Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 4h This is genuinely extraordinary. The Orwellian double-think needed to make such statements is terrifying.
A woman is an adult human female. That's a fact. Trans women are biological men who choose to live as women, as they should be free to do. But they're not women. #IAmAWoman
===
She's talking about Ed Davey's statement that a trans woman is a woman.
Isn't this debate easily solved by the fact that sex and gender are different things, which usually align but not 100%. Sex describes someone's genitalia and gender describes someone's brain chemistry and identity.
Yes - I've been saying similar for months. Gender is what you identify as and sex is what sex you are. It must be possible for sex and gender to differ or what would be the point of having two words for the same thing. Hartley-Brewer is spot on.
It's facile though imo.
- "You are a man who identifies as a woman." - "No, I'm a woman who was born a boy."
I don't see that this get us very far.
The issue, at heart and in practice, is about what you are legally, a man or a woman, the process/controls around changing from one to the other, and to what extent (if any) female only spaces and activities should be able to exclude transwomen.
Let me simplify
“Women only spaces should not be open to trans women with penises”
How about those who are transitioning, and have to live as a woman for two years before the op?
They should live as their gender but not be allowed into female-only spaces until after they've transitioned.
If the rules need fixing to satisfy the panel with that easier, then that should be done rather than having safeguarding issues for women.
So, dressed as a woman, they're meant to go into male bogs and potentially get beaten up?
How about safeguarding issues for them?
Edit: and practically, who checks? If a trans was to dress as a woman, go into a female toilet cubicle, and cause no hassle, what harm have they done? Are we going to have police checking their certificate of womanhood at the door?
For them if they don't want to use male toilets until they've transitioned to being women then using disabled or other neutral toilets in the interim seems logical.
But that doesn't seem a reason to abolish female-only spaces.
Who is abolishing female only spaces?
There are concerns that some Rape Crisis Centres may be open to non-transitioned transgender women:
in Scotland, where you have large groups of survivors, some are not using our services because they see us as trans inclusive and feeling that they may be exposed to an issue that they are not prepared to deal with.” But women aren’t self-excluding because “they may be exposed to an issue.” They’re self-excluding because they may be exposed to males in the aftermath of surviving male violence. Any trauma-informed service – as ERC claims to be – must have the capacity to acknowledge why that is problematic.
If it helps ours failed in May and Ofgem arranged EDF to take over the contract on the same terms and with no supply interruption
Honouring existing tariffs is optional. Right now, I don’t think any company taking over can afford to honour cheap fixes.
A few months ago, Green were encouraging customers to top up their accounts, giving 10% extra credit. I read on one forum, there are customers who took advantage and now have five figure credit balances.
This could all get very messy…
I am a little bit worried about this spike in energy prices. Do we know what is causing it?
A combination of things, including the French interconnector being down due to a fire.
But in the medium term, we're going to have to get used to higher energy prices. That's the cost of going green.
Alok Sharma was asked this morning if the £150 annual green levy may be cancelled
He was non committal but how many know abut this green charge
Absurd suggestion.
1 - The small ones going bust don't pay it. 2 - It's the only working green programme currently running. 3 - All the people complaining about over high prices because they haven't invested in their homes can get help from it to improve their insulation and so on.
Lord save us from this clowning...
I've no particular opinion on the Green Levy, but I would beg to point out that investing in home insulation isn't an option for anyone who lives in a flat or is renting, which together constitutes a very substantial fraction of the population.
Very fair observation, though flats have more inside walls if in blocks so should benefit the way a mid-terrace does. And there are now eg models of heat pumps designed for flats which do not have gas. And if necessary the outside wall(s) can be drylined, and the ceiling can be insulated.
If it is a house conversion, then it can be done as usual.
Renting can be done by LL of course, or I think the tenant may now have a right to have things done. Though of course the T may be concerned about retaliation.
I think the good news is that we have a legal ratchet which is driving up standards, though with too many loopholes, and the sheer paper work (and loss of Section 21 if the promise is kept) incentivises LLs to invest appropriately.
I've always taken the view that do the fabric first and do it well enough that nothing major is needed for 15-20 years. A downside of full council tax on empty houses is that it works against really thorough renovations. Such work is not usually fully reflected in market value.
PPC on 10% and the Conservatives down to 27% with the Liberals on 32%.
The Canadian Conservatives are suffering from the same problem they had two decades ago when Reform outflanked them on the Right.
If they want to win seats in the Ontario suburbs, they need to be Cameroon, but in the prairie and oil states of the West, this is practically socialism. Taking centrist loses them votes in one place. Taking right loses them votes in another.
The calculation that O'Toole has made is that he can afford to lose votes in the West. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen.
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 4h This is genuinely extraordinary. The Orwellian double-think needed to make such statements is terrifying.
A woman is an adult human female. That's a fact. Trans women are biological men who choose to live as women, as they should be free to do. But they're not women. #IAmAWoman
===
She's talking about Ed Davey's statement that a trans woman is a woman.
Isn't this debate easily solved by the fact that sex and gender are different things, which usually align but not 100%. Sex describes someone's genitalia and gender describes someone's brain chemistry and identity.
Yes - I've been saying similar for months. Gender is what you identify as and sex is what sex you are. It must be possible for sex and gender to differ or what would be the point of having two words for the same thing. Hartley-Brewer is spot on.
It's facile though imo.
- "You are a man who identifies as a woman." - "No, I'm a woman who was born a boy."
I don't see that this get us very far.
The issue, at heart and in practice, is about what you are legally, a man or a woman, the process/controls around changing from one to the other, and to what extent (if any) female only spaces and activities should be able to exclude transwomen.
Let me simplify
“Women only spaces should not be open to trans women with penises”
How about those who are transitioning, and have to live as a woman for two years before the op?
They should live as their gender but not be allowed into female-only spaces until after they've transitioned.
If the rules need fixing to satisfy the panel with that easier, then that should be done rather than having safeguarding issues for women.
So, dressed as a woman, they're meant to go into male bogs and potentially get beaten up?
How about safeguarding issues for them?
Edit: and practically, who checks? If a trans was to dress as a woman, go into a female toilet cubicle, and cause no hassle, what harm have they done? Are we going to have police checking their certificate of womanhood at the door?
For them if they don't want to use male toilets until they've transitioned to being women then using disabled or other neutral toilets in the interim seems logical.
But that doesn't seem a reason to abolish female-only spaces.
Who is abolishing female only spaces?
Even in the extremely unlikely event of a penis-wielding pervert saying "I am trans" to threaten women in changing rooms, they would get chucked out. Standards of behaviour exist whether the woman is cis or trans that can be policed.
The threat is the trans man or woman using their birth gender facilities and getting assaulted. That isn't extremely unlikely.
I really do not follow your reasoning there at all
I do not think any woman would be reassured by your assertion they would be thrown out (by whom) and extremely unlikely means it is possible
Ok let me put it simply. The threat to women is from predatory men. There are far more predatory men than there are trans women. Whats more if you are a predatory man you don't need to try and pass yourself off as trans to access a female changing room.
You just find a lone / vulnerable woman and drag them off somewhere quiet to rape them. That isn't going to be in the female changing facility of the gym. Nor are men perving over women in the unisex changing at the big leisure pool.
There is a problem in society - men. The small minority that consider women to be property, sport or bad for rejecting them. The threat is from them and it is far far bigger. But instead of trying to shame testosterone-fuelled tossers from their behaviour, we get dragged into a ludicrous debate about a practically non-issue. So that the right wing can win votes.
I am trying but I just do not follow you and your last sentence has lost me
You seem to running away from a real issue Ed Davey was unable to address this morning and hope it will go away
French gov't in a punitive mood: "France is seeking to scuttle the proposed EU-Australia free-trade agreement, asking fellow European nations to “reconsider” the deal in retaliation for the Morrison government cancelling the $90bn French sub contract"
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
That shouldn't be a problem for newbuild, as a urinal does not take up hugely more space than a cubicle.
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
That shouldn't be a problem for newbuild, as a urinal does not take up hugely more space than a cubicle.
The Costa I was in in Alnwick this morning just had two mixed gender/disabled toilet rooms and they were fab.
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
Thanks for your unhelpful, immature, and inflammatory input on the debate. You’re just as bad as Twitter trans-activists.
That's what this is. Men, mostly white, have decided they want access to female only spaces and are trampling over women's rights to get there. As we know white men don't understand the concept of not getting their way in life so here we are with this ridiculous situation of suggesting lesbians are bigots for not wanting suck cocks or thinking that blokes who put on a dress and tell everyone else they're actually women can waltz into female only spaces.
Sex and gender are different. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the British left unfit for government.
Can you combine wild swimming with wild camping and foraging for your dinner to claim some kind of triple crown of wankness?
I think the guardian wild swimming brigade are more the glamping types are they not?
This one is quite tasty.
They are arguing for people to trespass and swim in reservoirs in violation of the standing rules, and piggybacking on the very questionable case for a right of navigation on all English waterways. I see injunctions incoming if this takes off, because if it moves beyond the hardcore who really know their stuff people will die.
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 4h This is genuinely extraordinary. The Orwellian double-think needed to make such statements is terrifying.
A woman is an adult human female. That's a fact. Trans women are biological men who choose to live as women, as they should be free to do. But they're not women. #IAmAWoman
===
She's talking about Ed Davey's statement that a trans woman is a woman.
Isn't this debate easily solved by the fact that sex and gender are different things, which usually align but not 100%. Sex describes someone's genitalia and gender describes someone's brain chemistry and identity.
Yes - I've been saying similar for months. Gender is what you identify as and sex is what sex you are. It must be possible for sex and gender to differ or what would be the point of having two words for the same thing. Hartley-Brewer is spot on.
It's facile though imo.
- "You are a man who identifies as a woman." - "No, I'm a woman who was born a boy."
I don't see that this get us very far.
The issue, at heart and in practice, is about what you are legally, a man or a woman, the process/controls around changing from one to the other, and to what extent (if any) female only spaces and activities should be able to exclude transwomen.
Let me simplify
“Women only spaces should not be open to trans women with penises”
How about those who are transitioning, and have to live as a woman for two years before the op?
They should live as their gender but not be allowed into female-only spaces until after they've transitioned.
If the rules need fixing to satisfy the panel with that easier, then that should be done rather than having safeguarding issues for women.
So, dressed as a woman, they're meant to go into male bogs and potentially get beaten up?
How about safeguarding issues for them?
Edit: and practically, who checks? If a trans was to dress as a woman, go into a female toilet cubicle, and cause no hassle, what harm have they done? Are we going to have police checking their certificate of womanhood at the door?
For them if they don't want to use male toilets until they've transitioned to being women then using disabled or other neutral toilets in the interim seems logical.
But that doesn't seem a reason to abolish female-only spaces.
Who is abolishing female only spaces?
There are concerns that some Rape Crisis Centres may be open to non-transitioned transgender women:
in Scotland, where you have large groups of survivors, some are not using our services because they see us as trans inclusive and feeling that they may be exposed to an issue that they are not prepared to deal with.” But women aren’t self-excluding because “they may be exposed to an issue.” They’re self-excluding because they may be exposed to males in the aftermath of surviving male violence. Any trauma-informed service – as ERC claims to be – must have the capacity to acknowledge why that is problematic.
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 4h This is genuinely extraordinary. The Orwellian double-think needed to make such statements is terrifying.
A woman is an adult human female. That's a fact. Trans women are biological men who choose to live as women, as they should be free to do. But they're not women. #IAmAWoman
===
She's talking about Ed Davey's statement that a trans woman is a woman.
Isn't this debate easily solved by the fact that sex and gender are different things, which usually align but not 100%. Sex describes someone's genitalia and gender describes someone's brain chemistry and identity.
Yes - I've been saying similar for months. Gender is what you identify as and sex is what sex you are. It must be possible for sex and gender to differ or what would be the point of having two words for the same thing. Hartley-Brewer is spot on.
It's facile though imo.
- "You are a man who identifies as a woman." - "No, I'm a woman who was born a boy."
I don't see that this get us very far.
The issue, at heart and in practice, is about what you are legally, a man or a woman, the process/controls around changing from one to the other, and to what extent (if any) female only spaces and activities should be able to exclude transwomen.
Let me simplify
“Women only spaces should not be open to trans women with penises”
How about those who are transitioning, and have to live as a woman for two years before the op?
They should live as their gender but not be allowed into female-only spaces until after they've transitioned.
If the rules need fixing to satisfy the panel with that easier, then that should be done rather than having safeguarding issues for women.
So, dressed as a woman, they're meant to go into male bogs and potentially get beaten up?
How about safeguarding issues for them?
Edit: and practically, who checks? If a trans was to dress as a woman, go into a female toilet cubicle, and cause no hassle, what harm have they done? Are we going to have police checking their certificate of womanhood at the door?
For them if they don't want to use male toilets until they've transitioned to being women then using disabled or other neutral toilets in the interim seems logical.
But that doesn't seem a reason to abolish female-only spaces.
Who is abolishing female only spaces?
Even in the extremely unlikely event of a penis-wielding pervert saying "I am trans" to threaten women in changing rooms, they would get chucked out. Standards of behaviour exist whether the woman is cis or trans that can be policed.
The threat is the trans man or woman using their birth gender facilities and getting assaulted. That isn't extremely unlikely.
I really do not follow your reasoning there at all
I do not think any woman would be reassured by your assertion they would be thrown out (by whom) and extremely unlikely means it is possible
Ok let me put it simply. The threat to women is from predatory men. There are far more predatory men than there are trans women. Whats more if you are a predatory man you don't need to try and pass yourself off as trans to access a female changing room.
You just find a lone / vulnerable woman and drag them off somewhere quiet to rape them. That isn't going to be in the female changing facility of the gym. Nor are men perving over women in the unisex changing at the big leisure pool.
There is a problem in society - men. The small minority that consider women to be property, sport or bad for rejecting them. The threat is from them and it is far far bigger. But instead of trying to shame testosterone-fuelled tossers from their behaviour, we get dragged into a ludicrous debate about a practically non-issue. So that the right wing can win votes.
I am trying but I just do not follow you and your last sentence has lost me
You seem to running away from a real issue Ed Davey was unable to address this morning and hope it will go away
Wow. So your takeaway from a debate about how rapey men are the threat to your womenfolk and not trans women is that I am "running away" from some guff about Davey and an activist's T-Shirt?
I honestly couldn't care less about this activist. It is a total distraction. I know you are now without a party but politics needs to debate actual issues not guff.
French gov't in a punitive mood: "France is seeking to scuttle the proposed EU-Australia free-trade agreement, asking fellow European nations to “reconsider” the deal in retaliation for the Morrison government cancelling the $90bn French sub contract"
I think it's unlikely to happen. However, Boris's admirers have been keen to assert that AUUKUS proves Europe now has no global influence whatsoever and it is Boris to whom the world looks for leadership. So the EU might decide to stuff AUS just to make the counter-argument. We now live in strange and unpredictable times.
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
Thanks for your unhelpful, immature, and inflammatory input on the debate. You’re just as bad as Twitter trans-activists.
That's what this is. Men, mostly white, have decided they want access to female only spaces and are trampling over women's rights to get there. As we know white men don't understand the concept of not getting their way in life so here we are with this ridiculous situation of suggesting lesbians are bigots for not wanting suck cocks or thinking that blokes who put on a dress and tell everyone else they're actually women can waltz into female only spaces.
Sex and gender are different. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the British left unfit for government.
I stand by my original comment. You can argue “sex and gender are different” without resorting to anti-trans slurs
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 4h This is genuinely extraordinary. The Orwellian double-think needed to make such statements is terrifying.
A woman is an adult human female. That's a fact. Trans women are biological men who choose to live as women, as they should be free to do. But they're not women. #IAmAWoman
===
She's talking about Ed Davey's statement that a trans woman is a woman.
Isn't this debate easily solved by the fact that sex and gender are different things, which usually align but not 100%. Sex describes someone's genitalia and gender describes someone's brain chemistry and identity.
Yes - I've been saying similar for months. Gender is what you identify as and sex is what sex you are. It must be possible for sex and gender to differ or what would be the point of having two words for the same thing. Hartley-Brewer is spot on.
It's facile though imo.
- "You are a man who identifies as a woman." - "No, I'm a woman who was born a boy."
I don't see that this get us very far.
The issue, at heart and in practice, is about what you are legally, a man or a woman, the process/controls around changing from one to the other, and to what extent (if any) female only spaces and activities should be able to exclude transwomen.
Let me simplify
“Women only spaces should not be open to trans women with penises”
How about those who are transitioning, and have to live as a woman for two years before the op?
They should live as their gender but not be allowed into female-only spaces until after they've transitioned.
If the rules need fixing to satisfy the panel with that easier, then that should be done rather than having safeguarding issues for women.
So, dressed as a woman, they're meant to go into male bogs and potentially get beaten up?
How about safeguarding issues for them?
Edit: and practically, who checks? If a trans was to dress as a woman, go into a female toilet cubicle, and cause no hassle, what harm have they done? Are we going to have police checking their certificate of womanhood at the door?
