Stonewall: Lower the Temperature

[PorcelinaV]

https://news.sky.com/story/lower-the-temperature-stonewall-chair-calls-for-end-to-megaphone-diplomacy-around-trans-rights-debate-12924483

I wonder what the dynamic is. Anderson very publicly switches from the Tories to Labour, presumably because terfs within the Tories were starting to influence Conservative policy and Stonewall influence was fading. (Thank you Conservatives for Women.)

Labour in the meantime are realising that their policy does not command public support. Their main concern in the lead up to the GE is not that people will vote Conservative, but that people will not turn out to vote Labour. And this is the sort of issue which could deter people from making the effort. Labour need Stonewall to row back a bit, and Anderson can't afford not to comply?

Which then potentially gives Stonewall its own problem. All those activists, including those on the transgender advisory group (the group that Aimee Challoner once vice-chaired) will protest if they weaken their stance. But their lobbying targets across politics and the corporate world will stop listening if they continue their overreach and make life too uncomfortable.

TD:LR bring out the popcorn.

He comes off as saying, "we all know they aren't really but it's a legal fiction".

So I'm not surprised if that doesn't please the trans-activist side.

@Needmoresleep
Labour in the meantime are realising that their policy does not command public support. Their main concern in the lead up to the GE is not that people will vote Conservative, but that people will not turn out to vote Labour. And this is the sort of issue which could deter people from making the effort.

I think you are right on this. I think a lot of people looking at whats on offer don't want any of it. I'm expecting a record all time low turnout at the next election if it were to be held tomorrow. Labour are high in the polls, but as this gender bollocks become ever more exposed more people are going to WTF out of voting.
The gender stuff as nutty as it is also seems to be giving birth to ever more stupid offspring too, e.g. wanting healthy babies without birth defects = bad. There is no idea too horrific or insane under this ideology.

Another point that he kept repeating was about the Equalities Act: "let's build on that". I wished she had drilled him on how he intended to "build on that", what he meant by it exactly because I can guarantee that it would be more trampling of women's rights.

@PurpleWhiteandGreen
There are ambiguities in the act. What does "gender reassignment" mean?
The word sex has been trampled on so badly that it too needs clarification, but any clarification will similarly attacked in an attempt to muddy the waters. Replacing it with biological sex, will inevitably face arguments like :
I have breasts now, so that makes me biologically female, "clownfish", etc......

That it is easier to claim a gender swap than a sex swap does not mean that gender swap will be enough. We've already seen examples of "I'm female now", and "I'm a better woman than women". The end goal is women unconditionally accept the control of these men and validate them relentlessly. Slavery.

When he says he wants to build on it, he means he's happy with the ambiguities, they are a great way to corrupt the meaning and language. Clarification is the last thing he wants.

Agree with every word.

We can lower the temperature when men get out of all women's spaces. Until then, asking to lower the temperature just means 'women! Accept your subjugation!'

This. What are you offering, Iain? What is the trans lobby going to concede? Then we can talk.

He comes off as saying, "we all know they aren't really but it's a legal fiction".

This was the social consensus before about 2015. ‘We’ll pretend that a small number of people are the opposite sex to help them be productive members of society and flourish, except for some circumstances in which the pretence endangers social peace.’ What exactly those circumstances were was by and large clear, it wasn’t entirely fair to women but perhaps just about acceptable. To go back to that consensus without an acknowledgment of the harm, hurt and degradation inflicted on individuals and women as a group since then is just not going to be possible, I think.

IA does not seem to be a friend of women, so it would be advisable to do exactly the opposite of what he suggests.

’How could you let women down like this, David Lammy/Keir Starmer/Anneliese Dodds/Lisa Nandy/Dawn Butler/Lloyd Russell-Moyle/Zahra Sultana/Nadia Whittome/Ed Davey/Layla Moran …?’

Or this from June 2019?

fovas.wordpress.com/response-to-stonewall-2/

I used to teach communication skills at one point and I used to use the nice/nasty triangle. In all relationships, try a lot of nice first, if that doesn't work , and you believe you are in the right, you can be more direct, even using legal routes. However, some people choose nasty first, and a lot of it. If you do this you won't be able to resort to nice, because:

People don't believe you are acting in good faith
You've raised the temperature too much
There is no trust
Your habitual communication is not cooperative
And if you have to resort to legal routes, you will seem unreasonable, which is a thing in the law.

It's a teacher, prison guard or partner screaming in your face and then saying, "let's be kind". You're just waiting for the abuse to start again.

I'd love to see a 'low temperature' web chat on here.

