Jeremy Corbyn has a new enemy - Mumsnet

[busyboysmum]

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/02/jeremy-corbyn-has-a-new-enemy-mumsnet/

I’ve learned that there are some brilliant, learned and compassionate people out there, who come at this from all angles. One (purely anecdotal) observation is that the diversity of opinions within the trans-gender population is not remotely reflected in the bit of this conversation most visible at Westminster. The trans community’s opinions are not as homogenous as some reporting and discussion suggest. So here’s a tip for hacks covering this: don’t just book Paris Lees or talk about Lilly Madigan. Ask Kristina Harrison what she thinks. Or Tara Hewitt. Or lots of other people. The same goes for the ‘radical’ feminist side of this: there’s more to it than Germaine Greer. (Though for some media outlets that really should know better, having any voice from that side of the conversation at all would be an improvement.)

single issues such as gender ID is a miniscule problem

If you think that the eradication of women as a biological category is a miniscule problem, then there is no arguing with you. Seriously, have you read anything about this at all?

I just think the WI haven't thought it through yet. I hadn't previously. OF course we all want to welcome people who are disadvantaged. Of course we want trans people to feel accepted. That's how things have got to this point without people noticing. But if a law is passed to say effectively any man can become a woman with no gateway, woman as a category becomes meaningless.

How do the WI feel about Danielle Muscato attending? What about their granddaughters sports in school? The fact that if she attends a boarding school or is in university accommodation she could be sharing student housing with someone with a penis and not even be told? etc

Expect our full support if I am not called a TERF by a trans woman for not wanting to share a changing room with a trans woman. I was raped at the age of eight and do not wish to do so.

Am so disappointed in labour. Are all parties in favour of self identification?

Rosie What good is it fighting for those things if you are a woman non prostate owner ?

Services won't be available to women, gay, ASD and gender non conforming children and their issue Eugenics . The fight is to save women and children.

Well it is not eradication of women as a biological category is it? That is not happening. Yes I have read about it, and you don't have to be so aggressive.. I am putting it into context.

The whole thing is being exaggerated.

Sounds eminently sensible to hear differing views from the same community of trans gender women. Selection of interviewees on this subject do tend to be one sided. But the amount of abuse one gets just debating the issue is enough to put any woman off.

Excellent post Hygge.

Well it is not eradication of women as a biological category is it?

That's exactly what it is. In terms of what biological category means in law.

You will have people who are biologically women, only now, they have no distinction in law from people who are biologically men.

totally agree hygge - this gender self ID debacle has again showcased Corbyn's inability to make good, thought out policy that can stand up to debate: statements made on the hoof in response to what seems popular on twitter, he then refuses to engage in proper debate and blames the mainstream media for victimising him.

Do we think he'd be any different in government? I see no improvement from the stuff in the manifesto to this.

And yet this is the same Jeremy Corbyn who gave an interview about breaking in putting up a plaque with Tony Benn in parliament to commerate Emily Wilding Davison. I can not get my head around it

Corbyn is his own enemy.
He is capable of short outbursts of reasonable politics but he always fails to use up the momentum because he stubbornly sticks to his dated and old-fashioned ideas of a left wing party while the world has moved on.
He is a misogynist who, from my observation of his politics and actions doesn't really consider women equal.
And he is clearly anti-Brexit which clearly makes his current politics seem very static because instead of doing something he's just waiting for the Tories to do all the dirty work while getting Britain out of the EU.

I was a member of a W.I branch last year that had a transwoman in it.

She seemed like she just wanted to fit in and not draw attention to herself. She was nice and sat crafting quietly with us in our craft group. I've since seen her tweeting some gender critical tweets.

I had no objections to her being there overall. She wasn't an aggressive TRA. She talked a little about how difficult she was finding looking for a boyfriend and joined in with the craft chat.

