To ask you to see who girl guides support.

[RedCarpetRebellion]

www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10235539/amp/Girlguides-launch-probe-trans-Commissioner-58-saucy-dominatrix-style-picture.html

A woman sacked for speaking up for girls safety was replaced by this person.

Girl guides are not safe for girls. AIBU?

Well done for putting this on AIBU OP. If its manage to get through to even a few then it’s fantastic.

And thank you to Mumsnet for keeping it here and not bowing to the pressure I’m sure they’re getting from TRAs on this

@brighousepres

I had a post removed and then reinstated on the feminism board asking about why so many trans women keep their penises. It got quite heated.

(The reason it was deleted was likely because of mentions of A**)

I’d go over to the feminism and sex & gender boards. There’s loads of background and info for someone getting to grips with this stuff.

For me, it’s all about women’s rights and spaces being impacted. For TRAs to get everything they’re asking for, comes into direct conflict with women’s rights.

This means trans women and any man who self ids as woman (without even the need for hormones or surgery - on their say so alone) will have access to all women’s single sex safe spaces. This includes toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards, prisons and rape crisis centres and refuges. And obviously women only organisations like girl guides. These “women” nearly always keep their penises.

It also means trans women will have the right to compete in women’s sports. And from the ground level up, impacting women’s opportunities, safety and right to compete in a fair competition.

It was JK Rowling that peaked me. I came from a place of feeling sorry for the old school transsexual who was “born in the wrong body” and likely depressed, who then had full surgery and hormone treatments etc. Also of the view of, what harm could it do to call them a woman and indulge them. Be kind etc.

When in reality now, a huge proportion of trans women keep their penis, take no hormones and take great delight in violating women’s spaces and rights for their own validation. The TRAs are misogynistic and turn on any woman who dares speak out in favour of women, and protecting the rights of women and girls.

Read JK Rowling’s essay. It sums everything up really well. And then look at the abuse she got and continues to get for speaking out on behalf of women. It’s a disgrace. Search her name on Twitter and reams of nasty stuff comes up.

I’m sure there’s plenty of trans people that don’t wish harm to women and support our rights to safety, privacy and dignity in our single sex spaces but there is also a frightening number who wish us ill if we dare to question what’s currently happening. And all backed by Stonewall.

The erasure of the words woman and mother are also something to be deeply concerned about. NHS trusts across the land are taking steps to remove the word woman and mother from their literature. “Pregnant person” is something that’s popping up all too often

This means trans women and any man who self ids as woman (without even the need for hormones or surgery - on their say so alone) will have access to all women’s single sex safe spaces. This includes toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards, prisons and rape crisis centres and refuges

If there are no changes to the Equality Act then surely the current exemptions in law that are designed to protect single-sex provision for women will still apply? I think the key is to ensure the Equality Act is not changed.

@Zotter

This means trans women and any man who self ids as woman (without even the need for hormones or surgery - on their say so alone) will have access to all women’s single sex safe spaces. This includes toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards, prisons and rape crisis centres and refuges

If there are no changes to the Equality Act then surely the current exemptions in law that are designed to protect single-sex provision for women will still apply? I think the key is to ensure the Equality Act is not changed.

Sadly, you can see how little use in practice the "current exemptions in law that are designed to protect single-sex provision" are by the very example of Girl Guiding.

GG could have chosen to use the current exemptions in the Equality Act to maintain GG as a single-sex organisation.

GG chose not to use the single-sex exemption.

Edinburgh Rape Crisis could have chosen to use the current exemptions in the Equality Act to maintain a single-sex service. In fact, this sort of service is even given as an example in the Act and in Statutory Guidance by the EHRC.

However, despite advertising a post as for "Females only" with explicit reference to the Equality Act exemption, Edinburgh Rape Crisis chose not to use the single-sex exemption. It did not discard an application from a male who does not have a Gender Recognition Certificate but who "identifies as a woman".

That person, male, is now the CEO of Edinburgh Rape Crisis and describes raped women who are scared of males as "bigots" who need to be "re-educated".

(Most "women only" organisations and services are not single-sex. Any that say they are for "all women" will definitely not be single-sex: "all women" is code for "includes anyone who calls themselves a woman".)

It is up to the Service Provider whether it chooses, or not, to use the single sex exemptions in the Equality Act.

It is up to service users, in the case off GG that means parents, to either:

• put pressure on GG to apply the EA2010 single sex exemptions

• or set up an alternative organisation.

However, if the latter then, as a PP has mentioned, they will come up against some venues (and funding organisations) that refuse to have anything to do with single-sex groups/services.

This problem is so much bigger and pervasive than most people realise. This is because:

• it has all been done by stealth

• when news of any of it gets out it is so insane that it is hard to believe that it is true

• only "disgusting right wing papers" like The Mail, The Times, The Telegraph, The Economist and The Spectator have been covering it - so anyone who relies on The Guardian and/or the BBC for information is completely in the dark

• even on Mumsnet, as seen in this thread, there are efforts by some (often male MN members) to hide information from the wider membership by getting threads like this moved to the FWR Board, as "niche interest".

