'Polarised' debate on gender recognition is harming UK, says equalities chief

When he says he's in favour of single-sex spaces, do we know what he actually means?

The thing is all the info is here on FWR but because you cant do links it would take weeks / months to dig them all out.

But love the image of a nerve centre!

You're looking for a link analysis diagram. There are computer programs that will create them if you feed in the right information.

Keep hoping someone will do one of those political family trees that spells out how a small group of interconnected people have used their positions to further a personal agenda.

I imagine one of the Nancy Drew contingent on FWR (as I think Glinner once described us) has repurposed their kids’ playroom as the investigation nerve centre and has a CSI style wall complete with map pins, post-its, photos and coloured string. Their online partner has an MS Projects timeline all set up. Together, they are busy filling in the blanks. When they’re nearly there, they’ll have Janice Turner and James Kirkup round for a socially distanced gander before handing over their findings....

It's maybe not his fault that Stonewall was captured, but it is certainly his fault that he abused his position to give Stonewall undue influence.

I suspect there were no women's groups who were listened to in the same way.

I must admit it had so of passed me by about his connection but is just a further indication of how the private networks are used to further the trans agenda.

Keep hoping someone will do one of those political family trees that spells out how a small group of interconnected people have used their positions to further a personal agenda.

From the Times, 15.06.2019 reporting on the massive, and appalling, Mermaids data protection breach:

The emails also show co-operation with the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), another official body with a public stance of neutrality in the transgender debate. In the correspondence, the EHRC appeared to seek trans test cases against schools and service providers.

From the Mumsnet thread on this data breach:

...there are multiple emails from an EHRC solicitor apparently copying SG [Susie Green, Mermaids CEO] into email conversations she was having with trans youth/parents. SG then shared these with trustees (and the world). Emails contain names, addresses, workplace of parent, name of school etc. I feel there are questions about the appropriateness of the EHRC solicitor doing this as well as the SG/Mermaids end of the affair.

Totally neutral, the EHRC. A real honest broker, right there.

We also know that self-id has had some very bad consequences in Canada.

He has got a nerve claiming the nordic countries as an example to be followed.

For example, in Denmark self-id was brought in without anyone knowing about it at the time. They have had to deal with issues brought up by it as they go along.

That seems to be what he wants. Legislative changes to carry on even if there is no public consensus about them, or public knowledge about them.

His underlying assumption is that they are the correct things to do and the discussion is just about getting the general public to accept that point. He's assuming the truth of his assertion.

I don't think it's his fault that Stonewall was captured after his departure but, yes, it does look like he is trolling. It's the same disingenuous BS we saw in the Labour manifesto and from Maria Miller and Penny Mordaunt. They all support single-sex spaces (but anyone can be a woman and identify into women's spaces).

Funny how the Guardian is framing Isaac's departure as something to do with government agenda without even mentioning the controversy of his appointment!

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/01/nicky-morgan-under-fire-for-choosing-city-lawyer-to-head-equality-body

"The education secretary, Nicky Morgan, has come under fire for choosing a City lawyer with an annual income of £500,000 to chair Britain’s leading equality and human rights body.

Two parliamentary committees have written to Morgan, who is also minister for women and equalities, to warn that there could be a conflict of interest if David Isaac was appointed to the role – because his legal firm carries out “significant work for the government”.

Appearing in front of MPs, Isaac admitted that his salary as an equity partner at law firm Pinsent Masons would “dwarf” the £50,000 he would collect as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Harriet Harman, chair of parliament’s joint committee on human rights, said there was “obviously a conflict of interest” because the EHRC often took cases against the government.

“What you should be having for the EHRC is someone who is a champion for human rights … You have to be fearless against the vested interests. You’ve got to be an agent for change,” she said.

“The lion’s share of his income will be coming from an organisation that has a vested interest. As they say, ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’.”

Harman said the issue was not about Isaac, who chaired the gay rights group from 2003 until 2012, but about a wider trend for the government to pick individuals with “illustrious careers in business, management, law” rather than proven campaigners.

She said she would prefer them to opt for people like Shami Chakrabarti, the former director of Liberty, or Sam Smethers, the chief executive of the Fawcett Society.

Isaac was put forward by a Whitehall selection panel and then chosen by Morgan, who asked Harman’s committee and the women and equalities committee, led by Conservative MP Maria Miller, to carry out a “scrutiny session” with him."

(Tragically we now know that neither of Harman's choices would have been any better from women's pov)

My main concern is that he seems to have totally misunderstood the 'debate'.

Default unisex toilets are just one consequence of the complete loss of any meaningful legislative definition of sex.

The bigger issue is that self ID relegates three of the protected characteristics in the EA - sex, gender reassignment and sexual orientation, to a subjective feeling in somebody's head.

