Great piece by academic Kathleen Stock (mentions MN)

I'd like to see those thousands of messages he alleges.

Laim Hackett's claim he received 'thousands of abusive texts from [Kathleen Stock's] community of terfs' after calling out her transphobia led to his new T shirt range:

twitter.com/DiageoLiam/status/1024610634116341760

Yesterday,Woman's Hour discussed adult bullying (with reference to social media) and asked listeners to email examples.

Its worth listening to, link below to catch up.

The expert in the segment was from Ditch the Label.
CEO of Ditch the Label is Liam Hackett.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3299191-A-new-member-of-the-Leftie-Misogynists-club?

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bf4c3p

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3334491-Womans-Hour-discusses-adult-bullying-with-representative-from-Ditch-The-Label-providing-expert-advice

She said: “The materials are troubling because they effectively encourage young people, and particularly gender non-conforming girls and young lesbians, to conclude that their distressing feelings aren’t just a sign that the world is sexist, but rather a sign that they themselves need fixing.

Isn't that the agenda captured neatly? That any emotional pain and /or somatic distress is Darvo'd back onto the female as their problem/fault.

Really plays into the hands of Big Pharm and also obfuscates the male violence that underlies so much of that distress.

Kathleen Stock is quoted in an article in today's Times:

"Transgender muffin exercise ‘sends wrong message’"

(extract)
The “mixed-muffin gender berry challenge” is one of a number of exercises included in Agenda, a free online toolkit distributed to more than 1,400 young people across Wales.

Its author, Emma Renold, professor of childhood studies at Cardiff University, has received a £10,000 award for her work, including the Agenda guide, which aims to teach young people about healthy relationships and raise awareness of sexual violence and discrimination.

Critics have warned that the toolkit’s guide to transgender identity does more harm than good.

The exercise distributes muffins around a group. Those whose cakes have blueberries inside are asked to stand by blue balloons, representing the stereotype of masculinity in one corner of the room. Those with raspberry muffins are asked to stand by pink balloons, representing the stereotype of femininity, in another corner. Those with mixed muffins found that they had no place to stand. “After this activity, we asked how they felt being categorised according to a muffin they did not choose, what it felt like to go to a gender-coded corner that they might not identify with, and what it felt like not to have a corner at all,” the guide said.

“This got us all talking about how we come into the world already coded through gender labels; how you can’t assume someone’s gender by how they look: what it feels like to be given a gender you might not choose; and not to have your gender represented at all.”

Critics have accused the guide of falsely presenting transgender and non-binary identities as the only alternative for people who do not fit sexist stereotypes.

Kathleen Stock from the University of Sussex, who is working on the conflict of rights in the transgender debate, said the “confused and contradictory” exercise “read a bit like satire.”

She said: “The materials are troubling because they effectively encourage young people, and particularly gender non-conforming girls and young lesbians, to conclude that their distressing feelings aren’t just a sign that the world is sexist, but rather a sign that they themselves need fixing.” (continues)

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/transgender-muffin-exercise-sends-wrong-message-gs7z0zgcz?shareToken=ea2ec30452154fd415bc89a9716f49e1

Yes, I was pretty shocked at how pummelled I got at my first mammogram, they even had to go get an extra attachment for the machine to squash me further (I’m on the early screening programme).

Wouldn’t have fancied stumbling shell-shocked into a waiting area still doing up my shirt poppers and straight into a chap.

'Dated, sexist and disgusting?' - I agree.

A man demanding to be allowed into an area where women go for medical procedue and may be half dressed/scared/worried/feeling vulnerable because HE wants is exacty that.

Article in the Economist (part of its series Transgender Identities) :

'There are more things to consider than some trans activists would have you believe, argues Kathleen Stock, an academic

Open Future
Jul 6th 2018
'Kathleen Stock is a Reader in Philosophy at the University of Sussex. She writes on the philosophy of fiction, and on issues in feminist philosophy. Her current research project focuses on conflicts of interests between trans women and natal women, and how to resolve them. Here, she examines arguments against expanding the concept of “trans women” to include anyone self-identifying as such.'

