Local MP response re diminishing women's rights

[StealthMama]

Sent this email to local MP, followed by lame response. No one cares do they? It keeps coming back to bloody toilets which I didn't bloody mention!!

This is Tory response, have also emailed Lib Dem and labour for their views.

Dear xx
With the recent increase of organisations being allowed to ignore the Equality Act in favour of the minority transgender rights, I’m seeking clarification from all parties as to their stance on protecting the rights of women in the future and what policies maybe being considered as part of the general election manifesto.

There are many many women who feel hugely aggrieved and staggered that transgender activists have been gradually snipping away at women’s rights and that this is being allowed through lack of clear legislation and governance.

There are two recent opposing examples for your attention, M and S who will allow ANY male enter a female changing room regardless of transgender status and Centre Parcs who will not endorse this unless a full physical transition has occurred - namely, removal of the male genitalia.

The threat to women is real. The vulnerability of women is real. The vulnerability of young girls in changing rooms is real. The statics support that the threat to women and girls exists and incidents occur already in unisex spaces without further endorsements of shared spaces being preferable to those segregated by sex. This is just one tiny topic that opens a can of worms for women and the protection of our rights.

Young women are being offered surgery to remove their breasts when they are under the age of 18. Hormone therapy is being offered to children as young as 9, to prevent natural puberty and start the process of transitioning from their biologically assigned sex. There is no evidence of the long term impacts of such therapies - we are experimenting on our children, mostly young girls.

Transgender women who retain their male genitalia who rape and sexually abuse women are then being allowed to serve their sentence in the female prison estate - because THEY have the right as a transgender individual to be treated as the gender they identify as. How on earth is this more important that than the right for women to be safeguarded?

Women have been sacked for their jobs simply for stating the biological fact that the definition of a women is an adult human female. The out of kilter desire for inclusion is by default excluding others.

The smear test campaign from cancer research now refers to ‘those who have a cervix’ Rather than the term ‘women’.

The rights of transgender are being acted upon as a priority over women. Our rights and our legislated protection is being revoked one at a time and nobody is talking about it - let alone doing anything about it.

I would appreciate your response to explain the Conservative Party’s Position on this topic and what policies you would advocate for to protect women’s rights should you win the next general election

Response:

Dear Xx
I have no problem with transgender people who have been medically assessed using female toilets etc but I am totally opposed to self-identification which seems an excuse for men to use female facilities. There is currently a consultation going on but I am opposed to self-identification and I would be very surprised if it went through if we had a Conservative majority in Parliament.

That is a very short answer to a very long E-Mail suggesting they do not know much about the topic ("medically assessed" what does that even mean - psychologically, surgically, what) and do not care much (hence the dismissive, won't pass in a Tory majority Parliament).

Well, I think it's quite a good response as my (Tory) MP doesn't even answer when I contact him on this subject (while he responds in a fairly timely fashion if I contact him about anything else).

Now's the time to contact them, when they want your vote!

They probably mean "with a GRC."

But even that is not necessarily enough under the Equalities Act, which has a clause for precisely this situation - even a transwoman with a GRC could be refused access/work etc in a single-sex female space if there is a proprtionate argument for the achievement of legitimate aims (or something like that). It means that if it is important to protect women in a single-sex space for a legitimate reason (eg a refuge) then even a transwoman with a GRC - the 'legal fiction' that she is female - can be excluded.

And self-ID transwomen get nowhere in that scenario.

But of course, instead, we have people just bowing to the extreme pressure of the transactivists, many of whom seem to me to exhibit signs of mental unwellness or imbalance.

At least they're unequivocally opposed to self ID.

I wonder if you'll get even that much from the others?

I would have considered that a not bad response, though I can see that it might seem off the cuff.

But it strikes me as being actually what this MP thinks rather than some sort of political-bollocks, and also that as someone said, this person probably only knows a small amount about the issue so is speaking from that perspective.

Clearly he or she intuits that there are significant potential problems with self-id.

I think what very few people get - beyond feminists and some thinking men - is that the big problem with self-ID is that it fundamentally changes the definition of what it is to be a woman.

And that TRAs are trying to change this without fucking listening to actual women . That is what makes me so deeply deeply angry

My identity is being erased by men.

