Artistic Director of Queer Up North speaks out on trans activism, Stonewall and women's rights

[SanctimoniousMorph]

medium.com/@JonnnyBest/the-story-of-my-first-brush-with-trans-activism-and-what-i-learned-3ef13e31fd37

I agree with the discussion of the apparent change in Stonewall’s charitable aims to effectively chuck all same-sex-attracted people under the bus centring trans. For straight people who don’t have much exposure to this debate they have all heard of Stonewall and their word is gospel.

Jonny, I really appreciate that you are giving support to Get The L Out’s actions. They raised completely reasonable questions AT PRIDE.

The way the hierarchy in the official organisations including Pride London behaved towards women was disgusting.

Peter Tatchell- someone who again has become a gay spokesperson for people not really aware of debates inside the gay community- is also

It’s also the NUS- pre Jess Bradley but JB a good example of what’s gone on

It’s also the Girl Guides

It’s also Mermaids

It’s not just Stonewall, basically but I can absolutely appreciate how radical a problem it is that Stonewall have decided to abandon their original aims which many of us have fought for and fundraised for.

All these things have been discussed at length often with very useful referencing on this boards. Happy to dig out links to help if you are going to be writing about this.

I know we haven’t got on to toilets yet: but this is I think a must-read but there are lots of other threads with the same theme

This is why we need women’s toilets :
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3203454-What-do-you-use-the-womens-toilets-for
(POAS= pissing on a stick, ie pregnancy testing btw)

I hope you don’t start getting more shit now you are posted on MN. These threads are all watched and posted about on Twitter by TRAs. They do also post here but a lot don’t have the energy for that because we are mostly anonymous on MN so there’s less calling out and shaming possible on here and more emphasis on trying to have an actual argument. Take away the calling out and shaming women potential for not being ‘inclusive’ enough of penis and

Whoops posted too soon!

..-and there isn’t much argument left.

Sorry that was posting with butterfingers on my part.

Thankyou Jonny for this incredibly nuanced and well written piece. It is disheartening to see some of the transwomen/men replies - even though they are respectfully argued in a way that they wouldn't have been if a woman had written it. Wish someone would reply to Charlie Kiss and tell him indeed male groups do seek to exclude transmen [the FB page where the organiser clarified very simply that gay men are not attracted to transmen and therefore they are not eligible to join, and the change in the law that allowed transwomen to still inherit peerages as first born sons amongst others] and also ask him about his statement that transpeople change their biology, not just their gender. A transwoman on the thread stated that natal women's brains tell them they are female, just like transwomen's brains, and no one has challenged that either [my brain does not tell me I am female, and neither do I identify with my 'assigned' gender] I really do want respectful dialogue but it seems to many trans people that any dialogue is seen as an erasure of their identity, which is so frustrating and is the reason so many are mute on the subject. I do feel rad fems need to stop telling trans people they are the opposite sex and just focus on the societal issues at hand [gender is limiting and oppressive/women can't identify out of their sex based oppression/ 'identifying' as a gender is conforming to stereotypes, etc] I am so glad that Jonny has written this piece in such a respectful and informed way. I remember Caitlin Moran writing about that Hilary Mantel furore when she wrote about Kate Middleton, saying it was the first Twitter sorting hat of 2013. Well the transgender debate is the biggest sorting hat I've ever bloody seen. So much subconscious misogyny has leaked from so many men's [and trans people's] voices so far. And so many still completely unaware of the issues and how they impact upon women especially [especially in the arts world] Thankyou Jonny for standing out.

Btw I am definitely of the view that transwomen have been using women's toilets, etc, for ever, with an unspoken consent and mutual respect. But this has changed due to the now very odd idea that anyone, even a bloke with a beard, can now 'identify' as a woman, with no hormones or surgery, and the new gaslighting technique of telling women who are understandably uncomfortable with having penises in their safe spaces, that they are 'obsessed with genitals' in a creepy way. That is appalling, and it is genuine transpeople that suffer, as well as natal women, all regardless of the proposed GRA reforms.

Stonewall are at the point in their history where their position now is that same-sex attraction is wrong.

And not only wrong, but wrong because of transphobia which, as we all know, is the absolute worst kind of wrong. And therefore hateful, bullying, disgusting, bigoted, wrong side of history.

Stonewall has itself done a section 28 on the LGB. Shameful.

