Sadiq Khan has sacked Joan Smith from the London VAWG board

[countrypunk]

Activist 'sacked after raising concerns about transwomen in refuges'
mol.im/a/9906833

Also in the Times. I'm disgusted. It's such cynical game-playing from Khan, all to appease a tiny minority of TRAs. There's no way he actually believes this stuff.

I'm going to write to him. Joan Smith is a feminist rock star.

Hasn't it just @Signalbox! I'm sure lots of you have already seen this, but Shahrar Ali is running for Green Party leadership and he's pro women's sex-based rights. I'm thinking about joining to vote for him, but it pisses me off that I'd have to vote for a bloke for traction on this issue in the GP. The gender critical women get shoved out, and the men survive. Funny that.

At such a time as this, with Plymouth and Afghanistan at the forefront of our minds, to sack such a high calibre, knowledgeable woman - what were you thinking of, Mr Khan?

There needs to be specialist support for trans people who are victims of violence. Rates are said to be high. Trans people have a unique experience which cannot be best served in a 'standard' male or female setting.

Put London taxpayers' money into helping them. Set up facilities with expertise to meet their particular needs, where they can freely share with peers who have a similar lived experience.

But for goodness sake, Mr Khan, can you not muster a scrap of empathy for women whose trauma response means they cannot heal with any males around, no matter how femininely you think they present or how lovely you think they are, because they have been victims of male violence.

Why are female people the only civil rights movement not allowed to centre ourselves in our own activism?

Also, to tell someone by email after 8 years in the job. What a cowardly, weaselly way to go about things.

Own your misogyny, Mr Khan.

@countrypunk

Hasn't it just *@Signalbox*! I'm sure lots of you have already seen this, but Shahrar Ali is running for Green Party leadership and he's pro women's sex-based rights. I'm thinking about joining to vote for him, but it pisses me off that I'd have to vote for a bloke for traction on this issue in the GP. The gender critical women get shoved out, and the men survive. Funny that.

The grim reality is that a man won't be given as hard a time as a woman.

Which makes Sadiq Khan's position all the more deplorable of course.

Also, some of the most prominent advocates of the TWAW mantra have been women: Siân Berry shoved off because Shahrar Ali was given a spokesperson role. It will hopefully be only the beginning if the women who left can return to vote for him.

Any women still voting Labour ? I have a few friends who are massively pro Labour and seem to just ignore the whole DESTRUCTION OF WOMENS RIGHTS thing, and I am baffled by them

Me too SirVix - one is head of our local Labour party womens section and her argument seems to be that she knows people with trans children! Hadnt heard of Helen Joyce`s book and seems to have done no reading on the gender critical side. I have tried.

Khan is a joke and not a funny one.

So, a woman with a vast amount of experience researching and writing about male violence makes a measured reasonable statement about the need for services for everyone but that women need their own separate facilities for good and proven reasons and that is enough for a man with no experience to drop her from her role.

But hey, whoever is replacing her won't be guilty of thought crime so all's well. And this in the week when male violence and entitlement has been highlighted again and again.

@Jaysmith71 "Sadiq isn't a true believer. He's feeding the crocodile in the hope that it will eat him last."

This is so true. And makes him even more shameful and cowardly.

My contempt for Khan and Labour for this knows no bounds.

It still falls short of their contempt for women.

@Jorrris

Honestly we need a few high profile cases before people start to understand that this is discriminatory and unacceptable.

Absolutely we need this. He's breaking the law. She is allowed to raise very valid concerns about safeguarding and she is allowed to hold GC views. He does not get to remove her from post because he doesn't like that. I'm happy to do some gardening for her legal costs, as I'm sure many of us are. She only needs to ask.

I really hope she brings a case against him and the board. My bank card is at the ready

WPUK have got a letter to Sadiq Khan which anyone can sign:

twitter.com/Womans_Place_UK/status/1428345950129504262

I recently saw a poster on the tube.
It said something along the lines of 'London united against hate. We stand in opposition to discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity, disability, sexuality and gender identity. Office of the Mayor of London.'
No mention of sex, which annoyed me so much that I almost stopped to take a photo.

So this is shameful but hardly surprising.

Thanks @howonearthdidwegethere I will sign and encourage others to make their feelings known 👆

Where else are competent women being pushed out of public roles and life? Let me see.... very reminiscent of Gilead but in actual real countries too. as the great woman NGO leader in Afghanistan said, it’s always about the men. ( tbh I may have paraphrased a little there, but it was pretty clear)

@GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman

I recently saw a poster on the tube. It said something along the lines of 'London united against hate. We stand in opposition to discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity, disability, sexuality and gender identity. Office of the Mayor of London.' No mention of sex, which annoyed me so much that I almost stopped to take a photo.

So this is shameful but hardly surprising.

Yes, I've seen that poster. Raises my hackles every time.

Yes, that tfl poster really annoys me.
Sadiq Khan annoys me too. He cares nothing for the rights of women and girls. Never has.

Apparently the most important thing in providing help to females who have suffered VAWG is to ensure that male people's needs are met first, and only females compliant and supportive of this are able to access services.

Again: in absolutely bloody everything; the most important thing about females is always how whatever is going on with them affects males. Demonstrating why female people need female only spaces and services provided only by females so that sometimes when they are really struggling they are allowed to come first and have their best interests met. Increasingly Mr Khan I'm beginning to think they need female only political parties and representation for the same reason.

Of course the biggest problem on the tube is groping/ harrassment of women and girls by men, and men watching loud porn on their phones.
This isn't mentioned on Sadiq's poster.

Appalling decision.

I too hope shown is taking legal advise. My money is ready if she needs it.

Here is a letter to Sadiq Khan expressing solidarity with Joan Smith. Please sign and share it.

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeiMgS60-sJwZ36iZ3sG27K9foxZ4DfM3PlYQ1UTKF-000Zeg/viewform

Saw that poster for the first time the other week on the tube and thought the same. Apparently 'sex' as a protected characteristic is the one that can be easily ignored without any comeback or thought. Although its worse than that, because it took thought and a deliberate act to leave it out

Another one who's looked at that poster and wondered how anyone who travels on public transport in London could miss the relentless sexual harassment of girls and women.
Evidently Khan can and has missed it - or he is supremely disinterested. I'm a bit surprised as allegedly he is the parent of daughters. But here we are - not only is he disinterested, he has been so captured by the trans lobby that he actively works against women's interests and prioritises demands made by men. Like so many left wing men.

Mealy mouthed.
Bandwaggoning.
Cowardly.
Just a few words that come to mind.

Has anyone got a photo of 'that poster'? I'm almost never in London, and I wish I'd taken one now.

I think it would be handy to have a cache of things like this to direct people to who worry that they're becoming conspiracy theorists ('Am I imagining it or are women's rights taking a hit?') or who claim that we're getting our fluffy little head all bothered about something that isn't really happening.

London can be a deeply uncomfortable place in which to be a woman - I was sexually harassed there when younger, DD has been harassed there within the past year - but London isn't united against misogyny.

Fuck no.

I am pretty sure it is on the tfl website. It was on SK's manifesto page during the London Mayoral elections too.