Indeed, the idea that post-op transwomen should be excluded from women's toilets is an extreme one.
Did you make a typo when you said that?
The entire stance of the gender critical movement is that they should be so banned. If sex is decided at conception by one's genetics, then no amount of genital origami ("Look! It's a crane") will change that. If one believes that sex=genetics and that toilets be single sex, then it follows ineluctably that post-op transwomen must be banned from women's toilets.
No typo.
AFAIK the mainstream sex concern is that people with a penis should not be allowed in women's-only spaces. Post-op, I do not believe that the concern is as widespread, but pre-op absolutely...But for safeguarding women's-only spaces, I see very few people raising objections to post-op individuals going into a woman's-only space.
What do you think the phrase "biological sex" or "biological male" means?
I'll jump in here
Y chromosone, active SRY gene. Sperm production.
All of these, or any one of these?
Does a vasectomy change your sex? Are XX men women?
A vasectomy doesn't stop sperm production, only stops you getting the stuff to its target.
If only the Tories had been as economically responsible as Labour, they too could have avoided crashing the economy
Austerity crashes the Economy
SKS and Austerity Reeves have learnt nothing
SKS Fans at least its not blue Austerity its Red Austerity
Whats the difference
SKS fans Shrugs shoulders
As does unlimited, unfunded spending.
For now it's quite hard (for obvious reasons, since it's a year of more until the next election) to say quite what Labour's spending plans will be.
It is completely inaccurate to say that they've 'cancelled' their green spending, though.
They promised to spend £28bn a year ie £140bn over a Parliament that promise has been cancelled like Roger Waters and Ken Loach by SKS Lab
The Roger Waters thing is baffling. Not the "look, he's wearing an SS-style uniform" shock. That is part of The Wall - drugged up rock-star hallucinated that the gig is a fascist rally. Attacking him for that is stupid.
No, the baffling thing is how far down the rabbit hole the old fool has gone. Last time I saw one of his gigs he had the Star of David emblazoned on a pig, and then pulled out a Palestinian head garb and lectured everyone for a few minutes. His genuinely mind-blowing tour of The Wall a decade ago had bombers dropping various symbols on people including the Star of David.
Waters is a classic leftie antisemite. He thinks he is attacking the Israeli government - and there is So Much to attack - but instead conflates Judaism with Israel. He's so far up himself that like so many of them he doesn't see the difference or that what he is doing is grotesquely wrong.
He hasn't been cancelled. I'm not going to see this tour because he can't sing, not because I am somehow offended. I separate off artists from their non-art prattlings because otherwise you'd quickly run out of stuff to watch and listen to.
What boggles the mind though is that in your anti Keith Donkey crankism seem to be siding with the antisemite. But surely the claims of antisemitism were just overblown, a witch-hunt against the great Jezbollah, no?
Indeed, the idea that post-op transwomen should be excluded from women's toilets is an extreme one.
Did you make a typo when you said that?
The entire stance of the gender critical movement is that they should be so banned. If sex is decided at conception by one's genetics, then no amount of genital origami ("Look! It's a crane") will change that. If one believes that sex=genetics and that toilets be single sex, then it follows ineluctably that post-op transwomen must be banned from women's toilets.
No typo.
AFAIK the mainstream sex concern is that people with a penis should not be allowed in women's-only spaces. Post-op, I do not believe that the concern is as widespread, but pre-op absolutely...But for safeguarding women's-only spaces, I see very few people raising objections to post-op individuals going into a woman's-only space.
What do you think the phrase "biological sex" or "biological male" means?
I'll jump in here
Y chromosone, active SRY gene. Sperm production.
All of these, or any one of these?
Does a vasectomy change your sex? Are XX men women?
A vasectomy doesn't affect sperm production I believe. Chopping them off would, but you'd previously had the ability to produce sperm so no that doesn't change your sex. Women don't suddenly stop being women when they go through the menopause.
Biology is weird. There's always some exception. These cases are very rare and I don't think we should be building legislation for trans individuals around such rare cases. But I do think it's wise to avoid absolutist language when talking about biology.
Indeed, the idea that post-op transwomen should be excluded from women's toilets is an extreme one.
Did you make a typo when you said that?
The entire stance of the gender critical movement is that they should be so banned. If sex is decided at conception by one's genetics, then no amount of genital origami ("Look! It's a crane") will change that. If one believes that sex=genetics and that toilets be single sex, then it follows ineluctably that post-op transwomen must be banned from women's toilets.
No typo.
AFAIK the mainstream sex concern is that people with a penis should not be allowed in women's-only spaces. Post-op, I do not believe that the concern is as widespread, but pre-op absolutely...But for safeguarding women's-only spaces, I see very few people raising objections to post-op individuals going into a woman's-only space.
What do you think the phrase "biological sex" or "biological male" means?
I'll jump in here
Y chromosone, active SRY gene. Sperm production.
All of these, or any one of these?
Does a vasectomy change your sex? Are XX men women?
A vasectomy doesn't affect sperm production I believe. Chopping them off would, but you'd previously had the ability to produce sperm so no that doesn't change your sex. Women don't suddenly stop being women when they go through the menopause.
Can you point me to an example of any xx man ?
So castration, rather than vasectomy. And if you were born sterile / not producing sperm (azoospermia)? Your “previously had the ability” comment seems similar to the “gametes your body tends towards” which first means a decision has to be made based on other factors what their body “tends towards”.
The British Soft Drinks Association, which represents firms including Coca-Cola, Red Bull, Britvic and AG Barr, is to demand compensation from the Scottish Government for the deposit return scheme delay.
As an aside, I'm happy to report that yesterday was a record day for my solar panels, which produced over 27kwh, roaring past the previous record (Monday) of just over 23kwh. I use about 10kwh a day, so that's 17kwh going to the grid. For complicated reasons, I can't actually get any money for all that yet (and when I do, feed in tarriffs are far from generous: I'll get, what, about a pound a day in summer); but still, 40,000 domestic installations like this will be another GW of capacity on a sunny June day. I'm slightly wary of gridwatch's figures on solar, but even if we take them at face value we are currently (i.e. at 11am today) producing 22% of our electricity through solar, which is more than any other source. I find this pretty remarkable, no?
Same story with us and just received cheque for £258 for March to June and our energy use is minimal thanks to our panels
Indeed, the idea that post-op transwomen should be excluded from women's toilets is an extreme one.
Did you make a typo when you said that?
The entire stance of the gender critical movement is that they should be so banned. If sex is decided at conception by one's genetics, then no amount of genital origami ("Look! It's a crane") will change that. If one believes that sex=genetics and that toilets be single sex, then it follows ineluctably that post-op transwomen must be banned from women's toilets.
No typo.
AFAIK the mainstream sex concern is that people with a penis should not be allowed in women's-only spaces. Post-op, I do not believe that the concern is as widespread, but pre-op absolutely...But for safeguarding women's-only spaces, I see very few people raising objections to post-op individuals going into a woman's-only space.
What do you think the phrase "biological sex" or "biological male" means?
I'll jump in here
Y chromosone, active SRY gene. Sperm production.
All of these, or any one of these?
Does a vasectomy change your sex? Are XX men women?
A vasectomy doesn't affect sperm production I believe. Chopping them off would, but you'd previously had the ability to produce sperm so no that doesn't change your sex. Women don't suddenly stop being women when they go through the menopause.
Biology is weird. There's always some exception. These cases are very rare and I don't think we should be building legislation for trans individuals around such rare cases. But I do think it's wise to avoid absolutist language when talking about biology.
The issue is that many people who want to legislate against transpeople use the language of biological essentialism, but then when these rare cases prove that biological essentialism doesn’t actually describe the human experience and could lead to people who otherwise identify with their assigned gender at birth being policed in ways similarly to transpeople.
Now, I said repeatedly on PB that the soft signal rule was completely illogical, as it forced umpires to make a call when they weren't sure about the decision, and that that call then influence the TV umpire – so you you had the blind leading the sited.
I was derided, over and again by the self-proclaimed PB Cricket Experts (who often know very little about cricket).
Yet it appears that ICC agree with me, and have abolished it, for exactly the reasons I stated on here time and again to almost universal derision.
Funny old world. Huh.
Good decision. I was never a fan of the soft signal.
Apparently the next thing they're going to discuss is whether to get rid of umpire's call.
There has long been a lack of MPs with a background of STEM subjects. With the forthcoming impact of AI, there is a immediate need for MPs with an understanding of computing, digitalisation and big data in general, and AI in particular.
Are the political parties looking for these qualities in selecting their candidates for the next general election?
No. Being able to recite a bit of latin is seen as more worthy by the great and the good.
Of the 541 MPs with higher education degrees in the 2015-2017 Parliament, only 93 (17%) held degrees in STEM subjects; for comparison, 46% of UK students in 2019 graduated in STEM subjects.
Thatcher studied a STEM subject, chemistry, Badenoch studied computer systems engineering, Liam Fox was a doctor, Vince Cable initially studied Natural Sciences so there are/were a few about.
Of course most top STEM graduates can earn more in big corporations and industry and the City or as surgeons and GPs than they can in politics. So the problem is not necessarily politics not trying to attract STEM graduates but STEM graduates not that interested in going into politics (though they can always be used as advisers as scientists were during Covid)
Layla Moran studied physics at Imperial College and worked as a physics teacher, although the commonest degrees for LibDem MPs are law and history.
For most MPs I expect the commonest degrees are politics or PPE, followed by law, history and economics/business.
Sunak and Davey did PPE of course, Starmer did law
I demand the right to examine my GP’s genitals before an appointment
I can imagine, for example, that many women would be uncomfortable with an intimate examination by a physical man who was in the process of transitioning to becoming a woman
That's fine - they can go to the very back of the queue.
Appoint today with Jenna or next month with Dr Jones - your choice...
When I lived in East London, there was a local, “women only in the building” medical clinic, to provide increased take up of services in the local community.
Presumably that was aimed primarily at Muslim women (or maybe their husbands).
The problem with all these male/female/trans debates is that you can't legislate for xxx-only spaces without legislating for genital inspection on entry. This would require at the very least a vocational course in genital inspection and tens of thousands of suitably qualified graduates throughout the land willing to devote their working lives to such a vital activity. Would the genital inspectors outside the ladies' loo necessarily be women, and how could anyone be sure? Who would inspect the inspectors?
Single sex spaces are already legislated for in the law.
There is no requirement for a genital inspector, just for people to follow the law.
Do you think all legally authorised single-sex spaces should be abolished, due to the lack of genital inspectors?
How do you police or enforce this policy? If someone goes to a police officer and says "the law states that this is a woman's only space, and that person is not a woman" how does the police officer, in that moment, go about investigating the truth of that statement before potentially making an arrest?
The same as any law is enforced, primarily by people self-respecting the law.
We don't live in an authoritarian Police state where every law needs to be enforced by the Police all the time.
Do you accept the fact that sex and gender are two different things under the law?
Do you accept that single-sex spaces are acceptable under the law?
If a person is in a shop, and a shop keeper accuses them of stealing and goes to a nearby police officer, the officer can ask the person accused to empty their pockets / bag, ask them what they have done, and detain them for the period of time it takes check the security cameras (if they exist) as evidence. Should there be similar protocol for anyone who is accused of being in the wrong bathroom?
Sex and gender define things that often overlap. I have not read a definition of sex that includes everyone who would be included within a definition of male or female that does not also rely on things that typically come under gender - for example there are ciswomen who can give birth who have xy chromosomes. Nobody would call them men, but they are chromosomally "male". This is because sex and gender are both words created to try and put human experience into clear boxes, and biology typically is messy. Sex and gender are both bimodal - they tend towards two nodes on a scale, but have many things in between - and the more we measure the things we use to define sex, the more we find people who live in that in between.
I accept that the law allows for the provision of single sex spaces where necessary and proportional and if no other option is available. I also don't know based on government and EHRC guidance what they mean by sex when they say this - again, would our ciswoman who is chromosomally male be guided to the mens' room or the womens' room?
Stealing is against the law.
Creating single sex spaces is protected under the law, but its not a matter of the Police enforcing it.
If someone sexually male goes into a single-sex space which results in objections then the staff who work there should and do have the legal right to ask them to leave the premises as a result, if they choose to do that. That doesn't require a Police officer.
You raised the objection of safeguarding for the trans individual who doesn't want to go into the male toilets, there is a simple and sensible solution for that normally which is to use the disabled WC instead. Not impose themselves on the women's toilets instead.
Its just a case of everyone being sensible and reasonable.
But the point of laws is the belief that people do not always act sensible and reasonable and therefore policing is necessary.
If someone is accused of being a male, and the staff intervene, and the person denies being male - what do the staff do? How do they escalate? Is this person now in breach of the peace? Of course a police officer would be involved if someone is asked to leave the toilet they believe they should use and refuse to. Again, in that scenario what happens? When a masculine ciswoman is told to leave, how do they argue against that without having to resort to documentation or some investigation into their "biological sex"? And what happens if they are a ciswoman who has given birth and on such an investigation into their "biological sex" learns they have xy chromosomes?
The number of cases will be rare, and the number of cases where it is really hard to tell will be rarer still.
I had a client who ran a business, making and selling wedding dresses. Occasionally, she got men coming in, wanting to try on the dresses (some men get a thrill from dressing up as women). It was not difficult to remove them from the shop.
Thank you for the link. It consists of three videos, the shortest of which is 20 mins, so it' unlikely I will be able to watch them all, but I'll have the shortest one at x2 normal speed on the background.
I demand the right to examine my GP’s genitals before an appointment
I can imagine, for example, that many women would be uncomfortable with an intimate examination by a physical man who was in the process of transitioning to becoming a woman
That's fine - they can go to the very back of the queue.
Appoint today with Jenna or next month with Dr Jones - your choice...
When I lived in East London, there was a local, “women only in the building” medical clinic, to provide increased take up of services in the local community.
Presumably that was aimed primarily at Muslim women (or maybe their husbands).
The problem with all these male/female/trans debates is that you can't legislate for xxx-only spaces without legislating for genital inspection on entry. This would require at the very least a vocational course in genital inspection and tens of thousands of suitably qualified graduates throughout the land willing to devote their working lives to such a vital activity. Would the genital inspectors outside the ladies' loo necessarily be women, and how could anyone be sure? Who would inspect the inspectors?
Single sex spaces are already legislated for in the law.
There is no requirement for a genital inspector, just for people to follow the law.
Do you think all legally authorised single-sex spaces should be abolished, due to the lack of genital inspectors?
How do you police or enforce this policy? If someone goes to a police officer and says "the law states that this is a woman's only space, and that person is not a woman" how does the police officer, in that moment, go about investigating the truth of that statement before potentially making an arrest?
The same as any law is enforced, primarily by people self-respecting the law.
We don't live in an authoritarian Police state where every law needs to be enforced by the Police all the time.
Do you accept the fact that sex and gender are two different things under the law?
Do you accept that single-sex spaces are acceptable under the law?
If a person is in a shop, and a shop keeper accuses them of stealing and goes to a nearby police officer, the officer can ask the person accused to empty their pockets / bag, ask them what they have done, and detain them for the period of time it takes check the security cameras (if they exist) as evidence. Should there be similar protocol for anyone who is accused of being in the wrong bathroom?
Sex and gender define things that often overlap. I have not read a definition of sex that includes everyone who would be included within a definition of male or female that does not also rely on things that typically come under gender - for example there are ciswomen who can give birth who have xy chromosomes. Nobody would call them men, but they are chromosomally "male". This is because sex and gender are both words created to try and put human experience into clear boxes, and biology typically is messy. Sex and gender are both bimodal - they tend towards two nodes on a scale, but have many things in between - and the more we measure the things we use to define sex, the more we find people who live in that in between.
I accept that the law allows for the provision of single sex spaces where necessary and proportional and if no other option is available. I also don't know based on government and EHRC guidance what they mean by sex when they say this - again, would our ciswoman who is chromosomally male be guided to the mens' room or the womens' room?
Stealing is against the law.
Creating single sex spaces is protected under the law, but its not a matter of the Police enforcing it.
If someone sexually male goes into a single-sex space which results in objections then the staff who work there should and do have the legal right to ask them to leave the premises as a result, if they choose to do that. That doesn't require a Police officer.
You raised the objection of safeguarding for the trans individual who doesn't want to go into the male toilets, there is a simple and sensible solution for that normally which is to use the disabled WC instead. Not impose themselves on the women's toilets instead.
Its just a case of everyone being sensible and reasonable.
But the point of laws is the belief that people do not always act sensible and reasonable and therefore policing is necessary.
If someone is accused of being a male, and the staff intervene, and the person denies being male - what do the staff do? How do they escalate? Is this person now in breach of the peace? Of course a police officer would be involved if someone is asked to leave the toilet they believe they should use and refuse to. Again, in that scenario what happens? When a masculine ciswoman is told to leave, how do they argue against that without having to resort to documentation or some investigation into their "biological sex"? And what happens if they are a ciswoman who has given birth and on such an investigation into their "biological sex" learns they have xy chromosomes?
The number of cases will be rare, and the number of cases where it is really hard to tell will be rarer still.
I had a client who ran a business, making and selling wedding dresses. Occasionally, she got men coming in, wanting to try on the dresses (some men get a thrill from dressing up as women). It was not difficult to remove them from the shop.
Why can’t men have a wedding dress if they want? Are wedding dresses necessary to be single sex for the purposes of the EA? Even some straight men might prefer to wear a wedding dress than a suit.
The number of cases where it is “really hard to tell” depends on social notions of gender - not sex. There would have been a time where binding, short hair and wearing trousers would have been enough for a woman to “pass” as a man. Masculine ciswomen obviously exist, and at a greater rate within the population than transwomen.
Can we start a new site where ToryJohnOwls, SquareRoot2 and 'The Kitchen Cabinet' debate each other to save everyone else the bother?
Discussing anything with these guys is rather like having one's brain sucked out by a straw – it hurts the head and ruins the straw.
Naah - this has to be a place where people can speak their mind. We've already driven quite a few people off with complaints about absolutism, and only Oleg from St Petersburg reliably comes back every week.
If people want to support the Tories like the people you named and others, that has to be a Good Thing. This is a political betting site, not a "I am right everyone else is wrong" echo chamber.
Indeed, the idea that post-op transwomen should be excluded from women's toilets is an extreme one.
Did you make a typo when you said that?
The entire stance of the gender critical movement is that they should be so banned. If sex is decided at conception by one's genetics, then no amount of genital origami ("Look! It's a crane") will change that. If one believes that sex=genetics and that toilets be single sex, then it follows ineluctably that post-op transwomen must be banned from women's toilets.
No typo.
AFAIK the mainstream sex concern is that people with a penis should not be allowed in women's-only spaces. Post-op, I do not believe that the concern is as widespread, but pre-op absolutely...But for safeguarding women's-only spaces, I see very few people raising objections to post-op individuals going into a woman's-only space.
What do you think the phrase "biological sex" or "biological male" means?
I'll jump in here
Y chromosone, active SRY gene. Sperm production.
All of these, or any one of these?
Does a vasectomy change your sex? Are XX men women?
A vasectomy doesn't affect sperm production I believe. Chopping them off would, but you'd previously had the ability to produce sperm so no that doesn't change your sex. Women don't suddenly stop being women when they go through the menopause.
Can you point me to an example of any xx man ?
Also, again, I ask about your original definition - does it require any of those traits, all of them, or 2 out of three, or a specific one is more important than any other? And why just those traits and not others? And if it is only one or any specific trait - why?
I demand the right to examine my GP’s genitals before an appointment
I can imagine, for example, that many women would be uncomfortable with an intimate examination by a physical man who was in the process of transitioning to becoming a woman
That's fine - they can go to the very back of the queue.
Appoint today with Jenna or next month with Dr Jones - your choice...
When I lived in East London, there was a local, “women only in the building” medical clinic, to provide increased take up of services in the local community.
Presumably that was aimed primarily at Muslim women (or maybe their husbands).
The problem with all these male/female/trans debates is that you can't legislate for xxx-only spaces without legislating for genital inspection on entry. This would require at the very least a vocational course in genital inspection and tens of thousands of suitably qualified graduates throughout the land willing to devote their working lives to such a vital activity. Would the genital inspectors outside the ladies' loo necessarily be women, and how could anyone be sure? Who would inspect the inspectors?
Single sex spaces are already legislated for in the law.
There is no requirement for a genital inspector, just for people to follow the law.
Do you think all legally authorised single-sex spaces should be abolished, due to the lack of genital inspectors?
How do you police or enforce this policy? If someone goes to a police officer and says "the law states that this is a woman's only space, and that person is not a woman" how does the police officer, in that moment, go about investigating the truth of that statement before potentially making an arrest?
The same as any law is enforced, primarily by people self-respecting the law.
We don't live in an authoritarian Police state where every law needs to be enforced by the Police all the time.
Do you accept the fact that sex and gender are two different things under the law?
Do you accept that single-sex spaces are acceptable under the law?
