Have we petitioned Stonewall directly?

[heresyandwitchcraft]

Stupid question. I was thinking with the momentum of Stickerwoman that perhaps we could start a direct petition to Stonewall UK just to engage in dialogue with women's groups/set up a public neutrally structured debate?
Does anyone know if we have recently tried directly petitioning the LGBT groups to even just TALK to us? I know there have been ones to the government, but I really think it's more than a little crazy that we can't even speak with the so-called "other side."
Maybe if we get enough signatures to them they can stop pretending this is just a minority concern?
What do you think?

I think this is a brilliant idea.

seconded!

I think it's an excellent idea - but I have a jingly jangly inkling it would be rebuffed by Stonewall. Having said that, it's not got a downside beyond that; if they respond and talk, all good. If they rebuff and shut down, a public request to neutral discussion will have been, er, stonewalled. Not a good look for them. Nowt to lose at this stage.

Agree. They will tell us to fuck off but it's not a good look.

"Shush girlies, the boys and real women are talking"

Stonewall held a series of discussions prior to becoming trans-inclusive with people of all different views including rad fems. They are not unaware of the differing views out there. The person who chaired those talks has now left but if you genuinely want to engage it’s not beyond the realms of possibility, particularly if you feel you speak for a large proportion of LGB people. My advice would be to think very carefully about language used in any correspondence so it isn’t dismissed as transphobia.

A public request to talk publicly to GC, radical feminists and all other interested people against self-ID should be put to Stonewall. They will tell you to fuck off, you have evidence you did your bit to a public that prodominitly don't agree with self-ID and who looks reasonable?

Great idea. I think an open letter to Ruth Hunt would be a good format with a petition to support and add numbers for those who can't sign with their rl names.

My advice would be for every lesbian or bi woman who can do so safely to speak up for her rights and the rights of other women, and not be cowed or tied in linguistic knots out of fear of appearing transphobic. If you go down that route you will never be able to say what you think or feel because the trans activists will pick and pick and pick at your language until you have no words left. Nothing will be good enough except silence or capitulation.

Everything we say is dismissed as transphobia no matter how reasonable. We don't have much to lose here so we might as well say what we think and feel without trying to appease trans activists.

I suggest we say it politely but with absolute clarity.

I'd just like to ask them to speak to us, because this toxic us v them mentality is hurting everyone.
That's all.
And then attempt to collect signatures (even if it's all pseudonymous, and everyone just writes their name as "Stickerwoman").
If people think it's a good idea, I can try to put something together, although I am just a random idiot on MN.

No point going to a butcher's shop for bread.

They will use any approach as an opportunity to refuse to dialogue with "transphobes"(sic)

I think that discussing their rather bizarre definition of transgender is worth the time if they are beginning to see the damage their umbrella doing their credibility.

OP I appreciate your constructive approach but I think Stonewall genuinely DGAF for women or for LESBIANS.

Which is pretty fucking horrifying when you think who helped to build Stonewall into the household-name supercharity that it is now. Not to mention Stonewall sticking to Stonewall’s legal charitable objectives.

I think there is nothing to lose by calling Stonewall’s bluff- women do want debate about their concerns, though Ruth Hunt’s response seems to be #nodebate.

So you would be positively pointing to the open door to dialogue. But I’d agree with the PP who have zero hope for any meaningful engagement from Stonewall.

Stonewall know very well already what gender critical women think because they are active on social media, they know full well what women are saying about their concerns- but Stonewall DGAF.

Stonewall condemned the lesbians protesting AT PRIDE about the erasure of lesbians by the TRA agenda. Stonewall said Get the L Out shouldn’t have been allowed to ask the questions they asked because saying those things made trans people feel ‘unsafe’

Totally ignoring and denying and turning the tables on the concerns of the lesbians who feel so undermined in THEIR community that they bravely stepped up and protested at the PRIDE parade. DARVO.

www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/07/09/stonewall-slams-pride-in-london-saying-organisers-had-a-duty-to-act-and-protect-trans-people/

Stonewall’s intolerance and hostility to these women’s concerns was reflected by other organisations like London Pride who were rounded on by Stonewall and others for letting the women protest, then issued a very aggressively-worded statement condemning the ‘vile’ protest and saying this kind of speaking out should be ‘stamped out’

To me this kind of inflammatory language gets close to inciting violence.

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

Basically those reactions are confirming everything that Get the L out are warning against. Stonewall are utterly complicit in that.