It’s also the NUS- pre Jess Bradley but JB a good example of what’s gone on

There are a number of influential NUS Trans / Women's /LGBT+ officers who hold the same ideological position as Jess Bradley, are very close friends with Bradley and similarly involved in Action for Trans Health etc

"This question has taken on a fresh urgency with the planned reform of the 2004 Gender Recognition Act. This proposes writing into law the concept of ‘gender identity’ — one of the newer ideas in transgender ideology, and one which is strongly resisted by those holding gender critical views."

This it not the case. The proposed reforms are to remove some of the evidential requirements for change of legal gender - e.g. medical evidence and evidence of "living in role". The most radical would be self-id. Here all requirements are removed, except the need to complete a statutory declaration that the applicant intends to live in their acquired gender for the rest of their lives.

@JonnnyBest - I have pointed out a factual inaccuracy in your article. If you believe in respectful, honest debate, then I challenge you to amend your article.

This trans ideology and witch-hunting ( from which I am having to defend myself, though male..) is besmirching, for me, the rainbow flag.
Am Manchester-based and near Piccadilly Station there is the TfGM office with a giant rainbow flag dropping the length of the building, about 8 floors.

For decades me and friends have been immensely proud of our city as a LGBT friendly place - Pride every year, and was on our org.'s first float in the parade, donkeys years ago. Before it became v v commercial.

This morning I walked past the massive flag, and carried a question mark in my head, for the first time ever.
Is the icon besmirched, or am I being overly influenced by the TRA onslaught?

SarahAr - could you clarify for me, if one removes medical evidence and evidence of 'living in a role', what is the difference between removing that and the 'radical' idea of Self ID? Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to understand? what other requirements would there be in between the two [apart from the statutory declaration]

This it not the case. The proposed reforms are to remove some of the evidential requirements for change of legal gender - e.g. medical evidence and evidence of "living in role". The most radical would be self-id. Here all requirements are removed, except the need to complete a statutory declaration that the applicant intends to live in their acquired gender for the rest of their lives.

I’ve read that three times now and I still can’t understand the point you’re trying to make.

It speaks volumes that you only got a handful of unpleasant replies.

SarahAr Actually, both Stonewall and the WEC have recommended scrapping the EA exemptions, so the reforms are not merely to the GRA.
Additionally, the concept of self-ID means that the sole criterion for determining whether someone is male or female is whether they say so. How can we have that as a basis for allowing persons access to female spaces?
To be honest, I think that having a GRC should make no difference when it comes to intimate spaces- the sole criterion must be biology. A GRC does not make someone safe and is totally meaningless. If you want to keep getting certificates, fine, but it cannot then entitle you to e.g. being moved to a female prison.
I saw the youtube clip of Ibi-Pippi Hedergaard on youtube. He is a Danish man who has got a GRC but has made zero modification to his body- he looks and sounds like a man. He claims to be a lesbian trapped in a male body. He attempts to use female facilities. But it made me realise that body modification means very little. Putting on makeup or taking hormones does not make a male person a female person and it should be as obvious that someone like Jane Fae doesn't belong in women's spaces as it is that Ibi-Pippi does not. I would still like to thank Ibi-Pippi because he inadvertently helps people realise how utterly ridiculous this is and what it entails.

Oh and I should have added to the multiple areas this is happening at the same time:

the silencing and intimidating of women in academia, schools, the public sector and the NHS. In these spaces anything short of affirming that every trans person ever (remember the ‘trans’ umbrella now includes everyone though including straight fetishists and pervs) is totes brave and stunning, means you are transphobic. Which is a disciplinary/sackable.

Also means that kids and young people who are questioning things in a very standard way, risk being medicalised (non-reversibly) down a path to surgery because not affirming them would be ‘transphobic’ as a service provider.

All of which is obviously shit news for gay young people and all females. And the voices of detransitioned young people are ignored and reviled and academics who want to research their experiences are not given ethics approval.

By the way re the recent Get the L Out Pride action- you said rightly in your article, that denouncing the women as transphobes was unfair, but also it goes way further than that.

There were numerous calls for the women to be identified and outed on Twitter so they could be reported to their employers for transphobia.

That reporting would of course also ‘out them’ as lesbians to their employers incidentally - which is kind of ironic, given that some TRAs claim they fear ‘outing’ as a trans person to the extent it forces them to violence on people who have filmed them being violently intimidatory.. but let’s not digress too far.

