Stonewall backtrack on removing ‘mother’ from policies

'I think this is a really important point. The implication has been that trans women will not get their prostate checked, trans men will not go for cervical screening or trans men will only feed their babies with formula milk because of gendered language. I have often wondered what the evidence is for this.'

Well yes. Stats? Well they've arranged for stats about trans people not to be available.

And that shows that none of this is about ordinary trans people at all. It's about something else entirely.

What other groups for minorites don't want stats- evidence- around everything about those they support? Issues/ populations/ you name it. None is the answer. That's dodgy as fuck.

And I would suggest that trans people are ACUTELY aware of their sex by definition. Not feeling comfy accessing services etc if shown as big issue (no decent NHS stats though obv as they don't want that) then separate info on sites etc is best. To support this particular group rather than pushing confusing dehumanising euphemisms for the vast majority.

It's interesting as well that the thing that seems to have caused the biggest pushback is around the concept of mother meaning the woman who gives birth.

Yes there's adoption surrogacy etc. (And birth parent is used and has been for ages). But that's totally different. Not to do with this.

Stonewall etc the aim was to replace the word mother. To reduce or remove that concept. One of the most if not the most fundamental concepts when it comes to mammals including humans.

It wasn't the other awful things eg redefining homosexuality. So it didn't exist any more. Stonewall. Fucking appalling. Outrageous. Is that next to be challenged? I hope so.

No it was mother. Interesting. Around the world and for always. From humans to chimps to sheep .... In all languages and before language. It's just... Vital.

That that was the demand that has been discarded first... Really interesting.

The you can't change sex thing is a major thing as well. Does this mean we get to keep female? Because that is going as we speak...

It's what Donald trump taught the world.

Just deny, lie. And even if loads of obvious evidence. Just ignore it. Those who support you will just go along with it. And somehow mostly seem to believe that the thing is a smear campaign etc even when there's videos documents etc to show that is was a lie.

Where's the accountability? Across everything it seems to have gone. Current govt have done so much iffy stuff- bozzer lying to queen etc- and nothing happens just time passes and it's forgotten.

By contrast, we do know that health information for people with limited English needs to be worded as clearly as possible. Surely cervix havers rather than women will make it harder to target health advice?

I think this was an attempt to make language gender neutral without any evidence that it was actually needed, or what people wanted.

NK made a complete fool of herself on Woman’s Hour. The giggles, the I don’t knows, her smug blathering about her “ nice family “ she was disingenuous and ridiculous

Well said LonginesPrime

Apologies if some items seem alarming, we hope to capture a realistic perspective of the way these concepts are related, so if you feel this item is strange/inconsistent I urge you to disagree with it

How can you capture a realistic perspective of anything when you clearly don't understand the questions you are asking? You have referred to legal terms incorrectly, you expect people to contextualise "people's reactions" for themselves without explaining what you mean or giving examples and your questions betray an incredibly poor understanding of the Equality Act and women's existing sex-based protections.

I realise the purpose of the survey isn't actually to understand women's experiences, but do you realise how offensive your questions are to women and how inappropriate it is to post this on Mumsnet's feminist board?

Your questions strawman a number of transphobic statements and generalisations that place a great deal of undue pressure on the survey subject to fill in the gaps caused by your (possibly intentional?) vagueness, meaning that the answers you receive will be of no use to you anyway, as your questions are too broad and vague for you to understand with any confidence what the answers you receive actually mean. The fact you think these sound like feminist views (as evidenced by the fact you posted on these boards and thought it might be a good place to get women's views) is incredibly insulting and shows a deep lack of understanding of feminism.

Your survey trivialises the very real issues that women are facing in society and to reduce this to questions around "women feeling threatened by transwomen" and all those stereotypical statements that transphobes might agree with shows that you really have no idea what the issues actually are for women.

If you feel that biology being important to women is some crazy conspiracy and that we're all just enamoured by groupthink, then enjoy your thesis, I'm sure it will be groundbreaking. Meanwhile, in the real world, some women have actual sex-based problems to address.

