Penny Mordaunt MP: Trans women are women, that is the starting point for this consultation.

[Macareaux]

This is even worse coming from a woman.

Will writing to PM herself be worth it, or to labour MPs ? I guess we must try everything. I am apalled to hear that TW are women is the baseline for the consultation. Why? What the hell is she saying...from here on in ,what are our GC views worth? Sounds as though it's already been decided.

The whole consultation hangs on whether they are or not. If they were unequivocally so they wouldn't need a GRC. It's silly to pretend that it doesn't. So she is in effect saying it's a fait accompli which is against all the principles of public consultation.

The whole consultation hangs on whether they are or not. If they were unequivocally so they wouldn't need a GRC. It's silly to pretend that it doesn't. So she is in effect saying it's a fait accompli which is against all the principles of public consultation.

This is the point I will be raising to my MP in a letter. I'll be asking him to forward my concerns to the minister also.

Definitely worth making this point on any newspaper article accepting comments.

I want to write to my MP to make a clear point without waffling. Anyone willing to help me please pm your ideas. I don't want to blow it TY

This would be a great time to get James Kirkup and any other journalists who're already on record as having concerns on board. The fact that Mordaunt is presenting it as a fait accompli seems like something Kirkup in particular would fine interesting. Anyone who has media contacts, now is the time to use them.

From the guidelines for gov consultations
B. Consultations should have a purpose
Do not consult for the sake of it. Ask departmental lawyers whether you
have a legal duty to consult. Take consultation responses into account
when taking policy forward. Consult about policies or implementation plans
when the development of the policies or plans is at a formative stage. Do
not ask questions about issues on which you already have a final view

I'm with Hulo and Lenoeski on this. It's kind of disappointing but a bit of a bone thrown. The difference is, it won't shut them up.

PM probably thinks (and is being told by her own Equalities teams who are transadvocates not women's advocates) that she can please both sides by allowing Self ID but keeping the Equality Act.

We need to make sure she knows this is an absolute lie.

Don't forget, her own LGBT Head of Equalities thinks one of the few ways EA exemptions can be used is to exclude an abusive transgender male (XY) from the same women's shelter where his wife has sought refuge.

That's what they think of the EA exemptions at the heart of government. It's not 'carte blanche' - as he put it - to keep transgender males out of women's toilets, changing rooms, prisons, hospital wards.

The Equality Act cannot be trusted unless a duty to provide single sex spaces is enshrined in law for women, with 'sex' defined as biological sex.

Definitely write to your own MP about this issue but Penny's email is [email protected] if you want to write to her too

Imagine all the middle-aged bearded 'left wing' academics who are secret women/hating porn addicts chuckling to themselves at this TWAW statement.

This is just such nonsense! It’s oxymoronic. As soon as you say ‘TW are W’ it’s really obvious you’re trying to force one category into another. Two different sets are in that statement- clearly they are NOT one and the same thing.

TW are TW and that is OK.
W are W and that is OK.
TM are TM and that is OK.
M are M and that is OK.

Honestly. Small children know this. It’s not going to fly as public policy despite all Mordaunt's efforts to please men.

Trans'women' are not women. They are adult male humans, and that makes them men. I feel so upset, bullied and distressed by the government's claim that my sex is nothing but a feeling in a man's head.

i'm going to write to my mp and PM (thanks gendercritter!)

should charities and services that are not upholding the EA for single sex provision have done an impact assessment before deciding to do so? the two charities i am thinking of really really are for issues to do with natal females so i was very surprised to see their policies bend over backwards to include transwomen. they are both offering services where it should not be offensive at all to exclude transwomen. i am quite confused by it tbh!

"Trans women are women, that is the starting point for this consultation."

No!

Transwomen are not women. This is a falsehood and falsehoods are not the starting point to any discussion or debate.

We must challenge this statement over and over. We will not accept lies. We will not be forced to tell lies.

This is an ELECTED MEMBER OF GOVERNMENT making a completely false statement and attempting to begin a process that will lead to legislation, based on a falsehood.

At least the Brexit Bus Numbers had some basis in truth, even if they were completely misrepresented.

Have googled the consultation but can’t find it yet. I imagine FPFW and other groups will provide a cribsheet to help answer.

