The toxic debate - this could have been avoided

[AdamRyan]

Does anyone else think that the current highly toxic debate could have been avoided if Maria Miller had actually listened to feminist groups when she was chairing the inquiry into gender equality?

Instead she opened the debate into self ID and lowering the age to 16 - the same legislation ultimately pushed by the SNP.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/maria-miller-says-only-hostility-to-transgender-report-came-from-women-purporting-to-be-feminists-a6830406.html%3famp

I feel like at the time of Millers enquiry, most people weren't very interested and there wasn't the media focus there is now. If politicians had recognised that there were times when biology was important (prisons, sport, medicine etc) it would have been largely unremarkable.

Instead women have been proven right in their concerns with Isla Bryson, Tiffany Scott in prison, Lia Williams in sport etc.

Now there is so much media reporting by the likes of the daily mail that I think it is making transphobia acceptable. By transphobia I mean violent and verbally abusive attacks on trans people, not saying trans women are equal but different to women.

I've seen lots of posts blaming GC feminists for the toxic debate and transphobia but I think the blame firmly rests with the TRAs and politicians (including the conservatives) for pushing for a system that enables predatory men, over one that protects both women and transgender people.

I am horrified this could have been a factor in a murder and I hope Miller and the TRAs are equally as horrified. I doubt it though.

I think the main issue is that how can there have been debate when one side was vehemently #NODEBATE?

Exactly. If we could have had the debate then, when things were calmer, and women could have been listened to, maybe this could have been avoided?

I despair at the world now, I really do

I agree with you and whist Miller may have begun this process but no one on her “side” has ever allowed debate.

Many people and the organisations are responsible for where we are now. Women have had to continually fight and I feel sorry for those caught in the middle. (Women and trans people).

I half expected Sturgeon to apologise yesterday but it’ll never happen.

Don't let the LDs off the hook. Lynne Featherstone has continued to be especially trenchant. And rude to people (such as Nimco Ali) raising concerns.

I know I've nothing to apologise for, personally.

I hold all politicians responsible tbh.
Jumping on a bandwagon, making out that reasonable concerns were "hate". So that the concerns could crystallise into real events and unreasonable people could then feel they have a plausible excuse for vigilante action.

People's lives and safety should not be turned into a political football.

Yes lots of them did it. I think the most revealing thing about it all is the low value they ascribe women, and the safety of children. Those things can't be in their consciousness, for them to have chosen the self-ID and affirmation paths as policy goals.

Not sure how Maria Miller has anything to do with US Sport and Lia Thomas?

This is a worldwide issue, I can't see how we can blame all of it on one British minister.

Yes, her decision making was poor, but I think it's a bit of stretch to blame everything worldwide on her. This was going to become an issue regardless.

It goes back to Dentons again. The TRAs pushed this ideology and entrenched it within all aspects of society. #nodebate did a fantastic job of shutting down concerns. Can I just say how proud and indebted I am to all the gender critical women (and some men too) who fought and fought against this ideology. There's too many to mention but each and everyone who spoke out has made a difference. The debate is out there now and must take place.

MichelleScarn · Today 08:19

I think the main issue is that how can there have been debate when one side was vehemently #NODEBATE?

They insisted on no debate, because they were well aware that their position couldn't possibly stand up to even the mildest scrutiny. The TRA zealot side are bullies, who want to have it all their own way, insisting on access all areas and threatening women who say that they don't want to be pushed aside.

They have lied about the legal position, or misrepresented it; yes, Stonewall, Weremaids and Robyn Moira White, you are all guilty, guilty, guilty. They have blamed women, especially feminists and lesbians, for their own failings and for being made to back down, in a legal sense.

I haven't seen any actual transphobic hate from sex realist women, unlike the TRA zealots, who have also carried out physical assaults on women. They're spoiled hypocrites, with an over-developed sense of self entitlement.

It is a global issue but it's been poorly handled in the UK.
Feminists and others concerned about the negative impacts that the adoption of self ID could have were ignored. Sensible discussion was shut down as transphobia.
Politicians took entrenched positions which makes the issue even more polarised.
Well meaning organisations followed the trend.
Coupled with widespread promotion of inclusion that actually isn't very inclusive.
The failures of these decisions is now bearing fruit and garnering publicity. The necessary shifts in public discourse to make sensible and appropriate space for trans rights is being sidelined by the (inevitable) spectre of it being hijacked by people like the Scottish rapist.
So instead of the reasoned and considerate approach you might have achieved, you now have feminists being blamed for transphobia for defending women's rights and activists in the far right have latched on and it will really get stirred up. Policies are being swiftly rewritten and it's bringing down politicians with it. No one wins in these circumstances.

It's the blatant disregard of any concerns. Inability to accept any exceptions. When reality is there is an exception - girls and women cannot identify their way into an inheritance earmarked for a boy (inherited titles)

So men's money is protected but women's and girl's safety and dignity is not protected.

And #NoDebate.

'Toxicity' is only on the one side, that is still seeking to elevate mens rights and men's sexual rights over women's rights, equality, access, inclusion, safety, privacy, dignity, language, and even to exist as a sex class. That is toxic.

