Parliament hosting Stonewall panel event on trans issues and changes to GRA

[TheSecretMole]

See below invitation sent to all MPs. Anyone heard about it before or who is on the panel? I will try and do some digging and find out any details I can.

Dear MP,

I am writing to invite you to an afternoon panel event on trans equality, held in partnership with Maria Miller MP and PinkNews, at Speaker’s House on Tuesday 15 May, from 12:30 – 14:00.

Since last summer’s announcement that the UK Government would begin to consult on plans to reform the Gender Recognition Act 2004, we have witnessed increasingly negative media coverage and hostility towards trans people.

This event will provide a space where parliamentarians and other relevant stakeholders can hear from trans people and allies about:

• The current levels of transphobia and marginalisation that trans people are experiencing in everyday life
• The positive impact that a reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 will have for trans and non-binary people
• Separating the facts from myths on some of the key areas where opponents to reform have focused.

We will also be sharing findings from a piece of research Stonewall has produced with women’s organisations, which demonstrates that many single-sex domestic and/or sexual violence services are already trans inclusive.

If you would like to attend, please RSVP with my colleague Neil McDonald by Tuesday 1 May and they will ensure your name is added to the guestlist. We will then send an official invitation.

Should you have any questions, do let myself or Neil know.

With warm wishes,

Ruth Hunt
Chief Executive, Stonewall

Pink news? Pink news?!

Are they fucking insane?

I am sure no posters here are calling for #nodebate.
I think it is perfect reasonable for a group to lobby MPs, whether or not I agree with what they are arguing for.
Good MPs will make sure they are informed about everyone’s interests.
We need to focus on getting our interest and concerns more widely understood, just as the gender radicalised are seeking to do. That is something we have in common!

Pink News? Ffs.

And as for writing to MPs, I have written to my MP and received a standard c&p job that didn't address any of the questions I asked about women. I replied saying as much (fairly politely) and repeating my questions. No further response. I also emailed my MSPs. The majority of them have not replied.

Longweek thank you. 20+ invites a day - wow!

I'm kind of hoping it WILL be a debate between various parts of the LGBT community and not simply a presentation about self ID.

One of the issues here is the lost voices and the lack of debate within those circles every bit as much as the exclusion of heterosexual women.

It needs to be an environment in which various voices are allowed to be heard, rather than shouted down for not having the 'right' opinion.

Given that pink news, stonewall and maria miller's position is pretty much the same: self id, no debate, I'm wondering what the purpose of the meeting is unless it is to tell women to stfu.

To tell MPs to stop speaking to the evil witches who oppose self-ID, I assume.

Angry

Lots of 'right side of history' 'poor me,me,me,me' 'this will make up for what gay men went through' 'women are horrible'' stuff, no doubt.

Given that pink news, stonewall and maria miller's position is pretty much the same: self id, no debate, I'm wondering what the purpose of the meeting is unless it is to tell women to stfu.

I think that probably is what it is. I expect they'll bring along plenty of the "right" pro-trans sort of women. Probably Sisters Uncut etc.

There two things that could be done here to reduce trans phobia

Thats:

1. work to reassure the public by ensuring public debate (not just on self id but an open, transparent dialogue which doesn't tell people what to think, but informs them in a way which is unbiased)
2. simply stop labelling blinking in the wrong way as transphobic and being overly defensive at the slightest curiousity / question / critical thought. People NEED to ask questions on their own terms to understand.

There is a need by the public to understand better. You can't just tell them they have to believe.

Excellent points Redtoothbrush

Meant to say before- obvs not all MPs will read it, but they all have free access to The Times, so may well have read some of the recent articles about the gender debate.

I see this as a good thing. The more TRAs talk, the more people will sit up and go, "eh?"

What about women and girls?

Upthread is a post about PIE.
I read on twitter today a link to an article -
"Ekman also gives examples of queer theorists, who, in their neoliberal, individualistic blindness, actually claim that men from the global North who are sex tourists in the global South are rebelliously transgressing sexual norms, as opposed to engaging in a sexist, racist act as they use their relative power and wealth to use a poor woman, man or child.
Heather Montgomery, an anthopologist who researched the sex industry in Thailand, was similarly hesitant about making any value judgement about men who buy young children for sex, for fear of oppressing the children. “The children that I knew”, says Montgomery, “did have a ‘sense of decision and control’… The search for victims of child abuse sometimes obscures the acknowledgement of children’s agency.”. Montgomery even goes so far as to say, while acknowledging the bruises, the drug abuse, and the STDs that many of these children suffered, she felt that it wasn’t possible to apply Western models of psychology to these children, and therefore raised a question mark over whether this abuse affected them negatively."

rosa.ie/bought-prostitution-surrogacy-split-self-kajsa-ekis-ekman/

so presumably objecting to child sex tourism will soon be racism? The more I see the battle back against the sex trade is as important as the trans one.

