Heartofice

I think what she said was that all her identification papers say she was female, and she was made of "biological stuff" and therefore she was a biological female. I think that highlights a problem with language. Her other point, which I think creates part of the problem was that she said, and I'll paraphrase 'It's a simple issue, it all boils down to whether you think transwomen are female and real women or not'. The issue there is that it's not simple. It's not simple at all. We are having arguments over language as to what 'real women' are, whether biology has any bearing at all and to what extent. As Ran pointed out, being trans can be a whole variety of things and can encompass a vast array of individuals who will have been through various stages of transition, or none at all. This all becomes really pretty relevant when it comes to women's sports. But apparently we are being told that it is simple. She then goes on to, for some reason, compare it to racism, but that's just another signal of the type of argumentation being displayed. I don't think making sweeping generalisations about people is helpful, and forcing people to use language which is vague and non specific is also unhelpful.

Weren't they worse at times? I remember people really laying into Arteta at one point, I was convinced he was going to go. There was this whole thing about his 'horsehoe of doom' tactic, the ball just moving around not doing anything useful. Think Ange will get more time. Spurs are in 5th, they had some excellent periods and some terrible periods this season. Ange is also universally liked as a guy.

Agree, it's completely unhelpful. We shouldn't need to be having this conversation. It only happens when people attempt to play down the role of biological sex, and start making untrue statements about things everyone already knows to be true Agree, the fear here is generally that creepy men will take advantage of lax laws and put themselves into creepy situations. It's very unlikely anyone is going to through transition just to be a creep. But what if you define who is a women simply on the basis of someone saying that they are? If someone like Isla Bryon can be put into a female prison, what else happens if there are no checks, the Bryson case is hardly an isolated one either. This is the fear I think that most women who talk about this are speaking of. No, exactly. I don't think it's trans people saying this stuff.

Maybe it's possible to make assessments about individuals and maybe it wouldn't be. Not sure how you could do that in the hospital setting. Giving trans people their own room seems a reasonable compromise. Why wouldn't you be ok with that?

I’m going to try and brush over the fact that even now you still don’t understand gametes or biological sex. That’s just your limitation. As I said, ideally you would treat everyone as individuals and be able to make an assessment as to whether it would be suitable. This is basically what happens in women’s prisons, however as in the Isla Bryson case it can be exposed as not always making appropriate decisions. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-64796926.amp But then there is the question as to whether it isn’t worse to be forcing trans women into some sort of assessment t to get into a rape shelter, which it probably would be. but then if you don’t make those calls, do you allow anyone who says they are a women due to self identification into a female rape shelter? Would you be ok with that?

Well firstly I’d say that in most, almost all circumstances people should be treated on an individual basis, as circumstances are different for everyone. But yes for instance a rape shelter for women should be a female only space.

I know you keep trying to come back to this topic after being made to look a little silly on basic biology. Ok I’ll bite. Yes I think there are circumstances where female only spaces are important. Wards might well be one of those.

Yeah I think that article is illuminating, but not for the reasons you are suggesting.

Here is Richard Dawkins on Why Biological sex matters. Worth reading the whole thing if you want to try getting past the pay wall. Useful if you want to know more, and if you think you know more than Richard Dawkins... well that is your right.: https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2023/07/biological-sex-binary-debate-richard-dawkins

I have to admit, halfway through the show I was going to just stop. It was at times really not a fun watch. It's quite upsetting at points. If you get through that, I think by the end it makes it all worth it, and Gadd actually creates a pretty thoughtful piece that is much better than what looked like a standard scary stalker tale.

Baby Reindeer has been a massive success on Netflix, but is also creating quite a controversy as online snoops try and piece together who the real life counterparts to the characters in the show are. This has led to people being sent abuse and wrongly being identified as abusers themselves. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/apr/28/baby-reindeer-sleuths-real-life-drama-netflix-debate-identities It is quite amazing that this was allowed to happen. It seems a bit misjudged by Netflix to allow the show to do things like cast an actress who looks basically identical to the real life character she was portraying, and not doing enough to disguise people's identities. Having said that, I think the show is very good. If you watch it all the way through, Richard Gadd, who plays himself, takes a lot of the blame for the situation on himself and it's quite self reflective. This isn't about turning someone into a monster and about shaming them. If you watched the first couple of episodes you might get that impression but as it goes on you see much of it is about him. It can be pretty sympathetic to the Martha character, despite her terrifying behaviour.

What do you mean?

When people say ‘transwomen are women’ I take it to mean ‘transwomen should be treated for all intents and purposes as women and I don’t believe in discrimination against them’ I would say that is a pretty reasonable statement and I don’t think too many people would argue against it. Which is why I don’t know why there is an insistence to take it even further by starting to make scientifically inaccurate statements about the nature of sex and biology. I’ve seen this debate play out all over the internet, I’ve seen people make the same basic category errors that Kal made above and I don’t see how it helps anyone to be doing that. It doesn’t help anybody to try to insist that people believe untrue statements, or to argue about things that everyone already understands to be true. That really is a bad hill.

You are going to have to clarify what you mean.

When people say biological sex, I'm going to assume in most cases they just mean sex rather than gender.

Whether it’s a language issue or not, it’s essentially meaningless because in reality every individual is different and context matters.

The difference is that some people would say it's perfectly possible to treat someone as the gender in which they identify whilst also recognising that biological sex exists.

You are missing the point I am making. I am not saying the Cass report directly caused the new changes within the NHS, but indirectly, by highlighting the approach to gender within the NHS over the past few years. It has also helped to remove many of the barriers to talking about the topic, and exposed some of the poor thinking in general on the topic. This has led to the NHS re-examining some of it's other policies and maybe taking a wider, I'd say more sensible, view as to what actions they should take.

What you are missing is that the Cas report has meant that a sensible discussion on the topic can happen out in the open without malicious accusations of ‘transphobia’. The report itself exposed some of the poorly thought out policies in place regarding gender, which has led to other poorly thought out policies to fixed as well. Not sure it’s hard to understand.

I outlined my thoughts here: If you have anything more productive to say, feel free.

Actually I would disagree. As I mentioned in my post on the previous page.

Is someone who wants a female-only ward 'anti trans'?

What are you suggesting?

I’ve never loved W3. I didn’t really like its graphics either! It’s not an RPG!

Didn’t the next gen update delay this? This update has really irritated me, the game is now something like 20gb on my machine, for an old game with not very good graphics and an update that doesn’t make my PC experience better. Apparently there are mods to fix loading times, but these aren’t in the mod store area within the game, you’d need to go through nexus mods, which is a pain, something I haven’t done since the old days of Skyrim. So I have ditched the idea of revisiting the game after watching the series.