Break it down for me?

[TortiousTortoise]

Hi all, I am fairly new to the discussion on the impact that transwomen are having on women generally and I want to more fully understand the issues (been trying to talk to my husband about it and am struggling to articulate it).

I feel so awkward writing about this as I definitely don't want to come across as sounding horrible about transpeople, I just want to understand.

Also there are a lot of acronyms being thrown about. Can anyone help me out?

Wow. Just wow.

As an old biddy who grew up in the 60s, with the dinosaurs, I played with lego and meccano as well as dolls, climbed trees and wrestled in the mud, helped my uncle fix up the old banger, and honestly believed women and men were just people and we could all do what we wanted. I knew my Mum had been called Mrs "HIS forename as well as surname" on official documents and been pretty much considered his property so was bloody glad that all that nonsense was being oversome, women were getting equality, and we would all get on just fine.
WTF happened?
I've only been vaguely aware of the sex/trans/gender issues. Mostly (don't hate me for confessing) from seeing a few interesting, mostly nice, sometimes a bit verbally agressive (but I thought understandably because of people being unaccepting) people who called themselves all sorts of new terms, on reality TV, which seemed fine by me, though hard to understand.
Now I feel like I just fell down the rabbit hole and fuck knows where it's all going.

Thank you very much for a really informative thread. I will be mulling this over for quite some time.

My initial thought are:

I've always been totally shit at sport. If I self ID as a 5 year old can I enter the egg and spoon race and finally win something?

I am Spartacus. I bloody loved reading that. And I am.

This is actually really really bloody scary. All women should know about this. They don't. They really don't.

And I'm going to sod off, do some head scratching, and read some more threads maybe. Cos I sure as fuck don't have any idea what to really make of it yet.

Wow, this is taking some getting my head around?
So basically, the 'people formerly known as women' were being transphobic, mysoginistic opressors to the real women who have lady penises by insisting on calling themselves women and being the arbitary gate-keepers to who they have sex with, which is terribly none-inclusive and we need to do away with this false cotton ceiling, so 'down with knickers!' Is that about it?
I'm just moving onto the implications for the people formerly known as children.

Something like that, hdh
Have some more

Bump!

we need to keep this thread at the top so everyone can see it and add to it, it’s brilliant

A school has 17 children change gender! Thread here:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a3426753-Tomorrows-Mail-on-Sunday-Front-Page

A very useful exploration of why 'cis' is not appropriate:

I'd like to use an analogy with religion to explain why "cis" is an offensive, misogynist slur and not a "neutral descriptor".

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1064940392163041280.html

Original Twitter thread with comments:

twitter.com/radicalhag/status/1064940392163041280

Brilliant lecture on toilets by Prof Gleed:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD92aLqgtTA

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3427591-WPUK-Bath-fascinating-important-speech-by-Clara-Greed-Professor-of-Inclusive-Urban-Planning-specialist-in-toilet-provision-with-particular-emphasis-upon-womens-needs

The debate is international, here is the view from New Zealand:

A birth certificate, opponents say, is unlike a passport or driver's licence in that it is a foundation document and cannot be revoked.

Opponents' main fear is that the definition of transgender women (biological males who identify as female) as female will erode the protections and allowances for women. Self–declaration means any male can be female, they say.

The worries range from granting transgender women access to women-only spaces like changing rooms and refuges to lumping transgender women into female health funding and statistics. Scholarships designed specifically for females, equal opportunities provisions and sports teams are other minefields. Predatory males will game the new system, they say.

It's argued transgender women retain their male strength and size and, socialised as males, are more prone to violence and asserting their views. In an essay in the Economist magazine Kristina Harrison, a British transsexual (has had surgery and hormone treatment) and political campaigner, says: "It is women's experience of sexism and misogyny, and their struggle against them, not bigotry, that overwhelmingly motivates opposition to the trans movement's current agenda."

Wellington feminist Renee Gerlich says the one-step process under the Bill means the loss of any robust, shared definition of sex.

"That in turn undermines all sex-based protections, which are especially important for women," she says.

"In short, these government proposals represent an unprecedented rollback of gains that women have fought hard for."

Georgina Blackmore, from the organisation Speak up for Women, worries about putting biological males, who have changed their sex on their birth certificate with a minimum of fuss, in female prisons. She points to the experience of United Kingdom authorities who face an increasing wave of prisoners serving terms for serious sexual offences seeking gender reassignment

Part of the discomfort over the changes is also due to the simplified way teenagers will be able to change their birth certificate sex. Opponents suggest a genuine teenage desire to change sex may not be permanent and that many dysphoric teenagers will grow up to be lesbian or gay adults. Clinicians, they say, are increasingly concerned at how mental illness, peer pressure, rebellion against society's expectations of their sex or normal teenage angst are dismissed in the race to affirm gender choice.

The danger with unsceptical affirmation, Blackmore says, is that the diagnosis becomes self-fulfilling.

"It is important that trans-identifying young people are supported and not stigmatised. But it is also important that mind/body disconnect and the serious medical interventions that ensue are not normalised or worse presented as desirable."

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3430569-New-Zealand-Bill-on-transgender-birth-certificates-creates-big-issues

www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/108740984/Bill-on-transgender-birth-certificates-creates-big-issues

Very important article in the Times about "trans" children, trans activist, social contagion, confounding variables, and funding. Touches on issues like autistic spectrum, homosexuality, :

Even allowing for a certain number of teenagers messing around with the survey-takers, something important is happening, both in Brighton and in Britain. Over the past five years, the number of children referred to the NHS’s specialist service for those seeking to change their gender has risen by 700%.

When they turn 16 or 18, some will make life-changing alterations to their bodies, cutting off breasts or taking hormones such as testosterone that affect their fertility. What are the long-term effects? Will they regret it? No one knows, because the change has been so fast. “In no other field with such effects has treatment got so far ahead of research,” said Michele Moore, of the Patient Safety Academy at Oxford University.