(extract)
One problem is that, since “woman” and “female” are interchangeable in many people’s minds, we’re likely to lose a secure understanding of the related concept “female”. (Indeed, some activists advocate stretching this concept to include trans women, too.) Yet the existing concept is in good order. It designates a person with XX chromosomes, and for whom ovaries, womb, vagina and so on are a statistical norm, even if some females are born without some of these, or lose one or more later. That intersex people exist doesn’t seriously threaten this category, since most categories have statistical outliers.

Nor does the existence of males born with none of these features, who then take hormones or undergo surgery to gain some such features artificially. Maintaining the concept “female” as it is is crucial to an understanding of a particular kind of lived physical experience, already significantly under-investigated in relation to other medical and academic specialties. To put it bluntly: if we were to lose this concept, and with it the concept “male”, we would have to reinvent them.

The category “female” is also important for understanding the particular challenges its members face, as such. These include a heightened vulnerability to rape, sexual assault, voyeurism and exhibitionism; to sexual harassment; to domestic violence; to certain cancers; to anorexia and self-harm; and so on. If self-declared trans women are included in statistics, understanding will be hampered. A male’s self-identification into the category of “female” or “women” doesn’t automatically bring on susceptibility to these harms; nor does a female’s self-identification out of those categories lessen it. In a sexist world which often disadvantages females, as such, we need good data. We need good data about trans people too, of course, but the two tasks should be separated" (continues)

www.economist.com/open-future/2018/07/06/changing-the-concept-of-woman-will-cause-unintended-harms?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/changingtheconceptofwomanwillcauseunintendedharmsopenfuture

What did he say? 'Dated, sexist and disgusting'. Yeah. Classic little DARVO.

Pink News article:

(extract)
"A trans rights campaigner. (Getty)Stock is set to speak at the A Woman’s Place Is Turning The Tide event this month, which is being hosted by the contentious Woman’s Place UK.

The group opposes the government’s proposed reform of the 2004 Gender Recognition Act, for which the consultation launched this week"

www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/07/06/university-lecturer-says-trans-women-are-still-males-with-male-genitalia/

Dr Adrian Harrop's response

threads
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3244781-dr-adrian-harrop-who-the-funk-does-he-think-he-is

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3248676-dr-adrian-harrop-dr-misogyny-is-pursuing-another-woman

I went for a breast screen recently and the letter specifically stated that it would be an all woman team (and they don't half wo/manhandle you!).

If a man was there having a tantrum because he wasn't allowed in, I think I would have threatened to spank him. It's stressful enough without - what did the post up say - 'toxic masculinity?'.

All very egocentric behaviour.

(extract from the Independent article above)
"Mr Hackett, who waited for Ms Jones outside in the corridor, said: “It just seems very strange. I can’t begin to imagine to think what it would be like to have to go on your own. Pain and fear are ever-present in healthcare, the NHS should consider the patients,”

He urged the hospital on to “immediately review and revoke” the “dated, sexist & disgusting” policy, which he said had caused “offence, upset and embarrassment”, in a post on Twitter... (continues)

A spokeswoman for the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS said it was “not a case of men not being allowed into the breast centre, but very specifically one interior waiting room.”

“Men are welcome in the outside area but women have to take their tops off, just put one layer back on and walk through that small waiting room to go through for their scan,” she told The Independent.

“In feedback, patients said it makes them feel uncomfortable when there are men in that waiting room, so we instigated the policy to protect the women who are using that facility. It is to make them feel safe secure and dignified and that they are treated in a place where there interests are put first.”

I have to say when I followed this at the time, I felt very

What an absolute plonker.

How can he not see that a room full of anxious women about to undertake an often painful procedure, which requires half nudity, is not a suitable place for him to be.

MEMEMEME...

Twitter

Rowan - thanks for highlighting the Morning Star letter and James Kirkup blog.

The reality is beginning to be exposed and this inevitably leads to increasingly desperate attempts to silence any reasonable discussion.

There's so much going on and in so many places, and you're doing a fantastic job at helping us all keep in the loop.

Hackett has previously taken to twitter to express his outrage at the NHS not letting men into the room where women were preparing to undergo mammograms (and therefore were presumably in hospital gowns).

