Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Tamas]

Trans women should seek tolerance and acceptance not as women but as trans women.

Indeed.

I guess I do not understand the distinction.

Expect and demand tolerance and acceptance (eg stop being used as political scapegoats, have their chosen pronouns used by society etc) but accept that society has created what it perceives as protective boundaries for biological women and that distinction by biology will remain.

[Tamas]

Why? Because it is difficult for the public to understand at this point in time?

I mean... yes? In view of a devout Christian it is difficult for me to understand at this point that my immortal soul is at grave danger not having been baptised. And in my view the devout Christian is finding it difficult to understand that they are stuck believing in a medieval fairytale as real. But neither of us is expecting the other and society in general to completely relacibrate core parts of how we perceive reality to accommodate our own core views. We just expect to be tolerated by each other.

[Josquius]

because an obese woman is a women while a trans woman is, at the end of the day, a man that's been medically altered to look like a woman. That's why there was a transition. A word with a meaning.
They're not the same, cause if they were there wouldn't be a transition required.

you'd think that the difference is clear enough.

So in other words the comparison remains perfectly valid as its just based on your view trans women aren't women.
You do know gaining and losing weight involves a transition too right?
Not the usual word... But it is so.
As a reminder the initial argument was trans women aren't women because apparently lots of men won't go out with them. This logic is flawed (and unsupported)

It is a good indicator that people do not believe that women and transwomen are interchangeable.  You can still still respect their rights of course, but at a fundamental level most people do not seem them as exactly the same.  This massive gap between stated belief and behavior is an indicator of false preference.

But not all cisgendered women are interchangeable either. And the statement trans women are women doesn't mean that trans women are exactly the same as cisgender women.

What does it mean then? Because the nuance sure seem to get lost from conception to communication.

We should stop treating them like boogeymen. Like when we first laughed at Republicans in North Carolina, we should laugh at those who cry for an urgent need for bathroom monitors. We should stop misgendering them.

I agree on all points but I don't think that's how "trans women are women" comes through to the general public. It certainly doesn't come off as that message to me. I think the way that comes off is thaf people are expected to ignore obvious differences between biological sexes. It gives the feeling of asking more than tolerance. To make use of Josqs example, it feels like asking people to call fat women skinny if they have decided they are skinny.

Trans women should seek tolerance and acceptance not as women but as trans women.

We aren't necessarily talking about a fat woman who insists on being called skinny because that's how she identifies.
Those people exist. But they aren't the only ones and not who are usually meant when talking about trans people.
Rather to use this analogy it's naturally fat women who have made use of modern science to actually become skinny.

[Sheilbh]

On the trans issue I think Starmer's about-face is quite understandable. It seems like following the ruling every organisation moved quickly to adopt it and what it met from the public was a deafening silence (I know there was like one protest in London but considering the size of the city and the culture-war focus of the issue, it was miniscule).

A slight aside but I did see Carla Denyer, co-leader of the Greens, criticising the changes from public authorities and that they should not have done. They should consult with broadly to introduce guidance and that they've been overly hasty. And I thought that to be honest maybe MPs need some sort of training session on how our constitution works because basically the Supreme Court ruled what "sex", "male" and "female" means for the purposes of the Equality Act. Organisations cannot ignore that or they are in breach of law - they also can't issue their guidance away from it.

As an MP Denyer can absolutely try to change the Equality Act, for example, so sex means biology or a person with a gender recognition certificate - or to move from sex-focused equality regime to one that primarily deals with gender. But you need to change the actual legislation.

It's not the first time in this area either - I think part of the reason many organisations moved so quickly is because a lot had adopted Stonewall's good practice policies. I was in an organisation that did and helped do that as part of the LGBT+ network. The problem with it is even before this ruling Stonewall's guidance and template policies I think were closer to stating what they would like the law to be, not what it was and there's been numerous employers having to pay compensation over that in employment tribunals.

This to me seemed to prove one of DorseyGuller's points in regards to the Left - most people don't actually agree with "trans women are women" they just decide to stay silent because they don't need the aggro if they voice their opinion.

