Jess Bradley - a government advisor on women's rights suspended by NUS over indecent blog. Part iii

[MipMipMip]

There doesnt seem to be another part 3 coming up si here goes.

Press for Change influential members also include Christine Burns, part of the recently announced new Manchester panel:

www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/121126/greater-manchester-mayor-sets-up-lgbt-panel
(extract)
"The panel will support the Mayor through engaging the LGBT community in delivering the ambitions of the Greater Manchester Strategy; ensuring that the city-region has strong and diverse leadership; monitoring the sexual orientation and the trans status of service users and staff; ensuring all providers of public services commit to using evidence into the needs and experiences of all LGBT people when designing, commissioning and reviewing services; and improving LGBT awareness.

In particular, this will include the commitments made by the Mayor to back the LGBT community by:

Supporting and attending events such as Pride and Sparkle, and encouraging Pride events in all borough and towns across Greater Manchester;
Working with the NHS to tackle health inequalities and improve awareness of LGBT issues;
Tackling domestic abuse in the LGBT community and the barriers that exist around reporting;
Supporting councils to create LGBT-friendly retirement homes and combat loneliness;
Committing to continue funding for Village Angels - a project helping to keep people safe in the Village.
The panel members are:

Paul Martin OBE – CEO, LGBT Foundation
Christine Burns MBE – Trans Civil Rights Campaigner
Juergen Maier – CEO, Siemens UK
Colette McKune MBE – Deputy Group Chief Executive, ForViva
Helen Darby - Research Impact and Public Engagement Manager, MMU
Will Patterson – Chairman of Wigan & Leigh Green Party
Chloe Cousins – Youth Engagement Officer, Proud Trust
Jane Owen MBE – Former trustee of Sparkle
Raf Young – Queer Disabled Activist
Pierrette Squires – Chairwoman Bolton LGBT Partnership
Lou Englefield – Director of Pride Sports and Football versus Homophobia
Jax Effiong - GMFRS Community Safety Manager
Tara Kelly – Former Chairwoman of HouseProud NW
Mark Fletcher – Chief Executive, Manchester Pride"

see current thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3329447-People-Who-Oppose-Trans-Rights-Have-No-Place-In-Labour-Says-The-First-LGBT-Mayoral-Adviser?pg=2

Guardian Article 2013 'Voices from the trans community: 'There will always be prejudice'
(extract)
"In the 90s, when [Christine Burns] was chair of the Women's Supper Club of the local Conservative party association in Cheshire, she quietly joined Press for Change. Even then, the new activists dared not be openly trans. "The thing that held us back in the 1990s campaigning was that fear of being out," admits Burns. Eventually, she came out in 1995; she jokes that she realised she was more embarrassed to be a member of the Conservative party than openly transsexual.

Much of their campaigning remained on the quiet. The passage of the 2004 law to give trans people legal status was "remarkable," says Burns, because "the government was able to pass an entire act in parliament without anyone throwing a fit in the press".

www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jan/22/voices-from-trans-community-prejudice

Thanks Rowantrees.

With regards timeline and NUS politics, there was quite a bit going on at the Annual Conference March 2018, Cambridge Varsity article:
'NUS conference disrupted as delegates occupy stage
Delegates invaded the stage, accusing the chair of filibustering motions on decriminalising sex work and abortion in Northern Ireland'

(extract)
"At the annual conference some significant events occurred with reg
Beth Douglas, NUS LGBT+ Officer said: “We started this occupation after the those who tried to block these motions with bureaucracy and filibustering. Now more than ever students are facing more debt and rising costs and more students are turning to sex work. NUS’ own research states that 1 in 20 students have been involved in sex work. It’s time for NUS to stand up for student sex workers, debate this and campaign for decriminalisation.”

