Tag: law

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While there is a significant overlap between the two, they are not the same

I care about this because I believe strongly in both trans rights and women’s rights but while there is a significant overlap between the two, they are not the same. I want properly written laws which are properly thoughtful to the needs of biological women, trans women and trans men  not coopting women’s rights without thought to differences or equal consideration to trans men.

I have taken part in surveys and spoken to friends in person.

There have been no consequences because I have only spoken to people I feel safe with.

M

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Private sector

I wrote thoughtful, detailed letters and received responses from very few

This matters to me because the words ‘woman’ and ‘female’ need to mean something if we intend to use them as a practical and meaningful way to categorise and protect a class of people. If female also means male, it effectively means nothing at all. We need female to mean something specific because we need to be able to speak about, discuss, monitor, evaluate and address the very specific life experiences, oppressions, health issues and prejudices experienced exclusively by females.

Sex is just what we are, it’s not an identity, it’s not a feeling, we become female at conception and we die female. If they dig us up in 200 years they’ll be able to tell we were female, they won’t know (or care) how we chose to identify. Life as female human beings means a different path to navigate than life experienced by males. That’s true no matter how you identify. I won’t swap that basic material fact, rightly defined in for something as flimsy, fluid, subjective and restrictive as gender. I am female, but I reject gender stereotypes forced on females.

Gender stereotypes don’t help females, and they don’t help males either. Live as you choose, be ‘who’ you want to be, but protect in law those who are disproportionately advantaged for their sex – for ‘what’ they are.

I have written letters to politicians, elected representatives and councillors. I wrote thoughtful, detailed letters and received responses from very few. The responses I received were often cagey, tentative, and most avoided the questions I asked, or declined to comment on practicalities of GRA legislation. Often I received basic responses  from staffers that basically just ignored everything I asked and instead pointed me to inadequate sources that they insisted would “educate” me, even when I sent letters containing credible references, evidence and stats of my own. It was very clear that several were anxious about the subject, and others didn’t understand the complexity and felt unable to address questions competently. 

I can count the number of politicians who actively engaged on one hand,  most  of them openly agreed with my points and were able to offer informed commentary, and only one didn’t agree but was still willing to discuss. I can’t reveal who that is because they’d probably be kicked out of their party. Politicians seem either poorly informed or frightened to discuss.

I have attended multiple meetings of women’s groups. Only one has passed without threats, protest, disruption or violence against the attendees. All of these meetings welcomed trans attendees, often had trans speakers and opposition campaigners in attendance were always given time to speak.  I have worried for my own safety too many times. We never go alone, we organise ourselves to arrive in groups.

I have attended peaceful protests at Parliament. The only disruption or aggression came from  those who attended to disrupt speakers. Babies to 90s, male and female, plenty trans people too, but coverage always characterises you as “angry middle aged women” 

I have delivered leaflets across my city. I financially support my local grassroots group. I sign and share petitions. I created a GRA reform PowerPoint for elderly women’s group who felt too frightened to ask for info.

I have to be very careful because I know that being vocal about this may lead to activists trying to pressure my employer to sack me.

I work in a role/industry that doesn’t welcome public political opinions. I would love to say more about what I do and why it demonstrates my active, personal and professional commitment to meaningful diversity and inclusion but I can’t. 

I am a member of a political party and attended a local party social group for women for some months. A prominent male GRA campaigner started to attend these women’s group meetings and was hostile from the start. He took photos of our group, shared them online, connected my image and name with my social media, labelled me as “anti-trans” which I’m not at all, and effectively doxxed me. I had to stop attending the women’s group. I’m angry about it but couldn’t fight back,  I need to protect my family and my livelihood. I can speak my mind freely when it affects only me, but I can’t risk those around me, and that risk is real.

I can truthfully say that I have always been careful in expressing my views, never abusive, but I have still received death threats, abusive comments, sexually violent threats. I have been doxxed. Many women I know have experienced so much worse. That’s the reality of it.

GeorgieM

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Healthcare Parent trans familiy

Strangers have been given access to and coached my daughter to delete her childhood and replace her future with their transgender story

I care because my 12 year old daughter announced she is trans and is socially transitioning 11 months ago. I care because strangers have been given access to and coached my daughter to delete her childhood and replace her future with their transgender story. I care because my 12 year old daughter has been asking to go on hormone blockers before puberty because they’re safe. I care because it feels like my daughter is being taken away from me.