The other side to this, which trans rights activists often point to, is that in opinion polling the British public are broadly pretty supportive. There are one or two issues (sports and single sex spaces) where there's strong opposition (I think a majority of voters of all voters). But the public have a very restrictionist view of what it takes to change sex - and basically they think you need to have gender affirming surgery. It's not comfortable or either sides as TRAs can point to the support for trans rights in most areas but disagree with the "criteria", while their critics often disagree with the public that people can change as well as their rights.

But I think that does get why trying to move to a system of self-ID (a declaration and three month waiting period to acquire a GRC) prompted a reaction.

FWIW I think where we'll end up is basically more gender-neutral spaces, open categories and that sort of thing or people who are comfortable with that - and, where it's legal, single sex spaces for people who aren't. And I'd add I think the "bathrooms" thing is slightly misleading here (as I say I think we'll end up with more gender neutral ones) because that's not where the cases that have driven this have been coming in Britain. I think it avoids what is the real issue so for example we have cases of a man who was convicted of domestic violence against their female partner saying that they were trans and suing to be allowed to attend a women's only self-defence class; or the sexual offender against women suing to be moved to the female prison estate. The challenge I have (and why I think it needs wider reform) is that the planned reform to gender recognition including no process to say those people were not really trans (which is my view), and if they obtained a GRC (on the understanding of the Equality Act until this decision) there would be no legal basis to exclude them.

It's why I lean to keeping a GRC as a slightly more involved process (living two years in your acquired gender, diagnosis of gender dysphoria and sign off by an administrative-medical committee) but changing the Equality Act so sex includes people in possession of a GRC. Personally, from a right or wrong perspective I think that's better than just sticking with the EA following this decision or than simple three month self-declaration - or wholesale changing the EA which is very based on sex and biology (e.g. medical reasons being a big reason to allow a service to only be offered to one sex/discriminate on the basis of sex, pregnancy discrimination, breast-feeding discrimination - the current campaign by a trans-inclusive feminist MP to cover menopause discrimination etc).

He is our Angela Merkel, going where the wind blows.

Come on - he's not as bad as post-Cold War Western Europe's most catastrophic leader

Also I do totally disagree with this - Angela Merkel was unusually popular throughout her many years in office and left office with political capital intact (I think these two are not unconnected). You can accuse Starmer of many things - but not of popularity or, more to his credit, of not trying to do things.

Cuts to benefits
Cuts to foreign aid

I agree with increasing defence spending - I think it be incredibly irresponsible not to in the current environment. And we're not America so we need to pay our way.

But I agree - to these two in particular I'd add the cut to winter fuel allowance and the increase in employer's NI (payroll tax, basically, that particularly hits employers of lower paid staff).

From Labour people I know the single biggest complaint they hear is the winter fuel allowance - I've seen a guy who runs focus groups say it comes up, unprompted, in every group he runs. It's a bad policy and it's politically lethal.

On the NI rise, it is very literally a tax on workers. Just today the Resolution Foundation sounding the alarm that employment and wages data is a "major worry" - particularly in sectors like retail and hospitality. They point out the data shows the jobs and wages data worsening "sharply" since the NI rise took effect in April.

I've said before that I think Reeves is a political and policy disaster who is institutionalised by the Treasury. The winter fuel allowance is bad politically, it's been proposed by the Treasury to every new Chancellor since at least 1997 and most insanely for the political hit - it only saves £1.5 billion a year (for scale the adjustment on borrowing by the OBR from October 2024 to March 2025 changed by £10 billion - but Reeves has increased their power too :bleeding) - it's a rounding error for the Treasury, it turns out cutting the number of elderly people who receive it from 12 million to 2 million is unpopular... But I think the NI rise making workers more expensive strikes me as an odd policy when, at the same time, other bits of government are talking about the need to accelerate AI deployment. I don't know if there's a deliberate strategy by government to speed up the adoption of AI and automation/machines for customer service but that definitely feels like what we'll get.

I feel like a more politically adept Chancellor properly running the Treasury would have avoided these issues - and I think a more savvy PM would either have overruled or fired them.

Also - glad you're back

I cannot wait until Starmer falls. If Labour is going to position itself as Tory/Reform-lite, we might as well go back to the tories once they come out of the wilderness.

I don't know if the Tories will recover (I've said this before 1997-2005). I think both of the main parties are basically facing/causing/reaping a collapse in public trust.

