 https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1466431813811949586?s=20
Conservative politicians to attend no events this Xmas to make up for last year’s transgressions = +99
The BBC's Health Correspondent seems to think Omicron will find it harder to spread in the UK because "there is plenty of Delta circulating". In South Africa it " did not have to work hard to compete" because infection levels were low when it took hold.
God help us if this is the level of science journalism at the BBC now.
It's a view I have heard elsewhere. Why is it wrong?
Well, how is the fact that 1% or so of the population already has Delta supposed to inhibit the spread of Omicron?
Even if you could be infected by only one at a time (which would be news to me), it would reduce it by only 1%.
Of course, previous infections will have produced immunity that could hinder the spread of Omicron, but as the same report pointed out, South Africa is believed to have had a higher percentage of infections than the UK.
A covid wave lasts a couple of months, does it not? so if on any given day 1% of the population "has covid" (and I think we have peaked at more like 1.5%) there's also a lot of very recently recovered people around, humming with immune systems and antibodies. I still don't see the point as obviously stupid.
I just told you he was talking about current cases, not previous cases!
On the subject of Omicron, Minnesota has discovered a case that (a) had no international travel, and (b) where the sample was collected *before* the one analysed in South Africa.
So, I think it's fair to say Omicron is everywhere.
Which is interesting, because it suggests it is not easily outcompeting Delta.
It also raises a ? about how effective all this tracing activity is, if this variant only got identified by SA months after it was already around the world.
Johnson so key to Brexit he decided at the last minute which side he would back
As did much of the country CHB.
Cameron's failed renegotiations were the final straw for many people, myself included, to show that the EU couldn't be reformed for the better.
What would he have had to have delivered to have made you change your mind?
David Cameron gave a good vision of how reform should have taken place in his Bloomberg speech.
Cameron's first point in the Bloomberg speech was about the need to protect non-Eurozone members in the future with the way the EU was evolving. The Eurozone memberstates had a majority under QMV rules so going forwards the Eurozone if they agreed on a reform that suited them could pass a law without any input from non-Eurozone members.
In particular there was talk about "double majority" QMV requiring a QMV majority of non-Euro and Euromember states in order for a proposed law to affect non-Euro members. That still wouldn't have been a return to unanimity as required in the past, but would have been a safeguard.
But nothing happened. There was no fundamental or serious reform to the EU that happened. All of Cameron's proposals in Bloomberg (and there were more than that first one) were roundly rejected in the negotiations.
Cameron set out to reform the EU and instead proved it couldn't be reformed.
Don't disagree - the EU was always unlikely to change imo and he did exempt the UK from those changes but I hear you.
He didn't exempt the UK from those changes. There was no change to the voting system.
Mealy-mouthed words about being exempt from "further union" doesn't mean anything unless the voting system is amended to reflect that reality. It wasn't, was it?
The UK held all the cards, Philip. Don't like ABC measure? We hereby deem it closer union and we reject it.
That's the shame imo about Brexit. We genuinely held all the cards. And we threw it away.
At the time, I said that we should have implemented a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and made it clear that all such future treaties were subject to referenda. It's not as if there aren't a number of countries in the EU, for which that was so.
IIRC Camo made a Cast Iron Guarantee on the matter didn't he?
Too late by that point.
As a Remain voter, it makes me giggle to hear people suggesting that the way to prevent BREXIT was to prevent the voters getting... too close? to certain matters
For generations, the pitch in the western world has been Democracy Rules OK. Telling the voters, now, that they "have no choice" is not an answer. Telling them they have no choice because the rule book says - just invites the rule book to be torn up.
As J A Froude said in "Caesar, A sketch" - "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions". The Roman Republic died because the oligarchy may or may not have been right - the constitution, written and unwritten said they had the power. The people then backed the breaking of the constitution.
I don't have a clue what point you're trying to make.
But I can tell you that the EU is not democratic at all. The voters have no say in the matter of the executive.
You mean, like the UK Cabinet?
The Cabinet is elected based upon the Parliament we elect.
Not the case with the EU.
The Member States vote for parties who want to be in the EU. So perfectly democratic. Those Member States who don't want to be in the EU vote for parties who want to leave. Also perfectly democratic.
It is exactly the same. Can you change the laws that were decided by the cabinet and voted for in parliament on mask wearing? I don't believe you can. But it is still a democratic process.
Yes I can. I can vote for a party that will drop mask requirements at the Parliamentary elections.
Since the European Parliament doesn't have a European demos and doesn't form the European government anyway the same is not true in Europe.
Exactly. You can vote for a party that will drop the mask requirements but today you can't change it. Both vital democratic elements of our society. If enough people agree with you then the party gets in and masks are dropped.
And likewise if you wanted to stay in or leave the EU you can (and did) vote for it but until that time you don't have a direct say in every EU ruling or policy.
That's not good enough in a democracy Topping.
That's like saying you can leave the UK but unless you do you have no say in UK laws. No meaningful UK elections.
If the EU is to be making laws then it should be a genuine democracy. It isn't as it stands.
We absolutely had an influence over the EU laws. I can't be bothered to google this for a five year old discussion but it was shown that the UK more often than not got its way in EU law formation.
Also - @AndyJS, many thanks for that really great piece from Unherd on Zemmour. It should be compulsory reading for anyone commenting on the French election. (And was also extremely well written.)
ah I meant/wanted to read that - can you/he repost?
But changing rooms are not policed for legal gender. So how does it become harder to eject such a person if the process for changing legal gender were to be made easier?
I can't see how it does. Can't see the logical link. This is the point I'm making.
I thought because if they were legally a woman they couldn’t be chucked out, whereas if they were a man they would be, if someone complained
Only if the space is policed for legal gender which most changing rooms aren't.
Oh don't be a dimwit. If a man comes in now he is - or can be - challenged. If he can say "I'm a woman" he won't be. And since sexual predators don't come with identifying marks on their forehead, women will have to take the risk that, rather than being a woman, he is an autogynephiliac or a sexual predator or a voyeur or a violent man or just a creep.
And why the fuck should we have to take that risk?
But - again - this is regardless of the gender change process. The control is in how such places are managed and regulated. By gender or by sex. How evidenced. How policed.
Such a person could say they're a woman now. You don't have to carry and show gender id to (eg) access a changing room. If you want to go that route of gender id then, yes, I can see that an easier gender change process based on self-id becomes a logical source of concern.
That's quite a change to bring in to combat the risk you're talking about - that heterosexual male predators will legally become female in order to target women in female spaces.
But if that's the argument it should be made. As it is, the debate is a mess.
The BBC's Health Correspondent seems to think Omicron will find it harder to spread in the UK because "there is plenty of Delta circulating". In South Africa it " did not have to work hard to compete" because infection levels were low when it took hold.
God help us if this is the level of science journalism at the BBC now.
It's a view I have heard elsewhere. Why is it wrong?
Well, how is the fact that 1% or so of the population already has Delta supposed to inhibit the spread of Omicron?
Even if you could be infected by only one at a time (which would be news to me), it would reduce it by only 1%.
Of course, previous infections will have produced immunity that could hinder the spread of Omicron, but as the same report pointed out, South Africa is believed to have had a higher percentage of infections than the UK.
A covid wave lasts a couple of months, does it not? so if on any given day 1% of the population "has covid" (and I think we have peaked at more like 1.5%) there's also a lot of very recently recovered people around, humming with immune systems and antibodies. I still don't see the point as obviously stupid.
I just told you he was talking about current cases, not previous cases!
But given how these things work, lots of current cases necessarily means, also lots of very recent previous cases. Can't have 1 and not the other.This is not a thought experiment where the bad covid fairy strikes a naive population all at once overnight like Jehovah.
Nobody honestly believes that Johnson is going to down in history as a great PM, do they
Boris himself .... and possibly HYUFD.
Personally, I think 'as a great PM' is a bit of a stretch. But I think that, as a rule, history judges those panned at the time more kindly, and those lauded at the time, less kindly.
Tell that to James Buchanan. Who is arguably a better comparator for Johnson than the earlier absurd suggestion of Lincoln.
If anyone is James Buchanan then surely it is Cameron?
Boris won the UKs Brexit Civil War so that makes him Lincoln.
Surely he is hoping it has a different ending to Lincoln...
Churchill's more Mr J's hero. But look how he ended up, too.
Also - @AndyJS, many thanks for that really great piece from Unherd on Zemmour. It should be compulsory reading for anyone commenting on the French election. (And was also extremely well written.)
Yes, it's very good. I think Macron would be quite happy to face Zemmour in the run-off.
Zemmour strikes me as French version of a sort of intellectual cross between Oswald Mosley, Enoch Powell and Tommy Robinson. Nothing like Trump at all.
The piece suggests he hates Anglo Saxons, thinks that D Day landings were a mistake, and that France would have thrown the yoke of the Nazis off anyway. (And maybe Vichy wasn't so bad.)
Also - @AndyJS, many thanks for that really great piece from Unherd on Zemmour. It should be compulsory reading for anyone commenting on the French election. (And was also extremely well written.)
Yes, it's very good. I think Macron would be quite happy to face Zemmour in the run-off.
Zemmour strikes me as French version of a sort of intellectual cross between Oswald Mosley, Enoch Powell and Tommy Robinson. Nothing like Trump at all.
The piece suggests he hates Anglo Saxons, thinks that D Day landings were a mistake, and that France would have thrown the yoke of the Nazis off anyway. (And maybe Vichy wasn't so bad.)
Yes, though he hates Muslims (in France) even more than he hates Anglo Saxons.
TfL is likely to go bust soon. Is there a sanction against the Mayor allowing this to happen?
Khan has been poor, but I can't quite work out why anyone would want to see him rolled over by the unions.
They need to either raise fares or cut staffing costs. The automated Tube can’t come too late.
I use TFL every day and am happy for a 50% fare increase. Users should pay!
Isn't the Tube already one of the most expensive, if not the most expensive, urban mass transit systems in the world for passengers?
Bring back Livingstone's Fares Fair policy, I say!
The options for a public transport network is to pay for it explicitly (through fares) or implicitly (via subsidies that would need to come from council tax or elsewhere).
Until recently TfL got money from central Government and fares - but the central Government money went a while back (except for Covid) so TfL and the mayor have an issue that they need to fix.
Johnson so key to Brexit he decided at the last minute which side he would back
As did much of the country CHB.
Cameron's failed renegotiations were the final straw for many people, myself included, to show that the EU couldn't be reformed for the better.
What would he have had to have delivered to have made you change your mind?
David Cameron gave a good vision of how reform should have taken place in his Bloomberg speech.
Cameron's first point in the Bloomberg speech was about the need to protect non-Eurozone members in the future with the way the EU was evolving. The Eurozone memberstates had a majority under QMV rules so going forwards the Eurozone if they agreed on a reform that suited them could pass a law without any input from non-Eurozone members.
In particular there was talk about "double majority" QMV requiring a QMV majority of non-Euro and Euromember states in order for a proposed law to affect non-Euro members. That still wouldn't have been a return to unanimity as required in the past, but would have been a safeguard.
But nothing happened. There was no fundamental or serious reform to the EU that happened. All of Cameron's proposals in Bloomberg (and there were more than that first one) were roundly rejected in the negotiations.
Cameron set out to reform the EU and instead proved it couldn't be reformed.
Don't disagree - the EU was always unlikely to change imo and he did exempt the UK from those changes but I hear you.
He didn't exempt the UK from those changes. There was no change to the voting system.
Mealy-mouthed words about being exempt from "further union" doesn't mean anything unless the voting system is amended to reflect that reality. It wasn't, was it?
The UK held all the cards, Philip. Don't like ABC measure? We hereby deem it closer union and we reject it.
That's the shame imo about Brexit. We genuinely held all the cards. And we threw it away.
At the time, I said that we should have implemented a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and made it clear that all such future treaties were subject to referenda. It's not as if there aren't a number of countries in the EU, for which that was so.
IIRC Camo made a Cast Iron Guarantee on the matter didn't he?
Too late by that point.
As a Remain voter, it makes me giggle to hear people suggesting that the way to prevent BREXIT was to prevent the voters getting... too close? to certain matters
For generations, the pitch in the western world has been Democracy Rules OK. Telling the voters, now, that they "have no choice" is not an answer. Telling them they have no choice because the rule book says - just invites the rule book to be torn up.
As J A Froude said in "Caesar, A sketch" - "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions". The Roman Republic died because the oligarchy may or may not have been right - the constitution, written and unwritten said they had the power. The people then backed the breaking of the constitution.
I don't have a clue what point you're trying to make.
But I can tell you that the EU is not democratic at all. The voters have no say in the matter of the executive.
You mean, like the UK Cabinet?
The Cabinet is elected based upon the Parliament we elect.
Not the case with the EU.
The Member States vote for parties who want to be in the EU. So perfectly democratic. Those Member States who don't want to be in the EU vote for parties who want to leave. Also perfectly democratic.
It is exactly the same. Can you change the laws that were decided by the cabinet and voted for in parliament on mask wearing? I don't believe you can. But it is still a democratic process.
Yes I can. I can vote for a party that will drop mask requirements at the Parliamentary elections.
Since the European Parliament doesn't have a European demos and doesn't form the European government anyway the same is not true in Europe.
Exactly. You can vote for a party that will drop the mask requirements but today you can't change it. Both vital democratic elements of our society. If enough people agree with you then the party gets in and masks are dropped.
And likewise if you wanted to stay in or leave the EU you can (and did) vote for it but until that time you don't have a direct say in every EU ruling or policy.
That's not good enough in a democracy Topping.
That's like saying you can leave the UK but unless you do you have no say in UK laws. No meaningful UK elections.
If the EU is to be making laws then it should be a genuine democracy. It isn't as it stands.
We absolutely had an influence over the EU laws. I can't be bothered to google this for a five year old discussion but it was shown that the UK more often than not got its way in EU law formation.
Which takes you back to what it means to live in a democracy.
It is not purely about the electoral mechanics.
It is that the existence of the electoral mechanics impels those who rule us to be responsive to public opinion during the intervening periods.
But changing rooms are not policed for legal gender. So how does it become harder to eject such a person if the process for changing legal gender were to be made easier?
I can't see how it does. Can't see the logical link. This is the point I'm making.
I thought because if they were legally a woman they couldn’t be chucked out, whereas if they were a man they would be, if someone complained
Only if the space is policed for legal gender which most changing rooms aren't.
Oh don't be a dimwit. If a man comes in now he is - or can be - challenged. If he can say "I'm a woman" he won't be. And since sexual predators don't come with identifying marks on their forehead, women will have to take the risk that, rather than being a woman, he is an autogynephiliac or a sexual predator or a voyeur or a violent man or just a creep.
And why the fuck should we have to take that risk?
But - again - this is regardless of the gender change process. The control is in how such places are managed and regulated. By gender or by sex. How evidenced. How policed.
Such a person could say they're a woman now. You don't have to carry and show gender id to (eg) access a changing room. If you want to go that route of gender id then, yes, I can see that an easier gender change process based on self-id becomes a logical source of concern.
That's quite a change to bring in to combat the risk you're talking about - that heterosexual male predators will legally become female in order to target women in female spaces.
But if that's the argument it should be made. As it is, the debate is a mess.
I'm not the one who wants any change to the current system under the GRA. It's those who want to make a change who need to think about the risks and come up with solutions. So far, their response is to deny even the possibility of any risks arising. So we're a long way from solutions. When they finally admit the risks then we can have a sensible debate about how to minimise them while being as fair as possible to all involved.
Anyway I need to go now. Thanks for the debate.
On Zemmour there is a good article on him by David Aaronovitch in today's Times.
Also - @AndyJS, many thanks for that really great piece from Unherd on Zemmour. It should be compulsory reading for anyone commenting on the French election. (And was also extremely well written.)
Yes, it's very good. I think Macron would be quite happy to face Zemmour in the run-off.
Zemmour strikes me as French version of a sort of intellectual cross between Oswald Mosley, Enoch Powell and Tommy Robinson. Nothing like Trump at all.
The piece suggests he hates Anglo Saxons, thinks that D Day landings were a mistake, and that France would have thrown the yoke of the Nazis off anyway. (And maybe Vichy wasn't so bad.)
He comes across as a member of the Marshall Petain Fan Club - so basically, yes.
Mr. Jessop, it's the scientific definition. Broad definitions obviously blur boundaries. Buggering about with language is one of the ways certain people (not you) are trying to 'win' arguments in this area by denouncing those with the temerity to disagree as various types of '-phobes' and '-ists'.
Hermaphrodites were referred to in classical mythology. That doesn't make them commonplace. I do agree that being in a tiny minority doesn't mean they should be ignored. Feel rather sad that the South African sprinter (Caster Semenya? [sp]) has had far rougher treatment than biological men who have identified as women.
Female sports needs to be a category for cisgender women only. Everyone else can go into mens ( Which could probably do with being renamed open ). That effectively bars trans women from sport, but is needed to preserve female sport integrity - and if Semenya is deemed to be a woman (Another argument in itself) she should be able to compete without lowering her testosterone.
I agree with this. Competing at a top level in sport is not a fundamental right, and it's an area where fairness counts.
Although I'd argue that top sports people are generally freaks of nature anyway, to a certain extent. A combination of genetic traits that allow them to succeed at a sport, where someone more 'average' would not, however hard they trained. Michael Phelps' large feet, hyper-extendible joints, long torso and short legs all make him perfect for swimming.
Agreed. But this is not the approach being taken by sports bodies. They are ignoring material reality in favour of feelings. The material reality is that males once they have gone through male puberty are and always will be naturally stronger than women, regardless of how they subsequently identify and even if they go through a full transition. They are allowed to have levels of testosterone in their body that would get a woman athlete banned for doping. How can this possibly be fair.
This material reality means that trans athletes (male to female) have an inherent advantage. It means that womens' sport is dead or largely meaningless because it will be male bodies winning the prizes.
And yet we have reached the stage that feelings are allowed to override material scientific reality. And it is largely the feelings of men which are deemed more important than the concerns, feelings or material reality of women.
Caster Semenya is as I understand it a woman who naturally has large amounts of testosterone in her body. This may be very unusual but is no reason for banning her. But her position is very different from those with male bodies claiming to be women. They should not compete in womens' sport where physical strength matters. A separate transgender category can be created or they can remain in male categories. Where strength does not matter the issue does not really arise and transwomen can compete in female categories.
Or we could I suppose allow women athletes to dope themselves up the eyeballs as women athletes behind the Iron Curtain did so that they can compete on equal terms with transwomen. That is the logic of the transwomen are women approach. The fact that this renders womens' sport meaningless and has huge health impacts for women doing this are unfortunate consequences but, hey, who cares about those.
It is long past the time that we need to say that reality matters and if this does not please those who think that you can simply pretend that it does not exist simply by affirming it, too bad.
I know this feels like a niche issue to some. But it isn't. First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter. Second, because this is stopping any real focus on what transpeople actually need - which is better and earlier medical help so that they can live their lives happily.
And finally because this is another current in the whole "I have my own alternative facts" approach to life and politics which has so demeaned public life and culture in countries like the US. It is a very Trumpian and narcissistic approach to the world, similar to the anti-vaccination movement and other ludicrous conspiracy theories - people thinking that what they say - however untethered to reality - is real, should be validated by others and allowed to inform policy, no matter how dangerous or absurd the consequences.
It's all really messy. However - and I might be wrong - isn't an added complexity with Semenya that performance doping often uses testosterone, and therefore she was falling foul of the drug testing regime as well - until she proved they were her natural levels? From memory, women like Semenya might be forced to take drugs to get her testosterone levels down. That's really wrong IMO.
I just don't see competing in sports as anything like a fundamental right; and it's a place where 'fairness' matters. Hence, with regret, I've formed my position (which in this case is the same as yours).
" First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter."
I disagree with this. Numbers should not matter wrt rights, and changes that discriminate against a minority also matter. That's true for sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
There's 2 key questions and imo they can be uncoupled. What should the process be to legally change gender? Which things in society (if any) should be default governed by sex not gender?
So, eg, you could support a streamlined process for gender change but at the same time think that (eg) pro sports and prisons should be default sex based. Or, the opposite, you could think the gender change process should remain highly controlled and medicalized but that once done birth sex is irrelevant and gender is the correct default criterion for almost everything.
This type of shade never sees the light of day. It's either 'Pure self-ID for gender and sex doesn't matter a jot' or it's 'transgenderism flies in the face of science and is a perverts' charter representing an existential threat to women and their rights'.
Perhaps both sides feel their extremist hyperbole is mainly a response to that of the other side's. The debate certainly seems more 'vibrant' here than elsewhere. Eg it will be interesting to see how things develop in Germany where (aiui) the new government is pledged to implement reforms very similar to those the May government were looking at in 2018.
Well, it sees the light of day from me. It's a pure numbers game: BOTH there are genuine transgender people who deserve support and protection AND there are chancers around who are happy to look for sex, unfair sporting success, etc under the guise of transgenderism.
This isn't even a new or interesting problem. look at scoutmasters: there's a lot of men who want to become scoutmasters for the most praiseworthy reasons imaginable, and a lot of men who want to exploit the kiddie fiddling possibilities of the situation. We support, encourage and train the first lot, and try to vigilantly exclude the second. We err on the side of overvigilance, or try to, and that inevitably means that injustices occur. That's life. The same principle requires that gender dysphoric formerly male prisoners can stay in male prisons and bloody well lump it. Not difficult.
Suggest you look at Girl Guides who are currently, after complaints by parents, doing an inquiry into how the Head Guide in Nottingham is a man with a BDSM fetish who also poses pictures of themselves cradling illegal guns. They have also had issues re retaliation against female whistleblowers who have raised concern about whether they are taking their safeguarding obligations seriously. They are also giving guidance on what contraceptives to give 13 year old girls on guide trips even though (a) 13 is way below the age of consent and (b) such trips should be female only so why would contraception be needed.
@JosiasJessop's 2 questions are a sensible start. My answer to the first is that an application for a GRC should be as now ie it should require an objective external medical test because of the legal implications of such a change not just for the person concerned but for others and society at large. Expecting an external medical diagnosis is no more onerous than expecting one before getting cancer treatment. The delays are an issue of resources not a reason for doing away with the checks.
As to the second, the answer should be risk based. I would have the default as sex but permit gender provided there was little or no risk to others of doing so. We do not yet have data on whether men who do have gender dysphoria still remain in any sense an actual or potential risk to women. Until we do safeguarding should take priority. Nor do we know how many men who claim to be trans are in fact suffering from autogynephilia (do not Google this at work). Again until we do, men with male bodies should be kept out of female spaces.
The trouble is that those proposing very significant change are not asking these sensible questions. They simply pooh-pooh the very idea that there might be a conflict or risks or detrimental effects on others. They have got their way for quite a long time, in part by their insistence on "no debate". But women are now appreciating what these changes could mean and are fighting back and demanding both a debate and that no changes be made until these and many other questions are asked and answered. That is not extremism. It is sensible.
They weren't my questions: I think they were @kinabalu 's.
As for GRC's: there's a big issue that people wanting to change gender need to live as their new gender for two years. If you are a man transitioning to a woman, then it means you need to dress as a woman.
IMV a man dressing as a woman going into a men's toilet is going to be in much more physical and mental danger (from comments, bullying in the latter case) than women are from them using women's toilets.
Basically: banning people undergoing the transitioning process from using the toilets of their desired gender would be a big barrier to their transitioning.
Perhaps there's a way around this, although I am far from an expert in these areas. Perhaps there should be a pre-GRC certificate; to say someone is undergoing a transitioning process. This can be obtained from a panel, in a similar manner to the Interim GRC that married people need to get before they get a GRC. Once you get this, you can use women's facilities: but it can be rescinded at any time.
Although there are probably massive holes in that idea, too. Not least it makes an already convoluted process harder.
As an aside, how do you police this anyway? How do you check that that person using that cubicle is, in fact, a woman?
Toilets are an odd thing to focus on imo. And, yes, the policing aspect is interesting to ponder.
One reason for the focus on toilets is because so many women and girls have endured some form of sexual assault in toilets. It was where I was first assaulted when I was about 13. This is not unusual.
Policing: you need to be free to challenge without being accused of phobias. And when someone walks in who is obviously a man and not even trying to pass themselves as a woman or who has an erection or who indecently exposes themselves or who otherwise behaves in an appropriate way then they need to be told to leave and the authorities should support that ejection not accuse women.
Male perverts accessing women's toilets and behaving indecently is a crime and most definitely should be treated seriously, regardless of whether the GRA is reformed or not.
But, again, what's the logical link between an easier legal gender change process and the prevalence of that?
The problem is that the male perverts, when caught in the women’s toilets, will say that they are trans women and that anyone questioning them is transphobic and committing offences under the Gender Recognition Act.
Legislation designed to protect a tiny minority, has given free rein to a larger minority, who are despised by women and seen as an invasion of their protected spaces.
What legislation are you talking about?
Legally changing gender doesn't make it easier for a man to access a female toilet. So what's the link between the legal gender change process and a man accessing a female toilet?
There isn't one unless toilets are policed for gender via a certificate. If they were, yes, a man could be motivated to change gender, get the cert, and show it to gain access.
But they aren't. Nor are they policed for physical genital sex.
Unless you're proposing these things - which you surely aren't - I don't see where you're going with the comment.
The problem isn’t trans women. The problem is men, some of whom are sex offenders, posing as trans women.
But this is still not addressing my point.
How does making the legal gender change process easier make it more likely that such men will access female spaces that aren't policed for legal gender?
I think the point (and I have some sympathy with this) is that your creepy but not quite criminal man who wants to hang out in the women's toilets can presently be moved on in short order, simply for being a man. Say he's loitering by the basins, leering at the women in the mirror. Nothing criminal, but he's not allowed to be there. If a women reports it to the staff, he'll be fetched out. If he, by claiming to indentify as 'she' has a legal right to stay in there then it becomes a lot more shades of grey. Can only reasonably be expelled for.... what? Taking too long in there? Looking in the mirror allegedly at women? Could be a threatening presence about which little could be done.
I don't think that this is about the man waving his penis around in the women's toilets, which would surely still result in expulsion, but about the more subtle stuff. One person could cause a lot of trouble and unease, without doing anything overtly wrong.
Are there many of these men? I don't know. Some though, I expect. And if you're a woman being harassed by one of them then you're not really going to care whether it's common or not. It's intimidating/unpleasant. but if you report it, you report - what? - someone looked at me a bit funny or is taking a long time?
On the other hand, the genuinely transitioning woman should, imho, be able to use that space. And I'm not really into defining what people have to wear to get into that space - only transgender women in dresses, ridiculous?
I'm not quite sure what the answer is, but I do think there would be some issues raised by the ability for people to self-ID and be legally treated as self-Id gender.
Self ID is still a legal process, not an instantaneous reversible decision, isn't it? Hence there should be some legal documentation, such as Drivers licence etc.
So you wish to hang round women's toilets. Currently it's hard to pass the huddles put in your way to allow you to legally do so.
With self-identification it's simply a matter of filling in a form and waiting a few weeks.
Now I can see a whole lot of reasons why self-identification is a better approach but, sadly, it opens things up for abuse, and a lot of women have valid (personal) reasons for wanting a 100% safe space and self-identification removes that
I am not advocating Self ID, but it is the case that a legal process is still required, just a de-medicalised one.
Trans activists want all sorts of medical interventions for themselves - and especially for children - but on the one thing that has an impact on the rights of others, all of a sudden they no longer want any sort of medical verification of what they claim is a medical condition, which if not satisfied will lead to all sorts of appalling things happening. Odd that.
I'm not a trans activist btw. I don't post on this anywhere else. My view is easier gender change process, default inclusion, exclusions for certain areas based on evidence and reason not prejudice and ignorance. Other than that, I'm total agnostic. Don't know or understand enough to be otherwise.
Also - @AndyJS, many thanks for that really great piece from Unherd on Zemmour. It should be compulsory reading for anyone commenting on the French election. (And was also extremely well written.)
Yes, it's very good. I think Macron would be quite happy to face Zemmour in the run-off.
Zemmour strikes me as French version of a sort of intellectual cross between Oswald Mosley, Enoch Powell and Tommy Robinson. Nothing like Trump at all.
The piece suggests he hates Anglo Saxons, thinks that D Day landings were a mistake, and that France would have thrown the yoke of the Nazis off anyway. (And maybe Vichy wasn't so bad.)
"When insulted by a passer-by who raised her digit to home, in Marseille last weekend, he returned the gesture and was heard to mumble “and very deep too”."
As cool as Lord Lovat who was executed in 1747 for his part in the '45:
"The first day , as he was brought to his trial , a woman looked into the coach , and said , “You ugly old dog, don't you think you will have that frightful head cut off?" He replied "You ugly old bitch, I believe I shall.""
Mr. Jessop, it's the scientific definition. Broad definitions obviously blur boundaries. Buggering about with language is one of the ways certain people (not you) are trying to 'win' arguments in this area by denouncing those with the temerity to disagree as various types of '-phobes' and '-ists'.
Hermaphrodites were referred to in classical mythology. That doesn't make them commonplace. I do agree that being in a tiny minority doesn't mean they should be ignored. Feel rather sad that the South African sprinter (Caster Semenya? [sp]) has had far rougher treatment than biological men who have identified as women.
Female sports needs to be a category for cisgender women only. Everyone else can go into mens ( Which could probably do with being renamed open ). That effectively bars trans women from sport, but is needed to preserve female sport integrity - and if Semenya is deemed to be a woman (Another argument in itself) she should be able to compete without lowering her testosterone.
I agree with this. Competing at a top level in sport is not a fundamental right, and it's an area where fairness counts.
Although I'd argue that top sports people are generally freaks of nature anyway, to a certain extent. A combination of genetic traits that allow them to succeed at a sport, where someone more 'average' would not, however hard they trained. Michael Phelps' large feet, hyper-extendible joints, long torso and short legs all make him perfect for swimming.
Agreed. But this is not the approach being taken by sports bodies. They are ignoring material reality in favour of feelings. The material reality is that males once they have gone through male puberty are and always will be naturally stronger than women, regardless of how they subsequently identify and even if they go through a full transition. They are allowed to have levels of testosterone in their body that would get a woman athlete banned for doping. How can this possibly be fair.
This material reality means that trans athletes (male to female) have an inherent advantage. It means that womens' sport is dead or largely meaningless because it will be male bodies winning the prizes.
And yet we have reached the stage that feelings are allowed to override material scientific reality. And it is largely the feelings of men which are deemed more important than the concerns, feelings or material reality of women.
Caster Semenya is as I understand it a woman who naturally has large amounts of testosterone in her body. This may be very unusual but is no reason for banning her. But her position is very different from those with male bodies claiming to be women. They should not compete in womens' sport where physical strength matters. A separate transgender category can be created or they can remain in male categories. Where strength does not matter the issue does not really arise and transwomen can compete in female categories.
Or we could I suppose allow women athletes to dope themselves up the eyeballs as women athletes behind the Iron Curtain did so that they can compete on equal terms with transwomen. That is the logic of the transwomen are women approach. The fact that this renders womens' sport meaningless and has huge health impacts for women doing this are unfortunate consequences but, hey, who cares about those.
It is long past the time that we need to say that reality matters and if this does not please those who think that you can simply pretend that it does not exist simply by affirming it, too bad.
I know this feels like a niche issue to some. But it isn't. First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter. Second, because this is stopping any real focus on what transpeople actually need - which is better and earlier medical help so that they can live their lives happily.
And finally because this is another current in the whole "I have my own alternative facts" approach to life and politics which has so demeaned public life and culture in countries like the US. It is a very Trumpian and narcissistic approach to the world, similar to the anti-vaccination movement and other ludicrous conspiracy theories - people thinking that what they say - however untethered to reality - is real, should be validated by others and allowed to inform policy, no matter how dangerous or absurd the consequences.
It's all really messy. However - and I might be wrong - isn't an added complexity with Semenya that performance doping often uses testosterone, and therefore she was falling foul of the drug testing regime as well - until she proved they were her natural levels? From memory, women like Semenya might be forced to take drugs to get her testosterone levels down. That's really wrong IMO.
I just don't see competing in sports as anything like a fundamental right; and it's a place where 'fairness' matters. Hence, with regret, I've formed my position (which in this case is the same as yours).
" First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter."
I disagree with this. Numbers should not matter wrt rights, and changes that discriminate against a minority also matter. That's true for sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
There's 2 key questions and imo they can be uncoupled. What should the process be to legally change gender? Which things in society (if any) should be default governed by sex not gender?
So, eg, you could support a streamlined process for gender change but at the same time think that (eg) pro sports and prisons should be default sex based. Or, the opposite, you could think the gender change process should remain highly controlled and medicalized but that once done birth sex is irrelevant and gender is the correct default criterion for almost everything.
This type of shade never sees the light of day. It's either 'Pure self-ID for gender and sex doesn't matter a jot' or it's 'transgenderism flies in the face of science and is a perverts' charter representing an existential threat to women and their rights'.
Perhaps both sides feel their extremist hyperbole is mainly a response to that of the other side's. The debate certainly seems more 'vibrant' here than elsewhere. Eg it will be interesting to see how things develop in Germany where (aiui) the new government is pledged to implement reforms very similar to those the May government were looking at in 2018.
Well, it sees the light of day from me. It's a pure numbers game: BOTH there are genuine transgender people who deserve support and protection AND there are chancers around who are happy to look for sex, unfair sporting success, etc under the guise of transgenderism.
This isn't even a new or interesting problem. look at scoutmasters: there's a lot of men who want to become scoutmasters for the most praiseworthy reasons imaginable, and a lot of men who want to exploit the kiddie fiddling possibilities of the situation. We support, encourage and train the first lot, and try to vigilantly exclude the second. We err on the side of overvigilance, or try to, and that inevitably means that injustices occur. That's life. The same principle requires that gender dysphoric formerly male prisoners can stay in male prisons and bloody well lump it. Not difficult.
Suggest you look at Girl Guides who are currently, after complaints by parents, doing an inquiry into how the Head Guide in Nottingham is a man with a BDSM fetish who also poses pictures of themselves cradling illegal guns. They have also had issues re retaliation against female whistleblowers who have raised concern about whether they are taking their safeguarding obligations seriously. They are also giving guidance on what contraceptives to give 13 year old girls on guide trips even though (a) 13 is way below the age of consent and (b) such trips should be female only so why would contraception be needed.
@JosiasJessop's 2 questions are a sensible start. My answer to the first is that an application for a GRC should be as now ie it should require an objective external medical test because of the legal implications of such a change not just for the person concerned but for others and society at large. Expecting an external medical diagnosis is no more onerous than expecting one before getting cancer treatment. The delays are an issue of resources not a reason for doing away with the checks.
As to the second, the answer should be risk based. I would have the default as sex but permit gender provided there was little or no risk to others of doing so. We do not yet have data on whether men who do have gender dysphoria still remain in any sense an actual or potential risk to women. Until we do safeguarding should take priority. Nor do we know how many men who claim to be trans are in fact suffering from autogynephilia (do not Google this at work). Again until we do, men with male bodies should be kept out of female spaces.
The trouble is that those proposing very significant change are not asking these sensible questions. They simply pooh-pooh the very idea that there might be a conflict or risks or detrimental effects on others. They have got their way for quite a long time, in part by their insistence on "no debate". But women are now appreciating what these changes could mean and are fighting back and demanding both a debate and that no changes be made until these and many other questions are asked and answered. That is not extremism. It is sensible.
They weren't my questions: I think they were @kinabalu 's.
As for GRC's: there's a big issue that people wanting to change gender need to live as their new gender for two years. If you are a man transitioning to a woman, then it means you need to dress as a woman.
IMV a man dressing as a woman going into a men's toilet is going to be in much more physical and mental danger (from comments, bullying in the latter case) than women are from them using women's toilets.
Basically: banning people undergoing the transitioning process from using the toilets of their desired gender would be a big barrier to their transitioning.
Perhaps there's a way around this, although I am far from an expert in these areas. Perhaps there should be a pre-GRC certificate; to say someone is undergoing a transitioning process. This can be obtained from a panel, in a similar manner to the Interim GRC that married people need to get before they get a GRC. Once you get this, you can use women's facilities: but it can be rescinded at any time.
Although there are probably massive holes in that idea, too. Not least it makes an already convoluted process harder.
As an aside, how do you police this anyway? How do you check that that person using that cubicle is, in fact, a woman?
Toilets are an odd thing to focus on imo. And, yes, the policing aspect is interesting to ponder.
One reason for the focus on toilets is because so many women and girls have endured some form of sexual assault in toilets. It was where I was first assaulted when I was about 13. This is not unusual.
Policing: you need to be free to challenge without being accused of phobias. And when someone walks in who is obviously a man and not even trying to pass themselves as a woman or who has an erection or who indecently exposes themselves or who otherwise behaves in an appropriate way then they need to be told to leave and the authorities should support that ejection not accuse women.
Male perverts accessing women's toilets and behaving indecently is a crime and most definitely should be treated seriously, regardless of whether the GRA is reformed or not.
But, again, what's the logical link between an easier legal gender change process and the prevalence of that?
The problem is that the male perverts, when caught in the women’s toilets, will say that they are trans women and that anyone questioning them is transphobic and committing offences under the Gender Recognition Act.
Legislation designed to protect a tiny minority, has given free rein to a larger minority, who are despised by women and seen as an invasion of their protected spaces.
What legislation are you talking about?
Legally changing gender doesn't make it easier for a man to access a female toilet. So what's the link between the legal gender change process and a man accessing a female toilet?
There isn't one unless toilets are policed for gender via a certificate. If they were, yes, a man could be motivated to change gender, get the cert, and show it to gain access.
But they aren't. Nor are they policed for physical genital sex.
Unless you're proposing these things - which you surely aren't - I don't see where you're going with the comment.
The problem isn’t trans women. The problem is men, some of whom are sex offenders, posing as trans women.
But this is still not addressing my point.
How does making the legal gender change process easier make it more likely that such men will access female spaces that aren't policed for legal gender?
I think the point (and I have some sympathy with this) is that your creepy but not quite criminal man who wants to hang out in the women's toilets can presently be moved on in short order, simply for being a man. Say he's loitering by the basins, leering at the women in the mirror. Nothing criminal, but he's not allowed to be there. If a women reports it to the staff, he'll be fetched out. If he, by claiming to indentify as 'she' has a legal right to stay in there then it becomes a lot more shades of grey. Can only reasonably be expelled for.... what? Taking too long in there? Looking in the mirror allegedly at women? Could be a threatening presence about which little could be done.
I don't think that this is about the man waving his penis around in the women's toilets, which would surely still result in expulsion, but about the more subtle stuff. One person could cause a lot of trouble and unease, without doing anything overtly wrong.
Are there many of these men? I don't know. Some though, I expect. And if you're a woman being harassed by one of them then you're not really going to care whether it's common or not. It's intimidating/unpleasant. but if you report it, you report - what? - someone looked at me a bit funny or is taking a long time?
On the other hand, the genuinely transitioning woman should, imho, be able to use that space. And I'm not really into defining what people have to wear to get into that space - only transgender women in dresses, ridiculous?
I'm not quite sure what the answer is, but I do think there would be some issues raised by the ability for people to self-ID and be legally treated as self-Id gender.
Self ID is still a legal process, not an instantaneous reversible decision, isn't it? Hence there should be some legal documentation, such as Drivers licence etc.
So you wish to hang round women's toilets. Currently it's hard to pass the huddles put in your way to allow you to legally do so.
With self-identification it's simply a matter of filling in a form and waiting a few weeks.
Now I can see a whole lot of reasons why self-identification is a better approach but, sadly, it opens things up for abuse, and a lot of women have valid (personal) reasons for wanting a 100% safe space and self-identification removes that
I am not advocating Self ID, but it is the case that a legal process is still required, just a de-medicalised one.
Trans activists want all sorts of medical interventions for themselves - and especially for children - but on the one thing that has an impact on the rights of others, all of a sudden they no longer want any sort of medical verification of what they claim is a medical condition, which if not satisfied will lead to all sorts of appalling things happening. Odd that.
I'm not a trans activist btw. I don't post on this anywhere else. My view is easier gender change process, default inclusion, exclusions for certain areas based on evidence and reason not prejudice and ignorance. Other than that, I'm total agnostic. Don't know or understand enough to be otherwise.
