Advice on speaking to MP about sex and gender policy

[Tempanonymouse]

Hello all
Longtime lurker
Am going to speak to my MP about this whole issue.
Not public IRL about this at all (job and personal cowardice reasons).
I'm so angry that something so absurd has become the required public belief. My MP is female labour not said anything public that I can find.
I don't want to sound mad and I want to have my facts at my fingertips. Any advice on best approaches? Part of me wants to make a list of the most unreasonable things eg Isla Bryson , Lia Thomas and work back logically but I think this might be too confrontational? Has anyone had good effects? At this point I am so furious I think I will come across badly. Also any advice on specific asks?
I actually want a wideranging apology from the government and an enquiry into the institutional failure that allowed it as well as all the obvious stuff. But recognise I may have radicalised myself ..
Thanks in advance

If you go in angry you’ll lose them in 2 minutes, that’s just how it works… keep it tight, 2–3 clear points, real examples, and one simple ask like “what’s your position and what will you actually do”. Drop the rant list, MPs tune that out fast. Write it down, stick to it, stay calm even if you’re boiling inside, that’s what actually lands.

I would have the Equality Act 2010 clarification by the Supreme Court on my list.

Sex Matters has a lot of good resources for talking to different groups.

Make it personal to you. Eg woman's bathrooms at work now mixed sex, daughter in sports - risk factors, women only shortliststhat included TIMs etc. Your MP is there for your issues and your families issues.

Thanks all. I think these are all good points. I know I would never have listened to an 'angry extremist' a few years ago I've just forgotten what would have got through to me then. I think it's absolutely true that personal examples resonate best. I don't have much though, I am pretty unaffected other than in my work role and to some extent that's a professional ethical problem rather than a political one. I think my problem is that what angers me the most is the free speech issue, even though I know there are much worse harms involved. I actually don't care that much about changing rooms etc at a personal level, ( though I recognise the need for them) I just cannot get over the fact that we are all being asked to pretend something that is not true and that we can all potentially lose our jobs for saying it out loud even though most people agree with us. I just feel like I've fallen through the looking glass and I need to tell a grown up to sort it out which I know is a pretty naive expectation of a politician. I think at some level I m hoping to peak my MP and then she will sort this whole mess out...which is not very realistic ...

I totally agree with you, but my MP is clear on his website what issues he will engage with and what he won't so you will need to look at that. He was lovely on a doorstep campaign. Very focussed on this issue - knew his stuff (Tory, South East). At the time the local issue was a massive planning development, so I took him off guard - he still knew his stuff.

@Tempanonymouse - she likely won’t sort it out.

But you will get your point across and be heard. It’s really important that MPs see their constituents and hear what matters to them. So many of us are silenced so speaking up is a powerful step.

Well done.

My advice for what it’s worth:

Hi Jane

I like what you’ve done about X for Y reason. You’ve been really powerful in supporting constituents and effecting change.

I work in X or Y and I’ve been experiencing Z. It’s really important to me that all our protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 are respected. Can you tell me
what you are doing to support women who A, B and C?

You believe in free speech….. yes so why it really matters to me is (elaborate further). So many women have been silenced or lost jobs - Forstater, Bailey, Phoenix etc. Labours failure to act has had Y & Z impact on me.

Script it so you’re clear.

Well done!

@SexRealistic thanks I am so nervous I keep having paranoid thoughts that someone on her team might try and destroy my career which I think is hopefully paranoia. As you say I want MPs to know that people on this side care a lot and I do it has massively dented my faith in institutions. I will follow your script suggestion and try and stick to breezy, clear, specific and not my natural instinct of melodramatic ranting ...

Emailed my MP about it last year and didn’t even get a reply. He’s a useless tosser who gives no shits about women or their rights.

It is not transphobic to support single sex spaces.

Thank you for your contribution. As you and all the rest of us can see. Slowly and incrementally, sanity is being restored.

Then why are people in this thread still scared to say it publicly under their real names?

