Fawcett defend Women's Place UK

[wellbehavedwomen]

Sam Smethers, the chief executive of the Fawcett Society, said: “Trans people are targeted with violence, abuse and threats and so are women who speak out about the need to defend women-only spaces and sex-based rights. Women’s fear of male violence is real and justified. For reasons of women’s privacy, dignity and safety the need for single-sex spaces remains. But trans people’s human rights must also be recognised and their needs must also be met. The only way forward is for both sides of this issue to be heard with mutual respect. Characterising Women’s Place UK in this way misrepresents them and is fundamentally unhelpful. It is time to move this agenda forward.”

Gosh, Fawcett. I didn't know you still had it in you. I'm sad to be surprised that a major feminist org (and one that had my standing order until a year or two ago, too) is admitting that women do in fact have sex-based rights, including the right to organise and the right to define what their own class actually means. But the fact is, Jess Phillips was deemed a hateful transphobe for far milder words than those, two years ago, and this statement will cause apoplexies of rage. I think the reality of what this ideology means for women has been spelled out by this pledge, in a way no actual feminist can continue to ignore. Fawcett are still not one of the shero organisations who actually bothered to attend Women's Lib 2020. But this gives me some hope that they may be brave enough to do so at the next.

Nothing about us without us. Better late than fucking never.

I note that "three thousand people have signed our pledge in two days! Those who disagree with us are just a small group of transphobes!" Golly gosh. Twitter started suppressing '#expelme' when it got to 20 thousand in a matter of hours. And they've been deleting likes on JK Rowling's tweet for months, to hold them at just over 200 thousand. Who knows how many she'd have otherwise? Well. Twitter do, but on the evidence I doubt they'll be sharing the info any time soon.

The fact the Guardian is reporting like this at all is also progress.

The penny is finally dropping that women are human beings, too, and males don't get to tell us who a woman is, and what we are allowed to say.

Fawcett defend Women’s Place UK... a little too late... they should have been on this ages ago.

Fawcett received no love in various discussions lately and I wonder if they've belatedly realised that their silence on some issues has cost them supporters and won them none. They sold out women to no end?

They lost my financial support a while ago (like WEP) and it will take a fair amount for them to win it again.

It was the Fawcett Society that helped peak transed me years ago - back in the Dittany days. When they fell (and they fell early), I finally saw what she saw.

I'm pleased that the Fawcett Society have made this statement.

I'm also pathetically pleased that an iconic organisation like the Fawcett Society has dared to stand up for women's rights to women only spaces and sex based rights. I wonder whether the Women's Equality Party will dare to step out from under the misogynists in their midst to stand up for the same rights?? (probably not)

I'm cautiously pleased. I don't think it's ever too late to do the right thing. Plus if it's a sign that they know which way the wind is blowing then that's got to be a good thing.

I'm cautiously pleased too. I've been auto-deleting their emails for months.

Setting out those oh-so-progressive, 'be kind' dictats policies has certainly helped people see what kind of future we could expect under a Labour government.

Hmmmm. They were off my Christmas card list a long time ago!

I cancelled my membership about a year ago and told them why (they didn't appear to care).

Didn't the Fawcett society sit silently when it was said that 50% men and 50% transwomen in Parliament would be an acceptable outcome for gender equality.

That has made my jaw drop. I wouldn't have expected them to acknowledge that at all.

I think they're a straw in the wind. I suspect they have seen women's support evaporate, and alternatives who really fight our corner spring up and explode in size, and they're belatedly realising that they backed the wrong horse. Be interested to know how many adult human females still donate to them, as opposed to eg FiLiA, Southall Black Sisters, Nia, Centre ForWomen's Justice, Women's Place UK, Fair Play For Women, Standing For Women, etc etc etc - all orgs run by and for women, and unapologetic about prioritising the needs of women and girls - and isn't it telling, how controversial that has become? I don't see any other civil rights movement howled down as hateful because, for example, a BAME org isn't so keen on Rachel Dolzeal. And Stonewall have their logo on many, many state funded organisations' letter heads, despite having actively campaigned to remove our sex-based rights and protections completely. Who's the bigot, here?

I don't agree with everything all of the above orgs say - and I don't need to. I just support that they all centre us, and our interests, with sincerity and determination. And I could have linked to ten more which I strongly suspect recognise what a woman is, but I don't want to expose them to attacks on that basis, when they've not yet outed themselves as gender critical, and all provide essential services to us which should not be compromised by thinly veiled misogynists.

“Feminism is a political practice of fighting male supremacy on behalf of women as a class, including all the women you don’t like, including all the women you don’t want to be around, including all the women who use to be your best friends whom you don’t want anything to do with any more. It doesn’t matter who the individual women are.”

That was where Fawcett went wrong. Mission creep. If Fawcett couldn't see that an ideology that sought to make the very word "woman" problematic, and to erase any mention of female biology, was a threat to their survival, then quite honestly they have only themselves to blame. And if this is them rowing back, well. Better late than never, and more, please.

The tone of the conversation is shifting. We always knew it would, once the real issues were dragged into the light of day. So did the extremist genderist lobby, which is why they were so determined to ensure that that did not happen.

Have they been living under a rock for the past few years?

That said, about time and this must mean that ‘less brave’ organisations are finally sensing that the tide is turning in favour of women, so they think it’s safe to actually stand up for women themselves.

