Laurie Penny's Mirror World

[ArcheryAnnie]

Apparently gender-crit women are a cult who don't tolerate dissent.

Laurie, come over here and have a quick look through the threads. Then have a look at your own lot.

Then tell me again who is "cult-like".

And what is needed is a profound shakeup of the way that ALL institutions and organisations address assault, harassment and abuse of women and children.

Impossible to address the problem if you cannot name the problem: make violence

Do not seek to generalise this in humanist terms. As soon as you pretend that the perpetrators are female you have agreed to not address the problem.

No-one is asking for trans people to be ‘banned’ either... just sex to continue to be recognised in law and practice and for it not to be replaced with gender identity.

Have you never wondered why sex AND gender identity can’t both be recognised in law and why the current lobby is specifically calling for the erasure of sex and replacement with gender identity?

Male violence. Male. Violence perpetrated by males, mostly adult males. Men, in fact.

There is no hate here. There is acknowledgement of one simple, biological truth: that sex is immutable.

It is not hateful to know this. Everything else springs from this knowledge.

I am still boggling at the idea of Laurie writing a "balanced" article on this issue.

As soon as you pretend that the perpetrators are female you have agreed to not address the problem.

A million times this.

Penny is even now writing the pro forma 'I went on to Mumsnet to try to be reasonable but was shouted down by transphobic grannies' article.

And if you are in my position, as many many women are;

• having to pay a solicitor out of your benefits because the local authority hasn’t even responded to the complaint you put on in March because they are totally failing due to cuts.

• with a disability and a disabled child and having been let down repeatedly by every service; school, mental health, physical health, social care etc etc at the worst time of your life, discriminated against by them on the basis of disability and sex (hence complaint).

• having literally no way out of the shit heap of your life except suicide and knowing that the stress of this will probably result in you never being able to get out of this mess because you have a disability exacerbated by stress you can’t even have care for because you can’t get to appointments due to no support with childcare for disabled child.

• with an ex who abused you and who has been on bail for 13 months (so far) because the police can’t cope with the cuts, knowing that they probably won’t be able to do a good investigation, that the cps cuts mean you can’t trust them to make a good sound decision even if the police do a good job.

• knowing that your landlord can kick you out for any reason and you’ve already had a warning because your neighbours complained about the police being called ‘so many times’ for your daughter’s MH crisis but that this is what you are directed to do by social care in an emergency and if you don’t do it your child will be considered ‘at risk’

Etc etc etc.... I could go on for hours...

Why would you trust any institution in these circs? So many women are in these circs or similar, we know these services are not functioning...

But apart from all that, why should our lives be placed in their hands in the first place?!

I’m not doing this for a piece, although I am supposed to be writing one- frankly I started it a month ago and was meant to be putting across a more ‘balanced’ view and asking how we can resolve differences, but the level of vitriol and attacks I’ve seen have meant I’m almost too disturbed to do it. I’m not suggesting anyone here is involved in that, though I hope not.

Obviously that's a sly way of suggesting it. The only people who will abuse you if you write a more balanced piece are transactivists. Let's not pretend otherwise.

The only people who will abuse you if you write a more balanced piece are transactivists.

And I wouldn't want to be in her shoes if she dared to. You'd hear the howls of narcissistic rage from space.

86% of the cuts born by women. Not transwomen. Biological women, because of our sex, not our identities. This is why legal protection for sex is so important and why we are so very afraid of it being watered down by making it into ‘whatever the market, the structures and the third sector decide’.

Why, Penny seems to be blaming women there for her own failure to write an article which she has neither the understanding to conceive nor the ovaries to publish for fear of male abuse.

But hey, everything else is our fault so why not.

I'm with Joan. I'm aware of too many people who have been bitten in the backside by Laurie's good faith bullcrap to ever believe that she has come here for any reason that is not a) narcissistic or b) for fodder.

This is my one post providing supply for Laurie.

Over and out.