For them if they don't want to use male toilets until they've transitioned to being women then using disabled or other neutral toilets in the interim seems logical.
But that doesn't seem a reason to abolish female-only spaces.
Who is abolishing female only spaces?
Even in the extremely unlikely event of a penis-wielding pervert saying "I am trans" to threaten women in changing rooms, they would get chucked out. Standards of behaviour exist whether the woman is cis or trans that can be policed.
The threat is the trans man or woman using their birth gender facilities and getting assaulted. That isn't extremely unlikely.
I really do not follow your reasoning there at all
I do not think any woman would be reassured by your assertion they would be thrown out (by whom) and extremely unlikely means it is possible
Ok let me put it simply. The threat to women is from predatory men. There are far more predatory men than there are trans women. Whats more if you are a predatory man you don't need to try and pass yourself off as trans to access a female changing room.
You just find a lone / vulnerable woman and drag them off somewhere quiet to rape them. That isn't going to be in the female changing facility of the gym. Nor are men perving over women in the unisex changing at the big leisure pool.
There is a problem in society - men. The small minority that consider women to be property, sport or bad for rejecting them. The threat is from them and it is far far bigger. But instead of trying to shame testosterone-fuelled tossers from their behaviour, we get dragged into a ludicrous debate about a practically non-issue. So that the right wing can win votes.
Just factually wrong. You don't hear the right wing opining on the subject one way or the other, except to say that even very slight chances of very serious harm should be guarded against. Which obviously they should. You going to abolish the firearms certificate for sporting rifles because when was the last person murdered in this country with a sporting rifle?
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 4h This is genuinely extraordinary. The Orwellian double-think needed to make such statements is terrifying.
A woman is an adult human female. That's a fact. Trans women are biological men who choose to live as women, as they should be free to do. But they're not women. #IAmAWoman
===
She's talking about Ed Davey's statement that a trans woman is a woman.
Isn't this debate easily solved by the fact that sex and gender are different things, which usually align but not 100%. Sex describes someone's genitalia and gender describes someone's brain chemistry and identity.
Yes - I've been saying similar for months. Gender is what you identify as and sex is what sex you are. It must be possible for sex and gender to differ or what would be the point of having two words for the same thing. Hartley-Brewer is spot on.
It's facile though imo.
- "You are a man who identifies as a woman." - "No, I'm a woman who was born a boy."
I don't see that this get us very far.
The issue, at heart and in practice, is about what you are legally, a man or a woman, the process/controls around changing from one to the other, and to what extent (if any) female only spaces and activities should be able to exclude transwomen.
Let me simplify
“Women only spaces should not be open to trans women with penises”
How about those who are transitioning, and have to live as a woman for two years before the op?
They should live as their gender but not be allowed into female-only spaces until after they've transitioned.
If the rules need fixing to satisfy the panel with that easier, then that should be done rather than having safeguarding issues for women.
So, dressed as a woman, they're meant to go into male bogs and potentially get beaten up?
How about safeguarding issues for them?
Edit: and practically, who checks? If a trans was to dress as a woman, go into a female toilet cubicle, and cause no hassle, what harm have they done? Are we going to have police checking their certificate of womanhood at the door?
For them if they don't want to use male toilets until they've transitioned to being women then using disabled or other neutral toilets in the interim seems logical.
But that doesn't seem a reason to abolish female-only spaces.
Who is abolishing female only spaces?
Even in the extremely unlikely event of a penis-wielding pervert saying "I am trans" to threaten women in changing rooms, they would get chucked out. Standards of behaviour exist whether the woman is cis or trans that can be policed.
The threat is the trans man or woman using their birth gender facilities and getting assaulted. That isn't extremely unlikely.
I really do not follow your reasoning there at all
I do not think any woman would be reassured by your assertion they would be thrown out (by whom) and extremely unlikely means it is possible
Ok let me put it simply. The threat to women is from predatory men. There are far more predatory men than there are trans women. Whats more if you are a predatory man you don't need to try and pass yourself off as trans to access a female changing room.
You just find a lone / vulnerable woman and drag them off somewhere quiet to rape them. That isn't going to be in the female changing facility of the gym. Nor are men perving over women in the unisex changing at the big leisure pool.
There is a problem in society - men. The small minority that consider women to be property, sport or bad for rejecting them. The threat is from them and it is far far bigger. But instead of trying to shame testosterone-fuelled tossers from their behaviour, we get dragged into a ludicrous debate about a practically non-issue. So that the right wing can win votes.
I am trying but I just do not follow you and your last sentence has lost me
You seem to running away from a real issue Ed Davey was unable to address this morning and hope it will go away
Wow. So your takeaway from a debate about how rapey men are the threat to your womenfolk and not trans women is that I am "running away" from some guff about Davey and an activist's T-Shirt?
I honestly couldn't care less about this activist. It is a total distraction. I know you are now without a party but politics needs to debate actual issues not guff.
I think the woman activist concerned would find your comments quite offensive
You are trying to dismiss an issue that is happening in labour and the snp as well
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
Thanks for your unhelpful, immature, and inflammatory input on the debate. You’re just as bad as Twitter trans-activists.
That's what this is. Men, mostly white, have decided they want access to female only spaces and are trampling over women's rights to get there. As we know white men don't understand the concept of not getting their way in life so here we are with this ridiculous situation of suggesting lesbians are bigots for not wanting suck cocks or thinking that blokes who put on a dress and tell everyone else they're actually women can waltz into female only spaces.
Sex and gender are different. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the British left unfit for government.
I stand by my original comment. You can argue “sex and gender are different” without resorting to anti-trans slurs
Nope, I'm fed up of it. I'm fed up of women being harassed by the men in dresses because they want to preserve female only spaces. I'm fed up of the death threats to women who speak out, disgusted that an elected representative was unable to attend their own party conference because they feared physical violence from the men in dresses.
There's no middle way here. Women's rights must be preserved at any cost. They are hard won and the men in dresses need to deal with it by taking off the dress or committing to the sex change process. Self ID gender recognition is wrong and it's another expression of white male privilege trampling over hard won women's rights, reversing decades of progress.
I can't be the only person distraught that Farron isn't the LibDem leader right now.
We all remember how he got himself into knots over homosexuality, I would love to see him get into similar... issues... over trans rights.
Davey could simply have said that, while he has his own religious beliefs, the Liberal Democrat Party takes a view that people should be free to be who they want to be, and that these moral issues are always free votes in Parliament.
It wouldn’t have been difficult, if he’d thought through the potential line of questioning beforehand.
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
Thanks for your unhelpful, immature, and inflammatory input on the debate. You’re just as bad as Twitter trans-activists.
That's what this is. Men, mostly white, have decided they want access to female only spaces and are trampling over women's rights to get there. As we know white men don't understand the concept of not getting their way in life so here we are with this ridiculous situation of suggesting lesbians are bigots for not wanting suck cocks or thinking that blokes who put on a dress and tell everyone else they're actually women can waltz into female only spaces.
Sex and gender are different. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the British left unfit for government.
I stand by my original comment. You can argue “sex and gender are different” without resorting to anti-trans slurs
Nope, I'm fed up of it. I'm fed up of women being harassed by the men in dresses because they want to preserve female only spaces. I'm fed up of the death threats to women who speak out, disgusted that an elected representative was unable to attend their own party conference because they feared physical violence from the men in dresses.
There's no middle way here. Women's rights must be preserved at any cost. They are hard won and the men in dresses need to deal with it by taking off the dress or committing to the sex change process. Self ID gender recognition is wrong and it's another expression of white male privilege trampling over hard won women's rights, reversing decades of progress.
I feel like you should meet some trans people and not form your entire position from Twitter
French gov't in a punitive mood: "France is seeking to scuttle the proposed EU-Australia free-trade agreement, asking fellow European nations to “reconsider” the deal in retaliation for the Morrison government cancelling the $90bn French sub contract"
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Cancel a major Free Trade deal just to salve wounded French pride? Why?!
Expect Germany to squash this.
The French are over-reacting and over-reaching
Spot on. The French would be ill advised to push it too far. Sometimes you have to admit you got beat, and move on.
Macron might now get some movement on an autonomous European military. Even if he could just get Spain, Italy and maybe Germany to commit, he would have the nucleus of a major military alliance.
But asking other European states to economically harm Australia, and their own trading interests, just because France has been humiliated? WTF? Also, quite a few EU states have seriously warm relations with Australia, like Ireland, Italy and Greece, who sent so many migrants Down Under. They will surely tell France to eff off
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
Thanks for your unhelpful, immature, and inflammatory input on the debate. You’re just as bad as Twitter trans-activists.
That's what this is. Men, mostly white, have decided they want access to female only spaces and are trampling over women's rights to get there. As we know white men don't understand the concept of not getting their way in life so here we are with this ridiculous situation of suggesting lesbians are bigots for not wanting suck cocks or thinking that blokes who put on a dress and tell everyone else they're actually women can waltz into female only spaces.
Sex and gender are different. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the British left unfit for government.
I stand by my original comment. You can argue “sex and gender are different” without resorting to anti-trans slurs
Nope, I'm fed up of it. I'm fed up of women being harassed by the men in dresses because they want to preserve female only spaces. I'm fed up of the death threats to women who speak out, disgusted that an elected representative was unable to attend their own party conference because they feared physical violence from the men in dresses.
There's no middle way here. Women's rights must be preserved at any cost. They are hard won and the men in dresses need to deal with it by taking off the dress or committing to the sex change process. Self ID gender recognition is wrong and it's another expression of white male privilege trampling over hard won women's rights, reversing decades of progress.
I feel like you should meet some trans people and not form your entire position from Twitter
And yet we have a female MP who was threatened with violence if she attended the Labour conference. That is the movement. No one is disowning it either, in fact they're all over the place saying she deserved it and it's a good example of how they are succeeding in silencing dissent.
French gov't in a punitive mood: "France is seeking to scuttle the proposed EU-Australia free-trade agreement, asking fellow European nations to “reconsider” the deal in retaliation for the Morrison government cancelling the $90bn French sub contract"
I think it's unlikely to happen. However, Boris's admirers have been keen to assert that AUUKUS proves Europe now has no global influence whatsoever and it is Boris to whom the world looks for leadership. So the EU might decide to stuff AUS just to make the counter-argument. We now live in strange and unpredictable times.
Interesting - try and hobble a strong competitor in the wine market?
UK wine imports from Oz are up a third Q1 2021 over Q1 2020.
So, depending on value added etc, there might be more via here as it is imported here in bulk mainly. Maybe.
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
Thanks for your unhelpful, immature, and inflammatory input on the debate. You’re just as bad as Twitter trans-activists.
That's what this is. Men, mostly white, have decided they want access to female only spaces and are trampling over women's rights to get there. As we know white men don't understand the concept of not getting their way in life so here we are with this ridiculous situation of suggesting lesbians are bigots for not wanting suck cocks or thinking that blokes who put on a dress and tell everyone else they're actually women can waltz into female only spaces.
Sex and gender are different. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the British left unfit for government.
I stand by my original comment. You can argue “sex and gender are different” without resorting to anti-trans slurs
Nope, I'm fed up of it. I'm fed up of women being harassed by the men in dresses because they want to preserve female only spaces. I'm fed up of the death threats to women who speak out, disgusted that an elected representative was unable to attend their own party conference because they feared physical violence from the men in dresses.
There's no middle way here. Women's rights must be preserved at any cost. They are hard won and the men in dresses need to deal with it by taking off the dress or committing to the sex change process. Self ID gender recognition is wrong and it's another expression of white male privilege trampling over hard won women's rights, reversing decades of progress.
One weird thing about this particular Woke debate is that it is homegrown.
The Trans-Terf wars are not some madness we imported from America. It first got really heated in Britain, and remains uniquely violent, bizarre and surreal here, though we are now successfully exporting it to other English-speaking countries, and beyond
I find it all quite sad, and tend to agree with you, tho I don't often express my opinion precisely because it is so bleakly polarising and horribly convoluted
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
Thanks for your unhelpful, immature, and inflammatory input on the debate. You’re just as bad as Twitter trans-activists.
That's what this is. Men, mostly white, have decided they want access to female only spaces and are trampling over women's rights to get there. As we know white men don't understand the concept of not getting their way in life so here we are with this ridiculous situation of suggesting lesbians are bigots for not wanting suck cocks or thinking that blokes who put on a dress and tell everyone else they're actually women can waltz into female only spaces.
Sex and gender are different. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the British left unfit for government.
I stand by my original comment. You can argue “sex and gender are different” without resorting to anti-trans slurs
Nope, I'm fed up of it. I'm fed up of women being harassed by the men in dresses because they want to preserve female only spaces. I'm fed up of the death threats to women who speak out, disgusted that an elected representative was unable to attend their own party conference because they feared physical violence from the men in dresses.
There's no middle way here. Women's rights must be preserved at any cost. They are hard won and the men in dresses need to deal with it by taking off the dress or committing to the sex change process. Self ID gender recognition is wrong and it's another expression of white male privilege trampling over hard won women's rights, reversing decades of progress.
I feel like you should meet some trans people and not form your entire position from Twitter
And yet we have a female MP who was threatened with violence if she attended the Labour conference. That is the movement. No one is disowning it either, in fact they're all over the place saying she deserved it and it's a good example of how they are succeeding in silencing dissent.
Except it isn’t the movement. Every day people, like my girlfriend, who aren’t on Twitter and have no idea who Rosie Duffield is, are not threatened by trans people using bathrooms or female pronouns.
Yes they might have nuanced views on prisons and sport and rape crisis centres, and that’s where the debate needs to be had, but describing transwomen as “men in dresses” purely because you disagree with the Twitterati is disrespectful, rude, and just plain wrong.
Just factually wrong. You don't hear the right wing opining on the subject one way or the other, except to say that even very slight chances of very serious harm should be guarded against. Which obviously they should. You going to abolish the firearms certificate for sporting rifles because when was the last person murdered in this country with a sporting rifle?
There are very small numbers of activists in progressive parties who argue about it with no resolution forthcoming or possible. Right wing pundits and politicians are happy to stoke those fires because it fits their narrative about how the woke left want to destroy British values.And when it isn't trans rights its the BBC. BLM. Statues. The flag. An endless culture war must be stoked because keeping the ill-informed angry is all they have got left as a reason to vote.
French gov't in a punitive mood: "France is seeking to scuttle the proposed EU-Australia free-trade agreement, asking fellow European nations to “reconsider” the deal in retaliation for the Morrison government cancelling the $90bn French sub contract"
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Cancel a major Free Trade deal just to salve wounded French pride? Why?!
Expect Germany to squash this.
The French are over-reacting and over-reaching
Spot on. The French would be ill advised to push it too far. Sometimes you have to admit you got beat, and move on.
Macron might now get some movement on an autonomous European military. Even if he could just get Spain, Italy and maybe Germany to commit, he would have the nucleus of a major military alliance.
But asking other European states to economically harm Australia, and their own trading interests, just because France has been humiliated? WTF? Also, quite a few EU states have seriously warm relations with Australia, like Ireland, Italy and Greece, who sent so many migrants Down Under. They will surely tell France to eff off
Ordinarily I'd agree, but Boris has made such a power grab that the EU might feel it necessary to fire a shot across his bows. I'm sure every country in Europe is now feeling a bit queasy about what an unfettered Boris would mean in the long run.
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
Thanks for your unhelpful, immature, and inflammatory input on the debate. You’re just as bad as Twitter trans-activists.
That's what this is. Men, mostly white, have decided they want access to female only spaces and are trampling over women's rights to get there. As we know white men don't understand the concept of not getting their way in life so here we are with this ridiculous situation of suggesting lesbians are bigots for not wanting suck cocks or thinking that blokes who put on a dress and tell everyone else they're actually women can waltz into female only spaces.
Sex and gender are different. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the British left unfit for government.
I stand by my original comment. You can argue “sex and gender are different” without resorting to anti-trans slurs
Nope, I'm fed up of it. I'm fed up of women being harassed by the men in dresses because they want to preserve female only spaces. I'm fed up of the death threats to women who speak out, disgusted that an elected representative was unable to attend their own party conference because they feared physical violence from the men in dresses.
There's no middle way here. Women's rights must be preserved at any cost. They are hard won and the men in dresses need to deal with it by taking off the dress or committing to the sex change process. Self ID gender recognition is wrong and it's another expression of white male privilege trampling over hard won women's rights, reversing decades of progress.
I feel like you should meet some trans people and not form your entire position from Twitter
And yet we have a female MP who was threatened with violence if she attended the Labour conference. That is the movement. No one is disowning it either, in fact they're all over the place saying she deserved it and it's a good example of how they are succeeding in silencing dissent.
Errm, I've disowned it; I've said both sides are as bad as each other; feeding off hatred. And in the middle are trans people who just want to get on with their lives. It's odd that it's the left that seems so striven by this.
I don't know if you've read them - and I don't know if you care - but I've mentioned anecdotes in the past about friends of mine who wanted to, and have, transitioned.
Calling them 'men in dresses' is just brainless rubbish. Especially as one was a female-to-male...
I can't be the only person distraught that Farron isn't the LibDem leader right now.
We all remember how he got himself into knots over homosexuality, I would love to see him get into similar... issues... over trans rights.
I don't think he would. This was what he said in 2015. He would I think see the core societal issue as being about tolerance / acceptance and some safeguards, and would apply the same within his thinking about inside church communities. That's not such a potential doctrinal minefield for open evangelicals as the other, even if you consider the issue within churches (which is where views on homosexuality can become difficult to reconcile, as some churches seel to run themselves according to eg the New Testament).
Today is International Transgender Day of Remembrance. I have released the following statement: "Too many transgender lives have been lost to hate and prejudice around the world. Today, on Transgender Day of Remembrance, we reflect on that and remember those killed and focus on what steps we can take, both in the UK and internationally, to halt this tragic and unnecessary loss of life."
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
Thanks for your unhelpful, immature, and inflammatory input on the debate. You’re just as bad as Twitter trans-activists.
That's what this is. Men, mostly white, have decided they want access to female only spaces and are trampling over women's rights to get there. As we know white men don't understand the concept of not getting their way in life so here we are with this ridiculous situation of suggesting lesbians are bigots for not wanting suck cocks or thinking that blokes who put on a dress and tell everyone else they're actually women can waltz into female only spaces.
Sex and gender are different. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the British left unfit for government.
I stand by my original comment. You can argue “sex and gender are different” without resorting to anti-trans slurs
Nope, I'm fed up of it. I'm fed up of women being harassed by the men in dresses because they want to preserve female only spaces. I'm fed up of the death threats to women who speak out, disgusted that an elected representative was unable to attend their own party conference because they feared physical violence from the men in dresses.
There's no middle way here. Women's rights must be preserved at any cost. They are hard won and the men in dresses need to deal with it by taking off the dress or committing to the sex change process. Self ID gender recognition is wrong and it's another expression of white male privilege trampling over hard won women's rights, reversing decades of progress.
I feel like you should meet some trans people and not form your entire position from Twitter
God knows what branch of the law someone with your non-existent grasp of logic makes a living in. Do you genuinely not realise that "a small but non-zero number of xs are y" is not disproven by meeting, literally, an infinite number of xs who are non-y?
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
Thanks for your unhelpful, immature, and inflammatory input on the debate. You’re just as bad as Twitter trans-activists.
That's what this is. Men, mostly white, have decided they want access to female only spaces and are trampling over women's rights to get there. As we know white men don't understand the concept of not getting their way in life so here we are with this ridiculous situation of suggesting lesbians are bigots for not wanting suck cocks or thinking that blokes who put on a dress and tell everyone else they're actually women can waltz into female only spaces.
Sex and gender are different. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the British left unfit for government.
I stand by my original comment. You can argue “sex and gender are different” without resorting to anti-trans slurs
Nope, I'm fed up of it. I'm fed up of women being harassed by the men in dresses because they want to preserve female only spaces. I'm fed up of the death threats to women who speak out, disgusted that an elected representative was unable to attend their own party conference because they feared physical violence from the men in dresses.
There's no middle way here. Women's rights must be preserved at any cost. They are hard won and the men in dresses need to deal with it by taking off the dress or committing to the sex change process. Self ID gender recognition is wrong and it's another expression of white male privilege trampling over hard won women's rights, reversing decades of progress.
I feel like you should meet some trans people and not form your entire position from Twitter
And yet we have a female MP who was threatened with violence if she attended the Labour conference. That is the movement. No one is disowning it either, in fact they're all over the place saying she deserved it and it's a good example of how they are succeeding in silencing dissent.
Errm, I've disowned it; I've said both sides are as bad as each other; feeding off hatred. And in the middle are trans people who just want to get on with their lives. It's odd that it's the left that seems so striven by this.
I don't know if you've read them - and I don't know if you care - but I've mentioned anecdotes in the past about friends of mine who wanted to, and have, transitioned.
Calling them 'men in dresses' is just brainless rubbish. Especially as one was a female-to-male...
One of the great British computing pioneers was female-to-male trans - the great Sophie (nee Roger) Wilson.
It's great that a large number of men on PB don't feel even slightly constrained about expressing their very confirmed views on trans issues. Do it for the sistahs, bros.
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
Thanks for your unhelpful, immature, and inflammatory input on the debate. You’re just as bad as Twitter trans-activists.
That's what this is. Men, mostly white, have decided they want access to female only spaces and are trampling over women's rights to get there. As we know white men don't understand the concept of not getting their way in life so here we are with this ridiculous situation of suggesting lesbians are bigots for not wanting suck cocks or thinking that blokes who put on a dress and tell everyone else they're actually women can waltz into female only spaces.
Sex and gender are different. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the British left unfit for government.
I stand by my original comment. You can argue “sex and gender are different” without resorting to anti-trans slurs
Nope, I'm fed up of it. I'm fed up of women being harassed by the men in dresses because they want to preserve female only spaces. I'm fed up of the death threats to women who speak out, disgusted that an elected representative was unable to attend their own party conference because they feared physical violence from the men in dresses.
There's no middle way here. Women's rights must be preserved at any cost. They are hard won and the men in dresses need to deal with it by taking off the dress or committing to the sex change process. Self ID gender recognition is wrong and it's another expression of white male privilege trampling over hard won women's rights, reversing decades of progress.
One weird thing about this particular Woke debate is that it is homegrown.
The Trans-Terf wars are not some madness we imported from America. It first got really heated in Britain, and remains uniquely violent, bizarre and surreal here, though we are now successfully exporting it to other English-speaking countries, and beyond
I find it all quite sad, and tend to agree with you, tho I don't often express my opinion precisely because it is so bleakly polarising and horribly convoluted
Is it actually trans-terf, or terf-anti-terf? Hoe many trans people are actually involved in these arguments, and how much of the heat and poison is spread by other people arguing about the rights of a group of which they're not members?
IMV it's terf - anti-terf, but I might well be wrong.
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
Thanks for your unhelpful, immature, and inflammatory input on the debate. You’re just as bad as Twitter trans-activists.
That's what this is. Men, mostly white, have decided they want access to female only spaces and are trampling over women's rights to get there. As we know white men don't understand the concept of not getting their way in life so here we are with this ridiculous situation of suggesting lesbians are bigots for not wanting suck cocks or thinking that blokes who put on a dress and tell everyone else they're actually women can waltz into female only spaces.
Sex and gender are different. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the British left unfit for government.
I stand by my original comment. You can argue “sex and gender are different” without resorting to anti-trans slurs
Nope, I'm fed up of it. I'm fed up of women being harassed by the men in dresses because they want to preserve female only spaces. I'm fed up of the death threats to women who speak out, disgusted that an elected representative was unable to attend their own party conference because they feared physical violence from the men in dresses.
There's no middle way here. Women's rights must be preserved at any cost. They are hard won and the men in dresses need to deal with it by taking off the dress or committing to the sex change process. Self ID gender recognition is wrong and it's another expression of white male privilege trampling over hard won women's rights, reversing decades of progress.
One weird thing about this particular Woke debate is that it is homegrown.
The Trans-Terf was are not some madness we imported from America. It first got really heated in Britain, and remains uniquely violent, bizarre and surreal here, though we are now successfully exporting it to other English-speaking countries, and beyond
I find it all quite sad, and tend to agree with you, tho I don't often express my opinion precisely because it is so bleakly polarising and horribly convoluted
I was thinking about this, and I think part of the reason is that - in the US - there are far fewer big unisex toilet facilities.
If you go to a restroombathroom in a restaurant or bar here, it will be a single person affair. You'll go in and lock the door, and there'll probably be both a urinal and a sit down toilet in there.
The British thing of taking a leak next to someone happens only at airports and sports stadiums.
And public swimming pools are far less common too. People are massively more likely to have their own pools - even the ones who don't live in Los Angeles.
Just factually wrong. You don't hear the right wing opining on the subject one way or the other, except to say that even very slight chances of very serious harm should be guarded against. Which obviously they should. You going to abolish the firearms certificate for sporting rifles because when was the last person murdered in this country with a sporting rifle?
There are very small numbers of activists in progressive parties who argue about it with no resolution forthcoming or possible. Right wing pundits and politicians are happy to stoke those fires because it fits their narrative about how the woke left want to destroy British values.And when it isn't trans rights its the BBC. BLM. Statues. The flag. An endless culture war must be stoked because keeping the ill-informed angry is all they have got left as a reason to vote.
I think most of us who lean right-of-centre, are simply standing back and enjoying the view, as two sets of left-wing activists beat seven bells out of each other, demonstrating their unelectibility to the wider public.
I can't be the only person distraught that Farron isn't the LibDem leader right now.
We all remember how he got himself into knots over homosexuality, I would love to see him get into similar... issues... over trans rights.
Davey could simply have said that, while he has his own religious beliefs, the Liberal Democrat Party takes a view that people should be free to be who they want to be, and that these moral issues are always free votes in Parliament.
It wouldn’t have been difficult, if he’d thought through the potential line of questioning beforehand.
It wouldn't have prevented further focused questioning on the subject, but that instead he seems to have decided to fib about what he actually believed did not seem a better option.
French gov't in a punitive mood: "France is seeking to scuttle the proposed EU-Australia free-trade agreement, asking fellow European nations to “reconsider” the deal in retaliation for the Morrison government cancelling the $90bn French sub contract"
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Cancel a major Free Trade deal just to salve wounded French pride? Why?!
Expect Germany to squash this.
The French are over-reacting and over-reaching
Spot on. The French would be ill advised to push it too far. Sometimes you have to admit you got beat, and move on.
Macron might now get some movement on an autonomous European military. Even if he could just get Spain, Italy and maybe Germany to commit, he would have the nucleus of a major military alliance.
But asking other European states to economically harm Australia, and their own trading interests, just because France has been humiliated? WTF? Also, quite a few EU states have seriously warm relations with Australia, like Ireland, Italy and Greece, who sent so many migrants Down Under. They will surely tell France to eff off
Ordinarily I'd agree, but Boris has made such a power grab that the EU might feel it necessary to fire a shot across his bows. I'm sure every country in Europe is now feeling a bit queasy about what an unfettered Boris would mean in the long run.
I'd be genuinely amazed if the EU agrees to scupper a massive, complex FTA just because one EU member, however notable, is having a mental breakdown
In fact I don't believe it will even get that far. What would France gain from this even if they could impose their will? Some small revenge on Australia, just for the sake of it, which makes France look petulant and villainous and makes everyone a bit poorer
Surely calmer heads will prevail and Berlin and the EUCO will have a quiet word with M Macron
It's great that a large number of men on PB don't feel even slightly constrained about expressing their very confirmed views on trans issues. Do it for the sistahs, bros.
It's great that a large number of men on PB don't feel even slightly constrained about expressing their very confirmed views on trans issues. Do it for the sistahs, bros.
I know you think that is funny, and you often are very funny, but I don't quite get your point unless it is that men should feel constrained about expressing their views on such an issue and I don't see why that should be the case. Ideally people will take on board facts and opinions particularly from those more directly affected than themselves, but it doesn't follow that people should not express their own views on any subject whatsoever.
Why shouldn't anyone put forth their very confirmed views on any issue? If they end up looking foolish still better than not setting out their position and being contrained about it.
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
Thanks for your unhelpful, immature, and inflammatory input on the debate. You’re just as bad as Twitter trans-activists.
That's what this is. Men, mostly white, have decided they want access to female only spaces and are trampling over women's rights to get there. As we know white men don't understand the concept of not getting their way in life so here we are with this ridiculous situation of suggesting lesbians are bigots for not wanting suck cocks or thinking that blokes who put on a dress and tell everyone else they're actually women can waltz into female only spaces.
Sex and gender are different. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the British left unfit for government.
I stand by my original comment. You can argue “sex and gender are different” without resorting to anti-trans slurs
Nope, I'm fed up of it. I'm fed up of women being harassed by the men in dresses because they want to preserve female only spaces. I'm fed up of the death threats to women who speak out, disgusted that an elected representative was unable to attend their own party conference because they feared physical violence from the men in dresses.
There's no middle way here. Women's rights must be preserved at any cost. They are hard won and the men in dresses need to deal with it by taking off the dress or committing to the sex change process. Self ID gender recognition is wrong and it's another expression of white male privilege trampling over hard won women's rights, reversing decades of progress.
I feel like you should meet some trans people and not form your entire position from Twitter
And yet we have a female MP who was threatened with violence if she attended the Labour conference. That is the movement. No one is disowning it either, in fact they're all over the place saying she deserved it and it's a good example of how they are succeeding in silencing dissent.
Errm, I've disowned it; I've said both sides are as bad as each other; feeding off hatred. And in the middle are trans people who just want to get on with their lives. It's odd that it's the left that seems so striven by this.
I don't know if you've read them - and I don't know if you care - but I've mentioned anecdotes in the past about friends of mine who wanted to, and have, transitioned.
Calling them 'men in dresses' is just brainless rubbish. Especially as one was a female-to-male...
One of the great British computing pioneers was female-to-male trans - the great Sophie (nee Roger) Wilson.
Yep, I was at Acorn with her. Sadly I didn't particularly work with her directly, though, perhaps because she didn't suffer fools...
Two other people were trans at Acorn whilst I was there, including one who became a great friend of ours.
As an aside, Sophie was also involved with (I think) Eidos, who did the first Tomb Raider game. A newspaper had a story along the lines of 'Lara Croft based on trans man', or somesuch, which was not just wrong, but incredibly nasty.
French gov't in a punitive mood: "France is seeking to scuttle the proposed EU-Australia free-trade agreement, asking fellow European nations to “reconsider” the deal in retaliation for the Morrison government cancelling the $90bn French sub contract"
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Cancel a major Free Trade deal just to salve wounded French pride? Why?!
Expect Germany to squash this.
The French are over-reacting and over-reaching
Spot on. The French would be ill advised to push it too far. Sometimes you have to admit you got beat, and move on.
Macron might now get some movement on an autonomous European military. Even if he could just get Spain, Italy and maybe Germany to commit, he would have the nucleus of a major military alliance.
But asking other European states to economically harm Australia, and their own trading interests, just because France has been humiliated? WTF? Also, quite a few EU states have seriously warm relations with Australia, like Ireland, Italy and Greece, who sent so many migrants Down Under. They will surely tell France to eff off
Ordinarily I'd agree, but Boris has made such a power grab that the EU might feel it necessary to fire a shot across his bows. I'm sure every country in Europe is now feeling a bit queasy about what an unfettered Boris would mean in the long run.
I'd be genuinely amazed if the EU agrees to scupper a massive, complex FTA just because one EU member, however notable, is having a mental breakdown
In fact I don't believe it will even get that far. What would France gain from this even if they could impose their will? Some small revenge on Australia, just for the sake of it, which makes France look petulant and villainous and makes everyone a bit poorer
Surely calmer heads will prevail and Berlin and the EUCO will have a quiet word with M Macron
Except that France is about to take over the rotating EU Presidency, and will be setting the agenda for the next summit.
Just factually wrong. You don't hear the right wing opining on the subject one way or the other, except to say that even very slight chances of very serious harm should be guarded against. Which obviously they should. You going to abolish the firearms certificate for sporting rifles because when was the last person murdered in this country with a sporting rifle?
There are very small numbers of activists in progressive parties who argue about it with no resolution forthcoming or possible. Right wing pundits and politicians are happy to stoke those fires because it fits their narrative about how the woke left want to destroy British values.And when it isn't trans rights its the BBC. BLM. Statues. The flag. An endless culture war must be stoked because keeping the ill-informed angry is all they have got left as a reason to vote.
Culture wars can bite you in the blue wall. It is not all one-way traffic.
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 4h This is genuinely extraordinary. The Orwellian double-think needed to make such statements is terrifying.
A woman is an adult human female. That's a fact. Trans women are biological men who choose to live as women, as they should be free to do. But they're not women. #IAmAWoman
===
She's talking about Ed Davey's statement that a trans woman is a woman.
Isn't this debate easily solved by the fact that sex and gender are different things, which usually align but not 100%. Sex describes someone's genitalia and gender describes someone's brain chemistry and identity.
Yes - I've been saying similar for months. Gender is what you identify as and sex is what sex you are. It must be possible for sex and gender to differ or what would be the point of having two words for the same thing. Hartley-Brewer is spot on.
It's facile though imo.
- "You are a man who identifies as a woman." - "No, I'm a woman who was born a boy."
I don't see that this get us very far.
The issue, at heart and in practice, is about what you are legally, a man or a woman, the process/controls around changing from one to the other, and to what extent (if any) female only spaces and activities should be able to exclude transwomen.
Let me simplify
“Women only spaces should not be open to trans women with penises”
How about those who are transitioning, and have to live as a woman for two years before the op?
They should live as their gender but not be allowed into female-only spaces until after they've transitioned.
If the rules need fixing to satisfy the panel with that easier, then that should be done rather than having safeguarding issues for women.
