Joan McAlpine on sex and census. Wow.

Joan McAlpine can come round for her tea anytime

Joan McAlpine
@JoanMcAlpine
I'll write a considered reply to

@EngenderScot
letter defending themselves from criticism re "Sex & the Census" Meantime read the response from
@ForwomenScot

Brilliant statement from For Women Scotland. Thank you. It's at least a couple of weeks since I last donated, happy to do so again.

Grassroots activism is extremely powerful and incredibly moving to watch, I feel incredibly privileged to have these women fight for me.

questions around gender identity and women's equality are very visible on social media and in MSP' s mailbags This to me is Engender acknowledging that women are concerned and this is a big deal, they are aware. This visibility has been brought about by grass roots activism, women speaking out. Ignoring or dismissing that is foolish.

they are not emerging as a significant area of concern in our engagement activities because Engender and their ilk by their own admission no longer concern themselves with the rights of women and girls. Again they are stating this clearly so they no longer have the right to claim public funding on our behalf, that should go to the grass roots working towards upholding our rights and centring women in their work.

Wow to For Women Scotland too. Grassroots women's groups shouldn't have to explain that there will, of course, be equally experienced/educated/consciousness-raised women in them; including women who have/may use the services which may be impacted. This hierarchy of women's experience, based on valuing if we get paid for work, over unpaid work, women do, was (I thought) one of the first things women tried to deconstruct as Feminists. Listening to some of the male MSPs (e.g. RG) they don't seem to get that individual women's experiences/views matter too.

Links

Not kinks

The kinks are NOT worth following.

And a reply to Engender from one of those very organisations

forwomen.scot/02/03/2019/engender/

Well worth a careful read and the kinks are worth following.

Engender really has shot itself in its hairy size 12 stiletto clad foot.

Scotland is using public money to silence women
It seems like it if they fund other "Equalities" lobby groups which want to further erode EA2010 (saw evidence of this re: LGBTI groups' previous statements). Engender needs to evidence that it has consulted with their membership over this-if they have. They promote self Id (had a look at their Join up page) so a lot of feminists who are GC may not join, in principle-how will they capture views which are different from their own?
I find it hard to believe that any women's organisation would not reflect when see JM's almost 2,000 "Likes" (so far) & hundreds of supportive comments on her thread (plus in here/by message to her) that this indicates growing support of her women centred (what is "regressive" about that?!) views. This, on top (they say) of lots of concerns sent to MSP's mailboxes-perhaps because many women (who also have "decades of experience") are not on Twitter.

Fantastic summary so beautifully written. Joan Mc Alpine is indeed a SHERO!

That thread from Bones shows how much Emma Richie from Engender is working against women to make sure they cannot have their voices heard, because she's so invested in making sure that the Trans orgs are able to keep repeating "all the Scottish Women's Organisations are trans inclusive, and there are no problems in Scotland".

At last, a woman showing leadership on this issue, and look, the sky didn't fall!
Thank you Joan McAlpine

They think that most women are accepting of trans ideology because they haven't heard many speak up against it. Duh!

This^ Once the people in power realise that actually the general public doesn't support the idea of males in female spaces the whole thing will fall apart.

So far they have been operating in their own wee cozy bubbles, bit once opposing views are heard, and once evidence is heard, and once consultations actually happen properly it becomes clear that the TRAs are effectively a cult.

That statement from Engender is hilariously bad.

We don't represent women and girls, yeah, don't we fucking know it.

... Nor do we claim to - what is the point of you, then? And if you don't, who actually does? Because it's very evident now that there are NO organisations who represent women and girls, which is kind of a problem when laws and policies are being changed which affect women and girls. And now there are grassroots W&G orgs, which Engender don't allow to participate.

Which leads me to...

Although questions around gender identity and women's equality are very visible on social media and in MSP' s mailbags, they are not emerging as a significant area of concern in our engagement activities

Which makes it very clear that because they don't allow women's groups who hold GC views to be part of the org, they then don't hear any GC views. Which, funnily enough, then leads to them thinking "Gender Critical Feminism being an English thing". FFS!

