Quaker's response to finding that leasing a room to WPUK wasn't a straightforward booking!

*from anything

it had become an internal conflict between groups of Quakers

Fair enough.

What organisations do to manage their own intra-conflicts is their own business. I still don't think it's a great breakthrough, and I wonder what women who are cheerleading the 'common ground' Quakers suggest we build on, are imagining that common ground to be, and how that common ground differs to anything we share with men who are not trans.

A process and time? Idk. Not for everyone. Depends on your starting point, I guess.

Someone close to me suffered workplace harassment by a late AGP transitioner, whose rages at work were explained away as 'hormonal' - this was more than a decade ago, and the workplace bent over backwards for him in a way we had never observed it doing for its female employees. Rages towards subordinants were also explained away as the junior employee having triggered the transitioner's dysphoria.
It took that person I was close to, and I, about 3.3 seconds to observe and name the abusive, misogynist dynamic and reject the demand to recognise male 'womanhood'.

The incredible differences between how women are dealt with, and how the trans caste is revered, has been on display for more than a decade.

In my dreams, I imagine a respected organisation saying something like:

"We acknowledge that we come late to the protection of women's rights and women's speech, and we sincerely apologise for our silence as bystanders.

We hope to remedy our grave error of ethics today with our committment to women, and to women's rights, a commitment which is absolute.

In this, the 21st century, we acknowledge the shameful truth that not only are millions of women around the world suffering from prejudice, discrimination and violence on the basis of their sex, but that their existing and hard-won rights are under threat even in the supposedly equitable West.
There is no justice in the world without justice for women at its core."

Sigh. Daydream over.

To me, even if I knew nothing on this matter, the actions of people in trying to shut down the peaceful gathering and speech of women would tell me everything I needed to know.

Some of the people who complained about the WPUK meeting were members of their own community. I think this is why they felt they needed to find out why they wanted the meeting to be shut down, as it had become an internal conflict between groups of Quakers.

But watching people become aware of the issue in real time is very frustrating.

This! I understand this completely. And it's hard to watch it in real time while women and girls are being hurt, and their lives constrained, NOW. But it took every one of us in this thread a process and time to work out what we think of it all, and for many of us to completely reverse our long-held, instinctive responses.

As frustrating as it can sometimes be, I never, ever want us to get to our own version of #nodebate

Oh I know here is different, Binterested and I really shouldn't moan, but as has been more eloquently expressed by others, it's somewhat frustrating to 'watch'.

I hear you Jane. I am personally very interested in ROGD mums and you collectively have been at the centre of my beginnings of understanding all this. Many on this board have experience of children going through the turbulence of puberty and your collective willingness to share the ways this turbulence can capsize a child’s grasp on who they are has been very important for me.

However what I take from this issue is that we are a religious species. And I say this without reference to the Quakers. People are. Generally. People look for supernatural reasons for all sorts of things and the souls/wrong body thing is just a new catechism. They start from there and then we have to slowly unpick all the misapprehensions that took them there. The fact that the Quakers were willing to put the time in despite the default thought that we must be kind to people born in the wrong body is helpful.

It is frustrating that people don’t see the core truth of women’s words via WPUK immediately. But then there are many women shouting on the other side so it’s confusing for people until you take time over it. And that’s what the Quakers have done. So I thank them.

It's an interesting read. They appear to have a framework to deal with conflict that generally works and they overlaid it on to this issue.

Resulting in agreeing that hosting the WPUK meeting is acceptable.

So as far as it goes, it did work.

But watching people become aware of the issue in real time is very frustrating. Partly because they are still manipulated by false statements but also, as others have said, that a feminist or even pro woman viewpoint never seems to be staring them in the face.

I bet they have no idea that Hayton has admitted to a strong sexual motive in transitioning. Facilitating a fetish would not, i imagine, be described by them as 'compromise'. They have no idea of the AGP cohort involved in this.

And this:

'Transitioning from male to female can provide the framework in which an individual can express who they are, eg, soft, gentle, peaceful; not weak, sick, perverted, illusory.'

Means that rather than dismantling gender boxes, as they seemed to think TRAs want, it's actually imperative for them to be cemented in.

How can any man be 'treated like a woman' if men and women are treated the same?

Disclaimer - for those relatively few men with gender dysphoria, the dismantlement of gender boxes would obviously be beneficial. In the meantime, they have to keep it going.

The quakers appear to have some sympathy with why men want to transition. The leap as to why it's sexist gives many women and all feminists a massive shortcut straight to the end of the story. It's frustrating watching others not quite get it.

I feel like it's a luxury to arrive at 2020 with no idea of the current threats to women, but oh well. I guess some people get that luxury.

I am clearly just an angry cow, but I still don't get the cheerleading on this one.

To me, even if I knew nothing on this matter, the actions of people in trying to shut down the peaceful gathering and speech of women would tell me everything I needed to know.

