Re: The gender ideology thread
 

That you think clarifying that a pregnant person is a woman is a “personal political comment” is … weird.

Of the roughly 100 billion humans who have ever existed, exactly how many of them do you think have started to think a woman can become a man, or vice versa? Which belief really is the personal and political one?

Re: The gender ideology thread
 

It's fashionable, so every soft head jumps on the bandwagon :erm:

Re: The gender ideology thread
 

No, the role of newsreaders is not to comment or make their views known about items,, but to simply read the news.

---------- Post added at 16:46 ---------- Previous post was at 16:43 ----------

My salient problem with doing what she did doesn't lie with what she said, but the fact that she did it.

What if the troubles in NI were being reported on and, after one side was mentioned, she added the word "terrorists" and "Freedom fighters" to the other?

Re: The gender ideology thread
 

The role of people who wrote it is not to make political comments either. One corrects the other.

Re: The gender ideology thread
 

So if the BBC news reel teleprompter said that “Hamas were freedom fighters, rising up against Israeli imperial oppression” and the news reader was Jewish, they should just shut up and say what’s in front of them, even if it goes against everything they believe as a person?

Re: The gender ideology thread
 

To be fair, this bit wasn't written down by the BBC. She was quoting someone else.

Re: The gender ideology thread
 

Your analogy is false.

The ordinary meaning of the word ‘woman’ is ‘adult human female’, a definition drawn from biology. Any language that does not express that ordinary meaning is liable to cause confusion. Activists, such as those who deliberately deviate from the ordinary meaning of words, do so in pursuit of a political aim. In this case the activist language obfuscates the plain understanding of the terms being used. Newsreaders absolutely can, and regularly do, deviate from the autocue when they can see that what they’re reading is less clear than it should be. They are not actors, they are journalists, whose job is to communicate with clarity.

Your analogy fails because in the case of ‘terrorist’ and ‘freedom fighter’, both are political designations. You would have been nearer the mark had you argued over the term ‘bomb’ and suggested someone else might call it a ‘freedom-bringer.’

‘Woman’ in its ordinary meaning, just isn’t a political term, no matter who says otherwise or how often they say it. To claim it is, is deeply misogynistic because you, as a man, are robbing half the population of the entire world of the word that describes the most basic category of their humanity. It’s simply not on.

---------- Post added at 21:30 ---------- Previous post was at 21:28 ----------

Which doesn’t alter her responsibility as a senior BBC journalist to add clarity where an activist uses language that deliberately obfuscates. It makes it more important in fact. It’s worth noting that the senior editorial staff have supported her in this, against a barrage of complaints from trans activists. Clearly they think she was acting within her remit.

Re: The gender ideology thread
 

Activist lol. Isn't a woman also a person at the end of the day.

Lots of kerfuffle over nothing.

Re: The gender ideology thread
 

… which is of course the latest activist strategy. ‘Kerfuffle over nothing’ doesn’t quite fit with the last decade of people in the public eye, particularly women, getting disciplined or having their contracts cancelled, for making these basic points. It is of course fast becoming a ‘kerfuffle over nothing’ because it’s no longer acceptable to be seen blatantly demanding #NoDebate. Trying to make out it’s just not important is the next best thing.

I very much doubt you’re ignorant as to why someone would choose to describe women who are with child with a non gender-specific term like ‘pregnant people’.

Re: The gender ideology thread
 

Unfortunately, our media is filled with people all too happy to put a political stance on everything. OK, we aren't as bad as America, but we are getting there..

---------- Post added at 10:50 ---------- Previous post was at 10:36 ----------

Personally, I don't particularly like the term "pregnant people". The fact is that biologic women get pregnant. Biological men do not have the body parts required to do so. Men who happen to be transitioning from women do unless they complete the transition. However, it should be noted that not all biological women can get pregnant.

I do support the rights of every person to be seen as the gender they feel they are, even if that is different to what they were born as, but I do not think that should be at the expense of a group of people who already sometime suffer because of their gender.

However, I do not think transitioning should be easy because if you do it properly, it involves a series of serious medical procedures, some involving surgery. Surgery should never be undertaken lightly.

Re: The gender ideology thread
 

The fact that some women can’t get pregnant isn’t really relevant here. I point it out mainly because some really low-grade trans-activist arguments suggest that this falsifies the biological basis of ‘woman’ as a category. In truth, if you have a road accident and require a leg amputation you’re still human even though you no longer meet the description of a mammal with two legs. In the same way a woman who has lost the ability to carry children, due to a defect or a disease, is still a woman.

I support the rights of every person to claim they’re visitors from Alpha Centauri, if they happen to believe that’s the case. But I don’t believe that comes at the expense of my right to tell them that’s arrant nonsense, and to refuse to address them as Your Excellency.

The problem with trans activism is that it is not satisfied with establishing rights to a set of beliefs. It is committed to acquiring the right to impose those beliefs on others, thereby diminishing the safety, dignity and free expression of everyone else.

Indeed.

Re: The gender ideology thread
 

I think we actually agree.

Re: The gender ideology thread
 

Agreed!