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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Posie Parker in the USA

436 replies

lucydo · 31/01/2019 09:43

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.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
9
McTufty · 31/01/2019 22:08

We have had the Gender Recognition Act 2004 in force for 15 years, allowing change of gender and we seem to have managed

Yes because this process has not infringed upon the protection against sex discrimination in the equality act. That is now in jeopardy.

I don’t think it will lead to abortion being outlawed. But I do think it will be detrimental to women’s rights.

OldCrone · 31/01/2019 22:11

Here you are, funky. How do we distinguish between the sexes in law?

Where a full gender recognition certificate is issued to a person, the person’s gender becomes for all purposes the acquired gender (so that, if the acquired gender is the male gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a man and, if it is the female gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a woman).

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/crossheading/consequences-of-issue-of-gender-recognition-certificate-etc

R0wantrees · 31/01/2019 22:14

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

Stonewall and others were lobbying for some time. It was only held up last year largely due to women standing up.

Timeline by James Kirkup (journalist)
"Some facts about the events that preceded the Government statement here that the coming consultation on the Gender Recognition Act will be narrowly drawn and not affect the Equality Act’s single sex exemptions.

I offer these facts because some are claiming “there was never any question of removing/amending EA exceptions.” Those claims are either mistaken or dishonest.

August 2015
Stonewall submission to the Women & Equalities Select Committee says MPs should amend the EA to
“remove exemptions, such as access to single-sex spaces” (continues with timeline)

June 2018
Govt says:

“We are clear that we have no intention of amending the Equality Act 2010, the legislation that allows for single sex spaces.”

In sum: MPs and others told govt to amend/remove Equality Act single-sex exemptions. Govt considered doing so. Then govt ruled it out. / ends"
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1004635839480164352.html

McTufty · 31/01/2019 22:14

Currently there is an exception to that which is permitted under the Equality Act where to preserve a single sex service (to the exclusion of a trans person with a GRC) is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

I am staggered anyone thinks that position is in any way unfair tbh.

McTufty · 31/01/2019 22:15

Sorry that was to oldcrone

OldCrone · 31/01/2019 22:36

Currently there is an exception to that which is permitted under the Equality Act where to preserve a single sex service (to the exclusion of a trans person with a GRC) is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

In theory, yes, but that's very difficult to put into practice. What do you do if the person with their newly-issued birth certificate swears that they're not trans? And who decides what is 'a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim'? The courts could get very busy if a lot more people were getting GRCs.

BlackShutters · 01/02/2019 01:41

I'm American and I've been watching FWR for a couple of years now. Am remembering correctly? Didn't the tide start to turn once a few right wing journalists started commenting? Rod Liddle is a name that comes to mind. I remember some posts condemning him (or whoever it was) as no friend to women and therefore anything he had to say should be ignored. This all feels a little familiar.

Well, it's our turn now, I've been waiting. WoLF got a nice donation from me today.

BlackShutters · 01/02/2019 01:41

Am I

R0wantrees · 01/02/2019 01:49

Spectator USA article by Cockburn
.Terfs take America…
What happened when British female rights activists went to Washington?.
Cockburn
(extract)
"Today, Cockburn received a phone call from Posie.

Posie and Julia had been back to the Hill, meeting with more Congress people, when they’d stumbled upon a congressional hearing organized by transgender ideologues. They then spotted Sarah McBride. McBride is a transgender activist – born a man, but who presents as a woman – who, as national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign lobbies the government to advance the Equality Act.

McBride had just met with Rep. Joe Kennedy and there was a film crew nearby. On behalf of every woman, parent and child suffering under the madness of gender identity ideology and ignored by the mainstream media – Posie and Julia took their chance confronted McBride.

They ventured forth…

Posie explained her thinking to Cockburn. ‘I thought: When am I going to get this opportunity again to talk someone so powerful in the business of lobbying?…In this culture of silence bringing this issue into the public consciousness can never be counterproductive…I will take my lead from the mothers who are facing the catastrophic mutilation and irreversible damage to their daughters’ bodies.’

The consequence, inevitably, was that this was then spun into a ‘transphobic ambush’ narrative. HuffPost ran a story with the headline, ‘2 Women Disrupt Meeting To Harass Transgender Activist In Appalling Video’. Gay Star News went with, ‘Shocking video shows women barging into meeting and harassing trans woman’.

Was this harassment? The ‘two women’ don’t think so.

‘I am bewildered by the characterization of us being in a position of power and influence so that our questions are being called harassment. We were in the corridors of the Senate building in the land of free speech. That doesn’t square! Questions cannot be harassment’, Posie said.

She added, ‘I didn’t wear a mask. I didn’t have a baseball in trans remembrance colors. I didn’t say I want to punch anybody. I didn’t call him names. I didn’t swear at him. I didn’t intimidate him physically. I didn’t threaten violence. I didn’t commit violence. I asked a man pertinent questions about his lobbying.’

