I realise the subject matter of this blog has focussed on trans issues for a while, but as long as I've got men (and some women) telling me to accept men as women on say-so alone, that will continue. The question is, why the hell are they doing this and what can we do about it?
The first thing you need to understand is that the momentum behind the rise of gender identity ideology is that it's artificially inflated by astroturfing, aggressive lobbying, and keyboard activism that sometimes spills over into real life.
Astroturfing
The Dictionary defines astroturfing as:
the deceptive practice of presenting an orchestrated marketing or public relations campaign in the guise of unsolicited comments from members of the public.
How anyone can deny this is happening when the evidence that it is indeed happening is easily found during a casual search of newspaper websites, popular blogs, and the websites of institutions and government departments. Powerful lobby groups and vested interests have planted stories and
articles in the mainstream press, the blog sections of scientific journals (and the odd editorial), and on TV in documentaries, reality shows, and even in programmes aimed at kids. They've got the main political parties on board; the Liberal Democrats famously took a donation of $100,000 from American puberty blocker manufacturer Ferring Pharmaceuticals. Now "Transwomen are women" is the party mantra. Coincidence? I think not. Bear in mind that this is a growing market and that pharmaceutical and healthcare companies also own shares in and share executives with media companies. Why do this for what used to be a rare phenomenon that mostly affected male people? "Used to be" is the operative phrase here. All the (mostly positive) publicity surrounding this, along with the efforts of lobby groups like Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence to get their materials into schools and other institutions is making it more common.
As a result, people seem to think that the idea that trans women are women is a
majority public position. When they find out that it's
not, it's a shock to them. Don't believe me? Well either there's a lot
of transphobes about or no one outside of the social media bubble
realises what's going on, because Robert Galbraith, AKA JK Rowling's
book, Troubled Blood, is flying off the shelves. This is despite the torrent of abuse
heaped upon her for having a character in the book wear a woman's coat
and wig in one passage to lure a victim who escaped. Cross-dressing is
one of the most common paraphilias among convicted sexual predators.
Peony Campbell assembled a list of 66 serial killers and murderers
who were also cross-dressers. The point is, it's not a dig at trans
people to have such a plot. As for Rowling's alleged other digs at trans
folk in her book, she's had a lot of material from her detractors to
influence her. It is these people who have shaped my own views: I
wouldn't want to share intimate spaces with such people, but I digress.
The point is, due to astroturfing many people think JK Rowling is a
horrible bigot and that trans women are actual women.
Misogynist power grabs V patient rights
The latest example of this is on the feed of NHS anaethetist Tom Dolphin:
@TheBMA #ARM2020 is debating trans rights. I spoke in favour of Motion 4 because trans people need the support of doctors and the BMA, particularly at a time they are the focus of a moral panic - pleased that it has passed in full. pic.twitter.com/HsgvFvwqfh
— Tom Dolphin 💦🧼🙏💦 WASH YOUR HANDS (@thomasdolphin) September 15, 2020
Where he gets the nerve to refer to our concerns that Self-ID allows any man to claim trans identity and thereby evade safeguarding, which falls apart at the mention of the word "trans," as "moral panic" is anyone's guess. His patronising response to our genuine concerns about perves taking advantage prompted an email from myself to the BMA asking why they weren't considering the risks to women and girls of effectively rendering all women's wards mixed sex. This is not a moral panic, it's a health and safety panic, but Tom's misogynist dog whistle writes us off as bigoted busybodies shouting fire when there's no smell of smoke. I'm not having it. It gets worse:
There is no national approach to transitioning at work in the NHS, but regional trusts often have policies (For example these ones from West Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Brighton and Sussex). The NHS trust policies are all slightly different but cover similar “acceptance without exception” ground, following the recommendations of organisations like GIRES. I have not been able to find one which considers how accommodating the desire of some health care professionals to be treated as a member of the opposite sex at all times interacts with the rights of patients. This is a policy blindspot.
The British Medical Association recently passed a motion in support of legal self-ID, calling for trans healthcare workers to be are “able to access facilities appropriate to the gender they identify as” and “ensure trans people are able to access gendered space.” (by “gendered spaces” they mean single sex spaces — spaces where other people do not expect or consent to share with members of the opposite sex). They do not mention how they would deal with the interaction between healthcare workers self ID and patients’ rights, dignity and consent in relation to choosing and knowing the sex of those examining them.
...In 2017 the NHS apologised to a woman for sending a transexual nurse who was obviously male to undertake a smear test. In 2020 would the BMA, the GMC and the Royal College of GPs argue that such a woman should be viewed as hostile, prejudiced and ignorant ?
Should the woman be encouraged, pressured or forced to submit?