That has happened sequentially in the past (Labour after 1979 and 2010, the Tories after 1997 and, I'd argue, 2024) but normally the other party is able to take advantage and build a durable, sustainable coalition of support. I'm not sure that's playing out this time I think Labour's vote share in 2024 - which I dismissed (and I was wrong to) - was more of a warning. I think the public are done with/don't buy either of them at this point. I don't know where that leads.

[Valmy]

Trans women should seek tolerance and acceptance not as women but as trans women.

Indeed.

I guess I do not understand the distinction.

Expect and demand tolerance and acceptance (eg stop being used as political scapegoats, have their chosen pronouns used by society etc) but accept that society has created what it perceives as protective boundaries for biological women and that distinction by biology will remain.

The protective boundaries are total frauds. They don't protect shit. It's laughable.

The fact that small boys use men's rooms and grown ass women need more protection than literal children is ridiculous. What a crock of shit. It's so stupid it hurts my head.

But anyway I was only asking about what the distinction was. And ok it is about maintaining this patriarchal bullshit that men are all predators so we need special bathrooms then fine. We have plenty of gender neutral bathrooms in woke Texas anyway.

[Tamas]

Valmy I wasn't focusing on bathrooms, that bit is silly.

But I would argue that you are not less patriarchal than the system you trash when you dismiss concerns of women over sharing so-called protected spaces with males.


Sheilbh,

The other side to this, which trans rights activists often point to, is that in opinion polling the British public are broadly pretty supportive. There are one or two issues (sports and single sex spaces) where there's strong opposition (I think a majority of voters of all voters).

I don't think this is another side to what I was writing at all (and my view in general) I think it's the same side.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah I think there are many very good reasons women may want to have single sex spaces or services - and I really don't get how it's patriarchal to note that men are vastly, vastly more predatory and dangerous to women than vice versa. I think part of that is social construction of gender roles and it is something we should fight (though I've not got great hopes of the Andrew Tate generation ), but I think it is a reality. Pretending otherwise feels to me a bit like the way some European states are officially "colour blind".

Sorry not another side in an oppositional perspective - another angle, perhaps.

[Razgovory]

It is a good indicator that people do not believe that women and transwomen are interchangeable.  You can still still respect their rights of course, but at a fundamental level most people do not seem them as exactly the same.  This massive gap between stated belief and behavior is an indicator of false preference.

But not all cisgendered women are interchangeable either. And the statement trans women are women doesn't mean that trans women are exactly the same as cisgender women.

This is odd.  How can Tran woman = woman and Trans woman ≠ woman both be true at the same time?  Two equal things are the same, that's what equal means.  If person who dates woman discriminates against trans woman then they don't really believe that trans woman are women.  They don't seem them as equal.

[Razgovory]

.  This massive gap between stated belief and behavior is an indicator of false preference.

Garbon already covered the rest.
But this bit... you're talking about stated belief here right? I presume you've a poll or something?

I'd guess there are an awful lot of guys who outwardly do the socially expected thing and go "I would never touch a tr%&y with a stick. It's gross!" but if it came down to it... Might very well behave very differently.
I've heard tell it's a common problem with trans women that many guys are very keen to sleep with them but don't want anyone to know they're trans or even that they exist.

If you truly want to look at behaviour rather than stated preference I expect it'd be the relationships of trans people that you should be looking at.
How many are with what combo of cis/trans,  orientation, gender, etc...
But again "would I do them" is a crap measure of someone's validity as a person.

Honestly I think it would go the other way.  People who say that trans woman are women because of that is what society expects of them, but would not act on it.  I think this is important, after all this is what defines the other LGB in LGBT.  Who they are attracted to.  It also defines straight people of course.  Sex is one of the most basic human interactions, one that predates humans itself.  It is fairly revealing here I think.  Someone might say that "transwoman are women" because it is the left-wing thing to do, or because they are afraid of being ostracized, or they just want to fit in, or they really like the work of Judith Butler.  But when it comes to acting on those beliefs they would not.

