Off Topic Politics Thread

[Schrodinger's Cat]

I guess my question would be: to what extent does it matter? There is no real benefit, as far as I am aware, to claiming that you identify as a woman after being arrested; the penalty is the same regardless. Is there going to be an organized campaign to rape women, claim a non-cis gender identification and skew the statistics? If not, it's going to have no tangible effect.

To take an example: racial identification is largely self-reported. It's entirely possible, for example, for those arrested for sex crimes to all identify as Polynesian, which would skew crime stats. Is there a large public outcry about this possibility? No. Because it's just not a thing, just as this is not a thing.

That's where the transphobia comes into play. Causing a major fuss over something that has zero real world impact in order to attempt to erode the societal standing of a group of people that actually exist and are already marginalized.

I think it matters to a lot of women.

All those women who believe that they need a single sex safe space in certain circumstances are scared enough that the term woman now applies to anybody who chooses to use it, like its a badge that could be taken on and off at will. Women's refuges or female only changing rooms should not be taken from women who feel they need them, yet they will be...

Any person who believes that sex and gender are different things will be concerned because it effectively means that single sex segregation cannot happen because Trans rights trump biological women's rights and if you disagree then you're a TERF or a transphobe.

Anybody that believes science is a thing, and that evidence is important will be concerned because while it is easy to accept that some people don't feel that they are the gender assigned at birth, it doesn't make any logical sense that everybody else has to believe it too in the face of all evidence...however failure to pretend that you do believe it makes you a transphobe.

Importantly, I don't think that this situation will cause there to be a rash of sex crimes carried out by trans sex criminals, however it opens almost every single female space to abuse by anybody that wants to gain access, who can then use self identification as a justification for entry to a previously denied area.

In terms of the headline, that was about recording crimes but the precedent it sets allows self identification as a way of committing crimes...


What I did notice was your last sentence

"to attempt to erode the societal standing of a group of people that actually exist and are already marginalised"

Which struck me as true about biological females as a group, not just Trans-women.

 

[Schad]

However, I think the argument is that people self-identifying as a woman can be sentenced to a female prison (for reference, between 2012 and 2018 there were 438 cases of rape recorded as being by a woman. The KEY thing here, is that in British law, rape has to involve penetration *by a penis*. Anything else is classified as sexual assault).

And they should be sentenced to a women's prison. Trans individuals have been for years in many countries; they tend to be victimized at a grossly disproportionate rate otherwise.

The other factor here is the victim (which is and should be a HUGE factor). I can't imagine how it is to be a woman, but I can imagine having a daughter. If she had been raped, and I was told that the perpetrator had been a woman (with a penis), who was being sentenced to a woman's jail, well, frankly, I'd find that pretty difficult to accept.

Why, though? Why would the gender identity of the individual committing the offense matter?

It's the diminishment of women as a thing too, but that's a whole other debate.

I mean, it very much is. Because then the argument is that trans people simply should not have the capacity to identify as such.

I know two people fairly well who were born female and identify as men or non-binary. In neither case does it strike me as having the slightest impact on my own identity as a man.

 

[Le Tissier's Laces]

And they should be sentenced to a women's prison. Trans individuals have been for years in many countries; they tend to be victimized at a grossly disproportionate rate otherwise.



Why, though? Why would the gender identity of the individual committing the offense matter?



I mean, it very much is. Because then the argument is that trans people simply should not have the capacity to identify as such.

I know two people fairly well who were born female and identify as men or non-binary. In neither case does it strike me as having the slightest impact on my own identity as a man.

It's a complex subject, Schad (as you know), and an emotive one, for sure. I think Schrodinger's post better captures what the concerns might be than mine. Regarding your last point though, I also know a few people fairly well that identify as men, but it's not men's rights that are being thrown around the room, so of course it doesn't have an impact on your/our identity as men.

The 'why' question is a curious one, and I think that's the part I need to work on, as it's something ingrained from being a nearly fifty year old. I'd be very interested to know how that would impact a victim though, a female that has been raped by a penis, and then being told that she was raped by a woman. I'm making suppositions here, that may be wrong, but I think that would be far harder to accept as a 'thing'.

