Melanie Field: the former EGRC expert behind Labour's women's rights policy

[LetsTalkTwaddle]

Word has it that Melanie Field, who was one of those behind an attempt to oust Baroness Kishwar Falkner from her position heading the EHRC, is the woman who is telling Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner what to say when asked about women's rights.

Last year Kishwar Falkner came under attack for alleged bullying and transphobia, which she was later cleared of. Melanie Field left the EHRC thereafter and set up as an independent adviser. It's Field, I'm told, who is behind the 'biological women and other, traumatised and vulnerable women who've been born in the wrong body' line that Keir Starmer et al are trotting out.

Field has also written an article on why the Equality Act is just fine and needs no clarification: she was apparently one of the key people who drafted it.

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/melanie-field-389901148

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/do-we-need-amend-equality-act-protect-womens-rights-melanie-field-dyewe?trk=publicprofilearticleview

The previous head of the EHRC was David Isaac who also acted as Chair of Stonewall during the time he was in official office. Melanie Field was working in the EHRC during his period in the EHRC.

Elsewhere GC groups have noticed that Stonewall and other trans groups have gone very quiet about the use of the phrase 'biological women', which they would once have protested about, because TWAW. There's speculation that Stonewall and allies have agreed to pipe down in order to enable Labour to pursue the 'Biological and other women' line.

'it's from Melanie field and it relates um namely to the longer answer that you
gave about the um the toilets and it what she says is 'surely your analysis only holds when the trans person doesn't have a GRC?''

Thank you @ArabellaScott!

If you can access Twix, Legal Feminist have also done a thread on Melanie Field's blog that I thoroughly recommend. (Sorry if it's already been linked but I can't see it):
https://x.com/legalfeminist/status/1807398341132615683

It's a long thread and I'm afraid I don't have time to copy it all but here's one of my favourite posts:

'If Field is right that the balance between trans rights and others' rights were carefully considered and also that sex in the EqA means "actual sex, except where modified by a GRC", the only possible inference is that those who framed the Act were intent on confusion and chaos.'

I wish I could skewer half as elegantly as they can. It's kind of comforting to know they're on the case.

'The only effect of GRCs in discrimination law is to put a spanner in the works of the EqA, creating all the absurdities mentioned above. Sex discrimination law (exceptions and all) worked fine before the GRA. The effect of the proposed amendment is to remove the spanner.'

Some people are determined to hold onto that spanner as hard as they can.

'Many police forces (and until recently the @PoliceChiefs) operate policies under which any male police officer who says he is a woman may intimately search a female suspect whether or not he has a GRC.'

JFC

Here's an unroll of the twitter thread for anyone who wants a wee read - it's very interesting:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1807398341132615683.html

Third thought. On 27 June Stonewall removed crossdressing from under its trans umbrella and has now gone uncharacteristically quiet. So any man who presents as female that they don't like the look of — Isla Bryson, for example — can be categorised as just a crossdresser, while Eddie Izzard, say, is trans. So the 'good' men in women's clothing are transgender, and the 'bad' ones are 'just' crossdressers and nothing to do with the transgender movement.

I'd seen references to this statement by Stonewall about 'cross-dressers', but hadn't twigged the significance. So this is no more than an attempt to artificially separate into sheep and goats, so they can say, nuffink to do with us, guv? 💡

Sorry, I missed this before. I'll try and expand.

Marriage, marriage laws, and also marriage customs (which in some places are what govern marriage rather than bureaucracy as with our system) are big picture things. They exist in society largely as a way to address the results of procreation, and also inherent disparities that happen between the sexes in marriage. It provides some benefit to individuals, but even more, it's about the benefit to society of creating customary or legal obligations between parents of children.

The question of individuals being fertile or infertile isn't really something that is usually queried directly, it's assumed that most people are fertile, and that the rules will be effective in the main. It's also going to be quite impractical, or even impossible historically, to guess who will be infertile - it would require a lot of effort for little benefit. (That being said there have certainly been societies/times where infertility or impotence is grounds to dissolve a marriage.)

It's only quite recently that it became possible to easily avoid having children while sexually active. It's not been a very common circumstance historically.

Anyway, the main issue here is about how the law sees sex, or reproductive role. There are people who argue that the reason that it is wrong not to recognize SSM is that it is discrimination on the basis of sex - that there can be no recognition of sex by the state as a legitimate legal category. As legal entities, they feel, we are all effectively neuter.

Now, I think this is not clearly legally true in the UK, but it does for example seem to be true in some other places where SSM laws were changed by the courts, and there are lots of people who think that way even in the UK, and extrapolate it to other areas.

Mainly these are people who have accepted that sex does not significant affect on people's lives, or at least that it shouldn't and when it does it's because of sexism and should be stamped out. They believe that in an ideal world without sexism there would be no real difference between men and women apart from genitalia. (This idea is by a long way more common on the left, among progressives.) If bodies aren't important in our lives, they don't need to be important in our social institutions, or laws.

Another way to think about it is around the idea you mentioned - even if marriage exists mainly as a cultural way to manage sexual reproduction, what difference does it make to include ss couples? It would still do that, just as when it happens to include infertile couples.

That's certainly possible, but it still leaves the possibility of defining situations where sex is important to certain institutions or customs. If we've said it's sexual discrimination to differentiate at all, that's going to mean there will be no situations where it's acceptable.

