Karen

Cyclist, bus rider, pedestrian, cat lover, interested in science and a believer in biological reality.

[For Women Scotland @ForWomenScot]

It's exhausting, isn't it?

2018 us: Here are some important studies and some potential human rights issues, as well as concerns re lawfulness. Can we chat?

Them: TWAW! They should be running rape crisis centres, cycling on the women's team, and giving you smear tests!

Us: That sounds a bit excessive. We are not here to quibble about toilets, but could you at least promise you won't put a rapist in a women's jail?

Them: F off, bigots!

Us: we will have to go to court if you continue to put out unlawful information or put women at risk.
.......
2025 them: How dare they get judges to restate the law?! Why couldn't you just compromise, witches?!

Us: <sigh>

[Karen @springdaisyk]

@Molly85224872 @FondOfBeetles Me too. 5 seems ambiguous. Also female.

[Zachary Elliott @zaelefty]

Defining “woman” through biology is not regressive. It’s scientifically accurate.

What’s regressive is thinking women can be reduced to culturally-defined roles, stereotypes, caricatures, and feelings.

[Sarah Phillimore @SVPhillimore]

UNANIMOUS DECISON that sex means biological sex. Well done @ForWomenScot. Well bloody done.

[Karen @springdaisyk]

@4thUtilityUK 50 minutes and have to go. So the only way to report a problem seems to be on here.

[Karen @springdaisyk]

@4thUtilityUK 40 minutes and still on hold.

[Helen Saxby @helensaxby11]

Our respective celebrities represent the two sides quite well I think. JK Rowling writes a considered and evidenced argument for the Times and David Tennant tells a woman to shut up and stop existing 🤷

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

If you want women's votes, protect our rights 👇
https://t.co/wb4yJ6B1aF

[SEEN in Journalism @JournalismSEEN]

‘I have chosen to remain anonymous because otherwise I would be frightened of losing my job or being targeted by trans activists’

‘I’ve seen first-hand that we’re too quick to help young people change gender’

⁦@HelenPuttick⁩ in ⁦@thetimes⁩ https://t.co/refdywGaLh

[James Lucas @JamesLucasIT]

Thread of amazing places you (probably) didn't know existed 🧵

1. Castle of Vezio, Italy

[Sonia Sodha @soniasodha]

The government has called for evidence of egs of where public bodies (&amp; organisations that advise them) are getting equalities law wrong &amp; undermining Equality Act protections of single sex spaces.

https://t.co/vOq4TuLqV3

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

You’ve asked me several questions on this thread and accused me of avoiding answering, so here goes.

I believe a woman is a human being who belongs to the sex class that produces large gametes. It’s irrelevant whether or not her gametes have ever been fertilised, whether or not she’s carried a baby to term, irrelevant if she was born with a rare difference of sexual development that makes neither of the above possible, or if she’s aged beyond being able to produce viable eggs. She is a woman and just as much a woman as the others.

I don’t believe a woman is more or less of a woman for having sex with men, women, both or not wanting sex at all. I don’t think a woman is more or less of a woman for having a buzz cut and liking suits and ties, or wearing stilettos and mini dresses, for being black, white or brown, for being six feet tall or a little person, for being kind or cruel, angry or sad, loud or retiring. She isn't more of a woman for featuring in Playboy or being a surrendered wife, nor less of a woman for designing space rockets or taking up boxing. What makes her a woman is the fact of being born in a body that, assuming nothing has gone wrong in her physical development (which, as stated above, still doesn't stop her being a woman), is geared towards producing eggs as opposed to sperm, towards bearing as opposed to begetting children, and irrespective of whether she's done either of those things, or ever wants to.

Womanhood isn't a mystical state of being, nor is it measured by how well one apes sex stereotypes. We are not the creatures either porn or the Bible tell you we are. Femaleness is not, as trans woman Andrea Chu Long wrote, ‘an open mouth, an expectant asshole, blank, blank eyes,’ nor are we God’s afterthought, sprung from Adam’s rib.