Yet again I'm left with the impression that they think a GRC is only given to someone who is post ''full op'' transexual.

I think what very few people get

My sister put her finger on this for me recently, though in another context.

Most people are not good at systems thinking. They tend to see things as individual issues, or they only draw one straight line and don't look for parallel or unexpected effects. Or they kind of randomly associate certain issues but it's not systematic so sometimes they hit on related issues, sometimes not.

I've been observing and I've realised this seems to be true across the board on so many questions where systemic thinking is really necessary.

What this has helped me realise is that it's often not that people are ignoring things when they should know better, they really don't see the issue or make the connection. And it's especially true if the effect is one that will manifest over time. They really can't imagine, if we change societies view of x, in one or two generations, how will that affect how people think about other things?

I think education can help this somewhat, learning to think systemically, but that takes time and our issue based form of educating kids in social questions works against it. But I now suspect that for many, this may never be a strength even with education.

Is this a male MP who is supporting 'medically transitioned' (you what? what's that?) people born male to use women's facilities? In reply to a female constituent stating she is not fine with it and she has to use them?

That’s actually not bad, my MP thinks it’s Ok for people who identify as women to be in women’s spaces such as refuges long as they have a DBS check

Most people are not good at systems thinking. They tend to see things as individual issues, or they only draw one straight line and don't look for parallel or unexpected effects. Or they kind of randomly associate certain issues but it's not systematic so sometimes they hit on related issues, sometimes not

Yes, I think your sister has it (and is obviously a systems thinker!).

When I teach feminist stuff, in the course of teaching my subject, I find young women (mostly) seeing simply themselves, and they don't like to think that they are 'victims' of discrimination, so they protest - "but I'm not oppressed!"

I try to get them to understand the structural inequalities (ie patriarchy) - a systems approach, I suppose.

@Michelleoftheresistance yes it's exactly that.

He clearly doesn't get it and I feel the response came too quick and is far too narrow given the wider points I made. I've drafted a response several times in my head, going to email again tomorrow.

No response from Lib Dem's or labour offices yet.

@Goosefoot I also support the systems theory thinking at an intellectual level, but more over I feel we are being totally blindsided as to the landscape of diminishing rights. It's happening right under our noses and far too few people even know about this stuff let alone have formed an opinion on how it makes them feel.

One of my lecturers at university (waaaaay back in the late 70s) said to us "You only have the rights you can fight for."

Eternal vigilance ...

May I copy your letter in order to send to candidates in my constituency? Not word for word, but based on yours?

It would be interesting to compare replies.....

@Jux yes please do, be interesting to see what you get back.

"It's especially true if the effect is one that will manifest over time. They really can't imagine, if we change societies view of x, in one or two generations, how will that affect how people think about other things?"

I think you can see that in the Hansard transcripts of the original debates about the Gender Recognition Act (2004). The act had the limited aim of allowing legal sex change on the birth certificate on the assumption that very few people would ever use it. It was a handful of peers in the House of Lords who could correctly foresee the potential long-term consequences.

It was a handful of peers in the House of Lords who could correctly foresee the potential long-term consequences.

Interestingly this sort of observation also tends to come out of the unelected House here in Canada. Politics seems to obscure these sorts of insights somehow.

At least they're unequivocally opposed to self ID.

I wonder if you'll get even that much from the others?

Indeed. Labour, Lib Dems, Greens? I doubt it.

The act had the limited aim of allowing legal sex change on the birth certificate

And I gather that was to accommodate the marriages of men who transitioned later in life, when we didn't have equal [gay] marriage as a legal option.

The GRA was always about the creation of a legal fiction to enable those marriages to continue, not about saying that transwomen are women.

I've drafted a reply several times

If you manage to send one to him that doesn't sound with 'now listen you sexist twunt' then I take my hat off to you.

Men, deciding among men, what women may have, do and what will happen to their bodies. Is he seriously not capable of realising how far he's stuffed his foot in his mouth?

I swear, this kind of paternalistic idiocy makes me come over all 1950s school teacher and I want to start slapping legs. They're paid to do a job, to represent the whole population and to think .