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?

@BlueBrush

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?

Yes! And to that end Stonewall's mad and tone deaf comparison of gender critical feminism with antisemitism will have set alarm bells ringing across the left. How is smearing feminists like this different to the right wing media's non stop lies about Corbyn - or indeed anyone who supports the Palestinians? By the left I mean ordinary people on the left of course. The leadership are now so petrified of practically any issue they will only give their name , rank and number during an interview.

There is such an entrenched, lucrative industry built around gender ideology it's going to be hard to pull teenagers out of that, but maybe they'll have a 'woke' punk moment and realise how much they've been farmed by Big Pharma, and junk the unicorns, plastic surgery and glitter: as Johnny Rotten said, "ever get the feeling you've been cheated?'

I think rather than this being a sustained or permanent change, it’s more likely that we are in a welcome period of government listening and caution, but that genderist politics (as opposed to politics which examines gender without disadvantaging women and children) will be with us for decades now, if not forever. What’s caused this change of pace will be a mix of issues as always.
To be optimistic I hope that it’s partly that we have some principled politicians on social issues in charge at the moment, who are interested in personal freedom and in that freedom not solely being available for men.

This is the same government who have launched a women’s health strategy and are publicly consulting on that. Which is unprecedented. It corrects a long overdue lack of interest in women’s health from successive governments. Labour would never do that consultation or have a named women’s strategy because they would be too conflicted about having to say very publicly on a medical issue that ‘women’ now includes men. (Lifelong Labour voter here so this is painful to me but I think it’s true).

I think it’s likely that this change reflects the larger numbers of women, cross-party, now involved in party politics. Enough to speak to each other and support each other for speaking out, now that social media posts confirm that there is support for their views.

It’s also obviously down to the high profile court cases and their media coverage too, which all along we have said would be what reverses or slows institutional capture.

Like a pp, I only became aware of the issues when JKR posted her essay. The strength of the hatred and abuse she received in comparison to the reasonable, articulate essay was such an eye opener.

Since then I've read up and researched as much as possible but the arguments in support of gender ideology are just so weak. I've watched the scorners pop up here to tell us how wrong we are, yet despite every opportunity they have utterly failed to provide anything of actual substance. The most recent example of this is a certain individual who loves to pop up and tell us how wrong and misinformed we all are. Their book was published this week, surely a perfect opportunity to come and show us the specifics of how correct SW are with their lobbying and how each news article is incorrect/how wrong each organisation is to leave the diversity scheme. However, unless I've missed something, there's been nothing...

Liability. Money. That's it. Illegal advice being followed that costs them money to implement and then opens them up to lawsuits that they will lose.

The sad fact is, women's rights being at risk is not something that the government cares about on the whole. But money? Yes.

I don't think JKR's influence can be underestimated here. In no way saying it's the only thing, there has been so much work by so many women (and some men, e.g. Glinner, who I am in awe of) but the level of exposure that JK Rowling brought to the table was unprecedented.

I think you are right @LuckyWookie. Gay men and lesbians are being berated by Stonewall ....... for being gay or lesbian. Bonkers isn't it?

It really only supports trans people nowadays.

To be more cynical, I wonder if it’s also that we have a massive majority Conservative government under no electoral threat at all from Labour (in England) and that the government’s attention is focused on England not Scotland or Wales or Northern Ireland because, well, they’re Tories. And that a big factor is because the financial model and costs of genderist politics are very unwelcome.

If Stonewall, GIRES, Mermaids were pushing the same politics but without taking hundreds of thousands of pounds from the public purse to do their ‘training’ and accreditation for tax-payer funded organisations like government departments, agencies, state schools, NHS bodies and others in order to do so, then maybe the government would not consider their views of much interest.

Maybe the government would look the other way, if the end goals of the genderist campaigns costed nothing to the taxpayer in terms of adaptations to public services, or the increasing risk of women crowdfunding further legal cases against public bodies acting outside their powers, threatening women’s rights, child safeguarding, established medical rules of consent, freedom of speech and more.

Genderist capture has made major government bodies like the EHRC or government funded bodies like NHS trusts look incredibly legally ill-informed and out of control, seemingly politically driven by external genderist political lobbying groups with a questionable grasp on the facts of the current law. The relevant Ministers will be embarrassed by ‘their’ department’s public bodies being shown up publicly. The NHS situation is more complicated as the government relationship to the NHS is less direct and more complicated.

