I stand with Allison Bailey

[TinselAngel]

It increasingly feels like we should treat witch hunts against individual women as attacks on women as a class.

I thought women here might appreciate a thread to show their support for Allison. I don't know her personally, but I believe in all women's right to free speech.

I stand with Alison.

Garden Court Chambers and the Public Shaming of Allison Bailey

October 30, 2019 Helen Saxby

Garden Court Chambers is ‘investigating’ Allison Bailey for being a founding member of the LGB alliance. This is no surprise given its associations.

Two years ago, on Tuesday October 3rd 2017, I attended a meeting in central London entitled ‘Progress and Challenges in Advancing Equality for Trans People in the UK’. It was held at Garden Court Chambers, in association with the Human Rights Lawyers Association. The meeting took place just two weeks after a well-publicised assault on a middle-aged woman in Hyde Park by a young male protester, which resulted in a conviction for assault by beating. The conflict between increasing rights for trans people and the rolling back of women’s rights was in the news. The Hyde Park Corner incident illustrated the lengths to which trans allies were prepared to go in order to prevent women talking about their rights and organising to uphold them. I attended the meeting at Garden Court fully expecting the emphasis to be on securing rights for trans people, of course, but I also expected existing law to be respected and upheld. I thought that women’s rights were human rights and that this would not be forgotten. I assumed there might be discussion as to how to square the difficult circle of trans rights versus women’s rights, but that lawyers would be the very people with the knowledge and skills to be able to do this.

I was wrong.

Full article at uncommongroundmedia.com/garden-court-chambers-and-the-public-shaming-of-allison-bailey/

stumbledin

That's a really good article by Helen Saxby.

After listening to a litany of specific rights that they were pushing for trans people she comments:

The rights of women were never on the table. Female prisoners expected to be housed with potentially violent males, female prison officers expected to intimately search male bodies, female asylum seekers expected to be housed with males, female litigants expected to refer to their male attackers as ‘she’, female crime statistics expected to incorporate male rapists, females in general expected to take a man’s word for it rather than believing what their own experience is telling them: none of these examples apparently merit a human rights approach when they are set against the perceived rights of trans people. The ease with which women’s rights can be sidelined, by people whose job it is to uphold the law, highlights the vulnerability of those rights: we cannot take anything for granted. Everything could be taken away tomorrow, not necessarily by legislative change, but simply by policy capture instigated by lobby groups while nobody was looking.

Wow! That is such a powerful statement Datun

I stand with Alison too

Brilliant article. Garden Court Chambers are a woke disgrace.

The ease with which women’s rights can be sidelined, by people whose job it is to uphold the law, highlights the vulnerability of those rights: we cannot take anything for granted. Everything could be taken away tomorrow, not necessarily by legislative change, but simply by policy capture instigated by lobby groups while nobody was looking.

Yes this has been quite a wake up call for me.

not necessarily by legislative change, but simply by policy capture instigated by lobby groups while nobody was looking.

Hence the determination to misrepresent the EA2010 continually and in a consistent manner so that groups and organisations sleepwalk into accepting the woke interpretation as gospel. After that, it simply becomes a matter of "tidying up the law" to reflect "real life".

When I first started reading these pages about a year ago, I thought some posters were making much ado about nothing when there were still bigger things to tackle. I don't think that now. My eyes have been well and truly opened.

That there thing we can't mention is back!

MrsSnippy yes, the thing that shall not be named is live again.

Oh that’s going to annoy a few people MrsSnippyPants. I wonder if they’re happy that their bullying and demands have actually increased interest in that thing?

I stand with Allison Bailey

Love that article

Postcard of support sent to Allison and I have made use of the return of that which will not be named.

I too have partaken in the thing that cannot be named. I might not had clocked it had others not stamped their size 12s so much.

"It's quite nice that if you google Allison Bailey, the third result is this thread - the title 'I stand with Allison Bailey'. "

that calls for a cheerful bump

Garden Court Chambers won an award for Diversity and Inclusion at the Chambers Bar Awards last night:

twitter.com/ChambersGuides/status/1190003381621927943

twitter.com/gardencourtlaw/status/1190004599417126921

Oh the irony.

