How did it all start?

[CervixSampler]

This is the question my lovely, totally baffled mum asked me today. I was talking to her about the poetry book containing poems from mumsnetters here (will shamelessly post a link) and why those poems have come about.

I can't remember how it all started. Were we boiling frogs? I came onto the boards around the time Posie Parker was putting up her billboard and have been a regular ever since. I can't remember any single event that triggered my awareness but this board and Posie were a huge eye opener.

When did women's rights become up for grabs? When did things get out of hand? I know things have always been problematic but when did it all explode?
Shameless book plug;

Under the Duvet of Darkness Volume Two Lurking Merkins: Poems written by angry women for angry women because WOMEN WON'T WHEESHT: 2 amzn.eu/d/3ucEKB7

You were responding to my comment about who was responsible for lobbying the government to introduce trans ideology laws.

Annie Wallace worked on Coronation street and inspired the character of hayley. The character wasnt wriiten at the request of woke graduates.

As others have said press for change and gendered intelligence lobbied the government, not woke graduates. These graduates have gone on to work in politics, the media and the arts, but they didnt lobby the government, they are only reinforce existing laws.

What im saying is that we are in danger of blaming the wrong people for laws. Stonewall and new graduates werent involved in given men female id, its the men who have female id.

Whats odd is that the GRA was, in no small part, to allow same sex marriage, but civil partnerships was introduced the same year. The two acts must have been worked on at the same time.

Why quietly introduced the GRA months before a flagship law that basically allow the same thing? Im guessing it was nothing to do with marriage rights, but the rights for men to hold female id.

The Guardian reported in 2002 that this had been worked on for 30 years.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/dec/10/gender.immigrationpolicy1

The GRA was quietly introduced with very little media coverage. Which is odd given the amount of attention civil partnerships was given the same year.

Christine Burns said this about Press for Change and the GRA.

Much of their campaigning remained on the quiet. The passage of the 2004 law to give trans people legal status was "remarkable," says Burns, because "the government was able to pass an entire act in parliament without anyone throwing a fit in the press".

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jan/22/voices-from-trans-community-prejudice

"We did what we wanted and we assume everyone consented" sound familiar?

@ZuttZeVootEeeVo

Annie Wallace worked on Coronation street and inspired the character of hayley. The character wasnt wriiten at the request of woke graduates.

It wasn't, but the character and arc were then developed under heavy influence from Press for Change who recognised the opportunity. The actress refers to it a little in the Pink News link I posted, but I've seen it in more detail elsewhere, I think in content from Press for Change and/or Stephen Whittle, that Press for Change were unhappy with the initial portrayl of Hayley and so offered their help to make Hayley more in line with how they wanted trans women to be seen, which was accepted. I'll try and find the reference.

This was one of the threads I remember that looks backwards in time.

Yes I was looking for this one- an absolute must read.

You were responding to my comment about who was responsible for lobbying the government to introduce trans ideology laws.

I dont know why you are going on about this. I made clear by restating the 2 things were happening in parallel. Groups like Press for Change, etc., wouldn't have had the sucess they had if in the wider sphere of media influence, those who had adopted the queer politics analysis of individual choice being an important social disrupter.

And even if there was a trans person working on the soap in question, the production company and the tv channel wouldn't have allowed a trans character to be introduced without knowing that the public would accept it.

And if anything the media is now the most influential part of the ongoing triumph of the trans agenda over sex based reality.

They not only police their own words, but actively encourage trans activists to write articles, opinion pieces to an extent that is disproportionate to the size of the community. An obviously a complete contrast to the coverage that women's voices for sex based lives are ever allowed.

And irrespective of laws, for those growing up now, this is going to have a much bigger impact on how they think and understand the world, than the GRA providing method of getting a GRC.

As can be seen from the "Let's Go Back to 2007" thread linked upthread, even back then it was being framed that cross dressers were "transgender"

From @anlaf's post on the thread:

"In the broadest use of the term, a transgender person crosses the conventional boundaries of gender; in clothing; in presenting themselves; even as far as having multiple surgical procedures to be fully bodily reassigned in their preferred gender role.

In this report we will normally use the term 'trans people' to describe those people who might be described as falling broadly within this context, as it has become the term of normal use since the coining of it by Press for Change for their 1996 mission statement: "Seeking respect and equality for ALL trans people"[2]. People who identify as transsexual are a small part of this spectrum and may or may not have had medical treatment to alter their physical appearance"

What's also interesting is that PfC's prime example of hatred is an elderly woman who (in the quoted newspaper article) does not want a male-born carer (with or without a GRC):

"Example 1: "Exclusive Fright Nurse: Sex-swap carer

A pensioner was horrified when a "strapping" 6ft sex-change carer turned up to bathe her. Frail Kathy Yates, 88 specifically requested a female to assist her at home. Daughter Kathleen, 48 fumed: "When the carer came through the door, I nearly keeled over. "It looked like a man dressed as a woman. Talk about an overdose of make-up! He was 6ft with badly bleached blond hair. "He had shoes that must have been size 11, huge hands - and insisted I call him Sue." The carer said she moved from Cornwall to Blackpool, Lancashire, to start a new life after his op. "I said, 'You won't be showering my mother, sonny boy.'" Blackpool Council said 'Sue' had been a female legally for more than a year. A spokesman added: "It is unlawful for her to be treated in any other way." [11]

Transphobia is very specific and will not be protected by any measure to provide protection on the grounds of sexual orientation alone. In all probability the daughter's transphobia, and what she may or may not have said to her mother, manifested itself as the "incitement to hatred". Transphobia is pervasive within the majority in what became a very public example of incitement to transphobic hatred by its repetition in the press,

By having good law to support them in resisting this kind of incitement, not only employment policies and practices, local authorities are empowered to assist in stamping out this kind of irrational hatred and intolerance. In the event it should be noted, the mother in this article never did make an official complaint.

