Laurie Penny's Mirror World

And if you are in my position, as many many women are;

• having to pay a solicitor out of your benefits because the local authority hasn’t even responded to the complaint you put on in March because they are totally failing due to cuts.

• with a disability and a disabled child and having been let down repeatedly by every service; school, mental health, physical health, social care etc etc at the worst time of your life, discriminated against by them on the basis of disability and sex (hence complaint).

• having literally no way out of the shit heap of your life except suicide and knowing that the stress of this will probably result in you never being able to get out of this mess because you have a disability exacerbated by stress you can’t even have care for because you can’t get to appointments due to no support with childcare for disabled child.

• with an ex who abused you and who has been on bail for 13 months (so far) because the police can’t cope with the cuts, knowing that they probably won’t be able to do a good investigation, that the cps cuts mean you can’t trust them to make a good sound decision even if the police do a good job.

• knowing that your landlord can kick you out for any reason and you’ve already had a warning because your neighbours complained about the police being called ‘so many times’ for your daughter’s MH crisis but that this is what you are directed to do by social care in an emergency and if you don’t do it your child will be considered ‘at risk’

Etc etc etc.... I could go on for hours...

Why would you trust any institution in these circs? So many women are in these circs or similar, we know these services are not functioning...

But apart from all that, why should our lives be placed in their hands in the first place?!

Penny is even now writing the pro forma 'I went on to Mumsnet to try to be reasonable but was shouted down by transphobic grannies' article.

As soon as you pretend that the perpetrators are female you have agreed to not address the problem.

A million times this.

I am still boggling at the idea of Laurie writing a "balanced" article on this issue.

There is no hate here. There is acknowledgement of one simple, biological truth: that sex is immutable.

It is not hateful to know this. Everything else springs from this knowledge.

Male violence. Male. Violence perpetrated by males, mostly adult males. Men, in fact.

No-one is asking for trans people to be ‘banned’ either... just sex to continue to be recognised in law and practice and for it not to be replaced with gender identity.

Have you never wondered why sex AND gender identity can’t both be recognised in law and why the current lobby is specifically calling for the erasure of sex and replacement with gender identity?

And what is needed is a profound shakeup of the way that ALL institutions and organisations address assault, harassment and abuse of women and children.

Impossible to address the problem if you cannot name the problem: make violence

Do not seek to generalise this in humanist terms. As soon as you pretend that the perpetrators are female you have agreed to not address the problem.

Oops thread moved on in the time it took me to to get DS settled again (he woke mid post!)

absolutely trust that their safeguarding works. No need to ask questions.

To add: Because of course, safeguarding always works.

I’m glad you’ve come on and are reading.

One thing I would say though is this is not about any threat to identity.

None of us here want the ‘woman’ identity. We’ve had all the crap associated with ‘woman’ thrust on us because of our biological sex. None of us want it, we want the identity stuff attached to ‘woman’ to be erased from society because it is how our sexed bodies are oppressed.

All of us desperately need protection from sex based prejudice, discrimination, violence, harassment, abuse etc

Trans people have different needs. There may be a crossover on some issues but surely the answer cannot be to legally erase sex and replace it with gender identity.

That’s not a trans issue, that’s a consent issue.

It's a male on female issue. Name the problem.

And what is needed is a profound shakeup of the way that ALL institutions and organisations address assault, harassment and abuse of women and children. I fail to see how banning trans women will solve that problem. To me the problem is patriarchy, full stop, and a culture of complicity with abusers.

Careful! Don't be a bad apple.

denial of the material basis of women’s oppression

It's happening: multiple examples. Start with Labour AWS.

attempts to prey on vulnerable women in safe spaces

It's happening: multiple examples
you could start with orisons

No, I don't want to stop you saying these things, Joan - so long as you do so in the knowledge that you're going to appear (in a misrepresented form) as villain of the piece in her next article.

We've had the "but intersex" non-seqitur many, many times on here. Many intersex people have gone on record as saying they object to having their medical history co-opted for political purposes. Yet still people do it. Furthermore we quite rightly (for reasons of medical confidentiality) do not know the details of Semenya's medical history. And in any case they're irrelevant because transwomen are not intersex, they are biologically male with all the advantages that a biologically male body confers in sport.

I hear this- and I’m mainly straight so I may be speaking from a position of ignorance here. But nobody should be pressuring ANYONE into sex for whatever reason. That’s not a trans issue, that’s a consent issue.

This isn't the kind of approach a journalist should take: "It's a respectable organisation. I'm sure all will be fine."

Absolutely not. "Rotherham council is a respectable organisation. I'm sure all will be fine". "Save the Children is a respectable organisation, I'm sure all will be fine". I absolutely trust that their safeguarding works. No need to ask questions.

I would be concerned myself if the things being discussed here- lesbians being forced into having sex with anyone they don’t want to

its happening

Found the hide thread option, peace out and good luck to those who will need it.

Joan, go to the thread header if you are on the app and swipe to the left, it will bring up the opportunity to hide it.

"Bad apples"

I think we are being trolled. If so they have really got her voice down, hats off.

I can leave if people want me to! No hard feelings.

I don’t know what the Deptford tweets are but will look that up.
I have to get back to my work now- 2 hour Skype meeting at 10pm yay- but will check back here in the morning.