Letter to Guardian

[AnxiousAdventurer]

Furious to see that the Director of Amnesty International, Kate Allen, is among those writing to the Guardian to protest the Suzanne Moore article.

www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/03/05/the-guardian-anti-trans-editorial-feminists-letter-suzanne-moore-transphobia/

The Guardian link is here but doesn;'t show all the signatories: www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/04/differing-perspectives-on-transgender-rights

I belong to Amnesty, and my membership goes towards battling for human rights - I thought. I'm writing to Amnesty suggesting they should think about the rights of those lately branded as "hate groups" and try standing up for free speech rather than a particular ideology. I don't know whether to cancel my membership. I notice the director of Liberty also signed, which I also think is completely inappropriate.

I'm posting this here because other members of Amnesty or Liberty might want to let them know what they think too.

For people like Laura Lee this isn't an academic subject, this is to do with their safety. For people like Kat Banyard, why spoil a good stat by checking it? She can't be bothered, yet she says she cares so much about the women of the world.

Banyard isn't the only one who has quoted Mr Wells. Julie Bindel has quoted him too in her recent book. She steers clear of the 127 statistic though, presumably because she knows it's not true.

Radical Feminists tend to support the Nordic model. Sex-positive feminists tend not to. So to say it's a feminist thing is misleading. People who do support it are Protestant Evangelicals (like Mr Wells) in the North of Ireland and Roman Catholics (like Ruhama) in the South. The Nordic model would never have been adopted in Ireland without religious support.

There was a House of Commons debate in 2018 about the Nordic model. Kat Banyard was there but couldn't participate because she's not an MP. The Chair was Ian Paisley junior. Prominent speakers were Gavin Shuker who used to be an Evangelical pastor. Also Fiona Bruce is a prominent Evangelical.

So it's an alliance of Radical Feminists, Evangelicals and Roman Catholics. The nuns of Ruhama will tell you that 38% of Irish prostitutes have attempted suicide but that's just another false stat. Can you really believe that they are concerned mostly with the welfare of women in prostitution? Two orders of nuns who used to run Magdalene laundries and now run Ruhama?

'Woke' people tend to support the Nordic model. Emma Thompson does. I'm not woke. I know I used the word 'gaslighting' but that's because it's used on some feminist sites.

I tried to make a comment on the Nordic model site, about the 127 statistic and it didn't appear. However, another comment I made on a different page did. The same thing happened on the FeministCurrent site. So I've got the feeling that some of the moderators want to pretend that they welcome debate but they don't.

This is the response from Amnesty re my complaint to them:

Support for trans rights and reform of the Gender Recognition Act are based on Amnesty’s research on legal gender recognition in multiple countries and on existing human rights standards. It also draws from our long-standing work on violence against women and its root causes. Please note that access to single sex services is regulated by the Equality Act, not the Gender Recognition Act. The Equality Act is not up for reform. In countries where self-identification is already the standard (Argentina, Ireland, Norway) the policy has had absolutely no impact on anyone other than trans people, making their lives easier. Legal gender recognition is vital for trans people to live freely, authentically and openly.

Amnesty International would dispute any assertion that support for trans rights has a detrimental effect on women’s rights. While we of course recognise that trans women and cisgender women have differing needs within the umbrella of women’s rights, we do not view trans women’s rights as separate from the struggle for women’s rights and gender equality. We feel the current conversation, in particular on social media with regards to self-identification, is misguided and does a disservice to the great work of refuges and other spaces for survivors in terms of assessing risk and keeping people safe. Most services and refuges for women have always served the small number of trans women who needed them; and used the same checks and safeguards to keep both trans women and cisgender women safe.

bleugh. c-word. no impact my arse.

Maybe they should talk to the women imprisoned with a man who self IDs as a woman in an Irish prison and see how that “no impact” is going. Oh wait, they are only women, why would Amnesty care?????

They wouldn't speak the women prisoners to ask about how traumatic and terrible their lives are (and try to get them out of jail becasue of the trauma).

'Trans women's rights and cis women's rights ....under the umbrella of women's rights..'

FRO with that bollocks. Like you asked women in prison or rape crisis centres what they think. No f@$#ing good holding up service providers as an example their funding depends on including transwomen. Woke tw@ts.

The NCCL as it was then was already becoming pro-trans to the exclusion of women's rights before it changed its name to Liberty. (I know this but am not prepared to provide evidence on the grounds that it's too bloody outing for words.) I left them some time around 1988, more or less for that reason.