Police pronouns day tweet isn't going well ...

[WomanBornNotWorn]

mobile.twitter.com/DCCJulieCooke/status/1184397495423655936

I completely agree nauticant

The conflating done by Stonewall has had a tragic effect on lgbt+ so much so that many trans people of both sexes feel homeless, and scared at all the aggressive action and rhetoric.

Many have great need for clarity and support and want conversation to be open and continue.

Being shouted down for discussion doesn't help anyone .. oh..hang on a minute..

SimplyTheWorst wrote - "any such behaviour by the police will eventually lead to others avoiding any kind of conversation with anyone who appears to "identify with" the "transgender umbrella", as defined by the outrageous organisation that is Stonewall, in order to avoid the possibility of any interaction with the police on the grounds of "hate incident", "hate crime", the ridiculous notion of "transphobia", etc."

Compelled speech is not only about which words are acceptable, it can also grow into not allowing avoidance of the compulsory words.

Avoidance is becoming more difficult, as raised by programmer5278 on the StackOverflow CoC thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3717750-StackOverflow-CoC

The StackOverflow website regards avoidance of use of preferred pronouns as a violation of their code of conduct - see their rule at meta.stackexchange.com/questions/334900/official-faq-on-gender-pronouns-and-code-of-conduct-changes/334909#334909

This reminds me of the way in which some people were persecuted by the KGB and the Stasi in Eastern Europe during the communist era for being "suspiciously silent".

m.youtube.com/watch?v=iBtNDBw3AMw&feature=youtu.be

Up there 1984 in that vid or things we can’t say

Glad that tweeters are still saying the things we feel increasingly the threat out there not to.

Its very true dog that the avoidance is an issue. One that I have been tussling with and horrible to come here and read that post about avoidance also being a crime!!!

I just saw a retweet from t'polis going on about reporting hate crime, with a little bit about what was a hate crime. They mentioned the usual (including gender) and I took a look at the official website that says what hate crime actually is.

Well bugger me if gender isn't actually a category but sex is.

Im too chicken to point it out in case I get arrested for hate crime of pointing out an obvious typo (thats me being generous).

When did the police EVER and I mean EVER treat a member of any other protected characteristic with this much kid gloves?

From the twitter feed

Cheshire Police mission statement

"Fighting crime - One pronoun at a time"

On a more serious note, because real crime is a very serious matter, do the police officers at the top have no common sense, no powers of self reflection and most importantly, no realisation of when they have got things so spectacularly wrong?

When did the police EVER and I mean EVER treat a member of any other protected characteristic with this much kid gloves?

Given they can barely bring themselves to acknowledge the protected characteristic of sex [ie: women] it is somewhat extraordinary, isn't it?

@EmpressLesbianInChair

I guess that is their motivation, get people to hate LGBT people again so they can plead for more funding.
Stonewall - you are the homophobes now - how does it feel to be responsible for inciting hatred against some of the very people you are supposed to represent - homosexuals - remember us? The "genital fetishists" who are exclusively same sex attracted, the ones who are being kicked out of LGBT spaces for daring to state we are homosexuals.
You have never once called out anyone directing hate towards lesbians (or "terfs" as we are often called now"), never once have I seen you defend lesbians from the rapey bullshit that is the "translesbian". That's all you need to do, to call this out, state that female same sex attraction exists and is ok and NO ONE should be critising it. Go on, I dare you, what are you afraid of?
But no, you priorities are brainwashing the police into going along with this pronoun bullshit and bringing only negative attention to LGBT people.
The comments on the tweet cited should make you wake up, the public are not onboard and that illusion of acceptance will vanish.

The French are agonising at the moment over plurals, where a hundred women are elles, but a hundred women and one man are ils.

That annoyed me intensely when I learned that at school. It might possibly have been the first time I'd been explicitly aware of sexism.

Compelled speech is not only about which words are acceptable

I'm beginning to think that it's not strictly about acceptable/unacceptable words, it's about different classes of people having different vocabularies and modes of speech available to them. If you're in one of the approved classes you can say broadly what you want, although you need to be careful not to do anything that might get you declared as a traitor to your class. If you're in one of the disapproved classes, then just about everything you might say can trigger a denunciation. There's not much point trying to operate by the rules because the rules are completely fluid (ironically enough), well, at least for you they are.

For members of the disapproved class it would seem that one safe course would be to say nothing. But this of course is a trap because it can trigger the denunciation "silence is violence" if you don't use your speech to benefit the approved classes.

I’m seeing photos on twitter of rainbow epaulets and it makes me feel very uneasy. It smacks of anti woman, misogyny and intolerance.

If I saw an officer with them I’d love to say something but what (that wouldn’t get me arrested ).

What days, eh?

• I’m seeing photos on twitter of rainbow epaulets and it makes me feel very uneasy. It smacks of anti woman, misogyny and intolerance.

It's sad, isn't it? For a while - before it became an easy corporate virtue signalling device - the rainbow flag was a lovely positive thing.

yup. It makes me feel like a second class citizen.

Remember what Stonewall started as? It's been airbrushed from history.

That's not the effect it has on me (quite possibly due to luck). More that it's being used as some sort of lip service - literally, when the police are focussing on pronouns rather than violence and threats of violence. Stats on hate crime show there's a lot of homophobic crimes, but a casual observer would think that was all sorted and there were only issues for trans people now. Obviously there are crimes against this group, and in any category one is one too many - but the emphasis seems so skewed.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/748598/hate-crime-1718-hosb2018.pdf

Apparently none of them remember the whole 'policing by consent' bit.

The police becoming politicised is deeply worrying.

Someone's pronouns really, really shouldn't be a police matter.

The compelled use of inaccurate pronouns is patriarchism as well as being a breach of Human Rights to freedom of speech, belief and thought.

How did stonewall start?

I shared a photo of Tom Hardy on FB a few days ago, and my husband posted that he's now identifying as Tom Hardy...and referred to himself as a "Transhardy" grin.

Should I get the bail money ready?

Nah, get your kit ready for a hot night in and ride the transhardy wave. 😆

It's surprising that we are still allowed to say 'pronoun' given that 'pro' is a word for female prostitute, the second syllable contains the word 'nun' and the remaining 'o' could be symbolising all manner of -rings- things.

How did stonewall start?

It was set up in 1989 to fight Section 28.

I came out during Section 28. It was bad, yes. But even at her worst I don’t think Thatcher ever suggested that potentially LGB kids should be drugged & operated on to make them resemble the opposite sex.

I guess that is their motivation, get people to hate LGBT people again so they can plead for more funding.

A year ago, I'd have said you were being paranoid and hyperbolic. Now I think you may well be right.