To trans activist groups that focus on young people, such as Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence, this is a flowering of public awareness and acceptance that has lifted people’s fear of revealing their innate gender identities.

Others say this cannot be the whole reason. “If that’s the case, where are the adults, the middle-aged people seeking transition?” said Jane Galloway, a parent and women’s rights campaigner. Over the same five-year period there has been a rise in the number of adults referred for gender treatment of 240% — big, but lower than for children.

Part of the explanation, say some professionals, is the activist groups themselves. Helped by funding from the public sector, the national lottery and the BBC’s Children in Need, they have undergone their own transition, from marginalised outsiders to darlings of the Establishment, fixtures of official panels and glossy diversity awards ceremonies.

“They are not just supporting transition, they are promoting it,” said Moore. “They have created a market for it.”

....

Professionals are under pressure. A Brighton teacher said: “What’s happening is worrying and many of us know it, but nobody wants to speak up and get shot.” The NHS gender service is caught between the demands of groups such as Mermaids, which want children given cross-sex hormones before they turn 16, and women’s campaigners, who accuse it of already bending too far to activists.

NHS England has signed an agreement, influenced by trans activists, never to “suppress an individual’s expression of . . . gender identity”. This still allows a range of treatments, but Richard Byng, a GP and professor in primary care research at Plymouth University, warned of the “potential harm of overdiagnosis and overtreatment” and said that “medical practitioners should follow a framework of evidence, not simply respond to client expectations”.

“People are embarking on medical transitions they may not need or want in the end,” said Jane Galloway. “I fear greatly that in 10 to 15 years’ time, we will find ourselves with a slew of young adults with mutilated bodies, no sexual function, who will turn round to the NHS and ask, ‘Why did you let us do this?’ ”

Discussed here:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3433540-School-in-Brighton-with-76-trans-gender-fluid-kids

Share token (thanks Igneococcus !)
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-groups-under-fire-for-huge-rise-in-child-referrals-2ttm8c0fr?shareToken=b4dc2eb6addb686801fc0d04b069110f

BBC Woman's Hour is doing a series on Sex and Gender.

Professor Rosa Freedman and Prof Alex Sharpe discuss what sex and gender mean in law.
PencilsInSpace has very kindly written the transcript!!!!! Thank you so much Pencils!
And huge thanks to RosaFreedman1983 for her stellar work!

Transcript part one:

JG: Now we're going to continue our look at the now controversial subjects of sex and gender. Last week I talked to Professors Sally Hines and Kathleen Stock about the current disagreement over what sex and gender mean, and also to Bex Stinson and Helen Lewis about why the debate about this subject, or these subjects, is so often called 'toxic' these days. Those conversations took place on Monday and Tuesday of last week, obviously you can find the Woman's Hour podcast via the BBC Sounds app if you didn't catch either of those two quite interesting conversations, actually.

So today we've moved on to what the law says about sex and gender. Is the safety of women and girls genuinely threatened by the reform of the Gender Recognition Act, allowing people to self identify now as female or male? And what does the law say about the rights of all women, and how should the law be interpreted?

So in a moment I'll talk to Rosa Freedman who is Professor of Law, Conflict and Global Development at the University of Reading, and Rosa is also a barrister. First up, Alex Sharpe is Professor of Law at the University of Keele, she's a human rights barrister, and Alex, you are a transwoman, good morning to you.

AS: Hi Jane, thanks for having me on the show.

JG: No, it's lovely to talk to you. Now, is it right to say you would prefer not to enter into a debate, which is why I'm going to talk to you first and then we'll move on to Rosa?

AS: Yes I don't wish to enter into a debate, I think it's much more productive to have a conversation with you and try to get some important points across to your listeners.

JG: All right, let's start with - and forgive me, this will be I suppose, in some ways for you, and indeed for Rosa, a very basic conversation, because I am really anxious for this to be a mainstream discussion that everyone can understand and become a part of. So, tell me Alex why you believe that no-one needs to be concerned by the reform of the Gender Recognition Act.

AS: OK Jane, this is really perhaps the key and the most toxic issue, so the idea that, I mean obviously reform is going to be really beneficial for trans and non-binary people, that's not controversial. What is controversial is the notion that reform will negatively impact on cisgender women

JG: Right, just very briefly - cisgender?

AS: I should probably use the - I didn't really want to get bogged down in that terminology because gender crits will object to that term -

JG: I mean some people just won't understand it Alex, so what does it mean?

AS: OK, well I would use the word cissexual rather than cisgender, you've kind of forced me into that conversation -

JG: Yes but what does it mean?

AS: OK, well cissexual means a person who is comfortable with the gender that they are assigned at birth, whereas - that's what cissexual means, cisgender means someone who's comfortable with the normative gender expectations that follow from that assignation. So lots of people are not cisgender and most gender crits by definition won't be cisgender but they are cissexual. But I'll just use the word cis to -

JG: I'm really sorry but I'm trying to think of our audience who vary from people at university to people in their 80's. They're already going to be slightly confused, so by 'cis' -

AS: But Jane, Jane, I'm only going to have a few minutes here and I think -

JG: No, you've got a fair chunk of time by live radio standards, trust me. So, what does cis mean?

AS: Well, I've just explained that. What I'd like to discuss is - well I'd like to make the point that the claim that cisgender women are going to be harmed by the proposed government reforms is utterly bogus, and I'd like to be given the opportunity to explain why I believe that, and I think your listeners would like to know. Is that OK if I proceed and explain that point?

JG: Well yeah, go on, yeah ...

