Author Topic: What fresh hell is this

Unwomen
« Reply #30 on: November 18, 2022 »
Trans women are woman but
Quote from: puffyisgood
individual TW may be all sorts of things - clever, virtuous, funny, brave, noble, kind, you name it, all are eminently possible. but woman, never. 'woman' isn't an adjective, it's a noun - and wanting to be a woman, or trying really hard to be a woman, or making sacrifices to be a woman, none of these is really a thing. calling someone a 'woman' isn't a compliment - it's either just a statement of fact or a statement of error/untruth.

Quote from: nilsmousehammer
And you realise that as a biological female, these males see you merely as props. Tools. For their use. And the rage at you not mummying their needs and daring to have a life of your own that does not revolve around their inner selves blows their capacity apart.

I'm afraid the answer to that is not to be kind or sympathetic or compassionate - because God knows those males have none of that to offer to anyone else.

Munroe Bergdorf has a Glamour Woman of the Year award
Quote from: SkinOfTeeth
OK so 'Gamechanger' Munroe Bergdorf is about to talk at The United Nations HQ in New York as a spokesperson for UN Women. They've chosen MB to talk at their conference, 'Un-Stereotype Alliance' on #RaisingtheBar to 'forge an unstereotyped world and create equality for all'.

How exactly does Munroe challenge all the stereotypes of what a woman should be (beyond the obvious)?! Regular Lipfillers, cosmetically enhanced breasts, facial fillers, bottom and hip implants, Botox - glossy magazine/social media photographs in designer frocks, diamonds, lingerie, latex, nipple pasties, high heels, posing on yachts in bikinis while sipping champagne etc ...

Really, really challenging stereotypes there. How, exactly?

Can't wait to hear what MB has to say. I bet we will hear the words 'intersectionality', "nuance', 'empowerment', body 'positivity', 'autonomy', and, if they get a chance, 'protect trans kids'.

UN-women indeed.

The tell
« Reply #31 on: November 22, 2022 »
The vast majority of people can identify other people's sex; so why the pretence that men are women?
Quote from: LaughingPriest
I don't think the idea is that you can't tell. It's that you're meant to think that the idea that "man" and "woman" relate to sex is outdated and wrong, because they now mean "Which set of societally determined gender stereotypes do you feel suit you best".

Which obviously is far more important to determine in sports, relationships and places where people are vulnerable, than silly old biological sex.

What fresh hell is this
« Reply #32 on: November 29, 2022 »
Quote from: RisingUp
never. stop. fluffing.

Zero tolerance event bans talk of single sex spaces
Quote from: Kucinghitam
Well, the strategy has worked, because I'm currently speechless.

Absurdem
« Reply #33 on: November 29, 2022 »
Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie interview with Zoe Williams
Quote from: NecessaryScene
Quote from: RoyalCorgi
I am baffled as to why Zoe seems so ignorant about stuff that she must, surely, be aware of, if she's paying attention.




It's interesting that she explicitly uses the phrase "reducing it to the absurd", which Helen Joyce as a mathematician uses in Latin as "reductio ad absurdem".



It's a means of proof of a theorem - you assume something is true, then demonstrate that if that is true, then you inevitably reach an absurd deduction (more accurately paradoxical or axiomatically impossible). Which shows that it cannot be true.



So some people look at the "absurd" cases and think they demonstrate why a rule doesn't work.



Whereas Zoe and others think pointing out actual absurd cases, or even suggesting that they're possible, is somehow offensive.



The very concept of "reductio ad absurdem" is kind of rude. Why would you do that to a perfectly innocent theorem? Just leave it alone, let it "live its truth”.


What fresh hell is this
« Reply #34 on: December 24, 2022 »
Survey following the hieroglyphics exhibition at the British Museum
Quote from: oreste
So we attended the exhibition and we were sent a survey via email. It started off well but we were then alerted to a section containing questions of a more 'personal nature'.

I found one question utterly bizarre. It was along the lines of ' Has attending the exhibition made you consider changing your gender?'

FFS, this is basically an exhibition of the Rosetta Stone and how it was used to decipher hieroglyphics. How on earth could it ever have that effect?

The last museum survey I took



made me think about my role of captioning the world.


AIBU to think Sturgeon ain't on the right side?

The Guardian censoring comments
Quote from: RoyalCorgi
In the days when the Guardian used to allow comments on articles about the trans issue, a lot of us had the experience of having our entirely polite comments deleted.

Then they stopped allowing comments on trans stuff - except when they mention trans stuff in their live politics blog, which is always open to comments.

Someone on Twitter took screenshots of comments earlier this week on the Scottish bill that were subsequently deleted by Guardian mods. They are all perfectly polite, reasonable, gender-critical comments. But comments offensively accusing gc people of being funded by the Christian right etc were allowed to stand.

They really are beyond hope.