Comparing this to people who are fat is off, fat isn't some protected class of people.  Comparing it to race however seems apt.  I've seen videos of transexuals claim that say refusal to date a transexual is transphobic, and that's probably appropriate.  If someone said they wouldn't date a Jew they would be called antisemitic and if they wouldn't date a black person they would be called racist.  That would make most accusations of transphobia projection,  people canceling each other to cover for what they really feel in their hearts.

This isn't to say trans people should be persecuted, there is a wide gap between between "you should be lynched" and "I accept your views as true".  If the goal is, as garbon suggested, just that people should tolerate trans people, then go with that slogan:  "Trans people are human".

[Jacob]

This is odd.  How can Tran woman = woman and Trans woman ≠ woman both be true at the same time?  Two equal things are the same, that's what equal means.  If person who dates woman discriminates against trans woman then they don't really believe that trans woman are women.  They don't seem them as equal.

The construction is:

Trans women are women. Cis women are women. Cis women and trans women are different from one another, but they are both women.

You may disagree with the argument, but it's perfectly logical.

[Razgovory]

Is it logical?  A = B and C = B but C ≠ A?

[frunk]

It is A ⊆ C and B ⊆ C, or A is a subset of C and B is a subset of C.

[Razgovory]

It has been a long time since I took a philosophy course. What is the defining characteristic of C?

[garbon]

Yeah I think there are many very good reasons women may want to have single sex spaces or services - and I really don't get how it's patriarchal to note that men are vastly, vastly more predatory and dangerous to women than vice versa. I think part of that is social construction of gender roles and it is something we should fight (though I've not got great hopes of the Andrew Tate generation ), but I think it is a reality. Pretending otherwise feels to me a bit like the way some European states are officially "colour blind".

Was a key attack vector cisgendermen pretending to be women and attacking cisgender women in toilets/changing rooms?

Now that transmen (who may look very much like cisgender men) are required to use the single sex spaces of their biological sex, how are women safer? How do you prevent a creepy cisgenderman from pretending he's a transman? Are we going to strip search people when they go enter toilets?

[Josquius]

Away from trans people this story has been popping up lately and is pretty striking for how awful it is.

https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2025-05-13/man-jailed-for-murder-in-1987-has-conviction-quashed-after-new-dna-evidence

A Merseyside man has had his murder conviction overturned by the Court of Appeal after spending nearly four decades in prison, in what is now believed to be the longest miscarriage of justice involving a living inmate in British history.

Peter Sullivan, 68, was jailed in 1987 for the murder of 21-year-old Diane Sindall, a florist and barmaid who was brutally attacked while walking to a petrol station in Bebington, Merseyside after her van broke down.

Ms Sindall had been returning home from work when she was beaten to death and sexually assaulted, with her body left partially clothed and mutilated.

Mr Sullivan, who was in his twenties, was sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors claimed he had been drinking after a darts match and launched a random, violent attack using a crowbar. He has always maintained his innocence.

This appeal marks the third time Mr Sullivan, appealed against his conviction – 17 years after his first attempt to overturn it – after the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) referred his case to the Court of Appeal.

The Court of Appeal quashed the conviction on Tuesday 13 May after hearing new DNA evidence from the original crime scene, which revealed the presence of genetic material belonging to an unidentified person.

The discovery, made possible by advances in forensic science, raised serious doubts about Sullivan's guilt.


Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde, Court of Appeal

In their ruling, Lord Justice Holroyde, sitting with Mr Justice Goss and Mr Justice Bryan, said the new evidence meant it was "impossible to regard the appellant's conviction as safe", while offering condolences to Ms Sindall's loved ones.

In a statement read out by his solicitor following the judgment, Mr Sullivan said: "What happened to me was very wrong, but it does not detract or minimise that all of this happened off the back of a heinous and most terrible loss of life."

He continued: "I'm not angry, I'm not bitter."

Speaking to reporters outside the court in London, Mr Sullivan's sister, Kim Smith, said: "We lost Peter for 39 years and at the end of the day it's not just us, Peter hasn't won and neither has the Sindall family. They've lost their daughter, they are not going to get her back.

"We've got Peter back, and now we've got to try and build a life around him again.

"We feel sorry for the Sindalls, and it's such a shame this has had to happen in the first place."

