Fair Play For Women wants your ideas for GRA campaign materials

[DoctorW]

Hi everyone,
We are busy preparing guidance to help you understand the impact of GRA changes on women's rights. We are also raising funds for campaign materials (just 4 days to go!). We are making campaign films to get the message out but will also be using funds to make campaign materials for people to do their own campaigning. We want to inspire and support you, a grassroots army of women, to get the message out. So please give us your ideas on this thread about what materials would help you.

(I can' give post the link to the fund raiser because it breaks Mumsnet rules. But you can find more information about who we are on our website home page).

www.fairplayforwomen.com

Please keep it classy - go high. Higher than high. So there can be no interpretation it is transphobic.

I like the “single sex spaces and services could be abolished under new legislation” angle. Neutral. Truthful. Let people read more if they wish.

And YY to GirlGuiding as its own leaflet please. I agree everyone gets that.

I agree about keeping it classy and peaceful. Don't stoop to low levels.

A new name for "Gender Critical"!!!! It needs rebranding - its so unclear what it is and it sounds like everyone's being nasty.

I think even "single sex spaces" peoples eyes glaze over at. Mainstream folks don't understand the difference between sex and gender and don't really grasp what people are talking about when saying "single sex" spaces. I think it needs to be as blunt as do you want people who have not transitioned and have mens bits in women spaces? And I think it is worth putting in that people who have transitioned and had surgery are not excluded.

Something about girls don't all like pink - i.e. focusing on the gender stereotypes issues.

I think the lesbian thing is a very clear way to explain it. Let's face it - out there in the real world everyone interprets a lesbian as someone who doesn't have a penis who doesn't want to have sex with someone with a penis. Jaws drop when you explain why people are being accused of being bigoted.

Also needs to say we are not "anti-trans"

Basically just go through @Datun posts and anything from there!

I personally would like a one pager that I can take to my MP for the surgery I've got set up with them.

Thank you!!!!

Take a steer from stonewall’s campaign on Facebook and twitter. Easy to use same format but about WAG (plus little kids)

Can we make it positive? Don’t fall into the project fear trap,

Don’t call out misleading statistics: think about the Brexit bus. Lead the narrative.

Hi,

I'd be interested to know if there is known research that supports the information highlighted in this thread from Twitter Link to thread reader

The poster was @GabeBlessing and it does effectively illustrate why privacy and dignity and safety are important for women & girls, but without the research behind this anecdote it's a bit more difficult to know the sources etc. Would you be able to find out more? I wouldn't know where to start as I presume it's US based/sourced etc.

First time poster, peeping out from behind the hedge.

I need material that busts the assumption that the term 'transwomen' means a small number of post-operative individuals.

Time and time again, I come up against well-meaning but disingenuous arguments like :'why should it bother you? It doesn't affect you. Why are you so determined to make life difficult for these unfortunate creatures that have gone through hell just to be at peace with themselves? I've no objections at all.'

Messages that have worked (for me)

1. The Changes to a Birth certificate.

This seems a step too far for people in my network of family, friends and acquaintances. You don't change your name on a birth certicate when you marry or change your name by deed poll. You don't change your place of birth when you become a Uk citizen. Tinkering with the facts in cases where there is no doubt about the sex of the child (ie not ambiguous as in the case of intersex people) is something that troubles them and raises doubts.

1. And as a follow on from the discussion of the above - the implication for crime statistics, competitive sports, etc.

1. Convoluted language that has entered public services and businesses so as not to offend men - chest feeding, non-men, people with a cervix, 'lesbian' for intact straight men attracted to women and so on.

So glad for the support and leadership here. I find myself tongue-tied and wearied by the battle sometimes. It is so, so dispiriting to have come to this.

I agree, people are agog that a transwoman is not a gentle quiet gay man with his genitals removed. In my experience people become quite angry when they realise the government, politicians, LGBT and transwomen are gaslighting them and taking the public for useful idiots in a narcissistic male sexual fetishism rights movement.

In my opinion, stats backing up the non removal of male genitals and their claim to be a male lesbian with a ladydick should be at the top. Include the stonewall definition of trans.

Some way of telling people
"don't confuse sex and gender - they are not the same"

Can we campaign for transwomen’s prisons,changing rooms and private rooms in hospitals? That is positive for transwomen and keeps women safe too.

Why do you want to take away resources from the liberation of women?

Why can't transwomen campaign for those things themselves?

Should feminists campaign for prostate care and medical research into why height challenged men have a shorter lifespan?

I think Elletorro's suggestions are good.

Yes to using similar language to Stonewall: So I stand up for women's rights' 'I will stand up for what I believe in' - You've already got the colours of the suffragettes (good move there) so that becomes a nonverbal shorthand for women.

