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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Liz Truss writes in the Mail on Sunday

107 replies

Lowhum · 27/12/2020 03:53

...and also mentions women’s rights again.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9089985/LIZ-TRUSS-Equality-not-just-woke-warriors-favoured-few.html

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6
xxyzz · 29/12/2020 13:13

[quote Imnobody4]Keir Starmer has appointed a Shadow Minister for Women who ignores pleas for a meeting from GC women

twitter.com/LabWomenDec/status/1343864957549555713?s=19

While posting this on twitter.

twitter.com/charlotte2153/status/1343661240887996417?s=19[/quote]
Now that is much more worrying.

Most of this thread is nonsense, assuming that a Tory Minister really cares about women's rights because she claimed she did...whilst also claiming a lot of other things that are manifestly untrue.

But Charlotte Nichols refusing to meet GC women to discuss women's rights while defending Izzard is much more worrying.

Imnobody4 · 29/12/2020 13:11

Lord, she's a proper little woke airhead.
inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/women/international-womens-day-2020-sex-workers-strike-explained-403397

“Ten years ago, mainstream feminists were able to ignore the demands of sex workers calling for decriminalisation,” says spokesperson Camille Barbagallo. “Today, the UK has several pro-decriminalisation Labour MPs and the unionisation of strippers had led to impressive wins against exploitative clubs. Sex worker rights are decidedly on the feminist agenda.”

Alongside Dawn Butler, who hasquestionedthe efficacy of theNordic Model(under which the purchase of sex is criminalised), a form of legislation favoured by some female Labour MPs, Nadia Whittome, Charlotte Nichols and Zarah Sultana form the new crop of MPs sex worker-led organisations count as allies.

He really doesn't understand or give a damn about women's rights.

Kaliorphic · 29/12/2020 12:44

How do people who are so hard of thinking end up in positions of influence?

Indeed.

HecatesCats · 29/12/2020 12:14

[quote Imnobody4]Keir Starmer has appointed a Shadow Minister for Women who ignores pleas for a meeting from GC women

twitter.com/LabWomenDec/status/1343864957549555713?s=19

While posting this on twitter.

twitter.com/charlotte2153/status/1343661240887996417?s=19[/quote]
Solidarity with Eddie Izzard, who is free, as is everyone else, to define herself in whatever terms she deems fit.

We're not free to define ourselves in whichever way we see fit. I'm not a broccoli and I'm not free to define myself as a a broccoli. How do people who are so hard of thinking end up in positions of influence?

Imnobody4 · 29/12/2020 12:10

Keir Starmer has appointed a Shadow Minister for Women who ignores pleas for a meeting from GC women

twitter.com/LabWomenDec/status/1343864957549555713?s=19

While posting this on twitter.

twitter.com/charlotte2153/status/1343661240887996417?s=19

ARoombaOfOnesOwn · 29/12/2020 10:18

Those pictures remind me of fan pictures with celebrities where the celebrity looks like they’ve been taken hostage.

DickKerrLadies · 29/12/2020 09:03

To be fair to the Tories, we're about to leave the EU and soon they can no longer use the EU as their scapegoat to blame for their own decisions. The logical next choice for them is the Labour party - they've been doing it since they got into power after all.

It's a shame that Labour are too busy self-identifying as the party of the working-class left to actually be that party.

MoleSmokes · 29/12/2020 01:15

beargrass - You are right. Even though NHS Trusts have non-executive directors, patient advisory groups, etc. raising something like this would be difficult if it "came from above".

It reminds of an infuriating directive "from above" that NHS staff should not display tattoos so that Trust Uniform Policies must provide individual "sleeves" for anyone wearing a short-sleeved uniform who had tattoos on their arms. Any staff failing to hide tattoos would be subject to disciplinary action for breach of national NHS Uniform Policy.

In de-industrialised parts of the country where men who had worked in heavy industry were retraining as nurses and healthcare assistants it was not uncommon for staff to have tattooed arms. Most patients were not bothered because their fathers, husbands, brothers, etc. were likely to have tattoos.

This ridiculous directive, affecting the whole of the NHS, was due to one "Patient Satisfaction Survey", conducted at St Mary's Hospital, Roehampton, where "visible tattoos" were mentioned by, if IIRC, 26 patients as negatively affecting their views of the "professionalism" of NHS Staff.

I have got steam coming out of my ears right now just thinking about it! Angry The waste of money was only part of it - the threat of disciplinary action was what really got my goat. Talk about lack of cultural awareness!

