1/ This event confirmed in my mind just how delusional, ill-informed and anti-women proponents of self-ID are, even the lawyers. In response to a question about safeguarding, Stephen Whittle scoffed that men have always had access to women’s changing rooms, all they needed to do
2/ was grab a bucket and make like they’re the cleaner. He went on to characterise women and feminists concerned about self-ID as fanatics, funded by US Evangelicals. There was lots of talk about barriers that trans identified people face but nothing about safeguarding.
3/ The position as regards ‘trans kids’ was even more worrying. The best interests of the child has been interpreted by Mermaids unequivocally as being that it is in children’s best interests to have their gender identity affirmed.
4/ There was zero awareness that we are asking of ‘trans kids’ that which we do not ask of ‘straight kids’ or ‘gay kids’, that is that they are locked into their trans identity permanently in childhood or young adulthood, which is precisely what occurs with puberty blockers
5/ hormone therapy and surgery. The kid that thinks he’s straight can later decide he’s bisexual or gay. The kid that thinks she’s a lesbian may later decide that she is straight. The kid that is trans will have no such easy flexibility if hormones and surgery have commenced.
6/ the panel appeared genuinely incredulous when they said that feminists only started objecting to trans rights around 2017. There was no analysis of why that might be or the impact of new wave gender ideology.
7/ Mr Whittle noted correctly that trans people have been self-identifying for 70 years, but he did not engage with the modern reality of trans self-ID; men flaunting their masculinity, beards, penises, deep voices, whilst also demanding to be called women.
8/ Mr Whittle’s take on trans identified men, trans women, is of a romantic bygone age, where trans women were fleeing masculinity and maleness. That may have been the historical reality but not now.
9/ but out of all of this, the most extraordinary assertion came from Mr Whittle, who lamented that most of the people who responded to the GRA consultation in England and Wales were not trans, and were therefore not affected by the proposed changes.
10/ never mind those pesky feminists concerned about the extent to which our identities are being redefined by men who want to live as women, and that rigid, stereotypical, gender identities risk harming women and girls.
11/ there was zero acknowledgement of the horriffic, often sexualised male violence that is threatened against feminists and lesbians that question and challenge modern gender ideology and what this means when these same predatory, abusive men decide they are women.
12/ and no acknowledgement that the self-ID agenda is being pushed through in a climate of fear.
13/ the sexual violence committed by trans identified men against women following self-ID was dismissed as just one or two isolated incidents and not the multiple accounts of assaults and intimidation reported by women, especially those in prison.
14/ the good news is that Mr Whittle thinks that we will be slow to legislate for self-ID in England and Wales. He predicts that eventually Scotland will allow self-ID and then we will follow suit “in a year or two”, which means there may be time to have a more honest debate.
15/ and Scotland @ForwomenScot over to you.
