Glasgow library cancels women's event after pressure from TRAs

[Bebstar123]

mobile.twitter.com/womenslibrary/status/1098880002987380738

Thank you Charlie. At some point there will have to be a test case. The law is a mess!

Is a "drag king" a female or a male? I get confused! If the former, they could go anyway...

Nothing shall be reserved for women only if he utters the magic words

And this is being achieved purely by tantrums, harassment and intimidation.

Its going to take women standing their ground and saying no. And standing firm through all the kicking off, as the women's place meetings have. If the TRAs want to take a situation to court then good, that's what needs to happen and in the full glare of the press and public eye because the public won't stand behind it.

This looks like the evidence that is needed for the conflict between the two protected characteristics of sex and gender reassignment that TRAs have created and enforced.

Any women's meeting needs to state that it applies to The Equality Act 2010 with reference to the protected characteristic of sex [female].

That way no males of any kind can attend.

And remember, sex is defined in law as "chromosomes, gonads and genitals". This is what is applied to sex in the Equality Act 2010.

This is so absurd. No one would keep transwomen from having a transwomen-only event. Why are women not allowed to do this and why is there this utter disrespect for the law?

What the blithering shit is going on?

These fuckers have picked the wrong town, they have picked the town that just battered equal pay through for council working women. Is this some kind of payback?

Calling @AnyFucker

To your MSPs women!

Yes! Especially before the census debate on Thursday. We have to let them see this is where a conflation of sex and gender leads!

SpeakUpXXWomen the Audacious Women Festival is taking place this week in Edinburgh, not Glasgow.

As part of the festival's programme, the Glasgow Women's Library was going to hold an event today in Edinburgh Central Library. But Glasgow Women's Library, who have abandoned women some time ago, then cancelled the event today, at best insinuating, at worst outright saying that the Audacious Women Festival was transphobic for limiting entry to biological females, GRC-holders and those who pass as women.

So here's a properly inclusive event but unless all men can gain entry merely by claiming womanhood it just doesn't count.

This is born from the arrogant belief that Scotland's fully on board with abolishing women's rights because the Scottish Government is on board with that. But they didn't count on the Scottish people having their own ideas about that, did they?

If these woman-hating arseholes keep overplaying their hand like this, they'll have peaktransed the nation by the end of the year.

I got confused by the twitter thread.

CharlieParley (huge fan btw) please would you do a quick detailed who when what why for my MSP letter so I don't get anything wrong. Actually I think a visit may be in order, ovaries at the table, channel my inner #TeamNavratilova.

Charlie I'm confused; if admission was open to biological females (which would include transmen), transwomen with GRC and this who pass as women then the only group it excludes is biological males with masculine gender expression; how can that be considered transphobic? Maybe I've missed something or its better for me not to know the answer. Sorry if I'm being dim.

So here's a properly inclusive event but unless all men can gain entry merely by claiming womanhood it just doesn't count.

Note to self, read more slowly and carefully. And now I have the answer.....really, just really.

Regarding MSPs, (Charlie, back me up!), hit them asap as the census debate is on Thursday. Do all 8 of your MSPs. The beauty of Scottish system is that you will find someone who is sympathetic! Concentrate on why sex and gender should not be conflated in law. The census is a staging post and the events of this weekend illustrate what happens when the Equality act is disregarded. As EA 2010 is reserved, if Scot gov make law which is in conflict, it will end - like named person - in court. MSPs should be wary of making bad law. The census needs to reflect and protect the characteristics in EA.

And then add broader more general issues about why self ID harms you or your children (draw on women and girls in Scotland's brilliant EQIA)

Thank you so much for your posts CharlieParley.
As you have pointed out: EHRC guidance seems flawed, talking about being able to separate out men (non GRC holders) ‘who are visually and for all practical purposes indistinguishable from other women" as if that were a legally watertight category.

This ‘test’ (of ‘visually’ indistinguishable and ‘for all practical purposes’ indistinguishable) is a mess, not really a test at all because it is so subjective.

So for example, a women’s support group event organiser might feel there are inherently NO practical purposes for which men are ‘indistinguishable from other women’, because (well there could be zillions of reasons but just to pick one: men don’t grow up with female socialisation-usually- or experience female puberty to become a woman-always-, both of which are something that most women would say is fundamentally formative to our experience of adult womanhood..) Another organiser might believe TWAW and see no issue. Then what happens to the users of the women’s support group who want to be talking freely among women?

I can’t see how this EHRC guidance offers any clear, legally watertight practical, common point of reference to use - which would be the minimum you’d expect really from guidance isn’t it?

I find it staggering that EHRC has not made it clear, even after this recent clarification, as to when the GRC holders can be excluded and when not. Why did they not?

