Thread by @DadRogd

Recently, I have been working with some intelligent women who knew that to get repeal of the Gender Recognition Act the timing and the wording of such a campaign was key. 🧵

At the heart of this initiative was a desire to take a niche cause and make it a universal one with mass appeal. A clever approach was needed and it would take time and care to construct it. Time, it turns out, that we did not have.

We had hoped to make progress while attention was diverted to the laudable petition from @SexMattersOrg to get a quick fix to better define the sexes (sign it if you have not done so, yet).
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/6232…

That petition is a simple 'quick win' or 'low hanging fruit' and yet at the time of tweeting it has only received 37,000 signatures. Crafting a campaign to get 100,000 for #RepealTheGRA was going to be a challenge.

As mentioned, two key elements in such a campaign would be:
The Wording
The Timing
There would also need to be a campaign engine at least as good as that built by @MForstater for Sex Matters

The Wording: There is a very tight character limit for a Parliamentary Petition. Each word has to be carefully chosen to maximise impact. The whole needs to be a universal call to action. We had barely begun crafting. One thing we did know is that could not be a feminist message.

An overtly feminist message is, unsurprisingly, a turn off for over 60% of men (see YouGov surveys). So when aiming to get an audience, alienating 30% of your potential crowd is not a good starting point. A #RepealTheGRA campaign has to appeal to everyone. And be sellable.

Please don't ask me for what the wording should be, we had barely started to work on it. But I can tell you what it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be this:
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/6283…

So, now we have a massive problem. The gun has been jumped. The timing is lousy, but the wording is far, far worse.
And this matters, because we cannot just put a better petition up as part of our campaign. The Petitions Committee will reject it as a duplicate.

This matters because when the timing is right, we shall have to promote that petition. And that petition is going to be much harder to promote because it is coming from just one point of view. It lacks universality. This is like being told to win the golf Open with just a putter.

So that is our challenge, now people.
We have a turd to polish.
This petition is the only game in town.
It is going to be unnecessarily hard work to get it over the line.
But it's all we've got. Hold your nose and sign it.
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/6283…