There are, of course, plenty of women out there who disagree with other women on this whole issue. I'm not here to mansplain to them; I want to listen to them. To ALL women.
The following tweets will ask 16 questions. To be answered by women only.
I make no apology for the detail within those questions, nor for requesting and hoping for as much detail as possible in the answers.
When legislative changes such as self-ID are being proposed, detail is vital if what results is to be good, effective law, not bad law.
One other thing too. Trans rights are human rights. Brilliant: we all agree on that. But it's not what the detail in the questions is about.
Once I've set out all the questions, I will not comment on any of the responses. I promise to read all of them.
I may retweet, without comment, those responses I find particularly interesting or thought-provoking. Absolutely including those which disagree with my position on all this, which is irrelevant.
Because I'm a man - and this issue fundamentally concerns women and girls.
I have 2 other requests. Without trying to tone police anyone, I hope what results is a comprehensive discussion on ALL the issues - but a respectful, civil one without judgement. I want all women who read this thread to feel comfortable about answering some or all the questions.
This is Twitter, so that may be too much to hope for, but we'll see.
And finally: if you're a man, please stay out of the thread. You'll be telling on yourself if you don't. Butting out is what I'm about to do the very moment I've listed the questions, which are as follows.
1. Do you think anatomical males should be allowed in protected women's spaces such as prisons, rape refuges, hospital wards or lavatories if they say they’re a woman?
If so, why?
2. Do you think anatomical males should be allowed to get changed in women and girls’ changing rooms if they say they’re a woman? If so, why?
3. Do you think someone born male should be allowed to compete in women’s sports? If so, why?
4. Do you think schools should have only unisex lavatories? If so, why?
5. Do you think anyone should be able to self-declare as the opposite gender without having transitioned first, and immediately be able to access protected women’s spaces? If so, why?
6. If legislation allows for anyone being able to self-declare as the opposite gender without transitioning first, how do you propose to stop male sexual predators and/or violent criminals claiming to be female and taking advantage of said legislation?
7. If a child of any age in any circumstances decides one day they’re of the opposite gender, do you think they should be automatically supported in that by their parents, guardians, schools and/or teachers, with no questioning in any way by any of the latter? If so, why?
8. If you answered ‘yes’ to all or most of the above, how do you propose to deal with any issues around safeguarding?
9. Do you refer to ‘pregnant women’ or ‘pregnant people’? If the latter, why?
10. Do you refer to ‘women’ or ‘cervix havers’ / ‘menstruators’ / ‘bodies with vaginas’? If any of the latter three terms, why?
11. Do you think rape survivors should be required in court or elsewhere to refer to anatomically male rapists by their preferred pronouns? If so why?
12. Do you think statistics on violence against women and girls should treat anatomically male perpetrators as ‘women’ if they self-identify as a woman or girl?
If so, how should policymakers respond to the data which results?
13. Do you think surveys such as but not limited to the census should ask for someone’s sex, or their gender?
If the latter, how do policymakers accurately account for the needs of all people born female?
14. A question for lesbians only: is it ‘transphobic’ or in any way bigoted not to be sexually attracted to someone who does not have the same anatomical parts as you, but who consider themselves a woman?
If so, why?
15. Do you think it’s possible for someone to change sex? If so, how?
16. Finally, how do you define ‘woman’?
I very much hope as many women as possible respond to some or all of this.
And with that, I'm off to feed the pigeons. 🙂
IMPORTANT ADDENDUM: if, in any way, you feel uncomfortable answering these questions on a public platform, which may apply to many, please feel free to DM your answers.
Everything you say will be treated in absolute confidence. Thankyou!
And a clarification: I'm not conducting research, or collecting data, or writing an article or a book.
The purpose of this thread and any DMs I receive is purely to give women the space to discuss all this. And educate and inform others, including me, through their perspectives.
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And if I see one more inadequate, entitled, clueless male on this website come out with pathetic, condescending beyond belief, passive aggressive bullshit like:
That one lousy England cap was as part of our worst team since 1993. The ONLY one not to qualify - and you weren't even good enough to be picked for it more than once.
In fact, you have MORE CONVICTIONS FOR VIOLENT CRIME than England caps, you absolute waste of skin.
Gary Neville can tell his grandkids about the absolutely magnificent career he had in the game.
You can tell yours about the time you stubbed a lit cigar out in a youth player's eye.
Or when you violently assaulted a teammate, leaving him unconscious with a detached retina.
Today, in the world of sensible centrist liberal media 🙄🙄🙄
1. Thomas L. Friedman is worried for the world and tries to explain what's happening to it. He explains what's happening to it by... saying THIS.
Yes folks. The difference between Dubai and Gaza isn't that one is staggeringly rich in natural resources and the other is a rock. And it isn't that one is independent and the other has been illegally occupied and blockaded for so long.
It's 'visionary leadership'.
I'll tell you one of the very many things wrong with this awful world, Tom. It's that racist Orientalists like you - utterly incapable of EVER treating Arab people as equals - get given such a high profile platform to pump out such constant ignorant beyond imagination drivel.
THREAD: Argentina. Why has this happened - and what's going to happen now?
The first thing to say about why this has happened is pretty simple. The options facing a desperate, frantic Argentinian public were APPALLING. All of them.
In August, at the primaries, the mostly centre-right Juntos por Cambio (which governed, very badly, through Mauricio Macri between 2015 and 2019) voters made a dreadful, in my view indefensible blunder.
They selected Patricia Bullrich over Horacio Rodriguez Larreta.
Bullrich is right wing. She's also maybe the most completely talentless politician I have EVER seen in this part of the world.
She's charmless, utterly unlikeable, and has made an absolutely preposterous political journey from militant leftist to now, the far right,
When the provisional IRA tried to assassinate the entire British government, the British government did not respond by carpet bombing Belfast for weeks on end.
Nor did it impose a 16-year-long siege on the island of Ireland.
Nor did it cut off electricity, water, food, fuel and communications.
In fact, much of the world - including, notably, the US - understood that the nationalist community in Northern Ireland had an entirely legitimate grievance. And were victims of an historic injustice.
UK politicians wouldn't have even dreamt of such a response. Had it been attempted, we'd have been ostracised by the entire world, maybe forever.
And in the end, peace was achieved. Draining the swamp of support for terrorism through dialogue, power-sharing and democracy.
"Research by the IJPR shows about 2% of the population of Great Britain can be characterised as “hardcore” antisemites - defined as those believing multiple anti-Jewish tropes simultaneously - whereas 70% is found to hold no anti-Jewish views at all".theguardian.com/world/2023/oct…
"A 2021 survey by the institute, conducted two months after the last war in Gaza, found that almost three-quarters of Jewish adults in the UK felt that non-Jews held them responsible for the actions of the Israeli government during the conflict..."
"More than half said that public and media criticism of Israel at the time made them feel that Jews were not welcome in the UK".
Several things here.
1. Anyone attacking or insulting British Jews for the actions of Israel is an antisemitic arsehole.