Karen Ingala Smith in Parliament now on single sex refuges

[Anlaf]

She's excellent, as i think is Jess Philips. Karen's talking v movingly of the challenges in offering women only refuge services, the two boroughs where her organisation has had pushback already for not being inclusive enough, and in assessing male-born people for risk in accessing female services

Watch live:

parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/0d07ff13-636e-4b51-a946-2877e583dc4c

Lots of handwaving from one Maria Miller

Callmejudith - yep and lesbians. Even Janet who said she was a lesbian.

Angela [didn't catch her last name] ....

That would be Angela Crawley, SNP, a lesbian. She won her seat narrowly in the last General Election.

In March or April, when the SNP were reported to be split on the question of whether TWAW, Crawley tweeted a photo of the Trans Flag and the words "Trans Ally". She wrote words along the lines of : "To be clear, I'll just leave this flag here"

In other words, she declared that she favoured the side that asserted that TWAW and did not stand with Joan McAlpine.

She got flak for that tweet. People expect a member of the Select Committee to be impartial, questioning and open-minded - not a friggin' ally of one side or the other.

She looked and sounded out of her depth in the session, I thought.

And what is the constant talk of BME women...it's not the fucking same!!!

To be fair, some of the discussion around BAME women was to do with the important Southall Black Sisters court case in 2008 - back when EHRC were still doing useful stuff:

southallblacksisters.org.uk/campaigns/save-sbs-campaign-2008/

The case was important for all specialist services including single sex services. IMO it put a major brake on local authorities just funding the cheapest, most 'inclusive' bids.

Some of the discussion was more of the same old 'TWAW like black women are women' racist BS, however. I think it was the WA woman who said the important thing about SBS was that BAME women had a choice to go to specialist BAME women's services or mainstream women's services, with the implication that tw should have the choice to use women's services or specialist trans services.

Thanks for clarification

Watching this now. Janet McDermott is very irritating. She waffles but with nothing useful to say.

Janet McDermott smiles, giggles and plays with her scarf as she sells women down the river to the man sitting next to her.

Janet McDermott just seemed utterly vapid. Couldn’t make a concise point about anything and fawning over the man sat next to her.

I was just waiting for her to suggest trust falls and singing Cumbauya as measures to combat women’s unease - useless.

Agree on Janet. She was awful. Women’s aid and doesn’t even know what a woman actually is

It was good to watch. Karen was awesome. She was taking any of the TWAW shite from anyone

Imagine women’s ai£ not having a policy.

And when Karen told the Scottish woman. NO I don’t accept that language and yes I do have a problem with that language

As for sex toys on train James. Well James was really looked like trying to intimidate Janet by staring at her

Anyway. It was good to see Karen standing up for the adult human females who have to go to a refuge and centring them

Porn shaming? Since when did it stop being appropriate to shame anyone watching porn (or looking for sex toys) in a public place?

*As for sex toys on train James. Well James was really looked like trying to intimidate Janet by staring at her•

Well to be fair, James was probably feeling rather ‘frustrated’, what with not being able to watch porn/buy sex aids, on James’ way to a discussion on the rights of abused women. The poor ‘most oppressed’ type of person that James is, compared to those silly complaining women with their * privilege. So sad.

Janet McDermott just seemed utterly vapid. Couldn’t make a concise point about anything and fawning over the man sat next to her.

My thoughts exactly. I’m glad Sarah grilled her on that point about not having written any guidance for members in almost 10 years. What does Woman’s Aid do? If people pay membership why do they not have proper guidance on this very important issue that affects safety and comfort of the women you are supposed to be helping? Jane makes me even more suspicious of the charity industry to be honest. This is why I’m so careful about where any spare money is donated to. You could be giving to a charity with a useless person heading it who is too intimidated to stand up for those that need her.

I was really shocked by Janet. I couldn't believe the head of WA would be as stupid as that.

Porn shaming? Since when did it stop being appropriate to shame anyone watching porn (or looking for sex toys) in a public place?

