Women & Equalities Commitee live today at 2.30

Quite the reverse, especially Alex, who also started hectoring towards the end. Reminded me of Charlotte Clymer: I can't put my finger on why.

I watched this last night.

What struck me was how the actual women giving evidence showed huge understanding of the difficulties faced by transpeople. Professor Freedman, particularly was a sterling advocate for appropriate healthcare. She demonstrated she had actually listened to Prof. Whittle and his difficulties in getting the health care he needed.

All three of the Professorial witnesses (Freedman, Stock, and Sullivan) focused on transpeople and their rights. They centred their discussions on the current issue of ensuring that transpeople have the standard human rights guaranteed in the Equalities Act, but realistically.

They also gave just utterly brilliant answers to the weasel question "Do you believe transwomen are women?" Prof. Freedman's answer, untangling the potential snarls in interpretations caught between the GRA2004 and the EA 2010, was utterly brilliant. And totally legal - interestingly, she expressed a view totally within the law that I would be cautious about expressing here, and - like other academics who post in FWR - I would now very very rarely be drawn on in real life. So I must replay that section and write it down, in case I ever am challenged.

But did the first 3 witnesses show a similar knowledge, awareness, and concern for women?

Did they heck.

I didn't manage to watch yesterday, but Nicola Richards is my MP so now I'm going to watch the whole thing and write to her. That UnHerd article by Mary Harrington highlighted for me why so many younger women (Nicola is 26) are unable to understand that you can't just be who you say you are. unherd.com/2020/12/for-me-self-identification-was-a-con/

asking ‘cis women’ to retweet if they had no issue sharing spaces with males

Well great, they can go and be human shields for males in the male toilets then, if they're sooo not bothered, and leave the rest of us who do have an issue with it in fucking peace

Seriously, why should women with PTSD, abused women, religious women, etc be forced to share with males against their will just because some 'not like all the others girlz me' women on Twitter are desperate for male approval? And these people pretend they're feminists, lol.

Wow, Sally really likes women doesn't she?

twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1336994528599818251?s=21

they were amazing and cool under pressure - considering how high the stakes are.

I did notice at one point Steven Whittle I think said that gender can be fluid and changeable which directly contradicts the general argument that it is innate (ie. that you were born with). I think he was arguing for flexibity in the self-id system? (can't face watching it again atm)

The general narrative is that gender identity is something that transgender people can't help and are born with but then how can it then become fluid and changeable throughout a person's life. How would a person know that it has changed and what is the likelihood of it changing back to match their birth sex? What are the other options for it to change to?

Some gender fluid people experience change on almost a daily basis - what makes them different to the people that experience a very fixed and permanent identity? Surely their needs are very different in many aspects.

Each time I hear someone try and explain it, it throws up even more questions that never get answered.

Peter Gibson is my mp. I've just emailed him. Thoroughly disappointed in him

Consent is not decided by democratic vote.

No means no and a single no is a total veto.

Someone should tell Hines.

I wish Hines wasn't too thick to realise that it doesn't matter how many wonderful women are delighted to get their kit off in front of any male person that happens to be present.

Some aren't .

Many are from vulnerable groups you utter muppet

What happens to those women? We just exclude them from all services? We have a female population in the UK who have been excluded from and deprived of services despite being tax payers and this is some sort of 'progress?' We have a country full of female single sex provisions which aren't inclusive of all females? Or be honest: you see any woman who won't use her body to validate someone's gender identity as deserving of punishment and exclusion.

There is not enough glue on the planet for me to be able to get my head around people who actually manage to somehow be ok with this.

I thought Rosa was excellent when she said (paraphrasing), ‘as I am here in a professional capacity, I assume you are asking about the legal position and not my personal opinion’

It’s somewhere around here:

parliamentlive.tv/event/index/dfc9f53e-2ac4-4c30-8712-e3df47938fd7?in=16:37:30

It appeared that she had decided "they have no evidence" and approached the questions as an opportunity to prove they had no evidence, rather than as an inquiry. I would have thought a committee member should at least attempt to treat it as a fact finding exercise, rather than an exercise in confirmation bias.

The female MP you're referring to Scolds is Nicola Richards the Conservative MP for West Bromwich East and the male MP is is Peter Gibson, Conservative MP for Darlington.

Just watched the whole thing. Rosa, Kathleen and Alice were incredible. I found it almost hypnotically soothing to hear such intelligent and reasoned responses concentrated in one virtual space. Thank you!

The extra questions that came at the very end, jarred in their tone I thought. Who was the female politician who was literally having a go at Rosa for not providing the statistics to back up the claims about Male pattern violence? I hope they watch themselves back and see how they came across. I agree with Rosa that there was something very accusatory about the questioning.

Also the Male politician with the glasses (who reminded me of someone familiar to these boards who’s name I’m not going to mention) seemed to be keen to drum home that even with all the extra access to politicians that the transgender lobby groups had had, they still hadn’t gained any ‘advantage’ in the outcome (so that’s alright then?!)

I thought I’d link to a FPFW thread reader on the aforementioned Swedish Study because I obviously wanted to see the stats myself.

threader.app/thread/1336716326220476417

Yea, they are so desperate to push the point that only a tiny minority of people are gender critical. Really? I seem to remember the same people making similar confident claims that Jeremy Corbyn would sweep to victory. Basically, most of the people who say nothing on the issue of gender-identity think it’s a load of crap but don’t want to voice this because of the backlash. My work colleagues probably think I’m fully on board the woo-woo train (I’m an academic). I’m most definitely not but I have accepted that if I do speak out, I will just be harming my own career and I’m not prepared to make that sacrifice at the moment. So I just bitch about it to people outside academia and post anonymously online. I think there are many in my position and GC women in the field have reported that they receive a large amount of anonymous/silent support.

And, sorry, I should clarify. Sally’s tweet related directly to this hearing so I wasn’t trying to derail the thread.

Maybe I’m getting old but there seems to be an influx of MPs in their mid 20s these days, in both parties. One of them was the woman who refused to listen to Rosa on stats. I think maturity and ability to think critically is somewhat lacking here and for others too. I’m not sure how helpful they are to those who elected them. For instance, I’ve heard that Nadia Whittome is pretty useless in helping her actual constituents and prefers to claim woke points in social and print media.

I saw Sally Hines’ stupid posturing thread on Twitter, asking ‘cis women’ to retweet if they had no issue sharing spaces with males. People I used to respect have retweeted. God it’s exhausting.

Well done Professors. There are so many of us who appreciate your calm and reasoned contributions, based on logic, historical fact, and evidence. Professor Sharpe's reason for changing the process seems simply to be that we'll be left out by the popular kids and no-one will play with us in the world playground anymore.