If a person is in a shop, and a shop keeper accuses them of stealing and goes to a nearby police officer, the officer can ask the person accused to empty their pockets / bag, ask them what they have done, and detain them for the period of time it takes check the security cameras (if they exist) as evidence. Should there be similar protocol for anyone who is accused of being in the wrong bathroom?
Sex and gender define things that often overlap. I have not read a definition of sex that includes everyone who would be included within a definition of male or female that does not also rely on things that typically come under gender - for example there are ciswomen who can give birth who have xy chromosomes. Nobody would call them men, but they are chromosomally "male". This is because sex and gender are both words created to try and put human experience into clear boxes, and biology typically is messy. Sex and gender are both bimodal - they tend towards two nodes on a scale, but have many things in between - and the more we measure the things we use to define sex, the more we find people who live in that in between.
I accept that the law allows for the provision of single sex spaces where necessary and proportional and if no other option is available. I also don't know based on government and EHRC guidance what they mean by sex when they say this - again, would our ciswoman who is chromosomally male be guided to the mens' room or the womens' room?
Stealing is against the law.
Creating single sex spaces is protected under the law, but its not a matter of the Police enforcing it.
If someone sexually male goes into a single-sex space which results in objections then the staff who work there should and do have the legal right to ask them to leave the premises as a result, if they choose to do that. That doesn't require a Police officer.
You raised the objection of safeguarding for the trans individual who doesn't want to go into the male toilets, there is a simple and sensible solution for that normally which is to use the disabled WC instead. Not impose themselves on the women's toilets instead.
Its just a case of everyone being sensible and reasonable.
But the point of laws is the belief that people do not always act sensible and reasonable and therefore policing is necessary.
If someone is accused of being a male, and the staff intervene, and the person denies being male - what do the staff do? How do they escalate? Is this person now in breach of the peace? Of course a police officer would be involved if someone is asked to leave the toilet they believe they should use and refuse to. Again, in that scenario what happens? When a masculine ciswoman is told to leave, how do they argue against that without having to resort to documentation or some investigation into their "biological sex"? And what happens if they are a ciswoman who has given birth and on such an investigation into their "biological sex" learns they have xy chromosomes?
The number of cases will be rare, and the number of cases where it is really hard to tell will be rarer still.
I had a client who ran a business, making and selling wedding dresses. Occasionally, she got men coming in, wanting to try on the dresses (some men get a thrill from dressing up as women). It was not difficult to remove them from the shop.
Why can’t men have a wedding dress if they want? Are wedding dresses necessary to be single sex for the purposes of the EA? Even some straight men might prefer to wear a wedding dress than a suit.
The number of cases where it is “really hard to tell” depends on social notions of gender - not sex. There would have been a time where binding, short hair and wearing trousers would have been enough for a woman to “pass” as a man. Masculine ciswomen obviously exist, and at a greater rate within the population than transwomen.
The men trying on these wedding dresses.
These are...
These are emphatically not the exceedingly rare DSD cases we have been previously discussing.
My solar panels are doing very well at the moment. 25kwh regularly per day lately. The last three months earned me £810, tax-free, but my lump sum retirement pension coincided with Ed M's rush of blood to his head about thirteen years ago, so they were a no-brainer.
You get much less with the newer deals. All I have to do is live another 12 years to get the full benefit. But all the excess is sold to the grid at around 4p a unit.
Now, I said repeatedly on PB that the soft signal rule was completely illogical, as it forced umpires to make a call when they weren't sure about the decision, and that that call then influence the TV umpire – so you you had the blind leading the sited.
I was derided, over and again by the self-proclaimed PB Cricket Experts (who often know very little about cricket).
Yet it appears that ICC agree with me, and have abolished it, for exactly the reasons I stated on here time and again to almost universal derision.
Funny old world. Huh.
Good decision. I was never a fan of the soft signal.
Apparently the next thing they're going to discuss is whether to get rid of umpire's call.
They should keep umpire's call.
Indeed I'd like to see that added into football, where mm offside decisions get determined by linesman's call and only actual clear and obvious errors beyond a margin of error get overturned.
I demand the right to examine my GP’s genitals before an appointment
I can imagine, for example, that many women would be uncomfortable with an intimate examination by a physical man who was in the process of transitioning to becoming a woman
That's fine - they can go to the very back of the queue.
Appoint today with Jenna or next month with Dr Jones - your choice...
When I lived in East London, there was a local, “women only in the building” medical clinic, to provide increased take up of services in the local community.
Presumably that was aimed primarily at Muslim women (or maybe their husbands).
The problem with all these male/female/trans debates is that you can't legislate for xxx-only spaces without legislating for genital inspection on entry. This would require at the very least a vocational course in genital inspection and tens of thousands of suitably qualified graduates throughout the land willing to devote their working lives to such a vital activity. Would the genital inspectors outside the ladies' loo necessarily be women, and how could anyone be sure? Who would inspect the inspectors?
Single sex spaces are already legislated for in the law.
There is no requirement for a genital inspector, just for people to follow the law.
Do you think all legally authorised single-sex spaces should be abolished, due to the lack of genital inspectors?
How do you police or enforce this policy? If someone goes to a police officer and says "the law states that this is a woman's only space, and that person is not a woman" how does the police officer, in that moment, go about investigating the truth of that statement before potentially making an arrest?
The same as any law is enforced, primarily by people self-respecting the law.
We don't live in an authoritarian Police state where every law needs to be enforced by the Police all the time.
Do you accept the fact that sex and gender are two different things under the law?
Do you accept that single-sex spaces are acceptable under the law?
If a person is in a shop, and a shop keeper accuses them of stealing and goes to a nearby police officer, the officer can ask the person accused to empty their pockets / bag, ask them what they have done, and detain them for the period of time it takes check the security cameras (if they exist) as evidence. Should there be similar protocol for anyone who is accused of being in the wrong bathroom?
Sex and gender define things that often overlap. I have not read a definition of sex that includes everyone who would be included within a definition of male or female that does not also rely on things that typically come under gender - for example there are ciswomen who can give birth who have xy chromosomes. Nobody would call them men, but they are chromosomally "male". This is because sex and gender are both words created to try and put human experience into clear boxes, and biology typically is messy. Sex and gender are both bimodal - they tend towards two nodes on a scale, but have many things in between - and the more we measure the things we use to define sex, the more we find people who live in that in between.
I accept that the law allows for the provision of single sex spaces where necessary and proportional and if no other option is available. I also don't know based on government and EHRC guidance what they mean by sex when they say this - again, would our ciswoman who is chromosomally male be guided to the mens' room or the womens' room?
Stealing is against the law.
Creating single sex spaces is protected under the law, but its not a matter of the Police enforcing it.
If someone sexually male goes into a single-sex space which results in objections then the staff who work there should and do have the legal right to ask them to leave the premises as a result, if they choose to do that. That doesn't require a Police officer.
You raised the objection of safeguarding for the trans individual who doesn't want to go into the male toilets, there is a simple and sensible solution for that normally which is to use the disabled WC instead. Not impose themselves on the women's toilets instead.
Its just a case of everyone being sensible and reasonable.
But the point of laws is the belief that people do not always act sensible and reasonable and therefore policing is necessary.
If someone is accused of being a male, and the staff intervene, and the person denies being male - what do the staff do? How do they escalate? Is this person now in breach of the peace? Of course a police officer would be involved if someone is asked to leave the toilet they believe they should use and refuse to. Again, in that scenario what happens? When a masculine ciswoman is told to leave, how do they argue against that without having to resort to documentation or some investigation into their "biological sex"? And what happens if they are a ciswoman who has given birth and on such an investigation into their "biological sex" learns they have xy chromosomes?
The number of cases will be rare, and the number of cases where it is really hard to tell will be rarer still.
I had a client who ran a business, making and selling wedding dresses. Occasionally, she got men coming in, wanting to try on the dresses (some men get a thrill from dressing up as women). It was not difficult to remove them from the shop.
Why can’t men have a wedding dress if they want? Are wedding dresses necessary to be single sex for the purposes of the EA? Even some straight men might prefer to wear a wedding dress than a suit.
The number of cases where it is “really hard to tell” depends on social notions of gender - not sex. There would have been a time where binding, short hair and wearing trousers would have been enough for a woman to “pass” as a man. Masculine ciswomen obviously exist, and at a greater rate within the population than transwomen.
The men trying on these wedding dresses.
These are...
These are emphatically not the exceedingly rare DSD cases we have been previously discussing.
I accept that, but what reason is there in equality law to deny a cisman the opportunity to try on and buy a wedding dress? Is crossdressing illegal now?
Also- why is it that conversations about transpeople bring up unnecessary digressions into general gender nonconformity and the implication of cismale fetishism or violence?
Indeed, the idea that post-op transwomen should be excluded from women's toilets is an extreme one.
Did you make a typo when you said that?
The entire stance of the gender critical movement is that they should be so banned. If sex is decided at conception by one's genetics, then no amount of genital origami ("Look! It's a crane") will change that. If one believes that sex=genetics and that toilets be single sex, then it follows ineluctably that post-op transwomen must be banned from women's toilets.
No typo.
AFAIK the mainstream sex concern is that people with a penis should not be allowed in women's-only spaces. Post-op, I do not believe that the concern is as widespread, but pre-op absolutely...But for safeguarding women's-only spaces, I see very few people raising objections to post-op individuals going into a woman's-only space.
What do you think the phrase "biological sex" or "biological male" means?
I'll jump in here
Y chromosone, active SRY gene. Sperm production.
All of these, or any one of these?
Does a vasectomy change your sex? Are XX men women?
A vasectomy doesn't affect sperm production I believe. Chopping them off would, but you'd previously had the ability to produce sperm so no that doesn't change your sex. Women don't suddenly stop being women when they go through the menopause.
Can you point me to an example of any xx man ?
Also, again, I ask about your original definition - does it require any of those traits, all of them, or 2 out of three, or a specific one is more important than any other? And why just those traits and not others? And if it is only one or any specific trait - why?
You'd be able to produce a complete matrix based on active SRY, chromosones etc to definitely classify someone as male or female. Even in XX -ve SRY males it seems there is a male activation on one of the other chromosones so you'd probably need that in a complete chart. SOX9 mutations also.
These are very very rare cases where gender will be determined one way or the other by a doctor not some self cert though.
Now, I said repeatedly on PB that the soft signal rule was completely illogical, as it forced umpires to make a call when they weren't sure about the decision, and that that call then influence the TV umpire – so you you had the blind leading the sited.
I was derided, over and again by the self-proclaimed PB Cricket Experts (who often know very little about cricket).
Yet it appears that ICC agree with me, and have abolished it, for exactly the reasons I stated on here time and again to almost universal derision.
Funny old world. Huh.
Good decision. I was never a fan of the soft signal.
Apparently the next thing they're going to discuss is whether to get rid of umpire's call.
Yep, agreed.
Shane Warne always argued that umpire's call was silly – why not have the boundary on half the ball, he said.
8:15am Rachel Reeves, Shadow Chancellor: We offer 0% guarantee we'll spend £28bn a year on Green Investment.
9:00am Ed Miliband, Shadow Climate Centre Minister: We offer 100% guarantee we'll spend £28bn a year on Green Investment.
Massively messed up or massive falling out?
If this was the Tories, there'd be a pb.com header saying that Ed was on manoeuvres....
Not quite. If it was the Conservatives right now, people would talk about what a shambles it is, who is on manoeveres et cetera (answer: Boris, for as long as he has breath in his body).
But most people have made up their minds with some variation of "it will have to be Boring Old Starmer, I suppose". And once people have made up their minds, it's blooming hard to persuade them otherwise. Think how long it took the Conservatives to get any sort of hearing after 1992. Or Blair after Iraq. Or Labour after 2008. Some of that was self-inflicted, but a lot of it was that Mr and Mrs Voter want to see the failed party suck it up and look sorry for what they did for a decent interval.
Unfortunately for the government, the Johnson Omnishambles and Trussterfuck mean that the Conservatives seem to have pretty decisively crossed the Thermocline, and it's going to be hard for Sunak to cross it back the other way. In part, that's because the voters Rishi needs to win back aren't in the mood to listen to what he is saying. Obviously, Starmer's opponents and enemies have got to keep trying to undermine him (bless you Dan Hodges). But until the public are in the mood to listen, they won't, and the attackers will diminish themselves for banging on about all they ways he's unsuitable (see Teflon Tony, the flop that was Dave the Chamleon, Boris in his pomp).
At some point, the public will decide the Conservatives have been punished enough and give them another hearing. Which is why both the Conservatives and the Labour left have got to keep going. But I'd be surprised if it's before an election defeat or two for the blue team.
To defend BJO a little, the banning of Jamie Driscoll from seeking re-election to North of Tyne is the very worst kind of political McCarthyism.
He represents the left of the party, is backed by the cranks, but hasn't shown any real sign of being one himself. And the cranks McDonnell et al - are still Labour MPs having not been banned themselves.
And so here we are - antisemitism is the Labour kyptonite. Jezbollah so damaged the party that anyone who goes anywhere near the "what Antisemitism it was all a scam" crowd" is seen as a potential stick to beat the party with. It's silly, its unfair, but it is a direct result of "there was no AS / AS was a conspiracy / Jezza was framed" narrative that the cranks still peddle even today.
Now, I said repeatedly on PB that the soft signal rule was completely illogical, as it forced umpires to make a call when they weren't sure about the decision, and that that call then influence the TV umpire – so you you had the blind leading the sited.
I was derided, over and again by the self-proclaimed PB Cricket Experts (who often know very little about cricket).
Yet it appears that ICC agree with me, and have abolished it, for exactly the reasons I stated on here time and again to almost universal derision.
Funny old world. Huh.
Good decision. I was never a fan of the soft signal.
Apparently the next thing they're going to discuss is whether to get rid of umpire's call.
Yep, agreed.
Shane Warne always argued that umpire's call was silly – why not have the boundary on half the ball, he said.
It is a fair point.
It is a fair point, but I'm in favour of umpire's call. Hawkeye isn't infallible. (Neither are umpires, of course!).
Can we start a new site where ToryJohnOwls, SquareRoot2 and 'The Kitchen Cabinet' debate each other to save everyone else the bother?
Discussing anything with these guys is rather like having one's brain sucked out by a straw – it hurts the head and ruins the straw.
Naah - this has to be a place where people can speak their mind. We've already driven quite a few people off with complaints about absolutism, and only Oleg from St Petersburg reliably comes back every week.
If people want to support the Tories like the people you named and others, that has to be a Good Thing. This is a political betting site, not a "I am right everyone else is wrong" echo chamber.
Nothing to do with their political opinions – it's their pathetic attempts to project their own views on to others that addles the mind
Indeed, the idea that post-op transwomen should be excluded from women's toilets is an extreme one.
Did you make a typo when you said that?
The entire stance of the gender critical movement is that they should be so banned. If sex is decided at conception by one's genetics, then no amount of genital origami ("Look! It's a crane") will change that. If one believes that sex=genetics and that toilets be single sex, then it follows ineluctably that post-op transwomen must be banned from women's toilets.
No typo.
AFAIK the mainstream sex concern is that people with a penis should not be allowed in women's-only spaces. Post-op, I do not believe that the concern is as widespread, but pre-op absolutely...But for safeguarding women's-only spaces, I see very few people raising objections to post-op individuals going into a woman's-only space.
What do you think the phrase "biological sex" or "biological male" means?
I'll jump in here
Y chromosone, active SRY gene. Sperm production.
All of these, or any one of these?
Does a vasectomy change your sex? Are XX men women?
A vasectomy doesn't affect sperm production I believe. Chopping them off would, but you'd previously had the ability to produce sperm so no that doesn't change your sex. Women don't suddenly stop being women when they go through the menopause.
Can you point me to an example of any xx man ?
Also, again, I ask about your original definition - does it require any of those traits, all of them, or 2 out of three, or a specific one is more important than any other? And why just those traits and not others? And if it is only one or any specific trait - why?
You'd be able to produce a complete matrix based on active SRY, chromosones etc to definitely classify someone as male or female. Even in XX -ve SRY males it seems there is a male activation on one of the other chromosones so you'd probably need that in a complete chart.
So actually you’re saying the biological definition of a man is just active SRY? And that is the criteria for access to sex segregated spaces? So not sperm production or Y chromosomes?
I demand the right to examine my GP’s genitals before an appointment
I can imagine, for example, that many women would be uncomfortable with an intimate examination by a physical man who was in the process of transitioning to becoming a woman
That's fine - they can go to the very back of the queue.
Appoint today with Jenna or next month with Dr Jones - your choice...
When I lived in East London, there was a local, “women only in the building” medical clinic, to provide increased take up of services in the local community.
Presumably that was aimed primarily at Muslim women (or maybe their husbands).
The problem with all these male/female/trans debates is that you can't legislate for xxx-only spaces without legislating for genital inspection on entry. This would require at the very least a vocational course in genital inspection and tens of thousands of suitably qualified graduates throughout the land willing to devote their working lives to such a vital activity. Would the genital inspectors outside the ladies' loo necessarily be women, and how could anyone be sure? Who would inspect the inspectors?
Single sex spaces are already legislated for in the law.
There is no requirement for a genital inspector, just for people to follow the law.
Do you think all legally authorised single-sex spaces should be abolished, due to the lack of genital inspectors?
How do you police or enforce this policy? If someone goes to a police officer and says "the law states that this is a woman's only space, and that person is not a woman" how does the police officer, in that moment, go about investigating the truth of that statement before potentially making an arrest?
The same as any law is enforced, primarily by people self-respecting the law.
We don't live in an authoritarian Police state where every law needs to be enforced by the Police all the time.
Do you accept the fact that sex and gender are two different things under the law?
Do you accept that single-sex spaces are acceptable under the law?
If a person is in a shop, and a shop keeper accuses them of stealing and goes to a nearby police officer, the officer can ask the person accused to empty their pockets / bag, ask them what they have done, and detain them for the period of time it takes check the security cameras (if they exist) as evidence. Should there be similar protocol for anyone who is accused of being in the wrong bathroom?
Sex and gender define things that often overlap. I have not read a definition of sex that includes everyone who would be included within a definition of male or female that does not also rely on things that typically come under gender - for example there are ciswomen who can give birth who have xy chromosomes. Nobody would call them men, but they are chromosomally "male". This is because sex and gender are both words created to try and put human experience into clear boxes, and biology typically is messy. Sex and gender are both bimodal - they tend towards two nodes on a scale, but have many things in between - and the more we measure the things we use to define sex, the more we find people who live in that in between.
I accept that the law allows for the provision of single sex spaces where necessary and proportional and if no other option is available. I also don't know based on government and EHRC guidance what they mean by sex when they say this - again, would our ciswoman who is chromosomally male be guided to the mens' room or the womens' room?
Stealing is against the law.
Creating single sex spaces is protected under the law, but its not a matter of the Police enforcing it.
If someone sexually male goes into a single-sex space which results in objections then the staff who work there should and do have the legal right to ask them to leave the premises as a result, if they choose to do that. That doesn't require a Police officer.
You raised the objection of safeguarding for the trans individual who doesn't want to go into the male toilets, there is a simple and sensible solution for that normally which is to use the disabled WC instead. Not impose themselves on the women's toilets instead.
Its just a case of everyone being sensible and reasonable.
But the point of laws is the belief that people do not always act sensible and reasonable and therefore policing is necessary.
If someone is accused of being a male, and the staff intervene, and the person denies being male - what do the staff do? How do they escalate? Is this person now in breach of the peace? Of course a police officer would be involved if someone is asked to leave the toilet they believe they should use and refuse to. Again, in that scenario what happens? When a masculine ciswoman is told to leave, how do they argue against that without having to resort to documentation or some investigation into their "biological sex"? And what happens if they are a ciswoman who has given birth and on such an investigation into their "biological sex" learns they have xy chromosomes?
The number of cases will be rare, and the number of cases where it is really hard to tell will be rarer still.
I had a client who ran a business, making and selling wedding dresses. Occasionally, she got men coming in, wanting to try on the dresses (some men get a thrill from dressing up as women). It was not difficult to remove them from the shop.
Why can’t men have a wedding dress if they want? Are wedding dresses necessary to be single sex for the purposes of the EA? Even some straight men might prefer to wear a wedding dress than a suit.
The number of cases where it is “really hard to tell” depends on social notions of gender - not sex. There would have been a time where binding, short hair and wearing trousers would have been enough for a woman to “pass” as a man. Masculine ciswomen obviously exist, and at a greater rate within the population than transwomen.
The men trying on these wedding dresses.
These are...
These are emphatically not the exceedingly rare DSD cases we have been previously discussing.
I accept that, but what reason is there in equality law to deny a cisman the opportunity to try on and buy a wedding dress? Is crossdressing illegal now?
Also- why is it that conversations about transpeople bring up unnecessary digressions into general gender nonconformity and the implication of cismale fetishism or violence?