It was very clear to me from the beginning that raising my voice in any visible way would very quickly lead to being cast as transphobic and bigoted, someone to be excluded and worked around. I have spent months looking to understand what is going on, how the machine works. I have learnt that as a parent I am up against YouTube with adults selling the transgender story to my daughter. I am up against a local LGBTU+ youth charity tutoring my daughter privately on the transgender story. I am up against the NHS with their services to process the transgender story. I am up against my daughter’s school who are validating and authenticating the transgender story, and I am up against my ex wife who affirms the transgender story.

The transgender story is just that, it’s a story. Someone has made it up. There’s no science, there’s no law. But it’s story that is consuming children, women and parents to provide evidence the story is real, that it’s not a story. It’s as big a story as creationism, as big a story as Father Christmas.

The machine is literally just that, a machine, at its core it’s just a defined pathway of tick boxes to account for and ultimately protect institutional decisions. Its purpose is to provide a group of adults with validation the story they made up is real, based on children lives. The machine’s existence in this country is an outcome of institutional neglect and cowardice, my disbelief has no bounds.

Raising my voice means a number of things. Being the best possible dad I can be, be more available and listen more. Keeping close to the YouTube algorithm to see what’s being pushed to my daughter. Making it clear that the LGBTQ+ youth charity does not have my parental permission to continue time with my daughter. Telling the GP that I do not support a referral to Tavistock that my ex-wife organised. Opening up a private psychotherapy route to support our daughter with her development in a professional and open minded way. I haven’t worked out how to deal with the school. The school are more detached, their motives and use of safeguarding best practice and resources on any topic is hugely fragmented and difficult to work with.

I have benefited from the bravery of Keira Bell, and many women, teenage girls and a few men willing to put themselves on the front line of extreme personal aggression to bring this story to the attention of many people. I cannot effectively express my gratitude enough, their work is having an immediate and direct effect on offering protection for my daughter from the machine.

I have benefited from the recent political interest their work has generated, and I have benefited from Covid19 that has put a huge brake on the machine.

I contribute financially to support mumsnet in the face of the realities of #nodebate, I support crowd funding legal cases as they appear. I would like to spend more time working 121 with other parents but I don’t have the reserves of energy yet for this.

I have been called transphobic, bigoted and verbally abused for questioning the machine, questioning the story. Asking questions like what’s the rush, why does this have to happen so fast? Exactly when does professional child psychotherapy actually happen to take a look at a gently bumpy childhood? How can a LGBTU+ youth charity with no child professional qualification have such free and protected access, and influence, over a child’s life choices? Which school roles, what qualifications and what criteria do they follow to bypass my parental authority at the school? Why does social transitioning need to delete a child’s history?

I have been very careful about how and when to visibly raise my voice. I am in a fragile position where my daughter has been well tutored with the transgender story, and unqualified people have the authority to transact the transgender story without my parental authority. The natural outcome will be to reduce my role in her life to being an absent father who’s principle purpose is to provide money. That popular, age old stereotypical man we thought we’d lost many years ago.

When I did choose to raise my voice with the LGBTU+ youth charity not having my parental permission to continue their time with my daughter, my daughter attempted to work around me with the school to continue. An action the school had coached her to follow if this happened, based on the trans inclusion policy they follow. I got lucky with Covid19. The impact over the last eight months, has been massive. I have lived a life of sole dedication to this topic, it is the hardest thing I have had to deal with. This has been much, much harder to handle than our divorce, the stress has been monumental.

A dad

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Healthcare Parent

This is a highly inappropriate thing to say to children with any form of disability

I care because no child should be told by anyone in authority that they may have been ‘born in the wrong body’. This is an ideology, not a scientific fact and should be taught as such, if at all.

I don’t imagine there are many people in this world who didn’t like aspects of their body growing up and they should be taught body positivity and self acceptance.

I also feel this is a highly inappropriate thing to say to children with any form of disability who may well feel like they are in the wrong body but are unable to identify out of it.

