Joan McAlpine on sex and census. Wow.

[Alicethroughtheblackmirror]

Give this woman a standing ovation!
twitter.com/JoanMcAlpine/status/1101251118611525633?s=20

gender lens?
Gender Goggles, more like

Joan McAlpine
‏Verified account @JoanMcAlpine
Huge thanks to all who liked/shared my Sex & the Census Thread & the private messages of support from women,men, gay, straight, lesbian, bi & trans folks (including politicians of different hues!) who believe in respectful, open discussion of these issues.

They think that most women are accepting of trans ideology because they haven't heard many speak up against it. Duh!

I think they're about to hear a lot more now.

Although questions around gender identity and women's equality are very visible on social media and in MSP' s mailbags, they are not emerging as a significant area of concern in our engagement activities

This is either because a lot of the general public are still not aware that policies for the protection of women and girls are being removed by stealth or because it's really hard to speak up about this and be labelled a TERF.

I haven't read the full thing yet, but this appears to detail the process of question-testing for the sex/gender question that the Scottish census people have gone through so far.

www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/documents/census2021/Sex_and_Gender_Identity_Topic_Report.pdf

That statement from Engender is hilariously bad.

We don't represent women and girls, yeah, don't we fucking know it.

... Nor do we claim to - what is the point of you, then? And if you don't, who actually does? Because it's very evident now that there are NO organisations who represent women and girls, which is kind of a problem when laws and policies are being changed which affect women and girls. And now there are grassroots W&G orgs, which Engender don't allow to participate.

Which leads me to...

Although questions around gender identity and women's equality are very visible on social media and in MSP' s mailbags, they are not emerging as a significant area of concern in our engagement activities

Which makes it very clear that because they don't allow women's groups who hold GC views to be part of the org, they then don't hear any GC views. Which, funnily enough, then leads to them thinking "Gender Critical Feminism being an English thing". FFS!

Yes, imagine, if you don't allow all the Scottish GC views to be discussed, then you can claim they don't exist.

They think that most women are accepting of trans ideology because they haven't heard many speak up against it. Duh!

This^ Once the people in power realise that actually the general public doesn't support the idea of males in female spaces the whole thing will fall apart.

So far they have been operating in their own wee cozy bubbles, bit once opposing views are heard, and once evidence is heard, and once consultations actually happen properly it becomes clear that the TRAs are effectively a cult.

At last, a woman showing leadership on this issue, and look, the sky didn't fall!
Thank you Joan McAlpine

Perhaps the reason this doesn't emerge as a concern in Engender's engagement activities is because they won't actually engage on it! Except with Scottish Trans etc. This thread is very interesting

twitter.com/tempie321/status/1101759684556611584?s=20

That thread from Bones shows how much Emma Richie from Engender is working against women to make sure they cannot have their voices heard, because she's so invested in making sure that the Trans orgs are able to keep repeating "all the Scottish Women's Organisations are trans inclusive, and there are no problems in Scotland".

Fantastic summary so beautifully written. Joan Mc Alpine is indeed a SHERO!

Scotland is using public money to silence women
It seems like it if they fund other "Equalities" lobby groups which want to further erode EA2010 (saw evidence of this re: LGBTI groups' previous statements). Engender needs to evidence that it has consulted with their membership over this-if they have. They promote self Id (had a look at their Join up page) so a lot of feminists who are GC may not join, in principle-how will they capture views which are different from their own?
I find it hard to believe that any women's organisation would not reflect when see JM's almost 2,000 "Likes" (so far) & hundreds of supportive comments on her thread (plus in here/by message to her) that this indicates growing support of her women centred (what is "regressive" about that?!) views. This, on top (they say) of lots of concerns sent to MSP's mailboxes-perhaps because many women (who also have "decades of experience") are not on Twitter.

And a reply to Engender from one of those very organisations

forwomen.scot/02/03/2019/engender/

Well worth a careful read and the kinks are worth following.

Engender really has shot itself in its hairy size 12 stiletto clad foot.

Links

Not kinks

The kinks are NOT worth following.

Engender must think women are really stupid...

Wow to For Women Scotland too. Grassroots women's groups shouldn't have to explain that there will, of course, be equally experienced/educated/consciousness-raised women in them; including women who have/may use the services which may be impacted. This hierarchy of women's experience, based on valuing if we get paid for work, over unpaid work, women do, was (I thought) one of the first things women tried to deconstruct as Feminists. Listening to some of the male MSPs (e.g. RG) they don't seem to get that individual women's experiences/views matter too.

Brilliant statement from For Women Scotland. Thank you. It's at least a couple of weeks since I last donated, happy to do so again.

Grassroots activism is extremely powerful and incredibly moving to watch, I feel incredibly privileged to have these women fight for me.

questions around gender identity and women's equality are very visible on social media and in MSP' s mailbags This to me is Engender acknowledging that women are concerned and this is a big deal, they are aware. This visibility has been brought about by grass roots activism, women speaking out. Ignoring or dismissing that is foolish.

they are not emerging as a significant area of concern in our engagement activities because Engender and their ilk by their own admission no longer concern themselves with the rights of women and girls. Again they are stating this clearly so they no longer have the right to claim public funding on our behalf, that should go to the grass roots working towards upholding our rights and centring women in their work.

Joan McAlpine
@JoanMcAlpine
I'll write a considered reply to

@EngenderScot
letter defending themselves from criticism re "Sex & the Census" Meantime read the response from
@ForwomenScot

Joan McAlpine can come round for her tea anytime

Note that Engender couldn't even bring themselves to name FWS. Almost like grassroots orgs are some horror movie bogie man (say it too often and they'll appear in the mirror to bludgeon you with a copy of the female eunuch). I see the usual suspects are calling them "Nazis" and comparing them to the BNP. Do they really think unevidenced smears will keep working?

To be fair they couldn't really name FWS without falling foul of data protection rules - after all I'm pretty sure they're the only group to have have been refused membership, and caused such an overhaul of membership rules in order to justify it.

@ForWomanScot have been shadow banned on twitter (people who aren’t following them can’t search them or see them)

I can read FWS on Twitter though I'm not on it so don't know what shadowban means (though read it means others who don't Follow Account cannot see it) but if sign out of Twitter can read their comments (like me). Here is their website: forwomen.scot/ which, I see, Joan McAlpine has shared too.
This thread is also relevant as women are again being misrepresented as to what this is all about: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3522766-Some-feminists-Emma-Thompson-amongst-them-sign-letter-decrying-trans-exclusionary-responses-to-the-GRA

They also probably couldn't have named FWS because it would have directed all the women who think they are part of a feminist organisation to the FWS website, where they would have read what FWS are about, realised that's what Feminism is, liked it, been 'radicalised' and left Engender.

Not sure if this is to discuss the census bill/recent debate about women’s rights but

Conversation

Joan McAlpine
@JoanMcAlpine
I have been invited on
@BBCRadioScot
Good Morning Scotland in one hour. Listen here (link: www.bbc.co.uk/radioscotland )
7:26 am · 4 Mar 2019