How are we going to wake women up to the emergency we are now genuinely facing!

[Appalonia]

The Scottish GRR Bill is now potentially bringing self id in through the back door. Keri Starmer has recently expressed similar thoughts. It's highly likely we will have a Labour Gvt in the next few years.. I feel genuinely frightened as to what this will mean for women's rights, spaces, safety etc and all done under the banner of being 'progressive'. We need to have a massive pushback before we get to that point, but how....?

The Tories don't give a shit. A PP said 2 years is a long time, my prediction is that our first trans MP, recently appointed to Women and Equalities will rock up to Westminster in a frock and it will be over. The Conservatives don't care about women and know they are going to lose the next election.

Awareness raising merkin bunting?

I am pinning all my hopes on the census data on sex and gender identity, which is due out in early January (I wrote and asked them).

My plan for January is to contact my constituency Labour party and try to put my viewpoint across.

As an ex-teacher I used to long for a Labour government but now it is really worrying. 😞

Just in case anyone here hasn’t signed: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/623243

I actually feel despondent and I now feel that we GC women are in a small minority.

All young women I know still live by the ‘be kind’ mantra. My 23 year old DD had a biological male ‘trans’ flatmate. He used to get threatened and beaten up in male spaces so she thinks it is worth taking the risk of predatory males in women’s spaces to help people like him. She has been the victim of sexual violence herself.

My other DD is a vet who you would think has a grasp of biological reality, still thinks ‘transwomen are women’.

Both DDs identify as feminist.

Both my DDs have friends and acquaintances, who have transitioned, identify as non binary, ‘queer’ or whatever. This is also true of the young women and men I work with. They simply cannot or will not grasp that self ID and the cult around trans and gender is deeply harmful to women and children in particular.

The amount of ignorance around the subject had astounded me.

I had to explain to a 16 year old over the summer that's a transgender woman is not always just some harmless bloke who hates his body and has had his penis cut off, as that's what she had been led to believe. Her school had allowed no gender critical side of a discussion to happen, she doesn't agree with it all it but felt powerless to do anything other than respect others pronouns and let the boya into her toilets. She is now, after a week shut in a house with me, much more informed in the whole topic 😁

I had a friend sat over coffee telling me her daughter was having a gender reveal party. My friend had been told off for using some wrong word in the conversation with her daughter and was so scared of upsetting her daughter she just shut down. She was very confused on the whole topic. She is now more informed 😁

My friend, who doesn't do news, the internet and lives in a small "I'm the only gay in the village" type place came to my place early December to do Christmas. Her education came via the lovely penis montage photo that was placed online by the delightful Darren Mews of Mermaids, available to all who wanted to check his Twitter feed, including the 12 year olds that are in contact with mermaids. She was peaked in the spot.🎄

I'm amazed at how some many people their lives with absolutely no clue what is happening outside of their little bubble. It's these we need to talk to. I've found the penis montage a very effective tool to get my point of view across immediately.

Yes, hard agree @Boiledbeetle. A strong visual is a powerful....was going to say tool.....

I have strong faith the tide has got to turn.
Yesterday told a younger feminist about this forum.
Told my Dutch xmas guest all about recent Scottish events.
I have learned so much here, have not found anything like it.
Women with vision have always been marginalised, but changes begin to happen from the margins.

I want a massive march. We need to show the groundswell of women (and men) who oppose this madness.

That would be brilliant. But it would have to be organised in secret, or we would be besieged by violent blue haired screamers who want to attack us, while the police do very little.

I've had threads in AIBU that have stayed there.

Any woman who wakes up is a woman freed.

Really good point about asking the specific questions, rather than the one which people seem to be bored of now (although they still can't answer... )

GRCs, like has been said time and time again, don't affect 'spaces' (that's the Equality Act), prisons (EA again, plus prison assessments) or sports (have a guess). When the GRA reforms in Scotland..then the UK (however long that takes) happens, it will be very boring.

