New Woman's Place meeting - Todmorden - 7 June

[LazyMondayMornings]

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-womans-place-is-to-encourage-debate-tickets-46041163359

Guide leader raised the question of guides self id- leaders told to ask gnc girls WHEN they will leave. Told not to talk about this

Crafty fox I saw you but I was sitting right at the other side. Wasn’t it great? I did t see you in the bar afterwards but you had baby in tow so...

Had to leave early unfortunately as an hour's drive back home and had young WichBitch we me who really needs her kip and has school tomorrow.

Was very interesting and lovely to meet some real live MN terfs. MrsWooster I bow to your ovaries of steel in doing the man friday challenge on your own in M&S. If you haven't shared your story on here I beg you to, it's very funny!

No protesters at all inside or out. I wonder if given that the Calder Valley and surrounding area has a disproportionate number of lesbians, GC people and feminists living there that the locals didn't have much objection to the meeting? Or were the young folk too pissed and stoned to organise?!

Wish I could have stayed to the end but sadly childcare was not available. I have a child and need to put her needs for sleep before my needs to be politically active and visible! Shame on me! If only I was younger and childless I could've partied all night. She enjoyed it though so glad she went.

How's the rest of the evening gone in Tod MNers?

I think as I said that Twitter is hiding the responses of most women flagged as gender critical. By its algorithm or otherwise.

I found it best to follow Bo last time once things started because the hash tag was being spammed. This time I followed Alison, then that dropped out, then Elinor. You are right there was something else going on and it was hard to pick up threads.

However, they get retweeted, so I can pick them up anytime

Wrappedup! Sorry we didn't get a chance to say hi. My sister was cuddling my baby for most of the evening apart from when he wanted feeding. She was in black, I was t'other one!

I really enjoyed it too. It was good to meet you, WichBitch and offspring :) i’d have liked to have been able to stick around but unfortunately i’m up at 6 for work, am an old lady of 31 and need my sleep.

I thought Kristina Harris, in particular, was brilliant - extremely articulate, funny and gave the impression of being completely comfortable in her own skin. I also (to my surprise, as a right wing git) really enjoyed Ruth Serwotka’s piece - particularly her timeline of events, a good counter to the ‘but we were never going after the Equality Act!’ I would liked to have heard a bit more from Gill. She has a wonderfully relaxing voice, too.

The only thing that slightly marred my enjoyment was the constant chuntering from the TAs in the back row - why go to such an event if you’re just going to spend it whispering to your friends instead of listening to the speakers and the other contributors. Especial uncredit to the non-binary individual who kept poking me in the back of the head with her notes. However, the speakers, and the brave folk who stood up to have their say - particularly those who were able to voice their opposition respectfully - were a real pleasure to listen to.

From Twitter it seemed there were some questions from the non-binary folk at the end - what did they ask/how did that go?

sporadic I don’t know how you kept your cool when you were getting bopped on the head with those notes!! And yes it would have been nice if they had shut up and listened a bit more.
Also interesting was the one comment from the floor that DIDNT get a round of applause - that ordinary people don’t see this as an issue at all!! Bollocks
Lovely to meet everyone, shame I couldn’t stay longer afterwards

The TW Nell someone who stood up on stage and rambled on pointlessly about mememrme was a bit whataboutery I thought. Just looked to me like an old bloke in a dress. Was going on about wife having to deal with her father dying and Nell coming out as trans without any insight into how hard it would have been for poor wife. I felt very sorry for her to be married to such a narcissist. Was sitting behind me in the audience and huffed and sighed and yawned loudly and rudely through all of the speeches. Shades of Jane Fae.

But everyone listened politely to Nell whitter on. No-one rudely yawned or tutted though I'm sure most felt like doing so. It was such a rambling pointless speech.

So they didn’t actually have a point about proposed changes to the GRA or retaining sex as a protected characteristic? ie - what the meeting was about? Just wanted to talk about themselves. How unsurprising. Did they have a question for the panel or just wanted to make their own speech?

cwenthryth
Their attitude was that our concerns weren’t really valid.
They hadn’t seen any of the things people are concerned about happening so what was the problem? Plus the GR act wasn’t going to be changed so why were we making a fuss about nothing?
I was sitting next to them and they were chuntering all the time which was pretty annoying, they were pretty grumpy

Yes Nell was all about ME!
She couldn’t divorce her wife because the wife’s father had died so she needed stability - doubt Nell was supplying much of that

Also I had a really heavy period and had to go to the loo after the meeting to sort myself out. Nell was in there smirking as I went in. I felt pretty uncomfortable trying to sort out my overflowing Mooncup, hands dripping with blood knowing Nell was outside the door. It was a tiny ladies. It kind of summed up to me exactly what we are fighting for. Private spaces for females. I will push hard for additional gender neutral spaces to run alongside female and male only ones.

