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Notes -
New Culture war fodder from the UK: The Guardian (I read it for the math puzzles):
Seems like the TERFs (including JK Rowling) won this one.
The process for obtaining a GRC is detailed in the WP Article on the Gender Recognition Act 2004 . It seems that you require a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, and then a panel will rule your case.
Now, I have no idea how much of a hassle this is. For all I know, it could be a rubber stamp process where any bearded 40yo can get his diagnosis and GRC with minimum hassle and then proceed to jerk off to random women in communal showers. Or it could be a long journey to get the diagnosis.
How many perverts who got their GRC just to watch naked women are there in the UK, anyhow? Is this a practical concern, do women get raped by m2f GRC holders in safe spaces, or is this a moral panic?
On the matter, I don't think there is a great "one size fits all" solution. Allowing biologically male perverts to intrude on women safe spaces just by yelling "I identify as a woman" seems bad. Forcing someone who underwent HRT and surgery and passes as female even naked to shower with the guys also seems bad. For that matter, making a passing f2m with beard, muscles and a dick shower with the women is also not helping anyone.
Also, should I don't think it is a good idea to let the government regulate which groups get safe spaces where. If a private swimming pool decides to establish unisex communal showers, let them try it. If some weirdo religious organization tells people who they think are non-straight to use individual changing rooms lest anyone is aroused, let them. If a lesbian organizations requires all their members to menstruate, let them. (Yes, this leaves public bathrooms and the like as a point of contention.)
On a more meta-level, this feels like legislation from the bench. From my understanding, the 2004 GRA updated the legal definition of "man" and "woman". The Equality Act was passed in 2010. Presumably, parliament was aware of changed definition when they passed the Equality Act. If they meant "biological woman", not "legal woman", they should have specified that. If we allow people to change their legal gender, then their gender should also be recognized in all aspects. If you are f2m and the men get drafted, you get drafted. If a judge orders a mass DNA test of all men, then the f2m gets swabbed as well. If NHS pays for a mammography for women of a certain age, then the m2f gets their fucking mammography.
Finally,
Now, I don't know this circumstances. Perhaps one in 30 board seats is reserved for women, and on half of the boards they were filled with trans-women, leading to everyone on that board having the Y chromosome. If that is the case, then I apologize for the following misinterpretation.
Quotas suck in the first place. Most people are not on some Board Of Important People, and the ones who are on them take care of their class, not their gender cohort. Sure, an all-male board of directors will fuck over working class women in the company, but they will just as eagerly fuck over men in the company. The childless career female board member will not care more for the plights of a single mother than her male colleagues. But whatever, apparently we have quotas. If you have, say eight out of 20 board appointments thanks to your quota, and then you bitch that one of them is a trans-woman when that seat is clearly the birth-right of a biological woman, that seems incredibly petty.
Links to:
(Am I the only person who finds it maddening that in the year 2025 newspapers still don't bother to link to the easily-findable publications that they base their reporting on?)
I think that's a fair criticism, but I think there are at least three strong points arguing against your interpretation, which are also mentioned in the judgment:
The Equality Act 2010 was meant to replace the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and Sex Discrimination Regulations 1999, which predate the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and obviously intended to use the biological definition. There is no evidence to suggest the lawmakers intended to change the definition of man and women.
The Gender Recognition Act creates a distinction between legal sex and biological sex; it does not abolish biological sex (how could it?). Interpreting the EA as referencing biological sex is not inconsistent with the GRA, especially since this is the most common interpretation. You could argue that if the EA wanted sex to be interpreted as legal sex, it should have defined this explicitly, and since it doesn't, it could be reasonably assumed to default to biological sex.
The EA only refers to “pregnant women” and never “pregnant men”. This implies the word "woman" refers to biological sex, because it would be unthinkable for a law to exclude biologically female legal men (trans men) from protection of discrimination on the basis of pregnancy.
I admit I'm biased because I oppose genderism in most of its forms, but I think the judgment is defensible.
I straight up think it should be intensely shameful bordering on illegal for journalists to publish news articles about scientific studies or judgements without a link to the original.
We have hypertext, I don't have to be locked into reading only your loose poor quality recollection of events goddammit.
More infuriating is that sometimes the only thing that survives is the shitty article.
I suspect that half the time the journalist a) hasn't read the study, and b) is only rewording a press release from either the university or activist group associated with the study. You can tell by the way all articles on a study will use identical framing and share particular phrases that aren't quotes from the study itself. Frequently they all make the same odd mistake, like a typo, mislabeled figure, or metric conversion.
The big universities have entire offices dedicated to research publicity, and of course it's the entire goal of most non-profit "institutes."
From reading a lot about insulation and heat pumps I've developed a spider sense for "this entire news article was written by a Rocky Mountain Institute publicist"
I’ve mentioned it before but my former journalist friend (working for a major newspaper, but think BBC news site not the NYT) was required to write 8 articles a day. There just isn’t the time for more than
That might be true on average - i.e. space-padding articles that are forgotten they moment you're finished reading. I doubt that's how narrative-setting ones about hot CW issues are written.
Probably - my understanding is that the top NYT writers might get weeks, which is why I specified that he wasn’t one of those. I just think it’s an interesting fact that deserves to be more widely known.
Yeah when you write features you get a set amount of time you work out with your editor based on the estimate of the amount of time and work you'll have to put in. It can range from anywhere from 24 hours (usually a group project) to years (although that's more for when a publisher wants to hire a well respected author so they'll go to to their dinner party). When you write copy, you slam it out as fast as you can. Copy used to be a path to feature writing or correspondence, but nowadays it's just a molochian devourer.
Right, that’s why my friend got out of it. That, and the fact that editors tend to be so heavy-handed you can’t recognise what you wrote when they’re done with it.
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