As you said Charley, ‘we have no real guidance on how to enforce this option and how the procedure works for excluding GRC-holders. We also have no case law testing the limits of this option (as to which are legitimate reasons or proportionate means).’

This just makes me
How is it OK for EHRC to leave individual women and organisations so vulnerable by not letting the law be clearly understood and used?

I’m sorry to sound tin-foil-hatted but it feels like the EHRC are basically letting TRA Twitter mobs and grandmother-punchers at Speakers’ Corner be the decider of how the law can be safely interpreted in practice.

IANAL, sorry if all this is old news to everyone but I am shocked that that the GRA still exists now we have equal pension ages and same sex marriage, what legal purpose is it serving aside from personal validation? (Genuine question, not a rhetorical question)

I’m worried at the consequent ££££££ of public money that may be spent on services and training, due to this lack of legal clarity simply because decision-makers are scared of the consequences for their reputations if they exclude some groups of people.

I mean if you can’t with clarity legally exclude one sex of people from (...insert here any example of NHS or local-authority-funded school or college or any publicly funded activity..) however inappropriately to the service aims.

Maybe I have misunderstood what EHRC is for though and what power their guidance could have, in which case apologies- is it right that we really can only use case law to resolve this question, short of an updated GRA?

Or maybe we need to ask Parliament to step up and make recommendations for the law to be made clearer- what about asking the Joint committee on human rights for a ‘thematic enquiry’ on this area?

This current pursuance of genderism as a political goal raises multiple human rights issues for women and girls, particularly those reliant on public services like schools, hospitals and prisons, and for lesbian and gay people, and does not even serve to let GRC holders to know where they stand.

www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/joint-select/human-rights-committee/role/

(And at least inside Westminster parliament there can be an exchange of views on these issues undertaken freely and in safety ...)

The GWL relies on donations to keep going. It relies on volunteers, heavily. Funders provide grants for specific projects only - ie exhibitions, events, research.

You would think that GWL knows which side its bread was buttered. Instead it confronts, dismisses and alientates the people who can ensure its long-term future as backers and volunteers.

When its spokeperson appears to be steeped in Queer Theory, centres men in GWL's so-called feminism and sabotages women's efforts to meet, then it does great damage to its credibility with the people who REALLY count. (Hint: that's women, GWL, not men).

So you've got to pass visually? What's the yard rule? Marilyn Monroe all the way down to Grotbags - even then I'd argue Grotbags was undeniably 100% woman.

Bloody hell... I look really dog rough some days. Will I need to flash my bits?

But the ehrc guidelines say it isn’t unlawful to consider transwomen with a grc as men so surely there has to be provision in the law to account for times when women want to exercise this view?

The women's library is asking for our input here...

twitter.com/womenslibrary/status/1098977085404733440

Why not get a group of friends together to write some tiny stories using this image as a prompt? It can be fun to see how others interpret the image. Don't forget to tweet us your stories

In today's Times: www.thetimes.co.uk/article/feminist-festival-targeted-for-banning-trans-women-6qfhlbtcn?shareToken=9f9ac1fe551ec8049aa760f7bd4a246c

archive.fo/VL07W

That's quite a shit article. Not impressed.

For the record, the pressure on GWL came mainly from Sisters Uncut, the very group who 'declined to comment' in the article. The GWL responded to 1 tweet, not a barrage of pressure & cancelled last minute, on the day of their planned event and effectively smeared the organisers (legitimising sisters uncut's baseless claims) as transphobic despite their policy on 'women only' actually including TW in accordance with the EA2010. GWL are a Government funded organisation whose charitable objections are "The objects for which the Company is established are the advancement of education and the relief of poverty of women who are often thus affected because of the discrimination they are subjected to". They've failed to explain how cancelling an event on the day it was due to go ahead, advances those objectives. They seem to have forgotten the fact women rarely have the opportunity to simply rock up to an event to attend. Lots will have had to make arrangements, incur expense to attend & were not considered relevant when GWL chose to cancel their event on the day. They shat all over the hard work of the women who worked for months to organise this festival, added to the pile on from trans activists, and effectively smeared the event/participants/organisers/attendees with the baseless "transphobic" slur.

It's should also be noted that Edinburgh Rape Crisis, have cancelled their event for 25th - this was "... an anthology of creative writing, art work and storytelling from Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre’s Storytelling and Survival Group." A group of rape survivors were to present their work at this event and have been cancelled on, denied their platform by Edinburgh Rape Crisis. Let that sink in. A rape support service has cancelled an even which was to platform the work of rape survivors because an extreme group of trans activists tried to create faux outrage over a women's event that did not centre anyone with a penis. Shock horror, a women's event that isn't all about trans. And a rape crisis support org who think shutting down rape survivors is a good look.

