A cheer from the Spectator to us Mumsneters on the FWR board

Well this article is nice for all the everyone ignores the feminist section as you're just an echo chamber of middle aged harridans spouting transphobia so it's completely useless and pointless posts that pop up regularly from new usernames whack a mole style.

Ha.

Agreed Milicentbystander72 That's why I ignore the comments on the Spectator. BUT it's worth noting that the comments btl in the Times are now mostly respectful and informed. Once much of their male readership understood the threats to free speech, children and everyone's rights to safety, privacy and dignity from the opposite sex, there was a sea change in attitude. The last JKR article had hundreds of informed and supportive comments from men.
Once the #nodebate was exploded by all the courageous feminists / women's groups / FWR and a number of journalists, Janice Turner, James Kirkup, Andrew Gilligan and the rest, (shouldn't have started a list as there are now so many of them, especially at the Times ), then the sunlight exposed what had been happening in secret.
I know there's still a mountain to climb, especially with children but today I'm feeling positive.

I am probably being naive, but I can't see the harm in having a debate. Isn't that what Stonewall and the TRAs haven't wanted and Feminist groups have wanted for so long? Seems to me that this petition is like turkeys voting for Christmas.

I am very pleased about Liz Truss' announcement today. I'm sad it wasn't a full revocation of the GRA, as it's totally unfit for purpose, but I am glad that it seems to lay down the three different terms: gender identity, legal sex and biological sex as distinct entities.

Just to add that some of the comments are terribly misogynistic on any article centring Women or the Trans issue though. Disappointed by that. Lots of
"Silly women. Women wanted feminism and now they're not happy either!" type of comments. Which is not only misogynistic but planning not understanding the issue.

Just had a proper guffaw when reading James’ article. waves
He walks among us as I suspect many other well known do.

Have just subscribed to the Spectator and a thank you. Been meaning to do it for weeks as their reporting has been excellent recently.

I also subscribed to The Spectator via the FWR board and also hearing the name of Douglas Murray and I went off to read his books. Hearing Douglas wrote for The Spectator too cemented it for me.

I haven't been disappointed.

Yes I started to subscribe thanks to the Hadley article and then I saw Julie Bindel writing - she wrote an excellent article on RBG, but the comments section was so depressing. Between that, and the awful comments on the Irish Times site this morning, under a short article explaining "mansplaining", I fear that women are only at the start of a long, long, war with misogynists who seem to congregate almost exclusively online.

the Spectator has been very supportive of women on this issue, so thank you to them. They deserve their increased subscription numbers.

Wouldn't be a bad thing for the GRA to be debated in parliament.

As Kirkup says, politicians have been shirking their responsibility to examine how the law is operating in this arena for too long. I would like to see questions raised about how convicted male sex offenders have been able to obtain GRCs under the current system, and how violent male prisoners with and without GRCs have been able to transfer to the female estate.

The Freddy McConnell court case needs discussing too - it's a prime example of the sort of legal and ontological absurdity that GRCs can create, demonstrating that they don't just impact on the holder (in this case, McConnell argued that a GRC gives McConnell the right to falsify their child's birth certificate, creating the dystopian fiction of a child born with no biological mother).

Maybe some bold politician might even raise the question of whether the GRA itself is bad law, and that legally conflating sex and 'gender identity' is what has created all these endless battles in the first place.

Heartening to read this after the depressing BS emanating from the BMA. Thanks Spectator!

waves back. Good article!

Just came on to post the same article link.

It's very true that without Feminism Board here I would never have known about this issue at all, or I would have dismissed it as a 'fringe' language war between Transactivists and Radical feminists.

I'm now well informed!

I only know about these issues because of MN. There will still be many, many people oblivious to this. A debate in parliament will open so many eyes. Bring it on, I say.

Hurray For FWR. Thanks James. Yes that petition is a bit of a joke it seems to have been enthusiastically signed by youth from around the world...just like the 70% of the British public and their template letters regarding the GRA. That worked too.

I have a Spectator subscription, mostly as a result of James's brilliant articles. He has been consistently good on this, because he understands the issues perfectly, is always reasonable and intelligent in his arguments and, more than anyone, is aware of the enormous amount of work being done by ordinary women. JK Rowling rightly gets a lot of credit for drawing this to public attention, but this board and activists on the ground have done the hard, solid spadework for the past three years.

the fact that it was buried away today suggests to me the last thing government want is to talk about this

With 6 months of lockdown restrictions & brexit round the corner, they don’t want any more hassle than they need

Only reason they’ll do it is to tie Labour up in knots

Waves back at James!

James deserves a lot of credit for his persistence on writing about the conflicts of the GRA reform and self ID. He's also managed to do it without putting himself centre stage and has taken care to acknowledge what grassroots women's groups were saying and doing.

I hope he gains recognition for his journalistic efforts beyond just FWR.

Maybe the time is ripe for a debate in Parliament. Better than #nodebate, anyway.

Great to see this article at the top of the most-read-today list on the Spectator website.

I don’t think there’s any harm in having a debate? The government have made it clear there’ll be no action on legislation at the moment.

I think Therapist it’ll be ‘considered’ for debate for a nano second and then thrown out

No way Parliament will debate this

I took out a sub to the Spectator last year when they were one of the few writing about this issue honestly and I am very impressed at so much of the content (but stay away from below the line as that's generally awful).

I think it is widely known lots of people have signed that petition who are not in the UK so hopefully it will be diacarded. People were asking for postcodes on twitter!