What's going on with Genspect?

It's not anyone's views I'm concerned about. It's their non-consensual paraphilias.

I think this is a really good post. Ultimately I think calls to exclude people who's views we don't like are too close to the Genderist position.

It's why they are losing- their intolerence puts people off and they can't frame an argument because they never listen to dissenting views.

Told you I was learning 😉😁

It's also the balance of free speech and academic freedom verses the very necessary safeguarding boundaries of working therapeutically and directly with children and vulnerable people.

It's a huge melting pot they've taken on and it's going to bubble over and spit at times.

Safeguarding is an ongoing learning process and self reflective practise, you can never be above criticism. Many think waving their safeguarding course certificate and dbs is enough; that's just the starter.

breadless shit sandwiches

There's a classic Mumsnet recipe right there! 😂

There are plenty of trans people who haven't drunk the kool aid, oppose medicalisation of children and don't wish to infringe upon sex-based rights. The conversation should surely be inclusive of them.

What conversation and why? This smacks of the true trans / pet trans stance. Like DH, who's often rolled out as a good'un but I would be fascinated to hear how his wife and kids really feel.

I think this is one of those cases where the rules to fix the problem would be worse than the problem. Stella’s piece seems good to me, I don’t think she misses the nuance or glosses over the nature of agp. This was a conference not a therapeutic space, so to have a high level of control over participants’ beliefs and clothing would be quite difficult territory to get into, riven with contradictions and at a cost to the conversations that need to happen.

Great tweet 👏👏
Genspect could do with them as comms lead.
Edited to say: they should have acknowledged the safeguarding issue though. That's the problem with playing with fire and not managing it properly.

That Safe Schools Alliance tweet is spot on.

Stella actually writes in "the split" that

There are many types of sexual deviancy – fetishism, voyeurism, exhibitionism, paedophilia, sadism, masochism, frotteurism, and autogynephilia and the more the public knows, the better society will be able to tackle it. Although autogynephilia is not very well-known, it appears to be increasingly prevalent. And it is dangerous. Just last week the clinical psychologist and sexologist, James Cantor, testified under oath at the Amy Hamm trial that autogynephilic men are more likely to have other “paraphilic sexual patterns, such as sadism” and this makes them more likely to commit sexual offences.

Which is the point SSAUK is making, about working with people who are agp.

How can you safeguard against infiltration if you work with children?

Apparently Genspect have deleted the tweet promoting his book.

Awesome response, and right on the button IMO.

One of the things I like most about Stella and Sasha is that they DON'T oppose the quasi-religious certainty of gender ideology with an alternative certainty of their own. They admit (as Stella says in this response) that there's an awful lot we don't know and that it's more important to be asking the questions than to be pretending prematurely that we have the answers.

There are plenty of trans people who haven't drunk the kool aid, oppose medicalisation of children and don't wish to infringe upon sex-based rights. The conversation should surely be inclusive of them.

@ArthurbellaScott thanks for that, but honestly, we already KNOW these men are AGP. We. Know. They're out there in their stupid skirt go spinnies shouting "it's Ma'am!" at hapless shop assistants. What else is there to learn? Blanchard had this covered years ago (although he thought that women should a accommodate these men so...).

Good post from Safe Schools Alliance.

I understand that as much value as there is in psychologists attempting to understand various sexual proclivities and the motivations behind them in terms of generalisations, there will be a range of individuals with a range of individual differences within any group and I'm not in a position to say with absolute certainty what is going in someone else's head.

I understand that in a liberal democracy, constraints upon people need to be limited to how they behave, not how we presume they are thinking. I don't believe there should be a constraint against men wearing dresses if that's what they want to wear.

Yes. I hadn't clocked the name of the article author when I was commenting on that thread. D'oh.

These are important discussions to have.