AS: OK, so basically what gender critical feminists argue is that there are currently 5000 people who have a GRC, or thereabouts, that's true, I'm one of them. With reform what we will see, they say, is a massive increase in conferral of those certificates. I agree there will be an increase, I'm not so sure about how massive it will be. But let's for the sake of argument say that there will be 100,000 rather than 5000. Let's just go with that. They then say that that will lead to an increase in harms against cis women, and specifically in gender segregated space, or women only space.

JG: OK, give me an example of some of the spaces they might be referring to.

AS: Yes, OK, so, well obviously bathrooms but also rape crisis centres, domestic violence refuges and so forth. So they make those claims, and they also claim that cis men will exploit the reforms and use them to gain access to cis women for the purpose of harming cis women. Now all of those claims are utterly bogus and let me explain why.

JG: OK, yes tell us why you believe we shouldn't be remotely concerned - nobody needs to worry.

AS: Well, first of all, the notion that transwomen as a class pose a special risk, if we just park the idea about how offensive that is, there's no real evidence for it. So, let's look at the reality of the situation. Eleven countries around the world, across Europe and South America, have already introduced a regime of self declaration. They've done so without any of the dramas and they haven't had problems on the ground.

JG: Just out of interest, just give the listeners examples of some of those countries, they might be surprised.

AS: OK, well, yes I think they would be very surprised Jane, thank you for pointing that out. So, obviously countries like Belgium, Portugal in Europe, but also Brazil, Colombia, Argentina. Even in Pakistan there's been some movement on this question. So we already have an empirical testing ground. But more importantly perhaps than any of those things is that we have an empirical testing ground right here in the UK, because the focus on the 5000 people who have a GRC is an error. It doesn't matter who has a GRC. Hundreds of thousands of people are already covered under the Equality Act. We as transwomen already have the right not to be discriminated against, and it's true, cis women have the right to discriminate against us in very limited circumstances, as provided by the Equality Act. Those rights will remain in force as Theresa May has made very clear, so there'll be no change to that balancing of rights. The reality is that hundreds of thousands of transwomen exist and we use the bathrooms every day, public bathrooms, and we go to rape crisis centres, sadly, when that's required, as sadly it is in many cases within the trans community. So, in other words, we're there in massive numbers and we've been there for decades. What could be a more clear empirical testing ground that that? There's a massive data set and yet there's no harm.

JG: So the current feverish debate on all this then, you would say is what - is somewhat concocted?

AS: It's massively concocted, it's a campaign of fear, it's a moral panic that's been generated by gender critical feminists. I mean, just think about it, with the exception of the few cases that have been reported in prisons, there are hardly - hardly any cases - there are either no cases or they're exceptionally rare, and if that wasn't true, if there were cases out there, we would know about it. Think about it, every time a transwoman transgresses in any way whatsoever it's a media frenzy. So let's not kid ourselves that there are some hideous cases lurking out there. Gender critical feminists spend their lives trawling the internet trying to find these cases. They're manna from heaven, Jane, when they do arrive - arise - they're just not there, it's just utterly bogus.

JG: How many of these gender critical feminists are there in fact?

AS: Well, I don't know what their exact numbers are, I would say they're a relatively small but highly vocal and very well organised group of people, who have a very s -

JG: This sounds so petty but they'd say the same about you I expect

AS: Well perhaps, perhaps they would, but I think the vast majority of feminists support us. This isn't really a battle between transwomen and cis women as the media like to frame it and as gender crits like to frame it. This is a battle between intersectional feminism, those who are truly inclusive, those that I would describe as real feminists, and exclusionary feminism. Exclusionary feminism has always been a part of feminism, it's always - it's like - it's like bubonic plague, it's always been in the soil and it always rears its ugly head from time to time and we're seeing that happen right now.

JG: Alex, thank you very much. Can I just - I hate to go on about this but I do think it's so important, and I'm looking at Twitter, people are still saying they don't know what cis means. What does it mean?

AS: The word cis is simply used - if we don't have a term to describe non-trans women, we end up using words like genetic woman, or natural woman, or real woman, or -

JG: Or born female?

AS: Well, or born female. But it sets up a hierarchy. No-one's denying certain sexed realities, the point is to have a language where we can talk about different women without reproducing the idea of hierarchy and power.

JG: OK. Right. Thank you very much, let's move on to Rosa Freedman, and as I've explained, if this does seem slightly unfair it's because Alex wasn't really keen to discuss in a debate form with Rosa. So we move onto Professor Rosa Freedman ...

Transcript part 2:

JG: OK. Right. Thank you very much, let's move on to Rosa Freedman, and as I've explained, if this does seem slightly unfair it's because Alex wasn't really keen to discuss in a debate form with Rosa. So we move onto Professor Rosa Freedman. Hasn't Alex actually got a point? If there were loads of transwomen out there committing hideous crimes we would indeed all know about it, and we don't know about it because actually it's not happening.

RF: I mean, the starting point is that Alex says that there's a moral panic and it's a moral panic being set by gender critical feminists. However what we've seen in the last six months is women organising on the streets - women who are teachers, who are nurses, who are midwives, who are shopkeepers. And these women aren't spreading moral panic, they are simply fighting for the sex based rights that women and girls have to fight for around the world, the rights that we have, because society has always subjugated and oppressed and disempowered women.

JG: Yes well god knows we talk about that on this programme as an - absolutely we do, we've talked about it even this morning. There is no denying that women and girls, around the world are still vulnerable. However, are they actually vulnerable to violent attacks from trans people?

RF: Women and girls are vulnerable to violent attacks by male bodied people. And the male bodied people are the dominant group. Trans people might be vulnerable to those attacks by male bodied people, but women and girls will be vulnerable when any male bodied person may enter their space without serious, high-bar regulation, which we have under the Gender Recognition Act.

JG: Alex pointed out that actually the law isn't going to change significantly. Transwomen have already been able to access so-called female only spaces, they've been doing it for years and we've never even talked about it.

