I've tried .

[stillvicarinatutu]

I've really tried to engage in the fwr board but it's so hostile.

I really wanted to explore more but I just feel attacked whenever I speak my truth.

I don't know what came of the Caroline what's her name thread because I hid it . I really wanted to try and understand what was happening there and try to offer insight and engage from the perspective of a woman in the police .

But I just can't get through the "your all bastards , Wayne cousins, watching me , agenda , trans rights , you're all bastards cos some forces are talking bollocks stuff .

I agree with most of everything but when I'm trying to engage and proffer my support all I get is you behaved badly because you said police should patrol at nigth and have the audacity to LOOK at a woman out at night . The. WC gets brought up like the majority of the police force men and women are some physical threat - when he was the absolute definition of exception not the rule.

I get insulted time and time again and I still tried . It's just turned me off the whole topic because no one will actually talk rationally with me .
And if I ask why all I will get is sulky replied about how police are all shit with some anti feminist agenda when I work in a drive that has never ever had that agenda - no stonewall training , no lanyards with rainbows or cars with stickers - yet when I say this is not my experience while respecting it may be yours - I get told I must be a man .

Last night I posted in a thread and asked what is the issue with police patrolling at night and looking at people who are out ?

Result : your behaved badly . You said it wasn't an issue . You said that's what police are meant to do . (It is actually! Police patrol at night because that's when most crime happens like burglary and car crime )

The reason I'm posting before anyone says something really witty like do t let the door hit your arse on the way out
Is because I wanted to engage and be included in chats that involve women . No
Matter what their job is . I have no trans agenda - I have always said and always believed you are born with either an x or a Y chromosome and that determines your skeletal frame , and your sex . And that cannot be changed.
I'm horrified by the tales here of thought police and wrong think .
I'm in that job and I could actually raise this . The more I learned the more ridiculous it seemed . But I can't even talk about it without jibes or civility.
The fwr board is really really hostile . As a woman I feel unwelcome to even discuss anything .
This will cause more offence and a round of fuck offs. But I really wanted to learn what the issues were around fwr and policing . Its like an exclusive club that no one can gain entry to unless you absolutely comply with the narrative- and I don't even know what it is !
I really wanted to try and understand and learn and possibly - possibly try to raise some of the issues from within .

Anyway - please please don't pile on - this is constructive criticism.
And I won't engage . I've hidden the fwr board now because I don't feel I can be included or add anything of value .

Please don't prove me right by being vindictive or abusive .

I just wanted to learn , help , engage.

I really wish you luck in what ever you hope to achieve .

I expect the sorts of things in those articles are a big part of why women here are either really sceptical of anyone who is in the police or works with police, and also really pleased to see you here to the point it will feel like pressure on you.

Luckily there are pockets of sanity, and some of the elected PCC’s are trying to fix things.

I know my own local force are making a concerted effort to get back to basics with a rather traditionally minded new Chief Constable, but then there is the fear that we trade some of this woke stuff for old fashioned misogyny. Still, fingers crossed.

This is unrelated but I've often thought about approaching the fed with a view to trying to get some equality regards our fitness test .

We (I - as a 50 year old woman ) will need to work until I am 60 . How is it fair to ask a 60 year old woman to run the same test as an 18 year old man . We carry our body fat differently, we have tits , we have children, we are biologically different, we aren't as fast or strong - in many other countries the fitness test is staggered as in the military on the basis of age and sex . This subject has worried me for years because I feared that when I can no longer run it - I'm liable to dismissal. I now have athritis and I can't run - lucky because this is a long term issue it's covered under the disability rights act - I agree that our police need a level of fitness but I cannot see how it is fair to expect a 60 year old woman take the same test as an 18 year old man !

Sorry off topic slightly . But I still feel that women are at a disadvantage due to this .

That seems like a reasonable adjustment to be written into policy somewhere, definitely!

Reading those links I'm starting to understand why the ridicule . My god. I'd have thought this was satirical if it weren't so fucking terrifying.

And you know the real scary thing ?
If we did get compelled to do this "training " - no one would dare open their mouth and say eat 99% of the room would be thinking.

I read a news article on bbc the other week where a detective had questioned some training given by a guy who was implicated in the CSE scandal and she was dismissed for gross misconduct.

This all actually makes me appreciate my force so much . We have had none of this !

I genuinely couldn't stomach it if we did .

I’ve been on a course and what you need to understand is that you can have a foetus with a female brain that grows male body parts and that’s what a transgender person is.”’

Omg . I'm cringing . I used to be a special in humberside many years ago . How embarrassing. Is this what they're being taught ? I've no links to humberside anymore . But I know the guys and women I worked with just weren't like this - this is new . This is getting impressed upon new impressionable recruits surely - you wouldn't have got that response from a seasoned Bobby im pretty sure . I despair . Seriously. This makes us all look so incredibly stupid !

This story, from north wales, really upset me (I have a son with Asperger’s of a similar age)

www.womenarehuman.com/autistic-teen-found-guilty-of-hate-crime-for-asking-police-officers-sex-autism-group-condemns-prosecution/

uk.news.yahoo.com/transgender-pcso-wales-court-133507745.html

Will read - I also have an adult son with Aspergers.

Another lurker here pleased to see you on this topic OP. Just please be careful for yourself too, although it sounds like your force might be supportive and open to being neutral 🤞

I think its the PCC in Surrey who's been pretty vocal in speaking out, and has obviously also received a lot of flak for it. Might be worth getting in contact (her name slips my mind, apols).

