UKC

Two astronauts are currently stuck up aboard the ISS. A Russian satellite mysteriously exploded causing the crew to take evasive action and a superbug has evolved up there!

They have a plan though, the egotist billionaire Musk has been tasked with towing the thing into the ocean.

Unsure as to which aspect of this factual post catalysed a downvote - admittedly, it reads like a condensed season of Red Dwarf but it's all facts - truth being far stranger than fiction. Again...

You can prove Musk is a billionaire but calling him an egotist is not really a fact.

You're just trolling, right? I'm going to bite anyway because I'm bored.

Probably the only halfway legitimate entry on the list. But a failure of Boeing and their new crew vehicle rather than the ISS. And "stuck" is a little melodramatic. They're extending the stay to assess the risks from complications in a brand new vehicle undergoing testing. They might well conclude that it's safe to proceed. If they don't, they'll find a different way to bring them down.

How is the explosion of a Russian satellite a reflection on the West or the ISS?

No, a superbug has been found up there that already exists on Earth. "Superbug" is an over-dramatic term anyway and as far as I'm aware this one isn't particularly concerning. It evolved up there only in the sense that it already existed and had the antibacterial resistance down on the surface and kept mutating while up there because that's just what bugs do.

A planned retirement after 30 years of service is hardly a failure! Towing it down rather than leaving it in orbit to gradually break up and cause massive debris problems is the responsible course of action. And much as I hate Musk as a person, SpaceX are doing remarkable things and are obvious candidates for the job.

No, it's an understatement

It’s a ludicrously expensive boondoggle whose design was compromised by the politically compromised design of the space shuttle system.

It’s going to be outclassed immensely by commercial stations with inflatable modules launched on reusable rockets.  NASA pioneered and abandoned inflatable modules, Bigelow proved their endurance in orbit and on the ISS but had very strange leadership and since their patent licensed from NASA expired others have gone public with modules.

SpaceX’s “Starship” has more pressurised volume than the whole ISS, will launch on a reusable booster and can come back down again.

Re-entry is going to be spectacular.  

Anyone with the capacity to accrue over one billion pounds will be pathologically egotistical. Fact.

Bollox. JK Rowling is not pathologically egotistical. She is a sane rational intelligent person with sensible views on gender.

A sane rational egotist with sensible views on gender, possibly.

If you ask me (which you haven't), hanging on to north of a billion pounds is implicitly egotistical. You're in a position to ease the suffering a a sizeable population but you're actively choosing not to because you like being a billionairess. That's ego, that is. We all have one...

I hear she makes substantial charitable donations. 

Fun fact (which I’m sure many will have seen before but worth repeating)

It's 80,000 BC.
You are immortal.
The world is still frozen in an ice age. You decide to save $10,000 EVERY DAY, never spending a cent.
82,021 years later, it's 2021.

You still don't have as much money as Elon Musk.

How big is substantial? If you're worth a billion you can afford to donate hundreds of millions to worthy causes without it significantly affecting your lifestyle

So what %age of her wealth is she donating or at least getting into a charitable trust that will donate in future as it assesses which causes are worthy? 10%, 20% - stingy, 50% - okayish, 70%+ - laudable

Edit: it's just not the same as "normal" working people, it would significantly affect most of our lifestyles if we donated 20% rather than 10%, but billionaires, nope.

Your caveman has $299.25 Bn in cash which is more than Musk’s $220 Bn net worth now (discounting interest, inflation and the slowing of the earth’s rotation changing the number of days/year over such timescales).

So your caveman is richer.  In fact he’s richer than the numbers suggest, as most of Musk’s net worth comes from shares, and he’s in a situation where if he tried to cash them all out their value would likely plummet.  I imagine he has $1m to $20m in cash and rapidly cashable assets, and he can probably borrow up to $0.1bn on short notice which still puts him in a supremely privileged position, but your caveman is far, far richer in cash terms.

You said musk was richer in 2021 than the caveman and he just about was, not now he’s about $80 Bn poorer than the caveman but he’s not lost $80 Bn in cash in those last 3 years.  Paper value evaporated for musk which goes to show the difference beteeen net and cash worth.  I know which I’d rather have!

Given how Tesla has blown their early mover advantage under Musk’s governance and the direction of X/Twitter, his net worth is likely only going down soon. 

You really should have put that money in a globally diverse index fund.

Factual or not, you have misunderstood everything in your original post. 

Starliner's shitshow is Boeing's shitshow.

The ISS shifts its orbit to avoid debris all the time. That's not news.

No idea what you're on about with superbugs.

The other story you've latched onto is that they've decided who will develop the system that deorbits it at the end of its life. It was always going to have an end of life, and letting it randomly decay and land... somewhere... isn't a great plan. Might want to start thinking about that a little ahead of time, no? Maybe when we've had a couple decades of advances in spaceflight since its inception, but still have time to develop a vehicle capable of doing it in control. Which, actually, is quite a big ask, for reasons you can read about if so inclined.

The abuse she gives out wouldn't be tolerated if it were based on race, sexuality etc.  There are matters for debate on gender vs. sex (because it's one of those "liberal paradoxes" in a way), but she takes the way she speaks to people far, far too far.  You can disagree with someone without wilfully seeking to upset them, e.g. directly referring to trans women as men.  If she simply wanted to differentiate them from those born as women, she'd use the term "trans women"; her use of "men" is deliberate antagonism and I can't stand that.

With hindsight I'd recommend Blackrock...

I’m doing a fire sale on replacement batteries for sarcasm detectors…

There are too many people who genuinely think that (though I suppose UKC wouldn't be a likely place to find that many of them knowing its general left bias) to really be able to identify sarcasm on that matter without a smiley!

They are stuck because of Boeing not the ISS

Don't tell me the door fell off...

Anyhow - Sorry for the disingenuous nature of OP! I let off steam by gently poking fun at stuff (at myself too!) and I'm not 100% convinced this is entirely a good thing; some could call it trolling-lite!

Cheers for putting up with it anyway and I'll try to reign it in. Typically (and paradoxically perhaps), my personality is not quite as forthright in reality!

I'd have thought so too not so long ago, but the 'Green party' thread revealed plenty.

But in the GC viewpoint, when it comes to, for example, prisons, there is no need for differentiation as it’s simply irrelevant. The GC view is that you’re the one making the category error. 

Or it’s an accurate portrayal of reality as JKR sees it, but it’s much easier for her detractors to claim bad faith rather than explain why gender is more important than sex. It’s also a boon for progressive men who want to put a clever, successful woman down whilst proudly portraying their progressiveness. 

She also has some very ableist views about the capabilities of autistic people which are frankly disappointing given that the entire Harry Potter series is about fighting people who would attack others over a characteristic they couldn't choose (i.e. purity of your magical lineage).

The abuse she gives out...

Would you please give an example. 

youtube.com/watch?v=7gDKbT_l2us&

I would suggest going on to YouTube and checking out Elon's talks about what his mission is with SpaceX.  

The plan, whether it sticks to schedule or not, is potentially one of the greatest acts in the planet's history to safeguard life on Earth by ensuring we are interplanetary. Should anything happen to Earth, Musk is putting in place the tools to ensure we aren't solely dependent on it, confined to a sinking ship, wishing we had installed lifeboats earlier.

He's doing a much better job of that than Boeing, or anyone else. Deserves every dime of his billions in my opinion.

However when you're making your point it is necessary to consider peoples' sensitivities and be kind.  We are talking about people here - people who have a far harder time than just about any other minority (which is why I believe the LGBT+ community generally embraces trans rights).

She fails to do that (as does the above sentence).  You can at least use the term "biological woman" to pick out that you're referring specifically to the birth sex.

There is terminology that can be used that won't cause offence, and these people know full well what it is.  Wilfully not using it is deliberately causing offence and is therefore abusive.

Directly referring to a specific trans woman as a man is abusive - it is said specifically to cause offence.  She does that all the time on Twitter.  Feel free to look up your own example.

That female athlete with a bee in her bonnet about Parkrun does the same.

The appropriate terminology is well known, and wilfully using the incorrect terminology when you know the correct terminology is just the same as using perjorative terminology for a gay person or a Black person.  It's deliberate abuse and must be called out as such.

The debate on the complex principles behind the issue (e.g. how to deal with trans children) can be had civilly and without causing abuse, and must be had in that way.

Women and men are references only to biology. Gender is a construct I don’t believe in, in fact I believe it’s regressive and itself an unkind thing that limits human beings. But I’m not coercive about that - you’re free to believe in it and talk about it however you see fit. The admonition to “be kind” has seen biological men (the only sort) try to remove the rights of biological women (again, the only sort), reduce free speech and be intimidating, a reality I strongly doubt you have any interest in dealing with (though I’d be gratified if you tried). 

Be kind? 
https://news.sky.com/story/scottish-politicians-and-jk-rowling-voice-anger-...

You’re asking people to pretend. To disavow their view of reality. That’s an intensely coercive act that has nothing to do with letting men who believe they are women (or vice versa) live full and meaningful lives. It’s as if Christians said the only way they can exist fairly in society is if everyone else never mentions atheism.

The thing is, you know the terminology that can be used without causing offence, and as such you're deliberately using other terminology, as such you're being abusive.

That's how it is.

I recognise the paradoxes with regard to the rights of cis women, and as such am happy to have a discussion on these things, but do ask that respectful terminology is used when talking to or about trans people.

I'm not willing to discuss it with people who wilfully use terminology in this context that they are fully aware trans people will find offensive, and so with regret our discussion on the matter ends here, but that I guess sadly @wintertree I wasn't wrong in my original reply.

So, if you have to refer to someone with a pronoun or a gendered descriptor ("Sean over there, he's the chap you're looking for" v's "Sean over there, she's the woman you're looking for" [1]) do you insist of a physical check of the person before choosing which one to use?  You must enliven parties!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Young , perhaps?

Someone who is really bothered or unsure could easily use gender neutral language ("they are over there") or their name.

Someone who deliberately uses male language for someone they can see to be a trans woman is just being insulting, and totally unnecessarily so.

The way that's coming across to me at the moment is that you've found a way of justifying cruelty to trans people that sounds kind of principled and progressive, and in fact weaponises the language of queer communities against them. Does your radical free-thinking rejection of the construct of gender have any particular consequences other than enshrining your right to offend and exclude trans people?

Please do correct me if I'm misreading your position, I genuinely do hope that there's more to your point.

Okay, let’s talk about this. Debate is good, no? Understand others’ views is a worthwhile activity, no? How do you see those “paradoxes” as best being resolved?

One good option is gender neutral changing and toilet facilities with floor to ceiling, properly lockable cubicles so everyone, whoever they are, can have proper privacy and safety.  I prefer this over getting my bits out in front of other men at the gym or pool, to be honest, and in a school context open changing rooms are a hive of bullying (and probably dodgy teachers, at least back in the 80s).

Another thing that can help is fighting homophobia and properly educating on all the issues and making sure people know from an early age that being gay is just how you are and is fine (there have been cases of children thinking they were trans but later realising they were gay).

Another is to break down societal barriers so there's no stigma to being a feminine man or a masculine woman.

Of course those will only deal with some people' situations, as some people will still simply know they're in the wrong body.  But haven't we for a long time had what we used to call "sex changes" (very old term!) for those people, which wasn't an issue until faux women's rights campaigners like Rowling came along?

In short, the fewer things society does by gender, the fewer people will see the need to transition.  Let's just have people, and let's let them be what they want in society.  Then provide properly (ie medically) for the remaining people who genuinely feel they're in the wrong body.

How in earth did this get from the ISS to a completely non related discussion.  Someone too lazy to create a thread for the latter stuff?

Agreed. But unfortunately this will always only be a partial solution.

Also completely agree. There have been cases of children undergoing very difficult medical treatment for this very reason which frankly is extremely concerning.

Aka “gender is a construct”! There should be absolutely no stigma to this at all. 

Of course gender reassignment surgery should still be an option for some people who really need it to relieve their distress and unhappiness. But again, it’s possible to think this without the mystical “gendered soul” stuff. You’re free to believe that, of course, but I am free to not believe it, and to speak and think accordingly. Either way, it has no bearing on whether this surgery should be available to people who need it. 
 

And you were doing so well. Let’s gloss over this example of a man defining feminism shall we? 

Agree to a point. I would say “things society does by sex” because that is the defining characteristic for me. If you’re a man (or biological man, as I must caveat in order to get a hearing) who believes he’s a woman and wants to wear a dress as an expression of that, crack on, go for it, but for some of us that is an irrelevant consideration in some circumstances. 