If only they were unnecessary, but they're not when this sort of thing happens:
Washington judge orders female-only spa with compulsory nudity to admit transgender women with penises, after owner said facility was for 'biological women only' and pre-op trans activist complained
I demand the right to examine my GP’s genitals before an appointment
I can imagine, for example, that many women would be uncomfortable with an intimate examination by a physical man who was in the process of transitioning to becoming a woman
That's fine - they can go to the very back of the queue.
Appoint today with Jenna or next month with Dr Jones - your choice...
When I lived in East London, there was a local, “women only in the building” medical clinic, to provide increased take up of services in the local community.
Presumably that was aimed primarily at Muslim women (or maybe their husbands).
The problem with all these male/female/trans debates is that you can't legislate for xxx-only spaces without legislating for genital inspection on entry. This would require at the very least a vocational course in genital inspection and tens of thousands of suitably qualified graduates throughout the land willing to devote their working lives to such a vital activity. Would the genital inspectors outside the ladies' loo necessarily be women, and how could anyone be sure? Who would inspect the inspectors?
Single sex spaces are already legislated for in the law.
There is no requirement for a genital inspector, just for people to follow the law.
Do you think all legally authorised single-sex spaces should be abolished, due to the lack of genital inspectors?
How do you police or enforce this policy? If someone goes to a police officer and says "the law states that this is a woman's only space, and that person is not a woman" how does the police officer, in that moment, go about investigating the truth of that statement before potentially making an arrest?
The same as any law is enforced, primarily by people self-respecting the law.
We don't live in an authoritarian Police state where every law needs to be enforced by the Police all the time.
Do you accept the fact that sex and gender are two different things under the law?
Do you accept that single-sex spaces are acceptable under the law?
If a person is in a shop, and a shop keeper accuses them of stealing and goes to a nearby police officer, the officer can ask the person accused to empty their pockets / bag, ask them what they have done, and detain them for the period of time it takes check the security cameras (if they exist) as evidence. Should there be similar protocol for anyone who is accused of being in the wrong bathroom?
Sex and gender define things that often overlap. I have not read a definition of sex that includes everyone who would be included within a definition of male or female that does not also rely on things that typically come under gender - for example there are ciswomen who can give birth who have xy chromosomes. Nobody would call them men, but they are chromosomally "male". This is because sex and gender are both words created to try and put human experience into clear boxes, and biology typically is messy. Sex and gender are both bimodal - they tend towards two nodes on a scale, but have many things in between - and the more we measure the things we use to define sex, the more we find people who live in that in between.
I accept that the law allows for the provision of single sex spaces where necessary and proportional and if no other option is available. I also don't know based on government and EHRC guidance what they mean by sex when they say this - again, would our ciswoman who is chromosomally male be guided to the mens' room or the womens' room?
Stealing is against the law.
Creating single sex spaces is protected under the law, but its not a matter of the Police enforcing it.
If someone sexually male goes into a single-sex space which results in objections then the staff who work there should and do have the legal right to ask them to leave the premises as a result, if they choose to do that. That doesn't require a Police officer.
You raised the objection of safeguarding for the trans individual who doesn't want to go into the male toilets, there is a simple and sensible solution for that normally which is to use the disabled WC instead. Not impose themselves on the women's toilets instead.
Its just a case of everyone being sensible and reasonable.
But the point of laws is the belief that people do not always act sensible and reasonable and therefore policing is necessary.
If someone is accused of being a male, and the staff intervene, and the person denies being male - what do the staff do? How do they escalate? Is this person now in breach of the peace? Of course a police officer would be involved if someone is asked to leave the toilet they believe they should use and refuse to. Again, in that scenario what happens? When a masculine ciswoman is told to leave, how do they argue against that without having to resort to documentation or some investigation into their "biological sex"? And what happens if they are a ciswoman who has given birth and on such an investigation into their "biological sex" learns they have xy chromosomes?
The number of cases will be rare, and the number of cases where it is really hard to tell will be rarer still.
I had a client who ran a business, making and selling wedding dresses. Occasionally, she got men coming in, wanting to try on the dresses (some men get a thrill from dressing up as women). It was not difficult to remove them from the shop.
Why can’t men have a wedding dress if they want? Are wedding dresses necessary to be single sex for the purposes of the EA? Even some straight men might prefer to wear a wedding dress than a suit.
The number of cases where it is “really hard to tell” depends on social notions of gender - not sex. There would have been a time where binding, short hair and wearing trousers would have been enough for a woman to “pass” as a man. Masculine ciswomen obviously exist, and at a greater rate within the population than transwomen.
The men trying on these wedding dresses.
These are...
These are emphatically not the exceedingly rare DSD cases we have been previously discussing.
I accept that, but what reason is there in equality law to deny a cisman the opportunity to try on and buy a wedding dress? Is crossdressing illegal now?
Also- why is it that conversations about transpeople bring up unnecessary digressions into general gender nonconformity and the implication of cismale fetishism or violence?
Well if the owner of the shop is of the opinion that the man trying on the dress is a massive timewaster who is not going to buy the dress, why should the owner have to indulge him? (N.B. that goes for women too - if the owner of the shop considers it a waste of time to allow a woman to try on a dress there should equally be no compulsion to do so).
Indeed, the idea that post-op transwomen should be excluded from women's toilets is an extreme one.
Did you make a typo when you said that?
The entire stance of the gender critical movement is that they should be so banned. If sex is decided at conception by one's genetics, then no amount of genital origami ("Look! It's a crane") will change that. If one believes that sex=genetics and that toilets be single sex, then it follows ineluctably that post-op transwomen must be banned from women's toilets.
No typo.
AFAIK the mainstream sex concern is that people with a penis should not be allowed in women's-only spaces. Post-op, I do not believe that the concern is as widespread, but pre-op absolutely...But for safeguarding women's-only spaces, I see very few people raising objections to post-op individuals going into a woman's-only space.
What do you think the phrase "biological sex" or "biological male" means?
I'll jump in here
Y chromosone, active SRY gene. Sperm production.
All of these, or any one of these?
Does a vasectomy change your sex? Are XX men women?
A vasectomy doesn't affect sperm production I believe. Chopping them off would, but you'd previously had the ability to produce sperm so no that doesn't change your sex. Women don't suddenly stop being women when they go through the menopause.
Can you point me to an example of any xx man ?
Also, again, I ask about your original definition - does it require any of those traits, all of them, or 2 out of three, or a specific one is more important than any other? And why just those traits and not others? And if it is only one or any specific trait - why?
You'd be able to produce a complete matrix based on active SRY, chromosones etc to definitely classify someone as male or female. Even in XX -ve SRY males it seems there is a male activation on one of the other chromosones so you'd probably need that in a complete chart.
So actually you’re saying the biological definition of a man is just active SRY? And that is the criteria for access to sex segregated spaces? So not sperm production or Y chromosomes?
OK You've got me (Sort of) I'll add the caveat Or 'as determined by a medical professional in cases of DSD';.
Now, I said repeatedly on PB that the soft signal rule was completely illogical, as it forced umpires to make a call when they weren't sure about the decision, and that that call then influence the TV umpire – so you you had the blind leading the sited.
I was derided, over and again by the self-proclaimed PB Cricket Experts (who often know very little about cricket).
Yet it appears that ICC agree with me, and have abolished it, for exactly the reasons I stated on here time and again to almost universal derision.
Funny old world. Huh.
Good decision. I was never a fan of the soft signal.
Apparently the next thing they're going to discuss is whether to get rid of umpire's call.
Yep, agreed.
Shane Warne always argued that umpire's call was silly – why not have the boundary on half the ball, he said.
It is a fair point.
They should keep umpire's call because there's a margin for error, and the purpose of DRS is to overturn clear errors and if its within umpire's call its not a clear error.
Football should add it to VAR too rather than messing amount with millimetre wide offside decisions.
I demand the right to examine my GP’s genitals before an appointment
I can imagine, for example, that many women would be uncomfortable with an intimate examination by a physical man who was in the process of transitioning to becoming a woman
That's fine - they can go to the very back of the queue.
Appoint today with Jenna or next month with Dr Jones - your choice...
When I lived in East London, there was a local, “women only in the building” medical clinic, to provide increased take up of services in the local community.
Presumably that was aimed primarily at Muslim women (or maybe their husbands).
The problem with all these male/female/trans debates is that you can't legislate for xxx-only spaces without legislating for genital inspection on entry. This would require at the very least a vocational course in genital inspection and tens of thousands of suitably qualified graduates throughout the land willing to devote their working lives to such a vital activity. Would the genital inspectors outside the ladies' loo necessarily be women, and how could anyone be sure? Who would inspect the inspectors?
Single sex spaces are already legislated for in the law.
There is no requirement for a genital inspector, just for people to follow the law.
Do you think all legally authorised single-sex spaces should be abolished, due to the lack of genital inspectors?
How do you police or enforce this policy? If someone goes to a police officer and says "the law states that this is a woman's only space, and that person is not a woman" how does the police officer, in that moment, go about investigating the truth of that statement before potentially making an arrest?
The same as any law is enforced, primarily by people self-respecting the law.
We don't live in an authoritarian Police state where every law needs to be enforced by the Police all the time.
Do you accept the fact that sex and gender are two different things under the law?
Do you accept that single-sex spaces are acceptable under the law?
If a person is in a shop, and a shop keeper accuses them of stealing and goes to a nearby police officer, the officer can ask the person accused to empty their pockets / bag, ask them what they have done, and detain them for the period of time it takes check the security cameras (if they exist) as evidence. Should there be similar protocol for anyone who is accused of being in the wrong bathroom?
Sex and gender define things that often overlap. I have not read a definition of sex that includes everyone who would be included within a definition of male or female that does not also rely on things that typically come under gender - for example there are ciswomen who can give birth who have xy chromosomes. Nobody would call them men, but they are chromosomally "male". This is because sex and gender are both words created to try and put human experience into clear boxes, and biology typically is messy. Sex and gender are both bimodal - they tend towards two nodes on a scale, but have many things in between - and the more we measure the things we use to define sex, the more we find people who live in that in between.
I accept that the law allows for the provision of single sex spaces where necessary and proportional and if no other option is available. I also don't know based on government and EHRC guidance what they mean by sex when they say this - again, would our ciswoman who is chromosomally male be guided to the mens' room or the womens' room?
Stealing is against the law.
Creating single sex spaces is protected under the law, but its not a matter of the Police enforcing it.
If someone sexually male goes into a single-sex space which results in objections then the staff who work there should and do have the legal right to ask them to leave the premises as a result, if they choose to do that. That doesn't require a Police officer.
You raised the objection of safeguarding for the trans individual who doesn't want to go into the male toilets, there is a simple and sensible solution for that normally which is to use the disabled WC instead. Not impose themselves on the women's toilets instead.
Its just a case of everyone being sensible and reasonable.
But the point of laws is the belief that people do not always act sensible and reasonable and therefore policing is necessary.
If someone is accused of being a male, and the staff intervene, and the person denies being male - what do the staff do? How do they escalate? Is this person now in breach of the peace? Of course a police officer would be involved if someone is asked to leave the toilet they believe they should use and refuse to. Again, in that scenario what happens? When a masculine ciswoman is told to leave, how do they argue against that without having to resort to documentation or some investigation into their "biological sex"? And what happens if they are a ciswoman who has given birth and on such an investigation into their "biological sex" learns they have xy chromosomes?
The number of cases will be rare, and the number of cases where it is really hard to tell will be rarer still.
I had a client who ran a business, making and selling wedding dresses. Occasionally, she got men coming in, wanting to try on the dresses (some men get a thrill from dressing up as women). It was not difficult to remove them from the shop.
Why can’t men have a wedding dress if they want? Are wedding dresses necessary to be single sex for the purposes of the EA? Even some straight men might prefer to wear a wedding dress than a suit.
The number of cases where it is “really hard to tell” depends on social notions of gender - not sex. There would have been a time where binding, short hair and wearing trousers would have been enough for a woman to “pass” as a man. Masculine ciswomen obviously exist, and at a greater rate within the population than transwomen.
The men trying on these wedding dresses.
These are...
These are emphatically not the exceedingly rare DSD cases we have been previously discussing.
I accept that, but what reason is there in equality law to deny a cisman the opportunity to try on and buy a wedding dress? Is crossdressing illegal now?
Also- why is it that conversations about transpeople bring up unnecessary digressions into general gender nonconformity and the implication of cismale fetishism or violence?
If only they were unnecessary, but they're not when this sort of thing happens:
Washington judge orders female-only spa with compulsory nudity to admit transgender women with penises, after owner said facility was for 'biological women only' and pre-op trans activist complained
So you would be okay with post operative transwomen having access to this space, but not pre operative transwomen? The issue is the existence of a visible penis?
Also this case is about transwomen and not cismen. So we don’t need to discuss cismale violence to discuss this case.
Indeed, the idea that post-op transwomen should be excluded from women's toilets is an extreme one.
Did you make a typo when you said that?
The entire stance of the gender critical movement is that they should be so banned. If sex is decided at conception by one's genetics, then no amount of genital origami ("Look! It's a crane") will change that. If one believes that sex=genetics and that toilets be single sex, then it follows ineluctably that post-op transwomen must be banned from women's toilets.
No typo.
AFAIK the mainstream sex concern is that people with a penis should not be allowed in women's-only spaces. Post-op, I do not believe that the concern is as widespread, but pre-op absolutely...But for safeguarding women's-only spaces, I see very few people raising objections to post-op individuals going into a woman's-only space.
What do you think the phrase "biological sex" or "biological male" means?
Thank you for your replies, although they veered off in a direction I wasn't expecting. My intent was to illustrate the use of shibboleths. As conflicts arise, opponents sort themselves and others via specific words and phrases - Kiev/Kyiv and Ukraine/The Ukraine being two obvious examples. The trans debate can be considered as having three strand - the pre-2015 one, the gender ideology one, the gender critical one - and each strand has distinct terminology, or shibboleths.
A year or two ago I toyed about writing an article about these groups of terminology, and how one could use them to track the rise and fall of each strand by tracking the shibboleths. I abandoned it because of workload but it still exists in my head: I'll see if I can pull it out and if I can post it backstage.
IANAL but sex and gender are two different things under the law, as far as I am aware.
This has been bought up more than once on PB IIRC. The last time was @Cookie some days ago, although I think he didn't reach a conclusion.
I had a brief look at the times and I reached the highly tentative conclusion that there are two strands of belief - gender EQ sex and gender NE sex - and that both strands have histories going back decades - as in pre WWII. It's one of those things that one sector of society thinks, and another doesn't. The law thinks they are the same, arts/humanities graduates think they are different.
With respect to the law, there have been two occasions when it has come up on PB.
Some years ago, Cyclefree posted an article about somebody who wanted X on their passport. Links to a BBC article and thence to the case revealed that one of the judges said the two were the same.
Last year some judge ruled that the two were the same. I assume other PBers can yield links as it was discussed here at the time.
My view is that gender is an illusion and requires a belief in 'who you really are' - what you might call a soul. It was popularised as a notion partly because some people are uncomfortable saying 'sex'. My belief is that we are nothing more than our bodies. If my body is male, I am male; if my body is female, I am female. The question of whether my soul's gender is the same as my body's sex doesn't come up because my belief is the former is imaginary. That deals with 99.99% of cases. There are the special cases - the likes of Caster Semenya - but even here it's largely clear which category to place her in. I don't know if that is the law's view!
I demand the right to examine my GP’s genitals before an appointment
I can imagine, for example, that many women would be uncomfortable with an intimate examination by a physical man who was in the process of transitioning to becoming a woman
That's fine - they can go to the very back of the queue.
Appoint today with Jenna or next month with Dr Jones - your choice...
When I lived in East London, there was a local, “women only in the building” medical clinic, to provide increased take up of services in the local community.
Presumably that was aimed primarily at Muslim women (or maybe their husbands).
The problem with all these male/female/trans debates is that you can't legislate for xxx-only spaces without legislating for genital inspection on entry. This would require at the very least a vocational course in genital inspection and tens of thousands of suitably qualified graduates throughout the land willing to devote their working lives to such a vital activity. Would the genital inspectors outside the ladies' loo necessarily be women, and how could anyone be sure? Who would inspect the inspectors?
Single sex spaces are already legislated for in the law.
There is no requirement for a genital inspector, just for people to follow the law.
Do you think all legally authorised single-sex spaces should be abolished, due to the lack of genital inspectors?
How do you police or enforce this policy? If someone goes to a police officer and says "the law states that this is a woman's only space, and that person is not a woman" how does the police officer, in that moment, go about investigating the truth of that statement before potentially making an arrest?
The same as any law is enforced, primarily by people self-respecting the law.
We don't live in an authoritarian Police state where every law needs to be enforced by the Police all the time.
Do you accept the fact that sex and gender are two different things under the law?
Do you accept that single-sex spaces are acceptable under the law?
If a person is in a shop, and a shop keeper accuses them of stealing and goes to a nearby police officer, the officer can ask the person accused to empty their pockets / bag, ask them what they have done, and detain them for the period of time it takes check the security cameras (if they exist) as evidence. Should there be similar protocol for anyone who is accused of being in the wrong bathroom?
Sex and gender define things that often overlap. I have not read a definition of sex that includes everyone who would be included within a definition of male or female that does not also rely on things that typically come under gender - for example there are ciswomen who can give birth who have xy chromosomes. Nobody would call them men, but they are chromosomally "male". This is because sex and gender are both words created to try and put human experience into clear boxes, and biology typically is messy. Sex and gender are both bimodal - they tend towards two nodes on a scale, but have many things in between - and the more we measure the things we use to define sex, the more we find people who live in that in between.
I accept that the law allows for the provision of single sex spaces where necessary and proportional and if no other option is available. I also don't know based on government and EHRC guidance what they mean by sex when they say this - again, would our ciswoman who is chromosomally male be guided to the mens' room or the womens' room?
Stealing is against the law.
Creating single sex spaces is protected under the law, but its not a matter of the Police enforcing it.
If someone sexually male goes into a single-sex space which results in objections then the staff who work there should and do have the legal right to ask them to leave the premises as a result, if they choose to do that. That doesn't require a Police officer.
You raised the objection of safeguarding for the trans individual who doesn't want to go into the male toilets, there is a simple and sensible solution for that normally which is to use the disabled WC instead. Not impose themselves on the women's toilets instead.
Its just a case of everyone being sensible and reasonable.
But the point of laws is the belief that people do not always act sensible and reasonable and therefore policing is necessary.
If someone is accused of being a male, and the staff intervene, and the person denies being male - what do the staff do? How do they escalate? Is this person now in breach of the peace? Of course a police officer would be involved if someone is asked to leave the toilet they believe they should use and refuse to. Again, in that scenario what happens? When a masculine ciswoman is told to leave, how do they argue against that without having to resort to documentation or some investigation into their "biological sex"? And what happens if they are a ciswoman who has given birth and on such an investigation into their "biological sex" learns they have xy chromosomes?
The number of cases will be rare, and the number of cases where it is really hard to tell will be rarer still.
I had a client who ran a business, making and selling wedding dresses. Occasionally, she got men coming in, wanting to try on the dresses (some men get a thrill from dressing up as women). It was not difficult to remove them from the shop.
Why can’t men have a wedding dress if they want? Are wedding dresses necessary to be single sex for the purposes of the EA? Even some straight men might prefer to wear a wedding dress than a suit.
The number of cases where it is “really hard to tell” depends on social notions of gender - not sex. There would have been a time where binding, short hair and wearing trousers would have been enough for a woman to “pass” as a man. Masculine ciswomen obviously exist, and at a greater rate within the population than transwomen.
The men trying on these wedding dresses.
These are...
These are emphatically not the exceedingly rare DSD cases we have been previously discussing.
I accept that, but what reason is there in equality law to deny a cisman the opportunity to try on and buy a wedding dress? Is crossdressing illegal now?
Also- why is it that conversations about transpeople bring up unnecessary digressions into general gender nonconformity and the implication of cismale fetishism or violence?
Well if the owner of the shop is of the opinion that the man trying on the dress is a massive timewaster who is not going to buy the dress, why should the owner have to indulge him? (N.B. that goes for women too - if the owner of the shop considers it a waste of time to allow a woman to try on a dress there should equally be no compulsion to do so).
Indeed, the idea that post-op transwomen should be excluded from women's toilets is an extreme one.
Did you make a typo when you said that?
The entire stance of the gender critical movement is that they should be so banned. If sex is decided at conception by one's genetics, then no amount of genital origami ("Look! It's a crane") will change that. If one believes that sex=genetics and that toilets be single sex, then it follows ineluctably that post-op transwomen must be banned from women's toilets.
No typo.
AFAIK the mainstream sex concern is that people with a penis should not be allowed in women's-only spaces. Post-op, I do not believe that the concern is as widespread, but pre-op absolutely...But for safeguarding women's-only spaces, I see very few people raising objections to post-op individuals going into a woman's-only space.
What do you think the phrase "biological sex" or "biological male" means?
I'll jump in here
Y chromosone, active SRY gene. Sperm production.
All of these, or any one of these?