In the UK there is no provision for detransitioning. The person is required to assert that they intend to live the rest of their life as the new ID, so they can't very well have a "trans history", can they?

He has got a nerve claiming the nordic countries as an example to be followed.

For example, in Denmark self-id was brought in without anyone knowing about it at the time. They have had to deal with issues brought up by it as they go along.

One case decided that swimming pool changing rooms are single sex, and legally female males may be excluded.
They have been discussing what to do with prisons, as the case from Sweden brought it up as an issue, but I don’t think there has been a Danish case yet, so no decision has been made.
One horrifying problem has only come to light among radical feminist groups; it doesn’t even merit wider political or media attention. It was only discovered by a woman, reading someone’s master dissertation on inclusion of trans women in women’s shelters. These shelters are used by women in street prostitution, with nowhere else to go when they are not working, and are allocated by the local council and are gender segregated. This dissertation discussed how it was hurtful for a transwoman to be misgendered when a woman would come in, unable to cope with the smell of a man, after having had her body used by men all night. Not one word about how the women were affected. This issue has never been raised in any media, let alone discussed politically.
Issues such as these are only coming to light, when gender critical women can dig them up. The same is true for domestic violence refuges.

This is what happens when you have no debate, or a “non-toxic” (lack of) debate. Gender critical women in Denmark are very much looking to the UK, and taking inspiration from here, but there is so much harm to undo.

No. It means a person who lives as if they were the opposite sex, their trans(ition) undertaken in the past.

I assume ‘trans history’ mean someone who identified as trans historically but has now detransitioned.

A trans history should not preclude ethical or altruistic behaviour.

Some transwomen can and do understand that women's resources are not theirs for the taking. Stealth or not, that opportunity to do better exists for all males, regardless of gender identity.

Oh and 'stealth' trans is massively pejorative to trans women - give it a go on Twitter.

Well it is impossible to know how it feels to be ANY other person, man or woman, you only know how it feels to be yourself. And the gender you feel yourself to be

So there are 7.8 billion genders in the world?

I'm still reeling from seeing David Isaac claim on twitter that he's supported single sex spaces all along
The ex head of Stonewall and the toxic EHRC with all their anti women and girl publications? Surely he's trolling women?

Think of all the people you meet, work or socialise with. It could be your doctor or dentist or optician or the supermarket checkout worker. Any one of them could have a trans history but they are not going to tell you or anyone. That is their private business. That is stealth.

It’s not clear why stealth is relevant here. They may also have rights to services and protections because of disability or religion or age, and that wouldn’t be obvious or my business either.

However your suggestion that trans people regularly lie about their sex in situations where it is relevant (e.g. as crone says if somebody had specifically requested a same sex HCP), isn’t very supportive of trans people. One might call it transphobic.

That

People are learning more about this now and more balanced people are emerging, it's such an outlandish and anti reality approach to life that it will recede and more

Perhaps. Or perhaps that is an overly optimistic view of what is happening. The environment in which Harry Miller was told to check his thinking for a limerick and was found guilty of a non crime crime wasn't created overnight. The fact that an influential, heavy weight feminist from the last half of the 20th century like Germaine Greer is effectively no platformed on 21st century campuses? That didn't happen overnight. The fact that substantial chunks of the left wing media simply deign to report problematic news? That didn't happen overnight. It is the result of decades of blinkered, ideological tunnel vision. The failure of any political party to mount a robust defence of freedom of speech? When it has been under sustained attack for years? That principle should be woven into the DNA of the Conservative party. Instead, they spent thirty years apologising for their existence. That didn't happen overnight. The students who are being processed through an educational system where freedom of speech and debate is under existential threat? What will this paradigm produce? In the final episode of Chernobyl, Valery Legasov says this:

Every lie that is told incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt will be paid

You know what's really shocking? In the first two decades of the 21st century West, one wonders when or if that still holds true.

Is a poster about to explain how they know what their gender identity is?

I remain forever hopeful but every time the person proposing we all have one fails to describe what it actually is.

The EHRC were in a position to influence how discussions around self ID were conducted, they chose not too. They chose to say nothing as stonewall exerted every bit of their considerable political influence to push self ID through under the radar and then when they failed, to shout #nodebate and tacitly condone the abuse, doxxing & harassment of people who disagreed.

David Issac being a prior chair of stonewall was in the best position to have frank discussions with them about how the discussions were being conducted. He did not. He did nothing so I’m not interested in his views now he’s no longer in a position to do anything

'Polarised' debate on gender recognition is harming UK, says equalities chief

At the risk of being the thread police the discussion is about the equalities chief and where he has left us. I noticed on Twitter he's getting a kicking from trans campaigners too which is interesting.

Fine so what do you mean by trans history then?