Keep Prison Single Sex closing

[TinselAngel]

Just announced on Twitter.

x.com/noxyinxxprisons/status/1798973161276412028?s=46&t=PSGltfjrMyZmBtYq2-AVIQ

"After considerable thought we have decided to close KPSS down. Our last day of operation will be 30th June 2024.

We have agreed that Kate will continue to support and work with the individual prisoners, former offenders, and CJS whistleblowers with whom we have relationships. Kate is contacting everyone individually to advise them of this.

We have some materials still available and can post these out to whomever wants them: our email address will remain live, so please use this to contact us. All reports and leaflets are also available on our website which, together with our Vimeo, we will maintain as a resource, although content will not be updated.

It is no longer possible to make a donation to KPSS and all regular donations have been cancelled - however, please do check your own accounts. Our PayPal account is now closed. Both KPSS shops have been closed.

KPSS USA is unaffected by this decision. Their work will continue. Please give them a follow @NoXY_USA Any funds remaining after closing down KPSS will be transferred to them.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us. Between us we achieved some truly great things, including two Ministry of Justice policy changes that centre the safety and rights of women in prison. Be proud of what you have done, because none of what KPSS achieved would have been possible without you."

I agree KPSS has been an amazing and important organisation and I have been so impressed by Kate and all she has achieved. Wishing her and the whole team all the very best in whatever comes next whatever that is! Grateful thanks to you all.

Kate and the team are brilliant, and have understood issues around safeguarding and police/prison failures and ideological capture with far greater clarity than most others. They have also helped and supported smaller groups and individuals behind the scenes and will be hugely missed. Massive thank you to them all x

I think Kate's strategy was the correct one (I think Signalbox sums it up succinctly).

But when Maya wanted to take legal action against her employer the legal advice based on the law was that the most likely route to success was under the belief protected characteristic. That victory seems to have set the path for everything that has followed. Of course it is insane to classify the immutability of sex as a belief when we all know it's a fact. But here we are. The foundations were laid and now the building has to sit on them. Even though they are probably the wrong shape.

Additionally, politics is the art of the possible and there is no doubt that repealing the GRA was going to be a bigger ask, so the temptation to tweak the EA instead seemed easier.

I really fear that establishing two kinds of sex in law - biological and legal - could backfire. It's yet another 'legal fiction' to add to the legal fiction that is the GRA. I think it also opens the door to an exponential rise in GRCs when Labour relax the criteria and create many many more legally female men.

But Sex Matters can't backpedal. I do wonder if their cold shouldering of Kate was not because they disagreed with her but because they knew she was right but they have gone all in on their strategy and can't change horses now. Like another organisation in this fight.

Thank you @southbiscay and @Signalbox , those are very useful summaries.

I used to believe and support the whole fiction many years ago in the name of BeKind and RSoH, then became much more Sex Matters-aligned. These days I’m fully in Kate’s way of thinking, as we see clearer and clearer what the longterm ramifications of all these campaigns, changes and legal arguments will be. As you say, the more GC campaigners build on foundations of sand, and allow any of the absurd fictions into our arguments, the weaker everything will become for us down the line. I suppose it’s just a question of which house will come tumbling down first.

But Sex Matters can't backpedal. I do wonder if their cold shouldering of Kate was not because they disagreed with her but because they knew she was right but they have gone all in on their strategy and can't change horses now. Like another organisation in this fight.

If this is true it is really sad.

And also (if I have understood) really silly. Winning a court case as an individual protecting your employment rights isn't the basis for a wide reaching campaign.

Not sure how it would impact legally on actual case, but could have been the stepping stone to saying that having to pretend that the biological reality of sex is a "belief" is yet another reason to quesiton the law that has created this bizarre situation of actual and legal (ie certified) sex. It wouldn't occur in an any other protected characteristic, eg actual age and legal (certified) age, actual disability and legal (certified) disability, actual race and legal (certified) race.

Certified meaning based on a person identification rather than actual fact.

