The latest fallouts in GC world

[Pluvia]

My terfing energy has been focussed elsewhere in recent months and I haven't been here or on TwiX or social media much. Now I've taken responsibility for tweeting/ comms on behalf of a small but potentially significant LGB group and I discover that there seems to be something going on — another schism — in GC world. Jane Clare Jones's name seems to be coming up a lot. Something seems to have gone on but I can't work out what.

If it was my own account I'd just ignore, but the followers of this account are bringing it up and seem to expect an opinion to be expressed or a side to be taken. Also I'm seeing a lot about 'ultras' and 'lites', which is new to me. Can anyone enlighten me? I need to tread carefully.

WPUK closed down recently, didn't it?

I’m quietly ultra as well, mainly because anything else feels like I’m being gaslit and my conscience starts eating away at me.

Meeting in the middle is good, in theory, however the push for self-ID is when I started to really follow and get involved, and what people sometimes fail to see is that we were already in the middle before that push began. We’re a long way away from things being fair for women and safe for children. Compromising ourselves seems risky to me.

That said, I rarely join in the discussions and criticisms. Anyone moving things in the right direction deserves the chance to do what they can, though I am highly suspicious of most male transitioners who try to elbow in, however reasonable they appear.

The Khelif thing really annoys me. It’s so obvious everyone he knows is treating him as a man and he hasn’t ever really bothered to hide it, other than a few, selective pushes after the Olympics ended. The other boxer, who stayed quiet and didn’t flaunt himself everywhere and shove our faces in it, has had very little attention. Khelif’s actions are so arrogant it makes me angry, taking all the advantages of being obviously male in a country where women are second class citizens, while pretending to be female to hit women. Grrrrrrrrr! 🤬

AlisonDonut's account is partisan, to say the least. I'd like to see someone attempt a neutral account of the differences between the various parties.

But I also don't think it matters in the long run. All single-issue political campaigns tend to split between ultras and lites, extremists and moderates, idealists and pragmatists, or however you want to paint it. Look at the suffragettes, look at the civil rights movements of the 60s and so on. The important point about this particular campaign is that we're winning, and once we've brought the mainstream round it doesn't matter too much if the original campaigners fall out.

Yes, thank you — I thought we were talking 100,000 words of academic philosophy, which was too daunting for me. I have to read most of CJC's sentences several times before I can get the gist.

Crack on then.

Until there's repeal of GRA and removal of PC of GR, we've not won. The split is between those who don't want to understand safeguarding and those who do. Those who don't are happy to have a protracted, performative fit of the vapours when anyone who does understand it, points out the flaw in their rights-based approach. Pointing out the problems has the impact of removing all illusions that everything is fine "because GC belief". It's not fine.

So you manage to repeal GRA? What happens to everyone who has transitioned?

They haven't. No one can change sex. Truth, safeguarding, reality all trump anyone's imagined sense of self.

I don't know what ricker means, but the academics definitely are of the opinion that they are the ones that must be listened to and get furious about anyone supporting KJK.

Michael Foran just the other day was going on about how it is the professionals versus the grassroots, the grassroots ones are the ideologically pure ones and it is the professionals that will actually achieve results. This is a common theme.

The issue of 'working with the Heritage foundation' is that no other person would arrange and fund such an event. They'd rather no event than an event hosted or funded by the wrong side.

They get to claim compensation for having been encouraged by their government and doctors to participate in an unrealistic, harmful, charade?

God it would be messy.

But there would be lots to deal with for them even with a clarification of what sex means - there will presumably be years and years of legal fighting in both directions before everything can be settled.

The one thing I do take from Foran's argument is that if we don't have the GRA and either have to leave the EHCR or try to come up with a replacement not to be in breach, is that either is likely to lead to all sorts of unintended consequences, some worse than the status quo. We'd better get busy thinking through the next stages of how it might play out either way pretty damn quickly.

Recently I sat in on an online presentation from a sports association that was developing its equality policy. The end users will be smallish local groups run by volunteers. They talked about the need for inclusivity and widening participation and also about the need for safeguarding. They'd removed Gender Reassignment from the list of protected characteristics and replaced it with Gender Identity. I corrected this and suggested volunteer organisers need clear advice on what to do in, for example, the case of a self-identifying man insisting on his right to access female changing rooms. 'We prioritise safeguarding at all times,' the presenter said. Followed by 'The situation you mention has never happened and will never happen, and we don't design policy for situations that will never happen.'

Where do you start?

Iend to think that generally,chipping away will be the most effective too - eventually doing that it all becomes too unsupported and falls apart.

But that's a strategic assessment, not an ideological one.The other day some poster blasted me as if somehow this meant I didn't care about "giving away women's language." No, I want to get to a place where that doesn't happen, but I think that is going to be best achieved by creating a scenario where no one wants to do that rather than forcing it through while there is real resistance- even if it means a bit more patience.(though I suspect it might actually be quicker.)

It seems kind of crazy to get so worked up about strategy?

@AlisonDonut Typo, richer.
There have been many events that have not been funded by the Heritage Foundation.
And I am grassroots. Along with lots of other women who do not support KJK. It is a false dichotomy.

@OhBuggerandArse We can not leave the EHCR. This is what people like Tommy Robinson want. The EHCR has been really important in defending the most vulnerable women in society. It has been used time and time again in courts to protect women.

And people who have transitioned will not disappear. There has to be a way to protect women spaces and ensure people who have transitioned still have a reasonable way to live their lives.

There have now. But I don't think there had been then, had there? Arguably her pushing the Overton window made it possible for those other events happen.

(Am open to opposing arguments!)

Hi @Pluvia - I also tweet on behalf of a bigger group of GC women, we are not huge "players" but we do have 10K + followers. I consulted with the group founder when this all kicked off. Our group undoubtedly contains women on both sides of the "divide". We came together to fight gender identity ideology, and that is what I stick to tweeting about - not the internal battles. I simply ignore them.

I do have my own account, where I can say what I like and retweet whoever I want to - but on the group account I stay very focussed on the task at hand. Very disparate groups of women and men came together, at a moment in time, to fight for the rights of children not to be medically mutilated, and for women to retain the right to safe, single sex, spaces and services. It was inevitable that cracks would appear along political lines once we made headway, but we are not there yet, there is still work to be done. I focus on that.

@CandyMaker that was my point - sorry if it wasn't clear. What a bloody mess it all is.

It isn't me saying that grassroots people support x and professional support y. This is their spin.

There were events before then. One in Gloucester for example. And others.

We prioritise safeguarding at all times,' the presenter said. Followed by 'The situation you mention has never happened and will never happen, and we don't design policy for situations that will never happen.'

Where do you start?

Fkin ell

In the States, though?

@OhBuggerandArse Thanks.
The position where we pretend transitioned people do not exist because sex is real, is simply not practical. And parliament would never support it.
Sex is real. But people have had surgery and taken hormones. These people exist.

Yes. There was a residential conference. I can't remember which state though.
As well as some talks and a workshop at MichFest.

While you may well be right we still need people prepared to call for the GRA to be repealed. The Overton Window won't shift far enough if everyone is trying to be all reasonable and middle of the road. That's why campaigners like KJK are invaluable alongside campaigners like Sex Matters.

The EHRC is an organization, made of people. Who have falliable viewpoints.

If a country belongs, what the organization says only has weight because the nation state allows it to - that is, they generally agree with the way they make their assessments.

That being the case, they could make those kinds of assessments themselves.

If they don't agree with the organizations assessments (because they are saying stupid shit about gender, say) then as a nation state they have every right to not be involved, and arguably a democratic obligation not to be involved.