Regulatory capture

[LangCleg]

We've had two (well, one still standing) threads on Accenture and its inclusive LGBT event excluding lesbians by power of the state over the last couple of days.

We've also discussed the way in which the policy-setting leadership of other companies, state institutions (for example the police and the NHS), charities (for example NSPCC) and third sector orgs (for example Girl Guides) have enforced the top-down imposition of Gender Identity ideology despite obvious practical and ethical issues and conflicts of rights.

I came across someone remarking about the concept of regulatory capture on Twitter in relation to all this and, since we've also been discussing the actual power relations behind various oppression narratives, I wonder what everyone thought.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

Regulatory capture is a form of government failure which occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. When regulatory capture occurs, the interests of firms or political groups are prioritized over the interests of the public, leading to a net loss for society. Government agencies suffering regulatory capture are called "captured agencies".

There are two basic types of regulatory capture and the second rings a few bells:

Non-materialist capture, also called cognitive capture or cultural capture, in which the regulator begins to think like the regulated industry. This can result from interest-group lobbying by the industry.

What do we think? Are there parallels?

I assume that they have been turning everything inside out to try to find a rationale for ensuring that girls must share toilets and changing rooms with boys and that children of faith have no rights to sex segregated spaces

This will require acknowlegement of conflict:

'Sexual harassment of women and girls in public places inquiry'
Inquiry status: open
Report published 23 October 2018, awaiting Government response.

Sexual harassment pervades the lives of women and girls and is deeply ingrained in our culture. This report, which follows the Committee’s reports on schools and workplaces, focuses on sexual harassment in public places: on public transport, in bars and clubs, in online spaces and at university, in parks and on the street; it is a routine and sometimes relentless experience for women and girls, many of whom first experience it at a young age.

www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/women-and-equalities-committee/inquiries/parliament-2017/sexual-harassment-public-places-17-19/

Spot on, Lang. Also waves...*

Waves right back! x

The conflict at the moment is to deny that

a) Any TW can ever be a perpetrator of sexual harassment or other sex offences against women (demonstrably untrue and evidenced, as for any male population at all)

b) Any non TW/Trans identifying male will ever under any circumstances exploit the trans narrative and assume a trans identity in order to enable accessing victims and offending. (Also demonstrably untrue, and evidenced.)

To avoid these two points we then get: (and I can't even be buggered to get out the hours and hours of obvious responses to these, but the idea is you chase these hares, endlessly, in search of any logic anywhere, and forget the key issues)

hare a) TW aren't male
hare b) women sexually assault and harass too

hare c) sexual assault never happens/mostly in the home
hare d) sexual assault isn't that bad anyway
hare e) shame on you for hating/fearing men unreasonably despite your sexual assault experiences
hare f) are you going to have someone in the cubicle with you? How dare you be mean and silly about your privacy, bodily autonomy and dignity even though it's totally normal and justifiable for all non trans identifying men to be excluded, and for women to expect this.
hare g) one woman of faith and culture is cool and Woke so they all are
hare h) if they're not they should be re educated out of a misogynistic and transphobic faith anyway
hare I) there's no such thing as sex based rights any more
hare j) it's been going on for years and you haven't noticed or minded so far

And all of that ignores the key issue:

Women are wholly entitled to want to be in single sex environments for no other reason than privacy, dignity and wanting it. As has been normal until very, very recently when a campaign was launched to redefine society entirely around the interests of a very tiny, powerful group whose most active and vocal members are straight, white, able bodied, middle class, educated and affluent males.

very tiny, powerful group whose most active and vocal members are straight, white, able bodied, middle class, educated and affluent males.

This can't be stressed often enough, IMO. The movement hides behind references to the horrendous murder rate of, say, trans prostitutes from minority grous in Brazil (neglecting to mention that the murder rate for any prostitute in Brazil is horrendous). But the people we're encountering here are pretty much always, as you say, straight, white, able bodied, middle class, educated and affluent males.

I think trans civil servants working on policy for trans people is a massive conflict of interest. I can't find the reference, but I understood that there were trans civil servants working at the Equalities Office?

In the Cabinet Office certainly, I don't know about Equalities Office.
It would be very interesting to know what exactly has changed in the GEO over the years as it has been moved around departments. It's moving again to the Cabinet Office in April, and I think things will get much worse.
There are people with vested interests in all areas of government, but the GEO has been allowed to become a rubber stamp for the trans agenda without any consideration of how it interacts with women's rights. A couple of examples from the GEO website:
www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-lgbt-survey-2017-healthcare-amongst-lesbian-and-bisexual-women
"Healthcare amongst lesbian and bisexual women" - This includes (self-identifying) transwomen.