Some threads on here On Get the L Out with screenshots and links etc:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3301033-Get-the-L-Out-Statement-by-the-lesbian-protesters-at-Pride-London?pg=1&order=

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3299646-Lesbians-protest-at-London-Pride-getthelout?pg=1&order=

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3281465-Time-to-get-the-L-out

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3309768-Diva-editor-responds-to-lesbian-rights-alliance-article-in-the-times

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3325772-Transphobic-protesters-at-Pride

Due to mass reporting of MN threads by TRAs you may find some of these threads are quite ‘holey’

Recent interview with the organisers
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3337090-Get-the-L-Out-Interviewed-by-Let-a-Woman-Speak

The resulting media was basically that these were ‘anti trans’ protesters (rather than saying they were lesbians concerned about the rights of lesbians which would have been true ... which Pride should have been the appropriate forum to bring that message to )

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/anti-trans-protest-london-pride-parade-lgbt-gay-2018-march-lesbian-gay-rights-a8436506.html

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-44757403

www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/07/08/pride-in-london-condemns-anti-trans-protest-as-vile-says-we-are-sorry/

www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/08/london-pride-organisers-say-sorry-after-anti-trans-group-leads-march

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/09/anti-trans-protesters-pride-banner-march-london

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3300986-Stonewall-condemn-transphobia-at-London-Pride?pg=1&order=

prideinlondon.org/news/2018/7/8/statement-from-pride-in-london-regarding-the-2018-protest-group

(Note their Includes ‘sadly we could not forcibly remove them’ - why the ‘forcibly’?- Pride in London whips up the climate against these women)

Some people on here tried to misrepresent what they were doing
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3300768-Lesbians-react-to-London-Pride?pg=20&order=

Other people were highly sanctimonious:
medium.com/@iambruceadams/pride-protest-and-holding-hatred-to-account-7e8e37d7153f

And others called for violence on the women and reports to their employers against them. Discussed on threads above but if you need further evidence please PM.

Sorry if you are already all over all of this. I just find it utterly shocking.

if one removes medical evidence and evidence of 'living in a role', what is the difference between removing that and the 'radical' idea of Self ID?
I would like to know this too. I have not seen any suggestion that there might be other 'evidential requirements' and am very interested to hear more.

Welcome Jonny and thank you both for that article and for acknowledging that as a male, you're likely to get an easier time from the TRAs.

First of all, THANK YOU @JonnyBest Your article sets out the problem at the moment really thoughtfully & clearly.

In all this mess, I've been trying to think through a basic thing about fairness: I've always taken it as a given that we can assess the quality of our "progress" by the way we treat minorities. So this is important in terms of trans people - how do we accommodate them into "normal" life?

Your article thinks that through - I think because your own experience is one of a mix (aha! intersectionality! ) of masculine privilege, but also being gay - part of an oppressed minority (although I sometimes think one of the most significant but invisible nexus of power is the networks of gay men, but that's another thread).

Anyway, you offer cogent & reasonable arguments for resisting the knee jerk "transphobia" slurs (I've had them directed at me, & my employment threatened), and I'll be citing your article whenever I need to.

There's one depressing truth I want to acknowledge up front: it's 24 hours since the piece was published and I have had only two or three abusive tweets. I know only to well that a women writing the same words as me would have had the whole abusive Twitter pile-on by now and god knows what else

I actually asked you about this on Twitter as part of my "Thank you" tweet.

It s depressing, that what I assumed would happen, has indeed happened - or rather nothing much has happened to you.

It's deeply deeply depressing. And even more so that it takes a man writing to shut people up - I don't mean that to sound grumpy or envious about your statement - just a depressing recognition & proof (if we needed any more) that we live in a misogynist patriarchy.

But once again THANK YOU. And I hope you don't get abuse - we don't want that for anyone.

I saw the youtube clip of Ibi-Pippi Hedergaard on youtube. He is a Danish man who has got a GRC but has made zero modification to his body

I've seen that - he's interviewed at a swimming pool, I think?

I have always assumed it was a "joke" identification, rather like the Man Friday movement here in the UK, and designed to show up how ridiculous the extremes of trans activism (not individuals with gender dysphoria) can be.

Is s/he for real???

I scrolled through the replies to the piece and there was a few men going along the lines of "eek, am I brave enough to retweet this? Don't know yet". 🙄🙄🙄 bloody well grow a pair.

James Kirkup hasn't had any abusive replies or threats to his employer either.