Wouldn’t have thought it was unreasonable for a man, complete with penis, who wants to sit in ladies changing rooms to keep some kind of document saying he is transitioning handy, or are we at the stage where it would be too offensive to them to presume they might be the man they are?
Mr. Jessop, it's the scientific definition. Broad definitions obviously blur boundaries. Buggering about with language is one of the ways certain people (not you) are trying to 'win' arguments in this area by denouncing those with the temerity to disagree as various types of '-phobes' and '-ists'.
Hermaphrodites were referred to in classical mythology. That doesn't make them commonplace. I do agree that being in a tiny minority doesn't mean they should be ignored. Feel rather sad that the South African sprinter (Caster Semenya? [sp]) has had far rougher treatment than biological men who have identified as women.
Female sports needs to be a category for cisgender women only. Everyone else can go into mens ( Which could probably do with being renamed open ). That effectively bars trans women from sport, but is needed to preserve female sport integrity - and if Semenya is deemed to be a woman (Another argument in itself) she should be able to compete without lowering her testosterone.
I agree with this. Competing at a top level in sport is not a fundamental right, and it's an area where fairness counts.
Although I'd argue that top sports people are generally freaks of nature anyway, to a certain extent. A combination of genetic traits that allow them to succeed at a sport, where someone more 'average' would not, however hard they trained. Michael Phelps' large feet, hyper-extendible joints, long torso and short legs all make him perfect for swimming.
Agreed. But this is not the approach being taken by sports bodies. They are ignoring material reality in favour of feelings. The material reality is that males once they have gone through male puberty are and always will be naturally stronger than women, regardless of how they subsequently identify and even if they go through a full transition. They are allowed to have levels of testosterone in their body that would get a woman athlete banned for doping. How can this possibly be fair.
This material reality means that trans athletes (male to female) have an inherent advantage. It means that womens' sport is dead or largely meaningless because it will be male bodies winning the prizes.
And yet we have reached the stage that feelings are allowed to override material scientific reality. And it is largely the feelings of men which are deemed more important than the concerns, feelings or material reality of women.
Caster Semenya is as I understand it a woman who naturally has large amounts of testosterone in her body. This may be very unusual but is no reason for banning her. But her position is very different from those with male bodies claiming to be women. They should not compete in womens' sport where physical strength matters. A separate transgender category can be created or they can remain in male categories. Where strength does not matter the issue does not really arise and transwomen can compete in female categories.
Or we could I suppose allow women athletes to dope themselves up the eyeballs as women athletes behind the Iron Curtain did so that they can compete on equal terms with transwomen. That is the logic of the transwomen are women approach. The fact that this renders womens' sport meaningless and has huge health impacts for women doing this are unfortunate consequences but, hey, who cares about those.
It is long past the time that we need to say that reality matters and if this does not please those who think that you can simply pretend that it does not exist simply by affirming it, too bad.
I know this feels like a niche issue to some. But it isn't. First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter. Second, because this is stopping any real focus on what transpeople actually need - which is better and earlier medical help so that they can live their lives happily.
And finally because this is another current in the whole "I have my own alternative facts" approach to life and politics which has so demeaned public life and culture in countries like the US. It is a very Trumpian and narcissistic approach to the world, similar to the anti-vaccination movement and other ludicrous conspiracy theories - people thinking that what they say - however untethered to reality - is real, should be validated by others and allowed to inform policy, no matter how dangerous or absurd the consequences.
It's all really messy. However - and I might be wrong - isn't an added complexity with Semenya that performance doping often uses testosterone, and therefore she was falling foul of the drug testing regime as well - until she proved they were her natural levels? From memory, women like Semenya might be forced to take drugs to get her testosterone levels down. That's really wrong IMO.
I just don't see competing in sports as anything like a fundamental right; and it's a place where 'fairness' matters. Hence, with regret, I've formed my position (which in this case is the same as yours).
" First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter."
I disagree with this. Numbers should not matter wrt rights, and changes that discriminate against a minority also matter. That's true for sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
There's 2 key questions and imo they can be uncoupled. What should the process be to legally change gender? Which things in society (if any) should be default governed by sex not gender?
So, eg, you could support a streamlined process for gender change but at the same time think that (eg) pro sports and prisons should be default sex based. Or, the opposite, you could think the gender change process should remain highly controlled and medicalized but that once done birth sex is irrelevant and gender is the correct default criterion for almost everything.
This type of shade never sees the light of day. It's either 'Pure self-ID for gender and sex doesn't matter a jot' or it's 'transgenderism flies in the face of science and is a perverts' charter representing an existential threat to women and their rights'.
Perhaps both sides feel their extremist hyperbole is mainly a response to that of the other side's. The debate certainly seems more 'vibrant' here than elsewhere. Eg it will be interesting to see how things develop in Germany where (aiui) the new government is pledged to implement reforms very similar to those the May government were looking at in 2018.
Well, it sees the light of day from me. It's a pure numbers game: BOTH there are genuine transgender people who deserve support and protection AND there are chancers around who are happy to look for sex, unfair sporting success, etc under the guise of transgenderism.
This isn't even a new or interesting problem. look at scoutmasters: there's a lot of men who want to become scoutmasters for the most praiseworthy reasons imaginable, and a lot of men who want to exploit the kiddie fiddling possibilities of the situation. We support, encourage and train the first lot, and try to vigilantly exclude the second. We err on the side of overvigilance, or try to, and that inevitably means that injustices occur. That's life. The same principle requires that gender dysphoric formerly male prisoners can stay in male prisons and bloody well lump it. Not difficult.
Suggest you look at Girl Guides who are currently, after complaints by parents, doing an inquiry into how the Head Guide in Nottingham is a man with a BDSM fetish who also poses pictures of themselves cradling illegal guns. They have also had issues re retaliation against female whistleblowers who have raised concern about whether they are taking their safeguarding obligations seriously. They are also giving guidance on what contraceptives to give 13 year old girls on guide trips even though (a) 13 is way below the age of consent and (b) such trips should be female only so why would contraception be needed.
@JosiasJessop's 2 questions are a sensible start. My answer to the first is that an application for a GRC should be as now ie it should require an objective external medical test because of the legal implications of such a change not just for the person concerned but for others and society at large. Expecting an external medical diagnosis is no more onerous than expecting one before getting cancer treatment. The delays are an issue of resources not a reason for doing away with the checks.
As to the second, the answer should be risk based. I would have the default as sex but permit gender provided there was little or no risk to others of doing so. We do not yet have data on whether men who do have gender dysphoria still remain in any sense an actual or potential risk to women. Until we do safeguarding should take priority. Nor do we know how many men who claim to be trans are in fact suffering from autogynephilia (do not Google this at work). Again until we do, men with male bodies should be kept out of female spaces.
The trouble is that those proposing very significant change are not asking these sensible questions. They simply pooh-pooh the very idea that there might be a conflict or risks or detrimental effects on others. They have got their way for quite a long time, in part by their insistence on "no debate". But women are now appreciating what these changes could mean and are fighting back and demanding both a debate and that no changes be made until these and many other questions are asked and answered. That is not extremism. It is sensible.
They weren't my questions: I think they were @kinabalu 's.
As for GRC's: there's a big issue that people wanting to change gender need to live as their new gender for two years. If you are a man transitioning to a woman, then it means you need to dress as a woman.
IMV a man dressing as a woman going into a men's toilet is going to be in much more physical and mental danger (from comments, bullying in the latter case) than women are from them using women's toilets.
Basically: banning people undergoing the transitioning process from using the toilets of their desired gender would be a big barrier to their transitioning.
Perhaps there's a way around this, although I am far from an expert in these areas. Perhaps there should be a pre-GRC certificate; to say someone is undergoing a transitioning process. This can be obtained from a panel, in a similar manner to the Interim GRC that married people need to get before they get a GRC. Once you get this, you can use women's facilities: but it can be rescinded at any time.
Although there are probably massive holes in that idea, too. Not least it makes an already convoluted process harder.
As an aside, how do you police this anyway? How do you check that that person using that cubicle is, in fact, a woman?
Toilets are an odd thing to focus on imo. And, yes, the policing aspect is interesting to ponder.
One reason for the focus on toilets is because so many women and girls have endured some form of sexual assault in toilets. It was where I was first assaulted when I was about 13. This is not unusual.
Policing: you need to be free to challenge without being accused of phobias. And when someone walks in who is obviously a man and not even trying to pass themselves as a woman or who has an erection or who indecently exposes themselves or who otherwise behaves in an appropriate way then they need to be told to leave and the authorities should support that ejection not accuse women.
Male perverts accessing women's toilets and behaving indecently is a crime and most definitely should be treated seriously, regardless of whether the GRA is reformed or not.
But, again, what's the logical link between an easier legal gender change process and the prevalence of that?
The problem is that the male perverts, when caught in the women’s toilets, will say that they are trans women and that anyone questioning them is transphobic and committing offences under the Gender Recognition Act.
Legislation designed to protect a tiny minority, has given free rein to a larger minority, who are despised by women and seen as an invasion of their protected spaces.
What legislation are you talking about?
Legally changing gender doesn't make it easier for a man to access a female toilet. So what's the link between the legal gender change process and a man accessing a female toilet?
There isn't one unless toilets are policed for gender via a certificate. If they were, yes, a man could be motivated to change gender, get the cert, and show it to gain access.
But they aren't. Nor are they policed for physical genital sex.
Unless you're proposing these things - which you surely aren't - I don't see where you're going with the comment.
The problem isn’t trans women. The problem is men, some of whom are sex offenders, posing as trans women.
But this is still not addressing my point.
How does making the legal gender change process easier make it more likely that such men will access female spaces that aren't policed for legal gender?
Because the easier you make legal gender changes, the more likely that process is to be corrupted by male sex offenders falsely representing themselves as women.
Mr. Jessop, it's the scientific definition. Broad definitions obviously blur boundaries. Buggering about with language is one of the ways certain people (not you) are trying to 'win' arguments in this area by denouncing those with the temerity to disagree as various types of '-phobes' and '-ists'.
Hermaphrodites were referred to in classical mythology. That doesn't make them commonplace. I do agree that being in a tiny minority doesn't mean they should be ignored. Feel rather sad that the South African sprinter (Caster Semenya? [sp]) has had far rougher treatment than biological men who have identified as women.
Female sports needs to be a category for cisgender women only. Everyone else can go into mens ( Which could probably do with being renamed open ). That effectively bars trans women from sport, but is needed to preserve female sport integrity - and if Semenya is deemed to be a woman (Another argument in itself) she should be able to compete without lowering her testosterone.
I agree with this. Competing at a top level in sport is not a fundamental right, and it's an area where fairness counts.
Although I'd argue that top sports people are generally freaks of nature anyway, to a certain extent. A combination of genetic traits that allow them to succeed at a sport, where someone more 'average' would not, however hard they trained. Michael Phelps' large feet, hyper-extendible joints, long torso and short legs all make him perfect for swimming.
Agreed. But this is not the approach being taken by sports bodies. They are ignoring material reality in favour of feelings. The material reality is that males once they have gone through male puberty are and always will be naturally stronger than women, regardless of how they subsequently identify and even if they go through a full transition. They are allowed to have levels of testosterone in their body that would get a woman athlete banned for doping. How can this possibly be fair.
This material reality means that trans athletes (male to female) have an inherent advantage. It means that womens' sport is dead or largely meaningless because it will be male bodies winning the prizes.
And yet we have reached the stage that feelings are allowed to override material scientific reality. And it is largely the feelings of men which are deemed more important than the concerns, feelings or material reality of women.
Caster Semenya is as I understand it a woman who naturally has large amounts of testosterone in her body. This may be very unusual but is no reason for banning her. But her position is very different from those with male bodies claiming to be women. They should not compete in womens' sport where physical strength matters. A separate transgender category can be created or they can remain in male categories. Where strength does not matter the issue does not really arise and transwomen can compete in female categories.
Or we could I suppose allow women athletes to dope themselves up the eyeballs as women athletes behind the Iron Curtain did so that they can compete on equal terms with transwomen. That is the logic of the transwomen are women approach. The fact that this renders womens' sport meaningless and has huge health impacts for women doing this are unfortunate consequences but, hey, who cares about those.
It is long past the time that we need to say that reality matters and if this does not please those who think that you can simply pretend that it does not exist simply by affirming it, too bad.
I know this feels like a niche issue to some. But it isn't. First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter. Second, because this is stopping any real focus on what transpeople actually need - which is better and earlier medical help so that they can live their lives happily.
And finally because this is another current in the whole "I have my own alternative facts" approach to life and politics which has so demeaned public life and culture in countries like the US. It is a very Trumpian and narcissistic approach to the world, similar to the anti-vaccination movement and other ludicrous conspiracy theories - people thinking that what they say - however untethered to reality - is real, should be validated by others and allowed to inform policy, no matter how dangerous or absurd the consequences.
It's all really messy. However - and I might be wrong - isn't an added complexity with Semenya that performance doping often uses testosterone, and therefore she was falling foul of the drug testing regime as well - until she proved they were her natural levels? From memory, women like Semenya might be forced to take drugs to get her testosterone levels down. That's really wrong IMO.
I just don't see competing in sports as anything like a fundamental right; and it's a place where 'fairness' matters. Hence, with regret, I've formed my position (which in this case is the same as yours).
" First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter."
I disagree with this. Numbers should not matter wrt rights, and changes that discriminate against a minority also matter. That's true for sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
There's 2 key questions and imo they can be uncoupled. What should the process be to legally change gender? Which things in society (if any) should be default governed by sex not gender?
So, eg, you could support a streamlined process for gender change but at the same time think that (eg) pro sports and prisons should be default sex based. Or, the opposite, you could think the gender change process should remain highly controlled and medicalized but that once done birth sex is irrelevant and gender is the correct default criterion for almost everything.
This type of shade never sees the light of day. It's either 'Pure self-ID for gender and sex doesn't matter a jot' or it's 'transgenderism flies in the face of science and is a perverts' charter representing an existential threat to women and their rights'.
Perhaps both sides feel their extremist hyperbole is mainly a response to that of the other side's. The debate certainly seems more 'vibrant' here than elsewhere. Eg it will be interesting to see how things develop in Germany where (aiui) the new government is pledged to implement reforms very similar to those the May government were looking at in 2018.
Well, it sees the light of day from me. It's a pure numbers game: BOTH there are genuine transgender people who deserve support and protection AND there are chancers around who are happy to look for sex, unfair sporting success, etc under the guise of transgenderism.
This isn't even a new or interesting problem. look at scoutmasters: there's a lot of men who want to become scoutmasters for the most praiseworthy reasons imaginable, and a lot of men who want to exploit the kiddie fiddling possibilities of the situation. We support, encourage and train the first lot, and try to vigilantly exclude the second. We err on the side of overvigilance, or try to, and that inevitably means that injustices occur. That's life. The same principle requires that gender dysphoric formerly male prisoners can stay in male prisons and bloody well lump it. Not difficult.
Suggest you look at Girl Guides who are currently, after complaints by parents, doing an inquiry into how the Head Guide in Nottingham is a man with a BDSM fetish who also poses pictures of themselves cradling illegal guns. They have also had issues re retaliation against female whistleblowers who have raised concern about whether they are taking their safeguarding obligations seriously. They are also giving guidance on what contraceptives to give 13 year old girls on guide trips even though (a) 13 is way below the age of consent and (b) such trips should be female only so why would contraception be needed.
@JosiasJessop's 2 questions are a sensible start. My answer to the first is that an application for a GRC should be as now ie it should require an objective external medical test because of the legal implications of such a change not just for the person concerned but for others and society at large. Expecting an external medical diagnosis is no more onerous than expecting one before getting cancer treatment. The delays are an issue of resources not a reason for doing away with the checks.
As to the second, the answer should be risk based. I would have the default as sex but permit gender provided there was little or no risk to others of doing so. We do not yet have data on whether men who do have gender dysphoria still remain in any sense an actual or potential risk to women. Until we do safeguarding should take priority. Nor do we know how many men who claim to be trans are in fact suffering from autogynephilia (do not Google this at work). Again until we do, men with male bodies should be kept out of female spaces.
The trouble is that those proposing very significant change are not asking these sensible questions. They simply pooh-pooh the very idea that there might be a conflict or risks or detrimental effects on others. They have got their way for quite a long time, in part by their insistence on "no debate". But women are now appreciating what these changes could mean and are fighting back and demanding both a debate and that no changes be made until these and many other questions are asked and answered. That is not extremism. It is sensible.
They weren't my questions: I think they were @kinabalu 's.
As for GRC's: there's a big issue that people wanting to change gender need to live as their new gender for two years. If you are a man transitioning to a woman, then it means you need to dress as a woman.
IMV a man dressing as a woman going into a men's toilet is going to be in much more physical and mental danger (from comments, bullying in the latter case) than women are from them using women's toilets.
Basically: banning people undergoing the transitioning process from using the toilets of their desired gender would be a big barrier to their transitioning.
Perhaps there's a way around this, although I am far from an expert in these areas. Perhaps there should be a pre-GRC certificate; to say someone is undergoing a transitioning process. This can be obtained from a panel, in a similar manner to the Interim GRC that married people need to get before they get a GRC. Once you get this, you can use women's facilities: but it can be rescinded at any time.
Although there are probably massive holes in that idea, too. Not least it makes an already convoluted process harder.
As an aside, how do you police this anyway? How do you check that that person using that cubicle is, in fact, a woman?
Toilets are an odd thing to focus on imo. And, yes, the policing aspect is interesting to ponder.
One reason for the focus on toilets is because so many women and girls have endured some form of sexual assault in toilets. It was where I was first assaulted when I was about 13. This is not unusual.
Policing: you need to be free to challenge without being accused of phobias. And when someone walks in who is obviously a man and not even trying to pass themselves as a woman or who has an erection or who indecently exposes themselves or who otherwise behaves in an appropriate way then they need to be told to leave and the authorities should support that ejection not accuse women.
Male perverts accessing women's toilets and behaving indecently is a crime and most definitely should be treated seriously, regardless of whether the GRA is reformed or not.
But, again, what's the logical link between an easier legal gender change process and the prevalence of that?
The problem is that the male perverts, when caught in the women’s toilets, will say that they are trans women and that anyone questioning them is transphobic and committing offences under the Gender Recognition Act.
Legislation designed to protect a tiny minority, has given free rein to a larger minority, who are despised by women and seen as an invasion of their protected spaces.
What legislation are you talking about?
Legally changing gender doesn't make it easier for a man to access a female toilet. So what's the link between the legal gender change process and a man accessing a female toilet?
There isn't one unless toilets are policed for gender via a certificate. If they were, yes, a man could be motivated to change gender, get the cert, and show it to gain access.
But they aren't. Nor are they policed for physical genital sex.
Unless you're proposing these things - which you surely aren't - I don't see where you're going with the comment.
The problem isn’t trans women. The problem is men, some of whom are sex offenders, posing as trans women.
But this is still not addressing my point.
How does making the legal gender change process easier make it more likely that such men will access female spaces that aren't policed for legal gender?
I think the point (and I have some sympathy with this) is that your creepy but not quite criminal man who wants to hang out in the women's toilets can presently be moved on in short order, simply for being a man. Say he's loitering by the basins, leering at the women in the mirror. Nothing criminal, but he's not allowed to be there. If a women reports it to the staff, he'll be fetched out. If he, by claiming to indentify as 'she' has a legal right to stay in there then it becomes a lot more shades of grey. Can only reasonably be expelled for.... what? Taking too long in there? Looking in the mirror allegedly at women? Could be a threatening presence about which little could be done.
I don't think that this is about the man waving his penis around in the women's toilets, which would surely still result in expulsion, but about the more subtle stuff. One person could cause a lot of trouble and unease, without doing anything overtly wrong.
Are there many of these men? I don't know. Some though, I expect. And if you're a woman being harassed by one of them then you're not really going to care whether it's common or not. It's intimidating/unpleasant. but if you report it, you report - what? - someone looked at me a bit funny or is taking a long time?
On the other hand, the genuinely transitioning woman should, imho, be able to use that space. And I'm not really into defining what people have to wear to get into that space - only transgender women in dresses, ridiculous?
I'm not quite sure what the answer is, but I do think there would be some issues raised by the ability for people to self-ID and be legally treated as self-Id gender.
Self ID is still a legal process, not an instantaneous reversible decision, isn't it? Hence there should be some legal documentation, such as Drivers licence etc.
So you wish to hang round women's toilets. Currently it's hard to pass the huddles put in your way to allow you to legally do so.
With self-identification it's simply a matter of filling in a form and waiting a few weeks.
Now I can see a whole lot of reasons why self-identification is a better approach but, sadly, it opens things up for abuse, and a lot of women have valid (personal) reasons for wanting a 100% safe space and self-identification removes that
I am not advocating Self ID, but it is the case that a legal process is still required, just a de-medicalised one.
Trans activists want all sorts of medical interventions for themselves - and especially for children - but on the one thing that has an impact on the rights of others, all of a sudden they no longer want any sort of medical verification of what they claim is a medical condition, which if not satisfied will lead to all sorts of appalling things happening. Odd that.
It's a mess, or at least a potential one. As someone who has never had any ambition to hang around women's toilets or claim not to be male, I (hope) I understand your concerns. And I'm very, very concerned about the idea of children..... under 18's .... transitioning without considerable competent psychological counselling. Having written that, there's a 'lad' at the school one of my teenage granddaughters attends, indeed in her class, who she says regards himself as female, is probably the most competent make-up artist in the class, and, apparently says he's going to 'properly' transition as soon as he can. I'm not sure how he gets on with games or the games changing rooms. It's private, mainly girls, school and apparently they cope. TBH, neither Mrs C nor I feel the need to inquire too deeply! Or the desirability of so doing!
If the current conversion therapy ban proposals go through unamended , competent psychological counselling could well end up being being criminalised. This is a whole other topic which I am not going to go into now.
Suffice to say that the use of untested experimental puberty blockers and other hormones on children followed by surgery which often has the effect of rendering children infertile and unable to orgasm is, IMO, a class action lawsuit and medical negligence case just waiting to happen. It is a horror story.
A boy in my son's class was in a similar position in his mid-teens: good at make up, called himself the female version of his male name, wore women's clothes from time to time etc and thought he might be transgender. Then over time realised he was not and is now happily gay.
The rush to push children towards transition is appalling IMO. The reality may well be that many of them are not transgender at all but gay.
There are already a fair few who have detransiitoned
In twenty or thirty years time this will be a big scandal and the govt will be issuing apologies
Not many detransition from a change of mind, though more do because of medical side effects of the hormones, or disappointment as to their effects.
In practice the ones that cause the most discomfort are those who never attempt surgical or medical transition, and don't intend to do so, yet self identify as women.
Mr. Jessop, it's the scientific definition. Broad definitions obviously blur boundaries. Buggering about with language is one of the ways certain people (not you) are trying to 'win' arguments in this area by denouncing those with the temerity to disagree as various types of '-phobes' and '-ists'.
Hermaphrodites were referred to in classical mythology. That doesn't make them commonplace. I do agree that being in a tiny minority doesn't mean they should be ignored. Feel rather sad that the South African sprinter (Caster Semenya? [sp]) has had far rougher treatment than biological men who have identified as women.
Female sports needs to be a category for cisgender women only. Everyone else can go into mens ( Which could probably do with being renamed open ). That effectively bars trans women from sport, but is needed to preserve female sport integrity - and if Semenya is deemed to be a woman (Another argument in itself) she should be able to compete without lowering her testosterone.
I agree with this. Competing at a top level in sport is not a fundamental right, and it's an area where fairness counts.
Although I'd argue that top sports people are generally freaks of nature anyway, to a certain extent. A combination of genetic traits that allow them to succeed at a sport, where someone more 'average' would not, however hard they trained. Michael Phelps' large feet, hyper-extendible joints, long torso and short legs all make him perfect for swimming.
Agreed. But this is not the approach being taken by sports bodies. They are ignoring material reality in favour of feelings. The material reality is that males once they have gone through male puberty are and always will be naturally stronger than women, regardless of how they subsequently identify and even if they go through a full transition. They are allowed to have levels of testosterone in their body that would get a woman athlete banned for doping. How can this possibly be fair.
This material reality means that trans athletes (male to female) have an inherent advantage. It means that womens' sport is dead or largely meaningless because it will be male bodies winning the prizes.
And yet we have reached the stage that feelings are allowed to override material scientific reality. And it is largely the feelings of men which are deemed more important than the concerns, feelings or material reality of women.
Caster Semenya is as I understand it a woman who naturally has large amounts of testosterone in her body. This may be very unusual but is no reason for banning her. But her position is very different from those with male bodies claiming to be women. They should not compete in womens' sport where physical strength matters. A separate transgender category can be created or they can remain in male categories. Where strength does not matter the issue does not really arise and transwomen can compete in female categories.
Or we could I suppose allow women athletes to dope themselves up the eyeballs as women athletes behind the Iron Curtain did so that they can compete on equal terms with transwomen. That is the logic of the transwomen are women approach. The fact that this renders womens' sport meaningless and has huge health impacts for women doing this are unfortunate consequences but, hey, who cares about those.
It is long past the time that we need to say that reality matters and if this does not please those who think that you can simply pretend that it does not exist simply by affirming it, too bad.
I know this feels like a niche issue to some. But it isn't. First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter. Second, because this is stopping any real focus on what transpeople actually need - which is better and earlier medical help so that they can live their lives happily.
And finally because this is another current in the whole "I have my own alternative facts" approach to life and politics which has so demeaned public life and culture in countries like the US. It is a very Trumpian and narcissistic approach to the world, similar to the anti-vaccination movement and other ludicrous conspiracy theories - people thinking that what they say - however untethered to reality - is real, should be validated by others and allowed to inform policy, no matter how dangerous or absurd the consequences.
It's all really messy. However - and I might be wrong - isn't an added complexity with Semenya that performance doping often uses testosterone, and therefore she was falling foul of the drug testing regime as well - until she proved they were her natural levels? From memory, women like Semenya might be forced to take drugs to get her testosterone levels down. That's really wrong IMO.
I just don't see competing in sports as anything like a fundamental right; and it's a place where 'fairness' matters. Hence, with regret, I've formed my position (which in this case is the same as yours).
" First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter."
I disagree with this. Numbers should not matter wrt rights, and changes that discriminate against a minority also matter. That's true for sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
There's 2 key questions and imo they can be uncoupled. What should the process be to legally change gender? Which things in society (if any) should be default governed by sex not gender?
So, eg, you could support a streamlined process for gender change but at the same time think that (eg) pro sports and prisons should be default sex based. Or, the opposite, you could think the gender change process should remain highly controlled and medicalized but that once done birth sex is irrelevant and gender is the correct default criterion for almost everything.
This type of shade never sees the light of day. It's either 'Pure self-ID for gender and sex doesn't matter a jot' or it's 'transgenderism flies in the face of science and is a perverts' charter representing an existential threat to women and their rights'.
Perhaps both sides feel their extremist hyperbole is mainly a response to that of the other side's. The debate certainly seems more 'vibrant' here than elsewhere. Eg it will be interesting to see how things develop in Germany where (aiui) the new government is pledged to implement reforms very similar to those the May government were looking at in 2018.
Well, it sees the light of day from me. It's a pure numbers game: BOTH there are genuine transgender people who deserve support and protection AND there are chancers around who are happy to look for sex, unfair sporting success, etc under the guise of transgenderism.
This isn't even a new or interesting problem. look at scoutmasters: there's a lot of men who want to become scoutmasters for the most praiseworthy reasons imaginable, and a lot of men who want to exploit the kiddie fiddling possibilities of the situation. We support, encourage and train the first lot, and try to vigilantly exclude the second. We err on the side of overvigilance, or try to, and that inevitably means that injustices occur. That's life. The same principle requires that gender dysphoric formerly male prisoners can stay in male prisons and bloody well lump it. Not difficult.
Suggest you look at Girl Guides who are currently, after complaints by parents, doing an inquiry into how the Head Guide in Nottingham is a man with a BDSM fetish who also poses pictures of themselves cradling illegal guns. They have also had issues re retaliation against female whistleblowers who have raised concern about whether they are taking their safeguarding obligations seriously. They are also giving guidance on what contraceptives to give 13 year old girls on guide trips even though (a) 13 is way below the age of consent and (b) such trips should be female only so why would contraception be needed.
@JosiasJessop's 2 questions are a sensible start. My answer to the first is that an application for a GRC should be as now ie it should require an objective external medical test because of the legal implications of such a change not just for the person concerned but for others and society at large. Expecting an external medical diagnosis is no more onerous than expecting one before getting cancer treatment. The delays are an issue of resources not a reason for doing away with the checks.
As to the second, the answer should be risk based. I would have the default as sex but permit gender provided there was little or no risk to others of doing so. We do not yet have data on whether men who do have gender dysphoria still remain in any sense an actual or potential risk to women. Until we do safeguarding should take priority. Nor do we know how many men who claim to be trans are in fact suffering from autogynephilia (do not Google this at work). Again until we do, men with male bodies should be kept out of female spaces.
The trouble is that those proposing very significant change are not asking these sensible questions. They simply pooh-pooh the very idea that there might be a conflict or risks or detrimental effects on others. They have got their way for quite a long time, in part by their insistence on "no debate". But women are now appreciating what these changes could mean and are fighting back and demanding both a debate and that no changes be made until these and many other questions are asked and answered. That is not extremism. It is sensible.
They weren't my questions: I think they were @kinabalu 's.
As for GRC's: there's a big issue that people wanting to change gender need to live as their new gender for two years. If you are a man transitioning to a woman, then it means you need to dress as a woman.
IMV a man dressing as a woman going into a men's toilet is going to be in much more physical and mental danger (from comments, bullying in the latter case) than women are from them using women's toilets.
Basically: banning people undergoing the transitioning process from using the toilets of their desired gender would be a big barrier to their transitioning.
Perhaps there's a way around this, although I am far from an expert in these areas. Perhaps there should be a pre-GRC certificate; to say someone is undergoing a transitioning process. This can be obtained from a panel, in a similar manner to the Interim GRC that married people need to get before they get a GRC. Once you get this, you can use women's facilities: but it can be rescinded at any time.
Although there are probably massive holes in that idea, too. Not least it makes an already convoluted process harder.
As an aside, how do you police this anyway? How do you check that that person using that cubicle is, in fact, a woman?
Toilets are an odd thing to focus on imo. And, yes, the policing aspect is interesting to ponder.
One reason for the focus on toilets is because so many women and girls have endured some form of sexual assault in toilets. It was where I was first assaulted when I was about 13. This is not unusual.
Policing: you need to be free to challenge without being accused of phobias. And when someone walks in who is obviously a man and not even trying to pass themselves as a woman or who has an erection or who indecently exposes themselves or who otherwise behaves in an appropriate way then they need to be told to leave and the authorities should support that ejection not accuse women.
Male perverts accessing women's toilets and behaving indecently is a crime and most definitely should be treated seriously, regardless of whether the GRA is reformed or not.
But, again, what's the logical link between an easier legal gender change process and the prevalence of that?
The problem is that the male perverts, when caught in the women’s toilets, will say that they are trans women and that anyone questioning them is transphobic and committing offences under the Gender Recognition Act.
Legislation designed to protect a tiny minority, has given free rein to a larger minority, who are despised by women and seen as an invasion of their protected spaces.
What legislation are you talking about?
Legally changing gender doesn't make it easier for a man to access a female toilet. So what's the link between the legal gender change process and a man accessing a female toilet?
There isn't one unless toilets are policed for gender via a certificate. If they were, yes, a man could be motivated to change gender, get the cert, and show it to gain access.
But they aren't. Nor are they policed for physical genital sex.
Unless you're proposing these things - which you surely aren't - I don't see where you're going with the comment.
The problem isn’t trans women. The problem is men, some of whom are sex offenders, posing as trans women.
But this is still not addressing my point.
How does making the legal gender change process easier make it more likely that such men will access female spaces that aren't policed for legal gender?
Because the easier you make legal gender changes, the more likely that process is to be corrupted by male sex offenders falsely representing themselves as women.
I give up.
No, you just don't see that there is an actual problem here.
Mr. Jessop, it's the scientific definition. Broad definitions obviously blur boundaries. Buggering about with language is one of the ways certain people (not you) are trying to 'win' arguments in this area by denouncing those with the temerity to disagree as various types of '-phobes' and '-ists'.
Hermaphrodites were referred to in classical mythology. That doesn't make them commonplace. I do agree that being in a tiny minority doesn't mean they should be ignored. Feel rather sad that the South African sprinter (Caster Semenya? [sp]) has had far rougher treatment than biological men who have identified as women.
Female sports needs to be a category for cisgender women only. Everyone else can go into mens ( Which could probably do with being renamed open ). That effectively bars trans women from sport, but is needed to preserve female sport integrity - and if Semenya is deemed to be a woman (Another argument in itself) she should be able to compete without lowering her testosterone.
I agree with this. Competing at a top level in sport is not a fundamental right, and it's an area where fairness counts.
Although I'd argue that top sports people are generally freaks of nature anyway, to a certain extent. A combination of genetic traits that allow them to succeed at a sport, where someone more 'average' would not, however hard they trained. Michael Phelps' large feet, hyper-extendible joints, long torso and short legs all make him perfect for swimming.
Agreed. But this is not the approach being taken by sports bodies. They are ignoring material reality in favour of feelings. The material reality is that males once they have gone through male puberty are and always will be naturally stronger than women, regardless of how they subsequently identify and even if they go through a full transition. They are allowed to have levels of testosterone in their body that would get a woman athlete banned for doping. How can this possibly be fair.
This material reality means that trans athletes (male to female) have an inherent advantage. It means that womens' sport is dead or largely meaningless because it will be male bodies winning the prizes.
And yet we have reached the stage that feelings are allowed to override material scientific reality. And it is largely the feelings of men which are deemed more important than the concerns, feelings or material reality of women.
Caster Semenya is as I understand it a woman who naturally has large amounts of testosterone in her body. This may be very unusual but is no reason for banning her. But her position is very different from those with male bodies claiming to be women. They should not compete in womens' sport where physical strength matters. A separate transgender category can be created or they can remain in male categories. Where strength does not matter the issue does not really arise and transwomen can compete in female categories.
Or we could I suppose allow women athletes to dope themselves up the eyeballs as women athletes behind the Iron Curtain did so that they can compete on equal terms with transwomen. That is the logic of the transwomen are women approach. The fact that this renders womens' sport meaningless and has huge health impacts for women doing this are unfortunate consequences but, hey, who cares about those.
It is long past the time that we need to say that reality matters and if this does not please those who think that you can simply pretend that it does not exist simply by affirming it, too bad.
I know this feels like a niche issue to some. But it isn't. First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter. Second, because this is stopping any real focus on what transpeople actually need - which is better and earlier medical help so that they can live their lives happily.
And finally because this is another current in the whole "I have my own alternative facts" approach to life and politics which has so demeaned public life and culture in countries like the US. It is a very Trumpian and narcissistic approach to the world, similar to the anti-vaccination movement and other ludicrous conspiracy theories - people thinking that what they say - however untethered to reality - is real, should be validated by others and allowed to inform policy, no matter how dangerous or absurd the consequences.
It's all really messy. However - and I might be wrong - isn't an added complexity with Semenya that performance doping often uses testosterone, and therefore she was falling foul of the drug testing regime as well - until she proved they were her natural levels? From memory, women like Semenya might be forced to take drugs to get her testosterone levels down. That's really wrong IMO.
I just don't see competing in sports as anything like a fundamental right; and it's a place where 'fairness' matters. Hence, with regret, I've formed my position (which in this case is the same as yours).
" First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter."
I disagree with this. Numbers should not matter wrt rights, and changes that discriminate against a minority also matter. That's true for sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
There's 2 key questions and imo they can be uncoupled. What should the process be to legally change gender? Which things in society (if any) should be default governed by sex not gender?
So, eg, you could support a streamlined process for gender change but at the same time think that (eg) pro sports and prisons should be default sex based. Or, the opposite, you could think the gender change process should remain highly controlled and medicalized but that once done birth sex is irrelevant and gender is the correct default criterion for almost everything.
This type of shade never sees the light of day. It's either 'Pure self-ID for gender and sex doesn't matter a jot' or it's 'transgenderism flies in the face of science and is a perverts' charter representing an existential threat to women and their rights'.
Perhaps both sides feel their extremist hyperbole is mainly a response to that of the other side's. The debate certainly seems more 'vibrant' here than elsewhere. Eg it will be interesting to see how things develop in Germany where (aiui) the new government is pledged to implement reforms very similar to those the May government were looking at in 2018.
Well, it sees the light of day from me. It's a pure numbers game: BOTH there are genuine transgender people who deserve support and protection AND there are chancers around who are happy to look for sex, unfair sporting success, etc under the guise of transgenderism.
This isn't even a new or interesting problem. look at scoutmasters: there's a lot of men who want to become scoutmasters for the most praiseworthy reasons imaginable, and a lot of men who want to exploit the kiddie fiddling possibilities of the situation. We support, encourage and train the first lot, and try to vigilantly exclude the second. We err on the side of overvigilance, or try to, and that inevitably means that injustices occur. That's life. The same principle requires that gender dysphoric formerly male prisoners can stay in male prisons and bloody well lump it. Not difficult.
Suggest you look at Girl Guides who are currently, after complaints by parents, doing an inquiry into how the Head Guide in Nottingham is a man with a BDSM fetish who also poses pictures of themselves cradling illegal guns. They have also had issues re retaliation against female whistleblowers who have raised concern about whether they are taking their safeguarding obligations seriously. They are also giving guidance on what contraceptives to give 13 year old girls on guide trips even though (a) 13 is way below the age of consent and (b) such trips should be female only so why would contraception be needed.
@JosiasJessop's 2 questions are a sensible start. My answer to the first is that an application for a GRC should be as now ie it should require an objective external medical test because of the legal implications of such a change not just for the person concerned but for others and society at large. Expecting an external medical diagnosis is no more onerous than expecting one before getting cancer treatment. The delays are an issue of resources not a reason for doing away with the checks.
As to the second, the answer should be risk based. I would have the default as sex but permit gender provided there was little or no risk to others of doing so. We do not yet have data on whether men who do have gender dysphoria still remain in any sense an actual or potential risk to women. Until we do safeguarding should take priority. Nor do we know how many men who claim to be trans are in fact suffering from autogynephilia (do not Google this at work). Again until we do, men with male bodies should be kept out of female spaces.
The trouble is that those proposing very significant change are not asking these sensible questions. They simply pooh-pooh the very idea that there might be a conflict or risks or detrimental effects on others. They have got their way for quite a long time, in part by their insistence on "no debate". But women are now appreciating what these changes could mean and are fighting back and demanding both a debate and that no changes be made until these and many other questions are asked and answered. That is not extremism. It is sensible.
They weren't my questions: I think they were @kinabalu 's.
As for GRC's: there's a big issue that people wanting to change gender need to live as their new gender for two years. If you are a man transitioning to a woman, then it means you need to dress as a woman.
IMV a man dressing as a woman going into a men's toilet is going to be in much more physical and mental danger (from comments, bullying in the latter case) than women are from them using women's toilets.
Basically: banning people undergoing the transitioning process from using the toilets of their desired gender would be a big barrier to their transitioning.
Perhaps there's a way around this, although I am far from an expert in these areas. Perhaps there should be a pre-GRC certificate; to say someone is undergoing a transitioning process. This can be obtained from a panel, in a similar manner to the Interim GRC that married people need to get before they get a GRC. Once you get this, you can use women's facilities: but it can be rescinded at any time.
Although there are probably massive holes in that idea, too. Not least it makes an already convoluted process harder.
As an aside, how do you police this anyway? How do you check that that person using that cubicle is, in fact, a woman?
Toilets are an odd thing to focus on imo. And, yes, the policing aspect is interesting to ponder.
One reason for the focus on toilets is because so many women and girls have endured some form of sexual assault in toilets. It was where I was first assaulted when I was about 13. This is not unusual.
Policing: you need to be free to challenge without being accused of phobias. And when someone walks in who is obviously a man and not even trying to pass themselves as a woman or who has an erection or who indecently exposes themselves or who otherwise behaves in an appropriate way then they need to be told to leave and the authorities should support that ejection not accuse women.
Male perverts accessing women's toilets and behaving indecently is a crime and most definitely should be treated seriously, regardless of whether the GRA is reformed or not.
But, again, what's the logical link between an easier legal gender change process and the prevalence of that?
