Fair Play For Women meeting MPs at House of Common on 16th October

[DoctorW]

In fact even better than that, Woman's Place UK and Transgender Trend will be going too.

I (Nicola Williams) will be one of the three women attending in order to answer MP’s questions about how proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act will affect women’s rights.

Womans Place UK and Fair Play For Women have both requested to meet with Penny Mordaunt, Minister for Women and Equalities, to represent the concerns and questions of the thousands of women who support us, but have not been granted a meeting.

So, we are taking the meeting to the House of Commons to give Penny Mordaunt, and all MPs, the opportunity to meet us, ask questions and hear our views. All they need to do is drop in and meet us. This is the opportunity for MPs to hear the voices of women concerned by these changes and to increase their knowledge about this subject in a calm, confidential environment.

Every MP has received a formal invitation for this meeting but we need YOU to make sure they come. Please email your constituency MP telling them that you support us and ask them to confirm to you that they will attend this meeting.

You can find your MPs details here www.writetothem.com/
Email them this weekend before their diaries get filled. The meeting is just 10 days from now.

Meeting: How will changes to the Gender Recognition Act affect women’s rights? Tuesday 16th October 2018 at 10:30am until 12:30pm in Room S, House of Commons

Wow I’ve just had a reply back and my MP (female conservative safe seat) has thanked me for bringing the meeting to her attention and is going to try to attend depending on parliamentary business.

I've just sent an email in - I'm not very hopeful as they are SNP and the party has drunk the kool aid. I added to some links to issues arising (Karen White, Pip Bunce etc too)

No reply from mine although I didn't know I had to put my address on it at the time. If no reply by end of tomorrow ill resend it with my address on.

If you use write to them, you have to go to your inbox and click the link in the confirmation email.

I can't find a postal address for my MP's constituency office. Just email or phone. He used to have a constituency office, but if he's now running his local office out of his home, I can well understand that he doesn't want that to be public knowledge.

But the constituency skews higher in terms of people aged 60 and above, many of whom would have difficulty with email or phone. And I'm not being ageist - that's my demographic.

So, I've compiled a fairly lengthy email. I started off with the general, including mention of organisations that have already changed their policies (e.g. Girl Guides). And included mention of women's meetings being met with threats and violence, e.g. Millwall FC caving in.

But I finished with a local example, e.g. the local hospital, and the possibility of just one transwoman being placed in a single-sex bay, to the detriment of the dignity of the five women.

And then got in a bit about other political parties, at high level at least, ignoring women's concerns; poignant as this year is the centenary of Women's Suffrage.

Just have to wait to see if he manages to wade through the equivalent of one-and-a-bit pages in Word.

And, thanks to this thread, I have included my full name, address, postcode, telephone number. I wouldn't otherwise have known I needed to include all that. MNetters are wonderfully good at passing on essential info.

I think you may be able to send post to Westminster too?
Worth having a look at the parliamentary pages.

Oh dear, whether I clicked on the email link on his personal website, or clicked on the link on his Parliament web page, the results are the same: delivery failed permanently.

So, it'll be a phone call tomorrow morning. Which is not good as I'm already wound up by this situation, plus I have a dental appointment tomorrow afternoon and am already bricking it. I might, or might not, be able to be icily calm.

You have still got time to send a letter snail mail.

Assistant to my MP (Conservative reasonably safe seat) is going to try her best to attend. (MP in Treasury Select Committee Meeting)

Oooh, having only recently discovered that Twitter can actually be very useful, I've just tweeted him about the undeliverableness of emails.

Or, as per Redshoeblueshoe's advice, snail mail is a good possibility. And as I'm currently wrangling my printer, if necessary it'll be handwriting.

Twitter is a real friend here - as well as emailing it's really important to tweet MPs about attending so everyone can see their response and voice their support/requests to attend.

Mine says Yes.

We're on first name terms too

Emailed my MP. Doubt that he will attend, or do anything about it (and hope he doesn't recognise my name as he tends to ignore anybody he recognises as an adherent of any other party than his own) but at least I tried.

I pointed out that even Pink News say that only 18% of the population support self-id, with the hope he'll be bright enough to notice that that makes it not a brilliant political stance for his own Government.

[edited at poster's request]

kooshbin you can send a letter to an MP address:
MP name, House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA

It will take slightly longer than standard post, as all parliamentary post is security screened before it gets there. And remember that most MPs leave London today (or yesterday) to go to constituency until Monday.

MP email addresses vary slightly depending on when they were elected. Most of them are [email protected] but some are shorter- and have [email protected] - this is also the format for peers email addresses.
Some have an alternative email address as well on their website, but these are the standard parliament ones.
I think there is a dinosaur or two that don’t have an email address.

Likewise, MPs researchers are all the same- [email protected]

Or if you are really struggling PM me the name & I’ll look in the address book. 😀

Speaking of politics - who is driving the twitter account for the LibDems LGBTetc and is it official? It's pretty - aggressive.

Sarah Brown and Zoe O'Connell's names have been associated.
There was a statement that there were four people using it a while ago.

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3263172-Andrew-Gilligan-Latest-bullying-transgender-complaint-swiftly-rejected-by-parliamentary-standards-committee

Fekko, just had a look. Latest are lots of retweets of Dr Adrian....so just like MN except they seem to take him seriously

It was interesting to read that the LibDemLGBT+ account may be building some sort of 'block list'.
I wondered (with many others) if this was one of the skills Aimmee Challenor was bringing to the LibDem trans advisory group.

Apologies (not enough coffee and got muddled with Stonewall)

Meant to say skills AC was bringing to the LibDems LGBT+ Twitter group.

BiologyMatters you have to put your address on to ensure you are in their constituency. So best resend now your address.

Emailed my MP the other day and as usual heard nothing back. I did mention it in a tweet and she asked me to call her office this morning.

Just spoken to someone there who has said that she is at the HoC that day and has a small window so if I email the details to her she will put it in her diary. Just sent the email.

Will there be a list of who attends?

I need your help! I emailed Dawn Butler yesterday. It was a very cross email and I was not expecting a reply - but I got one .....! I’m copying below and I need your help in replying later. I can’t believe this fella has actually admitted he made a mistake!

Thank you for your email.

It wasn’t my intention in my original email to Adrian, shared on social media, to side with one side or another and did not support assumptions that the groups represented at the meeting are transphobic hate groups. Also having no knowledge of the recipient other than the fact they emailed Ms Butler about said meeting.

However, I do admit my response was poorly worded and I accept full responsibility for that mistake.

Dawn has met with Women’s Place UK in the past, earlier this year to be exact, and other women’s groups who have voiced their concerns to proposed changes to the GRA, but is unable to attend the meeting due to diary commitments.

I would add that because Dawn is unable to attend this meeting it does not mean that she has not considered all the wide ranging views on this issue, and she continues to do just that.

We as the Labour Party continue to recognise the importance of women-only spaces. We would seek to ensure that the government implement comprehensive policies and guidance to ensure the safety of women in female only spaces. We are happy to engage with reasonable concerns but the answer should never be to automatically exclude trans people.

Best wishes,

James May

cid:[email protected] Office Manager to Dawn Butler MP

Why is he saying “automatically exclude trans people”?

Ha ha, so Dawn is going to be pissed with Adrian for sharing that screenshot on Twitter then, and with her Office Manager for wording it in that way?

That's a good result Tabby. I hope that they do publish a list of who attended, or had a representative attend for them