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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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OvaHere · 12/02/2021 10:21

[quote nauticant]Without going into a tedious explanation, the LGBAlliance twitter thread has broken continuity and continues here:

mobile.twitter.com/ALLIANCELGB/status/1360163707175776256[/quote]
Thanks. I went to load the dishwasher and couldn't work out what was going on.

highame · 12/02/2021 10:22

Difficult to see which direction this will go. The arguments from the defendants about being unable to name those who discriminated is a bit of a stickler and now route to liability being unclear. They also seem to be saying that yesterday allegations made that were unfair?

Unfortunately I have to be off and do stuff. Hope Alison is able to progress her case 👭

OvaHere · 12/02/2021 10:26

I've started a thread 2 for when this one is full

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4163253-Allison-Bailey-to-sue-Stonewall-thread-2

StillAWoman2 · 12/02/2021 10:26

@OvaHere

This isn't easy to follow as a non legal person but I think the current discussion is around how blurred the lines are around TELI and GCC

LGB Alliance
@ALLIANCELGB
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2m
(J): on Brewer. Meeting on parl strategy. Brewer noted as Teli/GC but was not there to represent GC. trans Equality legal initiative. Brewer did help found Teli but that doesn’t make Teli a GC group any more than GC is LGB alliance group because Claimsnt is involved with it.
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LGB Alliance
@ALLIANCELGB
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13s
(J): Brewer was not acting on behalf of GC. Judge challenges that. It was a GC working group. Surely if management sets up such a working group it is acting on behalf of GC

Not quite true though is it? GCC didn’t sponsor the LGB Alliance launch

www.gardencourtchambers.co.uk/events/trans-equality-legal-initiative-launch-conference

OvaHere · 12/02/2021 10:30

It seems crazy to me that they can argue Allison isn't making specific enough allegations when they have redacted all the information she needs to understand who was involved in what.

OvaHere · 12/02/2021 10:30

Not quite true though is it? GCC didn’t sponsor the LGB Alliance launch

Good point

testingmitb · 12/02/2021 10:33

@OvaHere

It seems crazy to me that they can argue Allison isn't making specific enough allegations when they have redacted all the information she needs to understand who was involved in what.
hear, hear. Bastards.
nauticant · 12/02/2021 10:35

You really don't want to be defending this stuff in court with the possibility it will end up in the newspapers and on the Internet:

Mr Johnston: some allegations made yesterday ‘grossly unfair’.

Mr Johnston: ‘extremely serious’ allegation that the point of the course [cotton ceiling workshop?] was to sexually coerce young lesbians.

OvaHere · 12/02/2021 10:38

GCC's barrister is pushing for dismissal on the basis Allison can't identify the redacted individuals.

LGB Alliance
@ALLIANCELGB
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10m
(J) waffling a bit. The real meat relates to fact that the claim even in amended form is wholly inadequate and chances of success are low. I other words judge should dismiss.

LGB Alliance
@ALLIANCELGB
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9m
(J) judge queries this but J continues to repeat that failure to identify individuals and establish they were acting fit GC is key to the case.

LGB Alliance
@ALLIANCELGB
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7m
(J) other issues in the claim. PCP pleaded is inherently problematic. No basis for asserting the 2nd or 3rd respondents treated persons with gender-critical beliefs in any discriminatory way.

OvaHere · 12/02/2021 10:40

@nauticant

You really don't want to be defending this stuff in court with the possibility it will end up in the newspapers and on the Internet:

Mr Johnston: some allegations made yesterday ‘grossly unfair’.

Mr Johnston: ‘extremely serious’ allegation that the point of the course [cotton ceiling workshop?] was to sexually coerce young lesbians.

What else could a workshop about getting lesbians to accept penis possibly be if not coercive?
nauticant · 12/02/2021 10:41

Another new LGBAlliance tweet so you can see continuity:

mobile.twitter.com/ALLIANCELGB/status/1360171982386573313

OvaHere · 12/02/2021 10:50

This feels so manipulative because essentially it's them withholding the information from Allison's legal team

LGB Alliance
@ALLIANCELGB
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5m
(J) repeats case inherently weak. Repeats failure to identify individuals. Repeats that judge ought to dismiss claim. Otherwise 200 members of the bar have these allegations hanging over them.
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1

LGB Alliance
@ALLIANCELGB
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Judge: why not order identification of individuals? Johnston: that horse has bolted. Claimsnt still refuses to identify individuals.

nauticant · 12/02/2021 10:51

Exactly OvaHere, it's been clear for a long time that one highly effective strategy has been to make asking questions an extremely offensive thing to do. People have to accept unquestioningly, if they don't they're transphobic.

