Helen Joyce asks very pertinent questions about SEEN.

[Omlettes]

I share her concerns and questions, because we are creating more and more special interest groups without knowing how they operate , what they do, and what will be their future motivations.
Particularly in the police.

"What can the newly founded SEENs (Sex Equality and Equity Networks) learn from the history of workplace affinity groups?"
https://www.thehelenjoyce.com/joyce-activated-issue-89/

After the last 6 years my concern is with any group ever that isnt transparent to the public,with the exception of nationalsecurity and intelligence.
Given the endless Mission Creep we have endured I have no problem being cautious about groups and to question their dynamics.
One SEEN might be fabulous thanks to the individuals involved, another may not for similar reasons.
I appreciate people get defensive about tribes, now more than ever,
but have we learnt nothing from all this that will help us ensure capture doesnt happen again?
It has nothing to do with SEEN per se and its the defensive overprotectiveness that allows it, intentionally or not, I dont see why this is so hard to understand.
You might be au fait with the inner workings and issues, but not others.

But she's talking about the whole structure of workplaces affinity groups and whether it's fit for purpose.

It's not really about waiting to criticize SEEN when they've done something wrong.

Part of what she's suggesting is the nature and set up of these kinds of groups is what caused the problem that SEEN is trying to solve. There was a parallel power structures created - as in her example of the favelas - that then required the set up of another group (SEEN) to try and create another locus of power to create some balance.

If that's true, setting up yet another group on the same model may not actually be the best solution - what should happen is these groups need to be looked at as a whole to see if the model is actually useful. Or what would need to happen to make them robust, if such a thing is possible.

I'd suggest one big issue is that what ties the people in these groups together is pretty tenuous, and many in the workplace may not choose to be involved much. Nor do they have the ability to challenge the leadership if it is not representing them in the way they want.

If you consider all the real problems unions have with their leadership, when you have a group with no need at all from a mandate from all the people it is meant to represent, it's difficult to see how it could be effective.

Why are you focused on SEEN and not other staff groups?

Not a personal attack, Omlettes, but an impassioned response from someone who's seen what it's taken to begin to hold the MOD to account after its trans takeover.

What could your motive possibly be for undermining the nascent fight-back going on within the NHS, HR, the civil service, journalism? I don't for a second believe your 'but they could go over the other side in a heartbeat' BS. One can't help wondering if a fifth columnist, knowing they're a fifth columnist, sees fifth columnists everywhere...

I'm sick of women trying to undermine the fightback from within.

How is anyone to get the bad ju ju out if nobody can assemble to get the bad ju ju out?

It's a conundrum.

The sort of conundrum a TRA might try and stick their oar into.

Posters here, and Joyce, railing against SEEN, aren't coming up with solutions. Imagine this is where you work:

DEFRA
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13216821/lawyer-defra-seen-sued-gender-critical-beliefs.html

HMPPS
x.com/noxyinxxprisons/status/1594111361692225537?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust
news.sky.com/story/nurses-suing-their-employer-for-allowing-trans-women-to-use-their-changing-rooms-13160104
NSPCC/Childline
uncommongroundmedia.com/nspcc-employee-films-himself-masturbating-at-work/

GIDS
www.thetimes.com/uk/article/gender-identity-clinic-whistleblower-wins-damages-for-vilification-cwj2m3t0s

What are you to do exactly?

If that's true, setting up yet another group on the same model may not actually be the best solution - what should happen is these groups need to be looked at as a whole to see if the model is actually useful. Or what would need to happen to make them robust, if such a thing is possible.

And in the meantime? In the 5-7 years it'll take to implement any useful change?

SEEN is a temporary antidote to the madness going on as a result of the transgender takeover of so many DEI departments. No one I've ever met via the SEEN network has indicated that they expect SEEN to keep going once the pendulum has swung back and everyone once again accepts that sex is real, people can't change sex and women need to have single sex spaces.

This OP's opening thread didn't suggest a theoretical debate about the nature of affinity groups in organisations and how you support minorities who are still on the receiving end of prejudice and discrimination. The OP was specific about SEEN and fears for where it might end up.

Well, one thing you aren't to do, apparently, is set up a group for concerned colleagues whose voices have been silenced individually in the hope that together you will be heard. Because if you do that you're apparently halfway to taking over the world and doing something terrible. Apparently. Best to sit back silently and suffer.

I mean, how do people generally deal with workplace issues?

Unions, generally, I guess, though they are shitty at it now.

What amounts to two unions, with no responsible leadership, duking it out? Either the employer will have to decide to mediate their dispute, or it will come down to which has the most power to influence the employer or even force a certain decision.

The article the OP linked is clearly about the nature of affinity groups.

Neither HJ nor anyone here is suggesting shutting down any affinity group this instant.

You however seem to be trying to shut down any discussion of whether the concept of workplace affinity groups is problematic or unworkable.

What do you think someone reading this thread, who was thinking of contacting their relevant SEEN tomorrow, will think after reading some of the paranoid nonsense rolled out on this thread? 'OMG', perhaps? 'Can't trust anyone, clearly. If Helen Joyce is warning against them I won't get involved...'

Really annoyed with Helen. I said earlier that her lack of hinterland on this subject shows at times, and this is one of them.

