Trevor Philips in the Times

[Igneococcus]

I will put this into the other threads that collect links to newspaper articles as well but I thought this comment by Sir Trevor Phillips, the first chairman of the EHRC, deserves its own thread:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/4039df92-15a2-48e8-a73f-aca8dad25d0b?shareToken=fac9197f0581a79518d1234d5ae195e5

I saw an interview with Phillips this morning regarding this issue. He stated that the EA '10 was intended not to give people who believe in "trans" the protections of sex, but to give them rights as "transgender people".

But this is still meaningless guff in the context of everything else we discuss here on MN every day. What rights are those exactly? Hiw are they different from sex? Why use the same words? Why is it separate from belief? And why does it need additional protections than already provided.

I agree with other posters that Phillips seems to have been naive or otherwise swindled here, if he did genuinely think this was the goal?

What's Dentons please?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4985584-anyone-have-a-copy-of-the-dentons-report

This will explain all and there is a link to the report.

It's the documented explanation of how transactivation deliberately set out to, well, get where they've got.

If you go onto Graham Linehan's substack, and search on Dentons, he has a whole thing about it.

It's shocking. Take wine

This has links to StillTish's articles on Glinner's substack:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4059873-Deep-Dive-on-the-Dentons-document

Good. The radio version of the Times can be mixed. There are some good speakers, can’t recall name but a female presenter used ‘both sides’ re abuse and violence which is incorrect and a cop out.

Thanks, I'll gird my loins and take a look.

Thank you OP for sharing this article.

Surely it was thing like
. you can't refuse to employ someone because they are trans
. housing associations can't refuse to house someone because they are trans
. GPs can't refuse to treat someone for ingrowing toenails because they are trans
so all the usual anti-discrimination stuff.

None of which rights of course have been removed despite the rhetoric.

I see your point and agree that the nonsense of 'gender' shouldn't have been included in the Equality Act. What next? Voting rights for my imaginary friend, who's a talking unicorn (and will give me her proxy vote)?

Gender reassignment was included in a spirit of tolerance and generosity, with no idea what it would grow into. I don't think many of us could have predicted it. I used to admire men who wore dresses and/or make-up, because I thought they were boldly fighting the old outdated sex stereotypes -- not planning to reinforce them!

Trevor didn't have a crystal ball to see the future. But I agree with everything he says in this article. He is a superb role model, and actually cares about women's rights and human rights.

Sure, but the question is still "why"? Why, of all the reasons to discriminate against someone, is this worthy of protection more than other more worthy reasons?

What is special about the belief in gender identities?

As absurd as it sounds now, quite a few people genuinely believed you could be born into the wrong body. It wasn't just a gender dysphoria thing, it was a some kind of chromosomal mistake.

It was all deliberate tho. Not their fault, nothing they can do about it, agonising, the only thing to help is to identify as the opposite sex.

Because if people were asked do you mind if men come to work fetish gear, of course we all know what the answer would've been.

Hence the need to provide a generation of children who think they are trans. It's all retconning.

I think it must have had a great deal to do with vigorous lobbying from groups like Press for Change. They probably stuck to the line that there were very few of them and argued that they were closely allied with LGB groups, who were getting protection, as they were both gender nonconforming and some transsexuals and transvestites, as they would have been called then, were same-sex attracted. They could point to the fact that the NHS had set up special clinics to deal with gender issues for both adults and children.

Yes I think too few to bother with, was definitely a strand.