WEP debating GRA. What do you think?

[RadicalStitch]

A friend received this. My sense is that it sounds like a lot of waffle:

At our last Party conference, members brought a motion on proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act 2004. The motion was debated by members and referred back to committees for further consideration. The Policy and Steering Committees have since then been discussing the best way to take this work forward, and we wanted to keep you up to date with those plans.

Together we have agreed a framework for engaging as many members as possible in a constructive discussion. The aim is to create a space in which members can work towards agreement on both the challenges and solutions. We want to set the standard for other political parties and organisations and show that this can be done in a way that unites rather than divides.

The Policy Committee has undertaken considerable research into the most appropriate methods of achieving agreement on difficult and potentially polarising subjects. It found that the most inclusive and effective method of reaching such agreement is by employing a form of assembly as was done in Ireland to enable the discussion of subjects that divide the community. Find out more about the citizen's assembly in Ireland.

In our case, this assembly will consist of Party members and experts in sex- and gender-based protections because we want to ensure that we hear from the broadest possible range of expertise and lived experience, balanced with time and resources available.

There will be four key stages to our consultation and members will be involved at every stage:

1. SCOPING EXERCISE

This will look at the focus of the members' assembly and its design. WE aim for a gold standard in this. Ireland’s citizen’s assembly consisted of 99 members, drawn randomly from across the whole population. WE have to find a model that ensures we hear from the broadest possible range of expertise and lived experience.

1. MEMBERS' ASSEMBLY

Its constitution will be recommended by the scoping exercise and is likely to include people randomly selected from our membership and together with additional panellists and witnesses.

1. MEMBER CONSULTATION

This will be an online consultation, which all members can participate in to make their voices heard.

1. REVIEW BY POLICY COMMITTEE

This will review the outcome of the consultation and recommend next steps for the Party, which could include proposed changes to Party policy.

WE will begin work on the scoping exercise this autumn and the time-frame for the assembly and consultation will be agreed by the Steering Committee based on operational and strategic priorities. This work is vital, but as a small party we also have to balance our limited resources against a number of competing priorities - in particular any snap General Election. Our priority is to deliver an effective consultation rather than a rushed one.

We very much hope that you will participate in the consultation and in the meantime you can contact us with any questions about the framework we have set out here by replying to this email.

Best wishes,

Steering and Policy Committee members
Women's Equality Party
www.womensequality.org.uk/

I got this email too. It is very woolly. I had been trying to work out how to leave the WE but now I think I'll stay so that I can participate in the consultation., after all, it is why I joined

One small positive is that they do at least say that they will be including experts in sex based protection in their assembly.

This is good news. I left their party due to their TWAW stance and told them so. If others have done the same, it shows that they are listening.

From what I remember the legal experts who were to speak at the last conference were on the TRA side.

I've been doing a lot of research into different parties recently with a view to joining one. I don't want to just keep spoiling my ballots as that doesn't change anything, and I'd like to join a party that is willing to take concerns seriously even if they don't necessarily agree. After that libdem webchat they can fuck aaaaaaaall the way off, and although I love a lot of the green party policies the way they've hounded members away for raising questions about competing rights (GC women removed from meetings, religious members thrown out for questioning the intersection of rights between belief and sexuality) is disgraceful. No matter what my personal feelings are on any given subject I don't agree that any protected characteristic trumps another. They're a hairs breadth away from holding witch trials as far as I can see. Will give the WEP another look though if they're prepared to be reasonable about discussing conflicting views.

That long-winded statement absolutely stinks of looking for a ladder to climb down.

experts in sex based protection

Much will depend on what/who they mean by this.

I don't think I received this. Will have to look into it. I will want to take part in the online consultation.

I don't think it is too woolly. Its quite positive except as people say, it will depend on who is selected to take part, especially the experts. I also hope they will publish a breakdown of what the membership said.
It's the timing though isn't it. By the time they formulate a response the Scottish consultation mark 2 could well be over, and the Westminster one is already well in the past.

Not a member but this sounds like they've given thought to forming an opinion on a difficult subject in a way that draws on a wider pool of people.
A cynic could also say, decision making this way defrays it being the fault of a single person or even an executive.

I think if a women's equality party is having to have a debate to define woman so that they can create equality-based policies, it's jumped the shark.

Waste of everyone's time.

