Rachel Meade - it's a win!

[BreadInCaptivity]

x.com/legalfeminist/status/1744697995822526961?s=46&t=88gZvdSnTk70X8b2ZUPZtA

Yes, I am, because that was RM's job and I know there are social workers out there who are forced to follow Stonewall inspired idiocy in their practice and this isn't just about their personal beliefs but about the effects on vulnerable people. This is about broader effects and not just individual rights.

Absolutely but I was also thinking about the broader picture, just not the same one as you. I think we're basically talking at cross purposes. There isn't just one way to consider this.

Yes, and I apologise for my frustration. I just see the damage being done to really vulnerable people by a totally captured profession and would like to see SWE (and all relevant regulators) subject to a review for fitness to regulate. RM's case shows that SWE is not at least as far as their complaints mechanism is concerned - but the rot is deeper.

Yes, and I apologise for my frustration. I just see the damage being done to really vulnerable people by a totally captured profession and would like to see SWE (and all relevant regulators) subject to a review for fitness to regulate. RM's case shows that SWE is not at least as far as their complaints mechanism is concerned - but the rot is deeper.

Totally agree.

I think I’d rather the Candyman showed up to be perfectly honest.

So, if I am an HCPC registrant and speak openly and factually on twitter about gender issues then I could be taken to tribunal because it's not said in private?

You mean could someone complain to your employer or to your Professional Council about your conduct?

If someone complained, your employer took action against you, but your employer didn’t take action against colleagues expressing TRA views on twitter, then you would be able to argue that your employer was discriminating against you on the basis of belief.

If both those with GC views and those with TRA views are equally permitted / not permitted to express their views then it isn’t discrimination on the grounds of belief.

I think this is yet to be fully tested in court. So potentially yes. I think the regulators are likely to become far more cautious though after the RM case (they'd be mad not to). The NMC's has new Freedom of Expression guidance out in relation to fitness to practice which refers a lot to trans issues. Time will tell whether or not they have the balance right...

https://www.nmc.org.uk/ftp-library/understanding-fitness-to-practise/fitness-to-practise-allegations/misconduct/freedom-of-expression-and-fitness-to-practise/

The HCPC also have some new guidance which has not yet come into effect but it doesn't mention gender/sex issues specifically...

https://www.hcpc-uk.org/globalassets/standards/standard-of-conduct-performance-and-ethics/revised-standards-2023/revised-guidance-on-social-media.pdf

Thank you, yes.

If I express factual information about gender, with references and within the law (thanks Maya) but publicly on eg twitter - and someone else, who isn't trans, takes offence and threatens to report me to the register then I think this finding means it is less likely I'll land up in a tribunal.

As long as what I say isn't intended to cause offence or upset. Unlike what a colleague did say on my twitter where she called me names and threatened me with a report to the HCPC becuase of my bigotry and transphobia - nothing I said was either.

I'll send her the tribunal findings and link to this thread and my HCPC registrant number and some lucky white heather.

YetAnotherSpartacus · Today 11:08

I'll give up because I'm obviously failing to get my point across but the core is that RM and anyone else can hold GC beliefs but this has not been tested in practice with clients.

Thanks, that's certainly clear now.

Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but I was just reading the BBC article and very much enjoyed this sentence:

She had been a social worker for about 20 years before she was suspended for sharing views online that were gender-critical - where one believes that sex is a fact of biology that cannot be changed

And just like that, millions of readers realise they are also gender-critical.

The thing about 'practice in a GC way' is that it is continuing the intentional activist misunderstanding of the situation.

In terms of religion for example: you would expect that a Catholic member of staff would not enforce Catholic beliefs and views and doctrines on people in the course of their work, and that the colleague at the next desk would not in their turn be enforcing Muslim beliefs and views and doctrines on people. And that your experience of that service would be strongly coloured by the personal beliefs of whichever member of staff you saw. The expectation would be that no member of staff sees their job as an avenue for exercising their beliefs on others or trying to influence that person's life according to their faith, and that religious faith was entirely left out of practice with clients. Whatever it might be.

The thing with this is, that one side is gender ideology and the other 'belief' is just not being a believer in/advocate for gender ideology. You can't do GC beliefs and practice: you can only do an absence of active evangelism of gender ideology. The heresy is not being a believer and vigorous advocate of the faith and using your position and work place to further this.

The GC position is the neutral 'this stuff should be left out of the workplace and clients should not be exposed to anyone's personal beliefs'.

Heresy is just neutrality. That is how insane this is.

I'm afraid I think this has got be given central credence and become more and more the focus for discussions and decisions. Everyone needs to be aware of this.

When you are talking to someone who believes in their own selective reality, and their right to silence and punish anyone who challenges their selective reality, you cannot expect them to make a lot of rational sense, or be interested in realities that contradict their personal one. Such as law. And other people's interests.

You are not engaging with someone who is able to share objective reality with you. You are engaging with someone who is open about their feeling threatened by it, and believes that they can make you agree with them that reality is what they say it is/wish it to be. And that you are harming them if you do not do this, or mention an aspect of reality or a fact that they have edited to meet their own needs, and that it is appropriate for you to be shamed, coerced or punished for not enabling them, by insisting on your own perceptions and actual facts.