FannyCann - "I wonder if it was different for mental health trusts? I neither make nor mean to imply any judgement there, and if there was then it was the trusts that were making those judgements/assumptions."

I did wonder that myself, FannyCann. I don't think it is an unreasonable thing to "wonder" as one of the reasons that someone might declare that they believe that they are the opposite sex is due to psychosis.

The extra tricky thing for my Dept was that this was an NHS Mental Health Trust that had swallowed up several other organisations that did not provide mental health health services. Parts of the Trust that were nothing to do with Mental Heath found themselves saddled with all sorts of policies and procedures that were irrelevant and/or inappropriate outside of mental health.

FannyCann · 28/12/2020 21:14

Medical Records said that they had received a Directive that the "Sex" Field in NHS Electronic Records must be replaced by "Gender" and that patients must be asked every time they were seen whether they had "changed gender" in order to update medical records if necessary.

I wonder if it was different for mental health trusts? I neither make nor mean to imply any judgement there, and if there was then it was the trusts that were making those judgements/assumptions.
But within general hospital nhs I have never been required to check if someone has changed gender since their last visit.
Not have I ever been asked that question myself.
Interesting.

beargrass · 28/12/2020 20:58

@MoleSmokes, thank you and I understand. I was just curious, is all! I wonder if a lack of oversight has allowed this to happen more easily? In local government, you have councillors who'd take an interest for example, or who'd get letters from local people. But in the NHS and all its different parts, you have none of that. Even if things come from Whitehall, the route to a Minister must be long and winding. It's not like it's easy for the public to complain or to raise issues.

PotholeParadies · 28/12/2020 20:40

I wonder. Rayner could be over-compensating in that picture; trying to fake an ease for the cameras she didn't feel. Now I'm looking, it does look a bit like an I'm-definitely-having-a-great-time fixed expression, of the sort seen on photos of compulsory events.

I also think that Starmer's body is turned away from Peto, who is being invasively proprietoral. Boundaries, Peto, boundaries. You just don't drape your arms over the shoulders of a bloke senior to you, you just don't, and Sir Keir would definitely have been that.

MoleSmokes · 28/12/2020 20:33

beargrass I can’t show enough of the document to enable verification because that would identify the very small Dept and the NHS Trust involved, so would either instantly out me and/or potentially subject colleagues to harassment.

It is a pure fluke that I have a copy of the electronic file from 2007. This is due to a member of Admin staff emailing it to me at my NHS.net address at the time, asking if the "Sample" form (as shown in image attached) should be released as a Final document. I downloaded the form at home to proof-read it and forgot to delete the file.

However, I am very glad you asked because my memory was playing tricks with me - it was over 13 years ago, after all Smile.

The change I was required to make by Medical Records in 2007 was to replace "Sex" with "Gender". Medical Records said that they had received a Directive that the "Sex" Field in NHS Electronic Records must be replaced by "Gender" and that patients must be asked every time they were seen whether they had "changed gender" in order to update medical records if necessary.

The rationale I was given, when I dissented, was that it was important to have the correct gender recorded if the patient should be admitted as an In-Patient. That made no sense as, according to Medical Records, the patient would anyway be asked at the point of admission whether they had "changed gender".

This all occurred two years before the Dept of Health Directive to the NHS as a whole. The implication from Medical Records was that they had received a Directive in 2007. Possibly this related only to Mental Health Trusts? Perhaps it came from somewhere other than the Dept of Health? In any event, I did not get the impression that this was a decision at Trust level but rather that it had "come down" from somewhere else.

UppityPuppity The EA2010 should have over-ridden the 2009 Dept of Health Directive. The whole point of the Mumsnet thread that I linked to is to demonstrate that it did not do this. Despite EA2010 the NHS continued with the fiction that single-sex actually meant single-sex, not single-gender, and Self-ID continued to be enshrined in Dept of Health and NHS policy, ie in breach of EA2010.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3396859-Weve-been-lied-to-about-Single-SEX-wards-since-2010

Just because something is against the law does not stop people doing it. This is yet another example of Policy Capture within Whitehall determining local statutory services, just like the MoD and Criminal Justice System adopted Self-ID in breach of EA2010. There is a despicable history of statutory services deciding that anyone who "self-declares" should enjoy the rights that legally should only have been accorded to those holding a GRC and of ignoring the exemptions that applied to those holding a GRC.

Until the recent boom in young girls deciding that they are really men, these policies almost exclusively privileged males at the expense of the dignity, privacy and safety of women.

