Let Women Speak

[cariadlet]

Is anybody else going to go to Brighton on September 18th?

I went to a Standing for Women event at the Reformers Tree in Hyde Park in May and loved listening to the women who spoke. I'm looking forward to going somewhere more local to me but am a bit apprehensive after Manchester and Bristol.

Manchester Speaker's Corner felt much 'safer' than WPUK Manchester. Bristol looked scary because the police weren't doing all they could. I can't get to Brighton but the more people who do, the better. The other side will have a lot of support there, but hopefully people who support women's rights will be out in good number. Plan your exit, would be my advice. If you have friends to go with, that might make you feel more confident.

It's terrible to read that women are put off from attending such events because they fear violence and intimidation from let's face it mostly male lynch mobs!
Even more terrible that the police being their offers no assurance of safety seen as they have done fuck all to protect women in the past.

I am patiently waiting for an event closer to me but I know I will feel the same "fear" about attending.

I was at Manchester. I went alone and I felt perfectly safe.

I watched the Bristol video and I am no introvert or easily scared but I felt real anxiety/fear. Maybe it's less scary being there.

A few of us are going to Brighton including my 14 year old daughter. I'm hoping the policing is better than Bristol. I went to Manchester and the policing was good. Nottingham was one of the first and no police at all but I met some great local women.
If you come along just tag along with one of the women at the event we are all super friendly.
I found watching the Bristol Let Women Speak really intimidating but it only made me more determined to get to Brighton.

I'm concerned there will be a much larger number of TRA's than Bristol and also worried as Sussex Police are totally captured.

SUSSEX Police is among the most inclusive forces in the country for gay or bisexual staff, it has been revealed.

New figures show police officers who identify as gay or lesbian make up almost 10 per cent of the police force.

www.theargus.co.uk/news/19949431.amp/

Kelly Jay said on one of her videos this week that over 300 people have registered their interest in attending. It is on Eventbrite and you can make a donation to help with security. It is going to be awesome.
There will be a protest about women meeting, that is inevitable, but for me it gives me more motivation to go. I will not be silenced by a bunch of trans activists, sexist blokes and so called working class anti fascists!

With 300 women and men at the event there will be space to feel safe. Don't go with the expectation to hear any of the talks, you won't (watch later in you tube) but being there with other women who share your views is very liberating. By the 18th September we will have a new leader of our country they need to hear our messages.

Oooh I'm in

I'm in East Sussex and will definitely be getting the train over.

Disappointing that we might not be able to hear the speeches. I went to a Standing for Women event at the Reformers Tree, Hyde Park and really enjoyed listening to the speakers.

You're probably just the person I've been looking for who can give me some advice on the "trans rights v women's rights" debate because I really don't know what to do.

As a heterosexual white man who wants to be liberal, promote equality and all that good stuff it always feels to me that if I were to have an opinion I would basically have to choose who I was going to punch down when my natural instinct is to try and find a compromise.

So what do you think is the most appropriate behaviour for men in this debate? Am I right to sit on the fence? Or am I shirking my responsibility by ignoring the debate?

There is no trans rights Vs women's rights. Women's sexed based rights are protected under the equality act 2010.
But you carry on with who you would punch down .

I don't want to punch down on anyone and sorry I just don't know much about the issues because I've so actively avoided it but feel its reached a point that I should be better educated. I thought the debate was that trans people wanted to self identify their gender (e.g. transwomen using women's toilets, being identified as female on passports, competing as women in professional sport, protection under Equalities Act as women rather than as men etc)?

I’m going @cariadlet.

I might even wear my AHF hoody!

This is great to hear @FemaleAndLearning, especially that your DD will join you.

@BetterFuture1985

Read the break it down for me thread.

Think what you would want for your mum, sisters or daughters as protection. Eg would you be happy with a teenage male changing in the school changing rooms with your teen daughter? Or a male person giving intimate care to your ban in her nursing home?

Read stuff, listen to stuff, work out your position and if you want to do anything about it.