RF: Transwomen have been accessing bathrooms and toilets and we're not talking about bathrooms and toilets here Jane, we're talking about prisons, we're talking about rape crisis centres. We're not only talking about the violence that might be perpetrated against them, but also the trauma that might happen. If you're a rape survivor and you access a refuge, or you access counselling, and there are male bodied people there, and not people who have a GRC, who have had a meaningful transition, who are living as women, but people who say that they might want to have their gender identity as a woman even if they're not presenting in any way, shape or form as a woman. Think about the type of trauma that might cause psychologically, let alone the type of dangers that might put you into.

JG: What do you think is wrong with the law as it stands?

RF: Currently the law's very uncertain. We have a definition of sex that goes back to the 1970s - the case of April Ashley who was a transsexual model, who married a high society man, and the marriage was annulled because even though April Ashley lived as a woman, and had had a vulva constructed, and grown breasts through hormone treatment, the courts said no, biological sex is about chromosomes, and that is - and the judge in that case was actually a medical man who went through very carefully the difference between psychological sex and biological sex, and said it was about chromosomes. So the law is very clear that sex is about chromosomes, you can't change your biological sex. You can change your legal sex in very specific circumstances, if you've accessed medical treatment, if you've lived as a woman or as a man for two years, but this is, as Alex says, for less than 5000 people, fewer than 5000 people have accessed this. Opening this up to gender identity opens this up not only to lots of people who self identify, but also to many non-binary people. Now, on the one hand -

JG: well is that a bad thing?

RF: No, on the one hand that's not a bad thing, so long as we keep sex and gender separate in law. But the minute that gender becomes the same as sex, then all these people start accessing female spaces.

JG: Right, in simple terms then, sex is a so-called - I think it's called a protected characteristic under law. Now, I'm a woman, cis female - well this is all - it's not - I wish it was funny, it's not, is it? How am I protected in law?

RF: In law, we all have fundamental rights by virtue of being born human. And then there's the right not to be discriminated against, based on characteristics that make us more vulnerable, so if you have a disability, if you're a racial minority, if you're born a biological woman. There are also protected characteristics that no-one should be discriminated against on how they present their gender, or their sexual orientation or anything else, but these are all separate categories. The minute that we start conflating race and religion, or sexual orientation and gender identity, or gender identity and sex, we're removing the specific protections for those vulnerable groups and we're bringing them all together, and that's what we're really seeing amongst many of the trans rights activists, is that they understand that gender identity does not give them access to sexed spaces. So what they want to do is conflate sex and gender, remove this idea of what it is to be a biological woman, or to be a biological man, and to lump everyone in together so that they can access these spaces.

JG: But with the aim of doing what?

RF: The aim I think is that they want to take away sex as a characteristic. Stonewall said this very clearly a few years ago, it's on A Woman's Place website, they want to remove sex as a characteristic. They don't like that there is a definition of sex in law that says it's your chromosomes, because that goes against the narrative that sex is something fluid, that sex isn't a fact or a material reality.

JG: And in brief, you are concerned that that might lead, really bluntly, to more women being abused?

RF: It's not just about abuse, it's about statistics. If we allow anyone to identify their gender, how do we know whether ovarian cancer's gone up or down, or whether it's simply that people with ovaries, or without ovaries are identifying that way? What do we do with women's sports if people may identify as women -

JG: Well that's something else we're going to be talking about, yeah, carry on -

RF: - and there's a whole range of things, this isn't only about violence, this is about recognising that women have been disempowered throughout history, and that these protections are in place for a reason.

JG: Thank you very much Rosa. And if you missed our earlier conversation then you can listen again on BBC Sounds, get the Woman's Hour podcast to hear the views of Professor Alex Sharpe. And tomorrow, we're looking at what's happening in practice, and that controversial claim that the current legal situation might well leave some vulnerable at risk, possibly.

Find the programme here:
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00019m5

MN thread on the show here:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3434210-Womens-Hour-features-interviews-with-Professor-Alex-Sharpe-and-Professor-Rosa-Freedman-as-part-of-Sex-Gender-series-Thread-title-edited-at-OPs-request

Bump

Bumpity bump

Bob Withers, psychoanalyst We are Experimenting on Children

But actually, if you work successfully on a patient’s mind, who is experiencing these feelings, you reconcile him with his body and his past. You have actually cured something. In my mind, that is a much happier therapeutic outcome. The alternative to this is a lifetime of medical treatment, which is not a real cure – you cannot actually change sex, you can only approximate it.

In my opinion, all this is even more of a problem with young people. Most therapists are frightened of being struck off, so they refer young people to the Tavistock clinic. But they don’t get proper therapy there, either – just six sessions of assessment to see if they are gender dysphoric. If they are diagnosed with gender dysphoria, which about 50 per cent are, then they are allowed to go down the medical pathway.

spiked: Are children being unnecessarily transitioned?

Withers: Yes, a lot of them. You cannot tell in advance who is going to benefit from transitioning and who is going to be damaged. About 95 to 100 per cent of people who start on puberty blockers end up transitioning fully. Once you are on the railway it is very difficult to get off it.

But when puberty blockers are withheld, we know that 80 per cent of children start identifying with their biological sex again. So it is clear that we are unnecessarily transitioning children.

On the basis of ‘first do no harm’, we should be reserving medical treatment until people are fully matured, when they can make a reasonable decision about such a major change. I would even strongly advise that adults have psychotherapy before transitioning, because it might be possible to understand what is driving their trans identification without having to modify the body in such a drastic way.