 

[Schad]

It's a complex subject, Schad (as you know), and an emotive one, for sure. I think Schrodinger's post better captures what the concerns might be than mine. Regarding your last point though, I also know a few people fairly well that identify as men, but it's not men's rights that are being thrown around the room, so of course it doesn't have an impact on your/our identity as men.

The 'why' question is a curious one, and I think that's the part I need to work on, as it's something ingrained from being a nearly fifty year old. I'd be very interested to know how that would impact a victim though, a female that has been raped by a penis, and then being told that she was raped by a woman. I'm making suppositions here, that may be wrong, but I think that would be far harder to accept as a 'thing'.

No worries, I understand where you're coming from. I just don't see where it would meaningfully change the equation. Would the experience of trauma be substantively different?

Furthermore, the underlying issue here is that the issue purportedly being addressed involves a single-digit sample (per the UK government, the number of sexual abuses by incarcerated trans individuals, over a three-year period, was 7), whereas trans individuals are the victims of crime at a rate double that of the general population. When engaging on the question of harm reduction, it's worth being mindful of which individuals are suffering the vast majority of the harm.

 

[Le Tissier's Laces]

No worries, I understand where you're coming from. I just don't see where it would meaningfully change the equation. Would the experience of trauma be substantively different?

Furthermore, the underlying issue here is that the issue purportedly being addressed involves a single-digit sample (per the UK government, the number of sexual abuses by incarcerated trans individuals, over a three-year period, was 7), whereas trans individuals are the victims of crime at a rate double that of the general population. When engaging on the question of harm reduction, it's worth being mindful of which individuals are suffering the vast majority of the harm.

“‘No worries, I understand where you're coming from. I just don't see where it would meaningfully change the equation. Would the experience of trauma be substantively different?’”

I don’t know, Schad, and I don’t think either of us could know. I’d be interested to hear from a woman on that point.

I do think it’s very important to realise that there is a distinction in terms of women feeling that their *very* hard fought for identities and rights are being impinged here, in a way that men’s aren’t (and funnily enough wouldn’t be. There’s just not that same sense of threat for a man on any number of levels).

As I said, I know a few people identifying as men. I know far more who identify as women (actually it would be interesting to see percentages of gender transition each way). I lived in Brighton for over twenty years, and there’s no way you can do that without a lot of exposure to the broader trans communities. I know an awful lot more CIS (I hate that term) women though, and a lot of them feel quite cowed into silence about what they’re feeling for fear of being (wrongly) labelled transphobic. That’s not a healthy place to be. People have to be allowed to voice concerns, and for those concerns to be heard (and either alleviated or discussed like adults).

 

[It'sOnlyAGame]

I think it matters to a lot of women.

All those women who believe that they need a single sex safe space in certain circumstances are scared enough that the term woman now applies to anybody who chooses to use it, like its a badge that could be taken on and off at will. Women's refuges or female only changing rooms should not be taken from women who feel they need them, yet they will be...

Any person who believes that sex and gender are different things will be concerned because it effectively means that single sex segregation cannot happen because Trans rights trump biological women's rights and if you disagree then you're a TERF or a transphobe.

Anybody that believes science is a thing, and that evidence is important will be concerned because while it is easy to accept that some people don't feel that they are the gender assigned at birth, it doesn't make any logical sense that everybody else has to believe it too in the face of all evidence...however failure to pretend that you do believe it makes you a transphobe.

Importantly, I don't think that this situation will cause there to be a rash of sex crimes carried out by trans sex criminals, however it opens almost every single female space to abuse by anybody that wants to gain access, who can then use self identification as a justification for entry to a previously denied area.

In terms of the headline, that was about recording crimes but the precedent it sets allows self identification as a way of committing crimes...


What I did notice was your last sentence

"to attempt to erode the societal standing of a group of people that actually exist and are already marginalised"

Which struck me as true about biological females as a group, not just Trans-women.