Friction ( read conflict) is what creates heat.

If there is a conflict the temperature is going to rise, inevitably. That doesn't precude being reasonable and using logic, though.

Friction is an everyday force that is created by two surfaces interacting. When these surfaces slide against each other, this interaction increases the thermal energy of the two surfaces (the temperature goes up).

Yes, it’s a tactic.

Same as “shrill arguments”, “toxic on both sides”, and “complex issue”.

Yeah, because which sex does the impregnating and which sex does the being impregnated is just so complex.

When people resort to the " It's complex/complicated" trope - we need to respond by asking "in what way is it complicated".

Ooh, just spotted this up thread.

Meanwhile, Stonewall appears to have softened its stance on the divisive issue of single-sex spaces, with Mr Anderson telling Beth Rigby that he supports exemptions in law that can be used to exclude transgender people from women's prisons and toilets.
^^
Mr Anderson said: "There are protections that are in place. Those protections were put in place for a very, very good reason.
^^
"I do support these protections, absolutely. The question is, do we need to look at the legislation that's currently in place? Does it work? I think it does work."

So Stonewall are starting to worry that their allegiance with the child sex-change lobby organisation, Mermaids, together with Press for Change’s success at getting rapists housed in the female prison estate, might have drawn too much attention to the massive flaws in the existing legislative framework and the way it has been mis-represented and mis-implemented across society at the behest of Stonewall, and now Stonewall are focusing on not losing the progress they have made to date in forcing through their male sexual entitlement activism? Well, that’s interesting.

The thing is, that might have worked a decade ago by shutting up, keeping very quiet and keeping it to the original group that held GRCs. It was not right or good for women, but it kind of bumbled along.

At this point, with rapists in the paper having abused women while identifying into women's spaces, women raped in prisons and on hospital wards, men trying to use the police to force entry to a women's rape group being held privately in a woman's home, ejecting lesbians from pride, storming into women's facilities and behaving inappropriately and standing screaming through megaphones at crowds about hit the women who dare to say this isn't ok?

Yeah, way too late. That ship has sailed. This is the distress of the original transsexual people who enjoyed the quiet privilege over women and its benefits; it isn't quiet any more, the good will is gone, it won't be coming back. Men broke this, not women. The GRA WAS a compromise made for women without consulting or considering women: the middle ground at this point is third spaces. There's no putting the active demand to destroy women's sex based rights and resources and equality back under the carpet.

What a great post Frood.

When women can meet without masked protesters with sexually violent placards and threats being present, then we can talk
When children can attend school without girls being gaslit into accepting that Fred (now Freda) aged 15 and undressing alongside the girls for swimming has the right to be there, then we can talk.
Until then, this is a battle that women didn't ask for and don't want - but we owe it to our daughters, sisters, mothers and friends to continue to speak out and battle for their rights.

Khan piles in

twitter.com/mayoroflondon/status/1682366802695692288?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

Possibly

Froodwithatowel · Today 16:09

The thing is, that might have worked a decade ago by shutting up, keeping very quiet and keeping it to the original group that held GRCs.

I like your energy and passion, Frood.

You have said it so much better. I was coming on to say ...
Lower the temperature == Stfu women.

It’s the same as all the posters who go on about ‘noise’

Begs the question: how far is “too far”?

There’s the Met Police view of “too far”. Their version hasn’t proven of much help to women.

Perhaps the Mayor could have a word, mate to mate, like.

I’ve only seen snippets of the interview but it seems a real tonal change from Stonewall. Iain seems incredibly inoffensive, nice even, reasonable, while squirming and sweating under Beth’s no-nonsense questioning. He didn’t have any clear responses at all, just a load of panicky waffle as his house of cards came tumbling down. A gentle, polite man, granted, but also an incredibly dangerous man, with so much power at his fingertips.

A man trying his best to reassure women that they have nothing to fear, let’s all calm down and turn down the heat and be nice to each other, all the while throwing our sports and single-sex spaces down the pan. No, Iain. We’re saying no. Time to respect that.

I’m glad that the poorly-briefed Iain has exposed the divisions in Stonewall’s thinking. Now it’s time for Stonewall to eat itself.

Say Maaate ... Really? That's going to stop them?
No need for a proper police, laws, justice. Just Say Maaate.
But I bet a woman saying it won't work. We're too shrill or strident or soft or loud or something.

Stonewall have broken their silence

Whole thing:

On 20 July, Stonewall Chair, Iain Anderson, was interviewed by Beth Rigby on Sky News. The interview was supposed to be an opportunity to talk about 10 years of marriage equality, LGBTQ+ veterans, and Rainbow Laces 10 – all remarkable moments that deserved recognition and celebration.

