City of London Consultation Results - they can't get away with this

[2010Equality]

Man Friday!

The City of London consultation on “gender identity” and single-sex facilities (including Hampstead Ponds, toilets and changing rooms at running track, facilities at the Barbican etc... ) results are out .

It's bad. The policy has been adopted on the basis of the flawed survey and misreading of the equality act.

My thread here

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1130973355849461765.html

They can't get away with this!

Dodgy as hell, disregarding 50% of the respondants. I would actually bet money on the fact that those rejected were all against, so the 'real' results were 75|% against, 25% for, which would tally with how the other polls and that on this topic tend to go also.

If they are adopting self-ID, they best tell the men. They were none too happy with women invading their pond. I really don;t understand the issue with the ponds as surely, surely, trans people can user the mixed pool if not the one for their sex. When a mixed option exists, its just ridiculous to keep puching to use the areas of the opposite sex..

When a mixed option exists, its just ridiculous to keep puching to use the areas of the opposite sex

Well, yes! My guess is it is the middle aged transvestites that are keenest for access to the women only pool. It really isn't about safety or dignity at all. Just gives me the creeps that this is all going on in broad daylight and being nodded through. It really is like the collective, wilful ignorance of Jimmy Saville all over again - except on a far larger and more profound scale.

Happy to donate. I have set aside a budget for charity donations, which is currently being spread across an number of groups/people speaking out constructively. You can have several months worth. This needs to be pushed back.

Well, yes! My guess is it is the middle aged transvestites that are keenest for access to the women only pool. It really isn't about safety or dignity at all. Just gives me the creeps that this is all going on in broad daylight and being nodded through. It really is like the collective, wilful ignorance of Jimmy Saville all over again - except on a far larger and more profound scale.

This article offers considerable insight.
Nicky Mayhew, co-chair of the Kenwood Ladies' Pond Association & transrights acivist Jane Fae interviewed:
www.pri.org/stories/2018-09-25/transgender-women-are-women-organizers-say-after-controversy-over-women-only-pond

Oh god. Just tell me where to pay, just tell me where to turn up.

Who on earth do they think they are?

As for Jane Fae going on about how they realised that "men are violent", but doesn't then extend that sentiment or empathy towards women who want and need to be in single sex spaces, just says it all really. Utter narcissism.

Jane Fae does not look like a woman in any way - and if they appeared in my single sex, intimate space - all six foot whatever of them - I'd be disturbed and creeped out; and would leave immediately. And I suspect I would also intuit the intentional invasion of my private space. Your instincts can always tell ( if you trust them and don't over-ride them) when there is something 'creepy' or salacious about someone.

Like others, I too have submitted an FOI request. Also, first time mumsnet user, hello!

1. The full data set of responses to the consultation survey.
2. The above to include from the survey responses:

• The responses that were excluded from the published report (It is noted that 18,459 were deemed 'invalid', nearly 50% of total respondents)
• All free text comments for each respondent
• Respondent demographics for each response
• the coding classification used to analyse responses

1. Meeting notes, minutes and correspondence relating to the decisions that led to the new policy
2. A list of all Authority run services that will be impacted by this policy, including the City of London police service provision.

I feel deeply ambivalent about using the ponds now that CoL have formalised access to women's facilities on the basis of self-ID. It will embolden the worst kinds of space-invaders, turning up to test just how far women's boundaries have been eroded by the actions of our government.

My reluctance to use the ponds anymore further annoys me, because it means the zealous sexism, entitlement and narcissism of a few M/TRAs - enabled by the authorities - has taken away one of the things I most enjoy(ed) in London. Presumably that's a boon for some of them.

Got to fight this. It's not only about women who are survivors (so many of us), or with particular religious beliefs. This space was OURS. It belonged to US. It was a place for us to relax, excercise and enjoy being safe among women. It was one of precious few places where we could be confident of not being creeped out, ogled, denigrated and harassed for being female. Such a simple thing, but so restorative. Some of my happiest times have been there, with friends and alone. Since this came to the fore, I've felt a real sense of loss, as the tentacles of this heinous movement encroach further.

I refuse to accept that spaces like the Ladies' Bathing Pond can just be given away because M/TRAs demand it, and are happy to misrepresent the law to get their way (temporarily).

As for the the article above R0wantrees - Just...shudder. All the dynamics and risks are in plain view, aren't they?