Also finally of note: Engendered Penalties showed that the suicide attempt rate for trans people is very high, far higher than the rate for one of the most mentally vulnerable groups; people with ongoing mental health problems as a result of childhood abuse or trauma.

According to the evidence in Engendered Penalties, 35% of all trans adults have attempted to commit suicide once as an adult, over 14% have tried it at least twice. We have no idea of how many succeeded.

Respondents who reported attempting suicide, or self harm, because of being a cross dresser, transgender/transsexual or because of other people's reactions to them being trans."

I dont know why you are going on about this.

It's a discussion site, i can go on about anything for as long as i want.

The thread is about how it all started, so it makes sense to actually talk about who started it and when. Everything was established before the media were talking about it, thats the point. The GRA success was because it wasnt promoted.

If it wasnt for the already established GRA, PC of GR and gender clinics, 'transition' for girls wouldnt be anything more than clothes and pronouns, however much it is talked about in the media. Its because the transsexuals have already extablished the idea of surgical, medical and legal transition, that these girls have something to aim for.

Also the number of girls finding the gender clinics was increasing before stonewall started to prioritise the T. Its not a given that these girls are influenced by established media.

Men have always crossed dressed and ignored womens boundaries, they dont wait for permission from a Guardian column to do it.

Also the number of girls finding the gender clinics was increasing before stonewall started to prioritise the T. Its not a given that these girls are influenced by established media.

I am Leo was shown on CBBC in 2014. After this there was a huge rise in the number of girls referred to GIDS. It seems likely that some girls might have been influenced by the TV programme.

Men have always crossed dressed and ignored womens boundaries, they dont wait for permission from a Guardian column to do it.

Well just to repeat, so this could go on forever, the fact was that there were parallel devopments, with privat networks active in political lobbying and the media creating an acceptance that meant attitudes change.

Again as already posted not just by me but by others, the GRA was partly created to meet a specific need (to get round the ban on same sex marriages) but became the trojan horse that queer politics needed to move their cultural agenda into the political arena.

Nothing I have written implies I thought the Guardian had anything to do with lobbying for bills. The Guardian like other parts of media was changing social attitudes, one of the most based was changing "house styles" so that the word sex was no longer used, but gender was. Another sucess for queer politics, like their earlier sucess of closing down women's studies and making them gender studies.

Does anyone know the date when Stonewall added the "T"?

I said in my post upthread. 2015.

I said in my post upthread. 2015

Thanks - sorry was being lazy.

So in terms of other developments this was a relatively late adoption, but in terms of outreach to a wider and more public audience really significant.

Yes, I would agree.

Sorry haven’t read the whole thread but I am listening to Material Girls at the moment read by Kathleen Stock. She lays it out all very clearly and fairly and I salute her patience in doing so.

Stonewall was very late to the party, mn introduced the 'LGBT children' board in 2010.

“I think Helen Joyce’s book ‘Trans’ gives the best, clearest explanation of it all.”

Agreed, Helen’s explanation of the history of all this is an eye opener.

I was shocked when I had a procedure in thr Gulf recently to be given a printout on gender fluidity and pronoun which i found quite aggressive personally. It's an Islamic country that still has segregated hospitals for gods sake, its like the last 50 years didn't happen and now we jump straight to this. And make no mistake, the hospitals are almost exclusively staffed by ex NHS staff since Covid, this is where it has come from. Fleeing the NHS for a cosy tax free salary and champagne lifestyle and bringing this shit along for the ride.

I think this nails it.

In essence, Stonewall got on the bandwagon (publically at least) after all the laying the foundations work (in terms of the legislative framework and stealth media campaigning via sympathetic tv portrayals) had already been done by others. However, once they publically got on board, Stonewall acted as this political ideology’s single most powerful accelerant by embedding it into almost all public institutions via changes to employment policies, service user policies, and control of permitted language.

However, once they publically got on board, Stonewall acted as this political ideology’s single most powerful accelerant by embedding it into almost all public institutions via changes to employment policies, service user policies, and control of permitted language.

The NHS was recording gender and sex as the same thing in 2010. The NHS were writing sex segregated policies, knowing they were segregating by gender, not sex.

It wasnt stonewall, its the Equality act that was embedding trans ideology everywhere.

Thats should say the EqA and GRA embedded this ideology everywhere.

All the mad flags were across Tumblr in the early 2010s. Tumblr was indoctrination central for young women back then.

Your mum might remember the April Ashley annulment case (Corbett vs Corbett) in 1970. I think a lot of women felt very sorry for April Ashley, whose husband annulled their marriage despite having known April was male before they married. People forget how homophobic society was back then; there would have been less sympathy for someone presenting as a man, who hadn't had surgery, having their marriage annulled, because the vast majority of the country would not have seen that marriage as valid in the first place. But somehow it was accepted that a man who had decided to live as a woman, and particularly if they had had genital surgery, should be treated differently by the law.

I think it was then that there was a strand in society that said that it is possible to have a 'sex change'. That a person with a glamorous feminine hairdo, makeup and a long dress is a woman, or that a woman is defined as being someone without a penis. Your mum might believe that herself. If so, ask her why she thinks that.

It wasnt stonewall, its the Equality act that was embedding trans ideology everywhere.

I think the point being made is that Stonewall gave the issue a much higher profile. The number of people who migh have been aware of what the NHS etc., were doing was tiny.

Stonewall, aided by the media, made it something that (as some of us think) became a trend that more and more people bought into, without necessarily thinking too deeply about it. The "be kind" section of society who, because it is being presented as part of gay rights, think they are being cutting edge progressive.