Behind the ruling: how ‘Sex Matters’ is shaping UK policy on trans rights

[BeeSouriante]

https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/news/home-affairs/behind-the-ruling-how-sex-matters-is-shaping-uk-policy-on-trans-rights/

Sadly this is the first article in the UK media that has recognised the connections between the gender critical ideology movement (GCIM) and religious right orgs (mostly Heritage and the ADF), despite it being recognised and acknowledged by orgs and media in Europe and the US.

"The organisation’s true agenda is, I believe, best described as ‘eliminationist’: seeking through legislative bans, data policies, and the curtailing of gender-affirming care to relegate trans people in life and law to their sex at birth and make transitioning so difficult, dangerous or pointless as to functionally eliminate trans people from public life and society"

Spending time on this forum, it's quite clear that many people in the GCIM are eliminationist in their aims (just a glance at the 'do you support transitioning' thread is very eye-opening in this respect).

Can someone please tie down very clearly what "elimination" or "eliminationist" is supposed to mean in this context? EDIT: OK, I see the definition there. Should have read more carefully. Next question. Why if trans people are to be recognized as a separate group, do they want to be the "same as" biological men/women as appropriate?

I don't get the we're invisible and you can't ever tell, but we're separate and have special rights. Maybe you could help square that circle?

I woudn't hold your breath.

gosh. Another thread that will have little engagement from this OP. Will it also appear on Reddit too?

Oh give over 🙄

Here is an archive link

archive.is/aEiT9

Gosh OP, you guys get really upset when we aren't subordinate to you. The toxic masculinity drips through.

I’m on the religious far right I see 😂 oh how everyone who’s ever met me would laugh at you saying that.

Utter hyperbolic bullshit.

I’m an atheist. You’re the one that believes in gendered souls.

Well that’s one opinion. Surprised the author didn’t hint at the establishment of re education camps for trans folk, funded by you know who.

“Sadly this is the first article in the UK media that has recognised the connections between the gender critical ideology movement (GCIM) and religious right orgs (mostly Heritage and the ADF), despite it being recognised and acknowledged by orgs and media in Europe and the US.”

There is nothing new in this article.

And appearing at an event on a panel with people from another organisation with completely separate aims is not controversial and doesn’t make the organisations ‘aligned’ except in the mind of a tribal political thinker who wants to give a bad faith interpretation and to spread misinformation.

The article says a director of Sex Matters sat on a panel with another group. Shock and fucking horror! Now the simple and limited thinking writer has attempted to state that sitting on a panel discussion makes the two groups aligned.

It is enlightening though to see this writer’s way of thinking. I suspect that there is not much understanding of how campaign groups work and limited and tribal thinking.

Does OP really want to play the guilt by association game?

Yes, it's not a smart one to start.....

And appearing at an event on a panel with people from another organisation with completely separate aims is not controversial and doesn’t make the organisations ‘aligned’

I should hope not otherwise tv programmes with Conservatives, Labour, LibDems politicians at election time would be utterly pointless if every politicial group was secretly aligned with each other. Far right and far left mushed together with a sprinkle of centre. But stupid people are going to carry on being stupid I suppose.

Oh it's the "suckling on a penis" guy again.

Thanks for posting on mumsnet raising revenue for the forum and increasing its popularity. Its great that you want pro-women voices to be heard. Lots of people want silence places like this.

Bylines

We encourage our authors, all of whom are volunteers, to write about the things that energise them. New writers are welcome and we invite contributions from those with specific areas of expertise. We also welcome contributions from those with differing views and perspectives in order to encourage debate.

Pretty anyone can write for them. Doesn't mean much.

NB - TAs have been saying the gender crits are funded by the religious right for years. Despite that what have you done about it? You have all written lots of articles saying JKR is awful and telling women to be quiet. Maybe spend some more time on your more dangerous enemies the ones tricking those daft women into speaking out. If you stop those guys the women will just give up surely.

Step one would be taking on the Vatican.
Step two evangelicals and Pentecostals and other fundamentalist Protestants.
Step three - get to work on the Muslims.

Get back to Mumsnet after you have defeated all that lot.

relegate trans people in life and law to their sex at birth

It's not relegation, this isn't football.

What does "functionally eliminate" mean?

The drama.

"I don't get the we're invisible and you can't ever tell, but we're separate and have special rights. Maybe you could help square that circle?"

I'm not sure what this has to do with the price of eggs, but nobody is claiming that no trans person is visible..what you sometimes hear from 'gender critical' activists is "we can always tell" which is obviously untrue and quite silly. Half the trans friends I have are busily leading normal lives without anyone being able to 'tell'. Hell one of them was planning on telling some people at work that she's trans, though obviously that plan has been shelved given all the trans panic.

