SCOTTISH GRA REFORM ANNOUNCEMENT BROUGHT FORWARD

[Mbwashenzi]

It was going to be announced on the 25th - now moved forward to Thursday. Anyone going to join me in the public gallery at Holyrood??

twitter.com/wornoutmumhack/status/1140953953758261248?s=19

I truly hope not.....now that womens voices are being heard, politicians are giving the illusion of listening to our fears-also there were a lot of women in that parliamentary hearing yesterday.

Lucy HunterBlackburn
‏**@LucyHunterB**
Very much welcome Colin (from Stonewall)’s comments about language and respect in this debate. Next step in getting this debate on a more normal footing has to be groups advocating self-declaration having a go at being willing to be on air at with those who disagree.

Joan McAlpine
‏*@JoanMcAlpine*
More Joan McAlpine Retweeted Lucy HunterBlackburn
Astounding that @StonewallScot refused to go on air at the same time as the measured, respectful academic @LucyHunterB to discuss the #GRAReform statement

Speaking to MSPs of all parties in recent weeks it is clear even those sympathetic to sex self-ID are not at all impressed with the "no debate" approach. Stonewall's attempted no platforming wont go down well

In a democracy we must have open and respectful debate, including through the media, which is an important element in that democracy - I am glad @BBCScotland went ahead with both interviews albeit separately

politicians are giving the illusion of listening to our fears

This is the problem, it's what it all comes down to, the illusion being presented instead of what's happening, not just with selective reporting in news, twisted meanings of words and thing, but the whole bases of women having privacy will be an illusion.

We need debate. Open, frank and respectful debate.

We need clarification and answers to a few simple questions and some complex ones:

What is a woman?

What is the purpose of a GRC?

How can the rights of both trans people and women be protected without impinging on each other?

What is sex, what is gender, and what is the difference between them?

wgscotland.org.uk/assessments/
This is the sort of work that is shifting things I think. Not responding to this would leave the government open to legal challenge. I am in awe of the grass roots women behind this.

Fresh air and sunlight, that's helping but cold hard legal challenge is what is swinging it. The Equality Act is being challenged and is the only legal gatekeeper remaining in place. It is the key to all of this so the more that can be done to educate on it's actual definition (not the repeated replacement of sex with gender in unis/corporations etc as upthread) the better. LGBTY and their like have been given government funding and paid by organisations to give expensive "training courses" and advise wrongly on the Equality Act - this has had a domino effect resulting in wide ranging conflation of sex and gender as well as sanctioned authoritarian handling of any challenge on the basis of single sex exemption. Remember this?
fairplayforwomen.com/scottish_stole_woman/

Proper accessible Equality Act guidance on single sex exemption would have an immediate effect. Establishments are frightened of getting it wrong, of being targeted and of being found in breach of the law so they have been capitulating to utter nonsense. They are at fault but when their next grant is dependent on evidenced inclusivity best got by paying for government sanctioned and funded staff training complete with incorrect guidance with a government stamp and a rainbow on the cover...

Yes to the law when dealing with politicians but perhaps we should be getting women's stories out to the general public as well to counter the inevitable pushing of trans peoples stories, just to remind people there are two vulnerable groups involved in these laws.

Also although I am obviously glad the government is recognising the failure to maintain single sex spaces in schools guidance I see no discussion anywhere about the impact on safeguarding.

It is hard to take seriously a government campaign to crack down on FGM when the current LGBTY school guidance condones secrecy and breast ironing/binding. The contradiction is staggering and needs more publicity.

We must protect our girls and that the government signed off on this guidance in the first place is madness. They tried just removing themselves from being associated with the guidance by stating it was "optional" A total retraction is the only way they can avoid a future safeguarding scandal. Once the risks have been made clear it is very hard to continue brushing them off as has been the case until now.
stv.tv/news/politics/1435632-school-transgender-guidelines-will-not-be-reviewed/

Hard legal challenge. Public knowledge and open debate. Grass roots activism is doing this and than goodness for that. I for one am going to finish my budgeting this evening and then put as much as I can afford towards funding more of this amazing work.

So what's next for Scotland then? Because it looks like this will be the testing ground that Westminster will follow. Once you see what's really going on you can't unsee it. I've heard of loads of former allies becoming GC but never the reverse, so we just need to keep pushing until the balance tips.

