Rebecca Don Kennedy of the Equality Network interviewed

[ArabellaScott]

https://archive.ph/yw2s0

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25413097.equality-chief-i-not-fight-trans-rights-hurt-women/

'Kennedy sees the battle over trans rights as an “imported culture war”, which came along with “a rise in right-wing rhetoric, the rise of fascist tendencies, and a return to patriarchy. It manufactured fear and anxiety and made marginalised people scapegoats for the ills of the world”.
What’s happened in Britain and America isn’t happening in Europe, Kennedy says. “They’re looking at us in horror. The things that are going on around trans people’s human rights is unfathomable. We’re referred to as ‘Terf Island’ for a good reason.” Terf means “trans exclusionary radical feminist”.'

“It’s awful for LGBTI people, and specifically trans people, and more specifically trans women, right now. It’s terrifying. They’re demonised by the press, by their politicians, demonised on <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/yw2s0/www.heraldscotland.com/topics/television/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">TV, questioned within institutions and their workplace, and they’re maybe not even able to use the toilet when they go outside.
“All the while this is happening, other people who are hateful are lauded and lifted up as heroes – and worse than that, painted as heroes for feminism. It’s just abhorrent.
“To be a trans women right now is so hard. Their strength is unparalleled. I cannot imagine being able to just hold my head high and live my life regardless of how – and I’m going to swear now – f***g awful it is. The admiration I have for trans women is huge. I couldn’t do it.”

“It’s dangerous for any woman who falls outside the supposed standard of what women should look like. I cannot believe that we’re returning to a world where if you don’t look like a feminine woman then you’re looked at with suspicion. I’ve heard more about cis women being pulled up and questioned in toilets – often cis lesbian women v than I have about trans women. I mean, what are we doing? We’ve gone so down the rabbit hole that people are being encouraged to take pictures of women in bathrooms. It’s not just trans women who bear the brunt of that, it’s all women who don’t conform to whatever it is we’re meant to conform to.”
She described the proposed system around bathrooms as “a mess with no clarity. It’s unreal. Trans men are to use women’s toilets, and trans women are to use men’s toilets. But anybody that’s non-binary, or looks ‘too transitioned’, is to use gender-neutral toilets, if there are any”.
“What that likely meant in practice was that, for example, bearded masculine trans men would be told they should use women’s toilets – unless that caused upset or fear – then they didn’t have a toilet to use at all, unless there was a gender-neutral one. It’s utterly ludicrous, appalling actually.”
Kennedy believes that women opposing trans rights are damaging feminism. “I’d give them grace and say they don’t realise how these things entwine. Partly this might be because before 2018 they weren’t involved in the equalities movement, or human rights or the feminist movement. So they don’t see there’s an intertwining of shared struggles.
“We all have human rights. If some of us don’t have them, then none of us do. As soon as you start that divisive pulling apart you weaken the armour and the tools that we have for moving forward. I believe in intersectional feminism where everyone who’s marginalised needs to work together. If we don’t work together, we won’t achieve anything.
“Many women [opposed to trans rights] are in quite privileged positions and have – or believe they have – what they need. Some people believe everything is fine because they’re fine, and they don’t look any deeper.”

Probably the former tbh, I noted an interview with the paedo porn 'researcher' herself, HJ, admitting that before the supreme court 'reimagining' of the Equality Act, the default was inclusion of trans people (with exception if felt necessary), despite having hundreds of anti-trans activists argue that wasn't the case until they were blue in the face.

Now the head fake-feminist adnits it..it's all so incredibly Trumpian.

I don't recognise a single thing that you're describing, possibly because you're relying heavily on insinuation rather than naming names, possibly because you're making shit up.

Also, the gents is still over there. Nobody will bother you.

You may not be aware of the history of the trans rights movement, how far back it goes and what their aims actually were. This thread is worth a read.

Let's go back to 2007 | Mumsnet

The link should go to a post by LangCleg (on 30/12/2018 at 12:34) which says:

But the intention to completely erode all women’s boundaries were there from the get go.

Yep. Remember this when people come on here and tell you that our current problems are all the fault of johnny-come-latelies who have ruined it all for the "true trans". It's not true.

This is followed by a post by PencilsInSpace which ends with this paragraph:

Throughout all this cosy consultation period (Christine says they knew they were getting somewhere when the best biscuits came out at a private chat at the Home Office) PFC simply failed to mention that when they said 'trans' this included every cross-dresser and knicker fetishist in the country.

But do read the whole thread. The 'true trans' are not who you think they are.

I don't think she really believes that at all, the MAGA stuff. The new story for TRAs is that real women haven't driven this, it's all the nasty forrin christo-fascists.

Because to acknowledge that it might be actual women, would be to undermine their argument that all women support them because they just want to pee.

Men always underestimate the extent to which women spend their lives from at best their early teens onwards fending off creepy men, experiencing sporadic outbreaks of male rage, and comparing notes with other women and girls about male perverts' strategies and the extreme violence a small minority of men (but still a quite numerous group) are prepared to unleash on women.

