aaaja

No I'm just clarifying what it means legally for someone to have been issued with a GRC.

So is looking unusual in some undefined way is what "visibly non-binary" means? I genuinely do not have any reference point for this description, and certainly couldn't tell if someone is or isn't based on looks.

My male colleague who self-describes with a "non-binary" identity has no obvious visual markers of this.

Yes it's all so tawdry. Even the one that isn't stickers but an etching, and looks somewhat visually pleasing compared to the others, has a cringe message.

This site seems kind of pointless. There are no examples of the product's output or any demonstration of how it compares with other film scanners.

Your previous comments upthread moved the discussion on to what a GRC means in legal terms.

visibly non-binary

What does this mean?

At my workplace, one of my male colleagues calls himself "non-binary" and has "(they/them)" in his email signature. He looks like any other man to me.

As far as I can tell, it's more like a religious belief than any kind of distinct visual style.

Socially it depends on how well they manage to disguise themselves as male. Being visibly pregnant is a very obvious indicator that a woman who is attempting to present herself as a man is not actually a man.

This applies very narrowly. A GRC allows "acquired gender" to replace sex when sex is ascertained by birth certificate, which is only done in limited circumstances. This is distinct, in law, from actually being that sex.

I don't think you'll get anywhere arguing with these people, especially the ones who've bought into this cult to the extent that they've transed their own children.

They have to convince themselves they've done the right thing, because the alternative is horrifying.

This is a fun little game, thanks for sharing.

Agreed. Now that web access is so readily available, it's about time online service providers started taking more responsibility for what they publish and who can access it. That short-lived era of the Internet being only for tech-savvy adults is long gone. The online world is the real world now.

People often use the phrase "think of the children!" mockingly, but we really do need to think about their welfare and what sort of society we want them to develop and grow up in, and that includes the part of society that is mediated online.

Despite the criticisms people have over some of the detail in these new regulations, I see this as a very positive first step in the right direction.

World Athletics' policymakers are well aware of this, and it is addressed in the article where it discusses eligibility for the female category:

"Biological males who have Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome and therefore have not gone through male sexual development including any type of male puberty."

It's because there's not many of them eligible to compete at this level. Fortunately, there is a pipeline of restrictions in place so hardly any of these males filter through.

Firstly, there is the eligibility criteria to compete as women. Up until 2016, when the IOC relaxed the policy to only require these males to undergo testosterone suppression, the rule was that they had to have had the surgery to remove the testicles and reshape the penis into a hole. Only a minority of these males choose to go through with this surgery as it is, so to intersect with the group of males who want to seriously compete in sport was highly unlikely. Testosterone suppression, which not all of these males choose to do anyway, has strict limits of minimum duration and maximum concentration. So this in itself filters out most.

Secondly, no athlete can directly apply to compete in the Olympics, as all entrants have to go through their country's organizing committee. So this limits countries to those who recognize trans identities and who have a committee brazen enough to enter a male who wants to be female in the female category, ahead of actual female athletes.

Thirdly, even if those conditions are met, the athlete must choose to do this knowing that the eyes of the world will be watching and that such an entry into the Olympics will be highly and globally controversial. This filters out all but the most shameless. Note this contrasts with the female athletes who claim transgender identities and enter, uncontroversially, into the category of their sex, of which there have been several over the years.

All this is why almost all of the trans-identifying males who compete, and win, in the female category do so in competitions other than the Olympics. Mostly smaller, regional ones.

It's also why most of the male athletes who've competed at the Olympics in the female category are those with disorders of sex development. The rules are different for these athletes. Though not without controversy either. DSD policy has changed over time too, to be more restrictive. The most recent turning point was after male athletes took gold, silver and bronze in the women's 800m at Rio. They didn't claim trans identities, having been erroneously assigned female on their birth certificates, but competing as if they are female was, and is, similarly problematic.

At the 2016 Olympics in Rio, all three medalists in the women's 800m were male athletes with male physiological advantage. None of the three has, or had, a transgender identity.

Fundamentally, this issue isn't about trans. The problem is, competition organizers across many sports decided that including males in the female category is more important than fair competition for female athletes. That's the problem that needs to be addressed.

Some of the most interesting organisms can be found in these sort of extreme environments.

Not really related to the article, but I'm really fond of this one, found in salt pools, for its beautiful and unique morphology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haloquadratum

Sex is binary in the sense that the two sexes, female and male, refer to the two halves of a system of anisogamous sexual reproduction.

Sexual dimorphism in gonochoric species is a different type of thing to this.

