Bristol Council goes for broke

[PearlClutch]

Not quite sure what they're up to, but it doesn't seem very legal.

twitter.com/Womens_Voices_/status/1544654522831749120

This Council Resolves:

1. To recognise and affirm trans men are men, trans women are women,

non-binary and genderqueer people's genders are valid, and trans rights are human rights.

1. Facilitate and strongly encourage all council staff and Councillors to

attend training to learn about the challenges faced by trans people.

1. Fly the trans flag on the International Trans Day of Visibility (31st

March), International Non-Binary People's Day (14th July) and Trans Day of Remembrance (20th November)

1. Write to the Secretary of State for Health and Adult Social Care to call

for the government to: · Provide the funding and resources necessary to increase the capacity of and improve access to trans and non-binary healthcare, including expanding gender identity services and reducing waiting times. · Develop strategies to recruit more clinicians to become gender identity specialists across all relevant disciplines and train staff across the NHS on issues affecting trans and non-binary people. · Commit to effectively and regularly consulting trans and nonbinary people and groups in the design and delivery of trans and non-binary healthcare.

1. To work with all four Bristol MPs to help coordinate joint cross-party

initiatives within parliament to bring forward a full ban on conversion therapy that includes gender identity.

1. To continue supporting the improvement of services in Bristol to be

fully accessible to trans and non-binary people, working with recognised trans-inclusive services and not taking advice from or awarding contracts to organisations that promote an anti-trans agenda or propaganda.

1. Conduct an audit of Council services to ensure they are as accessible as

possible to trans and non-binary people.

1. Look into what we can do as a Council as an employer to support

further those who identify as trans and non-binary and to protect them from transphobic harassment within their roles.

1. To ensure there are accessible gender-neutral toilet facilities throughout

the City (including within Council buildings) and to ensure there are menstrual care dispensers and sanitary bins in all toilets, regardless of gender. This includes municipal-run toilets and toilet facilities under its Full Council – Agenda ‘Community Toilet Scheme’. 10. Encourage schools to follow expert legal guidance outlined by the Good Law Project. That it will consider publishing a ‘Trans Inclusion Toolkit’ for our schools (as available in Brighton). That it will act on any known instances of anti-trans literature or propaganda being sent into our schools. That it recognises that beliefs such as that of ‘gender critical’ can be protected, however this does not provide the right to express those beliefs and will not allow this as a lever for hate speech and bullying in the school estate. 11. To write to the Home Secretary calling for: ● An action plan on tackling LGBTQIA+ Hate Crimes within the UK. ● Prevented deportation of LGBTQIA+ refugees to Rwanda and a review into applications for LGBTQIA+ refugees claiming asylum status within the UK.

I feel depressed that this is my local authority.

Although they did loudly declare a "climate emergency" a few years ago without much noticeable impact on actual policy, so this may be just more posturing.

I think that one of the biggest problems at the moment is the fact that trans women are men not women. I look forward to this problem being resolved by more organisations recognising and affirming that the truth is a lie and a lie is the truth.

Fuck me, I hope someone takes them to court and challenges this absolute horseshit. This is PUBLIC money ffs.

Wow! I'm allowed to hold gender critical beliefs but not express them.

From the OP post:

"That it recognises that beliefs such as that of ‘gender critical’ can
be protected, however this does not provide the right to express those
beliefs and will not allow this as a lever for hate speech and bullying in the
school estate."

WTAF?

Bristol has completely lost it.

Is this a direct quote? Because if so, this bit is wrong (there may be others!)
That it recognises that beliefs such as that of ‘gender critical’ can be protected, however this does not provide the right to express those beliefs
They are protected and can be expressed, I think that the advice (presumably from the Maya Forstater decision) was that they shouldn't be expressedhatefully

They're a shambles

What the fuck is non binary healthcare when it's at home?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-62042735

Sorry, yes that is a direct copy and paste from the council's motion.

Jesus, they've absolutely lost the plot.

Almost all the public toilets in Bristol have been shut in recent years. I would think a good starting point would be to have some toilets open, then start worrying about where the sanitary bins go.

Quite.
You can promise the moon on a stick (but if you don't have sticks, or moons..)

These paragraphs were raised (from the Judgement) in the thread about the Maya's case:

"286.1 At pages 921 and 1034, where Ms Fortstater asserted that “other
people are not compelled to accept it [the proposition that a
transwoman is a woman] as relating to any material reality” and that
“ a man’s internal feeling that he is a woman has no basis in material
reality”. The Tribunal considered it to be clear that individuals might
be offended by these statements. They are, however,
straightforward statements of Ms Forstater’s (protected) gender
critical belief. The Tribunal considered that to characterise these as
manifestations of the belief to which objection could reasonably be
taken would be to hold that the belief itself was not worthy of
protection, when the Employment Appeal Tribunal has decided that
this is not the case.

286.2 At pages 915 and 932, where Ms Forstater drew a comparison
between transwomen and Rachel Dolezal. The Tribunal did not
consider it necessary or appropriate to embark on any analysis of
Rachel Dolezal’s situation. We found, however, that the point that
Ms Forstater was making – that there is an analogy to be drawn
between someone who is white identifying as black and someone
who is (according to gender critical belief) male identifying as a
woman – did little more than assert her gender critical belief."

Emphasis mine.

Seems to me the Judge is saying here that if you can't manifest your belief in some basic sense, then the belief isn't protected.

the Green Party influence writ large. Almost certainly illegal and completely mad

Bristol. Second only to Brighton as the most ideologically captured cities in the UK.

Maybe there's something in the water. Or the ley lines.

Peter Daly actually addresses and stresses the right to manifest as well as hold in his commentary on the Maya Forstater win today here: www.doyleclayton.co.uk/resources/news/forstater-v-cgd-europe-ors-maya-forstater-succeeds-employment-tribunal/

In it he says “Importantly – and contrary to much commentary and speculation – this judgment establishes that the legal protection goes further than protecting the mere holding of gender critical beliefs: acts of manifesting the belief through lawful speech and action are protected. The mistaken assertion made by some that gender critical people were protected so long as they never gave voice to their belief – in effect, compelling gender critical people to remain mute – was always mistaken and is now shown to be so."
“This is therefore a judgment with broad and biting real-world implications. Employers and service providers need to understand these implications."

The piece also links to examples of this mistaken assertion - using Professor Alex Sharpe, Keele University, and Robin Moira White & Nicola Newbegin: “A Practical Guide to Transgender Law”, as examples.

What does this mean?

I think it means Bristol Council are asking for someone to take them to court. Maybe it's a hostage communication.

So Trans rights are human rights but gender critical people don't have freedom of speech. OK then.

Keep sticks out of mooncup-spaces!

They should be more worried about lack of services for all these homes they gave permission to build. Also lack of public toilets. Public transport.

I truly believe BCC wake in the morning have huge brain farts and come up with a totally bollocks motion that will piss us off. Total plonkers.