I do say that human beings can't change sex IRL. I also support single sex spaces IRL. I don't use preferred pronouns IRL.

More people need to bin the fear and speak the truth.

There has been a very cult like wholesale brainwashing of sections of society to believe in gender ideology.

Despite it being illegal to bully, harass and fire people for expressing sex realist views those that have swallowed the misogynistic ideology that decimates women’s rights continue to do so.

While one can stick one’s head above the parapet it’s often taken off by rabid trans rights folk who having the criminality of men threaten rape, violence and intimidation. These men well they have the physical strength and genitalia with which to carry out those threats.

So a class of women who are vulnerable and discriminated against have to be careful because this ideology is dangerous and does significant harm to women.

I'm not and never have been. Any posts or comments or feedback I make on this topic in real life i give my full name. It is not acceptable to me that adult men insist on being in women only spaces. Trust me if you had campaigned for men to be able to wear women's clothes without prejudice or for women's rights I would have had a lot more support for your stance.

It is not transphobic to be gender critical.

Gender criticism recognises that some people assert a trans identity and they have rights due to their gender reassignment.

A biological man with a trans identity isn’t a biological woman. You may feel that means I have phobia of people with a trans identity.

You’d be wrong. This view is scientifically, legally and practically accurate.

Posts that gloat and laugh at women for feeling frightened in a male-centric world, when the power that men have over them has been made so clear and personal, and weaponised by bad actors with an agenda.

Not a good look. And proof again that no male can ever know what it is like to be born a girl and live a woman's life.

There are many, many instances in history where those who were doing the right thing had to do it in secrecy for fear of being harmed by the establishment. And historically those with the least amount of societal power helped the most. Just like what’s happening with women’s rights today. The loudest voice in the room is rarely right my dear.

The fact that you are literally incabable of comprehending people can hold alternate beliefs without them being 'transphobic' a.k.a centred on YOU (you're self-asborbed and narcisistic), shows those of us who are sane that you lot are just mentally deficent. And that gives me hope, because people without a room temperature IQ will come around to logic eventually.

You never will. And you should be ashamed for your ignorance. @AidaP You can either use your head or get out.

That you think the rights of women to female only spaces is 'twwannnsphobia' says more about you and how much you hate women than anything else. That you don't hide your intense hatred of feminism and women tells us what sex you are...

Unluckily for you, poll after poll after poll shows our view is in the overwhelming majority, and you are in the ever-decreasing unpopular fringe side.

For the same reason men bullying women on a women’s forum also do not post under their real names……. I men, you’ve admitted you come on here “for fun”. Why not post under your real name then we can see you owning you misogyny?

Oh yes, it really is a wonder that women with ordinary jobs and who have small children to feed and older parents to look after would hesitate at putting themselves in danger by tackling organisations captured by an ideology rabid in their zeal to punish women. Those organisations who are so determined to refuse to follow laws that they will put themselves through the humilating trouncing of a court case because it will cost women in terms of money/time/worry.

That's why so many women admire JKR. Because she took it all for those of us who can't risk our livelihoods for our perfectly ordinary, legally protected views. She's too big to be cancelled and that's why TRA's absolutely hate her and are having the world's biggest foot stamping tantrum that she won't shut up. She makes them impotent.

And a man sneering at women for their vulnerability in employment truly is misogyny gone wild.

The self-pity would land better if your side didn’t have a billionaire’s private legal fighting fund behind it.

Meanwhile trans people have had to live openly through this level of hostility for years, and we’re still here: public, proud, and loud.

So spare me the cosplay of "brave dissidents".

Aye, righto.

You've just had the ear of Governments through lobby groups being given unique and unprescendented access to influence legislation and policy (SPS, Scottish Trans, Engender) and organisations being captured and advised to break the law because they are being handed eye wateringly huge sums of money as long as they follow the party line. Poltical groups having to whip their MSP's to follow their women hating policies.

As opposed to ordinary women having access to legal funding in order that they are not financially ruined by having to defend women's rights in court.