Underwear theft, exhibitionism, voyeurism, frottage. We know about it all. We know that if it is indulged it can escalate into even more dangerous actions. Most of us have experienced this stuff repeatedly throughout our adult lives.

I'm not a member of a 'group' or a 'movement'. I'm one woman who wants to stay safe, and to do what I can to help other women to stay safe.

I know that pandering to men who want to act out sex fantasies in public is not a way to do that. Whereas the trans movement is all about encouraging men (and boys) to act out sex fantasies in public.

Imagine spouting all that crap and being thoroughly unaware of the history of how the gender critical movement evolved in the UK and how the politics involved and being so tone deaf as to blame it on right wing Americans...

...as if you've just read a bunch of shite off American websites and assuming that women in the UK are incapable of thinking for themselves.

Honestly, to me, Bee's posts are the visual equivalent of Sweep's squeaking from the show 'Sooty and Sweep' but without the humour. Just the noise.

As an aside, I am devastated that there is no Sweep gif available!

(Usual disclosure, have screenshot this post etc etc

I have decided to start naming TRAs and Genderists as what they are - Neo Sexists.

Nothing more than old fashioned sexist beliefs about women and sexist controls over women's thoughts and behaviour repackaged and remarketed for modern audiences.

This is standard activist postmodernism with some superficial language changes to make that less obvious (eg intertwining instead of intersectional). It's origins go back to the sixties when it began to take over the English departments.

I remember Mermaids from back in the 1990s, they were so far out that it still beggars belief for me that they ever became seen as mainstream. It was right there in the name - Mermaids was what these mothers aspired to for their llittle boys (no girls back then). Beautiful alluring women above the waist and no sex organs below.

Rebecca Don Kennedy is right about one thing though. 2017 was peak crazy and things are changing.

It's here, too:
https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/chief-charity-funded-snp-claims-35785112

From the Scottish Express article I think this must be a typo

Rebecca Don Kennedy runs the Equality Network and also insisted the "feminism is being damaged" by those who impose trans rights

My bold. Probably should have been 'oppose'.

Although I think by being wrong it's actually correct.

She seems to adhere to the dog eat dog world view, where everyone is treated the same, regardless of needs. Women don't deserve any accommodations - compete with the men. Wierd for someone in her line of business.

We've all been exposed to these types of articles you years, but it's still worthwhile pointing out the central incoherence. The article is trying to say that because females and even homosexual adult females support trans inclusion, with Kennedy being an exemplar, we shouldn't worry about even the most general application of TWAW. The article leads with:

Rebecca Don Kennedy runs the Equality Network. She talks candidly to our Writer at Large about the attacks, abuse and hate she’s suffered campaigning for trans people WHEN Dr Rebecca Don Kennedy got married last year, a worrying notion was lurking in the back of her mind. “I was thinking,” she says, “it’s not far-fetched these days that somebody might turn around and say ‘that’s not a real marriage’.”

Kennedy is a lesbian. As the head of Scotland’s Equality Network, which campaigns for LGBT rights, she believes the atmosphere in this country around equality issues has deteriorated so drastically that marriages like her own – to her wife who is a nurse – are now open to being questioned or seen by some as illegitimate.

But by the article's own rules, Kennedy could be a Pete-the-Plumber, who doesn't even hold a GRC, but identifies as a woman and as a lesbian. Of course a Pete-the-Plumber who leads a trans rights organization is going to hold the positions depicted in the article. There is nothing remotely newsworthy or interesting about it. What makes the article a publishable story is that that Kennedy is a biological women, who's married a biological woman and is arguing from the female experience that that TWAW. But the article isn't allow to say that, instead it's left for the reader to infer it, because, because to mention that Kennedy is a biological women, and therefore has special standing, makes the article self-refuting.

But how can somebody say it's not a "real" marriage? Same-sex marriage is the law now. Unless they're a scofflaw.

Oh.

@AmaryllisNightAndDay I wonder if this is more evidence that it's Kennedy whois thinking in a USA mindset, not UK feminists! There are serious moves in the US by conservative MAGA & Christian types to try to dismantle equal marriage in various states. Pretty awful and scary.

But it's not happening in the UK, and she knows it. If anyone tries to do it, I'll warrant you that feminists - straight & gay - will be the first out on the streets to protest.

Excellent point.

This is absolutely fascinating. So much information in this thread it'll take me a while to take it all in.

Thanks so much for posting.

Yeah, the UK TRAs are now forceteaming same sex marriage with the T, as though same sex marriage is somehow under threat here. It isn't, people are happy with it, and it didn't take rights away from anyone else.

It's their new move. Along with shouting "gender apartheid" or "biological extremist" every now and again.

Same sex marriage could end up under threat in the UK, because there are groups who oppose it, that point of view was deemed not acceptable ages ago and those who held it were banished to the margins.
But this batshitery is all about removing the barriers that society had put in place to protect itself, and if you remove them for one your remove them for all.

So we could see a raise in Christian zealotry and a return to the old days' when they claimed loud and proud that homosexuality was a sin blah blah blah.

There's more than one type of lunatic in our asylum and they all on the loose now.

