Annaliese Dodds: "sex and gender are different"

Trash arguments.

Something isn't an attack on religious liberty because some religious people support the ban?

Something is supposedly "discredited" as therapy, so consenting adults shouldn't be able to try it in a religious context?

Comparing to FGM?

I think handling poisonous snakes as a religious practice is "discredited" when these crazies get bitten by the snakes, but I will still stand for the right of consenting adults to engage in such lunacy.

Doesn't matter if it "works" or not. It's not for the government to be passing judgement that they don't think your religion is "scientifically valid" enough to deserve protection.

Not once in the article or response does it mention the need to consult with women about their spaces. Just a male focused entitlement to 'consult trans people'. Nothing about us without us only seems to apply to men. Which is proof positive of the fact that men, all men, should get out and stay out of women's spaces. I have some sympathy for the old trans people but labour should never have made a law which allows a legal pretence. That was the point when they let them down. A man is always a man and it's not my problem to keep him safe.

Some letters published in the Guardian in response to this and RMW's article. In fact a whole bundle. Couldn't find room for one from someone who was GC, perhaps they didn't receive any. I have a little sympathy for the two old style tw (although irritated by their entitlement). They, perhaps, should look at the likes of RMW, Stonewall and the rest of the tras.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/27/the-labour-party-is-walking-a-fine-line-on-trans-rights

David Bell mentions a personal statement he has made on the bill. I can't find that anywhere, so if anyone has access to share that I'd really appreciate it!

This is a very long and fascinating presentation from David Bell, with a thorough Q&A. It's over 2 hour long, but he discusses conversion therapy at approx 1hr 47 if none just wants to hear that bit:

Stella O'Malley presents a good overview of the conversion therapy bill and what it means for therapists at the Genspect conference:

It's a total box of frogs.

The whole thing is one large trojan horse to try and enforce affirmation only/tie everyone's hands from any other action while galloping kids through transitions. With a 'sucks to be you' approach to detransitioners. Hugely moral and responsible.

It's riding on the idea of historical gay conversion therapy which is terribly, terribly useful to exploit. (No evidence yet produced at any stage of this bill that this is an issue now.)

This is the same lobby that insists that to be exclusively same sex attracted is sexually racist, and that women should 'learn to overcome their genital prejudices' and 'learn to cope' with sex with men who have TQ+ identities. And not expect to enjoy sex or even desire it, but see it as some social duty to provide their bodies in the name of social righteousness or something, and refusal or arguing back (you can find the threads here and see activists doing it) is to punish, exclude, scold, threaten, and do their best to force homosexuals to get in line and be in fact bisexual. The lobby has of course ended exclusively homosexual groups and organisations by vigorously bullying and attacking any that exist. (Recent example in London.) And this is apparently NOT conversion therapy. 😜

Again you realise that no words here actually mean what you thought they meant, have been gutted of all meaning, and in essence if it benefits the TQ+ political agenda it is Good and Righteous, and if it benefits anyone but TQ+ people or gets in the way of the political agenda, it is Bad. (And bigot and isms and obics and extreme alt-right and Nazi and Other Things Too.)

And yes, if discouraging transition is conversion, then encouraging it is also conversion. But this is not a lobby that deals much in logic, sense, rationality or reality.

I believe the evidence tells us that affirmation actually is conversion therapy. So ban that. The only way to truly ban conversion therapy is to separate sex and gender entirely and make it an offence to muddle the two. Then any space which wants to swgregate by gender will need to justify that and if they're not providing 100 plus spaces, they'll need to have a very good account of why with 100 plus genders they are providing only 2 segregated spaces.

Re what Alicia Kearns said here:
Representatives of organisations such as the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the British Psychological Society, the Albany Trust, Royal College of General Practitioners, Association for Christian Counsellors and many more stand behind a ban.

That is not surprising in regard to the Royal College of Psychiatrists considering that,

The Royal College of Psychiatrists is delighted to announce that it has today officially been awarded a Stonewall Gold Award, having been ranked the 90th top employer in the UK for LGBTQ+ inclusivity.

.Last year, the College won a Stonewall Silver Award, having been ranked the 134th top employer for LGBTQ+ inclusivity.

