Edinburgh Uni under pressure for hosting discussion on women's sex based rights

[GCatEdinburgh]

Scotsman article here

So far they have been firm re. protecting freedom of speech, but the pressure is escalating and will continue, and they will keep a close eye on the balance of negative/positive correspondence.

The event details are here.

If any of you could write in support of the event the key recipients would be the head of the School of Education Prof. Rowena Arshad ([email protected]) and the Principal Prof. Peter Mathieson ([email protected]).

It should be recorded that the Edinburgh student body arranged a respectful silent protest across the Road from the Rad Fem event on Wednesday and then held its own Inclusive Feminist event elsewhere in the University, addressed by luminaries such as Feminist Professor Sharon Cowan and with some very talented students speaking and performing. Good to know that those who will lead our society in the future reject ideologies based on hatred and exclusion.

Good to know that those who will lead our society in the future reject ideologies based on hatred and exclusion.

How many Radfems demonstrated, peacefully or otherwise, outside the Transgender Intersectionality conference at Edinburgh University the week previously?

RobinMoiraWhite
Inclusive feminists 🙄 🤣🤣🤣 I'm sure they're very effective at furthering the fight for FEMALE rights. Good girls who acknowledge the proper order of the universe.

Feminism by very definition was inclusive of all females.

What "inclusive feminism" has done is to centre males and label all manner of patriarchal oppressions "empowering". The utter fools who have brought into this dumbed-down feminism-by-slogans are rapidly undoing what partial progress feminism had previously made.

RobinMoiraWhite

Yeah, cos the dictionary definition of woman is hate speech and refusing to centre penis is bigotry. You are a clown.

RobinMoiraWhite there was neither hatred nor exclusion at the panel discussion on women's sex-based rights. Which are granted to us as per the UN's Rome Statute, CEDAW (an actual treaty the UK is signed up to to eliminate sex-based discrimination and oppression of females) and the UK's Equality Act.

I happened to walk past as the attending trans rights activists reported back to their friends that the speeches they had heard were okay. Which is entirely truthful, because none of the women there expressed anything other than their conviction that vulnerable SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity) persons must be protected. They just happen to know and demand that this is done without dismantling the sex-based rights of women.

Much as we don't dismantle the rights of disabled people in order to protect pregnant or breastfeeding women or throw the issues around race and sexual orientation into one pot insisting that they must be discussed and assessed as one, must not be analysed separately and definitely must be protected together so as to be inclusive and not exclusionary of either group.

And the questions asked by said trans rights activists were listened to and answered respectfully, with a panel speaker reaching out and offering to enter into further dialogue after the event so as to be able to more thoroughly respond to the question.

And in the future, there will be a lot of shame and pretending never to have been on board with the type of transgender ideology and legislation that seeks to deny females the right - in language and in law- to define themselves in a category of their own, separately from males. With their own language to describe the reality of being female in a male-dominated world. With their own sovereign spaces, sports and services and the right to organise and assemble as females in order to advocate for equity with males and against their oppression.

And a few decades after that, there will be another backlash against women's rights. Because for as long as the patriarchy persists, our rights are only ever borrowed.

And that's why we recognise this transgender ideology and legislation for what it is. An assault on women's sex-based rights.

Charley. 💪💪

Thanks you for that. It will be interesting to see a minute of the proceedings.

It would be a refreshing change to see more fact-based discussions about the need to make progress for all. (Many folk fail to grasp the difference between rights moderated by the Equality Act and those affected by the Gender Recognition Act, for example.) That would be a departure for some voices in the (frankly) shouting which this area often seems to descend into. My working life centres often on the clash between different protected characteristics - Gay v Religion has had much exposure recently, for example.

A little respect goes a long way.

RobinMoiraWhite I agree, a little respect and a fact-based discussion would be very welcome.

Such as not labelling the panel speakers as committing literal violence for seeking to uphold our existing rights.

Or admitting that Edinburgh University asked the committe (that inexplicably resigned after this entirely fact-based and respectful discussion) to stop telling students who identify as trans that they are unsafe because women planned to assemble and discuss the possible impact of transgender ideology and legislation on their sex-based rights and the importance of the latter. And they were asked to stop defaming the speakers and organisers. Entirely reasonable, wouldn't you say?

Especially since the only person who was actually unsafe at Edinburgh University was one of the feminists speaking. And the only one who committed literal violence was a trans rights activist.

As for the EqA and the GRA, I am well versed in both. I agree that far too many people do not understand that women's sex-based rights are not superseded by the GRA. But you can hardly blame them for that after nine years of disinformation on the issue.

I know that it is entirely right, legal, legitimate and proportionate to have single-sex provisions that include only those born into the sex class capable of producing ova and bearing offspring.