If Mordaunt is starting with this, then the consultation needs to have a glossary right at the beginning. It needs to define:
Sex
Gender
Gender expression
Gender identity
Woman
Female
Man
Male
Transwoman
Transgirl
Transman
Transboy

It needs to give clear definitions because otherwise we get into a situation like the original GRA and that thing in Scotland where they sneak in phrases like ‘becoming a woman’ and then you have utter nonsense somehow enshrined in law.

I am going to email her now just quickly and ask for a definition to accompany the consultation.

Feeling sick at the thought of all this. My only comfort is knowing lots of others - you splendid Wilmington! - will have woken up with your fighting hats on! Donning mine now... 🎩

In solidarity ✊🏾

Wilmington???!!! WIMMIN!!!

Here is what Ms Mordant got from me:

Good morning,

I have been reading, with some interest, the opening of the GRA consultation. I am somewhat surprised, and disappointed, that you lead off with a statement that makes much of what will come after something of a mockery.

As you are probably fully aware there has been much ado about "transphobia" in many women's groups. Gender Critical feminists have been accused of 'literal violence' for wanting to openly discuss the possible conflicts changes to the GRA might mean.

Your statement "Transwomen are women, that is the starting point of this debate" is hugely problematical:

a) This is factually incorrect. Biology cannot be denied, sex is sex. Gender may well be a continuum of choice, but sex is either male or female. So how can genetic males be genetically female?

This is one of the fictions that leads to some extremely problematic scenarios, ones that have already happened across the world. For example, men in a women's refuge. I am sure you are fully aware of, say, that long running Canadian case!

b) If that is the starting point then all that follows is useless. Predetermined whitewashing of an issue that effects EVERY woman. You are saying that anyone who starts from a different viewpoint, that transwomen are men, are not going to be listened to. Sadly, that means a great many women will be blocked from any participation as will many transwomen, who make no claims to being women!

c) What about transmen? Where are they in your New World Theory? Why are you so focussed on what men want to the extent of ignoring women, no matter how they present themselves?

Please, before you carry on down this exclusionary path, think about the people who you have been consulting with. Think on these questions:

• What sex are they?
• How loud are their voices?
• How determined have they been to be heard?
• Why are they so determined to prevent any discussion about sex, biological sex?
• Why have some of them committed very real physical violence as well as many acts of threatening communication on many online platforms?
• Why are those very real acts of aggression being ignored and women being threatened with prosecution, losing their jobs, etc, for 'literal violence' AKA saying that transwomen are men?
• Why didn't you say equally firmly Transmen are men?

And finally, Penny... How do human beings change sex?

I really hope you will read all that I have written and give it some real consideration. Though I suspect you will read a line or two and dismiss me as a crank, a TERF, a transphobic woman. But remember, what you do now will set the shape of our social milieu for some time.

Do you want to be the woman who chose to dismiss women's concerns for the rights and safety of women and girls in order to placate a loud and aggressive group of men with issues of their own.

Don't throw women under the bus, Penny.

Yours, somewhat angrily,

How is it reasonable that a government consultation is built around a blatant lie and not just a lie but a lie that no one can actually define in material reality or biology.

This is a shocking misuse of power.

Great letter Curious

I will be writing tonight

Thanks Sisyphus I had to do it very quickly, or I would have lost myself in sarcasm and bitterness

I may just email PM a lovely post I saw on here the other day, don’t think it was on FWR but may have been.

A GP was quizzing a woman about why she was so sure she didn’t need contraception since she had an active sex life.

The poster’s reply...I sleep with a woman!

Laughter and no further quizzing from GP.

In one tiny generation, how have we gone from disclosing homosexuality to a healthcare provider being unthinkable, to disclosing it being literally unsayable?

Because under the changing definition of “woman” that ^ exchange makes no sense: not for healthcare, nor sexuality, nor for language and society at all.

And already threads are being zapped?

It's a consultation, not a royal proclamation.

Women are adult human females.

The new blasphemy.

We just need to keep going. I emailed my local Wet Lettuce too!

But if MNHQ really are zapping GC threads for no other reason than they are GC... then maybe we need to remember we can be as militant as any man!

Wonder what advertisers would do if we mobbed them, and publicised our nastiness in the same way TRAs did?

Can someone explain to me how Twitter works?

Email any advertisers who sell baby products and let them know that MN is not allowing you to say that a woman is an adult human female. Ask them how if this is not the case women are able to get pregnant, gestate a fetus, and end up with a baby that requires baby food, nappies, etc.

A man is an adult human male of the sex that produces motile gametes for fertilisation.