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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Jess Phillips throws GC women under the bus

234 replies

watermelonpeas · 17/01/2020 10:54

www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/01/17/jess-phillips-labour-leadership-transgender-rights-juno-dawson-pinknews-interview/

AngryAngryAngry

OP posts:
BlackForestCake · 17/01/2020 20:18

Remind me when Juno Dawson was appointed Boss of the World whom everybody had to obey? I don't remember that.

TopBitchoftheWitches · 17/01/2020 20:34

Ex-wife...you have a very sad life . 🤦🤷

Michelleoftheresistance · 17/01/2020 20:42

Its the whole 'stop talking about this thing I don't like you talking about which may go somewhere productive, and spend the rest of the thread arguing safely with me about random stuff' thing.

Never goes anywhere useful. Best to stick on topic.

perfectstorm · 17/01/2020 20:44

@exWifebeginsAgainat46 such vitriol for a woman who holds a different opinion. the irony is delicious. You haven't offered an opinion. You've just attacked the posters and called them Nazis. What did you expect to happen, really, if you drop into a thread just to insult people, while offering no views at all?

For the record: you can support trans rights, and still recognise women need to be identifiable as a sex class, because if that is removed, there's no way to assert rights, either. Women deserve and need spaces based on sex, and to be allowed to assert boundaries based on sex. That doesn't mean trans people should be refused access based on their own natal sex, and nor does it mean that their transition should reduce their rights to equal treatment in all areas where sex is irrelevant, under the law. The Equality Act and 2004 GRA both do just that. And it's that balance that is now being removed, if the transactivists have their way. Women have a right to a view on that, and to object, and it's not bigotry to suggest that stakeholders should be heard.

If you have strong views on this, which I am assuming from your insults you do, I'd be interested in hearing them. But you've not expressed any, so I don't really know what your position is based on.

Personally, I'm grateful Mumsnet allow this to be discussed. I agree some views are transphobic (some on the employment thread, and some sneering at the idea that someone with gender dysphoria might find periods upsetting, for example, I disagreed with) but that doesn't mean some views from transactivists aren't misogynist, too - and there are plenty of rape and death threats being made, which I've never seen the other way.

Those in good faith need to find some way to reach a workable situation, because frankly I don't want someone who is natally male performing an intimate exam, and I don't think women in prison should be incarcerated alongside natal males either. They deserve better. I don't think natal males belong in women's sport, and I don't think unisex loos and changing rooms are acceptable when you look at the hugely increased rates of assault. Those views aren't based on hatred for anyone. They are based on my belief that any group fighting for their rights is entitled to centre that group. Nobody expects Black Lives Matter to centre transwomen, or disabled people, and nor do they expect Scope to centre black people or transwomen, either. Women are expected, always, to shove up and embrace the needs of others, and that is inherently misogynist. As, in fact, is the suggestion that a site for mothers is therefore inevitably mindless, and unsuited to proper discussion. None of that sort of abuse is going to enable anyone to reach some sort of reasoned understanding, is it - so what's the point?

I'd be genuinely interested in knowing what your views are - especially if you honestly think transwomen are women. I've never had anyone explain that belief - it's always made as a statement, and then no explanation proffered. To me, it's self evidently untrue, but I'm more than happy to be afforded an explanation, if you have one. But I am so fed up with people just screaming at one another. It achieves precisely nothing but resentment, and mutual radicalisation.

I have one kid diagnosed as autistic and the other on the diagnostic pathway, so jury is out. There are a lot of ways adolescence is especially, and dramatically, worse for ASD kids than others, and ways in which they're very vulnerable to a simple, one-size-fits-all answer to their sense that they're wrong in the world and their bodies (you might want to google interoception, if you're not familiar with that), that they don't seem able to accord with their peers, and that they can't cope with either transitions, or major change. Autistic people are also considerably likelier to be gay. I don't have any hate at all for the large, and exponentially increasing, numbers of transitioning autistic girls - the reverse, I feel deeply protective. But it worries me very much, given the number of autistic adult women I know who say they'd have transitioned, and are so glad they were teenagers in the last century when it wasn't a suggestion, because they're very happy as gay adult women. Genuinely gender dysphoric people tend to be so from very young, is my understanding, and rapid onset is fairly new as a phenomena. And 90% desist once adolescence kicks in, unless you use puberty blockers, when almost none desist. There are real questions around this - plenty of whistle blowing is going on. Why is worrying about that Nazi?

It's a bit much, to assume that you know all the motivations, thought processes, and backgrounds of people who happen to disagree with you. For the record, my own concerns don't mean I think the legal protections trans people have should be diluted. I just don't think those for women should be, either... and I think we need robust research and evidence on what is going on with children and young people, especially when autistic, and to what extent social contagion is an issue.

You seem to think these concerns are unacceptable. I'm sorry to hear that, but it doesn't make them go away. I'd actually like to be able to hold views that are more aligned with the transactivist movement, because those would be a lot simpler, as someone who's been on the left all my life. I campaigned against Section 28 when I was a teenager. I supported and argued for the GRA. But these are conflicting, competing rights, and there is complex ethical thought necessary over starting children on a pathway towards lifelong medical treatment and possible mutilation, and who the hell should not be concerned about that?

I'd gladly talk to you. But you aren't going to achieve anything just by dropping into threads to abuse people - unless that makes you feel good, in which case, okay. Life is tough, so whatever gets you through.

Voice0fReason · 17/01/2020 20:53

It's because I love this site that I challenge decisions sometimes.
I left the other place because the discussions were so shallow and they weren't open to challenge.