I mean, would it work this way with any other historically and currently oppressed group ? A group of white people try to shut down the peaceful gathering and speech of black people - do I invite them in and ask them to explain what makes them so angry and hear them out?

A group of straight men try to shut down the peaceful meeting and free speech of a group of gay men. Do we invite them in ?

I just feel that I've never in my life, as a woman, been invited in, even though I'm not a racist, or a homophobe. But woman hating and appropriating - oh yes, we must hear from those poor people.

I don't know why this topic has done my head in, but it has. Maybe because no-one gives a shit about hearing from ROGD mums. When do we get our hearing?

Ugh. I'm sorry to the Quakers here for being so angry. I do like the Quakers, I find them generally to be good organisations with some good people.

It's just - idk - it kills me that people seriously sat and listened to a bunch of blokes and women who centre blokes tell them that rad fems 'lack empathy'. Bare-faced projection.

But the gender boxes have nothing to do with the sexed body, which is why we don't need them. Can you give some examples of gender boxes which are directly connected to our sexed bodies? Is there any way that 'gender' can be expressed which requires either a male or female body? Because I can't think of anything which would fit this description. If something can only be done by someone with a male body or only by someone with a female body, it's not to do with gender, it's to do with sex.

That might be true if we were dogs, but we are people and so we have a culture. Culture reflects our experience, not just as individuals, but as a class. People here talk about getting mixed up about individual experience and class experience all the time and yet mix this up. Gender is not just, or even primarily, about what we expect from individuals. It exists at the level of the class of men and women, which means you can have both individuals who do not fit into the expectation while also having the expectation, and there is not a contradiction.

But I would point out first that you are not correct that gender only refers to arbitrary cultural ideas associated with sex anyway. Look at something like customs and regulations around sex segregated spaces. Those are not identical to sex, they are constructed sets of customs and values we associate with sex, and they could be entirely different. We could easily take the liberal individualist perspective and cut out such leaves, or maternity leaves, or differences in expectations for fitness tests, and so on.

You could consider something arbitrary though, like clothing style or hair style. In many places differences between male and female dress are fairly minor, and nothing to do with function. They exist because people have an awareness in, and a very strong interest in, the fact of our sexed bodies. Humans are artistic, we reflect our interest in the differences between the sexes through our clothing or our hair or even language or things like posture. But this doesn't work unless there s a shared language or cultural expression. This idea that somehow people will cease to care or notice if we get rid of these kinds of customary associations - does anyone really believe that? Or think that people would even go along with that? It would require as mush authoritarian discipline as the harshest and most prescriptive of gender norms.

The two other examples I already gave you are to my mind the best ones. If you have men spending time together, and women spending time together, as most radical feminists seem to think is important, that will create a cultural output, be it in terms of language, preferred experiences, associations, speech patterns, whatever. And we will associate certain things with the two sexes, like motherhood, and all its associations, probably the most primal association of womanhood even though not all women are mothers, because we all have a mother. For men there will be other associations. We will see these reflected in our language, in our allegories, in our heroes. They will shape our thinking, our values, our self-image.

I don't know what there is to listen to from TRA's

But you've been considering this for some time, which wasn't true of these people. They seemed to have very little knowledge of the controversy at all, and even though they were warned were taken aback by some of the response they received.

They way they approached it was very much taken from the way their faith approaches all situations like this where there seems to be a conflict that they don't have clarity about. You ask the people, on both sides, to talk and tell you their perspective, and you just listen, and try and really understand what those people are trying to say, and where they are coming from, from their own perspective. You don't ask then to speak on behalf of others, only themselves, you try and find a good representation of perspectives but not too many to take in. And then you say back what you have heard from them.

That's essentially what this document is describing, that process, and as I understand it the Quaker position is that this is the kind of process that has to proceed any kind of discernment of the value of the argument. How could they know if TRAs aren't worth listening to without listening to what they say first?

Doing it this way seems to me to have cut out a lot of the BS and yet their summary gets to the point.

They might need to 'go through the stages' but that just speaks to their initial weak support for, and understanding of, women's rights, and on what basis those rights accrue.

Anyway, I'm going to stop being mean to the Quakers. At least they're trying, I suppose. It's just frustrating that no organisation can just come out unapologetically for women without having to do the dance of understanding those who would shut down women's speech.

It seems to me that what happened was that they held the WPUK meeting, found what was said to be perfectly reasonable, but were aware that some quakers were unhappy with what WPUK were saying, so asked for their input. Being new to this, they may have thought they had missed some important points, so asked the objectors to explain what they were objecting to.

That sounds to me very like the process we all go through. Because debate has been muzzled with the #nodebate strategy, a lot of people who would normally have been interested and gradually listened and formed an opinion, have been cut off from what is happening.

They still need to go through the stages of understanding each layer.

Why on earth, having considered that WPUK did not cross any Quaker virtues, was engagement with anti-women misogynists invited in response?