Omg .

My question here is why did that trans persons rights trump the rights of a disable person whose very condition means they have no filter and ask questions that some might deem rude - he should be protected under disability discrimination laws !!! This is truly truly horrific.

He's asked a question- why is it seen as hate ? Just a see the frigging question and move on fgs. I was actually stood behind someone in the checkout queue day before yesterday and I was wondering the same thing - I was behind someone who had the features of a male yet was dressed as a traditional female with make up on etc - why is that a hate crime to wonder ? So I can think it but if I say it it's a crime ?

I would have have had to fight that every single step of the way if that had been my son and I'd have literally thrown the Aspergers book at them . I am truly horrified. Where the hell was his lawyer ? The definition of Aspergers is lacking theory of mind - asking an honest question should never be a crime . My head is twisted - seriously.

And I'm sorry but if someone shouting a legitimate question at you leaves you "afraid to patrol alone " then get a fucking grip .

Try being a cop . Try that for a day and see what gets shouted at you , Jesus Christ .

I've been bloody shot at - and was back at work next night . If you are that fragile this is the wrong job I'm afraid .

I've got 5-10 years left to do and if this is where we are
Going I can't bloody wait to retire .

I'm just gonna have to take a breath have a glass of wine and come back .

I truly didn't know this was happening.

if we’d known about it before the court date we would’ve crowdfunded for better legal representation.

but a small town teenager* with ASD who is carer for his disabled father figure is an easy target for a quick tick box conviction - he wouldn’t have known who to reach out to, not even if there were people out there who would be willing to support him 😢

*and a 19 year old aspie is likely to be a lot less mature developmentally than an average 19 year old, and even an average 19 year old hasn’t got full impulse control yet.
If this lad is anything like my son, he probably has no ‘indoor voice’ either, and might never have intended the PCSO to hear, it could easily have been a genuine question.

I read a news article on bbc the other week where a detective had questioned some training given by a guy who was implicated in the CSE scandal and she was dismissed for gross misconduct.

Have you got a link to that? I'd be interested to read it.

That particular PCSO has courted publicity before then and has done so again more recently, and is very open about being FTM trans, so it’s not as though they were put in any additional danger by a teenager asking an embarrassing question. It wasn’t a confidential matter, no one was outed.

2 years before:

www.deeside.com/transgender-pcso-based-in-mold-speaks-out-in-video-to-combat-hate-crime/

1 year after:

www.thenational.wales/news/19534381.meet-connor-freel-welsh-transgender-police-officer/

In this 2016 article we learn that local radio DJ Stephanie Hirst, who once told Pink News ‘it was either tits or death’ delivers training to the Humberside force. In the Telegraph, Hirst said ‘ when…I was first wolf-whistled, it made me feel good’. I wonder if Stephanie has any thoughts on why so few women report street harrassment to the police?

This is appalling, sexism and misogyny on crack and the Police (general not you personally) wonder why women don't trust them or have faith in them? Women are just a pair of tits and should love being objectified???

What kind of force would subject its female staff to training from someone with such a disgusting attitude to women? As if it isn't hard enough for women in the police force as it is, women police officers should be able to take this higher without any detriment to them.

I e searched both Google and bbc news and I can't find the article on the detective who got dismissed for questioning the credentials of the trainer .

There's a tiny part of me that would actually love them to try and give me this training because I am a slightly loose cannon in that respect - I would be asking why we are getting state sanctioned training in sexism and misogyny - I've often piped up in the middle of training sessions when something doesn't sit right with me . Id love to see the faces of the the trainers when asked that .....

I'd actually be asking that very question right there and then very publicly in the middle of that training session. What could they do ? Sack me ? Think not.

I don't think MN is at all consistent about that actually. If your lived experience is something MN thinks is bs you will be told that it's not all about you. It's about the underlying principle, it;s about how it works at a population level, etc.

And on the other hand I've seen threads where a topic was being discussed seriously, someone posted about an experience related to it, and when that was addressed as if it was part of the discussion the person who queried it was told they just had to accept it. Which basically meant accepting it was a kind of last word.

Re the fitness test, I read an interesting essay about the way the fire brigade have to do fitness tests that are relevant to their work, whereas the bleep test is, as you say, best suited to an 18 year old man.
I think women often come off better in terms of stamina rather than bursts of energy.
So maybe things like a 2km walk with a stab vest and all the gear would level the playing field a bit.
::wandering off mumbling about how bad stab vests are for back health::

Absolutely. Right on both scores ! I could always run a long way for a long time but I do t have speed ! And yep stabvests are the devils work but necessary.

The poster that wanted some advice- I've logged into laptop now so if you do want to message I'll get it

Appear some people just like the limelight.

Why not just quietly get on with life ? I'm a mother of an autistic son - I haven't courted publicity- like most people we just get on with life .

Yes talk about your issues if you feel it helps but don't use your job . A job that should be neutral.
I don't get in the paper for being a hot woman pc . I don't get in the paper for doing my job as a woman . If you're a man fine - go be one . My fat and black colleagues don't do this . Go away - do your job . The one you're paid to do . Like all the gay , black , lesbian, ethnic minority cops do . Ffs .

Ffs not fat - gay - that was meant to say gay although fat maybe relevant too ! 😂

Vicar, I think you might find some interesting bits on this thread. Some of it about police protecting at least one person who should not have been protected.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4652564-why-are-these-men-always-protected