Let's go back to 2007

[Anlaf]

I was having a footle - back in 2007-2008 there were a number of submissions to Parliamentary committee on laws relating to hate crimes, and on extreme pornography.

They are pretty interesting. Shall we have a rummage?

Here publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmpublic/cmpbcriminal.htm

And here publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmpublic/cmpbcriminal.htm

So this has been organised, systematic, deliberate.
Women have been excluded from creating policies that will adversely affect women.
High profile women's organisations and services have been colonised.

September 2018 TRA conference, 'We're Still Here' organised by Jane Fae

OP theHarpySings wrote:
(extract)
"6) GETTING THE GRA WE WANT

This was a workshop with 3 experts sitting with groups and talking through activism. They were:

Helen Belcher (Lib Dems, Trans Media Watch)
James Morton (Scottish Transgender Alliance)
Alex Moore (GenderJam). Moore is from N Ireland.

James Morton gave some insight into tactics the TRAs will probably start using in England and Wales as they were successful in Scotland.

He said the TRAs need to build allies in mainstream women and children’s organisations so it looks like they care about them.

He also said what worked in Scotland's was a “constructive, friendly, innocent” tone when debating or in dialogue with the GC side. To be mindful about who is watching- essentially like what we do with the lurkers on the FWR board. To make the TRAs look like the reasonable side.

James also said that in dialect with elected officials, to clarify that the trans side aren’t silencing anyone but want to clarify the misconceptions being bandied around by GC feminists.

The Scottish GRA changes will probably be put forward in the 2019-2020 parliamentary year.

Belcher has been meeting with MPs and members of the House of Lords. Most of them don’t really understand the GRA and don’t have much time to think about it thanks to the Brexit FUBAR. “Education” of law makers is needed and that’s what Belcher is doing.

Apparently the TRAs lack the infrastructure they had in the 1990s and early 2000s so they need to think carefully and coordinate.

Belcher said to re-iterate to MPs that the EA2010 is not being affected and no one is losing any rights (wtf).

Apparently in terms of political support, the Tories are split about 50/50, Labour, Lib Dem's and SNP are all onside. The Greens were NOT mentioned.

The big fear on the TRA side is that this Government won’t survive long enough to get this through- again because Brexit.

According to Alex Moore, Arlene Foster of the DUP went to a Pink News event and didn’t seem to know much about this. In NI no one really cares about the trans issues because everyone is focused on same sex marriage and abortion.

Alex then moaned about the Together for Yes campaign’s transmisogyny and that the campaign completely erased the experiences of trans and NB people who need abortions. Alex would like a legal change of gender to be free of charge and as easy as changing your name.

Helen Belcher was annoyed at GC feminists using “emotive arguments” regards rape.

HB said that the pile ons pro self-ID MPs get from the GC side if they say something supportive of the trans side are not helping the GC cause. Maria Miller told Belcher that MPs got loads of abuse in the run up to marriage equality and that abusive messages, tweets from GC feminists will only harden MPs against the GC side.

HB also said something snide about “mouthy” female Labour MPs who speak before thinking on Twitter- especially on a Friday or Saturday night after they’ve had a few drinks.

Apparently the TRAs have civil service support and that the Stonewall report and Gov survey are strong bits of evidence they have which is helping them win arguments.

They are saying there is no risk to reforming the GRA and are asking MPs “what is the risk?”

In the group I was in they also talked about how changing your gender multiple times should be allowed and shouldn’t be seen as “bad intentions”.

James Morton talked about how they can get rid of “gender” markers on things like IT systems and places where it isn’t relevant- apparently GDPR might be able to help them here.

JM’s campaigning tips were to gain trust in the local community- and to approach moderate feminists, “correct misconceptions and forgive any ignorance they may have displayed”. They want to gain trust and make themselves likeable.

Apparently small acts like helping to campaign about period poverty or retweeting the local branch of Women’s Aid will make a difference and result in some reciprocation. They want to make it look like they care about Women's issues so they don’t appear threatening" (continues)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3398737-We-re-Still-Here-Conference-8th-September-A-report-from-the-inside

thread also reports on speech by Christine Burns 'How The GRA Was Won'

Why didnt women get consulted about the changes to the Sex Discrimination Act?