Thelnebriati · 17/01/2020 21:38

Also if one topic is dominating a thread, mods might request that people don't continue to post what's effectively the same question or point.

I see. So we can't ask for answers about the many different issues women and children face

Maybe they don't look like different issues when you aren't affected by them.

Datun · 18/01/2020 05:22

@MichaelMumsnet

Given Jess Philips has direct experience of, and investment in, the spousal veto issue, could you, on this occasion, see TinselAngels question as outside the 'single issue' parameters you've set?

The spousal veto issue is very relevant to Jess (and Tinsel) and seems, of all questions, to be the one that Jess would welcome.

I know HQ feel webchats are dominated by the trans issue, but the issue is extensive and covers such a multitude of subjects. Tinsel's question is directly relevant to the current policy that Jess is focussed on.

As such could you make an exception? The rules are newly tightened and people were trying to navigate them by deliberately holding off asking this so they didn't use up the question allocation - in order that Tinsel could ask.

I'll report this post to highlight it.

Creepster · 18/01/2020 05:39

Which rule of misogyny is that one, again?
14th rule of misogyny: Women have all the rights they need: The right to remain silent.

Creepster · 18/01/2020 05:46

vit·ri·ol
noun: vitriol
1.
cruel and bitter criticism.

Psychological projection always reads as a bit off.

PegasusReturns · 18/01/2020 11:38

The topic dominates because it’s what women are interested in. Anyone can add a question so i don’t buy “women being put off” and frankly if they are they need to get a grip.

Proposed amendments to the GRA will have a lifelong impact on women and girls. It is critical that we are allowed to discuss it and the fact that MPs choose not to, rather than addressing concerns and moving on is entirely because they know how critical it is.

StealthPolarBear · 18/01/2020 11:41

We're not allowed to discuss it. Or surrogacy. Or trans widows.
I'm going to ask what lipstick she wears. Presumably that's what they're aiming for

endofthelinefinally · 18/01/2020 11:49

Oh. Of course. It is the weekend. Maybe it is down to the weekend moderating team.Sad

DuMondeB · 18/01/2020 14:18

Bet we can’t ask about the Birmingham school protests either,

I like Barracker’s idea for a parallel thread.

LangCleg · 18/01/2020 14:36

If you think about it, we can't mention...

free speech and Art 10 rights
child safeguarding in schools
police creating criminal records for citizens who haven't committed a crime
safe NHS general wards
safe NHS locked psych wards
whether or not the DV women's sector is fit for purpose
RSE in schools
women's prisons
the integrity of women's sport
the ability of minors to give medical consent
women's rights in cases of spousal abuse
misogyny on social media
why the Labour party is losing women's votes
the damaging nature of sex stereotypes
societal lesbophobia
regulatory capture and policy laundering

... all of these things because genderists have managed to get themselves at least obliquely associated with them (and not in a good way).

And this list is off the top of my head in ten seconds flat. If you read it and you don't shit yourself in shock, I don't think I can really help you!

Michelleoftheresistance · 18/01/2020 14:53

I have a very sad feeling that Phillips, along with many other politicos, has become voterphobic. Particularly Thinkingvoterphobic.

Michelleoftheresistance · 18/01/2020 14:54

Essentially Lang we're not allowed to talk about anything that makes males sad.

Or even potentially risks making them sad. MN is a nice place. Smile, girls.

RoyalCorgi · 18/01/2020 15:09

I've wasted my question to Jess by asking her who she considers to be the most working-class candidate (I wonder if she'll answer). Could someone ask her about grooming gangs and why she thinks the authorities were so slow to tackle the ongoing, systematic sexual abuse of teenage girls even though they were well aware of it?

Datun · 18/01/2020 15:19

God, LangCleg

Absolutely fucking awful. Terrifying.

And all these women who are complicit. It's mind blowing.

OldCrone · 18/01/2020 16:03

There's a thread in chat asking mumsnet to allow a discussion of gender issues with Jess Phillips. The OP is going to count the number of people who have said that they want this. Post on there to make sure you're counted.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3797980-Who-else-would-really-appreciate-a-polite-discussion-of-gender-issues-and-the-concerns-of-women-at-the-jess-Philips-webchat-on-Monday

Creepster · 18/01/2020 23:00

I think the list Lang made needs to be discussed on site stuff.

Thelnebriati · 18/01/2020 23:15

You can add to Langs list;

  • Dismantling The Equality Act
  • WASPI women's pensions and any potential compensation going to men who have transitioned as they will benefit twice.
  • Erasing the language used by and about women, about themselves and their own experiences.
  • Erasing women's ability to challenge men. And this is the real core of the matter for me.
Thelnebriati · 18/01/2020 23:17

Adams Task is a philosophy book written by Vicki Hearne. Adam was given the task of naming all of the animals. We name animals to give them an individual identity that separates them from the mass.

Man is not permitted to name that which is above him - God.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam%27s_Task

watch.opb.org/video/the-open-mind-adams-task/

MoleSmokes · 19/01/2020 03:57

The 4th question to JP on the Webchat thread is about the GRA Spousal Exit Clause and also asks if JP will discuss this with trans widows, so has this been allowed by Mumsnet now?

Datun · 19/01/2020 06:24

MoleSmokes

As a concession, they've removed Empress's original question (at her request) and replaced it with Tinsel's deleted one.

MoleSmokes · 19/01/2020 07:08

Ah! Thanks for clarifying, Datun Smile