As I reported two weeks ago, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom voted unanimously to affirm that the term “woman” under the legal Equality Act refers only to biological women and not trans-identified men. That means that a biological male holding a gender reassignment certificate would not have the same legal status as a biological women. I added this:
In all the stuff I was able to read this morning, I was unable to find the definition of a “biological woman”, save that it refers to one’s natal sex, though they don’t mention gametes. The ruling does refer to the binary nature of sex (see below). And the ruling implies as well that the word “man” can mean in law only a “biological man”
That would seem to settle things, at least as far as the Equality Act is concerned, and the ruling was celebrated by those who favor the existence of “women’s spaces,” including sports competition, locker rooms, and jails.
But some members of the British Medical Association (BMA), as reported by the Times of London and other venues, have taken issue with the Supreme Court’s decision, implying that rrans-identified men are also women. The subgroup of the BMA that voted against the Supreme Court Decision was the group of “resident doctors,” previously known as “junior doctors,” and so represent younger physicians. Note that the BMA is a registered trade union and does not regulate doctors; that role is given to the General Medical Council.
Click below to see an archive of the Times report:
A précis:
Doctors at the British Medical Association have voted to condemn the Supreme Court ruling on biological sex as “scientifically illiterate” and “biologically nonsensical”.
The union’s wing of resident doctors — formerly known as junior doctors — passed a motion at a conference on Saturday criticising the ruling that a woman is defined by biological sex.
The doctors claimed that a binary divide between sex and gender “has no basis in science or medicine while being actively harmful to transgender and gender-diverse people”.
The branch of the British Medical Association (BMA) — representing about 50,000 younger doctors — said it “condemns scientifically illiterate rulings from the Supreme Court, made without consulting relevant experts and stakeholders, that will cause real-world harm to the trans, non-binary and intersex communities in this country”.
The BMA’s stance is likely to raise concerns that the medical profession may seek to obstruct attempts at implementing new NHS guidance on trans patients, being drawn up after the Supreme Court ruling. It follows the union’s decision last summer to lobby against the Cass Review and to call for an end to the ban on puberty blockers for children identifying as transgender.
Lobbying against the Cass Review—a sensible report that banned the use of puberty blockers on individuals under 18 and dismantled the dysfunctional Tavistock Clinic that hustled gender-dysphoric children into “affirmative therapy”—shows where the ideology of this group lies. Although the Cass Review was widely applauded by doctors, these “resident doctors” are clearly infected with the mantra that anyone can claim to be any sex they want. As the yahoo! article below notes, “Last year, the BMA became the only medical organisation in the UK to reject the findings of the Cass Review into the provision of gender identity services for young people.”
And their ideology is clear:
The BMA motion, responding to the ruling, said: “This meeting condemns the Supreme Court ruling defining the term ‘woman’ with respect to the Equality Act as being based on ‘biological sex’, which they refer to as a person who was at birth of the female sex, as reductive, trans and intersex-exclusionary and biologically nonsensical.
“We recognise as doctors that sex and gender are complex and multifaceted aspects of the human condition and attempting to impose a rigid binary has no basis in science or medicine while being actively harmful to transgender and gender diverse people.”
It added that the BMA is committed to “affirming the rights of transgender and non-binary individuals to live their lives with dignity, having their identity respected”.
Of course we all respect the rights of transgender individuals–as transgender individuals. But those rights clearly clashed with the rights of other groups, most notably biological women, and the court adjudicated that clash in its definition of “woman”. Nobody of good will wants “erasure” of trans people, but we have to recognize that the claim that “trans women are women” leads to a clash of rights whose solution was taken up by the UK Court.
Note the “sex and gender are complex” assertion often used by ideologues or the benighted to claim that sex is not binary. (Yes, there are a very, very few exceptions., as I mention below, but for all practical purposes biological sex is binary.) And, of course, it is binary in nearly all transsexual individuals, who even recognize the binary by wanting to adopt the role of their non-natal sex.
A bit more:
Sex Matters, the campaign group, accused the doctors of being an “embarrassment to their profession” and said it is “terrifying” that people who have undergone years of medical training can claim there is “no basis” for biological sex.
