RollOnFriday - law firm writes report called "Only adults? Good practices in legal gender recognition for youth"

Another poster up thread mentioned law firms are frightened of being on the receiving end of a Twitter tirade. That has been another successful tactic. Trawling social media and stamping on anyone who questions this insanity. Bullying is at the core of this and people are too frightened to speak out. It’s just unbelievable

Target youth politicians, human rights, hate crime, get ahead of the government agenda. This sinister lobby group have managed to colonise state institutions and NGOs so quickly because of the craven posturing of politicos who have failed to defend freedom of speech and thought. They have managed to present themselves as the very apex of a hierarchy of oppression whilst infiltrating every aspect of state power. Including the police!

The Dentons report states the following: “..NGOs need to intervene early in the legislative process and ideally before it has even started. This will give them far greater ability to shape the government agenda and the ultimate proposal, than if they intervene after the government has already started to develop its own proposals.”
This tactic has been facilitated in the UK by the Government Equalities Office which has arranged for trans lobbyists to have preferential access to policy makers right across government, with the objective of influencing policy. This is show by the following extract from the GEO’s written submission to the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee enquiry (2016) on transgender equality.
“GEO works across Government in order to influence and support other Government departments, bringing the voice of transgender people into Government policy-making. GEO seeks to help other Government departments understand the experience of transgender people so that policy can properly take into account the specific needs of transgender people. GEO also aims to facilitate dialogue between Government departments and transgender stakeholders so that stakeholders can directly access those responsible for the relevant policy...”
In order to ensure we understand the needs of transgender people and fully understand any associated issues, GEO maintains a regular dialogue with a wide range of stakeholders. GEO meets regularly with transgender stakeholders to discuss key issues of concern and the possible solutions to resolve those issues. In addition, the GEO engages through sector-wide fora, which have representation from transgender organisations, to identify and clarify the key issues of concern.”

Giving lobbyists preferential access to policy makers, and excluding other groups that could be impacted by those policies, is a recipe for policy capture. Any civil servant (or regulator) should know this.

In terms of why - I think a lot of people simply don't think this stuff through. I think they see a 'oh poor trans people' narrative, read the dodgy suicide stats (which are quoted at least three times in this document as far as I've read and I'm only 1/3 through) and also want to be 'down with the kids' (see point 1 in Good practices for Advocacy) above.

Plus I also think that most people don't really understand safeguarding. I certainly had a very vague understanding and hadn't really joined the dots until quite recently. Let's face it - this is a campaign chiefly driven by a) adults who don't have children and b) young people driven by Tumblr.

Until I had children of my own, I hadn't really thought about safeguarding ever. It had never been of concern or, I have to confess, of interest.

Next bit - this is the 'how to get governments to do what you want without anyone noticing' bit

Good practices for NGO advocacy

1. Target youth politicians - "activists found it useful to make the point that youth politicians are the senior politicians of the future and

So - appeal to the vanity of older politicans by telling them that younger ones are totally on side yeah so that they can look down wiv da kidz

1. De-medicalise the campaign - make it clear that young people don't have to have surgery if they identify as transgender. Even though that is entirely the route that's advocated as best practice by advocacy organisations

1. Use case studies of real people

1. Anonymise the narratives

1. Get ahead of the government agenda and the media story

1. Use human rights as a campaign point

1. Tie your campaign to more popular reform

1. Avoid excessive press coverage and exposure

1. Carpe diem

10. Work together
    Fot lots of reasons but "utimately gives greater legitimacy to a national campaign and maximizes the prospects of success."

11. Be wary of compromise
    In Ireland, they've got self ID through but not for young people which is a terrible mistake because it's going to take years for them to change that.

That's it in terms of overall recommendations

I think one of the problems is that trustees and board members across charities and companies often seem to be interconnected and they will recruit others with similar views and objectives. I'm not sure how we break the cycle, other that through parliament putting a stop to this.

The sooner some cases for negligence come to court the better, but sadly that means there will have to be victims first

There must have been a lot of useful idiots who have allowed this to happen. I mean how large can this lobby group be? One would have thought that more people are in the animal rights movement but they haven’t managed lobbying on a scale anywhere near this.

I’m starting to wonder how many employees are already clandestinely implementing these underhand tactics in the BBC, the Civil Service and other organisations

I should think the BBC and the Civil Service have already been completely colonized. The regulatory capture is just off the charts

Bernard,
I just can’t understand how this has happened. Who the hell are these people? How have they managed to colonise every aspect of the state while avoiding any scrutiny? They are trying to ram through policies that would never get public consent and criminalize any dissent. What the hell is going on?

Why did Denton's publish it? Was it leaked?

