Three years ago, the Conservative government launched a consultation on a somewhat esoteric piece of legislation concerning the rights of trans people to alter their birth certificate and legal sex.
The proposed changes included ‘self ID’, a radical departure from the current system of careful assessment and mindful transition for those suffering dysphoria.
Self ID would have allowed acquisition of legal sex based on no more than a sworn declaration. But, in reality, the sworn declaration was lip service.
The proposed changes would have, de facto, removed, or at least critically compromised, protections afforded by equality legislation on the basis of sex.
‘I am a woman’ would become sufficient to permit access to legally-protected female spaces.
Three years ago, women realised this might be a problem. Many had seen it coming for a long time, but the potential impact of these legislative changes raised an army.
Women said ‘No.’
Not just famous women expert in the politics and theory of gender, but women who had gone about their lives without even realising that these protections apply to themselves each and every day.
Women took to the streets, handed out thousands of leaflets and wrote thousands of letters, raised awareness, lobbied their government representatives, dissected the legal ramifications.
Today, following weeks of leaks and rumours, it seems that Self ID has been scrapped as a mechanism to acquiring the opposite legal sex.
For me, it has been too bitter a fight to evoke much positive emotion.
The three years of campaigning and lobbying has created a climate among service providers such that ‘I am a woman’ is indeed sufficient to permit access to legally-protected female spaces.
I hope this newly-invigorated movement of women, connected in ways unimaginable a few years ago, can stay the course to ensure equality legislation is not only secured but reinforced.
The prison service has reviewed its position on the transfer of transwomen to the female estate. Sporting federations are beginning to revisit their regulations for the female category.
Sex shouldn’t matter half as much as it does, but there are, in my opinion, a small number of situations where it will always matter, and where female protections are necessary.
Let’s see this through.
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I blocked Dope because he could not entertain a discussion that wasn’t on his terms within his framework.
I don’t accept his framework. And because he wouldn’t discuss a single thing within mine, it was pointless.
Because he wouldn’t discuss anything outside of his own narrow ideology, I am left with no idea whether he even understands that my framework is different to his.
His repeated questions indicate he seems to think they were natural progressions of my framework.
They were not.
I and others have discussed - at length, ad nauseum - about how reducing sex to a composite tally of characteristics is ideological.
It is an abuse of the system in use to describe the sometimes incongruent reproductive biology of those with DSDs.
Clownfish. Some dominant males can change their biological sex to female. We know they have switched sex because they change their gonad tissue, stop making sperm and start making eggs.
Two sexes? Yes.
Sex change? Yes.
Trans Nemo? He’s way down the pecking order of “dominant male”. Doubtful clownfish have gender identities.
Ruff. Males have three different body types/behaviours, one is mimicking females (males pretending to be females is not exactly unique). We know it is a male pretending to be female because he makes sperm.
Two sexes? Yes.
Sex change? No.
Tranimal? Maybe, if transgenderism is based on gendered stereotypes, and we keep getting told it definitely isn’t ever based on stereotypes, so no.
1. We disagree with the assertion that the IOC framework [fairness, inclusion, and nondiscrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex variations] is consistent with existing scientific/medical evidence and question its recommendations for implementation.
2. Testosterone exposure in male development:
--> physical differences between male and female bodies
--> male athletic advantage in muscle mass, strength and power, and endurance and aerobic capacity.
The IOC's “no presumption of advantage” principle disregards this reality.
3. Studies show that transgender women (male-born individuals who identify as women) with suppressed testosterone retain muscle mass, strength, and other physical advantages compared to females.
Male performance advantage cannot be eliminated with testosterone suppression.
What does “feeling 80% female” actually feel like?
Is it only 80% of your clitoris being sliced off in childhood? Maybe 80% probability of being kidnapped to warlords? You bleed through your knickers 4/5 periods? Only 80% of men try to control your fertility?
Female people - women - are real human beings, my friend.
We aren’t a feeling, whether 100%, 80% or 0.01% of the time.
We are not 80% of a skirt, or 80% nurturing, or 80% good at fucking handwriting.
Do you have any concept - any? - of how it feels to be female and see a man talk about our material reality as if it’s something you can wake up to and feel about four fifths of?
Here @SkyNews repeat one of the most pervasive lies in sport, and one that has held back honest (and admittedly often uncomfortable) discussion about male bodies with male advantage in female sport.
@SkyNews I say precisely nothing about Semenya’s legal and social status.
I say this very precisely: Semenya is male with a DSD. That DSD does not affect male development that is relevant for sports performance. Males with this DSD should not be eligible for female categories.