BBC Bitsize - Pronouns

Frontline workers, management and even a board member or two of organisations in the Violence against Women and Girls sector. Women in the sector who have found themselves unable to freely raise their concerns against the inclusion of males in the female-only spaces and therapeutic environments they work in.

They cannot speak up publicly not only for the already much discussed serious repercussions for themselves but also because this could mean no longer being able to mitigate against the negative impact of self-id policies on the female victims of male violence they care for. But they come to our meetings. They found, run or support their own local or national groups. Many attended a closed session at the Scottish Parliament to report on the issues with and concerns about self-id within services set up to help female victims of male violence recover.

As for your assertion that the sector itself has said there are no problems with including males in female-only spaces and therapeutic environments and we should therefore stop saying there are, I shall tell you once again that I am part of a group of survivors and mothers of survivors who have met with the management of such an organisation to inform them of the problems caused by their self-id policies, of the actual - not theoretical - harm they have already done to women and girls and to make suggestions as to how they could safely and easily (because it is actually surprisingly easy) accommodate males without including them in the female-only therapeutic environment. They did not care. They forbade us from speaking about the meeting and then went online to proclaim loudly, once again, that there had never been the slightest problem with their self-id policies.

And then we found out we were neither the only survivors experiencing problems nor the first to raise it with the service.

And the same thing is happening across the UK. Survivors informing services of the problems, frontline workers experiencing problems and management denying them. I know because I've met these women, because they come here on Mumsnet to talk about it, because they publish their experiences on blogs, websites and social media, because they write to the papers and some even go on TV or radio to do so.

I do not doubt you know women working within the sector who hate women like me speaking out about the damage they're doing. I have spoken to management of a different sector organisation who told me they feel beleaguered and unfairly attacked, but who understood in the end that our aims are the same: to allow all the victims of male violence who they cater to to receive the help they need. Who then said they wished they could publicly defend the right of female victims to female-only services, but even if they weren't worried about the backlash from self-id proponents, their funding conditions make that impossible.

So jj1968 you may know women in the sector who are angry at us. I know women in the sector who are campaigning with us and are angry at those denying female victims the right to female-only provisions.

Yes Cara. Except jj calls rhat person 'a vulnerable homeless teenager' and implies that anyone sharing the photo is creating CSA images.

I haven't read the whole thread, is that seriously what was said????!!!

Yes Cara. Except jj calls rhat person 'a vulnerable homeless teenager' and implies that anyone sharing the photo is creating CSA images.

No really lurkers. I couldn't believe it either, but it's true.

I expect that post will go poof very shortly

the pictures often make such a compelling case that the monitors can rarely bear to let them stand

That picture is of a man finding sexual gratification from being in women's space. say what you see

jeez louise, i'd not seen that picture

that's the kind of person who JJ is fighting to be allowed in women's refuges?

good fucking heavens

Have you seen Dawn Butler's mentions, or Ash Sarkars? Women have literally been murdered for standing up to the far right. The same far right that some gender critical activists seem happy to court incidentally.

Yeah, TRAs seem to have a lot in common with the far right when it comes to harassing women, despite their claims about 'kindness and compassion'.

When it comes to a woman stating that her lived experience as a female actually means something that 'kindness and compassion' seems to go out the window doesn't it?

A very small number of women have said no, and they've said it decades after trans inclusion began.

1). It really doesn't matter how small the number of women, there is no reason why their voices shouldn't be heard.

2). 'Decades'? The EA was in 2010. Stonewall started campaigning against single sex spaces in 2015. There is a massive difference the 1970s concept of a transexual (Jan Morris) and the 2020s concept of being trans.

Careful knight you are shaming the only victim that mattered in that refuge

JJ

We said no to sharing women's single sex spaces.

It's not a negotiation.

No

And fair point re the perennial value of letting things stand, just as they are, and people can form their own views.

Most of you lot are too terrified to tweet in your own names in case someone from HR has a quiet word

Sacked. You know that. Sacked for knowing the difference between a man and a woman.

Not that long ago a woman had her home address posted to a group of frothing transactivists, and they were threatening to turn up to her house to 'sort her out' whilst she was alone with her young children.

You know exactly why we won't use our own names. Given that many women are sadly all too familiar with male violence, it's to keep ourselves safe from vicious extremists who despise women and love to rule by fear.

A lot of women in the sector are really pissed off with you. They think you're distracting from the true problems facing the sector which is the funding crisis, putting survivors at risk by creating unnecessary fears and are deeply insulted that you think they would put women at risk when few of you know anything about how the sector actually operates

And many women who run refuges disagree and say that they would not be able to run their refuges without current laws that allow sex specific services.

Given that there is no law that prevents the set up of unisex refuges, its difficult to understand why single sex refuges should be seen as a problem, or why women should be setting up all the refuges.

and that time the milk went off, even though there were still three days until the use by date.

Evil old witches turning your milk sour since 1693.

But of course, no doubt that’s all the fault of feminists too, along with climate change, rubbish interest rates, and that time the milk went off, even though there were still three days until the use by date.

“You lot” - is that not a sweeping generalisation and NITS...? It’s featured quite a lot here, as JJ tells us what “you lot” really think, and what “you lot” really want.

I’ll tell you what it’s definitely not, though, and that is the hallmark of a respectful, engaged debate.

No it reflects the fact that trans women, as in those who have actually transitioned, make up a tiny percentage of people in the UK.

Because groups like Stonewall refuse to define 'transition', its impossible to say what it means to be trans in the UK or how many people are trans.

Mary Sue narrative.

Jj you're determined to push male born individuals into our spaces, whilst ignoring the transwomen who predate on women in those spaces and calling them the victims, and claiming that hardly any thing would happen anyway as there are so few, but they are in so much danger, whilst acknowledging that it's women who are threatened with violence and rape just for speaking about it?

And everyone is against you and hates you, and rape refuges hate their clients but actually, no one cares, least of all most women. And you have all the demands you have asked for, but still want to harangue women over rights that aren't yours, but you want anyway.

Seriously? I mean, you're not the best communicator in the world, but this is another level of contradictory, incoherence.

Most of you lot are too terrified to tweet in your own names in case someone from HR has a quiet word

HR are not interested in having a quiet word about this.

"Have you seen Dawn Butler's mentions, or Ash Sarkars? Women have literally been murdered for standing up to the far right. The same far right that some gender critical activists seem happy to court incidentally."

I"m grateful that you at least concede that trans activists are like the far right in terms of how they treat women online.

Most of you lot are too terrified to tweet in your own names in case someone from HR has a quiet word

Thank you for conceding the point that TRAs have created such a climate of fear that women are frightened of speaking out about the wrongness of male rapists in women's prisons or male competitors in women's sports for fear that they will lose their livelihoods for airing a political opinion which accords with current UK law in an area which directly affects them in what is supposedly a democratic society which values freedom of expression.

Always useful to have it clearly spelled out as to where a poster stands on the authoritarian enforcement of Orwellian thought crimes.