Absolutely Lang

4. REVIEW BY POLICY COMMITTEE

This ^^ just underlines where the intended outcome will be shaped. It sounds v similar to what's going on in Scotland with the NACWG "big & wee circles" where they give the impression they're looking to gather views/comments from a wide range of people/backgrounds to 'inform' policy but curb what people can discuss/what language they're allowed to use & then it gets filtered through the top rung of woke eejits who then don't allow transparency on the gathered feedback & come up with their own skewed take to move forward with their policy ideas. Maybe I'm wrong but this is just another exercise in futility which will end up exactly where the woke eejits intend. And the mind blowing notion of the WEP 'debating' how to define 'woman' just leaves me 😒

I think we're seeing the launch of: 'Here is the answer we HAVE to end up with - now how do we bend the consultation and huge road blocks like women's safety through a process to make sure we get unimpeded to the predecided answer it has to conclude with?'

See the Engender thread.

We're about to see a lot of very interesting bluff around sex, female and women's sex based protection and statistics/lived experience of privacy and sexual harassment, assault and abuse with the hope of obfusticating it all past women managing to separate themselves in any way from men.

I think we're seeing the launch of: 'Here is the answer we HAVE to end up with - now how do we bend the consultation and huge road blocks like women's safety through a process to make sure we get unimpeded to the predecided answer it has to conclude with?'

Yes. It's a project aiming to "manage" the non-compliant women into compliance. Top down bollocks pretending to be a consultation.

I'll say it again: if a women's equality political party has to debate the definition of woman, it's not a women's equality party.

Women should just get the fuck out.

So they intend to start in the autumn 2019.

Scoping exercise first.

Assembly

Member consultation

Committee review

Given how slow the WEP have been with this, I'd expect that to take 10 years. Minimum.

And they won't have a definition of women at the end of it.

But none of that matters because the WEP won't exist by then.

Save your time and energy and put it into something that can effect real change. Small grassroots campaigns have been very effective where political parties and institutions have entirely failed.

Women Equality Party needs to consult on whether allowing males to self-ID as women could have an effect on women's rights. Rrrriiiight

Agreed Popchyk The WEP are a complete waste of energy - a classic example of early regulatory capture by those born men determined to remove the rights of women.

But as has been said - the irony (and tragedy) of a party for women unable to define what a woman is without centring men.

I still don't understand what discrimination feminist groups who include TW are trying to tackle? The only suggestion I've ever seen is that both women and passing TW get cat called some times (usually phrased like "nobody did a karyotype test before harassing me HAHAHA") That may be true, but apart from that, what discrimination do they actually think is shared by TW and women, that isn't shared by TM and men, that makes the former group in need of special protections, services, awards, and quotas? What threat it is that can only be posed by TM and men, which cannot be posed by TW and women? What vulnerabilities do women and TW have that men and TM don't have? And - more broadly - does anyone in government have 2 brain cells to rub together? Baffling.

we want to ensure that we hear from the broadest possible range of expertise and lived experience

Is this where subjective ‘lived experience’ trumps everything?

They referenced Ireland several times in that email, not sure I'm convinced they're aiming for a genuine consultation though part of me it tempted to join just to take part in it.

JeebusWEPt

Yes and their lived experience lead to the formation of the WEP but now women aren't expert enough to talk about sexual inequality. FFS

What Langcleg said basically

To come up with all this 9 months after the consultation closed and after grassroots groups have sprung up to fill the void left by the silence of official 'women's sector' beggars belief.

If they can't recognise a conflict in this of all things then they don't have a hope of getting to grips with the more intangible forms of structural disadvantage that women face in 2019 in UK.

So, what use are they as a political force?

My gut feeling reading that was that this is purely a way to mollify women by making it look like they are addressing this, but actually they are going to take so long to get anywhere it will be irrelevant and will just peter out into nothing. It feels cowardly.

I left the WEP over this. And told them why, and got no reply.

As I always like to repeat on any WEP thread - they had one job, just the one!

@ByGrabtharsHammarWhatASaving

Tagging to ask a question...

Did you look at the Change Party's stance on this? As they are new and fledgling I can't decide if the TRAs aren't interested in a take over as they don't have any power or if they will be getting in early before they are 'fully formed'.

Interested to know your take on this.

And look at how the whole shebang is framed.

"Proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act".

We don't know that those changes are because the government hasn't mentioned what they are.

So what exactly are the WEP going to consult on exactly? Who decides?

The Members Assembly is fraught with difficulty also. Women meeting up has been targeted by activists determined to intimidate them. How does WEP intend to stop this intimidation happening? Many women would be reluctant to take part due to threats of intimidation and doxing. Ordinary women would self-exclude.

As an aside - they're going with the word 'members' to discuss the inclusion of men in women's rights? Really?