Bloody bbc at it again...

[seafoodeatit]

Has anyone read the recent BBC article? Saying women have set up a crowdfunder to keep transwomen out of all women shortlists, how fucking annoying that they can't even report the facts, they mention the GRA but nothing on self id and why people might be opposed, just the usual 'bigots and moral panic' shit.

The transgender arguments dividing society - www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43255878

I started a thread about the Today Programme, this morning, plopping in a double mastectomy on a transgender person in an item on an artist using cosmetic surgery as a inspiration for their work.

It is all nudge, nudge, plop, plop and normalising.

Even wosshisname's half hour investigation into the issue ended with a roundup to say this is the future [grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr]

differences between trans women and people who were born biologically female.
Or women, as they are correctly known...

So was there only Ella Whelan on that programme making any point other than the changes to the GRA are the next step in 'acceptance' ????. Did everyone else evaporate?

Puff!!!! Disappeared in a thick cloud of obscurity.

Complain.
They're supposed to be unbiased.
Not even one reference source to why women may object to TW on AWS.

Nice reference to "if you don't believe TWAW or TMAM them you're a bigot" though.

twitter.com/KateAlston?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

The author certainly knows there were others there - she thanked them on twitter

This has been one of the most interesting and perhaps controversial pieces I’ve produced. Thank you to everyone who took part for helping us hear different views and opinions and raise the important issue of trans rights

It appears that Pilgrim et al have just bee raising the important issue of trans rights

From a reading comprehension perspective, that article is unsatisfactory. It begins by quoting someone saying that some women have legitimate concerns. Then describing those concerns as one of 'confusion' or 'whipping up fear' - so not legitimate.

What any legitimate concerns might be is not identified in the article.

Pilgrim Tucker is quoted as saying there should be a discussion and mentions women feeling vulnerable. This doesn't go so far as to explain why they might feel vulnerable, so whether these feelings are legitimate, or in what way normal, sensible discussion might be opposed.

There is a hint at one with the 'some women want all women shortlists to consist of women' section. What's interesting about that is that the trans-woman candidate's response is 'if the membership wants to select me they'll select me'. The membership. No mention of a short-listing committee. I infer from that, that she may well be opposed to all-women shortlists and would prefer the membership to be free to select whomever they wish. Which is a reasonable though contended point of view - but nothing to do with the issue at hand.

The concern that is blindingly obvious to me, is that self-ID would be bad legislation. That is, not satisfactorily achieving what it sets out to achieve, because of problematic unintended consequences. Those are that abusive men will claim to be trans in order to access women's spaces for purposes detrimental to women's safety.

That issue is not particularly about trans-people. So, focusing on social acceptance of trans-people is a separate discussion from one about the potential problems of self-ID.

So, an article claiming to summarise the arguments associated with social and legislative changes pertaining to transgender people (well, this article is about transwomen only) that does not identify this most problematic issue, rather presenting everything as being about differing levels of acceptance of people who struggle, is a very poor article.

Or to put it more succinctly(!) the article opens with someone saying that women may have legitimate concerns about men coming into women's toilets - then doesn't explain what those are. Or how legislation might exacerbate them. Or how they might be addressed.

This is what is doing my head in lottie The immediate issue is pretty simple really (outlined excellently in your post about Self-ID being bad legislation) but NO ONE IS ADDRESSING THIS.

My thought is that it is because 'self-ID as bad legislation' is not particularly about trans people. It is about women and children and men. The safety of women and children being threatened by some men.

It is therefore a mistake to attempt to conflate that issue with discussions about social acceptance of trans-people, or to seek to find answers to it by talking to trans people - as this article demonstrates.

Really, why would trans people, who are quite reasonably caught up with their own particular issues and campaigns, be the right people to talk to about an issue concerning women, children and men? It's not surprising that they want to talk about their issues, from their perspective and will use any moment in the media spotlight to do this.

It's a bit like asking feminists to talk about something like fuel tax - an issue that affects many people, including many women but that isn't particularly a feminist issue. (There will be a better analogy). In time, transwomen may come to think more about women's and children's safety from a woman's perspective but that's not where the campaigning end of their movement is right now and that is not surprising. So, for now, this strikes me a bit like all those derailing discussions that address feminists thus: 'but why aren't you concerned and campaigning about x, y, z issue, that is clearly far more important than ?'.

Of course there is an intersection between women's concerns about the dangers posed by self-ID, the interests of transpeople who want self-ID and the interests of transwomen whose safety may be compromised by self-ID. I know too that my separation between 'women, men and trans people' is a simplification and, that there are legitimate concerns about the baggage transwomen may bring with them from masculinity.

But my point is that concerns about self-ID are primarily women's concerns about bad legislation and are best addressed as such, by talking to women about abuse by men, and to former children about abuse by men. The extent to which they encompass a concern about transwomen and their masculine baggage is relatively small, compared to the far bigger concern about abusive men taking advantage of bad legislation.

Agreed. It barely mentioned the arguments of the critical position, focussing almost entirely on the arguments put by the activists.

Lottie - I get you - it is bad law.

The original GRA and the Equality Act also contain bad legislation by conflating sex and gender and widening the boundaries of Gender Recognition without any strong definition, so that we now have organisations with their own agenda and interpretation educating other organisations with their point of view with no testing of the law.

It is really not about anyone's 'existence' or whatever.

Absolutely This, lottie You have expressed my exact frustration with the whole thing.

In the VD programme, when Rebecca Root said she'd experienced scrutiny in the gym changing rooms I felt sympathy, but wanted to yell at the screen THAT IS NOT THE POINT. I wouldn't be troubled by her in my changing room, assuming that her demeanour would be that of someone feeling slightly uncomfortable, slightly self-conscious and scurrying off to a cubicle to change in private, as many of us do. I AM troubled by the obvious male-bodied person who lingers by the weight machine I'm using, and takes the treadmill right next to mine when there are lots of others free. Who keeps looking at me - and then follows me into the changing room, where he is legitimately allowed to be under the law of self-Id.

You've nailed it for me. When it comes to women's private spaces Self-ID is not about transwomen - you could even argue that existing transwomen who presumably have a GRC and have been living as women for some time are pretty much who it isn't about. It's about the needs and rights of women and children to be safe from predatory men. It's slightly baffling that more transwomen* aren't adding their voices to the argument against self-ID as they will get caught up in the inevitable backlash when it all gets ugly.

(*I know some are - very eloquent voices too.)

Well I suppose it's natural that, since self-ID emerged from a 'trans rights / trans acceptance' discussion, journalists would think that's what it's about - a conflict of rights, or acceptance vs illiberal hostility. Mostly the latter. It is a bit interesting that something framed in 'rights' terms does not seem to be being addressed as a conflict of rights.

So, how to get across to journalists that 'self ID is bad legislation placing women, transwomen and children at risk from predatory and abusive men'?

I've no idea in practice, as I'm not someone who speaks to journalists.

If I was one, I'd be interviewing victims of coercive control, trafficked women and former victims of child sexual abuse about how their abusers made use of every kind of access they could get to women and children's lives, private spaces and 'protective' organisations (churches, children's homes etc) and whether and how they thought those men might make use of this new extension of access (to toilets, midwife appointments, hospital wards, women's refuges, prisons etc).

I'd try to talk to some of the abusive men too - people who've been convicted of those crimes - and ask whether and how they might have responded to the opportunity.

Well said - there's so much sense here. I'm not someone who could speak to journalists on this either. But it strikes me as being a specific angle that NEEDS to be spoken about.