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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Founder of Surrey Pride charged with child sex abuse

400 replies

CriticalCondition · 15/08/2024 20:41

Gosh. I remember this person from a few years ago when Starbucks was doing its Mermaid biscuits campaign. A local councillor (?) raised her concerns about safeguarding at Mermaids and he had a real go at her.

BBC News - Surrey Pride founder faces child sex abuse charges
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0k4g6ek3xvo

Staines Magistrates' Court.

Surrey Pride founder and volunteer facing child sex abuse charges

Stephen Ireland and David Sutton, both from Addlestone, were arrested on Wednesday.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0k4g6ek3xvo

OP posts:
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MrsOvertonsWindow · 16/08/2024 15:24

RantyMcRanterton · 16/08/2024 13:30

Oh but where are our usual scolders, to tell us off for being untoward towards paedophiles?

Indeed. Or scolding women for "weaponising child safeguarding".

Well that's where those accusations directly lead. To predators believing they have support and cover from adults disinterested in safeguarding children but oh so keen to silence women and good men. .

Hairyesterdaygonetoday · 16/08/2024 15:37

StickItInTheFamilyAlbum · 15/08/2024 21:31

I remember this person from a few years ago when Starbucks was doing its Mermaid biscuits campaign

Is this the story?

A Green Party candidate accused of “promoting transphobic myths” after making comments about “the rampant promotion of transgenderism in young children” has offered her “unreserved apology”.
Sharon Galliford made the comments in a Facebook post on February 8 when she shared an article in the National Review headlined ‘Starbucks’s Shameful Child Sex-Change Campaign’.
The article was referring to Starbucks’ advert on Channel 4, which shows a young trans man using his name for the first time when buying a coffee. Starbucks worked with trans kids charity Mermaids on the ad and is fundraising for Mermaids’ helpline by selling mermaid-tail cookies in UK stores.
“There are some very serious questions to be asked around the rampant promotion of transgenderism in young children,” said Galliford, who is the Green Party parliamentary candidate for Surrey Heath.
“Safeguarding and expert psychological support and consultation are the very bare minimum that should be insisted upon. Mermaids’ reputation is that it has a different agenda.”

Stephen Ireland, founder of Pride in Surrey, said: “Pride in Surrey has always and will always be fully inclusive. We are deeply saddened and shocked by Sharon Galliford’s remarks against the incredible charity Mermaids as well as our trans family members.
“We stand with Mermaids whose work of genderqueer/variant/trans young people is inspirational but also vital. One in three trans young people try to take their own lives (and those are only the ones we know about, it might be even higher) and Mermaids are desperately trying to change that and are absolutely saving lives.”
Ireland also invited Galliford to meet with Pride in Surrey so “we can educate you into how damaging your words are but also so you realise that your views are not that of those in Surrey Heath”.

https://www.thepinknews.com/2020/02/13/green-party-starbucks-transphobic-kids-sharon-galliford-surrey-heath/

Edited

A Green Party candidate had the guts to speak up against promotion of transgenderism to children? That really does surprise and impress me. I see she backed down in the face of the abuse she received. But good on her for trying, in such a hostile setting as the Green Party.

MsNeis · 16/08/2024 15:51

Well, this confirms it for me: anyone who has issues with safeguarding is a safeguarding issue...

Ingenieur · 16/08/2024 16:40

Marchingonagain · 16/08/2024 07:51

This guy is obviously evil (assuming guilty, which seems likely) and I find the whole trans thing worrying, but I don’t understand the anti-Pride sentiment in this thread. It sounds homophobic. Am I missing something?

Other posters have covered this well, but I'd like to add that LGBTQ+ organisations - including these monsters specifically - seek to create "safe spaces" which encourage children to discuss sex and sexuality away from families and other safeguarding structures.

In particular I've been called a bigot for questioning why LGBTQ+ groups are needed in school, or chatlines etc. and to know what they discuss, who monitors it etc.

Among all the other things going on, it's just another example of not being able to question obvious and dangerous behaviour before it becomes a problem. Pre-emption is the essence of safeguarding.

ArabellaScott · 16/08/2024 16:52

Yes. Here's another tweet.