We've even had a recent clarification that blanket bans even of GRC-holders is entirely legal as case-by-case does not refer to individual persons but individual reasons for providing on a single-sex basis.

So, yes, I agree with you on asking for respect and a fact-based discussion but I can't help wondering if we might have opposing ideas on what constitutes facts and respect.

Until we have a discussion, conducted with respect, how can we know?

I suppose my first question would be how I pose a threat to anyone?

Gay v Religion is quite similar to the clash between Feminists and Trans ideology. Reality v Something That People Can't Be Forced To Believe.

But which is which?

RobinMoiraWhite

As the perpetrators of 98% of all sexual crime, of 95% of murders, and the vast majority of all violent crime and because of the power differential between male and females, as a class, males, no matter how they identify, pose a risk to females as a class.

In order to protect the female sex class, oppressed and violated by the male sex class for thousands of years, we have a limited number of single-sex spaces, services and provisions reserved for the female sex class only, from which all males, no matter how lovely, are excluded.

Males who identify as trans qua males pose the same risk to females as any other male. Not because they identify as trans but because they are male.

(While there is no evidence that identifying as trans renders a male harmless to females, there is of course evidence that they pose the exact same risk to females as any other male.)

So, if you are male, you pose the same theoretical risk as my loving husband. Now I don't know you, but let's put you into the same group as the wonderful males in my life - the decent sort who wouldn't dream of harrassing, raping or raising a hand against females.

By what outward sign can other women who don't know my husband recognise him as the decent sort? Or you for that matter?

Robin, Cis is offensive to many women. Please refrain from using it.

There is no evidence that males who identify as trans are at greater risk than females.

Their risk of being assaulted, raped or murdered here in the UK is lower than that of females. And more UK males who identify as trans have become murderers in the last ten years than been murdered. And the latter were murdered by other males.

The risk both groups face is male violence. That does not mean this risk can or should or must be mitigated against by including males who identify as trans in the group of females.

As there is ample evidence of crimes committed by males who identify as trans against females (unsurprising, posing the same risk as all other males after all), such a move would increase the risk to females.

I happen to believe that increasing a very real risk to one vulnerable group to decrease a very real risk to another vulnerable group is neither acceptable nor necessary.

As for your career. I was also denied a career, at the same time as you, because I am female. Again, addressing the unacceptable discrimination you experienced for being trans does not necessitate dismantling the legal tools available to females to address the unacceptable discrimination I faced for being female.

Even if percentage wise the issue was more frequently experienced by males who identify as trans than females, a just society does not abandon attempts to address discrimination experienced by millions of females in order to help a few thousand males.

The fact that we live in a patriarchy goes a long way towards explaining why we have made far greater stridessince then in addressing discrimination faced by males who identify as trans than the oppression faced by females.

Can we do better and protect more people who identify as trans? Yes, we most certainly can. Do we need to undermine or dismantle the rights of females to do so? No.

And don't call me cis. I don't identify with my oppression.

Surely transwoman are at risk from MALES? Just as women are. Women are at risk from all males, no matter how they identify.

There's a weird kind of blindness for one group of males to say to women "Men are dangerous, so let us in to your spaces so we can be safe. And stop saying that men are dangerous and you don't want them in your spaces. That's hard speech, that is."

Hate speech, not hard speech. Damn autocorrect.

Robin, it is males you need to be talking with about their violence and discrimination against transitioners. This is not any woman's problem to solve.

I apologise.

Regrettably not. I have only had three instance of direct discrimination since my tradition. All were from women.

Surely it is for all persons of goodwill to advance the rights of all? Just as when I worked in the transport sector and worked hard to level the playing field for women and those from ethnic minorities?

Surely it is for all persons of goodwill to advance the rights of all? Just as when I worked in the transport sector and worked hard to level the playing field for women and those from ethnic minorities?

Robin, as you know, we all live under patriarchy. We women have enough to do trying to protect what rights we have so far earned. We continue to fight to defend those rights for all females in our world.

It is for transitioners to sort out their arrangements with those same patriarchal structures. It is not any woman's problem to solve.

Then we identify a difference between us personally. I would seek to help any oppressed person improve their lot. You appear to wish to focus on only one group. Does not history show that strength comes from persons of goodwill combining? Am I wrong, as an Anglo-Saxon, to have worked to advance the position of those of other ethnicities?

You do not have rights specifically because you are white that you are asked to give up in order to advance the position of people from ethnic minorities. It is not the same at all as asking women to give up sex-based rights in order to advance the position of male people who identify as women. You are confusing privileges and rights.

Then we identify a difference between us personally. I would seek to help any oppressed person improve their lot. You appear to wish to focus on only one group.

Yes Robin .. that difference is sex. Within the female sex class are the intersections of race, age, disability, economic class, etc .. these demographics are not ignored by us women on behalf of all of our sisters.