On another aspect, and no disrespect intended, but basing a campaign on now an individual managed to beat the legal system to achieve an aim that syncs with a feminist political analysis, doesn't make that campaign feminist. It is a parallel to but not necessarily supportive of feminist aims and objectives.

The various big name GC campaigning groups talk about women existing as a sex class but I’m not convinced they approach their campaigning from a material reality class-based analysis point of view. They seem to be adopting the individualist framework that underpins postmodernist gender identity ideology and queer theory. And I don’t understand why judges in UK employment tribunals and higher civil courts can’t see these cases as involving material reality class-based issues even when they only have an individual in front of them seeking a remedy.

I know Liberals see incrementalism as a good way of making changes but I don’t see creating the legal fiction that men can be legally women as being an incremental change so I don’t see any harm in campaigning to repeal it and I can’t understand why so many of the big name GC campaigners are content to tinker around the edges of a bad law.

The various big name GC campaigning groups talk about women existing as a sex class but I’m not convinced they approach their campaigning from a material reality class-based analysis point of view. They seem to be adopting the individualist framework that underpins postmodernist gender identity ideology and queer theory.

I'm curious to know why you see this as postmodernist in origin rather than as old-fashioned individualist liberal feminism.

I suspect the meeting of Sex Matters et al with the NPCC about strip search guidelines was probably the last straw for KPSS. They were contact my Sex Matters 2 days before the meeting - much too short notice for them to be able to attend. They were also excluded for a meeting a while ago about keeping prisons single sex at Parliament that they were furious about.

I’m really glad they are shutting down. Their work is very important and very good but they have made a mess of it by their online behaviour on Twitter. Now someone who knows how to behave can carry out this essential work

Which behaviour was that?

Verbally abusing people who don’t agree with them.

When middle class women took over the new women's centre, one of the reasons they thought they should get the paid positions was that 'we know how to talk to people', like the local Council. SSDD.

You first said 'attacking' and then changed to 'verbally abusing'.

Can you substantiate what you mean using some screenshots of this 'verbal abuse'?

What behaviour on Twitter?

Soon to be downgraded to 'using an imperfect tone'.

Oh no, I’m not talking about tone policing, her behaviour is way past tone policing. I changed it from attacking to verbally abusing because I guessed people here would tell me that words aren’t violence and I wanted to be very very clear. Just go ahead and have a look at her timeline. Anyone decent will be able to figure out which behaviour I mean. Others will defend her behaviour because she’s a woman or something like that 🙄

https://x.com/NoXYinXXprisons

It's all been deleted.

So you can’t provide evidence?

No that’s not what I said. I said look for yourself. I could easily have retorted ‘so you can’t read Twitter?’ I don’t fancy wasting my day on here. I advise people who are interested to have a look at this persons Twitter and make their own minds up. Don’t rely on the posts here

So no evidence still. Could it rather more likely be because the truth is that clinging desperately to GC belief at every turn won't help women? KPSS speak clearly and they tell the truth. They aren't the only groups that it is obvious have been set aside. The result is that effective safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults becomes harder to achieve.

You made allegations that you did not back up with any evidence. And when challenged you still didn’t provide any but told us to go and look for it ourselves. We see this trick on here repeatedly and have grown tired of it.

I'm familiar with Kate's twitter. Are you referring to her expressing her frustration at KPSS being excluded from relevant joint working of GC groups? If so why do you think she should have kept quiet about this?

Well no you do this all the time.

Accusations with no evidence.

Anyone decent will be able to figure out which behaviour I mean. Others will defend her behaviour because she’s a woman or something like that

Just in case it's not obvious from that quip, Jilly has just moved on from attacking Aja on the other thread that hit its limit, and that thread is the majority of their Mumsnet activity.

Thank you for this. Isn't it appalling that this board often seems to function as the Burn Book for women who appear happy to trash other women who are public and have actually stuck their necks out to help women? It's repugnant, in fact.