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).

I love it when a plan all comes together…..

Hi Bee, so would you say you're a feminist?

What do you do to support women's rights?

Great but needs some female characters…?
-gasp- Unless you’re saying they’re….

Just increased my Sex Matters subscription. Have opted for the free Sex Matters bag! Thanks again for the reminder @BeeSouriante

By that same reasoning I was completely fine with there being a topless calendar on the wall in my first office job. Clue - I wasn't! I never raised it or made a fuss. I left instead and it cost the employer money to replace me (and the other staff members who also left due to the hostile environment created). There are many many parallels with this and your story about your trans friends who apparently have fooled their workmates. No they haven't. The trans lobby have behaved so horribly and coercively, that people are afraid to say anything for fear of losing jobs and friends. Trans people have gone from a position of broad societal acceptance (ignoring the idiots in the street who give everyone trouble) to regular decent people wanting to avoid them. Congrtulations on your idiocy - and I believe this is an indication that women are to be erased rather than trans people: https://x.com/HairyLeggdHarpy/status/1005520600222326785

Maaaaaaaate!

In a different context I recently reread Vaclac Havels The Power of the Powerless.
I really do see TWAW as a Workers of the Worls, Unite! by the greengrocer type of situation.

As he also said “Live not by Lies”

@BeeSouriante so if no one can tell your fiends are trans…. How do you know?

Bylines is little more than a biased blogging platform masquerading as Citizen Journalism, at least where it comes to gender identity ideology and transactivism vs gender critical views and women's rights.

Last October the editor of North East Bylines authored a dismissive Opinion piece about the Let Women Speak event in Morpeth on 13 Oct 2024:

Does ‘Let Women Speak’ speak for all women?
'Let Women Speak' rally in Morpeth last weekend
https://northeastbylines.co.uk/news/politics/does-let-women-speak-speak-for-all-women/

@BecksRose wrote a letter to North East Bylines in reply. She had a bit of a struggle with NE Bylines to get this published but after agreeing to some editorial changes the Editor (who had written the original opinion piece) relented.

Why do we still need to let women speak?
A response to the recent Let Women Speak rally in Morpeth from a women's rights activist

A couple of days later Becks's letter was unpublished and replaced by this text:

"This letter has been removed as it was not consistent with our standards as set out in clause 4.3 of the Impress Code, to not encourage hatred or abuse against any group based on their characteristics."

https://northeastbylines.co.uk/letters/why-do-we-still-need-to-let-women-speak/

I have attached screenshots of Becks's letter so you can judge for yourselves.

Are any of the other publications in the Bylines Network are less biased than Yorkshire and the North East?

ps. Becks is also the author of "Dinosaur Soup":
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5196908-dinosaur-soup-new-gc-whodunnit-novel-by-mumsnetter-becks

It will counterbalance all the many cosy closed door meetings successive governments held with Stonewall, Gendered Intelligence etc where they were given legally inaccurate, anti women’s rights advice about “trans rights”.

Cheers, have been meaning to buy and read for ages!

Haha spot on! 🎯

Helen Joyce’s comment about “in a sane world there would be no transitioning” is because in an ideal, ‘sane’ world people would love and accept themselves as they are.

That sounds a good thing to me. What about you, @BeeSouriante ?

Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if we could focus on helping people feel happy in their own skin? And not try - through the very damaging medical route puberty blockers, opposite sex hormones and surgery - to reconstruct themselves into something they are not?

Transitioning is something so fragile it apparently needs endless external validation… hell, no. That’s the polar opposite of compassion.

Helen Joyce’s position is not eradication or elimination or any other Final-Solution-esque term TRA are flailing around for.

Does one have to say that gender has no meaning to be gender critical? Cannot one criticise gender stereotypes and use the shorthand of "gender critical" to mean that?

My personal experience is that, on the whole, women and men tend to have different skillsets. How much of that is biologically or evolutionarily based, and how much is social conditioning, I have no idea. I'm not sure that it matters, provided that we avoid forcing people into roles and behaviour that they are not suited to. I could describe myself as "gender critical", but I'm sure I wouldn't mean exactly the same by that as those with a woman's perspective. And I certainly don't mean the same as some transactivist who thinks that GC means conservative.

So actually, using labels like "GC" about oneself tends to be rather self-defeating, as other people tie misconceptions to the label. And other people can call me whatever they like; the first time someone accused me of being a bigot I was highly offended, but now it's just water off a drake's back. I would smile and ask whether it's a sign of bigotry to shout "bigot" at someone.

This is the best explanation of Gender Critical Feminism that I have read:

hollylawford-smith.org/what-is-gender-critical-feminism-and-why-is-everyone-so-mad-about-it/

That is storming, thank you.

Snort, the Law doesn't say so and never did as recently clarified so that little missive from Shon Faye has aged rather badly, oh dear what a shame.

Thanks. I'm afraid I found it rather heavy going, partly because I don't have a sufficient background in feminism to follow some of it at all easily - a few glances at Spare Rib as a young man and a skim read of The Female Eunuch (which I largely found quite impenetrable!) aren't really adequate. I'm not sure how often "gender critical" is seen as shorthand for Gender Critical Feminist outside feminist circles, though it's interesting to glimpse something of the background to the term.

You may be happy to know that those Spare Rib magazines, though I didn't entirely agree with them, sparked some thoughts in me that have helped me to rethink some of my attitudes, and that has helped me to respect the views of the women here. I certainly see a lot of very clearly articulated opinions here, that actually make sense, as opposed to the incoherence of all the queer theory and gender identity positions I have found.