Does a vasectomy change your sex? Are XX men women?
A vasectomy doesn't affect sperm production I believe. Chopping them off would, but you'd previously had the ability to produce sperm so no that doesn't change your sex. Women don't suddenly stop being women when they go through the menopause.
Can you point me to an example of any xx man ?
Also, again, I ask about your original definition - does it require any of those traits, all of them, or 2 out of three, or a specific one is more important than any other? And why just those traits and not others? And if it is only one or any specific trait - why?
You'd be able to produce a complete matrix based on active SRY, chromosones etc to definitely classify someone as male or female. Even in XX -ve SRY males it seems there is a male activation on one of the other chromosones so you'd probably need that in a complete chart.
So actually you’re saying the biological definition of a man is just active SRY? And that is the criteria for access to sex segregated spaces? So not sperm production or Y chromosomes?
OK You've got me (Sort of) I'll add the caveat Or 'as determined by a medical professional in cases of DSD';.
So that would be the basis for acceptable sex based discrimination?
I demand the right to examine my GP’s genitals before an appointment
I can imagine, for example, that many women would be uncomfortable with an intimate examination by a physical man who was in the process of transitioning to becoming a woman
That's fine - they can go to the very back of the queue.
Appoint today with Jenna or next month with Dr Jones - your choice...
When I lived in East London, there was a local, “women only in the building” medical clinic, to provide increased take up of services in the local community.
Presumably that was aimed primarily at Muslim women (or maybe their husbands).
The problem with all these male/female/trans debates is that you can't legislate for xxx-only spaces without legislating for genital inspection on entry. This would require at the very least a vocational course in genital inspection and tens of thousands of suitably qualified graduates throughout the land willing to devote their working lives to such a vital activity. Would the genital inspectors outside the ladies' loo necessarily be women, and how could anyone be sure? Who would inspect the inspectors?
Single sex spaces are already legislated for in the law.
There is no requirement for a genital inspector, just for people to follow the law.
Do you think all legally authorised single-sex spaces should be abolished, due to the lack of genital inspectors?
How do you police or enforce this policy? If someone goes to a police officer and says "the law states that this is a woman's only space, and that person is not a woman" how does the police officer, in that moment, go about investigating the truth of that statement before potentially making an arrest?
The same as any law is enforced, primarily by people self-respecting the law.
We don't live in an authoritarian Police state where every law needs to be enforced by the Police all the time.
Do you accept the fact that sex and gender are two different things under the law?
Do you accept that single-sex spaces are acceptable under the law?
If a person is in a shop, and a shop keeper accuses them of stealing and goes to a nearby police officer, the officer can ask the person accused to empty their pockets / bag, ask them what they have done, and detain them for the period of time it takes check the security cameras (if they exist) as evidence. Should there be similar protocol for anyone who is accused of being in the wrong bathroom?
Sex and gender define things that often overlap. I have not read a definition of sex that includes everyone who would be included within a definition of male or female that does not also rely on things that typically come under gender - for example there are ciswomen who can give birth who have xy chromosomes. Nobody would call them men, but they are chromosomally "male". This is because sex and gender are both words created to try and put human experience into clear boxes, and biology typically is messy. Sex and gender are both bimodal - they tend towards two nodes on a scale, but have many things in between - and the more we measure the things we use to define sex, the more we find people who live in that in between.
I accept that the law allows for the provision of single sex spaces where necessary and proportional and if no other option is available. I also don't know based on government and EHRC guidance what they mean by sex when they say this - again, would our ciswoman who is chromosomally male be guided to the mens' room or the womens' room?
Stealing is against the law.
Creating single sex spaces is protected under the law, but its not a matter of the Police enforcing it.
If someone sexually male goes into a single-sex space which results in objections then the staff who work there should and do have the legal right to ask them to leave the premises as a result, if they choose to do that. That doesn't require a Police officer.
You raised the objection of safeguarding for the trans individual who doesn't want to go into the male toilets, there is a simple and sensible solution for that normally which is to use the disabled WC instead. Not impose themselves on the women's toilets instead.
Its just a case of everyone being sensible and reasonable.
But the point of laws is the belief that people do not always act sensible and reasonable and therefore policing is necessary.
If someone is accused of being a male, and the staff intervene, and the person denies being male - what do the staff do? How do they escalate? Is this person now in breach of the peace? Of course a police officer would be involved if someone is asked to leave the toilet they believe they should use and refuse to. Again, in that scenario what happens? When a masculine ciswoman is told to leave, how do they argue against that without having to resort to documentation or some investigation into their "biological sex"? And what happens if they are a ciswoman who has given birth and on such an investigation into their "biological sex" learns they have xy chromosomes?
The number of cases will be rare, and the number of cases where it is really hard to tell will be rarer still.
I had a client who ran a business, making and selling wedding dresses. Occasionally, she got men coming in, wanting to try on the dresses (some men get a thrill from dressing up as women). It was not difficult to remove them from the shop.
Why can’t men have a wedding dress if they want? Are wedding dresses necessary to be single sex for the purposes of the EA? Even some straight men might prefer to wear a wedding dress than a suit.
The number of cases where it is “really hard to tell” depends on social notions of gender - not sex. There would have been a time where binding, short hair and wearing trousers would have been enough for a woman to “pass” as a man. Masculine ciswomen obviously exist, and at a greater rate within the population than transwomen.
The men trying on these wedding dresses.
These are...
These are emphatically not the exceedingly rare DSD cases we have been previously discussing.
I accept that, but what reason is there in equality law to deny a cisman the opportunity to try on and buy a wedding dress? Is crossdressing illegal now?
Also- why is it that conversations about transpeople bring up unnecessary digressions into general gender nonconformity and the implication of cismale fetishism or violence?
If only they were unnecessary, but they're not when this sort of thing happens:
Washington judge orders female-only spa with compulsory nudity to admit transgender women with penises, after owner said facility was for 'biological women only' and pre-op trans activist complained
What we need is a fearless journalist who is not afraid to identify as a woman, maybe who has already identified as a woman by a name like Lady G, who is willing to claim he identifies as a woman to spend the day in this nude female spa and report back. If anyone knows of such a journalist who will be in Washington in the near future then suggest it to them.
To defend BJO a little, the banning of Jamie Driscoll from seeking re-election to North of Tyne is the very worst kind of political McCarthyism.
He represents the left of the party, is backed by the cranks, but hasn't shown any real sign of being one himself. And the cranks McDonnell et al - are still Labour MPs having not been banned themselves.
And so here we are - antisemitism is the Labour kyptonite. Jezbollah so damaged the party that anyone who goes anywhere near the "what Antisemitism it was all a scam" crowd" is seen as a potential stick to beat the party with. It's silly, its unfair, but it is a direct result of "there was no AS / AS was a conspiracy / Jezza was framed" narrative that the cranks still peddle even today.
C'est La Vie.
That isn't a BJO issue - it's a fundamental screwup by the NEC using an incredibly dubious reason.
Now I don't think Jamie Driscoll would be the best candidate for the enlarged position, there are big reasons why the mayor needs to come from somewhere South of the Tyne but he should have been allowed to stand..
Indeed, the idea that post-op transwomen should be excluded from women's toilets is an extreme one.
Did you make a typo when you said that?
The entire stance of the gender critical movement is that they should be so banned. If sex is decided at conception by one's genetics, then no amount of genital origami ("Look! It's a crane") will change that. If one believes that sex=genetics and that toilets be single sex, then it follows ineluctably that post-op transwomen must be banned from women's toilets.
No typo.
AFAIK the mainstream sex concern is that people with a penis should not be allowed in women's-only spaces. Post-op, I do not believe that the concern is as widespread, but pre-op absolutely...But for safeguarding women's-only spaces, I see very few people raising objections to post-op individuals going into a woman's-only space.
What do you think the phrase "biological sex" or "biological male" means?
I'll jump in here
Y chromosone, active SRY gene. Sperm production.
All of these, or any one of these?
Does a vasectomy change your sex? Are XX men women?
A vasectomy doesn't affect sperm production I believe. Chopping them off would, but you'd previously had the ability to produce sperm so no that doesn't change your sex. Women don't suddenly stop being women when they go through the menopause.
Can you point me to an example of any xx man ?
Also, again, I ask about your original definition - does it require any of those traits, all of them, or 2 out of three, or a specific one is more important than any other? And why just those traits and not others? And if it is only one or any specific trait - why?
You'd be able to produce a complete matrix based on active SRY, chromosones etc to definitely classify someone as male or female. Even in XX -ve SRY males it seems there is a male activation on one of the other chromosones so you'd probably need that in a complete chart.
So actually you’re saying the biological definition of a man is just active SRY? And that is the criteria for access to sex segregated spaces? So not sperm production or Y chromosomes?
OK You've got me (Sort of) I'll add the caveat Or 'as determined by a medical professional in cases of DSD';.
So that would be the basis for acceptable sex based discrimination?
Indeed, the idea that post-op transwomen should be excluded from women's toilets is an extreme one.
Did you make a typo when you said that?
The entire stance of the gender critical movement is that they should be so banned. If sex is decided at conception by one's genetics, then no amount of genital origami ("Look! It's a crane") will change that. If one believes that sex=genetics and that toilets be single sex, then it follows ineluctably that post-op transwomen must be banned from women's toilets.
No typo.
AFAIK the mainstream sex concern is that people with a penis should not be allowed in women's-only spaces. Post-op, I do not believe that the concern is as widespread, but pre-op absolutely...But for safeguarding women's-only spaces, I see very few people raising objections to post-op individuals going into a woman's-only space.
What do you think the phrase "biological sex" or "biological male" means?
Thank you for your replies, although they veered off in a direction I wasn't expecting. My intent was to illustrate the use of shibboleths. As conflicts arise, opponents sort themselves and others via specific words and phrases - Kiev/Kyiv and Ukraine/The Ukraine being two obvious examples. The trans debate can be considered as having three strand - the pre-2015 one, the gender ideology one, the gender critical one - and each strand has distinct terminology, or shibboleths.
A year or two ago I toyed about writing an article about these groups of terminology, and how one could use them to track the rise and fall of each strand by tracking the shibboleths. I abandoned it because of workload but it still exists in my head: I'll see if I can pull it out and if I can post it backstage.
I missed the conversation but to me a biological male is someone with a penis and a biological female is someone with a vagina.
If someone is mutilated but without going through a sex-change op [eg a eunuch] then they remain their sex, but if someone has been through a sex-change op then I would consider them their new sex.
The British Soft Drinks Association, which represents firms including Coca-Cola, Red Bull, Britvic and AG Barr, is to demand compensation from the Scottish Government for the deposit return scheme delay.
Can we start a new site where ToryJohnOwls, SquareRoot2 and 'The Kitchen Cabinet' debate each other to save everyone else the bother?
Discussing anything with these guys is rather like having one's brain sucked out by a straw – it hurts the head and ruins the straw.
Naah - this has to be a place where people can speak their mind. We've already driven quite a few people off with complaints about absolutism, and only Oleg from St Petersburg reliably comes back every week.
If people want to support the Tories like the people you named and others, that has to be a Good Thing. This is a political betting site, not a "I am right everyone else is wrong" echo chamber.
Absolutely right. For example there is Heathener with her strident views about the election repeated daily, yet she also offers insight and I made money backing her view the Lib Dem party would take Woking council. Whatever we think of peoples views everyone, bar Oleg, can offer value and insight.
IANAL but sex and gender are two different things under the law, as far as I am aware.
This has been bought up more than once on PB IIRC. The last time was @Cookie some days ago, although I think he didn't reach a conclusion.
I had a brief look at the times and I reached the highly tentative conclusion that there are two strands of belief - gender EQ sex and gender NE sex - and that both strands have histories going back decades - as in pre WWII. It's one of those things that one sector of society thinks, and another doesn't. The law thinks they are the same, arts/humanities graduates think they are different.
With respect to the law, there have been two occasions when it has come up on PB.
Some years ago, Cyclefree posted an article about somebody who wanted X on their passport. Links to a BBC article and thence to the case revealed that one of the judges said the two were the same.
Last year some judge ruled that the two were the same. I assume other PBers can yield links as it was discussed here at the time.
My view is that gender is an illusion and requires a belief in 'who you really are' - what you might call a soul. It was popularised as a notion partly because some people are uncomfortable saying 'sex'. My belief is that we are nothing more than our bodies. If my body is male, I am male; if my body is female, I am female. The question of whether my soul's gender is the same as my body's sex doesn't come up because my belief is the former is imaginary. That deals with 99.99% of cases. There are the special cases - the likes of Caster Semenya - but even here it's largely clear which category to place her in. I don't know if that is the law's view!
Gender is about how society views you - when you interact with people they do not know your biology, but they do know how you present your gender. Some of that presentation may involve your biology - specific mechanisms that promote the exposure or significance of biological indicators of gender - but as much of that is based on social norms. If a man wears a wig, perfume, make up, long flowing clothes, and high heeled shoes today that may seen as atypical to their gender presentation now- but it was typical for the Georgian gentleman.
Many transpeople talk about gender in this way because this is how they experience their oppression - because society notices the supposed incongruency between their assigned gender and their presentation of gender and punishes them for that. There is also the fact that most medicine for transpeople is gate kept by cispeople who demand that, to “truly” be trans, they have to perform gender in a way the cisperson feels is adequate, not how transpeople view it.
Philosophytube discusses these topic quite well, in my view, in her video about the NHS and the transgender experience and her video on social constructs.
IIRC used to be a Brunel timber job - which at least in general could quickly be repaired piecemeal, bit of timber at a time. But as I understand it that wouldn't work here, as it was the abutment or foundation that was going.
The question of whether my soul's gender is the same as my body's sex doesn't come up because my belief is the former is imaginary.
The question of whether we have souls or not is one that pops up periodically, and I had an entertaining chat with @Leon - yes, really - on the related concept on whether we are sentient (google "p-zombies"). There is also the question on whether we are born with a soul or develop one, but I digress. I have not read the Bible but sermons state that in Christianity souls are sexless/genderless/use whatever terminology satisfies.
In climate news, @LeonSimons8 reckons the massive cut in sulphur emissions from the world's ocean traffic is putting rocket boosters on this year's highly expected El Nino.
Indeed, the idea that post-op transwomen should be excluded from women's toilets is an extreme one.
Did you make a typo when you said that?
The entire stance of the gender critical movement is that they should be so banned. If sex is decided at conception by one's genetics, then no amount of genital origami ("Look! It's a crane") will change that. If one believes that sex=genetics and that toilets be single sex, then it follows ineluctably that post-op transwomen must be banned from women's toilets.
No typo.
AFAIK the mainstream sex concern is that people with a penis should not be allowed in women's-only spaces. Post-op, I do not believe that the concern is as widespread, but pre-op absolutely...But for safeguarding women's-only spaces, I see very few people raising objections to post-op individuals going into a woman's-only space.
What do you think the phrase "biological sex" or "biological male" means?
I'll jump in here
Y chromosone, active SRY gene. Sperm production.
All of these, or any one of these?
Does a vasectomy change your sex? Are XX men women?
A vasectomy doesn't affect sperm production I believe. Chopping them off would, but you'd previously had the ability to produce sperm so no that doesn't change your sex. Women don't suddenly stop being women when they go through the menopause.
Can you point me to an example of any xx man ?
Also, again, I ask about your original definition - does it require any of those traits, all of them, or 2 out of three, or a specific one is more important than any other? And why just those traits and not others? And if it is only one or any specific trait - why?
You'd be able to produce a complete matrix based on active SRY, chromosones etc to definitely classify someone as male or female. Even in XX -ve SRY males it seems there is a male activation on one of the other chromosones so you'd probably need that in a complete chart.
So actually you’re saying the biological definition of a man is just active SRY? And that is the criteria for access to sex segregated spaces? So not sperm production or Y chromosomes?
OK You've got me (Sort of) I'll add the caveat Or 'as determined by a medical professional in cases of DSD';.
So that would be the basis for acceptable sex based discrimination?
Yes.
How would you then enforce that policy? Does everyone need to know how the SRY activates with their chromosomes or have a doctors note to go to the toilet? Use a refuge?
If you want the enforcement of sex based spaces and that is your definition of sex then that is what you logically have to know to enforce sex based spaces.
Indeed, the idea that post-op transwomen should be excluded from women's toilets is an extreme one.
Did you make a typo when you said that?
The entire stance of the gender critical movement is that they should be so banned. If sex is decided at conception by one's genetics, then no amount of genital origami ("Look! It's a crane") will change that. If one believes that sex=genetics and that toilets be single sex, then it follows ineluctably that post-op transwomen must be banned from women's toilets.
No typo.
AFAIK the mainstream sex concern is that people with a penis should not be allowed in women's-only spaces. Post-op, I do not believe that the concern is as widespread, but pre-op absolutely...But for safeguarding women's-only spaces, I see very few people raising objections to post-op individuals going into a woman's-only space.
What do you think the phrase "biological sex" or "biological male" means?
Thank you for your replies, although they veered off in a direction I wasn't expecting. My intent was to illustrate the use of shibboleths. As conflicts arise, opponents sort themselves and others via specific words and phrases - Kiev/Kyiv and Ukraine/The Ukraine being two obvious examples. The trans debate can be considered as having three strand - the pre-2015 one, the gender ideology one, the gender critical one - and each strand has distinct terminology, or shibboleths.
A year or two ago I toyed about writing an article about these groups of terminology, and how one could use them to track the rise and fall of each strand by tracking the shibboleths. I abandoned it because of workload but it still exists in my head: I'll see if I can pull it out and if I can post it backstage.
I missed the conversation but to me a biological male is someone with a penis and a biological female is someone with a vagina.
If someone is mutilated but without going through a sex-change op [eg a eunuch] then they remain their sex, but if someone has been through a sex-change op then I would consider them their new sex.
I think my original response about this topic got cropped due to post length:
Gender is about how society views you - when you interact with people they do not know your biology, but they do know how you present your gender. Some of that presentation may involve your biology - specific mechanisms that promote the exposure or significance of biological indicators of gender - but as much of that is based on social norms. If a man wears a wig, perfume, make up, long flowing clothes, and high heeled shoes today that may seen as atypical to their gender presentation now- but it was typical for the Georgian gentleman.
Many transpeople talk about gender in this way because this is how they experience their oppression - because society notices the supposed incongruency between their assigned gender and their presentation of gender and punishes them for that. There is also the fact that most medicine for transpeople is gate kept by cispeople who demand that, to “truly” be trans, they have to perform gender in a way the cisperson feels is adequate, not how transpeople view it. Philosophytube discusses this in her video about the NHS and the transgender experience and her video on social constructs.
The British Soft Drinks Association, which represents firms including Coca-Cola, Red Bull, Britvic and AG Barr, is to demand compensation from the Scottish Government for the deposit return scheme delay.
Can we start a new site where ToryJohnOwls, SquareRoot2 and 'The Kitchen Cabinet' debate each other to save everyone else the bother?
Discussing anything with these guys is rather like having one's brain sucked out by a straw – it hurts the head and ruins the straw.
Naah - this has to be a place where people can speak their mind. We've already driven quite a few people off with complaints about absolutism, and only Oleg from St Petersburg reliably comes back every week.
If people want to support the Tories like the people you named and others, that has to be a Good Thing. This is a political betting site, not a "I am right everyone else is wrong" echo chamber.
Absolutely right. For example there is Heathener with her strident views about the election repeated daily, yet she also offers insight and I made money backing her view the Lib Dem party would take Woking council. Whatever we think of peoples views everyone, bar Oleg, can offer value and insight.
Assuming Oleg was today's russian troll even they offer insight (into the minds of deluded people in Russia).
IIRC used to be a Brunel timber job - which at least in general could quickly be repaired piecemeal, bit of timber at a time. But as I understand it that wouldn't work here, as it was the abutment or foundation that was going.
Yeah, the abutment's foundation failed. A few weeks ago I posted this video of someone walking on the ground that the abutment had ben built on: it was like a trampoline.
Incidentally, IIRC they found the abutment had not been properly built when the new viaduct was installed a hundred years ago: it was still resting on Brunel's old timbers. There's an interesting question as to whether, and why, the ground under he abutment suddenly changed a year or so ago.
The Sry protein is the vital necessity for a penis. Be it from the Y chromosome or via a translocation.
Clitoral hypertrophy can be secondary to CAH, but that's an adrenal problem.
I don't claim to be an expert but I have lectured on human sexual differention on a university MSc course. Make it simple - with 7 billlion humans there's always an exception but don't complicate matters.
IANAL but sex and gender are two different things under the law, as far as I am aware.
This has been bought up more than once on PB IIRC. The last time was @Cookie some days ago, although I think he didn't reach a conclusion.
I had a brief look at the times and I reached the highly tentative conclusion that there are two strands of belief - gender EQ sex and gender NE sex - and that both strands have histories going back decades - as in pre WWII. It's one of those things that one sector of society thinks, and another doesn't. The law thinks they are the same, arts/humanities graduates think they are different.