Indeed; for the doctors are redefining sex (and gender) as some multifactorial, “multifaceted aspect of the human condition”. Perhaps gender roles fit that definition, but the Supreme Court was defining sex, not gender, and stayed away from gender, which is not part of the Equality Act. This clearly shows the ideological nature of the resident doctors’ efforts and their unwarranted conflation of sex and gender. Sex is a biological issue; gender a social one, also mixed to some degree with biology. Don’t these doctors know that? Yes, of course they do, but pretend otherwise. If they’re not pretending, they are witless and don’t deserve to be doctors.
Yahoo News! (click below) gives the text of the resident doctors’ resolution:
Here’s the text of the resolution:
“This meeting condemns the Supreme Court ruling defining the term ‘woman’ with respect to the Equality Act as being based on ‘biological sex’, which they refer to as a person who ‘was at birth of the female sex’, as reductive, trans and intersex-exclusionary and biologically nonsensical.
“We recognize as doctors that sex and gender are complex and multifaceted aspects of the human condition and attempting to impose a rigid binary has no basis in science or medicine while being actively harmful to transgender and gender diverse people. As such this meeting:
“i: Reiterates the BMA’s position on affirming the rights of transgender and non-binary individuals to live their lives with dignity, having their identity respected.
“ii. Reminds the Supreme Court of the existence of intersex people and reaffirms their right to exist in the gender identity that matches their sense of self, regardless of whether this matches any identity assigned to them at birth.
“iii. Condemns scientifically illiterate rulings from the Supreme Court, made without consulting relevant experts and stakeholders, that will cause real-world harm to the trans, non-binary and intersex communities in this country.
“iv. Commits to strive for better access to necessary health services for trans, non-binary and gender-diverse people.”
The deeming of the Supreme Court’s ruling as “trans and intersex-exclusionary” is confusing. Most trans people do indeed fit into the Court’s categorization of “man” or “woman.” The exception, the “true” intersex people, range in frequency from 1/5600 to 1/20,000, and so are very rare, making biological sex as binary as you can get. (In contrast, the frequency of people born with extra fingers or toes is about 1/2500 to 1/800, and yet we refer to humans as having “ten fingers and toes”.) It’s clear that this controversy is really not about the rare “true intersex” individuals, but about individuals who fit the biological definition of “man” or “woman” but identify otherwise—as either “nonbinary” or “transsexual”.
h/t: cesar, nick
As a mathematician, I can instantly see a circular definition from a mile away. If a woman is anyone who says he/she feels like a woman, then to identify as a woman is to identify as someone who identifies as a woman. Which means to identify as someone who identifies as someone who identifies as …. Truly it is turtles all the way down.
Also, based on this circular definition you could identify as a turtle as well.
Actually a turtle is that which has enough turtleness, we recognize and define the creature as a turtle. Yet we can’t define turtleness without reference to the characteristics of the preestablished category of creatures that we call turtles. It is all very confusing.
Parts of the medical profession lost all credibility with AFAB/AMAB
I’m glad I looked that up, having initially thought it was “All females are bastards / All males are bastards”, which seemed much too misanthropic.
I find it interesting and perhaps telling that – at least as far as you have indicated – they did not state whether a category “sex” is a relevant, real or meaningful category at all, and if so, how one might define it.
I also find it amazing that they would say it has NO basis in biology. Really? None at all? Don’t you even want to argue for a spectrum?
They deliberately didn’t make a definition of male/female. The Court construed its purpose narrowly to interpret the Act as the writers had intended. Since the original act gave no precise definition, neither did the recent court ruling.
By “they” I meant the BMA.
I have my gripes against the legal profession, but seriously, the BMA faction really should have had a competent lawyer involved in formulating their rejection of the Court’s ruling. Contrary to some highly educated people’s beliefs, they do not know everything important.
Yes, it is quite plain who the real “scientific illiterates” are. I am ashamed of my ex-colleagues and simultaneously glad that I always refused to join the BMA when requested to do so. They take a chunk of money and fart around in exchange for it.
Canadian “gender affirmation” institutions and “professionals” in Canada have vowed to ignore the UKSC’s ruling as well. Particularly the BC Children’s Hospital, which proudly states on its website it runs the busiest gender affirmation clinic in North America. FOR CHILDREN. Paid for by tax dollars.
These resident doctors are an embarassment. I (male) I would not allow myself to be treated by such a doctor who denies biology and instead supports ideological nonsense.