I think the trans activists, who are encouraging transition, are acting in good faith – they are trying to look after kids. They think back to when they were kids and how they would probably be much happier if they did not have to go through the ‘wrong’ puberty. But they are giving advice to children which they are not qualified to give. They are not these children’s parents or therapists. They may be dealing with a child who is gay and struggling to accept it, or who is struggling with autism or another mental-health issue.

spiked: What role do other mental-health issues play in children who want to transition?

Withers: Body dysmorphia could be an issue here. Between two and three per cent of teenage girls suffer from body dysmorphia. One way this may present itself is through so-called rapid-onset gender dysphoria, where a child announces they are trans out of the blue. This can happen with teenagers when they are struggling with puberty.

It is very difficult to distinguish between body dysmorphic disorder and gender dysphoria. The symptoms are often the same. There are all sorts of ethical and clinical difficulties here which I do not think my profession has really resolved.

A patient once told me that they thought their nose was shaped like a witch’s and they had a panic attack everytime they caught sight of it in a mirror. But their nose was not ugly or witchy at all. Really they were having witchy thoughts and feelings which they found frightening. The last thing you would do with a case of body dysmorphia like that would be to operate on the patient’s nose, because it would not deal with the underlying problem.

We are following a series of protocols with gender-dysphoric children, who may in fact be body dysmorphic. We may be doing exactly the wrong thing, if that diagnosis is wrong. We are working in the dark, experimenting on children.

Meanwhile, anyone like me, who counsels caution, draws attention to the poor science and lack of research, or gets in the way of this clamour for medical treatment, is called transphobic or bigoted and will likely get shut down.

So far I’ve been lucky. But I also think the climate is changing. More people are aware that, actually, we need a debate on this because if there is no discussion, how can we decide the right way forward?

Discussed here:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3439065-Bob-Withers-Psychoanalyst-We-are-experimenting-on-children

Original article:
www.spiked-online.com/2018/11/30/we-are-experimenting-on-children/

Bump

This thread is a sad read, explains the dilemma of young women made to feel unsettled in women-only spaces because of the presence of males who self-identify as women or non-binary.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3440174-DD-made-to-feel-uncomfortable-in-the-ladies

It's really not a beginner's read, but I am SO upset by this.

Professor Rosa Freedman is a Human Rights Expert and academic at Reading. She has been speaking out about her concerns about the conflation of sex and gender in law, and presented at a WPUK meeting. Prof Freedman has faced some VICIOUS abuse by trans activists.

R0wantrees helpfully posted her whole Twitter thread:
Prof. Rosa Freedman's full thread from OP's link:
"THREAD: The excellent @WomansPlaceUK have put on many meetings in the last year to discuss women’s rights, and tonight I had the great privilege of speaking at one of those meetings. We discussed the law relating to sex & to gender identity. In many ways it was uplifting to be

part of that meeting. I am a Professor of Law, tenured, protected in terms of being able to speak in a respectful manner based on specific evidence, and supported to undertake research on topical and timely issues. That has not protected me from the harassment & abuse dished out

by the transactivist lobby. This week I picked up my post & received three more hard copy letters (separate to the daily emails I now receive) from staff and students at universities in the UK and beyond who are scared to express their views for fear of stigmatisation. This week

I found my office door covered in urine, including some that had seeped under the door, and I spent time cleaning it up because I could not bear the smell or the shame of what had happened. Last week I discovered criminal damage explicitly encouraging me to leave the University

because of my views that a woman is defined by law as biological not psychological. I have been attacked and vilified personally and professionally on social media by a senior Professor at another University who keeps threatening me with action (legal and/or re my employer), and

have had my reputation spuriously and perniciously smeared by the local LGBT charity who seems to have provided the University with wrongful advice on the trans policy (thankfully it can and ought to be changed) and academics spearheaded by @natachakennedy at Goldsmiths (an

institution that is not a leading light on women's rights). Tonight I met other academics who are being harassed in their workplace for setting out views based on specific evidence (i.e. doing their jobs). We all go to work to do our jobs -- and we are pretty damn good at doing

the research, educating, & administration that comes with the job -- yet we are being demonised, harassed, and targeted for expressing opinions based on the expertise for which we were hired and for why we are revered. This evening I was followed by students on campus, and ended

up hiding behind trees because I was scared for my physical safety. I have been open about being a survivor of sexual violence, despite which young male-bodied persons have seen fit to abuse me verbally about rape or to follow me in the dark into secluded spaces. It is now 3.30am

and someone / some people are continuously calling my phone from an anonymous number, & when I answer I am laughed at and told that I am a ‘TERF’ who ‘should be raped and killed’. If this is how a University Professor is treated, little wonder that women who work in jobs without

protection regarding academic enquiry – e;g; factories, shops, schools, restaurants, hospitals, and beyond (where there are fewer / no protections in place in employment contracts and policies) -- feel unable to speak up to protect women’s rights. Welcome to 2018, where people

have drunk the Kool Aid, or are looking to make a career on the back of the Kool Aid, or are just looking for a reason to bully and berate women who speak up (particularly those with expertise). [Good night]

Postscript: I think universities ought to consider sending communications to students & staff about appropriate behaviour. Peaceful protest is a legitimate part of freedom of expression. Harassment and abuse ought never to be tolerated. Employers have a duty of care to employees"
threader.app/thread/1070158128837246977

James Kirkup has written about her in the Spectator:
blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/12/women-are-abused-in-the-name-of-trans-rights-but-do-mps-care/

Bumping

Helen Joyce (Finance Editor for The Economist) has written a very comprehensive article, worth reading. Published on Quillette:

'The New Patriarchy: How Trans Radicalism Hurts Women, Children—and Trans People Themselves'

concludes:
“I can’t think of any genuine human-rights activism that demands attacks on the rights and protections of other civil-society groups, or advocates hateful language against them,” says Professor Bhatt. Trans activism is also unusual in that it gives men a chance to claim they are oppressed compared with women, and plenty of opportunity to tell women to shut up, says Ms. Gerlich. “It’s a postmodern patriarchal backlash.”

