When you stand for nothing

[BovaryX]

TimeLady has posted an excellent article by Janice Turner in The Times which analyzes the extensive influence wielded by a secretive lobby group who are unknown to most of the public. This lobby has embedded itself into influential institutions and its radical policies are promoted by politicians. It deliberately avoids media scrutiny or public debate. The emphasis on secrecy is an acknowledgment that if its agenda was widely known, there would be legitimate, valid resistance. Key pieces of its agenda are on the manifesto of the Lib Dems. John McDonnell yesterday also confirmed Labour’s commitment to self ID. Why are politicians in two major parties signing up to the demands of a lobby group whose aims are so unpopular with the public, secrecy is their modus operandi? Why are politicians who want to run the country espousing an ideology whose proponents are unable to coherently defend it when questioned? And have instead tried to criminalize any debate? Part of the answer is fear of a Twitter mob descending wielding fictional claims of ‘hate speech’ as a bludgeon. But the other answer? A total absence of principles. This lobby’s influence is an existential threat to freedom of speech, freedom of thought and democracy. Enlightenment values. The politicians pandering to this?

When you stand for nothing, you fall for anything

Don’t forget any —astroturf— movement needs grassroots. Action for Trans Health and Jess Bradley who were called to contribute to Maria Miller’s enquiry.

The Introduction to the pdf linked above says

In 2014, the Open Society Foundations produced License to be Yourself, a report on progressive gender recognition laws and policies for trans people, and the activist strategies behind them.

This brief is one of four complementary resources for activists. Each brief
summarizes key arguments made by those opposing access to legal gender
recognition. This resource focuses on minimum age restrictions that deny trans children and youth the right to legal gender recognition. It provides arguments that can be used by those advocating for rights-based gender recognition laws and policies.

This brief also introduces issues relevant to children and young people with
intersex variations. It recognizes that children with intersex variations often face a complex series of interactions with the medical system in order to obtain an initial sex classification.

Here is the full Open Society publication

www.opensocietyfoundations.org/publications/license-be-yourself

This report is a resource for activists working on human rights issues for trans people, local communities examining best laws and policies, and policymakers seeking to uphold the rights of trans people.

This is what grassroots women's groups are up against. No wonder that it's so bloody hard.

Worth noting that Stonewall do not publish the names of all the members of its Trans Advisory Group. Some choose to remain anonymous.
www.stonewall.org.uk/trans-advisory-group

They were selected, apparently, after a lengthy, albeit undefined, recruitment process, one which until recently did not see problems with Aimee Challenor, who remained part of the group long after she was essentially forced to resign from the Greens. ( She is no longer on the website at least. No knowing whether she is one of the anonymous members.)

So in short we don't know who advises Stonewall on Trans issues and we don't know how they are recruited. Presumably any of the people mentioned above could be part of the group. Stonewall then advice the Government, police, schools and, and, and.

Stonewall is very much the public face of trans lobbying yet we don't know who lobbies them, with a general assumption being that both Ruth Hunt (former CE) and Jan Gooding (Chair of Trustees - or at least she was. Stonewall just have her listed as Trustee) were stooges.

This is such an interesting thread, thank you Bovary and Time.

If Stonewall - a publicly funded organisation - is allowed to be secretive as to who their advisers are, then that is astonishing.

This is what grassroots women's groups are up against. No wonder that it's so bloody hard.

Well, well well. So that’s who is involved? Open Society? A lobby group who have access to the upper echelons of power but shun media scrutiny and public debate? I wonder what Professor Karl Popper would have said. The Open Society and its enemies There are certainly plenty of the latter with a stranglehold on the apparatus of the state.

Sorry for the sun link (it came up on my news feed).

This is why women still need to fight for their own spaces:

Girl, 16, 'raped in school hallway for 30 minutes & her screams were ignored'
Read in The Sun: apple.news/AXRlkIf0zS46KqvFc_HnN4A

Ah so that's why Ireland has fine further down the genderism path than Britain. Nothing to do with popular opinion. Quite the opposite, it seems
NotTerf
That’s exactly right. It’s the opposite of a grassroots movement. Like the suffragettes. Avoiding public debate and media scrutiny are explicit tactics because if its radical aims were common knowledge, there would be widespread resistance. How is that democratic?

Thank you. Some really interesting links here.