It did make me feel slightly uncomfortable simply from the angle that women getting together and there only being women there is extremely important. So many women are at home with their children or are carers, whereas men often work together and spend a lot of the time with mostly or only men around (depending on their job, obviously - generalising here). That time and space where it's just us is crucial. Politically, socially, etc.

But not every trans person is like her, let's be honest. At some point the W.I will have more vocal trans members who do the usual thing of wanting to centre trans people in the organisation much more and then the W.I is going to have a shock. It's coming, if it hasn't happened yet. Although maybe it will take a while given the W.I hasn't lost its reputation for being about making jam and crocheting (I do both those things and enjoy them and am in my thirties, before anyone takes offense )

I am a member of the WI and my friend, a transwoman, is a member. I wasnt a member myself when she joined but I expect there were some raised eyebrows and checking with head office first, It is a shame that the WI does not get involved in politics as this debate is one in which they should be involved. I haven't been brave enough to raise it.

RosieBrock
These two threads might give you a sense about the extent to which women are being silenced and, in the case of young lesbians, their very rights to say no to sex with born men obliterated:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3162788-Whats-it-like-being-gender-critical-in-your-workplace

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3146166-Transactivism-and-the-lesbian-community

There are dozens of threads on here which demonstrate the harm that is happening to women and to children that are worth a look.

Good! Thanks for drawing attention to this post. Add the Spectator to the list of papers I will buy since the Guardian has become so anti-woman.

This is the same Jeremy Corbyn who proposed women-only tube carriages.

That any man can self-identify into, it seems.

Here is an excellent post from another thread.

I'd like to talk to you about the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act and about Trans Rights Activism.

If you have time to read one thing before we meet, this is a great starting point: blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/02/can-we-have-an-honest-debate-about-gender/

Also it may interest you to know that this issue is starting to show in the polls. I expect you may have seen the YouGov poll this week, showing Labour dropping 3 points, Lib Dems gaining 2 and Tories gaining 1 - so the Tories now have a 4 point lead?

However - did you see the stats show the 3-point fall in the Labour share is entirely explained by a 6-point fall among women? (from 46% to 40%)
This Times article explains why. (Apologies for the paywall!)

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/labour-s-purge-of-the-trans-rights-heretics-p32khgn36

If you have more time, basically my concerns are:

• self-ID

the proposed change to the Gender Recognition act that will mean that anyone who wants to, can identify as a woman / man, no questions asked. If this happens, that is effectively the end of women's sex based protection, It puts women and children at risk in places we are vulnerable- hospital wards, women's refuges, changing rooms, toilets, prisons. Also what about women's sports and women's rights? And the ability to collect stats where sex makes a difference, like breast cancer rates / crime stats etc?

• the pressure on gender-non-conforming children to transition

Currently, thousands of children who transition to the opposite sex are being sterilised - preventing them going through puberty and leaving them to a lifetime of surgery, medication and sexual dysfunction - in the name of progression, despite the evidence saying many of these kids would grow up into healthy gay adults, left to their own devices. This doesn't seem progressive to me, it's more like gay eugenics. I fear for my children having to navigate this.

It's also concerning that we know there is a significant crossover between teenage transgenderism and other conditions such as anorexia, depression and autism, so that vulnerable kids are being given a "panacea" that includes their sterilisation. How can a teenager really appreciate the implications of this decision? Did you know the fastest rising group of trans people is teenage girls?

See this article for more: fairplayforwomen.com/5102-2/
And this from Dr Wren from the Tavistock Gender Clinic www.thetimes.co.uk/article/schools-rushing-on-whisper-to-label-pupils-as-transgender-0d8zm53qs

• the lack of science or any debate driving this

Organisations such as Mermaids, for example, are being allowed to influence policy in schools and public bodies despite the fact that they are a pressure group. They are not experts in any sense of the word. Indeed they keep repeating the most irresponsible of stats - that trans children are at risk of suicide - despite having it pointed out to them numerous times that their stats are not valid, and that to talk about suicide in this way is to encourage it.