The code of omertà extends to academia. After lobbying by trans activists, Brown University in Rhode Island withdrew a press release about Prof. Littman’s paper on ROGD, citing concerns that it might be used to “discredit efforts to support transgender youth and invalidate the perspectives of members of the transgender community.” Last year, Bath Spa University, in southwest England, rejected a proposal by James Caspian, a psychotherapist who specializes in transgender clients, to write a thesis on de-transitioning, explaining that the research might be criticised on social media and it would be “better not to offend people.” Kathleen Stock, a philosopher at Sussex University, wrote a Medium post in May about the lack of discussion of gender self-ID within academic philosophy. Trans-activists called for her to be sacked—and she received dozens of supportive emails from other academics, most saying they dared not speak out publicly.

The aim of all this, says Jane Clare Jones, a British freelance writer and philosopher, is not only to silence dissent, but to make it impossible to state any distinction between trans women and cis ones. Since women are oppressed because they are female, not because of feminine feelings or presentation, this linguistic erasure is “profoundly anti-feminist.” Statements such as “trans women are women” and labels such as TERF are what Robert Jay Lifton, who wrote about indoctrination and mind control in Maoist China, dubbed thought-terminating clichés: “brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases…that become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.”

In the United States, criticism of gender self-ID is complicated by partisan politics. Women who elsewhere might sound the alarm do not want to be seen as in alliance with right-wing FOX News hosts and conservative Christians who are also against gay rights and abortion rights. The most organized opposition is in Britain, where government-mandated legislative consultations provided a focal point for campaigning groups such as WPUK. Mumsnet, a parenting website founded in 2000, is less hostile to women’s discussions of trans issues (though it now removes posts that “misgender” people). And the feisty British tabloid press has not shied away from covering rapists self-identifying themselves into women’s jails, boys allowed into Girlguiding and the like. The Daily Mail fought an injunction to be able to report on Jess Bradley, a trans woman suspended in July from the post of trans-rights officer at the National Union of Students because of allegations that she ran a blog named Exhibitionizm, where she posted pictures of her exposed penis, taken in public places and in her office.

The singular focus on gender self-ID, along with the shutting down of academic work on trans issues, harms not only women, but trans people. Although trans activists’ ire is focused on women who object to self-ID, it is overwhelmingly men who commit violence against trans people, a problem that by comparison is ignored. And other causes that are important to trans people, such as more research on the causes and treatment of gender dysphoria and its links with other mental-health issues, not to mention the long-term effects of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, have become taboo.

Overall, the push for gender self-ID does more harm than good to the interests of gender-dysphoric people whose main concern is to be accepted by members of the sex they wish they had been born into. And as we see more cases of people claiming transgender status in bad faith, we may see a backlash. “We were living quite happily in women’s spaces getting on with our lives before this stuff blew up,” says Melissa, the trans person I quoted at the beginning of this essay. Which is one reason why, far from supporting self-ID, she wants to see the rules for changing legal sex made tougher: “If you want access to women’s spaces, you should have to show you’re no more risk to women than other women are.”

Needless to say, she has been called “transphobic, a cis quisling, and a sell-out.” But women’s worries about their privacy and safety should not be brushed off or shouted down, she says. That is something women had to endure for millennia, under the old-fashioned patriarchal societies of yore. And they shouldn’t have to stand for it now that it has been rekindled under a new progressive guise."
quillette.com/2018/12/04/the-new-patriarchy-how-trans-radicalism-hurts-women-children-and-trans-people-themselves/

thread: here

PencilsinSpace has very kindly done a transcript of a Woman's Hour interview between Layla Moran (LM) and Michelle Moore (MM) on safeguarding children when it comes to trans.
Reproduced here in full, find the discussions on this thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3435643-Womens-Hour-today-Michelle-Moore-and-Layla-Moran-on-safeguarding

Part 1:

Jane Garvey (JG): So, the next in our conversations on sex and gender. Now, last week we looked at what these two words mean, and at the tone of the current debate as well. Yesterday I talked about what the law says and the legal disagreements over the reform of the Gender Recognition Act. Today, what about schools? How well are they doing at looking after, or safeguarding, pupils who feel that their gender identity doesn't match their birth sex? We do know that increasing numbers of teenagers are experiencing gender dysphoria, so what do the current guidelines say about looking after these vulnerable young people? Layla Moran is a Lib Dem MP, welcome to the programme Layla ...

Layla Moran: Hello

JG: ...the party's spokeswoman for education and science, and a former teacher herself; and Professor Michelle Moore is an academic expert on inclusive education, and the editor of Disability and Society, and co-editor of the book, Transgender Children and Young People. Michelle, good morning to you as well.

Michelle Moore: Hi.

JG: Layla, can we start with you, what has been your personal experience of this as a subject?

LM: Sure, so when I started my career I became a head of year quite quickly, and it was at a time when the school I was in was instituting a thing that we called safe spaces, which at the time doesn't have the same sort of connotations as it does now. But the idea was that we had actually large incidences of homophob - homophobic bullying, and a case in the high school of someone who was transitioning, and we realised that actually, we needed to change the culture of the school if we were to affect the underlying safeguarding issues, which were actually about bullying and harassment in that school. I then changed schools and in fact had a trans pupil in my class, and actually the - what I'd realised was that when I first - I didn't know anyone, or at least knowingly know anyone, who was trans, until I'd become a teacher, and then I had the opportunity to find out more. And it took training, and it took conversation, and it took, you know, the whole school community to come together and try and understand - how can we best ... support them through what is often a very, very personal and very, very difficult process for them.

JG: The most important thing about this, surely, is keeping the child, and the child's needs, at the very centre ...

LM: Absolutely.

