COE Rapporteur rights of LGBTI says transwomen are women and should be included in groups for lesbians

[IwantToRetire]

(Have only just seen this via LGB Alliance and know no more than what they have said.)

On Thursday 3 October 2024 a report on “Preventing and combating violence and discrimination against lesbian, bisexual and queer women in Europe” will be presented to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, of which the UK is a member.

The report will be presented by Rapporteur Beatrice Fresko-Rolfo. The report is 16 pages long and could be mistaken as a press release from the captured lobby group ILGA Europe or the TQ+ inclusive ELC – EuroCentralAsian Lesbian Community. In fact these are the two organisations who are quoted most frequently in the report.

The Rapporteur mentions LGB Alliance only once – saying:
“I also agreed to a virtual bilateral meeting with representatives of the LGB Alliance, with whom I expressed my disagreement on their decision to exclude lesbian transgender women from the LBQ women’s group. I reiterated that transgender women are women.” Section 3 para 20 ^https://pace.coe.int/en/files/33732/html^

Read their full statement at https://lgballiance.org.uk/pace-report-our-evidence/

They finish:

We invite you to contact any of your own country’s Representatives at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and draw their attention to this shocking example of bias in the democratic process.

(Is this the COE whose European Court of Human Rights we are all supposed to place such trust in?)

So they were talking to a brick wall then.

“I also agreed to a virtual bilateral meeting with representatives of the LGB Alliance, with whom I expressed my disagreement on their decision to exclude lesbian transgender women from the LBQ women’s group. I reiterated that transgender women are women.”

That's depressing.

How do these people keep a straight face. The cognitive dissonance you must have to overcome to state that a heterosexual man in a dress is a lesbian. Feels like the last days of Rome.

Well it's certainly akin to banging your head against a brick wall

It does feel like the self destructive spasms of the 'end of empire', when the Roman empire collapsed Europe was plunged into the dark ages for 1500 years. So we've got that to look forward too. 😒

Who gives her the right to give men the pass to violate our boundaries? I don’t remember electing her. Get lost with your edicts, we will not comply.

Barking.

Lesbians, here are men. Pretend and have sex with them. We said so.

That's going to work, isn't it? I mean that's absolutely going to make a non consenting woman take her knickers off and have sex she doesn't want, or attend a group where a bunch of men are harassing women and being annoying.

Incidentally many lesbian groups tried being kind and the group ended up disbanded when they discovered this was precisely what the men involved did.

Reminds me somewhat of the one or two posters who get their needs met by saying 'cis' at women to get them to patiently argue back at them, give them attention and let them have the fun of the game of nah nah you can't stop me saying words you don't agree with.

I mean you can get up people's noses by talking twaddle at them. You cannot make said twaddle pass into actual reality.

The depressing thing here is the background to this is talk of leaving the ECHR by the Tories and Reform.

The Far Right just won an election in Austria.

Are they not hearing themselves and how this is giving traction to this?

Isn't this kind of thing the reason why anyone is talking about that in the first place though?

It's seen by those people as problematic because is prevents the UK from managing it's own human rights matters as well as preserving the role of Parliament - elected representatives - in creating policy and legislation which concretely affect the citizens of the UK.

This kind of thing is just illustrating why that might be a concern, I don't think it's reasonable to complain that the concern with the principle has manifested concretely.

Maybe we should leave the ECHR, given that it seems that it's being used to deny women their humans rights.

The problem with that, is the purpose of leaving is about removing other rights, which wouldnt be in the interests of most. But the only thing that will be seen is this without thought as to how leaving with be an opportunity to strip other rights we DO want to keep....

Why does human rights so persistently mean men’s rights and not women’s?

Our system has gone wrong

As far as I am aware the Equality Act is compliant with the ECHR. This silly poor excuse for woman can proffer a view until she is red in the face, it does not change anything in our domestic protections. The LGB alliance is a registered charity despite spurious challenges to that.

Maybe we need a new distinction here on TERF island, I dunno, natal male lesbians (in theory)

NML’s could have their own group or charity promoting there rights to be called lesbians and their rights to (in theory) hangout with, date and maybe sleep with the broader community of natal female lesbians.

I mean this would be innovative wouldn’t it?

