Emma Bateman responds to green party women

[letterem]

In Response to the Scottish Green Party Women's Network and Rainbow Greens

I write this reply following on from the statements made by the above organisations criticising the former Green Party Women's committee on twitter.

I include a response to members of the current Green Party Women committee.

Emma Bateman Co Chair of Green Party Women, though responding in a personal capacity.

I guess I must start with stating GP policy
"Trans women are women, Trans men are men, non binary identities exist and are valid. "

@SGPWomen @rainbowgreens
You chose to correspond on twitter (you could've emailed..) so I respond in kind.
Your attempts to malign Shahrar Ali for defending women's rights and the scientific credibility of our parties damages all members.
From the ratio, yourselves most of all.

As a member of a sister party, I guess it is my responsibility to call out the hypocrisy of your lecturing Green Party Women on keeping out of Scottish affairs whilst simultaneously attacking Shahrar
And to point out that self ID was not policy in our party in 2019

I note that you want to take this opportunity to 'restate our independence as parties'. With your demands on gender for 'minimal bureaucracy or gatekeeping', I agree the more distance between us the better.

Minimal gatekeeping leads to women fighting in court for judgement on what was once evident to all.
There are situations where your pursuit of an ideology in which 'males are not females' is hate speech, makes your claim 'trans rights are not in conflict with women's rights', nonsensical.

As Judge Holroyde said:inFDJ v SSJon 02/07/21
“the unconditional introduction of a transgender woman into the general population of a women’s prison carries a statistically greater risk of sexual assault upon non-transgender prisoners than would be the case if a non-transgender woman were introduced.”

But if you prefer voices from nearer to home, listen to the man Shahrar was speaking of, Andy Wightman. Another principled green driven from the party.

Or if you dare, to the voices of the women.
Because as you must know by now.
Women Wont Wheesht

To the current Green Party Women Committee
For the past month, controlling members have refused to respond to calls for a meeting,and done everything you could to stop any communication going out to members. You have not contacted members since March, or updated social media pages since April.

And yet you scrambled to push out a statement in haste to prop up the Scottish Green Party Women's Network and Rainbow Greens diatribe without discussing it with either the former or current committee, some members of which are one and the same.

You were informed at 10.00am on 04/09 that the submission put in to the Scottish consultation in the name of Green Party Women was not endorsed or signed off by the former committee, and that committee members had not known of it or seen it prior to the Scottish Green Party Women's Network and Rainbow Greens twitter screed.

When you were made aware that this submission was neither written nor endorsed by the former committee, it would have be reasonable for you to retract your accusations, and to apologise for jumping to conclusions without contacting the people you were so eager to condemn. It seems instead that you are content for your smears to continue spreading.

You have asserted that the submission in our name was transphobic, and decided as a result that the former committee should be publicly vilified. I trust that you will be able to explain exactly what was transphobic about it, because I have read it, and whilst I do not condone it being submitted in the name of Green Party Women, The transphobia that you must have seen to justify such a vitriolic condemnation of the former committee is unclear to me.

With regard to your assertion that it was inappropriate for an English and Welsh organisation to comment on a Scottish matter, the Scottish government stated that the consultation was open to anyone in Scotland, anyone in the UK (or anywhere in the world).
You appear to be suggesting that the Scottish government were in error and should have only listened to the views of Scottish groups and individuals

If it is your assertion that only Scottish residents should comment on devolved matters , where is your condemnation of groups like the Scottish Trans Alliance and Trans Masculine Scotland who made submissions to the 2018 Reform of the Gender Recognition Act consultation?
Should they have been castigated for submitting responses on a legal process that will only affect people in England and Wales?

Your continued pretence that the committee speaks with one voice on this issue has led you to demonise the former committee through social media posts - that you once again made no effort to reach consensus on - and has resulted in those committee members being attacked on social media, as you must have been aware would happen.

You destroyed the green party women discussion space to shut women up, but this obsession with controlling women with opinions that you cannot not endure will not last

I will certainly not sit quietly and acquiesce to the lie that you speak for me.

The Scottish Green Party Women's network twitter thread is here

The Rainbow Greens is here

And this is me on twitter
twitter.com/EmmaBatemanGPW/status/1434503238947115012

Yowser! Bloody good response.

