A bit of rewriting history going on- MN didn't exist before 2020?

[GrumpyMenopausalWombWielder]

https://x.com/janeclarejones/status/1863356570991743187?s=46

"This is not how the history went. The majority of the faction that is now known as the ultras turned up after 2020, largely in 2022/23. The bulk of the original grassroots of the movement were left wing feminists. That is, what happened is that a group of people who turned up later attacked the core of the original movement who had stood against trans ideology, in the first place, by themselves. And who, quite understandably, were pretty pissed off."

You'd think the fact one of the people involved in the FWS court case was a MNetter, would avoid this selective rewriting of history on who did what & when, as well as why women are still pushing for repeal of the GRA despite all the very learned professionals telling them to stop being so stupid and quiet down on that.

All the early meetings, Venice Allen ones & WPUK, were linked on these very pages, and MNetters made the bulk of the women attending. I remember getting to know people & we all eventually confirmed who we were on MN back then. This attempt to frame women who just won't shut up about repeal of the GRA as Jenny come latelys who had nothing to do with any achievements or wins, when so much of the grassroots movement were women who gathered here, raised consciousness here, organised here & networked here, is just wrong.

I'm getting pretty tired of the narrative being pushed that it's only women who are late to this, who are right wing, bigots, trolls or keyboard warriors who did feck all & have achieved nothing, who keep pushing repeal. I'd much rather the substance of the arguments were tackled instead of the endless high school level rhetoric that follows from someone questioning law fare tactics.

The GRA is bad legislation. It was when it was brought in & remains so now - even more so. Questioning why it is beyond touch is no more an ultra position than refusing to bastardise language or deny reality. But wiping out the place Mumsnet has in the story of how women fought back is a particularly stupid thing to do.

Mumsnet don't even want to be seen as playing the part in this that this place did - they certainly tried to suppress women's language & opinions, and banned lots of women who stood firm. They didn't slope off never to be seen again. They got active & were the backbone of the grassroots movement that's shifted the dial in the U.K.

I've been terfing in these parts since around 2014 under various guises.

Am I the only one who's trying to take a positive out of this current effort to decide who did what and when and why? I think it means there is spare capacity that previously would have been spent fighting gender ideology fires left, right and centre. It means we are winning if we are getting to the post mortem stage.

That’s a good point. And it also makes me realise how much harder curating women’s efforts are in a digital age, leaflets and badges and sashes are tangible 100 years on - tech is fragile.

Maria McLachlan was punched at Speakers Corner in late 2017. Mumsnet had terfery around well before that - but that was a turning point that lit up the boards.

don’t think anyone on here wakes up and is anti trans rights.

The discussions are about women's rights. Framing it as "anti trans" accepts the language and perspective that others use to ignore women and deride our conversations. It also shows the success of Denton.

The earlier threads have some discussion of sports, rape and SA services etc. and other people saying 'you're paranoid, it will never happen'. I wonder if those posters remember and have changed their minds or if they minimise it and consider it in line with the inevitable arc of progress for women's rights.

NB: I've only skimmed the older threads but although I'm seeing apprehension about sports, rape services, policy planning etc. with some discussion of pregnancy, I haven't seen much about removing the language of maternity. I wonder if that was deemed unthinkable or if I haven't read far enough. I don't even recall if the excellent HoL GRA discussions anticipated what's happened to healthcare language.

What is your end goal? Fawning over your male friends destroying women’s rights whilst pretending to be concerned that campaigning for repealing the GRA will backfire on women?

It's odd that we all woke up and agreed that it was possible to be born in the wrong body and its only when the safeguarding risks were made apparent did anyone push against it.

In the 70s, 80s and early 90s, transvestitism was seen as a joke. Then we can read the threads on here from early 2010s when the university educated feminists were talking seriously about gender ideology and inclusion and others talked about being kind to Hayley Cropper.

It took a long time for women to get through to both sides showing its all a lie. But without the benefits of being involved with long threads here, i dont think many people understand that. They just think its gone too far, and needs laws and compromises.

I think thats what these twitter threads are, rather than engaging with the question 'why do you think transgenderism should be indulge in law' they critise people for not possible understanding the extremely complex theories.

