Action Aid - no such thing as a biological female

[Apileofballyhoo]

Has this been posted already? It's from an email they sent. I saw it on Twitter so I'll be back with links.

I've been reading a book recently called The Great Charity Scandal by David Craig. I don't know much about the author other than he was an influential management consultant before writing.In the book he goes into a lot of the stuff Red mentioned above.

The book is a bit outdated now,- early 2010s I think but still has relevance. He's also written similar books about the public sector and university education. There's definitely a political bias in his work so that's something to bear in mind but it makes interesting reading. He was perhaps a bit ahead of the zeitgeist because I think a lot of this stuff is more relevant now than when he wrote about it.

I started reading it because it's free on Kindle unlimited but it's only something like 1.99 to download.

[quote bishopgiggles]A bit of a tangent, but i recently read this about Live Aid and was . Completely missed that the first time round (as i was in pretty much).
www.spin.com/featured/live-aid-the-terrible-truth-ethiopia-bob-geldof-feature/[/quote]
I never knew any of that at all.

Speechless.

Should all UK charities be UK based, then we would have proper oversight? I know this is probably impossible but.....

I'd not read that Spin article before. I was aware that things weren't as they were portrayed at the time but yikes!

Can I ask what's possibly a dumb question? Isn't there a further problem, namely that once one steps into political lobbying that should be the end of one's charitable status? (That's why Amnesty has never been a registered charity).

I believe thats where the Conservatives would like this to go ultimately. They have the numbers to force this through if they decided to go that way at present. We shall see if it is something that they attempt to do (It might be harder than you think because of the sheer power and influence of the charity sector).

The problem comes in how you define political lobbying. It can severely restrict how a charity can operate.

There is a clause in the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014, which has been particularly problematic as it relates to activity during an election campaign period.

During the 2017 election, due to the lack of clarification over what the act meant in practice, there were concerns it was stopping charities from being able to operate as they should:

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/election-2017-uk-charities-ngos-gagged-lobbying-act-chilling-effects-a7775416.html
Election 2017: UK charities say they are being ‘gagged’ during campaign due to ‘chilling effects’ of Lobbying Act

‘Unreasonable’ legislation preventing campaigns on issues affecting poorest and most marginalised in society, states open letter signed by more than 50 charities

It depends on the nature of your charity, but it seemed to be particularly problematic for charities dealing with refugees and food banks. Though there are some name in there which might make you raise your eyebrows too.

New guidance on the Act was issued in 2018 and then in 2019, which was supposed to clarify the problem and resolve some of the issues.

www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/new-electoral-commission-guidance-for-charities-a-helpful-step-forward-in-the-short-term.html
Electoral Commission publishes new guidance on campaigning for charities

However I think it still remains a bone of contention that is split along party political lines. See my post above about this.

The danger is that the Act could be used to stop criticism of the sitting government during an election campaign which limits its public accountability.

I personally think it might be better to have some obligation to have some sort of political declaration in the aims of a charity and how much is directly spent in this area with it being separated out from 'charitiable spending' in accounting.

This way its more transparent without it tipping the balance in favour of the state and big business.

The UK based charities are just as bad. The charities commission is useless.

I'd also like to see the way the Charity Commission's Front Page works.

If you have a parent organisation, then way that ActionAid Uk and AAIF work together and the internal costs are hidden should be much more transparent and upfront. There is a big difference between 73% of funds going to charitable causes and 40% of funds going to charitable causes. This COULD be regulated in terms of what we see in the UK.

This would have a strong effect on UK donations to some international charities but on the other hand, I think we should be able to see this. We should understand there is value to large international organisations which perhaps have higher overheads, but they should be more transparent about what this is and why that is beneficial.

twitter.com/NettiLDN/status/1283736710367641606?s=19

I will be interested to see this statement......

Jesus Christ, Red. That was eye opening reading. Thank you for doing the research and putting that post together.

I don't donate to any big charities. I give food to the local food bank (and bodyform, after their ad) and I support a very small, very local charity by donating to and buying from their charity shop. But I have always had the feeling that with big charities, most of the money is swallowed by the business side. Even so, I found Red"s breakdown of ActionAid shocking.