Admittedly, their behavior wasn’t very polite. Cockburn pointed this out, but Julia took a dim view of such criticism.

‘I think politeness is irrelevant here. This man is championing a law that means that men will have increased access to the most vulnerable women in prisons, shelters, sports, education establishments … he’s championing the end of women’s sex-based rights. He’s also championing terrible hormone regimes and surgeries for children.

Posie, who is pro-choice, added: ‘Most of those critics would have no issue if I’d gone in a room with Mike Pence and asked him why he disagrees with abortion in aggressive terms. I could have verbally assaulted him with bad language, and everybody would think it was great. Yet women who purport to be in opposition to gender ideology tend to uphold it with their double standards, as if a powerful lobbyist is somehow vulnerable if they identify as a woman.’ (continues)
spectator.us/terfs-take-america/

Funkyfunkybeat12 · 01/02/2019 05:46

OldCrone that quote is from the law that has been in force for 15 years without losing the ability to define sex. There are exemptions that apply, allowing exclusions based on biological sex. I am in favour of strengthening those and clarifying when they apply. However, self-ID refers to the procedure of getting a GRC- a procedure that has been in place for quite a long time.

Anyway, just saw on Twitter that the delightful Posie Parker has called Rosa Freedman a cunt on facebook for daring to disagree with her. Shows her exactly for what and who she is. I will bet quite a bit of money that by next year, she will be fully in bed with the right-wing, probably writing articles for some alt-right website.

But from the comments on here, it is clear that there has been a definite change in the demographic of this site. If you mention the right-wing aspect, you now get 'but we ARE right-wing'. Which of course is allowed, but it's not the sort of group that I thought I was conversing with at all.

OrchidInTheSun · 01/02/2019 05:59

She called her a cunt for saying Posie was violent. So fair comment.

And do provide evidence for 'but we are right wing' because that's not something I've read.

And finally, this is why the Heritage Foundation were involve

Posie Parker in the USA
Funkyfunkybeat12 · 01/02/2019 06:12

Fair comment? Fucking hell, things have deteriorated.

As for we are right-wing, I think there’s a comment on this thread about how more GC women are right than left wing, comments on another thread running that since when was it illegal to be right-wing, comments on the big thread from a few days ago defending anti-abortionists. You know what? I am not going to waste my time collating the comments. You will just say ‘we’re not a hive mind’ or some other dismissive nonsense. Defend Posie’s vitriol as totally reasonable if you like. Sooner or later it will get harder to perform the necessary mental maths to convince you that you’re still on the right side.

vicviking · 01/02/2019 07:01

Right side of what funky?
It is like going back to gc101 here.
Many of us are left wing women who left the labour party and other left of centre parties because they abandoned us on this issue.
We don't have to support everything any gender critical woman does for the gender critical argument to be important.
Fundamentally if you lose the ability to define your sex things get 100 times worse for women. That is what this is about. Different women will approach this issue in different ways.

GenderIsAPrison · 01/02/2019 07:12

I despair at women I respect doing this to each other.

Why do we do this? Female socialisation again? You don’t see TRA s tearing each other apart at each GAmeStop-it’s ma’am incident, or McKinnon incident. They plough on relentless regardless. They give not a single fuck.

I think pragmatism is called for.

Actually it, the situation is ridiculous, it really is. I guess that’s why KS and RF are academics rather than politicians. Although every should recognise that there’s a place and value for both, and should be focused on the common ground, and not undermine each other.

I know that MN is mainly left wing and I will ge5 flamed for this. THe ‘LEFT’ does not have a monopoly on the moral high ground. And IMO it is the ‘LEFT’ that tend to virtual signal, think they are on the ‘right side of history’, and are intolerant of the ‘RIGHT’, and vocally voice such. A PP said left = moral/good, right = evil. That does seem to be the way it is playing out.

Earlywalker · 01/02/2019 07:21

Ultimately, it is just obserd to me that the whole point of this is to protect woman’s rights, but you’re all more than happy to lay down with anti-woman’s rights activists to do so.

CaptainKirksSpookyghost · 01/02/2019 07:22

you’re all more than happy to lay down with anti-woman’s rights activists to do so.

Well one person is. I'm not sure the hive mind extends beyond one person when we're all individuals.

Earlywalker · 01/02/2019 07:28

The constant justification of posies actions from most posters accross several threads speaks differently.

merrymouse · 01/02/2019 07:31

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.

If the law were clear there wouldn't be so many different interpretations of the law on this issue.

The Labour Party and other organisations wouldn't be changing policy ahead of changes in the law and completely ignoring GRCs.