Was about to post the same. UKC at its tangential best.  

For someone who's so concerned about people being insulted by word choice, your comment about "dodgy teachers"  could be found extremely offensive by a particular cohort in the profession, especially since you narrow it down to those who were working in the eighties.

It's descended into a typical UKC willy waving borefest popular with those whose main aim is to get the last word in

Because safeguarding and DBS checks weren't a thing then.  Also it was when I was at school.

It's only insulting to any teacher who was actually up to no good, and that insult is very much intended.

No, it's insulting to me as a member of that profession in the eighties. One thing you should have learnt by now is that it's not up to you to decide what's insulting or not. Whatever rules apply to talking to or talking about transgender people also apply to other sections of society. And if you are saying that me being insulted by your insinuation means that I was"up to no good" while I was supervising kids getting changed then you had better be ready to make good on your assertion. 

More of a decaying orbit than a direct descent. From the ISS to Billionaires to JK Rowling to Gender Politics, the discourse has fragmented into a thousand heated and crazy ideas. The kind of frothing culture rant that should rightly be ditched mid Pacific and bringing the thread full circle is the epitome of how the West can be viewed, which is a shame because it has so much more going for it.

See, if you had just talked about a simple spaceship and not brought evil billionaires into the discussion......

I think "willy waving" is a hilariously inappropriate metaphor  bearing in mind some of the concerns being expressed and I do hope it was very much intended.

You derailed your own thread, own it.

You don't beat about the bush

You're making up that insinuation.  It is aimed at those up to no good only.  Assuming, as I do, that you weren't up to no good, it's not aimed at you.

There were dodgy teachers back then (and are now, though probably fewer due to the various safeguards) - it's aimed at them and them only.

I'm a Scout Leader.  I'm not offended by aspersions cast at the ones who were up to no good, because that doesn't include me, and the ones who were up to no good deserve more than a few insults on an obscure loosely climbing related web forum.

This is very, very different to directly calling trans women men with the (alleged) intention to offend, as Rowling does.  Indeed personally whether I'm offended by something or not is pretty much 100% contingent on whether offence was intended.

Well, this thread has reached nadir faster that any space station ever could…

Agreed. Should never have taken offence at such a petty slight.

I de-orbited it.

'derailing' is a terrestrial cliché. Get with the program...

As someone who can describe themselves as a biological terrestrial, I'm offended by your disenfranchising use of extra-terrestrial language that denies my right to return a satellite to earth regardless of whether I have a satellite or not.

… which is ironic given his weaponising of Twitter into a platform for bots, trolls and influencers to drive misinformation that’s further eroding the democratic institutions that we need to avoid existential warfare on earth.

If you believe Rowling’s intention is to be offensive for the sake of it then I don’t think you’re really engaging with what she says. For example:

“I’ve read all the arguments about femaleness not residing in the sexed body, and the assertions that biological women don’t have common experiences, and I find them, too, deeply misogynistic and regressive. It’s also clear that one of the objectives of denying the importance of sex is to erode what some seem to see as the cruelly segregationist idea of women having their own biological realities or – just as threatening – unifying realities that make them a cohesive political class. The hundreds of emails I’ve received in the last few days prove this erosion concerns many others just as much.  It isn’t enough for women to be trans allies. Women must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves.

“But, as many women have said before me, ‘woman’ is not a costume. ‘Woman’ is not an idea in a man’s head. ‘Woman’ is not a pink brain, a liking for Jimmy Choos or any of the other sexist ideas now somehow touted as progressive. Moreover, the ‘inclusive’ language that calls female people ‘menstruators’ and ‘people with vulvas’ strikes many women as dehumanising and demeaning. I understand why trans activists consider this language to be appropriate and kind, but for those of us who’ve had degrading slurs spat at us by violent men, it’s not neutral, it’s hostile and alienating.”

That is a clearly thought through position. It’s a reason for what she says based on her values and experiences, not just bigotry for the sake of it.

It is of course easier - much easier - to spit out accusations of simple offence, because then you don’t have to deal with the substance of what she says. Such as the following:

“I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.”

And in case it’s not clear the effects of your “be kind” movement:

“Huge numbers of women are justifiably terrified by the trans activists; I know this because so many have got in touch with me to tell their stories.”

https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for...

She's a transphobe. Whether she's pathologically egotistical I don't know, or particularly care. Her views are about as sensible as trying to onsight solo Hubble in a gale force 5 storm.

I think Sun Ra would approve of this distinction 

And to hopefully inject a moderate point to above, surely if someone would prefer a person to refer to them in a certain way (whether their gender identity, or their name) it’s just simple politeness to do so, at no cost to you? Regardless of your views on their reasons for doing so.

i have no strong views on the matter overall and can see reasonable concerns on both ‘sides’ but do wish on all social issues we wouldn’t collectively separate into two groups but reflect on the viewpoints and concerns of people who hold differing viewpoints to us.

Need more coffee this Sunday morning perhaps! 
 

Just to dismiss someone is much, much easier than engaging with what she says and explaining why your conclusion follows from it. It shouldn’t be hard given you are engaged with the issue and a bright lad, right?

You’ve just been told that a political movement that you support is frightening for some women. To dismiss that with such bluster seems… well, it doesn’t seem good to me. 

Meanwhile, in the East, this was a static fire test (i.e. the engines are tested while the rocket is held down to the pad) of China's knock-off of the falcon 9

https://xcancel.com/CSI_Starbase/status/1807344007145521266

https://xcancel.com/alphacharlie89/status/1807325869687316618

And not that long ago from a different orbital launcher.... Here's what happens to Long March 2C first stages on a successful launch:

https://xcancel.com/Erdayastronaut/status/1804557900859257107

Would you please give an example where JK Rowling has been abusive.  Context is all.

She's a transphobe

Would you please give an example.

J K Rowling is not in this thread and therefore I can't engage with her. 

Her rhetoric is extremely frightening to trans women (notably she and other TERFs are never interested in trans men), I'm not particularly inclined to entertain the idea that she has "sensible" ideas

Since half the controversy  about transwomen seems to be based on their sporting ability and their validity in female competitions, one  reason why JKR and the media show less interest in trans men might be  that such people show little or no inclination to enter into competition with male athletes. If they did it would provoke comment and attract the attention of JKR, Sharron Davies, Martina Navratilova et al  and , who knows, might earn them a bit of grudging respect. But trans men are not as prominent in the sporting arena as transwomen and therefore not as newsworthy in general.

I suspect it actually because Rowling et al consider Trans Women to essentially be 1) Men and 2) therefore a physical threat masquerading as a Woman, whereas they see Trans Men as essentially Women who are victims of male violence.

Needless to say this is highly offensive. As for examples; Rowling continually misgenders people online, repeating her comments would be rather distasteful but a quick Google will reveal specific examples 

You can of course engage with her ideas via her writing, some of which has been quoted above. Aside from the obvious asininity of this comment, its prevailing feature is its cowardice. Why are you so scared to debate this issue?

The way we usually make such accuations is to quote the offending statement and, if necessary, to elaborate and explain why it's a problem. I believe you're more interested in casting an aspersion on everything that she's written or said. Why? At a guess your objections are not to do with thinking about how we organise society based on arguments about, say, the balance of rights and safety, but exist to create an in-group and an out-group, whose boundaries you can then police. Amazing that a clever, forthright woman is in the out-group.

Are there any stats on the relative number of trans women & trans men?

And if it's not close to equality, has there been any reputable study into why not?

As a slight aside, I was a bit bemused by a Labour spokesperson being unable to answer "which toilet should trans women use" - surely the obvious answer is (although difficult to enforce in practice) if you've not undergone the relevant surgery then use the men's, if you've undergone that surgery then use whichever you prefer.

2021 census the split was basically 50/50 IIRC

As for debating what Rowling has said; I take issue with her views, but her repeated misgendering of people amounts to transphobia regardless of anything else, and that is highly objectionable and offensive. So that, in my view, is not debatable. Regardless of her views on gender, she has made many transphobic comments. And that's hardly just my view, as you can see by the fact that she is rightly criticised heavily for it.

I am absolutely aware that UKC probably trends closer to her views than not and I'm probably an outlier. I imagine the average poster here is a bit on the older side and anecdotally that appears to be quite a significant divider in terms of opinion (young people consider trans rights much more important and find transphobia and TERF-views much more offensive).

In the videoi posted above she was into intricate detail giving a lot more than examples. If you really want to know it's an hour and a half well spent.

“I’ve read all the arguments about femaleness not residing in the sexed body, and the assertions that biological women don’t have common experiences, and I find them, too, deeply misogynistic and regressive. It’s also clear that one of the objectives of denying the importance of sex is to erode what some seem to see as the cruelly segregationist idea of women having their own biological realities or – just as threatening – unifying realities that make them a cohesive political class. The hundreds of emails I’ve received in the last few days prove this erosion concerns many others just as much.  It isn’t enough for women to be trans allies. Women must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves.”

Did she misgender anyone? No, she does not. So surely it’s safe to discuss this paragraph? I appreciate that you’re angry with her, and want to banish her - and all gender critical thought - from the circle of what can be discussed. I think this is incredibly intellectually weak and worse, it makes you a terrible ally to trans people. You want to persuade others to make big social changes but won’t argue for those changes and call anyone who disagrees a bigot? You’re going to fail; in fact this approach is currently failing. You can just move on to the next thing when this falls out of fashion. Other people cannot. 

So at least quote some for us. And then explain why you see them as such. 

She’s also lauded. And her position is similar to the median view in the U.K., when those views are tested by pollsters. So if popularity is your metric…

You’re aware of the arguments that the use of TERF is a slur akin to, well, all the other slurs we have for anyone who isn’t a nice white guy like you or I? 

If I get time, I will watch that vid, but it is very long. 

All I wanted was an example of the abuse that is claimed JKR so liberally throws about.

I'm aware that TERFs consider it a pejorative, yes. I'd say that it's an accurate description. Would you consider yourself under that umbrella, Sean?

As for debating you, I have no doubt we could both spill a lot of words over it, but I'd never persuade you to change your views and I've heard it all before from you too, so it does seem rather pointless. 

Isn't that because apparently trans women continue to commit crime at much the same rate as men, so represent similar risk? The sort of risk single-sex spaces are intended to minimise?

As a cis woman I have no issues at all sharing public toilets with trans women. It's a private cubicle and so long as they outwardly present as female that's ok by me. 

I have never knowingly shared changing rooms with a trans woman but am happy to live in blissful ignorance, my local gym has private cubicles for anyone who feels the need for extra privacy. (Interestingly when a friend transitioned F-M the point where I started to feel awkward sharing the changing room was the point where he swapped to using the men's facilities)

Prisons and hospitals really need assessing on a case by case basis. Depending on the stage of transition (nature of offence) I don't see an issue with trans people being treated according their adopted gender, however the privacy/safety of other inmates/patients also needs to be considered. 

Womens refugees are a tough one. I can totally understand that vulnerable cis women want, need and deserve a safe female only space. However trans women are disproportionately vulnerable to abuse and have an equal right to a safe space. Maybe some refugees should be permitted to only cater for cis women, with others choosing to cater for all women???

Sport is another matter entirely, as yes those born male do have physiological advantages in most sports. At an amateur (fun) level who cares? The likes of Parkrun perhaps could include a third 'trans and non-binary' gender category. At an elite level though unfortunately I think it probably is necessary in the name of fairness to the majority to restrict participation by trans women. 

Oh and how you address someone is a matter of basic good manners. As someone said above, you should use the name, title and gender that the other person introduces themselves as. I admit I find non binary incredibly awkward (in my mind 'they' is a plural or for when you're not sure because you haven't met a person, so feels silly for a someone you know), but that is my problem not theirs.

Fine if you want to call her a TERF if the only objection to that she feels it pejorative - her feelings shouldn't bar you from that, I agree. 

The issue is really whether it's accurate to call her a Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist.

As far as I can tell she is not 'trans-exclusionary' as she doesn't seem to mind where trans people go by and large, any more than she cares about where men go. What she objects to is people using women's spaces for sexually predatory reasons. Those who do so are nearly always natal men. And because some men will use subterfuge to do so (ie. pretending they have rights to use space as a cleaner, or now as trans-women, or doing so when others aren't around or because it is dark), ALL natal men are barred. Yes, we (men, trans-women) all get tarred as potential sex-abusers. Sad. But necessary to ensure the safety of a physically weaker and vulnerable sex in these spaces. You can surely see the massive hole that gets blown in that basic safeguarding measure if we allow anyone who identifies as trans to access those spaces? It's not an anti-trans measure any more than its an anti-male measure.