With respect to the law, there have been two occasions when it has come up on PB.
Some years ago, Cyclefree posted an article about somebody who wanted X on their passport. Links to a BBC article and thence to the case revealed that one of the judges said the two were the same.
Last year some judge ruled that the two were the same. I assume other PBers can yield links as it was discussed here at the time.
My view is that gender is an illusion and requires a belief in 'who you really are' - what you might call a soul. It was popularised as a notion partly because some people are uncomfortable saying 'sex'. My belief is that we are nothing more than our bodies. If my body is male, I am male; if my body is female, I am female. The question of whether my soul's gender is the same as my body's sex doesn't come up because my belief is the former is imaginary. That deals with 99.99% of cases. There are the special cases - the likes of Caster Semenya - but even here it's largely clear which category to place her in. I don't know if that is the law's view!
Gender is about how society views you - when you interact with people they do not know your biology, but they do know how you present your gender. Some of that presentation may involve your biology - specific mechanisms that promote the exposure or significance of biological indicators of gender - but as much of that is based on social norms. If a man wears a wig, perfume, make up, long flowing clothes, and high heeled shoes today that may seen as atypical to their gender presentation now- but it was typical for the Georgian gentleman.
Many transpeople talk about gender in this way because this is how they experience their oppression - because society notices the supposed incongruency between their assigned gender and their presentation of gender and punishes them for that. There is also the fact that most medicine for transpeople is gate kept by cispeople who demand that, to “truly” be trans, they have to perform gender in a way the cisperson feels is adequate, not how transpeople view it. Philosophytube discusses this in her video about the NHS and the transgender experience and her video
Indeed, the idea that post-op transwomen should be excluded from women's toilets is an extreme one.
Did you make a typo when you said that?
The entire stance of the gender critical movement is that they should be so banned. If sex is decided at conception by one's genetics, then no amount of genital origami ("Look! It's a crane") will change that. If one believes that sex=genetics and that toilets be single sex, then it follows ineluctably that post-op transwomen must be banned from women's toilets.
No typo.
AFAIK the mainstream sex concern is that people with a penis should not be allowed in women's-only spaces. Post-op, I do not believe that the concern is as widespread, but pre-op absolutely...But for safeguarding women's-only spaces, I see very few people raising objections to post-op individuals going into a woman's-only space.
What do you think the phrase "biological sex" or "biological male" means?
I'll jump in here
Y chromosone, active SRY gene. Sperm production.
All of these, or any one of these?
Does a vasectomy change your sex? Are XX men women?
A vasectomy doesn't affect sperm production I believe. Chopping them off would, but you'd previously had the ability to produce sperm so no that doesn't change your sex. Women don't suddenly stop being women when they go through the menopause.
Can you point me to an example of any xx man ?
Also, again, I ask about your original definition - does it require any of those traits, all of them, or 2 out of three, or a specific one is more important than any other? And why just those traits and not others? And if it is only one or any specific trait - why?
You'd be able to produce a complete matrix based on active SRY, chromosones etc to definitely classify someone as male or female. Even in XX -ve SRY males it seems there is a male activation on one of the other chromosones so you'd probably need that in a complete chart.
So actually you’re saying the biological definition of a man is just active SRY? And that is the criteria for access to sex segregated spaces? So not sperm production or Y chromosomes?
OK You've got me (Sort of) I'll add the caveat Or 'as determined by a medical professional in cases of DSD';.
So that would be the basis for acceptable sex based discrimination?
Yes.
How would you then enforce that policy? Does everyone need to know how the SRY activates with their chromosomes or have a doctors note to go to the toilet? Use a refuge?
If you want the enforcement of sex based spaces and that is your definition of sex then that is what you logically have to know to enforce sex based spaces.
No, you enforce it by just writing in legislation by referencing biological sex "as determined by a medical professional".
Example 1
Man walks into women's bathroom wearing a dress with heavy stubble. Legislation has been passed to prevent this happening (Perhaps we're in Florida) Distressed woman makes a complaint to the police and he's arrested. In the courthouse a doctor is called as a witness to confirm this person is in fact a male. Doctor takes a look at the goods and confirms the man is indeed a man.
Example 2 (And this is going to be a bit very contrived)
XY swyer syndrome female heads into the ladies' loo. Someone who knows them and doesn't like them and knows they have a y chromosone says they can't be there as they have a y chromosone so are a man. Doctor in the courthouse tells the judge the poor soul is definitely a woman. Case dismissed.
The backstop of medical determination is going to be theoretical in every real world case, but it's probably useful and sensible to have it there as a backstop.
The Sry protein is the vital necessity for a penis. Be it from the Y chromosome or via a translocation.
Clitoral hypertrophy can be secondary to CAH, but that's an adrenal problem.
I don't claim to be an expert but I have lectured on human sexual differention on a university MSc course. Make it simple - with 7 billlion humans there's always an exception but don't complicate matters.
Do you think this is the best definition of the male biological sex, and therefore the best way to enforce sex segregated spaces?
Indeed, the idea that post-op transwomen should be excluded from women's toilets is an extreme one.
Did you make a typo when you said that?
The entire stance of the gender critical movement is that they should be so banned. If sex is decided at conception by one's genetics, then no amount of genital origami ("Look! It's a crane") will change that. If one believes that sex=genetics and that toilets be single sex, then it follows ineluctably that post-op transwomen must be banned from women's toilets.
No typo.
AFAIK the mainstream sex concern is that people with a penis should not be allowed in women's-only spaces. Post-op, I do not believe that the concern is as widespread, but pre-op absolutely...But for safeguarding women's-only spaces, I see very few people raising objections to post-op individuals going into a woman's-only space.
What do you think the phrase "biological sex" or "biological male" means?
Thank you for your replies, although they veered off in a direction I wasn't expecting. My intent was to illustrate the use of shibboleths. As conflicts arise, opponents sort themselves and others via specific words and phrases - Kiev/Kyiv and Ukraine/The Ukraine being two obvious examples. The trans debate can be considered as having three strand - the pre-2015 one, the gender ideology one, the gender critical one - and each strand has distinct terminology, or shibboleths.
A year or two ago I toyed about writing an article about these groups of terminology, and how one could use them to track the rise and fall of each strand by tracking the shibboleths. I abandoned it because of workload but it still exists in my head: I'll see if I can pull it out and if I can post it backstage.
I missed the conversation but to me a biological male is someone with a penis and a biological female is someone with a vagina.
If someone is mutilated but without going through a sex-change op [eg a eunuch] then they remain their sex, but if someone has been through a sex-change op then I would consider them their new sex.
Your mileage may vary but that's my principle.
Do you think that understanding of biological sex is the most useful way to enforce sex segregated spaces, and how do you enforce it?
The British Soft Drinks Association, which represents firms including Coca-Cola, Red Bull, Britvic and AG Barr, is to demand compensation from the Scottish Government for the deposit return scheme delay.
Can we start a new site where ToryJohnOwls, SquareRoot2 and 'The Kitchen Cabinet' debate each other to save everyone else the bother?
Discussing anything with these guys is rather like having one's brain sucked out by a straw – it hurts the head and ruins the straw.
Naah - this has to be a place where people can speak their mind. We've already driven quite a few people off with complaints about absolutism, and only Oleg from St Petersburg reliably comes back every week.
If people want to support the Tories like the people you named and others, that has to be a Good Thing. This is a political betting site, not a "I am right everyone else is wrong" echo chamber.
Absolutely right. For example there is Heathener with her strident views about the election repeated daily, yet she also offers insight and I made money backing her view the Lib Dem party would take Woking council. Whatever we think of peoples views everyone, bar Oleg, can offer value and insight.
Assuming Oleg was today's russian troll even they offer insight (into the minds of deluded people in Russia).
Though the deeper question is how much does Oleg believe this stuff, and how much is it just what he thinks he has a chance of getting us to believe?
I demand the right to examine my GP’s genitals before an appointment
I can imagine, for example, that many women would be uncomfortable with an intimate examination by a physical man who was in the process of transitioning to becoming a woman
I can imagine, for example, that many women would be uncomfortable with an intimate examination by a gay woman. That doesn't mean they have a right to know the doctor's private life.
There are rules to protect patients (and professionals frankly) by giving women the right to a same sex doctor for intimate examinations.
Why do you insist on removing women’s’ rights
Firstly, I'm "insisting" on nothing. I'm saying that the form of complaint above is open to misuse and that doctors' private lives are important too.
Secondly, why do you see this as a women's rights issue? Isn't this just as applicable to men? If a man wants to see a male doctor, is that the same as or different from a woman wanting to see a female doctor? If different, why? If the same, why did you make it just about women's rights?
Because I have 1 example (I admittedly considered given the reverse example, but then my mind drifted to nurses…) and you responded to it
To defend BJO a little, the banning of Jamie Driscoll from seeking re-election to North of Tyne is the very worst kind of political McCarthyism.
He represents the left of the party, is backed by the cranks, but hasn't shown any real sign of being one himself. And the cranks McDonnell et al - are still Labour MPs having not been banned themselves.
And so here we are - antisemitism is the Labour kyptonite. Jezbollah so damaged the party that anyone who goes anywhere near the "what Antisemitism it was all a scam" crowd" is seen as a potential stick to beat the party with. It's silly, its unfair, but it is a direct result of "there was no AS / AS was a conspiracy / Jezza was framed" narrative that the cranks still peddle even today.
C'est La Vie.
That isn't a BJO issue - it's a fundamental screwup by the NEC using an incredibly dubious reason.
Now I don't think Jamie Driscoll would be the best candidate for the enlarged position, there are big reasons why the mayor needs to come from somewhere South of the Tyne but he should have been allowed to stand..
McGuinness seems to be the chosen one and she is from Newcastle and pretty mediocre as a PCC. I have no confidence in her to do a good job and won’t waste time voting. I’ve read her website and it is all full of trite soundbites. It’s totally uninspired.
The big worry has always been the Mayor would be Newcastle focussed to them detriment of other parts of the region. Labour wanted Durham to go on its own and have its own mayor.
Driscoll has not done a bad job. He’s no Jew hater and not a nutter either. He deserved an opportunity to put forward his case. Labour have played this badly.
I demand the right to examine my GP’s genitals before an appointment
I can imagine, for example, that many women would be uncomfortable with an intimate examination by a physical man who was in the process of transitioning to becoming a woman
That's fine - they can go to the very back of the queue.
Appoint today with Jenna or next month with Dr Jones - your choice...
When I lived in East London, there was a local, “women only in the building” medical clinic, to provide increased take up of services in the local community.
Presumably that was aimed primarily at Muslim women (or maybe their husbands).
The problem with all these male/female/trans debates is that you can't legislate for xxx-only spaces without legislating for genital inspection on entry. This would require at the very least a vocational course in genital inspection and tens of thousands of suitably qualified graduates throughout the land willing to devote their working lives to such a vital activity. Would the genital inspectors outside the ladies' loo necessarily be women, and how could anyone be sure? Who would inspect the inspectors?
Single sex spaces are already legislated for in the law.
There is no requirement for a genital inspector, just for people to follow the law.
Do you think all legally authorised single-sex spaces should be abolished, due to the lack of genital inspectors?
How do you police or enforce this policy? If someone goes to a police officer and says "the law states that this is a woman's only space, and that person is not a woman" how does the police officer, in that moment, go about investigating the truth of that statement before potentially making an arrest?
The same as any law is enforced, primarily by people self-respecting the law.
We don't live in an authoritarian Police state where every law needs to be enforced by the Police all the time.
Do you accept the fact that sex and gender are two different things under the law?
Do you accept that single-sex spaces are acceptable under the law?
If a person is in a shop, and a shop keeper accuses them of stealing and goes to a nearby police officer, the officer can ask the person accused to empty their pockets / bag, ask them what they have done, and detain them for the period of time it takes check the security cameras (if they exist) as evidence. Should there be similar protocol for anyone who is accused of being in the wrong bathroom?
Sex and gender define things that often overlap. I have not read a definition of sex that includes everyone who would be included within a definition of male or female that does not also rely on things that typically come under gender - for example there are ciswomen who can give birth who have xy chromosomes. Nobody would call them men, but they are chromosomally "male". This is because sex and gender are both words created to try and put human experience into clear boxes, and biology typically is messy. Sex and gender are both bimodal - they tend towards two nodes on a scale, but have many things in between - and the more we measure the things we use to define sex, the more we find people who live in that in between.
I accept that the law allows for the provision of single sex spaces where necessary and proportional and if no other option is available. I also don't know based on government and EHRC guidance what they mean by sex when they say this - again, would our ciswoman who is chromosomally male be guided to the mens' room or the womens' room?
Stealing is against the law.
Creating single sex spaces is protected under the law, but its not a matter of the Police enforcing it.
If someone sexually male goes into a single-sex space which results in objections then the staff who work there should and do have the legal right to ask them to leave the premises as a result, if they choose to do that. That doesn't require a Police officer.
You raised the objection of safeguarding for the trans individual who doesn't want to go into the male toilets, there is a simple and sensible solution for that normally which is to use the disabled WC instead. Not impose themselves on the women's toilets instead.
Its just a case of everyone being sensible and reasonable.
But the point of laws is the belief that people do not always act sensible and reasonable and therefore policing is necessary.
If someone is accused of being a male, and the staff intervene, and the person denies being male - what do the staff do? How do they escalate? Is this person now in breach of the peace? Of course a police officer would be involved if someone is asked to leave the toilet they believe they should use and refuse to. Again, in that scenario what happens? When a masculine ciswoman is told to leave, how do they argue against that without having to resort to documentation or some investigation into their "biological sex"? And what happens if they are a ciswoman who has given birth and on such an investigation into their "biological sex" learns they have xy chromosomes?
The number of cases will be rare, and the number of cases where it is really hard to tell will be rarer still.
I had a client who ran a business, making and selling wedding dresses. Occasionally, she got men coming in, wanting to try on the dresses (some men get a thrill from dressing up as women). It was not difficult to remove them from the shop.
Why can’t men have a wedding dress if they want? Are wedding dresses necessary to be single sex for the purposes of the EA? Even some straight men might prefer to wear a wedding dress than a suit.
The number of cases where it is “really hard to tell” depends on social notions of gender - not sex. There would have been a time where binding, short hair and wearing trousers would have been enough for a woman to “pass” as a man. Masculine ciswomen obviously exist, and at a greater rate within the population than transwomen.
The men trying on these wedding dresses.
These are...
These are emphatically not the exceedingly rare DSD cases we have been previously discussing.
I accept that, but what reason is there in equality law to deny a cisman the opportunity to try on and buy a wedding dress? Is crossdressing illegal now?
Also- why is it that conversations about transpeople bring up unnecessary digressions into general gender nonconformity and the implication of cismale fetishism or violence?
If only they were unnecessary, but they're not when this sort of thing happens:
Washington judge orders female-only spa with compulsory nudity to admit transgender women with penises, after owner said facility was for 'biological women only' and pre-op trans activist complained
FYI - some find the prefix "cis" offensive, implying that there are two categories of "sex" within each of the established two - we already know their are an infinite number of "genders".
IANAL but sex and gender are two different things under the law, as far as I am aware.
This has been bought up more than once on PB IIRC. The last time was @Cookie some days ago, although I think he didn't reach a conclusion.
I had a brief look at the times and I reached the highly tentative conclusion that there are two strands of belief - gender EQ sex and gender NE sex - and that both strands have histories going back decades - as in pre WWII. It's one of those things that one sector of society thinks, and another doesn't. The law thinks they are the same, arts/humanities graduates think they are different.
With respect to the law, there have been two occasions when it has come up on PB.
Some years ago, Cyclefree posted an article about somebody who wanted X on their passport. Links to a BBC article and thence to the case revealed that one of the judges said the two were the same.
Last year some judge ruled that the two were the same. I assume other PBers can yield links as it was discussed here at the time.
My view is that gender is an illusion and requires a belief in 'who you really are' - what you might call a soul. It was popularised as a notion partly because some people are uncomfortable saying 'sex'. My belief is that we are nothing more than our bodies. If my body is male, I am male; if my body is female, I am female. The question of whether my soul's gender is the same as my body's sex doesn't come up because my belief is the former is imaginary. That deals with 99.99% of cases. There are the special cases - the likes of Caster Semenya - but even here it's largely clear which category to place her in. I don't know if that is the law's view!
Gender is about how society views you - when you interact with people they do not know your biology, but they do know how you present your gender. Some of that presentation may involve your biology - specific mechanisms that promote the exposure or significance of biological indicators of gender - but as much of that is based on social norms. If a man wears a wig, perfume, make up, long flowing clothes, and high heeled shoes today that may seen as atypical to their gender presentation now- but it was typical for the Georgian gentleman.
Many transpeople talk about gender in this way because this is how they experience their oppression - because society notices the supposed incongruency between their assigned gender and their presentation of gender and punishes them for that. There is also the fact that most medicine for transpeople is gate kept by cispeople who demand that, to “truly” be trans, they have to perform gender in a way the cisperson feels is adequate, not how transpeople view it. Philosophytube discusses this in her video about the NHS and the transgender experience and her video
Indeed, the idea that post-op transwomen should be excluded from women's toilets is an extreme one.
Did you make a typo when you said that?
The entire stance of the gender critical movement is that they should be so banned. If sex is decided at conception by one's genetics, then no amount of genital origami ("Look! It's a crane") will change that. If one believes that sex=genetics and that toilets be single sex, then it follows ineluctably that post-op transwomen must be banned from women's toilets.
No typo.
AFAIK the mainstream sex concern is that people with a penis should not be allowed in women's-only spaces. Post-op, I do not believe that the concern is as widespread, but pre-op absolutely...But for safeguarding women's-only spaces, I see very few people raising objections to post-op individuals going into a woman's-only space.
What do you think the phrase "biological sex" or "biological male" means?
I'll jump in here
Y chromosone, active SRY gene. Sperm production.
All of these, or any one of these?
Does a vasectomy change your sex? Are XX men women?
A vasectomy doesn't affect sperm production I believe. Chopping them off would, but you'd previously had the ability to produce sperm so no that doesn't change your sex. Women don't suddenly stop being women when they go through the menopause.
Can you point me to an example of any xx man ?
Also, again, I ask about your original definition - does it require any of those traits, all of them, or 2 out of three, or a specific one is more important than any other? And why just those traits and not others? And if it is only one or any specific trait - why?
You'd be able to produce a complete matrix based on active SRY, chromosones etc to definitely classify someone as male or female. Even in XX -ve SRY males it seems there is a male activation on one of the other chromosones so you'd probably need that in a complete chart.
So actually you’re saying the biological definition of a man is just active SRY? And that is the criteria for access to sex segregated spaces? So not sperm production or Y chromosomes?
OK You've got me (Sort of) I'll add the caveat Or 'as determined by a medical professional in cases of DSD';.
So that would be the basis for acceptable sex based discrimination?
Yes.
How would you then enforce that policy? Does everyone need to know how the SRY activates with their chromosomes or have a doctors note to go to the toilet? Use a refuge?
If you want the enforcement of sex based spaces and that is your definition of sex then that is what you logically have to know to enforce sex based spaces.
No, you enforce it by just writing in legislation by referencing biological sex "as determined by a medical professional".
Example 1
Man walks into women's bathroom wearing a dress with heavy stubble. Legislation has been passed to prevent this happening (Perhaps we're in Florida) Distressed woman makes a complaint to the police and he's arrested. In the courthouse a doctor is called as a witness to confirm this person is in fact a male. Doctor takes a look at the goods and confirms the man is indeed a man.
Example 2 (And this is going to be a bit very contrived)
XY swyer syndrome female heads into the ladies' loo. Someone who knows them and doesn't like them and knows they have a y chromosone says they can't be there as they have a y chromosone so are a man. Doctor in the courthouse tells the judge the poor soul is definitely a woman. Case dismissed.
The backstop of medical determination is going to be theoretical in every real world case, but it's probably useful and sensible to have it there as a backstop.
This depends on gender. Nothing about facial hair is sex specific - men typically can have facial hair and women typically can’t, but many men don’t and many women do! I had a great aunt who in her menopause had better 5 o’clock shadow than I get now! And your scenarios don’t include someone reporting someone in good faith; what would that involve? If court is needed, what about legal fees? The whole process is embarrassing and stigmatising - and resource intensive. Is that really a productive use of court time?
The trans activist argues that actual evidence (by genetal examination, chromosones, genes, hormones, gamete, pelvis proportion etc) very occasionally do not ALL align to indicate the individual as male or female (very rare).
Then this is used to close down debate - without any suggestion that those that say they are born into the wrong bodies are examined to prove there is indeed a misalignment of one or more of the above (there won’t be of course).
So what then? The postmodernist way is to discard all the actual evidence and side with the words – mere words – of the individual.
This is so kooky that that I think it is a return pre-enlightenment to a form of dualism. A dualist might argue for a sort of homunculus inside the brain which is not material. It’s a religion.