I have to wonder if the NHS would have been so keen to assign In-Patients to wards based on self-declared gender if the impact of this policy would have resulted primarily in teenage girls and young women being placed on Men's Wards? If that had been the case, surely there would have been pause for thought about the wisdom of covertly implementing a "single gender" policy?

Liz Truss writes in the Mail on Sunday
Floisme · 28/12/2020 19:46

In fact the more I look at those photos, the funnier they are:
Corbyn looks like he has no idea who Madigan is, Rayner like she's going 'Please, please, please be my friend', and Starmer like he's asking 'Can I go now?'

Floisme · 28/12/2020 18:45

Interesting but - cod psychology alert! - I disagree that Rayner looks the most at ease. She's leaning in towards Madigan, far more than Madigan's leaning towards her. I think Madigan looks like the one in control.

I actually think that, of the 3 MPs, Corbyn looks the most comfortable.

PotholeParadies · 28/12/2020 18:16

That's them. It's interesting.

If one could have seen inside Starmer's head at that moment, I don't think he would have been thinking the approved mantra at all.

WhereYouLeftIt · 28/12/2020 16:10

@PotholeParadies

There is an interesting picture floating around of Starmer and Heather Peto.

Starmer does not look at ease at all, and it contrasts with images of Lily Madigan with Angela Rayner and Corbyn, in which they did look at ease.

This picture?

Peto looks perfectly at ease, facing the camera. Starmer not so much, leaning in at the neck rather than the body, and it's hard to tell but from the stance I suspect his hips are facing away from Peto.

Corbyn's body language looks OK, his face is a bit of a grimace; but I've never thought he looked fully at ease in any photo.

Rayner is the only one who looks fully at ease with Madigan. Body and face leaning in. Madigan looks positively triumphant.

Liz Truss writes in the Mail on Sunday
Liz Truss writes in the Mail on Sunday
Liz Truss writes in the Mail on Sunday
PotholeParadies · 28/12/2020 15:56

There is an interesting picture floating around of Starmer and Heather Peto.

Starmer does not look at ease at all, and it contrasts with images of Lily Madigan with Angela Rayner and Corbyn, in which they did look at ease.

Floisme · 28/12/2020 13:29

My hopes - if that's the right word - about Starmer are entirely hinged around him demonstrating that he was astute enough to read a document before signing it. For me that put a smidgeon of twilight between him and other candidates - I don't believe they were being any more honest, I think they were saying what they thought they needed to say. I do agree it's not a high bar.

highame · 28/12/2020 13:26

Don't forget, Teresa May thought this (TWAW) was her David Cameron gay marriage moment, until she looked at the fine print

ListeningQuietly · 28/12/2020 12:57

Liz Truss is one of the authors of Brittannia Unchained

she is NOT a friend of women's rights
boring stuff like maternity pay and sick pay and child benefit have long been in her sights

your enemy's enemy is not always your friend

ClaireP20 · 28/12/2020 12:54

@Username642243

'If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything' springs to mind.

I just don't get any clarity from him, although I appreciate it's early days. I know it's not popular but I think Tony Blair was a great PM and definitely sold a vision, despite being centrist.

I liked him because he was centrist, not despite, and completely agree with you regarding the lack of clarity.
ClaireP20 · 28/12/2020 12:53

@queenofknives

Yes! What a brilliant article and great defence of our rights and freedoms.

God, never thought I'd be so keen on a Tory, but she definitely seems to get what's at stake here and I really like her defence of diversity against the identity politics of the left. This gives me hope. Go on Liz!

Me too
MichelleofzeResistance · 28/12/2020 12:34

I have no doubt Starmer holds much the same views as the four women who stood for election with him. He was just sufficiently cunning hot to say it, and it's worked, as people have not given up in the hope that his silence might possibly mean he would stand for things they agree with.

I had more respect for the four women with sufficient integrity to be clear on what they believed, stood for and would do if in power. All four of them were insane, but at least they were honest about it.

Floisme · 28/12/2020 12:30

I agree about Starmer playing a long game. He's a former prosecutor so he'll know all about picking his battles and waiting for the right moment.
I have my doubts as to whether he can sort out this mess but equally I don't hold him responsible for it.

Username642243 · 28/12/2020 12:23

'If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything' springs to mind.

I just don't get any clarity from him, although I appreciate it's early days. I know it's not popular but I think Tony Blair was a great PM and definitely sold a vision, despite being centrist.