Founder of Surrey Pride charged with child sex abuse
Chariothorses · 16/08/2024 16:56

safeguarding from men and privacy/ boundaries of women and children...Reminded me of Stonewall calling lesbians 'sexual racists' and this BBC article about lesbians under pressure to have sex with men who say they are women excluded from Pride events for not submitting:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-57853385

CriticalCondition · 16/08/2024 16:58

I can't get this out of my head today. These charges are just so awful. I know they are unproven and will have to be tested in court but every new revelation - that a trustee raised concerns about his behaviour and was shouted down and had to resign, that he was a patron of the now defunct Educate and Celebrate, that Pride in Surrey tried to get PCC Lisa Townsend sacked - the potential horror of the situation just piles up.

And it struck me too that this small organisation has not one but two men facing these horrific charges. It's not clear what their 'work'/personal relationship was or the status of the other man apart from being a 'volunteer'. If found guilty Pride in Surrey will doubtless try spinning one such man in its midst as a terrible misfortune but two? I would look forward to hearing how they explain that away.

OP posts:
ArabellaScott · 16/08/2024 17:08

Also quoting this from the ex trustee:

'There are still some in the organisation that like young boys, how long before they are outed and dismissed?'

Chariothorses · 16/08/2024 17:13

I would guess the alleged CSA cases that have come to light with regards to males who say they are women/ trans or high profile trans campaigners in recent years are just the tip of the iceberg. We know that only a tiny fraction of child abuse victims speak up at the time - often it is only decades later- and currently it's such a hostile environment if you speak up against anything to do with trans many victims will stay silent.

Imagine being a child in this situation- who are you going to ask for help? School? NSPCC? Childline? Church? LGBT support group? Police? medical staff? Social worker? Every single one is trained by trans lobby groups, plasters trans flags all over their website and offices and sometimes staff badges too.

Many child abusers are only stopped when the offender is arrested for an unrelated issue and police realise what he is doing and involve social services. Even then the child will be reluctant to speak up- fear, threats, loyalty to the offender, knowing the 'authorities' celebrate everything 'trans' not you- hardly conducive to giving evidence. And offenders know it.

OneOfThoseOldFashionedWomen · 16/08/2024 17:19

Imagine being a child in this situation- who are you going to ask for help? School? NSPCC? Childline? Church? LGBT support group? Police? medical staff? Social worker? Every single one is trained by trans lobby groups, plasters trans flags all over their website and offices and sometimes staff badges too

This needs reposting.

It is just awful that this is the situation.

MikkyMo · 16/08/2024 17:20

Chariothorses · 16/08/2024 13:08

Reminds me of the police officer Diana Alastair on x pointing out the links no one likes to acknowledge any more. In full below for those not on x..

For anyone who doesn’t know, I’m a law enforcement officer with experience investigating both homicides and sex crimes. When I was a rookie in 2007, there was a clear understanding that crossdressing men in women’s spaces were often there for sexual reasons, and that if we were called to deal with one, he was to be trespassed from the premises if the owner/manager requested it (meaning criminal charges would be filed if he returned), and any women who were in the bathroom with him would be questioned to make sure they hadn’t been harassed or assaulted. After that, assuming no one had been assaulted and wanted to press charges, he would be released with a verbal warning to stay out of women’s bathrooms. When I started working sex crimes in 2015, it was still understood that crossdressers did it for sexual reasons, and common knowledge that transvestitic fetishism is often found in men who display other predatory sexual behaviors. (I would also estimate that roughly 50% of the hard drives containing child sexual abuse material that I had to go through in my time there also contained images or video of the hard drive’s (male) owner dressed in women’s or adult-sized toddler/infant clothing of some kind.) By the time I made Homicide in 2017, you could hear the first rumblings of the impending eruption of narcissism and delusion, if you were paying close attention. I wasn’t, but you know what they say about hindsight being 20/20. Between 2016 and 2018, I went to multiple law enforcement seminars and training events related to sexually motivated homicide, and from 2018-2020, I took classes in abnormal psych through a program my department has established with a local university. At the seminars and training events, if speakers or instructors discussed killers like BTK or Col. Russell Williams (both of whom were crossdressers), they would discuss the rest of the subject’s psychology and case file in depth, but skirt around the issue of their TF with a deliberately casual, deliberately brief comment not designed to invite further questions. When I tried to ask questions about the relationship between a killer’s TF and their crimes anyway (not out of TERFery; at the time, I knew basically nothing about the tactics or goals of the trans rights movement; I was interested only out of professional curiosity) I was either ignored or given the beginning of an answer that sometimes started out strong, but by the end of the reply had inevitably gone off the rails. No answer I was ever given had any real relationship to my actual questions. There was a very obvious reluctance to go beyond recounting the bones of this part of these particular cases, and very little discussion of the part TF played in the motive or the psychology of the killers, a reluctance that was especially obvious when discussing crimes with a clear sexual aspect. Certainly no instructor ever tried to draw a link between a suspect’s TF and elements of the crime. It was frustrating, but I chalked it up to personal feelings on the part of the speakers and instructors, who had clearly been uncomfortable discussing the subject - something I didn’t then understand, and which puzzled me. The link between TF and sexually inappropriate and/or predatory behavior has never been a secret in law enforcement circles, and it seemed odd for them to be so reluctant to discuss what was basically common knowledge. In my first abnormal sexual psych class, it was worse. Any time the subject came up, the professor would say something like “this is what we used to think, but recent studies have proven that TW are no threat to other women and that TF/AGP doesn’t exist/affects natal women also.” (He went back and forth on that one).