The Court of Appeal has denied Carole Cadwalladr’s request to appeal her loss to the Supreme Court. In the decision, the court said an appeal to the Supreme Court is only granted when a case “raises an arguable point of law of general public importance”, in the court’s words “this decision does not do so”. Carole wasn’t challenging the court order to pay a third of Banks’ appeal costs, only that she pay 60% of the first proceedings. However, the court ruled that “in our view, there is no arguable case”…
The court records include one further detail which many in the media could do with remembering:
“Ms Cadwalladr does not challenge the court’s decision that Mr Banks was the successful party overall.”
A good question, but it only solve the problem for politicians who need a quick answer on "what is a woman?" when cornered.
Complete Andogen Insensivity Syndrome (CAIS) is a rare syndrome. About one in 50,000 brths is the rate for the complete syndrome and about the same again for the less complete syndrome. The main problem is that we have a natural default to female system. If that pesky Y chromosome didn't interfere, things would be much easier.
I demand the right to examine my GP’s genitals before an appointment
I can imagine, for example, that many women would be uncomfortable with an intimate examination by a physical man who was in the process of transitioning to becoming a woman
That's fine - they can go to the very back of the queue.
Appoint today with Jenna or next month with Dr Jones - your choice...
When I lived in East London, there was a local, “women only in the building” medical clinic, to provide increased take up of services in the local community.
Presumably that was aimed primarily at Muslim women (or maybe their husbands).
The problem with all these male/female/trans debates is that you can't legislate for xxx-only spaces without legislating for genital inspection on entry. This would require at the very least a vocational course in genital inspection and tens of thousands of suitably qualified graduates throughout the land willing to devote their working lives to such a vital activity. Would the genital inspectors outside the ladies' loo necessarily be women, and how could anyone be sure? Who would inspect the inspectors?
Single sex spaces are already legislated for in the law.
There is no requirement for a genital inspector, just for people to follow the law.
Do you think all legally authorised single-sex spaces should be abolished, due to the lack of genital inspectors?
How do you police or enforce this policy? If someone goes to a police officer and says "the law states that this is a woman's only space, and that person is not a woman" how does the police officer, in that moment, go about investigating the truth of that statement before potentially making an arrest?
The same as any law is enforced, primarily by people self-respecting the law.
We don't live in an authoritarian Police state where every law needs to be enforced by the Police all the time.
Do you accept the fact that sex and gender are two different things under the law?
Do you accept that single-sex spaces are acceptable under the law?
If a person is in a shop, and a shop keeper accuses them of stealing and goes to a nearby police officer, the officer can ask the person accused to empty their pockets / bag, ask them what they have done, and detain them for the period of time it takes check the security cameras (if they exist) as evidence. Should there be similar protocol for anyone who is accused of being in the wrong bathroom?
Sex and gender define things that often overlap. I have not read a definition of sex that includes everyone who would be included within a definition of male or female that does not also rely on things that typically come under gender - for example there are ciswomen who can give birth who have xy chromosomes. Nobody would call them men, but they are chromosomally "male". This is because sex and gender are both words created to try and put human experience into clear boxes, and biology typically is messy. Sex and gender are both bimodal - they tend towards two nodes on a scale, but have many things in between - and the more we measure the things we use to define sex, the more we find people who live in that in between.
I accept that the law allows for the provision of single sex spaces where necessary and proportional and if no other option is available. I also don't know based on government and EHRC guidance what they mean by sex when they say this - again, would our ciswoman who is chromosomally male be guided to the mens' room or the womens' room?
Stealing is against the law.
Creating single sex spaces is protected under the law, but its not a matter of the Police enforcing it.
If someone sexually male goes into a single-sex space which results in objections then the staff who work there should and do have the legal right to ask them to leave the premises as a result, if they choose to do that. That doesn't require a Police officer.
You raised the objection of safeguarding for the trans individual who doesn't want to go into the male toilets, there is a simple and sensible solution for that normally which is to use the disabled WC instead. Not impose themselves on the women's toilets instead.
Its just a case of everyone being sensible and reasonable.
But the point of laws is the belief that people do not always act sensible and reasonable and therefore policing is necessary.
If someone is accused of being a male, and the staff intervene, and the person denies being male - what do the staff do? How do they escalate? Is this person now in breach of the peace? Of course a police officer would be involved if someone is asked to leave the toilet they believe they should use and refuse to. Again, in that scenario what happens? When a masculine ciswoman is told to leave, how do they argue against that without having to resort to documentation or some investigation into their "biological sex"? And what happens if they are a ciswoman who has given birth and on such an investigation into their "biological sex" learns they have xy chromosomes?
The number of cases will be rare, and the number of cases where it is really hard to tell will be rarer still.
I had a client who ran a business, making and selling wedding dresses. Occasionally, she got men coming in, wanting to try on the dresses (some men get a thrill from dressing up as women). It was not difficult to remove them from the shop.
Why can’t men have a wedding dress if they want? Are wedding dresses necessary to be single sex for the purposes of the EA? Even some straight men might prefer to wear a wedding dress than a suit.
The number of cases where it is “really hard to tell” depends on social notions of gender - not sex. There would have been a time where binding, short hair and wearing trousers would have been enough for a woman to “pass” as a man. Masculine ciswomen obviously exist, and at a greater rate within the population than transwomen.
The men trying on these wedding dresses.
These are...
These are emphatically not the exceedingly rare DSD cases we have been previously discussing.
I accept that, but what reason is there in equality law to deny a cisman the opportunity to try on and buy a wedding dress? Is crossdressing illegal now?
Also- why is it that conversations about transpeople bring up unnecessary digressions into general gender nonconformity and the implication of cismale fetishism or violence?
If only they were unnecessary, but they're not when this sort of thing happens:
Washington judge orders female-only spa with compulsory nudity to admit transgender women with penises, after owner said facility was for 'biological women only' and pre-op trans activist complained
Also this case is about transwomen and not cismen.
You sure about that?
FYI - some find the prefix "cis" offensive, implying that there are two categories of "sex" within each of the established two - we already know their are an infinite number of "genders".
Cis is just the opposite of trans, it does not create a binary as transnonbinary people are a thing - for a different linguistic example see cisalpine gaul and transalpine gaul.
That image says nothing about cismen. If your position that the phrase self identifying women invites cismen to identify as women, then I can’t stop you, but I find that extremely bad faith.
If I met you in the pub, let’s say, how would you prove to me you were a woman other than via self-ID? Even if we knew and were comfortable enough with each other to view each other nude - we know that for some people have GRS and so if my definition of biological sex were as strict as some here, that wouldn’t be enough for me. Basically every human interaction depends on self-ID of gender.
IANAL but sex and gender are two different things under the law, as far as I am aware.
This has been bought up more than once on PB IIRC. The last time was @Cookie some days ago, although I think he didn't reach a conclusion.
I had a brief look at the times and I reached the highly tentative conclusion that there are two strands of belief - gender EQ sex and gender NE sex - and that both strands have histories going back decades - as in pre WWII. It's one of those things that one sector of society thinks, and another doesn't. The law thinks they are the same, arts/humanities graduates think they are different.
With respect to the law, there have been two occasions when it has come up on PB.
Some years ago, Cyclefree posted an article about somebody who wanted X on their passport. Links to a BBC article and thence to the case revealed that one of the judges said the two were the same.
Last year some judge ruled that the two were the same. I assume other PBers can yield links as it was discussed here at the time.
My view is that gender is an illusion and requires a belief in 'who you really are' - what you might call a soul. It was popularised as a notion partly because some people are uncomfortable saying 'sex'. My belief is that we are nothing more than our bodies. If my body is male, I am male; if my body is female, I am female. The question of whether my soul's gender is the same as my body's sex doesn't come up because my belief is the former is imaginary. That deals with 99.99% of cases. There are the special cases - the likes of Caster Semenya - but even here it's largely clear which category to place her in. I don't know if that is the law's view!
Gender is about how society views you - when you interact with people they do not know your biology, but they do know how you present your gender. Some of that presentation may involve your biology - specific mechanisms that promote the exposure or significance of biological indicators of gender - but as much of that is based on social norms. If a man wears a wig, perfume, make up, long flowing clothes, and high heeled shoes today that may seen as atypical to their gender presentation now- but it was typical for the Georgian gentleman.
Many transpeople talk about gender in this way because this is how they experience their oppression - because society notices the supposed incongruency between their assigned gender and their presentation of gender and punishes them for that. There is also the fact that most medicine for transpeople is gate kept by cispeople who demand that, to “truly” be trans, they have to perform gender in a way the cisperson feels is adequate, not how transpeople view it. Philosophytube discusses this in her video about the NHS and the transgender experience and her video
Indeed, the idea that post-op transwomen should be excluded from women's toilets is an extreme one.
Did you make a typo when you said that?
The entire stance of the gender critical movement is that they should be so banned. If sex is decided at conception by one's genetics, then no amount of genital origami ("Look! It's a crane") will change that. If one believes that sex=genetics and that toilets be single sex, then it follows ineluctably that post-op transwomen must be banned from women's toilets.
No typo.
AFAIK the mainstream sex concern is that people with a penis should not be allowed in women's-only spaces. Post-op, I do not believe that the concern is as widespread, but pre-op absolutely...But for safeguarding women's-only spaces, I see very few people raising objections to post-op individuals going into a woman's-only space.
What do you think the phrase "biological sex" or "biological male" means?
I'll jump in here
Y chromosone, active SRY gene. Sperm production.
All of these, or any one of these?
Does a vasectomy change your sex? Are XX men women?
A vasectomy doesn't affect sperm production I believe. Chopping them off would, but you'd previously had the ability to produce sperm so no that doesn't change your sex. Women don't suddenly stop being women when they go through the menopause.
Can you point me to an example of any xx man ?
Also, again, I ask about your original definition - does it require any of those traits, all of them, or 2 out of three, or a specific one is more important than any other? And why just those traits and not others? And if it is only one or any specific trait - why?
You'd be able to produce a complete matrix based on active SRY, chromosones etc to definitely classify someone as male or female. Even in XX -ve SRY males it seems there is a male activation on one of the other chromosones so you'd probably need that in a complete chart.
So actually you’re saying the biological definition of a man is just active SRY? And that is the criteria for access to sex segregated spaces? So not sperm production or Y chromosomes?
OK You've got me (Sort of) I'll add the caveat Or 'as determined by a medical professional in cases of DSD';.
So that would be the basis for acceptable sex based discrimination?
Yes.
How would you then enforce that policy? Does everyone need to know how the SRY activates with their chromosomes or have a doctors note to go to the toilet? Use a refuge?
If you want the enforcement of sex based spaces and that is your definition of sex then that is what you logically have to know to enforce sex based spaces.
No, you enforce it by just writing in legislation by referencing biological sex "as determined by a medical professional".
Example 1
Man walks into women's bathroom wearing a dress with heavy stubble. Legislation has been passed to prevent this happening (Perhaps we're in Florida) Distressed woman makes a complaint to the police and he's arrested. In the courthouse a doctor is called as a witness to confirm this person is in fact a male. Doctor takes a look at the goods and confirms the man is indeed a man.
Example 2 (And this is going to be a bit very contrived)
XY swyer syndrome female heads into the ladies' loo. Someone who knows them and doesn't like them and knows they have a y chromosone says they can't be there as they have a y chromosone so are a man. Doctor in the courthouse tells the judge the poor soul is definitely a woman. Case dismissed.
The backstop of medical determination is going to be theoretical in every real world case, but it's probably useful and sensible to have it there as a backstop.
This depends on gender. Nothing about facial hair is sex specific - men typically can have facial hair and women typically can’t, but many men don’t and many women do! I had a great aunt who in her menopause had better 5 o’clock shadow than I get now! And your scenarios don’t include someone reporting someone in good faith; what would that involve? If court is needed, what about legal fees? The whole process is embarrassing and stigmatising - and resource intensive. Is that really a productive use of court time?
Of course it generally doesn't get to court, or a doctor examining someone's meat and two veg ! It's just a handy way to write the legislation.
E.g. "Female toilets are solely for biological females as determined by a medical professional". Anything else risks discrimination against women with DSDs.
The trans activist argues that actual evidence (by genetal examination, chromosones, genes, hormones, gamete, pelvis proportion etc) very occasionally do not ALL align to indicate the individual as male or female (very rare).
Then this is used to close down debate - without any suggestion that those that say they are born into the wrong bodies are examined to prove there is indeed a misalignment of one or more of the above (there won’t be of course).
So what then? The postmodernist way is to discard all the actual evidence and side with the words – mere words – of the individual.
This is so kooky that that I think it is a return pre-enlightenment to a form of dualism. A dualist might argue for a sort of homunculus inside the brain which is not material. It’s a religion.
If you meet someone in a bar, if they said “I am a woman” - how would you know they are telling the truth?
Trans rights are human rights* Trans women are women** No Debate*** Affirmative Care**** Lesbians who refuse transwomen are genital fetishists akin to racists*****
* Who said they weren't? The debate is where they impinge on the rights of others. ** Debatable, legal position unclear - and some don't want it clarified. *** See above **** Or possibly mutilation and "transing away the gay". The science is "far from settled" and the USA is looking increasingly like the outlier. See also, opioids. ***** No they're not. They're "same SEX attracted".
IANAL but sex and gender are two different things under the law, as far as I am aware.
This has been bought up more than once on PB IIRC. The last time was @Cookie some days ago, although I think he didn't reach a conclusion.
I had a brief look at the times and I reached the highly tentative conclusion that there are two strands of belief - gender EQ sex and gender NE sex - and that both strands have histories going back decades - as in pre WWII. It's one of those things that one sector of society thinks, and another doesn't. The law thinks they are the same, arts/humanities graduates think they are different.
With respect to the law, there have been two occasions when it has come up on PB.
Some years ago, Cyclefree posted an article about somebody who wanted X on their passport. Links to a BBC article and thence to the case revealed that one of the judges said the two were the same.
Last year some judge ruled that the two were the same. I assume other PBers can yield links as it was discussed here at the time.
My view is that gender is an illusion and requires a belief in 'who you really are' - what you might call a soul. It was popularised as a notion partly because some people are uncomfortable saying 'sex'. My belief is that we are nothing more than our bodies. If my body is male, I am male; if my body is female, I am female. The question of whether my soul's gender is the same as my body's sex doesn't come up because my belief is the former is imaginary. That deals with 99.99% of cases. There are the special cases - the likes of Caster Semenya - but even here it's largely clear which category to place her in. I don't know if that is the law's view!
So your view is that all transgender individuals are delusional ?
A good question, but it only solve the problem for politicians who need a quick answer on "what is a woman?" when cornered.
Complete Andogen Insensivity Syndrome (CAIS) is a rare syndrome. About one in 50,000 brths is the rate for the complete syndrome and about the same again for the less complete syndrome. The main problem is that we have a natural default to female system. If that pesky Y chromosome didn't interfere, things would be much easier.
PS I use Mr for your title for politeness sake.
So it may not be useful to do sex segregation based on this trait; a trait that some in this chat have accepted is the only trait needed to define biological sex?
The Court of Appeal has denied Carole Cadwalladr’s request to appeal her loss to the Supreme Court. In the decision, the court said an appeal to the Supreme Court is only granted when a case “raises an arguable point of law of general public importance”, in the court’s words “this decision does not do so”. Carole wasn’t challenging the court order to pay a third of Banks’ appeal costs, only that she pay 60% of the first proceedings. However, the court ruled that “in our view, there is no arguable case”…
The court records include one further detail which many in the media could do with remembering:
“Ms Cadwalladr does not challenge the court’s decision that Mr Banks was the successful party overall.”
It's the law as it is in the UK, but I for one certainly think the balance is far too tilted towards being able to be found libellous over freedom of speech. The 2nd amendment might be bad for the USA but their first one and jurisprudence on speech are superior to our laws.
I'm only going to be able to pop in and out of PB today so can someone please keep me up to date with how the Ukrainian counter offensive is going.
TIA
I don't think it's something you should expect a real time update of, TBH...
However, if there really is heavy fighting around Tokmak... (Only the Guardian, mind! A typo for fighting on TikTok, perhaps)
“Russian bloggers are now reporting Leopards and Bradleys attacking in Tokmak in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. If confirmed, it suggests at least one Ukrainian assault brigade has been committed."
8:15am Rachel Reeves, Shadow Chancellor: We offer 0% guarantee we'll spend £28bn a year on Green Investment.
9:00am Ed Miliband, Shadow Climate Centre Minister: We offer 100% guarantee we'll spend £28bn a year on Green Investment.
Massively messed up or massive falling out?
In business, people promising “billions on investment in X” are usually making an empty promise.
See the Electrify America thing - where they had standards, government backing, press releases etc. They haven’t built anywhere near enough actual EV charging spots, though.
But did some big companies get some large tax breaks for doing nothing?
The Court of Appeal has denied Carole Cadwalladr’s request to appeal her loss to the Supreme Court. In the decision, the court said an appeal to the Supreme Court is only granted when a case “raises an arguable point of law of general public importance”, in the court’s words “this decision does not do so”. Carole wasn’t challenging the court order to pay a third of Banks’ appeal costs, only that she pay 60% of the first proceedings. However, the court ruled that “in our view, there is no arguable case”…
The court records include one further detail which many in the media could do with remembering:
“Ms Cadwalladr does not challenge the court’s decision that Mr Banks was the successful party overall.”
IANAL but sex and gender are two different things under the law, as far as I am aware.
This has been bought up more than once on PB IIRC. The last time was @Cookie some days ago, although I think he didn't reach a conclusion.
I had a brief look at the times and I reached the highly tentative conclusion that there are two strands of belief - gender EQ sex and gender NE sex - and that both strands have histories going back decades - as in pre WWII. It's one of those things that one sector of society thinks, and another doesn't. The law thinks they are the same, arts/humanities graduates think they are different.
With respect to the law, there have been two occasions when it has come up on PB.
Some years ago, Cyclefree posted an article about somebody who wanted X on their passport. Links to a BBC article and thence to the case revealed that one of the judges said the two were the same.
Last year some judge ruled that the two were the same. I assume other PBers can yield links as it was discussed here at the time.
My view is that gender is an illusion and requires a belief in 'who you really are' - what you might call a soul. It was popularised as a notion partly because some people are uncomfortable saying 'sex'. My belief is that we are nothing more than our bodies. If my body is male, I am male; if my body is female, I am female. The question of whether my soul's gender is the same as my body's sex doesn't come up because my belief is the former is imaginary. That deals with 99.99% of cases. There are the special cases - the likes of Caster Semenya - but even here it's largely clear which category to place her in. I don't know if that is the law's view!
Gender is about how society views you - when you interact with people they do not know your biology, but they do know how you present your gender. Some of that presentation may involve your biology - specific mechanisms that promote the exposure or significance of biological indicators of gender - but as much of that is based on social norms. If a man wears a wig, perfume, make up, long flowing clothes, and high heeled shoes today that may seen as atypical to their gender presentation now- but it was typical for the Georgian gentleman.
Many transpeople talk about gender in this way because this is how they experience their oppression - because society notices the supposed incongruency between their assigned gender and their presentation of gender and punishes them for that. There is also the fact that most medicine for transpeople is gate kept by cispeople who demand that, to “truly” be trans, they have to perform gender in a way the cisperson feels is adequate, not how transpeople view it. Philosophytube discusses this in her video about the NHS and the transgender experience and her video
Indeed, the idea that post-op transwomen should be excluded from women's toilets is an extreme one.
Did you make a typo when you said that?
The entire stance of the gender critical movement is that they should be so banned. If sex is decided at conception by one's genetics, then no amount of genital origami ("Look! It's a crane") will change that. If one believes that sex=genetics and that toilets be single sex, then it follows ineluctably that post-op transwomen must be banned from women's toilets.
No typo.
AFAIK the mainstream sex concern is that people with a penis should not be allowed in women's-only spaces. Post-op, I do not believe that the concern is as widespread, but pre-op absolutely...But for safeguarding women's-only spaces, I see very few people raising objections to post-op individuals going into a woman's-only space.
What do you think the phrase "biological sex" or "biological male" means?
I'll jump in here
Y chromosone, active SRY gene. Sperm production.
All of these, or any one of these?
Does a vasectomy change your sex? Are XX men women?
A vasectomy doesn't affect sperm production I believe. Chopping them off would, but you'd previously had the ability to produce sperm so no that doesn't change your sex. Women don't suddenly stop being women when they go through the menopause.
Can you point me to an example of any xx man ?
Also, again, I ask about your original definition - does it require any of those traits, all of them, or 2 out of three, or a specific one is more important than any other? And why just those traits and not others? And if it is only one or any specific trait - why?
You'd be able to produce a complete matrix based on active SRY, chromosones etc to definitely classify someone as male or female. Even in XX -ve SRY males it seems there is a male activation on one of the other chromosones so you'd probably need that in a complete chart.
So actually you’re saying the biological definition of a man is just active SRY? And that is the criteria for access to sex segregated spaces? So not sperm production or Y chromosomes?
OK You've got me (Sort of) I'll add the caveat Or 'as determined by a medical professional in cases of DSD';.