Such a shame.
How is it possible that those (and apparently, a lot) physicians have been ideologically captured?
Statements like these make me deeply distrust the field, and recovery of trust is a process that will definitely take some time.
By the way, can we call all this thing ideological gaslighting, which is basically what it is.
The junior doctors are guilty of speciesism with one phrase: “sex and gender are complex and multifaceted aspects of the human condition”. The human condition? Are they not aware of the complex and multifaceted aspects of species?
Their assertion is actively harmful to trans-animals, and to the trans-vegetables who are so well represented in the BMA.,
Trans extremists are illogical. If you can change your sex then why not change your race or species? Why is one possible, but not the others? It’s one of those questions they can’t answer because to try would be to expose their ideology as smoke and mirrors.
I made a set of 30ish memes with “questions they never answer” and they are great debate stoppers because genderwoos disengage rather than try to answer.
Here are a few….
005 What is the difference between the crime of indecent exposure and a transwoman exposing their penis to girls and women in a women’s changing room?
004 How can a 14 year old girl undressing to swim tell whether the penis beside her is on a ‘safe’ transwoman or a male predator just pretending to be trans to watch her undress?
14 More TW have been assaulted in women’s bathrooms than men’s. If this is about safety, why don’t TW use the gents where they are safer?
016 If gender dysphoria is a reason to allow males to compete in women’s Olympic sport, why isn’t body integrity dysphoria a reason to allow able bodied people to compete in the Paralympics? What is the medical difference?
009 If we must affirm a dysphoria by agreeing children are the wrong sex, why shouldn’t we affirm those with anorexia by agreeing they are fat? Both are dysphorias.
021 What is the difference between a penis attached to a man and a penis attached to a man who identifies as a woman?
Etc, etc.
The trans community just makes it up as they go along, they don’t even agree with each other on most topics. Some insist gender is fluid so men get to keep their dicks. Others insist that gender is fixed as a child so little boys need theirs cut off.
The cognitive dissonance is painful.
Joolz, please post all 30 memes, or link to a place where you posted them. I will then respond in detail to each meme with a 2-hour long reaction video (on my YouTube channel) where I show that your meme is wrong and that you are a transphobe.
I’m joking – about the 2-hour long reaction videos (and the transphobia accusation).
But I would like to see the 30 memes.
Regarding:
The curvature of the penis?
But the “woman” might identify as a lesbian, no? So arousal would not be a valid indicator. Or do you mean dressing right v left?
/s
You had me going for a minute there! 😁
There’s no difference whatsoever between a man, and a pre-op man who thinks he’s a woman. 95%ish of TIMs don’t have the op. Opening women’s spaces to a subset of men is opening our spaces to every single man. The men TW ‘fear’ can simply walk into the women’s bathrooms too. One of my #Questions is asking trans activists how they plan to keep out men who aren’t trans.
I think the memes are all threaded from this…
https://x.com/joolzzt/status/1451224118016233480
I try and remember to include the hashtag #QuestionsTheyNeverAnswer when I post them and a search will show they very rarely even try to respond, and on the rare occasions they try to answer, they fail dismally.
The BMA is not fit for purpose and we should not fall for their false propaganda.
=> “Yes, there are a very, very few exceptions” [to the claim that sex is not binary.]
This is not correct. There are ZERO exceptions.
=> “And, of course, it is binary in nearly all transsexual individuals”
EVERY human is immutably binary male or female regardless of their gender feelz.
=> “The exception, the “true” intersex people….”
No person with ANY type of intersex condition is an exception to the binary.
“Intersex conditions are more precisely defined as “conditions in which chromosomal sex is inconsistent with phenotypic sex, or in which the phenotype is not classifiable as either male or female,” The true prevalence of intersex is seen to be about 0.018%” [Source Colin Wright].
Intersex conditions are a subset of DSDs. DSDs include Klinefelters/Turners, etc which are not intersex conditions as sex is unambiguous.
Intersex conditions do not belong in the gender debate. People with these conditions have been appropriated by the trans lobby to try and justify that there is no sex binary. Sadly this myth has proliferated, even in the medical ‘profession’, and people with these conditions are fed up being told that they are neither male nor female.
