Debate happening in House of Commons: Victoria Atkins on fire

Also, regarding the GRA2004 - creating a legal fiction about material reality unmoors people from reality. The idea that a certificate enables you to become a woman or a man is mad. It's one thing to change a person's legal role or standing, because that is part of the construct of law. The legislation could have stopped short of declaring a sex change - it could have stated that a person must be treated as if they were the opposite sex in certain (specified) circumstances. That would have complied with legal obligations at the time. But to go so much further and legislate that a person has changed sex for all purposes unless that is specifically denied was way too broad in scope.

Look back historically and the Unions were some of the most vocal against things like equal pay for women.

Union members actively deceived women to prevent them from attaining equitable equal pay settlements. Unions were actively betraying the women and circumventing the job evaluation exercises and misadvising them (until very recently). And they carried on trying to undermine them and ensure they were paid less than the men.

Many thousands of women would plausibly have had more comfortable, healthier, and even longer lives if unions had respected the dues they paid and represented them.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4998283-dying-without-ever-getting-their-historic-equal-pay

Check out Kirsten Oswald who stood grinning under the decapitate terfs sign. Couldn't give a toot.

And for anyone unaware, Oswald is currently the SNP Spokesperson for Women and Equalities. Yes, really.

@RethinkingLife thanks for posting that about Stockholm Syndrome, when I read about it a few years ago and how it is a totally fabricated "diagnosis" I was gobsmacked. It can basically be summed up as "there, there, silly little woman - you don't know what's good for you!"

Re the lack of "good" female Labour MPs, it's an interesting subject that has come up many times and the fact is that the Left has always had a problem with women. Look back historically and the Unions were some of the most vocal against things like equal pay for women.

I just watched the full length version of the video in the HOC on youtube. Victoria was magnificent. Her body language and facial expressions were priceless. The way she managed to subtly bristle with anger and withering contempt when addressing certain members on the opposition benches while remaining calm, composed, polite and professional but incisive and assertive throughout the entire thing was an absolute masterclass.

Too right, FlakyPoet.

All of this, every bit, goes back to the GRA2004. The idea that a man can change into a woman and there can be a non-bio form of sex. Everything is built on that.
If people can't acquire a certificated sex, all the issues with single-sex spaces and the erasure of women as a class and our language go away. And nobody lies to children to ease their pain. The GRA has to go for women's rights and child safeguarding to exist.

Do you think they may be suffering from something akin to Stockholm Syndrome?

I think there is some sort of psychological thing that does this, yes.

“noones proposing repealing it”.

I am.

I think we need to focus on repealing the GRA. It’s been on the go for 20 years too long and it’s high time it was repealed. It’s a bad law made by devious activists against the wishes of the public.

Lots of people are proposing repealing it. We need some politicians on board.

Yes I think that's where I am too. And Starmer 😂

It is a problem that it can't be expressed succinctly!

It's not a cop-out; it's an outright lie. A false equivalence.

They are framing whistleblowing and asking questions as equivalent to rape and death threats.

Women have: had meetings, discussions, written letters, made petitions, written articles and books.

TRAs have: set off smoke bombs, made death and rape threats, surrounded a building full of women having a meeting and banged on the windows, assaulted women, had women arrested, sacked women, insulted, smeared, and mocked women.

Intimidation and aggressive attempts to stop women from speaking have characterised the movement right back from the days of 'no debate' and 'get over it'.

It's absurd and outright nonsense to say the two sides are equivalent.

OT but the actual story about Stockholm Syndrome is not how it's usually portrayed.

"Few realize that ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ is a term that was foisted on a woman by a male psychiatrist who had never met her after a Swedish bank heist worthy of a movie. Fifty years after the hostage situation that gave the syndrome its name, Sheila Flynn reports on how minds have changed — and how police may have avoided criticism by pathologizing a victim"

Mr Wade believes that Stockholm Syndrome is rooted in institutionalized attitudes and inequalities that have persisted for centuries.
“These practices of implanting pathologies in the minds, brains and bodies of oppressed people, they’re inherent to what we might call colonialism, patriatchy,[sic] different forms of racism, different forms of violence and oppression,” he says. “So this is not sort of an accidental or uncommon problematic way of thinking; rather, it is endemic.”
And he adds, concerningly, that he believes “it’s larger-scale now than it ever has been.”

https://archive.is/lon1B

Well I agree. The law is bullshit. Unfortunately noones proposing repealing it, so we are a bit stuck.

yes, I agree. It's toxic on one side and that's the TRA side.

