Thank you, SNP et al

[pattihews]

I'm spending a few days with relatives. Yesterday I was taken by the people I'm staying with to an event attended mainly by people in their 70s and over, and most of them very straight and liberal types (lots of Labour Party voters). When we arrived I was introduced to a little group who were all talking in horror about the idea of sex offenders being allowed to change their name and birth certificate so easily. I plunged in and started to gently explain the background to what was going on. They turned off the music, poured extra wine and tea and sat, 30 or more of them, focused on this subject for more than two hours. They all went off with instructions to speak to their MPs and to sign the Sex Matters petition. I signposted everyone to the Break it Down thread here.

Earlier today I took an elderly relative out to three homes to deliver presents. At each of them she spontaneously started a conversation about what's happening in Scotland and on each occasion everyone around joined in — including care home staff.

So thank you, Nicola Sturgeon. There are millions of people who'll be talking about this over Christmas dinner.

Yes- a discussion last night with my nephew and niece- previously full on with this fantasy.
This week has seen a huge change in public perception. Thank you NS!

I'm afraid now the Scottish debacle will need to be dealt within Scotland - very little I or anyone outside can do.

There are 2 very important things people in the rest of the UK can do:

1 Write to your own MP explaining the problems with the Scottish Bill in itself, and especially the problems with how it will interact with non-devolved legislation for the rest of the UK. This prepares them in the long term if something similar is introduced in Westminster, and in the short term you can ask them to ask the Secretary of State for Scotland to use the section 35 provision to stop the bill getting royal assent.

2 Write directly to the Secretary of State for Scotland to ask him use the section 35 provision to stop the bill getting royal assent, on the grounds that it adversely affects non-devolved matters.

This thread has made my Christmas, thank you Nicola for making this shitshow so glaringly obvious!

I mean, this would be the logical conclusion right.

But that's not how a DBS works.

You could put any new name down and if the check is clean then bingo.

It doesn't cross reference anything and also, there is a teams hotline that you should use if you don't want anyone at your new work to know your history...so those sex offenders that wish to remain under the radar just forget to call it.

As I've said previously, if you think convicted sex offenders are honest enough to call the trans hotline and report themselves saying 'please don't forget to tell my potential new employer about my convictions' then you are completely insane.

Fenlandia

Michael Crick is a political journalist with 189,000 Twitter followers. He's retweeted that 2020 clip of Julia Long asking Lisa Nandy about rapists in women's prisons.

Crikey, Nandy really is stupid.

This is an excellent thread, thank you. Point well made about not doing something so deeply damaging and contentious directly before families and friends gather together. This is the beginning of the end for gender ideology. And not before time. I hope Labour are watching. But personally I'll not forgive them for their behaviour towards women's rights up till this point.

It isn't under people's noses though, is it? It's swept away, usually omitted from the media altogether, distorted on the rare occasion it does make it to the mainstream, and the only publications that pick up stories are dismissed as right-wing.

It's why word of mouth is so important. After years and years of us trying to warn about this, I'd say only this year has it started to enter the mainstream in any real way. Because everyone knows that's the end of the charade. 2023 is going to be loud with the sound of women not wheeshting.

Yes @wesayno . It's easy to dismiss "all GC" on twitter as fundamental Christians or Far Right or whatever 🤨 but when you're well known for being left leaning, liberal, seriously active and helpful in your local community and personally supportive of people from all backgrounds and identities, it's harder to pop you in such an ill fitting box.

I bang on in my TERFy way whenever I can. And I'm demonstrably kind, inclusive, non bigoted and live out those values. You can't dismiss me.

To contribute another anecdote. A few years ago I raised the subject with my smart engaged centrist relatives assuming they'd instinctively be unsupportive of gender ideology. I was quite taken aback that they were fairly uninformed but had a general sense that people who were critical of gender were bigots. I was fairly bruised and never raised it again.

Today they brought up the issue at Christmas lunch thanks to sturgeon.

The penny had completely dropped, and they all agreed it was all nonsense, obviously women need single sex spaces, how on earth could the SNP allow any man to get paperwork to say they are a woman and get access to these spaces. I explained the percentage of male sex offenders in the female prison estate and they were horrified.

All live and let live types of a range of ages, in agreement that what is happening in Scotland is clearly dangerous to women.

So thank you SNP and Nicola Sturgeon. You've successfully got the whole country talking and have aided the gender critical movement no end.

I just don’t understand how politician thinks they will succeed in convincing the ordinary person in the street that a woman can have a penis and a man can give birth.

My parents are in their 70's. They are disgusted by what is happening. YY to all of their friends to knowing and caring about what is going on.