I feel like this is a bit rambling, I hope it clarifies what I mean a bit.

Really, I think part of the issue with this is the liberal left tended to see it as a question of individuals rights. Whereas conservatives say it as a social-institutional question about how to structure male-female relations. They tend to talk past each other as a result.

Well I think so, but a lot of people don't. Look at all the people who really believe men and women can compete in sports together. Or that sexual disparities in the workplace will be solved if culture changes and men have exactly the same child-caring roles as women.-

They see it as sexual discrimination.

Of course all the cross dressers have now evolved into "trans women" now.

Especially considering the only difference is that one might - might - be extreme enough to take exogenous hormones or, less likely, get surgeries.

Thank you. Well worth a read. I'm so glad they're on our side.

I wonder what Debbie Hayton will have to say about that! He is, unequivocally, a self-confessed cross dresser. Freely admits that it's a sexual fetish. Has written the book about it.

He also identifies, unequivocally again, as a transwoman. Opining, endlessly, in the media about it.

But, according to Stonewall, no he isn't!

(first time ever I've looked forward to his next article).

He calls himself AGP, I guess, not a "cross dresser". I expect he thinks that term has more gravitas.

He'll have to modify his language if he wants to keep in with the Righteous Ones.

He'll have to claim that wearing stereotypically women's clothes is part of being a transwoman and keep schtum about the fetish.

But a reminder that they do have "the cross dresser route" to getting a female passport without medical input. Wonder if that will go of course it won't

Thanks for doing that!

So essentially, trans rights as a policy movement will ditch the embarrassing elements and do ‘respectability politics’. Rights movements (using that term completely neutrally) tend to do this when they have to acknowledge that they are facing powerful opponents and the public is not with them. But that’s also when they tend to reap big policy wins.

See e.g. the history of civil rights in the US and affirmative action in the 1960s. Most white Americans came to support racial equality and abhor segregation but were not in favour of what many of them regarded as the ‘reverse discrimination’ of affirmative action which was enabled by the civil rights legislation of the mid-1960s. It remains a hotly contested issue.

That’s an easy one. Apparently Stonewall have indicated they don’t welcome cross dressers or transvestites or AGP paraphiliacs under their multi coloured umbrella any more. Well, not under those names, like EddiSue they will just have to say they are trans. I mean come on, to be fair, that isn’t as big a jump as saying a man with lippy and size ten sling back shoes is a woman.

What a tissue of folklore of cases men quote constantly to justify their incursion.

That's all it is, this man paid to get a judge to say this and this man paid another judge to say that and out they roll their gossamer thin justification for going where they want. They bought this carapace of lies.

It's all pathetic. I thought lefties hated money buying privileges.

The lefty liberals use hard right free market extortionate litigation to force submission. Money talks when you are a lefty law user. The despised free market gets a free pass when left wing people want to use other peoples money to get their own way.

Hypocrisy. Starmer is the the chief hypocrite that will keep this gravy train on the road.

Yes, nothing, nothing matters more to these men (and a huge proportion of men in general) than being able to force the compliance of the service humans.

I' don't quite see what you are getting at here between the respectability politics angle, and the example with the civil rights movement? I do see what you mean about the big gains, I think.

Could you expand?

I should preface this by saying that I’m just an internet anon and not a political strategist. I should also say that I am not comparing the substance of civil rights for African Americans and trans rights - the dynamics between oppressed and dominant groups are very different. This is about the question that all political movements ask themselves: how do we get what we want?

The civil rights movement understood that it had to convince white liberals outside of the US South that theirs was a respectable, non-violent movement that was just asking for equality under the law. So civil rights marches were orderly, with well-dressed protesters and zero violence. Some activists derided this strategy as respectability politics, as it meant pandering to the prejudices of the majority. But it was successful.

You can argue that the trans rights movement until 2010 also embraced respectability politics. The GRA and the Equality Act were huge wins and arguably tilted the balance in favour of trans people, to the detriment of women. But the movement wants more. And it seems to me it thinks it can achieve more by using the same playbook.

But I am not sure this is going to work as a) the meaning of ‘trans’ is different - the number of people who identify as such is much larger now, and b) the TRAs have been exposed as quite radical in the past ten years.

Maybe the comparison with civil rights doesn’t really work. I brought it up as it’s often used as a case study for a successful social movement.

A better comparison might be of a movement that had its gains rolled back. I don’t think the current ‘compromise’ works for women.

I agree, Press for Change were very much about respectability politics when they lobbied the various UK media, civil service and government departments in the 2000s but since 2014 there has been a lot more queer theory and hard Left influence in genderism; activists today really seem to enjoy shock value tactics and forcing other people to put up with anti social behaviour. There’s also been a crossover with genderism and Antifa (and even incels) so physical intimidation of GC women (and anyone else who disagrees with you) is being normalised in activist circles. The internet has served to turn genderism and activism into youth subcultures in addition to political movements.

It’s a political and social hydra with many heads.

Incels certainly. You've only got to see the rows of young men (and a few women) in sunglasses, black balaclavas and masks screaming at women, and sometimes assaulting them. Which makes it pretty infuriating when you hear this 'toxic on all sides' bollix from politicians.