Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Quakers in Britain think this is radical

110 replies

princessleah1 · 20/05/2025 19:46

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

OP posts:
Tatatan · 27/05/2025 21:32

please like and follow https://www.facebook.com/sexmatterstoquakers

TeiTetua · 27/05/2025 21:38

It's a bit confusing, and I wonder how members will react to it. On one hand they say:
We will not label something as a single-sex space if we cannot truthfully guarantee that it will be single-sex.

But then again, they also say:
All our public facilities are trans inclusive. This means that toilets labelled with a 'female' sign are intended for cis women, trans women, and non-binary and intersex people for whom this toilet is the best aligned with their lived experience. Toilets labelled with a ‘male’ sign are intended for cis men, trans men, and non-binary and intersex people for whom this toilet is the best aligned with their lived experience.

Better take the labels off the doors, methinks. There's just no way to make an honest promise that they mean anything at all.

Dorcas007 · 27/05/2025 21:50

Another ex Quaker here. I´m in two minds about the toilet thing that was written about in the Telegraph. Some Quakers who are now in their 60s and 70s will remember Young Friends gatherings where we all slept on the meeting house floor together as teenagers, regardless of sex. So the toilet thing might not feel threatening to them, more nostalgic.

It's more worrying that not-a-few Friends have "transed" their teenage children and I think that is one reason for this policy. They may have been on the fringes of Quakerism before but once their children become trans their have upped their commitment to the Society. Working class girls who are gender non conforming might be encouraged to play football, aspire to join the police or (horrors of horrors) the forces. But none of these are Quakerly things whereas being a teenage trans activist is. Hopefully this will change as the trans craze declines. But for the moment its a case of the situation that Helen Joyce described which is that the people who have transed their children will be the last to give it up. And that applies to the Quaker Body as a whole as well as individual parents.

Given that these trans Young Friends exist, have been enabled by Friends and feel safety in the Society, is it right to suddenly take that safety away from them? Many of them feel pretty hunted right now because the trans paradise they looked forward a few years ago isn't emerging. And maybe Young Friends is a better place for them than some trans youth clubs out there.

One of the things non-Quakers don't understand about Quakers is that, although they have a strong sense of justice, its limited to certain issues. They often find interpersonal things difficult. So it will be hard for many Friends to understand that trans is not the new gay and talking about things such as AGPs and top surgery will make them feel uncomfortable (much harder than using a unisex toilet!). Even as a child I was aware that many people attracted to Quakers were what we would now call neurodiverse.

They might change their mind if they are challenged by a detransitioner who says they hacked off body parts as a result of being encouraged to come out as trans at Quaker Summer School.

As some others have said this is related to the tension between God and secularism in Quakers. This isn't a new thing. Quakers have a historic pendulum on this, but now its extreme. You can use any toilet you want but heaven forbid you should recycle something in the wrong bin!

TVPIsProofThereIsNoGod · 27/05/2025 23:29

NC regular here

Another ex-Quaker! I'm surprised to see so many of us here given what a small number of Quakers there are. Are Quakers/ex-Quakers statistically over-represented in FWR or is FWR bigger than I realised?

@Dorcas007 's post is on the money I think.

I am optimistic about Friends though. Modern UK Quakers have always tended to the yogurt-weavy side but they are also not afraid to stand up for views outside the mainstream especially views they think are being silenced. And they will notice who is being silenced; it's kind of their thing 😂

TVPIsProofThereIsNoGod · 27/05/2025 23:31

@Dorcas007 I hadn't really thought about the neurodiverse thing but OMG you are so right!

CampanulaRotundifolia · 28/05/2025 00:05

And, just to add to the count, another NC ex-Quaker here (~40 years -ish involvement in varying amounts). I resigned my membership before I was aware of the TQ+ issue going on. If I hadn't done it then, I'm sure I'd be resigning now.

desertgirl · 28/05/2025 04:53

Another long term Quaker here, yes the neurodiverse comment resonates with me too - when I was young, my dad insisted you could recognize certain groups of people as being ‘Quaker or gifted kids (the NAGC, which may or may not exist any more)’, and was always right. And on reflection I think it was middle class neurodiversity which was the common factor!

DianeBrewster · 28/05/2025 08:42

TVPIsProofThereIsNoGod · 27/05/2025 23:29

NC regular here

Another ex-Quaker! I'm surprised to see so many of us here given what a small number of Quakers there are. Are Quakers/ex-Quakers statistically over-represented in FWR or is FWR bigger than I realised?

@Dorcas007 's post is on the money I think.

I am optimistic about Friends though. Modern UK Quakers have always tended to the yogurt-weavy side but they are also not afraid to stand up for views outside the mainstream especially views they think are being silenced. And they will notice who is being silenced; it's kind of their thing 😂

I think we are probably statistically over represented in any area concerned with issues of justice and women’s rights - those were the things that attracted me to quakers 36yrs ago, and it’s the abandonment of those principles by Friends House that caused me to resign.

ArcheryAnnie · 29/05/2025 10:51

As I understand it, Friends House are claiming that they do provide single-sex facilities in the form of single, self-contained cubicles. Leaving aside the (very considerable) issues of the number and location of these, compared to the ease of accessing the usual facilities - these are unisex facilities, not single-sex facilities. There's a wealth of evidence - and accounts from lived experience - that many, many women don't like these, don't feel safe in these either, and that they don't see these as providing the facilities they need. I don't know if it is ignorance or dishonesty that leads Friends House in characterising these as an adequate substitution for single-sex facilities, but it's not good enough.

PriOn1 · 29/05/2025 11:12

ArcheryAnnie · 29/05/2025 10:51

As I understand it, Friends House are claiming that they do provide single-sex facilities in the form of single, self-contained cubicles. Leaving aside the (very considerable) issues of the number and location of these, compared to the ease of accessing the usual facilities - these are unisex facilities, not single-sex facilities. There's a wealth of evidence - and accounts from lived experience - that many, many women don't like these, don't feel safe in these either, and that they don't see these as providing the facilities they need. I don't know if it is ignorance or dishonesty that leads Friends House in characterising these as an adequate substitution for single-sex facilities, but it's not good enough.

So the Robin Moira White solution: third (fourth?) spaces to be used by women who don’t wish to share with men, while men are welcomed into the women’s.

So no single sex toilets then, which may be illegal if it can be shown this is discriminatory against/detrimental to women.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page