So that would be the basis for acceptable sex based discrimination?
Yes.
How would you then enforce that policy? Does everyone need to know how the SRY activates with their chromosomes or have a doctors note to go to the toilet? Use a refuge?
If you want the enforcement of sex based spaces and that is your definition of sex then that is what you logically have to know to enforce sex based spaces.
No, you enforce it by just writing in legislation by referencing biological sex "as determined by a medical professional".
Example 1
Man walks into women's bathroom wearing a dress with heavy stubble. Legislation has been passed to prevent this happening (Perhaps we're in Florida) Distressed woman makes a complaint to the police and he's arrested. In the courthouse a doctor is called as a witness to confirm this person is in fact a male. Doctor takes a look at the goods and confirms the man is indeed a man.
Example 2 (And this is going to be a bit very contrived)
XY swyer syndrome female heads into the ladies' loo. Someone who knows them and doesn't like them and knows they have a y chromosone says they can't be there as they have a y chromosone so are a man. Doctor in the courthouse tells the judge the poor soul is definitely a woman. Case dismissed.
The backstop of medical determination is going to be theoretical in every real world case, but it's probably useful and sensible to have it there as a backstop.
This depends on gender. Nothing about facial hair is sex specific - men typically can have facial hair and women typically can’t, but many men don’t and many women do! I had a great aunt who in her menopause had better 5 o’clock shadow than I get now! And your scenarios don’t include someone reporting someone in good faith; what would that involve? If court is needed, what about legal fees? The whole process is embarrassing and stigmatising - and resource intensive. Is that really a productive use of court time?
Of course it generally doesn't get to court, or a doctor examining someone's meat and two veg ! It's just a handy way to write the legislation.
E.g. "Female toilets are solely for biological females as determined by a medical professional". Anything else risks discrimination against women with DSDs.
But people aren’t typically being told they’re using the wrong toilet - including most transpeople. So the instances where it happens will likely be fraught - either transpeople who are being told not to use the toilet that aligns with their gender, or cispeople who are gender non conforming in their presentation (either by choice or because people view them as such).
And your legislation leaves the definition of “biological females” to medical professionals - which could really depend on the individual medical professional, no? What is not “biological” about people taking cross sex hormones?
I'm only going to be able to pop in and out of PB today so can someone please keep me up to date with how the Ukrainian counter offensive is going.
TIA
I don't think it's something you should expect a real time update of, TBH...
However, if there really is heavy fighting around Tokmak... (Only the Guardian, mind! A typo for fighting on TikTok, perhaps)
“Russian bloggers are now reporting Leopards and Bradleys attacking in Tokmak in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. If confirmed, it suggests at least one Ukrainian assault brigade has been committed."
I'm only going to be able to pop in and out of PB today so can someone please keep me up to date with how the Ukrainian counter offensive is going.
TIA
I don't think it's something you should expect a real time update of, TBH...
However, if there really is heavy fighting around Tokmak... (Only the Guardian, mind! A typo for fighting on TikTok, perhaps)
“Russian bloggers are now reporting Leopards and Bradleys attacking in Tokmak in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. If confirmed, it suggests at least one Ukrainian assault brigade has been committed."
Be wary about the Tokmak thing; it is not only a town, but also a region. It's perfectly possible that the Ukes might be in the north of the named area; less so that they are in the town, which is further south. Though I hope they are...
Norsar, the Norwegian Seismic Array which analysed the signals, says the timing and location coincide with the collapse of the dam.
Furthermore, only a very large quantity of explosives could have produced the signal detected almost 400 miles away, says BBC World Affairs correspondent Paul Adams...
On topic, I’m in backwoods Ohio travelling the Mason Dixon line. I can see Virginia as I type, from my hotel bed, across the Ohio river. Escaped slaves would flee across that river to get from “slave state” Virginia to “free” Ohio
But they weren’t really free. The Fugitive Slave Act meant that southron men could come north and seize them and take them back to slavery. Northerners were legally obliged to help. In one notorious case a slave escaped, lived a full life in the north, had a child. The slave owner came north and successfully kidnapped the CHILD - legally arguing the boy was his property, as the offspring of his original slave
To be truly free, the slaves had to get to British territory - Canada, or the Bahamas, normally. Or Mexico at a pinch. Washington continuously pressed London to extradite these thousands of freed slaves. We flatly told them to get stuffed
A modest reason to be proudly British amidst a horrific period of history
I'm only going to be able to pop in and out of PB today so can someone please keep me up to date with how the Ukrainian counter offensive is going.
TIA
I don't think it's something you should expect a real time update of, TBH...
However, if there really is heavy fighting around Tokmak... (Only the Guardian, mind! A typo for fighting on TikTok, perhaps)
“Russian bloggers are now reporting Leopards and Bradleys attacking in Tokmak in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. If confirmed, it suggests at least one Ukrainian assault brigade has been committed."
I think "Tokmak" is being used as shorthand for quite a large area. One definitely has to allow for some misunderstandings in press reports. One I saw said that Zaporizhzhia was being attacked by Ukrainian troops on the coast of the Sea of Azov.
I'm only going to be able to pop in and out of PB today so can someone please keep me up to date with how the Ukrainian counter offensive is going.
TIA
I don't think it's something you should expect a real time update of, TBH...
However, if there really is heavy fighting around Tokmak... (Only the Guardian, mind! A typo for fighting on TikTok, perhaps)
“Russian bloggers are now reporting Leopards and Bradleys attacking in Tokmak in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. If confirmed, it suggests at least one Ukrainian assault brigade has been committed."
Be wary about the Tokmak thing; it is not only a town, but also a region. It's perfectly possible that the Ukes might be in the north of the named area; less so that they are in the town, which is further south. Though I hope they are...
As caveated - it's The Guardian!
(It also relies on Russian bloggers telling a Leopard from a tractor...!)
On those numbers only possible governments would be a CDU/CSU SPD grand coalition as from 2005-2009 and 2013-2021 or a CDU/CSU Merz led government supported by the AfD.
The current SPD, Grune and FDP government would not have the numbers to continue in power
IANAL but sex and gender are two different things under the law, as far as I am aware.
This has been bought up more than once on PB IIRC. The last time was @Cookie some days ago, although I think he didn't reach a conclusion.
I had a brief look at the times and I reached the highly tentative conclusion that there are two strands of belief - gender EQ sex and gender NE sex - and that both strands have histories going back decades - as in pre WWII. It's one of those things that one sector of society thinks, and another doesn't. The law thinks they are the same, arts/humanities graduates think they are different.
With respect to the law, there have been two occasions when it has come up on PB.
Some years ago, Cyclefree posted an article about somebody who wanted X on their passport. Links to a BBC article and thence to the case revealed that one of the judges said the two were the same.
Last year some judge ruled that the two were the same. I assume other PBers can yield links as it was discussed here at the time.
My view is that gender is an illusion and requires a belief in 'who you really are' - what you might call a soul. It was popularised as a notion partly because some people are uncomfortable saying 'sex'. My belief is that we are nothing more than our bodies. If my body is male, I am male; if my body is female, I am female. The question of whether my soul's gender is the same as my body's sex doesn't come up because my belief is the former is imaginary. That deals with 99.99% of cases. There are the special cases - the likes of Caster Semenya - but even here it's largely clear which category to place her in. I don't know if that is the law's view!
Gender is about how society views you - when you interact with people they do not know your biology, but they do know how you present your gender. Some of that presentation may involve your biology - specific mechanisms that promote the exposure or significance of biological indicators of gender - but as much of that is based on social norms. If a man wears a wig, perfume, make up, long flowing clothes, and high heeled shoes today that may seen as atypical to their gender presentation now- but it was typical for the Georgian gentleman.
Many transpeople talk about gender in this way because this is how they experience their oppression - because society notices the supposed incongruency between their assigned gender and their presentation of gender and punishes them for that. There is also the fact that most medicine for transpeople is gate kept by cispeople who demand that, to “truly” be trans, they have to perform gender in a way the cisperson feels is adequate, not how transpeople view it. Philosophytube discusses this in her video about the NHS and the transgender experience and her video
Indeed, the idea that post-op transwomen should be excluded from women's toilets is an extreme one.
Did you make a typo when you said that?
The entire stance of the gender critical movement is that they should be so banned. If sex is decided at conception by one's genetics, then no amount of genital origami ("Look! It's a crane") will change that. If one believes that sex=genetics and that toilets be single sex, then it follows ineluctably that post-op transwomen must be banned from women's toilets.
No typo.
AFAIK the mainstream sex concern is that people with a penis should not be allowed in women's-only spaces. Post-op, I do not believe that the concern is as widespread, but pre-op absolutely...But for safeguarding women's-only spaces, I see very few people raising objections to post-op individuals going into a woman's-only space.
What do you think the phrase "biological sex" or "biological male" means?
I'll jump in here
Y chromosone, active SRY gene. Sperm production.
All of these, or any one of these?
Does a vasectomy change your sex? Are XX men women?
A vasectomy doesn't affect sperm production I believe. Chopping them off would, but you'd previously had the ability to produce sperm so no that doesn't change your sex. Women don't suddenly stop being women when they go through the menopause.
Can you point me to an example of any xx man ?
Also, again, I ask about your original definition - does it require any of those traits, all of them, or 2 out of three, or a specific one is more important than any other? And why just those traits and not others? And if it is only one or any specific trait - why?
You'd be able to produce a complete matrix based on active SRY, chromosones etc to definitely classify someone as male or female. Even in XX -ve SRY males it seems there is a male activation on one of the other chromosones so you'd probably need that in a complete chart.
So actually you’re saying the biological definition of a man is just active SRY? And that is the criteria for access to sex segregated spaces? So not sperm production or Y chromosomes?
OK You've got me (Sort of) I'll add the caveat Or 'as determined by a medical professional in cases of DSD';.
So that would be the basis for acceptable sex based discrimination?
Yes.
How would you then enforce that policy? Does everyone need to know how the SRY activates with their chromosomes or have a doctors note to go to the toilet? Use a refuge?
If you want the enforcement of sex based spaces and that is your definition of sex then that is what you logically have to know to enforce sex based spaces.
No, you enforce it by just writing in legislation by referencing biological sex "as determined by a medical professional".
Example 1
Man walks into women's bathroom wearing a dress with heavy stubble. Legislation has been passed to prevent this happening (Perhaps we're in Florida) Distressed woman makes a complaint to the police and he's arrested. In the courthouse a doctor is called as a witness to confirm this person is in fact a male. Doctor takes a look at the goods and confirms the man is indeed a man.
Example 2 (And this is going to be a bit very contrived)
XY swyer syndrome female heads into the ladies' loo. Someone who knows them and doesn't like them and knows they have a y chromosone says they can't be there as they have a y chromosone so are a man. Doctor in the courthouse tells the judge the poor soul is definitely a woman. Case dismissed.
The backstop of medical determination is going to be theoretical in every real world case, but it's probably useful and sensible to have it there as a backstop.
This depends on gender. Nothing about facial hair is sex specific - men typically can have facial hair and women typically can’t, but many men don’t and many women do! I had a great aunt who in her menopause had better 5 o’clock shadow than I get now! And your scenarios don’t include someone reporting someone in good faith; what would that involve? If court is needed, what about legal fees? The whole process is embarrassing and stigmatising - and resource intensive. Is that really a productive use of court time?
Of course it generally doesn't get to court, or a doctor examining someone's meat and two veg ! It's just a handy way to write the legislation.
E.g. "Female toilets are solely for biological females as determined by a medical professional". Anything else risks discrimination against women with DSDs.
But people aren’t typically being told they’re using the wrong toilet - including most transpeople. So the instances where it happens will likely be fraught - either transpeople who are being told not to use the toilet that aligns with their gender, or cispeople who are gender non conforming in their presentation (either by choice or because people view them as such).
And your legislation leaves the definition of “biological females” to medical professionals - which could really depend on the individual medical professional, no? What is not “biological” about people taking cross sex hormones?
We leave the law to lawyers and building to builders. If two medical professionals disagree on someone's biological sex then presumably they'd call in someone with more experience on the matter. Some scientists disagree there's anthropogenic forcing of the climate But most don't. A real hair splitting point you're making there.
The trans activist argues that actual evidence (by genetal examination, chromosones, genes, hormones, gamete, pelvis proportion etc) very occasionally do not ALL align to indicate the individual as male or female (very rare).
Then this is used to close down debate - without any suggestion that those that say they are born into the wrong bodies are examined to prove there is indeed a misalignment of one or more of the above (there won’t be of course).
So what then? The postmodernist way is to discard all the actual evidence and side with the words – mere words – of the individual.
This is so kooky that that I think it is a return pre-enlightenment to a form of dualism. A dualist might argue for a sort of homunculus inside the brain which is not material. It’s a religion.
Gender dysphoria or even non-dysphoric gender non-alignment is an inward personal experience. There is no way to assess it apart from asking someone and/or assessing their behaviour.
People have it if they consistently say they have it.
Labour’s watering down of their green investment pledge may be good politics, but is bad economics. It is essentially the same thinking that has seen the postponement of the HS2 programme.
I'm only going to be able to pop in and out of PB today so can someone please keep me up to date with how the Ukrainian counter offensive is going.
TIA
I don't think it's something you should expect a real time update of, TBH...
However, if there really is heavy fighting around Tokmak... (Only the Guardian, mind! A typo for fighting on TikTok, perhaps)
“Russian bloggers are now reporting Leopards and Bradleys attacking in Tokmak in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. If confirmed, it suggests at least one Ukrainian assault brigade has been committed."
Be wary about the Tokmak thing; it is not only a town, but also a region. It's perfectly possible that the Ukes might be in the north of the named area; less so that they are in the town, which is further south. Though I hope they are...
As caveated - it's The Guardian!
(It also relies on Russian bloggers telling a Leopard from a tractor...!)
The other thing that seems to be happening is that the Russians are reporting being "under attack" when they are bombarded by artillery, and then that they have "repelled the attack" when the shelling stops. This is part of over-reporting success to look better up the command chain.
8:15am Rachel Reeves, Shadow Chancellor: We offer 0% guarantee we'll spend £28bn a year on Green Investment.
9:00am Ed Miliband, Shadow Climate Centre Minister: We offer 100% guarantee we'll spend £28bn a year on Green Investment.
Massively messed up or massive falling out?
If this was the Tories, there'd be a pb.com header saying that Ed was on manoeuvres....
Not quite. If it was the Conservatives right now, people would talk about what a shambles it is, who is on manoeveres et cetera (answer: Boris, for as long as he has breath in his body).
But most people have made up their minds with some variation of "it will have to be Boring Old Starmer, I suppose". And once people have made up their minds, it's blooming hard to persuade them otherwise. Think how long it took the Conservatives to get any sort of hearing after 1992. Or Blair after Iraq. Or Labour after 2008. Some of that was self-inflicted, but a lot of it was that Mr and Mrs Voter want to see the failed party suck it up and look sorry for what they did for a decent interval.
Unfortunately for the government, the Johnson Omnishambles and Trussterfuck mean that the Conservatives seem to have pretty decisively crossed the Thermocline, and it's going to be hard for Sunak to cross it back the other way. In part, that's because the voters Rishi needs to win back aren't in the mood to listen to what he is saying. Obviously, Starmer's opponents and enemies have got to keep trying to undermine him (bless you Dan Hodges). But until the public are in the mood to listen, they won't, and the attackers will diminish themselves for banging on about all they ways he's unsuitable (see Teflon Tony, the flop that was Dave the Chamleon, Boris in his pomp).
At some point, the public will decide the Conservatives have been punished enough and give them another hearing. Which is why both the Conservatives and the Labour left have got to keep going. But I'd be surprised if it's before an election defeat or two for the blue team.
Depends on the economy, if the economy further declines under a Labour government as it didn't after 1997 but did after 1974 the Conservatives would quickly recover in opposition
To defend BJO a little, the banning of Jamie Driscoll from seeking re-election to North of Tyne is the very worst kind of political McCarthyism.
He represents the left of the party, is backed by the cranks, but hasn't shown any real sign of being one himself. And the cranks McDonnell et al - are still Labour MPs having not been banned themselves.
And so here we are - antisemitism is the Labour kyptonite. Jezbollah so damaged the party that anyone who goes anywhere near the "what Antisemitism it was all a scam" crowd" is seen as a potential stick to beat the party with. It's silly, its unfair, but it is a direct result of "there was no AS / AS was a conspiracy / Jezza was framed" narrative that the cranks still peddle even today.
C'est La Vie.
'The rapid decline of the Labour Left since 2019 has been astonishing. Earlier this year, Labour announced that under no circumstances could Jeremy Corbyn stand as Labour’s candidate in his Islington North seat at the next election. At the same time, of the 123 new Labour candidates so far chosen to stand in vacated or target seats, only two are firmly on the Left: Faiza Shaheen, an economist who will again challenge Iain Duncan Smith in Chingford and Woodford Green, and Chris Webb in Blackpool South. Under Starmer, the party apparatus has gone to extraordinary lengths to stop Left-wingers from getting on to the longlist. And in many cases, the victims are trades unionists and socialists whose politics — like Driscoll’s — are not exactly Corbynite. This week, l learnt of two would-be MPs in north Lancashire who have just been told by party officials that there is no point in applying as they will be excluded at the “due diligence stage.' https://unherd.com/2023/06/starmer-will-regret-purging-the-left/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=6f43f88c9c&mc_eid=4bd8087faf
Norsar, the Norwegian Seismic Array which analysed the signals, says the timing and location coincide with the collapse of the dam.
Furthermore, only a very large quantity of explosives could have produced the signal detected almost 400 miles away, says BBC World Affairs correspondent Paul Adams...
There are some reports from Russian soldiers that they only intended to make a small hole in the dam as a warning... But set the whole lot off.
And if you believe that...
There are also reports that the big blast was ordered by Putin.
Pay's your money, takes your choice. Unless you are the BBC, in which case you are still -being even-handed about who blew it up. Putinista arse-licking twats.
How does someone go about proving they are gay? We have a whole history of oppression against LGB people where the argument was “this is unnatural / against biology”, “this can’t be real / you’re making it up”, “why would you want to live this lifestyle”, “this is just to prey on innocent children” etc.
These same arguments are now thrown at transpeople. I would argue the evidence that LGBT people exist is that people say they have these experiences: men say they are attracted to men, women to women, either to either, and people assigned a gender at birth recognise the incongruity to that assignment to how they experience their own selves - regardless of the societal norms for genders! What they want is to conform to the societal view of their understood gender so as not feel that incongruency acutely (dysphoria) or to be harmed by a society than enforces strict gender roles based on presentation.
You cannot prove that I am “biologically” attracted to people of all genders (I am bi / pan). You cannot “biologically” prove you are straight, or gay, or lesbian. Self ID is all there is. It is the same for gender, and especially so for transpeople.
We know (due to unethical studies in the days when medicine did that) that if you give cispeople cross sex hormones, they don’t like it - they start feeling dysphoric. Many cispeople are uncomfortable presenting in gender nonconforming ways - either because it “just feels wrong” or due to the expectation of societal push back. There is no “biological” reason men shouldn’t wear dresses, or make up, or high heels - no “biological” reason why women shouldn’t have short or no hair, should have noticeable breasts, or not be able to be topless in public. But society deems it so, because society creates gender norms. And gender norms are the only thing we can police, because people do not see your “biological sex” when you are just out and about in the world - only your gender.
Labour’s watering down of their green investment pledge may be good politics, but is bad economics. It is essentially the same thinking that has seen the postponement of the HS2 programme.
I don't think it is - I think the problem is a fundamental one.
Don't commit to spending £28bn to build an extension while the original building is falling down.
When that £28bn was committed to corporate tax rates (taking 1 example) were 6% lower. There will be a lot of things where money needs to be spent and Truss demonstrated that the magic money tree wasn't a valid excuse for spending money you don't have.
As we can't avoid the debate apparently. Its all about making rights fair for the majority. Any "this is my right" that tramples over the rights of almost everyone else isn't seen as acceptable. As an example I have no right to shout "bomb" at the airport, but I probably can walking down a country path by myself. Context matters.
This spa. I'm not sure what the activist is trying to achieve. "I demand equal rights" doesn't work if your right makes it unequal for everyone else. The spa has a nude policy by the pool. All that is going to happen now is that the spa will effectively close when the activist pays a visit if none of the other guests are happy to share that naked space. Will that then be shrieked about as transphobia?
The problem isn't transphobia, or even the activist - it is the prudish attitude to bodies that we have in the UK and the Americans seem to have far worse. Such a spa would be naked for all in various swathes of Europe, so no issue whether penised people want to consider themselves male, female or non-gendered. Whatever. Get your kit off.
IANAL but sex and gender are two different things under the law, as far as I am aware.
This has been bought up more than once on PB IIRC. The last time was @Cookie some days ago, although I think he didn't reach a conclusion.
