WEP Article...

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They just posted this. How bloody dare they? To me this reads as “hey you women who don’t agree with us? The divide is YOUR fault!”.

And enough of this ‘cis’ crap!!

Thoughts?

www.catherinemayer.co.uk/single-post/2018/02/22/We-need-to-have-difficult-debates-We-need-to-find-better-ways-to-have-them

www.catherinemayer.co.uk/single-post/2018/02/22/We-need-to-have-difficult-debates-We-need-to-find-better-ways-to-have-them

This is why the WEP will never be a mainstream political party. There is nothing wrong with having a party that focuses on the needs of one group. Women do not have a penis. Women do need equality and representation; and we don't get that from men.

''Women are held back by many things including reductive views of what we are and what we should be. Trans women in expressing a sense of essential female-ness sometimes unintentionally challenge the ambition of feminism to unshackle all women from culturally-inflicted limitations.''

I could weep.

I don't think my blood pressure will appreciate me reading that.

"Essential femaleness"? Is she trolling?

I just read that & commented on another thread. Tone-deaf-word-salad attempting to gaslight over women's justifiable disgust at a women's party silencing women. Oh bitter irony. I couldn't even read it to the end, it was just a rambling nothingburger.

My feminism will centre females or it will be bullshit

I know this is not the point you are focusing on but I thought this was a particularly cloth- eared comment

In America, suffragists tried to win favour with segregationists in the South by claiming that white women, if given the vote, would use it to uphold white supremacy. At the last US election, a majority of white women did just that, to the detriment of all people of colour and pretty much everyone else, including those white women voters.

Are we still blaming white women for Trump's victory? Are there still members of the deservedly criticised liberal elite so insufferably smug that they can't see the part they played in it (yes I know she is not American but she has the same patronising tone)

discussions typically hinge on the much rarer instances of violence by trans women, obscuring rather than illuminating the overarching issue of endemic male violence against women. For example, some campaigners oppose gender-neutral bathrooms because male sex predators have unfettered access to these spaces, and if these predators claim to identify as women, this might confuse the police response. The real problem here is not one of gender identity but of sexual predation and of law enforcement. And by the way, men intent on attacking women have always found ways to invade female-only spaces. I was attacked in a women’s toilet by a man who understood this was a likely place to find women.

I MEAN WHERE TO START?

Are people really born this stupid? You've said it, right there, in your own fucking words. My seven year old could see it.

It's fucking embarrassing is what it is frankly.

Lass Awful, isn’t it? Its like we’ve fallen into some parallel universe. WEP are basically eating their own.

WEP can fuck off. They are TRAs by proxy. Look at their stance on prostitution models and decriminalization, oooh the poor pimps and traffikers - they've been brainwashed by the same bastards being weeded out of international charities (finally).

Seriously what is going on with intelligent women not being able to understand words???

That bit about how can women be frightened about male-bodied persons in loos because male-bodied persons are the real issue is quite, quite mad.

I don’t understand WEP. They make me weep

Deep deep down inside I'm sure they are regretting Day 3 of the founding of the party when someone paused while eating a vegan burrito and said 'You know what? I think we should ask my friend Janice to join. She's lovely - she used to be a man - and she's got some fabulous friends who would help us'

Because what do they do now? You can't debate it with a load of TIMs can you? A salutary lesson in why we don't let men do the actual feminisming.

So women shouldn't argue? Is it like women shouldn't use bad language?

I could weep... If it wasn't for the fact that this was entirely predictable from that car crash MN chat that Walker did way back when

Am I right in thinking Mayer did one too? Or am I imagining that?

All WEP webchats on here have shown us that they have no definition for women, equality, or Party.

Bloody hell. I'd comment but they have clearly shown, along with Corbyn's lot, that they are not actually interested in any alternative views.

I do truly believe that this will be a public health scandal of epic proportions. And the legal ramifications / lawsuits when the children involved, grow up & come to terms with what has been done to them, will be incalculable. And no-one is listening.

