BACP Gender,Sexual, and Relationship Diversity by Dr Meg-John Barker

[R0wantrees]

Good Practice Guide, British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy
(extract)
2.6 Gender identity: woman
Definitions
"Whether trans or cisgender, intersex or not, many people identify as
women. However, what this means varies a great deal depending on their other intersecting attributes. It is important not to assume, for example, that being a woman necessarily involves being able to bear children, or having XX sex chromosomes, or breasts. Being a woman in a British cultural context often means adhering to social norms of femininity, such as being nurturing, caring, social, emotional, vulnerable, and concerned with appearance.
However, of course, not all women adhere to all these things. For example some neurodiverse women (on the autistic/aspergic/ADHD spectrums) may struggle to express emotions, or with social situations. In some northern working-class contexts femininity is associated with strength and aggression. As always an intersectional understanding is vital and we need to be mindful that what is culturally regarded as the epitome of femininity is white, middle class, youthful, non-disabled, heterosexual, cisgender, and thin. This strongly shapes all women’s experiences of womanhood.
Common concerns
While gender may not always be relevant to a woman’s presenting issues, mental health struggles are often gendered. Women have such high rates of body image issues that this has been labelled ‘normative discontent’.
It has been related to both narrow ideals of feminine beauty, and the
contradictory pressures on women today to conform to stereotypical
femininity and to be independent and successful. Food and body
can represent one potential area of control in an uncontrollable and
contradictory world. Women are more likely than men to be diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and many other emotional disorders. This has been linked to the way women’s identities are often bound up with other people, for example, rates of depression often peak for mothers when children leave home. Therapy with women may well involve exploring their relationships with others, and with being desirable, pleasing and/or approved of" (continues)

My understanding is that the majority of counsellors in the UK are BACP accredited. There is a great deal in this document to consider.

The author is the partner of Edward Lord who identifies as non-binary see recent threads:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3323475-Surprise-The-Masons-now-welcome-Transwomen-but-not-women
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3317922-City-of-London-Corporation-consultation-is-out-this-covers-Hampstead-Ponds
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3316098-Childrens-Convenor-Elected-Councillor-calls-women-cunts-on-Twitter-rants

Crikey. I'm afraid I'm struggling to get my head round this. I was assigned non-binary female at birth (Midlander here) and DH is very proud of his northern roots (even though Alexa can't understand him). However, I'm now thinking the midwives got us both wrong. DH is a southern woman, and I'm a man. I'm not really sure what he'll make of that, not so much because he's now a woman, more because he's stripped of his northerner status. Has Meg-John produced any guidance on how I can break this to him gently? Will people start mocking him for speaking with a northern accent even though he's actually a southerner?

on the thread about Julia Long on LBC, a transperson Vicky referred to "angry women" as a separate type of woman. Now we have Northern Aggressive Working Class women.

It was Vicky Lee,
(extracts from her bio:)
"Vicky discovered the joys of the London’s Tranny scene back in 1987. Trannying around The Philbeach Hotel, Ron Stormes parties, and any thing promoted in Time Out as “dress to impress”. She met Steffan Whitfield at The Kensington Roof Gardens in 1991 where Vicky was a regular every Sunday night. After an invitation from Steffan to Fortnam & Mason for afternoon tea the partnership clicked. Vicky soon started working with Steffan in 1992 in Steffan’s Dragmania show and on promotions including 14 weeks at London’s Hippodrome working for a gay night called ‘Bolts’ for Nicky Price."(continues)

"Vicky is a contributor to a number of magazines and has been featured and appeared on many television programs. She is an advisor to ‘Forum Magazine’. She has contributed to a number of authority ‘Diversity Forums’ including the Metropolitan Police and the City Police. Vicky has been honoured and thrilled to judge a number of top class transgender pageants. She has given talks and helped present stage events at ‘Sparkle’ transgender celebration.

One of the 2 'Sparkle Awards for Lifetime Achievement, Outstanding Contribution to the Transgender Community and BEST Transgender NightclubAt a time before the internet, Vicky Lee’s series of ‘Tranny Guide’ books did a tremendous amount to expand awareness of the opportunities and scale of “transgender” activity and helped the transgender scene mature. In 2008 Vicky Lee was presented with TWO ‘Sparkle’ TG awards

first a personal ‘Sparkle’ TG award for ‘Lifetime Achievement’ and ‘Outstanding Contribution to the Transgender community’
second the ‘Sparkle’ TG award for ‘The Best Transgender Night Club’
These awards were voted for on the Sparkle’ web site by thousands from all around the world.

