Labour against transphobia group - thread 2

[QuentinSummers]

Follow on from
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3144285-Labour-Against-Transphobia-Facebook-group?msgid=75082467#75082467

Beatrice - there's a BlockBot on twitter - if a terfy tweet is reported to the blockbot, then you're added to it, and you're blocked by anyone that signs up to the blockbot. Something like that, anyway.

You're in good company though - I think @GiaGia (married to prof Brian Cox) was added years ago for talking biology.

ShittyStick Yes, that happens too but in some cases when I've clicked through it actually tells me that I'm blocked.

AreYou Oh yes. I think that I'm in excellent company.
The ones that really get to me are those that will 'argue' for a while: i.e. spout mantras and then, when faced with reasoned arguments, will just go quiet and block.

Being on the TERF list should be an ambition for all tbh. Great company

He has also just asked JC the same. JC said yes. But will talk to Linda Bellinham about her views and worries

Is it too much to hope for that he just doesn't have a clue about it yet, and when he actually understands self-ID is not what he think it is, that he will 'peak trans'? The same as everyone (bar the virtue vultures who are incapable of rational thought) does.

Foolishly hope Linda can talk some sense into him.

Just to say sorry I wrote Linda's name wrong too

I think, given the situation at the moment, that it would have been virtually impossible for JC to have said 'no' to that question.

I have a question about self-ID actually (possibly a silly one?). If you get your sex changed legally, does that then exempt you from rights available to your former sex? For a men changing his legal sex to female it doesn't matter so much since you're forfeiting very little (primogeniture, ffs), but what about women legally becoming men? Will they then lose their rights to stand on AWS, to enter women's toilets, and be housed in women's prisons?

Morning. Anyone watch Marr? Ooooo. Interesting stuff about GRA.

That's a very good question Outlander, not silly at all. From what I've gathered, transmen are reluctant to lose some sex based protections. For example, being housed in women only prisons. I don't think anyone in their right mind would try and force a transman in to a men's prison against the will of the transman.

I'm not sure if the oldest son of a duke would forfeit the title. I would suspect not. The oldest daughter couldn't claim the title if she legally changed sex.

Outlander

I wonder what happens about life insurance policies? Don't they currently ask for sex, age, etc? (Maybe they are already banned from discriminating on the grounds of male versus female biology, maybe it all comes under 'other relevant medical info', I don't know.)

I’ve not watched marr yet but if the BBC are finally talking about it in anything other than a ‘yay, go Jazz’ way, then the tide may indeed be turning.

Corbyn made polite noises but isn't budging.

Good to see it being covered, though.

Is it too much to hope for that he just doesn't have a clue about it yet, and when he actually understands self-ID is not what he think it is, that he will 'peak trans'? The same as everyone (bar the virtue vultures who are incapable of rational thought) does.

Sorry, Pidgeon, I think it is too much to hope for. (And I say this as someone on the left of the Labour Party who would otherwise support Corbyn). He knows. He'll prevaricate as best he can but he knows. Labour can now smell the chance of power and they know that Momentum (whose top brass are in favour of self-ID) is their best campaigning tool. At this point, Corbyn is triangulating as much as any other politician is, and is banking on a) keeping Momentum onside and b) that voters will prioritise the NHS, housing and anti-austerity over self-ID (which they probably will).

Cont... that said, Labour don't seem to have learned anything at all from Brexit. I voted Remain but I could see that patronising potential Leave voters at best and tarring them as racist and ignorant at worst, will catch up with you in the end. Same with this. Everyone KNOWS that a man is not a woman. Everyone KNOWS rapists shouldn't be in women's prisons. Telling people that disagreeing with this makes them ignorant at best or evil transphobes who should die in a fire at worst, WILL catch up with Labour in the end.

notthenewsinbriefs.wordpress.com/2018/01/28/are-all-women-shortlists-transphobic/

Good article by Helen Saxby

If biology itself is seen as exclusionary amongst trans people, then transwomen are actually less useful even than men in representing women politically

How very true that seems to be in a certain L Madigan's case.

I don't think it applies to 'old-school' transwomen who don't bang on about biology being bigotry. But although they might well be much more useful reps of women, they are much less likely to elbow their way into such positions. (Apols here to Pidge, Curry etc. for effectively discussing you in the third person.)

Someone mentioned changing sex to inherit a title. Delighted to post a link to the Tatler on this thread:
www.tatler.com/article/trans-toffs

It needs to be said nay shouted, often, that this is not about the small numbers of trans people, small even if we include all those under the very broad transgender umbrella like the genderqueer teenagers who reject sex roles, which should be everybody. It affects all women and girls, because Women will no longer be a protected characteristic. Can nobody get that into JC's very unthick head?

