AIBU to tell every mother on mumsnet...

[LastRoloIsMine]

We nearly lost the word mother and all that comes with it?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4176497-History-in-the-making-Watch-Parliament-Live-at-2-30pm

The maternity bill wanted to remove the word mother/woman and replace it with pregnant person.
Those words are important and women have fought for a century to be recognised yet we were nearly wiped out in favour of belief not fact.

I wont say "I am not transphobic" like some sort of plea! I dont actually have to I am just fighting for womens rights no need for me to explain myself any further.

@Rubyupbeat

Only women have periods Only women get pregnant Only women give birth Only women breastfeed (no, it's not chest feed)

This a thousand times over

I suspect those on here wanting to change the language from a Maternity Rights Bill to gender neutral language are using those very few and rare trans men who become mothers as a smoke screen to cover those who arereallyoffended and are determined to cut females out of everything related to females and womanhood.

Yep

@gardenbird48

great thread Rolo.

It is such a good question - Am I Being Unreasonable to tell every other mother how close we are to losing our words?

Sometimes I feel like I am watching a slow motion car crash in one of those dreams where I can't get the words out to warn everyone of what is happening.

Thankfully we have places like Mumsnet where we are actually allowed to discuss it (to an extent) and alert other mums to the situation.

The deliberate strategy of getting legislation passed 'under the radar' like Ireland and Canada nearly worked until some brave women managed to raise the alarm, then were amplified by the amazing JK and now we have ever growing ranks of people who, having understood what is going on, can see the consequences (already being experienced by too many).

The huge strides that we have made are reflected in the level of knowledge demonstrated by the debate in the House of Lords, thanks to Baroness Nicholson who has also been a victim of the trans lobby and is a powerful force of nature.

We need to keep pushing and talking to everyone we can and writing to MPs and every organisation that has removed Sex from the list of protected characteristics in their anti-discrimination policies and make them listen.

I have never seen such a movement that has such an active disregard for truth, fairness and mostly importantly, safeguarding the children.

@gardenbird48 what legislation passed under the radar in Ireland and Canada? I'm not familiar with it.

In Ireland Self ID was passed in 2015. Thread from a few years ago here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3270322-Ireland-has-had-self-ID-for-several-years-with-no-problems

@LastRoloIsMine

YouSetTheTone

What a wonderful post. Summed the thread up well. Thank you..

Funneth

I am so sorry you have and are suffering. Female healthcare is as we know 20 years behind where it should be. I wish it wasn't.

Thanks @LastRoloIsMine Thank you too for this thread, it’s been an important and interesting read. These conversations need to be had.

@coconutpie

they brought in self-id hidden in the Gay Marriage legislation. The Dentons document (in the link below) reflects the approach taken to get the legislation passed with no public scrutiny or knowledge.

The situation in Ireland (and Canada and several other countries have used similar tactics) for women is pretty dire with at least two (possibly three now) violent sex offenders (one of which has a stated aim to 'kill women' and ripped off their social workers eyelid while she was driving). Find out more about this person here www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/teenager-in-custody-charged-with-threats-to-kill-two-people-39563823.html

These people obtained a GRC to be legally classed as female and housed in a women's prison. This prison is not set up to deal with such dangerous prisoners and in no way is able to safeguard the vulnerable women prisoners (many of whom are already victims of sexual abuse/rape). Obtaining a GRC in Ireland now just involves filling in a form - there is no medical assessment for gender dysphoria (and in fact the Gender clinic assessing Barbie K said that there was no indication of dysphoria).

Many lobbying groups including Stonewall, major unions etc are still pushing for a similar self-declaration in the UK, where any male person can fill in a form and receive legal certification that they are female (or vice versa) and the Women & Equalities Select Committee are also pushing for this type of self-id and attempting to keep it very much under the radar. This is despite Liz Truss's announcement last September that self-id is off the table.

We can't relax yet.

‘In Ireland, Denmark and Norway, changes to the law on legal gender recognition were put through at the same time as other more popular reforms such as marriage equality legislation. This provided a veil of protection, particularly in Ireland, where marriage equality was strongly supported, but gender identity remained a more difficult issue to win public support for.’

Another recommendation is even more revealing: ‘Avoid excessive press coverage and exposure.’