Second, she is also not a 'radical feminist'. Her feminism is pretty bog standard, potentially shared with people barely interested or aware of feminism (I don't consider myself a feminist but struggle to find daylight between myself and most 1st/2nd wave feminists like her). If there is something radical in her branch of feminism I'd like to know what it is.

Given this, it seems labelling her a TERF is chosen not because it is accurate but as it labels her as exclusionary and radical. Both pejorative terms that seem quite incorrect.

This bothers me, and I've said so before. Surely there must be a better way of bringing down the ISS (and the myriad of other obsolete stuff up there) in a way that means it can be recycled, rather than just incinerated on re-entry!

They got it up there, after all!

Whilst a lot of the things you mention may help a few, I think the things we need to fix are a bit more basic.

At first glance it may not seem obvious, but bullying at school could be a massive contributor.

My wife is a teacher at an all girl's school and they have noticed kids who are unpopular, targets of bullying etc will come to school one day saying they prefer "he" and the other kids are suddenly very nice to them, respect them and want to help them.

This is just one trend that has been observed, but there are many ways that people are unhappy and I don't believe we always know the best way to address being unhappy. 

If we feel we need to be a certain way in society we're going to try and "fix" ourselves to fit in. If people we're just nicer to each other I think a lot more people would be willing to accept themselves as they are.

This is at least my possibly naïve interpretation of things.

Parkrun in the end is mostly about participation and self-improvement.  They should probably just remove the league tables entirely (going a little further than they have) because that removes the issue.  Because they have no ability to verify who puts themselves in what category (the resources simply aren't there) getting involved in the issue is just fraught with problems.  This is why that athlete who is presently laying into them all over X annoys me so much, not because I don't agree with her point when it comes to sport that is intended to be competitive.

That will annoy (and has annoyed) the small number who go around winning Parkruns (sorry, first finishing), but that's basically a few people per Parkrun, the rest just care about their own time or competing with their mates on whatever terms that group of people wants.

On the other hand, I can see sense in sport categories generally being Open and Female, with Female meaning "born as a woman" - because it is one of those cases where it's pretty much entirely about genetic advantage and not about safe spaces, and I see no reason really good women shouldn't choose to compete in the male category if they want!

(Though that in itself opens up interesting questions about people with other genetic advantages - for instance, Dean Karnaszes, a famous ultra runner, is in part good at the sport because he has a genetic "defect" that prevents him getting lactic acid buildup in his muscles which gives him a greater endurance - and I'm sure there are other examples...)

Though pretty much every set of toilets I go into these days have a sign stating that male or female cleaners may clean either.  So if she wants female only cleaners in the ladies', that ship has long sailed.

Have a search on X and you'll see her directly referring to trans women as "men".  That's abusive, at least in my eyes.

She can use the term "trans woman" if she wishes to differentiate without upsetting people, therefore I conclude she intends to upset people.  I also quite like "natal woman" (which I hadn't heard before this thread) as a birth woman rather than "cis woman" which sounds a bit clumsy.

I think the person you have twice referred to as "that (female) athlete" is Sharron Davies. If I'm right you will be able to refer to her by her name in any future comments.

That's the one, yes.  Not easy to find someone in the lands of X without a name.

Sharron absolutely wilfully refers directly to specific, named trans women as "men", which I consider abusive.  Her profile on X makes this clear.

I actually agree with some of her points with regard to competitive sport as noted above (just I don't agree that Parkrun is competitive sport nor should it be dealt with as if it was - the vast majority of Parkrunners care only about their own time and that of friends etc).  However she is quite abrasive and insulting, and thus I consider her postings to be transphobic, which to me dilutes the value of the points she seeks to make.

She could simply use the term "trans woman" instead, which would make her points stronger because she wouldn't, in almost every single post, be wilfully insulting people.

It's possible to make the main point of her campaigning (for those who were born as men not to be able to compete in the female category in competitive sport, because that category exists primarily to allow a fair competition among those who don't have genetic advantage compared to those who were born as men) without being insulting, but she fails to do this and as such I have a problem with her approach.

That's because public toilets aren't segregated by sex (coventionally) for reasons of safety - that's just been invented from whole cloth by those who want to portray trans women as a threat.  They're segregated out of a sense of Victorian propriety, as much else was segregated along lines of sex and social class back then, and they've largely remained so since just out of tradition.

Actually it makes more sense in many spaces for toilets in particular to be unisex, and in bars, concert venues etc. that mainly serve drinks for them to be 'urinals' -vs- 'cubicles'.  (This helps to balance things out, since the more traditional arrangement of giving equal space to both can often lead to long queues for women in those venues.)

There's no better example of how profoundly unserious those who seek to weaponise this as a 'culture war' issue that Kemi Badenoch's aides putting up crudely hand-made signs to relabel the toilets at the venue where she had a launch event for her leadership bid a couple of Prime Ministers back.

The strong anti-trans sentiment obvious here, in this otherwise left-leaning and quite liberal forum, shows how successful they've been though.  It's profoundly depressing.  And the parallel to the trope of gay men being portrayed as a threat (to children mostly) back in the day is striking.  If this forum had been a thing back in the 1980s, I bet there would have been very similar conversions going on about Clause 28.

The latter is certainly an issue - queues in the gents' are near unknown but in the ladies' are universal.  This strikes me as very unfair towards women.

Floor to ceiling cubicles are probably needed in this context, but they're better anyway because doesn't everyone prefer better privacy?  I certainly do - for instance in a railway station I'd vastly prefer it not to be physically possible for someone to swipe my bag from under the door, or to reach from the next cubicle and take my phone from my trouser pocket while they're round my ankles.

You can always tell a transphobe from someone who's genuinely concerned about safety - when presented with "how about totally individual cubicles with a toilet and sink in each" (as most modern offices have, for example) they shout that they prefer a female only space without that privacy.

Now, there are people who treat toilets as a gender segregated social area, but that really isn't an appropriate use of any toilet facility - they exist for using the toilet then washing one's hands, and nothing else - and particularly in schools (where that extends to them becoming a bullying issue) that type of usage *really* needs to be deprecated.

That it is.

Yes in general unisex facilities make far more sense, they also allow either parent to supervise/chaperone children of both genders without any awkwardness. Just got back from France where gender segregation was very lax and it works, just shut and lock the door for complete privacy.

Actually bars and clubs are the one place that I very much do want segregated toilets. The loo is the one place you can use to evade (or 'hide') from unwanted male attention, or get a life lesson off your girl friends - which sadly where alcohol is consumed in volume is often necessary. (I however have no issues with sharing these female spaces with trans ladies)

I do so hope you're trolling. If so, 10/10.

My rough peers and I were at secondary 80ish to 89ish including 6th form. If we define 'dodgy teacher' as someone you definitely did not want to be caught alone with (by concrete accounts and personal experiences, not hearsay, and a fair few 'resignations'), then my school was about 3% sexually predatory teachers, my partner's school around 5%. I wonder if her figure is higher because she's female? - hell, three of her teachers married pupils as soon as their 18th birthdays came around.

I think you underestimate the normalisation of the hyper-sexualised nature of the 70s that my age-group grew up in (at primary). That decade and the first half of the 80s absolutely reeked of sex and us kids were absolutely aware of it, and teachers (and other adults) trying it on was generally unremarkable. 

So, I utterly refute your statement and am wide-eyed in astonishment at your protestations and offence.

My apology for any personal offence caused but were you wearing a bloomin' blindfold? 

Does the ISS have unisex toilets? Just trying to get the thread full circle.

I can't see much point in apologising after making a comment like " teachers trying it on was generally unremarkable" but who am I to say your assessment of your particular school was wrong?  But as I conceded earlier, the  "dodgy"  comment was not really worth  getting  offended about, much as using the wrong pronoun is not really a big issue in the greater scheme of things, and certainly neither calling a teacher dodgy or misgendering someone is something that I would classify as abuse so the whole thing has been a bit of a storm in a teacup. 

Perhaps I should have said "a not insignificant minority of teachers trying it on," but I didn't really think I needed to be quite so literal. I thought my meaning was clear. 'Teachers' used like that is a form of synedoche - '*all* teachers' on the other hand...

Anyway, this is nitpicking. As a teacher back then - and I know several who were who freely admit they had colleagues they kept an eye on and warned pupils to be aware of - you must have come across it. I was genuinely surprised at your earlier remark. Indeed, I nearly threw my favourite mug at the wall.

It was not just *my* school. It was endemic. 

But to bring the thread halfway back on track...

https://youtu.be/SRRw1ERj2Gc?si=8gZB8t0w6yDUbkEz

For wee it’s unisex plumbing mating too individual “adapters” if I recall correctly.  

For poo it’s a unisex sit toilet.  I’d be ever paranoid about transrectal evisceration if the suction got too much (can happen with swimming pool filter/skimmers and hyperbaric chamber toilets if improperly activated.  Do *not* do an image search on the topic.)

Though it is important to realise that transitioning is not about people rejecting who they are but about fully becoming who they are.

This all rather depends on intent.

Misgendering someone by accident is something that just happens - if pulled up on it you simply apologise and use the correct one going forward.

Misgendering someone wilfully in order to cause offence or make a point is abusive.

Just as if I'd cast those aspersions at you rather than at the people who were actually up to no good in 1980s schools (and they did exist).

Agreed but it might help ensure that the need to transition is all internally generated and not due to any societal pressures or issues.

Having said that, I find it difficult to imagine that any adult would fully transition without an extremely strong internal need.

I suspect this is also valued by some girls in schools - but because it can be such a hive of bullying (because enforcement doesn't generally take place in toilets (male and female) because of them being such a sensitive location) I think it's overridden and unisex full height cubicles with an open handwashing area (or a sink in each one) are preferable overall.

I can entirely see the point in a club where 99.9999% of the time the men* are the predators you may need to get away from, as you say.  I wish we could fix the actual problem there though, i.e. men who think they can just go round and grab any woman they want.

* Cis straight men, that is.

I think that's why we see with adult it's something like 95% of people are happy with their choice after transitioning.

With children it's a very different story and I've read that 80% of kids who have gender dysphoria as a child do not go on to be transgender as an adult. Worth pointing out that studies are mostly old.

They never warned us about this at Wigan Baths when I was a kid

I'm having that - boondoggle ! You've schooled me today. 

We'll have to disagree about what constitutes abuse, then. I'd rather save its use for something a bit more serious.

As said, storm in a teacup which needs de-escalating or whatever the appropriate space technological term is.

To clarify, I mean abuse in the sense of "abusive language", no intention to trivialise things like sexual abuse.

Language used to deliberately offend is abusive, whatever it is.

A lot depends on how one's definining dysphoria: some older studies inclded almost any non gender-typical behaviour in their counting of dysphoic youth, rather that limiting themselves to strongly expressed gender identity incongruence.  In children who've taken steps towards transition (either purely social, or including treatment with puberty blockers) the desistance rates are very low (7.3% of social transitioners in the _Pediatrics_ 2022 study [1] , 6% of blocker-treated individuals in the 2020 _Archives of Sexual Behavior_ paper [2] )

[1]  https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/150/2/e2021056082/186992/Ge...

[2] https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10508-020-01660-8.pdf 

It's not just about predatory men. When under the influence we all loose our filters and make bad decisions, being able to step away and regroup your thoughts (maybe with advice from your mates) can help to prevent you from consensually doing something in the moment that you later regret.

I could search on X, but it is not my hunt. 

AFAIAC, those claiming that JKR doles out abuse should be able to provide evidence to support that claim.

This particular series of tweets made national headlines at the time...

https://deadline.com/2024/04/jk-rowling-scotland-hate-crime-law-1235872981/

Neil has explained how his definition of abuse is different from mine (maybe yours too) so it's possibly the case that you have  come across JKR being abusive but not registered her comments as abuse.

Thanks, that's an excellent set of examples.

I’ve never looked at a filter/skimmer the same way since I read a paper on the subject…

It's at odds with the general plea for accepting self-identities this thread has developed, but I can't help but feel in this specific case we'd all be better off just continuing to call it Twitter.

Presumably you've read the infamous Chuck Palahniuk short story?

I had not.

I have now.

Mind bleach, please.

Now you're just showing your age.

Under Musk, Twitter has got xitter?

What I don't get is why it has to be referred to as "X, formerly known as Twitter"

How many people are there in the world who used Twitter or were interested in Twitter but do NOT know that it's now called X? Is it a positive number?

Exactly, all I am asking for is an example of something written by JKR that is considered abusive. 

Will read Luke90's link.

