Posie Parker in the USA

[lucydo]

I am aware that there already long threads on this, but would anyone mind just giving me the basic information about what so many people are objecting to? Is it just that she has attended an event run by a Right Wing organisation? Or is there more?
It just looks like a pile-on by left-wingers on my twitter feed.
In all events, it's a TRA dream - divide and rule.
Again, before anyone flames me, I know that there are 2 long threads on this, but I gave up the will to read them after people going on about breakfasts for post after post.

Rape crisis centres and rape counselors too.

The US Equality Act states that where certain occupations require that they be filled by a certain sex, gender identity must be treated as sex.
That nurse providing your cervical smear? Tough luck if you asked for a female HCP, the person in front of you is female if they say they are.

Service providers like, ahem, working class women doing waxing out of their home, must treat gender identity as equivalent to sex -- we could call this the Balldemort Provision.

Shelters for homeless women, too, must treat gender identity as equivalent to sex. Homeless women must be made to bunk with males, or leave -- as is in fact already happening.

As for period poverty, I fail to see how that's any different from poverty overall, which in the US falls disproportionately on mothers. At least mothers have the right to equal employment. Oh but wait -- for purposes of employment, gender identity now equals sex. A firm hiring 50% men and 50% TW is not discriminating against women. And every employer knows TW can't get pregnant.

AnneHutchinson

Cool name. I too have studied colonial history.

Why do you feel the name to c&p from Heritage without a link?

But I still cannot see how this is the biggest issue facing women.

If we can't legally distinguish between the sexes, how can we define what is an issue facing women (as opposed to an issue facing 'people')?

And surely her slides and talk were prepared without her knowing that Maria was going to be assaulted? I don't see the relevance that this happened earlier the same day.

As I said earlier, I think context is important.
(it also helps explain the noise from outside during Julia Long's talk)

If you think it is, you have very little awareness of what is happening- whether that is because you have middle class privilege or some other reason.

This is so rude. Why is that your only fall-back to women with a different opinion? I’m mixed race, I got kicked out of home by my violent father at 16 and I’ve had nothing from parents since. I’m very aware of a lot of different issues facing women because many affect me, my friends or my family in the past. I really wish you could discuss this without just making really ugly assumptions and being so rude about certain groups of women. It’s not an intelligent way to debate at all. The fact you cannot see that identifying ourselves, women as a sex class, is the basis from which all these other issues are campaigned on, speaks volumes to me.

What campaign, out of those you mention, are you currently working on and what are you doing exactly?

If you've watched the whole speech and only taken those points, you didn't really concentrate.

I didn't say those were the only points she made- I said that those were some points she had made. I originally brought this up because someone said that no GC feminists had ever said that gender reassignment should not be a protected characteristic in law. I can also find videos where Posie says that trans women are perverts with fetishes if you like. Julia does make other points in her speech too, but the 'trans is not a real thing' is something that I have heard from her more than once and from Anne Ruzylo too.

It's the drip drip effect of policy creep. Of course protections won't vanish overnight but badly thought out legal decisions will render a lot of things moot and create loopholes that people will exploit. There is a lot of that going on in Canada currently.

And lets not forget that Stonewall last year were actively lobbying to remove sex as a protected characteristic. The only reason it didn't happen is because women discovered what they were up to and came together to say no.

Doesn't mean the next attempt at a similar thing won't fly under the radar until it's too late.

But for now there’s a lot of hypothetical scaremongering and a lot of disregard for actual issues facing woman

This is an actual issue facing women. Nobody is disregarding anything by talking about this one. Scaremongering? For goodness sake that is so textbook TRA.

KindofAGeek

I have no idea at all what you're talking about.

What campaign, out of those you mention, are you currently working on and what are you doing exactly?

I don't want to out myself, but welfare-benefit reform and domestic violence mainly. Others too. I have done and currently do quite a lot to seek to improve women's lives.

Also, I didn't make the original middle class comment, but if someone thinks that the very small number of trans women out there are the biggest threat to women that there is, then I would wonder at how informed they are.

If we can't legally distinguish between the sexes, how can we define what is an issue facing women (as opposed to an issue facing 'people')?

We have had the Gender Recognition Act 2004 in force for 15 years, allowing change of gender and we seem to have managed. It is a problem in prisons and refuges and sports, but having a procedure for changing gender does not mean we cannot legally distinguish between the sexes. The law clearly distinguishes between them.

"Pelosi's Equality Act". Dead giveaway.

