FairPlayForWomen fight inaccurate press reporting

[MrsSnippyPants]

More excellent work from Dr Nic and co.

fairplayforwomen.com/ipso/

Well done FPFW. That's a nuanced yet clear complaint - and so important given the regulatory capture of IPSO and the press by the lobby groups.

That is amazing work, once again, from Dr Nic/FPFW. Really excellent, deserves a huge round of applause.

So glad someone is shining a light on this gradual creep of inaccurate, misleading, and downright dishonest reporting that the TRA lobby has so vigorously encouraged.

Thank you for doing this on our behalf, Dr Nic

Thanks is for posting - we are surrounded by captured idiots.

Hurray for Nic!

The code specifies that information cannot be inaccurate, misleading or distorted. Or that headlines are unsupported by the text.

IPSO should be led by the public’s understanding of a word and must never be seen to drive or promote a minority definition. To do so would risk distorting the public understanding of a word and would give the impression that some interest groups exert undue influence in the IPSO decision-making process.

Shock headlines like “female sperm donor” are likely to drive traffic to their website and what should be informative news becomes ‘clickbait’. The story then becomes newsworthy simply because of the inaccuracy and absurdity.

Fucking female sperm donor, for gods sake.

Well done to Nic. This is stuff that is so blatantly self evident it should have been immediately and shamefacedly dealt with at the complaints stage.

Women should not have to be telling our national media that the definition of female isn't 'sperm maker'.

Jeez.

Yes indeed, Datun.

Nic makes all these points so clearly and compellingly.

By describing the individual as a ‘sperm donor’ the publication clearly knows and has revealed the individual’s biological sex. By definition a sperm donor’s sex must and can only be male. It is quite ridiculous to suggest that a ruling on the accuracy of the use of the term ‘female’ cannot be confirmed without the input or consent of the ‘sperm donor’ in this instance when it is clearly self-evident.

As indeed it is when an individual uses their male sex organ to rape women; or conversely their female reproductive system to gestate and give birth to a baby.

The idea that there is or should be any secret around the actual sex of a person in cases like these can only proceed from a determination to misrepresent and sensationalise stories for clickbait, or from profound ideological capture.

It also highlights how determined the TRA agenda is in its mission to rob the language of words that accurately refer to the sex of an individual.

They have appropriated the word “female” as well as the word “woman” to refer to people who are unequivocally male, making the words meaningless and nonsensical.

There are now no commonplace words available to refer to people’s actual sex which are acceptable to the TRA Gestapo and their compliant minions. None at all. Let that penetrate, as our friend Willoughby would say.

We no longer have any straightforward, simple language, which everyone understands and agrees on and is used by all media outlets, to tell us what sex an individual is: fundamental information which is absolutely vital to understanding and dealing with the world around us, especially for those of us who are female.

Instead they have palmed us off with their inaccurate and offensive fabrication of “cis”, this so-called prefix which makes women a sub group of some vague, indefinable mass of people instead of a discrete, coherent category in our own right.

The regulatory capture which has enabled this heinous assault both on our language and on us as women could not have happened without the existence of very deep misogyny in the world we live in, or without a very deep aversion to reality and truth. Quite astonishing from those whose trade is supposedly based in reporting facts.

I’ve always thought this was a particularly egregious case.The cognitive dissonance and misogyny required to report it in this way is quite breathtaking.

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/17/transgender-soldier-is-first-female-to-serve-on-the-front-line

A male person who went though male puberty and male socialisation, joined the army as a male, completed training with their physically male body, started serving as a male and lived with the rest of the unit as a male is suddenly now “the first female to serve on the front line”, because this person likes to dress in what are regarded as women’s clothes, and has changed their name from Ben to Chloe.

It is so staggeringly insulting. And untrue. It belittles, minimises and simply sweeps away the challenge that an actual woman would face in becoming the first actual female to serve on the frontline.

A person born female, going through female puberty and socialisation, joining the army as a female, serving as a female, and being in a minority of one if she were really the first female to serve on the frontline. The only female in a unit full of males.

Her potential achievement has been negated and stolen from her by this biologically male person who didn’t have to face a single one of the issues she would. It is nothing short of scandalous.

