Un-thinking gender

@aytchellesse Agree completely. Yet that’s exactly what the court ruling did - applied a definition of sex to the SDA that doesn’t recognise sex differences.

@dizzywhatsit i don't think they can take the whole SDA to be about woman as a gender identity that includes both trans and non-trans women, because that would make nonsense out of sexual orientation and sex characteristics discrimination.

reading the giggle v tickle (2026) judgement that was published yesterday. some interesting departures from trans activist ideology: 1) the gender identity of a transwoman is "transwoman", _not_ "woman". that means transwomen do not share a gender identity with women. universal gender identity is false. 2) discrimination can be done on the basis of "a characteristic that appertains generally to persons who have the same gender identity as the aggrieved person". this characteristic, according to the judgement, is looking like a man. 3) transwomen, as a distinct protected group (_not_ trans people generally), have in common that they look like men. 4) as usual, no explanation is offered for why a transwoman is a type of woman rather than a type of man. the judgement refers to "gender identity" that is different from "sex assigned at birth" but does not explain what gender identity has to do with sex. e.g. "" transgender" which refers to a person whose gender identity is different from their sex as registered at birth". 5) the federal court decision effectively prevents the exclusion of males from female-only spaces due to the fear that if that male-appearance person turns out to be a transwoman rather than an ordinary man, the exclusion can turn out to have been direct discrimination. you don't need to actually be treating someone worse _because you believe they are trans_. 6) this is so genuinely absurd—that the shared characteristic of transwomen on the basis of which they might be discriminated against is also shared with ALL MEN—that giggle will surely win on appeal to the high court. that's my saturday morning hot take, anyway. ⭐

@legalfeminist @soniasodha I’ve wondered about this. In one sense it’s a belief sex is not a binary, so you’d be pitting yourself against sex equality law & practices.

Has anyone here ever come across an employment tribunal or county court claim alleging discrimination because of belief in gender ideology? Has anyone ever heard of anyone suffering discrimination because of their gender ideology belief?

“Simply put, you cannot protect what you cannot define” (Reem Alsalem) Thank you @ForWomenScot

Never forget, that the existence of both sexed and sexual boundaries are obstructions to those who wish to push those boundaries in others.

Sex equality is more than a principle, it’s a practice. open.substack.com/pub/genderfica…

@glosswitch @HJoyceGender They’re not separating sex from gender. The thinking is ‘the world’ assigns a masculine identity to their child from his sex & is discriminating accordingly. Therefore it’s the sex & the identity society attaches to it that’s the problem, not that the two are not the same thing.

@HJoyceGender It seems such an obvious safeguarding concern. These parents are teaching their child to feel their body and the world is against them.

Why are these parents lying to their little boy, clearly signalling to him that there is something wrong with his body rather than reassuring him that he is perfect just the way he is? And why did Girlguiding ever play along with this cruel deception?

@TomasBogardus @aytchellesse Great debate. Fuentes seems to place biological ‘lived experience’ into the definition of sex itself, making it a spectrum, rather than seeing biological ‘lived experience’ as part of the natural variety of the male or female sex.

Here's a link to the full video from the debate I had with Agustín Fuentes on March 6th about whether sex is binary: capture.udel.edu/media/+Debatin…