The problem is that the male perverts, when caught in the women’s toilets, will say that they are trans women and that anyone questioning them is transphobic and committing offences under the Gender Recognition Act.
Legislation designed to protect a tiny minority, has given free rein to a larger minority, who are despised by women and seen as an invasion of their protected spaces.
What legislation are you talking about?
Legally changing gender doesn't make it easier for a man to access a female toilet. So what's the link between the legal gender change process and a man accessing a female toilet?
There isn't one unless toilets are policed for gender via a certificate. If they were, yes, a man could be motivated to change gender, get the cert, and show it to gain access.
But they aren't. Nor are they policed for physical genital sex.
Unless you're proposing these things - which you surely aren't - I don't see where you're going with the comment.
The problem isn’t trans women. The problem is men, some of whom are sex offenders, posing as trans women.
But this is still not addressing my point.
How does making the legal gender change process easier make it more likely that such men will access female spaces that aren't policed for legal gender?
I think the point (and I have some sympathy with this) is that your creepy but not quite criminal man who wants to hang out in the women's toilets can presently be moved on in short order, simply for being a man. Say he's loitering by the basins, leering at the women in the mirror. Nothing criminal, but he's not allowed to be there. If a women reports it to the staff, he'll be fetched out. If he, by claiming to indentify as 'she' has a legal right to stay in there then it becomes a lot more shades of grey. Can only reasonably be expelled for.... what? Taking too long in there? Looking in the mirror allegedly at women? Could be a threatening presence about which little could be done.
I don't think that this is about the man waving his penis around in the women's toilets, which would surely still result in expulsion, but about the more subtle stuff. One person could cause a lot of trouble and unease, without doing anything overtly wrong.
Are there many of these men? I don't know. Some though, I expect. And if you're a woman being harassed by one of them then you're not really going to care whether it's common or not. It's intimidating/unpleasant. but if you report it, you report - what? - someone looked at me a bit funny or is taking a long time?
On the other hand, the genuinely transitioning woman should, imho, be able to use that space. And I'm not really into defining what people have to wear to get into that space - only transgender women in dresses, ridiculous?
I'm not quite sure what the answer is, but I do think there would be some issues raised by the ability for people to self-ID and be legally treated as self-Id gender.
Self ID is still a legal process, not an instantaneous reversible decision, isn't it? Hence there should be some legal documentation, such as Drivers licence etc.
So you wish to hang round women's toilets. Currently it's hard to pass the huddles put in your way to allow you to legally do so.
With self-identification it's simply a matter of filling in a form and waiting a few weeks.
Now I can see a whole lot of reasons why self-identification is a better approach but, sadly, it opens things up for abuse, and a lot of women have valid (personal) reasons for wanting a 100% safe space and self-identification removes that
I am not advocating Self ID, but it is the case that a legal process is still required, just a de-medicalised one.
Trans activists want all sorts of medical interventions for themselves - and especially for children - but on the one thing that has an impact on the rights of others, all of a sudden they no longer want any sort of medical verification of what they claim is a medical condition, which if not satisfied will lead to all sorts of appalling things happening. Odd that.
I'm not a trans activist btw. I don't post on this anywhere else. My view is easier gender change process, default inclusion, exclusions for certain areas based on evidence and reason not prejudice and ignorance. Other than that, I'm total agnostic. Don't know or understand enough to be otherwise.
You write very well on it. I was looking back at some of your very first posts on the subject, indeed some of your very first posts on PB.
Moreso because in particular @Cyclefree and others have strong views and as a mostly male forum any expressions of disagreement, or even engagement should be handled as sensitively as you handle them.
In his letter to Boris Johnson the French PM Jean Castex says only Britain can dissuade illegal migrants from the UK by "implementing a more effective return policy" and "ensuring that your labour market is sufficiently controlled to discourage applications for illegal work" https://twitter.com/matt_dathan/status/1466467251670900736
Johnson so key to Brexit he decided at the last minute which side he would back
As did much of the country CHB.
Cameron's failed renegotiations were the final straw for many people, myself included, to show that the EU couldn't be reformed for the better.
What would he have had to have delivered to have made you change your mind?
David Cameron gave a good vision of how reform should have taken place in his Bloomberg speech.
Cameron's first point in the Bloomberg speech was about the need to protect non-Eurozone members in the future with the way the EU was evolving. The Eurozone memberstates had a majority under QMV rules so going forwards the Eurozone if they agreed on a reform that suited them could pass a law without any input from non-Eurozone members.
In particular there was talk about "double majority" QMV requiring a QMV majority of non-Euro and Euromember states in order for a proposed law to affect non-Euro members. That still wouldn't have been a return to unanimity as required in the past, but would have been a safeguard.
But nothing happened. There was no fundamental or serious reform to the EU that happened. All of Cameron's proposals in Bloomberg (and there were more than that first one) were roundly rejected in the negotiations.
Cameron set out to reform the EU and instead proved it couldn't be reformed.
Don't disagree - the EU was always unlikely to change imo and he did exempt the UK from those changes but I hear you.
He didn't exempt the UK from those changes. There was no change to the voting system.
Mealy-mouthed words about being exempt from "further union" doesn't mean anything unless the voting system is amended to reflect that reality. It wasn't, was it?
The UK held all the cards, Philip. Don't like ABC measure? We hereby deem it closer union and we reject it.
That's the shame imo about Brexit. We genuinely held all the cards. And we threw it away.
At the time, I said that we should have implemented a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and made it clear that all such future treaties were subject to referenda. It's not as if there aren't a number of countries in the EU, for which that was so.
IIRC Camo made a Cast Iron Guarantee on the matter didn't he?
Too late by that point.
As a Remain voter, it makes me giggle to hear people suggesting that the way to prevent BREXIT was to prevent the voters getting... too close? to certain matters
For generations, the pitch in the western world has been Democracy Rules OK. Telling the voters, now, that they "have no choice" is not an answer. Telling them they have no choice because the rule book says - just invites the rule book to be torn up.
As J A Froude said in "Caesar, A sketch" - "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions". The Roman Republic died because the oligarchy may or may not have been right - the constitution, written and unwritten said they had the power. The people then backed the breaking of the constitution.
I don't have a clue what point you're trying to make.
But I can tell you that the EU is not democratic at all. The voters have no say in the matter of the executive.
You mean, like the UK Cabinet?
The Cabinet is elected based upon the Parliament we elect.
Not the case with the EU.
The Member States vote for parties who want to be in the EU. So perfectly democratic. Those Member States who don't want to be in the EU vote for parties who want to leave. Also perfectly democratic.
It is exactly the same. Can you change the laws that were decided by the cabinet and voted for in parliament on mask wearing? I don't believe you can. But it is still a democratic process.
Yes I can. I can vote for a party that will drop mask requirements at the Parliamentary elections.
Since the European Parliament doesn't have a European demos and doesn't form the European government anyway the same is not true in Europe.
Exactly. You can vote for a party that will drop the mask requirements but today you can't change it. Both vital democratic elements of our society. If enough people agree with you then the party gets in and masks are dropped.
And likewise if you wanted to stay in or leave the EU you can (and did) vote for it but until that time you don't have a direct say in every EU ruling or policy.
That's not good enough in a democracy Topping.
That's like saying you can leave the UK but unless you do you have no say in UK laws. No meaningful UK elections.
If the EU is to be making laws then it should be a genuine democracy. It isn't as it stands.
We absolutely had an influence over the EU laws. I can't be bothered to google this for a five year old discussion but it was shown that the UK more often than not got its way in EU law formation.
The UK government may have, the UK voters didn't. It was too divorced from the voters because they weren't debated and determined at elections.
I read a piece over the weekend where it was hoped that SCOTUS would protect abortion on the grounds this legal principle might be used to stop the second amendment.
Then the cynic in me wondered a hyper partisan SCOTUS wouldn't give a shit and effectively ban abortion in GOP states and then stop Dem states from infringing on the second amendment.
Limited to the present circumstances only.
I can't see particularly where abortion is mentioned in the US constitution. For either side of the argument. Can't think abortions, safe or otherwise were particularly on the radar of men in 1787. Both liberal & conservative justices can probably tangentially use other parts of the constitution to do what they want on abortion to suit whichever side they're on mind.
That’s exactly the point
Roe vs Wade was a massive extension of federal power on fairly tenuous grounds. Regardless what you think about the merits of the underlying issue, it’s State Rights that SCOTUS cares about
Johnson so key to Brexit he decided at the last minute which side he would back
As did much of the country CHB.
Cameron's failed renegotiations were the final straw for many people, myself included, to show that the EU couldn't be reformed for the better.
What would he have had to have delivered to have made you change your mind?
David Cameron gave a good vision of how reform should have taken place in his Bloomberg speech.
Cameron's first point in the Bloomberg speech was about the need to protect non-Eurozone members in the future with the way the EU was evolving. The Eurozone memberstates had a majority under QMV rules so going forwards the Eurozone if they agreed on a reform that suited them could pass a law without any input from non-Eurozone members.
In particular there was talk about "double majority" QMV requiring a QMV majority of non-Euro and Euromember states in order for a proposed law to affect non-Euro members. That still wouldn't have been a return to unanimity as required in the past, but would have been a safeguard.
But nothing happened. There was no fundamental or serious reform to the EU that happened. All of Cameron's proposals in Bloomberg (and there were more than that first one) were roundly rejected in the negotiations.
Cameron set out to reform the EU and instead proved it couldn't be reformed.
Don't disagree - the EU was always unlikely to change imo and he did exempt the UK from those changes but I hear you.
He didn't exempt the UK from those changes. There was no change to the voting system.
Mealy-mouthed words about being exempt from "further union" doesn't mean anything unless the voting system is amended to reflect that reality. It wasn't, was it?
The UK held all the cards, Philip. Don't like ABC measure? We hereby deem it closer union and we reject it.
That's the shame imo about Brexit. We genuinely held all the cards. And we threw it away.
At the time, I said that we should have implemented a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and made it clear that all such future treaties were subject to referenda. It's not as if there aren't a number of countries in the EU, for which that was so.
IIRC Camo made a Cast Iron Guarantee on the matter didn't he?
Too late by that point.
As a Remain voter, it makes me giggle to hear people suggesting that the way to prevent BREXIT was to prevent the voters getting... too close? to certain matters
For generations, the pitch in the western world has been Democracy Rules OK. Telling the voters, now, that they "have no choice" is not an answer. Telling them they have no choice because the rule book says - just invites the rule book to be torn up.
As J A Froude said in "Caesar, A sketch" - "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions". The Roman Republic died because the oligarchy may or may not have been right - the constitution, written and unwritten said they had the power. The people then backed the breaking of the constitution.
I don't have a clue what point you're trying to make.
But I can tell you that the EU is not democratic at all. The voters have no say in the matter of the executive.
You mean, like the UK Cabinet?
The Cabinet is elected based upon the Parliament we elect.
Not the case with the EU.
The Member States vote for parties who want to be in the EU. So perfectly democratic. Those Member States who don't want to be in the EU vote for parties who want to leave. Also perfectly democratic.
It is exactly the same. Can you change the laws that were decided by the cabinet and voted for in parliament on mask wearing? I don't believe you can. But it is still a democratic process.
Yes I can. I can vote for a party that will drop mask requirements at the Parliamentary elections.
Since the European Parliament doesn't have a European demos and doesn't form the European government anyway the same is not true in Europe.
Exactly. You can vote for a party that will drop the mask requirements but today you can't change it. Both vital democratic elements of our society. If enough people agree with you then the party gets in and masks are dropped.
And likewise if you wanted to stay in or leave the EU you can (and did) vote for it but until that time you don't have a direct say in every EU ruling or policy.
That's not good enough in a democracy Topping.
That's like saying you can leave the UK but unless you do you have no say in UK laws. No meaningful UK elections.
If the EU is to be making laws then it should be a genuine democracy. It isn't as it stands.
We absolutely had an influence over the EU laws. I can't be bothered to google this for a five year old discussion but it was shown that the UK more often than not got its way in EU law formation.
The UK government may have, the UK voters didn't. It was too divorced from the voters because they weren't debated and determined at elections.
Asinine point. The UK government is voted in by UK voters.
Mr. Jessop, it's the scientific definition. Broad definitions obviously blur boundaries. Buggering about with language is one of the ways certain people (not you) are trying to 'win' arguments in this area by denouncing those with the temerity to disagree as various types of '-phobes' and '-ists'.
Hermaphrodites were referred to in classical mythology. That doesn't make them commonplace. I do agree that being in a tiny minority doesn't mean they should be ignored. Feel rather sad that the South African sprinter (Caster Semenya? [sp]) has had far rougher treatment than biological men who have identified as women.
Female sports needs to be a category for cisgender women only. Everyone else can go into mens ( Which could probably do with being renamed open ). That effectively bars trans women from sport, but is needed to preserve female sport integrity - and if Semenya is deemed to be a woman (Another argument in itself) she should be able to compete without lowering her testosterone.
I agree with this. Competing at a top level in sport is not a fundamental right, and it's an area where fairness counts.
Although I'd argue that top sports people are generally freaks of nature anyway, to a certain extent. A combination of genetic traits that allow them to succeed at a sport, where someone more 'average' would not, however hard they trained. Michael Phelps' large feet, hyper-extendible joints, long torso and short legs all make him perfect for swimming.
Agreed. But this is not the approach being taken by sports bodies. They are ignoring material reality in favour of feelings. The material reality is that males once they have gone through male puberty are and always will be naturally stronger than women, regardless of how they subsequently identify and even if they go through a full transition. They are allowed to have levels of testosterone in their body that would get a woman athlete banned for doping. How can this possibly be fair.
This material reality means that trans athletes (male to female) have an inherent advantage. It means that womens' sport is dead or largely meaningless because it will be male bodies winning the prizes.
And yet we have reached the stage that feelings are allowed to override material scientific reality. And it is largely the feelings of men which are deemed more important than the concerns, feelings or material reality of women.
Caster Semenya is as I understand it a woman who naturally has large amounts of testosterone in her body. This may be very unusual but is no reason for banning her. But her position is very different from those with male bodies claiming to be women. They should not compete in womens' sport where physical strength matters. A separate transgender category can be created or they can remain in male categories. Where strength does not matter the issue does not really arise and transwomen can compete in female categories.
Or we could I suppose allow women athletes to dope themselves up the eyeballs as women athletes behind the Iron Curtain did so that they can compete on equal terms with transwomen. That is the logic of the transwomen are women approach. The fact that this renders womens' sport meaningless and has huge health impacts for women doing this are unfortunate consequences but, hey, who cares about those.
It is long past the time that we need to say that reality matters and if this does not please those who think that you can simply pretend that it does not exist simply by affirming it, too bad.
I know this feels like a niche issue to some. But it isn't. First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter. Second, because this is stopping any real focus on what transpeople actually need - which is better and earlier medical help so that they can live their lives happily.
And finally because this is another current in the whole "I have my own alternative facts" approach to life and politics which has so demeaned public life and culture in countries like the US. It is a very Trumpian and narcissistic approach to the world, similar to the anti-vaccination movement and other ludicrous conspiracy theories - people thinking that what they say - however untethered to reality - is real, should be validated by others and allowed to inform policy, no matter how dangerous or absurd the consequences.
It's all really messy. However - and I might be wrong - isn't an added complexity with Semenya that performance doping often uses testosterone, and therefore she was falling foul of the drug testing regime as well - until she proved they were her natural levels? From memory, women like Semenya might be forced to take drugs to get her testosterone levels down. That's really wrong IMO.
I just don't see competing in sports as anything like a fundamental right; and it's a place where 'fairness' matters. Hence, with regret, I've formed my position (which in this case is the same as yours).
" First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter."
I disagree with this. Numbers should not matter wrt rights, and changes that discriminate against a minority also matter. That's true for sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
There's 2 key questions and imo they can be uncoupled. What should the process be to legally change gender? Which things in society (if any) should be default governed by sex not gender?
So, eg, you could support a streamlined process for gender change but at the same time think that (eg) pro sports and prisons should be default sex based. Or, the opposite, you could think the gender change process should remain highly controlled and medicalized but that once done birth sex is irrelevant and gender is the correct default criterion for almost everything.
This type of shade never sees the light of day. It's either 'Pure self-ID for gender and sex doesn't matter a jot' or it's 'transgenderism flies in the face of science and is a perverts' charter representing an existential threat to women and their rights'.
Perhaps both sides feel their extremist hyperbole is mainly a response to that of the other side's. The debate certainly seems more 'vibrant' here than elsewhere. Eg it will be interesting to see how things develop in Germany where (aiui) the new government is pledged to implement reforms very similar to those the May government were looking at in 2018.
Well, it sees the light of day from me. It's a pure numbers game: BOTH there are genuine transgender people who deserve support and protection AND there are chancers around who are happy to look for sex, unfair sporting success, etc under the guise of transgenderism.
This isn't even a new or interesting problem. look at scoutmasters: there's a lot of men who want to become scoutmasters for the most praiseworthy reasons imaginable, and a lot of men who want to exploit the kiddie fiddling possibilities of the situation. We support, encourage and train the first lot, and try to vigilantly exclude the second. We err on the side of overvigilance, or try to, and that inevitably means that injustices occur. That's life. The same principle requires that gender dysphoric formerly male prisoners can stay in male prisons and bloody well lump it. Not difficult.
Suggest you look at Girl Guides who are currently, after complaints by parents, doing an inquiry into how the Head Guide in Nottingham is a man with a BDSM fetish who also poses pictures of themselves cradling illegal guns. They have also had issues re retaliation against female whistleblowers who have raised concern about whether they are taking their safeguarding obligations seriously. They are also giving guidance on what contraceptives to give 13 year old girls on guide trips even though (a) 13 is way below the age of consent and (b) such trips should be female only so why would contraception be needed.
@JosiasJessop's 2 questions are a sensible start. My answer to the first is that an application for a GRC should be as now ie it should require an objective external medical test because of the legal implications of such a change not just for the person concerned but for others and society at large. Expecting an external medical diagnosis is no more onerous than expecting one before getting cancer treatment. The delays are an issue of resources not a reason for doing away with the checks.
As to the second, the answer should be risk based. I would have the default as sex but permit gender provided there was little or no risk to others of doing so. We do not yet have data on whether men who do have gender dysphoria still remain in any sense an actual or potential risk to women. Until we do safeguarding should take priority. Nor do we know how many men who claim to be trans are in fact suffering from autogynephilia (do not Google this at work). Again until we do, men with male bodies should be kept out of female spaces.
The trouble is that those proposing very significant change are not asking these sensible questions. They simply pooh-pooh the very idea that there might be a conflict or risks or detrimental effects on others. They have got their way for quite a long time, in part by their insistence on "no debate". But women are now appreciating what these changes could mean and are fighting back and demanding both a debate and that no changes be made until these and many other questions are asked and answered. That is not extremism. It is sensible.
They weren't my questions: I think they were @kinabalu 's.
As for GRC's: there's a big issue that people wanting to change gender need to live as their new gender for two years. If you are a man transitioning to a woman, then it means you need to dress as a woman.
IMV a man dressing as a woman going into a men's toilet is going to be in much more physical and mental danger (from comments, bullying in the latter case) than women are from them using women's toilets.
Basically: banning people undergoing the transitioning process from using the toilets of their desired gender would be a big barrier to their transitioning.
Perhaps there's a way around this, although I am far from an expert in these areas. Perhaps there should be a pre-GRC certificate; to say someone is undergoing a transitioning process. This can be obtained from a panel, in a similar manner to the Interim GRC that married people need to get before they get a GRC. Once you get this, you can use women's facilities: but it can be rescinded at any time.
Although there are probably massive holes in that idea, too. Not least it makes an already convoluted process harder.
As an aside, how do you police this anyway? How do you check that that person using that cubicle is, in fact, a woman?
Toilets are an odd thing to focus on imo. And, yes, the policing aspect is interesting to ponder.
One reason for the focus on toilets is because so many women and girls have endured some form of sexual assault in toilets. It was where I was first assaulted when I was about 13. This is not unusual.
Policing: you need to be free to challenge without being accused of phobias. And when someone walks in who is obviously a man and not even trying to pass themselves as a woman or who has an erection or who indecently exposes themselves or who otherwise behaves in an appropriate way then they need to be told to leave and the authorities should support that ejection not accuse women.
Male perverts accessing women's toilets and behaving indecently is a crime and most definitely should be treated seriously, regardless of whether the GRA is reformed or not.
But, again, what's the logical link between an easier legal gender change process and the prevalence of that?
The problem is that the male perverts, when caught in the women’s toilets, will say that they are trans women and that anyone questioning them is transphobic and committing offences under the Gender Recognition Act.
Legislation designed to protect a tiny minority, has given free rein to a larger minority, who are despised by women and seen as an invasion of their protected spaces.
What legislation are you talking about?
Legally changing gender doesn't make it easier for a man to access a female toilet. So what's the link between the legal gender change process and a man accessing a female toilet?
There isn't one unless toilets are policed for gender via a certificate. If they were, yes, a man could be motivated to change gender, get the cert, and show it to gain access.
But they aren't. Nor are they policed for physical genital sex.
Unless you're proposing these things - which you surely aren't - I don't see where you're going with the comment.
The problem isn’t trans women. The problem is men, some of whom are sex offenders, posing as trans women.
But this is still not addressing my point.
How does making the legal gender change process easier make it more likely that such men will access female spaces that aren't policed for legal gender?
I think the point (and I have some sympathy with this) is that your creepy but not quite criminal man who wants to hang out in the women's toilets can presently be moved on in short order, simply for being a man. Say he's loitering by the basins, leering at the women in the mirror. Nothing criminal, but he's not allowed to be there. If a women reports it to the staff, he'll be fetched out. If he, by claiming to indentify as 'she' has a legal right to stay in there then it becomes a lot more shades of grey. Can only reasonably be expelled for.... what? Taking too long in there? Looking in the mirror allegedly at women? Could be a threatening presence about which little could be done.
I don't think that this is about the man waving his penis around in the women's toilets, which would surely still result in expulsion, but about the more subtle stuff. One person could cause a lot of trouble and unease, without doing anything overtly wrong.
Are there many of these men? I don't know. Some though, I expect. And if you're a woman being harassed by one of them then you're not really going to care whether it's common or not. It's intimidating/unpleasant. but if you report it, you report - what? - someone looked at me a bit funny or is taking a long time?
On the other hand, the genuinely transitioning woman should, imho, be able to use that space. And I'm not really into defining what people have to wear to get into that space - only transgender women in dresses, ridiculous?
I'm not quite sure what the answer is, but I do think there would be some issues raised by the ability for people to self-ID and be legally treated as self-Id gender.
Self ID is still a legal process, not an instantaneous reversible decision, isn't it? Hence there should be some legal documentation, such as Drivers licence etc.
So you wish to hang round women's toilets. Currently it's hard to pass the huddles put in your way to allow you to legally do so.
With self-identification it's simply a matter of filling in a form and waiting a few weeks.
Now I can see a whole lot of reasons why self-identification is a better approach but, sadly, it opens things up for abuse, and a lot of women have valid (personal) reasons for wanting a 100% safe space and self-identification removes that
I am not advocating Self ID, but it is the case that a legal process is still required, just a de-medicalised one.
Trans activists want all sorts of medical interventions for themselves - and especially for children - but on the one thing that has an impact on the rights of others, all of a sudden they no longer want any sort of medical verification of what they claim is a medical condition, which if not satisfied will lead to all sorts of appalling things happening. Odd that.
It's a mess, or at least a potential one. As someone who has never had any ambition to hang around women's toilets or claim not to be male, I (hope) I understand your concerns. And I'm very, very concerned about the idea of children..... under 18's .... transitioning without considerable competent psychological counselling. Having written that, there's a 'lad' at the school one of my teenage granddaughters attends, indeed in her class, who she says regards himself as female, is probably the most competent make-up artist in the class, and, apparently says he's going to 'properly' transition as soon as he can. I'm not sure how he gets on with games or the games changing rooms. It's private, mainly girls, school and apparently they cope. TBH, neither Mrs C nor I feel the need to inquire too deeply! Or the desirability of so doing!
If the current conversion therapy ban proposals go through unamended , competent psychological counselling could well end up being being criminalised. This is a whole other topic which I am not going to go into now.
Suffice to say that the use of untested experimental puberty blockers and other hormones on children followed by surgery which often has the effect of rendering children infertile and unable to orgasm is, IMO, a class action lawsuit and medical negligence case just waiting to happen. It is a horror story.
A boy in my son's class was in a similar position in his mid-teens: good at make up, called himself the female version of his male name, wore women's clothes from time to time etc and thought he might be transgender. Then over time realised he was not and is now happily gay.
The rush to push children towards transition is appalling IMO. The reality may well be that many of them are not transgender at all but gay.
There are already a fair few who have detransiitoned
In twenty or thirty years time this will be a big scandal and the govt will be issuing apologies
Not many detransition from a change of mind, though more do because of medical side effects of the hormones, or disappointment as to their effects.
In practice the ones that cause the most discomfort are those who never attempt surgical or medical transition, and don't intend to do so, yet self identify as women.
Not sure of the validity of the distinctions in your first para and anyway it's impossible to tell, because even the mention of the possibility of remorse, never mind applying for funding to investigate it, is grounds for cancellation
Mr. Jessop, it's the scientific definition. Broad definitions obviously blur boundaries. Buggering about with language is one of the ways certain people (not you) are trying to 'win' arguments in this area by denouncing those with the temerity to disagree as various types of '-phobes' and '-ists'.
Hermaphrodites were referred to in classical mythology. That doesn't make them commonplace. I do agree that being in a tiny minority doesn't mean they should be ignored. Feel rather sad that the South African sprinter (Caster Semenya? [sp]) has had far rougher treatment than biological men who have identified as women.
Female sports needs to be a category for cisgender women only. Everyone else can go into mens ( Which could probably do with being renamed open ). That effectively bars trans women from sport, but is needed to preserve female sport integrity - and if Semenya is deemed to be a woman (Another argument in itself) she should be able to compete without lowering her testosterone.
I agree with this. Competing at a top level in sport is not a fundamental right, and it's an area where fairness counts.
Although I'd argue that top sports people are generally freaks of nature anyway, to a certain extent. A combination of genetic traits that allow them to succeed at a sport, where someone more 'average' would not, however hard they trained. Michael Phelps' large feet, hyper-extendible joints, long torso and short legs all make him perfect for swimming.
Agreed. But this is not the approach being taken by sports bodies. They are ignoring material reality in favour of feelings. The material reality is that males once they have gone through male puberty are and always will be naturally stronger than women, regardless of how they subsequently identify and even if they go through a full transition. They are allowed to have levels of testosterone in their body that would get a woman athlete banned for doping. How can this possibly be fair.
This material reality means that trans athletes (male to female) have an inherent advantage. It means that womens' sport is dead or largely meaningless because it will be male bodies winning the prizes.
And yet we have reached the stage that feelings are allowed to override material scientific reality. And it is largely the feelings of men which are deemed more important than the concerns, feelings or material reality of women.
Caster Semenya is as I understand it a woman who naturally has large amounts of testosterone in her body. This may be very unusual but is no reason for banning her. But her position is very different from those with male bodies claiming to be women. They should not compete in womens' sport where physical strength matters. A separate transgender category can be created or they can remain in male categories. Where strength does not matter the issue does not really arise and transwomen can compete in female categories.
Or we could I suppose allow women athletes to dope themselves up the eyeballs as women athletes behind the Iron Curtain did so that they can compete on equal terms with transwomen. That is the logic of the transwomen are women approach. The fact that this renders womens' sport meaningless and has huge health impacts for women doing this are unfortunate consequences but, hey, who cares about those.
It is long past the time that we need to say that reality matters and if this does not please those who think that you can simply pretend that it does not exist simply by affirming it, too bad.
I know this feels like a niche issue to some. But it isn't. First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter. Second, because this is stopping any real focus on what transpeople actually need - which is better and earlier medical help so that they can live their lives happily.
And finally because this is another current in the whole "I have my own alternative facts" approach to life and politics which has so demeaned public life and culture in countries like the US. It is a very Trumpian and narcissistic approach to the world, similar to the anti-vaccination movement and other ludicrous conspiracy theories - people thinking that what they say - however untethered to reality - is real, should be validated by others and allowed to inform policy, no matter how dangerous or absurd the consequences.
It's all really messy. However - and I might be wrong - isn't an added complexity with Semenya that performance doping often uses testosterone, and therefore she was falling foul of the drug testing regime as well - until she proved they were her natural levels? From memory, women like Semenya might be forced to take drugs to get her testosterone levels down. That's really wrong IMO.
I just don't see competing in sports as anything like a fundamental right; and it's a place where 'fairness' matters. Hence, with regret, I've formed my position (which in this case is the same as yours).
" First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter."
I disagree with this. Numbers should not matter wrt rights, and changes that discriminate against a minority also matter. That's true for sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
There's 2 key questions and imo they can be uncoupled. What should the process be to legally change gender? Which things in society (if any) should be default governed by sex not gender?
So, eg, you could support a streamlined process for gender change but at the same time think that (eg) pro sports and prisons should be default sex based. Or, the opposite, you could think the gender change process should remain highly controlled and medicalized but that once done birth sex is irrelevant and gender is the correct default criterion for almost everything.
This type of shade never sees the light of day. It's either 'Pure self-ID for gender and sex doesn't matter a jot' or it's 'transgenderism flies in the face of science and is a perverts' charter representing an existential threat to women and their rights'.
Perhaps both sides feel their extremist hyperbole is mainly a response to that of the other side's. The debate certainly seems more 'vibrant' here than elsewhere. Eg it will be interesting to see how things develop in Germany where (aiui) the new government is pledged to implement reforms very similar to those the May government were looking at in 2018.
Well, it sees the light of day from me. It's a pure numbers game: BOTH there are genuine transgender people who deserve support and protection AND there are chancers around who are happy to look for sex, unfair sporting success, etc under the guise of transgenderism.
This isn't even a new or interesting problem. look at scoutmasters: there's a lot of men who want to become scoutmasters for the most praiseworthy reasons imaginable, and a lot of men who want to exploit the kiddie fiddling possibilities of the situation. We support, encourage and train the first lot, and try to vigilantly exclude the second. We err on the side of overvigilance, or try to, and that inevitably means that injustices occur. That's life. The same principle requires that gender dysphoric formerly male prisoners can stay in male prisons and bloody well lump it. Not difficult.
Suggest you look at Girl Guides who are currently, after complaints by parents, doing an inquiry into how the Head Guide in Nottingham is a man with a BDSM fetish who also poses pictures of themselves cradling illegal guns. They have also had issues re retaliation against female whistleblowers who have raised concern about whether they are taking their safeguarding obligations seriously. They are also giving guidance on what contraceptives to give 13 year old girls on guide trips even though (a) 13 is way below the age of consent and (b) such trips should be female only so why would contraception be needed.
@JosiasJessop's 2 questions are a sensible start. My answer to the first is that an application for a GRC should be as now ie it should require an objective external medical test because of the legal implications of such a change not just for the person concerned but for others and society at large. Expecting an external medical diagnosis is no more onerous than expecting one before getting cancer treatment. The delays are an issue of resources not a reason for doing away with the checks.
As to the second, the answer should be risk based. I would have the default as sex but permit gender provided there was little or no risk to others of doing so. We do not yet have data on whether men who do have gender dysphoria still remain in any sense an actual or potential risk to women. Until we do safeguarding should take priority. Nor do we know how many men who claim to be trans are in fact suffering from autogynephilia (do not Google this at work). Again until we do, men with male bodies should be kept out of female spaces.
The trouble is that those proposing very significant change are not asking these sensible questions. They simply pooh-pooh the very idea that there might be a conflict or risks or detrimental effects on others. They have got their way for quite a long time, in part by their insistence on "no debate". But women are now appreciating what these changes could mean and are fighting back and demanding both a debate and that no changes be made until these and many other questions are asked and answered. That is not extremism. It is sensible.
They weren't my questions: I think they were @kinabalu 's.
As for GRC's: there's a big issue that people wanting to change gender need to live as their new gender for two years. If you are a man transitioning to a woman, then it means you need to dress as a woman.
IMV a man dressing as a woman going into a men's toilet is going to be in much more physical and mental danger (from comments, bullying in the latter case) than women are from them using women's toilets.
Basically: banning people undergoing the transitioning process from using the toilets of their desired gender would be a big barrier to their transitioning.
Perhaps there's a way around this, although I am far from an expert in these areas. Perhaps there should be a pre-GRC certificate; to say someone is undergoing a transitioning process. This can be obtained from a panel, in a similar manner to the Interim GRC that married people need to get before they get a GRC. Once you get this, you can use women's facilities: but it can be rescinded at any time.
Although there are probably massive holes in that idea, too. Not least it makes an already convoluted process harder.
As an aside, how do you police this anyway? How do you check that that person using that cubicle is, in fact, a woman?
Toilets are an odd thing to focus on imo. And, yes, the policing aspect is interesting to ponder.
One reason for the focus on toilets is because so many women and girls have endured some form of sexual assault in toilets. It was where I was first assaulted when I was about 13. This is not unusual.
Policing: you need to be free to challenge without being accused of phobias. And when someone walks in who is obviously a man and not even trying to pass themselves as a woman or who has an erection or who indecently exposes themselves or who otherwise behaves in an appropriate way then they need to be told to leave and the authorities should support that ejection not accuse women.
Male perverts accessing women's toilets and behaving indecently is a crime and most definitely should be treated seriously, regardless of whether the GRA is reformed or not.
But, again, what's the logical link between an easier legal gender change process and the prevalence of that?
The problem is that the male perverts, when caught in the women’s toilets, will say that they are trans women and that anyone questioning them is transphobic and committing offences under the Gender Recognition Act.
Legislation designed to protect a tiny minority, has given free rein to a larger minority, who are despised by women and seen as an invasion of their protected spaces.
What legislation are you talking about?
Legally changing gender doesn't make it easier for a man to access a female toilet. So what's the link between the legal gender change process and a man accessing a female toilet?
There isn't one unless toilets are policed for gender via a certificate. If they were, yes, a man could be motivated to change gender, get the cert, and show it to gain access.
But they aren't. Nor are they policed for physical genital sex.
Unless you're proposing these things - which you surely aren't - I don't see where you're going with the comment.
The problem isn’t trans women. The problem is men, some of whom are sex offenders, posing as trans women.
But this is still not addressing my point.
How does making the legal gender change process easier make it more likely that such men will access female spaces that aren't policed for legal gender?
I think the point (and I have some sympathy with this) is that your creepy but not quite criminal man who wants to hang out in the women's toilets can presently be moved on in short order, simply for being a man. Say he's loitering by the basins, leering at the women in the mirror. Nothing criminal, but he's not allowed to be there. If a women reports it to the staff, he'll be fetched out. If he, by claiming to indentify as 'she' has a legal right to stay in there then it becomes a lot more shades of grey. Can only reasonably be expelled for.... what? Taking too long in there? Looking in the mirror allegedly at women? Could be a threatening presence about which little could be done.
I don't think that this is about the man waving his penis around in the women's toilets, which would surely still result in expulsion, but about the more subtle stuff. One person could cause a lot of trouble and unease, without doing anything overtly wrong.
Are there many of these men? I don't know. Some though, I expect. And if you're a woman being harassed by one of them then you're not really going to care whether it's common or not. It's intimidating/unpleasant. but if you report it, you report - what? - someone looked at me a bit funny or is taking a long time?
On the other hand, the genuinely transitioning woman should, imho, be able to use that space. And I'm not really into defining what people have to wear to get into that space - only transgender women in dresses, ridiculous?
I'm not quite sure what the answer is, but I do think there would be some issues raised by the ability for people to self-ID and be legally treated as self-Id gender.
Self ID is still a legal process, not an instantaneous reversible decision, isn't it? Hence there should be some legal documentation, such as Drivers licence etc.
So you wish to hang round women's toilets. Currently it's hard to pass the huddles put in your way to allow you to legally do so.
With self-identification it's simply a matter of filling in a form and waiting a few weeks.
Now I can see a whole lot of reasons why self-identification is a better approach but, sadly, it opens things up for abuse, and a lot of women have valid (personal) reasons for wanting a 100% safe space and self-identification removes that
I am not advocating Self ID, but it is the case that a legal process is still required, just a de-medicalised one.
Trans activists want all sorts of medical interventions for themselves - and especially for children - but on the one thing that has an impact on the rights of others, all of a sudden they no longer want any sort of medical verification of what they claim is a medical condition, which if not satisfied will lead to all sorts of appalling things happening. Odd that.
I'm not a trans activist btw. I don't post on this anywhere else. My view is easier gender change process, default inclusion, exclusions for certain areas based on evidence and reason not prejudice and ignorance. Other than that, I'm total agnostic. Don't know or understand enough to be otherwise.
Wouldn’t have thought it was unreasonable for a man, complete with penis, who wants to sit in ladies changing rooms to keep some kind of document saying he is transitioning handy, or are we at the stage where it would be too offensive to them to presume they might be the man they are?
Under current law, in order to get a certificate or surgery the Trans person has to live as the opposite gender for 2 years, so they already do so. It's hard to see how they can not use female spaces pre-certificate, during the application process.
Mr. Jessop, it's the scientific definition. Broad definitions obviously blur boundaries. Buggering about with language is one of the ways certain people (not you) are trying to 'win' arguments in this area by denouncing those with the temerity to disagree as various types of '-phobes' and '-ists'.
Hermaphrodites were referred to in classical mythology. That doesn't make them commonplace. I do agree that being in a tiny minority doesn't mean they should be ignored. Feel rather sad that the South African sprinter (Caster Semenya? [sp]) has had far rougher treatment than biological men who have identified as women.
Female sports needs to be a category for cisgender women only. Everyone else can go into mens ( Which could probably do with being renamed open ). That effectively bars trans women from sport, but is needed to preserve female sport integrity - and if Semenya is deemed to be a woman (Another argument in itself) she should be able to compete without lowering her testosterone.
I agree with this. Competing at a top level in sport is not a fundamental right, and it's an area where fairness counts.
Although I'd argue that top sports people are generally freaks of nature anyway, to a certain extent. A combination of genetic traits that allow them to succeed at a sport, where someone more 'average' would not, however hard they trained. Michael Phelps' large feet, hyper-extendible joints, long torso and short legs all make him perfect for swimming.
Agreed. But this is not the approach being taken by sports bodies. They are ignoring material reality in favour of feelings. The material reality is that males once they have gone through male puberty are and always will be naturally stronger than women, regardless of how they subsequently identify and even if they go through a full transition. They are allowed to have levels of testosterone in their body that would get a woman athlete banned for doping. How can this possibly be fair.
This material reality means that trans athletes (male to female) have an inherent advantage. It means that womens' sport is dead or largely meaningless because it will be male bodies winning the prizes.
And yet we have reached the stage that feelings are allowed to override material scientific reality. And it is largely the feelings of men which are deemed more important than the concerns, feelings or material reality of women.
Caster Semenya is as I understand it a woman who naturally has large amounts of testosterone in her body. This may be very unusual but is no reason for banning her. But her position is very different from those with male bodies claiming to be women. They should not compete in womens' sport where physical strength matters. A separate transgender category can be created or they can remain in male categories. Where strength does not matter the issue does not really arise and transwomen can compete in female categories.
Or we could I suppose allow women athletes to dope themselves up the eyeballs as women athletes behind the Iron Curtain did so that they can compete on equal terms with transwomen. That is the logic of the transwomen are women approach. The fact that this renders womens' sport meaningless and has huge health impacts for women doing this are unfortunate consequences but, hey, who cares about those.
It is long past the time that we need to say that reality matters and if this does not please those who think that you can simply pretend that it does not exist simply by affirming it, too bad.
I know this feels like a niche issue to some. But it isn't. First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter. Second, because this is stopping any real focus on what transpeople actually need - which is better and earlier medical help so that they can live their lives happily.
And finally because this is another current in the whole "I have my own alternative facts" approach to life and politics which has so demeaned public life and culture in countries like the US. It is a very Trumpian and narcissistic approach to the world, similar to the anti-vaccination movement and other ludicrous conspiracy theories - people thinking that what they say - however untethered to reality - is real, should be validated by others and allowed to inform policy, no matter how dangerous or absurd the consequences.
It's all really messy. However - and I might be wrong - isn't an added complexity with Semenya that performance doping often uses testosterone, and therefore she was falling foul of the drug testing regime as well - until she proved they were her natural levels? From memory, women like Semenya might be forced to take drugs to get her testosterone levels down. That's really wrong IMO.