Mr Sullivan, who is now set to be released from prison, attended the hearing via video link from HMP Wakefield and wept and held his head in his hands as his conviction was quashed.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) referred the case to the court in 2024, describing the conviction as potentially "unsafe".

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) told the Court of Appeal that new DNA evidence is "sufficient fundamentally to cast doubt on the safety of the conviction".

In written submissions for the hearing, the CPS said the new DNA evidence is "reliable" and that it "does not seek to argue that this evidence is not capable of undermining the safety of Mr Sullivan's conviction".


Diane Sindall memorial.
Credit: PA Images
Duncan Atkinson KC, for the CPS, said that following Sullivan's arrest in September 1986, he was interviewed 22 times over four weeks.

He was denied access to legal advice in the first seven interviews despite requesting it, but later "confessed to the murder" in an unrecorded interview a day after his arrest.

He later repeated the confession in a recorded interview, but Mr Atkinson said that this "was inconsistent with the facts established by the investigation" and inconsistent with Sullivan's earlier interviews.

Sullivan then retracted his confession later that day.

Mr Sullivan first applied to the CCRC in 2008 over concerns related to DNA evidence, but it did not refer the sentence to the Court of Appeal at that time.

The CCRC said in November last year that experts at the time had advised that "any further testing would be very unlikely to produce a DNA profile".

Mr Sullivan then had an appeal bid, which did not involve the CCRC, dismissed by the Court of Appeal in 2019, after judges ruled that bite mark evidence used in the challenge was not central to the prosecution at trial.

He then applied to the CCRC again in 2021 to refer his case, raising concerns over police interviews, bite mark evidence used during his trial, and the murder weapon.


Court of Appeal
Following Mr Sullivan's conviction being overturned, Detective Chief Superintendent Karen Jaundrill said: "Our thoughts remain with the family and friends of Diane Sindall who continue to mourn her loss and will have to endure the implications of this new development so many years after her murder.

"We are committed to doing everything within our power to find whom the DNA, which was left at the scene, belongs to.
"Unfortunately, there is no match for the DNA identified on the national DNA database.
"We have enlisted specialist skills and expertise from the National Crime Agency, and with their support we are proactively trying to identify the person the DNA profile belongs to, and extensive and painstaking inquiries are underway.
"We can confirm that the DNA does not belong to any member of Diane's family, nor Diane's fiancé at the time, and we believe it could be a vital piece of evidence linking the killer to the scene."
"To date more than 260 men have been screened and eliminated from the investigation which was reopened in 2023.

"The investigation team has obtained most of the samples locally, however, screening has also taken place in Swansea, Perth, London, Hull and Newcastle with the provision of voluntary DNA elimination samples.
"On the night of Friday, 1 August 1986, Diane had been working at the pub. She had left work at 11.45pm in her blue Fiat van, but on her way home the van ran out of petrol on Borough Road. Diane got out of the van and was seen by several witnesses at the time walking along Borough Road between midnight and 12.20am on the Saturday morning.
"Twelve hours later on 2 August Diane's body was discovered by a member of the public in an alleyway off Borough Road. Diane had been sexually assaulted and brutally murdered.
"She had suffered extensive injuries to her body. Her cause of death was established as a cerebral haemorrhage following multiple blows.
"On 17 August 1986 property belonging to Diane was recovered on Bidston Hill. The investigation team at the time subsequently identified witnesses who had seen a small fire, at the location where the property was found, on Sunday, 3 August, and had witnessed a man running from the scene.
"Diane's murder sent shockwaves through Birkenhead when it happened and I would appeal to anyone who lived in the area at the time, and has any information which could help us with our inquiries, to come forward.
"You may have been in the area of Borough Road on the night of the murder and may have seen someone acting suspiciously.
"If you were in the area, or had concerns about an individual at the time, let us know so our team can trace and request a DNA sample from the person you suspect, or a relative of theirs if they have perhaps passed away, or they have emigrated to another country."
Anyone with information should contact Merseyside Police social media desk via X @MerPolCC or on Facebook 'Merseyside Police Contact Centre'. You can also report information via their website or call 101 quoting incident reference 23000584997.

I can't imagine this. His whole life stolen from him. And they could have realised sooner...