I refuse to accept that our daughters will be gaslit to accept cross-dressers publicly displaying their fetishes, and men who identify as women on Thursdays, in a women-only space. Such an imposition is utterly dystopian, rank authoritarianism. And it's not going to wash.

As a side note, the grants funding / charity arm of the CoL corp gave Gendered Intelligence over £100k in 2017...
www.citybridgetrust.org.uk/what-we-do/grant-making/what-we-fund/current-grants-awarded/?search_grant=Gender

As for Jane Fae going on about how they realised that "men are violent"

The context for this claim is specific and relevent:
(extract frm aticle linked above)

" Jane Faye was early in her transition from male to female when she was accosted before entering the women's changing area. It was a Saturday morning, and she was getting ready to step into the pool with her then 5-year-old son. A man appeared out of nowhere and threatened her.

“This man just hogged the way. And said, 'You're not going in there.' And I said, "Why not?" And he just said, 'Well, I'm going to hit you if you do,'” said Faye, who lives north of London. " (continues)

A man observes a tall male with a young boy going into the womens changing rooms. A man sees what he believes to be another man challenges them and is brushed off.

Fae explains this was 'early in her transition' which could mean anything.

Fae was 52 years old at the time of 'early transition'. That many men might react aggresively towards another male insisting on walking into women's changing rooms should not have been so much of a shock.

Not least as Fae acknowledges in this interview given to the Daily Mail just 6 weeks after telling fiancee, Andrea Fletcher.

"Jane knows that at 6ft 3in tall, with size 11 feet and thinning hair, she does not 'pass' very convincingly as a woman, but she insists she is happy in a way she never was as man."

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1252462/Andrea-Fletcher-devoted-fiancee-whos-sticking-man-John-Ozimek-despite-fact-wants-woman-named-Jane-Fae.html

catspyjamas1 Welcome!

Yet again the safest place for women to bathe will be the men's pond.

All the dodgy as fuck perverts and molesters will be floating round in the ladies, while the men who wouldn't dream of being so utterly misogynistic will be joined in their safe haven.

Thanks! Long time reader and admirer of the chat!

Interesting to see what gets released in FOI requests. I won’t hold my breath though.

Smart Consult is known as Smart Investment Ltd to Companies House if you search by their company number.

Directors are Adekunle and Tina Akande.

Smart Investment (aka Smart Consult) can be found here: beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/06872092

Mr & Mrs (I assume) Akande also ran Si03: beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/07374346/filing-history

And Si01: beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/07617301

And Toy World: beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/07935194

And Bright Stars Care: beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08117464

Mr Akande is also listed as a director for DABD - Disablement Association of Barking and Dagenham, which received a £122,000 grant from the City of London in 2017, a meeting at which Mr Lord sent his apologies. democracy.cityoflondon.gov.uk/documents/s77452/Minutes%20of%20Previous%20Meeting.pdf

How cosy!

Thanks for linking the the article above R0wantrees: a very good example for what passes as 'progressive' journalism in the US. Sponsored by corporate foundations with deep pockets. Lazy reporting, misrepresentation of the Equality Act (possibly to push the US legislation of the same name).

It is really dispiriting that self-identified progressives can't see that there can be conflicts of rights and that sometimes there are no easy answers.

And yes, in the course of my life, I have learnt to trust my internal 'creep-o-meter'.

Samoture

I'm sure I also read that Adekunde is also a freemason.

Just our fave CoL misogynist - very cosy indeed

Did the contract to do the analysis go out to tender?

So all that time I spent crafting good answers, all wasted. Fucked off now. I will give money to fight this shit.

My admiration to breakwindandfire and Samoture for that info on Smart Consult!

What if we organise large groups of women all simultaneously using the "mens" (now mixed sex) toilets in big public places in london and appraising the pissed off nice decent men in there as to why.

I'd also support a judicial review fund.

Evening Standard Reort (sadly no reader comments):

www.standard.co.uk/news/london/transgender-swimmers-given-full-access-to-hampstead-heath-ladies-pond-a4149531.html

Yes to both ineedacup

The Evening Standard makes the oft repeated error of accuracy:

"Transgender swimmers given full access to Hampstead Heath ladies' pond
Men who identify as women now have the right to bathe unimpeded in famous pond"

People who are transgender and female have never been excluded from the ladies pond (should they have wished to bathe there)

& what of "women who identify as men', do they have the right to 'bathe unimpeded in the famous men's pond?

Its almost as if females are less important than males eh?

Yeah rowan

Can ladies who identify as men in their souls now swim in the men’s pool