JG: ... of the conversation, and at the very centre of every decision made. Michelle, I think - I'm not going to put words into your mouth, but I think essentially, you are concerned that self-identification puts too much responsibility on some very vulnerable young minds.

MM: Absolutely, yes. I'm very concerned that not enough attention is being paid to the ways in which that's happening and the ways in which transgender ideology is actually destabilising the ordinary safeguards that protect children in schools.

JG: What exactly do you mean by that?

MM: Well, one of the things that I'm finding is that teachers and parents are coming under a great deal of pressure from transactivist organisations who are providing training in schools, never to suppress a child's expression of gender identity. And what that means is if a child says they are trans, one's supposed to accept that they are trans, with no questions asked. But what teachers and clinicians and parents that I'm working with are telling me is that the minute you ask no questions, you have immediately begun a kind of dereliction of your own safeguarding duties.

JG: Let me just put that to Layla.

LM: OK, can I firstly make a distinction between - so, safeguarding, in the sense of the responsibility of schools, is - there is no specific provision for trans pupils. There - it's about protecting all pupils against abuse, against bullying, against harassment, and if you have evidence that that's happening then there are safeguarding leads in schools and you're meant to go to them. There is a difference between that and inclusivity, and creating a space in a school, a pastoral space, and by the way in - you know the - funding cuts issues that we've got in school, the ability of teachers to have those very sensitive one-on-one conversations is something I'm deeply concerned about and that is being eroded in schools, but quite apart from that, how do you create a culture where kids can explore? And the numbers that we're talking about, in terms of children who end up questioning their identity - and it's not just about trans, it's also about, you know, someone who is non-binary, for example ...

JG: Sure ...

LM: ... that's different. Not asking questions, that's ... interesting. I think it will depend on the school ...

JG: Well I - Michelle - Michelle's point is that perhaps we have a duty as adults, as concerned adults, to ask questions - nicely, in no way in a confrontational style, but to raise points.

LM: Yeah ... well I think - I think support is that, isn't it? Support is having a conversation with someone, which will include asking them how they feel, asking them how long they've felt this way, I think what's interesting in -what I've seen of this is the spike of people, who as adults are trans, saying that they first realised that they were was actually in primary school and it's not until much later that they feel able to sort of come out and talk about it. So I really do think that there is a big difference between safeguard - the idea that just by talking about it, or letting them talk about it, that that's going to make them trans? I really worry about that rhetoric.

JG: Well that isn't quite what you're saying, is it Michelle?

MM: I didn't say that at all, did I? I think the problem here is that there's a lack of clarity about safeguarding procedures and Layla's right that there isn't any clear specification on safeguarding in relation to transgender children and young people. So what this means is that lobby groups, who've been operating in schools, have been able to suggest guidance and put in place models which lead teachers to feel that there's a kind of policy culture in which they are scared to explore with young people any other reasons for their identity distress, for fear of being labelled transphobic.

JG: Can I just ask, Michelle, obviously you speak to people in the field, you speak to concerned parents - let's say I've got children and let's say one of my children has said, within their academic environment, that they are trans. I am their mother, will I be told?

MM: No, not necessarily, and this is one of the ...

LM: You shouldn't be.

MM: ... big issues ...

JG: Well hang on Layla, I'll come back to you. Carry on Michelle.

MM: ... of concern. Yes. Safeguarding in relation to a child who makes a declaration of transgender identity in school is being handled differently in relation to concern that would be expressed around any other kind of problem. So parents are not told. Stonewall and Gendered Intelligence and other organisations are in schools, saying that if a child identifies as transgender, their right to confidentiality makes it inappropriate to involve parents. So, as we saw in the Sunday Times last week, the school can change your child's sex and re-gender your child without your knowledge and without your consent. So you could go to school, Jane, and find out your daughter is now your son. And my concern is that where schools are changing their systems to privilege the wishes of individual children and to hold children's secrets like that, this is in direct conflict with usual safeguarding policy and practice.

JG: Layla, I shouldn't be told?

LM: No.

Transcript part 2:

JG: Why not?

LM: So, can we just please make a really clear distinction between what safeguarding is. As a teacher, you escalate issues with students when you feel that there are issues of abuse, or harassment, or bullying, or that - things of that nature. If a child comes to you, let's say in a drama class or a music class, and they sit with you and they say ...

JG: And children do confide in teachers.

LM: ... and, oh they do! Oh they do, and you know, especially in those sorts of subjects, and I had it in my science class, that I'd hold for kid - you know, that personal relationship is so important, and if a child then comes to you and confesses that they've had this issue and they don't know how - who to talk to and they just ...

JG: And they haven't told their parents?

LM: ... and they haven't told anyone, and by the way, I've got a gay brother and sister. Neither of them told my parents first, they told all their friends, and the reason was at the time, it was a while ago now, they felt that my parents wouldn't understand. So they told their friends, and actually they told some select teachers. If we're saying is - is that if a trans student goes to - confesses to a teacher and is looking for that support, that it's the duty of the teacher to tell the parent, that is a dereliction of trust between the student and the parent.

JG: Michelle, Layla makes quite a compelling case there, what do you say?

MM: She does, but I don't think that parents should be denied the capacity to safeguard their own children and that if schools are withholding information that would enable them to do that, that's particularly problematic.

LM: But Michelle, can I pull you up on the word safeguarding again? Because safeguarding has got a specific ...

MM: No, I want to speak for a minute Layla actually ...

LM: ... but it's got a specific ...

MM: ... I want to talk about alienation from the family that happens when schools keep a child's secret like that. Alienation from the family means that the child then only has school and online resources to support them. It actually makes them very vulnerable in terms of grooming via social media, the advice they get online is all about affirmation only. 80% of children who at one point identify as transgender, it appears from my research, are later on changing their minds about that. In online forums where affirmation is pushed children are finding themselves on a one-way track to medical interventions for which there is no evidence base.