So, dressed as a woman, they're meant to go into male bogs and potentially get beaten up?
How about safeguarding issues for them?
Edit: and practically, who checks? If a trans was to dress as a woman, go into a female toilet cubicle, and cause no hassle, what harm have they done? Are we going to have police checking their certificate of womanhood at the door?
For them if they don't want to use male toilets until they've transitioned to being women then using disabled or other neutral toilets in the interim seems logical.
But that doesn't seem a reason to abolish female-only spaces.
Who is abolishing female only spaces?
Even in the extremely unlikely event of a penis-wielding pervert saying "I am trans" to threaten women in changing rooms, they would get chucked out. Standards of behaviour exist whether the woman is cis or trans that can be policed.
The threat is the trans man or woman using their birth gender facilities and getting assaulted. That isn't extremely unlikely.
I really do not follow your reasoning there at all
I do not think any woman would be reassured by your assertion they would be thrown out (by whom) and extremely unlikely means it is possible
Ok let me put it simply. The threat to women is from predatory men. There are far more predatory men than there are trans women. Whats more if you are a predatory man you don't need to try and pass yourself off as trans to access a female changing room.
You just find a lone / vulnerable woman and drag them off somewhere quiet to rape them. That isn't going to be in the female changing facility of the gym. Nor are men perving over women in the unisex changing at the big leisure pool.
There is a problem in society - men. The small minority that consider women to be property, sport or bad for rejecting them. The threat is from them and it is far far bigger. But instead of trying to shame testosterone-fuelled tossers from their behaviour, we get dragged into a ludicrous debate about a practically non-issue. So that the right wing can win votes.
I am trying but I just do not follow you and your last sentence has lost me
You seem to running away from a real issue Ed Davey was unable to address this morning and hope it will go away
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 4h This is genuinely extraordinary. The Orwellian double-think needed to make such statements is terrifying.
A woman is an adult human female. That's a fact. Trans women are biological men who choose to live as women, as they should be free to do. But they're not women. #IAmAWoman
===
She's talking about Ed Davey's statement that a trans woman is a woman.
Isn't this debate easily solved by the fact that sex and gender are different things, which usually align but not 100%. Sex describes someone's genitalia and gender describes someone's brain chemistry and identity.
Yes - I've been saying similar for months. Gender is what you identify as and sex is what sex you are. It must be possible for sex and gender to differ or what would be the point of having two words for the same thing. Hartley-Brewer is spot on.
It's facile though imo.
- "You are a man who identifies as a woman." - "No, I'm a woman who was born a boy."
I don't see that this get us very far.
The issue, at heart and in practice, is about what you are legally, a man or a woman, the process/controls around changing from one to the other, and to what extent (if any) female only spaces and activities should be able to exclude transwomen.
Let me simplify
“Women only spaces should not be open to trans women with penises”
How about those who are transitioning, and have to live as a woman for two years before the op?
They should live as their gender but not be allowed into female-only spaces until after they've transitioned.
If the rules need fixing to satisfy the panel with that easier, then that should be done rather than having safeguarding issues for women.
So, dressed as a woman, they're meant to go into male bogs and potentially get beaten up?
How about safeguarding issues for them?
Edit: and practically, who checks? If a trans was to dress as a woman, go into a female toilet cubicle, and cause no hassle, what harm have they done? Are we going to have police checking their certificate of womanhood at the door?
For them if they don't want to use male toilets until they've transitioned to being women then using disabled or other neutral toilets in the interim seems logical.
But that doesn't seem a reason to abolish female-only spaces.
Who is abolishing female only spaces?
Even in the extremely unlikely event of a penis-wielding pervert saying "I am trans" to threaten women in changing rooms, they would get chucked out. Standards of behaviour exist whether the woman is cis or trans that can be policed.
The threat is the trans man or woman using their birth gender facilities and getting assaulted. That isn't extremely unlikely.
Anyone saying pre-transition men with penises can go into women's-only spaces is abolishing female only spaces.
The threat of women getting raped and assaulted is every bit as real as the threat of pre-transition males being beaten up by using their own gender facilities until they transition.
French gov't in a punitive mood: "France is seeking to scuttle the proposed EU-Australia free-trade agreement, asking fellow European nations to “reconsider” the deal in retaliation for the Morrison government cancelling the $90bn French sub contract"
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Cancel a major Free Trade deal just to salve wounded French pride? Why?!
Expect Germany to squash this.
The French are over-reacting and over-reaching
Spot on. The French would be ill advised to push it too far. Sometimes you have to admit you got beat, and move on.
Macron might now get some movement on an autonomous European military. Even if he could just get Spain, Italy and maybe Germany to commit, he would have the nucleus of a major military alliance.
But asking other European states to economically harm Australia, and their own trading interests, just because France has been humiliated? WTF? Also, quite a few EU states have seriously warm relations with Australia, like Ireland, Italy and Greece, who sent so many migrants Down Under. They will surely tell France to eff off
Ordinarily I'd agree, but Boris has made such a power grab that the EU might feel it necessary to fire a shot across his bows. I'm sure every country in Europe is now feeling a bit queasy about what an unfettered Boris would mean in the long run.
Well if they did, it’s hardly going to undermine the Brexit argument that Britain is better placed to secure free trade agreements with the wider world and growth markets of the Indian-Pacific when freed from the shackles of the EU is it?
Just factually wrong. You don't hear the right wing opining on the subject one way or the other, except to say that even very slight chances of very serious harm should be guarded against. Which obviously they should. You going to abolish the firearms certificate for sporting rifles because when was the last person murdered in this country with a sporting rifle?
There are very small numbers of activists in progressive parties who argue about it with no resolution forthcoming or possible. Right wing pundits and politicians are happy to stoke those fires because it fits their narrative about how the woke left want to destroy British values.And when it isn't trans rights its the BBC. BLM. Statues. The flag. An endless culture war must be stoked because keeping the ill-informed angry is all they have got left as a reason to vote.
I think most of us who lean right-of-centre, are simply standing back and enjoying the view, as two sets of left-wing activists beat seven bells out of each other, demonstrating their unelectibility to the wider public.
This is the story
Party leader quizzed over the action taken against mother-of-two Natalie Bird Mum-of-two, 40, barred from running in Wakefield after complaint about clothes
Sir Ed said 'Woman: Adult, Human, Female' slogan on her T-Shirt was a 'problem'
Ed Davey insisted the Liberal Democrats believed in free speech today as he was grilled over the party's decision to bar a member from running for Parliament over her views on transgender women.
Ahead of his party conference speech this afternoon the party leader was quizzed over the action taken against mother-of-two Natalie Bird earlier this year.
The 40-year-old was blocked from standing in Wakefield, Yorkshire, and banned from the party office for 10 years after a complaint about her wearing a T-shirt reading, 'Woman: Adult, Human, Female'.
She is now taking legal action under the Equalities Act against the Lib Dems, claiming she was 'hounded' by trans activists who accused her of 'disseminating transphobic material over a prolonged time'.
Grilled on the case on the BBC's Andrew Marr programme today he was asked what was wrong about the phrase 'woman, adult, human female'.
'The phrase actually doesn't really encapsulate the debate, to be honest,' he said.
'That's what's the problem with it. The issue that we have been really is that a trans woman is a woman and a trans man is a man. And that is the issue that we're fighting on. We believe trans rights are human rights.'
He later added: 'We absolutely believe in free speech, but we also believe that we need to protect human rights and we need to believe in equality.'
I can't be the only person distraught that Farron isn't the LibDem leader right now.
We all remember how he got himself into knots over homosexuality, I would love to see him get into similar... issues... over trans rights.
I don't think he would. This was what he said in 2015. He would I think see the core societal issue as being about tolerance / acceptance and some safeguards, and would apply the same within his thinking about inside church communities. That's not such a potential doctrinal minefield for open evangelicals as the other, even if you consider the issue within churches (which is where views on homosexuality can become difficult to reconcile, as some churches seel to run themselves according to eg the New Testament).
Today is International Transgender Day of Remembrance. I have released the following statement: "Too many transgender lives have been lost to hate and prejudice around the world. Today, on Transgender Day of Remembrance, we reflect on that and remember those killed and focus on what steps we can take, both in the UK and internationally, to halt this tragic and unnecessary loss of life."
It's amusing to me that he conflates sex and gender in the last sentence. There's no gender marker on passports, just a sex marker. There is no third sex, so introducing an 'X' option is nonsensical.
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
Thanks for your unhelpful, immature, and inflammatory input on the debate. You’re just as bad as Twitter trans-activists.
That's what this is. Men, mostly white, have decided they want access to female only spaces and are trampling over women's rights to get there. As we know white men don't understand the concept of not getting their way in life so here we are with this ridiculous situation of suggesting lesbians are bigots for not wanting suck cocks or thinking that blokes who put on a dress and tell everyone else they're actually women can waltz into female only spaces.
Sex and gender are different. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the British left unfit for government.
I stand by my original comment. You can argue “sex and gender are different” without resorting to anti-trans slurs
Nope, I'm fed up of it. I'm fed up of women being harassed by the men in dresses because they want to preserve female only spaces. I'm fed up of the death threats to women who speak out, disgusted that an elected representative was unable to attend their own party conference because they feared physical violence from the men in dresses.
There's no middle way here. Women's rights must be preserved at any cost. They are hard won and the men in dresses need to deal with it by taking off the dress or committing to the sex change process. Self ID gender recognition is wrong and it's another expression of white male privilege trampling over hard won women's rights, reversing decades of progress.
I feel like you should meet some trans people and not form your entire position from Twitter
And yet we have a female MP who was threatened with violence if she attended the Labour conference. That is the movement. No one is disowning it either, in fact they're all over the place saying she deserved it and it's a good example of how they are succeeding in silencing dissent.
Errm, I've disowned it; I've said both sides are as bad as each other; feeding off hatred. And in the middle are trans people who just want to get on with their lives. It's odd that it's the left that seems so striven by this.
I don't know if you've read them - and I don't know if you care - but I've mentioned anecdotes in the past about friends of mine who wanted to, and have, transitioned.
Calling them 'men in dresses' is just brainless rubbish. Especially as one was a female-to-male...
French gov't in a punitive mood: "France is seeking to scuttle the proposed EU-Australia free-trade agreement, asking fellow European nations to “reconsider” the deal in retaliation for the Morrison government cancelling the $90bn French sub contract"
I think it's unlikely to happen. However, Boris's admirers have been keen to assert that AUUKUS proves Europe now has no global influence whatsoever and it is Boris to whom the world looks for leadership. So the EU might decide to stuff AUS just to make the counter-argument. We now live in strange and unpredictable times.
Interesting - try and hobble a strong competitor in the wine market?
UK wine imports from Oz are up a third Q1 2021 over Q1 2020.
So, depending on value added etc, there might be more via here as it is imported here in bulk mainly. Maybe.
If I remember correctly, Australian wine exports to the UK are large in quantity and small in price. This is why the Chinese inport tarriffs hurt them so much. They bought the fancy stuff.
Speaking of which, has anyone had Penfolds Grange? I have not had the pleasure…
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
Thanks for your unhelpful, immature, and inflammatory input on the debate. You’re just as bad as Twitter trans-activists.
That's what this is. Men, mostly white, have decided they want access to female only spaces and are trampling over women's rights to get there. As we know white men don't understand the concept of not getting their way in life so here we are with this ridiculous situation of suggesting lesbians are bigots for not wanting suck cocks or thinking that blokes who put on a dress and tell everyone else they're actually women can waltz into female only spaces.
Sex and gender are different. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the British left unfit for government.
I stand by my original comment. You can argue “sex and gender are different” without resorting to anti-trans slurs
Nope, I'm fed up of it. I'm fed up of women being harassed by the men in dresses because they want to preserve female only spaces. I'm fed up of the death threats to women who speak out, disgusted that an elected representative was unable to attend their own party conference because they feared physical violence from the men in dresses.
There's no middle way here. Women's rights must be preserved at any cost. They are hard won and the men in dresses need to deal with it by taking off the dress or committing to the sex change process. Self ID gender recognition is wrong and it's another expression of white male privilege trampling over hard won women's rights, reversing decades of progress.
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 4h This is genuinely extraordinary. The Orwellian double-think needed to make such statements is terrifying.
A woman is an adult human female. That's a fact. Trans women are biological men who choose to live as women, as they should be free to do. But they're not women. #IAmAWoman
===
She's talking about Ed Davey's statement that a trans woman is a woman.
Isn't this debate easily solved by the fact that sex and gender are different things, which usually align but not 100%. Sex describes someone's genitalia and gender describes someone's brain chemistry and identity.
Yes - I've been saying similar for months. Gender is what you identify as and sex is what sex you are. It must be possible for sex and gender to differ or what would be the point of having two words for the same thing. Hartley-Brewer is spot on.
It's facile though imo.
- "You are a man who identifies as a woman." - "No, I'm a woman who was born a boy."
I don't see that this get us very far.
The issue, at heart and in practice, is about what you are legally, a man or a woman, the process/controls around changing from one to the other, and to what extent (if any) female only spaces and activities should be able to exclude transwomen.
Let me simplify
“Women only spaces should not be open to trans women with penises”
How about those who are transitioning, and have to live as a woman for two years before the op?
They should live as their gender but not be allowed into female-only spaces until after they've transitioned.
If the rules need fixing to satisfy the panel with that easier, then that should be done rather than having safeguarding issues for women.
So, dressed as a woman, they're meant to go into male bogs and potentially get beaten up?
How about safeguarding issues for them?
Edit: and practically, who checks? If a trans was to dress as a woman, go into a female toilet cubicle, and cause no hassle, what harm have they done? Are we going to have police checking their certificate of womanhood at the door?
For them if they don't want to use male toilets until they've transitioned to being women then using disabled or other neutral toilets in the interim seems logical.
But that doesn't seem a reason to abolish female-only spaces.
Who is abolishing female only spaces?
Even in the extremely unlikely event of a penis-wielding pervert saying "I am trans" to threaten women in changing rooms, they would get chucked out. Standards of behaviour exist whether the woman is cis or trans that can be policed.
The threat is the trans man or woman using their birth gender facilities and getting assaulted. That isn't extremely unlikely.
I really do not follow your reasoning there at all
I do not think any woman would be reassured by your assertion they would be thrown out (by whom) and extremely unlikely means it is possible
Ok let me put it simply. The threat to women is from predatory men. There are far more predatory men than there are trans women. Whats more if you are a predatory man you don't need to try and pass yourself off as trans to access a female changing room.
You just find a lone / vulnerable woman and drag them off somewhere quiet to rape them. That isn't going to be in the female changing facility of the gym. Nor are men perving over women in the unisex changing at the big leisure pool.
There is a problem in society - men. The small minority that consider women to be property, sport or bad for rejecting them. The threat is from them and it is far far bigger. But instead of trying to shame testosterone-fuelled tossers from their behaviour, we get dragged into a ludicrous debate about a practically non-issue. So that the right wing can win votes.
I am trying but I just do not follow you and your last sentence has lost me
You seem to running away from a real issue Ed Davey was unable to address this morning and hope it will go away
French gov't in a punitive mood: "France is seeking to scuttle the proposed EU-Australia free-trade agreement, asking fellow European nations to “reconsider” the deal in retaliation for the Morrison government cancelling the $90bn French sub contract"
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Cancel a major Free Trade deal just to salve wounded French pride? Why?!
Expect Germany to squash this.
The French are over-reacting and over-reaching
Spot on. The French would be ill advised to push it too far. Sometimes you have to admit you got beat, and move on.
Macron might now get some movement on an autonomous European military. Even if he could just get Spain, Italy and maybe Germany to commit, he would have the nucleus of a major military alliance.
But asking other European states to economically harm Australia, and their own trading interests, just because France has been humiliated? WTF? Also, quite a few EU states have seriously warm relations with Australia, like Ireland, Italy and Greece, who sent so many migrants Down Under. They will surely tell France to eff off
Ordinarily I'd agree, but Boris has made such a power grab that the EU might feel it necessary to fire a shot across his bows. I'm sure every country in Europe is now feeling a bit queasy about what an unfettered Boris would mean in the long run.
I'd be genuinely amazed if the EU agrees to scupper a massive, complex FTA just because one EU member, however notable, is having a mental breakdown
In fact I don't believe it will even get that far. What would France gain from this even if they could impose their will? Some small revenge on Australia, just for the sake of it, which makes France look petulant and villainous and makes everyone a bit poorer
Surely calmer heads will prevail and Berlin and the EUCO will have a quiet word with M Macron
Except that France is about to take over the rotating EU Presidency, and will be setting the agenda for the next summit.
The Presidency doesn't allow you to dictate anything. At all. It allows you to guide agendas and steer debates
The EU is feeling slightly irrelevant and maybe even purposeless, right now, after Brexit, and Aukus and other setbacks. But what the EU is really good at is Trade Deals. This is is its USP. The Brussels Effect. Real global soft power.
