Guardian will make you angry

[vivariumvivariumsvivaria]

Women in Scotland who don't believe that people born with a Y chromosome are the same as them are about to be criminalised in Scotland.

I work in health, I have no idea how I am supposed to do my job. Some things are sex specific, and some diseases don't care about your gender identity.

Helena Kennedy QC, a woman I previously thought was brilliant, appears to be considering TW needs before my female woman needs. Tell me I'm wrong?

I'm really cross about this - women are murdered every other day in lockdown. We need our sex based protections.

'The Scottish government’s own hate crime bill has attracted a huge amount of controversy and, while it was always the intention to examine this standalone option, the timing is far from ideal. As it stands, a bill is passing through Holyrood that criminalises the stirring up of hatred against men who dress as women but not the stirring up of hatred against women, while the decision of protections for women won’t be made until Kennedy’s working group reports back in 12 months’ time.'

www.theguardian.com/law/2021/feb/22/ill-set-no-limits-on-which-women-to-protect-from-hate-says-helena-kennedy?fbclid=IwAR1A2zwkQ-GB4zrgGsnq06Y5XNhIyzPuZKa6OFIA9x0S0lDRbIIijiHuls8

For fuck’s sake. The reverse ferrets when this insanity ceases to prevail are goi g to be epic.

Helena Kennedy has been coming out with that stuff for a while now. I think her background means that she was easily drawn into seeing the operation of rights according to a hierarchy of oppression.

@nauticant

Helena Kennedy has been coming out with that stuff for a while now. I think her background means that she was easily drawn into seeing the operation of rights according to a hierarchy of oppression.

Giving our rights away like Lady Bountiful.

She is so privileged that she won’t feel any effects but wants to feel good about herself.

I don’t like labels that sums up the behaviour for me.

Has she really? I didn't realise that.

Jenni Murray is pals with her, I think - maybe she can have a word?

For years she's been convinced of The Most Oppressed Ever™ narrative, in a way that's understandable from her work, and holds the view that justice will be obtained by overcoming all obstacles standing in the way of "trans rights":

(from 2017)

'Although the concept was initially trivialised by the media as “arrests for wolf-whistling”, many police forces in England now record street harassment of women, for example, as a hate crime, following a groundbreaking pilot in Nottingham in 2016.'

Do they? I didn't know that. I've never seen it publicised.

I just looked and the met (my force) do not include sex as a hate crime characteristic.

Googling met Street harassment and met crime against women didn't give me anything for that either.

Don't know about other forces. Is that statement true? I'd be happy if it was.

We've been here before:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3673781-helena-kennedy-qc

“There should be no limits of the types of women protected from hate crime,”

Well, ok, but trans women will be covered under other legislation and so shouldn’t be included under legislation to protect females.

If we can just mix up all the categories, then what’s the point and how will anyone be able to prove discrimination or hate?

Categories aren’t exclusionary. They help us and everyone make sense of the world and ensure members of specific groups aren’t treated in a discriminatory way. We are all excluded from some categories by virtue of our sex or race or disabled/not disabled-ness.

If you Google something along the lines of "Cressida Dick on hate crime against women", a lot of results come up, from a variety of sources, including the Nottingham test in 2016. Basically, she agreed that misogyny shouldn't be a crime. Because volume and noone cared. I've paraphrased that, obviously.

*HopeClearwater

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines*

I wondered how long that would take. Goodbye freedom of speech.

I think something can be a hate crime/incident by perceiving someone to have one of the protected characteristics, so if I as a woman get hatred based on being female I would have no way of knowing whether I was perceived as a woman (trans) or a woman (not trans). I would have to guess.

Exactly vivarium - how can a HCP do their job properly if they are not allowed to refer to the patient's sex? This stuff makes me feel so angry, I don't feel very articulate - but if the hate crime bill goes through the way the SNP want, women of Scotland need to rise up and demonstrate.

Having seen the SNPs definition of transphobia today, sinister then I really am concerned. I can't do my job without dealing in facts and sex is a fact.

I won't be guilty of a hate crime, but I don't know what being accused of a hate crime would do to my career. I expect there are repercussions as far as members of the RCM, RCN, HCPC, RCOG etc are concerned.

OwBist that was probably around the time she have an interview saying she had no interest in pursuing sex offences where the victim and assailant knew each other (date rape) or old crimes (historical CSA) probably.

The met have been very clear.

I want to know who all these forces are who are apparently including misogyny as a hate crime because I've seen nothing in the news since nottingham

Google says 7 but not sure which ones

www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/misogyny-police-hate-crime-labour-mayors-domestic-abuse-bill-a9604491.html%3famp

Also whenever this comes out everyone has to make very clear that it won't cover silly trivial things where women are unreasonably demonising men for things that are perfectly normal etc etc

Which I don't think anyone has to do for any other crimes. It's just easier misogyny that there's a concern women will exploit it for their own evil ends/ get the police involved because they're over reacting and being very silly...

@MrsWooster

For fuck’s sake. The reverse ferrets when this insanity ceases to prevail are goi g to be epic.

Are they tho. Today after reading the 'we dont have a womb' thread, the census debacle, a recent online safeguarding training I did for work that seemed to forget that children watching porn is illegal, the word woman being erraised - this shit is getting scarilly real, its sinister. Whoever is behind it is not planning of stopping any time soon.

seemed to forget that children watching porn is illegal

This thread appears to be talking about teenagers showing porn to girls aged 4, 6, and 8:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/a4170767-Older-kids-just-showed-DD-8-indecent-picture-What-to-say-to-her

Even though it's reassuring to see many posters taking it seriously, there's a few who think it would be best for a softly softly approach because for example because it could damage the prospects of the teenagers.

Also very helpful to remember that Lord Bracadale, who was asked by the Scottish Government to investigate the existing hate crime law and make recommendations onhow to reform it, already looked in detail at making misogyny a standalone offence. He examined all of the same evidence and arguments favoured by Helena Kennedy's new working group and rejected them. Explicitly. He said that gender (by which he meant sex, as he explained in his report) should be included in the hate crime bill.

So this working group works from a flawed premise and ultimately, an acceptance that female people should not be protected from hate crime alongside every one else. What has so far been said by its members furthermore suggests that the protection of female people is not their priority.

They could have said, no, Lord Bracadale (together with a team of researchers and lawyers, in an extensive consultation process with both organisations and individuals as well as travelling through Scotland to seek the views of its people in 17 or so events) has already said gender in the sense of sex should be included. There is no point in discussing a future possible standalone offence, when we have the chance to include it with all the other protected characteristics now.

This discussion has been going for almost two decades already, it'll be a few more years until this working group has concluded its work, written its report and then work begins anew to convince lawmakers to implement it. Or we could include sex now. As Bracadale sets out, this is both workable and necessary.

It seems to me that anyone accepting this job under these circumstances is not going to be looking at delivering the protection from hate that women and girls need as female people. And Helena Kennedy confirmed that quite clearly in the article.