That Tatler article is fascinating. I would really like to see both political parties put their money where their mouth is: if they genuinely believe that transwomen are women, and transmen are men, then of course they should be treated as such in the laws of primogeniture. Funny how the political parties step back from that, though, isn't it? Funny, too, how it doesn't seem to be an issue that TRAs are interested in?

Why, it's almost as if they don't really believe it themselves.

@hackmum because it's about men losing power?

Trans activists aren't interesting in helping transmen get in to the Catholic priesthood either. What's all male stays all male.

HAs this already been mentioned? Sorry, doing homework with DD, haven't read the recent posts.
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/teacher-roy-wilkes-wins-fight-over-transphobic-comments-5c0m0g2nd?CMP=Sprkr--Editorial--TheTimesandTheSundayTimes--Unspecified--FBPAGE

@Drink, here's the text from behind the paywall
Teacher Roy Wilkes wins fight over ‘transphobic’ comments
Critic of giving teenagers puberty-blocking drugs hails ‘victory for freedom of speech’

Nicholas Hellen, Social Affairs Editor
January 28 2018, 12:01am,
The Sunday Times

Health
Wilkes: decision backs right to disagree with ‘prevailing narrative’ on gender

A maths teacher was referred to a disciplinary panel for professional misconduct because he said boys and girls should be able to wear whatever they want without anyone jumping to the conclusion that they are transgender.

He was accused of “transplaining” and subjected to a disciplinary hearing by his union, the National Union of Teachers (NUT). In a three-paragraph statement on a Facebook page used by 7,000 NUT members, Roy Wilkes, 59, also said prescribing puberty-blocking drugs to children was “a form of child abuse”.

Wilkes added it could lead to a lifetime dependence on hormonal drugs, and many children changed their minds after puberty about changing gender.

He was accused of making “grossly discriminatory (transphobic) statements . . . that were damaging to the mental health of members” and which brought the union into disrepute, of harassing transgender members and of harassing Annette Pryce, LGBT executive member of the NUT, who made the complaint.

This weekend, Wilkes spoke out after the national disciplinary committee of the National Education Union, of which the NUT is part, dismissed all three charges against him. Wilkes said: “It is an important blow for freedom of speech and for the right of people to question and disagree with the prevailing narrative on self-identification and gender.”

He said he was particularly shocked to be summoned to the hearing on January 13 because he was a longstanding member of the Labour party and of the union.

“I have fought all my life for equality and against discrimination,” said Wilkes, who teaches at a secondary school in northern Manchester. He got embroiled in the Facebook debate after defending Kiri Tunks, vice-president of the NUT, who wrote a newspaper article on transgender issues which warned that relaxing the legal definition of what it means to be a man or a woman could render sex discrimination law meaningless.

One critic accused Wilkes of “transplaining and quite possibly mansplaining”. The person said it was “disgraceful” to suggest that they were “stifling debate” by refusing to “engage or ‘debate’ my identity and very core of who I am with those who actively refuse to accept that”.

Another wrote that “transphobic posts on the union’s Facebook page have been really impacting my levels of dysphoria”. They said that when Wilkes wrote that he did not agree that trans women were women “that comment made me feel physically sick and the palpitations that I’ve been suffering from started again”.

Wilkes said that, if he had lost the case, he could have been expelled from the union, with implications for his job.

Labour has suspended Jennifer James, a party activist who is funding a legal challenge to the party’s decision to allow self-defining women on to all-women shortlists. She posted a Twitter message saying that she had been suspended “for saying women don’t have dicks”.

@nicholashellen

I don't think it applies to 'old-school' transwomen who don't bang on about biology being bigotry. But although they might well be much more useful reps of women, they are much less likely to elbow their way into such positions. (Apols here to Pidge, Curry etc. for effectively discussing you in the third person.)

No problem, I agree There isn't a chance in hell I would ever start claiming I could speak for or represent women. Now a transsexual post, yes maybe.

It affects all women and girls, because Women will no longer be a protected characteristic. Can nobody get that into JC's very unthick head?

And the vulnerable will be the ones most at risk, same as fucking always.

I have a pre-verbal autistic 7 year old daughter. Maybe in five ten fifteen years time she might have been able to go to the loos on her own (assuming she ever gets over her fear of hand driers). Fat fucking chance of that ever happening if self-ID goes through. If anything happened, would she be able to communicate it?

And all those children being pushed towards trans therapy, mostly girls, mostly on the spectrum or survivors of abuse and vulnerable and 80% of them 80 fucking percent -- would most likely grow out of any feelings of dysmorphia. They're the ones who are being sold down the river, while all the time everyone is bleating on about the rights of the TIMs.