"Our amazing NUS Trans Officer @JBPersonalBrand talked today to @SkyNews about the Gender Recognition Act #GRA"
This was when Jess Bradley said there was no such thing as a real women.
I presume that Jess Bradley / NUS LGBT+/ Action for TRans Health / TELI were amongst those who complained about Jenni Murray's article from the Sunday Times last year (which led to her public censure by the BBC)
'Be trans, be proud — but don’t call yourself a “real woman”
Can someone who has lived as a man, with all the privilege that entails, really lay claim to womanhood? It takes more than a sex change and make-up'
(extract)
"Equally, I’m appalled at the repulsive misogyny evident in the response of trans activists who have accused Nimko Ali, a Somali and a courageous campaigner against female genital mutilation, of “practising white feminism” or who have demanded the “no platforming” (banning from speaking in public) of women, such as the lesbian feminist Julie Bindel, who have questioned the claims of trans women to be real women. But my concern, which I know is shared by numerous women who are now to be known as “cis” (short for “cisgender” — natural-born women, in the language that’s more familiar to most of us), is for the impact this question of what constitutes “a real woman” will have on sexual politics. And for who has the right to be included in gatherings or organisations that are defined as single sex.
The first time I felt anger when a man claimed to have become a woman was in December 2000, when the Rev Peter Stone announced he had undergone the radical surgery to transition from male to female and was now called Carol. Her primary concerns, she told me, were finding the most suitable dress in which to meet her parishioners in her new persona and deciding if she should wear make-up or not.
Her transition had taken place a mere six years after the Church of England ordained the first 32 women priests, at a time when the idea of a female bishop was still regarded as impossible and when parishes were allowed to refuse a female vicar if there were objections.
I remember asking Carol what she owed those women who had struggled for so long to have their calling to the priesthood acted upon. His calling, as a man, had never been questioned. I had nothing but a blank look and more concerns about clothing. “I know it sounds silly,” she said. “But I’ve nothing to wear.”
Too right it sounded silly. I thought of all those women who had spent years and years challenging what being female had meant as they sat in the pews on a Sunday morning: 2,000 years of institutionalised patriarchy; no woman but a virgin mother and a handful of tortured saints to look up to; women only good for refreshing the flowers, raising the kids and making tea for the vicar." (continues)
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/be-trans-be-proud-but-dont-call-yourself-a-real-woman-frtld7q5c