So, what has suddenly happened for the tide to change?

[rabbitwoman]

So, I have spent a while reading through the twitter replies to Stonewall, Michael cashman and mermaids.

There is NO support for them. Really, none. All the @ s are damning - and along with recent events and all the organisations leaving Stonewall's diversity champion scheme, the tide really does seem to have suddenly turned. I am looking for the people supporting Stonewall et al but supportive tweets are few and, quite honestly, not very coherent.

It seems so different to just a few short months ago when no one would say anything.

What I don't understand is how come now? Stonewall have been doing this for a really long time, we have been pointing it out for years, not just months, so what has suddenly happened that decision makers have suddenly noticed and decided to do something?

I feel a bit wary. Also, angry that so many people have suffered, lost jobs and work, and there will probably be no recourse for them - no one will ever apologise to Glinner, will they? Will Daniel Radcliffe, Emily Watson and Rupert Grint and Eddie redmayne ever apologise to jkr?

Surely, if anyone with any sense at Stonewall wants a way out of this, the best thing to do would be to say, you know what? We were wrong. We got this wrong. So what can we do, how can we solve it, we are sorry and ready to listen?

America - when it catches cold, the whole world sneezes

What gives me hope is America's obsession with sports and our belief in a class-free society obsessed with fairness (class may be a myth, but the belief in the aspiration holds strong).

Anytime some TWAW disciple tries to push the sports angle in the NYTimes/Washington Post and other big, liberal newspapers readers overwhelmingly revolt in the comments section.

When I'm being negative, I look at France and how their civil debate in the media is taking on a tone of US parochialism and virtue-signaling and then I lose hope again.

I think the TV shows like Orange is The New Black & Degrassi that young people have watched help them think that TWAW etc. They have grown up watching these programmes that as an adult I was unaware off - I don’t watch much TV & what I watch tends to be cooking/documentaries. I did a quiz on LGBTQ characters on tv shows as part of a Pride celebration and was amazed by how many US TV shows feature trans characters. I’d never seen most of them but they are aimed at 12-20s.

I think the door is ajar, but there is a long way to go and we must not become complacent. There have been some very encouraging signs recently not least led by Liz Truss, which is a huge move on from the climate of fear where MPs were afraid to mention gender critical beliefs.

A combination of the court cases with the EHRC and Liz Truss consequences, people seeing a black, lesbian barrister being threatened by Stonewall, the sterling work on FOIs etc, all of these have shed sunlight on the issues which previously most people would have dismissed as irrelevant to their lives. Now Marion Millar may do more again.

More media are now on the case. The Times, the Spectator and the Telegraph are keen and today, Sarah Vine (who had been on the fringes) has now gone full blown GC.
www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9656245/SARAH-VINE-war-mothers-feminisms-biggest-fight-decades.html

Not least has been Stonewall's overreach. The whole gender critical and antisemitism remark was the tipping point. At a time when real antisemitism is on the rise, it just showed how ridiculous Stonewall has become. Also the founders of Stonewall speaking out against them makes people stop and think.

Also, some of the issues around university free speech at Essex and Edinburgh have chimed with a fight back against wokeism generally which suits some politicians.

And lastly, the massed ranks of the witches coven that is Mumsnet should take a bow. I honestly believe without Mumsnet, we would never have got this far.

Women have been so disproportionately affected by this pandemic. Like so many people have said, I think most people are of the "live and let live" mindset while they feel they've basically got it OK (which I also generally subscribe to!) but when they start feeling more disenchanted with their own lives they start to drill down a bit deeper.

Some of this is just a recent push against "cancel culture" in general. Some people seem happy to have women all but irradiated, but besmirching the memory of a bunch of slave traders is "taking things too far now" 🙄

Friends I've spoken to feel emboldened by the recent headlines about protecting freedom of expression in universities. Although, I work in education and I'm incredibly careful about what I write here (on an anonymous forum!) because I'm terrified of losing my job.

At the risk of serious arse licking, this forum has been invaluable to me at a time when the double-think had messed with my mind to such an extent that I was feeling ashamed and embarrassed that I just couldn't manage to believe that TWAW. Since I've been brave enough to vocalise this to a small number of friends, the majority have said exactly the same! I have no idea how many people read these threads without commenting, but my gut feeling is that it's significant.

I would like to give a personal shout out to @R0wantrees for her contribution to my journey on this. Evidence is the best way to win most arguments, and she brings evidence in spades, she is like a GC Wikipedia. [WAVE]

I’m in several social media groups linked to PSHE and general education. I would say 90%+ of the teachers posting recommend stonewall and only ever use the term gender.

@mateysmum was just coming to post the same article in the Mail by Sarah vine.
It was excellent to read.