I reckon you'd be surprised how many people haven't internalised that info. I went looking for polling and largely failed apart from a throwaway line in this article saying that 7-in-10 American adults had heard of the change. Presumably a few more have noticed since then but it still won't be anywhere near 100%.

https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/social-media-and-news-fac...

Twitter became referenced so often in the media that the people who actually use it themselves or take an interest in tech stories specifically are not the only ones they need to catch when referring to it.

Does that Deadline piece contain a solid example of what you consider to be abuse by JKR (e.g. do you regard describing Isla Bryson as a man as abusive) ?

I'd just describe them* as a rapist, to be honest.  I have no problem with being offensive towards people who do things like that.

However, the vast majority of trans people are (obviously) not rapists.  Bringing this in has a similar feel to things people would bring into discussions about gay people 20+ years ago; it's not a nice tone.

* Given the motivations of this person, I'm going to stick to gender-neutral language, as one should do if in any doubt as to the correct pronouns to use.

If you support a political movement that has attempted to have a male rapist housed in a female prison then I think that trying to shut down debate about that is a bit rich. 

I think the Isla Bryson case has been misrepresented. The case by case system worked as it should and he/she never mixed with female prisoners.

Explain to me why the case by case system shouldn’t be extended to cover all prisoners, some of whom will undoubtedly be safer in female prisons than male ones and who will also probably pose little threat to female inmates. Why don’t we just abandon the entire system of sex segregation in the prison estate and proceed by a trusted case by case appraisal system?

How about a lesbian in a womens' prison?  A gay man in a mens' prison?

TBH rapists should probably be housed in a prison adequately secure that they can't put other prisoners at risk - i.e. watched every minute of the day.  The idea of gender-segregated prisons is a bit old hat anyway.

I don't support a "political movement", in any case.  I support people.  I don't agree with everything Stonewall says on the matter, as we've already discussed above.  I'm not suggesting there aren't "liberal paradox" issues (just as there are between e.g. feminism and some religions), nor am I suggesting there shouldn't be a decent, open debate on how this is best handled - all I'm asking is for people (JKR for instance) to simply *be kind* and not misgender people wilfully, because you don't need to do that in order to participate in a productive debate.

It is simply not necessary to wilfully offend people to have a sensible debate on the matter.  Thus people like JKR who seek to do so are clearly doing more than that.

Bingo!

Segregation in prisons is a bit "old hat" really.  Security is the answer, so no inmate ever has an opportunity to offend against another inmate or member of staff.

Maybe for the same reasons you are keen on having segragated changing, toilets etc; so that female prisoners feel safe.

Why don’t we just abandon the entire system of sex segregation in the prison estate and proceed by a trusted case by case appraisal system?

We can't even trust the prison/probation system to not release prisoners who are a danger to society in general. Trying to add another amount of work would more likely lead to even more *mistakes.

* If you can call some action (or lack of) which leads to the death/assault/rape of innocents a "mistake" - I can't be so generous.

Nice theory but it requires £ to do that. Rather a lot of them which means in practice that it'll have zero political traction.

Now tell me why this isn’t obvious…

I only brought that Adam Bryson/Graham aka Isla Bryson up because he was in the article linked to.

I agree with you that *he* is a rapist.  No doubt about the pronoun, he has a penis which he used to commit the rapes. 

I am still after an example of the supposed copious abuse meted out by JKR.  Do you have one?

The article mentioned quite a few other trans women that Rowling had listed, you just picked out the most objectionable one. Which I'm sure Rowling had in mind when she compiled the list so that anyone objecting to her tweets could be accused of defending rapists.

I just picked the first.  Not the worst.

The second one on the list was a Katie Dolatowski, a male paedophile who sexually assaulted a 10 year old and has other convictions for violence.

The third was Amy George.  Even the BBC refers to him as a man...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-67144375

A man who abducted a primary school girl while dressed as a woman and then sexually assaulted her in his Borders home has been jailed for 20 years.

etc.

A man dressed as a woman and a trans woman aren't quite the same thing.  There are other cases of men dressing as women but not considering themselves to actually be a woman, for instance drag artists and pantomime dames.

Miller/ George identified as transgender once he'd been arrested and was being prosecuted.The court was told that he was transitioning to female. He probably wasn't the first sex offender to do this and I'm pretty sure he won't be the last.

Very odd that you are getting dislikes for stating this.

Perhaps I should have said "one of" the most objectionable. I hadn't bothered going through checking all their crimes. I've no desire to defend any of them, nor do I particularly care what prison they end up in aside from whatever precautions are necessary to keep everyone safe (including themselves, because I hope we're still a civilised society and that should include keeping all of our prisoners safe while they serve their time).

So you've extended your list precisely up to the point where Rowling's list stops consisting of reprehensible criminals. I don't much care how anyone refers to those particular people, except to the extent that they're unfairly held up and promoted as representatives of a much wider group of extremely vulnerable people who shouldn't be tarnished like that.

I suppose in some contexts just writing 'X' could be confusing, with its long-established history denoting something unknown or unquantifiable. Which is presumably why Elon thought it would be a good name.

Or because he was being a twunt. If I used Twitter, I'd still call it Twitter, partly out of contrary bloody-mindedness, partly force of habit. I'm barely past Opal Fruits as it is 

Are you serious? Opal fruits are no longer Opal Fruits? 

Starburst IIRC 

I presume you're aware that Marathon bars have been renamed 😁

I find this debate incredibly confusing and conflicting, despite having a son who tries explaining it and all it's nuances and subtleties.

One point I don't think I've seen made yet though - if the 'transmax' position was adopted, I.e. self identification  WAS all that was required for you to be treated as gender of your choice, then bad people of both sexes (though mostly men) WOULD use that as a means to attack vulnerable women.

Erm, have you read the thread?  Bad people potentially misusing it has basically been 99.9999% of the argument against.

Indeed, aside from prejudice at one's eyes being offended by someone who may look a little unconventional, it is pretty much the only valid argument against (though it can be a strong argument).

Unless it disappears up its own backside first

I stopped at three because I thought three was enough.

The fourth is some bald 30 year man who for some reason is allowed to play sport against young women.  Players who called him a man were disciplined.

etc.

JKR's tweet ridicules Hamza Yusef's hate crime bill, according to which hate can include a truthful statement that someone does not like. 

It's not just the West. A static launch test goes awry...

youtube.com/watch?v=ys0DOsZmr7g&

Disclaimer: Anything to do with rocketry is going to look spectacular when something goes Peter Tong so I won't gloat but I'm pretty sure the guy filming this drops a curse word or three!

The actual gender critical position is considerably more complex than this, and goes much further than potential misuse. Unfortunately I have really seen the trans rights side take those arguments particularly seriously. For example, there is both a GC critique of transgender ideology and a conservative critique, which are almost completely elided by trans ideology supporters. 

There are many excellent female writers who have covered the issue in depth from the critical feminist perspective: Hadley Freeman, Helen Joyce, Sarah Ditum, Kathleen Stock, to name a few. 

JK Rowling’s 2020 piece is a good starting point:

https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for...

This is also good, and has lots of links if you wish to explore further:

https://thecritic.co.uk/why-labour-doesnt-understand-the-gender-wars/

On the other side, it might be worth looking into the work of Judith Butler, the theorist who created much of contemporary gender ideology. I’m sure the well read, intellectually questing pro-gender ideology posters on here will come up with more names. 
 

This is absolutely implicit in nearly all the arguments made so far… 

Conversely, the other point that doesn't get made enough is that the standard "just protecting women" position that access to "women's spaces" should be based on biological sex and nothing else then you're requiring trans people to accept that either they can't exist safely in public or shouldn't exist at all. And probably the latter, because it's hard to see how mandating that butch, bearded trans-men can use the ladies changing room unchallenged is going to do much for women's safety. And if you do believe that trans people should basically be electro-shocked until they get a grip on themselves and stop playing dress-up then that's on you, but you don't get to act like you're adopting a reasonable compromise position and unreasonably demanding trans fundamentalists are attacking you for no good reason.

Though what I do wonder is if fewer people would choose to transition (either way) if gender roles weren't still so deeply ingrained in society.

Some obviously would (those whose reasoning is genuinely based on a strong instinctive feeling that they're in the wrong physical body - i.e. medically diagnosed gender dysphoria), but I think fewer would.  Pretty much all such people would likely want to have surgery to correct that body issue (in so far as it's possible), which deals with the concern raised about "people with penises" in female spaces, because post-surgery they don't have a penis any more.

(I doubt homophobia realistically has much to do with it, as transphobia in society generally is far, far stronger than homophobia - so generally someone is not likely to make their life easier by transitioning to become straight)

Sadly a tiny proportion of predatory men may falsely claim to be trans in order to access women's spaces. But, do we honestly believe that this kind of scumbag gives a damn about respect? Even with a strictly binary approach to gender there is nothing to stop these men from dressing up and accessing public women's spaces in disguise. This kind of impersonation makes great headlines, but totally fails to recognise that a cis man dressed as a woman is not the same as a trans woman.

Also you are entirely correct that as a cis woman I would feel (have felt) uncomfortable sharing a female only changing rooms with a trans man. The individual in question was a acquaintance who was transitioning and it was around the time that I started to feel awkward (and he was very visibly male) that he started to use the men's facilities.

Trans women are statistically far more vulnerable (I think it's 4x more likely) to experience sexual abuse by men than cis women. They have every right to safe spaces and that means treating them as a woman in the majority of circumstances. 

As I said above, prisons need to assess on a case by case basis. A trans lady who has had top&bottom surgery charged with theft, is very different to someone only a few months into their transition charged with sex offences. Safety of other prisoners together with safety and dignity of the offender both need to be considered.

Sexual assault and rape are vastly underreported and even when those offences are reported, the conviction rates remain very low. Given that, isn’t it perhaps a little naive to assess risk purely on legal outcomes? There are a lot of unpunished sexual criminals out there. 

Some of this will come down to how classically awful humans are at risk assessment.  This is most visible in terms of fear of flying - what one should really fear is the car journey to the airport as it's several orders of magnitude more dangerous.  But a very large number of people are scared of flying, and hardly anyone is scared of driving.

Thus, if this has happened once, people will be terrified of the possibility of it.

But in reality, based on what women (e.g. in my family) have told me, male assailants going into female spaces e.g. public toilets are much more likely to do so *as males* because realistically who is going to stop them?  This makes a good case for the "individual unisex floor to ceiling cubicles" approach, because following someone into a fully enclosed cubicle without resistance is rather harder than following someone into a traditional female toilet unseen then taking photos under/over the door, for instance.

Very true, but the issue of underreporting probably applies to both cis and trans women. My point is that although they were born male trans women are not immune to the danger of predatory men and like myself have the right to safe spaces.

(and yes I am well aware of male rape, but that's just complicating things even further)

Edit - that's a bit like me saying that you shouldn't be allowed to teach children, because even though you have never been accused or convicted of any offences, you 'might potentially' have done something in the past that was never reported.

(And no I am not accusing you of anything, just using it as an example of false accusations based on zero evidence)

Quite!  You put it better (and more amusingly) than I was about to

(Also, I'm weirded that both your post and Jenny C's later one got dislikes - both seem politely put and clearly argued)

Well, male on male violence is absolutely a thing. Predatory males are also violent towards other men.

But we recognise the risk and take active steps to ameliorate it, don’t we? Male teachers are not allowed in girls’ changing rooms, for example. Teaching kids at the climbing wall, we were not allowed to take them to part of the bouldering wall that is hidden behind a corner - out of safeguarding concerns. That’s very much at the other end of the spectrum. 

Sadly yes and being born female doesn't prevent you from committing violent (or sexual) crimes - people really can be incredibly nasty things.

Yes, but as I said above the need for a case assessment should consider not only criminal history but also the degree of transition - to miss quote JKR "people with penises "

Can you imagine a trans woman with nice breasts and a vaginoplasty being safe in a men's prison? And I certainly wouldn't be comfortable sharing with trans man with who has a phalloplasty.

But prison is something that only affects a tiny tiny proportion of the population, even though it does make great headlines. Trans rights in the 'normal' free world are what we should be focusing our attention on.

​​​​​

Yes, but men commit the overwhelmingly vast majority of crimes. Do we REALLY need to go over the statistics for this to show that crime is fundamentally a male activity? 

Yes, but this ignores the problem that transwomen retain many male physical attributes even after transition. And there is some evidence that they retain male patterns of offending. I don’t think this evidence is particularly strong but having only weak evidence either way suggests a cautious approach would be best. So even though a trans woman may have undergone surgery, there is reason to think that they will still have the same propensity to commit crime as an intact male, and much of the same physical ability. You don’t need a penis to beat someone up. 

