Need Help to write letter - Stonewall is 'helping' a national engineering institute with their 'Diversity&Inclusion' toolkit...

[TheMinorityEngineer]

...seems like they are currently at the survey stage. Can we write to them?

OMG. I am going mad. Now I see it everywhere, schools, government, councils, blue chip business.

'Diversity&Inclusion' is clearly a big business for SW as consultants and all these organisations are sleep walking into the misogynistic and homophobic trans narrative and muddled language of Stonewall (albeit with good intentions ).

This charity really is wolf in sheep's clothing. They are giving misguidance as advice to organisations and using it to embed their ideology and language. Guidance that does not align with the Equality Act 2010.

It's the usual trick of using 'gender' instead of 'sex' and the narrative of 'inclusion'. The policy is called Diversity & Inclusion, I wish they'd call it Equality & Diversity.

Please could MNetters help draft a letter to the Institute to push back on changes before they materialise into actual policies/toolkits.

In fact, if we could put together a coherent letter that could be used/adapted for any business organisation/professional institute using said 'charity' as consultants for their Equality & Diversity (the inclusive narrative is toxic) that we could use, that would hopefully push back on a lot of the changes before it is too late (too late for some already -see police).

Sorry - i can't think or write coherently at the moment.

Start with full support.

Recognise that transgender people may be under represented or poorly treated and fully support efforts to monitor this better than today, and to make change so when necessary. For example, if they organise conferences, are transmen and transwomen both fully Do they have access to trans support groups and role models?

Observe that you have seen in some organisations following a self id as women line , but you believe this will seriously damage the profession in the eyes of women, a group of people who still require support within the profession.

Suggest that this is simply avoided by using the terms sex and gender carefully. This will also ensure that no transwomen is disadvantaged because of women, which is likely if tw are simply classed as women

You may even add that you appreciate that, for the small minority of trans people who have body dysmorphia this is uncomfortable, but observe that for the larger proportion of women who have suffered sexual violence, the twaw approach is equally uncomfortable

?

Which Engineering Institute? Do they have women's organisations helping them too... they surely must have - I'm sure they're acutely aware of the sex imbalance in all engineering sectors and wouldn't want to in any way sideline efforts to attract and retain girls and women. Hopefully they can improve diversity and inclusion for all underrepresented groups but the largest of those is still 'females'.

You might find some useful arguments in this piece: www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2018/02/20971/

The Stonewall guy-dance to schools, police, councils etc..seems to be a cut and paste.

In the letter I wrote to school, I unpicked the glossary of incorrect terms. The fact this group seeks to erase women and children's rights, along with other evidence based points.

I pointed out SW is a lobby group with no professional expertise in drafting guidance. That schools should not be endorsing biased politics in this way.

Can you unpick their guidance? What do they mean by cis? What do they mean by transgender?

I also pointed out this is not inclusive to females. Also, many LGBT people - including transsexuals that SW describes as an "old" term - are deeply concerned that extreme ideology is being used as the basis of guidance to organisations.

Paranoid as I am, I'll say it out....

Royal Academy of Engineering

Call to action. Can MNs write to them please. The are using the language of 'allies' and 'majority'. They are clearly well intentioned but misguided.

www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/RGNRLZC

Quick search on their website using charity name, shows their involvement so far and you can see their fingerprints all over it.

Oh dear, look at this story on there

www.raeng.org.uk/news/news-releases/2018/november/hinton-lecture-more-women-in-engineering-will-boos

Sorry, I nearly misgendered Shirley when I saw "Steve" next to her name.

If the industry wants to attract more women, then Stonewall's rules could put girls off. TW will be recorded as female so it will skew figures on how many women enter the profession. They may be prioritised for female only shortlists.

OMG. I hadn't noticed that. I didn't expect that. A real example of a self ID trans woman going into engineering.

Can't believe it's actually happening.

Their stats for measuring true male/female balance will be obviously f*kd, and they are basically excluding women by including transwomen. But hey, look at the gender balance stats!!

