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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

WoLF testifies in Maryland - watching the penny drop?

10 replies

ShoppingWomble · 18/02/2022 20:08

WoLF (Women's Liberation Front - US-based charity for women's rights) have been testifying in Maryland, Ohio and Washington State to keep men out of women's prisons. Really good 10 minute clip here where it feels like the penny is dropping for the female lawgiver listening to them:

Their website is: www.womensliberationfront.org/

  • loads of information on it about women's rights in the USA. I don't live there but think it's really important to support them as this will spread around the world. Maybe worth donating to as well?
OP posts:
VirginMedium · 18/02/2022 20:25

I don't think the penny was dropping

Rhannion · 18/02/2022 20:30

With some people a whole bank would need to fall on them to see how ridiculous this situation is.

Whatwouldscullydo · 18/02/2022 23:42

Looked to me like nore of the same " script "

Round about ways of saying " it never happens/won't happen"

" safeguarding protocols in place blah blah blah "

" we can discuss this off record"

" we do need to check the language"

Then the whole find something wrong with the format/method of delivery rather than actually listening to what's being said thing

Bingo card central for denying everything.

CharlieParley · 19/02/2022 01:03

Thank you for posting that. Very interesting to see someone who has clearly spent most of her time being lobbied by trans rights campaigners being confronted with the consequences of the demands she supports. Arguments once again (and always) made about the needs and experiences of the tiny number of homosexual, postoperative transsexuals are used to demand rights for a much larger group where the majority are neither homosexual nor fully transitioned. And of course lawmakers aren't made aware of that.

It is inconceivable that there should be transfers without serious safeguarding protocols in place, and yet we know from UK prisons and elsewhere that there is a conundrum at the heart of any policy that accepts self-declaration of sex which prevents proper safeguarding by its very nature.

If the policy says that the prison system accepts a male prisoner's claim that he identifies as female as a mere statement of fact never to be questioned or doubted, how can protocols pertaining to males be properly applied? That in itself would be proof that their identity is not accepted.

Which is what the second speaker explained - the male prisoner whose transfer request is subjected to safeguarding on the basis of his status as a dangerous and violent male then argues he cannot be denied a transfer on the basis of his crimes and status because there are female prisoners who are violent and dangerous too. And his sex is now accepted to be female.

Of course, if the risk assessment was on the basis of the risk the male sex class poses to the female sex class, there could be no transfers in a penal system that separates male and female prisoners on principle (because that has long been recognised as a necessary measure for the safety of female prisoners).

That lawmaker was suffering some serious cognitive dissonance trying to reconcile what she'd been told by trans rights campaigners and what she was hearing about the consequences of their demands in California. I hope she had the integrity to listen to the evidence.

ScrollingLeaves · 19/02/2022 01:51

At the end the judge said that given the stigma/difficulties etc of being trans gender it does not seem reasonable that someone would just say they are trans gender in order to go to women’s prison.

I had the impression though that this did not mean that the penny had dropped for her that this does indeed happen. Rather, I think she meant that she didn’t really believe it does happen.

She also didn’t seem to see that, in any case, women’s prison is not the place for trans women and the law should therefore focus on ensuring that trans women criminals have safe facilities within male prisons.

JustALittleHelpPlease · 19/02/2022 02:18

That was absolutely the opposite of a penny drop moment!

Needmoresleep · 19/02/2022 06:20

A (slightly) related article about how the trans cause is requiring an increasing number of lawyers because of the fight back over the legislative spectrum. And the lack of funds to support them.

www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/02/18/transgender-lawyers/

(The headline is misleading. Nothing much about athletics. As if the article was heavily edited at a late stage.)

ScrollingLeaves · 19/02/2022 12:21

Having read the article in the Washington Post my impression is that a large, and growing number of people are identifying as trans gender in the USA and that this trend will continue.

Is it because, among those who identify as trans gender there are a good many who might otherwise have been gay or different, but find it more socially acceptable to be trans?

I was thinking of a little trans girl, Kai Shappley: her mother thought the son she had might be going to be gay before he was even three. After praying, looking into conversion therapy, ‘spanking, really spanking him’, putting him in time out if he played with ‘girl toys’ or wore girl clothes, she let him be a trans girl, after at age 4 he began to talk about going to live with Jesus forever. She did not link his suicidal thoughts to the abuse she inflicted on him, but to his trapped gender identity. She could not accept gay, but did accept that h/she was really born a girl.

ScrollingLeaves · 19/02/2022 12:27

Sorry, that was derailing, but my thoughts strayed along the lines that many people will refuse to believe a trans woman should be kept out of women’s spaces, as trans becomes the new normal, translated from gay. They probably won’t see that there are different types of trans women (including agp) all under the same umbrella.

Needmoresleep · 19/02/2022 20:34

The hope has to be that the ‘umbrella’ keeps widening ad absurdum, so all those demi-girls with neo pronouns crowd out the space and traditional definitions of gay and trans become meaningless. We are all NBs.

Where that leaves important women’s spaces and protections is anyone’s guess. To be honest by then I think we may have started to focus on the real threats to current freedoms posed by Russia and China.

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