Lord Herbert: Royal Commission to remove trans debate from politics?

[tabbycatstripy]

Nick Herbert, Johnson’s LGBT advisor, suggests a Royal Commission ‘led by a senior judge, [to] comprise members who are “truly neutral”, and be founded with “cross-party support and without predetermination of its direction or outcome”’ to make decisions on the trans debate.

In the Twitter discussion below this announcement, there are four or five male members of the HoL discussing whether this would work (some for, some against).

I am absolutely against this. These issues aren’t for ‘neutral’ anyone to decide in secret. As Lord Lucas says, they need full transparency and democratic engagement. They are the stuff of politics, not questions to be removed from the unwashed masses and dictated to us by Stonewall-trained judges.

Could he look more out of touch?

Now people are targeting the Mail on Sunday, trying to get advertisers to pull their business.

Good luck with that.

‘ It would need to be led by someone who knows the definitions of "woman" and "man". Anyone who says they believe TWAW is not neutral.’

The positions are dichotomous. Hard to be neutral about reality.

Nick Herbert might come to understand that we're dealing with batshitters who want to believe that Daniel Radcliffe was the author of the Harry Potter books, who won't accept the content of the Equality Act 2010, and who seem to think we're living in North America.

Tabby, some gay men have been at the forefront of the TQ+ movement (Tatchell, Paisley et al) but I can think of just as many (Mr Menno, James Dreyfus and several other commentators who I'm pretty sure are gay but don't publicise it, plus those you'll only know about if you are involved in LGB rights groups). The reason is obvious: it's women/ lesbians who are mainly having to deal with men who identify as women invading once-securely women-only, lesbian-only spaces. Some gay men are getting pissed off at the incursion of transmen into their spaces, but IME more gay men come to GC views as a result of what they see happening to their sisters and mothers and daughters. Many gay men and quite a few lesbians are just as misogynistic and internally homophobic as the rest of the population. But I've never been as viciously attacked by LGB people for my GC views as I have been by TQ+ people. Because most LGB people know it's complicated and know that the community isn't united in its views. Whereas people who identify TQ+ don't have much dissent in their TQ+ community.

It would be really helpful to the LGB community if more and more people would separate the two groups out — the same-sex lot (LGB) and the gender people (TQ+). We have very little in common and a lot of us are at loggerheads.

@tabbycatstripy

It would need to be led by a woman for me to feel it wasn’t same-old men deciding in women’s rights.

But aren’t there a lot of woman who have been pushing trans rights over women’s rights? And even women saying TWAW?

In the Twitter discussion below this announcement, there are four or five male members of the HoL discussing whether this would work
So again its men deciding for women what we want and can have?

Unless I'm wildly misunderstanding and theres as many women too?

@tabbycatstripy

‘ It would need to be led by someone who knows the definitions of "woman" and "man". Anyone who says they believe TWAW is not neutral.’

The positions are dichotomous. Hard to be neutral about reality.

I’d say a starting point of reality was a neutral position from which to start looking at a conflict of rights. Anything else will not go well and will not be accepted by society.

‘It would be really helpful to the LGB community if more and more people would separate the two groups out — the same-sex lot (LGB) and the gender people (TQ+). We have very little in common and a lot of us are at loggerheads.’

I do separate them as groups of people. But the LGBT charities continue to enjoy huge support in the gay community and again I can’t ignore that.

But I couldn’t be more grateful to (or have more admiration for) the wonderful gay and lesbian people who have fought this movement at huge cost to themselves. I know the appearance of ‘togetherness’ in the LGBT community is a deliberate tactic by people who would happily erase the meaning of ‘homosexual’.

But aren’t there a lot of woman who have been pushing trans rights over women’s rights? And even women saying TWAW?

Yes exactly.

‘I’d say a starting point of reality was a neutral position from which to start looking at a conflict of rights. Anything else will not go well and will not be accepted by society.’

Yes, you need people who are prepared to set their personal position aside and that’s rare.

I would be interested in what really went on behind the scenes. My guess is…

Until a month or two ago things were going swimmingly for Nick Herbert and pals. Henry Newman, friend of Carrie’s and the LGBT man in No 10, very much had the PMs ear and they were about to push LGBT stuff including trans conversion therapy because of the up coming international LGBT conference. Not the time to rock the boat nor to listen to those pesky women including Truss, Badenoch, Doyle-Price or Nicholson.