Women saying no, is not 'toxic'. Stating reality is not 'toxic'. This endless repeating of this catch phrase is usually so that nice people can feel they've mentioned they're getting concerned about what's happening to women without making it sound like they're taking sides, it's a NAMALT kind of phrasing. 'I'm a bit concerned about.... but obviously women do it too, just as badly, of course'.

No.

This is in effect:

Man stamps heavily (in fact jumps up and down on woman's feet.)

Woman says wtf are you doing? Stop that, it hurts! Hey, I need help, this man's hurting me!

Man bursts into tears and says she's being nasty, he doesn't like the negative attention, it's upset him that she's drawn attention to his behaviour, it is traumatic for him to be spoken to or restricted like this, and it's her problem anyway that she doesn't like her feet being stamped on, most normal people love it and would embrace it, and she's prejudiced, bigoted and other words too.

Man wants woman punished for upsetting him and other men who wish to stamp freely to express their inner selves.

Man wishes to take no responsibility whatsoever for the fact that he started it, committed the initial unacceptable injury, and has a very distorted view of what is going on and his own importance and humanity compared to the woman he wishes to use to express himself.

Is this now a toxic debate between man and woman? Is the problem the woman is continuing to say "You're all mad, I am not going to let this man express himself by hurting me, wtf is the matter with you?"

Along the lines of the OP, in the recent interview of Iain Anderson (Chair of Stonewall), he made clear that the LGBTQ+ community had been made promises by Theresa May, and so they were entitled to them being delivered.

Yeah when Anderson mentions the 'LGBTQ+ community' he is referring to a specific political lobby group and not all people who are LGB or TQ.

Nothing he does is in my name as a homosexual, and I view him and his agenda as actively harmful to homosexuals. Any promises May made to an extremist political lobby should of course not be honoured. She shouldn't have made them.

The toxic debate exists because of TWAW.

We could all have got behind TWAM who like to exist as, and should be treated as, women. In some circumstances, especially sport, criminal justice, single sex spaces and progenitur there may need to be exceptions but we should be mindful of everyone's rights, privacy, dignity and safety.

Ask people to say something that is a lie and an easily provable one makes the position impossible to maintain with reason and logic.

Hence bullying, lies, propaganda, anger, accusations of bigotry etc etc

I think I first wrote to the local MP about my concerns in 2014

He told me I had misunderstood what was happening. I came here and posted to check I wasn't going mad.

I was confused why it wasn't on the radar for most people, then annoyed when I explained it to people and they still couldn't see the problem, or told me certain things would never happen.

i'm now not in touch with most of those people so I don't know if they even remember what I said.

Yes. Exactly. If female only spaces and provisions, and safeguarding were fully respected and supported by all alongside the wishes of male people with TQ+ identities that would pretty much be the end of the issue.

I think it all goes back a lot further than that. The GRA in 2003 was created without seriously considering the impact on women. Those who had campaigned for it saw it as a first step in their bizarro cray-cray, anti-reality, collective gaslighting agenda. They have all being quietly working away. Getting rid of the Sex Discrimination Act and replacing it with the EA in 2010. That was rushed through, hardly any discussion, by Labour, just before the ConDems came in. Women weren’t properly consulted for those.

At the time of Maria Millar, it was really all about quiet, behind the scenes lobbying.

If you think about it, Sarah Brown, who sneaked amendments into local government policies in Cambridgeshire had input to the EA. The same activist, who together with Ros Kaveney and I think Natacha Kennedy, masterminded and orchestrated the harassment and ‘cancelling’ of Julie Bindel.

Trans activists have together been attacking women-only spaces and organising before MM got wind of anything.

Also, very few women gave a shit about women. The vast majority were overt dick-panderers. Treating trans identified men in women’s spaces like royalty.

Its only as recent as the last few months that you can say women’s rights and concerns matter, without being told that you were being unkind and transphobic.

The debate has to be pushed. Until and unless it's accepted by the political class, as unquestionable truth, that sex exists, is unchangeable, and that "transwomen" are not Women, and that Women's rights and spaces need to be upheld and protected, then we cannot move forward and begin to provide the proper and appropriate help and adjustment in society for trans identifying people.

Yes. The ‘toxicity’ of the debate, is because a group of manipulative, aggressive, dangerous, controlling, misanthropic ‘flat earthers’, got organised and used every dirty trick in the book to realise their hideous dystopian vision. I believe some are only fantasists but others are truly evil psychopaths with perverse impulses.

Blaming the people pushing back for causing the ‘toxicity’ is just another dirty trick.

EndlessTea · Today 11:27

I think that's a very good assessment.

Millar didn’t ‘begin this process’, not even within the UK. In terms of politicians that has to be labour and the GRA. Without the GRA this mess wouldn’t exist as the law would not be fudged. The GRA must be repealed.

She had an opportunity to listen to feminists concerns and respond when she did her consultation in 2016. She didn't take it. As a result women have pushed harder to have those concerns heard, the media have picked up on the entirely predictable scandals and the climate for trans people and GC feminists has become increasingly toxic.

She could have changed that. The tone of this debate has shifted under the Conservatives watch.