Quakers in Britain think this is radical

[princessleah1]

https://www.quaker.org.uk/documents/statement-of-policy-on-provision-of-trans-inclusive-facilities-bym

This is the Quaker response to the Supreme Court judgement. It's the usual flim flam about respecting people's rights...unless those people happen to be women

What an absolute disgrace. As an ex-Quaker I look at this and mourn that the historic witness to the humanity of women has been erased by ignorant (salaried) pseudo-activists within the Quaker movement. This is a group with a long history of witness to Truth supporting the lie that men can be women. Really. More than anything This speaks to me of how very middle class the Quaker community is and how afraid they are of alienating the starkly privileged younger generation that is their only hope of a future survival.

I considered Quakerism for a time, then read about how captured and corporate their head office are about genderwang - really seemed a shell of its original, noble purpose.

Perhaps they don't realise that disrespecting half the population while pandering to a couple of delusionals won't endear new members to sign up?

You pretty much nailed it!
Central office in London are desperate to be seen as radical, its embarrassing.

There is so much wrong with the statement. The claim that minute 31 (to welcome trans and non binary people) was genuinely discerned is totally wrong. It came after two years of preparation material for YM that promoted trans identities, no women - rights voices were included.

I think the most galling thing about this statement is the "We have no evidence of any harm having come to women using our facilities from trans women or anybody else." i.e wait until someone hurts you then we'll take notice of you. women as collateral damage.
I was in a quaker meeting a while ago where a transwomen behaved aggressively. An elderly woman expressed her fear and was told she should think of how hard life is for trans people every day, her fear was dismissed. Sums up the bs that's going on

what a mess and I fear Quakers (central office/ Friends House) will just keep digging

So basically they are getting rid of single sex spaces on the thin pretence that they can’t guarantee someone won’t use the wrong sex toilet, and therefore they can not guarantee the Truth of it being single sex, so it is more noble of them to get rid of women’s toilets altogether than say something which may not be True. . And if a woman is harmed as a result they’ll call the police. So they are still the good guys. And all this is required of them by Love.

I have never heard such disgusting self-congratulatory, self-praising crap dressed up as nobleness whilst shitting all over women.

Shameful.

"We have no evidence of any harm having come to women using our facilities from trans women or anybody else." = we have never had to imagine how frightening/traumatising it might be for women who have been abused by men, but who would not report their concern due to a lifetime of being ignored.

Radical to respect women, lesbian and gay, and trans identified women's protections in law. Because doing so somehow interferes with 'rights' that men don't actually have.

Ok.

Another batshit group heard from.

So women with histories of male violence have to disclose this to try to persuade HQ to understand why they find men in their spaces intimidating and this is the harm? Why do any of us women have to explain what life is like as a woman and why we don’t like men in them? Why do we need to make the argument again for the basic safeguarding measure that is single sex spaces?

Why does Quaker love and Truth mean they think safeguarding for women is unnecessary as they can wait for us to be harmed and then call the police?

There are some formidable Quaker women. I suspect there may be objections made at some point as women now do not have a single sex space. Heather Brunskell-Evans for example.

And yes, it’s awful. “We’ll just wait until we have undeniable proof that a woman has actually been subjected to a criminal attack before we do anything,” isn’t remotely acceptable. Indeed, it might be grounds for a court case that they accept it’s a possibility, but then fail to offer a women’s space.

There’s no doubt Quakers will have been targeted and infiltrated. They are exactly the kind of group that would be easily taken in by a trending pseudo-human-rights campaign. Quakers have always been more influential than you would expect from the number of members because they tend to be active in that arena.

It's active discrimination against women, because most won't go into loos with urinals. So men get the choice of all the loos, and women get the choice of some. Except women who need single-sex facilities, who get the choice of none at all. What a surprise.

Doesn't surprise me, though. Paul Parker (who signed that statement) and his mob have been actively misogynist and homophobic for years. Nothing Quakerly about him at all. Time he went.

It has been explained. Repeatedly. Evidenced. In court cases. It's the Issendai missing missing reasons thing: it isn't that they don't know or haven't been told, it's wilful blocking the information out.

Important to keep in mind that the same people insisting there are no problems for women are the same ones insisting that people can change sex, and can be born into the wrong body.

I remember a while ago Norwich Quakers held these meetings which were about as constructive as you could get back then:

https://www.norwichquakers.org.uk/post/norwich-meeting-s-experience-of-conflict-around-transgender-issues-january-2019-january-2020

To be perfectly honest, from what I have seen it is supported by the women I know in the higher levels of Quakers too (I know they have been lobbying the government hard on this issue). I think that there are two reasons why genderism is particularly appealing to the Quakers

1. It is one of the Christian churches in Britain where numbers are growing. Helped by the youth movement and by the fact that you can be an associate member and do campaigning work without being a believer. The belief is very much that genderism is youthful and progressive and therefore part of that growth story and that older women are dinosaurs who require education is very ingrained now.
2. This might be even more cynical than the numbers argument above, but it isn’t meant to be. The Quakers have historically been important and effective campaigners, particularly against poverty. They still do a lot of work in this area and on climate change, so many probably would align with the Green Party (which is batshit on this issue). Those other issues are enormous and quite hard to effect noticeable change in - the warm glow of making women share toilets and policing pronouns makes the campaigner types feel good about themselves for making a difference. Those Quakers I know wouldn’t consciously recognise this as a motivation, but I do believe this is part of the picture.

