URGENTLY calling all Scottish gender critical Mumsnetters

[Badgerthebodger]

Apologies for the essay below:

We desperately need you to contact your MSP re the bill which was passed today. There is a great explanation of the situation here from Dr Nic Williams of Fair Play for Women

In a nutshell, the Scottish government have now redefined the legal meaning of the word "woman". It has now been expanded to include:
"A person who has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment...if, and only if, the person is living as a woman, and is proposing to undergo, is undergoing, or has undergone a process, or part of a process, for the purpose of becoming female

They have passed this bill in anticipation of changes to gender recognition law in Scotland. That's the law that hasn't been passed, indeed the law which has only just concluded it's consultation period.

We urgently need people to write to their MSPs, or better still meet them, to register your protest against this bill and the lack of consultation. Even the Equality and Human Rights Commission have raised questions about the bill - they have been ignored.

Why should the Scottish government get to redefine the word woman without so much as a by our leave? Why do they think we should accept men as part of our sex class? Why do they constantly conflate sex with gender, mixing them up so nothing is clear anymore? Just exactly what happened in Scottish government to make them think the beliefs of a tiny minority should influence policy?

Please, please please please, make your voice heard. Write to your MSP, tell your friends to do the same, meet your MSP and tell them that you do not accept this. I can help with letters if anyone needs any pointers but the strongest way to object is to write a personal letter telling your MSP exactly what you think.

TL, DR: Please write to your MSP re today's bill to register your protest

Hi OP can you email me a template to work from? I'm going to get busy with the writing over the weekend. I've never felt the need to write to my MSP before.

Sorry @badger, I meant DM me the template...I think I'm losing the plot with all this

PM plot lost

Can I have a PM too please?

I am raging.,

How can they do this? Why are our Scottish politicians, and fucking female politicians, so bloody stupid? You cannot draft laws with ambiguous terms. You need to be able to define terms. You cannot just change the meaning.

Is there another meet up happening? If so and it's Glasgow or even Edinburgh then I'm there (childcare permitting).

@Ekphrasis scroll down to Betsy's post at 13.20 today for the full list. I'm hoping/assuming that many didn't read the buried bit redefining women..

Right Ekphrasis, so aa you point out: this law, mind bogglingly, literally uses the words that a male can ‘become female.’ So we have lost both the meaning of ‘woman’ AND the meaning of ‘female’ now.

And how utterly idiotic this premise is- nobody, even if they understand there to be something called ‘living as a woman’ (which is a matter of subjective belief on the part of the individual doing that living, presumably by performing at least some of the time, what they personally consider to represent femininity - which in their mind= actual womanhood .. ), but nobody, surely, believes that a male person literally changes sex and ‘becomes a female’, ever.?

This law would have us believe that at will, men’s chromosomes can somehow change in every cell of their male body from xy to xx, making them female?
That they magically grow whole new organs in their body to create the primary and secondary female sexual characteristics?
That their hormone balance completely changes from male to female etc etc?
Do all their natural male characteristics melt away during all this or do they fall off or turn into pumpkins, I wonder?

Or do the men wishing to become female just have to leave their male attributes under the pillow to be magically taken away by the cock, balls, big Adam’s apple etc fairies..?

And what’s even more crazy apparently this law says this magic process of ‘becoming female’ happens (and thus the law kicks in) even before any of these magic wands have been waved, before the organs have melted away and been regrown, before the fairies have somehow altered the sex of the person at cellular level.. apparently this can all happen just by a man thinking in his mind to ‘become female’ ..

Wow, are men THAT powerful with their minds...?
I had seriously underestimated them!

Clearly women have no such equivalent magical powers because if they did this law would have also mentioned them being able to ‘become male’..which it does not.

Intelligent, elected adults voted for this.

Did they redefine man as well? Sorry

If men aren't mentioned then the law is against the law, surely, by being discriminatory. I don't know, cause butting in.

Nope

I think men get to just carry on as they were before in the eyes of the law.

