Open Letter about Trans Media Portrayal signed by lots

[CrazyToast]

This open letter (text is below, not linking to Pink News), tweeted by Sarah Champion MP and put out by Helen Belcher has got me despairing.

The total lies in this letter boggle my mind! How can legitimate professionals put their names to this without researching?

"This coverage has often conflated trans women and girls with sex offenders, implied that all trans women and girls are threats, and has usually been insufficiently challenged."

Don't they understand that no one things ALL trans people are threats? Just that male bodied people are potential threats and that we DONT KNOW who is dangerous and who isnt so we have to treat everyone with caution? Don't they understand that all women operate like this, it is anticipation of risk? Is this just wilful misinterpretation?

"The reality is that trans people are far more likely to be targets of violence than other women."

We all know this is false. Handful of trans women killed in UK in a decade vs two women a week.

The letter in full

We strongly condemn the way the British media has given significant coverage to small groups who wish to push organisations to break existing law with regards to trans people. The Equality Act protects trans people from discrimination and automatic exclusion from same sex spaces, yet over recent days, weeks and months, the media has given significant space to activists who wish to roll back trans people’s existing rights.

This coverage has often conflated trans women and girls with sex offenders, implied that all trans women and girls are threats, and has usually been insufficiently challenged. The reality is that trans people are far more likely to be targets of violence than other women. Isolated extreme and abhorrent cases cannot be extrapolated to infer the behaviour of all trans people. Those countries where gender recognition is operated on an administrative rather than a quasi-judicial process also do not provide any evidence to support the assertion that trans people are a threat or misuse the process to cause harm to others.

The relentlessness of the hostility across the media and the media’s inability to adequately challenge the false claims put forward have led to a significant decline in the mental health of many trans people. Reports of suicides of trans people are on the increase. Free speech does not give free reign to cause people harm.

We call on the British media to revise the way they cover trans stories, to look at the reality faced by trans people rather than focus on extreme theories which have no basis in fact, and to apologise for the significant emotional and mental stress they have caused to trans people over the past year.

Helen Belcher – Chair, LGBT Consortium
Baroness Barker
Dr MJ Barker
Michelle Brewer – Barrister, Garden Court Chambers
Baroness Brinton – President of the Liberal Democrats
Christine Burns MBE
Baroness Burt of Solihull – Women’s Spokesperson, Liberal Democrats
Lord Carlile of Berriew
Lord Cashman
Prof Brian Cathcart – School of Journalism, Kingston University
Dr Louise Chambers – Lecturer, Goldsmiths College, University of London
Sarah Champion MP – former Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities
Dominic Davies – Pink Therapy UK
Martha Dunkley – ClinicQ
Jane Fae
Fox and Owl Fisher – filmmakers, My Genderation
Kate Green MP – former Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities
Susie Green – CEO, Mermaids UK
Dr Adrian Harrop
Prof Sally Hines – School of Sociology, Leeds University
Jennie Kermode – Chair, Trans Media Watch
Fiyaz Mughal – TellMama
Claire McCann – Barrister, Cloisters Chambers
Monty Moncrieff MBE – CEO, London Friend
Layla Moran MP
Prof Surya Munro – School of Human and Health Sciences, Huddersfield University
Nik Noone – CEO, Galop
Lord Paddick
Prof Julian Petley – Professor of Journalism, Brunel University
Tris Reid-Smith – Owner, Gay Star News
Linda Riley – Publisher, DIVA Magazine
Paul Roberts OBE – CEO, LGBT Consortium
Cat Smith MP – Shadow Secretary of State for Young People
Dame Caroline Spelman MP
Jay Stewart MBE – CEO, Gendered Intelligence
Jo Swinson MP – Deputy Leader, Liberal Democrats
Dr Damian Tambini FRSA – London School of Economics
Peter Tatchell
Dr Ben Vincent – Chair, GIRES
Dr Paul Wragg – School of Law, Leeds University
Dr Tray Yeadon-Lee – School of Human and Health Sciences, Huddersfield University

The power and influence of TRAs in LibDems is extraordinary.

Fox and Owl Fisher – filmmakers

LOL. My kids’ iMovies are better quality than that bizarre effort posted here the other day.

Signed,
NotBadConsidering, race car driver. (I brum brum when I drive to work every day )

Knicknackpaddyflak

I think you should submit that to Pink News.

Did someone find the screenshots indicating it was rejected by the indie and Guardian

Lizzie: about four days ago the EHRC amended its guidance to make clear its not true. Earlier guidance did suggest it was but FP got them to change it. Now TRA are pretending they never wanted the EA changed at all. They did tho.

Agree - mainly usual suspects but sad re Jo Swinson.

What's the feel on this - ignorance (she has got tiny baby .. just saying) or Sarah Champion levels of stupidity?

Hadn't come across Galop before - key purpose seems to be collating stats for stonewall etc to be creative with. Or is that too cynical?

Unimpressed by this letter, ignores transactivists trying endlessly to disrupt our meetings whilst we let them get on with theirs, ignores the BBC taking the TWAW line and the Guardian and most main stream papers until recently. 6 months ago all media seemed against us.
Also why are Harrup and Owl and Fox there? Either have a list of eminent people or have a list of randoms. I'm a GP but wouldn't expect to be on a list of academics. Of course Harrup supports that letter, if it's just a list of transactivists then it's all a bit pointless and stating the obvious.