SarahAr do reply when you can - it is important that we understand this distinction from your perspective - the difference between removing medical evidence and evidence of living in a role, and the 'radical' idea of Self ID?

Robert Webb was one of those GreenGloves. When his brilliant book 'How to be a Man' challenges toxic masculinity and the oppressive nature of gender roles for men, it would be good if he could be brave enough.

God sorry I mean 'How Not to be a Boy' Have actually read it!

James Kirkup wrote in the Economist, 'I am neither trans nor a woman. Can I write about the issues they face?
In a representative democracy, what I share with women and trans people is more important than our identities'
(extract)
"Many aspects of the debate about transgender rights, and how they interact with the rights of others, are troubling and even saddening. The anger and fear felt by so many of the participants. The lack of reliable statistics and evidence, and the hostility faced by those seeking to gather better evidence. The unwillingness of many politicians even to try to bring reason and civility to an unbalanced, vitriolic conversation. Personally, the thing I find saddest, and most telling, is that people aren’t particularly nasty to me.

This year I have written a dozen articles for British publications about the gender debate: around 15,000 words. The common theme has been that women who ask questions and express doubts about changes in law and custom on gender issues to favour transgender people, and the implications for those born female, are excluded from political and public debate, sometimes through violent means.

Those articles have been read and shared several hundred thousand times, and brought me more social-media reactions than I can count. Some were negative and a few were outright hostile. Yet none involved threats of violence and none expressed the hope that I die in a fire. There were no meditations on my being raped. No one called me a “transphobic c” or, indeed, any other sort of c.

Such abuse is routine for others who write and comment about transgender issues. And indeed, that was part of the reason I took an interest. The vitriol of the debate, especially on social media, has had a chilling effect that should not go unremarked or unchallenged.

Yet I have largely escaped that vitriol. Other journalists who have written about the topic and said similar things have experienced all of the aggression I describe above, and more. Several say they have sometimes feared physical attack by people unhappy at what they wrote. Those journalists are women.

The differing responses to articles making similar arguments are indicative of a misogynistic strand in this debate. In some cases, that strand is easy to identify and describe. It is visible in the words of male journalists and political activists who accuse feminists of bigotry and suggest that their voices should not be heard. Less polite but equally transparent are the threats and intimidation such feminists face when they hold public meetings." (continues)

www.economist.com/open-future/2018/07/06/i-am-neither-trans-nor-a-woman-can-i-write-about-the-issues-they-face

Is s/he for real???

I don't know what to think really. On one level, I think not, but on another, there are so many deluded men out there. I mean look at Danielle Muscato, Stefonknee and the rest. And realistically, what is the justification for saying that Jane Fae is genuine and Ibi-Pippi is not? If we say that, we have to say that being a woman requires wearing nail-varnish or something. There are plenty of women who, like Ibi-Pippi have short hair, no makeup and glasses. Ibi-Pippi could surely say he is emulating one of them and that they are just as female? It just exposes the entire thing for the idiocy it really is. Ibi-Pippi is as female as Shon Faye, as Jane Fae, as Munroe, as Lily.

Heartfelt thanks for this piece, JB, and for making your way here to add your wise and articulate voice to the discussion.

My husband met up with an old (male) friend the other day and, in the course of the evening, this topic came up. The friend was entirely clueless about it (like much of the population beyond twitter) and my OH found himself struggling to articulate what's going on without a) taking up the whole night and b) sounding unhinged. Your article is the perfect overview and an invaluable resource. Thank you.

Is s/he for real???

The point of Ibi-Pippi is that we cannot tell. It may be to prove a point, but in the video she says that she really really feels like a woman and that this identity is important to her.

If you can explain why we can question her gender identity, but not Jess Bradley's, then be my guest. Or outline what the test is to check who is "real" and who is "fake" in their transness. The whole premise of trans ideology is that you just have to accept whatever the person says. It is a fundamentally unverifiable assertion. And if legally Ibi-Pippi is a woman, then should she not be allowed to use the female facilities? And if Ibi-Pippi walks in, how do we know that she is "real trans" but someone who looks equally male in every single respect that walks in to the changing room just to look at naked women is "fake trans?"

This is why the whole thing does my head in.

If SarahAr cannot reply right now does anyone else know any more about these other 'evidential requirements' that Sarah speaks of?
If there has been an acknowledgement that self ID is too radical and that some form of gatekeeping is still required then that might be a real breakthrough.