Scottish trans alliance

[PalmerstonWalrus]

I keep seeing references to the Scottish Trans Alliance wrt to GRA reform and self-ID. They lead the charge in Scotland and were prominent in the Maria Miller committee nonsense. But I couldn’t work out who and what they were.

They’re a charity, actually part of a bigger charity: Equality Network. Charities have to file annual accounts. Which is handy. This is their last report, filed in December for 2016-17.

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Because guess who funds the Scottish Trans Alliance? The Scottish Government. It gives 125k a year, more than £100k of which goes on salaries. Last year, the alliance spent £125,800. Equality Network gets all but about £6k of its £450k budget from the Scottish Government. It is solely dependent on SCottish Govt - it doesn’t raise money from donations or sponsors or grants. It just gets money from politicians.

What the hell is this about? Why is the Scottish Governent funding a “charity” that lobbies the Scottish Parliament for trans agenda? Why is it funding a charity that lobbies the UK Parliament about laws that don’t apply in Scotland? Trans alliance really did a number on Maria Miller’s mob (the report is full of glowing references to them.). How many MPs on that committee knew the alliance is a Scottish Government (SNP?) sock puppet? And if MPs didn’t know, how is anyone else supposed to know?

Am I being crazy/naive/both or is this a bit odd? Anyone in Scotland (I’m not) know about this?

Well I know nothing at all about politics but that sounds a bit odd to me. Perhaps we should be asking who are major donors to the snp?

Double irony, its headed by a transman (who many of you would call a woman). So a biological female has one of the loudest voices in the advancement of trans rights in Scotland. Make what you will of that.

That so weird. A government financing a charity which exists to lobby government. I know fuck all about the charity sector but that seems fishy as fuck.

One for AIBU?

The DfE and the NHS are funding Mermaid and GIRES to work with children and share suicide statistics that breach the Samaritans guidelines, promote children taking 'puberty blockers' before puberty takes hold (despite thinking that adults can self ID and not need drugs or surgery) alongside encouraging schools to prioritise the rights of one vulnerable group over every other vulnerable group in a school. Evidently both governments shares the same values about ethics, eugenics and experimental medication of children.

Fishy as fuck sounds about right.

It's fucking appalling. I wondered why Scotland was skipping merrily towards a total TRA agenda. Not so much against the will of the people but behind the back of the people.

Sounds highly dubious. Would be interested to know how it is justified?

"I wondered why Scotland was skipping merrily towards a total TRA agenda. Not so much against the will of the people but behind the back of the people."

Cause Scotland has to be more 'progressive' than the rest of the UK. Welfare powers, carers, disabled rights, social housing, etc. Not that everything works in practice.

Shelter Scotland gets funding from the Scottish Government.

Shelter's sole raison d'etre is lobbying. The bulk of Scottish government legislation on private rented housing has been as a result of lobbying by Shelter.

Shelter gets its income from a range of sources though, so can legitimately spend the income from non-governmental sources on lobbying. And it provides advice and support to homeless people, which is a legitimate use of taxpayers money. So totally different.

I think the OP and PPs are right - an almost solely government-funded organisation that exists to lobby the government. How does that work?!?

What the hell? This sounds like a full on scandal in the making. Taxpayer funded?

Do you have a clicky link OP?

Perhaps that explains why no government agencies have done anything about the incredible levels of child abuse transgender affirmation entails.

This is shocking. Why are no journalists discovering this information? And yes - who are the main SNP donors.

That sounds incredibly dodgy! Slight tangent, but there is a Trans Pride event being organised in Edinburgh.

twitter.com/TransPrideScot/status/964540510886137858

That does sound very dodgy. Well spotted op

I posted a list of their demands on another thread. Here it is..

And the last one..

Those demands are chilling. Are they connected to Scottish Trans Alliance though? What exactly is Action for Trans Health? Presumably no government is going to be stupid enough to fund an organisation with demands like that with taxpayers money? Are they?!?

They were part of the group outside the Woman's Place meeting in Scotland the other day. Bunch of nutcases.

It is totally daft for the government to fund lobbying!

But it seems to happen all the time in the charity sector.

They also pay for a stall at every snp conference. (C. &3k I think)

Does anyone know who or what Scottish Trans Health are? What if any role have they had in the debate and proposals around Self-ID? They sound on the face of it completely reasonable - who is against Trans Health right? But I am so shocked by some of these demands that I am actually shaking. Have listed some of the more worrying ones below.

We demand medical training to enable us to safely carry out medical procedures for each other, for any of us that wants to learn

We demand nothing less than the total abolition of the clinic, of psychiatry, and of the medical-industrial 'complex'

We demand mandatory training, written and taught entirely by trans people, at all stages of education

We demand immediate release of all trans prisoners

We demand an end to birth certificates and legal gender

We reject the system of blackmail that corporations and governments engage in, whereby trans people who can work are 'rewarded' with slightly less mistreatment in exchange for the exploitation of our labour. We will not allow pinkwashing of the violence of capitalism, imperialism and the state.

Insanity has no limits it would seem..

Sevendown do you have any other examples of the government funding an organisation almost 100% and it then playing a key role in lobbying for a law as contentious as this?

If so I think questions need to be asked about that whole practice.

If not, I think serious questions need to be asked about Scottish Trans alliance's funding and role, as per PPs

From my limited experiance The Equality Network seem like reasonable people. I once had to seek advice from them on a weird DWP glitch that adversely affects trans people. They were helpful and informative.
Action on Trans Health seems to be a loosely organised grass roots affair vaguely connected to the anarchist movement. They might get the odd small grant here and there but I'd be surprised if they were "funded" by the Scottish Government.

I posted a thread last week by Transgender Europe (TGEU). If you look at their website they are professional and well resourced. They make good quality legal submissions to courts and govts across Europe to promote trans issues. They are funded by the EU and a variety of other institutions. They "present well" but are essentially no different to trans activists like the Scottish group.

There are no similar gender critical groups as far as I am aware. That is not the fault of the trans lobby or some kind of conspiracy. There is no one organisation to make it happen. Women are a bit boring these days unless we're being sexually assaulted.

It may be possible to bring a judicial review in respect of male prisoners transfer to womens prisons while still biologically male. But who would want to do that as an individual? look at the difficulties the Gina Miller ran into over Brexit.

It is also not difficult to submit papers to commissions and enquiries. But for good quality papers in this subject it really needs combination of health perspective, safeguarding, legal in one document. And for the group to have access to the networks that get these thing actually seen.

We can write to our MPs etc but without people who have time to write funding bids and collate information I'm not sure how effective it is. I have donated to JJ fund but she is not equipped to take on the wider debate.

Its crazy that a small group of people are asking for the human race be re classified to suit their gender preferences.

Well I am not going to re classified as subset of woman thankyou!!