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/experiences-of-and-barriers-to-participation-in-public-and-political-life-for-lesbian-gay-bisexual-and-transgender-people--2
"Experiences of and barriers to participation in public and political life for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people"- This includes 'transvestites/cross-dressers'.

Ideas that are based on this sort of research shouldn't be anywhere near public policy on women's equality. It's a massive failure of oversight, yet no one in government seems to give a fuck, and I think it's at least partly intentional. Conservatives really don't like gender equality if it costs money, they have actively undermined the Equalities Office since 2010 by moving it around various departments, and they've cut funding to the EHRC (its workforce has halved since 2010). They have made GEO and EHRC ripe for capture, but I think it's being done by design to get rid of 'state-enforced gender equality'.
I think we're fucked for the foreseeable future until a future government disentangles the current mess of women/sexual orientation/trans equalities and sets up a separate women's equality unit.

I think trans civil servants working on policy for trans people is a massive conflict of interest. I can't find the reference, but I understood that there were trans civil servants working at the Equalities Office?

See also recent thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3520371-civil-service-trans-policy-what-can-i-do

very tiny, powerful group whose most active and vocal members are straight, white, able bodied, middle class, educated and affluent males.

And a few prominant female transpeople eg Stephen Whittle, James Moreton, Dr Jay Stewart?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3436955-Stephen-Whittle

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

Just posted a relevant update on the Civil Service thread, R0.

Stand back and look at what's bring promulgated in the name of genderism:

1. compelled speech
2. the rewriting of law without actually passing legislative change, merely by altering the definition of words by command.
3. gross invasions of privacy and the notion that one us not actually entitled to privacy, up to and including cameras placed by governing authority in toilets
4. strictly enforced notions of sex roles, particularly in connection with sex-based clothing, I've a demand for sex-role conformity/uniformity
5. MPs afraid to speak out against bullying activists, per James Kirkup
6. police and prosecution overreach to stop crimes of belief, language, and thought
7. medical sterilization of out-groups
8. medical experimentation upon children
9. science denialism as a possible as a positive good
10. the negation of homosexuality entirely
11. child instruction that serves to weaken familial bonds and parental authority, with at least one famous leading activist encouraging children to run away from home

The word I can’t write here without risking deletion begins with an f.

Ack! Sorry for typos, hope meaning is clear.

Ereshkigal That's really positive news.
Thanks for sharing & I hope may give others encouragement/hope of change.

That's a chilling list BickerinBrattle

langcleg pencils Bingo! The capture of the EHRC seems particularly important since everyone else looks to them for guidance.

Its worth reading the FOI docs around their correspondence with Dr Nic in the summer twitter.com/2010Equality/status/1101517064307728385?s=19

Nic pointed out a problem in the guidance, and they did fix it in the end, although it is all grudging and lacking in any serious analysis of whether the guidance is in line with the Equalities Act.

I think we need to find a way to put pressure on them to review their guidance and make sure it is in line with the Equality Act.

Stand back and look at what's bring promulgated in the name of genderism

That is a terrifying list.

I think we need to find a way to put pressure on them to review their guidance and make sure it is in line with the Equality Act.

I concur.

In answer to the ‘what do we
DO?’ question

yes EHRC need to provide clarity but they are too personally invested, too mindlessly woke or too shit scared for their job to do so any time soon.

MPs will respond (eventually, but maybe not immediately now at a time of national political crisis) to what they see as ‘evidence-based’ argument.

That’s the standard response when they want to avoid moral thinking or to justify a moral position they already have. ‘What’s the evidence’. It’s a reasonable question to ask but problem is that they’re not equipped to be very discerning about -what kind of evidence it is- that’s why those dodgy suicide stats are so effective.

If Parliament, government, institutions were going to give a tiny fuck for women’s rights they would have done so ages ago.

That won’t happen any time soon- it doesn’t mean it’s pointless making the case for women but it’s too vast a monolith for many MPs to question. If you pull one thread then you bring huge social institutions apart ...