Will be news to some.

What fresh hell is thissss
« Reply #35 on: December 31, 2022 »


My pronouns are Herp/Hissss.

What fresh hell is this
« Reply #36 on: December 31, 2022 »
When Asked ‘What Are Your Pronouns,’ Don’t Answer
Quote from: Colin Wright
While being subjected to constant rituals of pronoun exchanges may seem silly or annoying at best and exhausting at worst, in reality participating in this ostensibly benign practice helps to normalize a regressive ideology that is inflicting enormous harm on society. To understand why, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with its core tenets.



What have people done when asked pronouns?
Quote from: sourdoughismyreligion
I was asked to include pronouns as part of my company bio. I didn't. Gave them the rest of the information asked, the stuff that is actually relevant for my role but didn't include the non-essential bit of information. I don't know if it was anything to do with my refusal to comply but when our bios did appear on the website, pronouns were not included for anyone.

If I were asked in a meeting or face to face, I think I would just ignore the question. It's bizarre to think you can control how others refer to you when you're not there (or even if you are there). If I had the power to put words in other people's mouths, I wouldn't settle for something as trivial as pronouns, I'd insist that people only describe me using specific adjectives, namely 'intelligent', 'witty', and 'wise'.

From the TWAM archives:



https://mobile.twitter.com/ai_valentin/status/1391225467689127939
https://twitter.com/hatpinwoman/status/1609506407140794370

R-E-S-P-E-C-T
« Reply #37 on: January 11, 2023 »
Interview with Mumsnet founder
Quote from: nilsmousehammer
Justine is doing exactly what we bloody well need the government and all local authorities and civil institutions to do.

She is making it impossible to know what her own personal views are on the subject as not relevant while maintaining spaces for both beliefs and not allowing one to silence the other outside of the law. She makes it clear that it does not matter what she thinks personally, and does not involve her own feelings.

That used to be called things like 'integrity' and 'professionalism' back in the day, when those in positions of power and influence actually had some class. Before total emotional incontinence and infantile behaviour became the norm. I respect the hell out of her for it.

This is what 'no debate' looks like - Eliza Mondegreen
The mob blocked access to the lecture hall. A friend and I tried to get to the doors and were pushed around as though lives depended on turning us back. We just wanted to hear a human-rights lawyer talk about a conflict in human-rights law.

It’s surreal, honestly, to be pushed and shoved and grabbed by people who are screaming about "nonviolence.” We were TERFs, transphobes, and (curiously) ‘scabs.’ A wild-eyed young man screamed: “I’M NOT GOING TO BE ERASED BY YOU PEOPLE.” We had no place at McGill. We were pinned in the middle of a raging crowd and screamed at to "GET OUT,” while prevented from going anywhere at all. I kept looking around for anyone not participating, anyone who looked uncomfortable with the way this peaceful protest had gone. But all the activists were chanting or shouting or screaming. The jumpy activists I’d observed a few minutes ago had transformed themselves into a mob, with the license of mobs. There's no reaching people in that state, which is why it felt like anything could happen, especially after they'd already manhandled us.

What fresh hell is this
« Reply #38 on: January 24, 2023 »
More on respect
Quote from: RoaringtoLangClegintheDark
Quote from: Robin Moira White
If you want a discussion, it needs to be respectful or I won’t be there.

But it an be argued (and I would indeed argue) that none of what you’re doing, what anyone involved in GRA reform etc is doing, is respectful to women.

You disrespect us by the very act of - as a biologically male person - appropriating the material reality of biologically female people and claiming it as an identity for you to use as you please. In the context of age old male oppression of female people, where males have traditionally extracted whatever resources they want from female people without concerning themselves with the issue of consent, this is just another assault on our human rights. As always, we are objects to be used by male people; not subjects with full agency.

When you make use of facilities designated for female people, and campaign for ever wider access to those facilities for more and more male people - which is the net result of GRR in tandem with self ID in general - you are again disrespecting us.

Biologically male people who respect biologically female people, and acknowledge the ways female people have been systematically hurt and disadvantaged by male rule across the generations, respect our boundaries.

I for one see no reason at all why I should respect biologically male people who don’t respect me, or biologically female people in general.
more
Quote from: BernardBlacksMolluscs
I think the point for me is that any man who claims to be a woman is demonstrating loud and clear that he has incredibly disordered views about women.

That’s not against the law or anything. I’ve worked with plenty of men with pretty weird views on women and, of necessity, muddled along OK.

but if those men get a say in women’s lives, it will not go well for women. As we’ve seen demonstrated in that interview by Robin clearly believing that women have no right to single sex spaces and are in fact ‘mad’ for even wanting such things...

I think we’ve all been reluctant to say that by definition trans people have disordered views about sex because it feels like a sweeping generalisation and we get told they are bad

but insisting that you are a member of the opposite sex, something that is literally impossible, does of course reveal disordered thinking.

how could it not?



