Sex Matters meets Anneliese Dodds

[fromorbit]

Interesting.

Sex Matters had a positive & constructive meeting with @AnnelieseDodds
She reiterated govt "will protect single-sex spaces for biological women".

We said this requires the law recognise biological women as a group that needs protection.
We talked about FWS case & beyond.
https://x.com/SexMattersOrg/status/1854215442866246137

Obviously this doesn't mean there are no issues, BUT what it shows is Labour fully recognises that NO debate is over. Hence the stall for LWD and open meetings held with resistance groups by Streeting etc. Any law they try which tries to pretend that biology does not exist is going to be met by serious resistance, legal cases and terrible publicity. That resistance will be amplified by Kemi's Tories and will have impact with relations with Trump's US.

What does this mean for the Conversion Therapy bill for example? My suspicion is the final text, if it ever happens, will be so littered with get out clauses so it doesn't upset women, religious communities, sensible medics and trigger law suits that it may be meaningless. I may be wrong and it may have other secret implications. We shall see and we have to be ready if they try anything underhand.

Keep fighting everyone. They are only listening because people united to make it happen and as soon as we show weakness they will stab us in the back. The awful stuff the FA is trying is a typical example of the underhand bullshit the genderists are going to try in this new environment.

Keep funding court cases, keep posting, keep call stuff out.

I'm also loving seeing the fallout from the Trump win. Trans issues are definitely getting an airing and I hope Labour can see the risks of fudging.

Fantastic news, well done women 👏

Well done. Sex Matters you are my heroes.

I still suspect, though, that they don't really mean that all single sex spaces will be protected, just that some will be. Most, such as toilets and changing rooms will continue to admit males; whilst refuges and rape crisis centres will be permitted to be female only.

Even that concession would enrage the genderists.

Cautiously optimistic here and hoping @Shortshriftandlethal isn’t right.
But may well be

I completely agree with Shortshrift. I don't trust any of them.

That's very encouraging.
Re the ban on conversion therapy (mentioned in the op), I see that there has been a certain amount of discussion recently, including by a House of Commons mental health all-party group, about regulating the use of professional titles such as psychotherapist and counsellor.
There are lots of good reasons why such regulation needs to be introduced (not least because the NHS's ability to deal with mental health needs has more or less collapsed, forcing a lot of people to go private).
However, I do feel a bit worried about the timing. It has always seemed to me to be a bit odd to have a specific ban on conversion therapy rather than a comprehensive set of parameters about what counts as ethical practice in therapy. And any move towards regulation would obviously involve an enforceable set of rules about acceptable practice. So I wonder whether the conversion therapy ban will be reconceived as an aspect of this new regulatory framework.
That could of course result in something very good and welcome - something which prevented therapists from imposing prescriptive agendas around sexuality and gender but nonetheless facilitated all of the necessary exploration. But equally it could become captured by transactivism , with the result that a new regulatory framework would put therapists at risk of being struck off if they did not default to a wholly affirmatory approach.

You are right to be uneasy.
IMO, the point of the conversion therapy bill is to get gender identity - as opposed to gender reassignment - recognised in primary legislation. At the moment, it is not. This would be a huge win for genderists, however weak and hedged-about the law is. The conversion therapy hype is just that and as you say, it would make more sense to regulate who can call themselves a counsellor, psychotherapist, etc and define good and bad practice. Which is actually what we need.

has Dodds had a blow to the head? Thought she was distinctly iffy on gender woo?

I think it's great that people are becoming less afraid to have these conversations with different groups. Open dialogue, and feeling able to be honest about that open dialogue, can only be a good thing.

Dodds has been a public supporter of gender identity ideology - she’s made strongly supportive statements in the Hoc and in media interviews and public statements. She was supportive of GII in the general election campaign during the summer too.

She also has had meetings with LGB Alliance and said stuff which made genderists go wild.

Dodds is trying to be nice to everyone as far as I can see. This could work out badly for sex realists or not. It depends on a number of factors. Key being a lot of other senior Labour folk see the writing on the wall. Streeting being the prime example and he has majjor input into any bill. It is pretty clear he can see the homophobic impact of genderist thought. Trying to do genderist stuff brought down the SNP. The Cass Review shows how messed up it all is. Tony Blair thinks all this stuff is dumb and electorally dangerous. This all matters because Labour wants to keep power.

Facts on the ground keep changing too. The nurse's law suit could have huge impact. The Green Party could go bankrupt because they want women not to exist.

As others have said the main danger of Conversion Therapy bill could be bringing in ideology by back door. On the other hand it could also define legally that knowledge of biological sex is a protected right and that therapists need to know this. When we see the draft we get to see what it looks like and Mumsnet, the Tories and religious people are going to judge it. We actually have power and the more we use it the stronger we get.