But when these matters end up in courts you end up with questions being asked:
"In that case what was the workshop for?"
"What is the purpose of puberty blockers?"
"Can a 13 year old give consent to infertility and loss of sexual function?"
"What does "trans" mean?"

OvaHere · 12/02/2021 10:51

Garden Court deny significant loss of income

LGB Alliance
@ALLIANCELGB
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39s
Replying to
@ALLIANCELGB
J denies loss of fee income in 2019 was significant. Clerk said everything in diary seemed to be being moved to following year. The exchange is inconsistent with claimsnts claim that work was withheld. So claim has little or no predict of success.

WarOnWomen · 12/02/2021 10:56

Is it me or is the argument circular? AB hasn't named anyone (because they won't give the names) so everyone is liable but when judge asks why weren't the names given, well it's too late now. Eh?

OvaHere · 12/02/2021 10:57

Short break now after which Robin White (representing Stonewall) will be heard.

OvaHere · 12/02/2021 10:58

@WarOnWomen

Is it me or is the argument circular? AB hasn't named anyone (because they won't give the names) so everyone is liable but when judge asks why weren't the names given, well it's too late now. Eh?
Yes it seems like it's exactly that. A 'you can't prove it because we covered it up' scenario.
nauticant · 12/02/2021 11:00

One thing is does do is increase the number of hearings and eat into AB's fighting fund.

yourhairiswinterfire · 12/02/2021 11:03

Why isn't the judge pointing out that Allison can't identify them because they're deliberately preventing Allison from doing so?

Or will the Judge go over this after everyone has had their say?

OvaHere · 12/02/2021 11:07

@yourhairiswinterfire

Why isn't the judge pointing out that Allison can't identify them because they're deliberately preventing Allison from doing so?

Or will the Judge go over this after everyone has had their say?

I think this was acknowledged sort of yesterday when Ben Cooper was making Allison's case. The judge wouldn't allow the lifting of redactions in this hearing in case the claim was struck out at this stage.

They are trying very hard to get it dismissed because if it gets to a full hearing the Judge indicated that the redactions would be unlikely to stand. Ideally we need it to progress to a full hearing to discover exactly what is going on.

OvaHere · 12/02/2021 11:09
Hmm

LGB Alliance
@ALLIANCELGB
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5m
White for SW says feels like Alice in Wonderland. Makes joke about cake and bottle. Case keeps getting smaller

StillAWoman2 · 12/02/2021 11:13

@nauticant

One thing is does do is increase the number of hearings and eat into AB's fighting fund.
Maybe they don’t realise the number of women Allison is standing for. I see several of us have thrown some more money in the pot this morning
OvaHere · 12/02/2021 11:14

So the argument here seems to be that SW have disclosed everything they want to in a cherry picking fashion so it's Allison's fault she doesn't have the detail she needs.

Safe Schools Alliance
@SafeSchools_UK
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2m
#AllisonBailey

RMW: Mr Cooper said yesterday that discovery isn’t complete. It is as far as we’re concerned. I’m here to represent stonewall, they’ve given the disclosure they feel proper

OvaHere · 12/02/2021 11:17

If it's entirely reasonable then why are names and details being redacted. Surely nothing to hide in that case?

LGB Alliance
@ALLIANCELGB
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3m
(W) both SW and GC try to make progress with diversity. Protected characteristic of “trans, gender reassignment, whatever” seems to be giving society most trouble.
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LGB Alliance
@ALLIANCELGB
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(W) perfectly reasonable that individuals within an organization with similar views exchange emails about what claimant has done.

OvaHere · 12/02/2021 11:18

From Alice in Wonderland to photocopier suppliers Hmm

LGB Alliance
@ALLIANCELGB
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48s
Replying to
@ALLIANCELGB
(W) gives silly example of person who supplies photocopy paper who won’t influence decisions. There is a range of suppliers. Cooper says they do influence GC White seems to be arguing that they don’t.

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