Tickle vs Giggle
This has to be the best legal case ever. At least as far as the name of it is concerned.
Giggle is a start-up company that developed a female-only app for women to hang out (it also includes a dating part, but is not exclusively a dating app, as I understand it). Tickle is a ‘transitioned’ male who thinks it is his right to have access to the app, that his human rights are being violated and that he’s being discriminated against by his exclusion from using the app.
Apparently Tickle uploaded his profile pic and it was initially accepted by the AI1 as being ‘female’. Here’s a pic of Roxanne Tickle (although probably not the one used as a profile pic)
So, basically, Tickle with the tackle wants to giggle with the tackle-free.
It’s a bit more nuanced, though. Tickle’s tackle may be a thing of the past. It’s not clear, but he has gone quite far down the path of legal recognition as a “woman”, which may, or may not, have included de-tackling.
The actual status of Tickle’s tackle is an interesting one.
If Tickle’s tackle is still intact then there’s not going to be an awful lot of interest from your average lesbian. Let’s be realistic. But he may just want to hang out with women (although we hope not let it hang out) and do that well-known thing of doing “girly stuff” with people who know how to do girly stuff properly.
No doubt he’ll be interested to hear what other women do when one of their balls slips out of their panties.
If Tickle’s tackle is a thing of the past, if it has had the Bobbitt, does this change things? Does this make his case for ‘womanhood’ stronger? Most, if not all, gender-critical (GC) folk would say not. The presence or absence of the Panty Protuberance of Perfect Femininity is not the point. Or the pointy out thing.
This Australian case is going to be very interesting because it seems to me that the court is going to have to make a ruling on “what is a woman?”
It will be interesting to see whether legal bollocks will rule that women can have bollocks.
One central question, it seems to me, is whether we should be ‘allowed’ to have sex-segregated spaces at all. Is it OK for men2 to form men-only spaces and to exclude women? Is it OK for women to do the same thing?
The recent high-profile case of the Garrick Club voting to change its rules and to allow female members (it had previously allowed females as guests) was widely celebrated as a step forward. These kinds of men-only spaces were probably where lots of nasty and oppressive patriarching was done amidst the smell of brandy and the haze of cigar smoke. It’s quite understandable that women felt a bit excluded from the male-dominated corridors (and lounges) of power. They had nothing that was equivalent.
If we’re OK with male-only spaces and female-only spaces (which I am) then the next central issue is the now-old chestnut of what, precisely, IS a man or a woman?
If you’re going to establish categorization such that anybody can “self-identify” into the category they like, then do we have any categorization at all?
I would suggest not - or at least it’s such a weak and ineffective categorization to be pretty much no categorization at all. A bit like borders, then.
It will be very interesting to see whether the Australian courts draw a distinction between those who have gone down the whole process of ‘legal’ transition and those who merely self-identify into a sex-class. Or whether they uphold a biologically-based definition of what a man and woman is.
As I’ve said many times before, a biologically-based definition is the only one that makes full coherent and logical sense. Trying to ‘define’ what a woman (or man) is, without reference to the biological facts, leads to all sorts of illogical gibberish.
The existence of Tickle’s tackle, whether it’s present and proud, or whether he’s jettisoned the junk, is rather the central point. Is womanhood entirely independent of biology?
That’s the question that must be answered.
If we’re going to admit biological males into this ‘woman’ category, then being a woman MUST be something that is independent of biology.
Are we prepared to go that far?
The question of Tickle’s tackle is central to this case and it will be interesting to see whether Lady Justice is really Lady Justin. The balls of destiny are going to have to be weighed. Will they be found wanting?
Nothing says “woman” more than a 5 o’clock shadow. Giggle probably do need to consider a different AI platform. They may have used one based on Google’s AI. You know, the one that thinks Vikings were black, and that nuclear holocaust is a more preferable option than mis-gendering someone.
The standard definition and understanding of the terms ‘men’ and ‘women’ applies here. A categorization based on an objective biological binary.
(Speeling and grammar errors galore, be warned!)
These posts of yours gives me the same feeling one gets when opening a cold bottle of lager on a hot summer day; clink, pop, fizz, glug, ahhh!
Here's thought: since women have not undergone castration, are they really women if undergoing castration is a key feature of becoming a woman?
Since women clearly exist and have existed since whenever without having to be castrated to become women, being a woman cannot be contigent on being castrated.
Therefore, people needing castration to become women cannot be women as women don't need to be castrated in the first place.
Men only, and women only spaces are essential to civilisation I'd argue. Every single culture has or have had that. No need to go overboard, a pub having a "no ladies, no kids, no strollers"-night weekly is plenty. Or "no dudes, bros, chads, men, slobs, couchpotatoes, or brats"-night for the ladies.
The thing is, the people always working to tear down and wreck old instituions don't do it because they want to cure some societal imbalance or something - they do it for the joy they feel in destroying.
You can see it in kids, early on. Boys with that mindset are violent, so they are obvious and get caught early on, and can be corrected.
Girls are instead insidious and clever about it. They tattle to teacher if they aren't allowed in the tree-house the boys built. They don't necessarily want to be let into the treehouse, they want power over the boys (who aren't interested) who are much more impressed with the girl who pitched in and did her share of the work.
I'm sure if anyone thinks back to their school years, they remember girls like that? Well, those girls grew up to become intersectional feminists, since the adult women of that day didn't stamp out the scheming and gossiping and slandering as a viable way of getting ahead in the social hierarchy.
And here we are now, with mentally ill men demanding the girls' club house be either opened to them too, or torn down.
What goes around, comes around.
Perhaps this is the Groucho Marx principle in action?
I don’t mind it, I just wish Tickle were arguing he should be allowed to join women in purdah.