Dr Emma Hilton, evolutionary biologist Dr Colin Wright and science communicator Zachary Elliott have gone to great pains to try and explain this to the public. This website has videos and documents explaining why sex is binary. Every piece quotes science studies. It also has detailed information on each of the DSDs, including the subcategory of intersex conditions.
https://www.theparadoxinstitute.com/home
“EVERY human is immutably binary male or female regardless of their gender feelz.”
Actually, a few (very rare) exceptions exist. Some humans are actually hermaphrodites. In other words, they are both male and female. They are probably a consequence of two embryos fusing into a single embryo. In some cases (very rare) they can get themselves pregnant. See “Self-fertilization in human: having a male embryo without a father” over in PubMed.
I looked this up…that article is actually an article for a “virgin birth”, a la Mary the mother of Jesus.
Turkish Researcher Claims that Virgin Mary Was a Hermaphrodite and Souls Are Dark Matter
By Alex B. Berezow
July 28, 2014
https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/07/dark_matter_souls_and_virgin_mary_the_hermaphrodite.html
He’s got other interests as well…
“At RealClearScience, we have had the immense pleasure of stumbling across a Turkish researcher named M. Kemal Irmak. It was he who proposed that schizophrenia is actually demonic possession. Looking through his other published papers, he also apparently believes that fluoride causes diabetes in Finland.”
Incorrect. There are no human hermaphrodites. There has never been a case of a human being who could make themselves pregnant. No human has both functioning testes and functioning ovaries. Please feel free to show me a scientific paper that documents, otherwise.
This is a very rare case where an XY woman gave birth. But she was able to do that because she is a woman, not a man. She did not impregnate herself as she does not produce sperm.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2190741/
True hermaphrodites are very rare, but they do exist. Type ‘human hermaphrodite’ into Google for a few cases.
Hermaphrodite: a sexually reproducing organism that produces both male and female gametes.
Having remnant tissue of the gonads of the opposite sex due to a disorder of sexual development is not hermaphroditism.
No human has produced the gametes of both sexes.
I think most everyone will strongly advocate the preservation of dignity and the prevention of harm for the most vulnerable people. But what on-the-ground policies does the BMA want? I suppose they want to see the Cass review disproven, but that scientific analysis should be rebutted only by more scientific analysis. By facts and statistics. Not simply by petitions from people who had not read the report. Perhaps they want Tavistock to re-open. Would anyone working there avail themselves to independent oversight and lawsuits for medical malpractice? That seems a tiny bit more fair. Otherwise, all I get from the BMA is puffery and virtue flouncing. Smoke and mirrors, and nothing specific.
Do they want to also allow trans-women into bio-women only spaces? Are trans-women to continue to compete with bio-women in elite sports?
Let your words speak not through their meanings
But through them against whom they are used.
Fashion your weapon from ambiguous words.
Consign clear words to lexical limbo.
Judge no words before the clerks have checked
In their card index by whom they were spoken.
The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason.
The passionless cannot change history.
— Czeslaw Milosz, “Child of Europe,” Section 5
Perhaps it is also time to reread “The Captive Mind.”
That’s new to me, so thanks for the recommendation!
Actual members of the BMA think they are batshit
https://www.reddit.com/r/doctorsUK/comments/1k97tti/british_medical_association_conference_calls/
Yes they are very cross and feel betrayed by the union. They seem to want the union to focus on improving the conditions for the doctors and not on social justice stuff. The union is no longer fit for purpose.
It actually pretty sad. I sense a feeling of hopelessness in their responses and it will be no surprise if they all feel burnt out and ultimately leave the profession. This is not a desirable outcome.
The well-documented occurrence of lion/tiger hybrids, and other kinds of big cat
cross-breeds (see Wiki on Panthera hybrids) illustrates how “species” is no more than a social construct, instituted by the heteronormative, settler-colonialist system of oppression. True Progressives understand that anybody who feels born in the wrong species can change to another one, and have that change recognized in law, language, pronouns, society,
and sporting regulations.
“It’s a liger. It’s pretty much my favorite animal. It’s like a lion and a tiger mixed… bred for its skills in magic.” – Napoleon Dynamite.
BMA: “…sex and gender are complex…” Of course we should then defer to trans experts, and not follow the findings and rulings of those who are not, such as the UKSC.