Here's hoping that the future holds proper academic research about the rise (and fall) of gender ideology. Mumsnet will be a very rich source of what happened, when it happened, why it happened etc... The posters on here have such a wide set of experiences and backgrounds and really take the time to dissect and analyse events. I have a dream that the women's studies centres of the future will have the funding and the capacity and ... permission to undertake this important work.

JCJ - for whom I have a great deal of time - has always felt that being (very) left-wing is a prerequisite for being a real feminist. Many people including me have argued with her about this! Just my opinion, but I also get the impression she has a bit of a chip on her shoulder about academia (not unusual among clever people with PhDs who do not end up with academic careers) which leads her to undervalue feminism that doesn't come from academia.

What's your problem? Neither anything I said, nor the post I responded to, suggested anything like that.

Do you just like accusing other women of being insufficiently pure?

Behaviour like this is a huge part of the reason the left succumbed to this kind of ideological shit, because of this middle school desire to control other people and appear virtuous.

It's all over the place in the left, in gender ideology, in the article this thread is about, and in the discussion itself now.

In the 70s, 80s and early 90s, transvestitism was seen as a joke.

It might be more mixed than that. THose at the heart of this have always taken themselves very seriously. This was brought home to me when I saw some sections of the Barbican's Another Kind of Life Exhibition.

Gay Liberation Front journal - Come Together - issue 11: Lesbians Come Together. It's from a piece by the GLF Transvestite, Transsexual and Drag Queen group, originally published in 1972:

A more central question is how to relate to other women. When we talk about our hopes and fantasies, it becomes apparent that what we want above all is to be accepted as women, primarily by other women. But will we achieve this by looking for ways in which we share experience with regular women or by developing a unique transvestite consciousness?

Sometimes the second approach seems real militant and proud, at other times it seems a cop-out, accepting the prejudiced view that we're not women, that we're some freaky third sex (or fourth or fifth?). Possibly we can find some light by considering the situation of black women and gay women, who develop black pride and gay pride, but still explore their feelings as women. Think how much more inspiring and beautiful the women's revolution will be when it joyously includes all women. Think of a Holloway demo with transvestite, transsexual and drag-queen women, gay women and heterosexual women, black, yellow, brown and white women, working women, housewives and career women. Certainly, whatever course we take as transvestites, transsexuals and drag queens, we must first destroy the trap wherein regular women set up standards by which they accept or reject us .

https://archive.org/details/cometogetheryear00walt/page/8/mode/2up

Barbican featured some of the photographs from the Casa discussed here (and some eye-opening newsletters and personal correspondence):

https://www.messynessychic.com/2020/04/15/found-snapshots-of-a-secret-1960s-catskills-resort-where-men-could-become-women/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4514382/Secret-1950s-cross-dressing-community-revealed-exhibit.html

I wonder if people didn't think it would be something that would be of interest to TRAs?

It's an area that I think has been driven more by female activists, particularly transmen. In general I don't think people were thinking about their goals to the same degree as they feel less threatening.

Yes it is women’s rights that’s what we care about. But unfortunately trans rights have been given so much precedence in law that it has run rough shod over women’s rights.

I agree it’s not the best word. But I also don’t really care. It’s semantics. These two groups rights are in direct conflict. I’m not against trans people existing or having loss of any rights afforded to any other group. Those are general human rights though. I’m totally up for live and let live. But I’m not giving up women’s rights. Trans rights specifically are the right to override women’s rights. I am anti that absolutely.

So we can dress it up in whatever words you want but it is removing people’s rights to resolve this in favour of women. You’re being disingenuous to yourself to not admit that. I have been through that process with myself. Felt awful, felt guilt, felt like a horrible person. But it wasn’t my fault that they were given these unsustainable rights built on sand in the first place. They are the people to blame.

And they will ignore women if they can anyway. Regardless of whether you say it kindly, bluntly, or around the houses. In the words of Germaine ‘Women have very little idea of how much men hate them’.

And yes bleeders, breeders, chest feeders, people with cervix etc came later. About 2017/2018 I believe.

Before that we did have one sided removal of the word women to mean natal women whilst men retained man. It was the non-man era. So women and everyone else were non men. Apparently that was acceptable.

Further to this point about the GRA I posted something on another thread about this

I don't think repeal of the GRA is a magic bullet anyway.

On a practical level, say the GRA is repealed. What happens to all those already altered birth certificates?