Then partygate. Newman is out, and a penitent Boris is told to pay more attention to both his Cabinet Ministers and the expensive political guru that he has had to fly in from the States. After three U turns and presumably lots of behind the scenes politicking, trans conversion is off the agenda, the T essentially separated from the LGB, and voters welcome an outbreak of common sense. Stonewall is pissed off and the conference has to be cancelled but not many seem to care. Indeed the main surprise is how much it has cost us.

So what do Nick and pals do? Suggest taking the issue away from politicians and setting up a Royal Commission that they presumably hope to control.

Actually I am more than happy with the politicians. Regardless of party, Truss, Badenoch and Doyle-Price have done a lot in a relatively short time to turn the tide. Rather them than some uncontrollable Commission.

@DontAskIDontKnow

Do we think there’s a chance that the Royal Commission will have 50% female representation? Or would that not be considered neutral?

50% female? Obviously that would be totally unfairly weighted in women's favour. Maybe they would accept it if some of the females were actually males who identified as female.

The thing about sex is that nobody can be 'neutral'. We're all either one or the other. (Even those who consider themselves 'non-binary').

Please don't forget that Herbert is chair of board of the college of policing. Not a good reference in my opinion.

I think his third point here is incomprehensible, particularly when considering adolescents. He has either chosen to not read the interim Cass report or has chosen to read it and dismiss the concerns within it.

Yes, I think the framing of ‘discover who they are’ is very problematic. Identity can’t (in my opinion) be healthily boxed off like that for an adolescent. It’s not a fixed thing to be discovered. It’s developing.

I read that third tweet differently. Incomprehensible is correct, as his meaning is not clear. I thought he was perhaps separating out children with gender dysphoria and I thought potentially he was saying affirmation was trying to take people in one direction, and was therefore ideology.

Sorry, posted too soon….

and that “come to terms with who they are” meant exactly what it says. Coming to terms with who they really are i.e. learning to accept their sex.

No one is trying to suppress who anyone is (provided they aren't a predator). Just stay the fuck out of single sex spaces and don't have us change our descriptions of ourselves to include you.

Good luck with trying to 'take the trans debate' out of politics. It's not a single issue, it goes fundamentally into vast areas of public life and policy.

and that “come to terms with who they are” meant exactly what it says.

I saw someone make a good point the other day - this belief that being a man or woman is "who you are".

It isn't, of course. It's what you are. And shouldn't constrain who you are.

In his full statement he does reference Cass

'Weighing the evidence on contested areas such as sport, safe spaces for women, and gender identity services for children and young people – building on the work of the independent Cass review – would be a better way to detoxify the debate, protect trans people from being caught in the political crossfire, and find the common ground we need"

Oh good. Maybe there’s hope then.

It was possible, he added, to “allay” concerns that a ban would inadvertently criminalise legitimate therapies

What, like they allayed fears about the GRA by saying it was just to allow a tiny number of transsexual men to marry their partners? And then TRAs used that law to allow any man who wants to be held in women's prisons, by claiming it went against their human rights to be compelled to undergo medical treatment (which was upheld).

Erm, no. Not falling for that one again.

And the way Stonewall lied about got ahead of the law in order to deliberately change practice to what they wanted it it be, ignoring actual law. And TRAs bullied women out of their jobs for daring to say that this wasn't right, that we needed to talk about this before removing women's protections.

How on earth can Nick Herbert imagine we will ever trust them to interpret the law as it was intended again?!? Just no.

And absolutely 'no' to a bunch of judges deciding what's best for women, and passing down their decisions. Who would choose these supposedly neutral and dispassionate wise ones, I wonder? And who has already influenced their thinking with more hidden lobbying? We found out about the Equal Treatment bench book, but what else still hasn't come to light?

It needs to be discussed democratically. The very fact that it's a difficult area, with strongly held beliefs and conflicting needs/wants between groups - which requires 'loser's consensus - is exactly why it belongs in the houses, not in some back room.

I read that tweet as he thinks exploratory therapy is fine alongside a form of affirmation that begins from the point of view that the child is who the child says they are. That explains the ‘not suppressing gender identity’ bit.

I don’t read it as helping the child come to terms with their biological sex.

I think therapy needs to be open-ended in the sense that it might evolve into helping the child come to terms with their biological sex. But for me it can’t ever be ethical if it does not challenge a child about the nonsense position that some people are ‘born in the wrong body’ or that sex incongruent ‘gender identities’ are innate. It might explore the reasons the child feels they want to present as the opposite sex, and do that without judgment, but that’s different.