The puberty blockers given to children are off label, there have been no studies as to their efficacy or long term effects. It looks like they probably cause brittle bones. And what's the effect of not going through puberty on the brain, for example? Have there been major studies on this? No.
fairplayforwomen.com/fact-checker/mermaids-tg-lying-unprofessional/

• Policy makers bandwagon jumping, without taking time to understand who the players are

All of the main political parties - including your own - are, in my opinion, confusing the Trans Rights Activists (TRAs) with transexuals. Transexuals are the people who have gender dysphoria and have lived as the opposite sex for years, trying to blend in and be accepted. Transexuals are not political as a group. They are who most people think of when we say "transwomen", but it is not them as a group, who are driving the change, and the changes in the law do not benefit them.

Trans Rights Activism on the other hand is a political movement that is aggressively trying to change laws to remove any gatekeeping on the legal status of "woman". They are a broad umbrella for anyone who supports their ideology but including many people we used to call cross dressers, autogenophiles (those for whom dressing as a woman is a fetish) who also call themselves transwomen, also many others, such as transmen, those they call "cis" people (i.e. non-trans) - anyone who supports them. It's a political movement, not a gender.
This movement is narcissistic, cult like and aggressive, particularly in their treatment of women.

Not all trans people are behind this movement. See this for example:
www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/12/gender_critical_trans_women_the_apostates_of_the_trans_rights_movement.html

Currently TRAs are attempting shut down women debating this by intimidation and threats of violence - or actual violence.

See this blog and the three short videos. www.skepticat.org/2017/09/when-vicious-entitled-thugs-attack-i-fight-back/
It shows a 20-something male bodied person (who, we are to believe is a woman) repeatedly attacking a 60 year old.

I'm bringing it to your attention, so you can see for yourself what happened, and also to mention the reaction from the TRAs. They commend the young attacker for bravery and "self defence". They say the 60 year old woman's act of filming them was violent act, that she is a "fascist" and therefore deserves to be attacked. They believe the thoughts of gender critical women (that biology as we have understood it for thousands of years is real) is hate speech and to attack women like her physically is to defend themselves. Women have to meet to talk about this in secret locations to avoid intimidation.
(The speaker corner attacker is in court this Thursday, the TRAS are organising a masked protest).

Why am I mentioning all this?
Well, gender critical women are desperate for our voices to be heard, for us to be able to explain how this ideology threatens our rights and our safety. But these people keep trying to shut us down. Meanwhile people who don't know any better, assume that anyone who criticises the TRA ideology is a right wing bigot. But I, and the other women whom I talk to about this, are left wing. We are not bigots or transphobes. I vote for you, not the Tories!

We are desperate to see debate in public, for people to start looking at the science, for everyone to have a public platform- to discuss this respectfully - including the TRAs.

I'm not seeking support on this from you (although that would be nice!), I just want to have a chat so I know you're aware of the issues and hopefully support the idea that this is a topic that needs debate. And a reassurance that next time you come across a gender critical point of view, and someone else saying "bigot" to silence them, you might say - hold on, what are they actually trying to say? Why is this person so desperate to not let them speak?

I am genuinely fearful for my children having to deal with the impact of these ideas, and for my own safety if I go to the public meetings to talk about this with other women.

I don't know what to make of all this happening on the 100 year anniversary of the suffragettes and supporters winning votes for women (and working class men, let's not forget). Have things really changed that much?

Great article James, and thanks for writing it. Also appreciate that you have acknowledged that you get fat less abuse than the female writers who have previously covered it. I hope you continue to support women and thanks again for speaking up

That's a really good article. It sounds awful but I'm always pleased when a man writes about this issue, it is less easy for them to be dismissed as just a few nasty feminists.

Re Labour, in my 20 odd years of voting I have always voted for them. I did so last time despite disliking Corbyn and I am so angry at the arrogance, the casual way in which 51% of the population are being thrown under a bus. There is not a chance in hell that I will give them my vote again if these policies continue. They need to be sent a message that you don't get to render 'woman' meaningless and still expect our vote.