As per usual, if it did turn out that someone said something stupid in the heat of the moment - and I would suspect stupid only in the sense of 'you're not supposed to say the quiet bit loud' - then they'll discover as has every organisation who's let someone shoot their mouth off like this on Twitter, that they're now stuffed. There are three ways forward from here:

a) Recant - and deal with the tantrums from hell being unleashed upon you with enough hyperbole to sink a ship, plus death threats

b) Double down and completely piss off and alienate the general public who are the ones paying for the gravy train to roll

c) Shut eyes, stuff fingers in ears, ignore, and hope it all goes away, a la Dominic Cummings, accepting your image and income is permanently trashed and that while the consequences of this will bite you in the arse at some point, at least it won't happen today.

@RedToothBrush you're good, really good. I know you said you're just standing on the shoulders of other investigative journalists, but you're doing so much more than that.

Would you consider some sort of website or blog or something that pulls everything corrupt together in one place in a format that's easier to read and type into that MN?

"I don't donate to any big charities. I give food to the local food bank (and bodyform, after their ad) and I support a very small, very local charity by donating to and buying from their charity shop. But I have always had the feeling that with big charities, most of the money is swallowed by the business side. Even so, I found Red"s breakdown of ActionAid shocking"

Me too.

I just called ActionAid to cancel a, thankfully not yet running, DD that I set up last week. The man I spoke to seemed fairly resigned to my reasoning for cancelling, as if he'd already heard it several times already and was ready to explain that AA is trans inclusive but had no explanation as to why girls and women even require their help if they're not suffering on the basis of their sex.

@Jumblebumblemess

twitter.com/NettiLDN/status/1283736710367641606?s=19

I will be interested to see this statement......

One person. ONE person. This does not chime with the stories of a marginalised and unheard group.

[quote titchy]@RedToothBrush you're good, really good. I know you said you're just standing on the shoulders of other investigative journalists, but you're doing so much more than that.

Would you consider some sort of website or blog or something that pulls everything corrupt together in one place in a format that's easier to read and type into that MN?[/quote]
I've thought about it over the years. I've never done it, because my thoughts and knowledge on the subject develop and evolve with time and I'd rather get people talking and debating the issues rather than just spouting what I think.

Ultimately MN has a bigger reach and thats the important thing. These issues are fairly circular and come around multiple times, so I think repetition of the points and repeating the process over and over is more effective in the long run.

Its about getting people to engage with the idea and understand the underlying principles about liberal democracy, institutions and power structures thats important - and how that feeds into feminism and why there is a need for feminism rather than having a set opinion, idea or view. Getting people to think about "How does this affect me in this situation?" rather than presenting something in a much drier and unconnected way.

Feminism is a feature of liberal democracy. If liberal democracy dies due to a more authoritarian approach then the aims and ambition of feminists dies with it. (Liberal democracy should not be confused with 'Liberal Identity' which is just a belief system within authoritarian Identity Politics)

Liberalism is all about checks and balances and limiting how much power any one individual or institution has, by a process of constant revision and questioning.

No one is wholly evil or wholly good. As the saying goes "the road to hell is paved with good intention" and its something we should always reflect on and be wary of.

If you don't know something, go find out about it. If something doesn't add up, investigate it. We all have power if we think about this and simply learn to ask questions rather than accept what we are told.

This section of MN is all about that in many respects.

Red thanks for your reply to me upthread (work got in the way!). I should have been clearer that I'd emailed them this morning before I read your detailed analysis. I will definitely be looking in more detail in future at what charities say they do in their marketing blurb compared to what they actually are doing, and as others have said, think in future I'll be going with smaller organisations rather than the big corporates.

I wonder how charities feel about crowdfunding sites? The growth in this area has been massive. Obviously there are standard concerns about fraud and the crowdfunding companies take a cut but to some extent any money you give goes more directly to the source you have chosen.

A couple of weeks ago Dr Jessica Taylor from Victim Focus ran an emergency CF for a single mother in dire straits. It reached target in a few hours and less that 24hrs later we had photo evidence of the food and children's clothing our 20 quid donations had supported.

I suppose you can get into arguments about structural poverty and long term solutions but there's something more satisfying about donating 20 quid to this young mother and seeing a tangible outcome that donating the same 20 quid to a large charity where your donation is much less definable in terms of impact.

Not quite sure where I'm going with this ramble but it occurred to me that the nature of charitable giving is changing massively due to tech.

I've set up a monthly donation to a charity linked a while ago, and I donate food & money to the local food bank, that's enough for me!

Thank you for bringing this to my attention

They sent this to me - no mention of trans boys/men. I guess that if biology isn't real then they don't have to worry about trans boys I guess because they can simply opt out of womanhood... is that what happens? If I opt out of being female do my periods and threat of rape and risk of pregnancy stop?
This is what frustrates me so much with the scoring of woke points, and science denial, it makes no freaking sense!