Yes, we need to expand the prison estate to accommodate such prisoners. 

I think that most women in prison are poor and marginalised; these are people whose protection deserves our thought and care rather than being sacrificed for ideological reasons. That’s important to me as someone on the left, although I don’t think these sentiments are confined to one end of the political spectrum.

A risk yes, and one that needs assessing on a case by case basis. Totally agree that it needs to be a cautious approach.

What is the percentage of trans prisoners? Obviously we need suitable accommodation but I can't see anyone wanting to pay for it, so for the moment we have to try to accommodate everyone within the facilities we have.

I wasn't in any way trying to suggest that they don't deserve care and protection, or that their rights should be sacrificed for ideological reasons. It's a complex situation that needs to be viewed compassionately from both sides, whilst also considering the objective risks to all inmates.

Just that it's frustrating when people use the complex situation in prisons as an excuse to restrict trans rights everywhere. For example as a cis woman I feel that sharing cubicle toilets with a trans woman is a non issue, but clarifying trans rights within this kind of everyday setting is a priority as it affects all of us on a daily basis.

​​​

I think transphobia and homophobia are essentially the same thing, and what's evident there is that an 'Overton window' has gradually shifted (or been shifted) over the last 40 years or so making homophobia much less socially acceptable than it was.  I suspect a fair few of those who are currently conducting a "war on woke" would very much like to shift that 'window' back the other way.

Those uninterested in Twitter but aware of its existance may wonder what the hell you mean?

I was talking to a non binary person recently and I think they summed up their situation very well by simply saying:

"I just want somewhere safe to pee".

No, you miss my point: the risk is almost completely impossible to assess. It’s a risk that all biological men present, which is why we do not have mixed facilities in many areas of life. 

So we are too cheap to ensure women’s rights to safety are protected? 

I think this is a misreading. The arguments over, say, women’s shelters, don’t rely on prisons being a certain way but stand on their own merits. The gender critical position is well thought through and, in my view, goes from first principles rather than requiring lurid prison stories as an “excuse”. 

I assume that ALL prisoners regardless of gender are assessed for their risk of committing crimes against other inmates before being placed in an appropriate facility. 

You keep talking about trans women. What about trans men? with that added testosterone they are physically stronger than cis women and likely to be more 'fired up', is it safe to house them in women's facilities? (Sorry playing devil's advocate here to some extent, but trans rights apply to both genders)

Sadly yes listening to reports of overcrowd and poorly maintained prisons I don't think that the welfare of our prison population is a priority (I'm not for one moment saying I don't think it should be), or that under the current financial climate the tax payer at large would support investment in facilities specifically for trans offenders.

Most probably so, but I wouldn't say they were *quite* the same thing - indeed there is the LGB Alliance, which is an anti-trans organisation of gay people.

However, the main anti-trans argument is essentially "I don't want people who might want to sexually assault me having access to my spaces where I'm not fully clothed and am thus more vulnerable", and the bigot's easy extension of that is also to apply it to gay people.  So on that you're probably right.

It is of note, though, that measures like individual non-gender-specific fully-enclosed changing cubicles or toilets also solve this alleged "problem", so it is curious that most of the outspoken campaigners against trans rights seem not to want this.  Which leads me to think it is simply transphobia and bigotry, and not genuine concern for cis women at all.

That’s a good question and not at all playing devils advocate. For a start, we know that the population of transmen has some differences in the route they get there, eg a predominance of depressed teenage girls, vs for example the many middle aged men who transition, quite often for sexual reasons (based on what they say rather than any prejudice on my part). So that to me suggests that there may be some difference in risk profile. In addition lots of trans women haven’t had medical interventions (or haven’t had the full suite) so remain biologically male, and I would hope we can agree that poses a problem in certain situations.

I’ve not seen any data on how FtM transition affects patterns of criminal behaviour so it’s still hard to say, but of course the majority of men will be physically bigger than transmen for obvious reasons. So it’s hard to tell right now how the balance of threat vs under threat really works. 
 

It’s clear we are going to have to either build some more prisons or be more lenient on criminals. Given the wild unpopularity of the later, I suspect new prisons are going to happen. It’s not impossible to include some segregated facilities for trans prisoners in such a scheme. 

Many gender critical women have spent their entire careers as feminist writers, thinkers and campaigners. Julie Bindel, for example, was campaigning against male violence when the Yorkshire Ripper was still at large. Isn’t it a bit of a stretch to claim that someone such as Ms Bindel is not acting from “genuine concern for cis women” simply because she rejects your favoured solution? Would that not even be a potentially libellous comment?

True, I'm over stating the case a bit.

Perhaps in part because it gives the lie to the oft repeated assertion that facilities are segregated specifically for reasons of women's safety, as opposed that mainly just being a historical hang-over from the Victorians.

https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/History-of-Womens-Public-Toilets-in-B...

I think there might be a bit of an overlap on a Venn diagram of those who say "trans-women are men and therefore present a serious danger to 'real' women" (not on this thread or forum specifically), and those we often see strenuously reminding us that "not all men" are a danger to women and that 'predatory' men do exist but they're only a tiny minority in other discussions.

[citation needed]

Rationally, how can a fully enclosed, single-user, floor to ceiling cubicle (such as those found in most coffee places) not be safer for women than a shared facility?

The answer is that it cannot.

As such, there has to be another motivation.  I absolutely believe Rowling is a bigot, not because of her views on the suggested solution because I've never discussed that with her, but because of her general conduct in e.g. wilfully misgendering people when the debate can be had without doing so, so the only possible motivation to wilfully cause upset by doing so in the debate is bigotry and transphobia.  I've never heard of the other woman you mention, so it's hard to suggest my views could have been aimed at her.

It is entirely possible to debate the issues without using language designed to upset trans people, which most (but sadly not all) people on this thread are managing to do.

As far as I'm aware the opportunity/acceptance of transitioning is still a very new thing, hence the need for updating of rights for trans people now. I wonder how many of the middle aged trans men have been able to quietly find a happy place, were as thanks to our societies prejudice in clothing and behaviour middle aged trans women have never had the opportunity to explore their identity.

As for medical interventions, have you any idea how long it takes to just get a diagnosis of gender disphoria? Or the cost (almost certainly not covered by the NHS) of reassessment surgery? Transitioning is not a quick process so no wonder that many genuinely trans people do not compete the physical transition, but perhaps more importantly those who have completed are highly likely to be genuinely trans.

Also just to highlight, I do not recognise predatory men who disguise themselves as women for sexual reasons as anything but men. A genuinely trans woman is (in her mind) a woman and where possible should be respected as such.

You wrote: “it is curious that most of the outspoken campaigners against trans rights seem not to want this”. Ms Bindel is one of those people to whom you refer, a very prominent campaigner whose writing appears in lots of newspapers. And yet you’ve apparently not heard of her. Perhaps you’re just not that interesting in hearing and trying to understand opposing views on the matter? God forbid, are you just taking the “correct” position for social cachet, and damn the consequences?

My position is, as with many things, in the middle.

I don't fully agree with Stonewall's position; in particular I think moving purely to self-ID would be fraught with challenges, for instance.  I equally don't agree with the principle that one should have to show one's birth certificate to enter a toilet facility (not least because that's impractical).  I also think we need to be *very* careful about carrying out irreversible surgery and the likes on children.

I do however fundamentally believe in "be kind".  It's a difficult debate and one with many facets and challenges.  It needs to be had, but it needs to be had civilly and with respect for trans people as a minority - people who just want to be able to live their lives.  As such, I will call out as bigotry unnecessary anti-trans language, such as misgendering.  If in doubt, within the debate, simply use gender-neutral language i.e. they/them - that won't offend anyone.

The debate is not made any better by wilfully calling trans women men.  Anyone who is doing that is just being bigoted.

So if I were to list a whole bunch of Trans rights campaigners who've appeared in national newspapers, you would have heard of every single one of them? Or are you also not interested in opposing views? Or, perhaps, that's just an entirely unreasonable standard to hold someone to?

Why don't you list them and find out? As I said, I've certainly heard of the likes of Judith Butler, Julia Serano, Caitlyn Jenner, Owen Jones, etc, to the point of suggesting above that a poster reads one of them to deepen his understanding of the issue. But if you're going to make a claim like "prominent campaigners against trans ideology are not really interested in women's rights" then it would probably be a good idea to be familiar with the work of prominent campaigners against trans ideology? You know, to check whether the statement is in fact true.

I picked Bindel out because she's a particularly obvious and clearcut case. But I could have made it with many prominent gender critical feminists. It's not a difficult point to refute.

I don't think I need a citation for the claim that on average men are taller and larger than women, although I could almost certainly find one if the evidence of, I don't know, just being alive for a bit were inadequate.

The views of an elite sportswoman also aren't perhaps as scientifically valid as you might be after, but I'm going to chuck them in here anyway. This is Serena Williams, when asked in 2013 if she would play Andy Murray:

"Actually it’s funny, because Andy Murray, he’s been joking about myself and him playing a match. I’m like, ‘Andy, seriously, are you kidding me?’ For me, mens’ tennis and womens’ tennis are completely, almost, two separate sports. If I were to play Andy Murray, I would lose 6-0, 6-0 in five to six minutes, maybe 10 minutes. No, it’s true. It’s a completely different sport. The men are a lot faster and they serve harder, they hit harder, it’s just a different game. I love to play women’s tennis. I only want to play girls, because i don’t want to be embarrassed."

https://ftw.usatoday.com/2013/08/serena-williams-playing-men-andy-murray

Now that's not a citation, but it is a view of a professional sportswoman who has presumably had time to observe these sex differences, what with it being part of her job and all.

Would the article "Comparing Athletic Performances: The Best Elite Women to Boys and Men" from the Duke Law School's Centre for Sports Law and Policy sway you at all?

To quote: "Just in the single year 2017, Olympic, World, and U.S. Champion Tori Bowie's 100 meters lifetime best of 10.78 was beaten 15,000 times by men and boys."

The article includes several tables to show how male athletes vastly outperform female athletes across a range of track and field events and a discussion of why this is the result of innate physical differences and not access to better resources or superior training.

https://web.law.duke.edu/sites/default/files/centers/sportslaw/comparingath...

If you wish to quibble with the word "average", then the Science of Sport podcast has several in-depth discussions of why that average difference matters. If you can't find them on your own I can certainly point you in the right direction.

To be fair another way I don't agree with Stonewall is that I do think segregation by biology is necessary in competitive sport* for the reasons you outline.  However, I'd rename the categories Open and Female.  In part because why shouldn't elite women compete against men if they want (Williams clearly doesn't, but others might), and in part because that is nicer to trans people with no disadvantage at all to anyone else.

As I said, there are practical issues that need to be debated and addressed, but being kind while doing so costs nothing.

* Parkrun is not what I would consider competitive sport, though if they still want categories I'd change those to Open and Female as well, though they aren't in a position to check who does what so people can't realistically have that expectation.

Nor do I.

Well, they're kind of important attributes if you want to intimidate or assault another human being.

Potentially but not necessarily.  Which is irrelevant to your claim that "the vast average difference in physical abilities" is the reason that we have separate prisons for women and men. 

ie: the claim for which [citation needed]

I think it's pretty straightforward: prisons that were mixed would be hotbeds of sexual assault, rape and intimidation by the male prisoners against the female. You can prattle on all you like about Victorian prudishness but it fails the smell test.

I'm sure Bindel considers herself acting in what she considers cis women's best interest, tbh, it's just that she's also an awful transphobe. She's said some pretty deplorable things over the years. Is that in service of cis women? I think she actually is a reactionary who just finds trans women repulsive and justifies that post hoc

Plenty of cis women who if it came to brute strength or size would win a fight over an average man.

Nicola Adams isn't even tall for a woman, but how many of you would want to get on the wrong side of her? Yet as a cis woman nobody would question her right to access women's safe spaces.

Should all men under 5' be treated as women because they are physically small, or women over 6' treated as men because of their size? No obviously not, in society we all come in different shapes and physiques and an average is just that.

Serena Williams night lose against top ranking male players, but I bet she'd easily win a tennis match against anyone off ukc.

Victorian prudishness certainly plays a part in many areas of society, but am inclined to agree that prisons are one area where gender segregation is for the best.

Still doesn't solve the ultimate question though, which is how you place transgender inmates to ensure both their and their fellow inmates safety? We effectively have an extra two (three if you include non binary) genders to accommodate, with each individual having different physical attributes.

