Liz Truss in Daily Mail - legitimate concerns predators may abuse self ID

[ScrimshawTheSecond]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8033131/amp/Fears-predators-hijack-trans-reforms.html?__twitter_impression=true

I think this lays out the issue quite clearly.

This will be the first thing many will have read about this debate. I wonder how many will read:

It opens up a clear divide between the parties over trans law reforms. Senior Labour figures have publicly said that even male sex offenders who identify as female should be treated as women and be put in female jails.

and then worry about being on the wrong side of history.

I think it's a good starting point. Once you acknowledge there are loopholes that could be exploited by insincere actors, it begs the question of how one can differentiate those who are in good faith from those who aren't. How, then, to protect single sex spaces - the only meaningful way to do so is by sex.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8033131/amp/Fears-predators-hijack-trans-reforms.html?__twitter_impression=true

Good to see the phrase "legitimate concerns."

I'm so glad that vulnerable females being raped is acknowledged as a 'legitimate concern'.....

Yes, this is really good, we've seen more evidence this week that people are speaking out and naming the unacceptability of the harms to women this political lobby are seeking, it's being said in plain speech, and the general public's response is being noted. The brakes are going on. Third ways that meet everybodys needs equally will have to be sought: it's the only morally acceptable solution.

But I still read something like that and think my God, how have women been sunk so low in society that I want to celebrate a government spokesman acknowledging that there might be a bit of an issue with locking a serial serious sex offender up with them?

From OP Mail on Sunday article:
the Government Equalities Office said there were valid concerns about such reforms being misused to harm women.

The letter added: 'We are aware that people have concerns about how any reforms to the gender recognition process might have an impact on the provision of single-sex services and on certain provisions in sport, prisons and schools.

'We are committed to maintaining the safeguards that protect vulnerable women and allow organisations to provide single-sex services. Concerns about predatory men seeking to find ways to harm women are legitimate.'

The letter said 'this is not a new problem and is not a problem created by, or the fault of, trans people. This problem needs specific attention... "

Policies wich have compromised women & girls' privacy, dignity & safety have been lobbied for by trans rights activists for many years.

All political parties have been negligent of the need to maintain sex-based Safeguarding frameworks which protect girls & women.

Public services have, under successive Conservative governments, brought in sex self-id policies.

The Tories may not be the world’s most obvious feminists, but they can certainly see what will go down well with voters! And giving all men a free pass into women’s spaces on their own self ID is really not going to play well with 51% of the population.
The rest of the “woke” parties will languish in the wilderness until they wake up to reality and the bleeding obvious fact that no sane women will ever vote for their own erasure and oppression.

But I still read something like that and think my God, how have women been sunk so low in society that I want to celebrate a government spokesman acknowledging that there might be a bit of an issue with locking a serial serious sex offender up with them?

This ^^

Its being grateful for crumbs.

The statement comes after repeated warnings from feminist groups that allowing men to be treated as women purely on their own say-so would open up refuges, changing rooms and other single-sex spaces to potential abusers

It's good that this article explicitly identifies feminists as the source for warnings about safeguarding and the importance of sex segregated spaces. That's important because those warnings were ignored for years and now the consequences of this harmful agenda are making headline news every week. It also highlights the absurdity of dismissing women concerned about these issues as 'radical.' The vice like grip this lobby has had on language and discourse is getting some serious pushback from the media. And the Conservatives have hopefully realised there is no public support for this. I agree with Michelle though. It is some kind of indictment of the rapid progress of this regressive misogynistic assault on women that we feel grateful for these crumbs.

I think it's a good starting point. Once you acknowledge there are loopholes that could be exploited by insincere actors, it begs the question of how one can differentiate those who are in good faith from those who aren't.

I agree Scrimshaw . It's a path many of us here have walked, and it goes in one direction, step by step.

From seeing the loopholes, to realising there is no way to differentiate or prevent abuse of the system (and saying it's GRC only but then dropping all the process and gatekeeping to GRC just does self ID by the back door)

To realising how big the umbrella is and the possibility of AGP issues that need looking into

Which leads on to hang on, should it be possible for someone to use non consenting women's presence and state of undress (and used tampons) for sexual pleasure, a la M&S? How ethical is that?

Which leads onto realising the massive sexism involved in believing that the absolute minimum female people are entitled to is a relatively fair shot at not actually being attacked - and that female people should have equal rights to the privacy, dignity, ability to assemble and organise, to not be exploited in other people's beliefs, a la national and international policy and law without this being conditional on whether or not it upsets or excludes a male person.
Because massive, sexist injustice and unequal standards/direct discrimination on groups of sex -

To what is sex anyway? Is all this spectrum stuff true? Shit, it really isn't is it? (Some of this evidence seems a bit.... questionable..? and politically biased? How long have we been swallowing this?)