I'm cautiously pleased but I still think things in the UK are incredibly fragile and very dependent on Liz Truss keeping her job (or not getting promoted). The opposition parties remain basket cases. In Scotland there's a woman awaiting trial for .... are we even allowed to say? And who has just had her crowdfunder shut down. And internationally - well I daren't even think about it.

HoL recently helped

I emailed to say thank you and I’m sure many did

It became more apparent that women are frustrated, upset and politically motivated on the issue

Whose ideology does rejecting the notion that people can define themselves and are subject to external definitions - whether it be sex, race or class - does the current direction of travel help ?

Who is in power in the UK.

Anyone got to "4" yet ?

Agree with ChattyLion. I think it's organisations not only look illegally informed but also very stupid. Mediciine is about science, the NHS look like idiots using 'chest feeding' etc.

I really hope that this situtation means that people feel more confident to speak out in the news on the radio etc and that a proper debate can be had without all the shutting down or people being fearful they will lose their jobs just because they believe sex is immutable.

I was heartened a few weeks ago. At the height of the TWAW in schools, my Dgs said he was trans. This was a phase and now he is completely the opposite and eye rolls big time. I wouldn't be too sure that this generation are in thrall to gender ideology. He confirmed that it was girls in his school but they had one autistic boy who was trans.

One of the things that occurred to me was the the TU's have a big slice of this cake. This will have been influenced by the Teaching Unions and the gender ideology is linked to hard left politics. The unions may have the idea that if they massively influence public bodies then the hard left takeover means they wont need to be in government to govern.

I don't know what will happen next but I am not so sure there is a generation who are lost. I am just grateful that Janice Turner was writing about this long ago.

We also have to (unfortunately for me) recognise the Daily Mail playing its part but like many of you I think mainstream stated to become really incensed was JKR and then big time Kiera Bell

This will have been influenced by the Teaching Unions and the gender ideology is linked to hard left politics.

Yes and no. The Morning Star has published quite a few articles criticising gender ideology. I think it’s more true to say that there is a long history of left wing men throwing women under the bus.

Gender ideology is very individualist and not at all concerned about class analysis.

From where I'm sitting, Ddraig, it just looks like hundreds of tiny, really hard won little actions have slowly, slowly chipped away at the massive organisations and edifices funding and lobbying

Yup, from my first gc post on Facebook that had no reaction to my latest about valentina the blind runner that's had a few comments and thumbs up, these posts were about 6 years apart. I think chipping away sounds right. I do still wonder why my first post had no reaction , not even a slur or rant about women being kind. I was petrified I'd be doxed and hounded out of my job.

On another slant, if it costs businesses nothing or very little then it's a great idea for them, but I doubt they mean it. The company I work for ticks all the recycling boxes, but I guarantee it's just a tick box exercise. I've seen where it all goes and its landfill. But they get to crow about recycling credentials. Same I think with the glitter family, just ticking the box, and now its come out with those foi requests that it's almost one full time job to tick that box, it's not such a great move when people are losing jobs and businesses going bust, plus a pandemic puts things into perspective.

That’s an interesting thought, @highame, I know it makes me sound conspiracy theorist, but thinking about it and joining the dots I think you’ve hit on something there. With the ‘Long March through the institutions’ which is decades in the making, the authoritarian un democratic Left won’t have to be be in government to govern, if they take over the institutions.

I think merrymouse has a good point Affront. I think hard left needs a bit of re-definition in this case. Communism isn't where I was thinking, it's really the new wave left which aligns itself more anarchy - destroy everything and then rebuild.

It’s all words and labels, a critical mass of a group of ‘oppressed marginalised individuals’ destroying the centre is still a ‘class’, and groups of groups of individuals (race, gender, BLM) doing this collectively identity politics, IMHO.

with the middle classes leading the charge - the irony

This hasn’t been sudden at all, it’s been a slow but steady change driven by determination and guts from many women and men ,a lot of whom are on mumsnet , who have exposed bone wall for what is now, a con trick and a threat to the rights of women and girls.

Plus I’d guess there is probably some perfectly understandable political pleasure and gain to be had for the right-wingers in power, by hoisting the petard of genderism as this glaring failure of actual politics for sheer counter factual quasi-religious belief, which is causing trouble at the heart of current left wing party politics and policies.

The right will also want to characterise all this as solely a left wing agenda- which as we know it most definitely isn’t. Misogyny and homophobia and being anti- safeguarding isn’t as simple as left versus right and we will always need to tackle them because they will always pop up because genderism is a male sexual entitlement campaign for some of its proponents. It will be up to grassroots and cross- party activism to point that out.

So I’d say that it seems unlikely that grassroots women have had much of an impact on ‘opening the door’ at this particular time without there also being some political expediency at the moment behind finally opening it.

Examples of long-running women’s campaigns like the decades of campaigning for abortion rights for Northern Irish women, show this. Northern Irish women still haven’t been able to get proper ground-level healthcare despite a very welcome and long overdue legal change on their access to abortion finally coming. I can’t think of any other example of party politics pushing something through for women, if it would upset anyone. (because women don’t count). They don’t do it or they do it half heartedly.

So my guess is that if there’s a principled political motivation in here it will be more likely be around opposing the anti-freedom of speech agenda inherent in genderist politics because speechcrime affects men too. And it fits as part of a broader objection to ‘identity politics’ which may have helped to attract some right-wingers’ attention to it.

The impact on women doesn’t seem to be the primary driver for change, but practicality matters too. If opposition to genderism can highlight how misogynistic, sexist and homophobic antiscience and anti safeguarding genderism is then that will wake up some people, which is still better than nothing being done at government and at grassroots level. It will still be up to ordinary women and grassroots groups to continue to join the dots for government and write to our MPs etc and lobby them on our own issues including around genderism. Nobody else will do it for us. The cause for celebration though is that crowd funded legal cases seem to be a really effective action to take at the moment so I hope they’ll be concluded positively while government is in this current sceptical/listening mode. Because there will be counter- actions from the other side of this debate too.

@merrymouse

This will have been influenced by the Teaching Unions and the gender ideology is linked to hard left politics.

Yes and no. The Morning Star has published quite a few articles criticising gender ideology. I think it’s more true to say that there is a long history of left wing men throwing women under the bus.

Gender ideology is very individualist and not at all concerned about class analysis.

Agreed @merrymouse. The Morning Star was one paper brave enough to stand out on this. I thought about Tracey Chapman this morning: "Suddenly the Tables are Starting to Turn". I sure hope they are but as others have said, we have a way to go.

This is not sudden. It's been years in the making. It's the fruit of the labour of many fantastic, brave and financially ruined people who fought and fought to shed light on this, who refused to be silenced.

It's a very sad victory because none of it needed to happen. Children have been captured by this ideology. Parents have had their protective rights taken away. Safeguarding has been dismantled. Sportswomen have lost their one and only shot at success. Women in prisons and hospitals have lost their right to dignity and safety.

Women have lost jobs and been threatened with rape and death. People have been 'cancelled'. It's shocking that this was allowed and that it went on for so long. And who has benefitted from it? No-one. Literally no-one. All Stonewall has achieved is division.

I think the rising number of legal challenges and upcoming Olympics probably helped to bring this under scrutiny too.

There are not words enough to thank all those people who have spoken out when others were too afraid or unable, who have toiled so relentlessly to raise funds to support legal challenges, who have soldiered on when it's been enough over the years to make anyone weep.

I also have to give a shout out to Mumsnet and the FWR board. I wandered over one day to see what all the noise was about and was horrified. Since then, although I don't post much, I've been merrily writing away in the background to my MP and joining in various actions. I am sure that there are many of us out there doing the same thing, and I'm sure that all these combined small actions have helped. I've become more bold since the EHRC made a statement about being GC likely being a protected belief, as I see this as my protection. So much so I've just given feedback to my employer on the latest indoctrination training I've completed (Stonewalled) and pointed out all of the legal inaccuracies. I also think that Nancy big mouth helped out recently, my DF laughed at me as I walked through his door the other day and said 'Watch out, here's the anti-Semite'. He then proceeded to rant that 'that woman' had clearly lost the bloody plot on national TV. He's also involved in local sports and has helped to formulate local policies, he's been ensuring single sex policies remain in place, and that's because I brought the subject up with him a few years ago. Trickle, trickle, trickle.

Previous posters have mentioned left and right wing politics as a feature of GC views, but I believe that this is an issue that cuts across normal political lines. I find myself agreeing with people whose politics I would not normally touch with a bargepole. That is one of the strengths of the fight back.
TRAs try to prove an equivalence to right wing Christianity but in the UK this really doesn't exist, nor is this about rich versus poor or any of the other conventional social divides- except the rights of women - of course. Funny how that one sticks around!