I just don't see competing in sports as anything like a fundamental right; and it's a place where 'fairness' matters. Hence, with regret, I've formed my position (which in this case is the same as yours).
" First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter."
I disagree with this. Numbers should not matter wrt rights, and changes that discriminate against a minority also matter. That's true for sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
There's 2 key questions and imo they can be uncoupled. What should the process be to legally change gender? Which things in society (if any) should be default governed by sex not gender?
So, eg, you could support a streamlined process for gender change but at the same time think that (eg) pro sports and prisons should be default sex based. Or, the opposite, you could think the gender change process should remain highly controlled and medicalized but that once done birth sex is irrelevant and gender is the correct default criterion for almost everything.
This type of shade never sees the light of day. It's either 'Pure self-ID for gender and sex doesn't matter a jot' or it's 'transgenderism flies in the face of science and is a perverts' charter representing an existential threat to women and their rights'.
Perhaps both sides feel their extremist hyperbole is mainly a response to that of the other side's. The debate certainly seems more 'vibrant' here than elsewhere. Eg it will be interesting to see how things develop in Germany where (aiui) the new government is pledged to implement reforms very similar to those the May government were looking at in 2018.
Well, it sees the light of day from me. It's a pure numbers game: BOTH there are genuine transgender people who deserve support and protection AND there are chancers around who are happy to look for sex, unfair sporting success, etc under the guise of transgenderism.
This isn't even a new or interesting problem. look at scoutmasters: there's a lot of men who want to become scoutmasters for the most praiseworthy reasons imaginable, and a lot of men who want to exploit the kiddie fiddling possibilities of the situation. We support, encourage and train the first lot, and try to vigilantly exclude the second. We err on the side of overvigilance, or try to, and that inevitably means that injustices occur. That's life. The same principle requires that gender dysphoric formerly male prisoners can stay in male prisons and bloody well lump it. Not difficult.
Suggest you look at Girl Guides who are currently, after complaints by parents, doing an inquiry into how the Head Guide in Nottingham is a man with a BDSM fetish who also poses pictures of themselves cradling illegal guns. They have also had issues re retaliation against female whistleblowers who have raised concern about whether they are taking their safeguarding obligations seriously. They are also giving guidance on what contraceptives to give 13 year old girls on guide trips even though (a) 13 is way below the age of consent and (b) such trips should be female only so why would contraception be needed.
@JosiasJessop's 2 questions are a sensible start. My answer to the first is that an application for a GRC should be as now ie it should require an objective external medical test because of the legal implications of such a change not just for the person concerned but for others and society at large. Expecting an external medical diagnosis is no more onerous than expecting one before getting cancer treatment. The delays are an issue of resources not a reason for doing away with the checks.
As to the second, the answer should be risk based. I would have the default as sex but permit gender provided there was little or no risk to others of doing so. We do not yet have data on whether men who do have gender dysphoria still remain in any sense an actual or potential risk to women. Until we do safeguarding should take priority. Nor do we know how many men who claim to be trans are in fact suffering from autogynephilia (do not Google this at work). Again until we do, men with male bodies should be kept out of female spaces.
The trouble is that those proposing very significant change are not asking these sensible questions. They simply pooh-pooh the very idea that there might be a conflict or risks or detrimental effects on others. They have got their way for quite a long time, in part by their insistence on "no debate". But women are now appreciating what these changes could mean and are fighting back and demanding both a debate and that no changes be made until these and many other questions are asked and answered. That is not extremism. It is sensible.
They weren't my questions: I think they were @kinabalu 's.
As for GRC's: there's a big issue that people wanting to change gender need to live as their new gender for two years. If you are a man transitioning to a woman, then it means you need to dress as a woman.
IMV a man dressing as a woman going into a men's toilet is going to be in much more physical and mental danger (from comments, bullying in the latter case) than women are from them using women's toilets.
Basically: banning people undergoing the transitioning process from using the toilets of their desired gender would be a big barrier to their transitioning.
Perhaps there's a way around this, although I am far from an expert in these areas. Perhaps there should be a pre-GRC certificate; to say someone is undergoing a transitioning process. This can be obtained from a panel, in a similar manner to the Interim GRC that married people need to get before they get a GRC. Once you get this, you can use women's facilities: but it can be rescinded at any time.
Although there are probably massive holes in that idea, too. Not least it makes an already convoluted process harder.
As an aside, how do you police this anyway? How do you check that that person using that cubicle is, in fact, a woman?
Toilets are an odd thing to focus on imo. And, yes, the policing aspect is interesting to ponder.
One reason for the focus on toilets is because so many women and girls have endured some form of sexual assault in toilets. It was where I was first assaulted when I was about 13. This is not unusual.
Policing: you need to be free to challenge without being accused of phobias. And when someone walks in who is obviously a man and not even trying to pass themselves as a woman or who has an erection or who indecently exposes themselves or who otherwise behaves in an appropriate way then they need to be told to leave and the authorities should support that ejection not accuse women.
Male perverts accessing women's toilets and behaving indecently is a crime and most definitely should be treated seriously, regardless of whether the GRA is reformed or not.
But, again, what's the logical link between an easier legal gender change process and the prevalence of that?
The problem is that the male perverts, when caught in the women’s toilets, will say that they are trans women and that anyone questioning them is transphobic and committing offences under the Gender Recognition Act.
Legislation designed to protect a tiny minority, has given free rein to a larger minority, who are despised by women and seen as an invasion of their protected spaces.
What legislation are you talking about?
Legally changing gender doesn't make it easier for a man to access a female toilet. So what's the link between the legal gender change process and a man accessing a female toilet?
There isn't one unless toilets are policed for gender via a certificate. If they were, yes, a man could be motivated to change gender, get the cert, and show it to gain access.
But they aren't. Nor are they policed for physical genital sex.
Unless you're proposing these things - which you surely aren't - I don't see where you're going with the comment.
The problem isn’t trans women. The problem is men, some of whom are sex offenders, posing as trans women.
But this is still not addressing my point.
How does making the legal gender change process easier make it more likely that such men will access female spaces that aren't policed for legal gender?
I think the point (and I have some sympathy with this) is that your creepy but not quite criminal man who wants to hang out in the women's toilets can presently be moved on in short order, simply for being a man. Say he's loitering by the basins, leering at the women in the mirror. Nothing criminal, but he's not allowed to be there. If a women reports it to the staff, he'll be fetched out. If he, by claiming to indentify as 'she' has a legal right to stay in there then it becomes a lot more shades of grey. Can only reasonably be expelled for.... what? Taking too long in there? Looking in the mirror allegedly at women? Could be a threatening presence about which little could be done.
I don't think that this is about the man waving his penis around in the women's toilets, which would surely still result in expulsion, but about the more subtle stuff. One person could cause a lot of trouble and unease, without doing anything overtly wrong.
Are there many of these men? I don't know. Some though, I expect. And if you're a woman being harassed by one of them then you're not really going to care whether it's common or not. It's intimidating/unpleasant. but if you report it, you report - what? - someone looked at me a bit funny or is taking a long time?
On the other hand, the genuinely transitioning woman should, imho, be able to use that space. And I'm not really into defining what people have to wear to get into that space - only transgender women in dresses, ridiculous?
I'm not quite sure what the answer is, but I do think there would be some issues raised by the ability for people to self-ID and be legally treated as self-Id gender.
Self ID is still a legal process, not an instantaneous reversible decision, isn't it? Hence there should be some legal documentation, such as Drivers licence etc.
So you wish to hang round women's toilets. Currently it's hard to pass the huddles put in your way to allow you to legally do so.
With self-identification it's simply a matter of filling in a form and waiting a few weeks.
Now I can see a whole lot of reasons why self-identification is a better approach but, sadly, it opens things up for abuse, and a lot of women have valid (personal) reasons for wanting a 100% safe space and self-identification removes that
I am not advocating Self ID, but it is the case that a legal process is still required, just a de-medicalised one.
Trans activists want all sorts of medical interventions for themselves - and especially for children - but on the one thing that has an impact on the rights of others, all of a sudden they no longer want any sort of medical verification of what they claim is a medical condition, which if not satisfied will lead to all sorts of appalling things happening. Odd that.
I'm not a trans activist btw. I don't post on this anywhere else. My view is easier gender change process, default inclusion, exclusions for certain areas based on evidence and reason not prejudice and ignorance. Other than that, I'm total agnostic. Don't know or understand enough to be otherwise.
Wouldn’t have thought it was unreasonable for a man, complete with penis, who wants to sit in ladies changing rooms to keep some kind of document saying he is transitioning handy, or are we at the stage where it would be too offensive to them to presume they might be the man they are?
should the penisholder also be subject to a criminal record check
Social distancing in pubs/restaurants +44 2m rule +28 Close clubs +21 Rule of 6 indoors +8 No large events +1 Rule of 6 outdoors -23 No household mixing indoors -35 Full lockdown -36 Close pubs/restaurants -45 https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1466431813811949586?s=20
Then thank God random Joe Public isn't in charge of making policy. All the social distancing shit that so many of them seem to be desperate to bring back would kill off most of the hospitality venues that they claim still to want to allow to operate.
It's remarkable that so many people still haven't twigged that the average restaurant can't keep going financially with half its tables removed. Though then again, these are probably the same respondents who have been sat locked securely inside their homes in abject terror ever since the word 'omicron' started being uttered in the TV news bulletins, so one has to question to what extent they're really interested in supporting such businesses through their custom anyway.
The number of people dining out across the UK has fallen to the lowest level since the reopening of indoor hospitality, according to restaurant industry figures covering the first few days since news broke about the Omicron variant.
The seven-day average estimate for UK seated diners fell six percentage points in the week to 29 November, reaching the lowest point since 17 May when indoor dining reopened in England, Scotland and Wales.
While the number of people eating out remained above levels recorded during the equivalent week in 2019 before the onset of the pandemic, at 111%, the figure was down from a level of 117% in the previous week, according to the figures from the booking platform OpenTable.
Mr. Jessop, it's the scientific definition. Broad definitions obviously blur boundaries. Buggering about with language is one of the ways certain people (not you) are trying to 'win' arguments in this area by denouncing those with the temerity to disagree as various types of '-phobes' and '-ists'.
Hermaphrodites were referred to in classical mythology. That doesn't make them commonplace. I do agree that being in a tiny minority doesn't mean they should be ignored. Feel rather sad that the South African sprinter (Caster Semenya? [sp]) has had far rougher treatment than biological men who have identified as women.
Female sports needs to be a category for cisgender women only. Everyone else can go into mens ( Which could probably do with being renamed open ). That effectively bars trans women from sport, but is needed to preserve female sport integrity - and if Semenya is deemed to be a woman (Another argument in itself) she should be able to compete without lowering her testosterone.
I agree with this. Competing at a top level in sport is not a fundamental right, and it's an area where fairness counts.
Although I'd argue that top sports people are generally freaks of nature anyway, to a certain extent. A combination of genetic traits that allow them to succeed at a sport, where someone more 'average' would not, however hard they trained. Michael Phelps' large feet, hyper-extendible joints, long torso and short legs all make him perfect for swimming.
Agreed. But this is not the approach being taken by sports bodies. They are ignoring material reality in favour of feelings. The material reality is that males once they have gone through male puberty are and always will be naturally stronger than women, regardless of how they subsequently identify and even if they go through a full transition. They are allowed to have levels of testosterone in their body that would get a woman athlete banned for doping. How can this possibly be fair.
This material reality means that trans athletes (male to female) have an inherent advantage. It means that womens' sport is dead or largely meaningless because it will be male bodies winning the prizes.
And yet we have reached the stage that feelings are allowed to override material scientific reality. And it is largely the feelings of men which are deemed more important than the concerns, feelings or material reality of women.
Caster Semenya is as I understand it a woman who naturally has large amounts of testosterone in her body. This may be very unusual but is no reason for banning her. But her position is very different from those with male bodies claiming to be women. They should not compete in womens' sport where physical strength matters. A separate transgender category can be created or they can remain in male categories. Where strength does not matter the issue does not really arise and transwomen can compete in female categories.
Or we could I suppose allow women athletes to dope themselves up the eyeballs as women athletes behind the Iron Curtain did so that they can compete on equal terms with transwomen. That is the logic of the transwomen are women approach. The fact that this renders womens' sport meaningless and has huge health impacts for women doing this are unfortunate consequences but, hey, who cares about those.
It is long past the time that we need to say that reality matters and if this does not please those who think that you can simply pretend that it does not exist simply by affirming it, too bad.
I know this feels like a niche issue to some. But it isn't. First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter. Second, because this is stopping any real focus on what transpeople actually need - which is better and earlier medical help so that they can live their lives happily.
And finally because this is another current in the whole "I have my own alternative facts" approach to life and politics which has so demeaned public life and culture in countries like the US. It is a very Trumpian and narcissistic approach to the world, similar to the anti-vaccination movement and other ludicrous conspiracy theories - people thinking that what they say - however untethered to reality - is real, should be validated by others and allowed to inform policy, no matter how dangerous or absurd the consequences.
It's all really messy. However - and I might be wrong - isn't an added complexity with Semenya that performance doping often uses testosterone, and therefore she was falling foul of the drug testing regime as well - until she proved they were her natural levels? From memory, women like Semenya might be forced to take drugs to get her testosterone levels down. That's really wrong IMO.
I just don't see competing in sports as anything like a fundamental right; and it's a place where 'fairness' matters. Hence, with regret, I've formed my position (which in this case is the same as yours).
" First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter."
I disagree with this. Numbers should not matter wrt rights, and changes that discriminate against a minority also matter. That's true for sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
There's 2 key questions and imo they can be uncoupled. What should the process be to legally change gender? Which things in society (if any) should be default governed by sex not gender?
So, eg, you could support a streamlined process for gender change but at the same time think that (eg) pro sports and prisons should be default sex based. Or, the opposite, you could think the gender change process should remain highly controlled and medicalized but that once done birth sex is irrelevant and gender is the correct default criterion for almost everything.
This type of shade never sees the light of day. It's either 'Pure self-ID for gender and sex doesn't matter a jot' or it's 'transgenderism flies in the face of science and is a perverts' charter representing an existential threat to women and their rights'.
Perhaps both sides feel their extremist hyperbole is mainly a response to that of the other side's. The debate certainly seems more 'vibrant' here than elsewhere. Eg it will be interesting to see how things develop in Germany where (aiui) the new government is pledged to implement reforms very similar to those the May government were looking at in 2018.
Well, it sees the light of day from me. It's a pure numbers game: BOTH there are genuine transgender people who deserve support and protection AND there are chancers around who are happy to look for sex, unfair sporting success, etc under the guise of transgenderism.
This isn't even a new or interesting problem. look at scoutmasters: there's a lot of men who want to become scoutmasters for the most praiseworthy reasons imaginable, and a lot of men who want to exploit the kiddie fiddling possibilities of the situation. We support, encourage and train the first lot, and try to vigilantly exclude the second. We err on the side of overvigilance, or try to, and that inevitably means that injustices occur. That's life. The same principle requires that gender dysphoric formerly male prisoners can stay in male prisons and bloody well lump it. Not difficult.
Suggest you look at Girl Guides who are currently, after complaints by parents, doing an inquiry into how the Head Guide in Nottingham is a man with a BDSM fetish who also poses pictures of themselves cradling illegal guns. They have also had issues re retaliation against female whistleblowers who have raised concern about whether they are taking their safeguarding obligations seriously. They are also giving guidance on what contraceptives to give 13 year old girls on guide trips even though (a) 13 is way below the age of consent and (b) such trips should be female only so why would contraception be needed.
@JosiasJessop's 2 questions are a sensible start. My answer to the first is that an application for a GRC should be as now ie it should require an objective external medical test because of the legal implications of such a change not just for the person concerned but for others and society at large. Expecting an external medical diagnosis is no more onerous than expecting one before getting cancer treatment. The delays are an issue of resources not a reason for doing away with the checks.
As to the second, the answer should be risk based. I would have the default as sex but permit gender provided there was little or no risk to others of doing so. We do not yet have data on whether men who do have gender dysphoria still remain in any sense an actual or potential risk to women. Until we do safeguarding should take priority. Nor do we know how many men who claim to be trans are in fact suffering from autogynephilia (do not Google this at work). Again until we do, men with male bodies should be kept out of female spaces.
The trouble is that those proposing very significant change are not asking these sensible questions. They simply pooh-pooh the very idea that there might be a conflict or risks or detrimental effects on others. They have got their way for quite a long time, in part by their insistence on "no debate". But women are now appreciating what these changes could mean and are fighting back and demanding both a debate and that no changes be made until these and many other questions are asked and answered. That is not extremism. It is sensible.
They weren't my questions: I think they were @kinabalu 's.
As for GRC's: there's a big issue that people wanting to change gender need to live as their new gender for two years. If you are a man transitioning to a woman, then it means you need to dress as a woman.
IMV a man dressing as a woman going into a men's toilet is going to be in much more physical and mental danger (from comments, bullying in the latter case) than women are from them using women's toilets.
Basically: banning people undergoing the transitioning process from using the toilets of their desired gender would be a big barrier to their transitioning.
Perhaps there's a way around this, although I am far from an expert in these areas. Perhaps there should be a pre-GRC certificate; to say someone is undergoing a transitioning process. This can be obtained from a panel, in a similar manner to the Interim GRC that married people need to get before they get a GRC. Once you get this, you can use women's facilities: but it can be rescinded at any time.
Although there are probably massive holes in that idea, too. Not least it makes an already convoluted process harder.
As an aside, how do you police this anyway? How do you check that that person using that cubicle is, in fact, a woman?
Toilets are an odd thing to focus on imo. And, yes, the policing aspect is interesting to ponder.
One reason for the focus on toilets is because so many women and girls have endured some form of sexual assault in toilets. It was where I was first assaulted when I was about 13. This is not unusual.
Policing: you need to be free to challenge without being accused of phobias. And when someone walks in who is obviously a man and not even trying to pass themselves as a woman or who has an erection or who indecently exposes themselves or who otherwise behaves in an appropriate way then they need to be told to leave and the authorities should support that ejection not accuse women.
Male perverts accessing women's toilets and behaving indecently is a crime and most definitely should be treated seriously, regardless of whether the GRA is reformed or not.
But, again, what's the logical link between an easier legal gender change process and the prevalence of that?
The problem is that the male perverts, when caught in the women’s toilets, will say that they are trans women and that anyone questioning them is transphobic and committing offences under the Gender Recognition Act.
Legislation designed to protect a tiny minority, has given free rein to a larger minority, who are despised by women and seen as an invasion of their protected spaces.
What legislation are you talking about?
Legally changing gender doesn't make it easier for a man to access a female toilet. So what's the link between the legal gender change process and a man accessing a female toilet?
There isn't one unless toilets are policed for gender via a certificate. If they were, yes, a man could be motivated to change gender, get the cert, and show it to gain access.
But they aren't. Nor are they policed for physical genital sex.
Unless you're proposing these things - which you surely aren't - I don't see where you're going with the comment.
The problem isn’t trans women. The problem is men, some of whom are sex offenders, posing as trans women.
But this is still not addressing my point.
How does making the legal gender change process easier make it more likely that such men will access female spaces that aren't policed for legal gender?
I think the point (and I have some sympathy with this) is that your creepy but not quite criminal man who wants to hang out in the women's toilets can presently be moved on in short order, simply for being a man. Say he's loitering by the basins, leering at the women in the mirror. Nothing criminal, but he's not allowed to be there. If a women reports it to the staff, he'll be fetched out. If he, by claiming to indentify as 'she' has a legal right to stay in there then it becomes a lot more shades of grey. Can only reasonably be expelled for.... what? Taking too long in there? Looking in the mirror allegedly at women? Could be a threatening presence about which little could be done.
I don't think that this is about the man waving his penis around in the women's toilets, which would surely still result in expulsion, but about the more subtle stuff. One person could cause a lot of trouble and unease, without doing anything overtly wrong.
Are there many of these men? I don't know. Some though, I expect. And if you're a woman being harassed by one of them then you're not really going to care whether it's common or not. It's intimidating/unpleasant. but if you report it, you report - what? - someone looked at me a bit funny or is taking a long time?
On the other hand, the genuinely transitioning woman should, imho, be able to use that space. And I'm not really into defining what people have to wear to get into that space - only transgender women in dresses, ridiculous?
I'm not quite sure what the answer is, but I do think there would be some issues raised by the ability for people to self-ID and be legally treated as self-Id gender.
I get what your driving at but I don't think it works too well as a point against what I'm arguing. There's no requirement to carry or show gender id or sex id to access (eg) public toilets. And the latter (sex) can only be checked by violating somebody's dignity. So unless you're proposing changes to this, I can't really see the relevance to the gender change process.
Johnson so key to Brexit he decided at the last minute which side he would back
As did much of the country CHB.
Cameron's failed renegotiations were the final straw for many people, myself included, to show that the EU couldn't be reformed for the better.
What would he have had to have delivered to have made you change your mind?
David Cameron gave a good vision of how reform should have taken place in his Bloomberg speech.
Cameron's first point in the Bloomberg speech was about the need to protect non-Eurozone members in the future with the way the EU was evolving. The Eurozone memberstates had a majority under QMV rules so going forwards the Eurozone if they agreed on a reform that suited them could pass a law without any input from non-Eurozone members.
In particular there was talk about "double majority" QMV requiring a QMV majority of non-Euro and Euromember states in order for a proposed law to affect non-Euro members. That still wouldn't have been a return to unanimity as required in the past, but would have been a safeguard.
But nothing happened. There was no fundamental or serious reform to the EU that happened. All of Cameron's proposals in Bloomberg (and there were more than that first one) were roundly rejected in the negotiations.
Cameron set out to reform the EU and instead proved it couldn't be reformed.
Don't disagree - the EU was always unlikely to change imo and he did exempt the UK from those changes but I hear you.
He didn't exempt the UK from those changes. There was no change to the voting system.
Mealy-mouthed words about being exempt from "further union" doesn't mean anything unless the voting system is amended to reflect that reality. It wasn't, was it?
The UK held all the cards, Philip. Don't like ABC measure? We hereby deem it closer union and we reject it.
That's the shame imo about Brexit. We genuinely held all the cards. And we threw it away.
At the time, I said that we should have implemented a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and made it clear that all such future treaties were subject to referenda. It's not as if there aren't a number of countries in the EU, for which that was so.
IIRC Camo made a Cast Iron Guarantee on the matter didn't he?
Too late by that point.
As a Remain voter, it makes me giggle to hear people suggesting that the way to prevent BREXIT was to prevent the voters getting... too close? to certain matters
For generations, the pitch in the western world has been Democracy Rules OK. Telling the voters, now, that they "have no choice" is not an answer. Telling them they have no choice because the rule book says - just invites the rule book to be torn up.
As J A Froude said in "Caesar, A sketch" - "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions". The Roman Republic died because the oligarchy may or may not have been right - the constitution, written and unwritten said they had the power. The people then backed the breaking of the constitution.
I don't have a clue what point you're trying to make.
But I can tell you that the EU is not democratic at all. The voters have no say in the matter of the executive.
You mean, like the UK Cabinet?
The Cabinet is elected based upon the Parliament we elect.
Not the case with the EU.
The Member States vote for parties who want to be in the EU. So perfectly democratic. Those Member States who don't want to be in the EU vote for parties who want to leave. Also perfectly democratic.
It is exactly the same. Can you change the laws that were decided by the cabinet and voted for in parliament on mask wearing? I don't believe you can. But it is still a democratic process.
Yes I can. I can vote for a party that will drop mask requirements at the Parliamentary elections.
Since the European Parliament doesn't have a European demos and doesn't form the European government anyway the same is not true in Europe.
Exactly. You can vote for a party that will drop the mask requirements but today you can't change it. Both vital democratic elements of our society. If enough people agree with you then the party gets in and masks are dropped.
And likewise if you wanted to stay in or leave the EU you can (and did) vote for it but until that time you don't have a direct say in every EU ruling or policy.
That's not good enough in a democracy Topping.
That's like saying you can leave the UK but unless you do you have no say in UK laws. No meaningful UK elections.
If the EU is to be making laws then it should be a genuine democracy. It isn't as it stands.
We absolutely had an influence over the EU laws. I can't be bothered to google this for a five year old discussion but it was shown that the UK more often than not got its way in EU law formation.
Which takes you back to what it means to live in a democracy.
It is not purely about the electoral mechanics.
It is that the existence of the electoral mechanics impels those who rule us to be responsive to public opinion during the intervening periods.
Well precisely.
Like him or loathe him, Boris and his Cabinet are subject to such mechanics.
Also - @AndyJS, many thanks for that really great piece from Unherd on Zemmour. It should be compulsory reading for anyone commenting on the French election. (And was also extremely well written.)
Yes, it's very good. I think Macron would be quite happy to face Zemmour in the run-off.
Zemmour strikes me as French version of a sort of intellectual cross between Oswald Mosley, Enoch Powell and Tommy Robinson. Nothing like Trump at all.
The piece suggests he hates Anglo Saxons, thinks that D Day landings were a mistake, and that France would have thrown the yoke of the Nazis off anyway. (And maybe Vichy wasn't so bad.)
Yes, though he hates Muslims (in France) even more than he hates Anglo Saxons.
One wonders what he makes of an Englishman & Muslim who hates the French?
Nobody honestly believes that Johnson is going to down in history as a great PM, do they
Boris himself .... and possibly HYUFD.
Personally, I think 'as a great PM' is a bit of a stretch. But I think that, as a rule, history judges those panned at the time more kindly, and those lauded at the time, less kindly.
Tell that to James Buchanan. Who is arguably a better comparator for Johnson than the earlier absurd suggestion of Lincoln.
If anyone is James Buchanan then surely it is Cameron?
Boris won the UKs Brexit Civil War so that makes him Lincoln.
Surely he is hoping it has a different ending to Lincoln...
Churchill's more Mr J's hero. But look how he ended up, too.
I keep on meaning on doing a thread about how Boris Johnson is the new Churchill.
Randolph that is, not Winston.
(I mean I've had the piece in the pipeline for five years.)
Also - @AndyJS, many thanks for that really great piece from Unherd on Zemmour. It should be compulsory reading for anyone commenting on the French election. (And was also extremely well written.)
Yes, it's very good. I think Macron would be quite happy to face Zemmour in the run-off.
Zemmour strikes me as French version of a sort of intellectual cross between Oswald Mosley, Enoch Powell and Tommy Robinson. Nothing like Trump at all.
I watched his interview with Freddie Sayers in French, even Tommy Robinson tries to hide this views a bit more than this guy. I was taken aback by just how overtly racist he was.
Johnson so key to Brexit he decided at the last minute which side he would back
As did much of the country CHB.
Cameron's failed renegotiations were the final straw for many people, myself included, to show that the EU couldn't be reformed for the better.
What would he have had to have delivered to have made you change your mind?
David Cameron gave a good vision of how reform should have taken place in his Bloomberg speech.
Cameron's first point in the Bloomberg speech was about the need to protect non-Eurozone members in the future with the way the EU was evolving. The Eurozone memberstates had a majority under QMV rules so going forwards the Eurozone if they agreed on a reform that suited them could pass a law without any input from non-Eurozone members.
In particular there was talk about "double majority" QMV requiring a QMV majority of non-Euro and Euromember states in order for a proposed law to affect non-Euro members. That still wouldn't have been a return to unanimity as required in the past, but would have been a safeguard.
But nothing happened. There was no fundamental or serious reform to the EU that happened. All of Cameron's proposals in Bloomberg (and there were more than that first one) were roundly rejected in the negotiations.
Cameron set out to reform the EU and instead proved it couldn't be reformed.
Don't disagree - the EU was always unlikely to change imo and he did exempt the UK from those changes but I hear you.
He didn't exempt the UK from those changes. There was no change to the voting system.
Mealy-mouthed words about being exempt from "further union" doesn't mean anything unless the voting system is amended to reflect that reality. It wasn't, was it?
The UK held all the cards, Philip. Don't like ABC measure? We hereby deem it closer union and we reject it.
That's the shame imo about Brexit. We genuinely held all the cards. And we threw it away.
At the time, I said that we should have implemented a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and made it clear that all such future treaties were subject to referenda. It's not as if there aren't a number of countries in the EU, for which that was so.
IIRC Camo made a Cast Iron Guarantee on the matter didn't he?
Too late by that point.
As a Remain voter, it makes me giggle to hear people suggesting that the way to prevent BREXIT was to prevent the voters getting... too close? to certain matters
For generations, the pitch in the western world has been Democracy Rules OK. Telling the voters, now, that they "have no choice" is not an answer. Telling them they have no choice because the rule book says - just invites the rule book to be torn up.
As J A Froude said in "Caesar, A sketch" - "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions". The Roman Republic died because the oligarchy may or may not have been right - the constitution, written and unwritten said they had the power. The people then backed the breaking of the constitution.
I don't have a clue what point you're trying to make.
But I can tell you that the EU is not democratic at all. The voters have no say in the matter of the executive.
You mean, like the UK Cabinet?
The Cabinet is elected based upon the Parliament we elect.
Not the case with the EU.
The Member States vote for parties who want to be in the EU. So perfectly democratic. Those Member States who don't want to be in the EU vote for parties who want to leave. Also perfectly democratic.
It is exactly the same. Can you change the laws that were decided by the cabinet and voted for in parliament on mask wearing? I don't believe you can. But it is still a democratic process.
Yes I can. I can vote for a party that will drop mask requirements at the Parliamentary elections.
Since the European Parliament doesn't have a European demos and doesn't form the European government anyway the same is not true in Europe.
Exactly. You can vote for a party that will drop the mask requirements but today you can't change it. Both vital democratic elements of our society. If enough people agree with you then the party gets in and masks are dropped.
And likewise if you wanted to stay in or leave the EU you can (and did) vote for it but until that time you don't have a direct say in every EU ruling or policy.
That's not good enough in a democracy Topping.
That's like saying you can leave the UK but unless you do you have no say in UK laws. No meaningful UK elections.
If the EU is to be making laws then it should be a genuine democracy. It isn't as it stands.
We absolutely had an influence over the EU laws. I can't be bothered to google this for a five year old discussion but it was shown that the UK more often than not got its way in EU law formation.
The UK government may have, the UK voters didn't. It was too divorced from the voters because they weren't debated and determined at elections.
Asinine point. The UK government is voted in by UK voters.
It's not an asinine point, the UK government is powerless to change the law without Parliament's consent in the UK. It is held to account via the Opposition, Select Committees, PMQs and much more.
The EU only required the UK government's consent, not UK Parliament's, to change the law.
Mr. Jessop, it's the scientific definition. Broad definitions obviously blur boundaries. Buggering about with language is one of the ways certain people (not you) are trying to 'win' arguments in this area by denouncing those with the temerity to disagree as various types of '-phobes' and '-ists'.
Hermaphrodites were referred to in classical mythology. That doesn't make them commonplace. I do agree that being in a tiny minority doesn't mean they should be ignored. Feel rather sad that the South African sprinter (Caster Semenya? [sp]) has had far rougher treatment than biological men who have identified as women.
Female sports needs to be a category for cisgender women only. Everyone else can go into mens ( Which could probably do with being renamed open ). That effectively bars trans women from sport, but is needed to preserve female sport integrity - and if Semenya is deemed to be a woman (Another argument in itself) she should be able to compete without lowering her testosterone.
I agree with this. Competing at a top level in sport is not a fundamental right, and it's an area where fairness counts.
Although I'd argue that top sports people are generally freaks of nature anyway, to a certain extent. A combination of genetic traits that allow them to succeed at a sport, where someone more 'average' would not, however hard they trained. Michael Phelps' large feet, hyper-extendible joints, long torso and short legs all make him perfect for swimming.
Agreed. But this is not the approach being taken by sports bodies. They are ignoring material reality in favour of feelings. The material reality is that males once they have gone through male puberty are and always will be naturally stronger than women, regardless of how they subsequently identify and even if they go through a full transition. They are allowed to have levels of testosterone in their body that would get a woman athlete banned for doping. How can this possibly be fair.
This material reality means that trans athletes (male to female) have an inherent advantage. It means that womens' sport is dead or largely meaningless because it will be male bodies winning the prizes.
And yet we have reached the stage that feelings are allowed to override material scientific reality. And it is largely the feelings of men which are deemed more important than the concerns, feelings or material reality of women.
Caster Semenya is as I understand it a woman who naturally has large amounts of testosterone in her body. This may be very unusual but is no reason for banning her. But her position is very different from those with male bodies claiming to be women. They should not compete in womens' sport where physical strength matters. A separate transgender category can be created or they can remain in male categories. Where strength does not matter the issue does not really arise and transwomen can compete in female categories.
Or we could I suppose allow women athletes to dope themselves up the eyeballs as women athletes behind the Iron Curtain did so that they can compete on equal terms with transwomen. That is the logic of the transwomen are women approach. The fact that this renders womens' sport meaningless and has huge health impacts for women doing this are unfortunate consequences but, hey, who cares about those.
It is long past the time that we need to say that reality matters and if this does not please those who think that you can simply pretend that it does not exist simply by affirming it, too bad.
I know this feels like a niche issue to some. But it isn't. First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter. Second, because this is stopping any real focus on what transpeople actually need - which is better and earlier medical help so that they can live their lives happily.
And finally because this is another current in the whole "I have my own alternative facts" approach to life and politics which has so demeaned public life and culture in countries like the US. It is a very Trumpian and narcissistic approach to the world, similar to the anti-vaccination movement and other ludicrous conspiracy theories - people thinking that what they say - however untethered to reality - is real, should be validated by others and allowed to inform policy, no matter how dangerous or absurd the consequences.
It's all really messy. However - and I might be wrong - isn't an added complexity with Semenya that performance doping often uses testosterone, and therefore she was falling foul of the drug testing regime as well - until she proved they were her natural levels? From memory, women like Semenya might be forced to take drugs to get her testosterone levels down. That's really wrong IMO.
I just don't see competing in sports as anything like a fundamental right; and it's a place where 'fairness' matters. Hence, with regret, I've formed my position (which in this case is the same as yours).
" First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter."
I disagree with this. Numbers should not matter wrt rights, and changes that discriminate against a minority also matter. That's true for sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
There's 2 key questions and imo they can be uncoupled. What should the process be to legally change gender? Which things in society (if any) should be default governed by sex not gender?
So, eg, you could support a streamlined process for gender change but at the same time think that (eg) pro sports and prisons should be default sex based. Or, the opposite, you could think the gender change process should remain highly controlled and medicalized but that once done birth sex is irrelevant and gender is the correct default criterion for almost everything.
This type of shade never sees the light of day. It's either 'Pure self-ID for gender and sex doesn't matter a jot' or it's 'transgenderism flies in the face of science and is a perverts' charter representing an existential threat to women and their rights'.
Perhaps both sides feel their extremist hyperbole is mainly a response to that of the other side's. The debate certainly seems more 'vibrant' here than elsewhere. Eg it will be interesting to see how things develop in Germany where (aiui) the new government is pledged to implement reforms very similar to those the May government were looking at in 2018.
Well, it sees the light of day from me. It's a pure numbers game: BOTH there are genuine transgender people who deserve support and protection AND there are chancers around who are happy to look for sex, unfair sporting success, etc under the guise of transgenderism.
This isn't even a new or interesting problem. look at scoutmasters: there's a lot of men who want to become scoutmasters for the most praiseworthy reasons imaginable, and a lot of men who want to exploit the kiddie fiddling possibilities of the situation. We support, encourage and train the first lot, and try to vigilantly exclude the second. We err on the side of overvigilance, or try to, and that inevitably means that injustices occur. That's life. The same principle requires that gender dysphoric formerly male prisoners can stay in male prisons and bloody well lump it. Not difficult.
Suggest you look at Girl Guides who are currently, after complaints by parents, doing an inquiry into how the Head Guide in Nottingham is a man with a BDSM fetish who also poses pictures of themselves cradling illegal guns. They have also had issues re retaliation against female whistleblowers who have raised concern about whether they are taking their safeguarding obligations seriously. They are also giving guidance on what contraceptives to give 13 year old girls on guide trips even though (a) 13 is way below the age of consent and (b) such trips should be female only so why would contraception be needed.
@JosiasJessop's 2 questions are a sensible start. My answer to the first is that an application for a GRC should be as now ie it should require an objective external medical test because of the legal implications of such a change not just for the person concerned but for others and society at large. Expecting an external medical diagnosis is no more onerous than expecting one before getting cancer treatment. The delays are an issue of resources not a reason for doing away with the checks.
As to the second, the answer should be risk based. I would have the default as sex but permit gender provided there was little or no risk to others of doing so. We do not yet have data on whether men who do have gender dysphoria still remain in any sense an actual or potential risk to women. Until we do safeguarding should take priority. Nor do we know how many men who claim to be trans are in fact suffering from autogynephilia (do not Google this at work). Again until we do, men with male bodies should be kept out of female spaces.
The trouble is that those proposing very significant change are not asking these sensible questions. They simply pooh-pooh the very idea that there might be a conflict or risks or detrimental effects on others. They have got their way for quite a long time, in part by their insistence on "no debate". But women are now appreciating what these changes could mean and are fighting back and demanding both a debate and that no changes be made until these and many other questions are asked and answered. That is not extremism. It is sensible.
They weren't my questions: I think they were @kinabalu 's.
As for GRC's: there's a big issue that people wanting to change gender need to live as their new gender for two years. If you are a man transitioning to a woman, then it means you need to dress as a woman.
IMV a man dressing as a woman going into a men's toilet is going to be in much more physical and mental danger (from comments, bullying in the latter case) than women are from them using women's toilets.
Basically: banning people undergoing the transitioning process from using the toilets of their desired gender would be a big barrier to their transitioning.
Perhaps there's a way around this, although I am far from an expert in these areas. Perhaps there should be a pre-GRC certificate; to say someone is undergoing a transitioning process. This can be obtained from a panel, in a similar manner to the Interim GRC that married people need to get before they get a GRC. Once you get this, you can use women's facilities: but it can be rescinded at any time.
Although there are probably massive holes in that idea, too. Not least it makes an already convoluted process harder.
As an aside, how do you police this anyway? How do you check that that person using that cubicle is, in fact, a woman?
Toilets are an odd thing to focus on imo. And, yes, the policing aspect is interesting to ponder.
One reason for the focus on toilets is because so many women and girls have endured some form of sexual assault in toilets. It was where I was first assaulted when I was about 13. This is not unusual.
Policing: you need to be free to challenge without being accused of phobias. And when someone walks in who is obviously a man and not even trying to pass themselves as a woman or who has an erection or who indecently exposes themselves or who otherwise behaves in an appropriate way then they need to be told to leave and the authorities should support that ejection not accuse women.
Male perverts accessing women's toilets and behaving indecently is a crime and most definitely should be treated seriously, regardless of whether the GRA is reformed or not.
But, again, what's the logical link between an easier legal gender change process and the prevalence of that?
The problem is that the male perverts, when caught in the women’s toilets, will say that they are trans women and that anyone questioning them is transphobic and committing offences under the Gender Recognition Act.
Legislation designed to protect a tiny minority, has given free rein to a larger minority, who are despised by women and seen as an invasion of their protected spaces.
What legislation are you talking about?
Legally changing gender doesn't make it easier for a man to access a female toilet. So what's the link between the legal gender change process and a man accessing a female toilet?
There isn't one unless toilets are policed for gender via a certificate. If they were, yes, a man could be motivated to change gender, get the cert, and show it to gain access.
But they aren't. Nor are they policed for physical genital sex.
Unless you're proposing these things - which you surely aren't - I don't see where you're going with the comment.
The problem isn’t trans women. The problem is men, some of whom are sex offenders, posing as trans women.
But this is still not addressing my point.
How does making the legal gender change process easier make it more likely that such men will access female spaces that aren't policed for legal gender?
I think the point (and I have some sympathy with this) is that your creepy but not quite criminal man who wants to hang out in the women's toilets can presently be moved on in short order, simply for being a man. Say he's loitering by the basins, leering at the women in the mirror. Nothing criminal, but he's not allowed to be there. If a women reports it to the staff, he'll be fetched out. If he, by claiming to indentify as 'she' has a legal right to stay in there then it becomes a lot more shades of grey. Can only reasonably be expelled for.... what? Taking too long in there? Looking in the mirror allegedly at women? Could be a threatening presence about which little could be done.