I find myself looking in detail at the practicalities of what is being said:

-currently they have single-sex women's and men's toilets, and accessible toilets.
-they can't trust their - do Quakers have 'congregations'?- their people to either
[a] respect women's spaces
or
[b] obey the law.
therefore
-they are going to make all the toilets unisex.

Apart from the sanctimonious misogynistic batshittery of it all, do they realise that according to building regs, a unisex toilet is something specific?
You can't just rebadge existing single sex toilets.

'over time all facilities in Friends House and Swarthmoor Hall should continue to be refurbished to provide self-contained facilities for all.'
So until the premises have been provided with unisex toilets which comply with building regs, their re-badged single sex toilets are not building-regs-compliant. Doesn't that mean that until they've provided proper unisex toilets, able-bodied Quakers will have nowhere to pee legally?

(But kudos to them for not volunteering the disabled toilets to able-bodied people).

I thought this process was really impressive - it started from scratch, tried to listen to everyone, etc. Of course it's since been derided as "transphobic".

The infuriating thing is that this stuff from Friends House doesn't reflect what many disaffected Quakers feel, either about the gender issue, or about the blatant top-down manipulation by Friends House of Quaker process. But Quakers have both a Testimony of Equality and a Testimony of Truth, which we can only hope win out in the end.

Well then, the Quakers are about to see an uptick in 'worshippers' from a very specific demographic

I feel like the dynamic is similar to what I've seen in my own church tradition.

Irrespective of their social justice work, the Quakers also have a significant tradition of careful and rational philosophical and theological thinking.

But in the second half of the 20th century it's somehow been lost, or traded for being seen as on trend. Or something, I don't know what..

so it is more noble of them to get rid of women’s toilets altogether than say something which may not be True

Except that the signage on the shared, mixed-sex toilets will be untrue because they are labelled as Female & Male, or Women & Men.

And this from the Quakers' statement is ridiculous - "Minute 31 of YM2021 is the overarching expression of our position and so governs our decisions."
It's saying "We created a well-meaning statement a few years ago and are clinging to an interpretation of it that means we are now being untruthful and unlawful."

According to that statement, there are actually some single-use cubicles. They are mostly on the 2nd floor & none on the ground floor.
(The building does have lifts.)

Totally agree that there is a warm glow of smugness around many Quakers as they move "progressively" on this.

They have always been the voice of reason. Their history of decency is unparalleled among all faiths.

Judi Dench is a Quaker, and you can see why.

This reads like something out of the Handmaid’s Tale with its “With glad hearts…” etc etc etc.

A family member is one she is lovely but is pretty naive and “be kind”. There is a trams woman in her group who sounds like a strong dominant character requiring a lot of support and time from the other Quakers

I’m a lapsed Quaker, but reading this made me really sad. Quakers have long been supporters of gay rights and when the LGB community got infiltrated by TRAs they inadvertently captured the Quakers too. Quakers are traditionally very open minded, well meaning people, so I do have some hope that this isn’t permanent.

I am still technically a Quaker but stopped going to meeting over this issue. I agree with everything that's been said above about how the Quakers no longer have the courage to stick to actual Truth and Equality and have gone all woolly and "be kind" - mostly out of well-meaning but lazy/privileged thinking but with a few people agitating and actively exploiting them.

Yes, but not since Paul Parker took office. On this and other issues.
Also I have reason to believe they have had/are getting substantial donations from people who support synthetic sex identities.

Indeed.

a group of us contacted PP back in 2018 and asked for dialogue on this issue. We have been gaslit and marginalised ever since. Every attempt to engage has been blocked.

There is an officially recognised Quaker group for atheist Quakers (?) but we were not allowed one for sex realist Quakers 🤨

along with a number of other GC Quakers I was banned from Quaker Facebook pages, accused of “acting in bad faith” by raising the issue.

the centre is thoroughly captured I’m afraid and most Quakers in meetings don’t have a clue about what’s going on because all dissenting voices are being silenced.

after 36 yrs of membership I recently resigned mine.

in my view Paul Parker has been the worst thing to happen to Quakers - even the actual Pope is more collegiate and open to dialogue. Everything which attracted me to Quakers, especially the bottom up, slow, considered, way of making decisions, has been replaced by an autocratic and manipulative man. Manipulative because, to me, he pretends that the traditional process are still working - but actually they are just being used to rubber stamp what he wants. Eg the infamous minute 31 “affirming” trans identities - and how it’s being used to close down discussion.