Imagine this is your union:

PCS
PCS Union Conference had 2 motions saying Cass Review was just woke war - one brave woman spoke against both - Jan Baxter www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/5083781-pcs-union-conference-had-2-motions-saying-cass-review-was-just-woke-war-one-brave-woman-spoke-against-both-jan-baxter

NEU
x.com/journalismseen/status/1776503043359424642?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

BMA
www.bma.org.uk/bma-media-centre/bma-to-undertake-an-evaluation-of-the-cass-review-on-gender-identity-services-for-children-and-young-people

What are you to do?

Exactly. But don't join SEEN, you can't be certain that they don't have plans for total global domination.

Once they've finished being sued on a personal basis, I'm sure it's next on the list

I suspect that anyone planning on contacting a SEEN group for their profession tomorrow will already be well acquainted with the tactics used against anyone standing up for women’s right to single-sex female-only provision, both against individuals standing up for women and groups standing up for women. If they haven’t already been deterred by whatever smear campaign has been mounted against SEEN in their workplace, then I’d be surprised if this “oh no! what if SEEN end up continuing to exist as a network even after discrimination against women, same-sex oriented individuals and those with gender critical beliefs has been eradicated in the workplace?” thread would deter them.

For what it’s worth, I found HJ’s article interesting, as it articulated some patterns of behaviour I’ve observed in staff networks and it applied a description/ concept to those behaviours/patterns.

It strikes me that, if the OP had titled their thread “pertinent questions about workplace staff networks” instead of focusing it on SEEN specifically, the thread could have developed into a much more interesting discussion.

👏👏👏

I've not observed anyone senior in any of the places with a SEEN, loudly and proudly saying they're a SEEN ally, brandishing a lanyard or a badge, or gushing about their SEEN on SM.

Seems the SEENs are just about tolerated. Not expecting those "oligarchy" days to happen in my lifetime.

The OP hasn't actually specified what it is these pertinent questions are. They are just vaguebooking to flick shit on anyone who might be wanting to try and get this vile ideology out of the workplace.

I don't think anyone is "railing against SEEN". We're in a dire situation in many workplaces, and a means for people to come together to try to reverse the policy capture and underlying false consensus in their institutions is certainly welcome and needed. But that's not to say there aren't good and relevant questions to ask about the end game.

I'm old enough to remember Stonewall being a force for much good in workplaces. I got into trouble many years ago for distributing one of their questionnaires in my then workplace (it was a questionnaire about workplace discrimination, it was the mid-90s and they were planning to campaign for a Sexual Orientation Discrimination Act). It would never have occurred to me then that Stonewall would become part of the establishment, a bullying organisation arguing against the rights of the very people they were set up to promote.

When my own workplace instituted an LGBT network (about 15 years ago) I thought it was a very good thing. Similarly, if you'd told me that network would become almost entirely a vehicle for promoting gender woo, represented on all relevant committees and claiming to speak for all "LGBT+" employees, listened to by management and a core part of my workplace's EDI strategy, I wouldn't have believed you.

I hope the SEEN groups flourish and do well. I hope they're the beginning of bringing sanity back to our captured institutions, and I'm full of admiration for the volunteers who are working so hard, in difficult circumstances and without resources, to set them up. But I don't think that should stop us asking the questions that Helen Joyce raises, about the end game. As I understand it, her piece is a talk she gave at a gathering of SEEN activists, organised and resourced by Sex Matters. It's about discussion and debate, not trying to undermine or stop anything.

The "pertinent questions" are helpfully set out by Joyce:

"what are they for? In the short term, are they aiming to gain the same benefits, voice and access to decision-making as the existing LGBT+ group and women’s group – or are they hoping to limit those groups’ influence? What’s their medium-term plan to avoid becoming a toxic virtue-signal, an oligarchy or a parallel power?
And finally, in the long term, what would success look like, and what’s the exit strategy?"

Really though, we might ask the same of Sex Matters. Especially after KPSS closed. And given no other groups like SM supported SSA and James Esses in their efforts to hold a public inquiry into gender ideology after Cass - a window we've now arguably missed. IIRC FPFW did retweet SSA but that was all. Everyone else pretended it wasn't happening. Why? Would such an inquiry remove the need for SM and similar organisations? Maybe stimulate a conversation about their "exit strategy"?

When my own workplace instituted an LGBT network (about 15 years ago) I thought it was a very good thing. Similarly, if you'd told me that network would become almost entirely a vehicle for promoting gender woo, represented on all relevant committees and claiming to speak for all "LGBT+" employees, listened to by management and a core part of my workplace's EDI strategy, I wouldn't have believed you.

Did you really have an LGBT network 15 years ago? In 2009? I think it was far more likely you had an LGB network. I was involved with Stonewall in 2009 (on one of their regional committees) and the T wasn't appearing attached to LGB at that time.

The question that needs answering is when, and how and who added the T to your network, and why did those of you involved let it happen? Did you vote to allow the T to join? Did you protest at the time? Far more important to understand how that happened and to be sure you won't let it happen again than speculate on the basis that because Stonewall, with its huge financial resources and staff and friends in high places went to the bad, SEEN's volunteer workforce will do the same. It's a false analogy. Stonewall adopted the T in 2015 because its LGB work was done and it needed something new to work on. SEEN has emerged in response to a pressing need.

Another purity spiral

Watch out @ResisterOfTwaddleRex,there's some on here who seem to think SM are beyond reproach.

I know @TheMamaBear. But I think safeguarding (and preventing the state from falsifying documents) comes first and therefore I'm pro-Repeal, not pro-making a deal with AGPS.

SEENs are necessary for protecting people who work with the most vulnerable, in order for them to speak at work. But - like Sex Matters - that can't be the end. We have to keep going.