The Telegraph reported it in similarly fawning “stunning and brave” captured tones but that one is now behind a paywall.

Why is it that suddenly these journalists, from whatever end of the political spectrum, suddenly can’t see what is so blindingly, glaringly obvious?

Yes, I can kind of understand politicians wanting to fall in line but to see journalists, who's very job is asking awkward questions, losing their way like this, is pretty dreadful.

But thank you Dr Nic and Fair Play for Women.

Soz: journalists whose very job.

A male person who went though male puberty and male socialisation, joined the army as a male, completed training with their physically male body, started serving as a male and lived with the rest of the unit as a male is suddenly now “the first female to serve on the front line”, because this person likes to dress in what are regarded as women’s clothes, and has changed their name from Ben to Chloe.

I'm half wondering whether the reporters hasn't quite realised the depth of the situation. Weren't quite taking it seriously. Or hadn't fully appreciated that it leads to things like rapists being locked up with vulnerable women or the annihilation of women's sport.

I don’t know. I still don’t understand how anyone could ever have written shit like that with a straight face, and put it out there as if there were anything true or rational about it. The Guardian still doesn’t seem to care overmuch about vulnerable women being imprisoned with rapists, even now, after what’s happened in the intervening years. I don’t know how they justify/justified it all to themselves.

The whole issue is that male people were never banned from serving in the frontline because of their biological sex. The whole point is that the new rules mean that for the first time, those born female potentially have this opportunity.

And yet the story being “reported” is that a male person, never prohibited from serving by virtue of his sex, is supposedly the first person of the sex he categorically isn’t to break new ground and be a pioneer for equality of opportunity for the opposite sex, except of course he isn’t the opposite sex, he’s the same sex that’s always had the opportunity.

It’s a monstrous absurdity. It’s the Onion come to life. Let’s do away with claims that women are discriminated against on the basis of their sex by saying that men are women too, and they’re not being discriminated against!

Beyond parody.

And it is completely impossible to point all this out without using male pronouns for the male person.

That’s what’s going on here and why it’s so important what Dr Nic is doing by challenging IPSO in this way. If we can’t use words that correctly reflect reality, we are completely unable to communicate the truth of a situation.

What kind of regimes enforce this kind of censorship of known and demonstrably provable facts, I ask you? Facts it is necessary particularly for those at a disadvantage to know?

Oh and one more thing.

(Sorry. It’s a huge relief to be thinking about something other than That Which Must Not Be Named, today!)

I remember reading about one of the participants in one of the Walking with the Wounded expéditions for injured service men and women, the one to the South Pole I think.

This woman had not been injured in combat, I don’t think. She had irreversibly injured her back (and was going to end up in a wheelchair) by carrying packs the same weight as the packs the men carried. Because her physiologically female frame was not able to cope with the same weight that physiologically male frames can.

It struck me as a really sad example of what can happen when, in trying to eradicate discrimination, the very real differences between the sexes are denied or ignored.

And another way in which the story of the first genuinely female soldier on the frontline will be a very, very different one from that of Allen of the Scots Guards.

And yet... it is Allen’s story that comes up when you google first female soldier on the frontline, in the post-truth world we live in.

That’s what’s going on here and why it’s so important what Dr Nic is doing by challenging IPSO in this way. If we can’t use words that correctly reflect reality, we are completely unable to communicate the truth of a situation.

What kind of regimes enforce this kind of censorship of known and demonstrably provable facts, I ask you? Facts it is necessary particularly for those at a disadvantage to know?

The role played by transactivists involved with 'Trans Media Watch', 'All About Trans' etc is significant.