It seems to me that what happened was that they held the WPUK meeting, found what was said to be perfectly reasonable, but were aware that some quakers were unhappy with what WPUK were saying, so asked for their input. Being new to this, they may have thought they had missed some important points, so asked the objectors to explain what they were objecting to.

Good points, janeskettle. I think it often is a very uneven discussion - not least because I see a lot of this as rational argument levelled at very irrational views/feelings. So I fully understand not wanting to engage.

I do also think that is the only way anything is ever resolved, though. The debate is being had - sunlight is getting through.

The boxes will exist to some extent always because they reflect that we experience life in a sexed body. Even if people fully recognise that the boxes aren't actually discrete, they will probably exist.

But the gender boxes have nothing to do with the sexed body, which is why we don't need them. Can you give some examples of gender boxes which are directly connected to our sexed bodies? Is there any way that 'gender' can be expressed which requires either a male or female body? Because I can't think of anything which would fit this description. If something can only be done by someone with a male body or only by someone with a female body, it's not to do with gender, it's to do with sex.

I think we all go through a process, and sometimes a long one, in working out how we feel about this issue. It sounds like the Norwich Quakers have come to this debate fairly cold, and instead of immediately bowing to pressures to just cancel women's meetings (as so many other venues, including other Quaker Meeting Houses have), have set about trying to work out from first principles how they feel about it.

Do I wish everyone coming cold to this debate would immediately agree with me on this? Yes, of course. But that's not going to happen, and I am not sure I'd trust it if it did. I think the process they are going through is a good model, and they are proceeding with it in good faith despite getting a ton of shit for it, and I wish more organisations (including other Quaker groups) would embark on something similar.

It’s nice to be kind but this whole thing has made me realise that I care more about truth.

It's also made me realize that in the long run not telling people the truth isn't all that kind, because sooner or later they will have to face reality, and protecting them from it for so long may just mean that it hurts more when the pretense finally comes to an end.

I don't know what there is to listen to from TRA's, goosefoot.

They don't believe women should be able to self-define, they don't believe that women have sex-based rights, they don't believe that women should be able to gather and speak about their own needs away from men. They are misogynists, in other words.

Why on earth, having considered that WPUK did not cross any Quaker virtues, was engagement with anti-women misogynists invited in response?

I mean, maybe Quakers are just better people than me. But really - is it too much that organisations just say they support women's rights, and then go on supporting women's rights, without feeling a need to anxiously make space for voices which loathe women's rights?

I can't think of a single bit of common ground between me and a TRA, other than our shared membership of the human species - good luck to the Quakers in finding it, but what common ground is there between women who defend sex-based rights, and men who want to remove them?

I think that when we are in Meeting for Worship or otherwise get closer to God, the spirit, the light or however we choose to describe it, we do so with our minds, or possibly our souls, but decidedly don’t do so with our bodies. It is not our spleens, lungs, gastrointestinal or reproductive tracts that matter. We are Quakers, we are deeply rooted in equality, so I don’t think it matters what gender we are, in either a personal identity sense or a social role sense." (continues)

This is interesting to me, would an orthodox Quaker say something like that, because it's fairly clearly straying from a traditional Christian understanding of the body. I know some Quakers have really gone quite decidedly down the non-sacramental protestant rode into a kind of spiritualism, but I didn't think that was ubiquitous.

It seems to me this congregation came to this question without any real experience of the conflict, they were asked to host a meeting that might be contentious, and wanted to make sure it wasn't something that was incompatible with their beliefs, and they decided it wasn't.

Asking the speakers to come was a response to the backlash or responses they received from the community, including from within their own, and their summing up of what they heard from each speakers seemed quite fair to me. That does't mean I agree with every point, but that isn't the purpose of that kind of listening as I understand it - listening is about first hearing accurately what people are saying and what is important to them. That's missing from a lot, maybe most, of our political discourse now, and I think it's at least partly responsible for this whole mess.

There are women who have been Quakers for many years & have been badly treated by trans activists from within. Heather Bruskell-Evans has spoken about this.

It's soul fucking crushing for me to live with the lies society colludes in to protect sexist and homophobic men from doing the work of challenging sex-based stereotypes as they apply to themselves, but I bet the Quakers won't be sitting down to discuss that.

And there's no bloody need to bring gender into it at all! What is needed is for society to stop imposing sex-based stereotypes on people, particularly on women and girls!

Sorry, I'm clearly not such a fan of this. I am generally pro-Quaker, but they do talk a lot of guff at times.

God, I'm so tired of being told to be kind and understanding of sexist men with internalised homophobia.

Can they not just go off and do their own work on their own selves, and leave women alone to uphold women's rights?

Why is this even a discussion? Why all the mental energy spent in arriving at a position? Why is the starting point not the concluding point, that women have rights, and are entitled to discuss and uphold those rights? Why did this even go to discussion?