It's not Pelosi's Act, but if you want to bash D's, it's what you do. It's HRC's act, Pelosi hasn't introduced it, nor will she, FYI, but the RW has little to work with these days.

And if you don't know that's what you're doing, that's just the teeniest bit naive.

if someone thinks that the very small number of trans women out there are the biggest threat to women that there is, then I would wonder at how informed they are

Oh you really don’t even get this at all. I’m out, this is ridiculous to argue about and I don’t think certain posters are acting in good faith the way they’re talking about certain groups of women. Yuck. Ugly talk and dismissive language is what I get from men.

Interestingly, having rewatched Julia Long's talk after Speaker's Corner, her Youtube has provided this interesting panel which seems very relevent to this thread. It is a description of the lack of women's rights in the USA

Published on 21 Sep 2016
'How the Gender Identity Movement is Hijacking the Fight for Reproductive Sovereignty.' Presentation by Mary Lou Singleton.

'Thinking Differently'

This piece is a bit biased, but it gives a flavor of how this all was received in the US:

www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna964246

Other than putting HRC on notice Heritage is planning to play politics, the event sank like a stone.

oxy it would be more helpful if you don’t agree with a point of view, to back up your points than to rubbish it. That tends to be how a debate works.

We have had the Gender Recognition Act 2004 in force for 15 years, allowing change of gender and we seem to have managed
Exactly. I don’t see abortion being outlawed or woman’s based rights being taken away. The only people I see trying to do that are people like the heritage foundation... oh, wait.

Julia does make other points in her speech too

Funky The things you have chosen to highlight were points in an important speech about dangers for women (adult human females)

That you are reducing a speech by an academic with decades of feminist theory study and whose focus has been male violence against women and girls really does speak more of your agenda.

Also, I didn't make the original middle class comment, but if someone thinks that the very small number of trans women out there are the biggest threat to women that there is, then I would wonder at how informed they are.

It's not just the individuals, although quite clearly only a small number of TW are needed to wreak havoc in certain spheres e.g sport, but more the ideology as a whole.

Not recognising sex is a game changer for every woman. It is so insidious in nature it will permeate everything eventually. We are already seeing it happen as women are described using body parts (cervix haver, menstruator etc..) to alienate us from our sex and from the word woman.

Oh, that's too funny. Pelosi gave a statement that passage of the Equality Act is a major priority in the new session of Congress. I didn't get that info from the Heritage Foundation, I got it from the Advocate.

But if you think Clinton and not Pelosi is one who holds more power in the Democratic Party, you're out of touch.

If I ever bash Pelosi it's from the left. I've been a US political activist involved in on-the-ground campaigning for decades. You make a lot of assumptions.

Oh, sorry -- did you mean Human Rights Coalition and not HIllary Rodham Clinton?

Regardless, I stand by what I stated.

It is a problem in prisons and refuges and sports, but having a procedure for changing gender does not mean we cannot legally distinguish between the sexes. The law clearly distinguishes between them.

It clearly cant distinguish when all the authorities have removed 'sex' as a protected characteristic.

Also, I didn't make the original middle class comment, but if someone thinks that the very small number of trans women out there are the biggest threat to women that there is, then I would wonder at how informed they are.

If you think that what we're concerned about is the very small number of transwomen with GRCs, it's you who doesn't seem very well informed.

Changing laws so that all a man has to do to gain access to a woman-only space is to say the words 'I identify as a woman' is a danger to women and girls. This is already happening without a change in the law.

Here's another speech by Dr Julia Long

'Transgenderism and Male Violence.'

From ‘Thinking Differently: Feminists Questioning Gender Politics’, a one-day conference held at Conway Hall, London, UK, on Saturday 16 July 2016.

having a procedure for changing gender does not mean we cannot legally distinguish between the sexes. The law clearly distinguishes between them

I agree people should be able to change gender. And I agree that the equality act does differentiate between sex as a characteristic and gender reassignment as a characteristic.

However Stonewall are campaigning for effectively an end to single sex protections. If I have understood their Vision for Change document correctly (and I hope I haven’t), they want to remove the right to preserve single sex spaces, including for things such as sport. The GRC is the thin end of the wedge. This stuff matters.

It is a problem in prisons and refuges and sports, but having a procedure for changing gender does not mean we cannot legally distinguish between the sexes. The law clearly distinguishes between them.

You do realise that 'changing gender' with a GRC changes your legal sex, don't you?