I've just joined Fawcett based on this! It was a very fair and balanced statement.

Wow So pleased I used to adore Fawcett and have given them large chunks of money in the past.

I hated realising that they were not on the side of women in one of the biggest discussions of all time

Gently hopeful... waiting to see what will happen next

About a year ago Fawcett publicly
embraced the TWAW mantra and abandoned women's rights.

What happened to cause them to recognise reality and make this important statement?

And yet, even now with this statement, they are still supporting the trans ideology that, by denying trans people their desires, their human rights are also being denied. Excluding a male from a female space is not denying anybody their human rights.

Trans people have the same rights as anyone else to access the spaces and services of their sex. Trans people have the same rights as anyone else not to be discriminated against because of their beliefs or their presentation. Their human rights are protected by law.

The only right trans people do not have is to impose their beliefs on others. Nobody has this right. Again, no discrimination or denial of a right.

What rights do you think trans people lack, Fawcett Society?

This is very hopeful.

I suspect they have seen women's support evaporate, and alternatives who really fight our corner spring up and explode in size, and they're belatedly realising that they backed the wrong horse

Yes, I knew they would realise this eventually. They get absolutely no interaction from women anymore, and their events are nowhere near as popular as the WPUK etc ones.

It sticks in my craw that they were willing to turn their back on women in the first place, You Had One Job etc, but as I remember the wonderful Helen Joyce saying before, we need to leave room for people to reverse-ferret, almost all of us started out from a less-hardline position before we realised what was actually going on. And most of us didn't have to row-back publicly, which is more difficult and requires character, much easier to keep doubling down.

You're quite right, Sonic, I would err on the side of making allowances for those who have had to make statements under huge amounts of pressure.

A couple of years ago I might have also happily gone along with the party line, TWAW, etc. Mea culpa.

Just don't fucking recant now, please, FS. You will be told to. Resist. The fury and bile that pours forth when women dare to say no, and the fear of that fury, is pretty much the whole point of why womens' rights orgs are needed, in my view.

This is in no way an endorsement of WPUK!

This is just saying lets be nice. And the fact that they dont condemn the Labour Trans Pledge and the attempt to exclude GC women, but just say its not nice or productive to call someone a hate group.

In the long run this is just about saying if we are nice to WPUK we can talk them round.

Like Stonewall they know their funding streams.

And in terms of Fawcett work I think they are totally inadequate. Its all just a game. Fawcett in nice. The government appear to talk to them (because they are not threatening) and its all just a merry go round.

I dont think there is an existing women's rights group in the UK

Not forgetting that WPUK are on the soft side of the GC article. As fas as I know they only oppose self id.

But the impact they have had is obviously important, and it is interesting that only WPUK and LGB Alliance were named as they are the most "credible" groups.

This is all so depressing.

I'll accept that reverse-ferret. I did it myself, to some extent. Many of us did. And there are many lurkers who may yet do so.

Let's not throw them all out with the bath water!

This is in no way an endorsement of WPUK! This is just saying lets be nice.

To the most heavily online TRAs, a statement like this from the Fawcett Society is the equivalent of saying they want to round transwomen up and put them in camps. They have a "you're with us or you're against us" attitude. Look at what happened when Laura Pidcock said "The women's movement needs the space to talk about sex and gender. Or when JK Rowling said that people shouldn't be fired for thinking sex is real.

The Fawcett Society have just declared they are not 100% with the TRAs on all things. It's going to be treated like a declaration of war.

I understand caution and I'm not inclined to rush out and join them either, but how are we ever going to win this if we don't give people room to change their minds?

I suspect they have seen women's support evaporate

There certainly isn't much engagement from anyone on their Twitter feed.

Yep, I was on the other side myself. Facts changed my mind. I'm not going to complain if other people do the same thing.

And @Stumbledin, to the Woketariat Chosen Ones this is akin to saying "Let's not misrepresent the KKK in this way, it's not helpful." Any suggestion that sex exists is deformed into "hatred". It's becoming socially acceptable again to admit that sex exists, and women are oppressed because of it, and that we have a right to say so.

Open sex-based provisions, there to remove systemic and entrenched disadvantage based on sex, to anyone who wants to opt in, and you lose them. That's what we are fighting. That's literally all. Not anyone's right to ignore whatever gender roles and binaries they don't identify with - loads of us don't, either! I'd happily agree that anyone abused because they're male and wear a dress and lipstick should be protected under the heading of hate crime. (I'd argue that women should be, too, given that hate is misogynistic policing of gender roles, but...) People should be free to be who they are. It's the continued separation of sex and gender that matters in protecting our rights here, not those who want to ignore gendered norms.

Sex is real, has consequences, and matters. Sex is why women are oppressed; pretending it's gender just collapses all provision, by making it in name only. If we can't name the cause of our oppression then we can't combat it. That's why this is such a huge threat to women - and why so many men are gleefully supporting it, and threatening women who don't. It legitimises misogyny.

Even if gender identity exists at all (and the jury is out), it can't make someone female. They don't need the protections, provisions and spaces, if they're male - they just want them, as validation of their inner sense of gender. And don't care what that means for us.

If Fawcett are realising that, finally, well... fantastic. The more who do, the safer we get. I will watch and see where they go from here.