Background to formation and intentions of Trans Media Action & Press for Change discussed in 2013 article in THe Guardian:
(extract)

"In 25 years, [James] Barrett has seen trans people become "a networked bunch" – more so than other people, he thinks – thanks to the internet. Lees, who also works for Trans Media Action, says social media is the "essential catalyst" for the transformation of trans people in society. "Society is in transition and we've woken up from the operation and there's no going back. We can't pretend that trans people don't exist any more," she says. "People have been taking the piss out of trans people for 60 years. The narrative on trans issues has been controlled by people who have no understanding of them. Social media is about us grabbing the narrative back and telling our own stories – this is our reality, this is what we go through and this is what matters to us. We're here, we're in your face, we definitely exist. That's the most important thing – realising we exist."

www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jan/22/voices-from-trans-community-prejudice

Wiki
'In September 2011, Trans Media Watch and On Road Media launched the Trans Media Action initiative, with support from the BBC and Channel 4. Trans Media Action comprised a series of workshops and other initiatives designed to facilitate understanding between transgender people and journalists. Trans Media Action is now known as All About Trans.'
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_Media_Watch

Helen Belcher Tedtalk, 'Changing Media' on the 'power' of the five members of Trans Media Watch:
www.ted.com/talks/helen_belcher_changing_media

threads:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3371942-Trans-Media-Watch-Twitter

2018
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3238618-Trans-Media-Watch-has-written-to-parliament-saying-trans-identified-male-can-be-considered-as-hate-speech-and-that-Mumsnet-users-referring-to-penises-are-being-transphobic

2016
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/2783139-Trans-media-watch-are-lobbying-mnhq

And according to another current thread, they’ve got at the Zoe covid tracker app already. Just took a matter of days.

Brilliant work by Nic Williams and Fair Play for Women!

That is so well written and well argued!

The Court Reporting issue might remain a problem though. Maybe there are Journalists and legal-beagles floating around here who could help clarify the current situation?

When a case goes to court, is information readily available to the press about the legal sex of a defendant? Or of a victim? Looking at the current Bench Book it seems unlikely in all cases.

It is not possible to rely on "gendered names" or how someone is addressed in court because the Criminal Justice System has been comprehensively ideologically captured.

The Judicial College produces the "Equal Treatment Bench Book" followed by the courts. It is beginning to look like an even worse situation than the College of Policing, since it produces policies following secret advice from people and bodies it will not name, apparently without any accountability to the public.

Judicial College

www.judiciary.uk/about-the-judiciary/training-support/judicial-college/governance/

The current edition of the Bench Book, published 3 March 2020, must have been some time in the making as there are whole sections and references that are now out of date.

"Warning over transgender guidance to judges"
The Law Society Gazette 24 February 2020

www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/warning-over-transgender-guidance-to-judges/5103196.article

"Guidance for judges on transgender issues has come under fire from solicitors in the wake of controversial court rulings. Feminist lawyers say the guidance, in the Equal Treatment Bench Book, fails to highlight conflicts between transgender and women’s rights.

The Bench Book advises that transgender defendants should be addressed by the pronouns of their choice and that ‘self-definition is the most important criteria’ (sic). At least one victim of violence by a transgender woman has been reprimanded in court for using male pronouns while describing the attack. Finding the defendant guilty, the judge refused the victim compensation, saying that when asked to refer to the defendant as ‘she’, the victim had done so with ‘bad grace’ or continued to use ‘he’.

Solicitor Harriet Wistrich, head of the Centre for Women’s Justice, has raised concerns about pronoun use in cases involving violence against women. ‘Here there is a conflict between the right of self-definition and the right of a victim, who may have been violated in the most horrendous way, to describe her material reality as she perceives it,’ she said. ‘Why is the victim’s right less important?’ " . . .

. . . "The Judicial College declined to identify the external experts and organisations that assist in training and formulation of policy. ‘It is not necessary or in the public interest to make public the names of all those involved in this work,’ it said."

(The desire for secrecy is also writ large in the section of the Bench Book on Transgender People. No doubt the Judicial College has been fed the usual misinformation about trans people being more likely to be murdered, attacked and harassed than anyone else.)

------

"New edition of the Equal Treatment Bench Book launched"
3 March 2020

www.judiciary.uk/publications/new-edition-of-the-equal-treatment-bench-book-launched/

(I am sure there must be an existing Mumsnet thread on this!)