What shall we do whilst waiting for a coherent response?

We could explore and find a hitherto unknown continent then set up a sane society. I reckon we could raise a generation or two whilst we wait...

...

I guess I must start with stating GP policy
"Trans women are women, Trans men are men, non binary identities exist and are valid. "

In what way is this a policy? Is is a general guideline? How can you have a policy that converts humans from one sex to another? Is is a magic spell? Do the Green Party have any other magic spells masquerading as policy?
Nuts.
Not even going near the "valid" burbling.

These are the answers that were submitted to the Scottish consultation in the name of Green Party Women, but that did not come from the former committee.

I forgot to add the answers submitted above were denounced as trans phobic

I've seen the idiocy on the fb page, your responses have been amazing Em. 💜🤍💚

Emma solidarity. Brilliant response.

Thank you for speaking out Emma. Your response is excellent.

Emma has just touched upon what happened to Green Party Women. With Emma as chair it used to be a vibrant group with book clubs, gardening, yoga and of course politics. It was a supportive, interesting, female space. The green party allowed any member to identify as a woman on their sayso and to vote for the committee. Since the takeover by transactivists there has been no communication and I haven't had a single email about an event or similar.

This group was taken over to punish gender critical members and to validate and further the activism of TRAs.

Well said Emma 👏

There is a mistake in the last para of my first post, so this is a correction. There is an extra 'not' which alters the meaning of the sentence, which is quite amusing for those who know the upset over my motion. This is the corrected sentence:

'You destroyed the green party women discussion space to shut women up, but this obsession with controlling women with opinions that you cannot endure will not last'

The section of the current committee headed by Amelia Womack was apparently elected on the platform that they would be doing more than the original committee, who were alleged to have done nothing.

The facts now speak for themselves. The previous committee were very active and promoted green activities and genuine support for women. The current committee is only interested in trans issues and crushing any committee and other members who have not worshipped at the new alter.

Those who are determined to remove women's rights to safety and privacy should hang their heads in shame. I hope they remember their stance in years to come and just how misogynistic their despicable attitudes and actions became.

Women's rights will win through and we will not budge over because men demand access to our single-sex spaces and services.

Who denounced your submissions as transphobic? Have they been published?

@CorbynTrouserPress

Emma has just touched upon what happened to Green Party Women. With Emma as chair it used to be a vibrant group with book clubs, gardening, yoga and of course politics. It was a supportive, interesting, female space. The green party allowed any member to identify as a woman on their sayso and to vote for the committee. Since the takeover by transactivists there has been no communication and I haven't had a single email about an event or similar.

This group was taken over to punish gender critical members and to validate and further the activism of TRAs.

Totally unrelated to your post, but back before trans issues used to be a major thing, I used to tear my hair out about men who complained ceaselessly that women were not permitting them into the women-only events or facilities that we set up, such as refuges.

They would not set up their own refuges (a man told me it would be far too hard to fundraise and no-one would donate to them) and demanded that they be admitted to women's facilities instead. They would make it clear that they would rather see a situation where no-one had access to any refuge provision at all, than put up with a situation where some did and some didn't, thus greatly maximising the total suffering. I often drily observed that they only sought to destroy and they were unwilling to create.

Those men seem to have gone quiet these days. Wonder where they went. It's a mystery.

They would make it clear that they would rather see a situation where no-one had access to any refuge provision at all, than put up with a situation where some did and some didn't, thus greatly maximising the total suffering. I often drily observed that they only sought to destroy and they were unwilling to create.

Sadly, this is a very apt description of what is happening on a massive scale. If you can't join em, tear em down. First they try and infiltrate and take over, and if that's not allowed then they want to destroy the whole thing. And they don't care if that leaves nothing for women and girls.

For some men, the fact that women are allowed to have anything at all that doesn't centre them is an affront.

For some men, the fact that women are allowed to have anything at all that doesn't centre them is an affront.

And other men who don't care about women are happy to support their male friends in this.

Brilliant response, well done OP

Thank you Emma, what about excellent response!

That should say ‘what an excellent response!’