Plenty? A very few, but not plenty. Otherwise I'd expect to see "plenty" of women acting like average men in the way they approach, say, walking about alone at night. I do not see plenty of women behaving in this way. It's worth taking a look at the Duke Law article to see just how elite performance in sport differs, and then to extrapolate that a little towards us ordinary mortals.

If you have to choose a professional fighter to make your argument about physical safety, then it's not a relevant argument for the vast majority of the population.

Yes, there will always be larger and smaller people in any population. But you're talking about extremes - in the UK around 0.04% of women are 6ft or taller and 0.03% of men are under 5ft. Whereas about 14% of men are over 6ft - it's really much, much more common. And when it comes to height, women are "more average" than men, ie the standard deviation of their heights is lower. And in fact we do have different categories of prisons to help deal with inmates that may be more or less of a threat to fellow inmates, staff or the general public, so we don't need to treat small men as women, we can just treat them as vulnerable men.

The point about sport is that it's about matching people who are similar in the distribution. Again, worth checking out the Science of Sport podcast if you're interested in the arguments about this, which are somewhat more complex than "a female professional athelete would beat an untrained amateur".

So no [citation] then.  Thought not.

If they all were, especially if they remained as dysfunctional as ours are at the moment, undoubtedly so.  (Since physical size is everything for you though, presumably you'd be happy with a mixed prison so long as it housed only small men and big women?)

Nevertheless, this is not the reason that prisons originally became single-sex, nor is it a compelling reason why there could be no mixed facilities at all now.

Since our prisons are currently completely borked, overwhelmed and overcrowded anyway there is clearly a pressing need for something to be done, perhaps it would be a good idea for some new facilities set up to deal with particularly difficult cases while we're at it.  Prisoners who are perhaps both dangerous and vulnerable, and those that are most difficult to deal with for people who have the unenviable responsibility to both protect society from them and also to treat them reasonably humanely, rather than having the luxury of just being able to make bold black and white pronouncements from a position of pure dogma.

As am I, in general.  It undoubtedly is for the best in most cases, but I don't think that's any reason that mixed facilities shouldn't exist at all.

By reactionary do you mean as a general political orientation? Or is being gender critical enough to merit that designation, even if the rest of one’s politics is impeccably left wing? 

I think that "gender critical" views are indeed largely just reactionary bigotry dressed up as some kind of intellectual position, yes. I think these people are made uncomfortable by the existence of trans people and base their views on that. I also don't think that being "impeccably left wing" (whatever that is) makes for an excuse for transphobia either.

Okay, let’s turn this around. I’m perfectly willing to read any information you have on mixed prisons and data on their safety record. 

No, physical size is matched with increased aggression; as I said above, committing crime is an almost entirely male activity. When they do commit crime, it’s of a different type: more acquisitive crime, less violent, serious or organised crime. Women constitute only 2% of those prosecuted for sexual crime. Their sentences tend to be much shorter.

So we’re talking about two very different populations, with differing requirements for the safety of inmates and staff. 

Lots of stuff on this here:

https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/research/the-evidence-...

The most compelling  reason is of course rehabilitation. Female offenders are just very different to male ones, and the factors driving them to crime are different. That means if they are to change their lives then they will need different sorts of interventions, for example less anger management courses and more help around substance abuse. Women are more likely to be the primary carers for their children, so visiting facilities may have to take that into account.

There are many reasons why a decent prison service would be segregated along sex lines. 

Sounds like you basically don’t respect women thinkers when they think things you don’t like. This also gives you an excuse not to have to deal with what those women think. Are you scared in case they are cleverer than you?  It would certainly explain your reluctance to actually debate these issues rather than blast out anger at those who disagree with you. 

I don't respect bigotry, regardless of origin, no, what's that got to do with disregarding women? Their are plenty of "gender critical" men out there, who support and hold those views. I'm well aware of what they are, just as I'm well aware of homophobic arguments etc. Which, I'll note, transphobic arguments basically are; essentially we just get rehashed 90s era homophobia (think of the children/they're all predators/etc).

Frankly the extent to which certain people base their entire personality around repeatedly attacking a tiny minority of people who experience regular discrimination is rather tragic, it's hard for me to take anyone like that seriously at all, if it wasn't for how much they upset many people I know and love.

Yeah, lets not.  You're not interested in providing the [citation needed] and that's fine.  I'll leave you to your gish-gallop.

I misunderstood your meaning, my apologies. It’s funny how it suddenly becomes a “gish gallop” when you’re asked to produce some evidence to back up your views. 

I’m afraid I didn’t make myself clear. I’m not asking you to respect bigotry. I’m asking you to respect the people making those arguments just enough for you to read their views and come up with a reasoned argument for why they are wrong. Only by looking at what they actually say can you really even come to a conclusion as to whether there is bigotry or a genuine intellectual case. This is the difference between refusing to deal with a bunch of far right street thugs and coming up with a reasoned answer to right wing philosopher Roger Scruton. The people you’re having a go at are basically intellectuals. Why not at least do them the respect of encountering them on that terrain?
 

Unfortunately we see your ignorance of the gender critical argument with your “rehashed homophobia” line. That is simply not the case, especially since there are homosexual men and women making them.

Here’s an article my feminist thinker (she holds a PhD in feminist philosophy) Jane Clare Jones taking that argument apart:

https://janeclarejones.com/2018/09/09/gay-rights-and-trans-rights-a-compare...

Here’s a few extracts which I hope give the essence of the argument:

”The discourse of ‘homophobia’ fundamentally relies on the idea that gay-people are discriminated against on the basis of moral disgust. And inside that are two more interwoven ideas. One, that moral disgust is not a legitimate basis for telling people what not to do… Two, that because discrimination against homosexuality was entirely mediated by moral disgust, there was, in fact, no legitimate basis for that discrimination…

“This structure has basically been transferred wholesale to the concept of ‘transphobia.’ 

“The use of the concept of ‘homophobia’ to dismiss objections to gay rights carried a ton of weight because the basis for a legitimate moral or political objection would be that something causes a harm, and in the case of gay rights there is a complete dearth of convincing arguments as to why homosexuality is a harm.

“But this is precisely where the ‘homophobia-transphobia’ parallel falls completely apart. Because in the case of the trans rights agenda there is actually a load of potential harms we might reasonably be worried about.

“The key thing to understand about trans rights activism is that, unlike gay rights activism, it is not just a movement seeking to ensure that trans people are not discriminated against. It is, rather, a movement committed to a fundamental reconceptualization of the very idea of what makes someone a man or a woman. In theory, this equally affects both men and women, but in practice, almost all the social pressure is coming from trans women towards the idea of ‘woman’ and the rights of women. And that’s because, when it comes down to it, this whole thing is being driven by male people who want something female people have, and that something, is, in fact, our very existence. Moreover, it turns out – who knew? – that male people have the inclination and social power to exert extreme coercive pressure on female people, and to court the sympathy and support of other males when they do so. (It’s almost as if sex is a thing and that it has something to do with power after all mmmm?).”

Yes I can see the argument for some mixing of genders in social settings within prisons (for certain inmates), afterall once released people will be returning to a mixed society so practicing how to interact with the opposite gender is important. I believe there is an argument at schools that boys behaviour is improved in a mixed gender environment, so maybe the same would apply for men???

I think it also depends what they are in prison for.  Clearly sex offenders require more segregation and supervision than petty thieves or fraudsters.

If they'll be kind* enough not to directly refer to trans women as "men" I'm happy to engage with them.  I will only respect peoples' argument if they will respect people who disagree with it, even if they don't agree with the argument the other side is making.

Rowling and Davies fail on this, as is evident from their X/Twitter output.  Perhaps the more academic feminists you mention are a little more appropriate in their choice of debating language so as to debate abstracted issues rather than directly seeking to use language that will upset and offend other people?

* As you'll notice, most of my argument surrounds this - as you'll see from above postings I by no means totally support Stonewall's line - I'm actually somewhere down the middle, as I often am in politics.

100% 

I believe the typical strategy of the fantastically rich is to borrow cash from banks using their capital assets as collateral, the interest rate on which is pitifully low compared to the income tax they would pay if it were declared as actual income.

I have no opinions on Rowling's position on gender but I believe she is probably one of the UK's highest tax payers, despite the fact that other avenues are open to her. Although giving her credit for this somehow reminds me of a famous Chris Rock routine...you probably know the one I mean.

There are good reasons to oppose what you say, but for the sake of brevity and actually getting somewhere, let’s put those to one side for a moment. How about instead of saying you would consider discussing the gender critical argument I posted, how about actually discussing it? You have a quote! You have a link to the whole thing! It seems to pass your acceptability test! Go for it! 

If someone’s only in prison for tax evasion, they can’t possibly be a murderer.

I don't respect the people making those arguments because they are bigoted and I am actually pretty well versed in the things they say, so I have no real need to be lectured on them by you (or desire, to be clear).

I'm also not interested in debating them with you because 1) I'm never going to persuade you, am I and 2) again, I'm not prepared to entertain arguments made in defence of bigotry by people who refuse to treat trans women (and let's be real, it is women) as being the gender they are. I mean you've literally said in this thread that there's good reason to misgender people, so it's fair to say I hardly hold you in any sort of regard

You misunderstood the point of debate. It’s not to persuade the person you’re talking to, it’s to persuade the readers/listeners. 

and 2) again, I'm not prepared to entertain arguments made in defence of bigotry.

You’re not prepared to beat them, either. So much allyship!

Well, my argument would be sex is primary and more important than gender in many circumstances, it’s immutable, so needs naming. So not really mis-gendering people, as I’m describing their sex, not their gender. So no, not a correct description of what I think. See what I mean? Your grasp isn’t that good. 
 

Hold me in whatever regard you like, but you do realise that sometimes successfully putting forward one’s ideas means dealing with people you find odious. Purity circles don’t really work in public debate. 

I am an ally, yes, hence me taking the time in this thread to call out transphobia despite my knowing that engaging in this argument on the internet is largely a waste of time. Not that spilling some words makes one an ally but I am engaged in all this in other ways so I'm at least trying to do my bit. Unlike you it would appear, who would seem to hold some quite unpleasant views.

Fortunately the younger generations seem to be much more of the accepting and trans positive and so I live in hope that your position will one day be a sad footnote in history.

I suspect Williams, even at her peak, would have been crushed by any male player in the top 100.

Yet I'd be surprised if even the most gifted of amateurs could even return one of her serves.

Eilte sportspeople are outliers by definition, and I definitely wouldn't use them to make any kind of statistical argument (unless it's about said outliers).

That was kind of my point. An average by its very definition includes outliers, so excluding trans women because they 'may' be bigger/stronger than the average cis woman isn't entirely logical, unless you also exclude outlying cis women (which I don't think anyone is suggesting).

Views which you’ve made no serious effort to even counter. People can think and change as a result of their interactions with others, but that requires some conversation. Political battles do require that, a fact that many liberal-left types seem to have forgotten. Full of passionate intensity and all that. 

For clarity, are you alluding to Al Capone?

I'm not going to "debate" you Sean, no matter how many transparent attempts you make to bait me with various implied insults. Again, I felt like someone needed to call out the transphobia in this thread; I'm not interested in a lecture from you. Enjoy your evening. 

Whilst this argument does make logical sense, I suspect that in reality any (biological) women capable of competing with a (biological) man in elite sport is probably going to fall afoul of testosterone limits, or similar - as we've already seen in exceptional cases like Caster Semenya.

Whenever this topic comes up I think of the women's 100m record - now nearly 40 years old - set by Florence Griffith-Joyner, widely believed to be drugged up to the eyeballs a the time (along with just about everyone else). Yet even that time is routinely broken by male high school athletes from the US and Jamaica every year.

Couldn't agree more, but even so I bet there are quite a few more elite sportspeople in the UK than there are trans sex offenders serving prison sentences*.

And yet these are the two groups seankenny is wanting to use as the basis for denying ordinary trans people just trying to get through their everyday lives the ability to judge for themselves which loo it would be more appropriate for them to use in a restaurant, cinema or supermarket.

*(Don't know about the former, but the latter was 81 individuals across England and Wales in 2019 according to this: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jul/02/trans-women-with-sex-offenc... )

That's a false equivalence. Especially as, clearly, nobody is saying that trans people are all predators. Not even that the majority of them are. Or anything other than a tiny minority.

What is implicitly being said however is that trans-women, in some circumstances cannot be treated as actual women (for the same reasons that men cannot be). Despite however much we may want to.