Women are provably subject to certain experiences because of our female bodies, including different forms of oppression, depending on the cultures in which we live. When trans activists say 'I thought you didn't want to be defined by your biology,' it’s a feeble and transparent attempt at linguistic sleight of hand. Women don't want to be limited, exploited, punished, or subject to other unjust treatment because of their biology, but our being female is indeed defined by our biology. It's one material fact about us, like having freckles or disliking beetroot, neither of which are representative of our entire beings, either. Women have billions of different personalities and life stories, which have nothing to do with our bodies, although we are likely to have had experiences men don't and can't, because we belong to our sex class.

Some people feel strongly that they should have been, or wish to be seen as, the sex class into which they weren't born. Gender dysphoria is a real and very painful condition and I feel nothing but sympathy for anyone who suffers from it. I want them to be free to dress and present themselves however they like and I want them to have exactly the same rights as every other citizen regarding housing, employment and personal safety. I do not, however, believe that surgeries and cross-sex hormones literally turn a person into the opposite sex, nor do I believe in the idea that each of us has a nebulous ‘gender identity’ that may or might not match our sexed bodies. I believe the ideology that preaches those tenets has caused, and continues to cause, very real harm to vulnerable people.

I am strongly against women's and girls' rights and protections being dismantled to accommodate trans-identified men, for the very simple reason that no study has ever demonstrated that trans-identified men don't have exactly the same pattern of criminality as other men, and because, however they identify, men retain their advantages of speed and strength. In other words, I think the safety and rights of girls and women are more important than those men's desire for validation.

I sincerely hope that answers your questions. You may still disagree, but as I hope this shows, I’m more than happy to have this debate.

[Karen @springdaisyk]

@MrsNickyClark I find this headline really offensive, what is wrong with using the word woman?!!! 🤦‍♀️

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

🎉🌼🌸April Fools! 🌸🌼🎉

Only kidding. Obviously, the people mentioned in the above tweets aren't women at all, but men, every last one of them.

In passing the Scottish Hate Crime Act, Scottish lawmakers seem to have placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls. The new legislation is wide open to abuse by activists who wish to silence those of us speaking out about the dangers of eliminating women's and girls’ single-sex spaces, the nonsense made of crime data if violent and sexual assaults committed by men are recorded as female crimes, the grotesque unfairness of allowing males to compete in female sports, the injustice of women’s jobs, honours and opportunities being taken by trans-identified men, and the reality and immutability of biological sex.

For several years now, Scottish women have been pressured by their government and members of the police force to deny the evidence of their eyes and ears, repudiate biological facts and embrace a neo-religious concept of gender that is unprovable and untestable. The re-definition of 'woman' to include every man who declares himself one has already had serious consequences for women's and girls’ rights and safety in Scotland, with the strongest impact felt, as ever, by the most vulnerable, including female prisoners and rape survivors.

It is impossible to accurately describe or tackle the reality of violence and sexual violence committed against women and girls, or address the current assault on women’s and girls’ rights, unless we are allowed to call a man a man. Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal.

I'm currently out of the country, but if what I've written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.

If you agree with the views set out in this tweet, please retweet it.

#ArrestMe #AprilFools #HateCrimeActScotland

11/X

[Karen @springdaisyk]

I just supported this case! https://t.co/jnVijxzmvY via @CrowdJustice

[Karen @springdaisyk]

@Women___Exist @egalecanada Where is this quote from? It’s so true.

[🇨🇦 Women Exist ♀ @Women___Exist]

@egalecanada You ARE the patriarchy. #iwd

[For Women Scotland @ForWomenScot]

@hannahsbee Here in Scotland, the NHS still follow these guidelines. The CMO approved "SPATH" in 2022 even AFTER the "Eunuch identity" scandal.
https://t.co/14cOkbX2Ag

[SEEN in STEM @SeenStem]

A point has been reached where those of us who value truth, who value reason, who value material reality and who recognise that the very foundation of how we make sense of the world, the scientific method, is being undermined, take a stand. @SEENSTEM