I cannot see any threat to same sex marriage in this country. Nobody cares!

Ironically, one of the reasons I am no longer an active member of the CofE is the convoluted hoops and twists they use to NOT conduct same sex marriage (or even blessings back in my day) and to impose celibacy on same sex vicars who are married (at a civil wedding). The former I could just about understand from a traditionalist point of view (even if I disagree), but I think it outrageous to interfere in someone’s relationship to the extent of demanding celibacy. Rev Richard Cole used to comment on this, being in one such relationship. Imagine having to regularly report to your boss on the status of your sex life with your spouse!

There is a whole backstory with the CofE being a global organisation with some branches holding views fundamentally incompatible with others (broadly, traditional African churches vs liberal American Episcopalians). So I can see how there ended up where they are with typical fudges and compromises.

of course, now they are happy to ordain transgender people. More twists and theological turns to justify Man knowing more than God about His Creation.

I used to be a woolly liberal Christian who was (and still is) “judge ye not” of others. I’ve not lost my faith in God, just in the Church.

Victoria Smith's recent article references Don Kennedy's interview as well.
The article covers more area than that, and is absolutely slaying once again.

https://thecritic.co.uk/does-nicola-sturgeon-believe-women/

"A culture of disbelief combines with one in which women and girls are trained to #BeKind and put others first. This can lead to a profound sense of disorientation and self-doubt whenever we make complaints. Are we really hurt or are we just out to hurt someone else? And even if we are hurt, is that because we’re human, with boundaries that should be respected, or do we have the wrong expectations? Wouldn’t it be easier for everyone if we learned not to care or, failing that, just kept silent?

Feminism has typically served as a corrective to this way of thinking. “Women,” wrote Andrea Dworkin, “trivialize what we know. Women shrink. Women pull back.” Part of the message of “believe women” is that we should trust ourselves, even when our truths are disruptive. Set against this, however, is an emergent feminism — if one can call it that — which adopts the same patriarchal approach of disbelieving women, if only strategically. Believe women in the abstract, yes, but not when their stories get in the way of your advancement or undermine your most cherished narratives."

"She [RDK] speaks of “manufactured fear and anxiety”, as though women who adopt a more consistent line on safeguarding than she does must be stupid, weak-minded or faking it.
That men who claim to be women should not be subject to the same safeguarding measures as other men — and that women should not feel the same sense of threat or violation when such men venture into female-only spaces — is a narrative that functions in much the same way as “our family / community doesn’t have abusive men”. It’s not just a demand for exceptional status, but a story that pre-emptively discredits whistleblowers, positioning them as outsiders. If a woman’s testimony gets in the way of your cherished narrative, sacrifice the woman.

This is what all TRAs do. They claim that anyone, and woman, who supports women’s rights in the US are MAGA. They Dems and liberal media here promote that same lie.

What they refuse to admit, let alone say out loud, is that millions of us women here were or are lifelong Democrats and we have left our party, the Dems, because they have abandoned us. I have voted Dem in nearly every major election over the last 30 years. I voted for Bill Clinton, Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Biden. However, when the First Lady gave a woman of the year award to a man, and then Biden gutted Title IX (that was designed to protect girls and women’s sex based rights), I left the party and am now an Independent. And I am one of millions of other women in the US who have left the party because our party abandoned us and choose to uplift men’s feelings, allowed them entry into all our SSS, chose to mutilate and permanently sterilize our children, promote a quasi religious ideology by indoctrinating our kids as young as 3 yo, and forced the taxpayers of this country to pay for supposed GAC for those on Medicaid.

I am not a right winger, never have been. I’ve always been center left. I’ve supported gay rights, equality, and marriage. Now that I disagree on the trans issues, I am now called a MAGA follower. I don’t vote for Trump and I don’t like a lot of what the Republicans are doing. However, the one and only thing I give them credit for is eradicating gender ideology from the government, schools, medicine, and in creating laws to protect wormen. This week they introduced legislation to protect girls sports and private spaces for our girls. This is a no brainer for the Dems to support since they know it is an 80//20 issue. But I guarantee they will vote it down. And again, they will lose the next election. The only hope we have now here is for SCOTUS to do as the UK SC did and protect women’s sex based rights. Unfortunately they haven’t accepted a case yet this year that would allow them to do this but we can hope that sometime in the next few months they will accept hearing a similar case.

This is what all TRAs do. They claim that anyone, and woman, who supports women’s rights in the US are MAGA.

Exactly, @HardyNavyBear . And this is why the TRAs are losing their minds over Gavin Newsom.

(Gavin Newsom is the Democratic governer of California, the most Democratic state in the US. He's one of the frontrunners for running for the Democratic nomination in 2028.)

Earlier this year, he said he thought that transwomen playing in female teams was "deeply unfair". Well, the TRAs lost their shit. Because obvs TWAW!

But what's really maddening them is that they can't throw any of their usual mud at him. They can't call him MAGA. They can't call him far right. They can't call him a christo-fascist. All their kneejerk insults don't work for him.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/06/gavin-newsom-trans-people-sports