Vicky also runs The WayOut Publishing Company which grew from ‘The Transvestites Guide to London’ in 1992 written together with Caroline Egerton. This first slim volume with no pictures were sold from club to club from their handbags. This first book became to ‘The Transvestites Guide to London’ which in 1995 became the annual international ‘Tranny Guide’. In 2005 Vicky published two books one an encyclopedia of ideas that includes some of Vicky’s biography and second the ultimate guide to the tranny world, her ‘Transgender AtoZ. Currently the publishing company concentrates on the internet and is helping a variety of businesses with web sites and promotion."
www.thewayoutclub.com/vickylee/who-am-i/

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3342195-Dr-Julia-Long-has-just-been-brilliant-on-LBC

oops, smiley face was a typo!

I read that as an IronicSmilee

genuine typo!

I’m trans polycounty and polycountry. I am from the midlands but identify as a Londoner because I like fortnum mason biscuits and the queen, however I’m a bit aggy so therefore some days I’m northern. Currently I’m Californian because I love the sun and apparently Californian girls wear daisy dukes and bikinis on top.

if you mis-region me on a big pant biscuit day I’ll obviously threaten to kill you, possibly assault you but I will also be the victim. Bigots.

'Sexual' - WTAF? The idea that women are asexual is digging up some really rotten 19thC ideologies; it's truly a new low. And the 'northern' thing? Good grief.

I do kind of get that these people are trying to 'critique' gender in their own way, but arse-backward, and without recognition of history or the work of anyone who covered this turf beforehand - and smarter.

If we all identify as trans, they'd have to go find something else to do. And maybe politicians in power would start listening to us. Why can't a woman identify as a trans woman? According to this 'guide', I am at least 50% man, anyway, so it would make sense.

I mean, seriously - why not? With self-ID, no medical or hormonal intervention is needed, anyway.

They've apparently removed the Northern reference now!

twitter.com/EvaPoen/status/1035174643991240707

I don't think these two need any explanation. Just a reminder that Edward Lord is:
a - the partner of the person that wrote this guidance
b - running consultation on removing barriers to men accessing women's spaces in the City of London and all the facilities that it provides.

I feel sick

Wow, Schrodingers, at that tweet. Just

I wonder who else was in PIE. I'm almost too scared to google it.

My God. I hope a journalist is onto this.

Oh my goodness

It's brazen what Edward Lord is up to. Brazen.

I am old enough to remember how many liberal people were sucked into the PIE vortex.

This is an interesting background piece

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/looking-back-to-the-great-british-paedophile-infiltration-campaign-of-the-1970s-9155610.html

I was in my twenties then, but it went completely under my radar. I guess those types haven't gone away.

Why can't anyone see the whole attempted theft of womanhood from right under our noses?

Organisations are being played and Lord and co. are trying to pull the strings.

I can remember defending PIE to my mother. The discourse was very similar to the TRA/TERF. stuff today. I do hope I apologized.

Quite so - for those of us old enough to remember the arguments, this all sounds very familiar. And given that Edward Lord is giving shout outs to Ken Plummer, I don't think we're far wrong in seeing from which playbook the current situation has come.

A BBC report: How did the pro-paedophile group PIE exist openly for 10 years?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26352378

Journalist Christian Wolmar remembers their tactics. "They didn't emphasise that this was 50-year-old men wanting to have sex with five-year-olds. They presented it as the sexual liberation of children, that children should have the right to sex," he says.

It's an ideology that seems chilling now. But PIE managed to gain support from some professional bodies and progressive groups. It received invitations from student unions, won sympathetic media coverage and found academics willing to push its message.

I think many of us were on a continuum. We started on Women’s Lib. Then the fight for gay rights became a thing, which many of us rushed to support. We were right to do that of course, but it can’t be denied that there was a deep vein of misogyny there. Lesbians were sidelined and women were the foot soldiers of the movement. PIE really just seemed like the next step along the road to sexual liberation. When I got flamed on here a while ago for trying to explain Harriet Harman’s position I seriously wondered whether I was completely misremembering. But the current situation mirrors it so closely, I now think not.

Bertrand how and why did you eventually realise you were wrong about PIE?

I'm trying to remember. To be honest, I think I just grew up a bit and started using my brain rather than being carried along. It's important to remember how incredibly exciting and subversive the idea of "minority rights" was. And PIE presented as a perfect example- the rights of children and rhe rights of a minority sexuality in the same campaign. Sorry, I'm rambling. Hope I'm making some sense.

No, that does make sense. I totally get teenagers getting drawn into this, but adults ?

I’ve drawn parallels with PIE for a long time, but I’m not old enough to remember them, just read about them on here.

So there must be lessons from How PIE was stopped to be applied here?