I don't think that this is about the man waving his penis around in the women's toilets, which would surely still result in expulsion, but about the more subtle stuff. One person could cause a lot of trouble and unease, without doing anything overtly wrong.
Are there many of these men? I don't know. Some though, I expect. And if you're a woman being harassed by one of them then you're not really going to care whether it's common or not. It's intimidating/unpleasant. but if you report it, you report - what? - someone looked at me a bit funny or is taking a long time?
On the other hand, the genuinely transitioning woman should, imho, be able to use that space. And I'm not really into defining what people have to wear to get into that space - only transgender women in dresses, ridiculous?
I'm not quite sure what the answer is, but I do think there would be some issues raised by the ability for people to self-ID and be legally treated as self-Id gender.
Self ID is still a legal process, not an instantaneous reversible decision, isn't it? Hence there should be some legal documentation, such as Drivers licence etc.
So you wish to hang round women's toilets. Currently it's hard to pass the huddles put in your way to allow you to legally do so.
With self-identification it's simply a matter of filling in a form and waiting a few weeks.
Now I can see a whole lot of reasons why self-identification is a better approach but, sadly, it opens things up for abuse, and a lot of women have valid (personal) reasons for wanting a 100% safe space and self-identification removes that
I am not advocating Self ID, but it is the case that a legal process is still required, just a de-medicalised one.
Trans activists want all sorts of medical interventions for themselves - and especially for children - but on the one thing that has an impact on the rights of others, all of a sudden they no longer want any sort of medical verification of what they claim is a medical condition, which if not satisfied will lead to all sorts of appalling things happening. Odd that.
It's a mess, or at least a potential one. As someone who has never had any ambition to hang around women's toilets or claim not to be male, I (hope) I understand your concerns. And I'm very, very concerned about the idea of children..... under 18's .... transitioning without considerable competent psychological counselling. Having written that, there's a 'lad' at the school one of my teenage granddaughters attends, indeed in her class, who she says regards himself as female, is probably the most competent make-up artist in the class, and, apparently says he's going to 'properly' transition as soon as he can. I'm not sure how he gets on with games or the games changing rooms. It's private, mainly girls, school and apparently they cope. TBH, neither Mrs C nor I feel the need to inquire too deeply! Or the desirability of so doing!
If the current conversion therapy ban proposals go through unamended , competent psychological counselling could well end up being being criminalised. This is a whole other topic which I am not going to go into now.
Suffice to say that the use of untested experimental puberty blockers and other hormones on children followed by surgery which often has the effect of rendering children infertile and unable to orgasm is, IMO, a class action lawsuit and medical negligence case just waiting to happen. It is a horror story.
A boy in my son's class was in a similar position in his mid-teens: good at make up, called himself the female version of his male name, wore women's clothes from time to time etc and thought he might be transgender. Then over time realised he was not and is now happily gay.
The rush to push children towards transition is appalling IMO. The reality may well be that many of them are not transgender at all but gay.
There are already a fair few who have detransiitoned
In twenty or thirty years time this will be a big scandal and the govt will be issuing apologies
I think the opposite. In 20 or 30 years changing gender will be accepted as no big deal and nobody's business other than the individual concerned. All of this will be looked back on with bemusement.
Johnson so key to Brexit he decided at the last minute which side he would back
As did much of the country CHB.
Cameron's failed renegotiations were the final straw for many people, myself included, to show that the EU couldn't be reformed for the better.
What would he have had to have delivered to have made you change your mind?
David Cameron gave a good vision of how reform should have taken place in his Bloomberg speech.
Cameron's first point in the Bloomberg speech was about the need to protect non-Eurozone members in the future with the way the EU was evolving. The Eurozone memberstates had a majority under QMV rules so going forwards the Eurozone if they agreed on a reform that suited them could pass a law without any input from non-Eurozone members.
In particular there was talk about "double majority" QMV requiring a QMV majority of non-Euro and Euromember states in order for a proposed law to affect non-Euro members. That still wouldn't have been a return to unanimity as required in the past, but would have been a safeguard.
But nothing happened. There was no fundamental or serious reform to the EU that happened. All of Cameron's proposals in Bloomberg (and there were more than that first one) were roundly rejected in the negotiations.
Cameron set out to reform the EU and instead proved it couldn't be reformed.
Don't disagree - the EU was always unlikely to change imo and he did exempt the UK from those changes but I hear you.
He didn't exempt the UK from those changes. There was no change to the voting system.
Mealy-mouthed words about being exempt from "further union" doesn't mean anything unless the voting system is amended to reflect that reality. It wasn't, was it?
The UK held all the cards, Philip. Don't like ABC measure? We hereby deem it closer union and we reject it.
That's the shame imo about Brexit. We genuinely held all the cards. And we threw it away.
At the time, I said that we should have implemented a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and made it clear that all such future treaties were subject to referenda. It's not as if there aren't a number of countries in the EU, for which that was so.
IIRC Camo made a Cast Iron Guarantee on the matter didn't he?
Too late by that point.
As a Remain voter, it makes me giggle to hear people suggesting that the way to prevent BREXIT was to prevent the voters getting... too close? to certain matters
For generations, the pitch in the western world has been Democracy Rules OK. Telling the voters, now, that they "have no choice" is not an answer. Telling them they have no choice because the rule book says - just invites the rule book to be torn up.
As J A Froude said in "Caesar, A sketch" - "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions". The Roman Republic died because the oligarchy may or may not have been right - the constitution, written and unwritten said they had the power. The people then backed the breaking of the constitution.
I don't have a clue what point you're trying to make.
But I can tell you that the EU is not democratic at all. The voters have no say in the matter of the executive.
You mean, like the UK Cabinet?
The Cabinet is elected based upon the Parliament we elect.
Not the case with the EU.
The Member States vote for parties who want to be in the EU. So perfectly democratic. Those Member States who don't want to be in the EU vote for parties who want to leave. Also perfectly democratic.
It is exactly the same. Can you change the laws that were decided by the cabinet and voted for in parliament on mask wearing? I don't believe you can. But it is still a democratic process.
Yes I can. I can vote for a party that will drop mask requirements at the Parliamentary elections.
Since the European Parliament doesn't have a European demos and doesn't form the European government anyway the same is not true in Europe.
Exactly. You can vote for a party that will drop the mask requirements but today you can't change it. Both vital democratic elements of our society. If enough people agree with you then the party gets in and masks are dropped.
And likewise if you wanted to stay in or leave the EU you can (and did) vote for it but until that time you don't have a direct say in every EU ruling or policy.
That's not good enough in a democracy Topping.
That's like saying you can leave the UK but unless you do you have no say in UK laws. No meaningful UK elections.
If the EU is to be making laws then it should be a genuine democracy. It isn't as it stands.
We absolutely had an influence over the EU laws. I can't be bothered to google this for a five year old discussion but it was shown that the UK more often than not got its way in EU law formation.
Which takes you back to what it means to live in a democracy.
It is not purely about the electoral mechanics.
It is that the existence of the electoral mechanics impels those who rule us to be responsive to public opinion during the intervening periods.
Well precisely.
Like him or loathe him, Boris and his Cabinet are subject to such mechanics.
Von Der Leyen and her Commission are not.
Except that they have a potential get out of jail card because our voting system is so skewed in their favour. We’d have better government if all their MPs were subject to meaningful electoral pressure - rather than having a whole collection of headbangers and morons and crooks isolated in their safe seats - and if the government needed to secure majority support from us voters rather than knowing that retaining 40% or thereabouts is enough to keep them sitting in the big chairs for another five years.
Mr. Jessop, it's the scientific definition. Broad definitions obviously blur boundaries. Buggering about with language is one of the ways certain people (not you) are trying to 'win' arguments in this area by denouncing those with the temerity to disagree as various types of '-phobes' and '-ists'.
Hermaphrodites were referred to in classical mythology. That doesn't make them commonplace. I do agree that being in a tiny minority doesn't mean they should be ignored. Feel rather sad that the South African sprinter (Caster Semenya? [sp]) has had far rougher treatment than biological men who have identified as women.
Female sports needs to be a category for cisgender women only. Everyone else can go into mens ( Which could probably do with being renamed open ). That effectively bars trans women from sport, but is needed to preserve female sport integrity - and if Semenya is deemed to be a woman (Another argument in itself) she should be able to compete without lowering her testosterone.
I agree with this. Competing at a top level in sport is not a fundamental right, and it's an area where fairness counts.
Although I'd argue that top sports people are generally freaks of nature anyway, to a certain extent. A combination of genetic traits that allow them to succeed at a sport, where someone more 'average' would not, however hard they trained. Michael Phelps' large feet, hyper-extendible joints, long torso and short legs all make him perfect for swimming.
Agreed. But this is not the approach being taken by sports bodies. They are ignoring material reality in favour of feelings. The material reality is that males once they have gone through male puberty are and always will be naturally stronger than women, regardless of how they subsequently identify and even if they go through a full transition. They are allowed to have levels of testosterone in their body that would get a woman athlete banned for doping. How can this possibly be fair.
This material reality means that trans athletes (male to female) have an inherent advantage. It means that womens' sport is dead or largely meaningless because it will be male bodies winning the prizes.
And yet we have reached the stage that feelings are allowed to override material scientific reality. And it is largely the feelings of men which are deemed more important than the concerns, feelings or material reality of women.
Caster Semenya is as I understand it a woman who naturally has large amounts of testosterone in her body. This may be very unusual but is no reason for banning her. But her position is very different from those with male bodies claiming to be women. They should not compete in womens' sport where physical strength matters. A separate transgender category can be created or they can remain in male categories. Where strength does not matter the issue does not really arise and transwomen can compete in female categories.
Or we could I suppose allow women athletes to dope themselves up the eyeballs as women athletes behind the Iron Curtain did so that they can compete on equal terms with transwomen. That is the logic of the transwomen are women approach. The fact that this renders womens' sport meaningless and has huge health impacts for women doing this are unfortunate consequences but, hey, who cares about those.
It is long past the time that we need to say that reality matters and if this does not please those who think that you can simply pretend that it does not exist simply by affirming it, too bad.
I know this feels like a niche issue to some. But it isn't. First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter. Second, because this is stopping any real focus on what transpeople actually need - which is better and earlier medical help so that they can live their lives happily.
And finally because this is another current in the whole "I have my own alternative facts" approach to life and politics which has so demeaned public life and culture in countries like the US. It is a very Trumpian and narcissistic approach to the world, similar to the anti-vaccination movement and other ludicrous conspiracy theories - people thinking that what they say - however untethered to reality - is real, should be validated by others and allowed to inform policy, no matter how dangerous or absurd the consequences.
It's all really messy. However - and I might be wrong - isn't an added complexity with Semenya that performance doping often uses testosterone, and therefore she was falling foul of the drug testing regime as well - until she proved they were her natural levels? From memory, women like Semenya might be forced to take drugs to get her testosterone levels down. That's really wrong IMO.
I just don't see competing in sports as anything like a fundamental right; and it's a place where 'fairness' matters. Hence, with regret, I've formed my position (which in this case is the same as yours).
" First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter."
I disagree with this. Numbers should not matter wrt rights, and changes that discriminate against a minority also matter. That's true for sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
There's 2 key questions and imo they can be uncoupled. What should the process be to legally change gender? Which things in society (if any) should be default governed by sex not gender?
So, eg, you could support a streamlined process for gender change but at the same time think that (eg) pro sports and prisons should be default sex based. Or, the opposite, you could think the gender change process should remain highly controlled and medicalized but that once done birth sex is irrelevant and gender is the correct default criterion for almost everything.
This type of shade never sees the light of day. It's either 'Pure self-ID for gender and sex doesn't matter a jot' or it's 'transgenderism flies in the face of science and is a perverts' charter representing an existential threat to women and their rights'.
Perhaps both sides feel their extremist hyperbole is mainly a response to that of the other side's. The debate certainly seems more 'vibrant' here than elsewhere. Eg it will be interesting to see how things develop in Germany where (aiui) the new government is pledged to implement reforms very similar to those the May government were looking at in 2018.
Well, it sees the light of day from me. It's a pure numbers game: BOTH there are genuine transgender people who deserve support and protection AND there are chancers around who are happy to look for sex, unfair sporting success, etc under the guise of transgenderism.
This isn't even a new or interesting problem. look at scoutmasters: there's a lot of men who want to become scoutmasters for the most praiseworthy reasons imaginable, and a lot of men who want to exploit the kiddie fiddling possibilities of the situation. We support, encourage and train the first lot, and try to vigilantly exclude the second. We err on the side of overvigilance, or try to, and that inevitably means that injustices occur. That's life. The same principle requires that gender dysphoric formerly male prisoners can stay in male prisons and bloody well lump it. Not difficult.
Suggest you look at Girl Guides who are currently, after complaints by parents, doing an inquiry into how the Head Guide in Nottingham is a man with a BDSM fetish who also poses pictures of themselves cradling illegal guns. They have also had issues re retaliation against female whistleblowers who have raised concern about whether they are taking their safeguarding obligations seriously. They are also giving guidance on what contraceptives to give 13 year old girls on guide trips even though (a) 13 is way below the age of consent and (b) such trips should be female only so why would contraception be needed.
@JosiasJessop's 2 questions are a sensible start. My answer to the first is that an application for a GRC should be as now ie it should require an objective external medical test because of the legal implications of such a change not just for the person concerned but for others and society at large. Expecting an external medical diagnosis is no more onerous than expecting one before getting cancer treatment. The delays are an issue of resources not a reason for doing away with the checks.
As to the second, the answer should be risk based. I would have the default as sex but permit gender provided there was little or no risk to others of doing so. We do not yet have data on whether men who do have gender dysphoria still remain in any sense an actual or potential risk to women. Until we do safeguarding should take priority. Nor do we know how many men who claim to be trans are in fact suffering from autogynephilia (do not Google this at work). Again until we do, men with male bodies should be kept out of female spaces.
The trouble is that those proposing very significant change are not asking these sensible questions. They simply pooh-pooh the very idea that there might be a conflict or risks or detrimental effects on others. They have got their way for quite a long time, in part by their insistence on "no debate". But women are now appreciating what these changes could mean and are fighting back and demanding both a debate and that no changes be made until these and many other questions are asked and answered. That is not extremism. It is sensible.
They weren't my questions: I think they were @kinabalu 's.
As for GRC's: there's a big issue that people wanting to change gender need to live as their new gender for two years. If you are a man transitioning to a woman, then it means you need to dress as a woman.
IMV a man dressing as a woman going into a men's toilet is going to be in much more physical and mental danger (from comments, bullying in the latter case) than women are from them using women's toilets.
Basically: banning people undergoing the transitioning process from using the toilets of their desired gender would be a big barrier to their transitioning.
Perhaps there's a way around this, although I am far from an expert in these areas. Perhaps there should be a pre-GRC certificate; to say someone is undergoing a transitioning process. This can be obtained from a panel, in a similar manner to the Interim GRC that married people need to get before they get a GRC. Once you get this, you can use women's facilities: but it can be rescinded at any time.
Although there are probably massive holes in that idea, too. Not least it makes an already convoluted process harder.
As an aside, how do you police this anyway? How do you check that that person using that cubicle is, in fact, a woman?
Toilets are an odd thing to focus on imo. And, yes, the policing aspect is interesting to ponder.
One reason for the focus on toilets is because so many women and girls have endured some form of sexual assault in toilets. It was where I was first assaulted when I was about 13. This is not unusual.
Policing: you need to be free to challenge without being accused of phobias. And when someone walks in who is obviously a man and not even trying to pass themselves as a woman or who has an erection or who indecently exposes themselves or who otherwise behaves in an appropriate way then they need to be told to leave and the authorities should support that ejection not accuse women.
Male perverts accessing women's toilets and behaving indecently is a crime and most definitely should be treated seriously, regardless of whether the GRA is reformed or not.
But, again, what's the logical link between an easier legal gender change process and the prevalence of that?
The problem is that the male perverts, when caught in the women’s toilets, will say that they are trans women and that anyone questioning them is transphobic and committing offences under the Gender Recognition Act.
Legislation designed to protect a tiny minority, has given free rein to a larger minority, who are despised by women and seen as an invasion of their protected spaces.
What legislation are you talking about?
Legally changing gender doesn't make it easier for a man to access a female toilet. So what's the link between the legal gender change process and a man accessing a female toilet?
There isn't one unless toilets are policed for gender via a certificate. If they were, yes, a man could be motivated to change gender, get the cert, and show it to gain access.
But they aren't. Nor are they policed for physical genital sex.
Unless you're proposing these things - which you surely aren't - I don't see where you're going with the comment.
The problem isn’t trans women. The problem is men, some of whom are sex offenders, posing as trans women.
But this is still not addressing my point.
How does making the legal gender change process easier make it more likely that such men will access female spaces that aren't policed for legal gender?
I think the point (and I have some sympathy with this) is that your creepy but not quite criminal man who wants to hang out in the women's toilets can presently be moved on in short order, simply for being a man. Say he's loitering by the basins, leering at the women in the mirror. Nothing criminal, but he's not allowed to be there. If a women reports it to the staff, he'll be fetched out. If he, by claiming to indentify as 'she' has a legal right to stay in there then it becomes a lot more shades of grey. Can only reasonably be expelled for.... what? Taking too long in there? Looking in the mirror allegedly at women? Could be a threatening presence about which little could be done.
I don't think that this is about the man waving his penis around in the women's toilets, which would surely still result in expulsion, but about the more subtle stuff. One person could cause a lot of trouble and unease, without doing anything overtly wrong.
Are there many of these men? I don't know. Some though, I expect. And if you're a woman being harassed by one of them then you're not really going to care whether it's common or not. It's intimidating/unpleasant. but if you report it, you report - what? - someone looked at me a bit funny or is taking a long time?
On the other hand, the genuinely transitioning woman should, imho, be able to use that space. And I'm not really into defining what people have to wear to get into that space - only transgender women in dresses, ridiculous?
I'm not quite sure what the answer is, but I do think there would be some issues raised by the ability for people to self-ID and be legally treated as self-Id gender.
Self ID is still a legal process, not an instantaneous reversible decision, isn't it? Hence there should be some legal documentation, such as Drivers licence etc.
So you wish to hang round women's toilets. Currently it's hard to pass the huddles put in your way to allow you to legally do so.
With self-identification it's simply a matter of filling in a form and waiting a few weeks.
Now I can see a whole lot of reasons why self-identification is a better approach but, sadly, it opens things up for abuse, and a lot of women have valid (personal) reasons for wanting a 100% safe space and self-identification removes that
I am not advocating Self ID, but it is the case that a legal process is still required, just a de-medicalised one.
Trans activists want all sorts of medical interventions for themselves - and especially for children - but on the one thing that has an impact on the rights of others, all of a sudden they no longer want any sort of medical verification of what they claim is a medical condition, which if not satisfied will lead to all sorts of appalling things happening. Odd that.
It's a mess, or at least a potential one. As someone who has never had any ambition to hang around women's toilets or claim not to be male, I (hope) I understand your concerns. And I'm very, very concerned about the idea of children..... under 18's .... transitioning without considerable competent psychological counselling. Having written that, there's a 'lad' at the school one of my teenage granddaughters attends, indeed in her class, who she says regards himself as female, is probably the most competent make-up artist in the class, and, apparently says he's going to 'properly' transition as soon as he can. I'm not sure how he gets on with games or the games changing rooms. It's private, mainly girls, school and apparently they cope. TBH, neither Mrs C nor I feel the need to inquire too deeply! Or the desirability of so doing!
If the current conversion therapy ban proposals go through unamended , competent psychological counselling could well end up being being criminalised. This is a whole other topic which I am not going to go into now.
Suffice to say that the use of untested experimental puberty blockers and other hormones on children followed by surgery which often has the effect of rendering children infertile and unable to orgasm is, IMO, a class action lawsuit and medical negligence case just waiting to happen. It is a horror story.
A boy in my son's class was in a similar position in his mid-teens: good at make up, called himself the female version of his male name, wore women's clothes from time to time etc and thought he might be transgender. Then over time realised he was not and is now happily gay.
The rush to push children towards transition is appalling IMO. The reality may well be that many of them are not transgender at all but gay.
There are already a fair few who have detransiitoned
In twenty or thirty years time this will be a big scandal and the govt will be issuing apologies
Not many detransition from a change of mind, though more do because of medical side effects of the hormones, or disappointment as to their effects.
In practice the ones that cause the most discomfort are those who never attempt surgical or medical transition, and don't intend to do so, yet self identify as women.
Not sure of the validity of the distinctions in your first para and anyway it's impossible to tell, because even the mention of the possibility of remorse, never mind applying for funding to investigate it, is grounds for cancellation
Wikipedia has some useful references on detransitioning. It is more complicated than simple regret.
Mr. Jessop, it's the scientific definition. Broad definitions obviously blur boundaries. Buggering about with language is one of the ways certain people (not you) are trying to 'win' arguments in this area by denouncing those with the temerity to disagree as various types of '-phobes' and '-ists'.
Hermaphrodites were referred to in classical mythology. That doesn't make them commonplace. I do agree that being in a tiny minority doesn't mean they should be ignored. Feel rather sad that the South African sprinter (Caster Semenya? [sp]) has had far rougher treatment than biological men who have identified as women.
Female sports needs to be a category for cisgender women only. Everyone else can go into mens ( Which could probably do with being renamed open ). That effectively bars trans women from sport, but is needed to preserve female sport integrity - and if Semenya is deemed to be a woman (Another argument in itself) she should be able to compete without lowering her testosterone.
I agree with this. Competing at a top level in sport is not a fundamental right, and it's an area where fairness counts.
Although I'd argue that top sports people are generally freaks of nature anyway, to a certain extent. A combination of genetic traits that allow them to succeed at a sport, where someone more 'average' would not, however hard they trained. Michael Phelps' large feet, hyper-extendible joints, long torso and short legs all make him perfect for swimming.
Agreed. But this is not the approach being taken by sports bodies. They are ignoring material reality in favour of feelings. The material reality is that males once they have gone through male puberty are and always will be naturally stronger than women, regardless of how they subsequently identify and even if they go through a full transition. They are allowed to have levels of testosterone in their body that would get a woman athlete banned for doping. How can this possibly be fair.
This material reality means that trans athletes (male to female) have an inherent advantage. It means that womens' sport is dead or largely meaningless because it will be male bodies winning the prizes.
And yet we have reached the stage that feelings are allowed to override material scientific reality. And it is largely the feelings of men which are deemed more important than the concerns, feelings or material reality of women.
Caster Semenya is as I understand it a woman who naturally has large amounts of testosterone in her body. This may be very unusual but is no reason for banning her. But her position is very different from those with male bodies claiming to be women. They should not compete in womens' sport where physical strength matters. A separate transgender category can be created or they can remain in male categories. Where strength does not matter the issue does not really arise and transwomen can compete in female categories.
Or we could I suppose allow women athletes to dope themselves up the eyeballs as women athletes behind the Iron Curtain did so that they can compete on equal terms with transwomen. That is the logic of the transwomen are women approach. The fact that this renders womens' sport meaningless and has huge health impacts for women doing this are unfortunate consequences but, hey, who cares about those.
It is long past the time that we need to say that reality matters and if this does not please those who think that you can simply pretend that it does not exist simply by affirming it, too bad.
I know this feels like a niche issue to some. But it isn't. First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter. Second, because this is stopping any real focus on what transpeople actually need - which is better and earlier medical help so that they can live their lives happily.
And finally because this is another current in the whole "I have my own alternative facts" approach to life and politics which has so demeaned public life and culture in countries like the US. It is a very Trumpian and narcissistic approach to the world, similar to the anti-vaccination movement and other ludicrous conspiracy theories - people thinking that what they say - however untethered to reality - is real, should be validated by others and allowed to inform policy, no matter how dangerous or absurd the consequences.
It's all really messy. However - and I might be wrong - isn't an added complexity with Semenya that performance doping often uses testosterone, and therefore she was falling foul of the drug testing regime as well - until she proved they were her natural levels? From memory, women like Semenya might be forced to take drugs to get her testosterone levels down. That's really wrong IMO.
I just don't see competing in sports as anything like a fundamental right; and it's a place where 'fairness' matters. Hence, with regret, I've formed my position (which in this case is the same as yours).
" First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter."
I disagree with this. Numbers should not matter wrt rights, and changes that discriminate against a minority also matter. That's true for sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
There's 2 key questions and imo they can be uncoupled. What should the process be to legally change gender? Which things in society (if any) should be default governed by sex not gender?
So, eg, you could support a streamlined process for gender change but at the same time think that (eg) pro sports and prisons should be default sex based. Or, the opposite, you could think the gender change process should remain highly controlled and medicalized but that once done birth sex is irrelevant and gender is the correct default criterion for almost everything.
This type of shade never sees the light of day. It's either 'Pure self-ID for gender and sex doesn't matter a jot' or it's 'transgenderism flies in the face of science and is a perverts' charter representing an existential threat to women and their rights'.
Perhaps both sides feel their extremist hyperbole is mainly a response to that of the other side's. The debate certainly seems more 'vibrant' here than elsewhere. Eg it will be interesting to see how things develop in Germany where (aiui) the new government is pledged to implement reforms very similar to those the May government were looking at in 2018.
Well, it sees the light of day from me. It's a pure numbers game: BOTH there are genuine transgender people who deserve support and protection AND there are chancers around who are happy to look for sex, unfair sporting success, etc under the guise of transgenderism.
This isn't even a new or interesting problem. look at scoutmasters: there's a lot of men who want to become scoutmasters for the most praiseworthy reasons imaginable, and a lot of men who want to exploit the kiddie fiddling possibilities of the situation. We support, encourage and train the first lot, and try to vigilantly exclude the second. We err on the side of overvigilance, or try to, and that inevitably means that injustices occur. That's life. The same principle requires that gender dysphoric formerly male prisoners can stay in male prisons and bloody well lump it. Not difficult.
Suggest you look at Girl Guides who are currently, after complaints by parents, doing an inquiry into how the Head Guide in Nottingham is a man with a BDSM fetish who also poses pictures of themselves cradling illegal guns. They have also had issues re retaliation against female whistleblowers who have raised concern about whether they are taking their safeguarding obligations seriously. They are also giving guidance on what contraceptives to give 13 year old girls on guide trips even though (a) 13 is way below the age of consent and (b) such trips should be female only so why would contraception be needed.
@JosiasJessop's 2 questions are a sensible start. My answer to the first is that an application for a GRC should be as now ie it should require an objective external medical test because of the legal implications of such a change not just for the person concerned but for others and society at large. Expecting an external medical diagnosis is no more onerous than expecting one before getting cancer treatment. The delays are an issue of resources not a reason for doing away with the checks.
As to the second, the answer should be risk based. I would have the default as sex but permit gender provided there was little or no risk to others of doing so. We do not yet have data on whether men who do have gender dysphoria still remain in any sense an actual or potential risk to women. Until we do safeguarding should take priority. Nor do we know how many men who claim to be trans are in fact suffering from autogynephilia (do not Google this at work). Again until we do, men with male bodies should be kept out of female spaces.
The trouble is that those proposing very significant change are not asking these sensible questions. They simply pooh-pooh the very idea that there might be a conflict or risks or detrimental effects on others. They have got their way for quite a long time, in part by their insistence on "no debate". But women are now appreciating what these changes could mean and are fighting back and demanding both a debate and that no changes be made until these and many other questions are asked and answered. That is not extremism. It is sensible.
They weren't my questions: I think they were @kinabalu 's.
As for GRC's: there's a big issue that people wanting to change gender need to live as their new gender for two years. If you are a man transitioning to a woman, then it means you need to dress as a woman.
IMV a man dressing as a woman going into a men's toilet is going to be in much more physical and mental danger (from comments, bullying in the latter case) than women are from them using women's toilets.
Basically: banning people undergoing the transitioning process from using the toilets of their desired gender would be a big barrier to their transitioning.
Perhaps there's a way around this, although I am far from an expert in these areas. Perhaps there should be a pre-GRC certificate; to say someone is undergoing a transitioning process. This can be obtained from a panel, in a similar manner to the Interim GRC that married people need to get before they get a GRC. Once you get this, you can use women's facilities: but it can be rescinded at any time.
Although there are probably massive holes in that idea, too. Not least it makes an already convoluted process harder.
As an aside, how do you police this anyway? How do you check that that person using that cubicle is, in fact, a woman?
Toilets are an odd thing to focus on imo. And, yes, the policing aspect is interesting to ponder.
One reason for the focus on toilets is because so many women and girls have endured some form of sexual assault in toilets. It was where I was first assaulted when I was about 13. This is not unusual.
Policing: you need to be free to challenge without being accused of phobias. And when someone walks in who is obviously a man and not even trying to pass themselves as a woman or who has an erection or who indecently exposes themselves or who otherwise behaves in an appropriate way then they need to be told to leave and the authorities should support that ejection not accuse women.
Male perverts accessing women's toilets and behaving indecently is a crime and most definitely should be treated seriously, regardless of whether the GRA is reformed or not.
But, again, what's the logical link between an easier legal gender change process and the prevalence of that?
The link is this: to get a GRC now you have to take active steps to live as the sex you want to be. So a transwoman would have to live, act, dress like a woman. If she uses the ladies' loo she will appear to be a woman and will be most unlikely to want to attack other women.
If those requirements are removed as the self-ID crowd want, there is no requirement at all - no medical diagnosis, no need to dress like a woman or act like one at all. Nothing. So a male predator can simply walk into a woman's space, cannot be challenged or ejected because he will say that he is / identifies as a woman and is free to attack or expose himself or masturbate in front of women or be voyeuristic etc. Self-ID provides a charter for sexual predators to get into womens spaces more easily, without the risk of challenge. And if convicted they can then demand to be put into a woman's prison where they have a captive female population to hand.
Self-ID removes existing safeguards for women and girls and provides easier opportunities for predators.
I get that you want it in order to make things easier for genuine trans people. But it will become a predators charter. Any removal of safeguards or taking people on trust because of who they are or what they say they are inevitably results in this. Evidence: priests, sports coaches, any of the very many groups and organisations listed in the IICSA inquiry.
If we really want to make things easier for those with dysphoria we should be making the resources available so that they don't have to wait years even to get an appointment to see a specialist. Abandoning safeguards is not the right response to unconscionable delays.
The prisons point, I get. A male sex offender who then claims to be a woman to try and get their time served in a women's prison. Totally see the issue there. On elite sports I do too.
But on the general point I really don't. Or at least not to anything like the extent that you do.
Eg a male sexual predator can masquerade as female in order to try and enter (most) female spaces. They can do that now. They don't need to have legally changed gender to do it. Legally changing gender doesn't even make it easier since most places are not policed for it.
So I don't see why it being easier to make that legal change should lead to a surge in predatory heterosexual men doing it for abusive or sinister reasons. What would the motive be? What would they gain over and above just masquerading and NOT making the legal change? I don't see the logic.
It's a massive step for a man to legally become a woman - and vice versa - and I think it's a correct and safe assumption that the vast majority of those doing it will be doing it for profound and genuine reasons. And, ok, some won't be. Therefore legislate for exceptions - eg sex offenders in prisons, elite female sport - where birth sex should be the determinant.
Bottom line, I don't see how making the legal gender change process easier maps to a Predators Charter or anything close to it. I truly don't.
You are missing the point. If self-ID becomes a legal reality, it makes it impossible to challenge a male predator. They will say "I'm a woman" and there is nothing you can say or do to gainsay that. So a predator can demand to enter a domestic violence refuge and can't be kept out. Don't you see that the sort of man who beats up women will use that?
Or take a man who gets off on hearing women describe their sexual assault. They can insist on joining a rape trauma group. And so on.
Self-ID provides a bloody enormous loophole. That will be used by those with evil intent. There are more of them about than you seem to think. And where something close to self-ID has been permitted instances of predators abusing this have happened.
Think you might be missing mine too. The main control sits around which things are restricted by sex rather than gender and by the policing of that. It isn't to do with the legal gender change process. To keep biological males out of a female space you'd need to regulate it by sex. If you do that, biological males will be excluded. If you don't they won't be. This is the case regardless of the legal gender change process. If that were self-id but (eg) refuges were regulated by sex, this is a tighter control (from your precautionary perspective) than no self-id and regulation by gender.
You miss the point -you cannot restrict by biology and that cannot be changed (Trans women can already use the appropriate / preferred facilities).
Your entire counter argument is based on something that doesn't exist and cannot be retrospectively created without hurting some people.
Johnson so key to Brexit he decided at the last minute which side he would back
As did much of the country CHB.
Cameron's failed renegotiations were the final straw for many people, myself included, to show that the EU couldn't be reformed for the better.
What would he have had to have delivered to have made you change your mind?
David Cameron gave a good vision of how reform should have taken place in his Bloomberg speech.
Cameron's first point in the Bloomberg speech was about the need to protect non-Eurozone members in the future with the way the EU was evolving. The Eurozone memberstates had a majority under QMV rules so going forwards the Eurozone if they agreed on a reform that suited them could pass a law without any input from non-Eurozone members.
In particular there was talk about "double majority" QMV requiring a QMV majority of non-Euro and Euromember states in order for a proposed law to affect non-Euro members. That still wouldn't have been a return to unanimity as required in the past, but would have been a safeguard.
But nothing happened. There was no fundamental or serious reform to the EU that happened. All of Cameron's proposals in Bloomberg (and there were more than that first one) were roundly rejected in the negotiations.
Cameron set out to reform the EU and instead proved it couldn't be reformed.
Don't disagree - the EU was always unlikely to change imo and he did exempt the UK from those changes but I hear you.
He didn't exempt the UK from those changes. There was no change to the voting system.
Mealy-mouthed words about being exempt from "further union" doesn't mean anything unless the voting system is amended to reflect that reality. It wasn't, was it?
The UK held all the cards, Philip. Don't like ABC measure? We hereby deem it closer union and we reject it.
That's the shame imo about Brexit. We genuinely held all the cards. And we threw it away.
At the time, I said that we should have implemented a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and made it clear that all such future treaties were subject to referenda. It's not as if there aren't a number of countries in the EU, for which that was so.
IIRC Camo made a Cast Iron Guarantee on the matter didn't he?
Too late by that point.
As a Remain voter, it makes me giggle to hear people suggesting that the way to prevent BREXIT was to prevent the voters getting... too close? to certain matters
For generations, the pitch in the western world has been Democracy Rules OK. Telling the voters, now, that they "have no choice" is not an answer. Telling them they have no choice because the rule book says - just invites the rule book to be torn up.
As J A Froude said in "Caesar, A sketch" - "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions". The Roman Republic died because the oligarchy may or may not have been right - the constitution, written and unwritten said they had the power. The people then backed the breaking of the constitution.
I don't have a clue what point you're trying to make.
But I can tell you that the EU is not democratic at all. The voters have no say in the matter of the executive.
You mean, like the UK Cabinet?
The Cabinet is elected based upon the Parliament we elect.
Not the case with the EU.
The Member States vote for parties who want to be in the EU. So perfectly democratic. Those Member States who don't want to be in the EU vote for parties who want to leave. Also perfectly democratic.
It is exactly the same. Can you change the laws that were decided by the cabinet and voted for in parliament on mask wearing? I don't believe you can. But it is still a democratic process.
Yes I can. I can vote for a party that will drop mask requirements at the Parliamentary elections.
Since the European Parliament doesn't have a European demos and doesn't form the European government anyway the same is not true in Europe.
Exactly. You can vote for a party that will drop the mask requirements but today you can't change it. Both vital democratic elements of our society. If enough people agree with you then the party gets in and masks are dropped.
And likewise if you wanted to stay in or leave the EU you can (and did) vote for it but until that time you don't have a direct say in every EU ruling or policy.
That's not good enough in a democracy Topping.
That's like saying you can leave the UK but unless you do you have no say in UK laws. No meaningful UK elections.
If the EU is to be making laws then it should be a genuine democracy. It isn't as it stands.
We absolutely had an influence over the EU laws. I can't be bothered to google this for a five year old discussion but it was shown that the UK more often than not got its way in EU law formation.
The UK government may have, the UK voters didn't. It was too divorced from the voters because they weren't debated and determined at elections.
Asinine point. The UK government is voted in by UK voters.
It's not an asinine point, the UK government is powerless to change the law without Parliament's consent in the UK. It is held to account via the Opposition, Select Committees, PMQs and much more.
The EU only required the UK government's consent, not UK Parliament's, to change the law.
And if we were outvoted by QMV not even that.
How many times does it need saying that the UK Government is the democratic voice of the UK voters. Checks and balances fine but look at some of the Covid measures.
To say that the UK Government does not act on behalf of UK voters is just bonkers. And wrong, obvs.
Mr. Jessop, it's the scientific definition. Broad definitions obviously blur boundaries. Buggering about with language is one of the ways certain people (not you) are trying to 'win' arguments in this area by denouncing those with the temerity to disagree as various types of '-phobes' and '-ists'.
Hermaphrodites were referred to in classical mythology. That doesn't make them commonplace. I do agree that being in a tiny minority doesn't mean they should be ignored. Feel rather sad that the South African sprinter (Caster Semenya? [sp]) has had far rougher treatment than biological men who have identified as women.
Female sports needs to be a category for cisgender women only. Everyone else can go into mens ( Which could probably do with being renamed open ). That effectively bars trans women from sport, but is needed to preserve female sport integrity - and if Semenya is deemed to be a woman (Another argument in itself) she should be able to compete without lowering her testosterone.
I agree with this. Competing at a top level in sport is not a fundamental right, and it's an area where fairness counts.
Although I'd argue that top sports people are generally freaks of nature anyway, to a certain extent. A combination of genetic traits that allow them to succeed at a sport, where someone more 'average' would not, however hard they trained. Michael Phelps' large feet, hyper-extendible joints, long torso and short legs all make him perfect for swimming.
Agreed. But this is not the approach being taken by sports bodies. They are ignoring material reality in favour of feelings. The material reality is that males once they have gone through male puberty are and always will be naturally stronger than women, regardless of how they subsequently identify and even if they go through a full transition. They are allowed to have levels of testosterone in their body that would get a woman athlete banned for doping. How can this possibly be fair.
This material reality means that trans athletes (male to female) have an inherent advantage. It means that womens' sport is dead or largely meaningless because it will be male bodies winning the prizes.
And yet we have reached the stage that feelings are allowed to override material scientific reality. And it is largely the feelings of men which are deemed more important than the concerns, feelings or material reality of women.
Caster Semenya is as I understand it a woman who naturally has large amounts of testosterone in her body. This may be very unusual but is no reason for banning her. But her position is very different from those with male bodies claiming to be women. They should not compete in womens' sport where physical strength matters. A separate transgender category can be created or they can remain in male categories. Where strength does not matter the issue does not really arise and transwomen can compete in female categories.
Or we could I suppose allow women athletes to dope themselves up the eyeballs as women athletes behind the Iron Curtain did so that they can compete on equal terms with transwomen. That is the logic of the transwomen are women approach. The fact that this renders womens' sport meaningless and has huge health impacts for women doing this are unfortunate consequences but, hey, who cares about those.
It is long past the time that we need to say that reality matters and if this does not please those who think that you can simply pretend that it does not exist simply by affirming it, too bad.
I know this feels like a niche issue to some. But it isn't. First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter. Second, because this is stopping any real focus on what transpeople actually need - which is better and earlier medical help so that they can live their lives happily.
And finally because this is another current in the whole "I have my own alternative facts" approach to life and politics which has so demeaned public life and culture in countries like the US. It is a very Trumpian and narcissistic approach to the world, similar to the anti-vaccination movement and other ludicrous conspiracy theories - people thinking that what they say - however untethered to reality - is real, should be validated by others and allowed to inform policy, no matter how dangerous or absurd the consequences.
It's all really messy. However - and I might be wrong - isn't an added complexity with Semenya that performance doping often uses testosterone, and therefore she was falling foul of the drug testing regime as well - until she proved they were her natural levels? From memory, women like Semenya might be forced to take drugs to get her testosterone levels down. That's really wrong IMO.
I just don't see competing in sports as anything like a fundamental right; and it's a place where 'fairness' matters. Hence, with regret, I've formed my position (which in this case is the same as yours).
" First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter."
I disagree with this. Numbers should not matter wrt rights, and changes that discriminate against a minority also matter. That's true for sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
There's 2 key questions and imo they can be uncoupled. What should the process be to legally change gender? Which things in society (if any) should be default governed by sex not gender?