That seems to be a perfectly acceptable standpoint....except that this sliver of nuance flies in the face of the religiously adopted mantras of 'trans women are women' and 'anyone is whatever they identify as'. 

Departing from that narrative, exposing it as at least questionable, blows apart a core tenant of trans activism - which it was seemingly hoped, if repeated often enough, would simply be accepted as indisputable fact.

Unfortunately, some men, whether trans or not, are a disproportionate risk to women. That risk does not go away simply by defining oneself as trans. It doesn't go away when a man opportunistically declares themselves trans. It doesn't go away when a man adopts classically female gender characteristics. About the only circumstances where I believe the risk to be negated is once someone has undergone full gender reassignment surgery. But that seems to be an increasingly small subset of trans (essentially so when self-ID is all that is required). 

Can you not accept that as much as some trans people may feel threatened by anything less than full female rights, some females may feel threatened by women-only spaces being re-defined to include anyone, right up to a man who on a whim decides he is a woman?

That isn't an 'attack'. Rather it is competing rights and obligations in a complex situation.

However, by doing so directly to an individual (if you would do that) you're wilfully upsetting people.  Thus the credibility of your argument is reduced.

The argument is not weaker if you avoid upsetting people by using e.g. the four terms "cis man", "trans man", "cis woman" and "trans woman".  That still allows you to say that a trans woman and a cis woman aren't entirely the same thing (which they indeed aren't - as I've said I don't agree with all of Stonewall's stuff), but also says (and this is important) that a trans woman and a cis man are not entirely the same thing either.

Or if you really hate the term "cis", you could at least describe them as a "natal male" or "birth male" or "biological male", which while less ideal at least recognises their transition.

As I keep saying, be kind.  It's people you're talking about here, people with feelings who just want to live in society.

This insistence on using terminology that is known to upset and offend when used directly with regard to trans people is just like the way some older people insist on continuing to use dated, now offensive terms for e.g. Black or gay people.  And that's (obviously) not OK either.

I've had a quick read through the linked article and I think it contains a number of possible fallacies.  I've bookmarked it for a proper read on the train on the way home.

If you are a trans ally, I really don't think you are doing your cause any good in this thread. Just doing little more than calling people bigots or transphobes without actually engaging them reasonably is, I think, one of the reasons this whole debate has become so toxic; it will only serve to entrench opinion. How about saying that you get where they are coming from with their honest concerns but that you think they are actually mistaken and giving your reasons. You might even win the debate.

This thread, along with pretty much all media attention that I've seen is focusing almost exclusively on trans women and their threat to the safety of cis women.

It's not always clear from a posters username, so I wonder hhow many posters in this thread who are raising objections to trans women being accepted in female only spaces are actually female? It's 2024, surely it's time that women's voices are listened to, rather than (yet again) having decisions that primarily affect us being made in our behalf by men.

Yes of course it's great that men are part of a discussion that affects all of society, but it feels to me like some men on here perceive being trans as a gateway to access women, rather than being open to the idea that being trans is a personal journey that has nothing to do with sex.

And I think there is a clear difference between a trans woman and a man who decides on a whim to dress as a woman. I personally do not support the idea of self declaration of gender disphoria, although given the long waits (typically 5+ years on the NHS!) for diagnosis and inevitable pressure on mental health of being forced to live in the 'wrong' body, I do have sympathy with those calling for it.

I apologise for derailing this thread by suggesting that JKR was an example of a billionaire who was not pathologically egotistical. May I suggest Taylor Swift as a less controversial alternative. 😀

Her claim that there isn't a strong parallel between current transphobia and 80s/90s style homophobia seems to rest on her assertion that the events of the 80s/90s were based on purely moral disgust grounds, without anyone claiming to have substantive concerns, which ignores the history of measures like Section 28 of the Local Government Act and the, very loudly expressed at the time, fears about how acceptance of gay folks would lead to redefinitions of both the family and marriage.  Once you include the importance that those had ascribed to them at the time, her claim of a substantive difference looks very wobbly indeed.

I think all billionaires are by their nature so totally divorced from the realm of normal human experience, that I find it hard to believe pretty much all of them don't have serious psychological issues. Maybe there are some billionaire "dark horses" out there, but I doubt it.

As for Swift - there's no way that a billionaire who spends large amounts of time being universally adored by huge crowds is not pathologically egotistical

I'm male, but this discussion comes up a lot for me and the women I know are unanimous. I don't doubt there are many I don't know who don't care, or for whom ally-ship with trans people trumps any private concerns they may have. But for those around me, including a couple within the 'community', this is a boundary that shouldn't be crossed. 

Again, this isn't so much about the threat of 'trans women'. It is the threat of men, which is opened up when you muddy the line as to who is allowed into single-sex or reserved spaces. To acknowledge that does require one to challenge trans activism dogma though.

It is also about the sorts of demands being made that males and females (both have daughters, wives, mothers, and girlfriends) must accept, despite the arguments being internally inconsistent.

Not accepting these demands prima facie, or not adopting the language expected, apparently means one is a transphobe. And to be a transphobe is the millennial equivalent of being a homophobe. And to be a homophobe is to be a bigot and on the wrong side of history. And to dispute that starting point means one is trying to ignite a culture war that apparently doesn't exist.

So reasonable debate is made almost impossible and people are terrified of getting involved.

Is it to do with sex or not?

Unfortunately, the dogmatic view of many is that there is no substantial grey area. Or that the only outlier example is the stereotypical male-in-a-dress. But there is a lot that can be challenged.

Take for instance the issue of pronouns. Why should I accept them? In nearly all cases I will, unless someone is clearly being obtuse. I do resent though having to play along with a grown adult's delusion. To use a couple of well known examples, Blair White or Buck Angel I would have no issue referring to as she and him respectively. But I absolutely support a news satire site being able to call Rachel Levine 'Man of the Year' without being declared in violation of hate speech laws and shut down. Equally, is it 'hateful' to not be willing to play along with some university student's demand that I respect their neo-pronouns of demon/demonper/demis today, which were zher/zhay/zhes yesterday?

So you believe that wasn’t motivated by moral disgust? I think that’s naive. Those things were important because they attempted to keep gay people in the closet, but they had their roots the same disgust with homosexuality. It was an attempt to banish homosexuality by simply not talking about it to young people. And the reason they wanted to banish homosexuality is disgust. That emotion was expressed very clearly throughout society at the time - I can remember this very well. In contrast, this thread has had no expressions of disgust. Instead it’s talking about competing rights and safety. 
 

I can’t say I’ve seen many arguments from the GC side about “redefinitions of the family”. Of course there is concern that children are being given life changing medical treatment on the basis of very weak evidence, but that’s also a substantive point: the gay rights movement was asking to be left alone to live freely, not made permanent consumers of expensive pharmaceutical products.

For me it is the exact opposite. Supporting TERFism in my social circle would go down about as well as voting for the BNP. I think there's a huge generational divide and, thankfully, one that is going the right way.

I don't fully agree.

You are right though, there is a divide - eg. roughly half of those under 25 believe Rowling should be dropped by her publisher, while only 3% or 4% of those over 50 agree. Given the lack of viewpoint diversity in the education sector, I have no doubt such views are being entrenched throughout school and into university.

I'm not sure these sorts of youthful opinions bode well for society though. Such illiberal positions on cancellation will come back and bite anyone. Easy to support when you are in fashion, but a wake-up call when a new fashion comes along. As you say, if you're not in agreement then you are as bad as the BNP - which I don't think is a healthy position to take on people whose crime is simply challenging open access to female spaces and sport (TERFism?). 

I take solace in the fact that nearly everyone I knew in my early 20s was a Marxist to some degree. We all thought the US was the global criminal, loved Che, pills and clubbing, our parents were boing bigots, we never wanted children, or marriage, only open-borders and free education for all, and everyone (those people over there) needed to be more fair and kinder.  

But people change, the world (really actually the realisation you were horribly wrong and naive in many firmly held beliefs) forces most adults to become more nuanced and reappraise old positions.

Aye. It does seem that no matter what side of the fence you sit on, cancellation is fine provided it's not your tribe being cancelled.

Probably not what you intended, but that does make it sound like social pressure is a good reason for supporting one viewpoint over the other. It's certainly *a* reason, and probably a very popular one, but I don't think anyone would argue that it's a good one.

I'm a cis woman and wouldn't go so far as to call myself an ally, just someone with compassion who genuinely doesn't have concerns about sharing (most) spaces with trans women. Maybe that's because I've been lucky in life, so naively don't automatically see all men as potential predators.

And that goes back to the question if a trans woman is a man in a dress, or a woman born with the wrong body. If you are able to accept the latter, then I see the likelihood of them being a threat to women as no greater than that from any other woman. 

Anyone can respectively use the expected language and yes stubbornly refusing to do so is offensive. However yes there clearly needs to be discussion about use of single gender spaces, and opposing full access for trans women doesn't necessarily make you a transphobe.

Reasonable debate is important (and mostly has happened in this thread), but hopefully we can all agree that this is a sensitive subject and as such try to discuss it with respectful language. 

No it's about gender, surely we have already covered with the gay community that sexual identity and gender identity are two different things. I raise sex only because some on here seem to see trans women as male sexual predators, who are going to pounce on any cis woman they encounter.

Yes it is a gray area (as it's most of life). Some trans women are I would say 90% women and should be treated as such, others less so and although they deserve equal respect how they are treated may need to to be different according to the environment they are in.

RESPECT. If I introduce myself as Mrs Jenny why would you decide address me as Miss, or decide to rename me as Jennifer? Well try see using he/she/them/zhay in the same way, by which I mean using whichever one the person introduces themselves as without trying to force your own ideas on their identity. 

By whom? I'm guessing most school leaders are in their 40's/50's. I think you are probably correct that a discussion between secondary school kids will be different the one here, but not sure that is a bad thing and would expect a  modern Clause 28 to be just as ineffective over time. In terms of influencing and entrenching views, amongst teenage boys, I'm much more concerned about the likes of Andrew Tate 

Do you think so?  As I alluded to above, racism, homophobia, misogyny etc. are still a problem in schools, but IMO far less than they were at the start of my career. I'm not as convinced the same can be said for pensioners. 

I'd hope that liberal and accepting trans positive views would be prevalent in the education sector and for transphobia to be unacceptable, yes.

Cancellation is a new term which essentially means "people who say horrible things can expect to be criticised for it on social media" and yeah that's fine too imo. 

My point was more that saying "women I know unanimously agree with me" is basically useless as women I know disagree strenuously. There is a deep divide on this and it's not going away although I think in the long run the "Gender Critical" position will fail just as the anti-gay campaigners before them and so on.

More often than not it seems 'horrible things' are just 'things I disagree with'.

I could say it's horrible that women expressing fear of natal-men in their spaces are called transphobes. I don't think their suspicion (of me, of trans-women) deserves cancellation - no more than those who think they should be cancelled deserve cancellation themselves.

Cancellation, like that unsuccessfully attempted on JKR, is profoundly illiberal.
Well-meaning 'liberalism', that views anyone critical of elements of trans activism as a 'transphobe' and a target for cancellation, is likewise illiberal. 

This will sound far more patronising than I want it to, but what I found with age and watching history unfold was that being profoundly illiberal in the claimed pursuit of liberal goals is all too common. Just believing you are on the 'liberal' side doesn't mean you are, especially when trampling on others.

Yes, I disagree with horrible things because they are horrible. Criticising people online for their awful bigoted views is perfectly acceptable. If you're going to defend, say, J K Rowling's right to misgender trans people online I'll defend the right for people to call her a transphobe.

Cancelled just means "receives a lot of criticism" it's not like she's faced legal consequences or financial consequences or anything like that, it's just that she's extremely unpopular amongst certain people who are vocally prepared to say as much online (and these days we actually have the opportunity to do so). She's been cancelled in that she's being called out for her comments. Is it illiberal to do that? I don't think it is. I'm glad she's criticised and called out, either way.

You're right though you do sound quite patronising, water off a duck's back though.

It's not being "critical of elements of trans activism" that we're talking about, though, is it. Even ignoring minor points of respect and dignity, it's about actively supporting policies under which trans people would basically be unable to exist safely in public places. People try not to spell out the consequences because they want to do this innocent victim act if people say nasty things to them - "oh, all I did was say that women exist, why are these terrible trans activists cancelling me" - but those consequences are real and it's hard not to conclude that they just don't care because they fundamentally hate the existence of trans people.

Half of under-25s think she should be dropped by her publisher.  That is real cancellation if enacted. And it is a zeitgeist you say you wish for and believe is our destined future.

She's only safe because she is astoundingly wealthy.