Cancelling a nearly-ready FTA with a big partner like Oz just to smooth French pique? - no, I can't see it. Why? Cui bono? But these last years have been full of surprises, so who knows for sure
Anecdote: my cis female nurse girlfriend had the care of a m to f surgery switcher about 10 years ago. It literally had not been explained to them pre-surgery that as with ear piercings, you have to put a sleeper in your new orifice every night to stop it healing up again.
Conclusion: not sure, but try to be clear about what is involved in transitioning.
Just factually wrong. You don't hear the right wing opining on the subject one way or the other, except to say that even very slight chances of very serious harm should be guarded against. Which obviously they should. You going to abolish the firearms certificate for sporting rifles because when was the last person murdered in this country with a sporting rifle?
There are very small numbers of activists in progressive parties who argue about it with no resolution forthcoming or possible. Right wing pundits and politicians are happy to stoke those fires because it fits their narrative about how the woke left want to destroy British values.And when it isn't trans rights its the BBC. BLM. Statues. The flag. An endless culture war must be stoked because keeping the ill-informed angry is all they have got left as a reason to vote.
Culture wars can bite you in the blue wall. It is not all one-way traffic.
I'd advise them that less is more - the more ridiculous stuff falls on its own merits, but if you bang on about it yourself its harder to complain about others banging on about such issues, and rather obviously seems like hyper focusing on minute incidents.
French gov't in a punitive mood: "France is seeking to scuttle the proposed EU-Australia free-trade agreement, asking fellow European nations to “reconsider” the deal in retaliation for the Morrison government cancelling the $90bn French sub contract"
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Cancel a major Free Trade deal just to salve wounded French pride? Why?!
Expect Germany to squash this.
The French are over-reacting and over-reaching
Spot on. The French would be ill advised to push it too far. Sometimes you have to admit you got beat, and move on.
Macron might now get some movement on an autonomous European military. Even if he could just get Spain, Italy and maybe Germany to commit, he would have the nucleus of a major military alliance.
But asking other European states to economically harm Australia, and their own trading interests, just because France has been humiliated? WTF? Also, quite a few EU states have seriously warm relations with Australia, like Ireland, Italy and Greece, who sent so many migrants Down Under. They will surely tell France to eff off
Ordinarily I'd agree, but Boris has made such a power grab that the EU might feel it necessary to fire a shot across his bows. I'm sure every country in Europe is now feeling a bit queasy about what an unfettered Boris would mean in the long run.
I'd be genuinely amazed if the EU agrees to scupper a massive, complex FTA just because one EU member, however notable, is having a mental breakdown
In fact I don't believe it will even get that far. What would France gain from this even if they could impose their will? Some small revenge on Australia, just for the sake of it, which makes France look petulant and villainous and makes everyone a bit poorer
Surely calmer heads will prevail and Berlin and the EUCO will have a quiet word with M Macron
It may not take the form of Frexit, but I think France is heading for an even more painful national debate about its role in the world than the one we had from 2016-2019.
Eric Zemmour's campaign has so far been the biggest wildcard in the presidential election and his support is growing. His assessment of the Brexit negotiations was that it was a total victory for the UK on the substantive issues, and France's current humiliation over Aukus can only strengthen his narrative.
I wonder what Jo Grimond would have thought of this debate. I remember him fondly and in many ways he still seems a modern recent figure - though I suspect that most people today know little or nothing about him.
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 4h This is genuinely extraordinary. The Orwellian double-think needed to make such statements is terrifying.
A woman is an adult human female. That's a fact. Trans women are biological men who choose to live as women, as they should be free to do. But they're not women. #IAmAWoman
===
She's talking about Ed Davey's statement that a trans woman is a woman.
Isn't this debate easily solved by the fact that sex and gender are different things, which usually align but not 100%. Sex describes someone's genitalia and gender describes someone's brain chemistry and identity.
Yes - I've been saying similar for months. Gender is what you identify as and sex is what sex you are. It must be possible for sex and gender to differ or what would be the point of having two words for the same thing. Hartley-Brewer is spot on.
It's facile though imo.
- "You are a man who identifies as a woman." - "No, I'm a woman who was born a boy."
I don't see that this get us very far.
The issue, at heart and in practice, is about what you are legally, a man or a woman, the process/controls around changing from one to the other, and to what extent (if any) female only spaces and activities should be able to exclude transwomen.
Let me simplify
“Women only spaces should not be open to trans women with penises”
How about those who are transitioning, and have to live as a woman for two years before the op?
They should live as their gender but not be allowed into female-only spaces until after they've transitioned.
If the rules need fixing to satisfy the panel with that easier, then that should be done rather than having safeguarding issues for women.
So, dressed as a woman, they're meant to go into male bogs and potentially get beaten up?
How about safeguarding issues for them?
Edit: and practically, who checks? If a trans was to dress as a woman, go into a female toilet cubicle, and cause no hassle, what harm have they done? Are we going to have police checking their certificate of womanhood at the door?
For them if they don't want to use male toilets until they've transitioned to being women then using disabled or other neutral toilets in the interim seems logical.
But that doesn't seem a reason to abolish female-only spaces.
Who is abolishing female only spaces?
Even in the extremely unlikely event of a penis-wielding pervert saying "I am trans" to threaten women in changing rooms, they would get chucked out. Standards of behaviour exist whether the woman is cis or trans that can be policed.
The threat is the trans man or woman using their birth gender facilities and getting assaulted. That isn't extremely unlikely.
Anyone saying pre-transition men with penises can go into women's-only spaces is abolishing female only spaces.
The threat of women getting raped and assaulted is every bit as real as the threat of pre-transition males being beaten up by using their own gender facilities until they transition.
So lets go after the threat to women - rapey men. That small minority of men who define their manhood by owning demeaning and threatening women. If they are out to assault and rape a woman they aren't going to be worried by the sign on the door and their permission to be there.
I wonder what Jo Grimond would have thought of this debate. I remember him fondly and in many ways he still seems a modern recent figure - though I suspect that most people today know little or nothing about him.
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 4h This is genuinely extraordinary. The Orwellian double-think needed to make such statements is terrifying.
A woman is an adult human female. That's a fact. Trans women are biological men who choose to live as women, as they should be free to do. But they're not women. #IAmAWoman
===
She's talking about Ed Davey's statement that a trans woman is a woman.
Isn't this debate easily solved by the fact that sex and gender are different things, which usually align but not 100%. Sex describes someone's genitalia and gender describes someone's brain chemistry and identity.
Yes - I've been saying similar for months. Gender is what you identify as and sex is what sex you are. It must be possible for sex and gender to differ or what would be the point of having two words for the same thing. Hartley-Brewer is spot on.
It's facile though imo.
- "You are a man who identifies as a woman." - "No, I'm a woman who was born a boy."
I don't see that this get us very far.
The issue, at heart and in practice, is about what you are legally, a man or a woman, the process/controls around changing from one to the other, and to what extent (if any) female only spaces and activities should be able to exclude transwomen.
Let me simplify
“Women only spaces should not be open to trans women with penises”
How about those who are transitioning, and have to live as a woman for two years before the op?
They should live as their gender but not be allowed into female-only spaces until after they've transitioned.
If the rules need fixing to satisfy the panel with that easier, then that should be done rather than having safeguarding issues for women.
So, dressed as a woman, they're meant to go into male bogs and potentially get beaten up?
How about safeguarding issues for them?
Edit: and practically, who checks? If a trans was to dress as a woman, go into a female toilet cubicle, and cause no hassle, what harm have they done? Are we going to have police checking their certificate of womanhood at the door?
For them if they don't want to use male toilets until they've transitioned to being women then using disabled or other neutral toilets in the interim seems logical.
But that doesn't seem a reason to abolish female-only spaces.
Who is abolishing female only spaces?
Even in the extremely unlikely event of a penis-wielding pervert saying "I am trans" to threaten women in changing rooms, they would get chucked out. Standards of behaviour exist whether the woman is cis or trans that can be policed.
The threat is the trans man or woman using their birth gender facilities and getting assaulted. That isn't extremely unlikely.
I really do not follow your reasoning there at all
I do not think any woman would be reassured by your assertion they would be thrown out (by whom) and extremely unlikely means it is possible
Ok let me put it simply. The threat to women is from predatory men. There are far more predatory men than there are trans women. Whats more if you are a predatory man you don't need to try and pass yourself off as trans to access a female changing room.
You just find a lone / vulnerable woman and drag them off somewhere quiet to rape them. That isn't going to be in the female changing facility of the gym. Nor are men perving over women in the unisex changing at the big leisure pool.
There is a problem in society - men. The small minority that consider women to be property, sport or bad for rejecting them. The threat is from them and it is far far bigger. But instead of trying to shame testosterone-fuelled tossers from their behaviour, we get dragged into a ludicrous debate about a practically non-issue. So that the right wing can win votes.
I am trying but I just do not follow you and your last sentence has lost me
You seem to running away from a real issue Ed Davey was unable to address this morning and hope it will go away
Are you a bit thick, Big G?
What a pleasant question for a Sunday evening
I have posted the context just now
I know. You're just pretending. You follow perfectly. A shrewd operator you are.
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 4h This is genuinely extraordinary. The Orwellian double-think needed to make such statements is terrifying.
A woman is an adult human female. That's a fact. Trans women are biological men who choose to live as women, as they should be free to do. But they're not women. #IAmAWoman
===
She's talking about Ed Davey's statement that a trans woman is a woman.
Isn't this debate easily solved by the fact that sex and gender are different things, which usually align but not 100%. Sex describes someone's genitalia and gender describes someone's brain chemistry and identity.
Yes - I've been saying similar for months. Gender is what you identify as and sex is what sex you are. It must be possible for sex and gender to differ or what would be the point of having two words for the same thing. Hartley-Brewer is spot on.
It's facile though imo.
- "You are a man who identifies as a woman." - "No, I'm a woman who was born a boy."
I don't see that this get us very far.
The issue, at heart and in practice, is about what you are legally, a man or a woman, the process/controls around changing from one to the other, and to what extent (if any) female only spaces and activities should be able to exclude transwomen.
Let me simplify
“Women only spaces should not be open to trans women with penises”
How about those who are transitioning, and have to live as a woman for two years before the op?
They should live as their gender but not be allowed into female-only spaces until after they've transitioned.
If the rules need fixing to satisfy the panel with that easier, then that should be done rather than having safeguarding issues for women.
So, dressed as a woman, they're meant to go into male bogs and potentially get beaten up?
How about safeguarding issues for them?
Edit: and practically, who checks? If a trans was to dress as a woman, go into a female toilet cubicle, and cause no hassle, what harm have they done? Are we going to have police checking their certificate of womanhood at the door?
For them if they don't want to use male toilets until they've transitioned to being women then using disabled or other neutral toilets in the interim seems logical.
But that doesn't seem a reason to abolish female-only spaces.
Who is abolishing female only spaces?
Even in the extremely unlikely event of a penis-wielding pervert saying "I am trans" to threaten women in changing rooms, they would get chucked out. Standards of behaviour exist whether the woman is cis or trans that can be policed.
The threat is the trans man or woman using their birth gender facilities and getting assaulted. That isn't extremely unlikely.
Anyone saying pre-transition men with penises can go into women's-only spaces is abolishing female only spaces.
The threat of women getting raped and assaulted is every bit as real as the threat of pre-transition males being beaten up by using their own gender facilities until they transition.
So lets go after the threat to women - rapey men. That small minority of men who define their manhood by owning demeaning and threatening women. If they are out to assault and rape a woman they aren't going to be worried by the sign on the door and their permission to be there.
You do understand the whole concept of whataboutery? Not to mention that what you are saying is - this is an exceedingly rare crime, and its victims exclusively women, so let's ignore it and move on?
Anecdote: my cis female nurse girlfriend had the care of a m to f surgery switcher about 10 years ago. It literally had not been explained to them pre-surgery that as with ear piercings, you have to put a sleeper in your new orifice every night to stop it healing up again.
Conclusion: not sure, but try to be clear about what is involved in transitioning.
Ed to eliminate fnarr overtones.
My old school and uni friend (coincidentally, we both ended up at the same uni after school, in the same block of the halls of residence, one floor away from each other) used to show me pictures of the op. Surprisingly, there were magazines for trans people back in 1991.
Anyone who thinks someone goes through *that* for no reason needs their head testing.
Also, although IANAE, I believe they also need a cocktail of drugs. I'm not sure if that decreases after a time, though.
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
Thanks for your unhelpful, immature, and inflammatory input on the debate. You’re just as bad as Twitter trans-activists.
That's what this is. Men, mostly white, have decided they want access to female only spaces and are trampling over women's rights to get there. As we know white men don't understand the concept of not getting their way in life so here we are with this ridiculous situation of suggesting lesbians are bigots for not wanting suck cocks or thinking that blokes who put on a dress and tell everyone else they're actually women can waltz into female only spaces.
Sex and gender are different. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the British left unfit for government.
I stand by my original comment. You can argue “sex and gender are different” without resorting to anti-trans slurs
Nope, I'm fed up of it. I'm fed up of women being harassed by the men in dresses because they want to preserve female only spaces. I'm fed up of the death threats to women who speak out, disgusted that an elected representative was unable to attend their own party conference because they feared physical violence from the men in dresses.
There's no middle way here. Women's rights must be preserved at any cost. They are hard won and the men in dresses need to deal with it by taking off the dress or committing to the sex change process. Self ID gender recognition is wrong and it's another expression of white male privilege trampling over hard won women's rights, reversing decades of progress.
I feel like you should meet some trans people and not form your entire position from Twitter
And yet we have a female MP who was threatened with violence if she attended the Labour conference. That is the movement. No one is disowning it either, in fact they're all over the place saying she deserved it and it's a good example of how they are succeeding in silencing dissent.
Errm, I've disowned it; I've said both sides are as bad as each other; feeding off hatred. And in the middle are trans people who just want to get on with their lives. It's odd that it's the left that seems so striven by this.
I don't know if you've read them - and I don't know if you care - but I've mentioned anecdotes in the past about friends of mine who wanted to, and have, transitioned.
Calling them 'men in dresses' is just brainless rubbish. Especially as one was a female-to-male...
I don't think there's much objection or safeguarding concerns about female-to-male transitions.
I certainly can't think of a single female-to-male pro athlete which kind of demonstrates the issue, there should be as many female-to-male athletes as male-to-female unless people were getting an unfair advantage by transitioning one way.
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
Thanks for your unhelpful, immature, and inflammatory input on the debate. You’re just as bad as Twitter trans-activists.
That's what this is. Men, mostly white, have decided they want access to female only spaces and are trampling over women's rights to get there. As we know white men don't understand the concept of not getting their way in life so here we are with this ridiculous situation of suggesting lesbians are bigots for not wanting suck cocks or thinking that blokes who put on a dress and tell everyone else they're actually women can waltz into female only spaces.
Sex and gender are different. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the British left unfit for government.
I stand by my original comment. You can argue “sex and gender are different” without resorting to anti-trans slurs
Nope, I'm fed up of it. I'm fed up of women being harassed by the men in dresses because they want to preserve female only spaces. I'm fed up of the death threats to women who speak out, disgusted that an elected representative was unable to attend their own party conference because they feared physical violence from the men in dresses.
There's no middle way here. Women's rights must be preserved at any cost. They are hard won and the men in dresses need to deal with it by taking off the dress or committing to the sex change process. Self ID gender recognition is wrong and it's another expression of white male privilege trampling over hard won women's rights, reversing decades of progress.
I feel like you should meet some trans people and not form your entire position from Twitter
And yet we have a female MP who was threatened with violence if she attended the Labour conference. That is the movement. No one is disowning it either, in fact they're all over the place saying she deserved it and it's a good example of how they are succeeding in silencing dissent.
Errm, I've disowned it; I've said both sides are as bad as each other; feeding off hatred. And in the middle are trans people who just want to get on with their lives. It's odd that it's the left that seems so striven by this.
I don't know if you've read them - and I don't know if you care - but I've mentioned anecdotes in the past about friends of mine who wanted to, and have, transitioned.
Calling them 'men in dresses' is just brainless rubbish. Especially as one was a female-to-male...
One of the great British computing pioneers was female-to-male trans - the great Sophie (nee Roger) Wilson.
Thanks for this post. Embarrassingly, even though I did a comp sci degree I had not heard of Sophie.
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 4h This is genuinely extraordinary. The Orwellian double-think needed to make such statements is terrifying.
A woman is an adult human female. That's a fact. Trans women are biological men who choose to live as women, as they should be free to do. But they're not women. #IAmAWoman
===
She's talking about Ed Davey's statement that a trans woman is a woman.
Isn't this debate easily solved by the fact that sex and gender are different things, which usually align but not 100%. Sex describes someone's genitalia and gender describes someone's brain chemistry and identity.
Yes - I've been saying similar for months. Gender is what you identify as and sex is what sex you are. It must be possible for sex and gender to differ or what would be the point of having two words for the same thing. Hartley-Brewer is spot on.
It's facile though imo.
- "You are a man who identifies as a woman." - "No, I'm a woman who was born a boy."
I don't see that this get us very far.
