Artistic Director of Queer Up North speaks out on trans activism, Stonewall and women's rights

Just caught up. Happy for this. Thanks Jonny.

Agree with PeakPants and Datun on so much.

Third spaces... and men giving away women's female reality when it wasn't theirs to give, an dall this emen who support transing men because they still identify with=empathise with any man more than any woman. And hierarchy of women. No. The line is drawn at female.

Saul No one is erasing trans identities. I beleive they feel trans. I will recognise people are trans. I have no hate for them because of it unless they behave hatefully first.. But if the guy down the road tels me he is Elvis, I am going to think he has a MH disorder. I will be considerate in how I repsond but in no way am I erasing his identity by knowing that he isn't what he believes he is.

Even it transwomen are attracted to men and therefore perceived as less sexual risk, as a broad rule I don't want male bodied people, gender dysphoric or not, in my toilets etc because of male people's general propensity to be sexist/misogynistic. It is bad enough to get that from some women in female spaces, but I'll be damned if I want to suffer it from a male bodied person or transwoman. Because we are talking about random strangers here in random public or semi-public places - not just people we can get to know individually and have discretion and possibly some influence over like maybe at a small and friendly workplace.

SarahAr All that is needed is the intention to live in your acquired gender for the rest of your life

"living in your acquired gender" is completely indefinable and 'unevidencable' unless you use either biology (which cannot be changed and therefore cannot be genuinely lived as), or gender and feminine stereotypes (which are oppressive to women and not all women live by) as PeakPants says.

It is a loophole that you TRAs use to try to trick us into feeling reassured, but actually I think you know it would be easy to prove in court using GC women and general women that there is no one type of woman as a gender (only bio sex), so women as a gender can mean whatever they want it to mean if biology mens nothing, nicely encompassing Beardy Drummond and Danielle Muscato - the double upside for some TRAs/MRAs being that with the right judge you could attempt to enshrine the performance of some aspects of femininity or femal roles in law as a defining feature of being a woman - so its a win-win potentially when you try to move the agument away from the restrictive term transsexual to something that is more nebulous and suitable for your manipulation.

There is only murky recourse in law here (as with zero recourse for self-ID in toilets), but more deliberate tactics to stop women being able to define and protect ourselves and each other.

Thanks for such an articulate article @JonnyBestthe implications of people intimidated into silence needs to be repeatedly highlighted.

The current and real risks in prisons and health settings are deliberately downplayed.

What an excellent article. Perfectly summarises a lot of the issues that have been concerning me. Thank you OP for sharing.

JonnyBest 👏👏👏👏

Nail. Head.

Great article Jonny, I really look forward to your future work and seeing you on here again too hopefully. It's sparked a very interesting thread too, seems like many of the views here are interesting to you and helping to develop your thinking. Welcome to the thousands of us who are here visibly or invisibly and agree with that sentiment.

Agreed Alittleshade. And it is exactly what he should be sticking his neck out about, but at least he replied to JB on the thread. He is absolutely the right person to highlight the issues though. But he will be afraid, as so many are.

Sarah Ar
That's a malicious accusation.

Gender identity is already written into the law. Gender identity is an inherent part of the medical condition gender dysphoria see www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria. And today the only way you can legally change your gender is with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
.... There is a difference between gender dysphoria and gender identity, as you well know. Gender dysphoria refers specifically to a mismatch between one's sex and one's internal identity (gender identity). The law is written with transsexuals in mind. Gender identity (which includes things like the plethora of non-binary identities) in and of itself is not protected, AAIK. Gender reassignment (which presumes transitioning form one gender to another, not any other gender identity), and there is mechanism for a legal gender change which requires a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Gender identity is merely a declarative statement. Gender dysphoria is a medical condition that has been assessed and treated by an external professional.

If self-id goes ahead, then the need for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria goes away. In fact gender identity is removed from the law. All that is needed is the intention to live in your acquired gender for the rest of your life.
Yeah. This is exactly the problem. It will rely on a person saying "I am what I say I am, I promise, and I promise to always be this."
No evidence is required. There is no way of questioning this. Please tell me how we would stop someone like Ian Huntley or Christopher Hambrook from taking advantage of this system and claim legal entitlement to female services? Also, what are you going to do about detransitioners or gender fluid people? Surely they should be able to change back to a previous gender if you are making everything purely based on self-declaration?

