Ultimate betrayal by the WEP

[Procrastinator1]

Dr Stock has just tweeted this text of a motion to be put to the party conference in September

d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/womensequality/pages/5826/attachments/original/1532600430/Fnl_Gender_recognition_act_motion_final.pdf?1532600430

Obviously the motion hasn't been passed yet.

Motion text: 1 The Women’s Equality Party recognises the damage done by socially constructed gender 2 stereotypes and supports changes to the Gender Recognition Act 2004. The Women’s Equality 3 Party supports changes to the current process by which transgender people are able to receive 4 legal recognition of their changed gender.

5 The Women’s Equality Party supports a process of legal recognition of changed gender which does 6 not require medical reports nor two years’ worth of documentation but a process of self- 7 determination of gender. The Women’s Equality Party supports legal recognition of non-binary 8 people.

9 The Women’s Equality Party calls on the Governments and administrations of the UK to make the 10 following changes to the current process as they revise the Gender Recognition Act 2004:

11 ● Change to the requirement to submit two supporting medical reports, one of a diagnosis of 12 gender dysphoria and one detailing treatment received. Change to the requirement to submit 13 documentation to prove the person has lived as their acquired gender for two years. Instead 14 require a self-determination process to change gender and to obtain a Gender Recognition 15 Certificate and new birth certificate. 16 ● Remove the requirement of spousal consent to obtain legal recognition of changed gender for 17 married people. 18 ● Allow people to change their gender to a third gender option as well as to male and female.

Motion rationale:

19 The Women’s Equality Party should clarify its position as changes to the Gender Recognition Act 20 (GRA) 2004 are being considered by the Governments and administrations of the UK. This change 21 would add depth to the already stated Women’s Equality Party position of supporting the right of an

There is definitely a bit going round twitter attacking anyone who mentions the WEP. I engaged with them for a bit then realised it was a waste of time (because they were lying and smearing HB-E so stopped)

Womans Equality Party, who dont think women should define themselves, dont know what holds up equality for women, were asleep while austerity rolled equality back for working class women because we are not women like them, they remind me of a cartoon taking the piss out of the middle class image of the sufragettes(which was not valid because they werent all middle class and posh).

There is definitely a bit going round twitter attacking anyone who mentions the WEP. I engaged with them for a bit then realised it was a waste of time (because they were lying and smearing HB-E so stopped)

Which tells me they are in the grip of the TRA who clearly see the motion proposed & WEP support for the GRA as a prize worth having. And once their usefulness has passed, WEP will either be run by mostly TW and their woke allies or will fold when the rest of the women there ditch them as they realise the true nature of TWAW bollox.

Yep, the timing is everything.

September 2018 - WEP annual conference. A member raises a motion for WEP to pass self-ID as policy. Suddenly two top transgender rights lawyers are available to speak in support of self-ID.

October 2018. GRA government consultation concludes. WEP as an organisation will have submitted their written support for self-ID.

Try getting hold of these lawyers after October 19, Sophie. I think you'll find they are too busy to return your calls.

Try getting hold of these lawyers after October 19, Sophie. I think you'll find they are too busy to return your calls

Yup.

Women raised all of these points when WEP was being set up. These policies disproportionately exclude working class women.
WEP countered with 'if the women have to attend conference to vote, we can see they are actually women.'

When I was a member, I emailed my local WEP group, asking if there could be meetings at other times occasionally as 6pm is when I'm doing kids dinner/ bedtime and as a single parent, that meant I couldn't ever attend. Never got a reply.

WEP countered with 'if the women have to attend conference to vote, we can see they are actually women.'

Oh, the irony.

Yep, only conference attendees voting, that's a big concern of the other members I've talked about this with. How do other parties manage this (do other parties allow members to vote in this way at their conferences anyway?). I believe there is a motion at conference about utilising technology better. I've not had time to go through them all in detail yet. We voted online for the party leadership contest (happy to disclose that I voted for the other woman, btw!). Votes would need to be after the debates though - but a combination of live streaming and delayed voting could achieve that I'm sure.

Low-income membership is available at £1.96/month (or £24/year) btw. There is also a fund for subsidised places/financial assistance for attending conference which can be applied for on an individual basis - for low-income members, or if members would need to employ relief carers etc. There is a clear effort to be more inclusive. It's not perfect, but some posters here seem to be intimating an attitude of wilful exclusion, which just isn't the truth.

I don't know where this "so we can see they are actually women" idea has come from - do you have any evidence of that? WEP membership is not limited to women anyway, and never was AFAIK. I know men who are members (as in adult human males, who don't identify as women). Most active members I've met have not been huge gender stereotype conformers.

It does feel like there's a lot of smearing going on on social media (well, I only (try to) keep up with here and occasionally Twitter) from people outside the party looking in. That's why I try to post on here, to give the pov/experience of an actual member.

Timing of branch meetings is always going to be a challenge to find a time that suits everyone. I couldn't make our last one and probably can't make the next one either. I'm still trying to stay involved in the local branch.

WEP are like a dog in a manger. Absolutely no intention of helping women gain equality but they mop up the time, money and resources of women who do. And by occupying this space they make it harder for a real WEP to exist.''

Yep and the posh women who wanyt the WEP to bolster their self image will tell the poor women who are losing their rights, at risk, being harmed, to shut up about it because it injures their identity to hear that womenb are suffering and all of a sudden you have another bunch of sticks to assist in hitting women while rights are rolled back.

One of the key policies that I like about WEP is their support for the Nordic Model. However, if the motion for WEP to support gender self-id passes, I anticipate a U-change re the Nordic Model. With an influx of TRAs, there is no doubt in my mind, that this time next year the WEP will be spouting a ‘sex work is work’ policy.

Totally agree. I'm surprised they have managed to keep the position this long.

I wish I could remember who it was but at the time of Ruth Serwotka setting up the Social Feminist Network a well known TRA, someone like Natacha Kennedy, Roz Kaveney or Tara Hewitt tweeted to their followers that they would just join any new women's party and change things from within like WEP and cite discrimination law if it was women only.

Again, does anyone have evidence of this “we can see they are women voting” statement please? Especially before more people go off analysing it? It’s quite at odds with my experience of the party and understanding as a member. WE is not a women-only membership and all members can attend and vote.

Cwenthryth, my reason for not trusting WEP now is that Sophie didn't invite us to come & help shape policy when we wanted to support WEP but were worried about Tara Hudson. Once we finally managed to get her attention she told us that transwomen were women & buggered off.

For the WEP to see that their policies disproportionately exclude working class women they would have to see us as women. WEP, Guardian., Labour, would rather have prolific peadophiles classes as marginalised women than recognise us as existing.

I don’t know, Acorn, and I don’t agree with it personally, but conspiracy theories don’t help. Do you have evidence of the assertion that “so we can check they are women” was stated?

Do other parties allow members to vote on conference motions if they’re not in attendance? I genuinely don’t know.

Again, does anyone have evidence of this “we can see they are women voting” statement please?

Not everything from the past is archived online. At the time WEP was set up, there were concerns that men would join pretending to be women, to sabotage the party. Those concerns were not unfounded.

Yes voting for the WEP leadership was all online. Members were emailed links. Voting on conference motions is in person though. At the moment.

If there’s no evidence of the “checking members are women” thing and it’s just hearsay, can we please stop perpetuating it? The party is not single-sex membership, as an active member I’ve met men campaigning for us in elections and participating in debate events, respectfully and pro-women-ly. I really don’t see a tactic to prevent men voting at conference.

(Had to really carefully avoid using the phrase “male member” typing that )