No Pratchet they didn’t feel the need to redefine man. This bill was passed in an effort to promote equality by ensuring non executive board members for public bodies were a 50/50 split between men and women. Except, you know, they’ve changed the meaning of the word woman so it includes men. I just can’t even...argh

I will try and catch up with PMs tomorrow, but if anyone can forward anything on to those who have asked it would be lovely

But surely the law is actually against the law? How can they make a law so one sided? I'll butt out. People know what they're on about and I don't. This is shit.

It is shit and it makes no sense! Complete mind fuck, thank goodness for wine

Nic Williams is far more eloquent than me:
fairplayforwomen.com/scottish_stole_woman/

It is bullshit. It's presented as being about 50:50 representation when it actually changes the definitions of woman and female; misrepresents protected characteristics and then implies white middle class women are so privileged that anyone with a protected characteristic can be considered for positions before them.
Such a fucking joke that women are having to give up space yet again whilst men's positions are protected. Bunch of handmaidens.

@badger, if you have time to PM me your template that would be greatly appreciated.

Voted SNP consistently for years but won't be again. It's not just the misogyny of it but the sheer and utter incompetence of the wording.

I have no one to vote for now

Pratchet don’t butt out, you weren’t butting in. Come join!

So if this is the law in Scotland, does this affect the law in the rest of Britain and NI? I mean, the definition of being female or not is surely not a devolved issue?
And if you have the Equality Act which is UK wide, then how can Scotland just stick this (very not equal) rider on to the meaning of woman in the Equality Act? I’m really confused.

It is actually gaslighting.

It's rewriting biology books.

How can words mean so much in some contexts and be so mushy in others?

I'm certain if going into hospital even a tw with surgery would have to be referred to as male for the purposes of anaesthesia, certain medicines etc.

No one ever say trans gender female.

Some how my internal grammar says a trans gender female is a female who has had ftm surgery.

Thanks Gruffalo.

the definition of being female or not is surely not a devolved issue?
And if you have the Equality Act which is UK wide, then how can Scotland just stick this (very not equal) rider on to the meaning of woman in the Equality Act?

Very good point!
Does the Scottish Government actually have the authority to do this?

So when I go to talk to my MSP do I lead with:

a) the new trans community and that the transsexuals everyone thinks they are protecting are marginalised in this debate and that GIRES evidence submitted to the self-id enquiry shows 80 to 95% of male to trans persons in the UK have never sought any medical help at all - not even therapy, let alone bottom surgery and that therefore the vast majority are fully sexed straight men who like to crossdress either full or part time.

b) the definition of "becoming female" and ask him to explain to me how exactly a bull becomes a cow or a stallion a mare

c) the Equalities Act and have him explain to me what justification there is to break it by redefining woman, bringing in self-id by the back door and deciding that protected characteristics are no longer equally protected and that the female sex is now the least worthy or

d) tell him I grew up piss poor, couldn't afford childcare when the kids were born, therefore had to give up on the career I had planned but that I am now one of the superfluous middle-class middle-aged white women who this legislation definititely was not designed for.

Given the above, if I ever made it onto a selection panel for a non-exec board membership it would be a miracle. Now, if that miracle were to happen which justification can he give me for publicly declaring that a fully sexed straight middle-class middle-aged white male who wears a dress is worthier of inclusion than me.

==> Please note, this is not a criticism of any man's choice to express fem, I've got zero problem with how people dress or what mannerisms they display or whatever. I am merely pointing out that transsexuals are extremely rare and that today most of the time you encounter such a male, he will be a non-med non-op crossdresser.

(FYI, the available scientific literature in this area also shows that the vast majority of men identifying as trans are straight, white, middle-class men and the median age for a male to publicly identify as transgender is mid 30s to mid 40s - ie after a lifetime of male privilege and an unbroken career.)

And I suppose my aim is to get him to understand that women's rights campaigner want to be consulted on self-id, right?

I would like the template to personalise and send to my MSP, can someone PM it please?