If not, what policies do healthcare providers have to prevent this happening?- Trans healthcare professionals and patient consent, by Maya Forstater for A Question Of Consent 16/09/2020
Has nobody learned the lessons from Saville? Good grief! The key problem there wasn't that nobody knew what was going on, but that people did, but were afraid to speak up because the old paedophile was famous and everyone else was falling over themselves to defer to him. Now we've got a time bomb ticking in which people don't need to suffer from dysphoria to be trans, we're obliged to accept them in their new identity on say-so alone. Heck, they don't even have to transition. This is a gross abandonment of the Equality Act 2010, where sex, not gender identity, is a protected characteristic. Even if there's not a big mad sexual abuse scandal as a result of the denial of our rights under the Equality Act 2010, it's going to be horrible for women who would prefer to be attended by a practitioner of the same sex if they're afraid to speak up about how uncomfortable they are with being attended by a biologically male person for fear of causing offence to them. The role of healthcare professionals is to meet our medical needs in a non-judgemental manner, not to have us validate them in their chosen identity.
Aggressive lobbying
There is a certain cachet in being on a list of "champions." Getting your name on a list that includes big hitters like Amazon can, in some minds, make your company look more desirable. There's also the risk of appearing to fall short if you don't have the name of a major diversity adviser in your company policy documents, i.e. there's a fair amount of peer pressure, too. In my various admin roles, one of my tasks was to ask those companies we were onboarding as suppliers for their policy documents, and their equality and diversity policy was one of the ones we were looking for. In a competitive charity sector market, there's a big push to provide "value for money" by running courses in diversity awareness, and tying it to a moral imperative such as ensuring that members of staff are not discriminated against guarantees uptake and revenue.
Maya Forstater and the scandal of the woke judge
One of the casualties of the culture wars is Maya Forstater, whose case has been misrepresented all over the media and social media. Let's take a look at what really happened, shall we?
1. She worked under contract at a think tank. After expressing gender critical views, i.e. that sex is immutable and cannot be changed with hormones and surgery (this is biologically correct), her contract, which she expected to be renewed, wasn't. She lost her job over her views.
“The Claimant believes that “sex” is a material reality which should not be conflated with “gender” or “gender identity”. Being female is an immutable biological fact, not a feeling or an identity. Moreover, sex matters. It is important to be able to talk about and take action against the discrimination, violence and oppression that still affect women and girls because they were born female” - tribunal judgement
2. The judge relied on chapter 12 of the Equal Treatment Bench Book, which states:
Transgender is a broad, umbrella term used to describe a wide variety of people who cross the conventional boundaries of gender.
The term ‘transgender’ is commonly used in a narrow sense to describe those people whose gender identity does not correspond to the gender assigned to them at birth, and who identify with the opposite gender.
...The gender landscape is rapidly changing, as is the terminology in the field. The broader meaning of ‘transgender’ encompasses a wide range of gender identities and experiences which fall outside the traditional gender binary (ie categorising people exclusively as male or female).For example, increasing numbers of people identify as ‘non-binary’ (ie they feel neither male nor female, and may associate with elements of both or neither gender), ‘a-gender’ (literally ‘without gender’),‘genderqueer’ (a broad term increasingly popular among young people who do not identify with traditional gender categories, and often associated with a political rejection or radical subversion of conventional gender categories) and as ‘gender fluid’ (fluctuating between genders). Some people cross-dress on an occasional basis, some identify as ‘transvestites’; they may also consider themselves transgender. UK law has not yet caught up with these social changes, and presently makes express provision only for those who wish to reassign their sex.
...Some transgender people may seek medical treatment, such as hormone treatment and gender reassignment surgery (also called gender confirmation surgery), others may not. Some transgender people may seek legal recognition of their gender identity under the GRA; others may not.
When some people complete their transition, they may no longer regard themselves as transgender, but simply as men or as women. It would be disrespectful to insist on calling them transgender against their wishes. Other people are comfortable about being ‘out’ and about being transgender or having a transgender history, and may explicitly identify themselves, for example, as a ‘trans man’, a ‘trans woman’ or ‘non-binary’.There are no hard and fast rules. Self-definition is the most important criteria, and respect from others for that choice.
This, dear reader, is the problem. Instead of having clearly definable, evidenced parameters, we now have a hodge-podge of subjective feelings, any and all of which we are obliged to accept despite this only being a guideline, not the law of the land. It's not really the judge's fault. He couldn't pick and choose which parts of the guidance to follow. Nonetheless, this is the kind of thing that is being sneaked under the radar, and is now the subject of an FOIA request from yours truly as I try to find out who wrote the damn thing. There's nothing on the website to indicate who that was. It's also interesting to note there is little in the way of description of sexism: it's all gender now, though they do note that women are widely discriminated against. Given that "sex" has been eliminated in favour of gender, and that we're supposed to call male people women if that is how they identify, this is a massive problem. The Tribunal had to deal with the usual suspect: "sex is a spectrum," the intersex edge cases that apparently prove this, and "it's not about genetics." Of course not, it's about gametes. Our bodies are organised to produce either large gametes (eggs) or small gametes (sperm), whether or not we have ovaries or testicles. There is no third sex. Even intersex people are either male or female, with all conditions occurring within either the male or female developmental spectrum. Scientific facts and reality have been flung out the window for feelz.