When porn-addled men escalated their habit to watching porn on public transport and no one said a thing.
They're not just mannerless, horny or watching for a laugh, it's a paraphilia that is out of control. Everyone around them is a non-consenting participant. It's no different to flashing or men who rub themselves against women on packed trains.

I've so had enough of these men and their enablers.

Karen was absolutely marvellous. She refused to call trans "she" or "they" calling them "he" and "him" where necessary. She was well-prepared, unlike the other two, with notes, facts and and logical and lucid arguments.

So much worth quoting, but this gets to the nub of it:

"The Gender Recognition Act has created a legal fiction and we have to be very clear that gender and sex are not the same thing.... it needs to be legally clear that a person cannot change sex. The mantra "trans women are women" is being used as a literal truth and it's not a literal truth."

Diana James was a lying bully and Janet McDermott was a ghastly sell-out. How awful that Women's Aid and Scottish Women's Aid have gone down the route of accepting MTF trans as women. The harm they'll do to survivors of domestic violence is incalculable.

She refused to call trans "she" or "they" calling them "he" and "him" where necessary

Yes, she used the term "trans-identified men" - I was watching and got a tremendous sense of liberation - that a woman could say all this and not
a) be violently attacked or threatened with physical violence
b) not be shouted down
c) not be in fear of her job

That room felt like liberation.

And

d) appear to be listened to respectfully
e) appear to be taken seriously

It was great wasn't it? Just telling it how it is, no compromising or appeasing.

There was one very funny point where the committee were saying "We haven't heard from Karen, we have to hear from Karen". They were probably regretting being stuck having to listen to Janet and Diana and were desperate to listen to someone articulate who actually had something valuable to say.

I was disgusted at Janet talking about the women in the refuge who'd been disturbed by a trans male amongst them, musing that she didn't know what they could be upset about. Totally disgraceful.

Diana James pops up all
Over the TRA twitter - he uses “TERF” willy nilly too.

Pun intended

Is Maria Miller really that dim, or is she just pretending to not understand because she is so entrenched in her TWAW position?

The two things aren't mutually exclusive.

The official transcript of this is now out

data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/women-and-equalities-committee/enforcing-the-equality-act-the-law-and-the-role-of-the-equality-and-human-rights-commission/oral/102570.html

Thank you for sharing that link. Karen is marvellous. Very clear, very woman focused, very strong against being drawn into obfustication.

By contrast, Diana is interested in the best interests of people who identify as trans and is unwilling to acknowledge conflict or potential harm to anyone else as a result of that. All hail the TRA political position.

Karen was so good at clearly getting her points across. I wonder who it was that she asked "not to laugh when I'm talking" ?

🤔

Could it have been the same entitled person who threw a public strop because they couldn't access a sex toys online shop on the train that morning?

Reading the transcript brings home the way KIS refuses to use rtans speak.

Jess Phillips: To be clear, you're talking about a transwoman
KIS: I'm talking about a man who sexually harassed women ...etc

There is a fantastic paragraph in which she tells the Committee why she objects to the term 'gender-based violence'.

Diana James: There must be single-sex services; it is just we have to decide what single sex is. That is where the nub of the problem lies: what is a single sex? We are coming at it from diverse ends and we are not 100% going to reach agreement on it, because we are too far away.

Discussing this with younger feminists, who tend to be younger feminist women, they are seeing things in a completely different way from how my generation sees things. Their feminist views are completely different from the ones that I grew up with and they see it as non‑binary, those viewpoints not seeing the same barriers that we see. Personally, my feeling is we have to have single-sex refuges. We cannot have a combined male and female refuge. It is the decision about what is male and what is female that is becoming more and more of an issue, as has been discussed.

This is bonkers. I really hope those present could see that.

It's worth watching the video. Sarah Champion was angry with Janet from WA. She was seriously unimpressed that nearly ten years after the Equality Act had been introduced, WA had not issued guidance to its members on how to use the single sex exemptions.

Karen was a star. From memory, it was Diana who was laughing when Karen was saying it was not possible to change sex. Pathetic.

Karen was the grown up in the room. Janet was a giggling buffoon and Diana did not appear to care one jot for the concerns of women.