Wow, interesting. How did this ideology get so powerful, who exactly was behind all this?

TempestTost · 16/08/2024 17:30

The problem is with the naive (at best) cheerleaders who say that sex is great, there should be no boundaries, no limits, anybody objecting to anything another person wants to do is being a prude and preventing them from being their authentic self, which is literal violence etc etc. All of which makes life for the predators incredibly easy and will attract them like wasps to a jampot.

It also creates predators, I believe.

It's become unfashionable to ay it - largely due to the whole "born this way" thing - but human sexuality is highly culturally influenced. Many many people have sexual thoughts or desires, maybe particularly during adolescence, that are not really morally or socially acceptable. This is why we have to build social boundaries around these things. We can see from history that it's not just naturally obvious, many societies have condoned things as normal we would say are immoral.

People including teens do learn to suppress and work around certain bad thoughts, and insofar as they manage they avoid reinforcing those desires and behaviours. Yes, some people do not manage even knowing that it is wrong, but if they don't try, then it will inevitably get worse. When we indulge thoughts with a sexual payoff, it becomes harder not to think about those things.

When people are told that sexual desire is always ok, or all sexual thoughts are ok because they are just thoughts, or love is love, or they need to be "authentically" live out their true selves, that sex is fun leisure and not that big a deal - that affects how they behave, the kinds of things they allow themselves to think about, the thrills they seek out.

With the stuff that people, including developing teens, have been taught about this, since at least the 1980s, I am not at all surprised if there is a huge increase in paraphilias.

And It makes sense that people who believe all that stuff and want to live it out will include many people who indulge in dodgy behaviour.

StickItInTheFamilyAlbum · 16/08/2024 17:49

One of the biases that I freely acknowledge is that all of these news stories, from ERCC to the current difficulties besetting Surrey Pride have a failure of adequate governance at their heart.

You can't have governance if you can't challenge or perform due diligence about safeguarding and other crucial matters. You can not have sacred castes and be said to have adequate governance as these are mutually contradictory.

Governance strikes people as dull and nothing but tick boxes and red tape but bad governance is at the heart of many scandals.

Flumpetty · 16/08/2024 17:52

I did feel sorry for Sharon Galliford at the time, although I wish she hadn't backed down I imagine it would be very hard not to as a member of the Green Party. I think she was very naive (or stupid) not to realise as a Green member and councillor what her party's position was and what would happen if she made that type of comment.
She doesn't seem to post on Twitter any more.

Chariothorses · 16/08/2024 17:59

It also links to attempts by trans lobby groups to ban 'conversion of gender identity' - as this removes safeguarding and boundaries . As before abuse takes full hold, there's often a gradual escalation of boundary breaking and grooming.
And the people who can spot this will be family members- a grandfather who tells his son not to watch porn in front of the children, a friend who challenges a man who says he's a woman and wants to access spaces where women/ girls are undressed (including his daughter at home), a wife who says her husband's clothing showing a penis / fetish outfits are inappropriate in front of children.

Some of these things are already seen at pride events and the recent CPS guidance showed just how far attempts to enable sexual abuse by transpeople and criminalise family members has gone.
policyexchange.org.uk/publication/the-crown-prosecution-services-approach-to-transgenderism/