Honestly I think it would go the other way.  People who say that trans woman are women because of that is what society expects of them, but would not act on it.  I think this is important, after all this is what defines the other LGB in LGBT.  Who they are attracted to.  It also defines straight people of course.  Sex is one of the most basic human interactions, one that predates humans itself.  It is fairly revealing here I think.  Someone might say that "transwoman are women" because it is the left-wing thing to do, or because they are afraid of being ostracized, or they just want to fit in, or they really like the work of Judith Butler.  But when it comes to acting on those beliefs they would not.

Again you're really echoing Trumpist talking points here. This idea we live in a super duper left wing world where you have to pretend to agree equality, tolerance, and general wokery, are god, or else you get destroyed.

Get out in the real world and speak to working class guys... And you'll find quite the opposite tends to be in place. Performative vice signalling from some about how awful trans people are, with few daring to speak up against this.

When it comes down to it though, as said I've read a lot from straight trans women about how they'll find a lot of guys interested in sleeping with them, but who don't want to admit it.
In fact far more than predatory trans women preying on cis women, a far bigger women's safety issue here is cis men against trans women.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_in_transgender_relationships

For my part I can totally say that I don't know where I'd sit on going out with a trans person as I'm just not in a place of thinking about finding a new girlfriend. But in theory if I was single and met someone who ticked all my boxes, who I found super attractive, but was trans... then absolutely the issue of "What would everyone think?" would be far more of a concern than anything personal.

Comparing this to people who are fat is off, fat isn't some protected class of people.  Comparing it to race however seems apt.  I've seen videos of transexuals claim that say refusal to date a transexual is transphobic, and that's probably appropriate.  If someone said they wouldn't date a Jew they would be called antisemitic and if they wouldn't date a black person they would be called racist.  That would make most accusations of transphobia projection,  people canceling each other to cover for what they really feel in their hearts.

This isn't to say trans people should be persecuted, there is a wide gap between between "you should be lynched" and "I accept your views as true".  If the goal is, as garbon suggested, just that people should tolerate trans people, then go with that slogan:  "Trans people are human".

OK. So lets pretend I didn't say I wouldn't go out with an obese woman but rather I wouldn't go out with a black woman.
Am I saying black women aren't women?
Is that what this means?

Going way off topic and thinking about the race thing....
To say "I would never go out with a black girl" is a pretty racist and unacceptable thing to say. If you find someone saying this no matter how much they may squeal and protest "its just preference!", they're either actively or ignorantly racist.

On the other hand to say "I like skinny girls. And blondes." does express a clear preference away from black women. Nonetheless it isn't aimed at race in particular. It isn't just black women excluded by this. So it is expressing a preference not to go out with black people without being racist (necessarily, still possible you're just being clever and leaving something unsaid).

And hey, on this its a big "Never say never". I have my preferences though girls I've gone out with in the past have certainly gone against some of those. They're not absolute rules if points are scored elsewhere (this being me, "They're actually interested in me and by fluke I figure this out" is of course a key one, which served to make me go out with girls who ticked very few categories... anyway. Not there now with my gf so all good.)

The category of trans people covers a huge range of people.
On the one extreme you've the virtually non-existant bogeyman of terfs, a cis guy who throws on a dress and declares "I'm a woman!" for nefarious means.
On the other extreme you've intersex people who were wrongly assigned at birth, discovered this and transitioned early, and who even under thorough medical examination it'd be hard to show were ever the other sex at all.
In between you've a vast range of people who for varying reasons pass more and less.

So saying you'd never go out with a trans person as an absolute cover all...I can see the point that it is sort of up there with saying you'd never go out with a black person.  Though its got quite the opposite position in society, whilst outside of shitbag circles saying you'd never go out with a black person is unacceptable, to say you would go out with a trans person has the same place.

It would be nice to see society move on from this. But I could well imagine it makes a great get out if you just don't find a trans person very attractive. Its not "Oh Kate....yeah...you look like a young Donald Trump with longer hair...can't do it, sorry", or  "Oh Mark. You're the perfect guy but.... a Millwall fan? And you're from Boston? That's the reddest flag I've ever seen" instead its the far more socially accepted "I can't go out with a trans person".

Still waiting on the source of your claim by the way. I accept that a majority of people probably do declare they wouldn't go out with a trans person but still curious to see the data.