I would guess for exactly the same reason that there was a deliberate and specific exclusion of female people who identify as male when it comes to primogeniture and inheritance.

We are kidding ourselves if we think that feminism has done more than scratch the surface of the sexist, misogynist attitudes and culture that our society - as is every society - is imbued with.

Those born with a penis have been in charge for a very, very long time; there is a very, very long history of them making the rules for their own benefit and to our disadvantage. A long history of males, as a group, not just dominating females, as a group, but scapegoating and demonising us too.

And the very worst aspects of this are going on, pretty much unchecked, in many places in the world today: places we trade with, have diplomatic relations with. Most of them still go on here too, albeit at a “softer” level.

The exemption of primogeniture from the GRA proves conclusively that EVERYONE - TRAs, government ministers/MPs, allies - knows that there is a fundamental difference between those born with a penis, and those born with a vagina. A difference in power, in worth accorded by society, in status.

Men with power and wealth, brought up from birth to believe themselves entitled to their due rank, men with a voice and the power to make it heard, would never, ever, EVER have accepted that their older sister could now take the title and possessions that rightly belonged to them if she identified as a man, GRC or no GRC. That’s not fair, you see!

So easy to take from the powerless though, to ride roughshod over the voiceless, to accuse women of being the bad guys for standing in the way of people born with a penis getting what they want as usual. That’s totally fair.

The whole thing is a hideous, misogynist lie from start to finish.

Ohhh this is the same legislation that banned extreme porn, that's why all those fetishists submitted responses. Yes this was Jane Fae's bag. JF was surely operating under the Backlash umbrella somewhere at the time. JF has written extensively about the extreme porn law.

Here is Jane's 'survival guide' for when the new law came in.

D-day approaches. You now have no more than a couple of weeks to set your house in order. Read the law. Delete what you feel you need to delete (and that includes hard copy images as well). Apply your disk-scrubbers. Make back-ups. Install firewalls. Then cross your fingers, and pray.

Here's another article by Jane about the extreme porn law. There was a protest by Backlash, Spanner and CAAN. Oh look, it's Peter Tatchell! (sort your image credits out Jane, you're deadnaming yourself).

Hear hear talking

So easy to take from the powerless though, to ride roughshod over the voiceless

And that recording (I would love pencils to transcribe) where Christine Burns admit to deliberately invading a lesbian group, violating women's boundaries, to test how easy it is to deceive and meet with no resistance when you are a male bullying women.

Christine Burns recent opinion piece for Pink News:
'How 2018 became the year of trans persecution'

Oh I managed to miss this piece, R0wan.

The ‘Feminist’ section of Mumsnet became the unofficial base for radicalising ordinary women who knew no more than what the leading figures were telling them.

Rest assured, Christine, many of us have learnt ever such a lot directly from you. And Stephen of course.

That was in Christine's book, WeRiseUp not in the recording.

So this has been organised, systematic, deliberate.

It all has been - even when the links aren't obvious yet - rest assured it is all part of the orchestrated plan

Women have been excluded from creating policies that will adversely affect women.

They have worked hard at silencing any dissent from women, and have identified the ways to exclude/talk on their behalf/ignore/dismiss/minimise the impact upon women

High profile women's organisations and services have been colonised

Again a strategy - Trustees/Friends of Stonewall are everywhere, even the CEO Womensaid.

from Pencils' link to Jane Fae's article above which praises LibDem peer Baroness Miller

(extract)
"Parliament emerges with little credit. Three cheers for the Lords who, gallantly led by Baroness Miller, put the government case under the spotlight and almost certainly won the debate hands down – although in the end, it was the abstention of Tory Lords that guaranteed the law’s passage."

TechRadar report: Porn surfers under threat from government
April 25, 2008
(extract)
"The Register reports that on Monday 21 April, the Criminal Justice Bill returned to the House of Lords for further debate, where Lib Dem peer Baroness Miller attempted to remove the extreme porn clause.

