What's going on with Genspect?

Feminism is also about an over arching awareness of keeping women and children safe from male violence and abuse.

Feminism has also way been critical of gender stereotyping.

But also hard lines about sexual exploitation, coercion and abuse.

A great deal of gender stereotyping is driven by commercialism and the media, also of course porn.

There's some overly literal interpretations of "wear what you want."

The discussion on this thread is thought-provoking and the links contribute to that.

My instinctive position is with safeguarding and has elements of being

• manipulated into seeming to accept breaches of the social contract that breach that safeguarding
• used as a validation generator for individuals.

I don't have something coherent to express or propose. It's nonetheless useful to have to work my way around this and consider the present and the long term. Denton shows the power of strategic long term thinking.

Ugh, that's why I hated the label GC as others have framed it as a homogeneous belief and now an ideology.

It's bs

'GC ideology' - what on earth is this supposed to be?

That humans are dimorphic and sex is immutable? It's not much of an 'ideology'.

Did any woman force men to wear dresses?

At one point men wearing make up and dresses was fine.

And now we are at men wearing make up and dresses makes them a woman and and so men with this fetish, and any other man who wants access to women's spaces is allowed it just because he also says words.

There is a boundary there somewhere.

Navigating it whilst bringing vulnerable people to your conference is part of your role as conference organiser.

Debbie Hayton is one example. It's his fault that girls are denied single sex spaces as he, as a teacher, wrote the policies that allowed boys and men into female spaces. Yet he is now signing 'Declaration of biological reality' statements. He is just trying to get in on the next phase because the boundary is the goal. But Genspect don't seem to be able to see that he is part of the problem, they seem to think bringing him on board is the solution. I'd like to know why.

Who the funk is Lindsay anyway?

I get very concerned with any organisation who just platform people who happen to talk a lot on social media. Personal experience and opinion is one thing and has its place, lecturing and occupying the central space is another.

I've seen this on edutwitter. It started happening to me - but my extreme imposter syndrome forced me to dial back and it's been a slower burn via actual research.

Honestly I think they need to create two very separate 'arms' of their organisation:

One for the children and families stuff, placing safeguarding at the absolute forefront of everything they do

A separate one to do all the 'fascinating' interviews and championing of AGPs and creepy sexologists

At the moment it's all kind of smerged together and they react extremely defensively when asked to consider the safeguarding implications of this.

Absolutely this, this is exactly what I've been thinking with all this being stirred up.

Freedom of speech and freedom of academic thought compromised safeguarding practise when working with children.

And this is what is happening time and time again with universities piping dodgy queer theory research directly into schools. The two are polar opposites and need to exist separately.

Only the things that are put through a fine filter with only children's best fully safeguarded interests at heart can influence any therapeutic work with children.

'“The thing is not the thing. It’s not about gender. Or race. Or Covid. Or Ukraine. Or Israel… They are not what they appear to be. The thing is not the thing. It’s about revolution.” Weirdly enough, the thing has very much become the thing for many people; indeed some people have become obsessed with issues such as gender roles, gender expressions and gender conformity.'

That's the Lindsay quote, from Stella O'Malley's 'The Split'. I don't know what he means about 'revolution'. Perhaps more context is needed, although Lindsay's context can be quite exhausting ime.

Anyway. The thing we should be 'obsessed' with if we have any sense is power.

Heather Heyer's article was good. I'd add that the man's choice to wear a dress at that conference took up time and energy and emotion better spent on helping women and children. When a man acts in this way it becomes all about him. Ditto Debbie Hayton's attempts in the debate.

Why aren't men's organisations having majority-male conferences to discuss how men's fetishes are making women and children unsafe? And how to prevent it? Why is it up to women to solve men's problems, yet again?

Yes, I know what he meant. As I said, this has been claimed before. What is his evidence? Can you post a link?

I think the prevalence of cross-dressing men, which is a sexually motivated act, is about 3%. If the equivalent actually occurs in women, which I have yet to see any evidence for, the numbers must be tiny. Paraphilias are much more common in males.

Genspect /SoM seem to have some issues with boundaries. This is hardly the first time they've been called on it and become outraged in response.

Reading SSA tweet felt like groundhog day. Here we are again ...

If your organisation deals in any way with either children or their parents, or policy that affects them, then you DO need to understand #safeguarding. If you do not have a thorough understanding of safeguarding including #SaferRecruitment your organisation will always be vulnerable to infiltration, resulting in harm to the vulnerable

https://twitter.com/safeschools_uk/status/1723794527813587166

Honestly I think they need to create two very separate 'arms' of their organisation:

One for the children and families stuff, placing safeguarding at the absolute forefront of everything they do

A separate one to do all the 'fascinating' interviews and championing of AGPs and creepy sexologists

At the moment it's all kind of smerged together and they react extremely defensively when asked to consider the safeguarding implications of this.

'Phil alluded to being adept at performance art and circus acrobatics. He’s putting on a good show, I’d say'

No shit.

Women need to learn about personality disorders. And how fetishism and paraphilia are deeply intertwined with them.

I'm not a professional but the dynamic here is loud and clear:

Some men get off on attention, even/especially negative attention
some men get off on disgust
some men get off on fooling people
some men get off on carrying on 'in plain sight'

Almost all of these aspects of fetish have one common factor:

non consensuality.

Yes, the end point is that this is a man who has successfully hit upon a way to source a massive narc supply of attention.

I can't understand why professionals working in the field aren't very well aware of it, or more to the point, why they don't appear to have sympathy for the effect his narcissism and manipulation will have on women.

This article is spot on imo.

Her summary point in particular convinced me:

The indirect effects of a man—even a good man—walking around in stereotypically female dress, in an era when other men who do this expect to be allowed in to female only spaces, to be treated as if they are women—are negative. I suppose that this is too bad for Illy, and others like him, that they should be expected to curtail their behavior because of other bad actors. But it is far worse if he does not curtail his behavior in public, far worse for the 50% of the population who are now on high alert at all times, protecting ourselves and our children against the compulsions of a few.

So, I'm not suggesting anyone is banned or clothing codes are introduced.

But I'd suggest that anyone working with fetishists who are self confessedly aroused by wearing so-called 'women's clothing' (he could have worn a pair of women's cut chinos, or jeans and a nice top; he chose something eye catchingly over the top in its female codedness. Why was that?) who then attend an event wearing this fetish gear, should be very well aware of how he is using, manipulating, and abusing everyone at the conference. I'd expect that level of insight.

They should be communicating this 'performance' to the audience. Be aware that any response will be thrilling. They should be aware that many women will no longer feel safe or able to attend.

I can't find the tweet/quote from Lindsay about how clothes/fetish was the McGuffin and women pointing out this fetishist were 'missing the point'.

He's correct, partly.

The point is not the frock.

The point is manipulation.

The point is coercion.

The point is non-consensuality.

James blamed women for creating gender ideology (somehow)

He was completely channeling the rules of misogyny

I have to say that this morning, seeing who James Lindsay [who co-wrote 'How To Have Impossible Conversations] has blocked on Twixxer is making me chuckle.

Yesterday he threatened KJK and now of course, he blocked her. Because conversations about men with fetishes are far too impossible right James?

You obviously can't ban foorwear but you can agree in advance that a man kneeling down and licking womens' footwear in the middle of a conference should be removed for performing a fetish in public.