What can I say, I was a victim of literal violence, I may never recover. I am also shy and conflict-averse and probably wouldn’t say anything unless someone literally sat on me (and then it’d be ‘excuse me, sorry but you appear to be sitting on me’)

I also got strong narc vibes from both Nell and the other tw who spoke (from towards the back, the very naicely spoken one). Nobody deserves to be sexually assaulted, but from Nell’s story, it seems the police took her seriously and treated her with respect, while recording the crime accurately.

What I remember from Team Enby was they read a prepared statement that didn’t really bring anything new to the discussion. I think one of them mentioned they worked in mental health and assessed people on ‘risk, rather than gender’. I am sure this is very reassuring to female survivors of sexual violence who will not access support if it’s mixed sex - regardless of the risk-assessed status of the males present.

wichbitch miniwichbitch is fab, you must be very proud of her
The non binary lots attitude was we work in mental health and we know more about this than anyone and as we don’t think it’s an issue then you shouldn’t.
There was also someone who said that they worked in healthcare and had never met anyone who would have a problem with their elderly mother sharing a hospital room with a TW - again utter crap
There was a very dismissive and patronising attitude from some quarters

Agree about Nell who was having a pity party for one. The police did sound to have responded to the complaint properly. His wife didn't agree to him transitioning so the nasty authorities were going to force them to get a divorce when she was going through such an awful time. MEMEMEMEME!

Nell was also in the women's loos when I went but scuttled out quietly.

As for Amanda from the women's refuge I agree totally Sporadic, any place taken by a trans woman is a place lost to a biological woman.

However, people were allowed to state their views without any heckling, people listened quietly and politely even when it was clear that the audience didn't agree.

Interestingly when I first got to the pub and met up with Ancientlights we were at the bar looking around to try and spot any other MNers intending to meet up we both noticed a rather nervous looking woman sat on her own. I went over and asked her quietly if she was there to meet up with people. She looked at me confused and I realised I sounded like I was trying to hit on her! I quickly explained that a group of us who hadn't met each other before were meeting up, apologised and made my retreat. That woman turned out to be Kristina the trans woman on the panel. So, interestingly, she 'passed' with me with took me by surprise afterwards.

Thank you Hoppinggreen, she is a star. She wants to swap mum's however as you're far more interested in Minecraft than I am!

BusyBoys, you must have been sitting near me, I could hear the sighing and yawning - it was very distracting! I was reminded of Jane Fae too.
I found Kristina hard to follow due to the problems with the microphone.

Ha ha! I’ve just been brainwashed by DS

It was great to see it so well attended! I remember the one commenter who didn't get applauded - she said something about not objecting if her mother was on a hospital ward with a transwoman. She didn't say if her mother would object - and in any case she didn't seem to take in the difference that self id might make.

Everyone was very polite though - and I found all the speakers really interesting. Sadly I couldn't stay - but I think I sat in front of a MNer who (I think) was with her DH - and I saw CraftyFox's cute baby. (In fact weren't there two babies there?)

It was lovely to meet you all- we really do need a MN flag to march under- tho I suspect Justine and all are HQ are blenching at the thought!! Amazing to be part of a group of women willing to fight for our rights. I desperately regret my liberal quasi feminist years, prioritising men because I have missed this sense of sisterhood. I was sat at the front and missed the chuntering so came away impressed by the tolerance, mutual respect and desire, shared by Kristina and the panel and most of the audience, to secure safety for women AND trans.

My take from Nell was that she wanted her crime to be recorded as male on female, but would have to get a GRC to do that, and would have to no longer be married as a man to a woman to do that.
But I assume that self-ID works the same - if you ID as a woman officially you can't be married as you to the same person you were married to (unless this was before same sex marriage?)
Also I think a lot of us would want that assault recorded as male on transwoman, including a lot of trans rights people. Isn't that one of the main bones of contention over single sex spaces?

Well yes but Nell lost me there TBH. As Nell will never be female. No matter whether we have self id or not. There is nothing that can be done to ever make Nell female. That's not our fault.