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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Allison Bailey to sue Stonewall

999 replies

OhHolyJesus · 27/06/2020 08:20

There is a crowdfunder so I won't share the link but here a part of the text. It's long but brilliant and this isn't the half of it. Off to find my wallet...


The new trans activism: all scrutiny and critical voices labelled ‘transphobic’  
In early 2018, when I first heard that plans were underway to make the lives of trans people easier, my reaction was that this was a good thing and I did not give it a second thought.  I kept coming across the term ‘TERF’ but ignored it.  I thought that bigots were simply being called out.  
Then one day I clicked on a link: terfisaslur.com where someone had collated the online abuse that was being directed at women who I realised had entirely valid concerns and questions about the wisdom of replacing sex with gender. 
I learnt that the new trans activism wants to smash the distinctions between men and women; replacing sex with notions of gender identity; making sexual difference a matter of self identification; and demands that any and every man that wishes to identify as a woman must be allowed to do so.
I learnt that the new trans activism is focusing, inexplicably, on young children and declaring them ‘trans’; treating puberty as a disease to be blocked with powerful drugs; delivering our young people into the arms of a multi-million pound industry of big pharmaceutical companies and plastic surgeons. 
I saw that the same males who would have society regard them as women, were quick to brandish knives, axes, baseball bats and nooses, as they threatened with rape women who questioned the wisdom of replacing sex with gender —TERFs.
I realised that the new trans activism operated a crude but effective system of punishment and reward: agree with every demand of the trans lobby and be safe; object and face vilification, abuse, boycott, character assassination and cancellation.
I was horrified (and terrified).
I wanted to look away, to pretend that I had not seen it; that it did not reveal the worst woman-hating, lesbian hating, misogyny that I have ever come across in my lifetime. 
I did not look away and I urge others not to either.  Thanks to brave women who have come before me, such as the late, great, Magdalen Berns, whose courage and no nonsense approach to calling out the new trans activism as the men’s rights movement it so clearly is, gave me courage.
I realised that I did not have to accept that any man can claim to be legally a woman, without having to undergo any hormone or surgical intervention, psychological evaluation or risk assessment. 
I realised that it was okay and necessary to say that it is reckless and naive to think that men will only identify as women if they are stunning and brave and harmless: that the wicked, abusive, predatory, unwell and downright cantankerous will, by some miracle, refuse to take advantage of free and easy access to women, to their politics, safe spaces, sports, legal protections and identities.
I was shocked to discover that significant numbers of male sex offenders are permitted to identify as women and nothing is being done to stop them.  In England and Wales, some 40 per cent or more of trans identified males in the prison population are men with convictions for sex offences, including rape and possession of the most serious indecent images of children.  I read a steady stream of news reports from around the world of males who identify as women committing serious sex offences.
It is repugnant to me and wholly unacceptable, and frankly unbelievable, that the new trans activism demands that sex crimes committed by males who identify as women are recorded as having been committed by women; and that these males can demand to be referred to by female pronouns.
I discovered that women incarcerated in prison are left vulnerable to serious sexual assault and mental anguish, as males, including sex offenders, are locked up with them. The new trans activism demands that a man’s desire to identify as a woman is more important than the right of imprisoned women to safety and dignity.  These women have no way to escape, no choice, they are locked up. I do not see how this is anything other than state facilitated abuse and mental torture.
Where there should have been discussion, investigation and inquiry, there has been the silencing of concerned and critical voices; not voices from the far right, but from women like me, who are of and from the progressive left.
Mantras have been chanted because the new trans activism is a movement that cannot bear scrutiny: TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN; TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS; TRANS PEOPLE ARE WHO THEY SAY THEY ARE; PROTECT OUR TRANS SIBLINGS, and so on, do nothing to engage with and address the serious concerns that exist about replacing sex with gender.
The new trans activists are joined by politicians, journalists, lawyers, writers, entire organisations, and assorted celebrities, in the chanting of these mantras to shut down debate, while others who are appalled at what they see happening are too afraid to speak out. It is cult like behaviour, it is Orwellian, and it has disgraced and shamed a generation.
Labelling all critical voices ‘transphobic’ is a cynical political ploy of the new trans activism. It must be resisted.  
Surviving child sexual abuse: understanding that women and girls are oppressed because of their sex and not their gender identity
The man who sexually abused me as a 9 year old little girl; the man who targeted my single-parent mother; the man who told me that I could trust him whilst he slipped drugs into my orange squash to render me helpless as he sexually assaulted me, was tried and convicted of multiple sexual assaults against me in 2015, and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. He was released from prison last month (May 2020) to serve out the rest of his sentence on licence.  
I make this disclosure now because I feel compelled to stand in solidarity with other women with similar experiences of male physical and sexual violence. It is not weaponising trauma to say so, any more than recounting racist abuse is.  
We must not allow men or women to bury, minimise and ignore the visceral reality of male violence.  We must not allow the new trans activism to force survivors back into the closet; this would be an abuser’s charter.  
It should be a cause of great alarm that the new trans activism takes such a regressive and shaming attitude to disclosures of abuse. This culture of denial and belittling has been the bedrock and the hallmark of every abuse scandal. It is a red flag that signals a safeguarding catastrophe in the making.
It is women like me whose lives have been torn apart and seriously blighted by wanton acts of male violence that know that men are often not who they say they are or claim to be. 
I know that conflating sex with notions of gender identity will leave women with no legally enforceable boundaries against any man.  
I know that if the new trans activism is not brought to heel, women will disappear as a political class.