• Every term needs to be clearly and meaningfully defined: woman, man, transwoman, transman, living as a woman/man, gender, sex, gender identity. No more fucking around with the language, no more room for changing the meaning of words in order to change the meaning of laws. Get some daylight on how impossible it is to define these terms without fallacies or offensive stereotypes.

• A full review of the EA10. Single sex exemptions to be enforced as the norm. Some orgs can have opt out clauses to include TW if they think it's reasonable, but for shelters, prisons, hospitals etc it should be enforced without exception. Exclusion without exception - hows that for you Stonewall? And it should be illegal to coerce orgs to not make use of the EA10 by with holding funding. The fact woman's aid must be trans inclusive to get funding takes away their right to enforce the exemption clause.

• An inquiry into the power, funding, access, and collusion with lobby groups by MPs. An inquiry into the policy capture that's been allowed to happen and new laws introduced to prevent it happening again.

Apologies if already posted, haven't seen it:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/law-on-gender-recognition-is-delayed-amid-concern-for-girls-z2l5mglps?shareToken=535760cb304ac5aec75b865d3484eb1b&fbclid=IwAR18FCsiydjEEio6D6QaDiDq9r-qVRT86EhUGaLBnKAQXowp_-3R7E20HmA

A total retraction is the only way they can avoid a future safeguarding scandal

From Somerville's statement:

The Scottish Government recognises that in taking the unarguably good general principle of inclusivity, and developing specific recommendations, the approach risks potentially excluding other girls from female-only spaces. That cannot be right.

We have therefore decided to replace the LGBT Youth work with guidance from the Scottish Government.

What are the campaigning organisations in Scotland? So I can see if they take donations. I know about 'for women scotland' and 'women and girls in scotland'. But I thought I had seen others with similar names. It seems a bit 'peoples front of judea' up there.

@WeBuiltCisCityOnSexistRoles
I completely agree. I think it's good that women are drawing a line when it comes to allowing men to define what a woman is. But more women need to start understanding how deeply misogynistic it is for a man to play act certain stereotypes that are foisted onto women and believe that this is "living as a woman"

It seems a bit 'peoples (sic) front of judea' up there

These are small, grassroots women't organisations run out of spare rooms and via Facebook. They have no money beyond donations, no political capital and have had to work very, very hard to get here.

People's front of Judea? How very dare you. This is an anarcho-syndicalist commune. With a very big manifesto.

forwomen.scot/

This is where you will find the information you need.

Thanks for sharing The Times article, it's incredible that they are claiming they revealed the issues with the LGBT Youth Scotland guidance in January!

I've been campaigning on this school guidance since last Spring, and The Herald picked up my work and were the first to break my findings in the media. It's ironic to see these claims being made especially as most mainstream media have been 'extremely reluctant' to print anything on this topic until just recently.

Here's a link to my post about it. There's loads more on my website explaining what I've been up to since then.

scottish-women.com/2018/12/02/controversial-lgbt-school-guidance-which-discards-single-sex-spaces-and-sports/

It seems a bit 'peoples front of judea' up there

Yes it does, doesn't it? All I can say is that I was here first

But seriously we are all just normal women working our butts off trying to make a difference whilst trying to fit it into our normal lives, AND getting a whole load of abuse and hassle in the process.

Yesterday was a good day and I hope we have more of them to come.

Scottiswomen well done!

scottish thanks for your work, I have young kids and worry about what’s happening in schools so it’s great that the current guidance is to be removed /replaced hopefully by something that takes the equality act into account!

Argh at the 'emotive stories swing politicians into prioritising us and removing rights from women' stuff....

while women keep plugging steadily away with things like logic and facts and statistics that haven't been massaged and pointing out laws that being misrepresented.

If a lot of emotive stories about the needs and feelings of women and children is what works on government these days as opposed to balanced consideration and facts then fine, we can produce that too.

@ScottishWomen Thank you!

Cismyfatarse, yes I know. That's why I'm asking what they are called so I can look them up and donate.

Scottishdoll and Scottishwomen, thank you that's great I will follow the links... And thank you for the amazing work.

Great work, ScottishWomen

Scottish You are a total shero! Thank you so much for getting us to the point of debate. Surely sunlight will show this up for the unworkable no sense it is