They would have to be reverted, but
a) can they be identified? and
b) given those birth certificates have already been issued, of someone wanted to just ignore the issue and continue using the certificate they could.

Someone at a leisure centre would have to accept someone producing a valid birth certificate as proof on entry still. Bouncing someone on the basis of accurate paperwork would still remain too high risk. But they'd remain liable should the person turn out to be the wrong sex biologically.

The repeal of the GRA will still therefore allow males to access female facilities AND even if challenged be able to carry on.

It would be extremely difficult for even an organisation that WANTED to be rigorous and enforce it in cases where individuals wanted to continue to flout a reversal. Particularly if they'd had surgery. Precisely because 'genital inspections' are an impossibility and totally inappropriate. (I note who goes on about genital inspections most - this is why).

I do think immediately halting the issue of more altered documents has merit, but I also think we are stuck with all those altered passports, driving licences and birth certificates permanently.

And it's only going to be where a criminal act occurs that women will have any recourse - and then only if the investigating officer also has access to crucial information.

So a man with a GRC doing intimate examinations? No one can do anything unless this is somehow disclosed, or he's done something that raises a complaint / suspicion.

It's fundamentally dystopian and depressing. The only solution then becomes biological passports, which are also fraught with their own issues and ways they can be used against women.

It's something that, realistically now can't be undone until everyone who has been issued with a GRC has died.

I think 2015 was the time of the big push to change the language, etc, when Ruth Hunt in Stonewall accepted the ‘T’ and activists like Aimee Challenor began taking over the women’s officer roles in political parties and other members organisations.

Yes agree. Aimee chanellor was the same time as greens infamous non-men era.

It’s so embarrassing that any of this ever happened. Seriously what was wrong with people?!

None of this had to be complicated.

This isn’t as difficult as you are making it. There must be some paper trail whereby everyone who has a falsified birth certificate is notified that they have to send all copies in to be replaced with the original truthful information. A bit like renewing your drivers license.

Some people would ignore this demand and hold onto their false certificate, but the register itself would revert to the truth and the fabricated person wouldn’t ‘exist’ there with their false sex and birth name.

People who hold on to their false certificates could be threatened with punishment in itself and there could be a severe penalty for people caught trying to use the false certificate.

Unfortunately that would probably fall foul of discrimination law though because it disproportionately affects trans gender people and because they will argue that not everyone will be aware of the law change so are being criminalised due to no fault of their own.

They would be aware of letters and emails being sent to them telling them of it.

I’m with red toothbrush on this. Repealing GRA probably won’t work. As much as I look like the meanie on this thread I’m all for transgender people having protections and recognition.

They probably need to remake the certificate as a certificate of gender rather than sex. And that gender certificate allows them some things and not others.

And this areas is covered by the ECHR not just UK law. So even if the UK changes it's law and does do this, they'd be a right to appeal through the ECHR.

Thats liable to find in favour of trans people (and actually I tend to agree on principle on that despite my own beliefs).

And then that opens up yet another avenue for the far right to exploit in trying to pursue the UK exiting the ECHR. Which I think would be utterly disastrous and against the interests of the population as a whole.

Not least because the ECHR underpins the Good Friday agreement and the Scottish / Welsh Parliament but also because membership is now viewed by the EU as a necessity to the most favourable trade deals... Leaving the ECHR would push us closer to the US and more dependent on the US. That means fundamentally less women's rights and less workers rights.

So yeah, I'd really prefer not to go down that route because it won't end well on several levels.

This is also precisely why Trump and Co will see this as a business opportunity.

What certificate are you talking about? Make birth certificates about ‘gender’ not sex? It’s the only one that matters currently. No one can ask to see a GRC currently.

This whole mess has been created by the ECHR being at such a lofty remove from UK citizens, that activists have been able to take demands there, where ordinary people and politicians are none the wiser, and to push for unpopular legal change which the UK is government is then strong armed into adopting. It has been a way of bypassing our democracy.

The ECHR around which the court rules prevents discrimination on the grounds of sex. The GRA causes discrimination on the grounds of sex. This needs to go back to the court to be heard from women’s perspective - something that was completely ignored by the ruling that initiated the GRA.

So you are saying we can’t repeal the GRA because men with GRC will carry on using their certificates falsifying sex to strip off in front of young girls in sports centres?

Your suggestion of ‘genital inspections’ gives you away.