Self ID is a separate matter which raises all sorts of ethical and legal issues. The current GRA requirements seem reasonable to me but as with all law should should be subject to considered review. In the current climate this is difficult due to the atmosphere of fear of being branded transphobic.

I’m not particularly vocal on social media anyways but having seen the hate and vitriol spouted at anyone who doesn’t fully devote themselves to trans rights activity worldview I don’t want to get involved publically.

Not personally because I am aware that if you even hint to the wrong person that you feel women’s and children’s safeguarding should be considered in all of this you are subject to criticism.

My wife mentioned to a work colleague that I was interested in the the Scottish GRA review and upon hearing that I thought self ID could have negative implications for women’s legal protections she was informed that I am bigoted, transphobic and denying the reality of trans people.

Nick, Interested parent and casual twitter observer

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Others

I want all trans people to be protected from male violence, but not at the cost of women

I am concerned about fairness. I am concerned about how easily and quickly women’s rights have been handed over. I want all trans people to be protected from male violence, but not at the cost of women. We need to find a solution that works for all of us. I am also increasingly concerned about the nature of ‘no debate’ and the ideological nature of this discussion. or lack of discussion. Very reminiscent of Catholic upbringing, the idea of not being able to question something, even when it impacts me.

I have spoken to a couple of family members about this. I have been written off ‘having gone right wing.’ I have liked a couple of tweets when I felt brave.

Feeling so unable to speak about something so unfair feels awful. I have never known anything like it. I feel gagged.

My sister in law thinks I have been brainwashed by the American right. I cannot understand how. I am so left wing, so liberal! I just daren’t speak with my friends about this. I am scared that it will end my friendships.

Hannah

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Private sector

I wear my Woman = Adult Human Female hoodie and people have stopped their cars to say “Well Done!”

I am outraged that women are being erased in our Rights stolen, our voices silenced and our needs disregarded. I fight for my daughters, their lives matter more than mine.

I have challenged a number of County Councils over the trans tool kit that blatantly misrepresented the EA2010 Law.

Shropshire, Doncaster, Barnsley, Leicester City, Merthyr Tydfil, Denbighshire and Essex have listened. Not stopping there and more to follow.

I have written to my MP and I have attended another MP’s open meeting and spoke to a crowd of councillors and political activists. (Most frightening thing ever!) I have been part of the ManFriday group (still in touch) and done activities to raise awareness publicly. Currently active on twitter collating links and volunteers and working with Baroness Nicholson and behind the scenes with 4 other groups via Trello and facebook. I took part in the ReSister tee shirt campaign and a trip to Manchester to support teeshirt campaign.

Apart from regular bans on Twitter (BBB to the rescue) and the insults, abuse and threats on there (no longer bother me and I mute most) not really. I wear my Woman = Adult Human Female hoodie and people have stopped their cars to say “Well Done!”

Wendy Johnson, Sister in Action

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Media and Arts

Not one moment of my life has ever been “cis”

As a rape victim and domestic abuse survivor, I know too well the visceral reality of existing in a female body. Erasing womanhood as the unique experience, both painful and joyful, that it is only deepens misogyny and endangers our rights and safety. In the US, women still don’t have constitutional equality! Sex-based rights are specific, distinct and sacrosanct.

Men who grow up with male privilege will never know what it is to be a woman. They have their own struggles. We have ours. If you don’t think abusive men will take advantage of trans self ID laws, then you truly erase women’s lived experiences and oppression.

Even without the opportunists, women shouldn’t have to justify why we deserve our OWN rights and spaces. You would never demand a PoC justify their need for race based rights or race based organizations.

I have been vocal on social media and with friends. In public conversations I object to being called cis or being forced to declare my pronouns. Cis implies a privilege women cannot experience. Cis erases the struggle women face to rebel against and defy gender stereotypes, roles, and behavior. Not one moment of my life has ever been “cis.”

I have been harassed online, usually by liberal men. Most recently, a progressive male spent the night berating me online, mansplaining womanhood to me, calling me a bad feminist, and telling me that female oppression didn’t matter compared to trans males’ feelings.

More frighteningly though, I have had professional contacts in the political world sever ties and support for me over my objection to trans athletes in women’s sports. This not only bullied and silenced me amongst work colleagues, but it also means I lost out on work recommendations from them when I was looking for a job.

