It didn't have to be like this

[JustcameoutGC]

I am so glad to see the position of Stonewall finally being brought out into the light and people at last feeling emboldened to state the obvious. That men can't become women. That there is a clash between trans rights and women's rights and that Stonewall is leading us to places where male sex offenders are locked up with women, and lesbians are coerced into sex with males.

I thought it would feel better. But I feel so sad that we are in this bitter and divided place. I was really sad to hear how the founders of the LGB Alliance had tried for years to get Stonewall to listen before setting off on their own, but got nowhere. That must have been a hugely painful decision, given what SW have achieved for the LGB community to date.

In the wake of the JKR vile twitter storm, SW could have intervened to call for a more measured response. But they didn't, so the rape threats continued.

The #nodebate tactic was really chilling to be on the end of. It was malign and totalitarian. It instilled fear in women who hold perfectly reasonable views.

The behind the scenes lobbying that only became apparent when very advanced plans for self id and women could mount a defence.

This could and should have been done differently, with open engagement and debate and a range of solutions on the table. But it was only ever total capitulation that was a solution for them.

As a result, SW have probably permanently damaged any trust between women and the trans community. Getting to a place that works for everyone will be so much harder now.

I don’t think there is any despair from GC women . I think a lot of people have been completely unaware of what’s been going on.

I believe that when more people realise the implications of sex offenders with intact penises being housed in women’s prisons because they claim to be women, they will go WTAF.

I believe that most people want to be kind and get along. However, rapists with penises in female prisons with no more transitions that stating that they are women will probably open up some interesting discussions. Then we can discuss what a woman is in more detail. And extend this discussion to other areas where it may be relevant.

I am also looking forward to the Olympics. I believe there are 8 (?) transwomen likely to compete? The. We can make charts on how many transwomen won medals compared to biological women (and include ages).

I think there will be many fruitful discussions after that.

Thanks for the laugh Lisz. Even after all the wonderful things that have happened recently, it’d good to see someone injecting a bit of humour into a thread.

I get that the LGB community would have a natural affinity to the trans and queer (where it is not gay or bi) community. But on the other hand they are not obviously natural bedfellows. Is there not a strong argument that the LGB community has done it's bit - got trans people a load of sympathy and attention - now it's time for the trans community to go it's own way and fight it's own corner.

It could have worked easily if they had argued for trans rights, rather than aiming for men to have women’s rights. But I guess that’s the crux of this thread!

I am, Lisz. I am knackered. I can't believe I still have to deal with sexist bullshit. In 2021.

OP: "SW have probably permanently damaged any trust between women and the trans community."

It certainly has for me. When trans became a noticeable thing, mid-Aughts in my life, I was all ready to take up common cause. We were all fighting stereotypes, weren't we?

After being talked over and told to shut up and sit down it dawned on me. Wait. These people are acting just like dumb guys! So, eventually, they totally lost me.

I have a lot of time for the Miranda Yardleys, people who can see women. None at all for the TWAWs.

I am not to sure that even if we can create a forum for respectful discussion and debate, there will be any quality of thinking from the other side if contributions on this thread are anything to go by.

Where we are today will not benefit any of the groups we are standing for, women or trans identifiers. The energy and resources we could be using to fight gender stereotypes, keep women and girls safer, tackle male violence, end trans prejudice will be taken up by fighting our increasingly polarised corners. #nodebate has to end. Olive branches need to be extended. But I see no sign of this from Stonewall et al.

@SapphosRock
“Any LGBTQ organisations are now in an impossible position. Be inclusive and shit all over women's rights or be exclusive and face the backlash from the TRA lobby.” THIS 100%

It is a shame as homophobia, misogyny and transphobia are still a problem in society and rather than address the real threats Stonewall, mermaids et al have dedicated themselves to subverting knowledge and application of the law to be as they would like it to be.

Particularly chilling is the effort put into establishing the concept of gender identity over sex as an indisputable and universal truth to as young and receptive an audience as possible.

But the only reason this difficult position exists is because of the insistence that a TW absolutely is a woman, in every way, and it's offensive to suggest otherwise or even question it (and TMAM too, but that doesn't threaten men in the same way). It is the need to push this narrative that led to the claim that sex doesn't matter and only gender does. Everything rests on it. And the idea that you must agree that TWAW even unto running women's refuges, playing in women's sports, being in women's prisons and hospital wards etc., is pushed on the basis that disagreeing with that is bigotry exactly like discriminating against gay people - and no one nice and inclusive would EVER do that.

So loads of people have got on board with TWAW, despite it making no logical sense. But they can get off that bandwagon just as easily, especially when many have only got on it to keep their jobs or climb the purity spiral, not because they really think it.

I predict it will become more acceptable to say it is not literally the case, and there will be a tipping point where a majority start to backtrack and say that actual women matter after all as a separately defined group.

I think there is an effect whereby once you are societally allowed to express something previously suppressed and seen as unacceptable, lots of people will do it, and in fact the same thing has happened to feminism. Lots of people, bit men and women, have always found feminism suspect, avoided identifying with it and used it as a form of mockery. When trans ideology made it OK to make (sex-based) feminism the enemy, lots of people jumped on that bandwagon.

Now the same thing could happen to trans people, setting their cause back too. It would have been better to have negotiated and discussed rights and needs with mutual respect for the sake of both groups.

Anyone see this today?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9651333/Stonewall-tells-employers-not-use-mother-say-parent-given-birth-instead.html

You are very astute, Mrs Bun

I am very polite to the trans and NB people that I know. I am very happy to negotiate with the trans charities and would happily volunteer to organise an impact assessment looking at the various options.

