How not to argue. A response to taln0reich
(note by submitter: continued from https://fstdt.com/Z7HKHBQT6TG$4, Transscript starting around 22:03 and ending around 23:56 of a 36-minute video)
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then I said this

then there is the extraordinary claim, that abandoning the proposed amendments to the gra is devastating for trans identifying people. How?

and Taln responded "because the current process to change the gender in one's birth certificate is so difficult few have been able to do it forcing the rest to marry and die under a gender that isn't the one they are (as that is where the birth certificates come into play)" devastating means highly destructive or damaging. An example of devastating is having one's healthy breasts amputated and realizing you've made a mistake, surviving child abuse then realizing you have to share your living quarters with men who've sexually abused children, finding out that the man you've married and who fathered your children has now decided he's as much of a woman as you are. Not "oh no my birth certificate tells the truth about what I am"
then he says "the Gender Recognition Act has nothing at all to do with women's spaces or women's quotas/shortlists. So, no, 'women's rights safety and opportunities' are not at risk from a reform of the Gender Recognition Act" now that is fundamentally dishonest. The proposed reforms of the GRA will mean that a man is legally recognized as a woman if he makes a simple self-declaration that he is, and vice versa. We are already in a situation, where it is widely asserted that simply identifying as a woman means being able to access female spaces and opportunities and we're harassed and abused for objecting. Enshrining gender self id in law will make it much harder to challenge.
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