Brian Paddick asking for feminist views on Self Id

I'm no longer prepared to discuss substantive trans issues online. I am having face-to-face meetings offline. There are too many people, deliberately or otherwise, trying to get me to say something they can use against me or deliberately misinterpreting what I say. Still learning.

His current pinned tweet. Told you. There is NO WAY this man will ever admit in public that there may be any substance to the gender critical view, or that single sex spaces should be protected and defended.

Will. Never. Happen.

That article is great Italian! THANK YOU Tom if you are indeed around here

As long as it's not an extremist group the first party to ditch self Id would probably have my vote, even Tory!

"Bluntly, why the hell is no one in politics shouting from the rooftops about this stuff? We’re talking about people trying to put the frighteners on Mumsnetters, for goodness sake. In any other area of public life, politicians usually fall over themselves in their rush to speak up for middle-class working mothers. Yet the politicians who were desperate to talk biscuits at Mumsnet Towers are curiously silent about the intimidation that some women now report there.*

Because politicians at the highest levels have vested interests in vote winning, and that means appearing to be accepting of minority groups and deeply empathetic with them. They think that will win the approval of the voting majority. Right now, they believe the public are on the side of trans (despite there being no such 'side'). Most of the public, both men and women, believe this debate is about acceptance of trans, and politicians are playing politics based on that.
The media are not helping by publishing many stories that illustrate the troubles that trans face, whilst giving very little attention to the actual issue of women's rights. It's little wonder people don't grasp the real issue and thus hardly surprising politicians are following suit.
There are loads of fantastic women presenting the actual issue if you look for them, but they aren't being given enough prominence in the media.

Tom Farr is on here now, he's not difficult to spot.

young person responding to him on Twitter (Jay) thinks that all humans start out with XX chromosomes

He is likely basing that on the Y chromosome having no effect in the first 4 to 5 weeks after conception which has led to an increase in the false presumption that we all start out as female.

Good article medium.com/@tom_farr/the-left-are-abandoning-women-and-in-doing-so-abandoning-everything-they-stand-for-51fd63457d8c

Surely, as an ex copper he can understand women's concerns in this area?

I'm going to have a bit of hope!

Just seen a bit of debate between him and someone called Alisdair Calder McGregor. It looks like his apology was to express concern but I hope the exchange has shown him what women are up against.

I am going to be hopeful again, someone has mentioned the cotton ceiling. Hopefully as a gay man he can begin to understand that.

He’s in the Lords, doesn’t have to worry about his career, and (if memory serves) has history of being fairly pragmatic... maybe all is not lost.

If nothing else, the hounding of him on twitter gives us another example to point at...

I fear he has to go one way or the other.

Third option: radio silence. I know I am being the resident Cassandra on this thread but I am so disillusioned that I hold out absolutely no hope that Brian Paddick will become an ally.

The absolute best that will happen is that he talks to Karen and A Woman's Place and is persuaded by their arguments (as anyone would be who actually listens instead of pretending to listen but with the usual cloth ears on) and then never says another word about trans issues again in public.

That's our best case scenario, I'm afraid.

If he asks why they are upset he will get a tirade of emotion, mixed with being erased and being the most oppressed group ever etc.

Although it would be interesting if they could put some reasons together to say why they are actually upset?

Perhaps he's just pre-empting with an apology, as he thinks it might protect him from abuse?

I think that if he does try and change his mind and tries to keep the TRAs on board at the same time, he will suffer for it.

I don't think you can blend reality with fiction without them clashing at some point where they cannot meet. It is like 'oh what tangled webs we weave, when first we practice to decieve' - one fiction begets another to explain another as you attempt to square what is happening to the outside world.

I fear he has to go one way or the other.

Instead of apologising for causing upset he should have asked ",why are you upset?"

I agree, kneedeep.

Kneedeep bloody good point.

i think its great when people in the public sphere model uncertainty, thoughtfulness and even changing their minds. it does not happen enough.

on the other hand i find there is something deeply distasteful in waiting for a man with the privilege of infulence to proclaim whether or not our views on something which affects him far less than it does us are acceptable to him or not.

Er Brian....?

Which group is doing the name calling and reducing people down to abusive labels? Because it's only one.

Which group wishes the other side to not have the right to speak? Because it's only one.

Which group frames the very speaking of different opinions as a crime? Because it's only one.

Which group is leaking fear, hate, irrationality and abuse everywhere? Clue: again its only one.

Have a sesame street moment: what have we learned so far?

This is Brian Paddick's important statement:
I am told by a number of people that I have caused upset & damage & I have apologised for doing that. I have not & will not apologise for engaging. Don't shoot the listener

I'm going to bookmark this thread and, if Paddick ever comes out with any public support for the gender critical view or makes any public defence of women's need for single sex spaces, I will come back, eat humble pie and apologise.

He will not.

the more this group of TRAs try to control things, the more visible this manipulation is...

Ah, he's catching on.

Having apologised and said that he is not representing his party, the TRAs are doing a good job at winding him up. One of BP's latest tweet reads: "If you make judgments on the basis of only listening to one side of an argument, if you think debating issues is inflammatory, then I don't trust your judgement and neither should anyone else".

Incidentally, worth thinking too: a woman in severe distress showing this kind of constant drama and framing on the relationships board... would be pretty quickly told to calm down and get it together. This kind of dramatics doesn't get tolerated in adult women.

It does in teenagers

It does in middle aged men

Funnily enough...... they constitute most of the shouty ones online.