Very well put

I find it incredible that people try to justify the absurdity that men can claim women's spaces just by saying it's how they identify. These spaces include women's and girls changing rooms, rape crises centres and women's refuges. We have long had sex segregation in those places for good reasons, but now in order to accommodate the feelings of a small minority, women's safety is compromised.
Anyone with a wife, daughter, sister, mother should be concerned about how easy it has now become to get access to them.
Why anyone, and especially women would be ok with this nonsense is so unbelievable that you feel a big dollop of self righteous flag waving is going on.
But why a non trans man would defend this invasion of women's privacy is puzzling. Why is it so important to some that men get access to women's areas? I can't think of any genuine reason why they would.

 

[Gregm1988]

As I've said, I'm no expert here, but a curious observer that's willing to learn.

However, I think the argument is that people self-identifying as a woman can be sentenced to a female prison (for reference, between 2012 and 2018 there were 438 cases of rape recorded as being by a woman. The KEY thing here, is that in British law, rape has to involve penetration *by a penis*. Anything else is classified as sexual assault).

The other factor here is the victim (which is and should be a HUGE factor). I can't imagine how it is to be a woman, but I can imagine having a daughter. If she had been raped, and I was told that the perpetrator had been a woman (with a penis), who was being sentenced to a woman's jail, well, frankly, I'd find that pretty difficult to accept.

It's the diminishment of women as a thing too, but that's a whole other debate.

From what I gather from JK Rowling the “diminishment of women” is pretty much her point. Her starting point at least. It seems that to her it is not another debate at all

whether you agree or not is up to interpretation

 

[Gregm1988]

I wonder if gender based sentencing disparity between men and women might also play partly into this ?

Although that doesn’t seem to be Rowling’s primary concern. Her main point on this issue is the idea of violent crime being committed being unreasonably recorded / apportioned

Although I can’t imagine the numbers are statistically significant so it is also the situation of abusers being placed in a place where they can easily offend again. But as noted a trans woman in a male prison is exponentially more likely to be a victim. So there isn’t really an easy solution

 

[Bob's mate]

I wonder if gender based sentencing disparity between men and women might also play partly into this ?

Although that doesn’t seem to be Rowling’s primary concern. Her main point on this issue is the idea of violent crime being committed being unreasonably recorded / apportioned

Although I can’t imagine the numbers are statistically significant so it is also the situation of abusers being placed in a place where they can easily offend again. But as noted a trans woman in a male prison is exponentially more likely to be a victim. So there isn’t really an easy solution

All rapists are men and should therefore serve their sentence in a male prison. Who cares about a rapist's hurt feelings?

 

[Archers Road]

From what I gather from JK Rowling the “diminishment of women” is pretty much her point. Her starting point at least. It seems that to her it is not another debate at all

whether you agree or not is up to interpretation

And there’s the wider point which is in danger of being missed; should a difference of opinion about what it means to be transexual (I have no opinion on this at all, personally) be a reason to silence someone?

Germain Greer was the first example I recall, of a woman writer having a talk at a Student’s Union cancelled because she apparently said, with characteristic Aussie robustness, “look love, cutting your cock off doesn’t make you a woman”. In some quarters it seems that having a) a dissenting opinion, and b) a sense of humour, is reason to have someone silenced; this is not liberalism or tolerance, this is the opposite.

 

[Gregm1988]

And there’s the wider point which is in danger of being missed; should a difference of opinion about what it means to be transexual (I have no opinion on this at all, personally) be a reason to silence someone?

Germain Greer was the first example I recall, of a woman writer having a talk at a Student’s Union cancelled because she apparently said, with characteristic Aussie robustness, “look love, cutting your cock off doesn’t make you a woman”. In some quarters it seems that having a) a dissenting opinion, and b) a sense of humour, is reason to have someone silenced; this is not liberalism or tolerance, this is the opposite.

It’s one of the great ironies. But these are people who think words are violence. There are people who claim that what Rowling says directly (and I mean directly) causes violence and potentially even the killings of trans people

And these people point to something which I believe is called the “tolerance paradox”. Something about certain views should not be tolerated. But the people who say this always get to decide. And I’m pretty sure the example used in this is often/always the beliefs of Nazis

It simply isn’t comparable and I would suggest makes the people making said argument harder to take seriously. That and all the horrendous abusive messages and pictures (including very very violent language) that has been sent to some of these women who try to speak about this (especially Rowling).

