Guess how I got suspended from the Labour Party?

Okay, so I've emailed Maria Miller.

Asked for the sources of this "clear evidence".

I'm not expecting a reply.

It is, because I think a lot of people assume this is just another gay rights issue and are fine with gay rights issues and so don’t pay attention.

Not only is T piggybacking on the LGB, it’s actively homophobic.

Trans ideology says you can’t be a butch girl - you must be a boy. It’s says you can’t be a feminine man - you must be a woman. It also shows some serious hostility to lesbians. It is homophobic to the core, it is not the same as gay rights.

Yes Fae's comments were at the bottom of an absolutely excellent article by David Lewis. Do read his article, well worth it. Fae's comments just look ridiculous at the end of it.

Gay rights evened the field, they didn't remove rights from any other group

It's important to keep saying this

I hope the local paper asked MM for a comment about David Lewis.

I suspect they did and she refused

Don’t they usuallly state “X was unavailable for comment” when that happens?

She slammed current laws requiring a diagnosis with a mental health condition as “similar to the way gay people were treated in the UK more than 30 years ago”.

The problem is that gender dysphoria IS a mental health condition. And unless you have a gatekeeping process, you can’t separate out the genuinely dysphoric individuals who should be able to access treatment and get a GRC from anyone who is AGP or doing it for funsies - as David’s action has clearly shown. If the diagnostic part is removed, there is no need to treat anyone for gender dysphoria at all. People with gender dysphoria will suffer too, because the attitude will be ‘well it’s not a condition and you don’t need to transition.’

The gatekeeping is essential. It is NOT akin to how gay people were treated. Gay rights just evened the field, they didn’t remove rights from any other group. If gatekeeping is removed, then rights will be removed from women and children’s safeguarding will be diluted. So no, it’s not the same thing at all.

Self ID benefits nobody with honest intent. It doesn’t help people with gender dysphoria and it actively harms women and children. The only group that benefit are the AGP group, who are exactly the ones women do NOT want in their spaces.

Jane Fae's comments are actually part of a larger piece David has written in the Sun yesterday.

It's a thoughtful piece that is well worth the read.

www.thesun.co.uk/news/6368126/labours-womens-officer-david-lewis/

I hope that what I did shows we need the debate on gender identity.
We need to find the common ground so that trans people can live as they want to, while allowing women the dignity, privacy and safety that they deserve.
We are all here thanks to women, so let’s talk to them.

Jane Fae, "women's eggshell skulls" and campaigning for extreme porn to be legalised... and "puberty blockers are no different from the contraceptive pill".

Fae is no friend to women & children's rights or safety.

I hope the local paper asked MM for a comment about David Lewis.

I suspect they did and she refused.

I wondered where she gets this bit from: “Nationally, the evidence is clear that trans people still endure hostility, discrimination and higher levels of sexual attack than any other group.”

Be good to see the source of that clear evidence.

Heck, I will write to her office and ask.

Article in Basingstoke Observer
'EXCLUSIVE: David Lewis speaks out about Labour suspension over ‘part time woman’ role'

(extract)
“It’s a shame that it’s taken a part-time bearded woman to make people sit up and take notice when Labour should have been listening to these women’s valid concerns and consulting with them rather than handing down edicts from on high.”

Basingstoke MP Maria Miller chairs the cross-party Women and Equalities Committee and actively campaigns for changes to the Gender Recognition Act to reduce barriers for trans people.

She slammed current laws requiring a diagnosis with a mental health condition as “similar to the way gay people were treated in the UK more than 30 years ago”.

“I believe Basingstoke is an open and fair community that prides itself on welcoming everyone,” she said."

www.basingstokeobserver.co.uk/exclusive-david-lewis-speaks-out-about-labour-suspension-over-part-time-woman-role

Jane Fae and women's eggshell skulls

Jane Fae comments in The Sun.

www.thesun.co.uk/news/6368126/labours-womens-officer-david-lewis/#comments

as for the malicious intent bit

Because, in this world, it is only possible to have malicious intent against trans people. Malicious intent against women doesn't exist is the righteous status quo.

I wish that Guardian article was open to comments. I have every sympathy with its author who does indeed come across as genuinely dysphoric. But the article still doesn't address the question of how in legal terms or in practical terms we ajudicate that a claim is being made in bad faith or for malicious purposes.

