Extinction Rebellion says TWAW, no debate.

[WarmthAndDepth]

So disappointed to see this on FB and Twitter today, issued by Extinction Rebellion UK.
What science is it we're meant to be following?
Which truth are we telling again?
I really thought they'd do better than this.
Until this afternoon mods appeared to be deleting comments questioning the statement, but this evening some dissenting voices have been left to stand, at least for now.
Infuriating.

📢📣🌈 TRANS PRIDE 🌈📣📢

Extinction Rebellion offers our unconditional support and solidarity to all trans people in the face of unrelenting attacks from Trans-Exclusionary-Radical-Feminists, the media, elected politicians, and even from leading voices within the environmental movement.

We do not believe that the existence of trans people, or the clearly documented oppression and abuse they experience is a topic that should be up for debate.

Trans women are women.
Trans men are men.
Non-binary and all other gender expressions which do not conform to the gender that person is assigned at birth are valid, legitimate, and true.
This is not up for debate.

Ultimately, transphobic rhetoric legitimises both structural and personal violence against trans people.

We state loudly and clearly: Trans liberation is intrinsic and inseparable from the liberation of all of humanity. Trans comrades are at the front and centre of our struggles, and long may they remain so.

Take action on July 4th
👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

Climate change disproportionately affects women, something that isn't really mentioned by ER.

@mrsfrumble - absolutely - you might well be aware that the 8 murders of transpeople that have taken place in the last 10 years were all by men!! Actually I think one of the murderers was trans but still born male. I would be interested to see some of the 'clear documentation' of the oppression and abuse of trans people referred to by Extinction Rebellion. Obviously oppression and abuse of anyone (!) is not acceptable but I haven't seen any actual figures about this. The only abuse and oppression I have witnessed is of women who don't sign up to the TWAW ideology.
As a result of this, I am inclined to assume that the 'high levels' of hate crime against trans people are including the newly defined 'hate crimes' of stating a biologicial truth and a reluctance to affirm 'gender dysphoria' in the same way that we wouldn't affirm anorexia or Body Dysmorphic Disorder or any other type of dysphoria (where the brain thinks some aspect of the body is wrong) so the numbers will show fairly high.

No surprises here. I went to an XR meeting and they went through the "meeting rules" and the number one rule (written in capital letters) was RESPECT PRONOUNS. We all had to go round the circle and say "she/her" "he/him" and so on.

I never went back. They send out frequent surveys about why people aren't joining in with their actions and every time I explain to them how they are alienating women and working class people. Nothing has changed - they probably just read it and think "shut up terf".

XR have achieved bugger all in terms of addressing the climate crisis.
They've been on the news for gluing themselves to public transport and other ridiculous stunts, and in my view have actually marginalised environmental issues to the extent that most people probably agree with Johnson's 'uncooperative crusties' label.
We need climate action to be mainstream, practical, wide-spread and real, like reducing car journeys, not going clothes shopping and insulating your roof, rather than middle-class progressives gluing themselves to trains, delivering handmaid-themed interpretative dance and workshopping angry but inspirational poster art.

To be honest, this simply helps to reinforce that the 'TWAW' mantra belongs to the extreme looney left.
Most normal people think of ER as a bunch of grubby, entitled, woke adolescents already.

Non-binary and all other gender expressions which do not conform to the gender that person is assigned at birth are valid, legitimate, and true.

Yes, I agree, gender assigned at birth means nothing. Gender is a social construct.

Sex however, that exists, and is real, and people need to stop trying to take our words away from us by deliberately conflating sex and gender and the words used for those two concepts.

For an organisation that is focused on the preservation and protection earth and its natural cycles and systems, the embrace of an ideology which runs totally counter to that is quite peculiar. Add into the mix the reliance on drugs, synthetic hormones and mutilating surgery on healthy bodies, even more peculiar.

I bet most of them will be tweeting away on 5G networks too......without a second thought.

Last time I saw these guys they were playing in the dirt they dug up from a Cambridge college lawn. Not in the least bit surprised.

