International Women’s Day Q&A with Penny Mordaunt MP, Secretary of State for International Development NOW CLOSED TO NEW QUESTIONS

[JustineMumsnet]

[EDITED BY MNHQ: Questions have now been collated and sent over - new questions may not be answered]

Hello all,

We’re very pleased to announce a Q&A with Penny Mordaunt MP, Secretary of State for International Development and Minister for Women and Equalities.

Please post your questions on this thread by lunchtime on Wednesday March 6. We’ll send on a selection to the Minister and we will post up written answers from Penny on this thread this coming Friday (March 8), International Women’s Day.

In her role as Secretary of State for International Development, Penny Mordaunt oversees DFID’s work ending extreme poverty overseas, including programmes focused on girls’ education and women’s health. DFID has been in the news recently, facing calls for its budget to be spent partly on encouraging projects that would aid British business overseas, and for it to be folded into the Foreign Office instead of being a standalone department.

In her role as Minister for Women and Equalities, Penny is also responsible for work including gender pay gap reporting and possible changes to the law concerning gender recognition.

Penny campaigned for Brexit in the run-up to the 2016 EU referendum and is a Royal Naval Reservist. She has previously been Minister of State for Disabled People and Minister of State for the Armed Forces.

Please add your questions for Penny here by Wednesday lunchtime. And although it’s not a live webchat please stick to the spirit of our webchat guidelines and keep it civil.

If one topic is overwhelmingly dominating responses we might request that people don't continue to post what's effectively the same question or point. Rest assured we will ALWAYS make the recipient aware that it's an area of concern to multiple users and will encourage them to engage with those questions.

Thanks
Justine

Nb existing members will be able to post on this thread. Thanks.

Just wanted to second Datun's excellent post from last night:

And yes Rebecca Root, a transwoman did indeed make this argument. As do all male TRAs.

Root was implying that as not all women's biology is the same, then men's biology is just another variation thereof.

To back up the argument that men should be admitted/employed in rape refuges.

To a rape survivor.

In a rape refuge.

On national tv.

Well done for that echo, Penny.

THis is an answer that irked (well, to be honest, most did).

It is important that proper academic analysis and open discussion of trans issues are not supressed and academic freedom is not curtailed. But it is also important the voices of trans people are listened to as well.
The EHRC in February this year published a guide on freedom of expression for higher education providers and student unions. This is a useful piece of guidance and I encourage people to read it.

You see, this just shows how little PM and her team care, about us, about the work that they needed to do to answer these questions satisfactorily. They thought they were dealing with ‘the little woman at home’ .

The EHRC advice has been discussed or referenced on here, to my knowledge, at least three times. It has been pulled apart, reviewed, questioned. WE have wondered why it couldn’t be used in the Bristol Uni case where the SU no platformed a perfectly valid speaker on a Free Speech debate, where we realised that actually it is nice words that as a ‘useful piece of guidance’ is flimsy when dealing with Student Unions.

But PM wants to encourage us have a little look and perhaps if we get stuck with any of the longer words we could ask a man for help.

I have got to the end of this comment and I’ve really tried hard to ignore the ‘But it is also important the voices of trans people are listened to as well.’ but I can’t. The biggest dollop of cognitive dissonance in a whole shitstorm of dollops.

Well that was a car crash. She seems to think we don't have two brain cells to rub together.

Why do so many politicians seem to think we are just nothing but 'mummies who talk about prams and the best bottles for their babies', women who won't be up to date with current events, who won't really have any strong political opinions. Thats genuinely how it comes across to me and its insulting as fuck. Just because we are (mainly) female parents, they think they can just fluff about and we won't fucking notice they are avoiding questions. They are probably shocked with that actual questions asked too..that they ARE up to date and know what they are talking about. The panic mode, pass off a selection of the questions (still avoiding important ones) to someone else to 'answer'. Ugh. It really pisses me off how politicians and, well everyone really, underestimate women. Think we are lesser,
not likely to be knowledgeable abut anything more than the cost of baby milk. And it fucking shows, it really does. Its pure old fashioned sexism. Even from the Minister for Women.

I was lurking and got bored when she didnt turn up for a while

Ive just read the 'mumsnet arse handed' thread and popped over to have a look

I suppose a positive is that she answered some questions

Of course the negative is that she wasn't answering the questions asked

And with reference to the male /female markers on birth certificates...yes we know there are only two markers, there are only two sexes. That was kind of the point

Well we know where we stand now. My (Female Tory) MP has refused to see me, although she will accept a letter but I’ve been warned, she may well not deal with it but may pass it on to a more appropriate area. To (someone who also doesn’t give a fuck/the bin/await knock on door from our friendly local police) she didn’t specify.

Solidarity Wise Women of Mumsnet! ✊🏼

I look forward to the Independent Child Abuse Inquiry evidence looking into how schools were allowed to teach what that want with regards to, as Penny herself says, an ideology that leads children to believe they have a 'wrong body' based on rigid and regressive gender stereotypes, resulting in sterilisation, irreversible brain and body modification through hormones, life long health conditions such as osteoporosis and more.

Or worse, actual self harm as children become convinced they're 'wrong bodied' but frustrated that no one is helping them. (Read stories of detransitioners, Pique Resilience project and articles by twitter.com/catt_bear )

It should be LGB-GNC if it has to have anything else added. You can be gender non conforming and free to be yourself, no body modification required.