I had a brief look at the times and I reached the highly tentative conclusion that there are two strands of belief - gender EQ sex and gender NE sex - and that both strands have histories going back decades - as in pre WWII. It's one of those things that one sector of society thinks, and another doesn't. The law thinks they are the same, arts/humanities graduates think they are different.
With respect to the law, there have been two occasions when it has come up on PB.
Some years ago, Cyclefree posted an article about somebody who wanted X on their passport. Links to a BBC article and thence to the case revealed that one of the judges said the two were the same.
Last year some judge ruled that the two were the same. I assume other PBers can yield links as it was discussed here at the time.
My view is that gender is an illusion and requires a belief in 'who you really are' - what you might call a soul. It was popularised as a notion partly because some people are uncomfortable saying 'sex'. My belief is that we are nothing more than our bodies. If my body is male, I am male; if my body is female, I am female. The question of whether my soul's gender is the same as my body's sex doesn't come up because my belief is the former is imaginary. That deals with 99.99% of cases. There are the special cases - the likes of Caster Semenya - but even here it's largely clear which category to place her in. I don't know if that is the law's view!
So your view is that all transgender individuals are delusional ?
I think the rise of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria needs careful study (let alone "Prison Onset Gender Dysphoria where male rapists decide they're really women).
Historically the gender dysphoric had been the pre-pubescent and middle aged men.
The sudden substantial increase in pre- and pubescent teenage girls seeking treatment is poorly understood. While some argue that's down to greater acceptance of trans people, others fear that social media contagion may be playing a significant role. Helen Joyce notes that there had been negligible cases of teen anorexia nervosa in Hong Kong until one publicised case, then it exploded.
Puberty is a tough time for all, and when social media proposes simplistic solutions like "born in the wrong body" a lot can go wrong.
It's notable that many of the "progressive" European countries originally at the forefront of what is (mendaciously, in my view) labeled as "affirmative care" are rowing back and acknowledging this is still an experimental treatment.
The USA is increasingly becoming an outlier on this - the WSJ published an op-ed on puberty blockers:
Gender-affirming care for children involves the use of “puberty blockers”: one of five powerful synthetic drugs that block the natural production of sex hormones.
The Food and Drug Administration has approved those medications to treat prostate cancer, endometriosis, certain types of infertility and a rare childhood disease caused by a genetic mutation. But it has never approved them for gender dysphoria, the clinical term for the belief that one’s body is the wrong sex.
Thus the drugs, led by AbbVie’s Lupron, are prescribed to minors “off label.” (They are also used off-label for chemical castration of repeat sex offenders.)
Comments
XXmen are, I understand, superheroes.
No, the baffling thing is how far down the rabbit hole the old fool has gone. Last time I saw one of his gigs he had the Star of David emblazoned on a pig, and then pulled out a Palestinian head garb and lectured everyone for a few minutes. His genuinely mind-blowing tour of The Wall a decade ago had bombers dropping various symbols on people including the Star of David.
Waters is a classic leftie antisemite. He thinks he is attacking the Israeli government - and there is So Much to attack - but instead conflates Judaism with Israel. He's so far up himself that like so many of them he doesn't see the difference or that what he is doing is grotesquely wrong.
He hasn't been cancelled. I'm not going to see this tour because he can't sing, not because I am somehow offended. I separate off artists from their non-art prattlings because otherwise you'd quickly run out of stuff to watch and listen to.
What boggles the mind though is that in your anti Keith Donkey crankism seem to be siding with the antisemite. But surely the claims of antisemitism were just overblown, a witch-hunt against the great Jezbollah, no?
Biology is weird. There's always some exception. These cases are very rare and I don't think we should be building legislation for trans individuals around such rare cases. But I do think it's wise to avoid absolutist language when talking about biology.
XX men: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/xx-male
https://twitter.com/Mike_Blackley/status/1667070491901804544?s=20
vf.politicalbetting.com##.Comment:has-text(/MoonRabbit/)
Substitute whichever user's drivel is shredding your sanity.
Apparently the next thing they're going to discuss is whether to get rid of umpire's call.
I had a client who ran a business, making and selling wedding dresses. Occasionally, she got men coming in, wanting to try on the dresses (some men get a thrill from dressing up as women). It was not difficult to remove them from the shop.
If they upset you then have a cup of tea, and realise this forum is better for a wide spectrum of views then just ones you approve of
A quicker read is here: https://www.kindtowomen.com/1967-act
The number of cases where it is “really hard to tell” depends on social notions of gender - not sex. There would have been a time where binding, short hair and wearing trousers would have been enough for a woman to “pass” as a man. Masculine ciswomen obviously exist, and at a greater rate within the population than transwomen.
If people want to support the Tories like the people you named and others, that has to be a Good Thing. This is a political betting site, not a "I am right everyone else is wrong" echo chamber.
These are...
These are emphatically not the exceedingly rare DSD cases we have been previously discussing.
You get much less with the newer deals. All I have to do is live another 12 years to get the full benefit. But all the excess is sold to the grid at around 4p a unit.
Indeed I'd like to see that added into football, where mm offside decisions get determined by linesman's call and only actual clear and obvious errors beyond a margin of error get overturned.
Also- why is it that conversations about transpeople bring up unnecessary digressions into general gender nonconformity and the implication of cismale fetishism or violence?
These are very very rare cases where gender will be determined one way or the other by a doctor not some self cert though.
Shane Warne always argued that umpire's call was silly – why not have the boundary on half the ball, he said.
It is a fair point.
But most people have made up their minds with some variation of "it will have to be Boring Old Starmer, I suppose". And once people have made up their minds, it's blooming hard to persuade them otherwise. Think how long it took the Conservatives to get any sort of hearing after 1992. Or Blair after Iraq. Or Labour after 2008. Some of that was self-inflicted, but a lot of it was that Mr and Mrs Voter want to see the failed party suck it up and look sorry for what they did for a decent interval.
In business, it's called the Trust Thermocline, and the best way to survive it is to not cross it in the first place;
https://every.to/p/breaching-the-trust-thermocline-is-the-biggest-hidden-risk-in-business
Unfortunately for the government, the Johnson Omnishambles and Trussterfuck mean that the Conservatives seem to have pretty decisively crossed the Thermocline, and it's going to be hard for Sunak to cross it back the other way. In part, that's because the voters Rishi needs to win back aren't in the mood to listen to what he is saying. Obviously, Starmer's opponents and enemies have got to keep trying to undermine him (bless you Dan Hodges). But until the public are in the mood to listen, they won't, and the attackers will diminish themselves for banging on about all they ways he's unsuitable (see Teflon Tony, the flop that was Dave the Chamleon, Boris in his pomp).
At some point, the public will decide the Conservatives have been punished enough and give them another hearing. Which is why both the Conservatives and the Labour left have got to keep going. But I'd be surprised if it's before an election defeat or two for the blue team.
He represents the left of the party, is backed by the cranks, but hasn't shown any real sign of being one himself. And the cranks McDonnell et al - are still Labour MPs having not been banned themselves.
And so here we are - antisemitism is the Labour kyptonite. Jezbollah so damaged the party that anyone who goes anywhere near the "what Antisemitism it was all a scam" crowd" is seen as a potential stick to beat the party with. It's silly, its unfair, but it is a direct result of "there was no AS / AS was a conspiracy / Jezza was framed" narrative that the cranks still peddle even today.
C'est La Vie.
Washington judge orders female-only spa with compulsory nudity to admit transgender women with penises, after owner said facility was for 'biological women only' and pre-op trans activist complained
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12176407/Washington-womens-spa-compulsory-nudity-ordered-judge-start-admitting-trans-women.html
Football should add it to VAR too rather than messing amount with millimetre wide offside decisions.
@EuropeElects
·
7m
Germany, YouGov poll:
CDU/CSU-EPP: 28% (-3)
AfD-ID: 20% (+3)
SPD-S&D: 19% (+3)
GRÜNE-G/EFA: 13% (-3)
LINKE-LEFT: 6%
FDP-RE: 5%
FW-RE: 1% (-1)
+/- vs. 5-9 May 2023
Fieldwork: 2-7 June 2023
Sample size: 1,628"
Also this case is about transwomen and not cismen. So we don’t need to discuss cismale violence to discuss this case.
Thank you for your replies, although they veered off in a direction I wasn't expecting. My intent was to illustrate the use of shibboleths. As conflicts arise, opponents sort themselves and others via specific words and phrases - Kiev/Kyiv and Ukraine/The Ukraine being two obvious examples. The trans debate can be considered as having three strand - the pre-2015 one, the gender ideology one, the gender critical one - and each strand has distinct terminology, or shibboleths.
A year or two ago I toyed about writing an article about these groups of terminology, and how one could use them to track the rise and fall of each strand by tracking the shibboleths. I abandoned it because of workload but it still exists in my head: I'll see if I can pull it out and if I can post it backstage.
I don't know if that is the law's view!
It is the moderator to act if anyone posts inappropriately
Big mistake! Big! HUGE!
I cannot see anything going wrong.
Now I don't think Jamie Driscoll would be the best candidate for the enlarged position, there are big reasons why the mayor needs to come from somewhere South of the Tyne but he should have been allowed to stand..
If someone is mutilated but without going through a sex-change op [eg a eunuch] then they remain their sex, but if someone has been through a sex-change op then I would consider them their new sex.
Your mileage may vary but that's my principle.
https://twitter.com/stucalvert/status/1667115560503484416
Very fast work by Network Rail IMO.
Many transpeople talk about gender in this way because this is how they experience their oppression - because society notices the supposed incongruency between their assigned gender and their presentation of gender and punishes them for that. There is also the fact that most medicine for transpeople is gate kept by cispeople who demand that, to “truly” be trans, they have to perform gender in a way the cisperson feels is adequate, not how transpeople view it.
Philosophytube discusses these topic quite well, in my view, in her video about the NHS and the transgender experience and her video on social constructs.
https://youtu.be/v1eWIshUzr8
https://youtu.be/koud7hgGyQ8
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1649019214299004928
If you want the enforcement of sex based spaces and that is your definition of sex then that is what you logically have to know to enforce sex based spaces.
Gender is about how society views you - when you interact with people they do not know your biology, but they do know how you present your gender. Some of that presentation may involve your biology - specific mechanisms that promote the exposure or significance of biological indicators of gender - but as much of that is based on social norms. If a man wears a wig, perfume, make up, long flowing clothes, and high heeled shoes today that may seen as atypical to their gender presentation now- but it was typical for the Georgian gentleman.
Many transpeople talk about gender in this way because this is how they experience their oppression - because society notices the supposed incongruency between their assigned gender and their presentation of gender and punishes them for that. There is also the fact that most medicine for transpeople is gate kept by cispeople who demand that, to “truly” be trans, they have to perform gender in a way the cisperson feels is adequate, not how transpeople view it. Philosophytube discusses this in her video about the NHS and the transgender experience and her video on social constructs.
https://youtu.be/v1eWIshUzr8
https://youtu.be/koud7hgGyQ8
https://twitter.com/PaulCliftonBBC/status/1663798034419818496
Incidentally, IIRC they found the abutment had not been properly built when the new viaduct was installed a hundred years ago: it was still resting on Brunel's old timbers. There's an interesting question as to whether, and why, the ground under he abutment suddenly changed a year or so ago.
Clitoral hypertrophy can be secondary to CAH, but that's an adrenal problem.
I don't claim to be an expert but I have lectured on human sexual differention on a university MSc course. Make it simple - with 7 billlion humans there's always an exception but don't complicate matters.
Example 1
Man walks into women's bathroom wearing a dress with heavy stubble. Legislation has been passed to prevent this happening (Perhaps we're in Florida) Distressed woman makes a complaint to the police and he's arrested. In the courthouse a doctor is called as a witness to confirm this person is in fact a male. Doctor takes a look at the goods and confirms the man is indeed a man.
Example 2 (And this is going to be a bit very contrived)
XY swyer syndrome female heads into the ladies' loo. Someone who knows them and doesn't like them and knows they have a y chromosone says they can't be there as they have a y chromosone so are a man. Doctor in the courthouse tells the judge the poor soul is definitely a woman. Case dismissed.
The backstop of medical determination is going to be theoretical in every real world case, but it's probably useful and sensible to have it there as a backstop.
Same as any other propagandist. What is truth?
McGuinness seems to be the chosen one and she is from Newcastle and pretty mediocre as a PCC. I have no confidence in her to do a good job and won’t waste time voting. I’ve read her website and it is all full of trite soundbites. It’s totally uninspired.
The big worry has always been the Mayor would be Newcastle focussed to them detriment of other parts of the region. Labour wanted Durham to go on its own and have its own mayor.
Driscoll has not done a bad job. He’s no Jew hater and not a nutter either. He deserved an opportunity to put forward his case. Labour have played this badly.
FYI - some find the prefix "cis" offensive, implying that there are two categories of "sex" within each of the established two - we already know their are an infinite number of "genders".
Then this is used to close down debate - without any suggestion that those that say they are born into the wrong bodies are examined to prove there is indeed a misalignment of one or more of the above (there won’t be of course).
So what then? The postmodernist way is to discard all the actual evidence and side with the words – mere words – of the individual.
This is so kooky that that I think it is a return pre-enlightenment to a form of dualism. A dualist might argue for a sort of homunculus inside the brain which is not material. It’s a religion.
The court records include one further detail which many in the media could do with remembering:
“Ms Cadwalladr does not challenge the court’s decision that Mr Banks was the successful party overall.”
As if it was in any doubt…
https://order-order.com/2023/06/09/breaking-carole-cadwalladr-appeal-against-arron-banks-refused/
A good question, but it only solve the problem for politicians who need a quick answer on "what is a woman?" when cornered.
Complete Andogen Insensivity Syndrome (CAIS) is a rare syndrome. About one in 50,000 brths is the rate for the complete syndrome and about the same again for the less complete syndrome. The main problem is that we have a natural default to female system. If that pesky Y chromosome didn't interfere, things would be much easier.
PS I use Mr for your title for politeness sake.
That image says nothing about cismen. If your position that the phrase self identifying women invites cismen to identify as women, then I can’t stop you, but I find that extremely bad faith.
If I met you in the pub, let’s say, how would you prove to me you were a woman other than via self-ID? Even if we knew and were comfortable enough with each other to view each other nude - we know that for some people have GRS and so if my definition of biological sex were as strict as some here, that wouldn’t be enough for me. Basically every human interaction depends on self-ID of gender.
E.g.
"Female toilets are solely for biological females as determined by a medical professional". Anything else risks discrimination against women with DSDs.
Trans rights are human rights*
Trans women are women**
No Debate***
Affirmative Care****
Lesbians who refuse transwomen are genital fetishists akin to racists*****
* Who said they weren't? The debate is where they impinge on the rights of others.
** Debatable, legal position unclear - and some don't want it clarified.
*** See above
**** Or possibly mutilation and "transing away the gay". The science is "far from settled" and the USA is looking increasingly like the outlier.
See also, opioids.
***** No they're not. They're "same SEX attracted".
The 2nd amendment might be bad for the USA but their first one and jurisprudence on speech are superior to our laws.
“Russian bloggers are now reporting Leopards and Bradleys attacking in Tokmak in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. If confirmed, it suggests at least one Ukrainian assault brigade has been committed."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/08/tense-fighting-reported-as-ukrainian-forces-go-on-attack-south-of-zaporizhzhia
This map gets updated from nuggets on blog sites:
https://www.scribblemaps.com/maps/view/The-War-in-Ukraine/091194
I don't know if that helps or hinders, but there y'go
And your legislation leaves the definition of “biological females” to medical professionals - which could really depend on the individual medical professional, no? What is not “biological” about people taking cross sex hormones?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56978344
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-65851660
...Seismic signals recorded in Bukovina, Romania, 620km (372 miles) away from Nova Kakhovka, indicate an explosion took place at 2:54 on Tuesday.
Norsar, the Norwegian Seismic Array which analysed the signals, says the timing and location coincide with the collapse of the dam.
Furthermore, only a very large quantity of explosives could have produced the signal detected almost 400 miles away, says BBC World Affairs correspondent Paul Adams...
But they weren’t really free. The Fugitive Slave Act meant that southron men could come north and seize them and take them back to slavery. Northerners were legally obliged to help. In one notorious case a slave escaped, lived a full life in the north, had a child. The slave owner came north and successfully kidnapped the CHILD - legally arguing the boy was his property, as the offspring of his original slave
To be truly free, the slaves had to get to British territory - Canada, or the Bahamas, normally. Or Mexico at a pinch. Washington continuously pressed London to extradite these thousands of freed slaves. We flatly told them to get stuffed
A modest reason to be proudly British amidst a horrific period of history
(It also relies on Russian bloggers telling a Leopard from a tractor...!)
The current SPD, Grune and FDP government would not have the numbers to continue in power
People have it if they consistently say they have it.
Under Starmer, the party apparatus has gone to extraordinary lengths to stop Left-wingers from getting on to the longlist. And in many cases, the victims are trades unionists and socialists whose politics — like Driscoll’s — are not exactly Corbynite. This week, l learnt of two would-be MPs in north Lancashire who have just been told by party officials that there is no point in applying as they will be excluded at the “due diligence stage.'
https://unherd.com/2023/06/starmer-will-regret-purging-the-left/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=6f43f88c9c&mc_eid=4bd8087faf
And if you believe that...
There are also reports that the big blast was ordered by Putin.
Pay's your money, takes your choice. Unless you are the BBC, in which case you are still -being even-handed about who blew it up. Putinista arse-licking twats.
How does someone go about proving they are gay? We have a whole history of oppression against LGB people where the argument was “this is unnatural / against biology”, “this can’t be real / you’re making it up”, “why would you want to live this lifestyle”, “this is just to prey on innocent children” etc.
These same arguments are now thrown at transpeople. I would argue the evidence that LGBT people exist is that people say they have these experiences: men say they are attracted to men, women to women, either to either, and people assigned a gender at birth recognise the incongruity to that assignment to how they experience their own selves - regardless of the societal norms for genders! What they want is to conform to the societal view of their understood gender so as not feel that incongruency acutely (dysphoria) or to be harmed by a society than enforces strict gender roles based on presentation.
You cannot prove that I am “biologically” attracted to people of all genders (I am bi / pan). You cannot “biologically” prove you are straight, or gay, or lesbian. Self ID is all there is. It is the same for gender, and especially so for transpeople.
We know (due to unethical studies in the days when medicine did that) that if you give cispeople cross sex hormones, they don’t like it - they start feeling dysphoric. Many cispeople are uncomfortable presenting in gender nonconforming ways - either because it “just feels wrong” or due to the expectation of societal push back. There is no “biological” reason men shouldn’t wear dresses, or make up, or high heels - no “biological” reason why women shouldn’t have short or no hair, should have noticeable breasts, or not be able to be topless in public. But society deems it so, because society creates gender norms. And gender norms are the only thing we can police, because people do not see your “biological sex” when you are just out and about in the world - only your gender.
Don't commit to spending £28bn to build an extension while the original building is falling down.
When that £28bn was committed to corporate tax rates (taking 1 example) were 6% lower. There will be a lot of things where money needs to be spent and Truss demonstrated that the magic money tree wasn't a valid excuse for spending money you don't have.
This spa. I'm not sure what the activist is trying to achieve. "I demand equal rights" doesn't work if your right makes it unequal for everyone else. The spa has a nude policy by the pool. All that is going to happen now is that the spa will effectively close when the activist pays a visit if none of the other guests are happy to share that naked space. Will that then be shrieked about as transphobia?
The problem isn't transphobia, or even the activist - it is the prudish attitude to bodies that we have in the UK and the Americans seem to have far worse. Such a spa would be naked for all in various swathes of Europe, so no issue whether penised people want to consider themselves male, female or non-gendered. Whatever. Get your kit off.
Historically the gender dysphoric had been the pre-pubescent and middle aged men.
The sudden substantial increase in pre- and pubescent teenage girls seeking treatment is poorly understood. While some argue that's down to greater acceptance of trans people, others fear that social media contagion may be playing a significant role. Helen Joyce notes that there had been negligible cases of teen anorexia nervosa in Hong Kong until one publicised case, then it exploded.
Puberty is a tough time for all, and when social media proposes simplistic solutions like "born in the wrong body" a lot can go wrong.
It's notable that many of the "progressive" European countries originally at the forefront of what is (mendaciously, in my view) labeled as "affirmative care" are rowing back and acknowledging this is still an experimental treatment.
The USA is increasingly becoming an outlier on this - the WSJ published an op-ed on puberty blockers:
Gender-affirming care for children involves the use of “puberty blockers”: one of five powerful synthetic drugs that block the natural production of sex hormones.
The Food and Drug Administration has approved those medications to treat prostate cancer, endometriosis, certain types of infertility and a rare childhood disease caused by a genetic mutation. But it has never approved them for gender dysphoria, the clinical term for the belief that one’s body is the wrong sex.
Thus the drugs, led by AbbVie’s Lupron, are prescribed to minors “off label.” (They are also used off-label for chemical castration of repeat sex offenders.)
https://archive.is/VdZ8L