I saw the original tweet about this and found it really bizarre... it was difficult not to read it as bullying the breast screening department and hospital using Twitter power

It made the press:
www.independent.co.uk/news/health/men-ban-breast-screening-clinic-waiting-area-hospital-brighton-anger-a8243666.html

Very disappointing to see Dr Stock being bullied by the CEO of anti-bullying charity, Liam Hackett.

This charity earns >£300k per year.
It promotes trans to children. For example,
twitter.com/DitchtheLabel/status/986153822392373248

Hackett has previously taken to twitter to express his outrage at the NHS not letting men into the room where women were preparing to undergo mammograms (and therefore were presumably in hospital gowns).

I think all of the personal attacks, attempts at censorship and smearing demonstrate a serious issue and also makes clear who is involved and how they view things.

Letter Published in MorningStar

"Other women, including ordinary women concerned for their rights, as well as those active within the trade union movement and other political campaigns, are also now anxious and fearful that they will be subjected to such attacks when engaging in any political activity, meetings, or protests.

We are sure that, whatever your view regarding the issues around the Gender Recognition Act, you will agree that it is unacceptable for women to be made scared to engage in political life.

We, the undersigned, publicly and unequivocally condemn the use of violence or tactics of intimidation on this issue."

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3296684-Len-McCluskey

James Kirkup has picked up on the letter in a Spectator blog post today.

(extract)
"Now, I’m a dedicated centrist and I happen to agree with every word of that letter. I know paid-up Tories who would too.

But the contents of that letter are not the story here. The story is in the signatories, who include Len McCluskey of the Unite union, as well as several other senior trade unionists. (Lindsey German, a founder of Stop the War and a close friend of Jeremy Corbyn is there too; Andrew Murray, another very senior Corbynista signed a similar letter earlier this year. In short, a very significant and, in Labour terms, powerful group of unionists and activists has raised some quite serious concerns about the violent intimidation of women in the gender debate.

In a previous job as a political reporter, I’d probably have summarised that letter something like this:

Transgender activists who use threats of violence to frighten feminist critics are bringing the Labour movement into disrepute, Britain’s top trade union leader has said. Len McCluskey of the Unite union has joined several other close allies of Jeremy Corbyn to warn that “trans rights activists” using threats and intimidation have left many women “too frightened” to engage in political debate..." (continues)

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/07/labour-and-tories-finally-see-the-truth-about-the-gender-debate/

Yes Rowan. It's worrying on so many levels. Personal smearing and attack, and desperate attempts to prevent free speech and publication.

Local newspapers, which are usually good at reporting issues fairly and accurately, are under enough financial pressure already. It may be very hard for the Brighton Argus to withstand this sort of attack and not cave in.

There have been some quite extra-ordinary Twitter attacks on Kathleen Stock and also on the Brighton Argos for publishing the interview with her.

Including from the founder of an international ant-bullying charity!

Kathleen Stock:
'Full text of interview with Brighton Argus
These are the full answers from my interview with the Brighton Argus here.

1. Why does there need to be a discussion around proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act? The proposed move to self-identification within the legal gender reassignment process needs to be discussed, party because of the problem of sex-segregated spaces, where females get undressed or sleep. These spaces were originally designed to protect the dignity, privacy, and safety of female women and girls. Organisations such as Youth Hostelling Scotland, Topshop, Caledonian Sleeper, Girl Guiding UK, and some women’s prisons, are already allowing into these spaces trans women who say they are women. Many trans women retain male genitalia and a sexual attraction towards females. If gender reassignment proceeds by ‘self-ID’ then in practice, this will make transitioning much easier, and will eventually mean more trans women in female-only spaces, unless the law excludes them. It also means that it will be increasingly hard for women-only spaces to keep out any males, whether trans women or not, because in practice people might not be able to tell the difference by appearance. This puts women at risk from predatory males who want to take advantage of the loophole. Meanwhile, the existing Equalities Act is confusing for people and does not help sort out the issues. I think all this should be discussed openly, listening to all people affected, including females....' (continues)

medium.com/@kathleenstock/full-text-of-interview-with-brighton-argus-45a23acfe92e