Action Aid - no such thing as a biological female

I've just had that exact same email.

I am chuckling about the fact that they've clearly had such a massive backlash to some fool on their staff making a stupid woke comment about not believing in biology and they're so clearly scrambling to find out what the hell to do to please everyone.

Sigh . Second reply received, same drivel:

^^Thank you for getting back in touch about this and for your additional questions.

^^

We wanted to explain thatActionAid wants to see an end to all forms of violence against all women and girls and is committed to acting with fairness, tolerance and respect for the inherent value of all human individuals and with an awareness of different cultural beliefs.Our incredible supporters help bring about long-lasting change for women and girls living in poverty. Where there may be differences of opinion, we strive to find common ground that ensures we continue with our mission of ending violence and fighting poverty so that all women, everywhere, can create the future they want.

We are committed to principles of equality, diversity and inclusion and to ensuring we fulfil our obligations under the Equality Act 2010. We are in the process of ongoing internal discussions about how best to live up to those principles. The document that has been quoted from recentlywas part of that process and was one view. It was shared in error and we are investigating what happened. It is important to clarify and correct any inaccurate perception that this is an official policy – that is not the case. We are re-entering a consultation process that will include the voices of a broad range of stakeholders including rights-holders, donors, staff, trustees, ourLGBTQI+ network, as well as experts on women’s rights, equality and discrimination, all of whom will help us to reach a positionthat best serves our rights holders.

ActionAidUK will be consulting widely. We do not have an exhaustive list of participants and want to be open to including as many perspectives as we can. This will include not just experts and organisations, but colleagues and rights-holders across the globalActionAidFederation and a broad range of stakeholders including our staff. We will not be naming the organisations or individuals we are consulting with and would welcome your support in having space and time to complete this process and to give this important issue the consideration it deserves.

We value our supporters and communicate regularly with them about our work with women and girls. We are happy to speak to and respond to our supporters about this subject.

Thank you again for taking the time to share your feedback with us, it really is appreciated."
(Sorry italics c+p fail)

WTF is a 'rights holder' when it's at home? Why not stakeholder? Implies some don't have rights, doesn't it?

I am still awaiting a response to my shirty emal I sent on the 16th asking about their stance on trans boys... I've just sent another email asking for a reply and clarification on what they do for trans boys and what trans women need from them?

I just want to annoy them with stupid questions for sport. Idiots.

subscription cancelled

"Mammals (humans included) can't change sex, the most that can be achievedis a degree of unsexing."

Exactly. Many animals can & do change sex but not mammals. Occasionally some are born with both sets of organs and are considered hermaphradites / intersex but this is rare & a different case entirely.

@Wavescrashingonthebeach

Can you imagine how absurd it would be if i took my dog, who has a full set of cock and balls, and told the vet my dog was female? Im pretty sure i would get a look like . Even if i castrated him, or god forbid even took away his penis, HE IS STILL A MALE DOG. Yes, i could give him a "girls name" & buy him pink accessories. But ultimately, he would still biologically be male. It baffled me how humans are so arrogant to think that basic biology does not apply to us. Welcome to 1984 people. Next we will be told 1+1=5

Mammals (humans included) can't change sex, the most that can be achieved is a degree of unsexing.

I’m not certain that if you went online you wouldn’t find someone who has tried this - or a vet who would propose this as possible.

Can you imagine how absurd it would be if i took my dog, who has a full set of cock and balls, and told the vet my dog was female? Im pretty sure i would get a look like .
Even if i castrated him, or god forbid even took away his penis, HE IS STILL A MALE DOG. Yes, i could give him a "girls name" & buy him pink accessories. But ultimately, he would still biologically be male.
It baffled me how humans are so arrogant to think that basic biology does not apply to us.
Welcome to 1984 people. Next we will be told 1+1=5

Interesting article on their income from just before this hit www.thirdsector.co.uk/income-stabilises-actionaid-10-per-cent-drop-off-2018/finance/article/1689521

Has anyone else heard back?
Not in the sense of an actual reply. I wrote, having had no substantive reply to my original query, explaining exactly why I was cancelling my direct debit, and the nearest I got was 'thank you for your comments'.

I doubt you will hear back, they have gone for the Audible approach (‘shhhhhhhjj, they’ll go away eventually’)

I wrote back asking for clarification after they sent a generic 'we support trans people' response.

Not heard anything else.

Has anyone else heard back?

Sorry to bump up the old thread but I just got around to reading both these.

Michelleoftheresistance:

I wonder honestly how long it will be before developing world people get forced to sit through first world white organisation lectures about gender ideology and the non existence of biology before being allowed to get the services/resources those organisations provide.

It seems that's already happening in Latin America:

womansplaceuk.org/2020/07/22/interview-spanish-feminist-politician-angeles-alvarez/

Alvarez says,
For example, right now, Latin America is currently a field of experimentation in three areas:

legalizing sexual exploitation
legalizing reproductive exploitation
erasing sex as a legal category.

To me, the most alarming thing is that these are discourses which are disseminated by feminist organisations themselves, in part because they receive funding from international organisations or from Global North governments. It is paradoxical but the left which describes itself as a post-colonial left is currently colonising Latin America with neoliberalism’s most elaborate product: queer theory.

UN Women, for example, but also academic institutions, are promoting unscientific narratives which harm women’s rights. Queer theory has been using institutional channels to promote ideologies which erase women. To see UN Women referring to women as “menstruating people” is unconscionable.

The problem is that we are facing very weak states, that are incapable of upholding solvent institutions which are not influenced by external financing.

I bet!

Have they enlightened us with their research into the question that has perplexed philosophers, religious heads, village elders, emperors and kings - and wise men/women since humans first crawled out of the primordial soup?

What’s ‘woman’ ??? 🤔

I got the usual bollocks "inclusion of trans women and girls" reply, nothing in it about a mistake. Or for that matter including trans boys and men. Or are they just women and girls, it's only the trans women that ate deserving of inclusion?

It's not even consistent.

btw i'm getting a lot of Action Aid ads in my feed in instagram and facebuik - do comment on them and challenge them if an ad comes up in your feed. The facebuik one has some LIVELY responses.

‘Shared in error’ is not BCCing an email or sending out a press release with a honking typo in it. Not crafting absolute nonsense, circulating it, doubling down then slowly backing away from it.

Well, if the comment was 'shared in error', you would have thought they could have told me that when I said was cancelling my direct debit. They chose to bang on about inclusion rather than answer a straightforward question about science.

This academic identity theory just looks ridiculous when you try to push it into the real world. I do wonder how much longer organisations are going to wander into this with the blinkers on before people start to get the message that it simply does not mesh with their actual objectives at all.

Maybe, or maybe it was just about making it sound better. The alternative would either be females (too formal) or woman and girls (too long/not snappy).

Nope, we're not allowed 'females' now either. The hashtag 'only females can get cervical cancer' was deemed hate speech.

Not surprising. I blocked their ads on FB but all the most recent comments were about this. PR disaster.

I see all the comments have now been removed from the Facebook adverts too.

The Baroness rocks the art form of the insightful tweet often enough to lighten the day. Thank you Baroness.