Jess Bradley, NUS Trans Officer, said: “Chairs on the right wing of the NUS are fillerbusting discussion and votes on motions in favour of campaigning for both the decriminalisation of sex work and the decriminalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland. This has taken place after a year of ‘administrative errors’ whereby left wing motions have been lost or diluted, and meetings to hold the president and vice presidents to account have been cancelled and not heard.”
www.varsity.co.uk/news/15239

There was then an emergency meeting which passed the NUS Students and Sex Work motion which will go forward for ratification next year:
www.nusconnect.org.uk/governance/national-executive-council/emergency-meeting

Decriminalising sex work has been a key policy for NUS Trans / LGBT+ / Womens officers. Links with SWARM etc
www.nusconnect.org.uk/articles/why-should-you-care-about-student-sex-workers

I’m starting to think Shakira Martin must be some kind of superwoman - I don’t know much about her actual politics but her resume/life history/resistance of the middle class, white woke-sters will surely be legendary in years to come?

I don’t know much about her actual politics but her resume/life history/resistance of the middle class, white woke-sters will surely be legendary in years to come?

It seems she has made a speech this week pertinent to your question Betty

There was a glorious twitter thread from the NUS trans conference, but I can't find it under the hashtag #NUStrans18 any more. I wanted to see if JB had contributed. Did anyone archive it?

I may be slow on the uptake - but do we know if the NUS has concluded the investigation, taken disciplinary action against Bradley or whether the police are involved yet?

Private Eye refer to story on p14 of current issue in the context of the legal situation. They maintain the Sun was being coy more in fear of trans activists than legal action (but simultaneous exploit the freedom of the press angle). However they do a PS mentioning that JB's own statement is more damaging than the allegations themselves.

PersistAunt
@DJLippy transcribed some of the Twitter thread from NUSTrans18 in the OP:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3237230-NUS-Conference-breaks-down-after-the-UK-Border-Force-Arrive

Jess Bradley's contribution to the book, 'To My Trans Sisters'
edited by Charlie Craggs (publ Oct 2017)

"The first time I changed the world was when I told my mates to call me she rather than he. I literally constructed a new world where its possible to understand myself as a genderqueer woman, despite being asigned male at birth simply by changing the language to describe myself. This is why language and pronouns are so important. Its about creating a world in which trans people are allowed to exist"

"And I can honestly say that the work that trans people do for each other means that, for me at least, the trans community is a beautiful place to be. Despite our differences, we have each others' backs"

the book is described:
"Dedicated to trans women everywhere, this inspirational collection of letters written by successful trans women shares the lessons they learnt on their journeys to womanhood, celebrating their achievements and empowering the next generation to become who they truly are.

Written by politicians, scientists, models, athletes, authors, actors, and activists from around the world, these letters capture the diversity of the trans experience and offer advice from make-up and dating through to fighting dysphoria and transphobia.

By turns honest and heartfelt, funny and furious or beautiful and brave, these letters send a clear message of hope to their sisters: each of these women have gone through the struggles of transition and emerged the other side as accomplished, confident women; and if we made it sister, so can you!"

source:
books.google.co.uk/books?id=gNspDwAAQBAJ

Thanks RO. I wonder why it disappeared?

🤮🤮

👆👆👆👆 What she said x 1,000

Was that the same book that said big sisters were to teach make up and hair and stuff? I'm a "big sister" and I never did any of that. My sisters survived.

I haven't read it, just the open access bit (which happened to include JB's chapter)

"At the annual conference some significant events occurred with reg
Beth Douglas, NUS LGBT+ Officer

MTF trans "sex worker activist" in Scotland.

Sorry if this is a repeat posting of a link
medium.com/@notCursedE/re-jess-bradley-and-my-kinkshaming-comment-193572e48fdf

Is this incitement to violence against women JB or an associate I wonder?

Is ATH only in Edinburgh or is there more than one base?

