This is what TRA are circulating to act to the gender rights new this week

[MrsPeacockInTheLibrary]

This is what the TRA are circulating. We need to act also.

CN: trans rights. GRA consultation.

(for those of you who need to conserve spoons and emotional energy at the moment)

(OP - I shared this from a lesbian friend who is furious at what she sees going on with some of her friends silencing debate etc)
If like me you are upset and angry about the response to the consultation and anti-trans proposals leaked in the Sunday Times a very trusted friend posted this regarding some urgent action you can take today and tomorrow:
"The Sunday Times article admits Boris Johnson hasn't yet agreed to Liz Truss's proposals. Liz Truss is due to speak in parliament about equalities this Wednesday morning. So Boris is likely being asked to agree to the proposals within the next 48 hours. The Sunday Times article is an attempt to push him to approve and to check what level of public objection there will be.
So get as many people as possible to URGENTLY call on Boris not to take forward any of these proposals by tweeting @BorisJohnson @10DowningStreet and emailing using the webform at email.number10.gov.uk"
[Zan: note the form is limited to 1000 characters for the response. Below are some suggestions of points to make from the post although you probably won't have space to include them all]
"Our best chance of stopping this is to make Boris Johnson feel it could be personally toxic as a legacy and a headache he can do without. If he doesn't sign it off, Liz Truss can't do it.
Get as many cis women allies as possible to complain that these proposals will harm them as well as trans women. That any tall woman, or flat-chested woman, or deep voiced woman, or butch woman, would be at risk of being excluded from women's services and toilets - there's no way for her to prove she's not trans - and men will likely use these proposals as a mandate to grope women's genitals on the pretext of protecting other women by checking if she has a penis.
Get as many allies as possible to also point out that these proposals would force cash strapped local councils to waste public money hiring toilet genital police to patrol toilets and demolishing long established gender neutral facilities from existing schools and leisure centres. What an atrocious waste of money during an economic crisis.
Try and get opinion pieces and letters to the editor by cis women into newspapers today and tomorrow. Try and get women's orgs of any size to publicly denounce the proposals as unnecessary and harmful to all women and girls, not just trans women. Get them to say there's nothing wrong with the way single sex services are currently operating and these proposals could even result in less provision of single sex services and closure of local authority public toilets."

@R0wantrees

I don't really think tall/flat chested/butch women will be questioned by other women, I'm just trying to follow the 'logic'.

Of course they won't. Dr Katie Alcock's article is a useful summary of how humans can recognise sex from a very early age.

I once read somewhere that a person's sex is the first thing the brain registers on meeting someone new. It makes sense I guess it's the mating instinct that even a gay person would have; as well, in the case of women, the self-preservation instinct. You know, as a woman, that a man could beat you up, rape you, etc, and millennia of civilisation won't have erased those instincts. Sex of the other is something we NEED to know.

How could anyone think it would be a good idea to try and erase sex altogether?
There's never been a need to peer into someone else's knickers. Though that would made a rather funny comedy movie.

That any tall woman, or flat-chested woman, or deep voiced woman, or butch woman, would be at risk of being excluded from women's services and toilets

I'm all of these. It's happened once. It went like this:

• I was heading for the women's toilets

• I heard a bloke behind me shout: "Excuse me, mate; gents are over there"

• I turned around and smiled and said: "I think you'll find that I'm a woman"

• He apologised profusely

Meh. I sport a shaved head. It was dark. He was doing the right thing. No big deal.

Does anyone think that my momentary discomfiture is sufficient reason to pull single-sex spaces from under the feet of women?

I don't!

The 'people who exclude women' would be the transactivist lobby

Yep.

After all, they're the ones who quite literally exclude actual female women from the category "women" for the heinous crime of rejecting makeup and dresses and dicks.

ThSingingKettle I think you just won Typo of the Day!

because they’ve put a bit of loopy on

@TyroSaysMeow whoops, didn’t notice that 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I'm another tall, broad shouldered woman.

When I was young, skinny & flat chested, & had a biker boyfriend so was frequently using service station toilets whilst wearing a leather jacket & jeans, I used to get the 'oi mate' thing occasionally as I headed to the ladies' loo. Or a double take from a woman already in there.

& every single time, before I'd even replied to say 'yes, actually I am a woman', before I had a chance to say it, they'd clock their mistake (& generally be v apologetic when they really didn't need to be!)

It's really not hard to tell.

The only time I ever caused any sort of sustained confusion was some drunk wanker in a goth club who followed me to the loo, & then demanded to know if I was 'a woman or a tranny'.

But y'know, he was just rude, drunk & a wanker. & the club did attract several regulars who definitely self identified as 'tranny', this being the late 80s.

I can truthfully say that no one has ever taken it on themselves to 'grope my genitals' to assure themselves of my sex. The only times anyone has Trumped me, it's been a bloke who has known perfectly well what he was grabbing.

If they think women really can't tell a tall woman from a man, then not only do they need mental health support, they need an emergency trip to Specsavers.

Quite!

Get as many allies as possible to also point out that these proposals would force cash strapped local councils to waste public money hiring toilet genital police

It's so weird that the reviewers of the GRA consultation responses twigged that there was an abundance of TRA-generated comments.

I can't understand what gave them away.

