Cont: Transwomen are not women - part XI

[Darat]

The key point is that a court case has just happened which said that a GRC changes sex for all purposes.
This conflicts with what most in Parliament thought it meant at the time, and the position of the EHRC.

The simplest way to untangle this is for Parliament to be clear what it means by a simple amendment to the Act.

Haven't we've gone over Haldane's judgement before? As it stands the UK government and the EHRC position is that the equality act allows trans folk even with a gender recognition certificate to be barred from some single sex spaces/services. To use the EHRC summary:

There are circumstances where a lawfully-established separate or single-sex service provider can prevent, limit or modify trans people’s access to the service. This is allowed under the Act. However, limiting or modifying access to, or excluding a trans person from, the separate or single-sex service of the gender in which they present might be unlawful if you cannot show such action is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. This applies whether the person has a Gender Recognition Certificate or not. ​

That has still to be tested and a precedent set in court.

 

[LondonJohn]

The more I think about it, the weirder the idea of "gender affirming care" for minors seems to me.

Gender is a social construct, right? Minors, still in the process of being socialized, cannot fully know what gender is. They cannot fully know what gender conformity means or will mean for them. Young children especially can have only the vaguest idea of the social construct of gender.

So what gender is there to affirm, in minors? Not their own, of course, since the construct has not yet been fully socialized in them. It has to be someone else's idea of gender, being affirmed in them.

But it also can't be the social construct. That's an aggregate of all the social interactions and affirmations they come across throughout childhood and into adulthood. If it's some other singular person's idea of gender being affirmed in them, that's a stereotype. It's their mother, or father, or one of their teachers, imposing their own personal view of what gender is and means, on a child. Whatever it is, we know it cannot be the child's construct of gender. Not fully socialized, the child doesn't have one yet.

And of course if it involves surgery or hormones, it's not gender-affirming care at all. It's a transsexual imposition.

If I had a nickel for every time a transgender issue turned out to be transsexual issue in practical terms, I'd be able to buy Twitter.

I kinda think that the many thousands of medical experts in this field know what they're saying/doing when they talk of transgender identity rather than transexual identity.

I'm happy to go with their cumulative tens of thousands of years of education, expertise and experience..... rather than your take on the matter. YMMV.

 

[LondonJohn]

Haven't we've gone over Haldane's judgement before? As it stands the UK government and the EHRC position is that the equality act allows trans folk even with a gender recognition certificate to be barred from some single sex spaces/services. To use the EHRC summary:

There are circumstances where a lawfully-established separate or single-sex service provider can prevent, limit or modify trans people’s access to the service. This is allowed under the Act. However, limiting or modifying access to, or excluding a trans person from, the separate or single-sex service of the gender in which they present might be unlawful if you cannot show such action is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. This applies whether the person has a Gender Recognition Certificate or not. ​

That has still to be tested and a precedent set in court.

Indeed. And it's worth understanding that no legislation can possibly prescribe injuries/remedies for all of the many and varied scenarios. That's why - just as with a lot of legislation - the application of the law in practice will be evolved through judicial interpretations and legal precedent.

Incidentally, the petition demanding "clarification" has passed 100,000 signatures today. Many...."gender critical".... commentators on social media are triumphantly jumping to the conclusion that this means there will have to be a parliamentary debate on the matter.

But in fact, the guidelines on petitions of this sort state clearly that passing 100K only means that the matter will be considered for debate in parliament.

In this particular case, the law is already fine as it is. The UK Government pointed this out early on in the life of the petition. And not only that: the modifications desired by the petitioners would actually serve to make the law worse, rather than better. As you and I both know, the practical application of the law - especially regarding what is/is not proportionate - will be a matter for the courts going forward. No parliament can legislate for these sorts of judgement calls.

 

[Emily's Cat]

So, you don’t see the vast hypocrisy you’re slinging around here.

You are speaking as an adult for someone who is not your child. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess your nephew hasn’t come to you to ask your opinion or your advice. I’d further guess you haven’t sat down and listened to your nephew and his perspective.

Your being an adult makes absolutely no difference in the hypocrisy of your argument.

Don't guess, you're bad at it.

My nephew (now niece) agrees that their younger sibling is probably NOT actually trans and shouldn't have been given testosterone after a whopping 30 minute interview.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I kinda think that the many thousands of medical experts in this field know what they're saying/doing when they talk of transgender identity rather than transexual identity.

I'm happy to go with their cumulative tens of thousands of years of education, expertise and experience..... rather than your take on the matter. YMMV.

Does that apply to the many medical experts in your own country who have been shut down as a result of how they're handling this?

 

[Nick Terry]

The petition to clarify the Equality Act passed 100,000 signatures this lunchtime - about 5 hours ago. This is over 40 days ahead of the expiration of the petition.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/623243

 

[Upchurch]

Don't guess, you're bad at it.

My nephew (now niece) agrees that their younger sibling is probably NOT actually trans and shouldn't have been given testosterone after a whopping 30 minute interview.

I wasn't talking about a conversation with your niece. I was talking about your nephew.

 

[Samson]

I wasn't talking about a conversation with your niece. I was talking about your nephew.

Which shows that plain speech has disappeared.

 

[Upchurch]

Which shows that plain speech has disappeared.

Or how those who can't adapt get left behind.