To wtf are we going to do with females that will have access to no space so that male people have a full choice of spaces - fuck that's sexist, and probably racist and disablist in many cases, and those females are taxpayers who are going to be quite reasonably pissed off that they are paying for provision that excludes them -

To starting to get why many females want female only spaces and even males who have had the full cosmetic surgeries and GRCs are still males, and any males in a female space make it mixed sex, and limiting all this to just some males in some circumstances is still really pretty anti woman...

Walk that path, Liz. And that's only one of the paths, there's several more to think about.

In a letter to feminist campaigners, the Government Equalities Office said there were valid concerns about such reforms being misused to harm women.

What is being reported here? It's not a statement by Liz Truss, or even one made on her behalf. It's not even a press release. It's the response from the GEO to a letter sent to them (or perhaps to Liz Truss) by a feminist organisation, or possibly an individual feminist campaigner. Crumbs indeed.

Was about to post the same point OldCrone - this seems to be based on ‘a letter sent to feminist campaigners’ - is the letter itself published anywhere? Which campaigners? In response to what? Who actually wrote it?

Now it is rock solidly legitimate to hold the view that the trans ideology is profoundly exploitable, the answers to 'surely you don't think sex offenders should be in female prisons'? will positively catapult people along the process to 'terfdom'.

TRAs on the tv/radio blustering why yes, indeed it is ok, because TWAW and women's rights have to cede to that, will have the curtains flung back at lightning speed.

Now it is rock solidly legitimate to hold the view that the trans ideology is profoundly exploitable, the answers to 'surely you don't think sex offenders should be in female prisons'? will positively catapult people along the process to 'terfdom'

I agree. That acronym was deliberately designed to demonize critics as radical and irrelevant. The mendacity of that description is now exposed. I think this is a paradigm shift because the media is no longer meekly submitting to this lobby's attempt to control the narrative and silence debate.

I think this is an important angle too.

The letter said 'this is not a new problem and is not a problem created by, or the fault of, trans people. This problem needs specific attention... "

Abusive men exist and have always existed. Recent trans ideology has given an opening that the Karen White's and Cyclepaths were always going to take advantage of given the chance.

this seems to be based on ‘a letter sent to feminist campaigners’

It could just be the reply to a letter sent by an individual who wanted the government's response to be made public, so sent it to the Daily Mail.

Testing the water by doing the letter. Reactions now will guide the official moves.

Exactly Bovary

When people understand that excluding rapists from female prisons makes them a 'terf' it will be really interesting to watch the instant demise of that term, swiftly followed by transphobe, for the same reasons.

I think part of the problems faced by trying to untangle the whole issue is where to start.

So yes, it's sad that we have to do start with such stark, basic observations as 'putting male sex offenders and rapists into female prison isn't okay' - but I think otherwise there's maybe just too much to digest for most people.

You start as Truss has here, and I think then most things follow on from that fairly logically. The TRA/gender ideology unravels quite quickly once questions are asked.

I'm quite impressed by this - it seems unimpeachably sensible, logical and fair - and I'm also pleased to see feminist groups referred to as such, instead of 'hate groups'.

Agree that this is mere crumbs BUT having been on the receiving end of a number of word salad letters from that office in response to my letters about child safeguarding. They normally respond with the "mixed sex toilets are exciting and inclusive and our fingers are in our ears about any other issues" so this is a small improvement. However, given that Stonewall have a strong grip on the civil service it remains to be seen whether they will ever be released from that yoke.

Prisons and sport easily open the minds.

Then people work out the rest fairly quickly.

I believe it only got this far because it was kept so secret through #nodebate.

Of course, as soon as the things that would never happen started happening then it becomes hard to hide, finally questions are asked and people start saying "what the what now?"

Either they are sending out the same letter to everyone or it is directly lifted from my email correspondence with the GEO as detailed here;

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3825314-Emails-to-Liz-Truss-and-the-response-of-the-Government-Equalities-Office?pg=1

The letter said 'this is not a new problem and is not a problem created by, or the fault of, trans people.

The policies which have impacted women's sex based rights, Safeguarding & are putting girls & women at risk have been lobbied or co-written by trans-rights activists.
In many cases they have been heavily involved in shaping policy for years:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3463920-Lets-go-back-to-2007

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3829786-James-Morton-scottish-trans-alliance-quote

If you don’t want to read the whole thread, here’s the email

Yes, R0wantrees, we shouldn't let the press and politicians forget it so they can deflect from their own failings.

I thought it sounded remarkably like one I’d read on mumsnet @MrsSnippyPants! But strangely they hadn’t credited mumsnet like they usually do...

Whether it’s from here or from the recipient or it’s a standard response - it’s great that the mail have reported it in a way that most people will think it’s her view and hopefully the comments will massively reflect that so she/her advisors realise they need to be on this track and not guided by the tras. It’s going to be incredibly difficult for them to write an update to say actually you misinterpreted that last bit, the minister thinks it’s all fine and tickety boo to get rid of all the sex based protections that have developed over the years for women as they’ve needed them based on the sayso of a few men who want to exploit them for their own nefarious uses and because they feel entitled to.