I’m genuinely devastated about Trump being voted back in and what it means for US women - but the daylight it’s brought to the issues with gender ideology have been helpful.

We’ve been told that Americans don’t care about trans/gender issues but I’ve seen it mentioned by many.

Every cloud has a silver lining, as they say!

Labour have done and are doing what the Dems conspicuously failed to do - put themselves alongside the average voter rather than activists. They've reaped the rewards of that.

I like seeing Anneliese Dodds meeting with Sex Matters but I wouldn't want to see the government hand over policy making to them just as I didn't want to see them hand over policy making to Stonewall. It's governments that are elected, not lobby groups.

People - even those in government - used to listen to both sides of a debate before making up their minds. Up until now the Labour Party has only listened to trans activist lobby groups. If it's redressing the balance a little it's about time!

Trump's win - and the way some left leaning women sat on their hands and refused to vote Democrat - is reinforcing the message from women in Scotland. The many discussions here about women abandoning Labour over this issue will have played their part.

Wins in the courts are significant. Whatever Wes Streeting is he has the sense to see the compensation claims that will be coming if the NHS persists in harming people it should be helping. Even if those cases lose the optics are bad.

I no longer trust Labour one bit but I do trust they want to stay in power. Trump's win does have a silver lining.

I'm not ready to forgive Labour. This hasn't happened by accident. They may have started out on a 'be kind' platform but as the evidence mounted against it there has been wilful blindness on the part of the worst of them. They aren't thick so they are either stubborn and malign or they are cowards because they don't want the treatment that was meted out to Rosie. The cowards will switch when the wind changes. Both deserve our disdain.

Dodds is trying to be nice to everyone as far as I can see.

Then she needs to understand that to make any progress, that just won't work. 'Both-sides-ism' isn't going to get us anywhere.

I agree with @Shortshriftandlethal and @Redshoeblueshoe . We have had years of Labour lying that women have no human and legal rights of our own as men are women too, that we have no right to bodily privacy, dignity and safety from men. I would not trust any of them as far as I can throw them.

And sadly that includes some female Labour MPs who pretend they speak up for women, whose behaviour has shocked me more than most.

Its not necessarily about whether you trust them or not at this point.

Its whether they can see the political danger or not, post Tuesday.

IF they fail to protect single sex space OR attempt a fudge to make it easier to get a GRC to bypass this, then there WILL be political fall out at some level.

Article: 'Labour must learn from Kamala Harris’s transgender muddle'.
https://archive.is/sFYjo

Thank you. Hopefully this is the direction that Labour is being dragged towards.

I wonder whether the inevitable fudge to come ( in my view ) will be justified by claims to be 'on the right side of history' unlike the U.S.A - where " trans rights will be rolled back by Trump". Labour is more likely to look to, and refer to, Europe - to Ireland,Spain and now Germany where such measures have already been passed.

100% this is not about whether we can trust Labour fully. It is about whether Labour realise that they cannot afford to anger women and others who know biology is real. They clearly don't respect us, what we need to make sure they FEAR us. Because if they try to ignore us the cost for them will be horrific. Basically we have to use the TRA playbook to some degree. They don't ultimately care whether people accept them - they just want people too scared to call them out.

A big chunk of the SNP still despise women, but look at how they are acting now - they are now too terrified to carry out a lot of the sexist crap they want to.

I think Dodds is still a bit naive, or wants to be kind though she perhaps is gradually changing. She still thinks there is some middle road.

Streeting on the other hand has really seen a huge amount of hate the TAs allied with Muslim activists to almost make him lose his seat. Homophobia was part of that. He actually has absorbed what the Cass report means that a lot of gay boys/girls are having their lives ruined. I think he has peaked, though he is still being diplomatic to some degree. Why go out of his way to meet those nurses facing a sexist man in changing room and being persecuted for complaining before they win their case? He didn't have to do that. Yes he is ambitious, but sadly being on the right side in the gender wars inside Labour is not necessarily the best route to the top.

I don't think labour has changed view.

They always have supported the law - that single sex spaces are legal. Just as they support the law that allows men to change their birth certificate to a female one. Thats why dobbs is comfortable talking to womens groups and TRA.

What they find it difficult to clarify is real life situations. They want it decided in court rather than speak clearly.

It shouldn't be up to nurses to take legal action against the nhs about changing rooms. Rather than just support the nurses, politicans should be acknowledging that there is something seriously wrong and be saying what they are going to do about it.

But they want to give men the status of being female and give women the opportunity to have single sex spaces. They want these to to work together without saying how its possible.