 

[Samson]

Or how those who can't adapt get left behind.

Leaving people behind is not a victory for the communication and advocacy field. There are simple ways to enable the slow coaches, EC managed it.

 

[Upchurch]

Leaving people behind is not a victory for the communication and advocacy field.

Maybe not, but that assumes that younger generations require older generations' support or agreement.

 

[Samson]

Or how those who can't adapt get left behind.

Maybe not, but that assumes that younger generations require older generations' support or agreement.

There have been multiple times stories are written where it is a long way in before the status of the subject becomes apparent. This is particularly so where the journalist is bound by new conventions to use the self ID in stories of male violence against women.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I wasn't talking about a conversation with your niece. I was talking about your nephew.

Which one do you think is my nephew? The biologically male one who identifies as a transwoman? Or the biologically female one who identifies as nonbinary, takes testosterone, and is planning to have a double mastectomy?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Maybe not, but that assumes that younger generations require older generations' support or agreement.

Let's reinsert some reality here.

Younger generations DO need the support and agreement of older generations on a huge number of things. Unless those younger generations are going to entirely reinvent every field of science, every aspect of industry, every trade and its methods, every form of government, and every form of society from the ground up... they absolutely need the support ant agreement of older generations.

It's the master and journeyman that teaches the apprentice. The apprentice doesn't just magically acquire knowledge from nothingness. It's the car loan and the home loan and the student loan that enables to the young person to be independent, and those loans are proffered from the earnings of older people.

And these days, children remain dependent on their parents into their 30s.

So realistically, this narrative that younger generations have no use for older generations is short-sighted and facile. Those younger generations are benefiting from the work that we, and our forebears did.

And just so we don't lose sight of the actual context here... We're talking about my 17 year old relative - the female child of my female sibling - who obtained damaging drugs from a 30 minute interview with someone who knows nothing about them, without consideration for the existing diagnosis of bipolar disorder (I doubt the doctor was even told of the diagnosis), and without consideration for a family history of autism spectrum disorder, without consideration for the in-progress very stressful and messy divorce, and without any actual due diligence whatsoever. And your take on this is that the minor who is seeking a panacea for their emotional pain doesn't need adults to make sure they don't cause themselves harm?

Why do you think you are in any fashion entitled to opine on what is best for my relatives? Do you know them? I would say you know them even less than the hack that blind-signed the Rx for testosterone.

 

[Upchurch]

Which one do you think is my nephew? The biologically male one who identifies as a transwoman? Or the biologically female one who identifies as nonbinary, takes testosterone, and is planning to have a double mastectomy?

I'm referring to people by how I understood that they are identifying. I assumed that if your younger niece is transitioning, that would make them your nephew. I shouldn't have made that assumption, but I missed you saying they were identifying as non-binary. So, to correct myself, I'm guessing your nibling has not come to you for advice and that you have not bothered to understand their perspective.

You are still a cis-woman making decisions for a trans person without any experience or perspective of being a trans person and it is still hypocritical of you to do so when have regularly decried men's arguments when they have not had the experiences or perspectives of women.

 

[Upchurch]

Let's reinsert some reality here.

What I'm not seeing here is this any indication that you are a guardian of this person and have any expectation of full and complete knowledge of your nibling's current or past medical conditions. You have given no indication that you have talked with or listened to your nibling and what they are going through.

I never claimed to know what's better for your relatives. What I'm claiming is that you don't necessarily know what's better for your relatives because, just like I've never had the experiences and perspectives of being a woman, you've never had the experiences and perspectives of being trans.

 

[d4m10n]

Gender is a social construct, right?

That's sort of the old way of looking at things, innit? These days "gender identity" means one's personal subjective sense of being a woman or man or . . . something new. Society doesn't have a say, really, and can do little other than affirm or deny or ignore it.

So what gender is there to affirm, in minors?

Whatever they tell you they feel like.

 

[Upchurch]

As an aside, this whole conversation very forcibly reminds me of my Boomer mother who absolutely hates tattoos. She can't understand why anyone would intentionally scar themselves permanently. She views it as self-harm similar to cutting and the sign of a mental problem.

 

[Upchurch]

That's sort of the old way of looking at things, innit? These days "gender identity" means one's personal subjective sense of being a woman or man or . . . something new. Society doesn't have a say, really, and can do little other than affirm or deny or ignore it.

The more I read into it, the more it seems that it is trending more towards "labels are silly" and the need to label things is more a problem for the labelers, not the labelees. And, yes, kids really don't give a damn if you approve or not.

My son needed a new bike and was interested in taking my aunt-in-law's old bike, which was clearly a girls bike. My wife and I individually decided that we needed to keep looking because we kept viewing it through our perspective were a boy riding a girl's bike when we were kids would have super embarrassing. But, no, really. My son's generation really doesn't give a rat's backside if the bike is "for a girl". Because that is a ridiculous label. It's a bike. It works well. Why does the label matter? That is a prejudice my wife and I automatically imposed on our son's behalf without really talking to him about it.

 

[d4m10n]

The more I read into it, the more it seems that it is trending more towards "labels are silly" and the need to label things is more a problem for the labelers, not the labelees. And, yes, kids really don't give a damn if you approve or not.

That explains why the kids are so laid back about misgendering.