Keep Prison Single Sex closing

No that’s not what I said. I said look for yourself. I could easily have retorted ‘so you can’t read Twitter?’ I don’t fancy wasting my day on here. I advise people who are interested to have a look at this persons Twitter and make their own minds up. Don’t rely on the posts here

So you can’t provide evidence?

https://x.com/NoXYinXXprisons

It's all been deleted.

Oh no, I’m not talking about tone policing, her behaviour is way past tone policing. I changed it from attacking to verbally abusing because I guessed people here would tell me that words aren’t violence and I wanted to be very very clear. Just go ahead and have a look at her timeline. Anyone decent will be able to figure out which behaviour I mean. Others will defend her behaviour because she’s a woman or something like that 🙄

Soon to be downgraded to 'using an imperfect tone'.

You first said 'attacking' and then changed to 'verbally abusing'.

Can you substantiate what you mean using some screenshots of this 'verbal abuse'?

When middle class women took over the new women's centre, one of the reasons they thought they should get the paid positions was that 'we know how to talk to people', like the local Council. SSDD.

Verbally abusing people who don’t agree with them.

Which behaviour was that?

I’m really glad they are shutting down. Their work is very important and very good but they have made a mess of it by their online behaviour on Twitter. Now someone who knows how to behave can carry out this essential work

I suspect the meeting of Sex Matters et al with the NPCC about strip search guidelines was probably the last straw for KPSS. They were contact my Sex Matters 2 days before the meeting - much too short notice for them to be able to attend. They were also excluded for a meeting a while ago about keeping prisons single sex at Parliament that they were furious about.

The various big name GC campaigning groups talk about women existing as a sex class but I’m not convinced they approach their campaigning from a material reality class-based analysis point of view. They seem to be adopting the individualist framework that underpins postmodernist gender identity ideology and queer theory.

I'm curious to know why you see this as postmodernist in origin rather than as old-fashioned individualist liberal feminism.

The various big name GC campaigning groups talk about women existing as a sex class but I’m not convinced they approach their campaigning from a material reality class-based analysis point of view. They seem to be adopting the individualist framework that underpins postmodernist gender identity ideology and queer theory. And I don’t understand why judges in UK employment tribunals and higher civil courts can’t see these cases as involving material reality class-based issues even when they only have an individual in front of them seeking a remedy.

I know Liberals see incrementalism as a good way of making changes but I don’t see creating the legal fiction that men can be legally women as being an incremental change so I don’t see any harm in campaigning to repeal it and I can’t understand why so many of the big name GC campaigners are content to tinker around the edges of a bad law.

But Sex Matters can't backpedal. I do wonder if their cold shouldering of Kate was not because they disagreed with her but because they knew she was right but they have gone all in on their strategy and can't change horses now. Like another organisation in this fight.

If this is true it is really sad.

And also (if I have understood) really silly. Winning a court case as an individual protecting your employment rights isn't the basis for a wide reaching campaign.

Not sure how it would impact legally on actual case, but could have been the stepping stone to saying that having to pretend that the biological reality of sex is a "belief" is yet another reason to quesiton the law that has created this bizarre situation of actual and legal (ie certified) sex. It wouldn't occur in an any other protected characteristic, eg actual age and legal (certified) age, actual disability and legal (certified) disability, actual race and legal (certified) race.

Certified meaning based on a person identification rather than actual fact.

On another aspect, and no disrespect intended, but basing a campaign on now an individual managed to beat the legal system to achieve an aim that syncs with a feminist political analysis, doesn't make that campaign feminist. It is a parallel to but not necessarily supportive of feminist aims and objectives.

Thank you @southbiscay and @Signalbox , those are very useful summaries.

I used to believe and support the whole fiction many years ago in the name of BeKind and RSoH, then became much more Sex Matters-aligned. These days I’m fully in Kate’s way of thinking, as we see clearer and clearer what the longterm ramifications of all these campaigns, changes and legal arguments will be. As you say, the more GC campaigners build on foundations of sand, and allow any of the absurd fictions into our arguments, the weaker everything will become for us down the line. I suppose it’s just a question of which house will come tumbling down first.

I think Kate's strategy was the correct one (I think Signalbox sums it up succinctly).

But when Maya wanted to take legal action against her employer the legal advice based on the law was that the most likely route to success was under the belief protected characteristic. That victory seems to have set the path for everything that has followed. Of course it is insane to classify the immutability of sex as a belief when we all know it's a fact. But here we are. The foundations were laid and now the building has to sit on them. Even though they are probably the wrong shape.

Additionally, politics is the art of the possible and there is no doubt that repealing the GRA was going to be a bigger ask, so the temptation to tweak the EA instead seemed easier.

I really fear that establishing two kinds of sex in law - biological and legal - could backfire. It's yet another 'legal fiction' to add to the legal fiction that is the GRA. I think it also opens the door to an exponential rise in GRCs when Labour relax the criteria and create many many more legally female men.

But Sex Matters can't backpedal. I do wonder if their cold shouldering of Kate was not because they disagreed with her but because they knew she was right but they have gone all in on their strategy and can't change horses now. Like another organisation in this fight.

Kate and the team are brilliant, and have understood issues around safeguarding and police/prison failures and ideological capture with far greater clarity than most others. They have also helped and supported smaller groups and individuals behind the scenes and will be hugely missed. Massive thank you to them all x

I agree KPSS has been an amazing and important organisation and I have been so impressed by Kate and all she has achieved. Wishing her and the whole team all the very best in whatever comes next whatever that is! Grateful thanks to you all.

That is a real loss.

With thanks to Kate Coleman and all at KPSS.

Thanks for posting this, as I have seen it circulated on FB but not referenced to anything, and quite a lot of speculation on personalities, rather than politics.

I hope the notice gets posted elsewhere than twitter, as many aren't on twitter so cant see this.

But yes sad.

I am happy that there are a range of campaigns about the need for single sex provision, and recognise that there are difference is approaches.

Just a shame that some then think they need to but time into criticising other campaigns instead of getting on with their own and relying on what they are actually saying to get supporters.

So it would be sad if she has been "frozen" out.

I think there is a real need for organisations with expertise on a specific topic - eg KPSS- but we are at a point where more broad based organisations (with ever expanding scopes) are risking squeezing out the experts (I won’t say knowingly or unwittingly as I only have my personal observations on what has been public). I think it’s a terrible shame and unfortunately the wider public don’t know how much on the ground work many do in the background.

I suspect a bit of both.

From my observation Kate Coleman's position is no pronouns, no GRCs, no ideological language, no to a legal sex category, no to amending the EA to clarify sex means bio sex. She was against the FPFW census case because it argued the sex category should be based on bio or legal sex and this will inevitably cause problems later on. She's focussed on the long term rather than smaller shifts in policy.

Some of the other orgs (SM, WRN etc.) are a bit more compromising. They are campaigning to amend the EA to clarify that sex means biological sex but also appear to be content that the GRA remains (with gatekeeping intact).

These are quite big differences of opinion which unfortunately seem to spill out into criticising each other in public. I suspect this makes it quite tricky for orgs to work together.

Huge thanks to Kate and the KPSS team. You’ve done so much with so little help or support. You must be exhausted, and I hope you’re leaving before overwork destroys your health.

The disgraceful practice of allowing men into women’s prisons is an insult to all women.

I hope someone else will take up this campaign. I can’t afford a lot, but I’d gladly set up a monthly direct debit.

Awful news. 🧡