3. The judge used five tests to work out whether Maya had a valid case or not.
To qualify as a “philosophical belief” under section 10 EqA, the belief must satisfy the five criteria in Grainger plc v Nicholson[2010] ICR 360, para 24 (“the Granger Criteria”):
(i) the belief must be genuinely held;
(ii) it must be a belief and not an opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information available;
(iii) it must be a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour
(iv) it must attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance; and
(v) it must be worthy of respect in a democratic society, not be incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others.
Maya failed the fifth test, he deemed, because:
However, I consider that the Claimant's view, in its absolutist nature, is incompatible with human dignity and fundamental rights of others. She goes so far as to deny the right of a person with a Gender Recognition Certificate to be the sex to which they have transitioned.
Say what now? People don't have the right to BE the sex to which they have transitioned. They have the right to be recognised in law as the sex to which they have transitioned, but not to BE that, per the Gender Recognition Act. The judge continues down the primrose path where feelz trump common sense and empirical evidence.
It is also a slight of hand to suggest that the Claimant merely does not hold the belief that transwomen are women. She positively believes that they are men; and will say so whenever she wishes. Put either as a belief or lack of belief, the view held by the Claimant fails the Grainger criteria and so she does not have the protected characteristic of philosophical belief.
It's "sleight," your Honour. She's under no obligation to believe anything. She's already said she wouldn't go out of her way to be rude to people, and you seem to have forgotten the human dignity and fundamental rights of women and girls to speak as we find. Maya is appealing. Please donate to her crowdfunder if you can.
Keyboard activism
We can hardly talk about the way powerful lobby groups and vested interests have relentlessly promoted transgenderism without drawing attention to the social media hubs, in which emerging subcultures built around the newly glamorous gender identities are growing and making their mark on the world (and occasionally people) around them. The interest of Silicon Valley in promoting transgenderism (and stifling criticism thereof) is already being challenged by gender critical women. This censorial behaviour is being repeated in real life, e.g. when women are threatened with violence for speaking up for women's sex-based rights. That this begins on social media and is repeated in real life in universities and outside meeting halls is profoundly disturbing. Do we really want people who violently object to the democratic process running the country? Women, in general, receive no such "protection." It only goes one way, and does little to encourage the public to get on board with their "acceptance without exception" agenda. That these people have so much influence over the direction of the debate is terrifying.
Thankfully keyboard activism works both ways. Gender Critical women have been writing to the Stonewall champions citing this violence and asking them if they really want to be associated with vulgar insults and abuse against women concerned about their dignity and safety in the face of the rising number of incidents that prove their point: if we can't tell the difference between innocent trans people and men claiming trans status in order to get at victims, we can't allow them into our spaces. Calling us "TERFs" isn't going to change our minds. Getting the mindless mob under control and getting the vitriol out of the discussion would go a long way towards moving it forward.
Regal, intelligent, powerful JK Rowling
That I'm even writing this blog post is down to the inestimable JK Rowling, whose courage to speak up for her sisters has given me the gumption to do so. I don't hate anyone, and neither does she. Anyone who reads what she actually wrote, rather than someone else's opinion of what she wrote, would realise she is a kind-hearted compassionate woman who believes what she sees, as do I. She doesn't hate anyone, and neither do I. We just ask that our rights as a discrete, distinct sex class are respected. We do not wish to be subsumed into a subset of our own sex, then disregarded as the men who claim they are women help themselves to our sports, spaces, and other things we always thought of as our own. Anyone who calls me a bigot for this statement would do well to look at what happened when Man Friday protested the default mixing of the women's swimming ponds at Hampstead Heath by allowing men who identified as women to use them. When they entered the men's ponds, the police were called. This Self-ID lark only goes one way. If this quote from the Evening Standard doesn't boil your blood, it ought to:
PC Barry Macefield of Hampstead Heath constabulary, told the Mail Online: “They've been peaceful, when we've asked them to leave they've left so we've got no issues with that.
“There were some men annoyed because they felt their privacy had been invaded and some who were concerned about photography.
“They've had a chance to make their point which they have done peacefully – but you can't enter a facility designated for the opposite sex, and if this occurs with men in the women's ponds we'd deal with that too." - Female campaigners 'self-identify' as men to infiltrate male only pool at Hampstead Heath, by Alexandra Richards for the Evening Standard 29/05/2018
Where is the concern for women's privacy? What PC Macefield had to say about it is nothing short of laughable since Self-ID precludes him from removing those men who claim they identify as women. How is he supposed to tell the difference? We all know the women's pond is now mixed. We can have nothing of our own any more.
Well, damn. If I'm a bigot for complaining, so be it. I suppose I'd better get myself measured for my TERF uniform, or something.
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