Muslim Council has withdrawn support for SNP/Greens - the Gender bill was last straw

[fromorbit]

"The Muslim Council in the UK has withdrawn support for the Scottish government, claiming Nicola Sturgeon is taking the country "down the wrong path".

Mr Wasif Ahmad who is the Chair of The Muslim Council of UK, the leading Muslim community has said they will be joining the Scottish Indian Council in abandoning the SNP/Greens.
In a scathing statement, the group said morale is "at an all-time low", claiming their "civil liberties" have been taken away by social policies with the latest gender reform Bill seemingly being the final straw."

We are against this Transgender law which allows 15 years [olds] to change there gender. We at the Muslim Council of the UK support every religion whether, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism Sikhism. We have nothing against someone sexual preference but this Trans law goes too far. The First Minister Nicola Sturgeon should resign as under her tenure Scotland it has been failure after failure"

More details in article:
archive.ph/Jgbyc#selection-1003.0-1017.212

This is serious news for the SNP in their battle to control Glasgow where much of the Scottish Muslim population is located. The fact that Scottish Indians are clearly outraged too is interesting.

Pollokshields and Southside Central are the two main wards in Sturgeon's Glasgow Southside constituency with the highest concentration of Muslim residents in Scotland – 27.8% and 15.7% respectively.

Stewart McDonald is the SNP MP for the Glasgow South constituency which also contains those wards. He is a big time TRA.

Interestingly in 2019 his second place opponent in Glasgow South was Labour's Joanne Lamont, former leader of Scottish Labour, who is very pro-woman. If she stands again she might be able to flip the seat for Labour on a pro-woman platform.

Scottish Labour are in awkward position again do they side with Hindus and Muslims and most ordinary Scots in admitting the existence of two sexes or continue to follow the TRA line.

I wish they had worded it differently

Its not children 'changing gender' because theres no gender to change, its children being encouraged to live by or recognise regressive sex stereotypes and enter into a transition into thinking they are the opposite sex, either by social means or medication

They can't get it right if they tried. This business is undefined so all wording is wrong anyway...

Great news! The house of cards continues to tumble.

I'm just stunned it's taken so long!

More sunlight more discussion more people opening their eyes 👍

I'm hoping their message might also be taken up by Muslims in England & Wales too. A bit of positive social contagion wouldn't go amiss.

It'll be interesting to see how much shite the SNP & Greens will take in defending their indefensible position and at what point they back down. They'll surely all be after protecting their careers.

Glad to see even more pressure being put on Stergeon and co

I'm also surprised they haven't spoken out before now.
I asked the question on another thread and the Free Church seem to be the only people who have spoken up.
Or has all of this just floated under the radar without people really clocking what is going on?

There is so much hatred for Muslims in the UK, I think it is very hard for them to speak up. In fact everything indicates that the No Outsiders programme was piloted in a Muslim school in order to make the protesters look like they were a lot of mediaeval foreigners who have not integrated into British society.

Exactly this.

I’m glad to see this and have wondered why there has been no push back from the Muslim community before. If non Muslim women are outraged by in tact males using female changing rooms etc how much more would Muslim women be? Again, there is a clash between the rights of different groups.

When I was an inpatient 4 years ago, a male nurse wanted to escort a Muslim female patient to the bathroom. She requested a female nurse, there was no big deal and a female nurse stepped in. How would that play out with TW nurses?

Labour is going to have to get its ducks in a row on this one. It's not going to be long before the Muslim Council realises it's not just the SNP

I suspect no one on this thread is aware of this:

theworld.org/stories/2017-07-29/pakistans-traditional-third-gender-isnt-happy-trans-movement

I suspect if we look up comments on the new Gender act The Council put in their point of view ... which obviously got ignored. I think from the tone of this piece they have been working behind the scenes and only now are they are really pushing it as opposition mounts.
I have seen other discussions where prominent British Muslims have questioned this stuff. Often not reported. Obviously there are huge conflicts here which people want to avoid talking about.

Do not forget the Catholics they have always been upfront about their opposition to gender ideas. However the press are not interested generally in the religious view point.

Obviously is because of the homophobia/sexism issue in the more fundamentalist monotheistic religions they just get ignored generally as they are dismissed as being biased. The tactic works both ways. It is the classic avoidance issue anyone who raises opposition are said to be right wing religious fanatics even if they are left wing feminist lesbian atheists as we know well.
This is a very positive development. Ultimately we want more public discussion of all viewpoints.

Obviously this is a huge issue for Labour the Muslim vote is crucial for them. With stuff like the Tavistock scandal getting even bigger this is not going away.

I knew of the Hirjas in India which are obviously similar. The role of traditional third genders vs transgender needs to be discussed more.

As I think we all can agree the actual solution is absolute tolerance for gender non conformity and more discussion about body dysmorphia and why it happens and iys links to homophobia.