Despite women's rights and safeguarding children hardly being niche interests on a Parenting website, this has usually been successful, so a "thank you" to MN Mods for letting this thread stay in AIBU.

Anyone who wants to know what the hell is going on and what it means for women and children, I highly recommend a spot of lurking on the "Feminism: Sex & gender discussions" Board

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights

@Bosky
Here here, damn good summing up.

[quote Terfydactyl]@Bosky
Here here, damn good summing up.[/quote]
It is.

But I’d add the other reason is ‘sacred caste’.

Create a sacred caste who can’t be questioned (Catholic church, Jimmy Savile, scout volunteers, or in this case gender ideology) and silence anyone who does speak up by any means, no matter how violent, and you create a caste that will inevitably attract those who have nefarious intent.

When people, women, and initially it was lesbians, realised the reality of the scope of harm calling transwomen women had and spoke up they received extreme violence or threats or attacks on their characters. Silence detractors and quickly all people become silenced. And then it becomes the sunken cost fallacy and people find that very compelling.

It’s straight out of Stalin’s play book.

Perfectly put @Bosky

Now (thanks to the work of stonewall) The only way to ensure the single sex exemptions in the equality act are applied is for individual women & girls to complain & if necessary take an organisation to court which is fucking nuts!

Imagine - you are a traumatised woman who has suffered from male violence & rape. You go to your local womens refuge and a man identifying as a woman is assigned to be your counsellor. When you object you’re told TWAW Abd that if you can’t accept that, they can’t help that.

What is most likely to happen a) you’ll be off to the nearest solicitor to take them to court? Or b) you just stop using the service.

The refuge congratulates itself on its inclusivity & says no one has ever complained about its TWAW policy

It occurs to me that Rowling has received backlash in the past when she spoke in support of same sex marriage and a black actress being cast to play Hermione in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Which I guess you have to expect, sadly. But even then, it didn't start off a neverending tirade of misogynistic and sexualised abuse that saw people trying to silence and intimidate her with threats of rape and murder.

Even the fucking racists and homophobes, as a collective, didn't do this. Yet piss off the loudest layer of this particular lobby by stating that women need some same sex spaces - and look what happens.

Pleased to see this thread is still here. The recent post from Bosky summarises perfectly the awful position that women and women's organisations are now in.

Some excellent posts and excellent questions.

Anyone who wants further reading and further resources to look at, it might be a timely reminder to look at the Break it down for me thread.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

It starts off answering questions but has become an archive of studies, articles etc for further reading.

And the sex and gender discussion board has many issues being discussed.

It is very important though to remember that the discussions are happening from the perspectives of maintaining the rights of all females (ie including those who transition to men, and of course, girls) and children in general. It is the areas of conflict that are discussed.

It is portrayed by a few posters as ‘anti-trans’. This is absolutely not true and is just the new speak since the word ‘bigot’ is generally, and quickly, deleted. However, the EHRC chairperson released a statement recently that stated that women have every right to discuss these conflicts without being persecuted or silenced.

So, discussing these issues is NOT anti-trans. There are many trans people who respect the needs of females and who respect the needs of single sec spaces. Those who use the term ‘anti-trans’ generally believe they are on the ‘right side of history’ but ultimately the right side of history is to have a solution that works to protect all females, all children and to protect transitioned males. There can be no ‘sacred’ sub groups of humans that are exempt from being held accountable for the actions of those within the group. And transitioned males are just a subset of all males. Calling them transwomen implies they are a subset of women, of females.

There is absolutely no evidence that by transitioning, a male decreases the rate of committing sex crimes. Ie. Transwomen still do not commit sex crimes at a rate anywhere near that of females.

Therefore when discussing safeguarding of children, this subset of males need to be treated as if they were male. This is one of the times SEX actually matters and needs to be prioritised over GENDER.

However, the EHRC chairperson released a statement recently that stated that women have every right to discuss these conflicts without being persecuted or silenced.

It is incredibly telling that this needed to be said.

It is incredibly telling that this needed to be said

Those posters who still use the words ‘anti-trans’, ‘transphobic’, ‘terf’ and ‘bigot’ don’t seem to have got the message. Thankfully, there are less and less. When challenged they simply can never produce evidence behind their statements and only have emotional manipulation.

Terf is such a shit insult. Quite apart from the very obvious and deliberate attempt to denigrate feminism itself and lump any protesters as "radicals" as if they're saying something unbelievable (because we don't want a women's rights movement being taken seriously), it's just....a shit insult. Make up a crap insult and call people by its acronym. It's not clever or punchy. It's just...shit.

A lot to take in. I’ve been walking around with my eyes closed…

Some useful reference points. I’ll check them out. I still don’t get all the abbreviations but the starter thread is a good idea .