Mmmm. Very pretty & professional looking, I’ll admit… I’ll also admit I wasn’t instrumental in LGB activism, like Bev Jackson, Kate Harris or Fred Sargeant, but, if I may, I’d like to correct the multitude of errors that litter this statement (again, very pretty, all typed out neatly, by Miffy The Whiffy Gamer… either from some bot or his imagination) But let’s get a few facts straight, shall we? I’ve been a vocally out gay actor since 1990. In those days, if you were gay, & open about it, you were only cast in gay parts. And it was bloody difficult. I worked for The London Gay Theatre Company in 1992 & 1994. I was in many different LGB plays throughout the 90’s, & was interviewed & spoke about being “openly gay” with Gay Times, Attitude, The Pink Paper & many other gay publications. In every interview I gave, it was mentioned (much to my eventual boredom & to the irritation of the gay press, who seemed to be frustrated at me for not believing that being gay was the most interesting thing about me.) In 1993, I was part of the West End cast of “Elegies for Angels, Punks & Raging Queens”, alongside Regina Fong, Simon Fanshawe, Trudie Styler, Kim Cresswell & many others. The show was about those who’d died from AIDS, & every night, we raised a significant amount of money for AIDS charities. We also all performed on the main stage at Pride that year. In 1994, I was in New York during the Gay Games, where I made a film about lesbian ice skating, which we shot on location. I marched with Ian Mckellen (who was also in the film) & Martin Sherman, to celebrate the Games. In 1996, myself & 6 other openly gay actors were part of a successful little indie film called “Boyfriends”. Again, we all vocally supported gay rights in various interviews. In 1997, Stonewall invited me to their Equality Show at the Albert Hall, to high kick with the Tiller Girls, as part of a small group of out performers, including Stephen Fry, Jimmy Somerville, Simon Fanshawe, to encourage others to come out & be proud. Yes, we were actually “celebrated” by Stonewall back then, believe it or not. In 1999, I played a controversial, purposefully vile gay character in Jonathan Harvey’s sitcom ‘Gimme Gimme Gimme’. It was controversial because it was one of the first gay characters that was entirely comfortable with his sexuality, was vulgarly open about it & wasn’t always portrayed in a positive light. The gay press were not happy, initially, but it apparently grew on them. The series continued until 2001. Again, I did interview after interview discussing & championing gay rights. In 2000, I played Bette Midler’s ‘openly gay’ musical accompanist, Oscar, in the short lived sitcom ‘Bette’. Being a series regular, I used my voice in interviews to speak up for gay rights. In 2004, I took part in the first series of Gordon Ramsey’s Hell’s Kitchen, raising £40, 000 for my chosen charity The Terence Higgins Trust, which I publicly supported & endorsed endlessly. Do bear in mind, there was no social media as we know it now. I joined Twitter in 2014. From 2000 to 2014, LGB people had achieved equality & for the first time, it seemed to be ok to be gay. I rejoined the fight online when I saw the damage the TQ+ was now was doing to the rights we’d, as gay people, had already won, at much cost. I was reluctant & angry, as I’d thought we’d been there, done that, bought the t-shirt etc. But no. So if you mean I played no part in the fight for LGB rights, you’d either be wrong or lying. The world didn’t start with the advent of the internet. Perhaps if I stuck on a red beret, a dress, held an Antifa flag & hollered at a crowd through a megaphone to “punch terfs in the f**king face”, I’d already be lauded as a “champion of LGBTQIA+ rights”. Maybe that was my mistake…🤷 Please RETWEET as my reach is yet again severely restricted. Thank you.

Your sex is what you are, not who you are.

In the EU, we hardly ever speak of women anymore. Political parties—left, center, and also conservatives—have embraced gender self-ID without scrutiny or debate. Does this threaten women’s rights? Yes. And here I explain why.

@jk_rowling @lumos @JamesChiavarini Done

I mean this, by the way. Donate £10 to @lumos, I'll draw three names out of a hat and we'll have dinner. It could be KFC, but the wonderful @JamesChiavarini has just suggested his restaurant, so it might be there instead (travel and accommodation on me if you're not in London).

It might be comforting to say we’re all one people, so let’s just treat everyone the same. But doing that inevitably results in everyone being treated by reference to the dominant standard. To treat people as equals, sometimes you need to treat them differently.

I think equality law is about treating people as equals, not treating them equally. Equal treatment is derived from the more fundamental commitment to treat people as moral equals. When equal treatment fails to respect moral equality, the latter may require different treatment.

“Women’s spaces are for women. That’s non-negotiable.” Helen Joyce (@HJoyceGender) speaks to @BBCNuala on Woman’s Hour @BBCWomansHour about the Supreme Court ruling on the clarification of sex.

@affinitybyserif Thank you. Afraid still not working - will email!

@dizzywhatsit If the issue persists, please email us over at affinitysupport@serif.com and provide a recent crash report so we can investigate and assist further. 🙂 #comment-963913" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/top…

@affinitybyserif Hi Affinity, My iPad has just updated to Publisher 2.6 & Photo 2.6 and now neither app will load! It just crashes out every time I try & open them. The App Store says they successfully updated, but settings still has them on 2.5.7. Please help?

My position hasn't changed in the slightest. What you, and many other men, fail to grasp, possibly because you're so used to women coddling men's feelings you see it as the natural order of things, is that while a trans-identified man is absolutely and rightly free to dress and refer to himself however he likes in our society, that doesn't give him rights over women's beliefs and speech. I don't believe a man literally becomes a woman when he identifies as one, and as I have freedom of speech, I have the right to call him a man. The verifiable truth of sex forms the legal basis for women's rights and for safeguarding. Nothing reveals your inability to grasp this issue, or your fundamental sexism, more than the fact that you, a man, are assuming the right to dictate to women how they should speak about men.

Latest! ‘Peggie has been repeatedly forced to justify why as a woman she doesn’t want to undress in front of a man, and why she was distressed by the idea of him taking his clothes off in front of her.’ thecritic.co.uk/describing-rea…