So, going with the need for evidence. I think the transing of kids medically, surgically, hormonally in the UK needs proper scrutiny from a health perspective and ideally ultimately some kind of case by case regulation because the system is really not working safely for either gender non conforming kids or kids who have actual gender dysphoria in the current set up:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3525450-Tavistock-s-Experimentation-with-Puberty-Blockers-Scrutinizing-the-Evidence

Here’s how the Commons Health Select committee works:
www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/health-and-social-care-committee/role/

Below link to who the members are:
Sarah Wollaston the Chair is a GP. Good start.
committees need some evidence to start their enquiries- whether of concerning issues and of public concern. We have loads of both of that on these threads. TRAs have no evidence, that is why it’s always all #nodebate

www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/health-and-social-care-committee/membership/

So if we just email a few points that we think are important to the Commons Health Select committee - whether or not we are gender critical or think that affirmation is the way to go- it can be heard by them and looked at in the open. The evidence can be picked through by expert doctors, not quacks, self appointed self justifying parent advocates or anyone else. Who can argue against that?

One thing I want is for mental health support to be better for young people in general with shorter waiting lists, including those with gender dysphoria and those who are confused or exploring gender (if they are also in distress).

Evidence and political attention is how any issue gets to be prioritised so I also think as well as revealing important health risks and harms, a Select committee inquiry would help to advocate for better CAMHs.

Anyone can email the Chair suggesting this, or can email any member MP (especially if it’s your own MP) and the secretariat of the committee directly, who may pass these things on to the Chair to consider.

Thanks ChattyLion that’s a really helpful post.

Sarah Wollaston is she part of the independent group? Is it worth lobbying them to be the party of reality as well as remain?

Repeal Yes she is but she still chair of HSC and she probably has less to lose now.

We’re probably about to have a GE which will suspend all the committees until new parliament but you never know in these times.

The evidence thing is right. Which is why the pps who said only a big scandal, revealing enormous harm, would end this.

What angers me quite so much about that is that none of this was necessary. The changes made which allowed for these big scandals to brew where predicated on no evidence at all.

Chesterton's fence has never seemed more apt.

I think Harry the Owl's latest Twitter thread is evidence of institutional capture of law enforcement:

mobile.twitter.com/HarryTheOwl/status/1110503943245688832

A police inspector says this:

You have every right to be involved in politics. But why would you tweet your views when it upsets the trans community?

I think Harry the Owl's latest Twitter thread is evidence of institutional capture of law enforcement

Lang Threadreader version here:

"I am stunned, shocked, upset, aghast and fuming.Just had Inspector Wilson from @ Humberbeat call me re my complaint.
Me: Did I commit a crime?
Him: No. But you have upset a lot of people in the trans community.
Me: I do not believe Trans women are women. How do I state that without it causing upset?
Him: Why would you tweet that? Why do you feel the need?
Me: Because I am taking part in a national conversation.
Him: But why do you feel the need to do that?
Me: Because I am a citizen and believe political engagement is necessary. Why are you asking me this?
Him: Because I don’t see why you feel the need to say this.
Me: I can’t believe you, a police inspector, are questioning my involvement in politics. What right have you to do that?
Him: You do have the right. I’m just asking why you feel the need to engage in hate.
Me: Hate? Where’s the fucking hate?
Him: Maybe it’s the wrong wording.
Me: you are a fucking Inspector. You do not get to tell me that expressing a legally held view is hate. And you don’t get to pressure me to stop debating politically.
Him: If you swear, I will end this conversation.
Me. Ok. But I’m angry that you are ringing me and asking me why I’d want to be involved in politics.
Him: You have every right to be involved in politics. But why would you tweet your views when it upsets the trans community?
Me: let me get this straight. I said I do not believe trans women are women, and you ask me why I feel the need to tweet that. Right?
Him: Right. Exactly.
Me: I am ending this conversation now.
Hangs up
I am devastated.
mentions - help! I feel like I am going insane. This literally just happened."
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1110503943245688832.html

You have every right to be involved in politics. But why would you tweet your views when it upsets the trans community?

Yes. Perfect example. Being involved in politics, but only publicly saying things which are approved. I can't work out if this is cognitive dissonance or words having their meanings changed by stealth or what. I keep having to look out of the window lately to check if reality still exists.

Oh dear.

Will they be ringing all remainers who are upsetting the ‘leave community’?

Will the be ringing all leavers who are upsetting the ‘remain community’?

Will they be ringing all Tories upsetting the ‘labour community’?

Will they be ringing all labour supporters upsetting the ‘Tory community’?

Will they be ringing all the biology deniers who are upsetting the ‘reality based community’?

Who is the MP for this police forces area? I do hope they’re being innudated.

Him: You have every right to be involved in politics. But why would you tweet your views when it upsets the trans community?

I wonder if the Police Inspector will be contacting other people involved with politics whose comments might 'upset' others.

Given the actual explicit death/ rape threats being made against women involved with politics, I hope he might start there.