I love this analogy.

WarriorN · Today 14:03

And there are a lot of MPs, particularly women, who have been using it since yesterday.

It makes your head spin, doesn't it? Do you think they may be suffering from something akin to Stockholm Syndrome?

It's just plain bad law.

It's like, imagine the words "chalk" and "cheese". And you pass a law saying that if chalk has a special piece of paper it is now legally considered cheese, and vice versa.

And because a small amount of chalk is now considered cheese, you no longer have a word which just means cheese, which makes it difficult to just talk about cheese.

So you no longer have a word meaning "just cheese", you only have a word meaning "most cheese and some chalk".

But when the fuck do you ever need a word meaning "most cheese and some chalk", unless you are one of the people who wanted some chalk to be considered cheese for reasons best known to yourself? The rest of us have no need for such a word. It is a completely nonsensical grouping. The only categories which include both chalk and cheese are words such as "things" or "solid matter".

Absolutely it’s used often to attack women who say no or raise safeguarding

I also recall it being used when the 70 year old woman was punched in the face

I actually loathe the misogyny of it

And there are a lot of MPs, particularly women, who have been using it since yesterday.

I know of a teen who transitioned probably 5 or 6 years ago. Their family was very upset and confused and felt like their history had been somehow rewritten. The teen would likely have been classed as vulnerable for other reasons, and a lot of the backstory of how they felt a different gender from a very young age was absolutely not how their parents and siblings remembered.

Post Blair Councillors now get allowances. Not great (circa £13kpa if you don't have executive responsibilities) but useful if you are retired or on benefits.

Local Ward Associations tend to be very male dominated. I assume this is true for other parties as it is for the Conservatives. Gone are the days when the middle class housewife might take up politics as a part time unpaid occupation to do her bit for the community. Throw in a bit of manoeuvring it there is a chance the constituency nomination might become vacant and it is not an easy environment.

Party head offices are presumably getting good candidates coming forward willing first to fight a no-hope seat and then try for something safer. But there is increasing resistance out in the shires to candidates imposed by "London". So far the Tories have done well in terms of getting good women and ethnic minorities elected. This may be coming to an end.

The Labour angle would be interesting. Many constituencies used to be dominated by Militant, which made the Westminster Party pretty ungovernable/unelectable.

Was reading this and think you may be onto something in terms of why, Starmer and others feel TWAW as a matter of law or principle.

For me though, as both a legal and semantic pendant, with a side-helping of autistic obstinacy, I can’t reach the position that ‘TW with a GC AW’.

I find I would define it as “‘TW with a GC are legally recognised AW in a few, very specific circumstances’ and the recognition of this cannot be extrapolated to any self-identifying person within the trans community who does not hold a GRC”. But as you’ve gathered from my posts, brevity and succinctness are not my strong point 🤣 [that’s my autism too… slopes off]

Absolutely it’s used often to attack women who say no or raise safeguarding

I also recall it being used when the 70 year old woman was punched in the face

I actually loathe the misogyny of it

I thought ‘Dodd’s Odd Nods’ sounded more like a stand at a village fete. Perhaps you could purchase some approving nods there?

I think it's a cop out to say that there's toxicity on both sides.

I agree and I think it's being used as a deflection technique by those who still hate women querying this.

It is not toxic to question safeguarding and anyone framing as such as anti safeguarding

Apparently there are lots of good women on the Central Candidates list who are not getting selected by constituencies. Instead Constituencies are oping for older, local, white men who have served their time as Councillors

Thars really interesting and sounds depressingly true.
I have always been baffled that being a city councillor is an unpaid position, especially given how it feeds into central government. I would stand for council if I could do it as an actual job, but I couldn’t do it in top of my existing job/ responsibilities.
So, councillors tend to be retired, or very young with no kids. It really narrows the field.

dodd's odd nods sounds like an 80s band