Women’s Rights Network at Northern Ireland Parliamentary Committee

[UtopiaPlanitia]

WRN NI were finally invited to speak (by a TUV MLA) at Stormont. Suffice it to say they were tutted at by the MLAs for saying that men can’t be women and women deserve our own spaces and rights. Video excerpt in the article gives a flavour of proceedings.

https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/alliance-and-nationalists-criticise-language-of-womens-group-asking-for-single-sex-spaces-in-tense-stormont-session-4988505

Awful, but no surprise from that shower. It's so disappointing that the various shades of unionist are the only ones supporting women in this, I was an Alliance voter for years but there's no way I can vote for them now.

Well don WRN NI for speaking to the MLAs, especially the tut-tutters. It's like the invasion of the body snatchers! Who would have thought 10 years ago that parties like Alliance, SinnFein and the SDLP be actively promoting this dangerous nonsense?

I watched the full thing on YouTube. They were met with absolutely disgraceful hostility from the women on the committee, women who seem to be determined to be architects of their own demise.

The submission made was well put together, all ladies spoke well and backed up their opinions with sound evidence.

The women of NI will not remember Paula Bradshaw kindly.

MTCoffeePot Who would have thought 10 years ago that parties like Alliance, SinnFein and the SDLP be actively promoting this dangerous nonsense?

Almost exactly 10 years ago, in March 2015, it was a Sinn Féin TD [MP],Aengus Ó Snodaigh, who opened the second reading debate in Dáil Éireann [Irish parliament] of the Gender Recognition Bill, which he had introduced the previous year. The next two enthusiastic speakers in support of the
Bill were independent/left TDs renowned for their stroppiness intransigence activism. Every single TD from every party spoke in favour of the GR Bill, the most common complaints being that it didn't go far enough - it didn't include 'intersex' people, and that there was no provision for children under 16!

So Sinn Féin were 100% TWAW ten years ago. So were all the political parties in the Republic at the time. This was in the wake of the Marriage Equality referendum which had shown that the Irish people [in the republic anyway] had no issue with lesbian and gay people having equal rights.

In a very Denton-esque move, the transgender movement swooped in to capitalise, and the T was added to the widely accepted LGB. A group called TENI - Transgender Equality Network Ireland - set themselves up as the experts on all things sexuality/gender, and were deferred to to a shocking extent by Irish legislators and even the medical community. No debate or committee meeting or gathering was complete without TENI 'educating' the participants on the oppression of the most marginalised group in society and what had to be done, quickly, to give them their rights...

I don't know about Alliance and the SDLP in NI, but it wouldn't surprise me if they were full-on TWAW too back then.

So the brave WRN-NI women would have known that they were going into the lion's den, and they deserve thanks and admiration for doing so.

What a shame that only the TUV supported them - for the TUV's own reasons, the TUV being anti-gay rights, anti-abortion rights, anti-mask-wearing during Covid, pro-Brexit, pro-the sectarian Orange Order marching wherever it damn well wants - you get the picture!

It's interesting though that the ban on puberty blockers for under 18s was supported by Sinn Fein, Alliance etc., and for this they have been banned from some Pride marches in NI.

Relevant

Stormont’s finance department has defended paying public money to controversial LGBTQ+ lobby group Stonewall – despite dozens of government bodies across the UK ditching the group in recent years amid concerns about impartiality and the advice issued by the group on trans issues.
The Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) is one of the last major government bodies in the UK to continue to pay the lobby group for advice.

https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/sinn-fein-department-defends-paying-public-funds-to-lgbtq-lobby-group-stonewall-4993153

Alliance have been aiming in the long term to be the default party for the alphabet community. Which in practice means they have a few prominent gay men in the party - I suspect most Alliance members, if they think about trans at all, think it's a subset of gay. Paula Bradshaw isn't stupid, but I see no evidence she's thought about the issue beyond whatever briefing she's read from the Rainbow Project.

The SDLP I don't know so well, but there's been a long running tension between trendy elements in the leadership who set great store by being part of European social democracy (it was a big John Hume thing) and the SDLP's actual electorate, which is mostly middle aged to elderly socially conservative Catholics. It also means that on this kind of issue they tag along behind SF.

The UUP as ever is a mess of contradictions and it depends who you talk to at any particular moment.

Also, it's tremendously important to Alliance's self-image that they're the naice party.

Marie -'This was in the wake of the Marriage Equality referendum which had shown that the Irish people [in the republic anyway] had no issue with lesbian and gay people having equal rights'
All I remember from that period was being so pleased to hear about the reform in favour of lesbian and gay rights. I was completely swamped at work and had little time for anything else. I agree it's all so Denton-esque but I also wonder if there was money coming in from USA-based groups. I just don't think that politicians do anything from the goodness of their hearts.

It was such a wonderful moment, wasn't it?
The incredible scenes in Dublin Castle with all those people with their rainbow flags... before the rainbow flag was co-opted... but let's not go there😠

If you mean the American Money funded TENI, maybe, I don't know, but the origins of TENI would indeed be an interesting topic to research...hint hint!

If you mean that it was used somehow to influence parliamentarians, I don't think so. It would have been spread right across the political spectrum, from the conservatives to the very activist left MPs, so unlikely.

But there was no need, it wasn't the goodness of their hearts but the sensing of the public mood that sent our politicians running towards TENI, TWAW and self-ID.

They saw the strong public support for L&G rights, as shown in the referendum results, and the fell hook line and sinker for the 'obvious next step' i.e. trans rights.
They ran so fast in that direction, they completely outstripped public opinion which, unlike them, was able to see the difference between rights based on sexual orientation, and rights based on transgender ideology.

The public realised that the latter removed women's rights, through substituting the word 'gender' in existing sex equality legislation, whereas the former simply extended existing rights to a broader section of the population.

Politicians are maybe starting to catch up...