The Channel 4 Video “Gender Wars”

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• I've finally had time to watch this program and what a mess this whole issue has become. As I'm sure you have figured out this subject isn't one that I'm aware of all the arguments around and details about what's going on, but I still don't understand why it's so difficult for some to realize (admit?) there are actual biological differences between female and male mammals no matter the surgery done and drugs taken and that does have real-world impacts.

  • Indeed. It is the determination to ignore that reality that gives rise to most of the "trouble", causes "rights" to be in conflict, and gets everyone in a muddle. I think it starts with the deliberate effort to use sex and 'gender' as synonyms. When we separate the two - sex as reality and gender as an idea in the head - things do get a bit simpler.

  • The more you know the worse it gets. We are living in deranged times and what is being taught to children is beyond belief. I had to go into my child's school and tell them that they must not tell my 10 year old that she can change sex.

    • Wow! Good for you. So dangerous to put such false ideas in children's heads.

• I think I would get in a lot of trouble if I was still actively engaged in society because I find it impossible to keep up with what is and isn't "accepted" and I would undoubtedly offend everyone without at all meaning to. I can empathize with Kathleen Stock who appears to be demonized quite without reason. I agree with what she says.
  Kass, on the other hand, is the kind of person I would throw things at.
  Life is not an even playing field and people would do well to stop believing things should be "fair". We should learn to tolerate one another. But people who generate hate should be treated with no tolerance whatever.

• Thanks Josna
  I take a bit of a different perspective from you as you can no doubt tell from my other posts on this topic.
  But I agree that the documentary was a decent first foray into the issues. Personally, I am so happy we have such stalwarts as Kathleen Stock and Julie Bindel speaking up for the rights of women and for the safeguarding of the vulnerable young and old of all stripes. Just basically speaking the truth.

  Neither of them want to remove any rights from any other group. But they do want to talk about the areas in public life and policy where rights can be in competition. I also know that we need to start with basic biology: that there are two sexes and that no one ever changes sex. And that in some instances that difference really matters.

  But as you said - we urgently need a series of programs that takes a serious look at what is happening and why it matters. As they say: the era of "the science is settled' and "no debate is over. As they should be.

  I thought this piece from former Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore this weekend gave a good short summary of where we now are. https://archive.ph/2023.05.30-062440/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/05/30/the-cult-of-gender-ideology-finally-crumbling/#selection-2967.4-2967.52

  (And of course, her story of why she left the Guardian is another story.
  "Why I had to leave the Guardian" https://unherd.com/2020/11/why-i-had-to-leave-the-guardian/ )

• I watched this last night, Josie. Thank you for sharing it. I thought it made a start--as one of the YouTube commenters said--and would have been terrific as part one of a series on the subject. I was shocked by how polarized the subject seems to have become in the U.K. There is of course a lot to say on the subject, and a lot to think about further, but what struck me first was that feminists, and lesbian feminists at that, having struggled in the late 1970s and the 1980s to be accepted as "real women" by mainstream feminism, would now take such a strong stand to exclude other marginalized people from the category. It reminds me of immigrants who, once having gained a foothold in their host society, take a strong stand against rights being extended to new immigrants.
  The second thing that struck me was that feminists fought in the 1970s and 1980s against people--male or female--being defined by their biology and here are these people on one side of the polarized divide insisting that people must stay in the sex they presented at birth.
  While people identifying themselcves as LGBTQIA+ make up 4-7# of the US population, the percentage who identify themselves as transgender make up one half of one percent, and the percentage who identify themselves as transsexual is even smaller than that (https://diversity.social/transsexual-vs-transgender/). So my sense is still that one ought to live and let live. How am I threatened by them? If anything, the social acceptance of a whole spectrum of gender-nonconforming people enables me to be freer to express my own sexuality and gender identity. (Here's a piece I wrote on the subject several years ago: https://josna.wordpress.com/2014/09/06/283-categories-or-continuums/)
  I so appreciated the way the documentary ended, with two more moderate people speaking civilly to each other on the subject, even enjoying each other's company. I know you and I hold different views on this subject, but I do share at least some of your concerns. Cheers, Josna

  • Thanks Josna
    I take a bit of a different perspective from you as you can no doubt tell from my other posts on this topic.
    But I agree that the documentary was a decent first foray into the issues. Personally, I am so happy we have such stalwarts as Kathleen Stock and Julie Bindel speaking up for the rights of women and for the safeguarding of the vulnerable young and old of all stripes. Just basically speaking the truth.

    Neither of them want to remove any rights from any other group. But they do want to talk about the areas in public life and policy where rights can be in competition. I also know that we need to start with basic biology: that there are two sexes and that no one ever changes sex. And that in some instances that difference really matters.

    But as you said – we urgently need a series of programs that takes a serious look at what is happening and why it matters. As they say: the era of “the science is settled’ and “no debate is over. As they should be.

    I thought this piece from former Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore this weekend gave a good short summary of where we now are. https://archive.ph/2023.05.30-062440/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/05/30/the-cult-of-gender-ideology-finally-crumbling/#selection-2967.4-2967.52

    (And of course, her story of why she left the Guardian is another story.
    “Why I had to leave the Guardian” https://unherd.com/2020/11/why-i-had-to-leave-the-guardian/ )