Deptford discussion:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3203804-The-Deptford-People-Project-and-the-impact-of-self-ID-and-transactivism-on-working-class-women

I wonder, when Penny is researching other issues, whether she tells people 'no you've got it wrong. I don't believe you.'

Laurie, thanks for coming along to engage with us. I have some questions that I hope you’ll answer:

1. Last year, transactivists tried to close down the working-class library in Salford because it had invited Julie Bindel as a speaker. Do you support them?

2. For several months, A Woman’s Place has been organising peaceful meetings to discuss the implications of the proposed Gender Recognition Bill. Since the very first meeting – to which trans representatives were invited – transactivists have waged a campaign of harassment and intimidation against the venues to persuade them to refuse them to host the meetings. Since that first meeting, A Woman’s Place has had to keep the venue secret until the day of the meeting. Do you think that it is acceptable to intimidate venues in this way?

3. For that very first meeting last year, after the venue cancelled, attendees had to meet at Speaker’s Corner to be told the new venue. While they were waiting, the attendees were taunted and harassed by transactivists, two of whom physically assaulted Maria Maclachlan. Do you think they were right to assault her?

4. After the assault, transactivists and their allies tried to perpetuate a false narrative that Maria had “provoked” them. Your colleague Owen Jones sympathetically retweeted articles and videos that put forward this false narrative. Given that one of Maria’s assailants has now been found guilty, do you agree that Owen’s actions fell far below the levels of responsible journalism? Do you also agree that Owen now owes Maria an apology?

5. In court, Maria was told by the magistrate to refer to her male assailant as “she” because that was his preferred pronoun. Do you think the magistrate was right to do this?

6. At a subsequent Woman’s Place meeting, Linda Bellos said that she would defend herself if transactivists attempted to physically assault her in the way they assaulted Maria. Transactivists then reported Linda to the police, and she was questioned. Do you think that Linda – a 68 year old black lesbian, a socialist and a feminist, who has worked tirelessly in radical activism for more than 40 years – should have been questioned by the police for saying she would defend herself against violent assault?

7. Posie Parker wrote a tweet that said Susie Green, CEO of Mermaids had taken her 16-year old child to Thailand to be castrated. Green reported her to the police for hate speech, who then questioned her. Do you think that Parker deserved to be reported to the police for her tweet?

8. At one meeting of A Woman’s Place, Helen Steel spoke eloquently about the numerous times she has been sexually assaulted by men, and why this means she feels strongly that men should not be allowed in women’s spaces. Subsequently, at the Anarchist Bookfair, Helen was surrounded by transactivists who shouted abuse at her, including “ugly Terf, fucking Terf scum, bitch, fascist”. Helen has been a force in left-wing campaigning politics for 30 years and was a co-defendant in the notorious McLibel trial. Do you think that she deserved to be intimidated and shouted at in this way? Do you think that shouting “bitch” and “fucking Terf scum” is an acceptable way to engage in debate with feminists?

9. At a feminist meeting in Bristol a few weeks ago to discuss the gender recognition bill, masked activists tried to physically prevent women entering. Do you think this is acceptable?

10. At A Woman’s Place meeting in Oxford recently, transactivists gathered outside the venue to shout abuse. A representative from the venue (the Quaker meeting house) tried to reason with the activists, pointing out that also inside the venue a meeting was taking place of sexual abuse survivors who were distressed by all the shouting. They simply ignored him and carried on. Do you think this is acceptable behaviour?

I look forward to your answers.

LpLurker

I know, I know. It's really hard to believe and stomach what's going on. I suggest you have a read. And stop telling us to "be nice". We've had enough of that.

To me the problem is patriarchy, full stop, and a culture of complicity with abusers

Yep. That's what we're saying. Except there's no full stop. It's ellipsis...

As soon as you pretend that the perpetrators are female you have agreed to not address the problem

YES

Laurie, thank you for coming. I would really love it if you answered Hackmum's questions from 6.47 this morning.