OP posts:
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FemaleAndLearning · 27/06/2020 09:53

Ive donated. Allison text is so informative of the issues. I particularly liked her reference to Stonewall not being a statutory body. I've had experience at work where Stonewall were the go to organisation for anything related to LGBTQ etc., but if that go to organisation has changed so much from its origins and can change the definition of same sex attraction to gender attraction then we really have a problem.

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Waspie · 27/06/2020 09:54

I've donated and shared. It's past £12k now!

Thank you Allison Flowers

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Poppyfields21 · 27/06/2020 09:55

Thank you for sharing this, I have donated.

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FFSBringbackLangCleg · 27/06/2020 09:55

Dug. £14,550!

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OldeMagick · 27/06/2020 09:55

Almost £15,000 Smile

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teawamutu · 27/06/2020 09:56

Hoping this gets some coverage in the media.

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Shedbuilder · 27/06/2020 09:56

Trying to imagine being a lesbian and coming to realise that my employers were holding secret meetings with a charity that was supposed to support LGB people and that both saw me as a problem to be dealt with.

There needs to be an enquiry into Stonewall's activities. How can it pose publicly as representing LGB people while also behaving in such a Stasi-like way? We really need politicians and people with clout to press for a proper investigation.

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Xanthangum · 27/06/2020 09:57

£15k in two hours. Wish I had put more in now tbh.

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teawamutu · 27/06/2020 09:57

Over 15k now!

I needed this so much after the Baroness N debacle.

We persist!

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littlbrowndog · 27/06/2020 09:59

Go Allison.

Unbelievable that a charity having secret meetings with an emplyer

Why do they have this Power and their are funded to do this

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OldeMagick · 27/06/2020 10:00

Why indeed @littlebrowndog

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AskDan · 27/06/2020 10:01

I am not an expert in these matters, but I know a little bit about HR/employment law. Having read AB's full statement. The things that struck me are:

Investigations are supposed to be impartial.

If stonewall made a complaint, in my view, it would have been reasonable to take a statement, but not share information about AB or have round table / strategy meetings.

By having these strategy meetings, surely her chambers would have breached AB's confidentiality.

She would not have been treated his way if she was a white man.

The bad news is that there are huge delays in employment tribunals, this is not going to be a quick win.

The good news is that whilst reading AB's story on her crowdfunding page, over a £1,000 was raised and another £2,000 in the time it took me to write this.

Good luck Alison.

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OldeMagick · 27/06/2020 10:03

It's creeping towards £16,000

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Dances · 27/06/2020 10:04

It's not creeping! It's 16

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MorrisZapp · 27/06/2020 10:05

@BovaryX

I'd love to see how the hacks at the Guardian explain this one away

The Guardian doesn't cover news it deems problematic. That is one reason its readers who fail to access other media beyond Twitter, are so detached from external reality and constantly shocked and awed by election results.

Pa ha ha ha ha ha

Brilliant :)
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OldeMagick · 27/06/2020 10:07

@Dances

It's not creeping! It's 16

I got an itchy trigger finger and refreshed the page too quickly Grin
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EmpressLangClegSpartacus · 27/06/2020 10:07

Just donated. I’m worried that my workplace might be considering bringing Stonewall in. I hope she wins.

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teawamutu · 27/06/2020 10:08

My family of committed Guardian readers were shocked to learn I considered Little OJ a raging misogynist.

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onalongsabbatical · 27/06/2020 10:09

Getting on for 17 now - making me think of this...
Still I Rise
BY MAYA ANGELOU
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

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teawamutu · 27/06/2020 10:12

sabbatical that is my favourite piece of writing in the entire world. I have it on my wall.

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Dances · 27/06/2020 10:13

17

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OldeMagick · 27/06/2020 10:14

Who wants to lay bets that she surpasses her target by 10.30am?

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Almahart · 27/06/2020 10:15

I've donated too. I work for a very large organisation that is just waking up to diversity. I dread them bringing Stonewall in

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MissMarplesHandbag · 27/06/2020 10:16

Thank you for highlighting this. Donated.

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Datun · 27/06/2020 10:17

I shall be donating as soon as I get home.

This has gone on long enough. Our children are being drugged by the Tavistock and indoctrinated by lobby groups throughout their schooling.

Little wonder that many young people will parrot the mantra TWAW whilst simultaneously being unable to explain why.

It's unbelievable that a political lobby group, designed to support homosexuality, is targeting a homosexual woman for being both a woman and a homosexual.

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