According to the report, the countries that have moved most quickly to advance trans rights and remove parental consent have been those where the groups lobbying for those changes have succeeded in stopping the wider public learning about their proposals.

feministlegal.org/the-document-that-reveals-the-remarkable-tactics-of-trans-lobbyists/#.YDt5R9VxfIU

And once you get it, and see it as it applies to every instance where the word woman is being uncoupled from her biology, it becomes crystal clear.

As does the heart thumping realisation, that the converse, in terms of men, is simply not happening.

Yes, precisely Datun.

More on Ireland...
Thread in FWR on a trans sex offender seeking a seduced sentence, currently housed with female prisoners www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4177587-TW-in-Limerick-prison-wants-their-sentence-reduced

Another violent trans offender to be sentenced for assaulting three men: www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/circuit-court/transgender-woman-to-be-sentenced-for-assaulting-three-men-1.4489730?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

An article on Amnesty International (Ireland branch) supporting the idea that women who 'defend biology' shouldn't have 'legitimate representation', and other madness, including details of another violent trans prisoner - spectator.us/topic/amnesty-international-travesty-trans-rights-ireland/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

In fact a huge trans ally, Lord Cashman didn’t even mention transmen (or non binary people) in his outraged reaction to the debate.

And neither he, nor Lord Adonis, nor Ruth Hunt, actually bothered to turn up and speak in the second Lords debate last week. I wonder why?

Indeed, Cashman framed it around transwomen who have nothing to do with the maternity bill, as transwomen do not give birth. Cashman points out that he could never sacrifice the rights of others in order to maintain my own.

Somehow I suspect if it was his rights being removed, that were integral to his own health, dignity and safety, he may not feel quite as strongly about giving them away.

Either way it's clear who's rights he is concerned about.
Clue:
Not women
Not transmen.

As it's so important for society and his community, it's odd that he didn't turn up and give a passionate speech. Was he busy both times? It's a shame, because obviously his completely evidence-based and coherent arguments about trans issues might have carried the day.

I'm surprised he didn't turn up. He's clearly so passionate about it. I wonder what kept him so busy in these days of covid that he couldn't rearrange in order to make his feelings known to the HoL. 🤔

Gods! I've just realised who Cashman is! Eastenders bloke.

I knew he wasn't Ellis Cashman (another great academic disappointment). But that Tweet just shows how entrenched it is: womens rights are "blatant misrepresentation and defamation of transwomen".

I mean, what transwoman has been / will ever get pregnant? It quite literally has nothing to do with them?

Why aren't transwomen asking people like Cashman to stop misrepresenting them/making them look bloody stupid?
Why aren't transmen ever mentioned by him?
Why aren't they shouting at him?

Cashman points out that he could never sacrifice the rights of others in order to maintain my own.

Yet here he is, merrily trashing the rights of women while maintaining all his own rights.

He has actually clarified what rights he believes trans people are not currently in possession of?

We still haven't got to the bottom of which rights they think they are missing.

Cashman's tweet neatly evidences my earlier point as to what's behind the removal of language pertaining to women and why the gender neutralisation of language and services is only aimed at and being forced on one sex.

Remarkable that Cashman couldn't find the time to explain to the HoL how a Maternity Rights Bill misrepresented and defamed transwomen who, like men, will never need maternity rights.

Why aren't transwomen asking people like Cashman to stop misrepresenting them/making them look bloody stupid?

Because they support him.

Why aren't transmen ever mentioned by him?

Because they don't count, they are the wrong sex.

Why aren't they shouting at him?

They are of the sex that he and his torch bearers don't listen to or hear.

@RedDogsBeg

Cashman's tweet neatly evidences my earlier point as to what's behind the removal of language pertaining to women and why the gender neutralisation of language and services is only aimed at and being forced on one sex.

Remarkable that Cashman couldn't find the time to explain to the HoL how a Maternity Rights Bill misrepresented and defamed transwomen who, like men, will never need maternity rights.

And should the most vocal poster who wanted to know what actual difference it would make HERE IT IS!

You'd think he'd have worked out that he should have been there! Have his most important voice heard!

Or maybe he has worked out the Emperor has no clothes and is now reduced to virtue signalling via Twitter?