The Cambridge college lawn thing really pissed me off. The people they were hurting there were not the college big wigs or their rich donors. The people they hurt the most were the working class gardeners who will have spent years tending to that lawn only to see it completely decimated. Hearing the XR lecturing bollocks about how it should be planted with wild flowers instead made me even more cross. Who the fuck are they to declare what the college do with their lawns? Knob ends.

This following is of relevance to readers interested in the links between XR and counselling and psychotherapy organisations

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200523202656/www.nationalcounsellorsday.co.uk/dr-philip-cox/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20200523202656/www.nationalcounsellorsday.co.uk/dr-philip-cox/

The National Counsellor's Day website is worthy of scrutiny and is linked to:

The Alliance for Counselling & Psychotherapy
twitter.com/Alliance4CP

Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibility
twitter.com/PCSRuk

The Psychotherapy and Counselling Union
twitter.com/pcu_union

Counsellors Together UK
twitter.com/UK_Counsellors

other organisationas also, some are listed as signiatories to the below linked open letter:

archive.is/H8xmS

also of interest

archive.is/dlqQf

I think there are things that link ER and other campaigns, and one of which is this complete focus on thinking if you get young people on board then you campaign / party is sure of sucess.

So often in in fact a very patronising way those organising / putting out statements add in all sorts of touchstones that they think young people will go, oh its all about me and what I believe.

The other is how the MSM media reports it. So effectively the MSM becomes part of the campaign, because if not their children, then their neighbours children are all caught up in the drama of it all. And ironically this is because so many white middle class people realise they aren't suffering some sort of discrimination or repression so invent a situation where they can portray themselves as victims of some terrible wrong ie all those really silly comments about it is all old people's fault. Greta Thunberg was the hyperexample of this. Media savvy parents create her as a green heroine to distract from her personal issues. She make totally spoilt white westerner remarks about how her youth has been stolen from her and her generation is suffering more than any other. Has she heard of the depression? Does she know how many were conscripted into 2 WW? And the press goes oh poor baby. Then she insults not just older women but the many women who have for decades campaigned and achieved change in developing countries. But needless to say someone from one of the richest countries in the northern hemisphere doesn't know about or doesn't acknowledge the work or ever the existence of women from other cultures / countries. And now she has the nerve to go whining to the press about how leaders just only wanted her for selfies. Well what did she expect with her parents pimping her out for photo ops because in some misguided way they thought be pretending to her she could achieve change she could bypass the issues she was having growing up.

Can you imagine any one from a BAME or working class background be given such an easy ride?

ER has absolutely nothing to do with any sort of left wing politics.

This is about people who are used to stamping their feet to get something, and used to others making sure it happens.

As someone said up thread there are so many local initiatives and issue that environmentalists can actively engage in and achieve (maybe small) change. But if you do that you dont get the media attention they seemed to think was the objective of campaigning.

Unfortunately so long as we have a facile press, just as obsessed with getting young followers, we aren't going to get any sort of meaningful discussion or action.

Those wanting something other than me, me, me campaigns wont get media approval.

Just like the trans activist campaigning.

The plastic litter left after their protests was appalling.

I was queuing behind a load of them in a Pret just after one of their protests, reusable coffee mug in my hand.

They all marched out with disposables.

They all marched out with disposables. hm

Before nipping into McDonald's for lunch. The irony!

Political sloganeering and demonstrating has taken the place actual, meaningful political action in the form of making decisions about how you live your life, what you purchase, what you eat, and so on.

It was kind of ironic too to see A BLM demonstrator pulling down the statue of Colston whilst wearing a Nike sweatshirt Nike have a reputation for using indentured labour which is a modern form of slavery. The anti-slavery protestors most likely had little clue about that......They just want easy solutions to involved and complex issues and problems.

@EmpressLangClegSpartacus

The plastic litter left after their protests was appalling.

I was queuing behind a load of them in a Pret just after one of their protests, reusable coffee mug in my hand.

They all marched out with disposables.

They were camped out next to my sisters office (banging their drums all day) and it was ankle deep in rubbish, plastic and plastic banners.

• Political sloganeering and demonstrating has taken the place actual, meaningful political action in the form of making decisions about how you live your life, what you purchase, what you eat, and so on.

Let alone actually doing something useful...

