The performance of the liberal legal commentator blokes who have sought to be the 'voice of reason' on the sex and gender debates, sitting above the 'toxic' and furious and women, while refusing to engage with the content of what women are saying is telling
It shows how if you are not willing to challenge the foundational logic of the trans rights activist orgs like RightsInfo, Mermaids, Gendered Intelligence etc.. that "transwomen are women & anything else is transphobic" then you will have to throw women under every bus that comes
Because its no good just saying 'balancing rights' in theory, you have to be willing to be able to stand up for women some time. Males in women's prisons? Males playing contact rugby with women? These are extreme examples of real harms to women really happening ...
If you won't draw a line to protect women from discrimination, harassment & physical harm here, where will you draw it? But drawing the line anywhere means standing up to the bullies, including the economic bullies & that is too much to ask. So could women please just shut up?
The tragedy of all this is that there really is need for a grown up debate about how to protect women's rights & trans people's rights. As @GoonerProf points out, it starts w recognising that sex & being trans are different (as are disability, age etc...) forwomen.scot/public-meeting…
Thats why the Equality Act has separate protected characteristics. Sex =/= gender identity fairplayforwomen.com/single-sex/ Including trans people in public life does not depend on undermining women and girls boundaries, and their ability to organise politically.
That no grown up organisations have been willing to stand up (including orgs like @fawcettsociety) is why guys who i am sure are lovely & clever in other spheres are able to mistake their shallow pronouncements on this for wisdom & use any excuse for not listening to women
But women are not shutting up. And men are speaking up too. Time to be brave!
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Minister for Women & Equalities says "We are proud of the EqAct & the rights & protections it affords women. The Govt does not plan to amend legal definitions in the act.”
Hundreds of women are going to Parliament on Wednesday to ask the govt to rethink.
It took 22 more years before 1919 the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act was passed permitting women to become join professions and to become lawyers and civil servants and to sit on juries.
There is new statutory safeguarding guidance out for schools in England which tells them to consider risks and harms to gender questioning children as part of safeguarding.
When this was out for consultation earlier in the year Adam Jepsen, Chief Health and Sex Education Officer of the Family Planning Association said that the government must withdraw it.
"These changes do not support trans children" he argued.
This is not the only topic where university VCs have not defended academic freedom strongly enough, but it is a very good demonstration of the problem.
@bphillipsonMP
Prof @Docstockk was hounded out of @SussexUni
She has been waiting for 3 years for the results of an @officestudents investigation