So, eg, you could support a streamlined process for gender change but at the same time think that (eg) pro sports and prisons should be default sex based. Or, the opposite, you could think the gender change process should remain highly controlled and medicalized but that once done birth sex is irrelevant and gender is the correct default criterion for almost everything.
This type of shade never sees the light of day. It's either 'Pure self-ID for gender and sex doesn't matter a jot' or it's 'transgenderism flies in the face of science and is a perverts' charter representing an existential threat to women and their rights'.
Perhaps both sides feel their extremist hyperbole is mainly a response to that of the other side's. The debate certainly seems more 'vibrant' here than elsewhere. Eg it will be interesting to see how things develop in Germany where (aiui) the new government is pledged to implement reforms very similar to those the May government were looking at in 2018.
Well, it sees the light of day from me. It's a pure numbers game: BOTH there are genuine transgender people who deserve support and protection AND there are chancers around who are happy to look for sex, unfair sporting success, etc under the guise of transgenderism.
This isn't even a new or interesting problem. look at scoutmasters: there's a lot of men who want to become scoutmasters for the most praiseworthy reasons imaginable, and a lot of men who want to exploit the kiddie fiddling possibilities of the situation. We support, encourage and train the first lot, and try to vigilantly exclude the second. We err on the side of overvigilance, or try to, and that inevitably means that injustices occur. That's life. The same principle requires that gender dysphoric formerly male prisoners can stay in male prisons and bloody well lump it. Not difficult.
Suggest you look at Girl Guides who are currently, after complaints by parents, doing an inquiry into how the Head Guide in Nottingham is a man with a BDSM fetish who also poses pictures of themselves cradling illegal guns. They have also had issues re retaliation against female whistleblowers who have raised concern about whether they are taking their safeguarding obligations seriously. They are also giving guidance on what contraceptives to give 13 year old girls on guide trips even though (a) 13 is way below the age of consent and (b) such trips should be female only so why would contraception be needed.
@JosiasJessop's 2 questions are a sensible start. My answer to the first is that an application for a GRC should be as now ie it should require an objective external medical test because of the legal implications of such a change not just for the person concerned but for others and society at large. Expecting an external medical diagnosis is no more onerous than expecting one before getting cancer treatment. The delays are an issue of resources not a reason for doing away with the checks.
As to the second, the answer should be risk based. I would have the default as sex but permit gender provided there was little or no risk to others of doing so. We do not yet have data on whether men who do have gender dysphoria still remain in any sense an actual or potential risk to women. Until we do safeguarding should take priority. Nor do we know how many men who claim to be trans are in fact suffering from autogynephilia (do not Google this at work). Again until we do, men with male bodies should be kept out of female spaces.
The trouble is that those proposing very significant change are not asking these sensible questions. They simply pooh-pooh the very idea that there might be a conflict or risks or detrimental effects on others. They have got their way for quite a long time, in part by their insistence on "no debate". But women are now appreciating what these changes could mean and are fighting back and demanding both a debate and that no changes be made until these and many other questions are asked and answered. That is not extremism. It is sensible.
They weren't my questions: I think they were @kinabalu 's.
As for GRC's: there's a big issue that people wanting to change gender need to live as their new gender for two years. If you are a man transitioning to a woman, then it means you need to dress as a woman.
IMV a man dressing as a woman going into a men's toilet is going to be in much more physical and mental danger (from comments, bullying in the latter case) than women are from them using women's toilets.
Basically: banning people undergoing the transitioning process from using the toilets of their desired gender would be a big barrier to their transitioning.
Perhaps there's a way around this, although I am far from an expert in these areas. Perhaps there should be a pre-GRC certificate; to say someone is undergoing a transitioning process. This can be obtained from a panel, in a similar manner to the Interim GRC that married people need to get before they get a GRC. Once you get this, you can use women's facilities: but it can be rescinded at any time.
Although there are probably massive holes in that idea, too. Not least it makes an already convoluted process harder.
As an aside, how do you police this anyway? How do you check that that person using that cubicle is, in fact, a woman?
Toilets are an odd thing to focus on imo. And, yes, the policing aspect is interesting to ponder.
One reason for the focus on toilets is because so many women and girls have endured some form of sexual assault in toilets. It was where I was first assaulted when I was about 13. This is not unusual.
Policing: you need to be free to challenge without being accused of phobias. And when someone walks in who is obviously a man and not even trying to pass themselves as a woman or who has an erection or who indecently exposes themselves or who otherwise behaves in an appropriate way then they need to be told to leave and the authorities should support that ejection not accuse women.
Male perverts accessing women's toilets and behaving indecently is a crime and most definitely should be treated seriously, regardless of whether the GRA is reformed or not.
But, again, what's the logical link between an easier legal gender change process and the prevalence of that?
The link is this: to get a GRC now you have to take active steps to live as the sex you want to be. So a transwoman would have to live, act, dress like a woman. If she uses the ladies' loo she will appear to be a woman and will be most unlikely to want to attack other women.
If those requirements are removed as the self-ID crowd want, there is no requirement at all - no medical diagnosis, no need to dress like a woman or act like one at all. Nothing. So a male predator can simply walk into a woman's space, cannot be challenged or ejected because he will say that he is / identifies as a woman and is free to attack or expose himself or masturbate in front of women or be voyeuristic etc. Self-ID provides a charter for sexual predators to get into womens spaces more easily, without the risk of challenge. And if convicted they can then demand to be put into a woman's prison where they have a captive female population to hand.
Self-ID removes existing safeguards for women and girls and provides easier opportunities for predators.
I get that you want it in order to make things easier for genuine trans people. But it will become a predators charter. Any removal of safeguards or taking people on trust because of who they are or what they say they are inevitably results in this. Evidence: priests, sports coaches, any of the very many groups and organisations listed in the IICSA inquiry.
If we really want to make things easier for those with dysphoria we should be making the resources available so that they don't have to wait years even to get an appointment to see a specialist. Abandoning safeguards is not the right response to unconscionable delays.
The prisons point, I get. A male sex offender who then claims to be a woman to try and get their time served in a women's prison. Totally see the issue there. On elite sports I do too.
But on the general point I really don't. Or at least not to anything like the extent that you do.
Eg a male sexual predator can masquerade as female in order to try and enter (most) female spaces. They can do that now. They don't need to have legally changed gender to do it. Legally changing gender doesn't even make it easier since most places are not policed for it.
So I don't see why it being easier to make that legal change should lead to a surge in predatory heterosexual men doing it for abusive or sinister reasons. What would the motive be? What would they gain over and above just masquerading and NOT making the legal change? I don't see the logic.
It's a massive step for a man to legally become a woman - and vice versa - and I think it's a correct and safe assumption that the vast majority of those doing it will be doing it for profound and genuine reasons. And, ok, some won't be. Therefore legislate for exceptions - eg sex offenders in prisons, elite female sport - where birth sex should be the determinant.
Bottom line, I don't see how making the legal gender change process easier maps to a Predators Charter or anything close to it. I truly don't.
You are missing the point. If self-ID becomes a legal reality, it makes it impossible to challenge a male predator. They will say "I'm a woman" and there is nothing you can say or do to gainsay that. So a predator can demand to enter a domestic violence refuge and can't be kept out. Don't you see that the sort of man who beats up women will use that?
Or take a man who gets off on hearing women describe their sexual assault. They can insist on joining a rape trauma group. And so on.
Self-ID provides a bloody enormous loophole. That will be used by those with evil intent. There are more of them about than you seem to think. And where something close to self-ID has been permitted instances of predators abusing this have happened.
Think you might be missing mine too. The main control sits around which things are restricted by sex rather than gender and by the policing of that. It isn't to do with the legal gender change process. To keep biological males out of a female space you'd need to regulate it by sex. If you do that, biological males will be excluded. If you don't they won't be. This is the case regardless of the legal gender change process. If that were self-id but (eg) refuges were regulated by sex, this is a tighter control (from your precautionary perspective) than no self-id and regulation by gender.
You miss the point -you cannot restrict by biology and that cannot be changed (Trans women can already use the appropriate / preferred facilities).
Your entire counter argument is based on something that doesn't exist and cannot be retrospectively created without hurting some people.
Mr. Jessop, it's the scientific definition. Broad definitions obviously blur boundaries. Buggering about with language is one of the ways certain people (not you) are trying to 'win' arguments in this area by denouncing those with the temerity to disagree as various types of '-phobes' and '-ists'.
Hermaphrodites were referred to in classical mythology. That doesn't make them commonplace. I do agree that being in a tiny minority doesn't mean they should be ignored. Feel rather sad that the South African sprinter (Caster Semenya? [sp]) has had far rougher treatment than biological men who have identified as women.
Female sports needs to be a category for cisgender women only. Everyone else can go into mens ( Which could probably do with being renamed open ). That effectively bars trans women from sport, but is needed to preserve female sport integrity - and if Semenya is deemed to be a woman (Another argument in itself) she should be able to compete without lowering her testosterone.
I agree with this. Competing at a top level in sport is not a fundamental right, and it's an area where fairness counts.
Although I'd argue that top sports people are generally freaks of nature anyway, to a certain extent. A combination of genetic traits that allow them to succeed at a sport, where someone more 'average' would not, however hard they trained. Michael Phelps' large feet, hyper-extendible joints, long torso and short legs all make him perfect for swimming.
Agreed. But this is not the approach being taken by sports bodies. They are ignoring material reality in favour of feelings. The material reality is that males once they have gone through male puberty are and always will be naturally stronger than women, regardless of how they subsequently identify and even if they go through a full transition. They are allowed to have levels of testosterone in their body that would get a woman athlete banned for doping. How can this possibly be fair.
This material reality means that trans athletes (male to female) have an inherent advantage. It means that womens' sport is dead or largely meaningless because it will be male bodies winning the prizes.
And yet we have reached the stage that feelings are allowed to override material scientific reality. And it is largely the feelings of men which are deemed more important than the concerns, feelings or material reality of women.
Caster Semenya is as I understand it a woman who naturally has large amounts of testosterone in her body. This may be very unusual but is no reason for banning her. But her position is very different from those with male bodies claiming to be women. They should not compete in womens' sport where physical strength matters. A separate transgender category can be created or they can remain in male categories. Where strength does not matter the issue does not really arise and transwomen can compete in female categories.
Or we could I suppose allow women athletes to dope themselves up the eyeballs as women athletes behind the Iron Curtain did so that they can compete on equal terms with transwomen. That is the logic of the transwomen are women approach. The fact that this renders womens' sport meaningless and has huge health impacts for women doing this are unfortunate consequences but, hey, who cares about those.
It is long past the time that we need to say that reality matters and if this does not please those who think that you can simply pretend that it does not exist simply by affirming it, too bad.
I know this feels like a niche issue to some. But it isn't. First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter. Second, because this is stopping any real focus on what transpeople actually need - which is better and earlier medical help so that they can live their lives happily.
And finally because this is another current in the whole "I have my own alternative facts" approach to life and politics which has so demeaned public life and culture in countries like the US. It is a very Trumpian and narcissistic approach to the world, similar to the anti-vaccination movement and other ludicrous conspiracy theories - people thinking that what they say - however untethered to reality - is real, should be validated by others and allowed to inform policy, no matter how dangerous or absurd the consequences.
It's all really messy. However - and I might be wrong - isn't an added complexity with Semenya that performance doping often uses testosterone, and therefore she was falling foul of the drug testing regime as well - until she proved they were her natural levels? From memory, women like Semenya might be forced to take drugs to get her testosterone levels down. That's really wrong IMO.
I just don't see competing in sports as anything like a fundamental right; and it's a place where 'fairness' matters. Hence, with regret, I've formed my position (which in this case is the same as yours).
" First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter."
I disagree with this. Numbers should not matter wrt rights, and changes that discriminate against a minority also matter. That's true for sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
There's 2 key questions and imo they can be uncoupled. What should the process be to legally change gender? Which things in society (if any) should be default governed by sex not gender?
So, eg, you could support a streamlined process for gender change but at the same time think that (eg) pro sports and prisons should be default sex based. Or, the opposite, you could think the gender change process should remain highly controlled and medicalized but that once done birth sex is irrelevant and gender is the correct default criterion for almost everything.
This type of shade never sees the light of day. It's either 'Pure self-ID for gender and sex doesn't matter a jot' or it's 'transgenderism flies in the face of science and is a perverts' charter representing an existential threat to women and their rights'.
Perhaps both sides feel their extremist hyperbole is mainly a response to that of the other side's. The debate certainly seems more 'vibrant' here than elsewhere. Eg it will be interesting to see how things develop in Germany where (aiui) the new government is pledged to implement reforms very similar to those the May government were looking at in 2018.
Well, it sees the light of day from me. It's a pure numbers game: BOTH there are genuine transgender people who deserve support and protection AND there are chancers around who are happy to look for sex, unfair sporting success, etc under the guise of transgenderism.
This isn't even a new or interesting problem. look at scoutmasters: there's a lot of men who want to become scoutmasters for the most praiseworthy reasons imaginable, and a lot of men who want to exploit the kiddie fiddling possibilities of the situation. We support, encourage and train the first lot, and try to vigilantly exclude the second. We err on the side of overvigilance, or try to, and that inevitably means that injustices occur. That's life. The same principle requires that gender dysphoric formerly male prisoners can stay in male prisons and bloody well lump it. Not difficult.
Suggest you look at Girl Guides who are currently, after complaints by parents, doing an inquiry into how the Head Guide in Nottingham is a man with a BDSM fetish who also poses pictures of themselves cradling illegal guns. They have also had issues re retaliation against female whistleblowers who have raised concern about whether they are taking their safeguarding obligations seriously. They are also giving guidance on what contraceptives to give 13 year old girls on guide trips even though (a) 13 is way below the age of consent and (b) such trips should be female only so why would contraception be needed.
@JosiasJessop's 2 questions are a sensible start. My answer to the first is that an application for a GRC should be as now ie it should require an objective external medical test because of the legal implications of such a change not just for the person concerned but for others and society at large. Expecting an external medical diagnosis is no more onerous than expecting one before getting cancer treatment. The delays are an issue of resources not a reason for doing away with the checks.
As to the second, the answer should be risk based. I would have the default as sex but permit gender provided there was little or no risk to others of doing so. We do not yet have data on whether men who do have gender dysphoria still remain in any sense an actual or potential risk to women. Until we do safeguarding should take priority. Nor do we know how many men who claim to be trans are in fact suffering from autogynephilia (do not Google this at work). Again until we do, men with male bodies should be kept out of female spaces.
The trouble is that those proposing very significant change are not asking these sensible questions. They simply pooh-pooh the very idea that there might be a conflict or risks or detrimental effects on others. They have got their way for quite a long time, in part by their insistence on "no debate". But women are now appreciating what these changes could mean and are fighting back and demanding both a debate and that no changes be made until these and many other questions are asked and answered. That is not extremism. It is sensible.
They weren't my questions: I think they were @kinabalu 's.
As for GRC's: there's a big issue that people wanting to change gender need to live as their new gender for two years. If you are a man transitioning to a woman, then it means you need to dress as a woman.
IMV a man dressing as a woman going into a men's toilet is going to be in much more physical and mental danger (from comments, bullying in the latter case) than women are from them using women's toilets.
Basically: banning people undergoing the transitioning process from using the toilets of their desired gender would be a big barrier to their transitioning.
Perhaps there's a way around this, although I am far from an expert in these areas. Perhaps there should be a pre-GRC certificate; to say someone is undergoing a transitioning process. This can be obtained from a panel, in a similar manner to the Interim GRC that married people need to get before they get a GRC. Once you get this, you can use women's facilities: but it can be rescinded at any time.
Although there are probably massive holes in that idea, too. Not least it makes an already convoluted process harder.
As an aside, how do you police this anyway? How do you check that that person using that cubicle is, in fact, a woman?
Toilets are an odd thing to focus on imo. And, yes, the policing aspect is interesting to ponder.
One reason for the focus on toilets is because so many women and girls have endured some form of sexual assault in toilets. It was where I was first assaulted when I was about 13. This is not unusual.
Policing: you need to be free to challenge without being accused of phobias. And when someone walks in who is obviously a man and not even trying to pass themselves as a woman or who has an erection or who indecently exposes themselves or who otherwise behaves in an appropriate way then they need to be told to leave and the authorities should support that ejection not accuse women.
Male perverts accessing women's toilets and behaving indecently is a crime and most definitely should be treated seriously, regardless of whether the GRA is reformed or not.
But, again, what's the logical link between an easier legal gender change process and the prevalence of that?
The problem is that the male perverts, when caught in the women’s toilets, will say that they are trans women and that anyone questioning them is transphobic and committing offences under the Gender Recognition Act.
Legislation designed to protect a tiny minority, has given free rein to a larger minority, who are despised by women and seen as an invasion of their protected spaces.
What legislation are you talking about?
Legally changing gender doesn't make it easier for a man to access a female toilet. So what's the link between the legal gender change process and a man accessing a female toilet?
There isn't one unless toilets are policed for gender via a certificate. If they were, yes, a man could be motivated to change gender, get the cert, and show it to gain access.
But they aren't. Nor are they policed for physical genital sex.
Unless you're proposing these things - which you surely aren't - I don't see where you're going with the comment.
The problem isn’t trans women. The problem is men, some of whom are sex offenders, posing as trans women.
But this is still not addressing my point.
How does making the legal gender change process easier make it more likely that such men will access female spaces that aren't policed for legal gender?
I think the point (and I have some sympathy with this) is that your creepy but not quite criminal man who wants to hang out in the women's toilets can presently be moved on in short order, simply for being a man. Say he's loitering by the basins, leering at the women in the mirror. Nothing criminal, but he's not allowed to be there. If a women reports it to the staff, he'll be fetched out. If he, by claiming to indentify as 'she' has a legal right to stay in there then it becomes a lot more shades of grey. Can only reasonably be expelled for.... what? Taking too long in there? Looking in the mirror allegedly at women? Could be a threatening presence about which little could be done.
I don't think that this is about the man waving his penis around in the women's toilets, which would surely still result in expulsion, but about the more subtle stuff. One person could cause a lot of trouble and unease, without doing anything overtly wrong.
Are there many of these men? I don't know. Some though, I expect. And if you're a woman being harassed by one of them then you're not really going to care whether it's common or not. It's intimidating/unpleasant. but if you report it, you report - what? - someone looked at me a bit funny or is taking a long time?
On the other hand, the genuinely transitioning woman should, imho, be able to use that space. And I'm not really into defining what people have to wear to get into that space - only transgender women in dresses, ridiculous?
I'm not quite sure what the answer is, but I do think there would be some issues raised by the ability for people to self-ID and be legally treated as self-Id gender.
Self ID is still a legal process, not an instantaneous reversible decision, isn't it? Hence there should be some legal documentation, such as Drivers licence etc.
So you wish to hang round women's toilets. Currently it's hard to pass the huddles put in your way to allow you to legally do so.
With self-identification it's simply a matter of filling in a form and waiting a few weeks.
Now I can see a whole lot of reasons why self-identification is a better approach but, sadly, it opens things up for abuse, and a lot of women have valid (personal) reasons for wanting a 100% safe space and self-identification removes that
I am not advocating Self ID, but it is the case that a legal process is still required, just a de-medicalised one.
Trans activists want all sorts of medical interventions for themselves - and especially for children - but on the one thing that has an impact on the rights of others, all of a sudden they no longer want any sort of medical verification of what they claim is a medical condition, which if not satisfied will lead to all sorts of appalling things happening. Odd that.
I'm not a trans activist btw. I don't post on this anywhere else. My view is easier gender change process, default inclusion, exclusions for certain areas based on evidence and reason not prejudice and ignorance. Other than that, I'm total agnostic. Don't know or understand enough to be otherwise.
Wouldn’t have thought it was unreasonable for a man, complete with penis, who wants to sit in ladies changing rooms to keep some kind of document saying he is transitioning handy, or are we at the stage where it would be too offensive to them to presume they might be the man they are?
If you support gender id cards just say so - you don't have to make your prejudice quite so clear at the same time.
Mr. Jessop, it's the scientific definition. Broad definitions obviously blur boundaries. Buggering about with language is one of the ways certain people (not you) are trying to 'win' arguments in this area by denouncing those with the temerity to disagree as various types of '-phobes' and '-ists'.
Hermaphrodites were referred to in classical mythology. That doesn't make them commonplace. I do agree that being in a tiny minority doesn't mean they should be ignored. Feel rather sad that the South African sprinter (Caster Semenya? [sp]) has had far rougher treatment than biological men who have identified as women.
Female sports needs to be a category for cisgender women only. Everyone else can go into mens ( Which could probably do with being renamed open ). That effectively bars trans women from sport, but is needed to preserve female sport integrity - and if Semenya is deemed to be a woman (Another argument in itself) she should be able to compete without lowering her testosterone.
I agree with this. Competing at a top level in sport is not a fundamental right, and it's an area where fairness counts.
Although I'd argue that top sports people are generally freaks of nature anyway, to a certain extent. A combination of genetic traits that allow them to succeed at a sport, where someone more 'average' would not, however hard they trained. Michael Phelps' large feet, hyper-extendible joints, long torso and short legs all make him perfect for swimming.
Agreed. But this is not the approach being taken by sports bodies. They are ignoring material reality in favour of feelings. The material reality is that males once they have gone through male puberty are and always will be naturally stronger than women, regardless of how they subsequently identify and even if they go through a full transition. They are allowed to have levels of testosterone in their body that would get a woman athlete banned for doping. How can this possibly be fair.
This material reality means that trans athletes (male to female) have an inherent advantage. It means that womens' sport is dead or largely meaningless because it will be male bodies winning the prizes.
And yet we have reached the stage that feelings are allowed to override material scientific reality. And it is largely the feelings of men which are deemed more important than the concerns, feelings or material reality of women.
Caster Semenya is as I understand it a woman who naturally has large amounts of testosterone in her body. This may be very unusual but is no reason for banning her. But her position is very different from those with male bodies claiming to be women. They should not compete in womens' sport where physical strength matters. A separate transgender category can be created or they can remain in male categories. Where strength does not matter the issue does not really arise and transwomen can compete in female categories.
Or we could I suppose allow women athletes to dope themselves up the eyeballs as women athletes behind the Iron Curtain did so that they can compete on equal terms with transwomen. That is the logic of the transwomen are women approach. The fact that this renders womens' sport meaningless and has huge health impacts for women doing this are unfortunate consequences but, hey, who cares about those.
It is long past the time that we need to say that reality matters and if this does not please those who think that you can simply pretend that it does not exist simply by affirming it, too bad.
I know this feels like a niche issue to some. But it isn't. First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter. Second, because this is stopping any real focus on what transpeople actually need - which is better and earlier medical help so that they can live their lives happily.
And finally because this is another current in the whole "I have my own alternative facts" approach to life and politics which has so demeaned public life and culture in countries like the US. It is a very Trumpian and narcissistic approach to the world, similar to the anti-vaccination movement and other ludicrous conspiracy theories - people thinking that what they say - however untethered to reality - is real, should be validated by others and allowed to inform policy, no matter how dangerous or absurd the consequences.
It's all really messy. However - and I might be wrong - isn't an added complexity with Semenya that performance doping often uses testosterone, and therefore she was falling foul of the drug testing regime as well - until she proved they were her natural levels? From memory, women like Semenya might be forced to take drugs to get her testosterone levels down. That's really wrong IMO.
I just don't see competing in sports as anything like a fundamental right; and it's a place where 'fairness' matters. Hence, with regret, I've formed my position (which in this case is the same as yours).
" First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter."
I disagree with this. Numbers should not matter wrt rights, and changes that discriminate against a minority also matter. That's true for sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
There's 2 key questions and imo they can be uncoupled. What should the process be to legally change gender? Which things in society (if any) should be default governed by sex not gender?
So, eg, you could support a streamlined process for gender change but at the same time think that (eg) pro sports and prisons should be default sex based. Or, the opposite, you could think the gender change process should remain highly controlled and medicalized but that once done birth sex is irrelevant and gender is the correct default criterion for almost everything.
This type of shade never sees the light of day. It's either 'Pure self-ID for gender and sex doesn't matter a jot' or it's 'transgenderism flies in the face of science and is a perverts' charter representing an existential threat to women and their rights'.
Perhaps both sides feel their extremist hyperbole is mainly a response to that of the other side's. The debate certainly seems more 'vibrant' here than elsewhere. Eg it will be interesting to see how things develop in Germany where (aiui) the new government is pledged to implement reforms very similar to those the May government were looking at in 2018.
Well, it sees the light of day from me. It's a pure numbers game: BOTH there are genuine transgender people who deserve support and protection AND there are chancers around who are happy to look for sex, unfair sporting success, etc under the guise of transgenderism.
This isn't even a new or interesting problem. look at scoutmasters: there's a lot of men who want to become scoutmasters for the most praiseworthy reasons imaginable, and a lot of men who want to exploit the kiddie fiddling possibilities of the situation. We support, encourage and train the first lot, and try to vigilantly exclude the second. We err on the side of overvigilance, or try to, and that inevitably means that injustices occur. That's life. The same principle requires that gender dysphoric formerly male prisoners can stay in male prisons and bloody well lump it. Not difficult.
Suggest you look at Girl Guides who are currently, after complaints by parents, doing an inquiry into how the Head Guide in Nottingham is a man with a BDSM fetish who also poses pictures of themselves cradling illegal guns. They have also had issues re retaliation against female whistleblowers who have raised concern about whether they are taking their safeguarding obligations seriously. They are also giving guidance on what contraceptives to give 13 year old girls on guide trips even though (a) 13 is way below the age of consent and (b) such trips should be female only so why would contraception be needed.
@JosiasJessop's 2 questions are a sensible start. My answer to the first is that an application for a GRC should be as now ie it should require an objective external medical test because of the legal implications of such a change not just for the person concerned but for others and society at large. Expecting an external medical diagnosis is no more onerous than expecting one before getting cancer treatment. The delays are an issue of resources not a reason for doing away with the checks.
As to the second, the answer should be risk based. I would have the default as sex but permit gender provided there was little or no risk to others of doing so. We do not yet have data on whether men who do have gender dysphoria still remain in any sense an actual or potential risk to women. Until we do safeguarding should take priority. Nor do we know how many men who claim to be trans are in fact suffering from autogynephilia (do not Google this at work). Again until we do, men with male bodies should be kept out of female spaces.
The trouble is that those proposing very significant change are not asking these sensible questions. They simply pooh-pooh the very idea that there might be a conflict or risks or detrimental effects on others. They have got their way for quite a long time, in part by their insistence on "no debate". But women are now appreciating what these changes could mean and are fighting back and demanding both a debate and that no changes be made until these and many other questions are asked and answered. That is not extremism. It is sensible.
They weren't my questions: I think they were @kinabalu 's.
As for GRC's: there's a big issue that people wanting to change gender need to live as their new gender for two years. If you are a man transitioning to a woman, then it means you need to dress as a woman.
IMV a man dressing as a woman going into a men's toilet is going to be in much more physical and mental danger (from comments, bullying in the latter case) than women are from them using women's toilets.
Basically: banning people undergoing the transitioning process from using the toilets of their desired gender would be a big barrier to their transitioning.
Perhaps there's a way around this, although I am far from an expert in these areas. Perhaps there should be a pre-GRC certificate; to say someone is undergoing a transitioning process. This can be obtained from a panel, in a similar manner to the Interim GRC that married people need to get before they get a GRC. Once you get this, you can use women's facilities: but it can be rescinded at any time.
Although there are probably massive holes in that idea, too. Not least it makes an already convoluted process harder.
As an aside, how do you police this anyway? How do you check that that person using that cubicle is, in fact, a woman?
Toilets are an odd thing to focus on imo. And, yes, the policing aspect is interesting to ponder.
One reason for the focus on toilets is because so many women and girls have endured some form of sexual assault in toilets. It was where I was first assaulted when I was about 13. This is not unusual.
Policing: you need to be free to challenge without being accused of phobias. And when someone walks in who is obviously a man and not even trying to pass themselves as a woman or who has an erection or who indecently exposes themselves or who otherwise behaves in an appropriate way then they need to be told to leave and the authorities should support that ejection not accuse women.
Male perverts accessing women's toilets and behaving indecently is a crime and most definitely should be treated seriously, regardless of whether the GRA is reformed or not.
But, again, what's the logical link between an easier legal gender change process and the prevalence of that?
The problem is that the male perverts, when caught in the women’s toilets, will say that they are trans women and that anyone questioning them is transphobic and committing offences under the Gender Recognition Act.
Legislation designed to protect a tiny minority, has given free rein to a larger minority, who are despised by women and seen as an invasion of their protected spaces.
What legislation are you talking about?
Legally changing gender doesn't make it easier for a man to access a female toilet. So what's the link between the legal gender change process and a man accessing a female toilet?
There isn't one unless toilets are policed for gender via a certificate. If they were, yes, a man could be motivated to change gender, get the cert, and show it to gain access.
But they aren't. Nor are they policed for physical genital sex.
Unless you're proposing these things - which you surely aren't - I don't see where you're going with the comment.
The problem isn’t trans women. The problem is men, some of whom are sex offenders, posing as trans women.
But this is still not addressing my point.
How does making the legal gender change process easier make it more likely that such men will access female spaces that aren't policed for legal gender?
I think the point (and I have some sympathy with this) is that your creepy but not quite criminal man who wants to hang out in the women's toilets can presently be moved on in short order, simply for being a man. Say he's loitering by the basins, leering at the women in the mirror. Nothing criminal, but he's not allowed to be there. If a women reports it to the staff, he'll be fetched out. If he, by claiming to indentify as 'she' has a legal right to stay in there then it becomes a lot more shades of grey. Can only reasonably be expelled for.... what? Taking too long in there? Looking in the mirror allegedly at women? Could be a threatening presence about which little could be done.
I don't think that this is about the man waving his penis around in the women's toilets, which would surely still result in expulsion, but about the more subtle stuff. One person could cause a lot of trouble and unease, without doing anything overtly wrong.
Are there many of these men? I don't know. Some though, I expect. And if you're a woman being harassed by one of them then you're not really going to care whether it's common or not. It's intimidating/unpleasant. but if you report it, you report - what? - someone looked at me a bit funny or is taking a long time?
On the other hand, the genuinely transitioning woman should, imho, be able to use that space. And I'm not really into defining what people have to wear to get into that space - only transgender women in dresses, ridiculous?
I'm not quite sure what the answer is, but I do think there would be some issues raised by the ability for people to self-ID and be legally treated as self-Id gender.
Self ID is still a legal process, not an instantaneous reversible decision, isn't it? Hence there should be some legal documentation, such as Drivers licence etc.
So you wish to hang round women's toilets. Currently it's hard to pass the huddles put in your way to allow you to legally do so.
With self-identification it's simply a matter of filling in a form and waiting a few weeks.
Now I can see a whole lot of reasons why self-identification is a better approach but, sadly, it opens things up for abuse, and a lot of women have valid (personal) reasons for wanting a 100% safe space and self-identification removes that
I am not advocating Self ID, but it is the case that a legal process is still required, just a de-medicalised one.
Trans activists want all sorts of medical interventions for themselves - and especially for children - but on the one thing that has an impact on the rights of others, all of a sudden they no longer want any sort of medical verification of what they claim is a medical condition, which if not satisfied will lead to all sorts of appalling things happening. Odd that.
Cyclefree- thank you for your balanced and logical arguments on this issue. I agree with (I think) everything you have written about it.
To make a spree and glib point, when I start my life of crime I plan to commit my offences in Norway or failing that Sweden as they seem to have very nice prisons however if I need to commit an imprisonable crime in the UK I’m going from the start at interview saying I did the crime because I couldn’t cope with living in a man’s body and I identify as a woman but the oatriarchy I’ve grown up in has never allowed me to fully accept my identity. Therefore now I can tell the truth I am identifying as a woman so please send me to a women’s jail. I promise not to take advantage of any women in the prison who might fancy a bit of physical male but mental female and will not in any way prefer the female prison showers rather than the interesting offers I might get in a male prison showers…..
I know the above is ridiculous but what do they do if every male criminal facing prison starts identifying as female? They surely cannot deny the criminal’s “lived experience”……. You would have to be crazy not to self-identify if you are going to be going away for a while.
Mr. Jessop, it's the scientific definition. Broad definitions obviously blur boundaries. Buggering about with language is one of the ways certain people (not you) are trying to 'win' arguments in this area by denouncing those with the temerity to disagree as various types of '-phobes' and '-ists'.
Hermaphrodites were referred to in classical mythology. That doesn't make them commonplace. I do agree that being in a tiny minority doesn't mean they should be ignored. Feel rather sad that the South African sprinter (Caster Semenya? [sp]) has had far rougher treatment than biological men who have identified as women.
Female sports needs to be a category for cisgender women only. Everyone else can go into mens ( Which could probably do with being renamed open ). That effectively bars trans women from sport, but is needed to preserve female sport integrity - and if Semenya is deemed to be a woman (Another argument in itself) she should be able to compete without lowering her testosterone.
I agree with this. Competing at a top level in sport is not a fundamental right, and it's an area where fairness counts.
Although I'd argue that top sports people are generally freaks of nature anyway, to a certain extent. A combination of genetic traits that allow them to succeed at a sport, where someone more 'average' would not, however hard they trained. Michael Phelps' large feet, hyper-extendible joints, long torso and short legs all make him perfect for swimming.
Agreed. But this is not the approach being taken by sports bodies. They are ignoring material reality in favour of feelings. The material reality is that males once they have gone through male puberty are and always will be naturally stronger than women, regardless of how they subsequently identify and even if they go through a full transition. They are allowed to have levels of testosterone in their body that would get a woman athlete banned for doping. How can this possibly be fair.
This material reality means that trans athletes (male to female) have an inherent advantage. It means that womens' sport is dead or largely meaningless because it will be male bodies winning the prizes.
And yet we have reached the stage that feelings are allowed to override material scientific reality. And it is largely the feelings of men which are deemed more important than the concerns, feelings or material reality of women.
Caster Semenya is as I understand it a woman who naturally has large amounts of testosterone in her body. This may be very unusual but is no reason for banning her. But her position is very different from those with male bodies claiming to be women. They should not compete in womens' sport where physical strength matters. A separate transgender category can be created or they can remain in male categories. Where strength does not matter the issue does not really arise and transwomen can compete in female categories.
Or we could I suppose allow women athletes to dope themselves up the eyeballs as women athletes behind the Iron Curtain did so that they can compete on equal terms with transwomen. That is the logic of the transwomen are women approach. The fact that this renders womens' sport meaningless and has huge health impacts for women doing this are unfortunate consequences but, hey, who cares about those.
It is long past the time that we need to say that reality matters and if this does not please those who think that you can simply pretend that it does not exist simply by affirming it, too bad.
I know this feels like a niche issue to some. But it isn't. First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter. Second, because this is stopping any real focus on what transpeople actually need - which is better and earlier medical help so that they can live their lives happily.
And finally because this is another current in the whole "I have my own alternative facts" approach to life and politics which has so demeaned public life and culture in countries like the US. It is a very Trumpian and narcissistic approach to the world, similar to the anti-vaccination movement and other ludicrous conspiracy theories - people thinking that what they say - however untethered to reality - is real, should be validated by others and allowed to inform policy, no matter how dangerous or absurd the consequences.
It's all really messy. However - and I might be wrong - isn't an added complexity with Semenya that performance doping often uses testosterone, and therefore she was falling foul of the drug testing regime as well - until she proved they were her natural levels? From memory, women like Semenya might be forced to take drugs to get her testosterone levels down. That's really wrong IMO.
I just don't see competing in sports as anything like a fundamental right; and it's a place where 'fairness' matters. Hence, with regret, I've formed my position (which in this case is the same as yours).
" First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter."
I disagree with this. Numbers should not matter wrt rights, and changes that discriminate against a minority also matter. That's true for sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
There's 2 key questions and imo they can be uncoupled. What should the process be to legally change gender? Which things in society (if any) should be default governed by sex not gender?
So, eg, you could support a streamlined process for gender change but at the same time think that (eg) pro sports and prisons should be default sex based. Or, the opposite, you could think the gender change process should remain highly controlled and medicalized but that once done birth sex is irrelevant and gender is the correct default criterion for almost everything.
This type of shade never sees the light of day. It's either 'Pure self-ID for gender and sex doesn't matter a jot' or it's 'transgenderism flies in the face of science and is a perverts' charter representing an existential threat to women and their rights'.
Perhaps both sides feel their extremist hyperbole is mainly a response to that of the other side's. The debate certainly seems more 'vibrant' here than elsewhere. Eg it will be interesting to see how things develop in Germany where (aiui) the new government is pledged to implement reforms very similar to those the May government were looking at in 2018.
Well, it sees the light of day from me. It's a pure numbers game: BOTH there are genuine transgender people who deserve support and protection AND there are chancers around who are happy to look for sex, unfair sporting success, etc under the guise of transgenderism.
This isn't even a new or interesting problem. look at scoutmasters: there's a lot of men who want to become scoutmasters for the most praiseworthy reasons imaginable, and a lot of men who want to exploit the kiddie fiddling possibilities of the situation. We support, encourage and train the first lot, and try to vigilantly exclude the second. We err on the side of overvigilance, or try to, and that inevitably means that injustices occur. That's life. The same principle requires that gender dysphoric formerly male prisoners can stay in male prisons and bloody well lump it. Not difficult.
Suggest you look at Girl Guides who are currently, after complaints by parents, doing an inquiry into how the Head Guide in Nottingham is a man with a BDSM fetish who also poses pictures of themselves cradling illegal guns. They have also had issues re retaliation against female whistleblowers who have raised concern about whether they are taking their safeguarding obligations seriously. They are also giving guidance on what contraceptives to give 13 year old girls on guide trips even though (a) 13 is way below the age of consent and (b) such trips should be female only so why would contraception be needed.
@JosiasJessop's 2 questions are a sensible start. My answer to the first is that an application for a GRC should be as now ie it should require an objective external medical test because of the legal implications of such a change not just for the person concerned but for others and society at large. Expecting an external medical diagnosis is no more onerous than expecting one before getting cancer treatment. The delays are an issue of resources not a reason for doing away with the checks.
As to the second, the answer should be risk based. I would have the default as sex but permit gender provided there was little or no risk to others of doing so. We do not yet have data on whether men who do have gender dysphoria still remain in any sense an actual or potential risk to women. Until we do safeguarding should take priority. Nor do we know how many men who claim to be trans are in fact suffering from autogynephilia (do not Google this at work). Again until we do, men with male bodies should be kept out of female spaces.
The trouble is that those proposing very significant change are not asking these sensible questions. They simply pooh-pooh the very idea that there might be a conflict or risks or detrimental effects on others. They have got their way for quite a long time, in part by their insistence on "no debate". But women are now appreciating what these changes could mean and are fighting back and demanding both a debate and that no changes be made until these and many other questions are asked and answered. That is not extremism. It is sensible.
They weren't my questions: I think they were @kinabalu 's.
As for GRC's: there's a big issue that people wanting to change gender need to live as their new gender for two years. If you are a man transitioning to a woman, then it means you need to dress as a woman.
IMV a man dressing as a woman going into a men's toilet is going to be in much more physical and mental danger (from comments, bullying in the latter case) than women are from them using women's toilets.
Basically: banning people undergoing the transitioning process from using the toilets of their desired gender would be a big barrier to their transitioning.
Perhaps there's a way around this, although I am far from an expert in these areas. Perhaps there should be a pre-GRC certificate; to say someone is undergoing a transitioning process. This can be obtained from a panel, in a similar manner to the Interim GRC that married people need to get before they get a GRC. Once you get this, you can use women's facilities: but it can be rescinded at any time.
Although there are probably massive holes in that idea, too. Not least it makes an already convoluted process harder.
As an aside, how do you police this anyway? How do you check that that person using that cubicle is, in fact, a woman?
Toilets are an odd thing to focus on imo. And, yes, the policing aspect is interesting to ponder.
One reason for the focus on toilets is because so many women and girls have endured some form of sexual assault in toilets. It was where I was first assaulted when I was about 13. This is not unusual.
Policing: you need to be free to challenge without being accused of phobias. And when someone walks in who is obviously a man and not even trying to pass themselves as a woman or who has an erection or who indecently exposes themselves or who otherwise behaves in an appropriate way then they need to be told to leave and the authorities should support that ejection not accuse women.