So, a summary. This is what IGLYO (an organisation funded by the EC and the Dutch government) advocate.
Good practice in national legal frameworks

1. Quick and affordable access to legal gender recognition based on the model of selfdetermination - no medical diagnosis or legal intervention, low cost, no requirement to 'live in acquired gender'

1. Extending the process to minors

1. No requirement for sterilisation, surgical, medical treatment or diagnosis - think that doesn't need any further clarification. Exactly what it says.

1. Relationships should only be altered if favourable

So spouses do not have the right of veto.
Children can have their birth certificates altered after they have been born if their parent decides to change gender (they haven't really thought this whole 'rights of the child' thing through have they?)

1. Legal gender recognition at birth

1. Recognition of a third gender - x marks the spot

1. Gender confirmation treatment should be available and reimbursable

Hang on, I thought you didn't want any treatment? But if you do want treatment, it should just be because you say so. And the State should pay for it!

1. Established sanctions for breaching the law on gender recognition

If your parents won't let you be the gender you identify as, you should be able to sue them. And if your teacher accidentally calls you Emil rather than Emily, you'll sue them too! That'll learn em

Phew. Next lot of recommendations in next post.

It is jaw dropping

I’d really like to see this in the national press

It would be super to see Denton’s defending this report

I hope Kirkup and other journalists really dig in to this. The document was prepared pro bono. Why? At whose request? Are there parallel strategic documents in other countries where institutional capture has taken place?

The entire thing is almost unbelievable. This lobby group have got a vice like grip on the entire apparatus of the state and they have done it with absolutely zero media or public scrutiny. It hasn’t happened over night, it must have been going on for years. Who the hell is funding this? Who are these people? It’s profoundly anti democratic. I hope the media does some relentless forensic investigation into this because it’s deeply sinister

I'd like to get this thread pinned at the top of every board until people actually notice what is going on!!!

Isn't it amazing what the difference is when the group in question is by massive majority, male, white, straight, able bodied, affluent and educated?

Isn't it indeed?

And yes, who is going to look after all these children? Despite what some prominent people might say on Twitter, I suspect they don't actually want a glut of angst-ridden, emotionally fragile teenagers turning up on their doorstep.

And even if the State were any good at providing care (it isn't), it kicks kids out at 16 and, if they're lucky, gives them a bedsit and a couple of hundred quid. We are all collateral damage.

Indeed Bernard. The state makes a terrible parent when children are pushed out or fall out of their families. You just have to look at all the reviews into abuse in children's homes etc.

Yet here are all these powerful, influential groups actively advocating to remove children from their parents and nobody gives a damn. No politicians, the powerful and influential, safeguarding charities paid £££ of public money, the police or the legal profession.

Everyone is standing back and silent while these groups openly propose the removal of a generation of children from their parents? Why isn't this the headline in every paper / news bulletin?

We’re basically just cannon fodder providing the next generation of cannon fodder to these people. What business do we have expecting to have any say in their decisions about our children?

The astonishing thing is we all know how shit the outcomes are for children where the state acts in loco parentis

these kind of companies were lazy af in supporting equality for women, people from BAME communities and people with disabiities - its taken years to get inroads in the City for those groups but the trans agenda is fully accepted and promoted within what 3/4years?? how the hell did it happen?

Isn't it amazing what the difference is when the group in question is by massive majority, male, white, straight, able bodied, affluent and educated?

Kit19
It may be because they can bang the woke/diverse/inclusive drum about trans questions without too much prospect of actually having to employ [m]any trans people.

For international law firms it's about them wanting to embed their brand into the middle of active areas of policy development, legislation, etc. Especially when it's those areas that have an aura of making the world a better place.

It's the equivalent of a tech company doing blue sky research in the hope of massive pay-offs in the future.

Slaughter & May are far from the only ones

www.herbertsmithfreehills.com/news/herbert-smith-freehills-launches-ground-breaking-global-transitioning-guidelines-for

its makes me want to smash things that these kind of companies were lazy af in supporting equality for women, people from BAME communities and people with disabiities - its taken years to get inroads in the City for those groups but the trans agenda is fully accepted and promoted within what 3/4years?? how the hell did it happen?

Law firms seem to be falling over themselves es to ingratiate themselves with the trans lobby. Slaughter and May (yup, really) has posted on its Trainee Careers FB page its support for an event called "Trans in the City". I think they're all terrified of being blacklisted by some woke organisation with the result that applications for training contracts will dry up. These are organisations which bang on endlessly about the need to think critically and to stand one's ground in the face of a lack of logic; but they seem to be making a predictable exception

Why are they hiding it.

They admit the public wouldn5 like it

What are they hiding from the public

Stripping away safeguarding from children

If you know deep down there's something not right about your ideology, then you need to do two things: 1) stop others discussing it and 2) avoid explaining what you believe.

And I was reading in other threads (not FWR) how sick some posters are of the concentration in FWR on the trans issue. If even other mumsnetters don't get/care what is going on, what hope is there?