That doesn’t really make sense. If they are dedicated to helping girls - how many trans girls will fall into their scope in the countries they work in? Are we to believe that counties where they work they have the same stats? What about female babies and toddlers - if it’s all about gender then how do they know?

Do they also included trans boys who will be at same risks as the girls?

The danger is that the Act could be used to stop criticism of the sitting government during an election campaign which limits its public accountability.

I personally think it might be better to have some obligation to have some sort of political declaration in the aims of a charity and how much is directly spent in this area with it being separated out from 'charitiable spending' in accounting.

This way its more transparent without it tipping the balance in favour of the state and big business.

I think I agree with all of this RTB. It's the old question of how not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. When (to take one eg) the Tories introduce universal credit, and it screws the poor over big time, I would expect charities like Shelter and the foodbanks to have something to say about that. It's arguably their job to have something to say about that. It's how to stop that reasonable level of intervention being hijacked by other political lobby groups (particularly entryist lobby groups who realise their own cause, as a stand alone, wouldn't garner that much support, but if they can attach it to something else and get the two considered as a block, it's game on).

I also agree entirely with what you have to say about traditional liberalism (in the tradition of Mill through to Rawls) with its emphasis on checks and balances and resolving issues of competing rights as being a powerful force for good in preserving free, open and democratic societies. (Part of the reason for the shitty mess we're in is that liberalism has been subjected to its own form of entryist take over, in the form of libertarian hyper-individualism. Such that now "liberal" becomes a slur associated with fringe nutters and left-wing, as opposed to right-wing, authoritarianism.)

That doesn’t really make sense. If they are dedicated to helpinggirls- how many trans girls will fall into their scope in the countries they work in? Are we to believe that counties where they work they have the same stats? What about female babies and toddlers - if it’s all about gender then how do theyknow?

They seriously don't even think about it do they. I mean how many men are actually self identifing into these situations. There may be a bunch of idiots on twitter claiming they wish they could have an abortion or periods but how many would
really show up to have their "large clitorises" sliced off with rusty razor blades where are all the self identifying women in countries where it has such horrifuc connotations to be female?

And yes transmen/boys will need help cos no one's gonna give a shit how they identify when they marry at 13 and end up with birth injuries that mean they become doubly incontinent...they are back out on the streets regardless..

Just use your brain action aid. Seriously

I think they're mixing up trans women and men? No trans woman/girl will have her vulva mutilated because they don't have one. No trans woman/girl will be banished to a hut because she has a period, because they'll never have one.

This is just proving that this is all a men's rights movement, because no one is giving a shiny shite about trans men, who are actually female. It's all about the trans women and validating their womanliness. It's not about making trans men comfortable at all.

I'm no expert but I'm willing to bet that when you're being beaten, having your genitals mutilated, being kidnapped, sold and trafficked, raped, and having your unborn daughters aborted, the last thing you're worrying about is whether someone, somewhere in an immensely more privileged position than you, is being gendered correctly.

And what a fucking sad sack that ONE person who wrote to them was, if it's true.

@SarahTancredi

That doesn’t really make sense. If they are dedicated to helpinggirls- how many trans girls will fall into their scope in the countries they work in? Are we to believe that counties where they work they have the same stats? What about female babies and toddlers - if it’s all about gender then how do theyknow?

They seriously don't even think about it do they. I mean how many men are actually self identifing into these situations. There may be a bunch of idiots on twitter claiming they wish they could have an abortion or periods but how many would
really show up to have their "large clitorises" sliced off with rusty razor blades where are all the self identifying women in countries where it has such horrifuc connotations to be female?

And yes transmen/boys will need help cos no one's gonna give a shit how they identify when they marry at 13 and end up with birth injuries that mean they become doubly incontinent...they are back out on the streets regardless..

Just use your brain action aid. Seriously

This is what really does get to me. Not to trivialise the whole trans issue, but it's such first world nonsense. I doubt charities like AA have even had to consider trans men because they simply don't exist in countries where they operate because they haven't been exposed to gender politics. And like you say, no men in those countries are going to opt into womanhood because it's not something to aspire to. Not like in the West, where it's just about wearing make-up and demanding access to single sex spaces.

Let Amnesty, Stonewall and Liberty etc take on gender issues. They have more than enough money.

Please for the love of god don’t dilute girl and woman’s issues with this.