Sadly Jonny is another in a long series of progressive non-trans men who have been called out on their transphobia (here's looking at you Graham Linehan). Rather than self-reflect, he has been drawn to a gender critical view point presumably because this validates his transphobia and saves his ego from harm.
He is questioning the orthodoxy of the trans activist movement. He has clearly shown that he cares about trans people, but wants to show an interest in female concerns. If anything, he has taken great personal risk for expressing these views as a person within the LGBTQ+ community. No woman here wants him to necessarily start parroting our exact words. We are just grateful to anyone who actually listens to us, instead of sending death threats... That is how low the bar is now - someone reading a board on a parenting forum is enough to make me feel grateful that they're at least considering the feminist viewpoint, and it's enough for you to condemn them to guilt by association.
How can you possibly say we are terrible females, just for speaking on this subject, and then smear someone for interacting with us? Why are females the only group not allowed to define themselves and their boundaries? Can we not have an opinion on things that actually deeply affect us?
Many of us have done a LOT of careful reflection, research and thinking on this issue, partly because it is so dangerous to even start questioning. We have to at least talk about this.

It is, of course, toxic masculinity that is to blame for all of this. And yet men get off scot free it seems, which is why we are so grateful for Jonny's input.

I am not trying to invalidate trans people's identities, but until a discussion can actually be had about toxic masculinity, and how feminine males cannot feel comfortable in their sex, and in male spaces, and about how masculine women feel pressured into becoming men to be accepted, all of this is just shouting into the void.

That’s a shame, Saul. He calls himself a feminist and he’s the father of 2 young girls. Women can discuss and intelligently debate this for hours but the tide will only really turn when men in the public eye come out against the nonsense that is, ‘nodebate’.

Rather than self-reflect, he has been drawn to a gender critical view point presumably because this validates his transphobia and saves his ego from harm.

That is clearly nonsense. I doubt you even believe half the rubbish you type. Have you actually read the article?

He won't Alittleshaderequired.

It’s such a non confrontational article. I do hope Robert Webb has his gin and retweets.

Great article Jonny and great thread. I find the whole issue shocking, all of it, but in particular the encouraging of young people, who would usually identify as gay or lesbian, to undergo hormone treatment/ surgery etc. I know a young woman going through this. When I spoke to her about the risks involved to her health, she seemed unaware of them. It's madness.

I may have missed this already mentioned in the thread but I thought the comment on his twitter feed pointing out how the transgender lobby has done a huge disservice to transsexual individuals recovering from or heading towards who are now being treated with far less empathy and understanding was something we don’t tend to think about. Or at least I haven’t until recently.

I mostly just want to reply with that meme to a lot of things that TRAs post tbh...

*littlebrowndog
*
I pretty much hear that too when I read sarahar's efforts. Mostly I just want to reply with this...

Transphobic blah blah
Hate blah blah
Transphobia blah blah
Called out blah blah

sarahar

When you say his transphobia what do you think it means?

Is transphobia disliking/hating/fearing someone for:
a) having a mental condition where they perceive themselves in a way that is at odds with reality?
b) wearing the clothes and paraphernalia and adopting mannerisms stereotypical of the opposite sex?
c) trying to deceive others about their sex?

Or is it something else more akin to not believing you can literally be 'trans' - across both sexes?

'Non-trans man.' I'd rather you said 'non-woman'. Can we refer to all men as 'non-women' from now on please?

I mean conclusion but confusion is a pretty good word for it too....

What the shit is a non trans man. Is that like a man ? Just a man

SarahAr have you actually read Jonny's piece? Because it doesn't sound as if you have. If you have and you have come to that confusion, then I think the self-reflection in order is yours. I wish you well.

Naw Sarahr.

He’s not stupid he is just telling the truth

When I say prove I mean claim!