Slightly more terrifying is the Tories trying to nullify equality legislation via the backdoor

twitter.com/CounsellingSam/status/1607723339434561538

or the terrible rape / DV stats or the increased eyes on the UK's flimsy abortion legislation or the lack of funding for services etc etc

I spoke with my mum a couple months ago and expressed my concern that the UK was slowly stepping towards fascism, expecting her to chide me for being hyperbolic, but she just said "yes, I know". We are at risk of failing everyone who isn't a wealthy white man.

GRCs, like has been said time and time again, don't affect 'spaces' (that's the Equality Act), prisons (EA again, plus prison assessments) or sports (have a guess).

And yet, a ‘GRC’ seems to be not be requested to be viewed in any case. So please tell us all, again because you seem to be claiming that we should know, how exactly this works for say sport.

How does a sporting organisation know who to ask for confirmation of birth sex?

Or pay gaps?

As an organisation, how does the person reporting equality report for sex based pay gaps? And not just gender based pay gaps?

Or indeed, a female only refuge?

How does a refuge go about ascertaining the birth sex of a person they need to place?

Lady Haldane specifically said when asked that although for "most purposes" a GRC meant a trans woman could be said to be a woman for balanced boards etc., there were exceptions, as clearly stated in the EA, that woman means biological sex. ie the option for single sex services exists.

But is not used. That is the campaign we should be having.

We need local action groups in all parts of the UK who liase with for instance RCCs and WAs, and consistently monitor local funding, misleading advertising, and those who could be providing single sex service not doing it (eg Sarah's case which I think legally will be the most important)

We need to campaign for women's prisons and sport to be automatically single sex spaces.

We dont need any more demonstrations, conferences, individuals endless writing on their very own substack or what ever.

This is about each of us on mumsnet, twitter, etc., being prepared to be confront instances of the EA being breached or ignored.

NB I personally think the GRA should be repealed not because the EA isn't clear, but because its purpose was to allow for same sex marriages at a time they weren't allowed, so for "that purpose" you did treat someone as the opposite sex to the one they were born. But as others have said this was a trojan horse. Who decided that Boards were part of "that purpose", and sport let alone women's prisons.

We need a clear list of when single sex spaces are essential and see that nobody fudges it. We need to define that list and get it out in the public domain.

But we are undermind by other women who dont support the need for SSS, and unfortunately the sucessful cultural change, not just among young people, but the media etc., that not just gender but sex is fluid.

Just to add as I have done elsewhere Shona Robison has stated on BBC Radio 4 that the EA is not impacted by the vote.

And I think the number of times this appears in articles is an indication that the SNP know that this could be their achilles heels, and are briefing to make sure this is always mentioned. I have never seen the reference to the right to single sex spaces in so many papers as in the past week eg

SNP Civil Justice Secretary Shona Robison has repeatedly made a point of stressing that the legislation does not impact the Equality Act.

The Scottish Government has gone to extraordinary lengths not to spook UK ministers into a potential challenge.

www.heraldscotland.com/politics/23212328.gender-reforms-snp-may-unwittingly-blundered-minefield/

IwantToRetire

Yes.

But have you seen any officially stated example on just how these exemptions are to be enacted at an individual level if all you are presented with is ID that says ‘female’?

Because if there is no way to actually ascertain who can be legally excluded and exclude them, the discussion stills needs to continue to highlight this.

If you advertise space as being women only, based on biology and clearly state that anyone attempting to decieve can be prosecuted. (Not quite the same but do you remember the discussions around sex by deception?)

But I really came back to say the other important element is that funding should nt be discriminatory. Therefore if the SNP who have been cited as doing this, have said funding is for trans inclusive services then they have to explain why they are only supporting one protect characteristic and not another. If funder refuse to fund women only services but are funding other exclusive services, then they are explicitlly discriminating against women.

So that is where Sarah's case is so important, not just that the provider failed to meet her legitimate need, but that their funders allowed them to do it.

Every woman where we open their eyes to the impact on women’s rights makes a difference and potentially opens the eyes of other women.

Successful legal cases do that on a larger scale. Paying for these is crucial.

Protesting to companies and boycotts is a slower longer term impact and tbh companies like Tampax using the hugely offensive DM help do our job for us as long as enough women protest at the time.