And this is where I think the decision has to be revisited regarding mental health. Because mental health is your capacity to deal with reality. And it also needs to be considered as to whether this is compatible with capacity to hold a job requiring impartiality or public service.

For example providing services to those who are not willing to meet your needs, or agree with you. Or accepting that another person has the right to say no to you for a same sexed service.

There are terrible consequences for children when social workers are silenced from exploring "gender reality" views. SWE completely ignored a very telling judgement from 8 years ago (2016) by Mr Justice Hayden about the abuse that happened to a young boy when his mentally unwell Mum decided he must be a girl and got caught up with the paedophile scandal hit lobby group Mermaids.
I've picked out a few extracts as it's breathtaking that this carefully evidenced judgement was completely ignored by SWE in favour of pandering to Stonewall, Gendered Intelligence, GIRES, Mermaids & all the other adult groups weighing in on social work practice despite their lack of knowledge & expertise.

He highlighted how numerous well founded allegations were dismissed & found the LA's section 37 report as "entirely lacking in any logical, coherent analysis. I have found it quite impossible to understand why so many concerns were disregarded so summarily. Neither the senior social worker in this case nor the lawyer who acts on the Authority's behalf have sought to advance any explanation".
"Not only are the conclusions of the report irreconcilable with the core information within it but it is striking that the Local Authority had moved into wholesale acceptance that J should be regarded as a girl.
Once again, I make no apology for repeating the fact that J was still only 4 years of age. The conclusions of the report speak of J by use of the feminine pronoun. There was no independent or supportive evidence that J identified as a girl at all, indeed there was a body of material that suggested the contrary. The cry for investigation went unheeded":

He concluded that "..in this case the profile and sensitivity of the matters raised by the mother blinded a number of professionals from applying their training, skills and, it has to be said, common sense".

This is what happens to children when social workers are too intimidated to speak about the trans orthodoxy. Children are abused.

https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/2430.html

@vivariumvivariumsvivaria Your colleague could be reported to the regulator since their hostility to your legally protected belief was expressed in a way that was deliberately offensive.

I see that Isabelle Trowler, Chief Social Worker for Children and Families (England) received an honours in the New Year's Honour's List.

"She is a founder member of the What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care, a member of the National Panel for Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews and the National Stability Forum. Isabelle was appointed to the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel in June 2018, she also sits on the ministerial-led Family Justice Board and the Partners in Practice Governance Board."

Someone who should be keeping an eye on safeguarding practices and raising concerns about the adoption of an affirmation only policy?

https://www.gov.uk/government/people/isabelle-trowler#:~:text=Isabelle%20was%20a%20founder%20member,led%20by%20Professor%20Eileen%20Munro

Or are they going to start polishing their turd CV and get the hell out of Dodge?

Leaving lots of organisations utterly clueless they are left with a tranche of ticking time bomb policies and training contracts.

This is an issue many years in the making. Reviewing/overhauling significant chunks of HR policy/contracts/department culture can't happen overnight, even if there is a will to do so.

Helen Joyce frequently says we're in this for the long haul as it will take decades to unpick the culture, policies, and laws than now permit these harms.

In the interim, the damage to professions, to freedom of thought, expression, to assemble etc. is immense.

I’ve previously sent this judgement to management at work. Nothing really happened - I should follow it up.

(I’m a social worker and was keen to ensure that any messages given about working with trans-presenting young people were subject to rigorous professional curiosity)

I think loads of social workers are well aware that social contagion is a thing. I speak as someone who braced herself for very difficult conversations about a trans teen, who seemed to be reacting to trauma, only to find very strong signals from different workers/ agencies that it was best to do what I was doing but keep the whole issue under the radar. It would have been better for me if I’d been able to access support and advice , but I found other sources. Teen is fine now before any monitors jump in to tell me that I ruined their life by not immediately affirming they were trutrans.

Fantastic outcome. Well done Rachel for seeing this through and making a difference to the whole social work profession and women in the UK!

I think loads of social workers are well aware that social contagion is a thing. I speak as someone who braced herself for very difficult conversations about a trans teen, who seemed to be reacting to trauma, only to find very strong signals from different workers/ agencies that it was best to do what I was doing but keep the whole issue under the radar.

I agree but being 'under the radar' can be dangerous, as I'm sure you know. It only takes one worker, teacher, disgruntled parent, or student on placement to put in a complaint ... and the ones coming out of university courses have been well and truly indoctrinated.

@Zebracat your story cheered me up. Well done to you and your teen.

A discussion on social work Reddit (mostly quite balanced but the OP isn't happy)

www.reddit.com/r/Socialworkuk/s/mYBfh7IWPV

This is happening across sectors ime. HCPs, teachers, etc are all having to find ways to secretly signal their views. Which almost all of them share but almost all of them are afraid to support openly.

This is mad. How did we get here?

"This is mad. How did we get here?"

Because society has stood back and allowed this to happen to children. They've been cynically targeted by a massively powerful trans lobby that upends reality, facts and science while insisting their reality is the only one that matters - and we've (ie society) stood back and let them.

That's a very interesting discussion. Not least looking at how the different viewpoints are expressed.