Excellent from Trevor Phillips

Look closely at the outdated, paternalistic narrative running through the piece: vulnerable women needing to rely on men to protect them

No, this is not what I see.

women are defined only as wives.

No they are not. Read it again more carefully.

And on self-ID, the claims being made are wildly overblown.

You don't know that there has been no detrimental impact from self-ID in other countries until you ask every single person in that country and they say no. Self-ID in the UK would be a death knell to all women's rights. You cannot protect women's sex-based rights if you let everybody and his/her dog decide what a woman is.

I think you missed “too much heat, not enough light”.

If his concern is violence against women, then he should simply write: men, stop.

By Jove, why has nobody tried this before?!

What he could have said as a genuine ally

The new EHRC guidance has prompted strong reactions, but I think it is important to approach the issue carefully and respectfully.

Women’s safety matters. Many women experience public space differently from men and make daily calculations about vulnerability, risk and personal security that men may not always notice or fully understand. Those concerns deserve to be listened to seriously.

At the same time, this debate should not be framed as though trans people have no rights or protections. The challenge is how to balance competing rights and protected characteristics within the framework of the Equality Act.

In my view, the guidance is intended to provide greater legal clarity around single-sex spaces and services. People will disagree about whether it achieves that fairly, but the discussion should remain grounded in evidence rather than fear or hostility.

I also think institutions should be transparent and consistent about how they apply the law, rather than allowing public pressure alone to shape policy.

These are complicated issues involving dignity, safety, privacy and inclusion for different groups of people. We will not resolve them well if we caricature one another’s concerns or turn every disagreement into a culture war.

I had to come back and post again today because I really want people to read Trevor Phillips’ X post again carefully — and then read it again. Once you see what he is actually saying, you can’t unsee it.

I’m honestly shocked that so few people seem troubled by the way women are portrayed in it and the clumsy linking and conflating of issues.

Look closely at the outdated, paternalistic narrative running through the piece: vulnerable women needing to rely on men to protect them — despite the fact that men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of violence against women 3000 times a day in the uk (reported assaults only against women)

Women are framed relationally — as wives, as connected to others rather than just as individual women they are — while men are framed as individuals with agency and authority. And notice something else: women are defined only as wives. Where are the women who are civil partners, life partners, girlfriends, friends, or simply women in their own right?

That language reveals a very particular and deeply conservative social view of identity and gender roles.

What also concerns me is the way he conflates entirely separate issues into one continuous narrative. Male violence against women, women’s fear in public spaces, single-sex services, the Equality Act, self-ID, and trans inclusion are all folded together as though they are the same issue and present the same form of risk and occupy the same threat landscape

They do not.

I do not need a man with archaic narratives about women and their place in society to speak for me. I can speak for myself as a woman in my own right. And I certainly do not need men to “protect” me while simultaneously refusing to confront the reality of their male violence against women.

If his concern is violence against women, then he should simply write: men, stop.

And on self-ID, the claims being made are wildly overblown. The evidence from countries operating self-ID systems does not support the level of panic being promoted. In my view, this is an attempt to generate fear without a credible evidential basis. That leap is political, not evidential.

What also concerns me is his claim that trans people have “non-existent rights” rather than competing rights. Given his involvement in shaping the Equality Act, that distinction matters enormously and is deeply worrying.

I implore you to read again with eyes 👀 wide open and to not fall into a trap of being grateful to be counted even if it’s in this lowly cap in hand way. Trevor Phillips - to me he clearly has his own agenda about trans people and he is no ally to women

I’ll post below what I would expect of someone who is really coming from an equalities standpoint and recognising women’s genuine concerns

And look where we are now with the rape gangs. It speaks volumes that the labour party suspended him rather than listen to him. He is worth ten times the whole lot of them IMO. Always has been. Yes he has been speaking out about this ideology for years.

Yeah, I expect he is well aware of how trans activists would react.

A great, lucid and helpful post from him.

He's getting piled on by useful idiots and TRAs bringing out all the usual long debunked "points"
I don't suppose he cares though.

Hmmm, disappointed about that, but if it isn't new, I guess I'll have to live with it. It's like beating my head against a wall sometimes, you close one loophole only to find another.

I don't think it is new - some of the legal people on here have pointed out before that there's no age restriction.
I've argued that it should be tested in court as the protection offered to children for the PC of age and society's responsibility to safeguard the young is undermined by this.

I don't believe for a split second that the politicians originally involved in this ever thought it should apply to little children. But as usual, the implications were never thought through and the trans zealots with children in their sights would have insisted that it must apply to all ages.

Such is the danger of creating a sacred caste who claim to be the experts and believe that only they can dictate policy and practice.

I'm not sure. I think the bits you have bolded are actually quite clear. If you say "I'm going to transition/am transitioning/have transitioned" then the PC applies. For me, the vague and mercurial bit is "reassigning the person's sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex". That's a problem because it gets all metaphysicial and no one knows what it means. You need some common understanding to make sense of the term, and that common understanding (what does it mean to say that sex is "assignable"? What attributes of sex are there other than physiological? Does typical female behaviour - so far as that exists - get included as part of sex?) just isnt there. It's all about interpretation. But is the standard of interpretation the "reasonable person in law?" Who is that reasonable person? The man on the Clapham ominbus? But there's more than one Clapham omnibus these days, and they are all going in different directions. Or is it left entirely to those with "lived experience" - those who claim transitioner status? How do you determine lived experience in a court of law without creating some kind of legal test? What legal test? It's like trying to legislate about fairies at the bottom of the garden without having any idea of what fairies are because - well - because they don't exist, and certainly not at the bottom of any garden. Probably.