Everyone has 'special' rights - that's kinda why the EqA, the ECHR and the HRA exist.

edit: here to hear, I'm a silly

As if nobody knows!

You guys really need to come to terms with the fact that FWS won the Supreme Court case, and that your conspiracy theories are completely irrelevant.

The Yorkshire Bylines starts drawing to a close with:

”Sex Matters is a powerful gender-critical organisation with explicit connections to organisations listed by the SPLC as anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups, actively courted by our mainstream media, and influentially enmeshed within our parliament, legal system and human rights commission.“

… but doesn’t name a single organisation. (Surely the author can’t think a conference host is an explicit connection??)

Also - so much damage is done by people unthinkingly co-opting US organisations and cultural debates and shoehorning them into a UK context - what does the SPLC have to do with anything in this country??

“Years before the Supreme Court ruling, Sex Matters were meeting with the EHRC behind closed doors to discuss a redefinition of ‘sex’ in the Equality Act to mean ‘biological sex’. “

In the context mentioned, a meeting behind closed doors is just…. a meeting.

And what earthly meaning can ‘sex’ have, other than ‘biological sex’? Can’t you see that? Open the definition to anything wider and all that you do is create an inviting space for the confused, the internet-addled, the mentally-ill, those suffering from trauma, and some very bad-faith actors. At the expense of women, and of material fucking reality.

More widely, the energy this is sucking out of the body politic is enervating Western European countries, and undermining any soft power they have with other countries, who either don’t countenance the idea of transgenderism, or use it as a form of gay conversion therapy.

You know who else exists Bee?

Female people.

Female people exist.

Whatever your personal definition of a "woman" might be, the group of female people does not include you, and this remains true whatever you may change in language or in law.

So all I want to understand is why is it so important to you that a group of people who you don't even belong to, who have nothing to do your definition of "woman", who by number alone have historically been marginalised, exploited and abused more consistently than any other group of humans, whose problems are different to the problems you may or may not face, be denied legal rights, social acceptance and even our own name and language with which to speak of our own experiences?

Why is it so important to you to take away the tools we need to fight our historic and onoing marginalisation, abuse and oppression, things that are nothing to do with you or womanhood as you experience it but are centred in our female bodies and how society treats us because of them?

Because honestly, I'd really love to know.

Thank you @FlirtsWithRhinos !

I'm ignoring the "right wing" nonsense.

But I would like to hear about the "elimination" theme.

The contention is that all trans people's state(s) of mind are so all-consuming that without being accepted without reservation in every single way as their preferred sex they are entirely unable to take part in society whatsoever? And for that reason, society is obliged to accept them in every single way as their preferred sex? Without exception?

That's what I discern from the quoted definition of 'elimination' - have I misunderstood/?

Just looked up the Southern Poverty Law Centre that according to the OPs article classes Genspect as a hate group

I did a search for SPLC and women's rights. First news story I find:

After Allegations Of Toxic Culture, Southern Poverty Law Center Tries To Move Forward

After allegations of a toxic workplace culture that discriminates against women and people of color, the Southern Poverty Law Center is trying to emerge and chart a way forward. Turmoil in the civil rights organization last month resulted in the firing of its famous founder and the resignations of its longtime president and legal director...

...Baynes-Dunning says her work will start inside the organization, by first acknowledging what went wrong.

"I'm acknowledging the fact that we didn't pay attention to the internal culture," she said. "You know ... as a woman of color I realize that, in my own experience, we deal with microaggressions in the greater society every single day."

"When you come and work for an organization like the Southern Poverty Law Center, especially for people of color, women, you don't expect this organization to mirror what we see out in the greater society."

So the organisation that decides which groups that believe a man is a man and can't actually be a woman goes on its list of hate already has form for treating women badly.

I'm Shocked 😲

Just a minor note that the link in the Bylines piece to the page about which ranges of blood values doctors should refer to, is wrong. The link in the article says that using sex-based ranges can be ‘misleading’. The policy that it links to says that sex-based ranges should be used, with a single exception of haematocrit ranges for female people on testosterone.

This is the thing. Sex-based thinking is not ‘eliminationist’. It is protective of human rights and human health, because humans are mammals.

I’m not a ‘we can always tell’ person. I’ve no doubt, and I have experienced, that people who have transitioned may not be seen as the sex they are. That can be dangerous for them. There’s a horrific medical article out there now about a woman who is going to be living with tracheal stenosis and breathing problems for life because she was repeatedly intubated with too large a tube because she presented as male. Women have smaller larynxes and glottic gaps (space to breathe through) than men. At the very least, that case should cause all Trusts to instigate use of the sex field in their records, alongside gender if wanted.