^This year, its ranking has improved as a result of taking further measures to ensure that it promotes inclusivity for staff and members who are LGBTQ+.
Participants in the Stonewall scheme are not expected to take every measure on the charity’s list, but we completed 80% of the measures which were consistent with our values and ways of working, and were proud to be awarded gold status.
Other organisations in the top 100 include NHS England, Health Education England^,
https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/news-and-features/latest-news/detail/2023/02/16/stonewall-gold-award-recognises-college-as-an-lgbtq-inclusive-employer

and The British Psychological Society’s p harmful affirmation approach (2020),

TransgenderTrend
Psychologists call for a review of @BPSOfficial guidelines promoting the affirmation approach. The BPS responds by saying they have consulted with Stonewall & the LGBT Foundation. Serious questions need to be asked about institutional policy capture. https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-33/october-2020/freedom-expression-around-diversity-guidelines
2:02 pm · 18 Sep 2020

There's that meme isn't there? Ancient now. But in essence:

Far right: You are a biological man, and must change your personality and behaviours to fit within our stereotype of man.

TRAs/far left: your personality and behaviours (and other things including sex interests) mean you have left our stereotype of biological man, and you should change your body and sex to fit our stereotype of woman.

Women fed up with this shit: You are a biological man who is perfect the way you are, with a body and personality that is fine. Put the stereotypes in the bin and just be the man you are.

Reverse that for women. Except for women, add a whole lot more pressures to identify out of the powerless service human group and into the group that gets listened to/has rights/isn't perved on.

It's not just Crispin Blunt. Here's Alicia Kearns arguing it on Conservative Home.

https://conservativehome.com/2021/12/07/alicia-kearns-lets-interrogate-the-attacks-on-the-conversion-therapy-ban/

RebelliousCow· Today 19:10
But it is entirely valid, and necessary even, to challenge the concept that. 'being trans' is just something that people are - by nature. They aren't! There is no such thing as being born in the wrong body, and 'Gender' is a social construction. Yes, some people suffer from dysphoria- but this is by definition a mental health issue.

On another thread, someone had posted a podcast from Gender a Wider lense, by someone who had done extensive research on Fa’afafine in Samoa, and similar men within another tribal groups. They know they are male but are treated as a third sex and look more like women. They are more likely to have an occupation women have. They are gay and are attracted to masculine men.

These were boys who emerged as far more feminine than boys around them, and it seems clear they were born that way. They weren’t born in the wrong body though and they never think they were.

The difference is that in our society there must have been less acceptance to just let boys like this be as they wanted.

It is a shame that just as being gay has become more accepted in our society, boys are being brainwashed into thinking they must be trans instead.

The other difference is that these man have nothing in common with the late onset AGPs, or the young teen ROGD girls in our society.

Me neither.

Delighted to see the Labour Party beginning to listen to women in its official policies. This is such an important first step.

Nice one. I look forward to them going further.

I’m not surprised it was deleted. I didn’t contribute and clicked away from that thread as it struck me as a potential “for the screenshots” enterprise, right from the off.

Isn’t the comparison more like:
The belief

• some people believe in God and also believe in the concept of God’s anointed people;
• some people don’t believe in God and also don’t believe in God’s anointed people;

• some people believe in God, in God’s anointed people, and believe they are God’s anointed people, but recognise that others don’t believe that and are entitled to both hold and express those views;
• some (of the loudest and most influential) people who believe in God and in the concept of God’s anointed people (not all of whom believe themselves to be God’s anointed people) shout that people who don’t believe in God, or in the concept of God’s anointed people are God-phobic bigots whose belief and free speech is a hate crime towards God’s anointed people and deserve to be punched in the face;
• some people who don’t believe in God or the concept of God’s anointed people think that describing their non-belief as hate speech is, amongst other things, an in-bad-faith silencing technique
• some people don’t believe in God but don’t want to get into a discussion about what the concept of God’s anointed people actually means and argue that “there’s no such thing as God’s anointed people” is something that should not be said.

That analogy is possibly a bit tortuous/ over-extended, it’s been a long day!

This is spot on:

“If people of faith find that too uncomfortable to participate in, that is their choice but they cannot expect this never to be discussed or considered, or to be protected from awareness that people exist who do not share their faith. And if your faith is so fragile that meeting a doubter is likely to throw you into crisis, that really is an issue for you rather than the blame of the doubter”

Nobody is suggesting that people who believe in gender identity don't exist; or that no-one who frames their personal struggle for expression in such a way. exists - that would be daft.

But it is entirely valid, and necessary even, to challenge the concept that. 'being trans' is just something that people are - by nature. They aren't! There is no such thing as being born in the wrong body, and 'Gender' is a social construction. Yes, some people suffer from dysphoria- but this is by definition a mental health issue.

You only have to speak, or listen to, to detransitioners to know that 'being trans' is simply a way of trying to make sense of an internal emotional or psychological struggle. A framing device.