Equal Treatment Bench Book - Chapter 12 "Transgender People"

www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/ETBB-February-2018-amended-March-2020.pdf

Some highlights from the "Overview" of Chapter 12 - my bolding:

p243
"Despite its use in current legislation, the term ‘transsexual’ is dated and some people find it stigmatising. It is preferable to use the term transgender – if it is necessary to the legal proceedings to refer to a person as being transgender at all.

The gender landscape is rapidly changing. Increasing numbers of people identify, for example, as non-binary, a-gender and gender fluid. They are also transgender within the broader meaning of the term. UK law has not yet caught up with these social changes."

"It is important to respect a person’s gender identity by using appropriate terms of address, names and pronouns. Everyone is entitled to respect for their gender identity, private life and personal dignity."

p244
Treatment of transgender people in court

"It should be possible to recognise a person's gender identity and their present name for nearly all court and tribunal purposes, regardless of whether they have obtained legal recognition of their gender by way of a Gender Recognition Certificate.

A person’s gender at birth or their transgender history should not be disclosed unless it is necessary and relevant to the particular legal proceedings.

The Gender Recognition Act 2004 (section 22) explicitly prohibits disclosure of such ‘protected information’ where a person has applied for or obtained a Gender Recognition Certificate. It makes a specific exception where disclosure is for the purpose of proceedings before a court or tribunal, but this exception should be interpreted narrowly. For more detail on section 22, see ‘Disclosure of protected information under section 22 of the Gender Recognition Act’.

In the rare circumstances where it is necessary to disclose a person’s previous name and transgender history, the court may consider making reporting restrictions to prevent the disclosure of this information, or directing a private hearing."

(Excuse me - but why all this 'effin secrecy for the statistically least vulnerable group in society and when it seems 99.9% of "transgender people" are loudly "out and proud"??)

Transgender offenders

"Transgender people are likely to be highly apprehensive about being sentenced to a term of imprisonment."

(Unlike the rest of the population?? Or because they are disproportionately likely to be sex offenders, who get a rough time in nick?)

p245
Acceptable terminology

"Using acceptable terminology avoids offending parties and witnesses and gives them confidence they will receive a fair hearing. As stated above, most individuals will find the terms ‘transgender’ and ‘trans’ acceptable, but not ‘transsexual’. Individuals who have completed a gender transition may no longer regard themselves as transgender, but simply as a man or as a woman."

(Yes, we've had that memo! It does not mean that they are though.)

Equality Act 2010

"The Equality Act 2010 appears to be limited in its protection for transgender people, in that the protected characteristic is defined as gender reassignment." [flag]

(We see you, you secret "advisors", softening up the Judiciary for that attack on the Equality Act that you have sworn Scouts Honour you have no intention of making.)

p246
"Some transgender people may be particularly concerned about their previous name and gender assigned at birth being unnecessarily revealed in court. They may also be worried about receiving negative attention from the public and the press."

(Or individuals they have defrauded, for instance. Example plucked out of the air.)

I am losing the will to live reading the full chapter that comes after the Overview!

To return to the question in hand, which is how would a Journalist be 100% certain in 100% cases about the sex of a defendant, witness or victim?

In most cases, of course, it is bleedin' obvious, trans or not. However, it is perfectly possible, and I do wish a lot of people would stop denying it, for some men to present convincingly as women. Equally, there are some women who are able to present convincingly as men.

They do not necessarily identify themselves as transgender because, as we know, "gender identity" is all about the magical, internal, subjectively-experienced, secular-soulicious "gender essence". Neither need they wish to be perceived by others as the opposite sex. Some might not give a damn either way.

I might have misread the situation but it seems to me that judicial adherence to the Bench Book presents an insurmountable barrier to journalistic integrity in terms of the accurate reporting of the sex of persons involved in court proceedings.

The Trans Lobby might hate JK Rowling for her support for Maya Forstater but they have pulled a real stunner in fashioning a Cloak of Invisibility by Gaslight for when anyone under that "Transgender Umbrella" is up before the Beak. If Self-ID goes through, or "Gender Identity" gets written into the Equality Act, the field is wide open to abuse.

I don't suppose any of the secret advisors thought to mention to the Judicial College that there are Trans Advocacy groups arguing for the immediate release of all Trans Prisoners, pending the abolition of all prisons altogether?