Stop derailing women's threads and undermining women's efforts to organise and discuss the issues that affect them, and look elsewhere for your research subjects. Women have been used enough.

A lot of careful answers.

I imagine the questions were vetted, too before she even agreed to go on.

This also shows how unprepared Nancy Kelley was for the interview.

On the contrary, I think she was very carefully prepared.

But by lawyers and PR people on how not to get sued.

This backtrack makes me quite angry - it's Judas-like in its denial of their own actions

It's gaslighting. And lower than a snake's belly.

@leeloo1 it sounds like you would disagree with the first threat item but agree with the second threat item I believe?

Apologies if some items seem alarming, we hope to capture a realistic perspective of the way these concepts are related, so if you feel this item is strange/inconsistent I urge you to disagree with it. Hope this helps.

@leeloo1 I think its to evidence being GC is to align yourself with extreme right religious 'zealots' which is not a new game plan really!

With all of this by the time the issue come to attention more widely it's a done deal all over the place.

Changing policies is effort time money. I'd imagine having just changed them all many will leave them.

This is a problem-
X group told us to do this so we've done it
Hmm issues raised
No one going to tell us to change it back so meh

Loads of stuff not just this.

@KentPsychMB - there were some very odd questions in that survey! I agree with a pp that it’s worded to get responses you want. How threatened do you feel by trans women? Erm well on an individual basis I don’t, but the policies that allow them to share women’s private spaces allow any male bodied person to use them and that I do feel threatened by! Also the weird questions about whether we should be following god’s laws and on the evils of sex before marriage - you what??

[quote GoodieMoomin]I haven't rtft yet but would like to add this on the point of "oh, that's old advice and out of date"... It's a feature, not a bug. The rules are always changing on purpose. It's a way to control people through fear.

I'm reminded of this video. It's a recording of a gender identity theory lecture to medical professionals in the US. Essentially, "you must learn all this new stuff and it'll probably change in a minute, but just take my word for it and don't ask questions"

Agree with prime
What is it they call it again when questions on a survey are structured so in order to get the outcome the researchers want again?

Maybe start your own thread instead of hijacking someone else's, @KentPsychMB?

[quote GoodieMoomin]I haven't rtft yet but would like to add this on the point of "oh, that's old advice and out of date"... It's a feature, not a bug. The rules are always changing on purpose. It's a way to control people through fear.

I'm reminded of this video. It's a recording of a gender identity theory lecture to medical professionals in the US. Essentially, "you must learn all this new stuff and it'll probably change in a minute, but just take my word for it and don't ask questions"

The "lecturer" is talking to fully qualified medical professionals as though they were 3 years old

So NK, a head of a huge charity was either lying or showing that she doesn’t know her own policies.

Stonewall then announce they will no longer push on the removal of the word Mother. They have also admitting they are “ahead of the law” re the Equality Act.

Are charities allowed behave like this and get away with this? Is it worth complaining to the Charity’s commission about them?

And the ever, 'iats just a word, why are you so bothered about just a word, but remember how important words are to some people so we need to change our words to make sure they're OK with how we word things, your views, well meh'.

If it's "just a word" they'd have no problem about changing it back, would they?

I was put off from supporting the midwives by that thread. I thought "If they wont acknowledge women, why should women acknowledge them."

Does anyone else get the uneasy feeling that they're backtracking on this because they'll simply just campaign to change the meaning of the word mother instead? As in they'll keep 'mother' in policies, but the word will apply to men and women under their twisted logic?

Its a very real possibility. But I'm.maybe thinking that they will back track amd distance themselves from this shoddy advice having ensured they get none of the heat from it because as we know the get out clause is already written in to the paperwork. Then wheh they have finished watching everything fall apart from a distance they will magically appear with some extra special training at a cost of course. This training will be very slightly toned down but because everything has appeared to be so huge and dividing etc , the suggestions will sadly appear reasonable.