Bringing those two together: by incanting the magic words “I’m a girl”, a man can magically become a woman and the only people who should decide whether or not this is true are those who can decipher for us commonfolk the complexity of the situation.
Meanwhile, in New Zealand…
https://www.skeptic.com/article/new-zealand-maori-maramataka-astrology-craze/?ref=skeptic-newsletter
!! Eye-opening article. I particularly “liked”
Really now, if they’re going to teach and use astrology they should be using the much more popular Babylonian / settler- colonialist solar version. Or at least teach that Maaori astrology is co-equal with Modern astrology, and deserves equitable emphasis.
Bah, humbug.
Yes I read that this morning, brilliant piece of writing. It encapsulates what’s going wrong in NZ education at the moment. So glad I’ll be retiring end of next year – I teach Biology here in NZ.
I don’t see how you can square those two goals.
To trans activists the mere mention that there is a clash of rights between transwomen and what we call real women just is “erasure”. As soon as we make a rule, “OK, transwomen are women except where we (non-trans people) say they are men, in order to protect women’s rights and safety,” we are erasing their trans-identity female pencil-shading and revealing their underlying maleness. (Just as the little child “erased” the Emperor’s new clothes!) Those familiar common-sense exceptions we think they ought to agree with out of good will are the very hills they have to die on.
It all starts with misgendering, the Original Sin of trans erasure. They say, “Telling me I can’t use the women’s change room is telling me that you don’t believe I’m the woman I say I am. How dare you! To so misgender me is to erase my identity.” That’s why misgendering is such a big deal to the activists, why they want HR Departments and civil rights laws to punish it. Barring a man from a women’s sporting competition because you deny his claim to be a woman is to misgender “her”. News writers, walking on eggs, are afraid to refer to a male ringer as a “he”. They always say, “Jane Bloggs was disqualified from the race because she is a transgender woman,” not “Joe Bloggs, now known as Jane, was DQ’d because he is a man.” They are afraid to death of being accused of misgendering. Once you police misgendering out of existence, there is no longer any basis to keep transwomen out of women’s change rooms and sport, (and prisons and violence shelters) because they are all women. Their identity is done in indelible ink. You simply can’t call them men. But that’s absurd.
So no, people of good will should not shrink from “erasing” trans people. We do that every time we say trans-identified men are still men despite their trans identity. Of course they are.
Well said. Thinking out loud here: I think we need to be clear about what “transgender” is. Nobody is innately “trans.” As someone (Carole Hooven?) said, “trans is something you do, not something you are.”
“Trans” really just means “a person who identifies as trans.” They need not be “transsexual” in the medical sense.
And people identify as trans for different reasons. The notion that they share some innate psychology or other quality with one another is as false as the notion that “trans women” share something innate that that can justify their being grouped in the category “female people.” They share a belief system, that’s all. A narrative they use to explain their distress. The sources of that distress vary from individual to individual.
Of course nobody wants to “erase” people who identify as trans, but the category itself should be recognized as the cultural delusion it is.
You know, Leslie, just a few years back when, for approximately a 3 year stretch, I was without a vehicle and was using public transit, there were a couple of “regulars” who rode the same routes with me that were trans — these were biological males dressed as women. They were really into it — the high heels, gawdy makeup, super girly attire (always dresses or skirts). In other words, they were overly feminine in that stereotypically “girly” way. They really stood out. It was hard not to stare at them because they were so over the top in their getups and affects. Yet, they were very quiet and unobtrusive in their interactions with others. Definitely not people one could imagine seeing behaving like these rudely aggressive trans in, say, the UK. It would be a safe bet that they’d never be seen hurling obscenities at the likes of JK Rowling or waving nasty signs and blocking women’s restrooms. These guys were meek and I honestly worried for their safety as they made such spectacles of themselves visually, but seemed every bit frail and vulnerable. There was a 3rd character, just like the 2 I’ve described, he attended the high school by my house and he walked to school each weekday and read a book while he walked awkwardly on women’s pumps. The book sermed to be a prop of sorts that, by buring his face in it as he walked he was able to avoid any eye contact with others. Remembering these characters I ask myself what the heck has happened? Where did these intrusive, demanding a**holes come from? Are they even legitimate? They bear no resemblance to the trans people of the past. I doubt the sincerity of todays “trans”. Where, then, did this obnoxious breed of cat come from? I often wonder how people like the 3 I described feel in today’s social climate. I honestly can’t see them joining in any of these activist stunts. I can’t imagine them imposing themselves on anyone!