Truscum

Debate is good as long as all stakeholders get to participate.

I haven’t read this full thread. In my opinion, nothing is wrong with stonewall setting out their views to whoever will listen. That’s what happens in a free speech environment. I’m not someone who has reached ‘peak trans’, i still have questions that need answering and research to do.
I’ve never met a trans person whom I wished anything but the best for - however i am not trying in any way to speak for those who have, or who will be disadvantaged by these changes in legislation.
It’s a tricky place to be when you are proud of being a woman, and what you can do... and don’t want anyone to diminish it.
A meaningful discussion must take place and without people who seem to be just involved for the attention (not naming names)

Mouthful - that will be women and girls

That invitation tries to make it sound like ‘opponents to reform’ ( that’s us) only object to the loss of ‘single-sex domestic and/or sexual violence services’.
Actually that is more than bag enough but my objection to self iD goes way, way further than that. Are they going to be holding a whole series of these to address all our concerns I wonder?

*bad enough

I would be interested to know the nature of the evidence for increasing transphobia.... it may well coincide with for example the positioning of LM as Women's Officer, fuelling up the twittersphere, use of blocks and people becoming more aware of the extent to which discussion is stifled.
I think that either these factors are being exploited or there is some deliberate strategy (by some TRAs)

The 'myth' busting is interesting... and a bit worrying!

The 'myth' busting is interesting

I can't help wandering if this event might actually backfire and bring more MPs to "peak trans"

The best thing to do is to raise the simple point as Justine said in the middle of the interview with JHB today,

I think the problem with this is that the trans lobby have confused an issue about people quite rightfully sticking up for the idea of hard won women's rights around....(interrupted but early JR said women's refuge and rape counselling as examples)

The upshot of the change to the legislation that's been asked for around self-identity, is that you are putting women, including transgender women quite frankly in vulnerable positions potentially.
We need to be able to discuss if we are changing legislation, and for very good reasons because I am totally in favour of recognition, equality and fair treatment of all individuals and letting them live how they live.
But we need to be able to discuss these competing rights and it needs to not just be shut down....and I'm afraid and to be honest India you've got to see the other point of view, you can't just plough on with the [position] 'our issue is the only important one'

which in short is, yes, and what about women and girls?

It will be a lobbying exercise to get MPs committed to the GRA. Most parties are and Maria Miller was very close to signing it off. There is now the beginning of public awareness of the wider implications and the liklehood is that this will be linked to rising levels of transphobia.
There are clear signs just in the response over the weekend that a lot of MN members have legitimate concerns. I would think harnessing this simple point would do a great deal to at the least slow things down and to enable further debate and discussion (which is exactly what TRA don't want to happen.)

I can already predict some of the myth busting.

Self ID is fine, because they have it in Ireland and Malta, and it's fine there, even though they're different cultures (and not known as havens of women's rights) with tiny trans populations and different equality laws. And no way of measuring how many women self exclude from services or are afraid to speak up about men abusing the new self ID laws (misgendering in Malta is punishable with a fine I believe).So women should shut up because it's been fine in those countries for a very short period of time, which means that in the UK none of the thousands of predatory men who live here will ever exploit self ID. And we'll just ignore the pesky cases of men in Canada entering women's refuges through self ID and women suffering increased sexual violence and harassment in Target stores in the USA because of their self ID policies. It's all fine and women are just hysterical bigots.

And women's groups all agree that it's fine, too! We haven't bothered to speak to the actual service users of these groups, just the people who run them. We'll forget the fact that many of them are clueless virtue signalling lib fems who haven't thought this through, and many others KNOW that this is all bullshit but are reliant on government funding and need to be LGBT inclusive so have to say they think it's fine.Again, shut up women!

And anyway, trans people are the most oppressed people in the world. They suffer from transphobia every day. This includes things like having to see tampons branded as feminine hygiene products, hearing about individuals who are pregnant being referred to as women, and seeing posters for plays such as the Vagina Monologues (all real life examples) because vaginas are so very transphobic. Trans women are more at risk of violence than any other group in the world in history and trans children will commit suicide if you don't immediately affirm that they are indeed born in the wrong body and it's definitely not just a phase. No, we don't have any credible statistics to back this up but if we just keep saying it people will believe it's true.