The Metro is amplifying this strategy!! (Well probably not a surprise)

Shouty headline: You have one day to stop Boris scrapping Gender Recognition Act reforms

They then go on to claim this as this is an act against Human Rights it will lead to other things like repeal of abortion rights. (Note how they trying to make out they are pro women. First they align with BLM now they will say they are the ones campaigning for women's rights.) metro.co.uk/2020/06/16/have-one-day-stop-boris-scrapping-reforms-gender-recognition-act-12862584/

[quote stumbledin]The Metro is amplifying this strategy!! (Well probably not a surprise)

Shouty headline: You have one day to stop Boris scrapping Gender Recognition Act reforms

They then go on to claim this as this is an act against Human Rights it will lead to other things like repeal of abortion rights. (Note how they trying to make out they are pro women. First they align with BLM now they will say they are the ones campaigning for women's rights.) metro.co.uk/2020/06/16/have-one-day-stop-boris-scrapping-reforms-gender-recognition-act-12862584/[/quote]
"[Mermaids] questioned how facilities will be able to check the gender of occupants and whether women will now be asked to carry ID that ‘proves their sex’.

No, if self-ID were brought in, there would be more IDs floating about which deny the holder's sex. How bloody thick do Mermaids think we are? It's insulting.

Does anyone happen to have a money off coupon for Specsavers they could (very publicly, just to be obnoxious) send to Mermaids? Seems like they need their prescriptions updated.

.... That any tall woman, or flat-chested woman, or deep voiced woman, or butch woman, would be at risk of being excluded from women's services and toilets, blah, blah...

Actually, no. The women you describe have been using "women's services" for quite a few years already and things are just fine. It's like there is a way to tell. Children can tell, dogs can tell.

Go away.

Sorry for the double post but honestly...

That way they either have to show they are transphobic by denying trans women are women, or admit to mysogyny by saying they are excluding women.

Yes, the women who you call T*RFS are definitely going to say "indeed, angry shouty stranger, I am excluding women, for as we know I definitely think that's what transwomen are, I just want them not be allowed into the women's bogs and changing rooms because I am pure concentrated evil, mwah hah hah".

And then she flies off on her broomstick, still cackling.

We have to beat the transphobes at their own game: be organised and ready to give them impossible questions like what they use on us to make out we aren't who we say we are, we can make them fall into prooving they are bigots.’

There are no "impossible" questions you can ask us, genderists - that's the benefit of having a reality based stance. The reason you find some of our questions impossible to answer is that you are attempting to defend a position that's absolutely barmy.

That bleater couldn't give just one example of an "impossible question" they could bamboozle us with?

No, of course not.

Very interesting that questions put to them about biology etc are regarded as impossible...

"I'm sure someone else will think of an impossible question to ask the witches!"

Hope springs eternal, etc. Also if I'm going to be cast as a witch anyway I'm going to be Agnes Nitt, always right and with gunpowder and nails sewn into my petticoat.

That's Agnes Nutter, Kittens. Nitt's the one with the big hair and the amazing voice.

I never quite get why they think the idea of toilet attendants is such a hilarious impossibility. Plenty of places have them. Then it's just a matter of ending this ridiculous practice of letting people lie about their sex on their documents, and then if the attendant queries your sex you can just show them your driving licence or passport or, hell, ID card (they're not that evil, really).

The only reason they'd need to check your pants is because people are allowed to lie on their documents.

We have to beat the transphobes at their own game

It is not a fucking game you utter muppet.

Female people being excluded from all spaces, services, provisions because of not being able to pretend - often because of their own vulnerabilities - is not a fucking game. Losing access to health care, hospital wards, refuges, and being locked up with a rapist because his feelings are more important than any harm they can do to you is not a fucking game.

Being stripped of the language, by males, to be able to talk about your physical reality, name yourself, organise against the things that oppress only and directly due to the biology shared by 51% of the population because it's too upsetting to males to permit - that is not a fucking game .

That you perceive all this as nothing more than a game to be won - the conquest and harm achieved of female people when it is not necessary to meet the real needs you purport to care about or find solutions that would work for everyone instead of involve winners and losers - go finish your homework for Gods sake and leave the grown ups alone.

Damn Pratchett and his love of the name Agnes! I've been in a toilet with an attendant within the last few years. It was in a club/music venue. Can't say their presence made much difference to me, but if I had been alone and men were allowed in I'd certainly have been grateful to have her there.

Was so disappointed to see a friend share this on facebook. She's an intelligent woman but somehow she fails to see how ridiculous it is.

No. 10 contacted. Liz Truss contacted. My MP contacted.

Still working on my list.

And the gaslighting and dishonest framing continues (this is from yesterday). Nobody is trying to roll back trans rights, they are going to stay just as they are. And no,the argument is not 'being frightened of transwomen in toilets'.

Ooh a twitter hashtag - smells like democracy and a great way to make decisions

Honestly, they are all batshit.

"#NotInMyName is trending this morning as thousands of women tell @BorisJohnson @10DowningStreet they don't want a rollback of #TransRights. Liz Truss is telling the PM in the next 48hrs that women in the UK are scared of trans women in toilets. t.co/3qhFrLwLUF "

twitter.com/Mermaids_Gender/status/1272784500368592896?s=19

"Liz Truss is getting ready to tell Boris Johnson that women want a rollback of trans rights. Please, all women who believe in trans rights, it's time to say: #NotInMyName to @BorisJohnson @10DowningStreet and email him: t.co/oYBJtncS1Y

t.co/Xs30qnjB3J "

twitter.com/Mermaids_Gender/status/1272566801268965376?s=19