Stand Up For Single Sex Services - Election action: email your candidates!

[MForstater]

Right, the nominations have closed for the general election.... Please can you email your candidates THIS WEEKEND and tell them that you are concerned about the impact of gender identity ideology on women and girls? 🙏 🙏 🙏
This will make a difference if enough people do it. Every candidate needs to hear that protecting women's sex-based rights is a serious issue that people care about.
HOW TO DO IT

1. Look up your candidates names and email addresses at https://whocanivotefor.co.uk/ (don't use their parliamentary email address)
2. Write to them with your name and address
3. Tell your friends to do it.

We (Sex Matters) have made a template email, or you can write your own. We are asking five questions (its all in the template email):

• Do you recognise that there are two sexes, male and female, and the law should recognise that there are situations where this matters?
• If elected, will you stand up for single-sex services and sports?
• Do you agree that the Equality Act should be made clearer, to provide protection against discrimination based on sex?
• Will you commit not to bring in gender self-ID through the back door?
• Do you agree that freedom of speech about sex and gender is important?
• Will you meet with “gender-critical” groups and constituents if you are elected to Parliament?

If you get a response please can you can share it with Laura Pascal [email protected] or here.

A first batch of Stand Up For Single Sex Services campaign packs have gone in the post today and you can download the action guide, printables and social media assets at StandUpForSingleSexServices.org
If you want to ask me anything about the campaign or what Sex Matters is up to I'm happy to answer!

Thank you!

Thanks - on it.

Thanks 😊

I emailed Catherine West on 30th May. Yet to have a reply. Didn't know who the other candidates were at the time - will email them this weekend

Thank you. Don't let them get away with their usual "well nobody's talking about this" nonsense.

Nothing about child safeguarding in your list? Why?

I’ve emailed the local parties on this previously and the main ones are captured, except for the Conservative, even though she, as the incumbent, was equivocal on the matter. But now I find I have a POW candidate to vote for! Very happy.
However I will email again to get the point across.

Just found out we have an SDP candidate! Very happy.

I added the following paragraph to my email- feel free to steal it and adapt it for your own email, if you want to!

I strongly believe this ideology, which has permeated our society, is rooted in sexism and homophobia. Women and girls are being forced to share supposedly single-sex spaces, services and sports with intact males. Lesbians are being told that they are bigots if they do not accept self-declared male 'lesbians' (over 90% of whom have had no surgery or hormone therapy) as sexual partners. Gender non-conforming children, who multiple studies have shown are highly likely to grow up to be gay, are being told they can change sex (a biological impossibility) and put on a pathway which ends with the mutilation and removal of healthy body parts, sterilisation and cross-sex hormones which, in the case of females, (according to a recent study) lead to 94% developing pelvic floor dysfunction.

That's six questions!

I'm glad Maya made the point about not using parliamentary addresses, I was wondering about that.

I did email candidates before the local elections last month but only got one answer from a PCC candidate who was never going to win anyway.

I did this over a week ago and am still waiting for replies from Conservative and Liberal Democrats. Labour candidate replied but made absolutely no sense and made me wonder if she even had GCSE English tbh, so incoherent was her reply.

Didn't bother to write to Green or Reform and have no other choices.

I'm feeling very disillusioned and am considering not voting for the first time (am mid 50s).

Even worse that I have been watching "Shoulder to Shoulder" on iplayer. 😡

Thanks, I've already emailed my Labour candidate but not had a reply yet.

At first I wasn't going to bother contacting Conservatives or Lib Dems as I have no intention of voting for either party, but I take the point that they all need to know that this matters to us, so I'll email them too. And I guess the Greens as well, although they're a total bin fire locally.

I’ve emailed our Tory mp this query and they didn’t reply. They also came around canvassing our elderly neighbours but ignored us (we were on the drive sorting the car and they still didn’t try and engage us).

I have emailed all my local candidates.

Just to be aware, the information on whoicanvotefor is not up to date for all of them and I had to do some digging to get the Labour and Lib Dem email addresses.

Thank you Maya. I've emailed candidates of Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem, and Green parties.

The Tory candidate for Mid Cheshire is in agreement with all of this, and has stated on his website that he can not and will not support self-ID.

I'm after wording to email the local independent - I want to ask where they sit on sex/gender without giving away where I sit as I suspect they will just tell me what they think I want to hear. Has anyone managed to put together an email that will ask the question without signalling what answer they want to receive?
I will use the sex matters wording for the candidates that represent the established parties but I want to try and find out what the Indie really feels, not a party line or a trite none answer

Oops! Sorry yes six questions!

We have headlined our 10 asks with safeguarding (StandUpForSingleSexServices.org) but we didn't make it a specific question here partly because it is a devolved responsibility so it is hard to come up with a question that works for candidates in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The questions are conversation-starters with new candidates (who may not have engaged with the issue before), and to try to encourage as many people as possible to raise the issue with them - so we started broad - but the template email is only a starting point for what you want to say!

Done, to my tory, Labour and lib dem candidates.

I made some changes to mine:

• Do you recognise that there are two and only two sexes, male and female, and the law should recognise that there are situations where this matters?
• If elected, will you stand up for single-sex services and sports?
• Do you agree that the Equality Act should be made clearer, to provide protection against discrimination based on biological sex?
• Will you commit not to lower the requirements for gender transition?
• Do you agree that freedom of speech about sex and gender is important?
• Will you meet with “gender-critical” groups and constituents if you are elected to Parliament?
• Will you support the rights of women to assemble as a sex without the presence of males?
• Do you support the banning of sex hormones for minors as recommended by the Cass report?

The link for the Stand Up For Single Sex Services campaign didn't work for me, but I found it here.

https://sex-matters.org/stand-up-for-single-sex-services/

I'm wondering about the wording of a couple of these points.

The point about the Equality Act seems a bit vague. Shouldn't we be asking about clarifying that 'sex' in the Equality Act means 'biological sex'?

And why only ask them not to bring in gender self-ID 'through the back door', when some parties are blatant about wanting to change the GRA to self-ID?

This is what the LibDem manifesto says:

Reform the gender recognition process to remove the requirement for medical
reports, recognise non-binary identities in law, and remove the spousal veto.

They don't want to bring in gender self-ID 'through the back door', they want to bring it in through the main entrance to a loud fanfare, so they could honestly say that they "commit not to bring in gender self-ID through the back door" even though they are totally in favour of self-ID.

Good points @OldCrone

The GRC is self ID by the back door because we can't ask to see it.

In that case don't we already have self-ID?