New stonewall boss says she wants to defuse toxic trans issue

[Kit19]

And then you read the interview which is basically

The public are on our side
Just an admin change
Ppl don’t have to agree with and we shouldn’t try & force them too (just obvs let us do what we want)

www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/27/stonewall-new-boss-gender-transgender-rights-nancy-kelley

@Kit19

And then you read the interview which is basically

The public are on our side
Just an admin change
Ppl don’t have to agree with and we shouldn’t try & force them too (just obvs let us do what we want)

Spot on. She isn't planning to defuse the issue at all: she is planning to do everything that Ruth Hunt campaigned for, just more quietly in the hope that we won't notice.

The only bit of good news is that the decision to try to go back under the radar presumably reflects a growing scepticism from the public, as more people wake up to what is being proposed.

“What you see instead is that the overwhelming majority of people [83%] don’t see themselves as transphobic and don’t agree with transphobia. And the majority position around things like bathrooms is that women feel fine about it.”

I dont think it’s transphobic to want to keep bathrooms single sex.

I read that headline with a tinY bit of hope. She then goes on to say: “accept everything we demand and there will be no more toxicity“.

Bathrooms is so American and misleading. Just say toilets.

So by 'defuse' she means 'continue to avoid the discussion'. Gotcha.

• “What you see instead is that the overwhelming majority of people [83%] don’t see themselves as transphobic and don’t agree with transphobia. And the majority position around things like bathrooms is that women feel fine about it.”

I dont think it’s transphobic to want to keep bathrooms single sex.*

Quite so. BTW, I couldn't see any evidence supporting the assertion that the majority of women in the U.K. are 'fine' with single sex services etc being abolished - the link in that piece on the word 'women' was to a guardian article by Owl Fisher.

This was published online at 1pm — surely in response to Allison Bailey's justice crowdfunded raising £20,000 in under three hours.

Completely disingenuous and saying that the public are behind trans rights, when most of the public think we're dealing with a handful of nice gents who've had major surgery

The Guardian writer says that the majority of responses to the 2018 consultation were pro self ID without the caveat that vast numbers of responses were deemed to be fake or cloned.

Stonewall now going back completely on TWAW No Debate and saying that it doesn't matter if not every agrees with them.

They know the game is up. Now comes obfuscation, 'Oh, we never meant that', and accusations of wilful misunderstanding of their policies. Acceptance Without Exception, remember that one?

They want the sunlight to go away. They’ll try and pull this all back behind closed doors which is how they made so many inroads in the first place

And now Allison's crowdfunder has been suspended. Stonewall are fighting back.

The article lacked some definitions that would allow people to understand the intention. Is it transphobic to say transwomen aren't women? Do the public who responded have the first idea what they were responding to? I always refer to a wonderful 'Yes Minister' clip about conducting surveys, essentially you can get any answer you want if you craft the question correctly. I worry this may have been the case. I simply can't believe that most people are OK with TWAW or sex segregation would have stopped already as an inconvenience. Sex segregation still exists because people want it.

And the majority position around things like bathrooms is that women feel fine about it

I don't think anybody cares about bathrooms in the UK - In the UK a 'bathroom' is a self contained room in a house or hotel that contains a bath.

However, if she would like to go to America and discuss 'bathroom bills', she should do so.

If she wants to understand current discussion about WOMEN'S rights, she (and the Guardian) need to think about the word 'cis', and why they are using a word that implies identification with concepts of 'gender' that have denied women the right to work, receive an education and vote.

but for the experience of trans people’s lives to be more positive, and for them to have lower levels of hate crime, better access to health services and more inclusive schools and workplaces, we don’t need people to agree on what constitutes womanhood.

I have no clue what 'womanhood' is. I just need language to talk about sex, because without that I can't talk about women's rights, and without sex based rights, my problems are far greater than feeling 'positive'.

For goodness sake, this shouldn't be hard. Just watch an episode of 'Call the Midwife' and try to imagine what it was like to be a woman in the 1950s with no access to birth control, little opportunity to have any financial independence and legal spousal abuse. That isn't ancient history. It's within living memory. The difference between those women's lives and my life isn't my raised consciousness, it's the rights that I have and need because of my sex, regardless of how I identify.

Just imagine how much, as a woman, you need to take your rights for granted, to feel confident that you don't need words to defend them.

Thinking about it, stonewall have no chance of putting this back into a box & doing quiet desks

The TRA they set off & running are not theirs to control

We are not going to shut up

They’re not in control of this anymore

Desks = deals

If she wanted to resolve this she wouldn’t have taken the Stonewall shilling. They can never come back from this.

Can't believe she says women have few issues! As though no one has ever attended a Womans Place Conference of a thousand women.

Also - the stats are nonsense. 83% of women said they aren't transphobic. Well that's ok. Because hardly any of the women objecting the reform of the GRA are transphobic. And the idea that most women are "very or quite comfortable" with trans women using women's spaces is nebulous. Lots of women would say "quite" out of politeness. But we aren't really happy at all. Also - quizzing women who aren't using women's single sex services such as refuges is pointless ... those who are should be surveyed .

And finally .... how many "women" who filled in the survey saying they were comfortable with trans women in women's single sex spaces identified as a woman to fill it in?

It's a complete betrayal of women and specifically lesbian women.

I wonder if the 83% who don't consider themselves transphobic are aware of what constitutes transphobia nowadays. I don't consider myself transphobic for the record, but I know that many of my views are considered to be.