Sorry. Confused. That's a real woman who took the name 'Steve' to help her in a male dominated world. She's done some good work.

It should be able sex discrimintion. The use of 'gender diversity' totally confuses the issues. 'Gender' is meaningless, you can have anything as your gender.

Yeh sorry, I saw "Steve" and then gender ID initially.

She is an adult human female!

And a very impressive adult human female she is too. She came to the UK as an unaccompanied child on the kindertransport from Nazi Germany, as the article states. I'll bet there's not a whiff of the snowflake about her.

I agree with Midgebabe.

I would hope that engineers would have enough sense, education and logic to understand the difference between sex and gender, but agree that you should spell this out.

I suggest also stating that impact assessments are needed to ensure any policies and practices respect all those with protected characteristics as per the Equality Act.

You might also want to include a question of how to meet the various different needs of those under the trans umbrella, as this now includes cross-dressers, those with AGP, those who don’t undertake any physical (surgical or hormonal) transition, non-binary people etc. as well as those who have had SRS.

When writing to my bank I pointed out that Stonewall only added theT about three years ago and that seemed to have refocused the organisation away from equalities consultancy to campaigning. (I linked to the Stonewall petition.) Unlike homosexual equality, gender equality is not a zero sum game, and there is a conflict between women’s desire for single sex spaces (prisons, women’s sport etc) and transgender desires to have access to those spaces. I also quoted the government figures given as part of the GRA key facts. At the moment there are almost 5,000 transsexuals with GRA certicates, however and using the Stonewall definition of transgender (including cross-dressers etc - it’s on the Stonewall website) the Government estimates as many as 500,000 might want to take advantage of self-Id.. Nothing against those with gender dysphoria, but there needs to a careful look at the implications of allowing anyone who says he is a woman to access women spaces. And that is before you start on the protections that should be given to children and young people before they start on a life time of drugs and surgery

I don't know about engineering in general but at one computer related event I attended a few years ago there were more white transwomen than white women attending

Thanks for all your thoughts and inputs MNs.

@GardeningAndKnitting - I wonder if how the transwomen are recorded for male/female balance statistics. It must be skewed...but hey presto...the stats will show that they have solved the male/female imbalance problem......

Questions. Dear clever MNers, so if we say

sex not gender
sex discrimination not gender discrimation
sex stereotypes not gender
diversity not gender diversity (WTF IS that?!)

What is the sex based word(s) for

gender imbalance
gender paygap

Help

I don't know about engineering in general but at one computer related event I attended a few years ago there were more white transwomen than white women attending

Sounds like a typical university ‘lesbian’ group.

What is the sex based word(s) for

gender imbalance
gender paygap

Just substitute ‘sex’. I can’t see any reason we ever used ‘gender’ for these terms anyway - other than prudery.

So

sex imbalance....how about male-female imbalance?
sex paygap?

sex paygap doesn't sound right....to me....or have i been brainwashed?

We had them come into my workplace (local authority) and the talk was just dreadful. Woolly talk of feelings and misleading stats (which the speaker acknowledged himself were not accurate.)

The speaker also introduced himself using preferred pronouns and explained that his gender presentation was male as he had short hair and wore trousers and a shirt. Along with half of the women in the room he was addressing. I struggled to bite my lip and I don’t think I was alone.

Yes I think the misrepresentation of the male-female stats within engineering should be the main concern for RAE here, if they carry on with the 'gender' nonsense.

As i said

GENDER IS BOLL**KS

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3425496-Gender-is-Bollocks

sex paygap doesn't sound right....to me....or have i been brainwashed?

Sounds fine to me. I think people just don’t like to see ‘sex’ and ‘pay’ in such close proximity.

yes i think thats what it is ASpie....like paying for sex...?

TheMinorityEngineer including transwomen as women will distort the imbalance figures.

The other aspect that has been very frustrating is the way TW engineers undermine women engineers by playing the fluffy airhead 'I'm just a woman I don't understand this stuff (giggles)' TW are setting women's progress in engineering massively