Quote from: NotBadConsidering (deleted post)
There are many different types of trans activists. There are the ones who hold signs saying “decapitate terfs”. There are the ones who wear black masks and hoods and physically and verbally attack women speaking. There are the ones online who post abuse. There are the ones that scream at babies (that one is unique I grant you). Then there’s the ones like Robin.

Robin is the walking embodiment of the Dentons document. Robin shares all the same views as the black masked violent activists - that women don’t deserve single sex spaces, that women are witches, that children should be sterilised in order to validate Robin’s beliefs - but does it through a veneer of respectability. Robin ties those beliefs to the legitimacy of being a barrister, uses the gravitas of age and experience to perpetuate the very same ideas that mask-wearing teenagers do. This is what the Dentons document advises to do.

And Robin has had years to consider all this. This is not an impulsive jumping on the activist bandwagon. Robin has knowledge, experience and intelligence and isn’t doing to be part of a group, to be seen as inclusive, as part of peer pressure, or social contagion, or the misplaced anger of youth like so many of the mask-wearing, abusive sign-carrying activists. Robin is doing it as part of a calculated campaign.

I find people like this a great deal more dangerous to the rights of women and children that those impressionable young people who stand at the front of it all.

Quote from: MrsOvertonsWindow
Robin spoke at the end about the awfulness of puberty for trans people and how stopping puberty would have enabled Robin to have a feminised voice. This is a classic example of why trans activists should never be allowed to influence health care and treatment of children. Like so many activists, Robin sees this from a personal perspective. They have no insight / knowledge of children and adolescence and think that some children avoiding puberty is a good thing.

This is why the NHS / the DfE are so dangerous having allowed trans activists to influence practice. It's why safeguarding children is being systematically eroded - the special trans treatment in the DBS, drag queens for children, the focus on porn in SRE etc. Not saying RMW has advocated for the latter - just pointing out how adults with an agenda have been given an influence that works against the needs of children.
[close]

A Narcissist's Prayer of the decapitation sign
Always keep receipts.

Britain is becoming sick over the trans debateNick Timothy
Imagine the outrage if, after the discovery that yet another rapist had been found amid the ranks of the Metropolitan Police, the Commissioner had told women to calm down. “The vast majority of officers,” he might have told protesters, “are likely to be safe.”

The thought is preposterous. Yet it is the very argument made by those defending Scottish legislation that would allow people to change their gender in law without existing safeguards. Lord Falconer, Lord Chancellor under Tony Blair, dismissed the complaints of those concerned about the privacy and safety of women, saying, “The vast majority of [applicants] are likely to be genuine.”

Trans self-ID since 2015 — and no horror stories
Quote from: PennysRevenge
Right off the bat I would consider all the women terrified by rapists in their prisons to be horror stories, all the women who have lost their jobs and endured death and rape threats for not believing in self-ID and having the temerity to say so to be horror stories, the sexually assaulted woman harassed and then refused a female-only life-saving operation of which she’d been assured — endangering her life — to be a horror story.

The rape victim in Brighton forced to share a therapy group with a seemingly prurient male is a horror story. The police door stepping women for putting up mild factual stickers is a horror story. A guillotine on a placard is a horror story. Spitting at women is a horror story. Punching women at Speaker’s Corner is a horror story. Shutting down feminist talks at multiple universities is a horror story. Males taking medals from sportswomen and women writers alike is a horror story. Adolescent males being roomed with females on Girl Guide sleep-aways is a horror story. Calling all powerful female icons “non-females” in our theatres is even a horror story.

We are living in a horror story.

The Labour Party has a woman problemRosie Duffield
They think the transgender debate is nothing more than a culture-war issue. A weapon used by the Tories to whip up division. It is a smokescreen that has nothing to do with women’s rights. Ordinary people don’t care about mixed-sex changing rooms. Or the prospect of men entering women’s refuges. Or the erasure of the word “cervix”. What this debate is really about, women are told, is bigotry and prejudice.

‘It might never happen, love’ is no basis for lawJanice Turner
Then there are the angry men who can’t even bear to hear women’s voices. No debate. Shut up, bitch. Sit down, bigot. We’ll ban your meeting, ignore your legal submissions.

Women have had years of this now. “Keep Mumsnet out of politics,” said a placard at a demonstration where Russell-Moyle shared a platform with the trans woman Sarah Jane Baker, who served 30 years in prison for kidnap and attempted murder. Boring old mums, pesky women seeing through the GRR’s outrageous misogyny and sophistry to say: this is our business.

Gender reform bill has betrayed lesbiansSally Wainwright
We have been betrayed by ideologically captured groups and individuals who should have spoken for us. Scottish politicians too have mainly closed their eyes, ears and minds to what is happening; blinded by the inexplicably attractive ideology of “gender identity” and deafened by the shrill shrieks* of outraged male entitlement. Politicians who simply don’t care about women, especially lesbians, at all.