It'll never happen until the TRAs accept that sex is immutable - many of them rail against that because of their dysphoria, or comorbid mental health challenges.

We are not allowed to talk about the unusually high prevalence of mental health conditions in this population - and that really worries me. I read that 40% of new referrals to Tavistock are of neurodiverse children. These autistic kids want puberty blockers, and don't care that it'll make them infertile - Keira Bell's court case showed that these children have no way of understanding the consequences of what they are asking for. However, the idea of this large cohort of young autistic people being made sterile by use of medication really makes me uncomfortable.

There is a noun for sterilising groups of people who are seen as being different. And it's not very nice, and it is never on the right side of history.

These autistic kids want puberty blockers, and don't care that it'll make them infertile - Keira Bell's court case showed that these children have no way of understanding the consequences of what they are asking for.

Not about children with autism but ou might be interested in this interview with Kajsa Ekis Ekman about what's happening in Sweden and a report from a Swedish doctor of the young women who are turning up in his infertility clinic after being on puberty blockers.

The position that stonewall have set out for themselves will be so hard, potentially impossible to roll back from. To move forward they will have to recognise that under current legislation single sex spaces can and should exist, in essence that there are circumstances where TW and natal women should be treated differently.

Once you concede this, and they have to because this IS the law, the whole house of cards falls down.

They have been so intransigent and immoderate that even a tiny move towards a compromise and they will be jumped on by their own lot.

Damned it they do, and damned if they don't. I can't see the current leadership or trustees surviving this.

What an unholy mess,Embarrassing

where are the medical ethics behind all this?

You are right, OP, it didn't need to be this way. We know what happens to female bodies on cross sex hormones since the Eastern Bloc athletes who were doped (against their will) - many of them have died prematurely.

Why would having a gender difference have a protective effect to the loss of oestrogen on a female body? It's insane.

I completely agree- it's just so very sad. Ten, or even five, years ago I absolutely didn't care a jot about men defining themselves as women and was rather pleased with myself for being liberal. Then it all turned theocratic - "you must believe this worldview of mine which can't possibly be true, and if you don't everyone will hate you" and that didn't just force me to take sides, it also made me terribly mistrustful. I'm wary of people who I think might be on the denouncing side - people with blue hair, well-spoken young men on the Left- and that's a real shame, because those are the sort of people I'd normally get on with. And I've got a couple of trans women friends, one of whom I love very much, and I almost feel that I'm deceiving her by not telling her about my apostasy- but if I did, I might lose her.
I'm lucky enough to have a couple of gay friends who think it's all bollocks, and that gives me hope. I've been heartened by some online comments I've seen lately saying things like "as a gay man I'm fed up of being expected to believe anti-science bullshit". Lesbians have spearheaded the backlash but they're women, people don't listen to them as much as men.

Whilst I don't want to give women's rights away, or see girls internalise toxic sexism by abandoning their birthright as women and seeking irreversible change that they may come to experience as damage to their bodies; I still want to be a trans ally as I was before aggressive trans rights activism trampled on women's rights and attempted to criminalise our dissent. Let's give SW some credit for challenging the entrenched transphobia that saw transwomen routinely ridiculed, bullied and assaulted; rejected in workplaces and families. We simply cannot go back to that. Im furious at the number of TRAs and sympathisers claiming that gender critical people have never given a hoot about trans people. We were marching together, at early Prides and against Clause 29 before most of them were born.

Let's give SW some credit for challenging the entrenched transphobia that saw transwomen routinely ridiculed, bullied and assaulted; rejected in workplaces and families…We were marching together, at early Prides and against Clause 29 before most of them were born.

Can we give the general population some credit for already having done this on their own initiative, using their own moral compasses and without the input of SW or their workplaces?

Is it possible that SW is taking the credit for a social shift that had already been underway for some time? A social shift that was possibly influenced by those of us who've been allies for a very long time?

The things that I learned from.

As a pp mentioned the speed and finality that women who spoke up were deemed baddies of the worst sort

The ability for so many to apparently believe a group of mainly lefty middle aged women many of whom were labour activists, lesbians supporting LGB+ for years, turned overnight into the opposite to what they are

The working behind the scenes in a coordinated way to get things in place. The ease of the capture and how wide ranging it is. That orgs like police, clubs for children, the NHS etc just said yep let's do this. And no one apparently said, or was allowed to say. Hold on a minute...

This fiasco has forced me to examine my own assumptions more than any other issue I've ever come across. It is forcing the left to look at itself, its motivations, its reasoning and its attitude. …. It's opened up the surprising and genuinely heart warming sight of women working together cross party, cross allegiances, despite no funds, no power, no networks, no media support. We've done amazing things.

I wish I shared your optimism about the left, ArabellaScott. The veneer of solidarity with women was so easily stripped away, and the misogyny came bursting out so unstoppably.

But I agree with all your other points. I’ve seen, and done my small bit for, such terrific actions by women I’m proud to support. We’ve stood up to the biggest threat to women’s and children’s rights that I’ve witnessed in the UK since the 70s, maybe in my lifetime. Well done, feminists and allies. The struggle continues, of course. But it is heartening.

I've always thought women's rights were more fragile than they seemed but this movement has been breathtaking in how willingly those 'rights' were undermined by so many of the big, supposedly benevolent organisations around us. Inclusivity has been used as a legitimate way to exclude women or dismiss concerns. I won't forget that in a hurry..