Victoria Atkins on the GRA consultation

[MrsSnippyPants]

Only a snippet, but the first we have heard for a while I think

twitter.com/LesleySemmens/status/1220350068949209089?s=20

Just looked her up. She is a Cambridge law graduate and a barrister.

She ought to know that language matters.

A cautious hope that she was given the job as Boris recognised that it was likely to be messy.

She has been (junior) minister for women since 2018.

I think Victoria Atkins is our best bet among the ministers.
Below are a few extracts from Telegraph articles quoting her.

Aug 2018
Transgender activists have been accused of attempting to shut down debate, as a former children’s minister said that young people’s welfare is being “sacrificed on the altar of political correctness”.
The women’s minister is facing a backlash after saying that she is “a little cautious” about the number of teenagers undergoing gender reassignment treatment.Victoria Atkins warned the country needs to be “particularly alert” to the issue, and expressed concern that a rising number of teenagers were seeking “life-changing” medical interventions. LGBT+ campaigners accused her making "damaging" comments and warned that people's "lives are at stake".

Also August 1918
Victoria Atkins, the Women’s minister, said the Government was "committed to hearing from everyone" and that "no decisions have been made yet as to what if any changes are to be made to the Act".
She said: "We want to talk about this debate in a caring but also in a careful way so that we as a society get to a position where we are all comfortable with the consequences of changes to legislation."
Ms Atkins said the Government was committed to maintaining protections for single sex services, adding it had no intention of lowering the age at which people could legally change their gender, currently at 18. She added: "This Government is absolutely committed to ensuring that everyone in our society can thrive, and to upholding the rights and protections that all our citizens enjoy.
"We want to support and protect women, we want to support and protect and improve the lives of transgender people. I hope these are two ambitions that have the support of the House."

Nov 1918
In an artice James Kirkup said: “In the debate, Victoria Atkins, the impressive Home Office minister navigating this minefield, reported that a Government consultation on reforming gender-change laws has had more than 100,000 responses. This issue matters to a lot of people.

(So Kirkup clearly rates her - maybe a hint that she is tending towards being GC)

Victoria Atkins was the Women's Minister previously under Theresa May. She has been in Women & Equalities Dept for some time.

In Nov 2018 when Layla Moran talked about seeing souls as alternative to sex-based Safeguarding policies, Atkins made some balanced contributions to the debate in Westminster Hall.

James Kirkup reported them in the Spectator article, 'This MP has summed up everything wrong with the transgender debate'

(extract)
Here are two eminently reasonable Atkins quotes that should be utterly uncontroversial but which are, in this context, refreshingly bold:

‘People are sometimes almost too scared to talk about things, which is not right. We do not want a climate of fear in the debate. We want people to be able to express their views respectfully and in a caring and careful manner, so that we ensure that questions are flushed out and answered.’

And:

‘I get asked about this issue regularly, and we all share a sense of sadness about the fact that this important debate sometimes gets taken over by loud and sometimes aggressive campaigning by activists. I am sure they hold their beliefs very strongly, but they perhaps lose sight of the fact that we have to be able to talk about this issue in a reasoned, respectful and caring fashion. The vast majority of the public—and, I am sure, parliamentarians—are in the middle. We want to talk about this issue in a caring and careful way so society gets to a position in which we are all comfortable with the consequences of the changes to legislation and so on.’ (continues)

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/11/this-mp-has-summed-up-everything-wrong-with-the-transgender-debate/

August 2018 Victoria Atkins also expressed concern about the drastic increase of children & young people referred to Tavistock GIDS
Telegraph interview:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/26/womens-minister-cautious-number-teenagers-undergoing-gender/

Apologies BiologyIsReal cross-posted with you

August 2018 Victoria Atkins also expressed concern about the drastic increase of children & young people referred to Tavistock GIDS

I'm pessimistic about the outlook for women's rights and atm I don't trust anything politicians say (because of the muddled language), but yes, I think she definitely understands the issues relating to children. She might get promoted and reshuffled out of Women & Eq though.

Thanks for the extra info on VA.

Seems promising...

I'm quite pleased Dawn Butler publicised herself doing this. She's got quite a bit of flack in response to her tweet, and so she damned well should. Politicians have been afraid of antagonising TRAs for long enough, and it's time for them to realise that it's more electorally dangerous to alienate a much larger group of people who may not be up to issuing death threats and rape threats (I'm certainly not; it's disgusting behaviour), but who have more votes.