Everything joan said

Little shocked by some of the vitriol here. I did just want to quote a post from another thread that I find sums up my frustrations with some of the arguments:

'PencilsInSpace

Gender dysphoria is so terrible you must give in to all our demands or we will die
but also
How dare you say trans is an illness or that gender dysphoria is necessary to be trans

If we are forced to use male facilities we will be attacked
but also
Your fear of males in female facilities is irrational and transphobic

Changes to the GRA will make completely no difference to you rights so shut up
but also
Nobody even knows what the proposed changes are yet because they haven't been published

You're all in an echo chamber
but also
Hahaha you can't even agree with each other'

I hope Pencils doesn't mind me quoting that post from the transphobic or truths thread but as I said I think it's an interesting summary.

and I would be concerned myself if the things being discussed here- lesbians being forced into having sex with anyone they don’t want to, denial of the material basis of women’s oppression, attempts to prey on vulnerable women in safe spaces- were actually happening. As far as my research as well as personal experience has taken me, they simply aren’t. I see a lot of untruths being spread.

Laurie, I've been trans-positive my whole life, except I never thought of it as "trans-positive" - we were all just gender-nonconforming people together. I am now gender-critical, and one of the things that set me on that road is that I am also an ex-prisoner.

You may not understand this, but women in prison are amongst the most vulnerable group of women there is. Women prisoners make up a tiny proportion of the total prison population, and the vast majority of them are in there for nonviolent crimes. Between about half and about four-fifths of women in prison are survivors of domestic violence. More than half are survivors of emotional, physical or sexual abuse during childhood. About a third spent time in local authority care as a child. Women prisoners account for a vastly disproportionate amount of self-harm reported in prison. I can promise you, from both well-documented research and my own personal experience of meeting other women prisoners, that far, far too many women in prison have a lifetime of experience of male violence.

And here we are, in a situation where male-bodied people - men - who have committed incredibly violent crimes, often against women and girls, are being moved into women's prisons, and there is constant pressure not just to move more of these violent males into women's prisons, but to change their perceived status from violent criminal to oppressed victim. If you want me to list some examples here, just ask, and I will.

I don't give a shit if these males are "genuinely" trans, or - like many other manipulative men - have just found a route which will give them a special status and support in prison, and bonus access to further victims. I will not stand by and see one of the most vulnerable groups of women thrown under the bus by people I had previously thought of as my allies and comrades.

Perhaps you don't really grasp the prison issue - I can't imagine you have ever likely been at risk of prison, or ever will be. Perhaps you haven't ever thought about women prisoners, who are invisible, disregarded, about as far from the circles of influence and celebrity as it is possible to be, I don't know. But they matter, and I will not allow them to be put at even further risk without a fight.

Have you never wondered why sex AND gender identity can’t both be recognised in law and why the current lobby is specifically calling for the erasure of sex and replacement with gender identity?

This. This is why the trans issue is a consent issue. We are saying no to the biologically male sex in female sex only spaces. Happy for a feminine gender space or unisex thst is separate. Why no organising for a third space? There is no answer other than wanting to override the consent of women

Speaking as someone who has only realised / experienced since becoming a mother the extent of sex based discrimination.

@Lplurker you dismissed my question about the Girl Guides. I'm feeling a little peeved. You say you want to talk, I asked you a question, gave you a link to more info (fairplayforwomen.com/guide-leaders-call-for-halt/) and you dismissed me but also contradicted yourself.

You state at first, talking about GG in general I DO trust individual organisations to do the necessary checks and decide on a case by case basis who is suitable to work with children, not just on the basis of gender but also criminal history, etc.
But then later
then And what is needed is a profound shakeup of the way that ALL institutions and organisations address assault, harassment and abuse of women and children. which sort of contradicts your first statement.

Also, in terms of DBS checks, Savile would have passed one of those so it only stops convicted child rapists not the ones that don't get caught so it's not enough and not good enough. Or are the first rape victims not important enough to protect?

Fine if you don't have time to look into all the questions you've been asked. Focus on other issues - but be honest about that.

I'm a mum to two daughters and the GG policy scares me as it makes it so crystal clear that an organisation that is supposed to be for girls cares so little about their privacy, dignity or safety.