I'm still in a position where I'm being asked to use my white male privilege to opine on whether to side with women or transgender people and if I'm honest I think they've both got a reasonable opinion. I certainly think women being attacked for protesting is bang out of order though.

But for me I wish there was a compromise. Thailand tends to have toilets and changing rooms for biological men, biological women and gender neutral. We've adopted that at work. Why can't that be a solution?

When it comes to sport I will admit I don't sit on the fence. I think biological boys should only be allowed to compete as women if they start gender reassignment before puberty in individual events. Team sports like football I think could afford to be more lenient.

If males and females (regardless of how they view themselves) are on a team together, then it becomes a mixed sex team, which is fine as long as it is promoted as such.

Males on women's teams is not on, in my opinion. It is not 'trans exclusionary' to keep women's sports for women, surely, it is women inclusionary!

Funny how you never see men's teams rushing to embrace transmen - or transmen forcing their way onto men's teams - why would that be, I wonder?

This thread @BetterFuture1985 should give you some insight, I don't think you'll need to read all of it (dear God's of the link, make it work for me!):

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

Right, and you have a lot more right to say that than I do. And transpeople have a lot more right to make their case than I do too.

I'd like to do right by everyone, can't and therefore wouldn't dare have these conversations in my real name. I think most men on the liberal end of the spectrum feel the same way. Which is a cop out I know, but I will always support everyone's right to their opinion and to protest without being intimidated.

All that aside, and back to the subject of the thread, I hope to go to Brighton although I am aware that I am likely to feel intimidated and be threatened.

Men are welcome at such gatherings, why don't you get yourself down there @BetterFuture1985 and see for yourself what women are up against!

I'm a bloke and I no issues siding with actual women against the frankly deranged demands of trans rights activists. Just look at who is doing the death and rape threats, doxxing and stopping women meeting up. I haven't heard one decent argument from them because there aren't any. All they can do is intimidate people to get their way. They don't belong in women's sports, women's changing rooms, women's shelters, women's prisons or on women's short lists. They should not be included as women in employment or crime statistics. Other than that we're good.

@BetterFuture1985 think for yourself about the phrase "born in the wrong body". How is it possible? What would happen if scientists/pharma companies had not found how to block puberty or to surgically change a body. Does sex only amount to the hormones oestrogen or testosterone, or is there something more complex in the difference between the sexes? If people have always felt like this, how did they cope before big pharma? Perhaps societies accepted men and women and boys and girls in a less constraining way, while appreciating all. Indeed there are societies in the world that do this now.

I am trying to say do we change society in accepting all people behaving in the roles they want, but acknowledging sex. Or do we require people to change themselves physically and then coerce people to share space who may well be uncomfortable doing so.

Do any of those points focus your thinking on the subject?

What adults think on this subject will be passed to the next generation. This is NOT (mainly) about middle aged women.

Mate, if you want to educate yourself, and I use that phrase deliberately, there’s loads of info on this board, so why not read it? Look up ‘the Staniland question’ too and see what your answer is. That should tell you who to punch, or whatever it is you want to do.

Personally, I think the pre-puberty rule needs to go. It seems to create an incentive which might be exploited, chasing medals.

Hello @BetterFuture1985 , I appreciate you mean well, but since you are so eager not to "punch down" and all that, I hope you will take it in the spirit intended when I say you are coming across to me as rather patronising. It's as if you see yourself as a benevolent babysitter who feels obliged to get off the couch and break up a fight between toddlers. Just use your own mind and treat us all as sentient adults. You have every right to form an opinion based on the evidence available to you.

I also second the advice about imagining what you would expect for your female relatives (and not just a teenage girl changing with a male classmate, but a teenage girl changing with an middle-aged male stranger).

That said, if it genuinely doesn't resonate with you, then just sit it out. There are other issues I sit out entirely (e.g. some international disputes that I have no connection to), and without any handwringing since I don't imagine my input is missed.