In October 2018 Dawn Butler was the keynote speaker at a transactivist conference 'We're Still Here' organised by Jane Fae.

TheHarpySings who is a regular poster attended & provided her report:
(extract)
"Keynote Speech: Dawn Butler MP: Shadow Women & Equalities

This speech was fucking cringe. She said she was an ally of LGBT but had got a lot of messages moaning at her for “betraying women”. “Despite the fact I AM a woman.”

She mentioned all the countries that have self ID (RoI, Argentina, Malta, Norway). Apparently she’d been to Malta recently and it was “really chill.”

She blames the Tories for allowing this debate to drag on. “It is cruel.”

The impact of self ID are “non existent”. She said if this had been done swiftly there would be none of the current fuss or transphobia.

She said

1. the LGBT community needs to mobilise
2. They need to contribute to the consultation
3. They need to change the tone of the debate (lolercaust)

She also went on to say that a “phobia” is an irrational fear and there are three treatments:

1. Hypnosis
2. Talking therapy
3. Immersion therapy

Apparently the only way forward to deal with transphobia is talking therapy. DB said that the conservation needs to be around counties that already have self ID and it’s “fine”

Hilariously, given that the audience contained fucking Dr Harrop, she said something like “keyboard warriors don’t know the consequences of their actions.”

DB: “Labour will champion the unheard.”

She said that this was another form of Section 28 on the trans community.

She then quoted at length from a song from “The Greatest Showman”. I wish I was making that up.

Also, she got cornered by Mermaids reps on the way out and is meeting with them and their kids soon." (continues)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3398737-We-re-Still-Here-Conference-8th-September-A-report-from-the-inside

the remainder is really worth reading

relevent thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3374614-John-Ozimek-now-Jane-Fae-on-women-feminists-and-victims-of-pornographers

From Kathleen Stock's speech on the trans inquiry report:

In the use of written submissions, there’s also a preponderance of trans advocates listened to, and the ignoring of other groups. To take just one example, 8 points made by transwoman Jane Fae appear in the Final Report. But written submissions such as those of transwoman Miranda Yardley, who is against self-ID; or the well-known academic Professor Sheila Jeffreys, don’t appear anywhere in the Final Report.

medium.com/@kathleenstock/womens-place-talk-full-text-house-of-lords-oct-10th-2018-b1f3d70c4559

There's a newspaper report on this and on skim reading it looked like the Tories are just treading water, probably thinking that the new tories in the old labour seats will not thank them for wasting time on an issue like this when they are counting on the tories to bring about the economice revival the tories didn't manage before.

What I couldn't work out is what does Dawn Butler gain by this? Are there some internal labour party positions to be voted on and she wants the momentum vote or ...

She really does think that her over the top statements mark her down as the most woke of all Labour MPs.

And the final irony acussing the tories of "weaponising" the discussion!! Quote: “They weaponised the Gender Recognition Act throughout the election campaign. And now in 2020 we still don’t know what we’re doing.”

I dont recall any tories mentioning it. After from the Conservative Women's Pledge Group, but then Labour had one as well.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/trans-rights-gender-recognition-act-reform-boris-johnson-conservatives-a9298896.html

They weaponised the Gender Recognition Act throughout the election campaign.

Hilarious. Butler herself weaponised the GRA and the Equality Act - against her own party.

Would love to know what her understanding of 'consultation' is, esp given that there have been murmurs that 90% of the 100,000 responses were against the proposals or raising concerns. No way of knowing if that's true, of course.

Announce something unpopular, give people time to vent and then forge ahead regardless? Is that what she thinks?

@stumbledin

Wow - the headline Ministers condemned over delays in reforms to transgender rights.

Not ‘Ministers applauded over delays in reforms to erode women’s rights’

I thought journalists were supposed to scrutinise not parrot biases.

I haven’t trusted the Independent since their sports journalist stated transwomen winning gold is inspirational and was derisory on its effects on women sports Bye bye women and girls - you don’t count

Dawn Butler is neither daft nor deluded. She is a weapon. And she is not the only one,

so society gets to a position in which we are all comfortable with the consequences of the changes to legislation

That's deeply sinister right there.