I agree that No Outsiders was a deliberate and cynical attempt to assert Queer Theory over the Islamic faith.
(secondary) schools need to teach that homosexuality and same sex marriage is (rightly!) legal in the UK but not pretend that it’s universally accepted and rainbow wash the difficulties of reconciling religious faith and sexual orientation.
When a young gay or lesbian teen is growing up in a conservative/orthodox religious family while attending a mainstream British school, the moral & emotional whiplash between rainbows and glitter at school and fear of eternal hellfire and/or family rejection at home is not helpful. How can an adolescent with an emergent orientation towards the same sex feel safe or fully understood in either environment, when one is all positive/encouraging and the other all negative/forbidden? How can we expect them to navigate their inner conflicts in an environment where asking questions is frowned on and only one answer is ever considered to be right, and it’s a different answer at home to school?

The EQ10 is a complicated bit of law that acknowledges that the rights of various protected groups conflict.
That it’s not being exercised with the caution that was intended (eg proper impact assessments) is a travesty, one that causes fissures and antagonism that could’ve been avoided if David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ hadn’t given self-interested lobby groups so much free reign. The lobby groups with the most fundraising power (eg Stonewall, Mermaids) have been able to dominate.

I’ve spoken to quite a few Muslim women about these topics (friends from my women-only gym) and they all say that their particular patriarchy has been willing to throw women under the bus in order to stay ingratiated with the left wing political patriarchy (because, somewhat understandably, the safety in numbers aspect is a major consideration for minority groups).

So rather than stand up to men who decide they belong in female-only spaces (including those designated for female-only worship or religious education) Islamic men have just expected women in their community to self exclude as and when situations arise, to go back into the home, essentially.

We have a lot of chats about this at my council- run gym because the ‘proportionate means to a legitimate aim’ that justifies the women-only room is that there is a higher percentage of Islamic residents in this corner of the borough than elsewhere.
The ladies gym is thus a targeted public health intervention for reducing isolation and improving the fitness and overall well-being of Muslim women, and other women, mostly older women and immediately postnatal women obvs get to benefit too (other leisure centres in the same network have women only sessions but no designated space).

I’ve been a member for a decade but when I joined I remember noticing an older lady on the staff would always refer to it as ‘the female gym’ which I found really weird as female is an adjective and a gym can’t be female because it doesn’t have large immobile gametes.
After a while I came to understand that the staff member’s peculiar phrasing was a very purposeful linguistic quirk designed to minimise ambiguity (gyms and swimming baths have always had voyeurism issues and she’d been working there for over 30 years).

I personally think all religion is bollocks but as I firmly believe that all women (including those with deeply held faiths of their own and women & girls who were born into faith based communities and follow community/faith based rules for familial reasons) have a right to free and full participation in society, I am pleased that a) women only facilities exist to facilitate this and b) that the Muslim Council in the UK is finally drawing a line that will help us to preserve these spaces.

Ladyboys in Thailand identify as exactly that. Nobody thinks they are actual women. There are all sorts of issues around exploitation/surgery/the entertainment and sex industry - as there are around women and children - generally those who are poor. Which is a whole other conversation, but has little in common with trans ideology in the West.

"So rather than stand up to men who decide they belong in female-only spaces (including those designated for female-only worship or religious education) Islamic men have just expected women in their community to self exclude as and when situations arise, to go back into the home, essentially"

This is a really important point to grasp. Women from religious/orthodox backgrounds really don't have anyone to fight their corner. Many of the men in their community are quite happy for the women to be stuck back in their homes. Even in this day and age, sadly.

I have seen other discussions where prominent British Muslims have questioned this stuff

Maajid Naawaz spoke clearly on the topic several times

twitter.com/LBC/status/1301887036111179777?

(he’s since been fired by LBC for covid vaccination opinions but I don’t know quite what those opinions were! Will look it up now)

I hope Sturgeon and that MP for Glasgow have a very public downfall - that is that they are obliterated by another party (Labour/Tories) in the next GE.

Well done to the Asian communities of Scotland! Most of us sane, non-misogynist citizens, religious or not, can see what through this preposterous facade.

I’m glad to see this. There must now be a lot of pressure from within these communities for them to speak up.

Regarding the wording I understand the sentiment, but it’s not such a big deal here, I don’t think. When newspapers consistently get the wording wrong, it’s annoying as they should be more on top of this and each time they misrepresent the situation, it’s a missed opportunity to push the message home about what’s really happening. This is a single statement and its very existence sends a powerful message. The wording here is less important than the message itself.

I realise Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not a British Muslim (born in Somalia and raised in a Muslim family, she now has dual Dutch/American citizenship and is a critic of Islam) but in the interests of amplifying women’s voices on the topic here is her excellent piece for Unherd, published at the tail end of 2022:

unherd.com/2022/12/the-year-the-west-erased-women/

Perhaps those on this forum could heed her words and let the small number of trans people have what they call for (with safeguarding ;) ) , and instead spend their time on issues that actually effect the majority of women - especially outside the west.

Tragic to see the lesbians on this board cosying up to Muslim elders who deny their right to exist.

You sound a wee bit Islamophobic mate, you should have a word with yourself.

I think the women here are quite capable of assessing Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s message and reaching our own conclusions about what is important for women, here and elsewhere, without you scolding us.

Women’s rights are prioritized here over men’s, wherever they are.