@RedDogsBeg

The other thing I find strange is how people can seemingly quite easily make the stretch to imagining a trans person who feels uncomfortable or ‘triggered’ by use of language or rights based on the female sex

Funny how these trans people are so triggered by the use of language yet remain completely at ease using their female bodies to gestate a child, something only a female body can do, a unique female experience. However, I suspect those on here wanting to change the language from a Maternity Rights Bill to gender neutral language are using those very few and rare trans men who become mothers as a smoke screen to cover those who are really offended and are determined to cut females out of everything related to females and womanhood.

This with bells on

Or maybe he has worked out the Emperor has no clothes and is now reduced to virtue signalling via Twitter

Either way it's clear he's not bold enough to stand up and be counted where it matters. It's easier to keep his admiring followers onboard by tweeting platitudes to them to keep them happy. One could argue, if they were that way inclined, that he's let his followers down. When he is in a position of power to try and help them. But he didn't.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

In fact a huge trans ally, Lord Cashman didn’t even mention transmen (or non binary people) in his outraged reaction to the debate.

And neither he, nor Lord Adonis, nor Ruth Hunt, actually bothered to turn up and speak in the second Lords debate last week. I wonder why?

When you think how much abuse the people on the 'other side' of the debate get, yet they still speak out.

A man is a man, a woman is a woman, and there is a tiny percentage of people who are intersex. If you are a man who thinks they are trapped in the wrong body, you are still a man, you just don’t like the way you look or are expected to behave. By all means have radical plastic surgery and take artificial hormones to feel more comfortable in your own skin and signal to others that you wish to be treated as a member of the opposite sex, but you are never going to turn yourself into an actual woman, you will only ever be a transsexual and should have the rights of a transsexual, not attempt to take over the definition of a separate group of people altogether.

Either way it's clear he's not bold enough to stand up and be counted where it matters. It's easier to keep his admiring followers onboard by tweeting platitudes to them to keep them happy. One could argue, if they were that way inclined, that he's let his followers down. When he is in a position of power to try and help them. But he didn't.

Quite. If I were a TRA I would be wondering about that.

This is a thread that should be preserved. How could it be saved in classics? Or elsewhere. So many brilliant posts ...it would be a shame if they get lost.

How on earth can legislation NOT matter?!

It's legislation that enshrines and enforces peoples rights and responsibilities

Of course it's important how that legislation is worded because that affects its practice.

Words DO have meaning because they LITERALLY shape thought and by shaping thought in individuals, attitudes and actions in groups. There is TONS of socio-linguistic evidence for this.

Go look at linguistic development and how it shapes societal development.

The specific harms possible:

Removal of single sex spaces

Men admitted into single sex spaces where the women in them are vulnerable

Resources being assigned to unnecessary aims/wasted and then not available to those who actually need them - resources are finite! The fact that there are likely millions being spent by central govt and local govts, by charities on this crap means this money is NOT being spent where it IS genuinely needed. Eg in provision of support services for women who are victims of DA

What we are already seeing - an increase in sexism, vawg, discrimination against women, the reversal of hundreds of years of fighting to get women's sex based rights

False research results due to attempts to be "inclusive"

If the language "doesn't matter" then why are you bothered at some of us wanting it to say "mother" rather than "pregnant person"? That's like the men that say "marriage is just a piece of paper" when rooting for an excuse NOT to marry because they know that actually it's NOT just a piece of paper at all

Agree too it opens the door to men invading the maternity space which belongs to women, only women can experience pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding

Also agree with

You can't solve discrimination and oppression against groups of people if you don't know who they are or can't describe them accurately.

Language is vital when it comes to creating and enforcing laws - "letter of the law" etc

When legislation is unclear it is wide open to misuse and abuse

This gender bollocks is double speak and it supports misogyny and patriarchy and the oppression of women

I have to say I'm always suspicious of posters with obviously "feminine" names who post on threads on this debate from a stance that is anti women

It’s interesting how dreadfully important language is when talking about trans people.

But apparently so completely unimportant when talking about women...

Strange that.

Isn't it? It's important WHEN IT SUITS THEIR AGENDA!

Pronouns - important
Description of the person essential to life continuing for the human race - unimportant

Yes to everything you said, @Graphista!

Honestly it beggars belief that people cannot (or more likely, do not want to) make those connections.