Society gets used to the consequences? Like the female half of society just gets used to not being permitted, ever, to be apart from any males that wish to be watching/supervising/present? Some females get used to just not being able to access public spaces like public toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards, that as tax payers they're funding? Society gets used to that female people get raped and sexually assaulted in prison and forced to share communal showers with not only fully biological males but males with a history of being serious sexual offenders? Society gets used to female people being collateral damage and subordinated in all ways to the better wellbeing and nurture of choice for people born male? Police no longer prosecute theft and rape but will arrest you if you state biological fact?

This sounds to me a straight cop out to do things the Stonewall way. Do nothing. Whistle. Pretend it's not happening while more policies change and female spaces vanish, and then once it's already happened and it's become normal, quietly shift the legislation to 'catch up'.

I am deeply cynical and deeply suspicious because every political party and the trans political lobby have trained me to be.

I hope she means society talks about it until an agreement is reached that everyone is comfortable with before a change in legislation is made.

But I used to know what the word woman and single sex spaces and lesbian meant too.

Who does she think the LGB Alliance has been founded to advocate for?

I'm quite sure she takes the extremist TRA line that they are dangerous separatists trying to destroy LGBT 🏳️‍🌈™

Won’t support lesbians but will support the other letter?

I’ve worked with women like that. They don’t seem to like women.

She then quoted at length from a song from “The Greatest Showman”. I wish I was making that up.

And then went on to do similar again just before the December election!

At the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham that morning, Corbyn was more than half an hour late for the race and faith event, and the MP Dawn Butler filled the time by reciting the lyrics to the Labi Siffre classic (Something Inside) So Strong, to a bemused audience of hacks, who bombarded Labour aides with questions and requests. Until the last moment, it was unclear whether she and Corbyn would take questions from journalists.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jan/21/crushed-by-brexit-how-labour-lost-the-election

Bonkers

Mrs Butler appears to have confused Public Servant with Kareoke.

I mean I'm sure it's easily done, there were probably times when Churchill got confused and recited Kiss Me Goodnight Sergeant Major instead of his speech, but still, you hope for more than that from someone who sits in parliament.

I eagerly await Boris' rendition of REMs 'it's the end of the world as we know it', or Trump reciting the lines of 'Mr Boombastic'.

Its important to remember Conservatives such as Maria Miller MPs key role& responsibility for the current situation:

July 2017 Janice Turner's questions led to Maria Miller being upset rather than considering Safeguarding implications. The article describes how Miller "gathers up her handbag and makes to leave: “I don’t think I’m happy about this. I think I’ve finished . . . I didn’t realise this was such a stitch-up.”

(extract)
"Furthermore, if the law changes, “gender identity” is likely to become a protected characteristic under equalities legislation: ie if you deny a person is a woman or a man when they claim to be, you are guilty of discrimination or hate crime.

When Ms Miller, 53, released her report in January last year she was surprised that criticism came not from conservatives but, as she put it, “women who purport to be feminists”. This may be because feminists, well versed in sexual politics and long-time supporters of gay rights, are among the few people who can penetrate the arcane, confusing terminology.

Many see potential loopholes and conflicts of rights that put women at risk, giving men access to rare female-only spaces such as single-sex wards, changing rooms and domestic violence refuges, designed to keep them safe and private. It is these concerns I put to Ms Miller in her Basingstoke constituency.

Take this scenario: a man enters a female communal changing area, removes his clothes while women get undressed. Now they have a right to ask him to leave. Under gender self-definition, if he said “I identify as a woman” he would be entitled to stay. This, I stress, is unlikely to be a trans woman — many who use women’s changing rooms every day with discretion and no fuss — but could be a sexual predator exploiting the loophole. (There have been a growing number of cases in the US, including a man in Seattle using women’s pool facilities claiming “the law has changed, I have a right to be here”.) Does Ms Miller not see why women fear a conflict of rights?

“But 50 years ago, maybe ten years ago, people felt very uncomfortable about gay people showing their relationships in public but life has moved on.” This isn’t a question of feelings, however, but of physical safety and privacy which, as the author of another report on sexual abuse, she surely understands?" (continues)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/2993425-Maria-Miller-interviewed-by-Janice-Turner-full-text

I'm as left wing as they come, but if the tories can get this right and save women's sex based protections from the coalition of male-rights groups determined to obliterate them, they will have my vote for as long as they continue to protect, strengthen and uphold those rights. Let's wait and see.