I personally can't see a difference between David and P Bunce (who I seem to remember has been fêted in the Graun). And as for the malicious intent bit, (a) that doesn't work till after the fact which is too bloody late and (b) given that there are male bodied sex offenders who have identified as female, been moved to the female estate, then had to be moved for sexually assaulting other female inmates, I simply don't believe such a criterion would be applied even after the fact (because no-one bloody cares about male sexual violence, even if they pay lip service to the idea).

So, in a nutshell, please someone on the other side tell me what the relevant difference is between David and P Bunce?

Sorry if this has already been posted but Guardian (or perhaps CIF) opinion piece on David Lewis and the Labour party:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/23/woman-wednesdays-transphobic-labour-trans

I think what makes me angry about this, is in the UK, we have a history of making political points by standing for office in bizarre manners.

Why isn't David allowed to stand as a woman, but 'Lord Bucket Head' is allowed to run? Which is really more ridiculous? Which is making a clearer point? Who's really making a mockery there?

Money is a social construct. But we don't allow individuals to write "I promise to pay the bearer on demand of the sum of £10" in biro on a blank piece of paper and take it into a shop. We have agreed legal rules about what counts as money and what doesn't. Nationality is a social construct - but you're not going to get far applying for a passport with a hand-written note saying 'I identify as British' rather than your actual birth certificate.

This point (about social constructs needed social agreement) is so important

Also, another thought that occurred to me a little while ago, is that transsexuals are somewhat similar to first generation immigrants, who in many polls are the most insistent that new immigrants to the UK follow the rules and do everything by the book - they did it that way, they think it should be that way for everyone and anyone trying to subvert the system will ruin it for everyone else as well

Nope, sometimes they are being treated badly because misogynistic homophobic men hate them for betraying manhood. If they get treated badly because men don’t notice they are trans and identify them as women what is happening is that those men’s identification of them matches how they identify themselves.

That does not for one second imply that they would like or are seeking to be treated that way. It is simply an entirely different dynamic to the experience of a woman.

It is a transwoman’s experience.

But not for their entire lives, SuperMatchGame. Not at the age of 10. Not while in a school uniform. Not while pregnant. Not while pushing a pram.

Every woman knows how that feels.

Transwoman have their own problems, they have their own fight to fight and I stand with them, but don’t throw women under the bus in the process.

Apart from the small detail of the stuff that the catcalling etc was a response to:
'What, in the 21st century U.K. constitutes 'living as a woman'? Other than making use of sex specific facilities, or doing things specific to female biology (menstruating, gestating, giving birth, breast feeding, having hot flushes.....) there is surely nothing now which is more than a mere stereotype.'

...what a woman is , rather than how other people behave towards her.

But most of those things can be and are experienced by some trans women, particularly if they've changed their hormones, face and body because they are perceived as female most of the time. Perhaps the issue here is that you don't really think there are that many that are?

If they are perceived as women by those around them and are treated in the same ways as non trans women, then they are experiencing many of the same discriminatory oppressive behaviours for the same reasons. It is not their identity that is being perceived as female it is their physical actuality. Those around (some of) them don't necessarily know that they don't have female chromosomes.

The only thing that has been mentioned that they can't experience is discrimination based on pregnancy and female reproduction. And not all women experience that.

And while transwomen are treating women as the enemy (and vice versa) we are forgetting about the mutual enemy we have.

Yep

How do you know there aren't trans women that have had those things done to them because they have been perceived as the female sex both socially and bodily?

It may well have happened. And I’m sure many transwomen get stared at and abusive comments in the street all the time.

Two things:

1. women get this all the fucking time from the age of about 10 until they are over 45 (then you become invisible). Women can’t identify out of it.
2. the problem here is unpleasant abusive men. And while transwomen are treating women as the enemy (and vice versa) we are forgetting about the mutual enemy we have.

For goodness sake SMG

If it's happening to passing TIMs it's because they pass as female or because they are choosing to 'identify' as the class of people this happens to and society is treating them as such. Note that transmen, who are biologically female, still typically experience female discrimination despite trying to identify their way out of it.

Experiencing transphobic abuse, worrying about having to tell a potential partner that you were born male, trying to pass, not knowing which toilet to use, coming out to family/spouse, trying to find 'womens' clothes and shoes that fit a male body, these are all experiences only transwomen have and don't share with women, why would lumping both groups together and describing them as 'women' make any kind of sense and help any of us with these experiences?

Again. Massive missing of point by SMG