Baroness Miller claims that the evidence linking pornography with violence and that "the Minister is in danger of leading his Government into becoming the thought police... we do not have any evidence to justify an intrusion in people's lives".

She added: "the Government's contention is that by viewing it [extreme porn] people are more likely to commit violent offences. Therefore, they justify walking into people's bedrooms and turning them into criminals simply for viewing something."

Prudish government
Lord McIntosh of Haringey added: "What does it matter to the Government whether what we have in our homes for our own purposes is for sexual arousal or not? What is wrong with sexual arousal anyway? That is not a matter for Parliament or government to be concerned about." (continues)
www.techradar.com/uk/news/internet/porn-surfers-under-threat-from-government-331209

DrEm twitter thread re LibDems & porn, prostitution, anti-women policies etc:
twitter.com/PankhurstEM/status/1020205979521159168

Found it. It's from part one of Pressing Matters. The book is also dedicated to Alice.

Rest assured, Christine, many of us have learnt ever such a lot directly from you. And Stephen of course

Stephen Whittle on recent MN FWR thread condemning Stephen Whittle's use of predicted suicide, he joined and commented confidently:

"In the end we will pull ourselves together and continue the campaigning – as we have always done. We know we have Labour behind this one, so will simply do our best to get them elected. As I tell the community “we have always lost more battles than we have won, but we only ever need to win the big one”.

I hope that clarifies matters."

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a3397010-Guardian-article-on-MPs-concern-with-GRA?msgid=81891984#81891984

Jeremy Corbyn's comments at Pink News award ceremony:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3398127-Stephen-Whittle-influential-TRA-asserts-We-know-we-have-Labour-behind-this-one-so-will-simply-do-our-best-to-get-them-elected-Corbyn-seems-to-confirm-this-at-Pink-News

apologies for clunky c&p above. To clarify,
Stephen Whittle joined a FWR thread which was discussing his irresponsible use of suicide prediction in a Guardian article. He considered this and requested the article be edited as said he had not considered Samaritan's guidelines.

Frequently, the consequence is that (trans people) suffer vicious harassment and even violence (due to transphobia). Too often, they attempt suicide. It is regrettable that causing suicide is not treated as equivalent to murder or manslaughter. (from GIRES)

Now I understand what's behind TRA's constant harping on phony suicide rates & their claims that "misgendering a trans person is an act of literal violence" & hurty words, dirty looks, ridicule & so on "cause harm" & can even kill. They're paving the way so that one day anyone who misgenders a trans person, or does something else that a trans person perceives as offensive & insufficiently respectful of their gender identity, can be tried for attempted homicide.

I know this sounds absurd, but the truly shocking political strategizing from more than a decade ago revealed by this thread suggests this might really be their ultimate aim.

We are always being told that our refusal to comply with their demands is “literal violence”. I don’t think it’s a stretch at all, Vegilante, I think the current ideology is entirely in step with that.

And the fact twitter now classes as hate speech and bans women (oppresssed sex class) for accurately noting the sex of male people (oppressor sex class) is definitely a move towards that culture.

R0 your c&p is never clunky; legendary, it is!

Press for Change have been commendably organised, and open about what they do. Here they were in 1999- with a parliamentary lobbyist and regular attendances at a parliamentary forum:
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/19991011165544/pfc.org.uk:80/campaign/people/index.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/19991011165544/pfc.org.uk:80/campaign/people/index.htm

And in 2000, Christine burns making the case for campaigning with "GLB"

why should we campaign under the same banner as Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals?

I think if you'd asked me a few months ago, then I'd have probably agreed at the time that such an association did seem to be a counterproductive thing, as it would apparently serve to reinforce those stereotyped ideas. It doesn't mean I rejected my lesbian friends or was "selling out" to straight culture though . I wasn't crawling into a closet and leaving those friends to face the flack. It was simply that I was rather keener to major on the point that GID is as innate as being clever or any other human characteristic (including homosexuality) ... and that's easier if you stick to one argument at a time.