Someone has just had the absolute brainwave of tweeting James Kirkuk this thread from mumsnet inviting Corbyn for a webchat. (Inviting him, incidentally, before Kirkup's article was published).

And his, so far, complete lack of response.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/3152256-Jeremy-Corbyn-webchat-to-discuss-self-identification-of-sex?msgid=75568886#75568886

I meant to say, I'm not on Twitter, so if anyone feels like tackling it?

Here are some of the TRAs batshit demands:

yetanotherlefty.wordpress.com/2017/09/06/gender-recognition-our-absolutely-non-negotiable-terms/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

For any Gender Recognition system to work at all it must be:

Available to all ages, including children.
Available to all people, including those who are not citizens
Free or extremely low cost
Available for every gender and none
Possibility of having more than one gender legally recognised as the genders of one person
Possible to change over and over again with no limits on how many times or how often
Based entirely on self-definition with no medical opinions, no length-of-time-you-must-be-out first and no panel with the ability to refuse to recognise someone’s gender
Everyone who has a gender recognition application currently waiting to be seen by the Gender Recognition Panel should be approved for gender recognition right away, before the new self-definition method starts – they’ve waited long enough
No veto power given to spouses, parents or anyone other than the individual whose gender needs to be updated
No records kept of who updated their gender and when.
The destruction of the current Gender Recognition Register and apologies (and compensation) to those whose information was stored in it
Updated birth certificates available as quickly and simply as possible and at the same cost as obtaining a copy of any birth certificate
Immediate ability to marry in the updated gender (if adults otherwise able to marry)
Immediate ability to have updated marriage or civil partnership certificates, change from a marriage to a civil partnership or vice versa or update names and genders of parents on a child’s birth certificate
The minimum possible number of people and pieces of paper should be involved to update a gender. Ideally, one would be able to update your own gender by writing a letter to HMRC but I would also accept a deed poll like system (see below).
A legal assumption that a person’s gender is what they say it is regardless of what their paperwork says and paperwork only required for the tiny number of occasions when one’s gender is legally relevant
things I really, really want to happen but am not sure should be considered absolutely essential:

EVERY BIRTHING PARENT be given the option to be listed as “Parent”, “Mother” or “Father” on their child’s birth certificate (currently you have to be a “Mother” if you give birth, even if you are legally male). Same for the other parent.
Any adult of any gender(s) be legally able to marry any other non-related adult regardless of their gender(s). This would require significant changes to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act which long time readers will know I advocated for before that bill was passed. Unfortunately, the Act doubles down on making marriage gendered and essentially created “ManWithWoman Marriage” and “Same Sex Couple Marriage” as two different, still separate institutions.
Phasing out recording sex at birth in the first place. This would really, really solve a lot of problems for everyone and one state or another is going to have to go first. If we stopped assigning people legal genders, we’d eventually no longer need to have structures in place to update those genders. People would have genders in the same way they currently have races and religions – by ticking boxes on the census and on equality monitoring forms without anyone telling them they’re wrong if one year they start to tick a different box.
No step between “Fill in this form” and “Get your records updated”. Currently you have to wait to receive your Gender Recognition Certificate and then use that to get a new birth certificate. That doesn’t seem at all necessary and has lead to a lot of orgs demanding (illegally) to see your GRC before they’ll update your gender records
Give all trans people the protection of privacy that GRCs are supposed to give to just some of us. If it’s against the law to out some of us as trans, it should be for all of us with or without a piece of paper
Honestly I wish they would fire every single person in the civil service who came up with the Spousal Veto
Updating your gender to no longer be considered grounds for divorce (and preferably for the UK to get “no fault” divorce already) or grounds for a celebrant to refuse to marry someone

Datun
I think he has been on here quite a bit. I tweeted him some threads in the last week too.