Victoria Smith, author of Hags: The Demonisation of Middle-Aged Women, wrote a good piece about the aggressive males on the side of trans activism yesterday: https://archive.is/BOk5w
Wow. “This is radicalisation. It has made monsters of those who might otherwise have merely been casual sexists”.
And I’m pleased that I initially genuinely misread “manosphere” as “nanosphere” — something really tiny.
I read the piece and have decided I’m through with this crap. It’s too aggravating to even read about. I’m not enjoying aging, but I’m retired and have earned the “luxury” of opting out. I live in a poor to working class part of town where people have real problems and can’t be bothered with this made up elite bs. Thanks for the link. I intend to pass over any and all articles/ posts about this monkey business in the future. I will, however, be mightily influenced to vote against any candidates who support this garbage. I would really like to know who or what (group/organization) started all this in the first place. It is intended to divide and distract the population. I am certain of that. Peace to you, Jez.
The Democrats lost to Donald Trump—DONALD TRUMP—because of wokeness. If they don’t radically distance themselves from such nonsense, it might be a long time, if ever, before there is a Democratic president again.
I think the problem is that we used to tell ourselves a little lie. We all knew that the “woman” over there was really a man, but for the sake of politeness we allowed their fiction to go unchallenged. And as long as all they wanted was to be taken for their chosen, rather than their actual, sex, our lies cancelled each other out.
But that was in the days of old-fashioned transsexuals, who wanted to pass and be left alone. Now the goal is to see how obviously one can remain male and still get people to say you are a woman. Passing is not the point, not-passing is the point as long as you can make the civilians say the words “You are a woman”! It is pure 2+2=5, and it is done for the very same reason, to exert control.
One has to feel a wee bit sorry for the actual old-fashioned transsexuals who no doubt still exist, as whatever sympathy we had for them is being eroded by our reactions to those who are the majority of today’s supposed trans individuals.
I do feel sorry for them.
The first thing that sprang to mind on reading this is something that came into focus for me when I saw Ben Carson Sr. running for the Republican nomination in 2016. It’s this:
Just because you’re a doctor, doesn’t mean you’re a scientist
The Residents branch of the BMA have ably demonstrated this once again. I wonder if the other major union of doctors in the UK, the RGCP, will be pressured into putting its foot into its mouth by a similar internal group?
I believe that the Royal College of General Practitioners was somewhat captured in the past, but it has recently welcomed the Cass Review’s final report and issued new guidance to its members in April of this year: https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/clinical-areas/mental-health-pain-and-addiction/rcgp-clarifies-gp-role-in-providing-transgender-care-in-new-position-statement/
In all the stuff I was able to read this morning, I was unable to find the definition of a “biological woman”, save that it refers to one’s natal sex, though they don’t mention gametes. The ruling does refer to the binary nature of sex (see below). And the ruling implies as well that the word “man” can mean in law only a “biological man”.
The Supreme Court ruling doesn’t define “biological sex” itself, but relies instead on the precedent set in the High Court case Corbett v Corbett. Briefly, an aristocrat, Arthur Corbett, had knowingly married a trans-identifying man (April Ashley) who had undergone sex reassignment surgery. Within two weeks the marriage broke down and he sought an annulment of the marriage on the ground that his “wife” was male and the marriage invalid. (This was in 1970, long before same-sex marriage was legal in England and Wales – I’m not sure how they married in the first place.)
In determining the issue of April Ashley (Mrs Corbett)’s sex the judge ruled, after hearing the evidence of medical witnesses, that this was to be legally defined by what he called the “biological” (chromosomal, gonadal, and genital) factors present at birth. Surgical interventions and “psychological factors” were to be ignored.
In his judgment he wrote:
Nothing has changed in human biology in the intervening period, of course, hence the Supreme Court clearly felt it unnecessary to relitigate “biological sex” and instead relied on the earlier legal precedent.
PS. It’s interesting to note that the judge used “her” for the former Mrs Corbett back in 1970 – long before “preferred pronouns” were a thing.