I argued about JK with a friend once and she didn’t even let me speak…

So one last thing I still don’t really see the benefit of siphoning off the debate around this stuff to a separate topic. Why should we be dictated where to put stuff? It makes some people appear very guilty of wishing to smother debate. And keep the powerful people happy… And the rest - well just pissed off. When did we lose our rights to just … be?

So one last thing I still don’t really see the benefit of siphoning off the debate around this stuff to a separate topic. Why should we be dictated where to put stuff? It makes some people appear very guilty of wishing to smother debate.

Because MN will sometimes listen to those who complain about these threads. (Thank you MNHQ for leaving this one here).

Some pundits compare this movement as a particular religious group (a four letter word starting with ‘c’ that gets deleted if mentioned). And when you look at it from the outside, I can see why it is analogous.

People need to smother debate because they believe that to discuss or even acknowledge the conflicts is to do so only from a position of hate. Those people have outsourced their critical thinking to social media influencers, self identifying as influencers anyway. The trope they roll out has come from a diet of twitter or youtube. Not from original sources or from studies themselves. Everything has to be regurgitated into the correct parlance and the right framing of offence by some else. Who rarely has any expertise at all.

They attempt to smother discussion on threads because they cannot provide any information or even balanced thinking to the thread. They are ploppers. They plop down one or two posts that seek to shame and to censure, and censor, and go away with the feeling that they ‘got’ those haters.

Meanwhile, knowledge gets imparted by informed posters, discussion continues and those ploppers are forgotten or any point they raise gets completely overwhelmed by being negated by evidence or counter points.

It plays out this way all the time. Not just here on MN but on twitter.

Still, the call to be kind does mean there are many places you cannot have these discussions. Because the people with the power to control discussion believe kindness should only go one way, to trans people. And any discussion that might mean males will not be included is to be rejected. Such as Facebook groups and some organisations, such as Girl Guides.

offense by someone else

Sorry.

My daughter wanted to start rainbows/brownies/guides but this has put me off as they clearly don't do checks on the leaders. I'm sure the majority are fine but this had made me think twice. I would rather her join beacers/cubs/scouts where she would be with her 2 older brothers and I would feel more comfortable. I can't believe in 2021 I have to think like this

@Cupcakeschocolate

My daughter wanted to start rainbows/brownies/guides but this has put me off as they clearly don't do checks on the leaders. I'm sure the majority are fine but this had made me think twice. I would rather her join beacers/cubs/scouts where she would be with her 2 older brothers and I would feel more comfortable. I can't believe in 2021 I have to think like this

I think it’s more likely they do do checks on leaders. But that some leaders, those that identify their way into womanhood are exempt from the same rules and expectations others are.

Which is a much bigger problem.

As others have said, the very heads of GG are captured, they want to prioritise gender ideology over the safeguarding of girls.

This isn’t a negligent mistake that can be put right once taken seriously, like happened with scouts safeguarding. This is an intentional disregard of women and girls boundaries and safety. That can’t be corrected unless the entire leadership is ousted. And I don’t think there’s a way to do that in a charity organisation for a kids hobby. I don’t think there’s anyone for them to answer to, so it won’t change. GG will collapse for good at some point, but likely not before the worst happens.

@RedCarpetRebellion they do enhanced CRB.

[quote DaphneDeloresMoorhead]@RedCarpetRebellion they do enhanced CRB.[/quote]
I know.

I also think it’s highly likely they do a basic Google/public social media check, because everyone does these days (DfE even recommend schools do this for visitors for pshe).

I expect they saw these pics and disregarded their own social media policy because this person is trans. A woman volunteer would be refused this role when they saw these pics, but a transwoman gets special treatment. Despite this one clearly having had decades of scouting experience so will have had a lot of safeguarding training and expected to follow social media policies there. But GG have looked the other way because this person is trans. Imho.

[quote DaphneDeloresMoorhead]@RedCarpetRebellion they do enhanced CRB.[/quote]
Their policy says that volunteers working regularly with children should have a disclosure. But the responsibility to make sure volunteers fill in forms etc is left with volunteers, eg district commissioner, who may or may not do it for whatever reason, so these don’t always get done as they should. I’ve seen that happen more than once.

@Eggybrains I had to supply my certificate so unless this has changed since I left they do require it. But that was a while ago, I left in 2019

Didn’t we discuss on FWR that if someone has a GRC that wipes out their former identity re seeing CRB useless??

I might be misremembering but I’m sure it was discussed at length

Rendering not re seeing!

@RedCarpetRebellion

Not wishing to bite that hand that feeds but by saying all that - MN is normally sadly part of the censorship of debate the balance of which favours the rights of trans women to do what they want - versus the safety of girls at Guides camp, and say rape victims in Edinburgh …

WHY? Can you cancel something as popular as MN anyway?

When were trans women allowed to start being Guide leaders & to join Guides?