Consultation closed! Well done everyone!!

[naivetyisthenewblack]

So, that's it then. Well done everyone, for everything we've achieved in the last year.

My goodness my world has shifted!

At the beginning of 2017, I was a Labour voter, wasn't involved in any active campaigning, my feminism was an identity (no pun intended!) instead of an action. I only read the Guardian, never nasty Tory papers like the Daily Mail / Spectator / The Times. And I assumed most lefty men understood about male violence and supported feminism.

All that has changed.

I've met some fucking awesome women though, falling down this rabbit hole.

This is for all of you fucking awesome women. A five minute pause, at least for and - before we move on to the next phase

Thank you mumsnetters, for opening my eyes to what was actually going on.

I got mine submitted at literally two minutes to midday today typical procrastinator... so I'm feeling a bit frazzled but proud to have got it in. Thanks to all contributors to the FWR board who have helped frame my thinking on this issue

Special shout out to the amazing @datun for her patience and clarity on this

ChilliJamandAvocado well done! You don't get extra points for getting it in early, last minute is still on time!

I'm a terrible procrastinator too, so I was quite proud of myself for getting it in with half an hour to go!

I filled mine out a couple of days ago.

What happens now? What's the next stage and how long will it take?

I saved a few leaflets, for posterity.

Do you mean with the consultation process in Parliament or what next for gender critical / feminist activism?

I saved a few leaflets, for posterity

Got a couple of great t-shirts too. When we tell my gran kids about this, we can say "and I got the t-shirt" and it'll be genuinely true!

What happens now?

We wait.
Honestly, if I could go back in time and tell myself I'd be fighting for the right for the use of language to describe my own biology, I'd call myself a liar.

Is anyone else completely exhausted by it all? I am knackered. I seem to have spent the last few weeks writing, emailing, tweeting, talking, and I am drained.
Three things that have kept me going:

This board, you wonderful women
The (often unexpected) support of my friends and acquaintances, many of whom who are at opposite ends of the political spectrum to me.
The fact that men are not women

MrsSnippyPants yes, I feel exhausted. I'm going to take a pause to recharge then get back on it again.

There's still lots to do.

I've been googling to try to find what happens next in consultations but I can't find it and although I have a rough idea in my head, I don't want to put it down here if it's not right!!

Does anyone know? What happens next, after they've crunched all the data? What stages must it go through in Parliament before becoming law (if it does - hopefully not!)

As far as our activism goes, I think a next step has to be working on MPs to make sure they're informed.

This debate has shown how woefully misinformed a lot of them are. We need to make sure they're up to speed, armed with actual facts not propaganda, before they have to make any decisions on this.

Yes MrsSnippy exhausted too.

Just an email to MP and couple more tweets to go. And then regroup too

Knackered here too. And I haven't even done much! Just catching up with all the events makes me exhausted.

A massive thank you to ALL the women involved. All the way from Shiela Jeffries and Julie Bindel who saw it coming to the ^last minuters... I wish I could buy you all a drink and shake your hands

I’m feeling quite demoralised about the whole thing after looking at Facebook.

Level Up (feminist organisation founded in 2018) has posted that 7,055 people contributed to the consultation via their portal.
Their posts have been very pro self ID, they’re equating it to letting people choose what to do with their body and denying that it’ll affect access to single sex services.

And they’re far smaller and less influential than the likes of Stonewall.

naivetyisthenewblack

Yes, a pause to recharge is a good idea, and I will concentrate on talking to my MP until we need to rally the troops again. And back Posie

Save your tshirts and leaflets- this is just the beginning, the opening skirmish.

The consultation now has to be "interpreted " and draft law changes proposed. Then debated, voted on, committees, more votes then implemented.
Then there is the EA - we know the TRA's have that in their sights.

We still have to deal with all those organisations, like Girlguiding, who have unilaterally declared that it is "gender feelings " that are important not birth sex.

Plus the overall attack on women's rights and voices...

Is it time to double down and push for repeal of the foundationally homophobic and sexist GRA?

The undercover minutes of the sept we're still here conference (other thread) made it clear they are working on MPs. They will be responding to any MPs who have doubts about self I'd with "what are the risks?". We have to make sure our MPs know the risks.

HopeGarden this was always a David vs Goliath challenge. Grass roots feminist groups don't have the money or the might of large well funded organisations like Stonewall. Plus the trans activists have been lobbying for this for years before most of us noticed so that had a huge head start.

But we do have truth on our side, and our movement isn't full of narcissists, which helps.

It's up to us now to show that the GRA wasn't fit for purpose. It was terribly flawed in so many ways, and it wasn't promoted to the groups it would affect, other than trans groups, and the language was obscure and leading - so the outcome was biased from the off.

We may not win this overnight, but we will win because:

The trans lobby are effectively asking for trans children and adults to be removed from current safeguarding frameworks. Safeguarding procedures are well established in this country, and that gives us solid group to fight it on that level.

The social contagion aspect is obvious to anyone with common sense. This will soon be proved by studies.

Also the bubble will burst, when the youth move on to something else and being trans falls out of favour.

There will, sadly, be more abuses of self ID. The public will become more aware.

We've seen what's going on, others will too. Once people peak trans, there's no going back.

I've been googling to try to find what happens next in consultations but I can't find it and although I have a rough idea in my head, I don't want to put it down here if it's not right!!

What will most likely happen is the committee will produce a report as a result of the consultation, and a Green Paper is released with more specifics and another consultation is opened (they might skip this given they have essentially done a green paper without calling it as such).

These responses are then considered (or ignored), a HoC committee is often set up to review, and, eventually, a White Paper is released. White papers are issued as a statement of policy and intention, and then form the background for a parliamentary debate before becoming processed (or not) as legislation.

It’s a very simplistic version of protocol as lots can go wrong or be done differently, but that is how I would expect most procedures to progress.

A year ago I wasn't remotely interested in feminism. I lived in my nice little bubble. And from the tiny bit I'd heard about the GRA changes just thought 'that will be nice for them, nothing to do with me'.

I'm still not sure if regard myself as a feminist. But through reading this board and around the subject my eyes have been truly opened to the inequality women and girls face. And in trying to help fight this current threat (in a tiny, tiny way) I have finally found a political cause I am passionate about.

And I echo the thanks to those experienced, articulate and patient posters like Datun, Bowl, Lang (and many others) for explaining the issues so clearly to those willing to listen.

naivetyisthenewblack yes, fair point about the David vs Goliath thing.

I think one of the things I was finding most demoralising is a organisation claiming to be a feminist one being so seemingly keen to claim trans rights = woman’s right and happy to brush off possible concerns without discussion.

Anyway. Next step is to try and compose a coherent letter to my MP, so tonight’s homework will be trawling through the feminist chat threads to try and pull together some key points to write to MP about.

Am I right in presuming that any change to the GRA will have to be passed through Parliament and our MPs in the House of Commons?

What I want to know is how the govt is going to be able to sift through the sheer numbers of responses in any meaningful way? Are they employing dozens of temps to capture all the data in the replies. How can this be done in any qualitative capacity? There were around 56,000 responses as of the weekend. That's a massive undertaking!