I have even seen some who are against her claim that the horrendous stuff she is sent is not from true trans activists and/or from right wing trolls. That is wandering into Qanon style thinking there

 

[saintrichie123]

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[Gregm1988]

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That is one interpretation

But consider the South African authorities made a similar claim in advance of information about severity seemingly in complaint about the travel restrictions

So I don’t see it necessarily being political. Might be overblown but not intentionally so. Surely this push to boost people in such a short time frame is going to be expensive and isn’t being done flippantly ?

On the other hand - i did carefully note how nothing was mentioned about the person who died from omicron when the headlines were announcing how the first person had. In the early days they used to mention underlying health conditions.

Although never mentioned obesity and those co-morbidities. How many articles were there decrying deaths of “healthy” people and then you saw their picture …?

 

[Le Tissier's Laces]

That is one interpretation

But consider the South African authorities made a similar claim in advance of information about severity seemingly in complaint about the travel restrictions

So I don’t see it necessarily being political. Might be overblown but not intentionally so. Surely this push to boost people in such a short time frame is going to be expensive and isn’t being done flippantly ?

On the other hand - i did carefully note how nothing was mentioned about the person who died from omicron when the headlines were announcing how the first person had. In the early days they used to mention underlying health conditions.

Although never mentioned obesity and those co-morbidities. How many articles were there decrying deaths of “healthy” people and then you saw their picture …?

I think the tubby sex-yeti is playing politics with this now, and it's a disgrace. That last 'address to the nation' was bugger all other than a party political broadcast.

 

[saintrichie123]

I think the tubby sex-yeti is playing politics with this now, and it's a disgrace. That last 'address to the nation' was bugger all other than a party political broadcast.

He will run out of dead cats eventually.

 

[Gregm1988]

I think the tubby sex-yeti is playing politics with this now, and it's a disgrace. That last 'address to the nation' was bugger all other than a party political broadcast.

Certainly explains why Starmer got one the next night. Implies BBC knew what was going on. Not often an opposition leader gets something like that

Not that anywhere near as many people would have watched that one

 

[Lemons and Oranges]

I feel that Johnson will be around for some time to come. GE still three years away so too early for a replacement. Whoever it is, it won't change the substance coming out of the present Government but will perhaps put an end to the clownish elements of the present cabinet. A new Tory leader would also herald the end for Raab, Mogg, the Education Secretary, Snapps, and the Cuture Secretary!!!

There is a by-election in North Shropshire on Thursday, after Owen Paterson resigned, in an attempt to stop the Tories seem like a bunch of self-serving hypocrites. I suspect that this will result in a Conservative loss, but the Tory propaganda machine, aka most of the newspapers, will put any loss down to "It's a mid-term election, and of course voters will vote against the government", or " Owen Paterson has ruined the chances of any Conservative candidate", but will anyone be brave enough to point at Boris and say that it's his fault? We shall see...

 

[San Tejón]

There is a by-election in North Shropshire on Thursday, after Owen Paterson resigned, in an attempt to stop the Tories seem like a bunch of self-serving hypocrites. I suspect that this will result in a Conservative loss, but the Tory propaganda machine, aka most of the newspapers, will put any loss down to "It's a mid-term election, and of course voters will vote against the government", or " Owen Paterson has ruined the chances of any Conservative candidate", but will anyone be brave enough to point at Boris and say that it's his fault? We shall see...

The Tory majority is something like 23000, so it will take a seismic shift to change it.
But this is one of the reasons why I am not in any hurry for Johnson to be jettisoned, as the sooner he goes the more time the Tory propaganda machine, aka the media, has to rewrite history and blame the last two years on Jeremy Corbyn.

 

[San Tejón]

With regards to Johnson going on tv and telling the nation that the NHS would be stepping up the number of booster jabs, with immediate effect, that was the first time that those in the NHS, whose job it is to deliver the jabs, knew what was expected of them.
There was no consultation to find out how or if it could be done or to find out what extra help they could be given. Just another Johnson knee jerk.
My son’s partner works in a senior position, for a local NHS Trust, overseeing several GP practices and they are not amused by the buffoon’s posturing.

 

[Lemons and Oranges]

I'm waiting for Boris to tell everyone that he sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness' sake. This should solve all current problems, at least in Boris' mind, such as it is