The issue, at heart and in practice, is about what you are legally, a man or a woman, the process/controls around changing from one to the other, and to what extent (if any) female only spaces and activities should be able to exclude transwomen.
Let me simplify
“Women only spaces should not be open to trans women with penises”
How about those who are transitioning, and have to live as a woman for two years before the op?
They should live as their gender but not be allowed into female-only spaces until after they've transitioned.
If the rules need fixing to satisfy the panel with that easier, then that should be done rather than having safeguarding issues for women.
So, dressed as a woman, they're meant to go into male bogs and potentially get beaten up?
How about safeguarding issues for them?
Edit: and practically, who checks? If a trans was to dress as a woman, go into a female toilet cubicle, and cause no hassle, what harm have they done? Are we going to have police checking their certificate of womanhood at the door?
For them if they don't want to use male toilets until they've transitioned to being women then using disabled or other neutral toilets in the interim seems logical.
But that doesn't seem a reason to abolish female-only spaces.
Who is abolishing female only spaces?
Even in the extremely unlikely event of a penis-wielding pervert saying "I am trans" to threaten women in changing rooms, they would get chucked out. Standards of behaviour exist whether the woman is cis or trans that can be policed.
The threat is the trans man or woman using their birth gender facilities and getting assaulted. That isn't extremely unlikely.
Anyone saying pre-transition men with penises can go into women's-only spaces is abolishing female only spaces.
The threat of women getting raped and assaulted is every bit as real as the threat of pre-transition males being beaten up by using their own gender facilities until they transition.
So lets go after the threat to women - rapey men. That small minority of men who define their manhood by owning demeaning and threatening women. If they are out to assault and rape a woman they aren't going to be worried by the sign on the door and their permission to be there.
You do understand the whole concept of whataboutery? Not to mention that what you are saying is - this is an exceedingly rare crime, and its victims exclusively women, so let's ignore it and move on?
Hardly. If we go after the rapey men we will get the supposed rapey man pretending to be trans to access the women's changing room.
Nice work by Boris Johnson - screwing the relationship with France so that he can help Australia serve the USA by fighting China.
Meanwhile the British media is at pains to point out that the submarines will be nuclear-powered, not nuclear-armed. I haven't seen one mainstream news site point out yet that giving nuclear weapons to a non-nuclear power is a breach of the "international rules-based order", specifically of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - but maybe the word "proliferation" has gone on on the index now?
And Tory idiots are saying hey Macron, here's "Global Britain" in your face. Talk about Ruritania and fighting a past war.
They're also saying that Australia was really brave to join the losing side in Vietnam. And they're saying this about five minutes after the British withdrew from Afghanistan, finally admitting there was no chance of them saving Afghanistan from the Afghans.
Nice money for defence contractors, though - and as Keynes said, in the long run everyone's dead.
The only good side to this is that it might mean the end of NATO, which would hardly be untimely given that that alliance has just suffered the biggest military humiliation in its entire ignoble history.
But anything "Australian", cough cough, goes down a treat in the Daily Mail.
I can't be the only person distraught that Farron isn't the LibDem leader right now.
We all remember how he got himself into knots over homosexuality, I would love to see him get into similar... issues... over trans rights.
Davey could simply have said that, while he has his own religious beliefs, the Liberal Democrat Party takes a view that people should be free to be who they want to be, and that these moral issues are always free votes in Parliament.
It wouldn’t have been difficult, if he’d thought through the potential line of questioning beforehand.
I'm not sure that that would do it (or whether he has such beliefs).
Farron was gone for iirc because of his personal religious-belief based views, regardless of what he would actually implement.
On the other side of the House, JRM seems to get away with his orthodox RC views on abortion, and saying "clearly the democratic will is that my views are not the views of the country, so I concede to that as what happens'.
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 4h This is genuinely extraordinary. The Orwellian double-think needed to make such statements is terrifying.
A woman is an adult human female. That's a fact. Trans women are biological men who choose to live as women, as they should be free to do. But they're not women. #IAmAWoman
===
She's talking about Ed Davey's statement that a trans woman is a woman.
Isn't this debate easily solved by the fact that sex and gender are different things, which usually align but not 100%. Sex describes someone's genitalia and gender describes someone's brain chemistry and identity.
Yes - I've been saying similar for months. Gender is what you identify as and sex is what sex you are. It must be possible for sex and gender to differ or what would be the point of having two words for the same thing. Hartley-Brewer is spot on.
It's facile though imo.
- "You are a man who identifies as a woman." - "No, I'm a woman who was born a boy."
I don't see that this get us very far.
The issue, at heart and in practice, is about what you are legally, a man or a woman, the process/controls around changing from one to the other, and to what extent (if any) female only spaces and activities should be able to exclude transwomen.
Let me simplify
“Women only spaces should not be open to trans women with penises”
How about those who are transitioning, and have to live as a woman for two years before the op?
They should live as their gender but not be allowed into female-only spaces until after they've transitioned.
If the rules need fixing to satisfy the panel with that easier, then that should be done rather than having safeguarding issues for women.
So, dressed as a woman, they're meant to go into male bogs and potentially get beaten up?
How about safeguarding issues for them?
Edit: and practically, who checks? If a trans was to dress as a woman, go into a female toilet cubicle, and cause no hassle, what harm have they done? Are we going to have police checking their certificate of womanhood at the door?
For them if they don't want to use male toilets until they've transitioned to being women then using disabled or other neutral toilets in the interim seems logical.
But that doesn't seem a reason to abolish female-only spaces.
Who is abolishing female only spaces?
Even in the extremely unlikely event of a penis-wielding pervert saying "I am trans" to threaten women in changing rooms, they would get chucked out. Standards of behaviour exist whether the woman is cis or trans that can be policed.
The threat is the trans man or woman using their birth gender facilities and getting assaulted. That isn't extremely unlikely.
Anyone saying pre-transition men with penises can go into women's-only spaces is abolishing female only spaces.
The threat of women getting raped and assaulted is every bit as real as the threat of pre-transition males being beaten up by using their own gender facilities until they transition.
So lets go after the threat to women - rapey men. That small minority of men who define their manhood by owning demeaning and threatening women. If they are out to assault and rape a woman they aren't going to be worried by the sign on the door and their permission to be there.
We do go after the treat to women and women's only spaces, including refuges, with women's only safeguarding is part of what is done to protect women.
If a trans-only refuge is needed to protect trans then that should be done rather than violating women's only secure and safeguarded spaces.
It's great that a large number of men on PB don't feel even slightly constrained about expressing their very confirmed views on trans issues.
I don't see why this is a problem.
Not necessarily a problem, but I think it is noteworthy the number of posters who have strong views and absolute certainty on an issue that most people, certainly most men, will hardly come into contact with through their lives. Until the debate has exploded in the media fringes the last few years, I don't remember ever even thinking about it.
I think it is such an aggressive debate on both sides that it puts a lot of moderates and pragmatists off from getting involved at all. Perhaps it is pragmatism that is needed more than the extreme conviction of both sides talking past each other.
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
Thanks for your unhelpful, immature, and inflammatory input on the debate. You’re just as bad as Twitter trans-activists.
That's what this is. Men, mostly white, have decided they want access to female only spaces and are trampling over women's rights to get there. As we know white men don't understand the concept of not getting their way in life so here we are with this ridiculous situation of suggesting lesbians are bigots for not wanting suck cocks or thinking that blokes who put on a dress and tell everyone else they're actually women can waltz into female only spaces.
Sex and gender are different. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the British left unfit for government.
I stand by my original comment. You can argue “sex and gender are different” without resorting to anti-trans slurs
Nope, I'm fed up of it. I'm fed up of women being harassed by the men in dresses because they want to preserve female only spaces. I'm fed up of the death threats to women who speak out, disgusted that an elected representative was unable to attend their own party conference because they feared physical violence from the men in dresses.
There's no middle way here. Women's rights must be preserved at any cost. They are hard won and the men in dresses need to deal with it by taking off the dress or committing to the sex change process. Self ID gender recognition is wrong and it's another expression of white male privilege trampling over hard won women's rights, reversing decades of progress.
I feel like you should meet some trans people and not form your entire position from Twitter
And yet we have a female MP who was threatened with violence if she attended the Labour conference. That is the movement. No one is disowning it either, in fact they're all over the place saying she deserved it and it's a good example of how they are succeeding in silencing dissent.
Errm, I've disowned it; I've said both sides are as bad as each other; feeding off hatred. And in the middle are trans people who just want to get on with their lives. It's odd that it's the left that seems so striven by this.
I don't know if you've read them - and I don't know if you care - but I've mentioned anecdotes in the past about friends of mine who wanted to, and have, transitioned.
Calling them 'men in dresses' is just brainless rubbish. Especially as one was a female-to-male...
It's the new "faggots".
I think this is the point that my friend who is involved in this debate made to me and lo, after 10 hours of blokes talking to each other about it on PB, we have got there.
The people who oppose trans rights include some of the nastiest, most bigoted white lives matter what about men types.
And hence why people need to make the arguments in support while acknowledging the problematic areas and also, without doubt, more rigorous self-policing.
French gov't in a punitive mood: "France is seeking to scuttle the proposed EU-Australia free-trade agreement, asking fellow European nations to “reconsider” the deal in retaliation for the Morrison government cancelling the $90bn French sub contract"
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Cancel a major Free Trade deal just to salve wounded French pride? Why?!
Expect Germany to squash this.
The French are over-reacting and over-reaching
Spot on. The French would be ill advised to push it too far. Sometimes you have to admit you got beat, and move on.
Macron might now get some movement on an autonomous European military. Even if he could just get Spain, Italy and maybe Germany to commit, he would have the nucleus of a major military alliance.
But asking other European states to economically harm Australia, and their own trading interests, just because France has been humiliated? WTF? Also, quite a few EU states have seriously warm relations with Australia, like Ireland, Italy and Greece, who sent so many migrants Down Under. They will surely tell France to eff off
Ordinarily I'd agree, but Boris has made such a power grab that the EU might feel it necessary to fire a shot across his bows. I'm sure every country in Europe is now feeling a bit queasy about what an unfettered Boris would mean in the long run.
I'd be genuinely amazed if the EU agrees to scupper a massive, complex FTA just because one EU member, however notable, is having a mental breakdown
In fact I don't believe it will even get that far. What would France gain from this even if they could impose their will? Some small revenge on Australia, just for the sake of it, which makes France look petulant and villainous and makes everyone a bit poorer
Surely calmer heads will prevail and Berlin and the EUCO will have a quiet word with M Macron
It may not take the form of Frexit, but I think France is heading for an even more painful national debate about its role in the world than the one we had from 2016-2019.
Eric Zemmour's campaign has so far been the biggest wildcard in the presidential election and his support is growing. His assessment of the Brexit negotiations was that it was a total victory for the UK on the substantive issues, and France's current humiliation over Aukus can only strengthen his narrative.
He's right, on the substantive issues the UK won. The EU won on border pedantry which imposes short term costs on the UK. The UK won on governance and on low cost/cost free divergence which is a huge long term gain as the UK can continue to slowly dilute the EU trade deal and selectively remove EU standards where it suits us.
The reality of this is only now dawning on the EU and France in particular. The freedom to act in our own interests without having any pressure to maintain a single foreign policy with 27 other nations, some of them more difficult to herd than cats, has given the UK a new role in the world. France had assumed America and other nations would now treat with it as the major military power in the EU but all that's happened is the EU has lost global relevance without us.
All it needed to keep the UK in the tent was some minor action on immigration and benefits. It would have been a zero cost solution for the EU and it would have kept the most globally connected and relevant member in the tent pissing out. Now we're out of the tent and absolutely pissing into it, not just pissing in but getting our allies to piss into it as well.
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
Thanks for your unhelpful, immature, and inflammatory input on the debate. You’re just as bad as Twitter trans-activists.
That's what this is. Men, mostly white, have decided they want access to female only spaces and are trampling over women's rights to get there. As we know white men don't understand the concept of not getting their way in life so here we are with this ridiculous situation of suggesting lesbians are bigots for not wanting suck cocks or thinking that blokes who put on a dress and tell everyone else they're actually women can waltz into female only spaces.
Sex and gender are different. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the British left unfit for government.
I stand by my original comment. You can argue “sex and gender are different” without resorting to anti-trans slurs
Nope, I'm fed up of it. I'm fed up of women being harassed by the men in dresses because they want to preserve female only spaces. I'm fed up of the death threats to women who speak out, disgusted that an elected representative was unable to attend their own party conference because they feared physical violence from the men in dresses.
There's no middle way here. Women's rights must be preserved at any cost. They are hard won and the men in dresses need to deal with it by taking off the dress or committing to the sex change process. Self ID gender recognition is wrong and it's another expression of white male privilege trampling over hard won women's rights, reversing decades of progress.
I feel like you should meet some trans people and not form your entire position from Twitter
And yet we have a female MP who was threatened with violence if she attended the Labour conference. That is the movement. No one is disowning it either, in fact they're all over the place saying she deserved it and it's a good example of how they are succeeding in silencing dissent.
Errm, I've disowned it; I've said both sides are as bad as each other; feeding off hatred. And in the middle are trans people who just want to get on with their lives. It's odd that it's the left that seems so striven by this.
I don't know if you've read them - and I don't know if you care - but I've mentioned anecdotes in the past about friends of mine who wanted to, and have, transitioned.
Calling them 'men in dresses' is just brainless rubbish. Especially as one was a female-to-male...
One of the great British computing pioneers was female-to-male trans - the great Sophie (nee Roger) Wilson.
Thanks for this post. Embarrassingly, even though I did a comp sci degree I had not heard of Sophie.
If I remember correctly, the scuttlebutt was that she had made at least a million from three different companies: Acorn (from the BBC days), Eidos (Tomb Raider) and ARM (obvs.)
She was a bit like a goddess to me when I started - unapproachable. I'd admired her work for over a decade, and then I was suddenly working in the same smallish company.
French gov't in a punitive mood: "France is seeking to scuttle the proposed EU-Australia free-trade agreement, asking fellow European nations to “reconsider” the deal in retaliation for the Morrison government cancelling the $90bn French sub contract"
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Cancel a major Free Trade deal just to salve wounded French pride? Why?!
Expect Germany to squash this.
The French are over-reacting and over-reaching
Spot on. The French would be ill advised to push it too far. Sometimes you have to admit you got beat, and move on.
Macron might now get some movement on an autonomous European military. Even if he could just get Spain, Italy and maybe Germany to commit, he would have the nucleus of a major military alliance.
But asking other European states to economically harm Australia, and their own trading interests, just because France has been humiliated? WTF? Also, quite a few EU states have seriously warm relations with Australia, like Ireland, Italy and Greece, who sent so many migrants Down Under. They will surely tell France to eff off
Ordinarily I'd agree, but Boris has made such a power grab that the EU might feel it necessary to fire a shot across his bows. I'm sure every country in Europe is now feeling a bit queasy about what an unfettered Boris would mean in the long run.
I'd be genuinely amazed if the EU agrees to scupper a massive, complex FTA just because one EU member, however notable, is having a mental breakdown
In fact I don't believe it will even get that far. What would France gain from this even if they could impose their will? Some small revenge on Australia, just for the sake of it, which makes France look petulant and villainous and makes everyone a bit poorer
Surely calmer heads will prevail and Berlin and the EUCO will have a quiet word with M Macron
It may not take the form of Frexit, but I think France is heading for an even more painful national debate about its role in the world than the one we had from 2016-2019.
Eric Zemmour's campaign has so far been the biggest wildcard in the presidential election and his support is growing. His assessment of the Brexit negotiations was that it was a total victory for the UK on the substantive issues, and France's current humiliation over Aukus can only strengthen his narrative.
Indeed. And also see Barnier's embryonic campaign, which wants a new France First migration law and the re-establishment of French legal supremacy over the ECJ. Which sounds quite close to Frexit to me, though I presume he would deny that is the case
Brexit was always going to shake the kaleidoscope of the world, in ways good and bad, for Britain and for others. This is why the Remoaner position was always ridiculously extreme: Brexit can only be bad, always bad, and bad for everyone
After five years of wearying political struggle in Britain, we are beginning to see what Brexit might mean in actuality. And there are already signs of positives amongst the negatives. Some of them really big (like Aukus, a triumph for UK diplomatic nimbleness after Brexit). Tho there are definite negatives as well, as any honest Leaver must admit
Now maybe we see the first long term effects of Brexit: in the EU
Nice work by Boris Johnson - screwing the relationship with France so that he can help Australia serve the USA by fighting China.
Meanwhile the British media is at pains to point out that the submarines will be nuclear-powered, not nuclear-armed. I haven't seen one mainstream news site point out yet that giving nuclear weapons to a non-nuclear power is a breach of the "international rules-based order", specifically of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - but maybe the word "proliferation" has gone on on the index now?
And Tory idiots are saying hey Macron, here's "Global Britain" in your face. Talk about Ruritania and fighting a past war.
They're also saying that Australia was really brave to join the losing side in Vietnam. And they're saying this about five minutes after the British withdrew from Afghanistan, finally admitting there was no chance of them saving Afghanistan from the Afghans.