JG: Right, I really want to talk about that in a moment but - but Layla, just carry on with what you were trying to say.

LM: Right. Well it - I apologise Michelle, it's just that this word safeguarding, and also this word you've just used of grooming, you know those - those have specific meanings in law that - that are indeed very grave issues and it also - I come back to the point that if - if what - are you saying that you can make someone trans? Because I seriously - I'm concerned about that. If these children are indeed being groomed in some way to be trans, and then they sort of change their mind, well it didn't work did it? And I'm worried about this word safeguarding in the context of schools, I mean you know, you were talking about young people, but this is specifically about schools. What schools have to do, I think, is to prepare children for the world that they're going into, to help them grow into comfortable adults with themselves. The sorts of issues that are going through an adolescent's - and you're right Michelle to point out, you know, this is something that children can change their minds about, but creating an inclusive environment, where children feel comfortable to be able to talk about it, is surely a good thing, isn't it?

JG: There's so much we could talk about and I'm conscious of a real lack of time as ever, but I really - you mentioned drug treatment Michelle, just carry on, on that line.

MM: Yes, what happens is that once you go along with social affirmation of a child's transgender identity they very quickly, because no-one's allowed to ask questions or talk otherwise to them, find themselves on a route to medical interventions, and there is no evidence base whatsoever for safe outcomes of these medical interventions, and there's considerable concern about harms caused by these medical interventions.

JG: And some of those interventions are irreversible?

MM: Some of them are irreversible, yep, and some of them actually compound gender confusion. So if you have, for example, a child who takes puberty blockers and then goes onto hormone therapy, you can have a young transwoman who's been through that route and finds themself with the penis of their boyhood and breasts. Well, this is confusing in terms of gender, potentially.

JG: Yes, this is - I guess, isn't particularly an issue to do with schools, is it, although it happens within schools. I also want to ask you about the ...

MM: It is if schools begin this trajectory of social transition.

JM: ... Right, I get that link, absolutely ...

LM: But schools wouldn't make a medical intervention like that and, you know, I think - where - the boundary of a school would never be to suggest medical intervention or not, would it?

JG: No, no. Let's talk about the potential for a link to autism, which I know is something you have talked about Michelle - more on that.

MM: Mmm-hmm. Well, 30% of children who are going to the Tavistock Clinic, the specialist centre for these kinds of conditions ...

JG: Yes, they've been on the programme, yep.

MM: ... yeah, they are children who are on the autistic spectrum ...

JG: Now, that - you've just said 30%, where does that figure come from?

MM: Well those are the Tavistock's own figures and they're figures that are replicated in my own research that's ongoing at the moment. And there's concern here about the kinds of messages that children are getting. For example, the idea that transitioning is a cure for autism is something that's around on social media and again, that's really problematic. In my work I'm much more concerned about making sure that children are comfortable in the world that they live in and not intervening on their body, particularly when there's no evidence of safe outcomes of intervention on the body.

JG: Layla, does this concern you?

LM: Well goodness me, if - yeah, what the - I'm not aware of any causality between autism and being transgender ...

MM: There isn't any.

LM: ... indeed, and so, you know, absolutely right Michelle, I agree with you. If there is advice out there in any way, shape or form, saying that it's a cure that's ... awful. I think however to - there's almost two things here isn't there, and I think Michelle you and I probably maybe would agree, you know, that we need more resource behind supporting kids with autism, generally. The CAMHS service is a mess, it takes two years to get referrals. But the thing is you can be autistic and also transgender, those two things are separate. I was thinking about this in the context of my own experience and I've taught, actually, a number of autistic girls in particular and, you know, I was thinking why could this be and is it that - and this is simply a hypothesis and there's no evidence behind my assertion here - but could it be that they're just more upfront about how they feel about their body, and they're more likely to say 'I don't know'? But I do think we should maybe separate the two issues?

MM: Well the only thing that is necessary for a child, whether they have autism or not, to decide that they are transgender is for enough adults to agree that the child is born in the wrong body. And that is something that my research is showing is simply - is not true, that does not happen, children are not born in the wrong body ...

JG: Ok Michelle ...

MM: ... they may find their world uncomfortable, but that's a different matter.

JG: ... yes, well, that is your take and your opinion, and of course there will be people who disagree and have personal experience which leads them to suspect otherwise. Thank you both very much ...

LM: Thank you.

JG: ... and thank you both for being willing to talk to each other, which is, in this area, real progress.

LM: Unusual. Oh, with pleasure ...

JG: Michelle ...

LM: ... No, we need more of that ...

JG: ... and Layla, thank you very much. Quick statement from the Department for Education: 'All schools should provide an inclusive environment' - this is off their website actually, apologies - 'All schools should provide an inclusive environment that allows every pupil to fulfill their potential whatever their identity or background. Fundamentally we trust schools to know how best to support all their pupils.' I'm sure plenty of people out there have got a view or an experience they'd be willing to share. @BBCWomansHour on Twitter, same for Instagram of course, you can follow us there, you can email the programme whenever you like via that website - bbc.co.uk/womanshour.

Thank you so much Pencils for creating and sharing these transcripts!!!!

'Professor Michele Moore is an expert in Inclusive Education and Disability Studies. She leads human rights projects across the world to support children, their families and those who work with them. She is the Co-Editor of the ground-breaking book Transgender Children and Young People, Born in Your Own Body from Cambridge Scholars. Michele will be discussing ideas from the book – the implications of self-declaration of gender for children and young people, including disabled children'

important speech:

Prof Freedman and Susan Smith giving evidence to Scottish Parliament, discussing the difference between sex and gender, law, definitions, the importance of proper statistics, and gathering accurate data.

Very much worth a watch: