Lawyers know the truth (well, most do)

[PersonaNonGarter]

If you need more convincing that the tide is turning, you can be reassured by the legal website RollOnFriday coverage of the current Stonewall situation. Not only is the article sane and level, but the comments are brilliant. Look at the thumbs up thumbs down support - almost all of it is Gender Critical.

This is a big deal for loads of reasons, but one Reason to be Cheerful is that RollOnFriday has a large readership among junior lawyers. It seems that trans-rights ideology is not finding favour here at all.

OK, you were all ahead of me. But I am excited about it.

Right now I am flooded with an inbox of LGBTQ+ Pride flags and invites to Stonewall talks, so the ROF article was very refreshing.

I noticed the disdain with which they spoke about a certain Jolyon Maugham too

Like you said, the vast majority were pretty scornful of trans ideology.

A lawyer's stock in trade is balancing competing interests and arguing about exceptions and carve outs, so it doesn't surprise me that very few would ever accept a black and white arguments like the claim that TWAW in every sense... It's always about the details.

And going by the spelling of the non-GC comments on that RoF article, (by eg "Anonymous") I'd say they're not lawyer(s).

@PandorasMailbox

I noticed the disdain with which they spoke about a certain Jolyon Maugham too

Like you said, the vast majority were pretty scornful of trans ideology.

I thought this was a really interesting post in that vein:

The approach of going to court to make new law, then calling that outcome 'justice', genuinely undermines the public's faith in the courts and their collective sense that their elected representatives have the will to actually represent them. Never mind the fact that it effectively allows activists to legislate for extreme outcomes that Parliament would have recognised lacked democratic support.

It's always for a supposedly good cause, and the people involved inevitably feel like good eggs for 'taking the fight to the government' on an issue they deem personally important - but the more ubiquitous it becomes the angrier the public gets that new law seems to be getting made in London courtrooms by wealthy lawyers who self-describe as 'progressive', rather than in Parliament by the people they voted for.

City dwelling progressives feel like doing it over and over again is 'winning' and assume these small victories will all add up (and they'll swear blind that it's all "interpretation not legislation") - but then they scratch their heads at election time and wonder why the dreadful oiks keep voting for the Tories, cheering for legal aid cuts, and applauding the Home Secretary's proposals to cut back the powers of the Courts and the HRA.

Well done ROF for leaving comments on - even the comments are a cut above.

I think the fox slayer is too far gone, but for lots of lawyers this kind of discussion among their peers is definitely the sort of thing that will have effect.

Joly Windmills doesn't appear to have much respect in legal circles, does he.

^Although the official records claim the stonewall riots were led by gays and lesbians, famously it was a Demi-romantic asexual non-binary queer person who actually threw the first brick at stonewall, leading a chant of ‘they/them’ at the cops before dousing themselves in purple hair dye.
As a gay man, I for one am glad that stonewall has finally rediscovered its roots. It’s high time I was accused of transphobia for requiring my lover to have male genitals. ^

superb stuff

it is only half seven and that has already made my day

It was RollOnFriday that broke the Denton’s document, if I remember rightly. I have shared their article on that many times, given that it isn’t likely people will look at the source and sneer that it’s bigoted.

So they haven’t been fully behind the gender identity movement for a while.

@AnyOldPrion

It was RollOnFriday that broke the Denton’s document, if I remember rightly. I have shared their article on that many times, given that it isn’t likely people will look at the source and sneer that it’s bigoted.

So they haven’t been fully behind the gender identity movement for a while.

They also covered a good bit of what Hayden was up to a few years ago, IIRC.

That was a cheering read, thanks for sharing!

There was also a good thread on Alison Bailey. The heartening thing is that RoF is mainly used by the younger lawyers so this isn't a case of the non-progressive crusties.

My firm has full on drunk the kool aid and I can't see it withdrawing as SWC anytime soon. There was a big push on pronouns in email signatures and online bios a while ago - most of us have given it the silent 2 fingers and ignored it; the vast majority of those who have followed through are, you guessed it, women. So many she/her/hers and very few he/him/his - they are like frogs in slowly boiling water

@PearPickingPorky

Joly Windmills doesn't appear to have much respect in legal circles, does he.

Smugly calling himself 'good', implying everyone else in the profession is therefore bad, can't have helped.

Thank you so much for posting this, some of the replies under the article are superb!

This one is so succinct: "One can only survive on dewy eyed nostalgia about a riot in 1969 for so long - especially once you start watering that story down by revising and reinventing it to put the latest diversity trend at its forefront."