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20000305050419/pfc.org.uk:80/gendrpol/divided.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20000305050419/pfc.org.uk:80/gendrpol/divided.htm

Crikey - here is a report on prisons, written for HM Prisons service, from 1996

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060712015421/www.pfc.org.uk:80/legal/tsprison.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20060712015421/www.pfc.org.uk:80/legal/tsprison.htm

Sample:

Pregnancy should not be an issue if transsexuals are placed on hormone therapy. This is normal practice on diagnosis - even if mild doubts are entertained

Pregnancy should not be an issue if transsexuals are placed on hormone therapy. This is normal practice on diagnosis - even if mild doubts are entertained

Echoes Stephen Whittle's dismissal of concerns expressed on FWR with regards the possible consequence of male and female teenagers sharing intimate spaces at Guide Camps.

April 2018
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3212371-Where-are-all-the-trans-men-An-Answer

3.1 If we take the figure of 30,000 transsexuals in Britain

Wooaahh! This was back in 1996 when they were otherwise still telling the government there were 5000. What the fuck!

This is an interesting overview of PfC by SW in 2017 ‘what worked, what didn’t and what’s left to be done’ www.lse.ac.uk/Events/2017/01/20170110t1830vHKT/Pressing-For-Change
The part about employment laws echoes the same hurdles faced by women returning to work after maternity leave. Listening in the car today will listen to it properly later.

2014 Background to Facebook UK's decision re number of 'gender identities' reported in Telegraph:
"Facebook worked with UK groups Press for Change and Gendered Intelligence to add 21 new options to ensure the list best reflected the ways UK users may choose to describe themselves.

"Gender identities are complex and for many people, describing themselves as just a man or just a woman has always been inadequate," said Professor Stephen Whittle, vice-president at Press for Change. The European Court of Human Rights has upheld the right to develop our gender identity, as key to our personal autonomy.

"By challenging the gender binary, Facebook will finally allow thousands of people to describe themselves as they are now and it will allow future generation of kids to become truly comfortable in their own skins."

www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/10930654/Facebooks-71-gender-options-come-to-UK-users.html

It may help some children become comfortable in their own skins it will also confuse plenty of others who may needlessly question their sense of self when faced with trans speak. Collateral damage for the lovely trans folk.

Ha, thank R0, just been in to FB and changed my gender to 'None', (which means my pronoun is now 'they'). Pointless I know, but I feel better for it

TimeLady Can you set both 'no gender' and choose your pronouns to she/her for example?
Its not literal violence but I would consider it 'grammatically annoying' to become a singular they/their.
#wordsmatter

Beaumont Society was long established. History from website:

"Originally founded in 1966, the society originally started as a UK Chapter of the secret American organisation “Full Personality Expression” (FPE). In 2010 The Beaumont Society became a registered charity. (No. 1135548). The aim of the society then, is remarkably similar to those of the Charity now :-

The Charity believes transgender people are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect in all aspects of their lives by family, friends and the wider non-transgender community, including businesses and services. To achieve this vision, the Charity will:

Form an association for the transgender community to facilitate mutual support and communication in order to improve the health, emotional well-being and confidence of transgender people.
Promote and assist the study of gender differences.
Educate lay and professional groups about transgenderism, its associated issues and the work of the Charity.
Engage and support the accomplishment of any lawful activity that promotes the above aims.
We also seek to provide opportunities for transgender people to socialise in safe and comfortable surroundings.

From those early roots, the UK Chapter eventually became the Beaumont Society, taking the name of the Chevalier d’Eon de Beaumont. Originally, all members had to be sponsored by an existing member and had to be vetted before being accepted – but this is no longer the case.

Traditionally regarded as a secret MTF group for cross-dressers, the society has significantly evolved since these humble beginnings. It’s now open to any section of the transgender community who would like to join, MTF, FTM, bi or non gendered – even wives and partners. If you are a wife or partner, we would also recommend our sister “partners” organisation which has specifically been established for you."

www.beaumontsociety.org.uk/history/

Yes, I knew all about the Beaumont society way back when I had a transvestite boyfriend who was definitely into it for sexual kick.

Yeesh. Days when you really need to have another shower because memories.