I’m going to try not to have this thread zapped so I am going to be fairly sparse on details and just stick to the information that has been published in newspapers etc.
This week David Challenor (also known as Baloo Challenor) was convicted of the horrific sexual abuse and torture of a 10 year old girl:
metro.co.uk/2018/08/23/paedophile-dressed-up-as-baby-and-raped-girl-10-in-torture-den-7873346/
David had a lot of other ‘interests’ which included the scout movement, children’s gymnastics, children’s charities etc – One of David’s keen interests was the Green Party, in particular promoting trans issues (including self-ID) both himself and through his daughter Aimee. Aimee is a transwoman (ie a male who identifies as being a woman) and David appears to identify most of the time as a man but as a woman/girl some of the time (e.g. during the above abuse David was wearing a dress and identifying as a six-year-old girl). This campaigning focuses on removing all safeguards on allowing men to identify as and legally become women and in allowing them access to women’s and girls’ spaces such as changing rooms, refuges, single sex dorms etc.
Aimee is the Equalities spokesperson for the Green Party, has been a parliamentary candidate and is currently running for Deputy Leader. Aimee is also a member of the Stonewall Trans Advisory Group, arguing for an end to single-sex protections for women and girls.
I’m not suggesting that Aimee was aware of the abuse going on in the attic but, as someone living in the house, Aimee would presumably have been interviewed by the police when David was charged so would have been aware of the charges – but continued to appoint him as their election agent as recently as May 2018, which I believe demonstrates a serious lack of judgement:
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rising-greens-star-aimee-challenor-will-not-quit-over-rapist-father-kngjwc8l5?shareToken=5ffdb9ed49c3c5ff2bb53da043e2ccac
kualo.greenparty.org.uk/statements/
This comes hot on the heels of the revelations about Jess Bradley (a male who identifies as a non-binary woman). Jess was the founding director of Action for Trans Health, is the NUS’s transgender students officer and was one of the select group of people that Parliament’s Women and Equalities Committee chose to consult with on its Transgender Equality report. Jess argued for the removal of all safeguards in allowing men to identify as women and for the removal of all single sex exemptions (so that a male can access any single sex facilities or services just by saying he is a woman and that it would be illegal and discrimination to prevent him). The Committee failed to listen to the voices of women’s groups and other cautionary voices and accepted these recommendations wholesale, recommending them to the government.
Last month, despite the strongest efforts of a top legal firm (and I have to wonder who was paying for that??), the story broke that Jess was accused of exposing their penis (in various states of ‘excitement’) in public places such as train carriages, parks etc and then posting the photos in an ‘exhibitionism’ blog:
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6003331/Britains-official-transgender-student-officer-suspended.html
There’s more to these stories than what I’m including here but I’m very conscious that a lot of threads get zapped and, certainly, Jess (and maybe David/Aimee?) have top lawyers trying to prevent information becoming public so I am sticking to information that has already appeared in the press.
AIBU to be concerned that some of the most influential people who have jumped on the trans/self-ID bandwagon are doing so for their own motivations and that our parliament and political parties have shown a spectacular lack of judgement in not considering the safeguarding of women and girls and only listening to one lobby, which attempts to silence all dissenters?
And, no, wringing your hands and condemning abuse after it has happened and been exposed is not ‘safeguarding’. Safeguarding means taking women’s and girls’ concerns seriously in the first place and taking steps to prevent abuse from happening.