Very positive response from MP

[Popchyk]

I wrote to an email to my Conservative MP yesterday.

Received a letter in the post from the House of Commons this morning. My heart was racing. I thought I'd be summoned to the chambers for wrongthink.

Turns out he agrees with me. He is "extremely concerned" about any changes to the law that allows people to self-identify as the other sex. He is particularly concerned about the safety of women and talked about vulnerable women in prisons and shelters. Also talked about women's sports (which I didn't even address with him).

Also said that he was worried about young people under pressure to identify as transgender.

He said "Should these proposed amendments to the GRA be brought forward, I will not support them".

I won't name him as I don't want the TRAs to hound his office.

But clearly there are some people out there who think exactly the same way we do.

Popchyk
Worth also attaching a link to a mainstream newspaper article.

With respect of protecting vulnerable women in the female prison estate, The Times and Sunday Mail have had recent articles where prison governors have expressed concerns.

That's great news. The letter I received back from my (female) Tory MP very much supports the proposed changes and I didn't view it as so positive. She talks about aiming to relieve the bureaucratic and medical burdens for those who want to change their gender. She goes on to quote the Equality Act allowing organisations of single sex space to protect vulnerable women and says that they are professionals and make decision in the best interest of service users. Lastly she says she will be watching the consultation process closely.

@R0wantrees I just watched that clip of the runners and it’s horrible, I used to be a competitive runner when I was younger and if that was me I wouldn’t have bothered entering any other races.

Good thinking, R0wan.

Try to make it a local news story if you can. Cos local news = voters.

If the protected characteristic of gender reassignment was rephrased ‘gender identity’ wouldn’t it render the category meaningless?

It’s unobservable so couldn’t be proved without documentation (making it akin to religious belief) and that means you couldn’t prove you were being discriminated against because of it?

‘Gender presentation’ is surely the thing that employers need to not discriminate against?

Standard answer then Terfsup including "outdated language of transexual" cut and pasted from wherever.

BigPinkBall
I can't even describe it without tearing up (& I'm not someone who cries very much)
I don't have children but I have neices and god daughters.
I cannot contemplate watching them come 3rd, 4th or 5th and feeling the way those girls so clearly felt.

I think the video is really important, this is why we have to ask what about the impact for women and girls.

Exactly, Betty: if I never communicated my gender identity where would that leave us, it has to be presentation.

The whole thing is so absurd I cannot believe this is happening...for the thousandth time.

Popchyk
I would include a link to and quote from the James Kirkup article in any letter sent to an MP.

It raises very important questions about free speech, parliamentary process, conflict with Tavistock NHS lead and some in the trans lobby:

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/05/why-are-some-mps-trying-to-shut-down-the-transgender-debate/

Terfulike, I would be tempted to email your mp again, or get another constituent to do it, asking for clarification regarding identity/presentation and if they could confirm the following:

That the in-law justifiable reason for women’s single sex provisions to be exempt from the requirement to not discriminate against people with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment (or indeed, any other protected requirement, such as religion or disability) is on the basis of the protected characteristic of sex.

Meaning that those with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment who were born-female cannot legally be excluded from women’s same sex provision but those with the characteristic of gender reassignment who were born-male, can be?

BettyDuMonde, did you possibly mean to address that comment to me, rather than Terfulike?

Peace among world's

Oops, yes, sorry Terfsup. Mixing up my banned acronym user names (BAUNs?) there.

I did agree with your Terfulike’s post though - but my comments were aimed at your MP.

Lostle how awful. Sounds like she is very anti woman indeed. What dreadful lucjbui havexsn anti woman mp.

What dreadful luck I mean. To be intent on pursuing this to ensure that single sex spaces and sports are even more threatened.

Thanks, Betty. Good suggestion.

THis is a very important article by JAmes Kirkup in today's Spectator & it really does pose the questions that all MPs should be answering:

(extracts)
"In Britain in 2018, women trying to hold public meetings to talk about politics and the law are being subjected to intimidation and threats. The police are investigating a bomb threat against one of those meetings. Yet politicians and large sections of the media are silent. Would that be the case if any other group or community were subject to such threats and intimidation? Why aren’t politicians, of all parties, shouting from the rooftops about this?

It’s not as if they don’t know or don’t care. Since I started writing about the gender debate in February, I’ve lost count of the number of MPs and other political people (of all parties and ranks, from policy advisers to Cabinet ministers) who have privately told me they are worried about the nature of this debate and worried about the implications of policy. Yet almost all of those people have also said they are not willing to talk about this publicly, for fear of the criticism and vitriol they believe they would face from people who believe the interests of transgender people are best served by shouting down questions with allegations of transphobia and bigotry. I understand that silence, but it has costs. When the people who are supposed to speak for ordinary people – and the rules that allow those people to exercise their basic democratic freedoms – stay silent, they leave a vacuum of leadership and moral courage that can be filled with hostility and fear.

’ll end by repeating the basic facts of this story once more, in the hope that some of the politicians who talk so much about free speech and equality and fairness finally pluck up the courage to talk about this. Some women had a meeting to talk about their legal rights. Someone threatened to blow up the meeting with a bomb. The police are investigating that threat and say it is being “taken seriously”. And this happened in Britain in 2018.

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/06/why-are-women-who-discuss-gender-getting-bomb-threats/

Some women had a meeting to talk about their legal rights. Someone threatened to blow up the meeting with a bomb

I could weep. James Kirkup and Sussex police seem to be the only people outside the feminist community who care. His stark laying out of the fact actually brought tears to my eyes.

I wrote to our male, fairly young, Conservative MP a few months ago and I very quickly received a lovely letter on HoC headed paper. He appreciated all of the concerns in my letter, then at the bottom he added a few handwritten comments that made me think he was already GC. He said he'd forward it to the relevant minister (I think it was Maria Miller at the time, about 6 months ago). I don't want to 'out' him, so won't say his name but I was really pleased that he seemed genuinely concerned for women's rights.

MyAuntyBadger

Maria Miller made clear her position.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/2993425-Maria-Miller-interviewed-by-Janice-Turner-full-text

See also Penny Mordant (now Womens & Equalities minister)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3283616-Penny-Mordaunt-has-made-her-position-at-Women-Equalities-Committee

I believe that both have been effectively lobbied and briefed by the LGBT+ groups, charities and organisations.

She listened to me but was non-committal. She said she has a transgender friend

What I say in these circumstances is: that so do I. And that I want to be allowed to love and celebrate them for what they are, not have all this falsely polite pretending; and that that is what my trans friends want to.

It makes it practically impossible for anyone to parrort "but transmen are men!" or the converse in response, because it makes it sound as if they don't value their friends for what they are and are only being polite ,,, I've found that the conversation always moves on in a more honest fashion after that.

There are more GC MPs out there than you think. They're just keeping their heads down.

I am married to an MP. I have discussed trans rights with several of his colleagues- some of whom had no idea that self ID was being considered.

Keep writing! DH has only had 2 letters about this.

Thank you Longweek. That's brilliant. Also I can imagine the nerves of posting when you are one of maybe 400 people. That's a great bit of impetus there.

I feel a little bit more positive after reading this thread.