Nice money for defence contractors, though - and as Keynes said, in the long run everyone's dead.
The only good side to this is that it might mean the end of NATO, which would hardly be untimely given that that alliance has just suffered the biggest military humiliation in its entire ignoble history.
But anything "Australian", cough cough, goes down a treat in the Daily Mail.
Hello PutinBot123, welcome to the community. At least you're not pushing antivaxx memes.
French gov't in a punitive mood: "France is seeking to scuttle the proposed EU-Australia free-trade agreement, asking fellow European nations to “reconsider” the deal in retaliation for the Morrison government cancelling the $90bn French sub contract"
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Cancel a major Free Trade deal just to salve wounded French pride? Why?!
Expect Germany to squash this.
The French are over-reacting and over-reaching
Spot on. The French would be ill advised to push it too far. Sometimes you have to admit you got beat, and move on.
Macron might now get some movement on an autonomous European military. Even if he could just get Spain, Italy and maybe Germany to commit, he would have the nucleus of a major military alliance.
But asking other European states to economically harm Australia, and their own trading interests, just because France has been humiliated? WTF? Also, quite a few EU states have seriously warm relations with Australia, like Ireland, Italy and Greece, who sent so many migrants Down Under. They will surely tell France to eff off
Ordinarily I'd agree, but Boris has made such a power grab that the EU might feel it necessary to fire a shot across his bows. I'm sure every country in Europe is now feeling a bit queasy about what an unfettered Boris would mean in the long run.
I'd be genuinely amazed if the EU agrees to scupper a massive, complex FTA just because one EU member, however notable, is having a mental breakdown
In fact I don't believe it will even get that far. What would France gain from this even if they could impose their will? Some small revenge on Australia, just for the sake of it, which makes France look petulant and villainous and makes everyone a bit poorer
Surely calmer heads will prevail and Berlin and the EUCO will have a quiet word with M Macron
It may not take the form of Frexit, but I think France is heading for an even more painful national debate about its role in the world than the one we had from 2016-2019.
Eric Zemmour's campaign has so far been the biggest wildcard in the presidential election and his support is growing. His assessment of the Brexit negotiations was that it was a total victory for the UK on the substantive issues, and France's current humiliation over Aukus can only strengthen his narrative.
He's right, on the substantive issues the UK won. The EU won on border pedantry which imposes short term costs on the UK. The UK won on governance and on low cost/cost free divergence which is a huge long term gain as the UK can continue to slowly dilute the EU trade deal and selectively remove EU standards where it suits us.
The reality of this is only now dawning on the EU and France in particular. The freedom to act in our own interests without having any pressure to maintain a single foreign policy with 27 other nations, some of them more difficult to herd than cats, has given the UK a new role in the world. France had assumed America and other nations would now treat with it as the major military power in the EU but all that's happened is the EU has lost global relevance without us.
All it needed to keep the UK in the tent was some minor action on immigration and benefits. It would have been a zero cost solution for the EU and it would have kept the most globally connected and relevant member in the tent pissing out. Now we're out of the tent and absolutely pissing into it, not just pissing in but getting our allies to piss into it as well.
It's great that a large number of men on PB don't feel even slightly constrained about expressing their very confirmed views on trans issues.
I don't see why this is a problem.
Not necessarily a problem, but I think it is noteworthy the number of posters who have strong views and absolute certainty on an issue that most people, certainly most men, will hardly come into contact with through their lives. Until the debate has exploded in the media fringes the last few years, I don't remember ever even thinking about it.
I think it is such an aggressive debate on both sides that it puts a lot of moderates and pragmatists off from getting involved at all. Perhaps it is pragmatism that is needed more than the extreme conviction of both sides talking past each other.
However, the way that such views evolve is exactly through an open debate. And views change / evolve.
French gov't in a punitive mood: "France is seeking to scuttle the proposed EU-Australia free-trade agreement, asking fellow European nations to “reconsider” the deal in retaliation for the Morrison government cancelling the $90bn French sub contract"
I think it's unlikely to happen. However, Boris's admirers have been keen to assert that AUUKUS proves Europe now has no global influence whatsoever and it is Boris to whom the world looks for leadership. So the EU might decide to stuff AUS just to make the counter-argument. We now live in strange and unpredictable times.
Interesting - try and hobble a strong competitor in the wine market?
UK wine imports from Oz are up a third Q1 2021 over Q1 2020.
So, depending on value added etc, there might be more via here as it is imported here in bulk mainly. Maybe.
If I remember correctly, Australian wine exports to the UK are large in quantity and small in price. This is why the Chinese inport tarriffs hurt them so much. They bought the fancy stuff.
Speaking of which, has anyone had Penfolds Grange? I have not had the pleasure…
I have, it is truly excellent, if not quite the world class top ten wine they want to think
It's great that a large number of men on PB don't feel even slightly constrained about expressing their very confirmed views on trans issues.
I don't see why this is a problem.
Not necessarily a problem, but I think it is noteworthy the number of posters who have strong views and absolute certainty on an issue that most people, certainly most men, will hardly come into contact with through their lives. Until the debate has exploded in the media fringes the last few years, I don't remember ever even thinking about it.
I think it is such an aggressive debate on both sides that it puts a lot of moderates and pragmatists off from getting involved at all. Perhaps it is pragmatism that is needed more than the extreme conviction of both sides talking past each other.
However, the way that such views evolve is exactly through an open debate. And views change / evolve.
In my opinion, this is not an open inclusive debate at all, but two groups posturing.
My solution is individual toilet cubicles everywhere (floor to ceiling). Safe space if you want it with others, or private space for yourself. Toilet/changing room problem solved.
Impose a new cost on businesses because men in dresses are upset. Great.
Thanks for your unhelpful, immature, and inflammatory input on the debate. You’re just as bad as Twitter trans-activists.
That's what this is. Men, mostly white, have decided they want access to female only spaces and are trampling over women's rights to get there. As we know white men don't understand the concept of not getting their way in life so here we are with this ridiculous situation of suggesting lesbians are bigots for not wanting suck cocks or thinking that blokes who put on a dress and tell everyone else they're actually women can waltz into female only spaces.
Sex and gender are different. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the British left unfit for government.
I stand by my original comment. You can argue “sex and gender are different” without resorting to anti-trans slurs
Nope, I'm fed up of it. I'm fed up of women being harassed by the men in dresses because they want to preserve female only spaces. I'm fed up of the death threats to women who speak out, disgusted that an elected representative was unable to attend their own party conference because they feared physical violence from the men in dresses.
There's no middle way here. Women's rights must be preserved at any cost. They are hard won and the men in dresses need to deal with it by taking off the dress or committing to the sex change process. Self ID gender recognition is wrong and it's another expression of white male privilege trampling over hard won women's rights, reversing decades of progress.
I feel like you should meet some trans people and not form your entire position from Twitter
And yet we have a female MP who was threatened with violence if she attended the Labour conference. That is the movement. No one is disowning it either, in fact they're all over the place saying she deserved it and it's a good example of how they are succeeding in silencing dissent.
Errm, I've disowned it; I've said both sides are as bad as each other; feeding off hatred. And in the middle are trans people who just want to get on with their lives. It's odd that it's the left that seems so striven by this.
I don't know if you've read them - and I don't know if you care - but I've mentioned anecdotes in the past about friends of mine who wanted to, and have, transitioned.
Calling them 'men in dresses' is just brainless rubbish. Especially as one was a female-to-male...
One of the great British computing pioneers was female-to-male trans - the great Sophie (nee Roger) Wilson.
Thanks for this post. Embarrassingly, even though I did a comp sci degree I had not heard of Sophie.
There are a whole load of British pioneers in computer science that don't get much of a mention in uni courses e.g. the likes of Iann Barron and David May who designed the transputer. Many of the core ideas they came up with have found their way into the modern multi-core multi-chip CPU type systems we have today.
Or Clifford Cocks (no laughing at the back), the guy who basically invented RSA encryption, but couldn't monetarise it because it was top secret.
In the UK, we do seem a bit over focused on the brilliance of Turing, and not a huge amount else gets a look in.
It's great that a large number of men on PB don't feel even slightly constrained about expressing their very confirmed views on trans issues.
I don't see why this is a problem.
Not necessarily a problem, but I think it is noteworthy the number of posters who have strong views and absolute certainty on an issue that most people, certainly most men, will hardly come into contact with through their lives. Until the debate has exploded in the media fringes the last few years, I don't remember ever even thinking about it.
I think it is such an aggressive debate on both sides that it puts a lot of moderates and pragmatists off from getting involved at all. Perhaps it is pragmatism that is needed more than the extreme conviction of both sides talking past each other.
However, the way that such views evolve is exactly through an open debate. And views change / evolve.
In my opinion, this is not an open inclusive debate at all, but two groups posturing.
I think I can see quite a lot more than 2 sets of views, but I have some things to do.
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 4h This is genuinely extraordinary. The Orwellian double-think needed to make such statements is terrifying.
A woman is an adult human female. That's a fact. Trans women are biological men who choose to live as women, as they should be free to do. But they're not women. #IAmAWoman
===
She's talking about Ed Davey's statement that a trans woman is a woman.
Isn't this debate easily solved by the fact that sex and gender are different things, which usually align but not 100%. Sex describes someone's genitalia and gender describes someone's brain chemistry and identity.
Yes - I've been saying similar for months. Gender is what you identify as and sex is what sex you are. It must be possible for sex and gender to differ or what would be the point of having two words for the same thing. Hartley-Brewer is spot on.
It's facile though imo.
- "You are a man who identifies as a woman." - "No, I'm a woman who was born a boy."
I don't see that this get us very far.
The issue, at heart and in practice, is about what you are legally, a man or a woman, the process/controls around changing from one to the other, and to what extent (if any) female only spaces and activities should be able to exclude transwomen.
Let me simplify
“Women only spaces should not be open to trans women with penises”
How about those who are transitioning, and have to live as a woman for two years before the op?
They should live as their gender but not be allowed into female-only spaces until after they've transitioned.
If the rules need fixing to satisfy the panel with that easier, then that should be done rather than having safeguarding issues for women.
So, dressed as a woman, they're meant to go into male bogs and potentially get beaten up?
How about safeguarding issues for them?
Edit: and practically, who checks? If a trans was to dress as a woman, go into a female toilet cubicle, and cause no hassle, what harm have they done? Are we going to have police checking their certificate of womanhood at the door?
For them if they don't want to use male toilets until they've transitioned to being women then using disabled or other neutral toilets in the interim seems logical.
But that doesn't seem a reason to abolish female-only spaces.
Who is abolishing female only spaces?
Even in the extremely unlikely event of a penis-wielding pervert saying "I am trans" to threaten women in changing rooms, they would get chucked out. Standards of behaviour exist whether the woman is cis or trans that can be policed.
The threat is the trans man or woman using their birth gender facilities and getting assaulted. That isn't extremely unlikely.
Anyone saying pre-transition men with penises can go into women's-only spaces is abolishing female only spaces.
The threat of women getting raped and assaulted is every bit as real as the threat of pre-transition males being beaten up by using their own gender facilities until they transition.
So lets go after the threat to women - rapey men. That small minority of men who define their manhood by owning demeaning and threatening women. If they are out to assault and rape a woman they aren't going to be worried by the sign on the door and their permission to be there.
You do understand the whole concept of whataboutery? Not to mention that what you are saying is - this is an exceedingly rare crime, and its victims exclusively women, so let's ignore it and move on?
No. It is an exceedingly rare crime, and there is no reason to stigmatise a whole group because of the rare actions - and worse, the perceived threat - posed by the group as a whole.
History has taught us that enough times.
And stigmatisation is exactly what we're seeing on here tonight.
Xavier Bertrand, one of Barnier's rivals for the Republicans nomination, says that France should respond by opening talks with China and Russia to avoid being America's valet.
French gov't in a punitive mood: "France is seeking to scuttle the proposed EU-Australia free-trade agreement, asking fellow European nations to “reconsider” the deal in retaliation for the Morrison government cancelling the $90bn French sub contract"
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Cancel a major Free Trade deal just to salve wounded French pride? Why?!
Expect Germany to squash this.
The French are over-reacting and over-reaching
Spot on. The French would be ill advised to push it too far. Sometimes you have to admit you got beat, and move on.
Macron might now get some movement on an autonomous European military. Even if he could just get Spain, Italy and maybe Germany to commit, he would have the nucleus of a major military alliance.
But asking other European states to economically harm Australia, and their own trading interests, just because France has been humiliated? WTF? Also, quite a few EU states have seriously warm relations with Australia, like Ireland, Italy and Greece, who sent so many migrants Down Under. They will surely tell France to eff off
Ordinarily I'd agree, but Boris has made such a power grab that the EU might feel it necessary to fire a shot across his bows. I'm sure every country in Europe is now feeling a bit queasy about what an unfettered Boris would mean in the long run.
Well if they did, it’s hardly going to undermine the Brexit argument that Britain is better placed to secure free trade agreements with the wider world and growth markets of the Indian-Pacific when freed from the shackles of the EU is it?
Yes, good point
"Why didn't you stay in the brilliant EU where we regularly cancel nearly-ready global Free Trade Deals because one of us is a psychotic narcissist with penis envy who throws bottles of Breton cider at our trading partners whenever he feels snubbed?"
French gov't in a punitive mood: "France is seeking to scuttle the proposed EU-Australia free-trade agreement, asking fellow European nations to “reconsider” the deal in retaliation for the Morrison government cancelling the $90bn French sub contract"
I think it's unlikely to happen. However, Boris's admirers have been keen to assert that AUUKUS proves Europe now has no global influence whatsoever and it is Boris to whom the world looks for leadership. So the EU might decide to stuff AUS just to make the counter-argument. We now live in strange and unpredictable times.
Interesting - try and hobble a strong competitor in the wine market?
UK wine imports from Oz are up a third Q1 2021 over Q1 2020.
So, depending on value added etc, there might be more via here as it is imported here in bulk mainly. Maybe.
If I remember correctly, Australian wine exports to the UK are large in quantity and small in price. This is why the Chinese inport tarriffs hurt them so much. They bought the fancy stuff.
Speaking of which, has anyone had Penfolds Grange? I have not had the pleasure…
I have, it is truly excellent, if not quite the world class top ten wine they want to think
I can't be the only person distraught that Farron isn't the LibDem leader right now.
We all remember how he got himself into knots over homosexuality, I would love to see him get into similar... issues... over trans rights.
IIRC the knot Farron got into scuppered the entire liberal edifice. The big point about liberalism is that it allows a huge public space for difference of opinion while maximally allowing people to act feely and minimising the number of things that are either compulsory or forbidden by law.
Farron, while not wanting to criminalise gay sexual activity, personally had a difficulty with it on the same religious grounds that millions, probably billions, of people do (though not me). Curiously liberals found this difficult. Liberals really seem to struggle with liberalism.
Nice work by Boris Johnson - screwing the relationship with France so that he can help Australia serve the USA by fighting China.
Meanwhile the British media is at pains to point out that the submarines will be nuclear-powered, not nuclear-armed. I haven't seen one mainstream news site point out yet that giving nuclear weapons to a non-nuclear power is a breach of the "international rules-based order", specifically of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - but maybe the word "proliferation" has gone on on the index now?
Er, why would the “mainstream news” waste time pointing out something that isn’t happening? The only reason they’re pointing out that the deal is about nuclear power not nuclear weapons is because a lot of people don’t seem to understand the difference. Even it appears some Govt’s (eg. Malaysia suggesting the this will lead to a nuclear arms race in the Pacific and even the Chinese suggesting that Australia are putting themselves first in line for a nuclear strike ?!)
Xavier Bertrand, one of Barnier's rivals for the Republicans nomination, says that France should respond by opening talks with China and Russia to avoid being America's valet.
French gov't in a punitive mood: "France is seeking to scuttle the proposed EU-Australia free-trade agreement, asking fellow European nations to “reconsider” the deal in retaliation for the Morrison government cancelling the $90bn French sub contract"
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Cancel a major Free Trade deal just to salve wounded French pride? Why?!
Expect Germany to squash this.
The French are over-reacting and over-reaching
Spot on. The French would be ill advised to push it too far. Sometimes you have to admit you got beat, and move on.
Macron might now get some movement on an autonomous European military. Even if he could just get Spain, Italy and maybe Germany to commit, he would have the nucleus of a major military alliance.
But asking other European states to economically harm Australia, and their own trading interests, just because France has been humiliated? WTF? Also, quite a few EU states have seriously warm relations with Australia, like Ireland, Italy and Greece, who sent so many migrants Down Under. They will surely tell France to eff off
Ordinarily I'd agree, but Boris has made such a power grab that the EU might feel it necessary to fire a shot across his bows. I'm sure every country in Europe is now feeling a bit queasy about what an unfettered Boris would mean in the long run.