Male perverts accessing women's toilets and behaving indecently is a crime and most definitely should be treated seriously, regardless of whether the GRA is reformed or not.
But, again, what's the logical link between an easier legal gender change process and the prevalence of that?
The problem is that the male perverts, when caught in the women’s toilets, will say that they are trans women and that anyone questioning them is transphobic and committing offences under the Gender Recognition Act.
Legislation designed to protect a tiny minority, has given free rein to a larger minority, who are despised by women and seen as an invasion of their protected spaces.
What legislation are you talking about?
Legally changing gender doesn't make it easier for a man to access a female toilet. So what's the link between the legal gender change process and a man accessing a female toilet?
There isn't one unless toilets are policed for gender via a certificate. If they were, yes, a man could be motivated to change gender, get the cert, and show it to gain access.
But they aren't. Nor are they policed for physical genital sex.
Unless you're proposing these things - which you surely aren't - I don't see where you're going with the comment.
The problem isn’t trans women. The problem is men, some of whom are sex offenders, posing as trans women.
But this is still not addressing my point.
How does making the legal gender change process easier make it more likely that such men will access female spaces that aren't policed for legal gender?
Because the easier you make legal gender changes, the more likely that process is to be corrupted by male sex offenders falsely representing themselves as women.
I give up.
No, you just don't see that there is an actual problem here.
I am seeking to make people examine why they hold the views they do on this subject. Most are failing to do this.
Mr. Jessop, it's the scientific definition. Broad definitions obviously blur boundaries. Buggering about with language is one of the ways certain people (not you) are trying to 'win' arguments in this area by denouncing those with the temerity to disagree as various types of '-phobes' and '-ists'.
Hermaphrodites were referred to in classical mythology. That doesn't make them commonplace. I do agree that being in a tiny minority doesn't mean they should be ignored. Feel rather sad that the South African sprinter (Caster Semenya? [sp]) has had far rougher treatment than biological men who have identified as women.
Female sports needs to be a category for cisgender women only. Everyone else can go into mens ( Which could probably do with being renamed open ). That effectively bars trans women from sport, but is needed to preserve female sport integrity - and if Semenya is deemed to be a woman (Another argument in itself) she should be able to compete without lowering her testosterone.
I agree with this. Competing at a top level in sport is not a fundamental right, and it's an area where fairness counts.
Although I'd argue that top sports people are generally freaks of nature anyway, to a certain extent. A combination of genetic traits that allow them to succeed at a sport, where someone more 'average' would not, however hard they trained. Michael Phelps' large feet, hyper-extendible joints, long torso and short legs all make him perfect for swimming.
Agreed. But this is not the approach being taken by sports bodies. They are ignoring material reality in favour of feelings. The material reality is that males once they have gone through male puberty are and always will be naturally stronger than women, regardless of how they subsequently identify and even if they go through a full transition. They are allowed to have levels of testosterone in their body that would get a woman athlete banned for doping. How can this possibly be fair.
This material reality means that trans athletes (male to female) have an inherent advantage. It means that womens' sport is dead or largely meaningless because it will be male bodies winning the prizes.
And yet we have reached the stage that feelings are allowed to override material scientific reality. And it is largely the feelings of men which are deemed more important than the concerns, feelings or material reality of women.
Caster Semenya is as I understand it a woman who naturally has large amounts of testosterone in her body. This may be very unusual but is no reason for banning her. But her position is very different from those with male bodies claiming to be women. They should not compete in womens' sport where physical strength matters. A separate transgender category can be created or they can remain in male categories. Where strength does not matter the issue does not really arise and transwomen can compete in female categories.
Or we could I suppose allow women athletes to dope themselves up the eyeballs as women athletes behind the Iron Curtain did so that they can compete on equal terms with transwomen. That is the logic of the transwomen are women approach. The fact that this renders womens' sport meaningless and has huge health impacts for women doing this are unfortunate consequences but, hey, who cares about those.
It is long past the time that we need to say that reality matters and if this does not please those who think that you can simply pretend that it does not exist simply by affirming it, too bad.
I know this feels like a niche issue to some. But it isn't. First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter. Second, because this is stopping any real focus on what transpeople actually need - which is better and earlier medical help so that they can live their lives happily.
And finally because this is another current in the whole "I have my own alternative facts" approach to life and politics which has so demeaned public life and culture in countries like the US. It is a very Trumpian and narcissistic approach to the world, similar to the anti-vaccination movement and other ludicrous conspiracy theories - people thinking that what they say - however untethered to reality - is real, should be validated by others and allowed to inform policy, no matter how dangerous or absurd the consequences.
It's all really messy. However - and I might be wrong - isn't an added complexity with Semenya that performance doping often uses testosterone, and therefore she was falling foul of the drug testing regime as well - until she proved they were her natural levels? From memory, women like Semenya might be forced to take drugs to get her testosterone levels down. That's really wrong IMO.
I just don't see competing in sports as anything like a fundamental right; and it's a place where 'fairness' matters. Hence, with regret, I've formed my position (which in this case is the same as yours).
" First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter."
I disagree with this. Numbers should not matter wrt rights, and changes that discriminate against a minority also matter. That's true for sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
There's 2 key questions and imo they can be uncoupled. What should the process be to legally change gender? Which things in society (if any) should be default governed by sex not gender?
So, eg, you could support a streamlined process for gender change but at the same time think that (eg) pro sports and prisons should be default sex based. Or, the opposite, you could think the gender change process should remain highly controlled and medicalized but that once done birth sex is irrelevant and gender is the correct default criterion for almost everything.
This type of shade never sees the light of day. It's either 'Pure self-ID for gender and sex doesn't matter a jot' or it's 'transgenderism flies in the face of science and is a perverts' charter representing an existential threat to women and their rights'.
Perhaps both sides feel their extremist hyperbole is mainly a response to that of the other side's. The debate certainly seems more 'vibrant' here than elsewhere. Eg it will be interesting to see how things develop in Germany where (aiui) the new government is pledged to implement reforms very similar to those the May government were looking at in 2018.
Well, it sees the light of day from me. It's a pure numbers game: BOTH there are genuine transgender people who deserve support and protection AND there are chancers around who are happy to look for sex, unfair sporting success, etc under the guise of transgenderism.
This isn't even a new or interesting problem. look at scoutmasters: there's a lot of men who want to become scoutmasters for the most praiseworthy reasons imaginable, and a lot of men who want to exploit the kiddie fiddling possibilities of the situation. We support, encourage and train the first lot, and try to vigilantly exclude the second. We err on the side of overvigilance, or try to, and that inevitably means that injustices occur. That's life. The same principle requires that gender dysphoric formerly male prisoners can stay in male prisons and bloody well lump it. Not difficult.
Suggest you look at Girl Guides who are currently, after complaints by parents, doing an inquiry into how the Head Guide in Nottingham is a man with a BDSM fetish who also poses pictures of themselves cradling illegal guns. They have also had issues re retaliation against female whistleblowers who have raised concern about whether they are taking their safeguarding obligations seriously. They are also giving guidance on what contraceptives to give 13 year old girls on guide trips even though (a) 13 is way below the age of consent and (b) such trips should be female only so why would contraception be needed.
@JosiasJessop's 2 questions are a sensible start. My answer to the first is that an application for a GRC should be as now ie it should require an objective external medical test because of the legal implications of such a change not just for the person concerned but for others and society at large. Expecting an external medical diagnosis is no more onerous than expecting one before getting cancer treatment. The delays are an issue of resources not a reason for doing away with the checks.
As to the second, the answer should be risk based. I would have the default as sex but permit gender provided there was little or no risk to others of doing so. We do not yet have data on whether men who do have gender dysphoria still remain in any sense an actual or potential risk to women. Until we do safeguarding should take priority. Nor do we know how many men who claim to be trans are in fact suffering from autogynephilia (do not Google this at work). Again until we do, men with male bodies should be kept out of female spaces.
The trouble is that those proposing very significant change are not asking these sensible questions. They simply pooh-pooh the very idea that there might be a conflict or risks or detrimental effects on others. They have got their way for quite a long time, in part by their insistence on "no debate". But women are now appreciating what these changes could mean and are fighting back and demanding both a debate and that no changes be made until these and many other questions are asked and answered. That is not extremism. It is sensible.
They weren't my questions: I think they were @kinabalu 's.
As for GRC's: there's a big issue that people wanting to change gender need to live as their new gender for two years. If you are a man transitioning to a woman, then it means you need to dress as a woman.
IMV a man dressing as a woman going into a men's toilet is going to be in much more physical and mental danger (from comments, bullying in the latter case) than women are from them using women's toilets.
Basically: banning people undergoing the transitioning process from using the toilets of their desired gender would be a big barrier to their transitioning.
Perhaps there's a way around this, although I am far from an expert in these areas. Perhaps there should be a pre-GRC certificate; to say someone is undergoing a transitioning process. This can be obtained from a panel, in a similar manner to the Interim GRC that married people need to get before they get a GRC. Once you get this, you can use women's facilities: but it can be rescinded at any time.
Although there are probably massive holes in that idea, too. Not least it makes an already convoluted process harder.
As an aside, how do you police this anyway? How do you check that that person using that cubicle is, in fact, a woman?
Toilets are an odd thing to focus on imo. And, yes, the policing aspect is interesting to ponder.
One reason for the focus on toilets is because so many women and girls have endured some form of sexual assault in toilets. It was where I was first assaulted when I was about 13. This is not unusual.
Policing: you need to be free to challenge without being accused of phobias. And when someone walks in who is obviously a man and not even trying to pass themselves as a woman or who has an erection or who indecently exposes themselves or who otherwise behaves in an appropriate way then they need to be told to leave and the authorities should support that ejection not accuse women.
Male perverts accessing women's toilets and behaving indecently is a crime and most definitely should be treated seriously, regardless of whether the GRA is reformed or not.
But, again, what's the logical link between an easier legal gender change process and the prevalence of that?
The problem is that the male perverts, when caught in the women’s toilets, will say that they are trans women and that anyone questioning them is transphobic and committing offences under the Gender Recognition Act.
Legislation designed to protect a tiny minority, has given free rein to a larger minority, who are despised by women and seen as an invasion of their protected spaces.
What legislation are you talking about?
Legally changing gender doesn't make it easier for a man to access a female toilet. So what's the link between the legal gender change process and a man accessing a female toilet?
There isn't one unless toilets are policed for gender via a certificate. If they were, yes, a man could be motivated to change gender, get the cert, and show it to gain access.
But they aren't. Nor are they policed for physical genital sex.
Unless you're proposing these things - which you surely aren't - I don't see where you're going with the comment.
The problem isn’t trans women. The problem is men, some of whom are sex offenders, posing as trans women.
But this is still not addressing my point.
How does making the legal gender change process easier make it more likely that such men will access female spaces that aren't policed for legal gender?
I think the point (and I have some sympathy with this) is that your creepy but not quite criminal man who wants to hang out in the women's toilets can presently be moved on in short order, simply for being a man. Say he's loitering by the basins, leering at the women in the mirror. Nothing criminal, but he's not allowed to be there. If a women reports it to the staff, he'll be fetched out. If he, by claiming to indentify as 'she' has a legal right to stay in there then it becomes a lot more shades of grey. Can only reasonably be expelled for.... what? Taking too long in there? Looking in the mirror allegedly at women? Could be a threatening presence about which little could be done.
I don't think that this is about the man waving his penis around in the women's toilets, which would surely still result in expulsion, but about the more subtle stuff. One person could cause a lot of trouble and unease, without doing anything overtly wrong.
Are there many of these men? I don't know. Some though, I expect. And if you're a woman being harassed by one of them then you're not really going to care whether it's common or not. It's intimidating/unpleasant. but if you report it, you report - what? - someone looked at me a bit funny or is taking a long time?
On the other hand, the genuinely transitioning woman should, imho, be able to use that space. And I'm not really into defining what people have to wear to get into that space - only transgender women in dresses, ridiculous?
I'm not quite sure what the answer is, but I do think there would be some issues raised by the ability for people to self-ID and be legally treated as self-Id gender.
Self ID is still a legal process, not an instantaneous reversible decision, isn't it? Hence there should be some legal documentation, such as Drivers licence etc.
So you wish to hang round women's toilets. Currently it's hard to pass the huddles put in your way to allow you to legally do so.
With self-identification it's simply a matter of filling in a form and waiting a few weeks.
Now I can see a whole lot of reasons why self-identification is a better approach but, sadly, it opens things up for abuse, and a lot of women have valid (personal) reasons for wanting a 100% safe space and self-identification removes that
I am not advocating Self ID, but it is the case that a legal process is still required, just a de-medicalised one.
Trans activists want all sorts of medical interventions for themselves - and especially for children - but on the one thing that has an impact on the rights of others, all of a sudden they no longer want any sort of medical verification of what they claim is a medical condition, which if not satisfied will lead to all sorts of appalling things happening. Odd that.
I'm not a trans activist btw. I don't post on this anywhere else. My view is easier gender change process, default inclusion, exclusions for certain areas based on evidence and reason not prejudice and ignorance. Other than that, I'm total agnostic. Don't know or understand enough to be otherwise.
You write very well on it. I was looking back at some of your very first posts on the subject, indeed some of your very first posts on PB.
Moreso because in particular @Cyclefree and others have strong views and as a mostly male forum any expressions of disagreement, or even engagement should be handled as sensitively as you handle them.
Why thank you, Col .. Captain.
Anyway, there's a byelection on and other stuff and I have overtalked so ... OUT.
Analysis of routine surveillance data from South Africa suggests that, in contrast to the Beta and Delta, the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 demonstrates substantial population-level evidence for evasion of immunity from prior infection.
If confirmed (and it was already expected to be the case), this finding obviously has rather disagreeable consequences for the cohorts in the UK, and especially in some other countries, where much of the immunity is currently from prior infections.
Summary: Get thee to a jabbery, if you haven't already.
But changing rooms are not policed for legal gender. So how does it become harder to eject such a person if the process for changing legal gender were to be made easier?
I can't see how it does. Can't see the logical link. This is the point I'm making.
I thought because if they were legally a woman they couldn’t be chucked out, whereas if they were a man they would be, if someone complained
Only if the space is policed for legal gender which most changing rooms aren't.
Oh don't be a dimwit. If a man comes in now he is - or can be - challenged. If he can say "I'm a woman" he won't be. And since sexual predators don't come with identifying marks on their forehead, women will have to take the risk that, rather than being a woman, he is an autogynephiliac or a sexual predator or a voyeur or a violent man or just a creep.
And why the fuck should we have to take that risk?
But - again - this is regardless of the gender change process. The control is in how such places are managed and regulated. By gender or by sex. How evidenced. How policed.
Such a person could say they're a woman now. You don't have to carry and show gender id to (eg) access a changing room. If you want to go that route of gender id then, yes, I can see that an easier gender change process based on self-id becomes a logical source of concern.
That's quite a change to bring in to combat the risk you're talking about - that heterosexual male predators will legally become female in order to target women in female spaces.
But if that's the argument it should be made. As it is, the debate is a mess.
I'm not the one who wants any change to the current system under the GRA. It's those who want to make a change who need to think about the risks and come up with solutions. So far, their response is to deny even the possibility of any risks arising. So we're a long way from solutions. When they finally admit the risks then we can have a sensible debate about how to minimise them while being as fair as possible to all involved.
Anyway I need to go now. Thanks for the debate.
On Zemmour there is a good article on him by David Aaronovitch in today's Times.
There's a decent chance today is the day Macron has secured his re-election as French President.
In the Les Republicains primary to choose a candidate, the party has effectively split between the moderate and the hard right and the losers are Xavier Bertrand and Michel Barnier who have both been eliminated.
Top of the poll was Eric Ciotti with 25.6%. Ciotti has unashamedly placed himself close to Zemmour on the political spectrum but recent polling suggested French voters preferred the real thing with Ciotti at 5% in one poll.
With Ciotti in the run off is Valerie Pecresse with 25% and she must be strong favourite to be the LR candidate but she polls 12-14% in hypothetical first round polls well behind Macron and Le Pen and vying for third with Zemmour.
Barnier got 23.9% while Bertrand, who has consistently polled best of the LR candidates, got just 22.4% to be eliminated.
It's hard to see either Pecresse or Ciotti making it to the run off and this strengthens the likelihood of the second round being between Macron and Le Pen and for all the noise in some quarters, I've not yet seen a single poll where Macron doesn't win a run off whether against Le Pen, Zemmour or any LR candidate.
Mr. Jessop, it's the scientific definition. Broad definitions obviously blur boundaries. Buggering about with language is one of the ways certain people (not you) are trying to 'win' arguments in this area by denouncing those with the temerity to disagree as various types of '-phobes' and '-ists'.
Hermaphrodites were referred to in classical mythology. That doesn't make them commonplace. I do agree that being in a tiny minority doesn't mean they should be ignored. Feel rather sad that the South African sprinter (Caster Semenya? [sp]) has had far rougher treatment than biological men who have identified as women.
Female sports needs to be a category for cisgender women only. Everyone else can go into mens ( Which could probably do with being renamed open ). That effectively bars trans women from sport, but is needed to preserve female sport integrity - and if Semenya is deemed to be a woman (Another argument in itself) she should be able to compete without lowering her testosterone.
I agree with this. Competing at a top level in sport is not a fundamental right, and it's an area where fairness counts.
Although I'd argue that top sports people are generally freaks of nature anyway, to a certain extent. A combination of genetic traits that allow them to succeed at a sport, where someone more 'average' would not, however hard they trained. Michael Phelps' large feet, hyper-extendible joints, long torso and short legs all make him perfect for swimming.
Agreed. But this is not the approach being taken by sports bodies. They are ignoring material reality in favour of feelings. The material reality is that males once they have gone through male puberty are and always will be naturally stronger than women, regardless of how they subsequently identify and even if they go through a full transition. They are allowed to have levels of testosterone in their body that would get a woman athlete banned for doping. How can this possibly be fair.
This material reality means that trans athletes (male to female) have an inherent advantage. It means that womens' sport is dead or largely meaningless because it will be male bodies winning the prizes.
And yet we have reached the stage that feelings are allowed to override material scientific reality. And it is largely the feelings of men which are deemed more important than the concerns, feelings or material reality of women.
Caster Semenya is as I understand it a woman who naturally has large amounts of testosterone in her body. This may be very unusual but is no reason for banning her. But her position is very different from those with male bodies claiming to be women. They should not compete in womens' sport where physical strength matters. A separate transgender category can be created or they can remain in male categories. Where strength does not matter the issue does not really arise and transwomen can compete in female categories.
Or we could I suppose allow women athletes to dope themselves up the eyeballs as women athletes behind the Iron Curtain did so that they can compete on equal terms with transwomen. That is the logic of the transwomen are women approach. The fact that this renders womens' sport meaningless and has huge health impacts for women doing this are unfortunate consequences but, hey, who cares about those.
It is long past the time that we need to say that reality matters and if this does not please those who think that you can simply pretend that it does not exist simply by affirming it, too bad.
I know this feels like a niche issue to some. But it isn't. First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter. Second, because this is stopping any real focus on what transpeople actually need - which is better and earlier medical help so that they can live their lives happily.
And finally because this is another current in the whole "I have my own alternative facts" approach to life and politics which has so demeaned public life and culture in countries like the US. It is a very Trumpian and narcissistic approach to the world, similar to the anti-vaccination movement and other ludicrous conspiracy theories - people thinking that what they say - however untethered to reality - is real, should be validated by others and allowed to inform policy, no matter how dangerous or absurd the consequences.
It's all really messy. However - and I might be wrong - isn't an added complexity with Semenya that performance doping often uses testosterone, and therefore she was falling foul of the drug testing regime as well - until she proved they were her natural levels? From memory, women like Semenya might be forced to take drugs to get her testosterone levels down. That's really wrong IMO.
I just don't see competing in sports as anything like a fundamental right; and it's a place where 'fairness' matters. Hence, with regret, I've formed my position (which in this case is the same as yours).
" First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter."
I disagree with this. Numbers should not matter wrt rights, and changes that discriminate against a minority also matter. That's true for sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
There's 2 key questions and imo they can be uncoupled. What should the process be to legally change gender? Which things in society (if any) should be default governed by sex not gender?
So, eg, you could support a streamlined process for gender change but at the same time think that (eg) pro sports and prisons should be default sex based. Or, the opposite, you could think the gender change process should remain highly controlled and medicalized but that once done birth sex is irrelevant and gender is the correct default criterion for almost everything.
This type of shade never sees the light of day. It's either 'Pure self-ID for gender and sex doesn't matter a jot' or it's 'transgenderism flies in the face of science and is a perverts' charter representing an existential threat to women and their rights'.
Perhaps both sides feel their extremist hyperbole is mainly a response to that of the other side's. The debate certainly seems more 'vibrant' here than elsewhere. Eg it will be interesting to see how things develop in Germany where (aiui) the new government is pledged to implement reforms very similar to those the May government were looking at in 2018.
Well, it sees the light of day from me. It's a pure numbers game: BOTH there are genuine transgender people who deserve support and protection AND there are chancers around who are happy to look for sex, unfair sporting success, etc under the guise of transgenderism.
This isn't even a new or interesting problem. look at scoutmasters: there's a lot of men who want to become scoutmasters for the most praiseworthy reasons imaginable, and a lot of men who want to exploit the kiddie fiddling possibilities of the situation. We support, encourage and train the first lot, and try to vigilantly exclude the second. We err on the side of overvigilance, or try to, and that inevitably means that injustices occur. That's life. The same principle requires that gender dysphoric formerly male prisoners can stay in male prisons and bloody well lump it. Not difficult.
Suggest you look at Girl Guides who are currently, after complaints by parents, doing an inquiry into how the Head Guide in Nottingham is a man with a BDSM fetish who also poses pictures of themselves cradling illegal guns. They have also had issues re retaliation against female whistleblowers who have raised concern about whether they are taking their safeguarding obligations seriously. They are also giving guidance on what contraceptives to give 13 year old girls on guide trips even though (a) 13 is way below the age of consent and (b) such trips should be female only so why would contraception be needed.
@JosiasJessop's 2 questions are a sensible start. My answer to the first is that an application for a GRC should be as now ie it should require an objective external medical test because of the legal implications of such a change not just for the person concerned but for others and society at large. Expecting an external medical diagnosis is no more onerous than expecting one before getting cancer treatment. The delays are an issue of resources not a reason for doing away with the checks.
As to the second, the answer should be risk based. I would have the default as sex but permit gender provided there was little or no risk to others of doing so. We do not yet have data on whether men who do have gender dysphoria still remain in any sense an actual or potential risk to women. Until we do safeguarding should take priority. Nor do we know how many men who claim to be trans are in fact suffering from autogynephilia (do not Google this at work). Again until we do, men with male bodies should be kept out of female spaces.
The trouble is that those proposing very significant change are not asking these sensible questions. They simply pooh-pooh the very idea that there might be a conflict or risks or detrimental effects on others. They have got their way for quite a long time, in part by their insistence on "no debate". But women are now appreciating what these changes could mean and are fighting back and demanding both a debate and that no changes be made until these and many other questions are asked and answered. That is not extremism. It is sensible.
They weren't my questions: I think they were @kinabalu 's.
As for GRC's: there's a big issue that people wanting to change gender need to live as their new gender for two years. If you are a man transitioning to a woman, then it means you need to dress as a woman.
IMV a man dressing as a woman going into a men's toilet is going to be in much more physical and mental danger (from comments, bullying in the latter case) than women are from them using women's toilets.
Basically: banning people undergoing the transitioning process from using the toilets of their desired gender would be a big barrier to their transitioning.
Perhaps there's a way around this, although I am far from an expert in these areas. Perhaps there should be a pre-GRC certificate; to say someone is undergoing a transitioning process. This can be obtained from a panel, in a similar manner to the Interim GRC that married people need to get before they get a GRC. Once you get this, you can use women's facilities: but it can be rescinded at any time.
Although there are probably massive holes in that idea, too. Not least it makes an already convoluted process harder.
As an aside, how do you police this anyway? How do you check that that person using that cubicle is, in fact, a woman?
Toilets are an odd thing to focus on imo. And, yes, the policing aspect is interesting to ponder.
One reason for the focus on toilets is because so many women and girls have endured some form of sexual assault in toilets. It was where I was first assaulted when I was about 13. This is not unusual.
Policing: you need to be free to challenge without being accused of phobias. And when someone walks in who is obviously a man and not even trying to pass themselves as a woman or who has an erection or who indecently exposes themselves or who otherwise behaves in an appropriate way then they need to be told to leave and the authorities should support that ejection not accuse women.
Male perverts accessing women's toilets and behaving indecently is a crime and most definitely should be treated seriously, regardless of whether the GRA is reformed or not.
But, again, what's the logical link between an easier legal gender change process and the prevalence of that?
The problem is that the male perverts, when caught in the women’s toilets, will say that they are trans women and that anyone questioning them is transphobic and committing offences under the Gender Recognition Act.
Legislation designed to protect a tiny minority, has given free rein to a larger minority, who are despised by women and seen as an invasion of their protected spaces.
What legislation are you talking about?
Legally changing gender doesn't make it easier for a man to access a female toilet. So what's the link between the legal gender change process and a man accessing a female toilet?
There isn't one unless toilets are policed for gender via a certificate. If they were, yes, a man could be motivated to change gender, get the cert, and show it to gain access.
But they aren't. Nor are they policed for physical genital sex.
Unless you're proposing these things - which you surely aren't - I don't see where you're going with the comment.
The problem isn’t trans women. The problem is men, some of whom are sex offenders, posing as trans women.
But this is still not addressing my point.
How does making the legal gender change process easier make it more likely that such men will access female spaces that aren't policed for legal gender?
I think the point (and I have some sympathy with this) is that your creepy but not quite criminal man who wants to hang out in the women's toilets can presently be moved on in short order, simply for being a man. Say he's loitering by the basins, leering at the women in the mirror. Nothing criminal, but he's not allowed to be there. If a women reports it to the staff, he'll be fetched out. If he, by claiming to indentify as 'she' has a legal right to stay in there then it becomes a lot more shades of grey. Can only reasonably be expelled for.... what? Taking too long in there? Looking in the mirror allegedly at women? Could be a threatening presence about which little could be done.
I don't think that this is about the man waving his penis around in the women's toilets, which would surely still result in expulsion, but about the more subtle stuff. One person could cause a lot of trouble and unease, without doing anything overtly wrong.
Are there many of these men? I don't know. Some though, I expect. And if you're a woman being harassed by one of them then you're not really going to care whether it's common or not. It's intimidating/unpleasant. but if you report it, you report - what? - someone looked at me a bit funny or is taking a long time?
On the other hand, the genuinely transitioning woman should, imho, be able to use that space. And I'm not really into defining what people have to wear to get into that space - only transgender women in dresses, ridiculous?
I'm not quite sure what the answer is, but I do think there would be some issues raised by the ability for people to self-ID and be legally treated as self-Id gender.
Self ID is still a legal process, not an instantaneous reversible decision, isn't it? Hence there should be some legal documentation, such as Drivers licence etc.
So you wish to hang round women's toilets. Currently it's hard to pass the huddles put in your way to allow you to legally do so.
With self-identification it's simply a matter of filling in a form and waiting a few weeks.
Now I can see a whole lot of reasons why self-identification is a better approach but, sadly, it opens things up for abuse, and a lot of women have valid (personal) reasons for wanting a 100% safe space and self-identification removes that
I am not advocating Self ID, but it is the case that a legal process is still required, just a de-medicalised one.
Trans activists want all sorts of medical interventions for themselves - and especially for children - but on the one thing that has an impact on the rights of others, all of a sudden they no longer want any sort of medical verification of what they claim is a medical condition, which if not satisfied will lead to all sorts of appalling things happening. Odd that.
It's a mess, or at least a potential one. As someone who has never had any ambition to hang around women's toilets or claim not to be male, I (hope) I understand your concerns. And I'm very, very concerned about the idea of children..... under 18's .... transitioning without considerable competent psychological counselling. Having written that, there's a 'lad' at the school one of my teenage granddaughters attends, indeed in her class, who she says regards himself as female, is probably the most competent make-up artist in the class, and, apparently says he's going to 'properly' transition as soon as he can. I'm not sure how he gets on with games or the games changing rooms. It's private, mainly girls, school and apparently they cope. TBH, neither Mrs C nor I feel the need to inquire too deeply! Or the desirability of so doing!
If the current conversion therapy ban proposals go through unamended , competent psychological counselling could well end up being being criminalised. This is a whole other topic which I am not going to go into now.
Suffice to say that the use of untested experimental puberty blockers and other hormones on children followed by surgery which often has the effect of rendering children infertile and unable to orgasm is, IMO, a class action lawsuit and medical negligence case just waiting to happen. It is a horror story.
A boy in my son's class was in a similar position in his mid-teens: good at make up, called himself the female version of his male name, wore women's clothes from time to time etc and thought he might be transgender. Then over time realised he was not and is now happily gay.
The rush to push children towards transition is appalling IMO. The reality may well be that many of them are not transgender at all but gay.
There are already a fair few who have detransiitoned
In twenty or thirty years time this will be a big scandal and the govt will be issuing apologies
I think the opposite. In 20 or 30 years changing gender will be accepted as no big deal and nobody's business other than the individual concerned. All of this will be looked back on with bemusement.
True, and mainly because this is a clear case of Apartheid Syndrome. For every actual transsexual there's 100 pervy blokes trying to maximise their chances of seeing a bird's tits by faking it, and another 100 lefty wankers on their eternal quest for Something Which Is None Of My Business To Be Wankers About. The wankers will have moved on by then leaving the field clear for some sensible legislation, and we'll forget the whole thing. I will anyway, what with being in my 90s.
Johnson so key to Brexit he decided at the last minute which side he would back
As did much of the country CHB.
Cameron's failed renegotiations were the final straw for many people, myself included, to show that the EU couldn't be reformed for the better.
What would he have had to have delivered to have made you change your mind?
David Cameron gave a good vision of how reform should have taken place in his Bloomberg speech.
Cameron's first point in the Bloomberg speech was about the need to protect non-Eurozone members in the future with the way the EU was evolving. The Eurozone memberstates had a majority under QMV rules so going forwards the Eurozone if they agreed on a reform that suited them could pass a law without any input from non-Eurozone members.
In particular there was talk about "double majority" QMV requiring a QMV majority of non-Euro and Euromember states in order for a proposed law to affect non-Euro members. That still wouldn't have been a return to unanimity as required in the past, but would have been a safeguard.
But nothing happened. There was no fundamental or serious reform to the EU that happened. All of Cameron's proposals in Bloomberg (and there were more than that first one) were roundly rejected in the negotiations.
Cameron set out to reform the EU and instead proved it couldn't be reformed.
Don't disagree - the EU was always unlikely to change imo and he did exempt the UK from those changes but I hear you.
He didn't exempt the UK from those changes. There was no change to the voting system.
Mealy-mouthed words about being exempt from "further union" doesn't mean anything unless the voting system is amended to reflect that reality. It wasn't, was it?
The UK held all the cards, Philip. Don't like ABC measure? We hereby deem it closer union and we reject it.
That's the shame imo about Brexit. We genuinely held all the cards. And we threw it away.
At the time, I said that we should have implemented a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and made it clear that all such future treaties were subject to referenda. It's not as if there aren't a number of countries in the EU, for which that was so.
IIRC Camo made a Cast Iron Guarantee on the matter didn't he?
Too late by that point.
As a Remain voter, it makes me giggle to hear people suggesting that the way to prevent BREXIT was to prevent the voters getting... too close? to certain matters
For generations, the pitch in the western world has been Democracy Rules OK. Telling the voters, now, that they "have no choice" is not an answer. Telling them they have no choice because the rule book says - just invites the rule book to be torn up.
As J A Froude said in "Caesar, A sketch" - "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions". The Roman Republic died because the oligarchy may or may not have been right - the constitution, written and unwritten said they had the power. The people then backed the breaking of the constitution.
I don't have a clue what point you're trying to make.
But I can tell you that the EU is not democratic at all. The voters have no say in the matter of the executive.
You mean, like the UK Cabinet?
The Cabinet is elected based upon the Parliament we elect.
Not the case with the EU.
The Member States vote for parties who want to be in the EU. So perfectly democratic. Those Member States who don't want to be in the EU vote for parties who want to leave. Also perfectly democratic.
It is exactly the same. Can you change the laws that were decided by the cabinet and voted for in parliament on mask wearing? I don't believe you can. But it is still a democratic process.
Yes I can. I can vote for a party that will drop mask requirements at the Parliamentary elections.
Since the European Parliament doesn't have a European demos and doesn't form the European government anyway the same is not true in Europe.
Exactly. You can vote for a party that will drop the mask requirements but today you can't change it. Both vital democratic elements of our society. If enough people agree with you then the party gets in and masks are dropped.
And likewise if you wanted to stay in or leave the EU you can (and did) vote for it but until that time you don't have a direct say in every EU ruling or policy.
That's not good enough in a democracy Topping.
That's like saying you can leave the UK but unless you do you have no say in UK laws. No meaningful UK elections.
If the EU is to be making laws then it should be a genuine democracy. It isn't as it stands.
We absolutely had an influence over the EU laws. I can't be bothered to google this for a five year old discussion but it was shown that the UK more often than not got its way in EU law formation.
The UK government may have, the UK voters didn't. It was too divorced from the voters because they weren't debated and determined at elections.
Asinine point. The UK government is voted in by UK voters.
It's not an asinine point, the UK government is powerless to change the law without Parliament's consent in the UK. It is held to account via the Opposition, Select Committees, PMQs and much more.
The EU only required the UK government's consent, not UK Parliament's, to change the law.
And if we were outvoted by QMV not even that.
How many times does it need saying that the UK Government is the democratic voice of the UK voters. Checks and balances fine but look at some of the Covid measures.
To say that the UK Government does not act on behalf of UK voters is just bonkers. And wrong, obvs.
The UK Government is not the democratic voice of UK voters, the UK Parliament is. The UK Government is a subset of the UK Parliament.
And the UK Government can only pass Covid rules because Parliament has authorised it to do so, and keeps renewing that authorisation every few months. No Parliamentary consent, no Covid legislation.
In his letter to Boris Johnson the French PM Jean Castex says only Britain can dissuade illegal migrants from the UK by "implementing a more effective return policy" and "ensuring that your labour market is sufficiently controlled to discourage applications for illegal work" https://twitter.com/matt_dathan/status/1466467251670900736
The second point is a fair one: the UK has a massive market for illegal labour compared to most European countries.
God I hate you, I love him, never been disappointed in any role he has been in.
I am: he's a vey nice bloke. (His daughter and my daughter are at the same school.)
When I first met him, I told him that he totally stole the show in In The Line of Fire. Which is (a) completely untrue. And (b) something that I'm fairly sure no-one has ever said with a straight face. He paused for a second and then pissed himself laughing.
On trans issues: When Amazon banned "When Harry Became Sally" I bought a copy from Barnes and Noble to protest the ban, and stopped buying books on Amazon. (I haven't gotten around to reading it.)
Johnson so key to Brexit he decided at the last minute which side he would back
As did much of the country CHB.
Cameron's failed renegotiations were the final straw for many people, myself included, to show that the EU couldn't be reformed for the better.
What would he have had to have delivered to have made you change your mind?
David Cameron gave a good vision of how reform should have taken place in his Bloomberg speech.
Cameron's first point in the Bloomberg speech was about the need to protect non-Eurozone members in the future with the way the EU was evolving. The Eurozone memberstates had a majority under QMV rules so going forwards the Eurozone if they agreed on a reform that suited them could pass a law without any input from non-Eurozone members.
In particular there was talk about "double majority" QMV requiring a QMV majority of non-Euro and Euromember states in order for a proposed law to affect non-Euro members. That still wouldn't have been a return to unanimity as required in the past, but would have been a safeguard.
But nothing happened. There was no fundamental or serious reform to the EU that happened. All of Cameron's proposals in Bloomberg (and there were more than that first one) were roundly rejected in the negotiations.
Cameron set out to reform the EU and instead proved it couldn't be reformed.
Don't disagree - the EU was always unlikely to change imo and he did exempt the UK from those changes but I hear you.
He didn't exempt the UK from those changes. There was no change to the voting system.
Mealy-mouthed words about being exempt from "further union" doesn't mean anything unless the voting system is amended to reflect that reality. It wasn't, was it?
The UK held all the cards, Philip. Don't like ABC measure? We hereby deem it closer union and we reject it.
That's the shame imo about Brexit. We genuinely held all the cards. And we threw it away.
At the time, I said that we should have implemented a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and made it clear that all such future treaties were subject to referenda. It's not as if there aren't a number of countries in the EU, for which that was so.
IIRC Camo made a Cast Iron Guarantee on the matter didn't he?
Too late by that point.
As a Remain voter, it makes me giggle to hear people suggesting that the way to prevent BREXIT was to prevent the voters getting... too close? to certain matters
For generations, the pitch in the western world has been Democracy Rules OK. Telling the voters, now, that they "have no choice" is not an answer. Telling them they have no choice because the rule book says - just invites the rule book to be torn up.
As J A Froude said in "Caesar, A sketch" - "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions". The Roman Republic died because the oligarchy may or may not have been right - the constitution, written and unwritten said they had the power. The people then backed the breaking of the constitution.
I don't have a clue what point you're trying to make.
But I can tell you that the EU is not democratic at all. The voters have no say in the matter of the executive.
You mean, like the UK Cabinet?
The Cabinet is elected based upon the Parliament we elect.
Not the case with the EU.
The Member States vote for parties who want to be in the EU. So perfectly democratic. Those Member States who don't want to be in the EU vote for parties who want to leave. Also perfectly democratic.
It is exactly the same. Can you change the laws that were decided by the cabinet and voted for in parliament on mask wearing? I don't believe you can. But it is still a democratic process.
Yes I can. I can vote for a party that will drop mask requirements at the Parliamentary elections.
Since the European Parliament doesn't have a European demos and doesn't form the European government anyway the same is not true in Europe.
Exactly. You can vote for a party that will drop the mask requirements but today you can't change it. Both vital democratic elements of our society. If enough people agree with you then the party gets in and masks are dropped.
And likewise if you wanted to stay in or leave the EU you can (and did) vote for it but until that time you don't have a direct say in every EU ruling or policy.
That's not good enough in a democracy Topping.
That's like saying you can leave the UK but unless you do you have no say in UK laws. No meaningful UK elections.
If the EU is to be making laws then it should be a genuine democracy. It isn't as it stands.
We absolutely had an influence over the EU laws. I can't be bothered to google this for a five year old discussion but it was shown that the UK more often than not got its way in EU law formation.
The UK government may have, the UK voters didn't. It was too divorced from the voters because they weren't debated and determined at elections.
Asinine point. The UK government is voted in by UK voters.
It's not an asinine point, the UK government is powerless to change the law without Parliament's consent in the UK. It is held to account via the Opposition, Select Committees, PMQs and much more.
The EU only required the UK government's consent, not UK Parliament's, to change the law.
And if we were outvoted by QMV not even that.
How many times does it need saying that the UK Government is the democratic voice of the UK voters. Checks and balances fine but look at some of the Covid measures.
To say that the UK Government does not act on behalf of UK voters is just bonkers. And wrong, obvs.
The UK Government is not the democratic voice of UK voters, the UK Parliament is.
Unfortunately, more than half of UK Parliamentarians are unelected.
Analysis of routine surveillance data from South Africa suggests that, in contrast to the Beta and Delta, the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 demonstrates substantial population-level evidence for evasion of immunity from prior infection.
If confirmed (and it was already expected to be the case), this finding obviously has rather disagreeable consequences for the cohorts in the UK, and especially in some other countries, where much of the immunity is currently from prior infections.
Summary: Get thee to a jabbery, if you haven't already.
Bollox. I’m not hopeful that the current vaccines are gonna save us.
The Conservative peer Michelle Mone has been accused of sending a racist message to a man of Indian heritage who alleged in an official complaint that she told him he was “a waste of a man’s white skin”.
The phrase was allegedly used in a WhatsApp message sent by the Tory member of the House of Lords in June 2019 during a disagreement following a fatal yacht crash off the coast of Monaco.
The message was part of a series of WhatsApp exchanges, screenshots of which have been sent to the House of Lords commissioner for standards as part of a complaint alleging that Lady Mone sent racist and abusive messages.