We took part in the interview because Stonewall has always been engaged in difficult conversations on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community. The interview largely focused on highly detailed elements of trans policy issues and Stonewall’s position on these remains unchanged.

The world-leading Equality Act protects many communities – including LGBTQ+ people – it took years to draft and is a finely-honed, balanced, and complex piece of legislation that Stonewall believes works effectively.

Sport should be open to everyone, including trans people, and this includes elite sport. Out of hundreds of thousands of elite athletes, a small handful are trans. We believe including trans people & players in policy development that is both evidence and research-based.

Stonewall believes trans people’s rights should be fully respected and it is past time that conversations around the trans people’s lives should be used as a political tool. Instead, we’re calling for political leaders to develop a meaningful strategy for trans equality that ensures trans people are properly supported, included and able to participate fully in society.

Stonewall’s Chair, Iain Anderson said: “We remain at the forefront of campaigning for trans people’s rights, and I’m sorry if yesterday’s interview caused concern amongst the LGBTQ+ community and its allies. My priority is fighting for trans people & securing a trans equality strategy that will support the trans community”

Editor’s notes:Stonewall’s current positions on key elements of yesterday’s discussion are set out below.

Equality ActThe Equality Act is a world-class piece of legislation that’s been operating well for 13 years.
Since the Equality Act 2010 came into force it has provided an effective defence against discrimination in employment and in the provision of goods and services for people who hold one or more ‘protected characteristics’. This is legislation that works well, and of which Britain can be proud.

We do not think the Equality Act should be reviewed, but we do think the Statutory Code of Practice could clearly include intersex people, asexual people and non-binary people.
It works well because it understands that people can experience discrimination on multiple grounds and it treats all of those grounds equally. We do not believe that people’s rights are in competition.

Single-sex exemptionsThe Equality Act 2010 already supports the operation of single-sex services, where this is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. It also permits the exclusion of trans people from those single-sex services where this is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. This means that trans inclusion is the universal practice in day–to–day single-sex spaces such as toilets and changing rooms, but trans inclusion is not a universal practice in single-sex specialist services.

As Beth Rigby pointed out, in 2015, we recommended for the removal of these clauses in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry based on consultation with trans people at the time.

It is really important to say that we do not advocate for the removal of the single-sex exemptions in the Equality Act. When the Equality Act was first introduced, Stonewall did. That was because we were worried that they would be applied in a blanket way and would be used to wholesale exclude trans women from many single-sex spaces. We know that that has not been the case.

The bar set in the Equality Act, which is that trans women and trans men—although it is mostly used around trans women—access to women’s spaces should only be restricted as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim, is very high. There has to be a very specific set of reasons to exclude trans women from single-sex spaces. Although we dearly wish that no single-sex spaces wished to exclude trans women, trans men or non-binary people, we also recognise that, for the minority of spaces that want to, it is probably not a particularly safe service for those trans people to access.

Trans people in elite sportWe believe that trans people should be able to thrive and flourish in everything they do, and that includes sport. There has been a huge amount of focus on a literal handful of trans women who are competing at an elite level.
The Equality Act rightly presumes the inclusion of trans people as its starting point, and this includes in sport. The Act does allow sporting organisations to discriminate on the grounds of sex if it is a ’gender-affected activity’ or in order to secure ‘fair competition’ or ‘the safety of competitors’, but they must be able to justify it with evidence as proportionate.

We believe that decisions on guidelines should be informed by robust evidence and developed in consultation with players and athletes with direct experience. No two sports are the same. The physical and tactical skills and attributes needed for different sports are highly varied, as is the profile of players competing across grassroots and elite levels. It’s vital that when they make decisions on inclusion, sports use data that is high quality and specific to both the sport and the level at which the game is being played. Given that trans people take part in every sport, it’s also vital that sport bodies consider the experience of trans inclusion in their sports to date.

While sport-specific evidence bases are developing, we urge sport governing bodies not to exclude the tiny number of trans people competing an elite level.

Working with anti-trans groupsStonewall has always, and will always, sit down with anyone who has a respectful position towards the LGBTQ+ community and wants to advance our progress and build alliances to do so. Stonewall’s ethos was and remains the organisation that is ‘in the room’.

That said, we have never used our precious resources on dialogue with people who are vehemently against LGBTQ+ communities, and that will remain true. Our focus is on working with politicians and decision-makers, business and societal leaders who can make a difference to LGBTQ+ people’s lives.