María, Indigenous American, asylum immigrant, mixed race female, rape victim, US

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Media and Arts

I do not want to be part of a society in which ideologies may not be critiqued or questioned, under threat of violence

I care because the more I learnt about this issue, the more blatantly misogynistic and terrifying for women’s rights it became. I knew nothing a couple of years ago, but started to see words like TERF appearing online and wondered what they meant. The answer led me down a dystopian rabbit-hole, as I saw what else was happening in the name of ‘trans rights’.

Far from a mere social media issue, it is now having real world consequences. I have worked in Universities which have changed previously ‘Women Only’ toilets into spaces for ‘All Genders’ (sic) . This not only makes me feel like my personal safety has been sold down the river for an adolescent gimmick, but I also got a sense that many young female students weren’t comfortable with it either, but daren’t speak up, lest they be tarnished as “bigots”. This makes my blood boil.

I have also encountered ‘gender neutral’ toilets at a major city centre theatre which has gone full ‘woke’, despite the reality that their biggest clientele are of retirement age and are likely to be baffled by it all.

( I also had an experience last year on a freelance job, when all of the toilets in the public building being used, were temporarily re-labelled ‘gender neutral’, discriminating against the needs of the large number of female staff (who stayed silent), simply to accommodate a “non-binary” 19 year old girl, whom we had to remember to address as ‘they/them’ throughout or else, like an episode of the Twilight Zone).

I also believe this movement is totalitarian and undemocratic and I do not want to be part of a society in which ideologies may not be critiqued or questioned, under threat of violence. I do not believe it is really about trans rights at all, it is a smokescreen for the oppression of women.

I’m furious and scared that women are being made explicitly less safe, yet if we speak about it it is US who get called BIGOTS!!! It must stop. Self-ID becoming law would be the worst thing to ever happen to women.

Amongst close friends and family I have spoken openly about the issue with much agreement (and disbelief). I have signed petitions, and contributed to legal cases when I can. I have also donated to women’s groups, such as Fairplay for Women, etc. I have bought tickets to events in my area (but not always attended if I thought there may be a hostile crowd nearby). I contributed my opinions to the GRA review. I have sent supportive messages to outspoken, more confident women online so they hopefully know that someone agrees with them. I have also emailed retailers with discriminatory policies, such as gender neutral changing rooms, to register a complaint.

I never use my real name for GC activities as I fear being targeted by a misogynistic hate mob, as has happened to so many outspoken women. I also fear that if I were to speak out, in even the mildest terms, it would damage my future career/earnings. I work freelance in the “arts” where the mantra is ‘trans women are women’ with no room for dissent. To question this, is to be labelled a ‘transphobe’ resulting in career-suicide under the current climate.

Deborah, Adult human female

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Media and Arts

I am supporting charities that acknowledge the importance of single sex provision for women

Women need their protections in law upheld. I have a teenage daughter and I want her and her friends to have freedom to do what they want, safely. 

I’ve written to venues about the importance of single sex facilities for women, I’ve joined campaigns to support women’s causes, I am supporting charities that acknowledge the importance of single sex provision for women, I am talking about this to my friends and colleagues. 

I am cautious and have not spoken up much; where I have politely stated my opinion on twitter I’ve had some responses with implied violent threats.

CJC, Middle-aged mother and manager in the arts

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Media and Arts

My agent is a trans woman who I love and respect and I felt our relationship may have been damaged

I care because I can see where self ID will lead in terms of the erasure of women as a sex class and the threat to our basic rights even under the law.

I have engaged in what I thought was debate on Twitter.

I have been piled on by abusive people. Gay Star News contacted my agent for a comment and made me out to be a terrible transphobe. My agent is a trans woman who I love and respect and I felt our relationship may have been damaged. 

People also contacted a theatre where I had worked to put pressure on them and an actress that I follow – a woman with Down’s Syndrome who I admire. She doesn’t even know me. I had to contact people and ask them to delete stuff about me. I took the offending tweet down immediately I discovered it had caused trouble but they took screen shots and taunted me with spreading it.

I had to spend a long time blocking all the responses. I was left very shaken and fearing for my good name and my integrity. I am not the things I was being called. It was horrible and could have been damaging to my work.

Jan, Actor