StickItInTheFamilyAlbum · 16/08/2024 18:07

On the topic of the CPS, Sophie Cook seems to have disproportionate influence within the CPS and may have influenced the shift towards Stonewall Law rather than actual law as noted by the Policy Exchange item.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4561116-cps-appoints-trans-activist-who-was-critical-of-women

www.faircop.org.uk/the-captured-prosecution-service/

MrsOvertonsWindow · 16/08/2024 18:45

StickItInTheFamilyAlbum · 16/08/2024 18:07

On the topic of the CPS, Sophie Cook seems to have disproportionate influence within the CPS and may have influenced the shift towards Stonewall Law rather than actual law as noted by the Policy Exchange item.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4561116-cps-appoints-trans-activist-who-was-critical-of-women

www.faircop.org.uk/the-captured-prosecution-service/

If I recall correctly there was some surprise about Cook's lack of relevant qualifications for working in an organisation that oversees criminal prosecutions in this country. An organisation that requires "Prosecutors must be fair, objective and independent". Yet appoints someone with an open bias against women who know that sex is real.
The same theme repeated in almost all of our institutions - individuals with limited or no experience in an area - medicine, education, the law, the civil service - yet given excessive power to influence policy and practice. Institutions then abandon all critical thinking, professional standards and safeguarding as they pander to activist demands.
It really is the stuff for a public enquiry.

Mochudubh · 16/08/2024 18:47

@StickItInTheFamilyAlbum

I like to think I have a fairly strong stomach but that Der Spiegel piece made me feel physically sick.

Signalbox · 16/08/2024 20:12

Isn't there a conflict of interest here what with Surrey Police attending Pride in Surrey award ceremonies and attending Pride in Surrey marches and receiving DEI training from SI and listing Pride in Surrey as a partner on their website? None of this feels very impartial.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 16/08/2024 20:26

Signalbox · 16/08/2024 20:12

Isn't there a conflict of interest here what with Surrey Police attending Pride in Surrey award ceremonies and attending Pride in Surrey marches and receiving DEI training from SI and listing Pride in Surrey as a partner on their website? None of this feels very impartial.

You'd think so wouldn't you? But these people don't seem to operate on an ethical basis judging by these repeated revelations.

lonelywater · 16/08/2024 20:43

MikkyMo · 16/08/2024 17:20

Wow, interesting. How did this ideology get so powerful, who exactly was behind all this?

ive been wondering about exactly this for a while now. We know that paedo apologists like Foucault, Thatchell , Butler et al have been beavering away in the background for decades now. The timeline of the IOC binning sex tests in1999 hardly looks benign either. Hard to escape the notion that queer theory has been burrowing all over the place (academia, the arts, the police, sport administration, politics-you name it-fucking everywhere) like death watch beetles for much longer than we think.

Katkins17 · 16/08/2024 20:46

This is so disturbing that it keeps happening.

My son is gay and he said he's never felt so uncomfortable since he came out, or when he's with his partner, because of constant news reports of gay men or trans identifying men being charged with having child porn, or assault and abuse.

StickItInTheFamilyAlbum · 16/08/2024 21:26

Mochudubh · 16/08/2024 18:47

@StickItInTheFamilyAlbum

I like to think I have a fairly strong stomach but that Der Spiegel piece made me feel physically sick.

It hasn't left me since I read it. It's an example of just how badly individuals and social movements can mislead and deceive ourselves/themselves.

The past few years has given horrendous insight into why the parents didn't feel that they could trust or express their misgivings and were so apprehensive about being seen to be out of touch, sex negative, and anti the arc of progression.

MsNeis · 16/08/2024 22:55

CriticalCondition · 16/08/2024 16:58

I can't get this out of my head today. These charges are just so awful. I know they are unproven and will have to be tested in court but every new revelation - that a trustee raised concerns about his behaviour and was shouted down and had to resign, that he was a patron of the now defunct Educate and Celebrate, that Pride in Surrey tried to get PCC Lisa Townsend sacked - the potential horror of the situation just piles up.

And it struck me too that this small organisation has not one but two men facing these horrific charges. It's not clear what their 'work'/personal relationship was or the status of the other man apart from being a 'volunteer'. If found guilty Pride in Surrey will doubtless try spinning one such man in its midst as a terrible misfortune but two? I would look forward to hearing how they explain that away.

But of course: they (alleged) - predators - look for and recognise each other. It's not a casuality that there were two of them (if indeed they are predators), but a given: there's never just one of them and, if you dig enough, they run like cockroaches.

MsNeis · 16/08/2024 22:58

Katkins17 · 16/08/2024 20:46

This is so disturbing that it keeps happening.

My son is gay and he said he's never felt so uncomfortable since he came out, or when he's with his partner, because of constant news reports of gay men or trans identifying men being charged with having child porn, or assault and abuse.

I'm really sorry for your son and others like him 💐 It really is disturbing and unfair.