Currently many people argue that the law can only be applied on a 'case by case' basis. If you are applying the law on a 'case by case' basis, you are judging people as individuals and not distinguishing by sex which make sex based exemptions in the EA redundant.

Meanwhile, although there are reasons for sometimes recognising sex it still remains unclear why any service should be segregated according to 'identity' ever.

I think it is a mistake to get close to right wing organisations in the US, because most people in the US won't be aware of the ins and outs of UK law and it makes it easy to paint GC feminists in the UK as Trumpists.

However, Posie Parker could form an allegiance with Katie Hopkins and decide to stand as the next leader of UKIP and it would still be true that the law doesn't work well at the moment, and that Self ID would be bad for anyone seeking protection from the EA.

Oxytocindeficient · 01/02/2019 07:33

From GrinitchSpinach on the Women Stand Up Washington Post

Brilliant Natasha Chart writes a very long post about meetings with Congressional staff this week, and addresses Posie and Julia's questions of Sarah McBride at Cannon House Office Building, in McBride's official capacity as a lobbyist advocating the erasure of sex as a coherent legal class for civil rights protections:

McBride is also a public political figure, who was there that morning representing HRC in an official capacity at the Cannon House Office Building, encouraging Congress to support the sterilization of minor children in the guise of a human rights agenda of “acceptance” and “inclusion.” McBride was there that morning to argue that girls in school have no right to bodily privacy when changing for gym class or when first managing menstruation in what should be girls-only bathrooms. McBride was there to argue for an end to girls’ sports, because they want boys to be able to join the girls’ sports teams. McBride was there to overturn decades of women’s rights advocacy, at the head of a movement that has brutally silenced women who dissent.

McBride came to Cannon HOB as a public representative of an organization that claims to represent the human rights of all lesbian and bisexual women, including myself and Julia Long. Yet when Posie and Julia decided to see if McBride would answer their questions, this salaried advocate for the LGBTQ could not even turn around to make a single expression of sympathy to a lesbian woman who clearly felt hurt and betrayed by HRC’s policies, not even to issue a fig leaf of sorry-you-feel-that-way concern. If McBride was truly in too fragile a state to be questioned in public by quite small women then maybe they’re in the wrong line of work

To clarify for a friend: It’s okay with the left to kick Sarah Huckabee Sanders out of a restaurant on her personal time, but not okay to ask Sarah McBride a handful of questions that pertain to their job and the laws that they are currently lobbying for, during working hours, in a House office building, and then walk away to go about one’s own business? Have I got that right?

Lots lots more on the apparently productive meetings with Congressional staff:

womensliberationfront.org/posie-parker-in-the-house/

Rufusthebewilderedreindeer · 01/02/2019 08:16

The constant justification of posies actions from most posters accross several threads speaks differently

Still not you all

And you have a habit of 'you alling' on threads

I like the word 'some' or even 'most' as I certainly wouldnt trot round the threads doing a count

'You all' makes me think that for all your ' no one listens to me attitude' you aren't actually listening to posters ...at all

McTufty · 01/02/2019 08:16

The law distinguishes between sex and gender identity but the law is only as good as the people interpreting it and many bodies conflate sex and gender.

I am not happy to get into bed with anti-women groups motivated by transphobia. I want to support trans rights and women’s rights and where they conflict to have a conversation with mutual respect about how to deal with this.

So many of the women that are gender critical are left leaning liberals, if you believe they have turned into bigots overnight then you probably haven’t given fair consideration to what they’re saying.

I am anti-brexit, as is Owen Jones, doesn’t mean I have to “get into bed” with him to hold this opinion.

Rufusthebewilderedreindeer · 01/02/2019 08:24

fucky

This is a mainly left of centre forum

Always has been

But that doesnt mean that anyone who is right of centre has been hiding under a bed all this time afraid to post

Plus there are levels of right as well

Weve got no ides who are 'conversing' with on here, we never had

Thats why its a good forum

merrymouse · 01/02/2019 08:25

The law distinguishes between sex and gender identity but the law is only as good as the people interpreting it

A law that is being interpreted in a many different ways by official bodies needs clarification.

Rufusthebewilderedreindeer · 01/02/2019 08:29

100's of posters

A few 'right wing' comments and now were all right wing

Ridiculous

Funkyfunkybeat12 · 01/02/2019 08:44

Rufus i have been here a while and there has been a definite change in tone. You might want to pretend that’s not the case and justify calling a feminist working tirelessly for human rights a cunt and mock other people’s appearance, but I think it will get harder and harder to convince yourself that it’s for feminist causes.

Here is Posie with the ‘fabulous’ Emily Zinos, ardent anti-abortionist. So clearly as Emily is fabulous, reproductive rights is something that Posie is clearly willing to sacrifice for the greater good.

Posie Parker in the USA