That weightlifter came last due to a disqualification for improper technique, not because of being unable to lift the weight.

If you look at previous performances by that same weightlifter in earlier competitions, although these were mediocre compared to other males, they would be outstanding if this weightlifter was actually female. Middle-aged, relatively unfit, with a chronic injury, and still able to lift significantly more than any other competitor, taking gold medals in the Pacific Games and Commonwealth Weightlifting Championships. Twice in the latter.

This is just one example amongst hundreds. There are loads of these male athletes with male physiological advantage taking medals in women's sports.

You can compare the world records of female athletes and male athletes in almost every sport and see that really this is an empirical observation.

To use one of your examples: Michael Phelps has at this point had his records beaten by a number of other male swimmers. But no female swimmer has come close. Not even Katie Ledecky.

This is why sports governing bodies who take a fair view on this have policies that exclude only athletes with male physiological advantage from the female category, rather than the broader group of those with male genetic markers. Which still permits inclusion of athletes with male DSDs like CAIS, who don't have such advantage.

This is such excruciating incompetence by the app developers I'm wondering if it was intentional. Done to punish the women who dared to speak up about vile men.

I just hope they can pursue legal action for this, whether it was a deliberate trap or not.

Yes and often with pornography it involves the abuse of women and girls, and depicting this as a positive action. It's probably not the main reason why payment processors are banning and restricting purchases, but it should be.

For Women Scotland wasn't the start of the opposition to gender identity policy in the UK. It was founded, by four women who met on Mumsnet, specifically to address policy in Scotland.

Feminist women opposed to the Tory government's plans to introduce "gender self-id" law and similar policy had already started organising by this point. Groups like Woman's Place UK and Fair Play For Women. This had nothing whatsoever to do with religious arguments from the US.

There's also significant liberal opposition to all this in the US, again not linked to religion but, like the UK, on the basis of women's rights.

trans rights. These are entirely imported issues from US religious hangups.

No, in the UK it was left-wing feminists who led the opposition to gender identity policies long before any conservatives got involved, on the basis of this being harmful to women's rights.

Just look at the recent For Women Scotland win in the Supreme Court, it's nothing to do with US religious groups at all, and everything to do with protecting sex-based rights and sexual orientation in law.

The internet is not blocked by age. Any child with a laptop or phone, or any other device that can connect to a wifi hotspot, can access it.

Do you refuse to watch age-restricted films in the cinema because the owner of the cinema might have a record of what you've watched? Age-restricted websites are no different. You can comply with the access requirement, or refrain from using the service. It's your freedom of choice.

No-one is forcing you to watch 18-rated films at the cinema, or purchase alcohol or drugs, or view pornographic material online. If you don't like the requirement to prove your age by presenting some form of ID, then all you need to do is voluntarily refrain from these and any other age-restricted activities.

Proving one's age is required for many other activities that are considered unsuitable for children, such as purchasing alcohol and drugs, and watching age-restricted films in the cinema.

Of course this means that any adult, when challenged, who refuses to show ID as proof of age, will be denied service. But again that refusal is their choice. They voluntarily refrained from complying with the access requirements.

How is this substantially different to an adult refusing to show ID to access an age-restricted website?

This is a barrier put in place so that children are less likely to casually access these sites while they're browsing around.

As an adult, no-one is forcing you to view pornographic websites. If you don't want to provide your ID as per these laws, simply refrain from viewing. It really is that straightforward a choice.

Not sure what you find objectionable about my use of language. I thought I was being very clear.

Point is that the female category in sports is constructed around female bodies, not identities. The category exists because if it didn't, sport would be dominated by male athletes and we would not be able to appreciate female athletic excellence. So, changing this to include a subset of male athletes with male physiological advantage undermines its main purpose.

This executive order, and similar policy elsewhere, which ensures male athletes are excluded from competing in the female category isn't "anti-trans" because, in fact, athletes with a trans identity can and do still compete in this category. Some examples: Keelin Godsey, Hergie Bacyadan, Iszac Henig.

That executive order is for the benefit of female athletes who have been disadvantaged and adversely affected by male-inclusion policy. The order is not "anti-trans". Its purpose is to restore fairness and improve safety in women's sports.

Did you talk to any Saudi women about this?

Outside academia, our findings highlight how culturally embedded norms and gender-based expectations shape aesthetic judgments and influence societal perceptions.

We propose that these biases stem from cultural norms linking femininity with beauty

This is probably it. The "beauty" industry, which almost entirely targets women and girls with its predatory messaging, is a multi-billion dollar market and they do everything they can to promote this as an ideology. To the point where it's become embedded in culture.