Absolute lunacy.

What a shitty legacy for Nicola.

Just had Xmas FaceTime with family…first time brothers and I in agreement , and all the younger generation too. Very reassuring. For a long time they seemed to be under the impression that lesbians and feminists like me were responsible for it all. And the left.

It is good to hear the message getting out. I found that before the votes this week I was leafletting in the local town centre and was rather surprised. The number of people who knew at least something about this was heartening. Considering the weather and that we were doing this in the Christmas rush, there were women and men who wanted to know more. The surprise was the number of young people, men and women both, who were fully supportive. All ages.

Never again will any poster seriously be able to post ‘you are all old and will die out’ or that we are a minority. It just will not be credible.

Thanks. I’ll do this tomorrow.

Not only one, the first person in a chain...and it will help you next time you speak out.

What's most interesting for me is the radio silence from my friends and family who usually post about trans rights on social media.

My cousin is a total Corbynite and always virtue signalling about other things she considers human rights including trans right. Nothing.

Teacher pal who is all right on always posting about LGB issues. Nothing.

Parents of a trans child in my kids year who are always posting about trans rights. Nothing.

Why do you think that’s the case?

Too big a risk that someone will post a comment about the rejected sex offender amendment?

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/number_of_passport_applications#incoming-2134682

Except those computerised records aren't being kept - this is the passport office, the request asks for number of people per year who have had their 'gender' changed on their passport. The passport office refuses:

The information requested is not held in a readily available format and would require us to undertake an extensive search of our records, and carry out a data cleansing exercise, which would exceed the cost limit. This is because in order to respond to your request, we would need to manually investigate individual passport records to identify if a customer had requested to change their gender on their UK passport. We would also have to check all individual’s previous UK passports to ascertain what was originally entered as the gender and then check additional records to confirm if there were an amendment. It is estimated that the time taken to search for and collate any information falling within scope of your request would exceed the appropriate limit, therefore section 12 of the Act is engaged.

I think your faith in computerised records being able to pick up these things, and being used to do so, is poorly placed.

(and as an IT bod, I am genuinely perplexed that this isn't something they can do in an afternoon with some clever queries)

I turned round from basting to see a knot of rellies crowded round the headlines on a phone all saying it was lunacy. Loudly. Angrily.

They all knew about it and all thought it was madness. It's definitely mainstream news.

We defeated self ID in England, only to see it creep in by the back door, driven by threats and fear.

The Scottish ruling could, in theory, be rendered toothless if the SSEs were clarified and enforced but most people just assume that a GRA automatically gives access to all areas.

The TRA thirst for total dominance is going to undo all their under-the-radar gains.

And yes, it's a total own goal to do it just before everyone in the land has huge social gatherings with family and friends.

QuinkWashable

this is the passport office, the request asks for number of people per year who have had their 'gender' changed on their passport. The passport office refuses:

They could do a partial one, I renewed our daughter's passport this year and apart from posting it, everything was online.

The TRA thirst for total dominance is going to undo all their under-the-radar gains.

I think this is a good way of putting it. I had to check I wasn't hallucinating when I heard my (male) cousin explain DQST to my aunt, and the ins and outs of Twitter shadow bans, the Tavi, and WTF do they think they're up to in Scotland!

I think some people may have had some inklings and that this Bill may have gone against Dentons, since it was a standalone issue and not snuck in under other measures.

Yes this did come up at Christmas as well and people were shocked and then angry that all of this was happening and their MSP’s were voting this in- was happy to go online and show them how each of their respective MSP’s voted as well to really hammer it home.

I think some people may have had some inklings and that this Bill may have gone against Dentons, since it was a standalone issue and not snuck in under other measures.

Yes. All and any Male Sex offenders changing legal sex to get onto female prisons - that's the take home.

It's the volume that's changed for the general public. They no longer feel stymied by worrying they're talking about a 'vulnerable, oppressed minority with a medical issue'. It's all predators.

They dont quite realise that it always was, just verrr quietly.

The rubber stamping has fucked it all up.

SinnerBoy · Today 09:10

QuinkWashable

this is the passport office, the request asks for number of people per year who have had their 'gender' changed on their passport. The passport office refuses:

They could do a partial one, I renewed our daughter's passport this year and apart from posting it, everything was online.

No - they couldn't! The request was for 2021 back! Yes, it's mad - yes, it's all online, all digital, but apparently no-one at the passport office can manage to write a query to see any records with a change of gender.

Doesn't sound plausible to me if I'm honest, and yet that is the answer they gave - that they couldn't technically do it with the 600 quid limit (charged at 25/hour)