Would tickle me pink.

I don't know maybe it's just Monday blues but I'm really down in the dumps about this and I'm not even a lesbian.

I find the idea of forcing women who only fancy other women to accept men who are 'pretend women' as lesbian's, is totally obscene and my opinion of this women who's trying to force it on them is unprintable.

I still haven't read this in detail, but echo the feeling of despair.

All that fuss and outrage about the Tories wanting the UK to leave the ECHR, and it had seemed to be a last resort where straightforward by the rule of laws inform decisions.

But when you see this it just feels like another institution captured.

Not sure if the UK EA specifically refers to lesbian rights under the SSE, but would really like to know that lesbians can says that they are protected by the SSE.

In which case the proposal by the COE Rapporteur implies the ECHR proposal would mean a loss of rights for women in the UK, including lesbians.

@IwantToRetire Sexuality is a protected characteristic nationally and internationally. In all international jurisdictions.

hmmmmmmmmmm all international jurisdictions. .... aren't there quite few countries very actively attacking and worse both lesbians and gay men?

But if you are saying men can be women and as transwomen can claim to be lesbian, then that undermines the sex based rights of biologically female lesbians who are, as the name suggests, same SEX attracted.

So that's why I referred to the UK's SSE.

If they dont have the equivilent to SSE internationally, then effective lesbians are being told they should make themselves sexually available to men.

Hardly protecting lesbian sexualilty.

That is what LBG Alliance challenge to the ECHR is saying.

https://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/offices/uk-parliamentary-assemblies/pace-uk/uk-membership-pace/

UK members of COE - I think. I see Tonia Antoniazzi is on there.

Here's ILGA's statement about the membership of NAMBLA:

'In 1994, ILGA expelled NAMBLA and two other paedophile groups at its World Conference in New York. These groups had joined ILGA at an earlier stage of ILGA’s development, at a time when ILGA did not have in place administrative procedures to scrutinize the constitutions and policies of groups seeking membership. At no time, however, did ILGA support or endorse their positions, and these groups were expelled precisely because their aims were incompatible with those of ILGA.'

I'm not sure who the other group were.

https://ilga.org/news/ilga-ecosoc-status-controversy/

Edit: It wasn't PIE, sorry, I misremembered:

'Following this, by a vote of 214–30, ILGA expelled NAMBLA, Vereniging MARTIJN and Project Truth in early 1994 because they were judged to be "groups whose predominant aim is to support or promote pedophilia." In October 1994, the executive committee of ILGA suspended the membership of VSG (Association for Sexual Equality), a gay group in Munich, Germany, due to its vocal solidarity with NAMBLA and its refusal to purge pedophile members. Its membership was suspended until the next Annual Conference of ILGA in June 1995 when the matter could be dealt with in accordance to ILGA's constitution, namely, expulsion. VSG left ILGA in April 1995 and in 1998 dissolved itself. '

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILGA_consultative_status_controversy

There is no such thing as a Lesbian male. The more attention these guys get from their constant woman baiting just fuels even more abuse.

I think this is where my misremembering may have stemmed from:

https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/a-piece-of-the-pie

Article on PIE that discusses ILGA and NAMBLA.

This is their current board https://ilga.org/about-us/board/

Is this the group that attacked Reem Alsalem or was that another UN accredited group?

If the COE is basically governed by UN policies, what independence does it have.

Is it just a sub set of the UN?

@IwantToRetire The equivalent of the ECHR exist on a regional basis for all countries who have signed up, such as, one covering the Amerca’s. And one for countries surrounding Australia and New Zealand.

I could be totally wrong as IANAL but of all the nonsense domestic decisions elsewhere, such as Australia, have not (as far as I am aware) made it to the international human rights courts regional versions of the ECHR, as of yet.

Tickle Giggle is the one to watch re this I hope.

I agree with all that you say, Lesbians must have protected spaces, and i do not believe a man can be a woman.

To answer my own question, yes, they co-signed this letter criticising Reem Alsalem
https://www.sexualrightsinitiative.org/sites/default/files/2023-04/Feminist%20letter%20to%20SR%20on%20VAW.pdf

Funny how there are no gender critical women's groups who are part of these high powered decision making groups.