Wow this is bad - it feels like it was written in haste by a group of people without the benefit of an editor. It's just plain insulting in the implication that they, WEP, are wise and unified on this and it's those other bad non-inclusive women who are causing the problem here - can't we just all get along?

I really can't see how someone can claim that a discussion needs to be had when they are so hell bent on not having it and not allowing it. It's sheer hypocrisy on WEPs part to say: we've decided that everyone can self ID but we should have a discussion, but anyone having a discussion is wrong and must be punished and we're not going to make any space for the discussion. It makes them look doubly dishonest to acknowledge the discussion is needed but to have purposely avoided it so far.

There's a half arsed paragraph about too little attention being given to 'badly formulated policy' but where have the WEP ever been on this? If they know it's badly formulated why have they never been out front trying to make it better? It is after all something uniquely affecting women and girls - you'd think right in their sweet spot. The tacked on concern for what this has been doing, and continues to do, to lesbians is just insulting. Like every other liberal feminist project it just takes lesbian's participation and support for granted but offers us no actual support and never does the simple courtesy of recognising how the all-inclusive liberal feminism is damaging for us.

It's more and more apparent that there isn't a thought out underpinning to WEP its just more posturing bollocks and they have the gall to throw the usual 'white feminist' bollocks around. I've supported them in the past, I hope this is the end of us taking them seriously as a player to offer anything to feminism.

lass I literally c&p'd the same paragraph. I was SO annoyed. What relevance to the voting patterns of American white women have to WEPs gender debate? It's only there as a not-so-subtle "White feminism/TERFS" dog whistle.
And this:
some campaigners oppose gender-neutral bathrooms because male sex predators have unfettered access to these spaces, and if these predators claim to identify as women, this might confuse the police response
Totally disingenuous. If you can't even frame the debate in a way both sides recognise then we can't have it. It is cowardly to frame the concerns around bathrooms and confused police responses. Let's talk about penises in prisons. Or teenagers sharing rooms with mixed genitalia on school trips or as sports teams.
Police being confused is a specious argument. By the time there is police involvement it's too late.
WEP are a bunch of cowards and this is a disgrace.

It's completely disingenuous - they claim to have 'opened the debate' yet have done nothing of the kind. They've fucked up & been blind to the growing number of women's voices speaking up about valid, genuine concerns over trans ideology & slammed their highest profile voice with trumped up bollocks. Have I missed them holding meetings & debates around the country to listen to women on this? Nope, don't think I did.

Do you remember when some over zealous social media assistant banned lots of women from their Facebook page for "transphobia" just for expressing gender critical views then had to reinstate most of them? Idiots.

And this: " the great majority [of trans women] who are subject to ... an extraordinary toll of violence. Even so discussions typically hinge on the much rarer instances of violence by trans women, obscuring rather than illuminating the overarching issue of endemic male violence against women. "

is simply factually incorrect. It's an outright lie perpetuated by TRAs.

When 100 years of women having the vote is celebrated by Vogue putting 6 women (including the leader of WEP) and a man wearing womanface (and I am not going to call Lees, who doesn't have a GRC, a woman), calling them the new suffragettes and females, we have a big fucking problem. Telling us to play nicely is enraging.

I sent back my founding membership card a couple of years ago with a letter explaining why. They didn't reply.

She can take her essential female-ness and shove it up her essential.

Not to mention that "WE supported “the right of all to define their sex or gender or to reject gendered divisions as they choose”" is not what's happened here. They clearly don't support feminists' right to reject gendered divisions.

As for "I was attacked in a women’s toilet by a man who understood this was a likely place to find women."

YES Catherine, so is it a good idea to encourage that man to say to you "It's okay love I'm a woman just like you" as he follows you into the loo? Or would it be a better idea for women to be able to challenge him?

"Essential female-ness"

God, I always thought WEP were keeping their head below the parapet on the trans issue because they didn't want the rest of their work to be derailed. Clearly not.