Obviously only one kind of "diversity and inclusion" counts. Not inclusion of black lesbian feminist barristers who know what a woman is.

Hello, I'm new here so please forgive me if this has been done to death or I have fundamentally misunderstood what I'm about to ask. As I understand it being trans is about how you identify your gender to be, not your sexuality so how can a LGB group be exclusionary to the trans community when being trans is nothing to do with your sexuality? Along those same lines, why would transgender people be included in LGBT?

Surely as being transgender isn't a sexual preference it isn't exclusionary or hate based to not include them in an organisation which supports the rights of those who are LGB. Or have I got this completely wrong?

Yep, that's about how I understand it, smileylottie.

I don't think T should've ever been there. Surely should've always been P for Pansexual or left as LGB?
Being trans isn't the same thing at all.

Thank you @ScrimshawTheSecond nice to hear I'm not going completely mad!

Allison Bailey is a wonderful woman for standing up for what she believes in, I just cannot see how anyone can twist what she is doing into something hateful and the consequences to be so severe for her when logically the two things should be separate.

smileylottie87

Not only is trans inapplicable in terms of sexual orientation advocacy, it's actually anti sexual orientation.

Trans ideology decides that sexual attraction is based on gender, i.e. clothing, hair, make up. And not sex.

Transgender ideology says that two men having anal sex can be called lesbians if they both identify as women. Or heterosexual if only one of them does.

Words like lesbian, gay, homosexual lose all meaning instantly. And therefore you cannot advocate on behalf of something you can't describe or define.

Or it changes its meaning every other minute, depending on the vagaries of the person concerned.

Whereas, in reality, homosexual men and women do need advocacy. Based on their homosexuality.

@Datun thank for explaining that, whilst I understood that two people with penises could have anal sex and label this as lesbian sex if that is how they identify I clearly didn't understand fully that they base their sexual attraction in that way and the further reaching consequences this has.

I have heard examples on MN of how trans women (with a penis) think it is transphobic if a lesbian (with a vagina) will not have sex with them. I think your highlighting that the sexual attraction is based in gender and not sex has been the missing puzzle piece for me and has helped me gain a better understanding of just how big on an impact this is having on the LGB community.

So this appears to be an attempted erasure of rights across the board by trying to blur the lines of all constructs we have around gender and those rooted in biology with sex without having any scientific or logic behind it. Other than that science is outdated and wrong (clearly not) or that "this is how I feel and you're transphobic if you don't agree or challenge what I think".

I suppose the thinking is that it is easier to hijack already established rights by changing the fundamentals of what entitles those people to those rights, rather than fighting to establish your own. Sorry again, that was long!

Surely should've always been P for Pansexual or left as LGB?

Yes, there is no need for P as B covers both sexes.

Yes, there is no need for P as B covers both sexes.

I think a majority of bi people would strongly disagree with that statement.

Pan sexuality is defined as "not limited in sexual choice with regard to biological sex, gender, or gender identity", whereas most bi people are attracted to biological males and biological females.

Most of them don't feel sexual attraction towards people who have changed their bodies using hormones and surgery, and they are understandably reluctant to get involved with people who have such a strong sense of personal gender identity that they require everyone around them to walk on eggshells to avoid triggering offence.

Which is why bisexuals need to be included with and protected by the LGB alliance.

That's fair enough but there should be no obligation implied thar bisexual people must sleep with everyone, just like I don't have to sleep with every man who wants to as a straight woman.

But there are only two sexes. I think "pansexual" is a redundant woke label like "demisexual" etc. MTF trans people are male and no one whatever their sexual orientation should feel socially pressured or coerced into sexual activity they don't want.

I suppose the thinking is that it is easier to hijack already established rights by changing the fundamentals of what entitles those people to those rights,

Exactly.

That's fair enough but there should be no obligation implied thar bisexual people must sleep with everyone, just like I don't have to sleep with every man who wants to as a straight woman.

Yes. Surely bisexuality indicates an attraction to either sex. And anything else is sexual preference. Lots of people will be attracted to both men and women, which is a sexual orientation. But not trans people. But that's a preference, not an orientation.