In the 1890s the US supreme court ruled that tomatoes were vegetables and not fruit. They did it for tax purposes, and justified it as far as I recall (I read about it - I'm not that old) by saying that yes, tomatoes are biologically fruit, but for culinary purposes should be considered vegetables. In the New York tax context at the time, it was realistic to assume that tomatoes were being imported for salads and cooking and not to take any rightful place in the family fruit bowl. The justification worked because it was real and made sense and adressed a specified, real problem which had to be solved - do you pay the vegetable tax on imported tomatoes or not? It was a coin toss, and the Supreme Court came down, unsurprisingly, on the side of New York tax authorities. But the issue of sex reassignment is not in any way so clear cut. So you have the clause in the 2004 gender recognition act which basically says that anyone changing their sex changes it for everything unless we have said/ say/ might in the future say it doesn't in another law.

The law was clarified last year in the FWS case. That should be an end to the matter, but it won't be.

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ to Trevor Phillips

Absolutely. When it comes to gender identity politics.

Men...be like Trevor.

Someone has to look quite deeply into it

Except that it hasn't really been that difficult for men to become aware of the issues. They just had to do two things: listen to women and care enough.

Too many men have avoided both of those things, some with apparent glee.

I think there are men who trust the state to safeguard everyone, so assume its women getting things out of proportion.

Someone has to look quite deeply into it to realise men are just self iding into changing rooms and prisons.

ps. sorry , doing this a lot today,

should read "That's NOT what I took from that post."

I disagree.That's not what I took from that post.

Yes, Trevor Philips has been vocal on this issue before, but I don't agree that most men have been silent because others (you mean women? prefer them to be silent. Women have been saying for more than a decade that men should be doing and saying more.

I think men are, and have been, silent on these issues because

a) they aren't aware of the issues
b) they are vaguely aware of the issues, but they haven't been bothered to find out more about them
c) they are very aware, but don't want get involved because it's too much like hard work, with (they think) no benefit to them
d) they are very aware, but think it isn't their business or responsibility
e) they are very aware, but because it doesn't affect them directly, can't be bothered to do anything about the issues
f) they are very aware, but the situations that women find themselves in suits the men just fine, and as long as it isn't happening to them, they don't care
g) they know full well what women and girls are having to deal with, but don't care
h) they know full well all the issues, and get off on the fact that women are treated as bipedal support animals by society

And all the other variations of "not my problem, mate" that you can think of.

Men who actually get involved are few and far between, and these men normally start becoming aware of our issues when they have daughters.

So, Trevor's comments are relevant and necessary.

The GRA could never impose surgical or medical treatment before receiving a GRC.

As far as I understand it, a GRC is the end of the 'gender reassignment' process. In that the state has officially recognised the holders gender reassignment.

The PC of GR, in part, protects a person throughout that process? So to support the process - they should be allowed to change their name and title at work, not be forced to wear gender based uniforms. Also, allowed time off work to see specialists and have surgery they may choose to have.

The 'proposing to undergo' bit is to protect them while seeking a diagnosis. It also protects those who cannot get a GRC because of religion or because they want to remain married to someone who doesn't consent.

To me, all of this seems reasonable. But its all a lie because it isnt 'gender ' thats been reassigned. The state is giving these people permission to use the incorrect sex on id. Its not recognising a gender its falsifying sex.

And I dont know a way to compromise because TRA want to use sex based words for their gender. Even if we allow id to record sex as well as acquired gender, a man with sex = male and gender = woman/female is just as nonsensical as what we have now.

What an arrogant and ill-informed post.

Trevor Philips has been speaking out on this for many years. You are wrong to say he has been silent. What have you been doing these last few years?

Between this post and the many posts complaining about his use of language (and not his message), is it any wonder people (men) aren’t speaking up?

I read this and genuinely think a lot of people would prefer others to remain silent.

Religion is more complicated though and with a longer history.

Historically, religion isnt a choice, its the family they're born into. Even if individuals don't believe, their name and even street they live in tells their religion. It used to be a big issue for catholics and protestant, without race being a factor.

Of course he did. There is nothing offensive about these statuses. Every woman is a daughter. A man cannot put himself in the place of a woman, but every man has a mother - hopefully, one he loves and cares for.

Yes, that bit about gender reassignment applying to children is new, isn't it? I hope it doesn't get glossed over, or lost in the shuffle. Didn't it used to be practically 100% accepted by people who weren't captured by this ideology that tiny children and babies simply cannot be "gender reassigned?"

Are we now all supposed to accept that they can?

Yes.

I suspect they were thinking, or some were, that there was a certain time factor, where an individual undergoing surgical transition would be preparing, or in the midst of, the process, and that should all be covered where they were presenting in feminine coded ways.

And maybe where it fell down is that they were only imagining people who were in a kind of good faith, because why would anyone go through so much faff and real medical risk if they were just perverts?

But they neglected to see that a) perverts can in fact be very extreme, b)if you reduce the medical commitment involved by saying that part isn't necessary, that element of filtering people out goes away.

Absolutely.
And the confirmation that the pc of gender reassignment applies to a child of any age is a safeguarding nightmare.

I do hope at some stage that will reviewed as it's evidently wrong and dangerous to argue that babies, toddlers and young children can be gender reassigned.