Who's going to the WEP Conference this weekend? Fancy a thread?

I'll be there tomorrow.

Cwen

I'm watching to see how all this pans out, then possibly I might jump ship from Labour.

Btw: Fox and Owl are hosting a transgender event on Saturday

A must do, obvs! I'll clear my diary.

Re-awakened! Awful typo

If you can arran I’d wholeheartedly recommend it. It was attending FiLiA last year that re-awokened my desire to do feminism not just talk about it - I rejoined WEP shortly afterwards. Beatrix Campbell spoke at a session about her own struggles as a Green Party member (she’s been VERY vocal on recent developments, good on her!) but that she felt she had to stay in the party to effect change, or critical voices would be lost.

i'm really interested to hear about this from the two of you who are going!

Hinsliff piece: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/07/womens-equality-party-politics-sophie-walker

When was Sophie Walker mauled on Mumsnet? (Could have done with a link to that assertion.) Is this the context for the booing at WPUK meeting? Janice Turner's account:

Brunskell Evans’s views were anodyne enough to be broadcast on the BBC at teatime, but the WEP sacked her because a single transgender member complained. Eventually on Tuesday night Sophie Walker, the WEP leader, rose to say, in classic mealy-mouthed politician mode, “I’m listening” to fears about changes to the Act. She was roundly booed: I’m not surprised.

Gaby Hinsliff has a piece about the WEP in todays Guardian,comments are open and there is a comment about MN 'transphobes' and another about 'terfs'
I've responded to one of them ,will check how long it stays up.

I'm guessing Michelle Brewer didn't want any questions about Jess Bradley, co-founder of TELI.

I was fully planning to attend the conference until WEP's WOKE and entitled actions took me to the point where I could no longer support them financially.

I'm wondering if I could manage Manchester in October for the feminist conference but my timetable is very unclear at present.

Have to say am a little bit surprised, I thought more of us would come out of the woodwork.

The point of WEP, and WEP developing policies, is that we want WEP policies to be taken by the bigger parties. It would be huge if we could craft a feminist policy on GRA that stops short of supporting legal self-declaration. And have it ready made to hand over.

If there are lurkers (or posters) who do want to influence and contribute to WEP policy on this, hopefully it will be opened up to wider membership after conference - so join and be heard. The constitution allows for electronic voting on issues so that is my hope.

Membership is from £4 a month or there is a low cost option of £1.96 a month if you need it. If you are a member of another party you can join as an affiliate member (from £3 a month)- you still have full voting rights in my understanding.

So is it really just two MNer WEP members going this weekend (or willing to ‘openly’ admit it anonymously!).

Btw the speakers at the “Changes to the Gender Recognition Act” session (billed as for those who have little understanding of the issue) are Claire McCann and Cath Casserley. Seems Michelle Brewer has either cried off or been quietly dropped.

Btw: Fox and Owl are hosting a transgender event on Saturday. This likely means that the WEP won't be overrun with TRAs, I assume.

from the article by Magda Devas linked above:
concludes;

"If we give up the old fashioned definition of ‘woman’, which is first and foremost based on biology, and allow that biologically males can be women, then we are not only giving up our identiy as women, we are giving up all the rights to the sex-based protections that women have under the Equality Act 2010.

The Equality Act has been shown up as being weak and women are losing these protections. I believe our concerns should be all about strengthening the Equality Act so that women have rights to women only spaces and services, and that these should be maintained under law.

If we can delicately pull apart the boundaries between women’s and transgender people’s rights, and recreate them with respect and consideration, we will be able to create alliances rather than discord with the transgender community and work in alliance to fight the discriminations that we do share."

WEP lost my money over Heather and their treatment of her.

I feel duped by WEP. They would need to perform a huge mea culpa and not just signal but actually start doing something for women outside their privileged coterie to win my money back.

Magda Devas published this today

medium.com/@magdadevas/this-is-a-crucial-time-for-wep-99216d6eaeab

I know a lot of MNers have written off WEP and SW but it seems our best hope at this point.

I’m with you on this. No other political party is even entertaining the idea that there is a debate to be had on GRA reform, yet alone attempting to facilitate one amongst members.

I’ve got Friday off so that’s my time to get a brief set of bullet points together for any sessions I might try to speak at. 3 minutes is not a lot of time to get your point across.

Thanks @Cwenthryth - my DCs are too young/clingy to go to that kind of ad hoc childcare and the babysitter isn’t free unfortunately!

I do now one WEP member who’s going but unfortunately she has drunk the kool-aid, so won’t be on the GC side I think :(

Just to clarify- I’m not going to WEP conference but I’d love a thread to find out how it goes. Good luck!