Ulrike Bullerby Profile picture
When men can claim to be women, women lose the right to assert what they are.

Mar 16, 2022, 16 tweets

I clicked on Katy Montgomerie’s latest blog post so you don’t have to..
(Thread)

Great start!
Gender critical beliefs are summarised correctly (and without the customary hyperbole of discerning genocidal tendencies)
A) Sex exists, it’s binary and humans can’t change sex
B) Sometimes sex matters and single or separate sex spaces, sports & services are needed

And yes, you’re right Monty, if sex didn’t matter it would be quite beside the point whether it’s binary, immutable etc.

But now comes the gaslighting.
Do we ‘segregate people in society’?
And by whether they face sexism?
By who finds them attractive?
By what medicine they need?
That would be ludicrous indeed.
(Just as ludicrous as having sports categories by gender identity)

Here’s what Monty conveniently forgets to mention:
Sex is a reproductive category, and humans of the female sex have bodies that evolved to produce large gametes and to gestate, birth and feed offspring.
Such bodies differ from male bodies in a myriad of ways..

..that go far beyond the presence of certain sex organs.
Women on average live longer, are less prone to congenital conditions, are more flexible BUT we are also shorter, weaker, slower than male people, regardless of how they identify.

Having such a female body affects our lives in its own right from menstruation to menopause, from pregnancy to pelvic prolapse; as well as with regards to the other sex, especially by being vulnerable to male violence and male sexual violence.

Having been oppressed worldwide and for millennia based on those bodily differences, women in some parts of the world have managed to carve out some rights & protections to mitigate our physical & historical disadvantage.
Among them are single sex sports, spaces & services.

I wonder how ‘the system’ treats Monty with misogyny but here is how it treats us: the specific experiences, needs & vulnerabilities of female people are often an afterthought. Society, economy, technology, medicine treat male bodies & male needs as the default.

I recommend this book if you remain in any doubt about it..
books.google.co.uk/books/about/In…

Now this bit is plain embarrassing.
No, Katy, our differing medical needs are not down to our chromosomes causing different illnesses but to our considerable physical differences from reproductive organs down to the cellular level.

Yes, #SexMatters in health care and medicine
google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theg…

Here the gaslighting is strong again:
Gender critical people do not want trans people to be ‘less safe’ or banned from work or healthcare and none of it has to do with ‘male souls’.

Katy, have all the protections from misogyny you need, but access to spaces where women & girls are vulnerable and/or naked is NOT a proportional measure towards that aim as it tramples all over OUR rights, needs and boundaries.

And here comes a final bit of gaslighting: the claim that sex is the sum of your sex characteristics and can therefore slide from one to the other sex on the sex continuum as you alter a few of them.

Looking forward to seeing how Katy gaslights transwomen’s way into female sports next..

Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.

A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.

Keep scrolling