So I think yes if you want to offer a dialogue the absolutely do so, but it would be important for the record (and for anyone not familiar with these issues) that any open letter emphasises that women have always been open to talking about their concerns, but are being shut down and condemned when they do try to air them. The door has always been open. These are not two, equally pig headed, equally not listening sides. No gender critical woman has EVER sought to silence or threaten, doxx or get anyone sacked for asking questions nor has ever called for #nodebate.

I think it's good idea and worth doing OP. At best, if they engage, it might lead to some sensible, constructive discussion. At worst they refuse and we have a public record of at least trying to engage in some rational debate but being denied it.

I think it is a great idea.
It would be useful to have people included in the LGBT community (I’m one) who feel marginalised by the way they operate such a totalitarian view re the trans umbrella.

#NoDebate is so incredibly dangerous.
Saying things like “you want to deny trans people their existence” if you say they don’t have the same experiences as you, is so offensive and puts up barriers where there needn’t be any.

I'm neither LGB nor live in the UK, but has anyone thought of setting another organisation that genuinely represents your interests? You did before, could you not do it again, now that Stonewall has been hijacked?

Coyoa there are some already luckily: not sure about any charities but there are definitely activist groups,
Women’s Place UK, SAGES (sex and gender ethics society), Get the L Out, Man Friday, transgendertrend, Liverpool resisters and others whose names I don’t know- but all standing up for women and children in a very hostile climate.

My advice would be to think very carefully about language used in any correspondence so it isn’t dismissed as transphobia.

I read this twitter thread yesterday, and notice that women are referred to as TERFs, and the GetTheLOut 'lot' are simply dismissed as troublemakers, no effort to understand what they're protesting about. Everything is considered to be transphobia if it's about women.

Sorry, this was the twitter thread
twitter.com/danophile/status/1032049837401882629?s=21

Love the idea of an open letter-but imagine stonewall will say they have made their position clear & TWAW. So then follow up with a crowdfunder to raise the cash to post the open letter in a national newspaper in the form on an advert....The Times perhaps?

Stonewall is basically lobbing for the removal of girl’s and women’s boundaries and rights and to change the definition of woman itself, they follow a cult like ideology, which is not based on reality or reason. They also get an enormous amount of funding to take the position they do, so will not waver much from it, unless they think they can negotiate some things in exchange for others. Therefore, even if you get them to agree to discuss things, at best what would happen is that they would try to talk women into giving up certain rights. For example, they may eventually have to concede that women should be able to request a female HCP, but they will continue to push for access to women’s changing rooms, toilets or to make them all unisex etc. Their objective is to erase as many of women’s boundaries as they can get away with, so that a subset of men have the ‘right’ to enter women’s spaces etc, that is at the heart of the ideology they subscribe to.

It is clear that female rights are under siege by those who follow this anti female ideology, lobby groups like Stonewall are one of the agents who are holding our rights hostage. I understand some think they can negotiate with these lobby groups to get some of our rights back, but I don’t think that is the best way of tackling this and I do worry about some women being eager to be conciliatory to these men and their lobby groups. I am a lesbian and think Stonewall’s reputation should suffer as a result of them campaigning for this anti female and anti lesbian ideology being written into law. I am not willing to negotiate with them about what a woman or lesbian is, or willing to concede certain sex based rights in order to retain others, which is the best any discussion with them could hope for.

I think a nation wide debate on the underlying ideology that they build their demands on is key, as well as a nationwide discussion of the material consequences of enacting laws based on that ideology. They will never agree to that, as their ideology cannot stand up to scrutiny, and the disastrous consequences to women and girls of enacting laws based on this ideology, become obvious when it is openly discussed. I don’t think there is anything to loose by proposing a public debate. Of course they will refuse, but if the aim is just to get it on record that they refuse to publicly debate then it may be worth while.

I personally won’t sign anything that posits men as a type of woman though, i.e. that refers to them as “transwomen”. Males are not a type of woman like lesbian women, heterosexual women, black women or white women, they are a type of man. That needs to be made clear before I am able to sign any letter about it. Once we to refer to men as if they are a type of woman, we loose the ability to define woman, everything else stems from that. As long as males are not referred to as a type of woman then I would be willing to sign a letter proposing a debate. They consider this “transphobic” though, in other words unless one agrees to the ideology that posits men can be a type of woman then they dismiss you as bigoted out of hand. It is just a way of shielding the ideology from criticism in my honest opinion.

Brilliant post, Stopthisnow

I think a nation wide debate on the underlying ideology that they build their demands on is key, as well as a nationwide discussion of the material consequences of enacting laws based on that ideology.

Thank you for your post. A calm, rational, open dialogue is really a starting point for all of this. Trans activists are imposing an ideological shift that actually could affect everyone. We have to at least be able to talk about it.

Money talks...they're getting paid for this stance.