Didn't Galop used to be a major opinion poll company? I was wondering if the CEO was any relation to Jess's sidekick at the NUS - only on the basis of the name, which is not common.

Sorry, I was out of date on galop there - it appears to be a super-woke genderist hate crime charity trying to appropriate rape and domestic violence in genderist terms.

Never have I been more heartened by hearing on politics programmes that the Lib Dems are irrelevant and going nowhere.

Also, do Fox and Owl not have surnames? Or does Fox Smith ruin it somewhat?

My MP pretends to play nice. She said she'd try and attend the meeting at the HOC on Tuesday.
Now she's signed this.

I can't think of anything I can say that is civil.

Really disappointed to see Kate Green on there. I always thought she was probably GC.

This letter is a spectacular own goal and it was really unwise for MPs to sign it.

The whole tone is about attacking the media. They have described the MSM as hostile, unchallenging and blamed them for causing trans people to have mental health problems.

I can guarantee this will have got backs up in a way that it wouldn't if they had focused on the debate aspect and talked about fair coverage in a less combative way. I imagine The Guardian who have been very pro trans would be especially pissed.

It seems they have taken no lessons from Trump, his attacks to MSM and how the media outlets have reacted to that.

On current thread Stephen Whittle acknowledges the importance of Samaritan's guidance and is urged to speak with his colleagues in the 'trans community'.
Stephen Whittle has retracted his comment about 'inevitable suicides' in the Guardian.

Helen Belcher, TransMedia Watch, Mermaids and the signatories of this letter highlighted to him as serious cause for concern and a need to reconsider/retract.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3397010-Guardian-article-on-MPs-concern-with-GRA?watched=1&msgid=81893160#81893160

Also, do Fox and Owl not have surnames? Or does Fox Smith ruin it somewhat?

Fox Spielberg and Owl Scorsese [nods sagely].

Pepvixen Kate Green is my MP.
I am so angry and disappointed that she has signed the letter.

Knicknackpaddyflak

Your letter is the perfect response. If Pink News refuse to publish it perhaps we can get whoever negotiated the price of that full page add in the Metro to get it published after a quick whip round? Or might there be enough cash left in Posie's war chest to cover it?

My MP not on the list. If they were I would be sending a copy with facts/stats refuting every point, registered mail or whatever.

Giving them the benefit of the doubt, it reads like the lobbyists have written it and the MPs (or their teams?) have not bothered to check their facts before putting their name to it.

Ah, RTFT penguin, KnickKnack got there first. Nicely written. Publishing anywhere?

It would be great to have another full page ad that reads like that, as in:

TA Myth/Lie xxx
No, because yyy

TA Myth/Lie xxx
No, because yyy

TA Myth/Lie xxx
No, because yyy

Not much time left now...

No idea about publishing, and it's their letter, just with the word women inserted, and the facts corrected! I read that thinking - bloody hell this is some projection going on here.

Tbh, rather than get invested in arguing the toss, two much better responses to put in the Guardian letter page would be

1. Abusers and DARVO bingo as a pp commented
2. A clear list of leading TRAs who have been public figures, advised government, been invited to select committees and trained at national level including developing safeguarding policies, and the list early on in the thread about the sexual component of each one of them. The extreme porn supporter, the one with the seven inch surprise, the one who involved a father they'd been removed from under a child protection plan while on bail for paedophilic rape, the one in favour of legalising paedophilia.... that list is shocking. SHOCKING. The general public have a right to know.

And once you see that list, and you see those FACTS in the public domain, it is undeniable that every one of those males invested in reducing safeguarding for women and children has a personal agenda, sexually related, by which reduced safeguarding personally benefits them. That really, REALLY needs publishing.

To paraphrase Lisa M. wtaf are our bloody cowardly MPs being paid for?!

“I don't see why anyone has made a fuss about this. The Equality Act (2010) protects single-sex spaces and the proposed GRA reform has no impact on this. There's been no problems with this status quo in the last fourteen years and no reason to think anything will change in the future.”

The GRA means there is nonlonger any single sex spaces. And no problem in the past 14 years? What about all the Male TW sent to female prisons - many who are extremely violent murdered and rapists. What about Lauren Jeska being lauded as the top UK fell runner. What about my council gym telling the female customers they had to put up and shut up with the male TW using the communal changing rooms/showers.

I don't see how that can be right? The Equality Act specifically protects single-sex space and the GRA consultation definitely says that there are no proposals to amend the Equality Act - I've been back and checked. Prisons have to do a risk assessment for every inmate, whoever you are, because I guess they don't want to cause trouble for themselves by putting people in a vulnerable position. And women's refuges can refuse entry to anyone they believe will be a danger, whatever sex they are. I do feel that council changing rooms are usually pretty nasty and why they can't build cubicles and give us all a bit of privacy I don't know. Sorry, don't even know what fell running is!

The equality act contains cetain categories which it protects. It's the categories that the GRA affects.

Fell running is the sport of running on fells, requiring exceptional strength and fitness. Lauren Jeska, born male, was the England women's fell running champion for three years 2009-11 until Lauren committed a violent crime. I don't know who came second in the years she was dominating the competition.