Nancy Kelley has already nailed her colours to the mast about how she sees women. It’s not positive.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3939322-Nancy-Kelley-new-Chief-Executive-for-Stonewall-women-fighting-for-their-rights-compared-to-Nazis?

“Racists and fascists fighting with the police, urinating on memorials and throwing Nazi salutes, followed by hardcore stoking of an anti-trans moral panic with trans folks lives as the fuel. Never has the Twitter prompt "what's happening?" Felt so apposite.“

twitter.com/Nancy_M_K/status/1272065883997900800

And her mission is all about the T. She will diffuse the toxic T issue by totally disregarding homophobia, and sexism - it’s all done and dusted now anyway amirite!

www.stonewall.org.uk/about-us/news/interview-nancy-kelley-stonewalls-new-ceo
PUBLISHED 13 MAY 20

What do you see as the biggest challenges facing the fight for LGBT rights at the moment?

“Like other liberation movements (feminism I think is in a similar place) we are at a point where the gains the movement has made aren’t equally felt, or even aren’t equally relevant across our communities.

Some of us have benefited far more from progress in LGBT rights than others. So thinking about how we are genuinely intersectional in our approach, and how we campaign passionately and effectively for the things that matter to distinctive minoritized communities feels essential.

Secondly, it feels like we are simultaneously at a point of great potential and great danger for trans and non-binary people.

Visibility is growing exponentially, and research shows us that the population as a whole has broadly positive attitudes to trans folk there is real potential for positive change.

But at the same time not only are there huge barriers to trans and non binary people living their lives safely, there are worrying noises coming from government and from the legal system that have the potential to push trans rights backwards.

Those are the issues that are top of my mind as I step into this new role – I’m looking forward to having lots of conversations with colleagues, partner organisations and supporters over the next weeks and months to shape our strategy for the coming years.”

And the idea that most women are "very or quite comfortable" with trans women using women's spaces is nebulous.

Also, even if only 17% of women aren't happy sharing a public toilet cubicle with somebody born male, why don't their views matter? Why doesn't a victim of trauma matter? Why do religious views matter when they are held by a man, but not when they are held by a woman? Why is this particular minority unimportant?

I am happy to do a complete change in full public view on a beach, but why should I expect every woman to feel the same way? I have enough self knowledge to understand that my experience is not the same as other woman's experiences (and that I have the choice not to go to the beach).

And the majority position around things like bathrooms is that women feel fine about it.

Meaningfully surveyed how?

And what about the women who don't feel fine about it and who can't do it ?

What happens to them? Exclude females from female provision so males can have more choice, and just go oh well? Sucks to be female? But isn't it lovely the males are happy?

@merrymouse

And the idea that most women are "very or quite comfortable" with trans women using women's spaces is nebulous.

Also, even if only 17% of women aren't happy sharing a public toilet cubicle with somebody born male, why don't their views matter? Why doesn't a victim of trauma matter? Why do religious views matter when they are held by a man, but not when they are held by a woman? Why is this particular minority unimportant?

I am happy to do a complete change in full public view on a beach, but why should I expect every woman to feel the same way? I have enough self knowledge to understand that my experience is not the same as other woman's experiences (and that I have the choice not to go to the beach).

That 17% of women would still outnumber transwomen by some quite considerable mark. I agree, that is still a huge amount of women thrown under the bus. And we all know Stonewall surveys are dubious at best.

Reading that article and looking at the picture attached - the phrase "wolf in sheep's clothing" came to mind. If JKR was writing this story, Nancy Kelley would be a Delores Umbrage type.

She's hardly defusing anything when she conflates British women with Nazi's is she?

This is just trying to enforce #nodebate by an alternative means, while still seeking to control the actual law on the ground. Because once people find out, "what we [Stonewall] believe..." they do not like it.

They've lost control of the narrative, they know it, and they are trying to force things back into a place where we can't talk about what they believe, what they stand for, and what they are trying to achieve below the radar at all. People are starting to notice, and all their own commissioned studies can't change that.

They have every right to advocate for the changes they want. We have every right to openly talk about what they want. They want to stealth it all in? Focus on loos all the time, and handwave prisons, and domestic abuse shelters, and rape crisis centres, and sport? No.

People generally have no problem with transsexuals. They think that's what transgender means, along with children who have been insistent that they are the other sex from very early in their lives, and never wavered. That is not what Stonewall see as trans at all, but they're more than happy to allow the public to be misinformed on their real goals. They have no intention of allowing daylight on their aims here. That does not make them a good faith actor.

Unfortunately for Stonewall, they've lost control of the conversation and #nodebate has stopped working, and if they think we will meekly hand it back, they are very much mistaken.

@Jeanhatchet

Can't believe she says women have few issues! As though no one has ever attended a Womans Place Conference of a thousand women.

Also - the stats are nonsense. 83% of women said they aren't transphobic. Well that's ok. Because hardly any of the women objecting the reform of the GRA are transphobic. And the idea that most women are "very or quite comfortable" with trans women using women's spaces is nebulous. Lots of women would say "quite" out of politeness. But we aren't really happy at all. Also - quizzing women who aren't using women's single sex services such as refuges is pointless ... those who are should be surveyed .

And finally .... how many "women" who filled in the survey saying they were comfortable with trans women in women's single sex spaces identified as a woman to fill it in?

It's a complete betrayal of women and specifically lesbian women.

Would be interested to see 1) the wording, and 2) how they selected their chosen group, and how they probability weighted them, and then 3) if they asked them in person or not - whether the people surveyed felt able to answer honestly, and without social censure.