Erishkigal
Students4decrim at NUS (student members of SWARM)

www.swarmcollective.org/blog/2018/4/18/swarm-joint-statement-with-students4decrim-on-nus-conference-2018

cf Neville Southall's Twitter 'give-over' to SWARM in April
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3315257-Neville-Southalls-twitter-account

Roseberg posted on thread below:

"As if on cue, here is Sisters Uncut tonight tweeting solidarity to SWARM ('sexworkershive'). Google SWARM and ECP and see how they organise demos together and release statements together. Connecting dot to dot to dot.

I bet they don't answer that question."

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3230094-When-How-did-the-transgender-debate-start?pg=3

raisinsarenottheonlyfruit
The Edinburgh Trans Health comment was included in Helen Lewis' article in The NewStatesman April 2018.

One might hope that any publically funded body would have asked questions of what involvement Bradley had with the group at the time of the comment being posted

'The madness of our gender debate, where feminists defend slapping a 60-year-old woman: It seems swivel-eyed to condemn rhetorical “attacks” and blithely ignore physical ones.'

"The Wolf affair also demonstrates another alarming phenomenon: the left getting high on its own supply of self-righteousness. “Some feminists have a different conception of gender to me” gets smudged into “some feminists talk about me in ways that I find offensive” and on to “some feminists are basically Hitler, trying to eradicate people like me”.

Once you reach the last statement, then of course you can slap a woman and still think of yourself as a good person. She wants to kill you; a mere punch is self-defence. (I’m not exaggerating about the language. The Edinburgh branch of Action for Trans Health tweeted the day after the attack: “Punching TERFs is the same as punching Nazis. Fascism must be smashed with the greatest violence to ensure our collective liberation from it.”) "

She also refers to Sisters Uncut response to the assault of Maria MacLachlan at Speakers' Corner in the article. (Wolf was convicted):
(extract)
"A clue comes in the fact that MacLachlan was slapped by a 26-year-old transgender woman called Tara Wolf, who explained to the court that MacLachlan was a “TERF” – a term commonly used to stand for “trans exclusionary radical feminist”, ie one who doesn’t believe that trans women are “real” women, but which Wolf defined as a “trans exterminatory radical feminist”.

The implication was that MacLachlan, now 61, wants all transgender people dead – something that seems absolutely barking until you realise this is quite a common accusation in activist spaces. The feminist group Sisters Uncut, which has done great work protesting the closure of domestic violence services, somehow looked at the case and decided that Wolf was the real victim. It used a hashtag – #freetheshewolf – and called for a protest outside Hendon Magistrates’ Court, asking for support for a “trans woman targeted… and harassed by TERFs, transmisogynists and cops”, adding: “Attacks on trans lives will not be tolerated.”

www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2018/04/madness-our-gender-debate-where-feminists-defend-slapping-60-year-old

raisinsarenoththeonlyfruit

actionfortranshealth.org.uk/local-chapters/

Action for Trans Health consists of a number of local chapters around the UK:
Durham
Edinburgh
Leeds
Liverpool
London
Manchester
Sheffield

Thanks for these illuminating posts.

So JB has been involved in campaigns that are for:
decriminalization of prostitution
decriminalization of drugs

And we have good reason to believe that one of the agendas of ATH is abolishing the prison system.

twitter.com/act4transhealth/status/1006304105072119814

Just seen this on twitter - Claire McCann - Appointed in October 2015 as a Specialist Advisor to the House of Commons Women and Equalities Select Committee to advise in connection with its Transgender Enquiry & soon to be speaker at WEP conference on GRA. Article in counsel magazine

https://www.counselmagazine.co.uk/articles/gender-recognition-and-trans-equality

SturdyEarmuffs

The final sentence is telling:

"But, with the misinformed debate in relation to women’s services gaining traction, the real danger is that the momentum for embedding and advancing trans rights will be lost."

It really does feel like the ultimate betrayal when it's women telling us that no predatory men would exploit self ID. Is it a way of making a name for yourself I wonder?