Yes, imagine, if you don't allow all the Scottish GC views to be discussed, then you can claim they don't exist.

I haven't read the full thing yet, but this appears to detail the process of question-testing for the sex/gender question that the Scottish census people have gone through so far.

www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/documents/census2021/Sex_and_Gender_Identity_Topic_Report.pdf

Although questions around gender identity and women's equality are very visible on social media and in MSP' s mailbags, they are not emerging as a significant area of concern in our engagement activities

This is either because a lot of the general public are still not aware that policies for the protection of women and girls are being removed by stealth or because it's really hard to speak up about this and be labelled a TERF.

They think that most women are accepting of trans ideology because they haven't heard many speak up against it. Duh!

I think they're about to hear a lot more now.

Joan McAlpine
‏Verified account @JoanMcAlpine
Huge thanks to all who liked/shared my Sex & the Census Thread & the private messages of support from women,men, gay, straight, lesbian, bi & trans folks (including politicians of different hues!) who believe in respectful, open discussion of these issues.

gender lens?
Gender Goggles, more like

It is just a list of insulting statements about women isn't it? Every paragraph contradicts itself. It is an astoundingly poor statement.

Although questions around gender identity and women’s equality are currently very visible on social media and in MSP mailbags, they are not emerging as a significant area of concern in our engagement activities.
SHUT UP WOMEN

there is a consensus emerging around trans-inclusive feminism (says who?)THEN our organisations challenges sexist and patriarchal views of women and traditional gender roles all whilst dissing the very idea of gc thinking. Pick one you can't have both!

Theoretical discussions about how gender, gender identity and sex interrelate are important to feminist analysis, and the gender lens that our collective work applies to policymaking in Scotland. It is vital that these discussions do not devolve into a conversation that is polarised and evidence-light.
WRONGTHINK and how very fucking sinister sounding. The gender lens? Really? The gender lens applied to policymaking in Scotland? That right there is the problem, I cannot believe the dissonance required to actually put that in black and white.

This, more than any other nonsense I have seen, convinces me beyond any doubt that Scotland is using public money to silence women. Altering the law purposefully in the guise of men centred "feminism", that is a deeply chilling and incredibly stupid admission to make.

developing appropriate mechanisms for prisons (and other single-sex spaces) that would prevent male perpetrators maliciously... because the mechanism of single sex space is not mannish enough?

I can't even begin to cover the obscenity that any other approach is evidence-light. The only thing lacking in evidence is the ridiculous concept of gender trumping material reality.

Stand firm Joan, Scotland is with you on this!

our funding from Scottish Government does not require any of us to adopt any particular policy positions
So Kezia's question was answered wrongly was it?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3477627-For-Women-Scotland-Public-meeting-on-Womens-Rights-in-Scotland-Edinburgh-31-1-19
Education, Communities and Justice
Kezia Dugdale
(Lothian) (Scottish Labour):
To Ask the Scottish Government Whether its funding for violence against women specifically requires organisations and projects to be trans inclusive and, if so, where this requirement is stated.
(S5W-19971)
Christina McKelvie: Applicants To the Equally Safe Violence Against Women And Girls Fund are required to provide their LBTI Inclusion Plan (or An GBTI Plan for organisations providing direct support to men) as part of their application. Applicants Without these plans in place are not considered.

"We neither ‘represent women and girls’, nor make any claim to."

What is the point in them then?

Scotland's "feminist" organisation is not happy and have written this letter to Joan:

www.engender.org.uk/news/blog/letter-to-joan-mcalpine-msp/

Some interesting nuggets:

"We neither ‘represent women and girls’, nor make any claim to."

"England is palpably an outlier within the UK, in terms of the prevalence of gender critical feminism, and the UK is an outlier in global terms. However, there has always been a gender critical strand within British feminism, and it comes to the fore on a cyclical basis."

Oh, and they constantly switch between 'sex' and 'gender'.

My SNP MP replied to an email of mine( asking if she was going to attend the women's meeting at the HoP) condemming the transphobic debate around the issue of the GRA, that women's groups had no problems whatsoever with it - and she was so busy anyway with Brexit anyway.

I do hope she's paying attention now.

Wonderful!