"After some very moving contributions, TUC unanimously supports gender self-declaration"

The Cat is out of the bag

StonewallUK give us some clear guidance & information on proposed reforms to the GRA ASLEF union currently speaking in support of Motion 41 #TUC150

Graham Easterlow on twitter (holding a copy of "Some People are Trans Get Over it")

twitter.com/GEasterlowNEU/status/1039463399221014528

boatyardblues wrote: Good, hard question from Kathleen Stock.

It's almost as if they didn't want the insight of a leading commentator in this area.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3353260-Kathleen-Stock-womens-organisations-have-decentred-biological-females

Maybedoctor wrote: What is the stance of the WI?

SwearyG broke my heart by revealing that the WI is pursuing young, woke members by decentering biological females in Stock's phrase (or however Posie Parker would express it).

Good, hard question from Kathleen Stock. It is imperative that UCU works for all of its members.

WI - inclusive of TW.

What is the stance of the WI?

There is also group called ‘Mothers at home matter’.

Which groups are gender critical?

Terrified do let us know if you get anything back from Kiri. I feel really stuck atm - my contracts are very very fragile because of the funding situation, and I would have expected the union to be helpful if I did have to e.g. challenge a dodgy PSHE pack.

However, and apologies for multiple points, I think you can ask about it as a point of procedure in a democratic institution. How is it that a vote which potentially affects around half of those in universities was made without consultation and discussion and you learnt about it on Twitter? Simply ask how that came about without disclosing your own position.

And also should add female students to that. But also questioning when people use the word ‘gender’ when they mean ‘sex’ and asking them to clarify what they mean. Get them to think. That is what we are there for, surely.

The point is that universities should be places which are open to debate and discussion. That is their raisin d’etre (sp). Universities should also be creating learners who ask questions and do not close off answers because they sit difficulty with them.
That is aside from the fact that female bodied people should be able to express concerns about laws and actions which target or affect female-bodied people and the communities they live and work in.

The first tentative steps I am making are simply to make my (mostly male) colleagues aware of the debate and the difficulty of the terrain for female academics. Simply as a point of fact, with the acknowledgment that people have different views.

"Mark Fairhurst, acting general secretary of the Prison Officers’ Association, said the rapist’s placement among women prisoners was “disgraceful”, adding: “We would demand a full inquiry and we would expect disciplinary action to be taken against decision makers.” " From the Sunday Times article.

Two days later Prison Officers Assoc vote in support of self-ID (POA on that TUC list). Can they not join the dots?

Bugger - could you frame it as a question around the recent coverage of the academic hit list & ask whether the Union can give assurances that female academics will receive the support of their union in fighting disciplinary cases that are launched on the back of targetted harrassment by TRAs? You could cite the lack of consultation as a worrying sign that the Union won’t support GC women.

There's a list of unions who are members of the TUC here:

www.tuc.org.uk/unions

I am UCU member and we have a general meeting today at our university. I would like to raise the issue of the vote, and lack of consultation with the membership, but am afraid to. I am not known for being shy to speak; this is a very peculiar situation to find myself in.

With 'brexit' there's a massive labour shortage mainly of women workers. 100 000 down in NHS? We know that schools are desperate for staff. This is a live issue for us.

Union men aren't that daft. Are they?

if it’s unpaid labour you mean I’m not sure how that would impact
I'm not sure either. It's worked elsewhere though.

I got what your saying about withdrawing labour- but if it’s unpaid labour you mean I’m not sure how that would impact.
I need an MP list to contact along with my own MP to get views across and gather their views on all this.

We are being forced into this, as our own GC reps are being removed from posts in unions and labour.
I don’t want to live in a parallel world that’s not equality
Which is what we have now.

But we are still the majority.

We're 52% of population.
Do 70-80% of unpaid work.
Get paid 25% at least less of the paid work?
Seems simple: withdraw labour: it is ours to withdraw.

We need a Women's Union.

@silentcrow Kirk Tunks is NUT president and is actively and openly gender critical. She isinovolbed in WPUK. She also seems to be an entirely lone voice and the union voted to support self is at conference. I wonder if we could form a gender critical group within the NUT? I am going to contact Kiri on Twitter to ask her about the state of play (I don’t know her but have metheronce and discussed this issue. She is a brilliant woman).

Turph- yes- it lets them off the hook- I don’t want to live in a parallel world that’s not equality.

Carrrotsandcauliflower yes I'm keen to avoid it generally.
It smacks of "I'm taking my ball and I'm going home" and people don't respond well to it, no matter what the initial provocation was. It's not a good way to build support.
I'm going to challenge through my branch, I'll report back when I hear anything.

arranfan
Right, I'm with you now.

Women’s seperatism like this though makes me feel that we are being pushed out instead of pushing back in.

Turph wrote: arranfan sorting security is irrelevant. We're not seceding from the UK, we want accountability about a serious issue dealt with undemocratically by a major organisation.

I've written several times about accountability in this thread.

However, I did omit the sentence that I was mentioning the above as a historical note that is effectively a follow-up that a century on, we have women wondering if we need a women's political party and union - and parallel concerns about security.

It's the historical parallels that strike me in this centenary year. It's unfortunate if a reader construed it another way.

I've just come back from a super-sekrit women-only meeting where I found out about this. I'm furious and I'm about to resign from Unite. If they won't help me survive the workplace fallout from challenging the biggest structural threat to my rights in my life to date, they can fuck off.

We need the following:

• a women's union, to help defend our workplace rights...
• with an associated women's legal defence fund, to help refuges and rape crisis services fight TRA strategic lawsuits and fund strategic lawsuits of our own to challenge anti-women practices...
• and an associated women's political campaign to defend and strengthen our civil rights in the statute books.

So Ian Murch's response to the concerned members protesting about this is to goad and sneer.

How unprofessional!