T is a dysphoric MH disorder which needs careful, nuanced, supportive exploration in clinical settings.

It came down to "Well, I don't ask questions about transgender ideology so you shouldn't either".

The batting away of sexual assaults by male people in women's prisons to the Ministry of Justice is shameful.

The Ministry of Justice drew up their guidelines to allow that on the recommendation of Maria Miller's transgender enquiry committee. It was framed as solid advice from the Women and Equalities Department, despite women not being consulted of course.

Read the MoJ report and you'd be forgiven for thinking that ordinary women begged the MoJ to allow men in women's prisons.

researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7420/CBP-7420.pdf

Shameful.

And with reference to the male /female markers on birth certificates...yes we know there are only two markers, there are only two sexes. That was kind of the point

It's takes something to decide it's easier to say a man has changed sex - instead of changing a form.

I loved the bit about "operating within the confines of a system which only recognises male and female". Shall we have a blank bit on birth certificates so the baby can add their sparklegender identity when they grow up?

genderfluidsupport.tumblr.com/gender

The Independent Inquiry into CSA time and time again is proving that there's "no smoke without fire."

Consider this board one big smoke signal Penny.

No forms even need to be changed surely, as a birth certificate is a historical document, detailing what sex you were BORN. Even if you later in life decide you are really the opposite sex, it changes nothing? Maybe a box could be added for a later discovered 'gender identity'...would that not solve it? I am not being awkward, I just really really do not see why birth certificates need to be changed AT ALL.

I just really really do not see why birth certificates need to be changed AT ALL.

To protect privacy. Because, you know, nobody can tell.

To protect privacy. Because, you know, nobody can tell.

Indeed!

I do wonder if penny will admit to knowing on what birth certificate sex markers are based at birth, or if she has some inner fantasy that's midwives wave GI Joes and Barrie's at newborns to see what they seem to like better.

Frankly at this point Penny you might as well stamp 'second class citizen' on the certificates of the female babies. You have no difficulty at all in knowing and acting on your assumed sex beliefs by those answers, and you don't just prioritise but actively genuflect to one sex's voices and wishes while pretending the harms to the non penises ones don't exist if you don't look at them.

Abject cowardice. Abject. You are paid too much to be allowed this kind of personal hobby horse over a duty of public service.

Dear Penny

You didn’t answer my question (below), you just parroted info at me. Do you think I don’t know the IOC rules? I specifically asked what YOU think is right and fair.
Is it compulsory to leave your integrity, your dignity and your intellect at the door when you enter parliament? Maybe that should have been my question.

“Q. Do you think that it is right and fair that a person who was born male and has gone through male puberty, can compete in girls’ and women’s sports?

Answer:Sporting bodies have their own rules in place regarding transgender people in sporting competitions, and it is for each organistion to determine the rules that best suit their sport or competition when looking at such issues of fairness and safety. The International Olympic Committee has a set of guidelines which they have put into place, for example.”

To protect privacy. Because, you know, nobody can tell.

This is the basis of a lot of problems. The birth certificate was supposed to protect the privacy of the owner, when they moved from one job to an other and no one knew, for instance, they were actually male.

Instead of which you've got tens of thousands of men deciding that they want to do this in order to nefariously access women's facilities and rights.

Because not only do 99.999% of them not pass, most of the ones who are trampling on women's rights want their trans status front and centre.

But no-one forsaw this???? Absolute dingbats.

And yes adultFemaleElf That was infuriating.

We are going to give guidlines to people like the IOC on what to do, but when you ask questions about it, don't ask us, because it looks really tricky now.

To protect privacy - but not what of the privacy of women?

Extraneous “not” in that sentence

To protect privacy - but not what of the privacy of women

Yeah, they'd have to take women into account for that to cross their mind.

That was a load of absolute trite bollocks of the highest order. If we were in person she'd have patted our heads and told us to run along now and leave it in the grownups' hands.

@MNHQ
Any chance you could update the title to reflect Penney has answered some of the questions? I only realised because of another thread on the board.

6 days delay for that crock of shit? Or, more accurately, it’s like waiting for a bus that’s 6 days late, then when it finally arrives, getting thrown under it.

I missed this comment which perfectly sums up this whole "webchat".

@MenstruatorExtraordinaire
Q. Do you agree we should repeal the GRA, that it should not be possible to change the sex marker on your birth certificate, passport etc from male to female as these people are not in fact changing sex. For medical reasons alone surely it is essential to know whether a human body is male or female.

Answer:
As I said in answer to the last question, the Gender Recognition Act 2004 does not require trans people to have genital surgery to legally change their gender. This law has been in place since 2005. At the time it was world leading for not requiring trans people to be sterilised in order to legally change their gender – because of course that is what genital surgery effectively does. Many other countries follow a similar approach, or go further than the UK position.

The absolute arrogance of lazily copying and pasting the answer from the previous one. It didn't answer her question. No one here gives a fuck about how "world leading" we have been in throwing women under the bus for this ideology. Total sadface that other countries are more stupidly woke now. I'm proud that UK women are seen as "world leading" in this resistance movement, so there you go, Penny.