Again, a Government funded women's org - a rape support service- sending out the message, loud and clear, they have a huge problem with insensitivity towards women rape & sexual assault survivors. Here's their charitable objectives: "In particular the Objects shall be: 5.1 to relieve the distress of women, men, boys and girls aged over 12 years who have been raped or who have experienced sexual violence and of their partners, friends and families through the provision of emotional and practical support, information, advice and advocacy; and 5.2 to advance education, through the provision of information, advice and advocacy, among professional bodies and the general public about the causes, nature, extent and effects of rape and sexual violence against women, men, boys and girls aged over 12 years, and ways of preventing or relieving the suffering it causes." How does deplatforming rape survivors from an event advance their objectives? How much thought on their distress at having their platform yanked from under them did they give? How do they advance education on rape and sexual violence if they silence those survivors?

Last point - there were a number of orgs included in the tweet that alerted them to the efforts of trans activists to smear and discredit a festival about/for women, and the mouths & months of work & effort that had gone into this. Only 1 org honoured their commitment, the rest joined in the pile on, onto a festival that dared to think of women and what they would enjoy/benefit from their events. It was mostly open to all, anyone at all, with a few events that were women only as defined in the EA2010 & which was trans inclusive and still trans activists were not satisfied. So, thanks to that 1 org who still considered their work with and for women important enough to ensure their event went ahead.

Fuck I've just read this thread and, jaded as I am, still can't quite believe this blatant erasure of women.

It’s awful how divisive this utter shit is for women’s groups and services the for users and for the provider sector- both trying to operate now or to rebuild when this is all over and reality and truth is back in fashion.

To be fair to Rape Crisis:

To be fair to the Audacious Women Event organisers, their women only policy didn't breach those requirements. They were trans women inclusive in accordance with the EA2010. But this wasn't enough to stem the harassment & smear against them which both GWL & ERC bought into and added legitimacy to with their disruptive actions.

It needs to be understood that neither GWL not ERC were bullied or pressured. They both made decisions to respond to calls from extreme trans activists smearing the event organisers & throwing baseless accusations around, to protest AWF policy. Here's one of the GWL 'team' posting about their decisiveness (over their choice to cancel their event last minute while implying that AWF were guilty of the extreme trans activists charges of transphobia) "Amongst the qualities shared across the formidable @womenslibrary team that fills me with admiration: decisiveness rooted in our values. Our being tested galvanises our courage, commitment and confidence"

GWL management don't think their actions here are problematic at all.

It’s weird how theses organisations that are meant to centre women seem to prefer to centre men

I’m sorry to sound tin-foil-hatted but it feels like the EHRC are basically letting TRA Twitter mobs and grandmother-punchers at Speakers’ Corner be the decider of how the law can be safely interpreted in practice

Chattylion I don't think this is tin-foil-hatted at all. I think this is exactly what they have done by not providing adequate guidance -- it leaves women and transwomen both vulnerable to conflict and humiliation because the rules are not clear, and it leaves service providers and frontline staff trying to walk an impossible line and in practice bending to whoever shouts loudest.

Charlie your explanation of the different categories and options for running a 'women's only' event in line with the Equality Act is really helpful - why EHRC cannot put out something similar!?

It is worth understanding where the formulation people ‘who are visually and for all practical purposes indistinguishable from other women' comes from. It is the West Yorkshire Police case, which went to the House of Lords. There the issue was that being a police officer is a job for both men and women and therefore a man or a woman who is trans should not be excluded from the job. The problem was that to be a police officer you need to be able to search people, and the person (a MTF transsexual) could not 'reasonably' search men and could not legally search women. In the end the Lords squared the circle by ruling that as long as the person was 'for all practical purposes indistinguishable from other women', then they could in fact search women, because woman could not 'reasonably object'.

This then fed into the EHRC guidance, although there is nothing about 'passing' in the law itself.

It seems to me that it is the wrong eligibility criteria for a woman's only event (and is not a good benchmark overall - it is cruel and practically unenforceable) -- it was used in the WYP case because they were trying to find a way to meet the higher level principle that both men & women should be allowed into the police force, and people with the protected characteristic 'gender reassignment' should not be discriminated against.

Whereas with a women's only event, it already a given that 50% of the population are excluded from the event and this is legitimate. In this situation it would (I think) be reasonable to say this is a woman's only event (i.e. for biological women). Equally an organisation might want to organise an event for women and transwomen (i.e. for the group of people who share the protected characteristic 'women' and for the group of people who share the characteristics 'men' and 'gender reassignment). This would also be legitimate. There is nothing to say that all events must be one way or the other.