I'd be genuinely amazed if the EU agrees to scupper a massive, complex FTA just because one EU member, however notable, is having a mental breakdown
In fact I don't believe it will even get that far. What would France gain from this even if they could impose their will? Some small revenge on Australia, just for the sake of it, which makes France look petulant and villainous and makes everyone a bit poorer
Surely calmer heads will prevail and Berlin and the EUCO will have a quiet word with M Macron
It may not take the form of Frexit, but I think France is heading for an even more painful national debate about its role in the world than the one we had from 2016-2019.
Eric Zemmour's campaign has so far been the biggest wildcard in the presidential election and his support is growing. His assessment of the Brexit negotiations was that it was a total victory for the UK on the substantive issues, and France's current humiliation over Aukus can only strengthen his narrative.
He's right, on the substantive issues the UK won. The EU won on border pedantry which imposes short term costs on the UK. The UK won on governance and on low cost/cost free divergence which is a huge long term gain as the UK can continue to slowly dilute the EU trade deal and selectively remove EU standards where it suits us.
The reality of this is only now dawning on the EU and France in particular. The freedom to act in our own interests without having any pressure to maintain a single foreign policy with 27 other nations, some of them more difficult to herd than cats, has given the UK a new role in the world. France had assumed America and other nations would now treat with it as the major military power in the EU but all that's happened is the EU has lost global relevance without us.
All it needed to keep the UK in the tent was some minor action on immigration and benefits. It would have been a zero cost solution for the EU and it would have kept the most globally connected and relevant member in the tent pissing out. Now we're out of the tent and absolutely pissing into it, not just pissing in but getting our allies to piss into it as well.
What's the French for 'shackled to a corpse'?
Lol, one does wonder how mainstream Barnier's ideas will become over the next few years. If they gain traction he's opened the door to France either forcing a complete rewriting of the EU treaties or Frexit. Why shouldn't the French courts have legal supremacy in France? The UK has just achieved that and for what looks like a very low cost. The moment the EU gave up on continued ECJ jurisdiction over the TCA was the minute Brexit went from something worthless to something that others would eventually wonder why they don't have. It's happened faster than I anticipated wrt Barnier's campaign positions.
Nice work by Boris Johnson - screwing the relationship with France so that he can help Australia serve the USA by fighting China.
Meanwhile the British media is at pains to point out that the submarines will be nuclear-powered, not nuclear-armed. I haven't seen one mainstream news site point out yet that giving nuclear weapons to a non-nuclear power is a breach of the "international rules-based order", specifically of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - but maybe the word "proliferation" has gone on on the index now?
And Tory idiots are saying hey Macron, here's "Global Britain" in your face. Talk about Ruritania and fighting a past war.
They're also saying that Australia was really brave to join the losing side in Vietnam. And they're saying this about five minutes after the British withdrew from Afghanistan, finally admitting there was no chance of them saving Afghanistan from the Afghans.
Nice money for defence contractors, though - and as Keynes said, in the long run everyone's dead.
The only good side to this is that it might mean the end of NATO, which would hardly be untimely given that that alliance has just suffered the biggest military humiliation in its entire ignoble history.
But anything "Australian", cough cough, goes down a treat in the Daily Mail.
Hello, but what's your point. Nnpt says we can give them engines not weapons, and we are giving them engines not weapons. So?
French gov't in a punitive mood: "France is seeking to scuttle the proposed EU-Australia free-trade agreement, asking fellow European nations to “reconsider” the deal in retaliation for the Morrison government cancelling the $90bn French sub contract"
I think it's unlikely to happen. However, Boris's admirers have been keen to assert that AUUKUS proves Europe now has no global influence whatsoever and it is Boris to whom the world looks for leadership. So the EU might decide to stuff AUS just to make the counter-argument. We now live in strange and unpredictable times.
Interesting - try and hobble a strong competitor in the wine market?
UK wine imports from Oz are up a third Q1 2021 over Q1 2020.
So, depending on value added etc, there might be more via here as it is imported here in bulk mainly. Maybe.
If I remember correctly, Australian wine exports to the UK are large in quantity and small in price. This is why the Chinese inport tarriffs hurt them so much. They bought the fancy stuff.
Speaking of which, has anyone had Penfolds Grange? I have not had the pleasure…
I have, it is truly excellent, if not quite the world class top ten wine they want to think
Xavier Bertrand, one of Barnier's rivals for the Republicans nomination, says that France should respond by opening talks with China and Russia to avoid being America's valet.
Yes. There's another tweet (I'll try and find it) where a senior French journalist quotes a top French mandarin at the Quai d'Orsay who says "It is time for us to consider an alliance with the Chinese, though there is a problem with the nature of the Chinese regime"
I mean, WTAF. "A problem?" There's nationalist pique and then there is moral insanity
To be fair to the French, this tweet was followed by hundreds of French people saying Shut up you stupid cretins, deal with the humiliation, China is horrible
Sensible French people are not joining in this madness
Comments
in Scotland, where you have large groups of survivors, some are not using our services because they see us as trans inclusive and feeling that they may be exposed to an issue that they are not prepared to deal with.” But women aren’t self-excluding because “they may be exposed to an issue.” They’re self-excluding because they may be exposed to males in the aftermath of surviving male violence. Any trauma-informed service – as ERC claims to be – must have the capacity to acknowledge why that is problematic.
https://twitter.com/ClaireShrugged/status/1439243518912995332?s=20
If it is a house conversion, then it can be done as usual.
Renting can be done by LL of course, or I think the tenant may now have a right to have things done. Though of course the T may be concerned about retaliation.
I think the good news is that we have a legal ratchet which is driving up standards, though with too many loopholes, and the sheer paper work (and loss of Section 21 if the promise is kept) incentivises LLs to invest appropriately.
I've always taken the view that do the fabric first and do it well enough that nothing major is needed for 15-20 years. A downside of full council tax on empty houses is that it works against really thorough renovations.
Such work is not usually fully reflected in market value.
If they want to win seats in the Ontario suburbs, they need to be Cameroon, but in the prairie and oil states of the West, this is practically socialism. Taking centrist loses them votes in one place. Taking right loses them votes in another.
The calculation that O'Toole has made is that he can afford to lose votes in the West. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen.
You seem to running away from a real issue Ed Davey was unable to address this morning and hope it will go away
Sex and gender are different. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the British left unfit for government.
I honestly couldn't care less about this activist. It is a total distraction. I know you are now without a party but politics needs to debate actual issues not guff.
We all remember how he got himself into knots over homosexuality, I would love to see him get into similar... issues... over trans rights.
You are trying to dismiss an issue that is happening in labour and the snp as well
I doubt it is going away
There's no middle way here. Women's rights must be preserved at any cost. They are hard won and the men in dresses need to deal with it by taking off the dress or committing to the sex change process. Self ID gender recognition is wrong and it's another expression of white male privilege trampling over hard won women's rights, reversing decades of progress.
It wouldn’t have been difficult, if he’d thought through the potential line of questioning beforehand.
But asking other European states to economically harm Australia, and their own trading interests, just because France has been humiliated? WTF? Also, quite a few EU states have seriously warm relations with Australia, like Ireland, Italy and Greece, who sent so many migrants Down Under. They will surely tell France to eff off
UK wine imports from Oz are up a third Q1 2021 over Q1 2020.
So, depending on value added etc, there might be more via here as it is imported here in bulk mainly. Maybe.
The Trans-Terf wars are not some madness we imported from America. It first got really heated in Britain, and remains uniquely violent, bizarre and surreal here, though we are now successfully exporting it to other English-speaking countries, and beyond
I find it all quite sad, and tend to agree with you, tho I don't often express my opinion precisely because it is so bleakly polarising and horribly convoluted
Yes they might have nuanced views on prisons and sport and rape crisis centres, and that’s where the debate needs to be had, but describing transwomen as “men in dresses” purely because you disagree with the Twitterati is disrespectful, rude, and just plain wrong.
I don't know if you've read them - and I don't know if you care - but I've mentioned anecdotes in the past about friends of mine who wanted to, and have, transitioned.
Calling them 'men in dresses' is just brainless rubbish. Especially as one was a female-to-male...
issue as being about tolerance / acceptance and some safeguards, and would apply the same within his thinking about inside church communities. That's not such a potential doctrinal minefield for open evangelicals as the other, even if you consider the issue within churches (which is where views on homosexuality can become difficult to reconcile, as some churches seel to run themselves according to eg the New Testament).
Today is International Transgender Day of Remembrance. I have released the following statement: "Too many transgender lives have been lost to hate and prejudice around the world. Today, on Transgender Day of Remembrance, we reflect on that and remember those killed and focus on what steps we can take, both in the UK and internationally, to halt this tragic and unnecessary loss of life."
"I'm proud that Liberal Democrats have led and continue to lead the way on trans equality, opposing the spousal veto and continuing to campaign to introduce X Gender markers on passports."
16
https://www.facebook.com/timfarronmp/posts/today-is-international-transgender-day-of-remembrance-i-have-released-the-follow/1198664770150522/
Meanwhile the planet is getting more fecked every day.
IMV it's terf - anti-terf, but I might well be wrong.
If you go to a restroombathroom in a restaurant or bar here, it will be a single person affair. You'll go in and lock the door, and there'll probably be both a urinal and a sit down toilet in there.
The British thing of taking a leak next to someone happens only at airports and sports stadiums.
And public swimming pools are far less common too. People are massively more likely to have their own pools - even the ones who don't live in Los Angeles.
In fact I don't believe it will even get that far. What would France gain from this even if they could impose their will? Some small revenge on Australia, just for the sake of it, which makes France look petulant and villainous and makes everyone a bit poorer
Surely calmer heads will prevail and Berlin and the EUCO will have a quiet word with M Macron
Cancelled.
Why shouldn't anyone put forth their very confirmed views on any issue? If they end up looking foolish still better than not setting out their position and being contrained about it.
Better out than in when it comes to opinions.
Two other people were trans at Acorn whilst I was there, including one who became a great friend of ours.
As an aside, Sophie was also involved with (I think) Eidos, who did the first Tomb Raider game. A newspaper had a story along the lines of 'Lara Croft based on trans man', or somesuch, which was not just wrong, but incredibly nasty.
at a recent Cabinet meeting Johnson warned ministers to be careful with their choice of language on the anti-woke agenda as polling has suggested it is hurting the party in the south-east.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/0/munira-mirza-dougie-smith-powerful-couple-downing-street/ (£££)
The threat of women getting raped and assaulted is every bit as real as the threat of pre-transition males being beaten up by using their own gender facilities until they transition.
Party leader quizzed over the action taken against mother-of-two Natalie Bird
Mum-of-two, 40, barred from running in Wakefield after complaint about clothes
Sir Ed said 'Woman: Adult, Human, Female' slogan on her T-Shirt was a 'problem'
Ed Davey insisted the Liberal Democrats believed in free speech today as he was grilled over the party's decision to bar a member from running for Parliament over her views on transgender women.
Ahead of his party conference speech this afternoon the party leader was quizzed over the action taken against mother-of-two Natalie Bird earlier this year.
The 40-year-old was blocked from standing in Wakefield, Yorkshire, and banned from the party office for 10 years after a complaint about her wearing a T-shirt reading, 'Woman: Adult, Human, Female'.
She is now taking legal action under the Equalities Act against the Lib Dems, claiming she was 'hounded' by trans activists who accused her of 'disseminating transphobic material over a prolonged time'.
Grilled on the case on the BBC's Andrew Marr programme today he was asked what was wrong about the phrase 'woman, adult, human female'.
'The phrase actually doesn't really encapsulate the debate, to be honest,' he said.
'That's what's the problem with it. The issue that we have been really is that a trans woman is a woman and a trans man is a man. And that is the issue that we're fighting on. We believe trans rights are human rights.'
He later added: 'We absolutely believe in free speech, but we also believe that we need to protect human rights and we need to believe in equality.'
Speaking of which, has anyone had Penfolds Grange? I have not had the pleasure…
I have posted the context just now
The EU is feeling slightly irrelevant and maybe even purposeless, right now, after Brexit, and Aukus and other setbacks. But what the EU is really good at is Trade Deals. This is is its USP. The Brussels Effect. Real global soft power.
Cancelling a nearly-ready FTA with a big partner like Oz just to smooth French pique? - no, I can't see it. Why? Cui bono? But these last years have been full of surprises, so who knows for sure
Conclusion: not sure, but try to be clear about what is involved in transitioning.
Ed to eliminate fnarr overtones.
Eric Zemmour's campaign has so far been the biggest wildcard in the presidential election and his support is growing. His assessment of the Brexit negotiations was that it was a total victory for the UK on the substantive issues, and France's current humiliation over Aukus can only strengthen his narrative.
Androids in disguise!
Anyone who thinks someone goes through *that* for no reason needs their head testing.
Also, although IANAE, I believe they also need a cocktail of drugs. I'm not sure if that decreases after a time, though.
I certainly can't think of a single female-to-male pro athlete which kind of demonstrates the issue, there should be as many female-to-male athletes as male-to-female unless people were getting an unfair advantage by transitioning one way.
Meanwhile the British media is at pains to point out that the submarines will be nuclear-powered, not nuclear-armed. I haven't seen one mainstream news site point out yet that giving nuclear weapons to a non-nuclear power is a breach of the "international rules-based order", specifically of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - but maybe the word "proliferation" has gone on on the index now?
And Tory idiots are saying hey Macron, here's "Global Britain" in your face. Talk about Ruritania and fighting a past war.
They're also saying that Australia was really brave to join the losing side in Vietnam. And they're saying this about five minutes after the British withdrew from Afghanistan, finally admitting there was no chance of them saving Afghanistan from the Afghans.
Nice money for defence contractors, though - and as Keynes said, in the long run everyone's dead.
The only good side to this is that it might mean the end of NATO, which would hardly be untimely given that that alliance has just suffered the biggest military humiliation in its entire ignoble history.
But anything "Australian", cough cough, goes down a treat in the Daily Mail.
Farron was gone for iirc because of his personal religious-belief based views, regardless of what he would actually implement.
On the other side of the House, JRM seems to get away with his orthodox RC views on abortion, and saying "clearly the democratic will is that my views are not the views of the country, so I concede to that as what happens'.
If a trans-only refuge is needed to protect trans then that should be done rather than violating women's only secure and safeguarded spaces.
I think it is such an aggressive debate on both sides that it puts a lot of moderates and pragmatists off from getting involved at all. Perhaps it is pragmatism that is needed more than the extreme conviction of both sides talking past each other.
The people who oppose trans rights include some of the nastiest, most bigoted white lives matter what about men types.
And hence why people need to make the arguments in support while acknowledging the problematic areas and also, without doubt, more rigorous self-policing.
The reality of this is only now dawning on the EU and France in particular. The freedom to act in our own interests without having any pressure to maintain a single foreign policy with 27 other nations, some of them more difficult to herd than cats, has given the UK a new role in the world. France had assumed America and other nations would now treat with it as the major military power in the EU but all that's happened is the EU has lost global relevance without us.
All it needed to keep the UK in the tent was some minor action on immigration and benefits. It would have been a zero cost solution for the EU and it would have kept the most globally connected and relevant member in the tent pissing out. Now we're out of the tent and absolutely pissing into it, not just pissing in but getting our allies to piss into it as well.
She was a bit like a goddess to me when I started - unapproachable. I'd admired her work for over a decade, and then I was suddenly working in the same smallish company.
Brexit was always going to shake the kaleidoscope of the world, in ways good and bad, for Britain and for others. This is why the Remoaner position was always ridiculously extreme: Brexit can only be bad, always bad, and bad for everyone
After five years of wearying political struggle in Britain, we are beginning to see what Brexit might mean in actuality. And there are already signs of positives amongst the negatives. Some of them really big (like Aukus, a triumph for UK diplomatic nimbleness after Brexit). Tho there are definite negatives as well, as any honest Leaver must admit
Now maybe we see the first long term effects of Brexit: in the EU
Australia does make world-beating wine, however
Take a look at Henschke:
https://www.bbr.com/producer-4222-henschke
Or Clifford Cocks (no laughing at the back), the guy who basically invented RSA encryption, but couldn't monetarise it because it was top secret.
In the UK, we do seem a bit over focused on the brilliance of Turing, and not a huge amount else gets a look in.
So Gnight all.
I am entertained which is not a problem for me.
History has taught us that enough times.
And stigmatisation is exactly what we're seeing on here tonight.
https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1439667322864680963
"Why didn't you stay in the brilliant EU where we regularly cancel nearly-ready global Free Trade Deals because one of us is a psychotic narcissist with penis envy who throws bottles of Breton cider at our trading partners whenever he feels snubbed?"
Farron, while not wanting to criminalise gay sexual activity, personally had a difficulty with it on the same religious grounds that millions, probably billions, of people do (though not me). Curiously liberals found this difficult. Liberals really seem to struggle with liberalism.
(Until it were to actually happen, clearly!)
I mean, WTAF. "A problem?" There's nationalist pique and then there is moral insanity
To be fair to the French, this tweet was followed by hundreds of French people saying Shut up you stupid cretins, deal with the humiliation, China is horrible
Sensible French people are not joining in this madness