What is so offensive about that? Nobody is denying that some people subscribe to such a belief; but that belief is something personal and private to them. It bears no realtion to what we can discuss here.

I believe in all sorts of things; and view my life and self in all sorts of ways that might make no sense to other people - but that's fine. They don't have to.

The only reason Scottish Labour oppose these changes is they want to be seen as being sufficiently distant from London to still be the "champion" of independent minded Scots.

They have zero principle here, want to be all things to all men. Being an alternative to SNP for independent Scots to vote for.

They're happy to not only drive the bus over girls and women but then reverse it as well.

In the next few years as the West recoils from these positions, the likes of Scottish Labour will claim they never wanted THAT. No, they deffo never wanted to blitz female rights. Not at all.

Still no official word on what Scottish/Welsh Labour position will be now.

According to the Times Labour Scotland has distanced itself from UK Labour's stance:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/82ddaaa0-2ad5-11ee-aede-28bc53acbdb8?shareToken=958fc330ee6784664996449d5b62dcb8

Doesn't it boil down to the entitlements that come with a GRC. If sex and gender are recognised as being separate phenomenon, and both the GRA and EA are understood through this lens, then a GRC is only meaningful to those for whom gender identity is meaningful.

I would quite happily support self id if gender identity was recognised as a completely separate phenomenon to sex.

[My italics above] As far as I can tell, yes and no. Yes, as long as the meaning of "legal sex" is also clear. For example transwidows would need to be allowed to have marriages annuled based on (biological) sex, not legal sex. There may be other boundary crossings that need consideration too, where legal sex has impacted someone else.

Additionally, self-ID could still do harm psychologically. When I watched the Swedish documentary The Trans Train it was really sad to hear a transwoman reflecting on whether in hindsight, being recognised with the legal sex of "female" was the right thing. Also the whole transition (wondering if perhaps she/he was in the right body all along). But knowing that an application would need to be made to overturn it and that this was a difficult process was clearly an uphill battle mentally. Adding some (real, not affirming) psychological gatekeeping in for GRCs would still be sensible to help make sure people understand the implications of what they are doing.

"Behind the scenes what i likelys being communicated to the TRA movement/Stonewall is that this is purely a strategic move - a ploy, designed to make it far easier to Self Id. They're being told not to get upset about the change in wording or terminology - that it will still give them what they are after"

Doesn't it boil down to the entitlements that come with a GRC. If sex and gender are recognised as being separate phenomenon, and both the GRA and EA are understood through this lens, then a GRC is only meaningful to those for whom gender identity is meaningful.

I would quite happily support self id if gender identity was recognised as a completely separate phenomenon to sex.

"For anyone with a passing interest in the whole subject, this will remind them of the Isla Bryson case. From there it's not a massive step to thinking about women's sports... and from there it's pretty easy for someone to think that perhaps self-ID is a very flawed concept".

Agreed. Scottish politicians attempting to explain why Bryson was not a "woman" but a rapist despite their avowed TWAW beliefs, did more to demonstrate to a horrified public just how dangerous this ideology is in enabling predators. The subsequent revelations about young women college students at being forced to undress in front of Bryson because of their protected status just sealed the issue.

Re the deleted thread: the premise was (and it was stated in the OP): there is no such thing as a trans person.
That's very different from the conversations elsewhere on this board about the impacts when people believe that they have a gender identity and say that they are trans. If people want to openly declare that they don't think trans people exist, they can do so but I won't be joining them.

Anyway, back to this thread:
The BBC article is interesting. It's a very small nudge towards more balance in their reporting, although they still have a long way to go e.g. it explains clearly that Labour wants to avoid mistakes made in Scotland in relation to women's spaces, including prisons. For anyone with a passing interest in the whole subject, this will remind them of the Isla Bryson case. From there it's not a massive step to thinking about women's sports... and from there it's pretty easy for someone to think that perhaps self-ID is a very flawed concept. So the more activists fight for it, the more they will find themselves ostracised from the public being on their side.
That in itself isn't enough, so clarifying sex in the EA (and how it differs from gender - which is a belief, not a fact) becomes key.

If it was anything else, ie a clear proud worked out policy, Dodds and Starmer would be all over the MSM. Not leaving it to one of our new female friends from the LDs.

I'm afraid gender policy is like Brexit, it's totally apolitical in terms of party allegiance while being totally and absolutely political in terms of, quite literally, the "body" politic.

There's nothing more political than being a female rape survivor, female swimmer, female prisoner, lesbian, and having men in your designated space.

Starmer, Davey et al better learn this, and fast.