Paul O’Kane: I regret turning off my critical thinking on gender reforms

[IwantToRetire]

O’Kane, who is now the party’s education spokesman and previously held the equalities brief, told Holyrood: “There is a lot that I regret about that whole process of the gender reforms. I regret sometimes turning off my critical thinking and allowing that thing to be something that somebody else would deal with, because I've got a view and my view’s fine.

I've since tried to take time to engage and I understand that we're going to have to try and find a way through that recognises the very legitimate concerns that women have and understanding where that comes from, because very often, for a lot of women, it comes from the deep-seated place of their own trauma and I regret not recognising that at the time.”

He also admitted that as Labour’s first openly gay MSP he felt “pressure” to “act in a certain way” when it came to the debate.
He said: “I think as the only gay member of the group, the Labour group, and the first gay man for the party elected to Holyrood, I did feel that there was a whole weight of pressure on me, on a whole range of issues. I think I did come in with a set view of who I needed to be within the Labour group and candidly, I probably didn't do a huge amount of critical thinking at times on the GRR bill and perhaps didn't engage until the end.”

From https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,paul-okane-i-regret-turning-off-my-critical-thinking-on-gender-reforms

I've since tried to take time to engage and I understand that we're going to have to try and find a way through that recognises the very legitimate concerns that women have and understanding where that comes from, because very often, for a lot of women, it comes from the deep-seated place of their own trauma and I regret not recognising that at the time.”

I regret I didn't find a successful way to persuade the silly wims that you just need to reframe your trauma and agree with us.

If reverse ferreting this overt by a true believer has started the gender genie is well and truly out of the bottle. There’s no stuffing it back in.

This is not a reverse ferret. It might, perhaps, be a forward weasel.

I welcome any reversing by ferrets, I'll even stand behind them and direct them 'Left a bit, left a bit - no not that much, straight back now...back back back - a bit further...'

: 'I regret not recognising that at the time' - is an OK piece of RFing. I'll take that.

I honestly don’t have any deep seated trauma.
I believe that the vast majority of people don’t want men in women’s protected spaces
i choose my solidarity with other women and our shared experience as one of my most important beliefs. Please don’t patronise me, again.

Speaking of reverse ferreting - is the process by which nu-Stonewall inserted itself into single sex groups and spaces, best captured by the term Cuckooing?

cuckooing
(verb) A crime where a drug dealer befriends a weak, old or otherwise vulnerable person, then takes over their home and uses it as a crack house.

I think the most telling part if the clear inference that he did what he did to ingratiate himself with Labour Party colleagues. That to him being in their good books was more important than thinking for himself.

And the worst part assuming that because he was / is gay he has to behave in a way that people who aren't gay think that a gay man should behave.

Yet another indication that party politics has all the integrity and purpose of school boy gangs.

So depressing.

"deep trauma" should not be a requirement to realise that the male of the species usually has testes and the female of the species usually has ovaries.

He is still using the same type of thought which inferred that being "stunning and brave" could alter reality.

I don't think he has got the critical thinking cap on straight yet.

Exactly. I also resent that the only reason that justifies banning men is “deep trauma”. Well I’ve not had any trauma really so does that mean I’ve lost my right to not want hairy men in our changing rooms?

Such patronising nonsense! You don't need to be deeply traumatised to know a man is a man and doesn't belong in women-only spaces.

Still, the reverse ferreting is amusing, who'll be next?

It sounds like he was too busy being 'the only gay in the village' to think through how the proposal would effect everyone else in the village. The Labour 'victimology' is shining through, women are only objecting because they're victims of trauma. No reference to women's concern's about their privacy and dignity, and certainly no acknowledgement about the danger that women are now in because this ideology.

Not so much reverse ferreting as sidewards crabby crawl, moving himself out of the splash zone for when the you-know-what hits the fan.

This is politics. Now this one has broken ranks and effectively accused others of not thinking critically, others will follow. With Scottish elections in May the pressure is on - they know they have to save their own skins… will they stick with it after the elections?

It's a strange combination of admirable and contemptible. He comes closer to a frank and self-critical apology than most have managed. But at the same time he seems not to fully realise quite how wrong it is for an elected representative to place more value on cultivating his image than on making conscientious decisions.

To be fair to him regarding the trauma comment, when I arrived on this board (round 2018, I think) my earliest posts were that it didn’t bother me much having spaces shared with what, at the time, I assumed were medical patients who, for their mental health, needed to use opposite sex spaces.

What quickly persuaded me was that there were women who genuinely needed single sex spaces because they were actually unable to use those spaces when those men were present.

So it’s probably a common entry point when people are just beginning to see how problematic it is.

Honestly, I’m glad to see this statement. As @BettyFilous says, when former "true believers" are crossing that bridge, it may mean the gay community are finally seeing where transactivism is leading.

Yes, it is not necessarily about 'trauma' at all ( though that may well add to it for some women), it is simply about the privacy and dignity of one's sex when in public places amongst strangers - knowing full well the vulnerabilities of females in relation to males in certain types of situation.

@PriOn1 I think that's rather unfair - plenty of gay people have not fallen for this nonsense.

I'm quite confused by your own explanation with the medical needs thing

I'm gonna go to my grave needing an explanation for how the hell all this happened though. It's not critical thinking it's just thinking and either people decided to suspend it completely for some reason or they're really dumb.

The trauma thing is also ridiculous, but perhaps he's speaking to a section of society for whom certain keywords mightwork.

I for one am pleased to read this. We know these people turned off their critical thinking and went along with the party line for the sake of their careers so having someone come out and say 'yes I did that' is really helpful. It shows we weren't making it up or accusing them of things they weren't doing. It does take guts to come and say you were not only wrong but cowardly, even if it happened once the tide of public opinion has changed.

I think a lot of men, when they hear that almost all women spend our lives living with sexual harrassment and assault from puberty (or before) interpret that as 'trauma' whereas we interpret it as a fact of life in a world that includes men who are not constrained by law or custom.

I welcome anyone coming to their senses on this.
A great many gay men don’t consider women worth thinking about at all.

Well, it's a start, and I'm all for golden bridges. It's a good start that he can even say the word women and mean what it usually means. But "deep-seated place of their own trauma"? Well how convenient for him.

Because it's really not about trauma is it? Even as an openly gay man he still can't say lesbian or admit that - in the words of Jenny Wilmott of the Scottish Lesbians who intervened in the FWS / Supreme Court - "lesbians were at the sharp end".

I'm okay with him coming from the trauma angle especially considering a lot of people can understand trauma reactions but don't understand respect or dignity (just think of pavement chicken which has got worse since covid). Most people will assume some form of sexual trauma too but mine is from mental and emotional abuse, there are certain things that men do without realising - loud voices, slamming doors, heavy footed, standing too close/towering which in an enclosed space that usually echoes is not ideal but add in the fact my knickers are around my knees terrifies me.

Let's hope he is the first of many.

I welcome reversing ferrets and, as politician’s apologies go, this isn’t bad.

It’s almost as though there’s an election coming up and he’s suddenly realising that women have the vote.

Oh poor little soldier, let me get out my tiniest violin. I'm so sorry that he had such a tough time while enabling the wreckage of women's rights. Absolutely he's right that the main thing about it all now is properly understanding the feelings and inner life of the poor man involved.

This.
Deep trauma should not be a precondition to recognising women's rights to privacy and dignity.

If he didn't apply critical thinking to this, what else didn't he apply critical thinking to?
Has he just said "I have no brain and no integrity"?