* Most of these guys do strike me as hysterical, just not ha ha hysterical.

[AIBU] To find media discussion about trans issues far overstated compared to the actual seriousness of the issue?
Quote from: Waitwhat23
There's very little point replying to this obviously goady thread but I will anyway, for the lurkers. And I will explain this as a woman, living in Scotland.

There's a reason that the GRR Bill is being referred to as the 'Rapist's Charter' here in Scotland.

www.nationalreview.com/news/transgender-sex-offenders-placed-in-womens-jails-in-scotland/

archive.ph/2022.10.04-232359/www.thetimes.co.uk/article/half-of-scottish-trans-prisoners-changed-gender-after-convictions-pftqbbhg6

www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/scottish-news/anger-trans-inmates-revert-males-25840252

The reforms to the GRC will make it even easier for predators to take advantage of self id. The SNP, Scottish Greens, Lib Dems and Scottish Labour voted against suggested amendments being put in place to restrict sex offenders from changing their gender, including -

an amendment to pause an application for a GRC for those charged with rape or sexual assault which was defeated by the casting vote of the Presiding Officer.

An amendment which sought to prevent convicted sex offenders being allowed to change their gender.

There were over 150 amendments, discussed over a ridiculously short 2 days, with the majority voted down, including a suggestion to yearly monitor the effects of the GRR Bill on women and girls rights.

The Scottish Government's hand was forced at the 11th hour to hold an additional evidence session because they had refused to hear from experts on VAWG. The 'feminist' groups in support of the bill are all majority funded by the Scottish Government (as reported in various news sources yesterday). Funding from the Scottish Government is contingent on being 'inclusive' which is why there are currently no single sex rape crisis services in the Lothians. The one which is in the process of being set up and has used the single sex exemptions allowed in the EQA2010 is being threatened with challenges for 'discrimination' - this is far from the only example - organisations are being informed (falsely) by lobby groups and others are facing the silencing effect.

The Scottish Government was warned repeatedly that the legislation was poor and conflicted with reserved legislation. They ignored it in their zeal to push it through and now section 35 has had to be invoked.

The SNP had to whip its members into voting for the Bill and even then, faced the biggest revolt by SNP MSP's since they came to power.

The Scottish electorate do not support this bill. There's been a hell of a lot of sunlight on this issue. There's real anger and dismay at the Scottish Government now.

The 'anti-TERF' misogyny that has contaminated the SNPKevin McKenna
And so in Scotland an entire political class has been captured by a lie. And what a convenient lie. It frees them from having to do anything truly radical, or life-changing. And it masks their own abject failures in achieving anything substantive for Scotland’s most marginalised communities whom they’ve abandoned in favour of a middle-class caprice.

The Grooming of Holyrood

What fresh hell is this
« Reply #39 on: January 27, 2023 »
JK Rowling lures trans activists into defending rapists from 'misgendering'Eliza Mondegreen
The average person just hasn't read anywhere near enough queer theory to prevent them from recognizing what's right in front of their eyes.

The effect of gender ideology on women's health, mental and physical
Quote from: chocolateismyjam
Quote
What is this madness costing the country?



Madness is le mot juste. I find it so profoundly unsettling to see what is so clearly a belief system like any other religion be forced upon everyone as if it had any evidence behind it or basis in fact or reason. It has none. And yet it's in schools, the judiciary, sports, the NHS, the press, everywhere. When it is a faith that makes no sense at all, whose tenets show obvious dangers to women and children, and to which the most dubious and awful people flock - not even hiding, but openly.



You grow up thinking that truth and scientific method are unassailable, and then this happens. I've just watched the ITV news, which described a "transgender woman rapist" who committed "her" crimes "when she was a man, before she became a woman." And all I could think was, STOP LYING. He is a man who has done what dangerous men have been doing since the dawn of humanity. He has not become a woman. No man can become a woman. He has changed his haircut. Why are news outlets required to lie in this way, simply because a rapist demands it? Why?

Trans activists are giving men even more power over womenSuzanne Moore
Superficially, everyone is terribly concerned about violence against women. What a sham. The Met is riddled with it. The failure of the CPS means rape has been virtually decriminalised. And, while much domestic violence is carried out ‘in private’, the latest threats to women have been in public. Evidence is everywhere...

This madness could be dialled down a notch if all this intimidation was condemned. Keir Starmer could do it, the unions could do it, university vice chancellors could do it. Are these institutions happy with the situation? For pity’s sake, don’t ‘both sides’ this. Women are not threatening trans people. The mantra that somehow debating our legal rights means denying their existence is nonsensical. Of course trans people exist, but so does male violence and provision has to be made to protect women from it where possible.