But the message is heard loud and clear by everyone else. If you lack the resources she has, stay quiet, don't challenge, don't put your head above the parapet, because you will potentially lose your livelihood (and rightly so, you probably say). Discuss on an anonymous climbing forum, sure. But not in the outside world.

To use a trending term, saying cancellation merely = 'receives a lot of criticism' is gaslighting.

So I'll reiterate, I wouldn't want you to be cancelled for the unpleasant things you are saying about JKR and, by association, most people I know. It's a pity that your liberal idealism is so convinced of itself that it can't extend that back in the other direction.

An increasing number of spaces have womens, mens, and mixed facilities. The rape crisis center in Scotland can probably function perfectly well without trans staff as much as it can without male staff. Trans people are not being erased. These are solvable issues, which only become unsolvable once an absolutist stance of 'trans woman are women' becomes baked into the bargain.

Likewise, the nuanced conversation about grey areas goes out the window when you start calling people transphobes, the equivalent of BNP supporters, who basically need to die out. Jumping to the assumption JKR and others, against all they have said, 'hate the existence of trans people' dooms the discussion.

Its totally reasonable to hold a legitimate fear/concern and doing so certainly does not make you transphobic. But deliberately using unkind language to describe trans women does suggest a level of transphobia.

The moment someone deliberately resorts to abusive or hurtful language to get their points across they lose my respect. I am 'happy' for someone to say that trans women should never be permitted to use women's only spaces, but change the language to men in a dress and you've lost my respect and engagement.

It goes a lot further than that. Go take a look at any remotely controversial social media post and count the number of replies trying to grass them into their employer "@bbc is this the kind of person you want representing you" etc. It comes from all quarters and all persuasions and you should definitely not be okay with it if you consider yourself any kind of liberal.

In my view the word terf is a misogynistic slur. I don’t particularly respect those who use it. Does it follow that I simply shouldn’t debate anything with them? How would that help matters? 

You're welcome to your view, and to choose not to debate whoever you like. But it's a bizarre interpretation of the word, especially considering the number of ardent feminists I've heard use it as a way of distinguishing themselves from those who don't respect trans identities.

Much as it's bizarre to accuse those arguing for trans rights of ignoring women's voices, as you've done on this thread, when there are loads of women's voices raised up in defence of trans rights.

I don't think that follows. To pick another highly polarising topic,  just because there are loads of Jewish people who support rights for Palestinians, it doesn't follow that everyone who supports Palestinian rights is necessarily immune to anti semitism.

There's a tendency with highly polarised and contentious subjects to characterise the opposing view with the most extreme and uncharitable interpretations available. The reality is that any complex subject contains a range of views, but that of course is difficult to convey with a meme, or in 140 characters or less or whatever the limit is these days.

An NGO I worked for (not in the UK) had a funding stream of support for trans sex workers. We supported hundreds and I personally got to know a dozen or more. The interesting thing there was, in a culture that had historically been far more open to trans people, the discussion about trans was positive and wildly different to the one had here. I strongly suspect because the terms of it were very different. Asking a trans woman if she is a girl or boy (or more normally asked to guess), the answer would almost always be either 'neither' or 'both'. The whole stigma about a binary man/woman didn't exist. Thus, nobody pretended to be something they weren't, nobody was required to accept something they didn't believe, and amidst all that there was no issue of misgendering.

Meanwhile, refusing to accept Bunny/Bunnyself or Ae/Aer is considered disrespectful. At what point is someone allowed to no longer play along with an individual's demands, especially if that person is being openly hostile towards you? For me it is a matter of self-respect to not be required to say something I don't believe to be true. If I demand to be referred to as His Royal Highness or, as my local canal boat hippie claims, Lord Shaman, must everyone really fall into line? Claimed pronouns should be no more binding than requirements to refer to someone as Professor/Colonel/Captain. 

Isn't that distinction real though? A man in a dress might be a cross-dresser. They may be an autogynephile. I'm not sure they automatically qualify as trans. If I'm to support 'trans-women are women', and so deserving of access to sex-segregated spaces other than that of their birth, I may draw the line at 'men-in-dresses' but be quite ok with a passing trans-woman.

I'm taking about deliberately calling a person who you know identifies as trans by their birth gender, with the deliberate intention of shocking/offending.

You will notice that at no point in this discussion have a labelled anyone as TERF, transphobic or any other offensive term. Yes respect works both ways.

My problem with hurling insults (besides simply being unkind) is that it undermines the message you're trying to get across. We have not always agreed on this thread, but but by not hurling insults you have engaged me to think about different view points and consider legitimate concerns about shared spaces, rather than me just assuming based on your use of language that everything you say is based on a hatred the trans community.

Would you accept that some people might insist on addressing someone in terms of their natal sex as a matter of principle and that seeking to shock/ insult/offend is not always their motivation?

No. Like it or not deliberately addressing someone wrongly (bear in mind a trans person may not be legally recognised by their natal gender) is disrespectful and unnecessary. You may be acting on point of principle, but it is obvious that your actions will cause upset for the other person 

If you strongly object to using what to you are the 'wrong' pronouns I would suggest using neutral ones (they, them) instead.

Yeah, I'm not sure I buy that objection either. If someone has made it known that being called by the wrong pronouns causes them upset, then deliberately doing otherwise is just being a dick. 

Equally I would hope that if I were to accidentally misgender someone it would not be considered the end of the world once it is made clear that no offence was meant, and am happy to be corrected.

I have a non binary friend who I frequently (but unintentionally) miss gender as female, and they have told me that they would prefer I correct myself and move on, rather than ignoring the mistake or making a huge deal out of apologising.

Mistakes happen and few people will take offence at a genuine mistake. Hey, wouldn't be the first time I've seen a cis person misgenderd, it's awkward, but obvious when it's a genuine mistake and no offence was intended.

as the OP was about the ISS would it not be more apt to refer to delta-G relative to birth gender?

How much delta-V is needed to get back on Topic?

Is that another example of how age affects the discussion? 

If a student insisted on addressing a members of staff differently to how they wanted, I'd be inclined to think that was the motivation, rather than a matter of principle. 

I hope the people at Viz aren't reading your post   

The gender of spacecraft mating adapters used to be a hot topic.  I believe androgynous mating systems were developed in part because both the USA and Russia wanted to have a male docking adapter not a female one precluding space docking between the nations.

Androgynous docking and berthing makes a lot more sense as then any pair of vehicles can get together on a whim.

Counter argument: you can choose your name, but your pronoun is a description of what sex you are, not what gender. (Do we need to think more clearly about that difference? We can do that!) And your sex is not your choice, it’s binary and immutable, and sometimes it matters. If a health service is trying to work out who needs a prostate or cervix examination then the body matters, not one’s (deeply held and genuine) feelings about it, or about the relationship between the body and one’s social role. What the body consists of is an objective fact, something we can ascertain. If you see the pronoun as a description of the body, then it becomes coercive for the owner of a male body (whatever they believe their gender to be, and remember, gender is not sex) to force others to pretend their body is of a different type. 

Now you could of course say, that’s fine but if you meet someone socially that’s a fundamentally different relationship than a medical one (or perhaps a sporting or incarceral one). But if you believe sex and not gender is what really differentiates people, then aren’t you asking someone who believes that to participate in a polite fiction?

This is just outright offensive. A pronoun is not a description of sex over gender. A pronoun is a term used to describe many things and that includes gender which is a matter of personal identity. You have decided that a personal pronoun is a descriptor for sex, but that is not correct.

Quite frankly Sean you're a transphobe. Simple as that.

In your example I'd be the first to agree.

But if a student's parents insisted that I address them by their first name and I declined to do so, they might well be offended but I would stand by my right to address them by their  titles(s) and surname in an attempt to maintain whatever formality the situation required, the principle being that parents and teachers are not normally on first name terms and it's in no one's best interests for them to be so.

Put this down to age as well if that's your tack, but I just consider it sound practice.

Yet we use pronouns to describe animals, who do have a sex but don’t have a gender. Sure, you might say humans are more complex and the meanings of the words shift when applied to us, fair enough. But it would be perfectly rational to say “he (a man) has as his identity being trans (appearing as a woman)” and it would succinctly describe both sex and gender. Can you not see any situations in which sex would trump gender in terms of importance, or in which we would at least want to refer to the difference?
 

Worth reading the article I posted above on whether this really is a phobia. I don’t think you will, which is a shame. Being smart but not expending at least a little intellectual energy on your enemies is a bit of a waste. 

That hasn't happened to me, the opposite has. Having taught the parent I address them by their first name. They requested I didn't 

That didn't occur to me

A real rather than made up example. I have had experience of talking to  trans parents at parents evenings. I've always used the title they request. Fortunately all the other staff did as well, no one felt the need to do something, on principle, differently. Actually if a member of staff had expressed the need to follow this  principle I'm not sure how I would have handled it. 

Not usual, but I have been with many, it's just a different dynamic. I can see teaching your own kids possibly being problematic, teaching friends kids has pro and cons, but than tends to be more to do with nature of the student than how we address each other at parents evenings. 

Why can't you just argue that he is incorrect without calling him a transphobe?

Why shouldn't I call him what he is?

Because it adds nothing to the discussion and will only increase the polarisation which makes the whole debate so toxic.

Having said that, I think that this thread is generally one of the more constructive discussions I have seen on the subject.

I do agree with you that deliberate misgendering should not be acceptable.

I actually do think that calling views as what they are is beneficial. I don't think it helps to dress up bigotry in some sort of "acceptable" terminology. Misgendering people is transphobic and Sean persists in defending it ergo...

Thanks for the defence even though I’m sure we disagree. I think most posters on here are completely reasonable but also conceptually misguided. Having said that, when it comes to the actual outcomes that most people here would be happy with, I’d probably accept quite a lot of them, so perhaps the divide isn’t as big as one might think. But for some posters it seems even a basic challenge to their worldview is a bit of a struggle - ultimately there’s a big divide between the liberal-left and a more stringent and narrow strain of left-wing thought and activity. 

Is the thrust of the argument much different from the quotes you posted further up the thread trying to justify a complete distinction between opposition to trans rights and gay rights? Because I didn't find that particularly convincing, so wouldn't really bother with a longer form of a similar argument. But might try it in a bored moment if you think it's taking a different tack.

Okay, tell us why it didn’t convince you. Analyse it and show me (and everyone reading) where it falls down. Explain why gender critical thought is very similar to anti-gay thought (despite the fact that many people active in the former are strongly opposed to the later).

Then the clinical team would look at their medical records which record their sex and will also typically include a flag highlighting if someone doesn’t identify as that sex. They don’t blindly rely on the pronouns that someone, who the clinicians may or may not have ever met at that point, might introduce themselves by.

And if you see the pronoun as a reference to the whole person? A pronoun is just a reference to a noun after all. “He” would typically be replacing “Stuart” if someone were talking about me, and in the vast majority of situations when someone talks about “Stuart” they aren’t exclusively wanting to discuss what sex organs I had at birth.

I have no idea what your on about (delta-G, delta-V??). Although I do feel a bit proud that people have been able to open up about some sensitive topics even if it's got nought to do with the OP.

So, we’ve found a situation where sex matters. There are others. So surely we should want language (or more accurate, access to language being as we already have the language) to describe people in terms of their sex, not their gender. 

Yes, but part of the pronoun’s function in English has been to alert us to the person’s sex. However now some parts of society want to use pronouns to alert us to someone’s gender. Again, sex and gender refer to two different things, right? So saying that there should be an important aspect of someone (their sex) which we have a social taboo against describing, strikes me as regressive and in fact a limitation on language. 

So we have a choice as a society whether to use pronouns which refer to sex or which prefer to gender. In the absence of any other compelling argument one way or the other, I would have thought it makes sense to make the choice which doesn't cause offense to some people. 

So when dealing with transwomen who have committed sexual crimes (and there have been some), should we offend:

the perpetrator, who doesn’t want to be misgendered?

or the victim (or indeed other victims of the same crime) who believe that rape is a crime committed by men against women? 

Mm hm. You’ve missed the bit where the medical record is quite capable of describing your sex as male/female. What pronouns someone wants to use doesn’t present any issue there, nor are they what gets recorded under the heading “sex”. 

Well, certainly they alert us to how we might expect the person to look. It’s a fairly small subset of situations where I would actually need to know someone’s biological sex. In the majority of situations, if I’m expecting someone who presents as a man then I’d reckon the pronoun “he” probably gives me more pragmatically useful information about who I’m looking for than “she” would. 

I don’t think I’ve seen anyone on here object to describing sex in those situations where it is important to know it.