I usually do some conservation volunteering on a local nature reserve- just a couple of days a month, good physical bramble hacking, balsam bashing sort of stuff. The leader, who works for the wildlife trust told us about the time he ran an event about what environmental initiatives could be done in the area. He got quite a few activist types show up and take quite an interest. Until he pointed out that the local councils wanted to fund some of these projects, he was pushing on an open door - what was lacking were volunteers, so he got out his sign-up sheet. Precisely none of them signed up, they lost interest when they realised that there was no need for agitation and protest to get things done, just some actual work and ongoing commitment.

To be fair to XR I do think they were well intentioned and did get people talking about climate issues. Where they really messed up is in assuming that a bunch of middle class hippies can win this battle on their own. They need to get the general public on side and yet time and again they do things that alienate people.

I saw another one earlier this year which was a bunch of (mostly young, all white) women protesting topless on a bridge. Yes ladies - it's time to get yer tits out for climate change. I wonder which pervert came up with that brilliant idea?

Funnily enough the first terven women I ever came across are all environmental campaigners.

I know there has long been a spilt on this issue. Maybe ER will notice they’ve fucked up when there are suddenly no volunteers left to do the grunt work?

I would have been a lot more surprised if they showed an understanding of biology. Manufactured, shallow, corporate-edgy, bit sinister. Like K-pop.

That time they stopped the commuters getting to work in my part of London, was the last straw for any sympathy I may have had for them. Another entitled group pushing slogans and mantras who don't care much for reality and don't respect or care for most normal people.

Unfortunately it is very similar to the cycling campaign.

Mainly spear headed by aggressive men who seem to think macho posturing as a freedom fighter would win eveyone over. And this in an inner city area where as one woman pointed out to him every morning she had to get her disabled mother to a Day Centre and 2 children to 2 different schools and be in time for her paid (surprise, surpise) care work.

He was astonished that anyone would think this was a reason to maybe query a demand (from recently moved in posh white people) that everyone should give up cars.

Like it or not at lot of how the world works in western societies relies of people being able to freely move about. So unless the local council was going to provide transport for her mother and build enough schools near to her so both her children could work together what was she to do. Giver up work and sign on.

And as if this arrogant disdain for ordinary people wasn't enough, the local council is pushing through under "emergency" powers because of COVID plans that they couldn't get support for and will make local people's lives even harder.

But maybe that's the point, push more local people out so that incomers saying how exciting it is to live in X inner city area, but actually want to turn it into a replica of their lives.

Its not just the messiah complex but this innate sense of superiority that makes them feel if I think its right it must be right, and I will impose it on others by any means, even if they are undemocratic.

(Just to add this is a Labour Party Council who fit the point I was making above that if they "capture" young woke people they are secure for life - and yes they flew the trans inclusive flag on the town hall.)

Bet all the commuters got bollocked by their bosses for not having travelled in a different way to avoid the protests.

Our boss was cool with it because she knew it was a pain in the backside. I walked to work (as usual) with a ‘Don’t even try to come near me or talk to me or I will bite your head off’ look.

I may have told a few to bugger off out of my way when I had to walk to the hospital though.

I was involved in XR last summer, but have more or less left now as I strongly disagreed with them on their endless pandering to the police - as someone has mentioned, the flowers to Brixton nick with its long history of police brutality towards BAME arrestees was particularly sickening. I am looking into deep Green Resistance presently.
However I made some friends mostly middle aged and older women who were on the whole sensible, and in a few cases. But its like organisations HAVE to say this TWAW stuff just to survive.
OP I was very disheartened yesterday watching it kick off on fb too. Especially any debate being repeatedly shut down.
For a movement that was so led by science it's a real shame to see some members pushing the scientifically shakey idea (to say the least) that humans can/do change sex at will, surely that's a different agenda to the climate emergency?

This is a controversial thing to say; They're not really thinking it through though are they. There's evidence of hormonal impact in the water from human waste and synthetic hormones, which, obviously we need to not have any more humans than we can manage and women must have access to them. But necking extra hormones to match your gender feels? Not really saving the planet is it? Especially hormone blockers.

The deep green resistance know exactly what a woman and sex is.