We don't get anywhere without discussing and weighing it up.

x.com/detransaware/status/1723775766129963374?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

Knowing I am putting my head on the block here, let me say Stella and Sasha helped me get me daughter out of the cult, so did a lot rad fems. I cannot thank everyone enough who I used for information- @4thWaveNow_ @pittparents @gigilarue4 @Miriam_Grossman @genspect. The religious right is in the war and the lesbians/gay men. We need us all. We are all fighting differently but steadfastly. While the book promo was in bad taste, the fact that an AGP was at the conference was expected. I bristled at others too but I know that to fully understand I must see it all. Stella invited WPATH members to come. Can you imagine if they came? We risked being exposed to all sorts of folks we dislike. I did not agree with every speaker. We also need to understand the patient to understand the cure. To close, it’s easy to be a critic, it’s much harder to pull off what these large organizations are doing. Let’s get back to it now please. We can go to our separate corners once it’s over. Please keep fighting. Please keep the coalitions going. We have much to do and little time left. Humanity is resting upon our shoulders. Suit up and get back out there. Thank you for each and everyone of you doing your part. You are all amazing humans.

(Need to find second)

Two tweets that take different stances:

x.com/safeschools_uk/status/1723794527813587166?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

Responding like this to serious concerns being raised is a #SafeguardingFail in itself.

Reflection is needed here. This is not reflection.

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.

We would like to be quite clear that Safe Schools Alliance is neither a ‘GC’ organisation or a ‘feminist’ organisation. We are a child safeguarding organisation. We will always call out safeguarding failures. When organisations have safeguarding failures, they need to be acknowledged and remedied; not minimised, and those raising concerns demonised.

We would like to reiterate that safeguarding is not a box ticking exercise, it is not a policy, it is not a one off training event, it is a culture.

Whenever we see safeguarding failings like this we are resigned to there being more revelations to come.
#Edutwitter #WomenEd #RestoreSafeguarding

Yep, this is the chap: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4940515-a-queer-perspective-of-the-acronym-with-no-name?page=3&reply=130682383

So people are angry. What do they think should have happened - that Genspect refuse entry to him for not wearing "approved" masuline clothing?
(My italics)

No. If he wanted to wear a dress he could have chosen something far more appropriate for the event that didn't scream Performance Art. Or... if he really wanted to demonstrate that he was there for the benefit of the conference aims he could have had his own self-awareness kick in. Either way, THAT style of dress was deliberately incongruous. Safeguarding at an event has nothing to do with being ableist.

For anyone who hasn't been in to the weeds on Twitter, this comment that I have just responded to is at the heart of what the infighting is all about. GC women are being told that they are trying to push "gender non-conforming" (not my choice of phrase when describing people who don't follow sex-based stereotypes) in to boxes of approved dress codes. So with that in mind, I'm not going to respond on anything about the dress again. Apologies if that means I upset any of the MN regulars by not doing (this is not my intention) and... I'll accept that it's possible that I've been too nice with this response but I'm not going to start flinging round breadless shit sandwiches straight off the back of one comment.

I think the bloke was also at fault - we can't police dress but when someone has been so open about it and everyone knows what the fetish is and then they wear particular clothes that are clearly those clothes it is unsettling. And he should / must know that.

I believe this man's argument is that most people who call themselves trans are AGP. I think this must be the book by the man who wrote that article which is being discussed on another thread?

Genuinely, how is listening to AGPs useful? "Trans" is supposedly about gender dysphoria. AGPs aren't "trans". They know they're men. They like being men because being men is essential to their fetish.

Also - who is angry?

Their statement came off somewhat angry-defensive IYSWIM.

The question must be: what attracts an AGP to such an event?

It might be about "forcing" people to take part in his fetish (though I'm not sure exactly how he would do this if they decide not to

Part of his fetish is being seen in public by others dressed in 'women's ' clothing.

Anyone who is in his presence and not blind will be involved. Any response will be providing fuel.

Do you not understand what AGP actually involves? It's a form of exhibitionism, a paraphilia that depends, as most paraphilias do, on non consensual participation.