I would like to know why there is no urgent serious case review at each LA for safeguarding failures within the council's safeguarding boards, Why have so many 'professionals' got Fabricated induced illness, why would a person's job meaning they are better in fact - it's so classeist andIQist, why have Fabricated induced illness safeguarding in professionals via policies and guidelines not been reviewed, is it because they make the rules and laws and think they are better somehow or don't want their dirty secrets revealed of punished?

@Kollamoolitumarellipawkyrollo

I’m in several social media groups linked to PSHE and general education. I would say 90%+ of the teachers posting recommend stonewall and only ever use the term gender.

I find this very worrying, does anyone try to correct them when they should be using ‘sex’?

Liz Truss has a neck like a jockey's bollocks - which is exactly what is needed in this situation. A Remainer who is now a strident Brexiteer , I used to think Johnson only tolerated her in his cabinet because of her essential dimness. Nonetheless she has picked the ball up and run with it hard. Dawn Butler's poll will have confirmed she is on the right track. I bet the Tories are all over Mumsnet btw , trying to identify the new Worcester woman or whatever . Like a previous poster I wouldn't underestimate FWR - I had a row on FB two days ago with a tra and he was moaning about mumsnet. Great stuff altogether

The Equality and Human Rights Commission not renewing its membership, I think had a huge effect on it. Obviously high profile cases like Alison Bailey made people look at the fine print and seen that actually they were given illegal advice. Also the government (Lizz Truss) standing firm and government bodies moving away from stone wall has huge effect too.

Then the tweet off Dawn Butler really shown the mood in the room.

I'm optimistic, I think stonewall reputation has been shattered now. Its a TRA organisation. It doesn't represent members of my family/friends any more and they are vocal about it not only not representing them but attacking their sexuality.

There was an interesting meme I saw on twitter which said 'Your so woke / open minded your brain fell out' Which I think is so embarrassingly true for a lot of major organisations.

At least the legal ramifications will have to be looked at by the big companies to make sure that they are not actually breaking the law.

I don’t think anything has suddenly happened. Reviews and legal cases are slowly working their way through the system.

Meanwhile Stonewall’s policies are becoming less and less relevant to LGB people. They don’t even seem to be particularly helpful for T people.

Like a previous poster I wouldn't underestimate FWR - I had a row on FB two days ago with a tra and he was moaning about mumsnet.

Same. My work colleagues have often complained about Mumsnet and one even detailed to me how it was a hotbed of transphobia 😂

Bloody hell Sarah Vine has really stuck her neck out there.

Thank you Sarah if your a MNetter! [flowers!]

I’m also not sure that there’s been any sudden shift. This, like all social changes happens slowly, and then all of a sudden. Incremental changes are chip-chip-chipped away at, and then -WOOSH- we’re suddenly in a new paradigm.

Like other PPs, I am also cautious about celebrating. Women’s voices are prevailing on many fronts, but new fronts will open up that we’re not yet aware of, and the debate will continue.

I sometimes think that there’s a lot to be said for just waiting for the tide to turn, and for the cheerleaders to find their next enthusiasm. Photos of teenagers displaying their mastectomy scars will have their moment, and then cease to be “aspirational” (or whatever it is that people seem to find so praiseworthy about them), and the conversation will inevitably move on. But then I remember all the women and children currently being harmed, and I find my sense of urgency increases again.

I think MN has been a key player here. Don’t underestimate it. There’s a reason it’s so heavily monitored by people who really could find a more productive use of their time, and a reason why it’s a lazy punchline to put women back in our boxes. It’s dangerous. Women speaking our truths are dangerous.

Really useful thread - good for a bit of taking stock!

I think the biggest tide to turn will be for enough people who consider themselves left-wing and progressive to realise that "TWAW" is not automatically the "correct" progressive position - that it's OK to not think it's OK.

And then the really important step will be to get to the point that it's OK to say it's not OK. If we can get to the point that we can speak out without being afraid of being prosecuted for hate crimes, or losing our jobs, then I think it will topple quickly. Am I right in thinking Maya's case will be important here?

@Sophoclesthefox

I’m also not sure that there’s been any sudden shift. This, like all social changes happens slowly, and then all of a sudden. Incremental changes are chip-chip-chipped away at, and then -WOOSH- we’re suddenly in a new paradigm.

Like other PPs, I am also cautious about celebrating. Women’s voices are prevailing on many fronts, but new fronts will open up that we’re not yet aware of, and the debate will continue.

I sometimes think that there’s a lot to be said for just waiting for the tide to turn, and for the cheerleaders to find their next enthusiasm. Photos of teenagers displaying their mastectomy scars will have their moment, and then cease to be “aspirational” (or whatever it is that people seem to find so praiseworthy about them), and the conversation will inevitably move on. But then I remember all the women and children currently being harmed, and I find my sense of urgency increases again.

I think MN has been a key player here. Don’t underestimate it. There’s a reason it’s so heavily monitored by people who really could find a more productive use of their time, and a reason why it’s a lazy punchline to put women back in our boxes. It’s dangerous. Women speaking our truths are dangerous.

