Engender survey re equality

[Freshlylaidterf]

Sorry can't do link as I've already filled it in so it wont let me click on the start .If you go to the Engender site you should be able to find it. It's fairly detailed and I was able to put in lots of comments about women's rights being eroded re GRA. Also lots about gender stereotyping and the nonsense going on in schools etc.Worth doing I think although I realise Engender are of the 'trans women are women' school of thought..

I have filled it in too, my answer to q1 was different to yours. I put gender is a social construct my sex is female. Thoroughly enjoyed that thank you for the opportunity

ItsAll it moaned at me if I didn't fill out each box. I definitely feel discriminated against if you managed that unmoaned at!

Interesting - I did it on my phone and it just let me scroll past questions I couldn't be arsed answering (check boxes and comments).

Bit long, but I managed to get in the stuff about the GRA, women’s prisons, changes to sports including at local levels and in competitions. Also more general stuff about universal credit making it harder for women to leave situations where there is DV occurring.

I feel quite proud. The women on this board have educated me so much. Only a few weeks ago, I struggled with the GRA consultation, but now I had lots to say.

Thanks all!

Oh God, that survey is appalling. But I've had my gender critical say .

Oh my fucking god. Please excuse my French. No actually don't. I just spent three hours raging at them. I basically finished with fuck you for abandoning women. We are going to fight for our rights without you. I hope I can sleep now after raging like this.

And thank you for posting this Freshlylaidterf!

Goodness that was a lot of cutting and pasting.

Youre welcome charleyparley
And thanks all for completing. I echo much of what has been said here but at least we had our say. With a bit of luck if they get enough responses like ours it may give them pause for thought.

Couldn't help hoping that at least one person might read this and start thinking but I very much doubt it. I wouldn't normally rage at an organisation like this, but I was told to STFU by a TSA this week telling me that ENGENDER didn't have a problem with self-id. How dare I disagree with the experts and then he linked me to this statement:

Engender FAQ on self-id

I've learned to read the links people use to support their points as more often than not they don't actually do that. Right enough ENGENDER mentions some issues (very poor, all they could identify was prisons and data collection). But the whole thing spends more time proving their trans ally cred than championing women.

(Like this: "we are allies [...]against gender stereotyping and essentialism." They couldn't make their allegiance to the "transwomen are women" belief any clearer: Essentialism means biological essentialism means the statement that biological sex is real. They're committed to denying that which is the basis of women's oppression: our biological sex)

But most importantly they state that it is the goverment's job to make impact assessments. This is where the problem lies - the acceptance of organisations like these of self-id is always used as proof that the professionals providing women's services have found no adverse impacts and therefore support the measure.

ENGENDER here makes it clear they don't actually consider this to be their job and while they may have idetified adverse impacts in their response to the GRA consultation, in public they state there aren't any in their view. The government can then wave it through saying: the experts clearly haven't found anything wrong as they've all agreed with the proposal.

And on one thing they seem to be outright manipulative and/or lying:

"We will also look in detail at any proposals that impose legal requirements on violence against women services to change our practice. The proposals within the consultation do not make any such imposition [...]"

Recommendation 12 in the proposal says:

We recommend that the Equality Act be amended so that the occupational requirements provision and / or the single-sex / separate services provision shall not apply in relation to discrimination against a person whose acquired gender has been recognised under the Gender Recognition Act 2004.

In practice this removes first of all the ability to exclude a biological male from working in single-sex services as long as they hold a GRC AND as GRA 2004 will be amended to self-id, this will of course then apply not just to original GRC holders but to all biological males who self-id.

Recommendation 13 on sports is also hugely damaging to women's sports, but maybe ENGENDER don't feel this is within their responsibility.

Oh and for anyone who hasn't read the proposal, it includes an amusing slap down of Mermaids who seem to have made up stuff in their submission to the enquiry (page 13).

The UK Gov Proposal

^TRA not TSA

Done. I don’t think that they will like my responses either!

From and interesting piece by Rebecca Reilly-Johnson, a speaker at the next Women's Place meeting in Birmingham.

aeon.co/essays/the-idea-that-gender-is-a-spectrum-is-a-new-gender-prison
On Nonbinary.org, your gender can apparently be:

(Name)gender: ‘A gender that is best described by one’s name, good for those who aren’t sure what they identify as yet but definitely know that they aren’t cis … it can be used as a catch-all term or a specific identifier, eg, johngender, janegender, (your name here)gender, etc.’
The example of ‘(name)gender’ perfectly demonstrates how non-binary gender identities operate, and the function they perform. They are for people who aren’t sure what they identify as, but know that they aren’t cisgender. Presumably because they are far too interesting and revolutionary and transgressive for something as ordinary and conventional as cis.

Bugger me, I was janegender all along.
I will add that to the comments section of the survey, and tell them how stupid and ridiculous this is.

I put this in 5.

Trans rights activists demanding the removal of same sex facilities. The Equality Act forcing gender reassignment rights to take precedence over sex based rights. The misogyny driven attitude of governments to women supporting men's sex fetishes over women's safety.

Got a few things of my chest. Feel well vented.

I will try to fill it in but clearly it’s designed for those steeped in their world of gender studies. Self described feminist organisation? Must have been on holiday whenwomen wee campaigning for a government funded professional feminist organisation. Seems to me that a lot of these government funded women’s organisations don’t actually have to work with women in the real world. And employees of one org sit on the board of others etc. Sure they all have a great time awarding each other social justice points at conferences and events. Neither me nor any of my mates who work in public, 3rd and private sector have heard of Engender. And we’ve been around for a long time.

*off