Analysis of routine surveillance data from South Africa suggests that, in contrast to the Beta and Delta, the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 demonstrates substantial population-level evidence for evasion of immunity from prior infection.
If confirmed (and it was already expected to be the case), this finding obviously has rather disagreeable consequences for the cohorts in the UK, and especially in some other countries, where much of the immunity is currently from prior infections.
Summary: Get thee to a jabbery, if you haven't already.
Bollox. I’m not hopeful that the current vaccines are gonna save us.
Bravo and well said, and don't get one. Gene pools don't regulate themselves.
The Conservative peer Michelle Mone has been accused of sending a racist message to a man of Indian heritage who alleged in an official complaint that she told him he was “a waste of a man’s white skin”.
The phrase was allegedly used in a WhatsApp message sent by the Tory member of the House of Lords in June 2019 during a disagreement following a fatal yacht crash off the coast of Monaco.
The message was part of a series of WhatsApp exchanges, screenshots of which have been sent to the House of Lords commissioner for standards as part of a complaint alleging that Lady Mone sent racist and abusive messages.
Glad the killers of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes have been found guilty.
For all those who expend their energy worrying about the theoretical harm being done to trans kids, we’ll, there are some very real cases of extreme child abuse like Arthur’s that should worry us more.
Just my 2p.
Btw - serious fuckup by Solihull council social workers.
On the subject of 'self ID', I can understand why trans people feel strongly about it. Imagine if you said that homosexuals needed to have a doctor's note to prove that they were attracted to people of the same sex.
But they need to understand that they are asking for something that impinges on others too.
Johnson so key to Brexit he decided at the last minute which side he would back
As did much of the country CHB.
Cameron's failed renegotiations were the final straw for many people, myself included, to show that the EU couldn't be reformed for the better.
What would he have had to have delivered to have made you change your mind?
David Cameron gave a good vision of how reform should have taken place in his Bloomberg speech.
Cameron's first point in the Bloomberg speech was about the need to protect non-Eurozone members in the future with the way the EU was evolving. The Eurozone memberstates had a majority under QMV rules so going forwards the Eurozone if they agreed on a reform that suited them could pass a law without any input from non-Eurozone members.
In particular there was talk about "double majority" QMV requiring a QMV majority of non-Euro and Euromember states in order for a proposed law to affect non-Euro members. That still wouldn't have been a return to unanimity as required in the past, but would have been a safeguard.
But nothing happened. There was no fundamental or serious reform to the EU that happened. All of Cameron's proposals in Bloomberg (and there were more than that first one) were roundly rejected in the negotiations.
Cameron set out to reform the EU and instead proved it couldn't be reformed.
Don't disagree - the EU was always unlikely to change imo and he did exempt the UK from those changes but I hear you.
He didn't exempt the UK from those changes. There was no change to the voting system.
Mealy-mouthed words about being exempt from "further union" doesn't mean anything unless the voting system is amended to reflect that reality. It wasn't, was it?
The UK held all the cards, Philip. Don't like ABC measure? We hereby deem it closer union and we reject it.
That's the shame imo about Brexit. We genuinely held all the cards. And we threw it away.
At the time, I said that we should have implemented a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and made it clear that all such future treaties were subject to referenda. It's not as if there aren't a number of countries in the EU, for which that was so.
IIRC Camo made a Cast Iron Guarantee on the matter didn't he?
Too late by that point.
As a Remain voter, it makes me giggle to hear people suggesting that the way to prevent BREXIT was to prevent the voters getting... too close? to certain matters
For generations, the pitch in the western world has been Democracy Rules OK. Telling the voters, now, that they "have no choice" is not an answer. Telling them they have no choice because the rule book says - just invites the rule book to be torn up.
As J A Froude said in "Caesar, A sketch" - "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions". The Roman Republic died because the oligarchy may or may not have been right - the constitution, written and unwritten said they had the power. The people then backed the breaking of the constitution.
I don't have a clue what point you're trying to make.
But I can tell you that the EU is not democratic at all. The voters have no say in the matter of the executive.
You mean, like the UK Cabinet?
The Cabinet is elected based upon the Parliament we elect.
Not the case with the EU.
The Member States vote for parties who want to be in the EU. So perfectly democratic. Those Member States who don't want to be in the EU vote for parties who want to leave. Also perfectly democratic.
It is exactly the same. Can you change the laws that were decided by the cabinet and voted for in parliament on mask wearing? I don't believe you can. But it is still a democratic process.
Yes I can. I can vote for a party that will drop mask requirements at the Parliamentary elections.
Since the European Parliament doesn't have a European demos and doesn't form the European government anyway the same is not true in Europe.
Exactly. You can vote for a party that will drop the mask requirements but today you can't change it. Both vital democratic elements of our society. If enough people agree with you then the party gets in and masks are dropped.
And likewise if you wanted to stay in or leave the EU you can (and did) vote for it but until that time you don't have a direct say in every EU ruling or policy.
That's not good enough in a democracy Topping.
That's like saying you can leave the UK but unless you do you have no say in UK laws. No meaningful UK elections.
If the EU is to be making laws then it should be a genuine democracy. It isn't as it stands.
We absolutely had an influence over the EU laws. I can't be bothered to google this for a five year old discussion but it was shown that the UK more often than not got its way in EU law formation.
The UK government may have, the UK voters didn't. It was too divorced from the voters because they weren't debated and determined at elections.
Asinine point. The UK government is voted in by UK voters.
It's not an asinine point, the UK government is powerless to change the law without Parliament's consent in the UK. It is held to account via the Opposition, Select Committees, PMQs and much more.
The EU only required the UK government's consent, not UK Parliament's, to change the law.
And if we were outvoted by QMV not even that.
How many times does it need saying that the UK Government is the democratic voice of the UK voters. Checks and balances fine but look at some of the Covid measures.
To say that the UK Government does not act on behalf of UK voters is just bonkers. And wrong, obvs.
The UK Government is not the democratic voice of UK voters, the UK Parliament is.
Unfortunately, more than half of UK Parliamentarians are unelected.
The half that doesn't matter.
Its the Commons that is the democratic voice of UK voters if you want to narrow it down.
Mr. Jessop, it's the scientific definition. Broad definitions obviously blur boundaries. Buggering about with language is one of the ways certain people (not you) are trying to 'win' arguments in this area by denouncing those with the temerity to disagree as various types of '-phobes' and '-ists'.
Hermaphrodites were referred to in classical mythology. That doesn't make them commonplace. I do agree that being in a tiny minority doesn't mean they should be ignored. Feel rather sad that the South African sprinter (Caster Semenya? [sp]) has had far rougher treatment than biological men who have identified as women.
Female sports needs to be a category for cisgender women only. Everyone else can go into mens ( Which could probably do with being renamed open ). That effectively bars trans women from sport, but is needed to preserve female sport integrity - and if Semenya is deemed to be a woman (Another argument in itself) she should be able to compete without lowering her testosterone.
I agree with this. Competing at a top level in sport is not a fundamental right, and it's an area where fairness counts.
Although I'd argue that top sports people are generally freaks of nature anyway, to a certain extent. A combination of genetic traits that allow them to succeed at a sport, where someone more 'average' would not, however hard they trained. Michael Phelps' large feet, hyper-extendible joints, long torso and short legs all make him perfect for swimming.
Agreed. But this is not the approach being taken by sports bodies. They are ignoring material reality in favour of feelings. The material reality is that males once they have gone through male puberty are and always will be naturally stronger than women, regardless of how they subsequently identify and even if they go through a full transition. They are allowed to have levels of testosterone in their body that would get a woman athlete banned for doping. How can this possibly be fair.
This material reality means that trans athletes (male to female) have an inherent advantage. It means that womens' sport is dead or largely meaningless because it will be male bodies winning the prizes.
And yet we have reached the stage that feelings are allowed to override material scientific reality. And it is largely the feelings of men which are deemed more important than the concerns, feelings or material reality of women.
Caster Semenya is as I understand it a woman who naturally has large amounts of testosterone in her body. This may be very unusual but is no reason for banning her. But her position is very different from those with male bodies claiming to be women. They should not compete in womens' sport where physical strength matters. A separate transgender category can be created or they can remain in male categories. Where strength does not matter the issue does not really arise and transwomen can compete in female categories.
Or we could I suppose allow women athletes to dope themselves up the eyeballs as women athletes behind the Iron Curtain did so that they can compete on equal terms with transwomen. That is the logic of the transwomen are women approach. The fact that this renders womens' sport meaningless and has huge health impacts for women doing this are unfortunate consequences but, hey, who cares about those.
It is long past the time that we need to say that reality matters and if this does not please those who think that you can simply pretend that it does not exist simply by affirming it, too bad.
I know this feels like a niche issue to some. But it isn't. First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter. Second, because this is stopping any real focus on what transpeople actually need - which is better and earlier medical help so that they can live their lives happily.
And finally because this is another current in the whole "I have my own alternative facts" approach to life and politics which has so demeaned public life and culture in countries like the US. It is a very Trumpian and narcissistic approach to the world, similar to the anti-vaccination movement and other ludicrous conspiracy theories - people thinking that what they say - however untethered to reality - is real, should be validated by others and allowed to inform policy, no matter how dangerous or absurd the consequences.
It's all really messy. However - and I might be wrong - isn't an added complexity with Semenya that performance doping often uses testosterone, and therefore she was falling foul of the drug testing regime as well - until she proved they were her natural levels? From memory, women like Semenya might be forced to take drugs to get her testosterone levels down. That's really wrong IMO.
I just don't see competing in sports as anything like a fundamental right; and it's a place where 'fairness' matters. Hence, with regret, I've formed my position (which in this case is the same as yours).
" First, because women are a majority of the population (just) not some tiny minority so changes which harm their rights matter."
I disagree with this. Numbers should not matter wrt rights, and changes that discriminate against a minority also matter. That's true for sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
There's 2 key questions and imo they can be uncoupled. What should the process be to legally change gender? Which things in society (if any) should be default governed by sex not gender?
So, eg, you could support a streamlined process for gender change but at the same time think that (eg) pro sports and prisons should be default sex based. Or, the opposite, you could think the gender change process should remain highly controlled and medicalized but that once done birth sex is irrelevant and gender is the correct default criterion for almost everything.
This type of shade never sees the light of day. It's either 'Pure self-ID for gender and sex doesn't matter a jot' or it's 'transgenderism flies in the face of science and is a perverts' charter representing an existential threat to women and their rights'.
Perhaps both sides feel their extremist hyperbole is mainly a response to that of the other side's. The debate certainly seems more 'vibrant' here than elsewhere. Eg it will be interesting to see how things develop in Germany where (aiui) the new government is pledged to implement reforms very similar to those the May government were looking at in 2018.
Well, it sees the light of day from me. It's a pure numbers game: BOTH there are genuine transgender people who deserve support and protection AND there are chancers around who are happy to look for sex, unfair sporting success, etc under the guise of transgenderism.
This isn't even a new or interesting problem. look at scoutmasters: there's a lot of men who want to become scoutmasters for the most praiseworthy reasons imaginable, and a lot of men who want to exploit the kiddie fiddling possibilities of the situation. We support, encourage and train the first lot, and try to vigilantly exclude the second. We err on the side of overvigilance, or try to, and that inevitably means that injustices occur. That's life. The same principle requires that gender dysphoric formerly male prisoners can stay in male prisons and bloody well lump it. Not difficult.
Suggest you look at Girl Guides who are currently, after complaints by parents, doing an inquiry into how the Head Guide in Nottingham is a man with a BDSM fetish who also poses pictures of themselves cradling illegal guns. They have also had issues re retaliation against female whistleblowers who have raised concern about whether they are taking their safeguarding obligations seriously. They are also giving guidance on what contraceptives to give 13 year old girls on guide trips even though (a) 13 is way below the age of consent and (b) such trips should be female only so why would contraception be needed.
@JosiasJessop's 2 questions are a sensible start. My answer to the first is that an application for a GRC should be as now ie it should require an objective external medical test because of the legal implications of such a change not just for the person concerned but for others and society at large. Expecting an external medical diagnosis is no more onerous than expecting one before getting cancer treatment. The delays are an issue of resources not a reason for doing away with the checks.
As to the second, the answer should be risk based. I would have the default as sex but permit gender provided there was little or no risk to others of doing so. We do not yet have data on whether men who do have gender dysphoria still remain in any sense an actual or potential risk to women. Until we do safeguarding should take priority. Nor do we know how many men who claim to be trans are in fact suffering from autogynephilia (do not Google this at work). Again until we do, men with male bodies should be kept out of female spaces.
The trouble is that those proposing very significant change are not asking these sensible questions. They simply pooh-pooh the very idea that there might be a conflict or risks or detrimental effects on others. They have got their way for quite a long time, in part by their insistence on "no debate". But women are now appreciating what these changes could mean and are fighting back and demanding both a debate and that no changes be made until these and many other questions are asked and answered. That is not extremism. It is sensible.
They weren't my questions: I think they were @kinabalu 's.
As for GRC's: there's a big issue that people wanting to change gender need to live as their new gender for two years. If you are a man transitioning to a woman, then it means you need to dress as a woman.
IMV a man dressing as a woman going into a men's toilet is going to be in much more physical and mental danger (from comments, bullying in the latter case) than women are from them using women's toilets.
Basically: banning people undergoing the transitioning process from using the toilets of their desired gender would be a big barrier to their transitioning.
Perhaps there's a way around this, although I am far from an expert in these areas. Perhaps there should be a pre-GRC certificate; to say someone is undergoing a transitioning process. This can be obtained from a panel, in a similar manner to the Interim GRC that married people need to get before they get a GRC. Once you get this, you can use women's facilities: but it can be rescinded at any time.
Although there are probably massive holes in that idea, too. Not least it makes an already convoluted process harder.
As an aside, how do you police this anyway? How do you check that that person using that cubicle is, in fact, a woman?
Toilets are an odd thing to focus on imo. And, yes, the policing aspect is interesting to ponder.
One reason for the focus on toilets is because so many women and girls have endured some form of sexual assault in toilets. It was where I was first assaulted when I was about 13. This is not unusual.
Policing: you need to be free to challenge without being accused of phobias. And when someone walks in who is obviously a man and not even trying to pass themselves as a woman or who has an erection or who indecently exposes themselves or who otherwise behaves in an appropriate way then they need to be told to leave and the authorities should support that ejection not accuse women.
Male perverts accessing women's toilets and behaving indecently is a crime and most definitely should be treated seriously, regardless of whether the GRA is reformed or not.
But, again, what's the logical link between an easier legal gender change process and the prevalence of that?
The problem is that the male perverts, when caught in the women’s toilets, will say that they are trans women and that anyone questioning them is transphobic and committing offences under the Gender Recognition Act.
Legislation designed to protect a tiny minority, has given free rein to a larger minority, who are despised by women and seen as an invasion of their protected spaces.
What legislation are you talking about?
Legally changing gender doesn't make it easier for a man to access a female toilet. So what's the link between the legal gender change process and a man accessing a female toilet?
There isn't one unless toilets are policed for gender via a certificate. If they were, yes, a man could be motivated to change gender, get the cert, and show it to gain access.
But they aren't. Nor are they policed for physical genital sex.
Unless you're proposing these things - which you surely aren't - I don't see where you're going with the comment.
The problem isn’t trans women. The problem is men, some of whom are sex offenders, posing as trans women.
But this is still not addressing my point.
How does making the legal gender change process easier make it more likely that such men will access female spaces that aren't policed for legal gender?
I think the point (and I have some sympathy with this) is that your creepy but not quite criminal man who wants to hang out in the women's toilets can presently be moved on in short order, simply for being a man. Say he's loitering by the basins, leering at the women in the mirror. Nothing criminal, but he's not allowed to be there. If a women reports it to the staff, he'll be fetched out. If he, by claiming to indentify as 'she' has a legal right to stay in there then it becomes a lot more shades of grey. Can only reasonably be expelled for.... what? Taking too long in there? Looking in the mirror allegedly at women? Could be a threatening presence about which little could be done.
I don't think that this is about the man waving his penis around in the women's toilets, which would surely still result in expulsion, but about the more subtle stuff. One person could cause a lot of trouble and unease, without doing anything overtly wrong.
Are there many of these men? I don't know. Some though, I expect. And if you're a woman being harassed by one of them then you're not really going to care whether it's common or not. It's intimidating/unpleasant. but if you report it, you report - what? - someone looked at me a bit funny or is taking a long time?
On the other hand, the genuinely transitioning woman should, imho, be able to use that space. And I'm not really into defining what people have to wear to get into that space - only transgender women in dresses, ridiculous?
I'm not quite sure what the answer is, but I do think there would be some issues raised by the ability for people to self-ID and be legally treated as self-Id gender.
Self ID is still a legal process, not an instantaneous reversible decision, isn't it? Hence there should be some legal documentation, such as Drivers licence etc.
So you wish to hang round women's toilets. Currently it's hard to pass the huddles put in your way to allow you to legally do so.
With self-identification it's simply a matter of filling in a form and waiting a few weeks.
Now I can see a whole lot of reasons why self-identification is a better approach but, sadly, it opens things up for abuse, and a lot of women have valid (personal) reasons for wanting a 100% safe space and self-identification removes that
I am not advocating Self ID, but it is the case that a legal process is still required, just a de-medicalised one.
Trans activists want all sorts of medical interventions for themselves - and especially for children - but on the one thing that has an impact on the rights of others, all of a sudden they no longer want any sort of medical verification of what they claim is a medical condition, which if not satisfied will lead to all sorts of appalling things happening. Odd that.
I'm not a trans activist btw. I don't post on this anywhere else. My view is easier gender change process, default inclusion, exclusions for certain areas based on evidence and reason not prejudice and ignorance. Other than that, I'm total agnostic. Don't know or understand enough to be otherwise.
Wouldn’t have thought it was unreasonable for a man, complete with penis, who wants to sit in ladies changing rooms to keep some kind of document saying he is transitioning handy, or are we at the stage where it would be too offensive to them to presume they might be the man they are?
If you support gender id cards just say so - you don't have to make your prejudice quite so clear at the same time.
Ooh you nasty boy! So vicious when you get annoyed!!
But it doesn't change anything - of course if a man wants to sit in female changing rooms he should have a valid reason, and perhaps being in transition is one. Obviously you cant just ask them, so they would need something to prove they weren't just a man sitting there bollock naked nonseing the girls
Thank God for Boris - if Jezza had got in you lot and your mad ideas would be running the gaff
Also - @AndyJS, many thanks for that really great piece from Unherd on Zemmour. It should be compulsory reading for anyone commenting on the French election. (And was also extremely well written.)
ah I meant/wanted to read that - can you/he repost?
Interest how French traditional rightwing anti-Semitism has morphed into Islamophobia.
Similar in some respects to how in the USA anti-immigration campaigners have gone from targeting Italian immigrants a century ago, to targeting Latino immigrants today.
AND with descendants of formerly feared & despised "outsiders" now in the rank, file and leadership of the anti-immigrants. For example, Zemmour himself.
On trans issues: When Amazon banned "When Harry Became Sally" I bought a copy from Barnes and Noble to protest the ban, and stopped buying books on Amazon. (I haven't gotten around to reading it.)
Johnson so key to Brexit he decided at the last minute which side he would back
As did much of the country CHB.
Cameron's failed renegotiations were the final straw for many people, myself included, to show that the EU couldn't be reformed for the better.
What would he have had to have delivered to have made you change your mind?
David Cameron gave a good vision of how reform should have taken place in his Bloomberg speech.
Cameron's first point in the Bloomberg speech was about the need to protect non-Eurozone members in the future with the way the EU was evolving. The Eurozone memberstates had a majority under QMV rules so going forwards the Eurozone if they agreed on a reform that suited them could pass a law without any input from non-Eurozone members.
In particular there was talk about "double majority" QMV requiring a QMV majority of non-Euro and Euromember states in order for a proposed law to affect non-Euro members. That still wouldn't have been a return to unanimity as required in the past, but would have been a safeguard.
But nothing happened. There was no fundamental or serious reform to the EU that happened. All of Cameron's proposals in Bloomberg (and there were more than that first one) were roundly rejected in the negotiations.
Cameron set out to reform the EU and instead proved it couldn't be reformed.
Don't disagree - the EU was always unlikely to change imo and he did exempt the UK from those changes but I hear you.
He didn't exempt the UK from those changes. There was no change to the voting system.
Mealy-mouthed words about being exempt from "further union" doesn't mean anything unless the voting system is amended to reflect that reality. It wasn't, was it?
The UK held all the cards, Philip. Don't like ABC measure? We hereby deem it closer union and we reject it.
That's the shame imo about Brexit. We genuinely held all the cards. And we threw it away.
At the time, I said that we should have implemented a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and made it clear that all such future treaties were subject to referenda. It's not as if there aren't a number of countries in the EU, for which that was so.
IIRC Camo made a Cast Iron Guarantee on the matter didn't he?
Too late by that point.
As a Remain voter, it makes me giggle to hear people suggesting that the way to prevent BREXIT was to prevent the voters getting... too close? to certain matters
For generations, the pitch in the western world has been Democracy Rules OK. Telling the voters, now, that they "have no choice" is not an answer. Telling them they have no choice because the rule book says - just invites the rule book to be torn up.
As J A Froude said in "Caesar, A sketch" - "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions". The Roman Republic died because the oligarchy may or may not have been right - the constitution, written and unwritten said they had the power. The people then backed the breaking of the constitution.
I don't have a clue what point you're trying to make.
But I can tell you that the EU is not democratic at all. The voters have no say in the matter of the executive.
You mean, like the UK Cabinet?
The Cabinet is elected based upon the Parliament we elect.
Not the case with the EU.
The Member States vote for parties who want to be in the EU. So perfectly democratic. Those Member States who don't want to be in the EU vote for parties who want to leave. Also perfectly democratic.
It is exactly the same. Can you change the laws that were decided by the cabinet and voted for in parliament on mask wearing? I don't believe you can. But it is still a democratic process.
Yes I can. I can vote for a party that will drop mask requirements at the Parliamentary elections.
Since the European Parliament doesn't have a European demos and doesn't form the European government anyway the same is not true in Europe.
Exactly. You can vote for a party that will drop the mask requirements but today you can't change it. Both vital democratic elements of our society. If enough people agree with you then the party gets in and masks are dropped.
And likewise if you wanted to stay in or leave the EU you can (and did) vote for it but until that time you don't have a direct say in every EU ruling or policy.
That's not good enough in a democracy Topping.
That's like saying you can leave the UK but unless you do you have no say in UK laws. No meaningful UK elections.
If the EU is to be making laws then it should be a genuine democracy. It isn't as it stands.
We absolutely had an influence over the EU laws. I can't be bothered to google this for a five year old discussion but it was shown that the UK more often than not got its way in EU law formation.
The UK government may have, the UK voters didn't. It was too divorced from the voters because they weren't debated and determined at elections.
Asinine point. The UK government is voted in by UK voters.
It's not an asinine point, the UK government is powerless to change the law without Parliament's consent in the UK. It is held to account via the Opposition, Select Committees, PMQs and much more.
The EU only required the UK government's consent, not UK Parliament's, to change the law.
And if we were outvoted by QMV not even that.
How many times does it need saying that the UK Government is the democratic voice of the UK voters. Checks and balances fine but look at some of the Covid measures.
To say that the UK Government does not act on behalf of UK voters is just bonkers. And wrong, obvs.
The UK Government is not the democratic voice of UK voters, the UK Parliament is. The UK Government is a subset of the UK Parliament.
And the UK Government can only pass Covid rules because Parliament has authorised it to do so, and keeps renewing that authorisation every few months. No Parliamentary consent, no Covid legislation.
I suppose you'll finish on PB for the evening and tell friends and family how you have spent all day telling people that decisions made by the UK government aren't democratic.
On the subject of 'self ID', I can understand why trans people feel strongly about it. Imagine if you said that homosexuals needed to have a doctor's note to prove that they were attracted to people of the opposite sex.
But they need to understand that they are asking for something that impinges on others too.
I think it would help if, when we're drafting up new rights for people, we might think about how different rights for different groups might conflict. I don't see too much discussion in the left-wing circles that like rights, that rights do conflict. Gender conflicts with Sex-based, or ((Gender or sex-based) conflict with Religious) or on and on, but we like handing rights out.
Analysis of routine surveillance data from South Africa suggests that, in contrast to the Beta and Delta, the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 demonstrates substantial population-level evidence for evasion of immunity from prior infection.
If confirmed (and it was already expected to be the case), this finding obviously has rather disagreeable consequences for the cohorts in the UK, and especially in some other countries, where much of the immunity is currently from prior infections.
Summary: Get thee to a jabbery, if you haven't already.
Bollox. I’m not hopeful that the current vaccines are gonna save us.
Bravo and well said, and don't get one. Gene pools don't regulate themselves.
I’m double jabbed and will get my booster when offered. I just think the current evidence points to our current vaccines not being very effective vs Omicron.
You can write interesting/constructive posts on this site if you want. You don’t have to be constantly cynical/sarky. It’s your choice.
Glad the killers of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes have been found guilty.
For all those who expend their energy worrying about the theoretical harm being done to trans kids, we’ll, there are some very real cases of extreme child abuse like Arthur’s that should worry us more.
Just my 2p.
Btw - serious fuckup by Solihull council social workers.
Johnson so key to Brexit he decided at the last minute which side he would back
As did much of the country CHB.
Cameron's failed renegotiations were the final straw for many people, myself included, to show that the EU couldn't be reformed for the better.
What would he have had to have delivered to have made you change your mind?
David Cameron gave a good vision of how reform should have taken place in his Bloomberg speech.
Cameron's first point in the Bloomberg speech was about the need to protect non-Eurozone members in the future with the way the EU was evolving. The Eurozone memberstates had a majority under QMV rules so going forwards the Eurozone if they agreed on a reform that suited them could pass a law without any input from non-Eurozone members.
In particular there was talk about "double majority" QMV requiring a QMV majority of non-Euro and Euromember states in order for a proposed law to affect non-Euro members. That still wouldn't have been a return to unanimity as required in the past, but would have been a safeguard.
But nothing happened. There was no fundamental or serious reform to the EU that happened. All of Cameron's proposals in Bloomberg (and there were more than that first one) were roundly rejected in the negotiations.
Cameron set out to reform the EU and instead proved it couldn't be reformed.
Don't disagree - the EU was always unlikely to change imo and he did exempt the UK from those changes but I hear you.
He didn't exempt the UK from those changes. There was no change to the voting system.
Mealy-mouthed words about being exempt from "further union" doesn't mean anything unless the voting system is amended to reflect that reality. It wasn't, was it?
The UK held all the cards, Philip. Don't like ABC measure? We hereby deem it closer union and we reject it.
That's the shame imo about Brexit. We genuinely held all the cards. And we threw it away.
At the time, I said that we should have implemented a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and made it clear that all such future treaties were subject to referenda. It's not as if there aren't a number of countries in the EU, for which that was so.
IIRC Camo made a Cast Iron Guarantee on the matter didn't he?
Too late by that point.
As a Remain voter, it makes me giggle to hear people suggesting that the way to prevent BREXIT was to prevent the voters getting... too close? to certain matters
For generations, the pitch in the western world has been Democracy Rules OK. Telling the voters, now, that they "have no choice" is not an answer. Telling them they have no choice because the rule book says - just invites the rule book to be torn up.
As J A Froude said in "Caesar, A sketch" - "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions". The Roman Republic died because the oligarchy may or may not have been right - the constitution, written and unwritten said they had the power. The people then backed the breaking of the constitution.
I don't have a clue what point you're trying to make.
But I can tell you that the EU is not democratic at all. The voters have no say in the matter of the executive.
You mean, like the UK Cabinet?
The Cabinet is elected based upon the Parliament we elect.
Not the case with the EU.
The Member States vote for parties who want to be in the EU. So perfectly democratic. Those Member States who don't want to be in the EU vote for parties who want to leave. Also perfectly democratic.
It is exactly the same. Can you change the laws that were decided by the cabinet and voted for in parliament on mask wearing? I don't believe you can. But it is still a democratic process.
Yes I can. I can vote for a party that will drop mask requirements at the Parliamentary elections.
Since the European Parliament doesn't have a European demos and doesn't form the European government anyway the same is not true in Europe.
Exactly. You can vote for a party that will drop the mask requirements but today you can't change it. Both vital democratic elements of our society. If enough people agree with you then the party gets in and masks are dropped.
And likewise if you wanted to stay in or leave the EU you can (and did) vote for it but until that time you don't have a direct say in every EU ruling or policy.
That's not good enough in a democracy Topping.
That's like saying you can leave the UK but unless you do you have no say in UK laws. No meaningful UK elections.
If the EU is to be making laws then it should be a genuine democracy. It isn't as it stands.
We absolutely had an influence over the EU laws. I can't be bothered to google this for a five year old discussion but it was shown that the UK more often than not got its way in EU law formation.
The UK government may have, the UK voters didn't. It was too divorced from the voters because they weren't debated and determined at elections.
Asinine point. The UK government is voted in by UK voters.
It's not an asinine point, the UK government is powerless to change the law without Parliament's consent in the UK. It is held to account via the Opposition, Select Committees, PMQs and much more.
The EU only required the UK government's consent, not UK Parliament's, to change the law.
And if we were outvoted by QMV not even that.
How many times does it need saying that the UK Government is the democratic voice of the UK voters. Checks and balances fine but look at some of the Covid measures.
To say that the UK Government does not act on behalf of UK voters is just bonkers. And wrong, obvs.
The UK Government is not the democratic voice of UK voters, the UK Parliament is. The UK Government is a subset of the UK Parliament.
And the UK Government can only pass Covid rules because Parliament has authorised it to do so, and keeps renewing that authorisation every few months. No Parliamentary consent, no Covid legislation.
I suppose you'll finish on PB for the evening and tell friends and family how you have spent all day telling people that decisions made by the UK government aren't democratic.
The UK Government's decisions have to be authorised and monitored by Parliament, with Parliament appointing the Government and supervising the Government too, so of course they're democratic.
Norway announced 60 people likely contracted Omicron at a single Christmas party at a seafood restaurant in Oslo, in what is likely to be the world's biggest outbreak of the new strain so far.
Analysis of routine surveillance data from South Africa suggests that, in contrast to the Beta and Delta, the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 demonstrates substantial population-level evidence for evasion of immunity from prior infection.
If confirmed (and it was already expected to be the case), this finding obviously has rather disagreeable consequences for the cohorts in the UK, and especially in some other countries, where much of the immunity is currently from prior infections.
Summary: Get thee to a jabbery, if you haven't already.
Bollox. I’m not hopeful that the current vaccines are gonna save us.
Bravo and well said, and don't get one. Gene pools don't regulate themselves.
I’m double jabbed and will get my booster when offered. I just think the current evidence points to our current vaccines not being very effective vs Omicron.
You can write interesting/constructive posts on this site if you want. You don’t have to be constantly cynical/sarky. It’s your choice.
Sure. Thanks.
You don't seem to have fully understood, to put it very mildly and politely, Mr Nabavi's post. Nor mine.
The Conservative peer Michelle Mone has been accused of sending a racist message to a man of Indian heritage who alleged in an official complaint that she told him he was “a waste of a man’s white skin”.
The phrase was allegedly used in a WhatsApp message sent by the Tory member of the House of Lords in June 2019 during a disagreement following a fatal yacht crash off the coast of Monaco.
The message was part of a series of WhatsApp exchanges, screenshots of which have been sent to the House of Lords commissioner for standards as part of a complaint alleging that Lady Mone sent racist and abusive messages.
Comments
Those are definitions I can live with.
Zemmour strikes me as French version of a sort of intellectual cross between Oswald Mosley, Enoch Powell and Tommy Robinson. Nothing like Trump at all.
Bring back Livingstone's Fares Fair policy, I say!
Such a person could say they're a woman now. You don't have to carry and show gender id to (eg) access a changing room. If you want to go that route of gender id then, yes, I can see that an easier gender change process based on self-id becomes a logical source of concern.
That's quite a change to bring in to combat the risk you're talking about - that heterosexual male predators will legally become female in order to target women in female spaces.
But if that's the argument it should be made. As it is, the debate is a mess.
Until recently TfL got money from central Government and fares - but the central Government money went a while back (except for Covid) so TfL and the mayor have an issue that they need to fix.
It is not purely about the electoral mechanics.
It is that the existence of the electoral mechanics impels those who rule us to be responsive to public opinion during the intervening periods.
Anyway I need to go now. Thanks for the debate.
On Zemmour there is a good article on him by David Aaronovitch in today's Times.
As cool as Lord Lovat who was executed in 1747 for his part in the '45:
"The first day , as he was brought to his trial , a woman looked into the coach , and said , “You ugly old dog, don't you think you will have that frightful head cut off?" He replied "You ugly old bitch, I believe I shall.""
In practice the ones that cause the most discomfort are those who never attempt surgical or medical transition, and don't intend to do so, yet self identify as women.
Moreso because in particular @Cyclefree and others have strong views and as a mostly male forum any expressions of disagreement, or even engagement should be handled as sensitively as you handle them.
https://twitter.com/matt_dathan/status/1466467251670900736
Roe vs Wade was a massive extension of federal power on fairly tenuous grounds. Regardless what you think about the merits of the underlying issue, it’s State Rights that SCOTUS cares about
"Government fined £500,000 for New Year honours data breach"
Where does the fine go?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59505637
It's remarkable that so many people still haven't twigged that the average restaurant can't keep going financially with half its tables removed. Though then again, these are probably the same respondents who have been sat locked securely inside their homes in abject terror ever since the word 'omicron' started being uttered in the TV news bulletins, so one has to question to what extent they're really interested in supporting such businesses through their custom anyway.
The seven-day average estimate for UK seated diners fell six percentage points in the week to 29 November, reaching the lowest point since 17 May when indoor dining reopened in England, Scotland and Wales.
While the number of people eating out remained above levels recorded during the equivalent week in 2019 before the onset of the pandemic, at 111%, the figure was down from a level of 117% in the previous week, according to the figures from the booking platform OpenTable.
Like him or loathe him, Boris and his Cabinet are subject to such mechanics.
Von Der Leyen and her Commission are not.
Asking for a friend.
Randolph that is, not Winston.
(I mean I've had the piece in the pipeline for five years.)
God I hate you, I love him, never been disappointed in any role he has been in.
The EU only required the UK government's consent, not UK Parliament's, to change the law.
And if we were outvoted by QMV not even that.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detransition
To say that the UK Government does not act on behalf of UK voters is just bonkers. And wrong, obvs.
South Africa COVID update: Cases continue to surge, number in hospital rising
- New cases: 11,535
- Average: 5,093 (+1,296)
- Positivity rate: 22.4% (+5.9)
- In hospital: 2,904 (+354)
- In ICU: 262 (+27)
- New deaths: 44
- Average: 21 (-10)
Giddy that positivity rate ...
To make a spree and glib point, when I start my life of crime I plan to commit my offences in Norway or failing that Sweden as they seem to have very nice prisons however if I need to commit an imprisonable crime in the UK I’m going from the start at interview saying I did the crime because I couldn’t cope with living in a man’s body and I identify as a woman but the oatriarchy I’ve grown up in has never allowed me to fully accept my identity. Therefore now I can tell the truth I am identifying as a woman so please send me to a women’s jail. I promise not to take advantage of any women in the prison who might fancy a bit of physical male but mental female and will not in any way prefer the female prison showers rather than the interesting offers I might get in a male prison showers…..
I know the above is ridiculous but what do they do if every male criminal facing prison starts identifying as female? They surely cannot deny the criminal’s “lived experience”……. You would have to be crazy not to self-identify if you are going to be going away for a while.
Anyway, there's a byelection on and other stuff and I have overtalked so ... OUT.
Analysis of routine surveillance data from South Africa suggests that, in contrast to the Beta and Delta, the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 demonstrates substantial population-level evidence for evasion of immunity from prior infection.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.11.11.21266068v2.full.pdf
No information on vaccine-induced immunity.
If confirmed (and it was already expected to be the case), this finding obviously has rather disagreeable consequences for the cohorts in the UK, and especially in some other countries, where much of the immunity is currently from prior infections.
Summary: Get thee to a jabbery, if you haven't already.
Hate that Zemmour. What a piece of work.
There's a decent chance today is the day Macron has secured his re-election as French President.
In the Les Republicains primary to choose a candidate, the party has effectively split between the moderate and the hard right and the losers are Xavier Bertrand and Michel Barnier who have both been eliminated.
Top of the poll was Eric Ciotti with 25.6%. Ciotti has unashamedly placed himself close to Zemmour on the political spectrum but recent polling suggested French voters preferred the real thing with Ciotti at 5% in one poll.
With Ciotti in the run off is Valerie Pecresse with 25% and she must be strong favourite to be the LR candidate but she polls 12-14% in hypothetical first round polls well behind Macron and Le Pen and vying for third with Zemmour.
Barnier got 23.9% while Bertrand, who has consistently polled best of the LR candidates, got just 22.4% to be eliminated.
It's hard to see either Pecresse or Ciotti making it to the run off and this strengthens the likelihood of the second round being between Macron and Le Pen and for all the noise in some quarters, I've not yet seen a single poll where Macron doesn't win a run off whether against Le Pen, Zemmour or any LR candidate.
And the UK Government can only pass Covid rules because Parliament has authorised it to do so, and keeps renewing that authorisation every few months. No Parliamentary consent, no Covid legislation.
From the Everton, their reactions to Liverpool scoring last night.
Contains a lot of NSFW.
https://twitter.com/Owen_1906/status/1466440916558827534
Does she mean extra-terrestrial?
I'm getting increasingly concerned about the rise of tautology in modern discourse.
They could have called it Bottom Wallop.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine,_Hampshire
When I first met him, I told him that he totally stole the show in In The Line of Fire. Which is (a) completely untrue. And (b) something that I'm fairly sure no-one has ever said with a straight face. He paused for a second and then pissed himself laughing.
But Abigail Shrier's "Irreversible Damage" seems like a more important book to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreversible_Damage. (For that book, Amazon, just banned on-site advertising.)
Are these books available in the UK? Would owning one discredit you in "progressive" circles?
The phrase was allegedly used in a WhatsApp message sent by the Tory member of the House of Lords in June 2019 during a disagreement following a fatal yacht crash off the coast of Monaco.
The message was part of a series of WhatsApp exchanges, screenshots of which have been sent to the House of Lords commissioner for standards as part of a complaint alleging that Lady Mone sent racist and abusive messages.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/dec/02/michelle-mone-tory-peer-accused-of-sending-racist-abusive-messages
House of Lords = House of Unelected Has-Beens.
For all those who expend their energy worrying about the theoretical harm being done to trans kids, we’ll, there are some very real cases of extreme child abuse like Arthur’s that should worry us more.
Just my 2p.
Btw - serious fuckup by Solihull council social workers.
But they need to understand that they are asking for something that impinges on others too.
Its the Commons that is the democratic voice of UK voters if you want to narrow it down.
But it doesn't change anything - of course if a man wants to sit in female changing rooms he should have a valid reason, and perhaps being in transition is one. Obviously you cant just ask them, so they would need something to prove they weren't just a man sitting there bollock naked nonseing the girls
Thank God for Boris - if Jezza had got in you lot and your mad ideas would be running the gaff
Similar in some respects to how in the USA anti-immigration campaigners have gone from targeting Italian immigrants a century ago, to targeting Latino immigrants today.
AND with descendants of formerly feared & despised "outsiders" now in the rank, file and leadership of the anti-immigrants. For example, Zemmour himself.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-02/eu-makes-peace-with-germany-after-top-court-attacked-bloc-s-law
I can imagine it 10 yours ago, maybe even 5 but not in the last 2 or 3
https://twitter.com/rid1tweets/status/1466456673409773571?s=20
You can write interesting/constructive posts on this site if you want. You don’t have to be constantly cynical/sarky. It’s your choice.
They are seriously evil people. How anyone can treat any child like that is beyond me.
Except the EU cut Parliament out of the process.
Mail
Maybe Jenny H was right??? Yikes.
It had a 30% stake in the proposed development, which is awaiting approval from UK authorities
Majority stakeholder Siccar Point says it’s “disappointed” and will “review options”
So, what is the implication of this? Presumably good for green campaigners, maybe not so for jobs and investment
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1466480113487392769
You don't seem to have fully understood, to put it very mildly and politely, Mr Nabavi's post. Nor mine.