I think your right about the teenagers. My Saturday girl (nearly 17) shown me a ticktok video yesterday that was about a young girl that had a double mastectomy (at the start of it there was a screen shot of her saying her dad said saying she didn't 'have the balls' for it) and was now sporting a very male athletic body. Cool music, cool hair, topless in low cut jeans, band of boxers just showing, proud face, looked like a Calvin Klein advert. It was very well done. Hundreds and thousands of like and comments (USA). My Saturday girl has just come out as a lesbian. She said she fancied him and he was fit.

This is the next wave of the damage done.

Like others have said, I dont think it’s one thing, it’s the constant build up of pressure against the damn that makes it suddenly start to crack and then once the cracks appear, the damn becomes unsustainable.

It had been helped by Stonewall behaving in such an unbelievably clueless way (how has no one advised them to just stop taking fgs), the court cases, tje pandemic meaning more ppl have had time to find out about it without being instantly shouted down as they would have been eg if they raised it at work, the pandemic also giving things perspective and a lot of women realising how when push came to shove, sexism really hadn’t gone anywhere, the Laurel hubbards of this world and of course JKR bringing it so much into the public realm whereas previously it had been mostly hidden away

And yes mumsnet for being the only place where women could gather and discuss this. (I’d expect a resurgence of incoming and attacks)

@Scrambledcustard 'My Saturday girl has just come out as a lesbian. She said she fancied him and he was fit.'

There's a lot to unpick there. There's an old Matt Groening 'Life in Hell' cartoon where a teenage girl has a magazine called 'Non-Threatening Boys', and that's very much the way generation after generation of boy bands have been marketed to teenagers. The current K-pop stars look like human anime characters, slim, pretty and androgynous and very much 'not rapey'. Tumblr fan art and AO3 fanfic is full of similar stuff - pretty boys stroking each other. Some young women say they prefer slash fanfic because it feels more 'equal', without the male dominant, female smaller and submissive cliche. I guess that's the sort of dynamic that may be playing out in the real world here, with young women surgically turning themselves into flesh versions of Tumblr twinky fan art.

The thing which made me sit up and take notice was JKR's essay last June. That made it mainstream for me, and also for a lot of people I know. For someone of her authority, reasonableness and integrity to speak out as she did caused many to stop and think.

I think that for years the general population had no idea of what was going on. But many campaigns later realisation has struck.

A couple of years ago when there was the GRA consultation I spoke to a couple of my female colleagues about it. They had no idea about it. One is a Muslim and one very Christian. Both were horrified that they could encounter men in the gym changing rooms because they said they were women.

They completed the consultation and encouraged friends to do so - and so people began to realise what all this could mean to them personally. Not just some distant nicey nicey thing.

@Kollamoolitumarellipawkyrollo

I’m in several social media groups linked to PSHE and general education. I would say 90%+ of the teachers posting recommend stonewall and only ever use the term gender.

I'm slightly more optimistic about schools. Although the unions / PSHE groups have been totally captured, teachers are well used to policy decisions being reversed - often within a decade. There's a weary cynicism as something that was once promoted as the best initiative is quietly dumped for a new one. There's no place for political lobbying in schools from any group and the recent revelations about lying about the law and implementing institutional change through intimidation must render Stonewall completely unacceptable to work in schools. Judging by all the parents popping up on FWR asking for advice about how to challenge schools, parental views about this will be significant.

I would love to be optimistic about this too. But I'm not sure the tide really has turned - sure all our friends (middle aged women like us) agree, but the teens still call me a terf. My sector is still into its pronouns, unisex loos and TWAW ideology. I had to correct my head of HR who was talking about a gender discrimination claim the other day. I have 2 friends whose daughters have become sons, one of whom has now had their breasts removed.

I hope things are changing and maybe they are, but I still feel it's too soon to be celebrating.

As others have said Women have been shouting about this for years and we’ve attacked and vilified for it. We’ve organised meetings, written letters, raised funds and got the press interested.
There’s then been a drip, drip of information which has made the general public become more informed about what the likes of Stonewall and Mermaids are actually up to. Journalists such as Suzanne Moore and Janice Turner need a special mention. (as does Andrew Gilligan who now works for the government)

I think many institutions dont really give a crap about Stonewall but felt obliged to join the schemes for fear of how it would be seen if they didn’t. The report into Essex Uni and then Liz Truss’s announcement last week (was it only a week ago?!) made it possibly for Stonewall to be dropped like a hot brick.

We’ve got a way to go but things are getting there and the work of all the wonderful woman on this board is partly responsible for this. You’re all bloody phenomenal!

It’s because other groups are being affected now, not just women. Eg gay people who are being told that they’re discriminatory for not being attracted to trans people who have opposite sex genitals.