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?

All of these discussions are about the T & just as some TRAs are straight, others can be LG or B.

That doesn't mean they have the right to drag entire communities into this mess which is all T related.

LGB people don't need to take up valuable NHS resources to be LGB. They don't need to break the boundaries of young children or adults to force members of the opposite sex to actually lie in order for those people to be LGB.
LGB people do not demand that not being attracted to them be regarded as a hate crime & issue death threats if you are true to your sexual preference.
LGB people do not insist on fake statistics being recorded at a govt level, or for special treatment when they commit crimes because of what they are.

Only transpeople demand that other people actively participate (& pay if they get any surgery or hormones on the NHS) in what they think they feel.

Forcing the conversation to constantly have LGB people included just helps TRAs because it muddies the water.

LGB people continue to be exactly what they are without any external input from the rest of society.
Without medication or validation from others they remain attracted to whoever they are attracted to.
LGB people have never asked for special treatment which is what is demanded by TRAs.
They just want to live without fear & not judged for who they want to cuddle up to on the sofa when they get home from work like everyone else.

The problems & cost to the country using massively underfunded, oversubscribed resources caused by giving in to the demands of transpeople are not problems & costs you get with LGB people.

There needs to be a debate & it needs to clearly separate out the problem that is supposed to be being examined from the background noise generated by bringing other groups into it.

If your focus is children under five from Rotherham, you don't include mime artists from New York in your discussion because they aren't relevant.
It's the same when you conflate LGB with T in this case.

It doesn't matter that some transpeople say they are LBG.
The overwhelming majority of LGB are not transpeople.
Some transpeople have blue eyes, but that doesn't mean everyone with blue eyes has to be forcibly teamed with them.

Who you go to bed is not relevant.

The trans issue is all about sex & sex based rights not sexual attraction.

It is not possible in a world where there are only 2 sexes for anyone to be completely independent or unbiased about sex.

The best you can hope for are knowledgeable, openminded people who are aware of their own bias & prepared to equally hear from all the different groups who have a right to have their voices heard.

Brilliant post, @Snugglepumpkin. Congratulations.

@Snugglepumpkin, brilliant post. Thank you. You are absolutely right.

I think among my LGB circle there's a growing realisation of the price the LGB will have to pay for the Stonewall tacking the TQ+ onto us. I'm a lesbian and I'm starting to notice that people are getting increasingly fed-up with 'you lot' as they refer to us. They actually have a problem with the TQ+, but they don't distinguish between us.

I think of all the ways LGB people have had to prove themselves worthy of equal rights with straight people. Stonewall in those days moved very slowly carefully, as you point out, to demonstrate that we aren't perverts and paedophiles and that our rights wouldn't impinge on others. And now here we are with drag queens and pups and The Family Sex Show and elderly men dressed as little girls at Pride — and people who I used to feel comfortable with blaming me and 'my lot' for taking it too far and wanting too much.

The one thing everyone who wants to help can do it to separate us. When others write LGBTQ+, you can write LGB and TQ+. When others talk about the LGBTQ+ community you can talking about the lesbian and gay community, and then add that the TQ+ community is separate and different.

We need a public enquiry into how a lobby group managed to capture so many institutions and get changes through that impinged on the rights of half the population. We don’t need a Royal Commission to look at care for gender dysphoric children - we have the Cass review. For sport we have the SCEG guidelines and the EHRC has clarified the law. This just seems like a last ditch attempt to infiltrate Stonewall law into actual law.

Herbert said:

He called on Johnson to ignore those seeking to make trans rights a dividing line in British politics. “Some may tell the government that this is a political opportunity for a wedge issue, but this would be deeply unwise,”

I skimmed the thread here, but I don't think anyone has highlighted this. He's not saying solve it by diktat. He's saying don't use the issue for short term political advantage. It's too serious to play with. He's not wrong.

[quote Igneococcus]There is also an article in the Times about him but I can't get sharetokens to work at the moment

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/johnsons-lgbt-adviser-says-take-the-politics-out-of-transgender-debate-dbz52mvmm[/quote]
This is a share token to that article in case it's not been shared already

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/25d283b0-b83c-11ec-b78c-2329cf2d6bd9?shareToken=30fb754140e533c50bce89eb15b47a25

Has Nick Herbert had anything to say today on his APPG colleague Crispin Blunt?

Haven’t RTFT but this is what Parliamentary Select committee could do with the advantage of being able to hear directly from the public. Like the Lords one on human rights. Why would a handful of judges do a better job?

Fantastic post. Absolutely spot on

That was to snugglepumpkin. Not been on for a while

Also was made to change username before posting which seems odd.

Also (now I’ve read the article and thanks for the share token LittleWhingingWoman) Herbert’s missing the point that the genderist dogma IS politics. You can’t possibly extract politics from it. What else is it? (Unless he already believes in gendered souls or being born in the wrong body..)

It’s the promotion of sexist stereotypes. It’s a belief system being imposed on people despite (if that belief system is not present) the opposite direction being taken.
Genderist policies are imposed even when their risks and disbenefits are clearly known. Concerns and whistleblowing is suppressed and castigated. That’s political (and authoritarian) decision making. For example:

-It’s unevidenced as a medical approach of benefit to children (yet is the basis of invasive, permanent ‘treatments’ for their gender dysphoria)
-it ignores biological disparities in women’s sports (yet men are allowed in elite and grassroots women’s sports which is unfair and often physically dangerous to women competitors)
-it has housed men in women prisons and hospital wards against conventional sex-based safeguarding policy (so allowing men to (re)offend against women on their say-so and putting vulnerable women at risk)

We could all give loads of other examples but it’s all political. It’s a belief system.

If the last Royal Commission was 2000, then why is that? Since then we've had loads of inquiries so that indicates that a Royal Commission mustn't work on some level?

But even inquiries take forever and a day. The Daniel Morgan one for example. The Covid one isn't even started yet. And there was meant to be one into undercover policing, god knows what happened to it.

This idea is one to be hugely wary of. Sex Matters has repeatedly asked for the Committee on Standards in Public Life to look at Stonewall and co, and their reach. Why doesn't Herbert give his views on that idea? They do get their reports done, from what I can see on their pages.

For me, I couldn't help reading it in the context of women staying in the private sphere and men own the public sphere. Not sure that's what he meant tbf.