Yes to learning the lessons from Brexit. When I was debating on FB, I realised they were shunting me into a corner of fear -even though I really really wasn't saying 'ALL MEN WILL TRY AND KILL YOU' that's what they heard - so they answered 'Transwomen are vulnerable' or 'Men are victims of DV too' etc, etc. Which meant annoyingly, I sounded like a hysteric and they got to be 'hey chill out...'

Its very tricky. People love simple solutions to complex problems - and transwomen are women is - just like Brexit means Brexit - are simple solutions.

Caitlin Moran made feminism 'simple' with her:
a) Do you have a vagina? and
b) Do you want to be in charge of it?
If you said 'yes' to both, then congratulations! You're a feminist.”

I wonder if that could be borrowed/tweaked.

I think we have to stick to clear messages with the public.

We need to distinguish those clear messages from the ones aimed at organisations and groups.

'Sex Not Gender' is a good case in point.

From my point of view this is a message that needs directing at public services and businesses, not individuals (unless they ask about the distinction).

Once you've looked at the sheer number of organisations in your area that have removed the word 'sex' and replaced it with 'gender', like I've done, you'll come to the conclusion that it is a monumental and different 'prong' of the campaign to roll-back self-identification and it must be aimed at Government departments.

The other risk of confusion comes from the issues around the erasure of lesbianism. I meet strong opposition from lesbians - mostly because they cannot accept the 'othering' of a minority group.

From my limited experience of discussions, this is the hierarchy of tested messages:

Agreement

• there's nothing wrong with a girl who doesn't feel girlish: what's wrong with being a lesbian?
• the misery of detransitioning

The 'So What? Not bovvered'

• the acquisition of the term lesbian by straight men
• the theft of lesbian history (eg the Stonewall movement's history being re-written so that some key lesbians have become transmen)

The Ones dismissed as hyperbole, twitter spats and not their lived experience:

That lesbians are being forced to accept sex with penis-holders.

From my limited experience about what works and what gains no traction whatsoever, I'd prefer material that will reach the intended audience but isn't mind-bogglingly complicated.

Sorry, another over-long post straight from the well of silence.

If we provide potential solutions...

“Let’s do x instead of y” then the message is positive and will attract people who are not radicalised. We need to appeal and motivate liberal feminists as well.

I imagine this is a campaign that women will want to feel safe sharing on Facebook and putting their name to publicly. It needs to be positive. The vast majority of us are scared of putting anything on our social media in our own names

Teresa May has the best security in the UK, she my be happy to share all intimate spaces and services with males and their genitalia, are you and the females in your family willing to take the risk without her security team?

I think campaign materials should mention penis / vagina rather than sex or gender to make it clear for anyone who doesn't understand the difference, and that snappy humorous slogans would probably hook people into reading more.

Barking

Never believe a politician. She will listen to women who complain and then blame us for not delivering self-id. Same tactics with the EU and Brexit.

Publicly she’s pro self-id. That counts for nothing

Wikipedia definition of woman compared to man and has been locked.

TheBewilderness points out trans ideology has created a Tower of Babel to the English language.

Teresa May has the best security in the UK, she my be happy to share all intimate spaces and services with males and their genitalia, are you and the females in your family willing to take the risk without her security team

They are, they will reply namalt, rapists gonna rape wherever, I share at home/school/work etc and it’s fine.

The thing is none of the points seem important in isolation, it’s the mass of them, the taking of the word women from under us...

Re gender replacing sex in language, I fear that horse has bolted.

I think the third space argument is effective- not because I think we need to work for third spaces but because we could win the public with it- and it affirms - transwomen aren’t women and that feminists are nice and caring too.

Thanks DoctorW - this has also also been a great reminder to contribute to the campaign. Which I've just done now.

I would also echo lots of the pps - keep the message simple
but not patronising.

Help the public understand that they can do something about this, even if it's just a simple
letter to their MP or filling in the consultation. That their voices matter and will make a huge difference.

They are, they will reply namalt, rapists gonna rape wherever, I share at home/school/work etc and it’s fine.

Not one single person I have spoken to wants to share intimate spaces or services with male genitals or bodies. I have selected carefully who to speak to. I would not waste my time talking to a raging misogynistic woman or someone who falls for pyramid scheme cults.

The only person I vaguely know who is pushing TWAW - on FB - is someone with very poor personal boundaries and is in a very abusive relationship.

The three women on fb I spoke to did say that - v nice women/yoga/creative/love types- they found high suicide rates among trans distressing- they want more love, kindness, tolerance and they see transwoman as victims.
They would respond well to third space arguments I think.

LeiaTheSlaya - wow, that link made perfect sense. Thank you for drawing my attention to it.

Once we build momentum with women in every socio-economic group, who are sign posts, unofficial community leaders or respected for their opinion, the weather veins, the PTA/juice plus and make-up crew will then follow.

I have educated my friend, a social butterfly and volunteer, she has a MC background and is in a WC area, she has peaked many many people on male genital retention and they then go on to do the same.

"Women don't have dicks - No to 'Ladypenis"

@GabeBlessing is brilliant on twitter